Literotica Cemetary

[phrodeau]

NASA reports that a worker was killed following a fall at Kennedy Space Centre's launch pad 39A this morning.

United Space Alliance engineer James D. Vanover fell at around 11:40 GMT. "NASA emergency medical personnel responded, but they were unable to revive the man," the agency reports.

NASA has suspended work at the launch pad for the rest of the day to focus on "our workers and for the family of the USA employee".

United Space Alliance CEO Virginia Barnes said: "Our heartfelt sympathy goes out to the family of Mr. Vanover. Our focus right now is on providing support for the family, and for his coworkers.

"We are also providing our full support to investigating officials in order to determine the cause of the incident as quickly as possible. Until that investigation is complete, it would be inappropriate to provide further comment on the details."

 

[JennyOHill2]

Nate Dogg, Voice of G-Funk, Dead At 41

One of rap's most lauded male hook singers, Long Beach, California, native Nate Dogg (born Nathaniel Hale) died on Tuesday at the age of 41 after several years of health problems.

With his deep, melodic voice and smooth soul rumble, Dogg was one of the key elements in the rise of the West Coast G-Funk sound pioneered by Death Row Records in the early 1990s. Though overshadowed by such peers as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Warren G, Nate was a critical participant in a number of major left-coast gangsta hits, including G's "Regulate" and Dre's iconic solo debut, 1992's The Chronic.

Hale's death was first reported by the Long Beach Press Telegram, which noted that his family announced his death on Tuesday. The cause of death was not announced at press time, but Hale had struggled with serious health issues recently, including suffering a massive stroke in 2007 that left him partially paralyzed and another the following year. A spokesperson for the singer could not be reached for comment at press time for further details on his passing.

Hale was born in Long Beach on August 19, 1969, and dropped out of high school at 16 to join the Marines, where he served for three years. He formed the rap group 213 — a reference to the local area code — in 1991 with then unknown pals Snoop Dogg and Warren G. The group's demo eventually made its way to Dre, who liked Nate's sound and recruited him to participate on The Chronic.

Nate was a four-time Grammy nominee, earning his first nod in 1995 for the legendary Warren G collaboration "Regulate," followed by another in 2001 for providing a hook to the Dre and Snoop tune "The Next Episode." He earned his third notice in 2002 for singing on Ludacris' "Area Codes" and another in 2007 for his work on Eminem's "Shake That."

Though his instantly recognizable, laid-back sound blessed countless songs by other artists over the years, Dogg also released a number of solo albums, including 1998's double-CD G-Funk Classics Vol. 1 & 2 (featuring guest spots from Kurupt, Daz Dillinger, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Warren G), 2001's Music & Me and a self-titled 2008 effort.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher Dies at 85

When he took over as secretary of state in the Clinton administration at age 68, Warren M. Christopher said he didn't expect to travel much. He went on to set a four-year mark for miles traveled by America's top diplomat.

Late Friday, the 85-year-old statesman died at his home in Los Angeles of complications from bladder and kidney cancer, said Sonja Steptoe of the law firm O'Melveny & Myers, where Christopher was a senior partner.

As he prepared to step down in 1996 as secretary "for someone else to pick up the baton," he said in an interview he was pleased to have played a role in making the United States safer.

Along with his peace efforts, he told The Associated Press that his proudest accomplishments included playing a role in promoting a ban on nuclear weapons tests and extension of curbs on proliferation of weapons technology.

The loyal Democrat also supervised the contested Florida recount for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. The Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, decided for George W. Bush.

While his efforts with Syria didn't bear fruit, he was more successful in the negotiations that produced a settlement in 1995 for Bosnia, ending a war among Muslims, Serbs and Croats that claimed 260,000 lives and drove another 1.8 million people from their homes.

Some critics said the administration had moved too slowly against the ethnic violence. Then-Rep. Frank McCloskey, an Indiana Democrat, called for Christopher's resignation and virtually accused the administration of ignoring genocide against Bosnian Muslims. A handful of State Department officials resigned in protest.

Christopher also gave top priority to supporting reform in Russia and expanding U.S. economic ties to Asia.

While Christopher often preferred a behind-the-scenes role, he also made news as deputy secretary of state in the Carter administration, conducting the tedious negotiations that gained the release in 1981 of 52 American hostages in Iran.

President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. "The best public servant I ever knew," Carter wrote in his memoirs.

In private life, Christopher also served. Among many other things, he chaired a commission that proposed reforms of the Los Angeles Police Department in the aftermath of the videotaped beating by police of motorist Rodney King in 1991. When four officers arrested for beating King were acquitted of most charges the following year Los Angeles erupted in days of deadly rioting.

In examining years of police records following the riots, the Christopher Commission found "a significant number of officers" routinely used excessive force.

"The department not only failed to deal with the problem group of officers but it often rewarded them with positive evaluations and promotions," according to the report.

Numerous reforms were eventually put in place, including limiting the police chief to two five-year terms and having the chief appointed and supervised by a civilian commission.

Christopher's calm intervention amid political turmoil prompted the Republicans to turn to an elder statesman of their own, James A. Baker III, to represent Bush in the election dispute.

Accepting Christopher's resignation as the nation's top diplomat, President Bill Clinton said Christopher "left the mark of his hand on history."

In the skies over Africa and approaching his 71st birthday in October 1996, Christopher set a new mark for miles traveled by a secretary of state over four years, the normal length of a presidential term: 704,487.

The crew on his Air Force jet presented him with a congratulatory cake.

Christopher overcame sleep deprivation, difficult negotiations with the likes of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad and nagging ulcers to keep his eye on American interests.

Always crisp, modest and polite, he drove home an agreement in his last year on the job to halt fighting in Lebanon between Israel and extremist Shiite guerrillas.

"We have achieved the goal of our mission, which was to achieve an agreement that will save lives and end the suffering of people on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border," Christopher said in Jerusalem, his weeklong mission a success.

Madeleine Albright stepped in for Clinton's second term and Christopher returned to his law firm of O'Melveny & Myers with Clinton's "deep gratitude" for his service and with president's playful description of Christopher as "the only man ever to eat M&Ms on Air Force One with a fork."

Unlike some who held the job, Christopher worked smoothly with the president's other senior advisers.

Christopher also looked back with gratitude on how far he had come from a childhood in Scranton, N.D., marked by bitter winters and modest circumstances. His father was a bank cashier who fell ill, and the family moved to Southern California during the Depression. After his father's death his mother supported the family of five children as a sales clerk.

An ensign in the U.S. Navy reserves, he was called up to active duty during World War II and served in the Pacific.

He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California in 1945 and, after attending Stanford Law School, served as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 1949 and 1950.

In the late 1960s, he was a deputy attorney general in the administration of Lyndon Johnson.

In 2008, Christopher was co-chairman of a bipartisan panel that studied the recurring question of who under U.S. law should decide when the country goes to war. It proposed that the president be required to inform Congress of any plans to engage in "significant armed conflict" lasting longer than a week.

As a successful Los Angeles lawyer, Christopher had a seven-figure income, and a beach house in fashionable Santa Barbara.

He is survived by his wife Marie, and had four children in two marriages: Lynn, Scott, Thomas, and Kristen.

 

[CaptainKirk]

One of the greatest actresses of all time...

Film legend Elizabeth Taylor dies at 79 in LA

LOS ANGELES — Elizabeth Taylor, the violet-eyed film goddess whose sultry screen persona, stormy personal life and enduring fame and glamour made her one of the last of the old-fashioned movie stars and a template for the modern celebrity, died Wednesday at age 79.

She was surrounded by her four children when she died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks, said publicist Sally Morrison.

"My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love," her son, Michael Wilding, said in a statement.

"We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts."

"We have just lost a Hollywood giant," said Elton John, a longtime friend of Taylor. "More importantly, we have lost an incredible human being."

Taylor was the most blessed and cursed of actresses, the toughest and the most vulnerable. She had extraordinary grace, wealth and voluptuous beauty, and won three Academy Awards, including a special one for her humanitarian work. She was the most loyal of friends and a defender of gays in Hollywood when AIDS was still a stigma in the industry and beyond. But she was afflicted by ill health, failed romances (eight marriages, seven husbands) and personal tragedy.

"I think I'm becoming fatalistic," she said in 1989. "Too much has happened in my life for me not to be fatalistic."

Her more than 50 movies included unforgettable portraits of innocence and of decadence, from the children's classic "National Velvet" and the sentimental family comedy "Father of the Bride" to Oscar-winning transgressions in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Butterfield 8." The historical epic "Cleopatra" is among Hollywood's greatest on-screen fiascos and a landmark of off-screen monkey business, the meeting ground of Taylor and Richard Burton, the "Brangelina" of their day.

She played enough bawdy women on film for critic Pauline Kael to deem her "Chaucerian Beverly Hills."

But her defining role, one that lasted long past her moviemaking days, was "Elizabeth Taylor," ever marrying and divorcing, in and out of hospitals, gaining and losing weight, standing by Michael Jackson, Rock Hudson and other troubled friends, acquiring a jewelry collection that seemed to rival Tiffany's.

She was a child star who grew up and aged before an adoring, appalled and fascinated public. She arrived in Hollywood when the studio system tightly controlled an actor's life and image, had more marriages than any publicist could explain away and lasted long enough to no longer require explanation. She was the industry's great survivor, and among the first to reach that special category of celebrity — famous for being famous, for whom her work was inseparable from the gossip around it.

The London-born actress was a star at age 12, a bride and a divorcee at 18, a superstar at 19 and a widow at 26. She was a screen sweetheart and martyr later reviled for stealing Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds, then for dumping Fisher to bed Burton, a relationship of epic passion and turbulence, lasting through two marriages and countless attempted reconciliations.

She was also forgiven. Reynolds would acknowledge voting for Taylor when she was nominated for "Butterfield 8" and decades later co-starred with her old rival in "These Old Broads," co-written by Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.

Taylor's ailments wore down the grudges. She underwent at least 20 major operations and she nearly died from a bout with pneumonia in 1990. In 1994 and 1995, she had both hip joints replaced, and in February 1997, she underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. In 1983, she acknowledged a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and pain killers. Taylor was treated for alcohol and drug abuse problems at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Her troubles bonded her to her peers and the public, and deepened her compassion. Her advocacy for AIDS research and for other causes earned her a special Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1993.

As she accepted it, to a long ovation, she declared, "I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame."

The dark-haired Taylor made an unforgettable impression in Hollywood with "National Velvet," the 1945 film in which the 12-year-old belle rode a steeplechase horse to victory in the Grand National.

Critic James Agee wrote of her: "Ever since I first saw the child ... I have been choked with the peculiar sort of adoration I might have felt if we were in the same grade of primary school."

"National Velvet," her fifth film, also marked the beginning of Taylor's long string of health issues. During production, she fell off a horse. The resulting back injury continued to haunt her.

Taylor matured into a ravishing beauty in "Father of the Bride," in 1950, and into a respected performer and femme fatale the following year in "A Place in the Sun," based on the Theodore Dreiser novel "An American Tragedy." The movie co-starred her close friend Montgomery Clift as the ambitious young man who drowns his working-class girlfriend to be with the socialite Taylor. In real life, too, men all but committed murder in pursuit of her.

Through the rest of the 1950s and into the 1960s, she and Marilyn Monroe were Hollywood's great sex symbols, both striving for appreciation beyond their physical beauty, both caught up in personal dramas filmmakers could only wish they had imagined. That Taylor lasted, and Monroe died young, was a matter of luck and strength; Taylor lived as she pleased and allowed no one to define her but herself.

"I don't entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I'm me. God knows, I'm me," Taylor said around the time she turned 50.

She had a remarkable and exhausting personal and professional life. Her marriage to Michael Todd ended tragically when the producer died in a plane crash in 1958. She took up with Fisher, married him, then left him for Burton. Meanwhile, she received several Academy Award nominations and two Oscars.

She was a box-office star cast in numerous "prestige" films, from "Raintree County" with Clift to "Giant," an epic co-starring her friends Hudson and James Dean. Nominations came from a pair of movies adapted from work by Tennessee Williams: "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Suddenly, Last Summer." In "Butterfield 8," released in 1960, she starred with Fisher as a doomed girl-about-town. Taylor never cared much for the film, but her performance at the Oscars wowed the world.

Sympathy for Taylor's widowhood had turned to scorn when she took up with Fisher, who had supposedly been consoling her over the death of Todd. But before the 1961 ceremony, she was hospitalized from a nearly fatal bout with pneumonia and Taylor underwent a tracheotomy. The scar was bandaged when she appeared at the Oscars to accept her best actress trophy for "Butterfield 8."

To a standing ovation, she hobbled to the stage. "I don't really know how to express my great gratitude," she said in an emotional speech. "I guess I will just have to thank you with all my heart." It was one of the most dramatic moments in Academy Awards history.

"Hell, I even voted for her," Reynolds later said.

Greater drama awaited: "Cleopatra." Taylor met Burton while playing the title role in the 1963 epic, in which the brooding, womanizing Welsh actor co-starred as Mark Antony. Their chemistry was not immediate. Taylor found him boorish; Burton mocked her physique. But the love scenes on film continued away from the set and a scandal for the ages was born. Headlines shouted and screamed. Paparazzi snapped and swooned. Their romance created such a sensation that the Vatican denounced the happenings as the "caprices of adult children."

The film so exceeded its budget that the producers lost money even though "Cleopatra" was a box-office hit and won four Academy awards. (With its $44 million budget adjusted for inflation, "Cleopatra" remains the most expensive movie ever made.) Taylor's salary per film topped $1 million. "Liz and Dick" became a couple on a first name basis with millions who had never met them.

They were a prolific acting team, even if most of the movies aged no better than their relationship: "The VIPs" (1963), "The Sandpiper" (1965), "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), "The Taming of the Shrew" (1967), "The Comedians" (1967), "Dr. Faustus" (1967), "Boom!" (1968), "Under Milk Wood" (1971) and "Hammersmith Is Out" (1972).

Art most effectively imitated life in the adaptation of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" — in which Taylor and Burton played mates who fought viciously and drank heavily. She took the best actress Oscar for her performance as the venomous Martha in "Virginia Woolf" and again stole the awards show, this time by not showing up at the ceremony. She refused to thank the academy upon learning of her victory and chastised voters for not honoring Burton.

Taylor and Burton divorced in 1974, married again in 1975 and divorced again in 1976.

"We fight a great deal," Burton once said, "and we watch the people around us who don't quite know how to behave during these storms. We don't fight when we are alone."

In 1982, Taylor and Burton appeared in a touring production of the Noel Coward play "Private Lives," in which they starred as a divorced couple who meet on their respective honeymoons. They remained close at the time of Burton's death, in 1984.

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London on Feb. 27, 1932, the daughter of Francis Taylor, an art dealer, and the former Sara Sothern, an American stage actress. At age 3, with extensive ballet training already behind her, Taylor danced for British princesses Elizabeth (the future queen) and Margaret Rose at London's Hippodrome. At age 4, she was given a wild field horse that she learned to ride expertly.

At the onset of World War II, the Taylors came to the United States. Francis Taylor opened a gallery in Beverly Hills and, in 1942, his daughter made her screen debut with a bit part in the comedy "There's One Born Every Minute."

Her big break came soon thereafter. While serving as an air-raid warden with MGM producer Sam Marx, Taylor's father learned that the studio was struggling to find an English girl to play opposite Roddy McDowall in "Lassie Come Home." Taylor's screen test for the film won her both the part and a long-term contract. She grew up quickly after that.

Still in school at 16, she would dash from the classroom to the movie set where she played passionate love scenes with Robert Taylor in "Conspirator."

"I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman," she once said. "I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt."

Soon after her screen presence was established, she began a series of very public romances. Early loves included socialite Bill Pawley, home run slugger Ralph Kiner and football star Glenn Davis.

Then, a roll call of husbands:

_ She married Conrad Hilton Jr., son of the hotel magnate, in May 1950 at age 18. The marriage ended in divorce that December.

_ When she married British actor Michael Wilding in February 1952, he was 39 to her 19. They had two sons, Michael Jr. and Christopher Edward. That marriage lasted 4 years.

_ She married cigar-chomping movie producer Michael Todd, also 20 years her senior, in 1957. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Francis. Todd was killed in a plane crash in 1958.

_ The best man at the Taylor-Todd wedding was Fisher. He left his wife Debbie Reynolds to marry Taylor in 1959. She converted to Judaism before the wedding.

_ Taylor and Fisher moved to London, where she was making "Cleopatra." She met Burton, who also was married. That union produced her fourth child, Maria.

_ After her second marriage to Burton ended, she married John Warner, a former secretary of the Navy, in December 1976. Warner was elected a U.S. senator from Virginia in 1978. They divorced in 1982.

_ In October 1991, she married Larry Fortensky, a truck driver and construction worker she met while both were undergoing treatment at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. He was 20 years her junior. The wedding, held at the ranch of Michael Jackson, was a media circus that included the din of helicopter blades, a journalist who parachuted to a spot near the couple and a gossip columnist as official scribe.

But in August 1995, she and Fortensky announced a trial separation; she filed for divorce six months later and the split became final in 1997.

"I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love, if you want to have a love affair, you get married," she once remarked. "I guess I'm very old-fashioned."

Her philanthropic interests included assistance for the Israeli War Victims Fund, the Variety Clubs International and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

She received the Legion of Honor, France's most prestigious award, in 1987, for her efforts to support AIDS research. In May 2000, Queen Elizabeth II made Taylor a dame — the female equivalent of a knight — for her services to the entertainment industry and to charity.

In 1993, she won a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute; in 1999, an institute survey of screen legends ranked her No. 7 among actresses.

During much of her later career, Taylor's waistline, various diets, diet books and tangled romances were the butt of jokes by Joan Rivers and others. John Belushi mocked her on "Saturday Night Live," dressing up in drag and choking on a piece of chicken.

"It's a wonder I didn't explode," Taylor wrote of her 60-pound weight gain — and successful loss — in the 1988 book "Elizabeth Takes Off on Self-Esteem and Self-Image."

She was an iconic star, but her screen roles became increasingly rare in the 1980s and beyond. She appeared in several television movies, including "Poker Alice" and "Sweet Bird of Youth," and entered the Stone Age as Pearl Slaghoople in the movie version of "The Flintstones." She had a brief role on the popular soap opera "General Hospital."

Taylor was the subject of numerous unauthorized biographies and herself worked on a handful of books, including "Elizabeth Taylor: An Informal Memoir" and "Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry." In tune with the media to the end, she kept in touch through her Twitter account.

"I like the connection with fans and people who have been supportive of me," Taylor told Kim Kardashian in a 2011 interview for Harper's Bazaar. "And I love the idea of real feedback and a two-way street, which is very, very modern. But sometimes I think we know too much about our idols and that spoils the dream."

Survivors include her daughters Maria Burton-Carson and Liza Todd-Tivey, sons Christopher and Michael Wilding, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A private family funeral is planned later this week.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Celebrated Stage Actress Helen Stenborg Dies at Age 86

http://s3.broadway.com/article-photos/large/1.155175.jpg

Helen Stenborg, the Tony-nominated matriarch of a distinguished stage family that included her late husband, Barnard Hughes, their director son Doug Hughes and actress daughter Laura Hughes, died at her Manhattan apartment on March 22 at age 86. Her children were at her bedside.

Born in Minneapolis on January 25, 1925, Stenborg moved to New York after graduating from high school to launch her acting career. She met her future husband at a veterans’ hospital show in 1946 and they married in 1950, remaining one of the theater world’s most devoted couples until Hughes’ death in 2006.

Stenborg’s Broadway career spanned three decades and included A Doll’s House, A Life, A Month in the Country, a Tony-nominated performance in Waiting in the Wings and the 2002 revival of The Crucible. In addition to her Tony nomination, Stenborg received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Drama Desk in 2000.

Many of Stenborg’s best performances were in off-Broadway productions, including three plays by Lanford Wilson (The Hot L Baltimore, Fifth of July and an Obie-winning turn in Talley and Son) and the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit, including a heartbreaking final scene in which Stenborg read the children’s book The Runaway Bunny to a dying Kathleen Chalfant. In September 2010, at age 84, the actress appeared opposite Malcolm Gets in Morris Panych's Vigil at the DR 2 Theatre, winning the Richard Seff Award for the best performance by a veteran female character actress in a supporting role.

On the big screen, Stenborg appeared in Three Days of the Condor, Starting Over, Enchanted and Doubt, and had a recurring role as an evil housekeeper on TV's Another World.

Stenborg is survived by Doug Hughes and his partner, actress Kate Jennings Grant; Laura Hughes and her partner, actor/director/producer John Gould Rubin; and her grandson Sam Hughes Rubin.

 

[KindaKinky]

TV, radio personality DJ Megatron killed in NYC

By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press – Sun Mar 27, 7:42 pm ET
NEW YORK – Urban radio and TV personality DJ Megatron, who built a career at hip-hop and R&B radio stations from Philadelphia to Boston and told viewers of a popular music TV show "What's Good," was shot to death early Sunday, his manager and police said.

The occasional BET television segment host was killed while heading to a store near his home on New York City's Staten Island around 2 a.m., said his manager Justin Kirkland, known as J. Smoove.

The 32-year-old deejay, born Corey McGriff, was found dead with a gunshot wound to his chest, police said. No arrests had been made.

His manager said friends and relatives had no idea why anyone might have attacked a deejay known for his upbeat, amiable attitude.

"He probably had one of the best personalities around . super-positive, happy all the time," Kirkland said.

Rising to the on-air ranks after starting as an intern, DJ Megatron began his career at New York's WKRS-FM, better known as Kiss FM, where deejays remembered him on the air and online Sunday.

He also worked at what was then Boston's Hot 97.7, or WBOT-FM, and at Philadelphia's The Beat, or WPHI-FM, according to a bio on his MySpace site.

In recent years, he worked on BET's "106 & Park" music countdown series, mainly in a role interacting with its live audience, the Viacom Inc.-owned network said. But he also did some on-camera work for the show and BET's website, including "What's Good" spots that took him onto the streets to ask bystanders about topics ranging from sports to "The Five Elements of Hip-Hop."

Complete entertainment coverage"He will truly be missed," the network said in a statement extending condolences to his family.

The deejay, sometimes known as Mega or Mega McGriff, also appeared in movies including 2005's "State Property 2," starring Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash and rappers Beanie Sigel and N.O.R.E., formerly Noreaga.

A father of three, DJ Megatron also devoted time to charitable events on Staten Island, his manager said.

 

[Weird Harold]

1984 Vice presidential Canditate Geraldine Ferraro, Age 75, died Mar 25, 2011.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Just discovered this passing

Michael Gough, Tony Award Winner Who Later Starred in "Batman" Films, Dies at 94

Michael Gough, the British character actor who won a Tony Award, but was most widely known as butler Alfred in the "Batman" movie franchise, died March 17 at his home in England at the age of 94, family reported.

His latter-day exposure as the droll and officious butler to millionaire Bruce Wayne in "Batman," "Batman Returns," "Batman Forever" and "Batman & Robin" came after years of work on TV, stage and film.

He won a 1979 Tony Award as Best Featured actor in a Play for playing Ernest in Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce (he was also a Drama Desk nominee) and was nominated again in 1988 as Best Featured Actor in a Play for Breaking the Code, about Alan Turing, who broke the Nazi spy code. Mr. Gough played Turing's supervisor, and was also a Drama Desk Award nominee for the turn.

He also appeared on Broadway in the plays The Fighting Cock (1959) and Compulsion (1957).

Mr. Gough appeared in more than 150 films in a long career. He was the voice of the Dodo bird in "Batman" director Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland."

Mr. Gough was born in Kuala Lumpur to British parents. The BBC reported that survivors include his fourth wife, Henrietta, a daughter Emma; and two sons, Simon and Jasper.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Farley Granger, a Favorite of Hitchcock, Dies at 85

Farley Granger, who starred in the Alfred Hitchcock classic film 'Strangers on a Train,' died Monday, according to E! Online. He was 85.

Though his role in 1951's 'Strangers on a Train' is by far his most memorable, Granger was no stranger to other parts. He made his debut in Hitchcock's 'Rope' in 1948, Nicholas Ray's 'They Ride by Night' in 1949 and Luchino Visconti's Italian drama 'Senso' in 1954.

He also starred in 1955's 'The Naked Street' and 'The Girl on the Red Velvet Swing' in 1955 but then focused more on theater and television roles.

The actor penned a candid memoir, 'Include Me Out: My Life From Goldwyn to Broadway' in 2008, chronicling his time as a leading man in Hollywood during the 1950s, as well as many of his close personal relationships.

According to his book, he had romantic relationships with both men and women, including Ava Gardner, Patricia Neal, Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents. He began a relationship with soap opera producer Robert Calhoun in 1963, however, and stayed with him until Calhoun's death three years ago.

 

[Bacigalupo]

Doctor Who actress Elisabeth Sladen dies aged 63

Doctor Who star Elisabeth Sladen, who was also in spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures, has died aged 63.

Sladen appeared as Doctor Who assistant Sarah Jane Smith in the BBC television sci-fi series between 1973 and 1976 opposite Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.

In more recent times the Liverpool-born actress went on to appear in four series of The Sarah Jane Adventures on children's channel CBBC.

BBC entertainment reporter Lizo Mzimba said she had had cancer for some time.

Sladen first appeared as Sarah Jane alongside the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, and stayed for three-and-a-half seasons, also working with the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker.

She returned to the role on several occasions over the years and was given her own spin-off series on children's channel CBBC in 2007, The Sarah Jane Adventures, on which she appeared with new Doctors David ******t and Matt Smith.

A BBC spokesman said: "It is with much sadness that we can announce Elisabeth Sladen, the much-loved actress best known for her role as Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and CBBC's The Sarah Jane Adventures, passed away this morning. She was 63."

 

[SweetMerry]

RIP, Sarah Jane. Here's hoping you're enjoying the big Tardis in the sky.

 

[JennyOHill2]

'Poetry Man' Singer Phoebe Snow Dies at 60

Bluesy pop singer and songwriter, Phoebe Snow, died Tuesday morning due to complications from a brain hemorrhage, according to the AP. Snow found fame with her 1970s smooth hit, 'Poetry Man' and released her first eponymous record in 1974, for which received a 1975 Grammy nomination for best new artist.

But the soulful singer and guitarist fell out of the spotlight soon after to take care of her disabled daughter -- but not before making her mark on the music industry. Snow was able to merge her folk roots with her soulful, jazzy voice and create classic hits like, 'Love Makes a Woman' and 'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.' She also sang the intro tune for the show, 'A Different World.'

The singer's hemorrhage was not an isolated health issue -- Snow also battled numerous blood clots, bouts with pneumonia, congestive heart failure and a stroke.

"The loss of this unique and untouchable voice is incalculable," Snow's manager, Sue Cameron told the AP. "Phoebe was one of the brightest, funniest and most talented singer-songwriters of all time and, more importantly, a magnificent mother to her late brain-damaged daughter, Valerie, for 31 years. Phoebe felt that was her greatest accomplishment."

Snow chose the career of mother when her daughter was born, rather than continuing her success in the studio. But that did not stop her from letting her passion live on in the form of sporadic collaborations with the likes of Paul Simon, Mavis Staples and Steely Dan's, Donald Fagen. She also sang at Howard Stern and Beth Ostrosky's 2008 wedding.

She released her last album, 'Natural Wonder,' in 2003 and leaves a legacy that isn't far off from her final album's title.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Sidney Lumet, Director of ‘12 Angry Men,' `Serpico,’ Dies at 86

Catching up with early April "celebs"
Sidney Lumet, the director of “12 Angry Men,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Network,” whose films explored themes of injustice and used the gritty streets of New York as a supporting character, has died. He was 86.

He died of lymphoma at his home in Manhattan, where he lived with his fourth wife, Mary, the New York Times reported, citing his stepdaughter, Leslie Gimbel.

The son of a Yiddish theater actor, Lumet grew up poor in Depression-era New York, developing a passionate interest in what he saw as a flawed judicial system. He said he was drawn to “films of conscience” that would encourage introspection.

“Network” (1976) introduced an expression of frustration that became a lasting part of popular culture: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Lumet was known as an actor’s director, and he worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Henry Fonda, Faye Dunaway and Paul Newman. Al Pacino was nominated for Academy Awards as best actor in two of Lumet’s best-known law-and-order works, “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Serpico.”

“If you prayed to inhabit a character, Sidney was the priest who listened to your prayers, helped make them come true,” Pacino said when Lumet was given an honorary Oscar in 2005 for “his brilliant services to screenwriters, performers and the art of the motion picture.”

He directed, on average, a film every year for four decades, including adaptations of plays by Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill.

Keeping a wide berth from Hollywood, Lumet remained rooted in New York and shot most of his films there. For “Prince of the City” (1981), based on the real-life prosecution of corrupt police officers, Lumet shot at 135 locations around the city in just 52 days.

“I don’t like company towns, and Hollywood is a company town,” he said in a 1978 interview, explaining his affinity for New York. “I think that I’m a better director because I saw Jerome Robbins’ new ballet recently. And I want other good works of art. I want good theater, and I want Soho, where your best painting in the world is done. It’s a thrilling city.”

Lumet said that growing up in poor neighborhoods taught him that the justice system “has to be constantly checked, because it has to be kept honest.”

Also informing Lumet’s approach was his own brush with persecution during the 1950s, when the effort to blacklist suspected communists swept through the entertainment industry. An informant identified him as a communist, then recanted before Lumet could testify to congressional investigators.

Many of his best-known movies focused on men “who summon great courage to challenge the system, and in doing so make themselves social pariahs,” Don Shewey, an author and journalist who covers theater, wrote in 1982.

Lumet was the first to admit that he made duds as well as hits. They included “Bye Bye Braverman” (1968), about New York City friends gathering for a funeral. In his 1995 book, “Making Movies,” Lumet said the film’s strong cast was “left floundering like fish on the beach by a director who takes funerals and cemeteries too seriously.”

“I’m not a believer in waiting for ‘great’ material that will produce a ‘masterpiece,” Lumet wrote. “What’s important is that the material involve me personally on some level.”

Born June 25, 1924, in Philadelphia, Lumet moved to New York when he was 2. He was a child actor in the Yiddish theater, following in the footsteps of his Polish-born actor father, Baruch, who would later appear in two of Lumet’s movies. His mother, Eugenia, was a dancer.

Lumet made his Broadway acting debut in 1935 in Sidney Kingsley’s play “Dead End.” His first movie role came in 1939 in “One Third of a Nation.”

After one semester at Columbia University, Lumet enlisted in the U.S. Army early in World War II, working in radar communications in China and northern India.

Back in New York after the war, Lumet taught acting -- he started an off-Broadway troupe that included Yul Brynner -- and began directing on television, working on the CBS series “Danger” and “You Are There” with Walter Cronkite.

When Reginald Rose, author of the television drama “12 Angry Men,” and Fonda decided to turn the show into a movie, they recruited Lumet as director.

The 1957 film starred Fonda as a lone holdout advocating an acquittal during jury deliberations. Lumet, directing his first movie, used relatively low-tech tools to make viewers feel the growing tension in the stiflingly hot and close quarters shared by the 12 jurors.

“I used longer and longer lenses so that the ceiling became closer to the heads, the walls became closer to the chair,” Lumet later recalled. “I kept putting it into a smaller and smaller box to increase the claustrophobic feeling.”

The movie earned Lumet an Academy Award nomination and was nominated for best picture. Rose was nominated for screenplay writing.

After establishing himself in film, Lumet kept drawing on his experience in theater and live television. He launched movie projects with a few weeks of sit-down rehearsals and tried, when possible, to film scenes in one take. He had actors improvise key scenes, with a recorder running. The improvisations were typed up and incorporated into the final script.

For “Serpico” (1973), starring Pacino as a New York policeman who waged a perilous campaign against corruption inside the department, Lumet brought first-hand experience with greasing the palms of New York City police. Before 1966, when Mayor John Lindsay created an office to promote movie-making, filmmakers had to make cash payoffs at local precincts before shooting, Lumet recalled in a 1997 interview with the Hollywood Reporter.

Pacino and Lumet teamed up again on “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975), which told the story of a botched 1972 bank robbery in Brooklyn. Pacino played the lead robber, who blusters his way through taking hostages and negotiating with police before finally revealing his hidden motive: he needs money to help his male lover pay for a sex-change operation.

Lumet directed a star-studded cast including Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman and Sean Connery in “Murder on the Orient Express,” a 1974 film based on the Agatha Christie novel. The movie was nominated for six Academy Awards, with Bergman winning for best supporting actress.

In “Network,” a scathing satire written by Paddy Chayefsky, Lumet directed a prescient look at how entertainment and news overlap on television. The film’s iconic moment comes when Peter Finch, playing a low-rated TV anchor facing termination, implores viewers to go to their windows and scream, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

The movie was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Lumet as best director, and won four: best writing, best actor (Peter Finch), best actress (Dunaway) and best supporting actress (Beatrice Straight).

With Jay Presson Allen, Lumet adapted Robert Daley’s “Prince of the City,” the true story of a corrupt detective who turned on his colleagues, for the big screen in 1981.

Lumet pursued familiar themes with a different locale, Boston, in “The Verdict” (1982), starring Paul Newman as an alcoholic attorney who rediscovers his professional idealism.

His other films included “The Fugitive Kind” (1959), “Long Day’s Journey into Night” (1962), “Fail Safe” (1964), “The Pawnbroker” (1965), “The Anderson Tapes” (1971), ‘The Wiz” (1978), “Night Falls on Manhattan” (1997) and “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” (2007).

Lumet’s first marriage, to actress Rita Gam, ended in 1955. His second, to designer Gloria Vanderbilt, ended in 1963.

That year Lumet married writer Gail Jones (now Gail Buckley), an actress and the daughter of singer Lena Horne. They had two daughters, Amy and Jenny, before the marriage dissolved in 1978. Jenny Lumet wrote “Rachel Getting Married” (2008).

Lumet married for a fourth time, in 1980, to Mary Gimbel, known as “Piedy.”

 

[phrodeau]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_f3SZ5Tu916o/TBgBs3j_uGI/AAAAAAAAQ5E/-p2MS7fxmas/s400/bin-laden-crosshairs.jpg

 

[JennyOHill2]

Marathon Great Grete Waitz Dies at 57

OSLO, Norway (AP) - Grete Waitz, the Norwegian runner who won nine New York City Marathons and the silver medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, died after a six-year battle with cancer. She was 57.

A former Oslo schoolteacher, Waitz won her first New York City Marathon in 1978, setting a world best in 2 hours, 32 minutes, 30 seconds in her first attempt at running the distance. She went on to win eight more times, with her last victory coming in 1988.

She won the London Marathon twice, in 1983 and '86, the Stockholm Marathon in 1988 and earned five titles at the world cross-country championships from 1978-81 and 1983.

Waitz also won the gold medal in the marathon at the 1983 world championships in Helsinki, Finland. A year later, she took second behind Joan Benoit in the first women's Olympic marathon.

Waitz competed at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics in the 1,500 meters, but missed the 1980 Moscow Games because of the American-led boycott.

Waitz is survived by her husband Jack Waitz and her two brothers, Jan and Arild.

Waitz had never run a marathon when she started the New York City race in October 1978. Her husband had talked her into trying, but after about 18 miles she regretted it.

"I was hurting. I was mad. I was angry. I told Jack: 'Never again," Waitz recalled in 2008.

She broke the world record three more times: In New York in 1979 and '80 and in London in '83.

Waitz started undergoing cancer treatment in 2005 but rarely discussed her condition in public.

"That's not my personality," she said in November 2005. "I've always been a private person. ... I'll do that when I cross the finish line and win this race."

At the time she was optimistic she could conquer the disease.

"I'm crossing my fingers," she said. "I will beat it."

Like Waitz, Aanesen declined to specify which type of cancer she had.

"She didn't wish to put too much focus on herself and her disease, but hoped she could contribute in some way to help others," said Aanesen, who got to know Waitz through her work with the foundation.

"She was a fantastic and immensely successful sports practitioner and also a role model and pioneer in women's sports," Aanesen said. "She showed that women too can run longer distances than 1,000 meters."

Born in Oslo as Grete Andersen on Oct. 1, 1953, she trained and raced in her youth at Oslo's Bislett stadium, which raised a bronze statue in her honor in 1984.

Waitz received numerous other awards and honors for her achievements on and off the track.

In 2008, Norway's king bestowed upon her the prestigious Order of St. Olav for being a role model for female athletes. Last year, she received the International Olympic Committee's Women and Sport Award for Europe.

Waitz still holds the Norwegian records in the 1,500 and 3,000 meters.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Michael Sarrazin, Actor, Dies at 70

Michael Sarrazin, a leading man in the late 1960s and 1970s who led Jane Fonda around the dance floor in the Depression drama “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” and played Paul Newman’s misunderstood half-brother in “Sometimes a Great Notion,” died. He was 70.

The cause was cancer, his agent, Michael Oscars, said.

With his big, soulful eyes and sensitively handsome face, Mr. Sarrazin brought youthful innocence with a dash of countercultural rebelliousness to films like “The Flim-Flam Man” (1967), in which he played a reluctant apprentice to George C. Scott’s grifter, and the 1973 television drama “Frankenstein: The True Story,” in which he gave a Byronic performance as the monster.

He was in great demand in the 1970s. He played a pickpocket trainee in the James Coburn caper film “Harry in Your Pocket” (1973) and Barbra Streisand’s cabdriver husband in the screwball farce “For Pete’s Sake” (1974). He brought a brooding complexity to the title role of the horror film “The Reincarnation of Peter Proud” (1975).

It was his performance in the 1969 film “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” a grueling existentialist drama directed by Sydney Pollack, that established him as one of the era’s more intriguing antiheroes. He played Robert Syverten, an aimless, unemployed film extra who enters a marathon dance contest with the equally desperate Gloria (Ms. Fonda), hoping to win recognition and prize money. Instead, after days spent circling the dance floor, he ends up fatally shooting his partner in a twisted act of mercy.

“You could have paid me a dollar a week to work on that,” Mr. Sarrazin told The Toronto Star in 1994. “It hits you bolt upright; I still get really intense when I watch it.”

Jacques Michel André Sarrazin was born on May 22, 1940, in Quebec City and grew up in Montreal. After dropping out of high school he acted in theater and television in Montreal and Toronto — he played Romeo to Geneviève Bujold’s Juliet in a live production on Canadian television — before being signed by Universal Studios in 1965.

He was assigned to the television series “The Virginian” and the TV movie “The Doomsday Flight” before making his big-screen debut in “Gunfight in Abilene” (1967), starring Bobby Darin and Leslie Nielsen.

“The Flim-Flam Man” put his career on the fast track. He played a drifting Malibu surfer in “The Sweet Ride” (1968) opposite Jacqueline Bisset, with whom he entered into a long romantic relationship, and a raw Confederate recruit (with James Caan) in “Journey to Shiloh” (1968), before being offered the role of Joe Buck in “Midnight Cowboy.”

Universal refused to let him take the role, which went to Jon Voight, but tried to make amends by steering him to Mr. Pollack and “They Shoot Horses.” The experience was every bit as demanding off screen as on.

“We stayed up around the clock for three or four days,” Mr. Sarrazin told The Toronto Star, adding that the director demanded that the actors remain in character. “Pollack said we should work until signs of exhaustion,” he said. “Fights would break out among the men; women started crying. I’d get into terrible fights with Bruce Dern.”

His career waned after the mid-1970s and “The Gumball Rally” (1976), his last prominent role. In 1993 he took a French-speaking role in the Canadian comedy “La Florida,” about a Quebec family trying to run a shabby motel in Hollywood, Fla. The film was a huge hit in Quebec, and as Romeo Laflamme, an-over-the-hill Canadian crooner and ladies’ man, Mr. Sarrazin became a cult figure in Montreal, where he returned to live in his 60s.

Mr. Sarrazin is survived by a brother, Pierre, of Toronto; a sister, Enid, of Montreal; and two daughters, Catherine and Michelle, also of Montreal.

 

[Holly Delight]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3QTb_19Dz-4/Ta7hpq1dtmI/AAAAAAAAYmQ/BoAozH33fbY/s1600/michael_sarrazin.jpg


He wasn't too cute, was he? *sigh*

 

[JennyOHill2]

Spanish great Ballesteros dies at 54

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Associated Press
MADRID. Seve Ballesteros was a genius with a golf club in his hands, an inspiration to everyone who saw him create shots that didn't seem possible. The Spaniard's passion and pride revived European golf and made the Ryder Cup one of the game's most compelling events.

His career was defined not only by what he won, but how he won.

"He was the greatest show on earth," Nick Faldo said.

Ballesteros, a five-time major champion whose incomparable imagination and fiery personality made him one of the most significant figures in modern golf, died Saturday from complications of a cancerous brain tumor. He was 54.

"Seve was one of the most talented and excited golfers to ever play the game," Tiger Woods said on Twitter. "His creativity and inventiveness on the golf course may never be surpassed."

A statement on Ballesteros' website early Saturday said he died peacefully at 2:10 a.m. local time, surrounded by his family at his home in Pedrena. It was in this small Spanish town where Ballesteros first wrapped his hands around a crude 3-iron and began inventing shots that he would display on some of golf's grandest stages.

"Today, golf lost a great champion and a great friend. We also lost a great entertainer and ambassador for our sport," Jack Nicklaus said.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Sada Thompson, 1970s TV mom, dies

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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Sada Thompson, the durable matriarch of stage and screen who won a Tony Award for her portraits of three sisters and their mother in the 1971 comedy Twigs and an Emmy Award for playing the eternally understanding mother in the television series Family, has died at age 81.

Thompson died Wednesday of a lung disease at Danbury Hospital, agent David Shaul said Sunday from Los Angeles.

Thompson won wide acclaim during an illustrious career that spanned more than 60 years, during which she gravitated toward quality work that allowed her to plumb her characters' complexities.

"When you start off acting, it does seem very romantic, and the make-believe part of it all seems very exciting," she told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. "It's only later that you begin to realize how fascinating the work is — that it's a bottomless pit, and you never get to the end of it. Human character is just endlessly fascinating."

Even before she graduated in 1949 from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University, then called the Carnegie Institute of Technology, she was on a trajectory to take on challenging roles drawn from the classics as well as contemporary plays.

A prolific actress, she made her mark in theater and film generally portraying the matriarchs in family dramas.

In her stage debut in 1945, she played Nick's Ma in William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life. She was Mrs. Higgins in Pygmalion (1949), the resentful matriarch determined not to hurt again in Real Estate (1987), the embattled Mrs. Fisher in the 1991 comedy The Show-Off, the slovenly and bitter mother, Beatrice, in the 1965 production of The Effect Of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and Dorine in Tartuffe (1965). She collected Obies for the latter two.

By far, her biggest Broadway success was Twigs, by George Furth, in which she played three sisters — as well as their mother. The play took its title from a line by Alexander Pope: "Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." She won a Tony and the New York Drama Critics Award that season.

The New York Times' Walter Kerr noted that what held the play together was "the peculiar luminosity that moves with Miss Thompson wherever she goes."

Throughout her career, her choices brought recognition from fellow actors more than they made her famous.

"When you're around great actors (like Thompson), they become an ideal or a goal that keeps reminding you of the quality you want your work to be," William Anton, who played Thompson's son in the 1989 San Diego production of Driving Miss Daisy and a preferred son-in-law in The Show-Off, told the Los Angeles Times in 1991.

In the late '70s, she picked up an Emmy for her portrayal of the levelheaded Kate Lawrence in the ABC drama Family, which ran for five seasons.

Born Sada Carolyn Thompson on Sept. 27, 1929, in Des Moines, Iowa, she got her unusual name from her maternal grandmother, whose name, Sarah, was turned into Sada. Her parents moved to New Jersey when she was 5, and her fascination with the stage began soon thereafter. Her parents would often take her to a summer theater where plays would stop on their way to Broadway or before they began their national tours.

"I saw stars like Helen Hayes, Maurice Evans, Tallulah Bankhead and Cornelia Otis Skinner," she told the Associated Press in 1987. "It was enchanting. I knew that was the world I wanted to be in."

In 1956, she won a Drama Desk Award for Moliere's The Misanthrope and for an English girl mourning the death of her half-brother in war in The River Line (1957). She was nominated for an Emmy for her portrayal of Carla's mother in the NBC comedy Cheers (1991).

Thompson said she loved a good character role.

"There's always something more to be accomplished with a character," she told the AP in 1987. "Theater is a human experience. There's nothing shellacked or finished off about it. I guess that's why it always draws me back."

Thompson met and married a fellow drama student, Donald Stewart, at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949. Their daughter is a costume designer.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Derek Boogaard found dead; Rangers' player was 28

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The New York Rangers confirmed that forward Derek Boogaard has died at the age of 28. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he was found dead on Friday in his Minneapolis apartment. The cause of his death is still unknown.

"Derek was an extremely kind and caring individual," New York Rangers president and general manager Glen Sather said in a team release issued Friday night. "He was a very thoughtful person, who will be dearly missed by all those who knew him. We extend our deepest sympathies to his family, friends and teammates during this difficult time."

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One of the most feared fighters in the league, Boogaard missed most of this season with a concussion and a shoulder injury. It was his first with the Rangers after playing in 255 career games with the Minnesota Wild.

In 277 NHL games, Boogaard had three goals and 13 assists, was minus-12 and had 589 penalty minutes.

MLB LEGEND FALLS ILL: Harmon Killebrew ends cancer fight, enters hospice

Boogaard was known as "The Boogeyman" because of his pugilistic skills on the ice and his size -- he was 6-7, 257 pounds.

Derek Boogaard was among the NHL's most feared fighters and was in his first season with the New York Rangers. (AP Photo)

Drafted by the Minnesota Wild, Boogaard played six NHL seasons. The 2010-11 season was his first with the Rangers, but he was limited to 22 games because of a shoulder injury. In all, Boogaard sat out the Rangers' final 51 regular-season games and all all five playoff games.

Michael Russo, NHL beat man for the Star Tribune, announced the news via Twitter on Friday. He wrote:

"Awful news: Derek Boogaard was found dead today in his Minneapolis apartment by members of his family. He was 28.

TRAGIC SPORTS DEATHS: Alabama football's Aaron Douglas | Ex-Cowboy Ron Springs

"I got several texts from Derek in the past few days. He told me yesterday he had just met with a PR firm in LA to join Twitter

"He was also ecstatic that both his brothers, Aaron and Ryan, were going to be in Minneapolis staying with him this week."

In its report, the Star Tribune noted that Boogaard is survived by his mother, Joanne, and father, Len, his younger brothers Aaron and Ryan and younger sister, Krysten, who is a basketball player at the University of Kansas.


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Boogaard, who was from Saskatoon, Sakatchewan, was a seventh-round pick, 202nd overall, in 2001 by the Wild. He played junior hockey in Canada's Western Hockey League for Regina, Prince George and Medicine Hat before entering the Wild's farm system with stops at ECHL Louisiana and AHL Houston.

He made his NHL debut in the 2005-06 season, which proved to be his best. He had two goals and four assists while racking up 158 penalty minutes.

Like most NHL players, and especially among the biggest and baddest fighters, Boogaard had a soft side away from the ice. The Rangers noted in their release: "While with the Rangers, he created 'Boogaard’s Booguardians,' hosting military members and their families at all New York Ranger home games."

Former Wild teammate Niklas Backstrom concurred, telling Russo via Twitter: "Unreal guy. Just a really big teddy bear. Outside the rink, he didn't want bad for anyone."

Among those noting Boogaard's passing on Twitter was Edmonton Oilers defenseman Ryan Whitney. "Awful news about Derek Boogaard," he wrote. "My thoughts and prayers go out to his family."

NHL Players' Association executive director Don Fehr also issued a statement: “The NHLPA is deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Derek Boogaard. Derek was a well-liked and respected member of the NHLPA, and his passing is a great loss to the entire hockey community. Our sincere condolences to Derek’s many friends and family during this difficult time.”

 

[JennyOHill2]

Jackie Cooper, former child star, dies at 88

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LOS ANGELES —
With his boyish looks and his thick head of blond hair, Jackie Cooper seemed to be eternally young. He was "Skippy," taking the popular comic strip character to the big screen in a turn that would garner a best actor Oscar nod at age 9.

Cooper remained the youngest player to be nominated for that category, an accolade that he likely didn't care much about at the time: The handsome kid with the winning smile fell asleep during the ceremony in the lap of another nominee, Marie Dressler.

It was that honesty that kept Cooper grounded about life in the spotlight and the realities of being a working actor, whether he was starring in films or TV shows, or behind the scenes as a director or studio honcho.

"He was a fascinating guy who really did everything, from all different aspects of the business," said his son, Russell Cooper. "You can't really say that about many people."

Jackie Cooper, 88, died at a nursing facility in Santa Monica, Calif., said his other son, John.

Cooper reigned with Shirley Temple as one of the most popular child stars of the 1930s. Starting in comedy shorts, he rose to top ranks with "Skippy," a sentimental adaptation of a popular comic strip. He followed with such hits as "The Champ," "The Bowery," "Treasure Island" and "O'Shaughnessy's Boy," all co-starring Wallace Beery.

With his career fading after World War II, Cooper left Hollywood for the New York theater. He returned to Hollywood and starred in two successful situation comedies, "The People's Choice" (1955-58) and "Hennessey" (1959-62). He appeared as a Navy doctor in "Hennessey," which he also produced and directed.

"I think it's tough to direct and star in a feature," he commented in a 1971 interview. "Either the direction or the performance will suffer. But an actor can direct himself in television. I found it essential to relieve the crushing boredom of starring in a series."

He directed more than 250 half-hour and hour-long series episodes, 16 two-hour movies and numerous pilots and commercials. At one point, he vowed he would never act again. But he returned for an occasional role, most notably as gruff Daily Planet editor Perry White in Christopher Reeves' four "Superman" movies.

"He managed to change with the business," said his son John. "Early in his life, he experienced the kind of success that many people do not have, if they have that kind of success at all, until much later."

Jackie had a memorable bit in the 1929 musical "Sunny Side Up" and appeared in eight of the popular "Our Gang" comedies, including "Pups Is Pups" and "Teacher's Pet." Those credits led to a test that won him the title role of "Skippy."

The director of the 1931 film was his uncle, Norman Taurog. A crucial scene called for Jackie to cry. The tears wouldn't come, and Taurog became angry. He called the boy's beloved dog a nuisance and said he would send it to the pound. Jackie threw a tantrum, infuriating the director.

"If you don't do what I say, I'll have the policeman shoot the dog," Taurog threatened, pointing to the armed security guard.

The tears flowed, and the scene was filmed, and Taurog went on to win the Oscar for best director. Fifty years later, Cooper titled his autobiography, "Please Don't Shoot My Dog."

He was born John Cooper Jr. on Sept. 15, 1922, in Los Angeles. His Jewish father, who ran a music store, had married an Italian musician, Mabel Leonard, but deserted her when their son was 2. Destitute, his mother found work at Fox studio as a secretary. Through her brother-in-law, Taurog, she was able to arrange extra work in movies for young Jackie.

MGM signed Cooper to a contract after "Skippy," and he attended the studio school with Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland and Freddie Bartholomew. Cooper proved an ideal combination with Beery, the rough, tough character whose heart is melted by the winsome kid.

Unlike some child actors, Cooper was able to sustain his stardom through adolescence. Among Cooper's other 1930s films: "Sooky" (a sequel to "Skippy"), "Broadway to Hollywood," "Lone Cowboy," "Dinky," "The Devil Is a Sissy" (with Rooney and Bartholomew), "Peck's Bad Boy," "White Banners," "Gangster's Boy," "That Certain Age" (opposite Deanna Durbin), "What a Life" (as Henry Aldrich), "Seventeen" and "The Return of Frank James."

After four years in the Navy, he returned to find his career had slumped.

"I managed to find work, but it was in low-budget pictures," he recalled in 1971. "I couldn't see myself continuing like that.

"About that time, I had become acquainted with some New York actors, like Keenan Wynn and John Garfield. Garfield kept telling me to 'get back to New York where you can learn your craft.'"

Cooper followed the advice and appeared as Ensign Pulver in Broadway and road companies of "Mister Roberts." He starred in two hit comedies: "Remains to Be Seen" and "King of Hearts."

During the early 1950s, the television industry was exploding in New York, and he acted in many live dramas. It led to his return to Hollywood and success with "The People's Choice" and "Hennessey."

Tiring of the weekly series grind, Cooper in 1964 accepted a five-year contract as production head of Screen Gems, the TV arm of Columbia Pictures.

"Like so many of those jobs, the honeymoon was over after the first two years," he remarked. "Then you find yourself spending all your time trying to sell your bosses on what you want to do. My last selling job was 'The Flying Nun.' They kept telling me that people wouldn't watch a show about Catholics." He persisted, and the series starring Sally Field became a hit.

After almost 50 years in the business, Cooper thought of retiring in the early 1970s. Then producer Mike Frankovich offered him a role in "The Love Machine," and a film to direct, "Stand Up and Be Counted." He continued with occasional acting roles and a heavy schedule of directing for television.

Cooper married three times: to June Horne (with whom he had a son, John) and Hildy Parks, then to Barbara Kraus (with whom he had a son, Russell, and two daughters, Julie and Christina).

"There's not a child actor in the lot," he once remarked happily.

Cooper is survived by his two sons.

 

[SuprSalor]

Harmon Killebrew dies at 74

Hall of Famer dies Tuesday from cancer. ESPN link :http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6559023

 

[JennyOHill2]

Hall of Famer dies Tuesday from cancer. ESPN link :http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6559023

 

[JennyOHill2]

Wrestling Icon 'Macho Man' Randy Savage Dies in Florida Car Accident

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Wrestling legend, snack pitchman and actor "Macho Man" Randy Savage died Friday in Seminole, Florida after losing control of his car while suffering a heart attack, his brother tells TMZ. Lanny Poffo says his brother was behind the wheel around 10 AM when the accident occurred. He was 58.

The Florida Highway Patrol later told the website that Savage and his wife, Lynn, were driving their Jeep Wrangler when the car veered across a concrete median, rushed through oncoming traffic and "collided head-on with a tree."

Savage was taken to Largo Medical Center where he died, and Lynn was rushed to a different hospital, but survived with minor injuries. According to officials, both were wearing their seat belts and alcohol is not suspected. An investigation is underway.

The couple had just celebrated their 1-year anniversary on May 10.

His former colleagues and admirers in the wrestling business have already begun pouring out their grief, including tag team partner Hulk Hogan who took to Twitter to reveal he had just reconnected with his old friend.

"I'm completely devastated, after over 10 years of not talking with Randy, we've finally started to talk and communicate," Hogan said. "I just pray that Randy's happy and in a better place and we miss him."

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson posted on Twitter: "You were one of my childhood inspirations and heros. Strength, love and prayers to the Savage/Poffo family."

Shaun Michaels chimed in, saying "We've lost one of the greats!"

The man known to millions of fans for his flashy outfits, his "Oooooo Yeaahhhh" catchphrase and his feuds with countless rivals, Savage broke into wrestling in the early 1970s while at the same time playing minor league baseball under his born name Randall Poffo. After injuring his throwing arm he put the focus on pro wrestling.

Some of Savage's most memorable moments involved his manager and real-life wife, "Miss Elizabeth" Ann Hulette. Though they were officially married in 1984, the WWF staged an elaborate "wedding" for the pair at Madison Square Garden in 1991. A year later they divorced and she died of a drug overdose in 2003 at the home of her boyfriend, Lex Luger.

Savage left the WWF for the World Championship Wrestling in 1994.

Savage also tried his hand in other forms of entertainment throughout the years, most notably as the celebrity spokesman for Slim Jim beef snacks dating back to the mid-1990s. "Snap into a Slim Jim, oooooh yeah!"

His acting career included the role of wrestler Bonesaw McGraw in the 2002's 'Spider-Man' and most recently he was the voices of "the thug" in Disney's 2008 animated film, 'Bolt.' Savage also showed up in several TV shows as himself, in 'Mad About You,' 'Baywatch' and 'The Jeff Foxworthy Show.'

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

05/16/11

NEW YORK — Joseph Wershba, a CBS News producer and reporter whose work on a pivotal 1954 expose on Sen. Joseph McCarthy was the centerpiece of the film "Good Night, and Good Luck" has died. He was 90.

Wershba was born in Manhattan on August 19, 1920, and, after attending Brooklyn College and serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he joined CBS News in 1944 as a radio news writer.

He was sent to CBS' Washington bureau as a radio correspondent, where he worked on the groundbreaking Murrow-Fred Friendly "Hear it Now" series, the radio precursor to "See it Now." While in Washington, he also worked on-air with Walter Cronkite in early television news at the network's local station.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/16/joseph-wershba-dies-pione_n_862587.html