Literotica Cemetary

[RoryN]

When you get a chance, do one for the lead singer of The Grass Roots.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Rob Grill, Lead Singer of the Grass Roots, Dies at 67

When you get a chance, do one for the lead singer of The Grass Roots.

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Rob Grill, the longtime lead singer and a very nearly original member of the Grass Roots, the immensely popular rock group of the 1960s and afterward, died in Tavares, Fla. He was 67.

The cause was complications of a head injury he sustained in a fall last month, his wife, Nancy, said. Mr. Grill was a longtime resident of Mount Dora, Fla.

From the mid-1960s to the mid-’70s, the Grass Roots were a fixture on the airwaves and a regular presence on “American Bandstand.” They sold tens of millions of records and had more than a dozen Top 40 hits. Among their best known are “Let’s Live for Today,” “Midnight Confessions,” “Temptation Eyes” and “Two Divided by Love.”

The band’s style married elements of folk-rock, soul, blues and R&B. Its songs, whose close-knit harmonies evoked the British pop groups of the period, were bouncy, accessible and eminently danceable, often backed by an upbeat brass section.

“The Grass Roots weren’t the hippest band on the block,” The Boston Globe wrote in 1989. “But they were — and remain — a sure-fire guilty pleasure, a blissful package of pure pop.”

The group’s longest-serving member, Mr. Grill appeared with the Grass Roots for more than four decades: first in the group’s heyday and again as the band has enjoyed a renaissance on the oldies circuit. His voice — high, sweet and supple — was memorably urgent and beseeching in the group’s many songs of love.

He also played bass and wrote some of the group’s songs, though the Grass Roots’ best-known material was written primarily by nonmembers.

The Grass Roots began life as a phantom. In the mid-1960s, two Los Angeles songwriters, Steve Barri and P. F. Sloan, were asked by their label, Dunhill Records, for songs that would capitalize on the growing appetite for folk-rock.

They wrote “Where Were You When I Needed You” and, as the Grass Roots, recorded a demo. When the song had some success on the radio, they cast about for an existing band to become the Grass Roots.

They enlisted a San Francisco group named the Bedouins, who recorded the first Grass Roots album, also titled “Where Were You When I Needed You.”

In 1967, after the Bedouins decamped, Mr. Barri and Mr. Sloan recruited the 13th Floor, a Los Angeles band comprising Creed Bratton, Rick Coonce, Warren Entner and Kenny Fukomoto. (Mr. Bratton, the lead guitarist, later worked as an actor; he is known for playing the eccentric quality assurance director — also named Creed Bratton — on the American sitcom “The Office.”)

Just as the 13th Floor was about to sign on as the Grass Roots, Mr. Fukomoto was drafted, and Mr. Grill was brought in as a replacement. He remained with the group through the late ’70s, when it faded from view, a casualty of changing popular taste.

Mr. Grill managed new incarnations of the band in 1978 and ’79, rejoining it in the early 1980s. He performed with the Grass Roots throughout much of the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s.

Mr. Grill appeared on many of the band’s albums and also recorded a solo album, “Uprooted,” released in 1979.

Robert Frank Grill was born in Los Angeles on Nov. 30, 1943. Intending to become a lawyer, he studied at California State University, Los Angeles, before pursuing a career in music.

Mr. Grill’s first marriage ended in divorce. Besides his wife, the former Nancy Pilski, whom he married in 1986, he is survived by a brother, James. A son from his first marriage, Christian, died of cancer last year.

Mr. Grill lived for years with chronic pain as a result of a degenerative bone disorder known as avascular necrosis and the multiple hip-replacement operations it entailed. In 2007, he was arrested on charges of having obtained the prescription painkiller oxycodone from multiple doctors, in violation of Florida law.

He entered a guilty plea, which was later vacated after he completed a pretrial intervention program, his wife said.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Tom Aldredge

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Tom Aldredge, the lean and reliable character actor of stage and screen, whose roles ranged from the Narrator/Mysterious Man of Into the Woods to elderly gents on "The Sopranos" and "Boardwalk Empire," died July 22 at a hospice in Tampa, FL, after a battle with lymphoma, his agent said.

Mr. Aldredge, 83, who was recently predeceased by his wife of more than 50 years, the costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge, had lived in Stamford, CT, until very recently. He had moved to Tampa to live with his nephew Tom Huddleston and his wife, Sylvia, who were with him when he died.

The Dayton, OH, native appeared in over 28 Broadway productions and received five Tony Award nominations (all but one in the Featured Actor category). His Broadway resume includes Twelve Angry Men, The Crucible, Tom Sawyer, 1776, Three Sisters Inherit the Wind, On Golden Pond (creating the role of cranky old dad Norman Thayer), The Iceman Cometh and Slapstick Tragedy. He earned Tony nominations for Twentieth Century (2004), the Stephen Sondheim musical Passion (1994), a revival of Where's Charley? (1975), The Little Foxes (1981, as Horace Giddens, opposite Elizabeth Taylor as Regina Giddens) and Sticks and Bones (in the Best Actor category, in 1972, for which he won a Drama Desk Award).

Broadway director Scott Ellis, reflecting on the work of Mr. Aldredge, told Playbill.com, "I was blessed to work with Tom many times. As both an actor and a person, there was truly nobody better. When I started casting 12 Angry Men, Tom was the first actor I asked to do it. I figured if I got him, everyone else would follow."

He added, "Several months ago, we had a 1776 reunion in honor of Tom. The entire company showed up. A month later, the same thing happened with the 12 Angry Men cast. That's how much Tom was loved."

James Lapine, who wrote the books to the musicals Into the Woods and Passion, which he also directed, told Playbill.com, "Tom Aldredge was a class act. Always a pleasure to work with. A real team player who gave his full concentration whether in rehearsal or on stage. A warm, smart and funny person, he brought depth and emotion to every role he played. I will never forget him singing 'No More' with Chip Zien during Into the Woods. It brought me to tears every time I heard it."

Off-stage, Mr. Aldredge was an avid sailor, his agent said. One holiday, he and his wife traveled the Greek Isles by sailboat together. He was also known to build radio-controlled airplanes and fly them on his property.

Mr. Aldredge appeared on seven seasons of TV's "The Sopranos," playing Hugh DeAngelis, Carmela's father. Other TV work includes "Boardwalk Empire," "Taking Chance" with Kevin Bacon, two seasons of "Damages," "O! Pioneers," "Third Watch" and "Henry Winkler Meets Shakespeare," for which he won an Emmy Award.

His films include "Cold Mountain," "Rounders," "Message in a Bottle," "Diminished Capacity" and more.

 

[LiveInHD]

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[JennyOHill2]

Amy Winehouse

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=771225

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[JennyOHill2]

'The Brady Bunch', 'Gilligan's Island' Creator Sherwood Schwartz Dies Aged 94

Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of the iconic television series The Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island, died at age 94.

He died of natural causes at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, according to his family.

Schwartz came to Southern California in 1938 to get a master's degree in biological sciences at USC and lived with his brother Al, a writer on Bob Hope's radio show. Schwartz eventually began penning jokes, and Hope liked them enough to hire him.

"I made a quick career change," Schwartz said in 2008 when he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

After four years with Hope, Schwartz worked for the Armed Forces Radio Service for four years, writing various Army shows like Command Performance and Mail Call, working with major stars.

Following the end of World War II, Schwartz returned to writing for radio on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as well as shows starring Danny Thomas and Alan Young.

Schwartz turned to television in the 1950s, writing for I Married Joan and The Red Skelton Show, winning an Emmy for the latter in 1961.

In 1963, Schwartz created Gilligan's Island, a comedy based "on a very serious idea -- that we have to learn to get along with each other, whether we're rich or whether we're poor, or whether we're intellectual," Schwartz told City News Service in an interview.

"I was searching for a way to say that in comedy terms," Schwartz said. "I worked a long time to try find a way that people couldn't get away from each other until I thought of an island."

Schwartz and then-CBS President James Aubrey often clashed while Gilligan's Island was in development. Eventually, its famous theme, The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle, helped it overcome Aubrey's objections and get it on CBS' 1964-65 schedule.

Gilligan's Island ran for three seasons and was canceled in 1967 because CBS needed room on its schedule for Gunsmoke, a favorite of the wife of network chairman William S. Paley, Schwartz said.

Reruns of Gilligan's Island have run in syndication even since and spawned three made-for-television reunion movies, and even an unscripted version in 2004, The Real Gilligan's Island.

In the late 1960s, Schwartz read a Los Angeles Times story that said about 30 percent of all marriages included a child or children from a previous marriage. The story prompted Schwartz to create television's first comedy about a blended family, The Brady Bunch, for which he also wrote a memorable theme song.

The Brady Bunch ran on ABC from 1969-74, and like Gilligan's Island, its reruns have aired ever since in syndication and spawned spinoffs -- including the television series The Brady Brides and The Bradys, the movies The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel, and the made-for-television movie The Brady Bunch in the White House.

When reruns of The Brady Bunch went into syndication in the mid-1970s, they would often be run back-to-back with Gilligan's Island in the afternoons after school let out.

"I get letter after letter saying 'I don't know how I could have gotten through my teenage years without your shows," Schwartz said.

His son and producing partner, Lloyd Schwartz, told the website The Wrap that his father remained dedicated to his work throughout his life.

"He had a lot of favorite projects and a lot of favorite shows, and his favorite one was always the next one," he told the website. "He didn't really die. He just ran out of time to do things."

Schwartz is survived by his wife, Mildred; and sons Donald, Lloyd and Ross and daughter Hope Juber.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Choreographer Tony Stevens Dies at 63

Dancer, choreographer and director Tony Stevens, who worked with Bob Fosse and Michael Bennett and epitomized the life of a Broadway "gyspy," has died. He was 63. The cause was Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Mr. Stevens danced in several Broadway shows—including the nostalgic 1970s productions of The Boyfriend and Irene—before graduating to choreography. He was assistant choreographer on the original production of Bob Fosse's Chicago, and then co-choreographer with Gower Champion on Rockabye Hamlet in 1976. He was put fully in charge of the choreography on Rachel Lily Rosenbloom and Don't You Ever Forget It, but the 1973 Broadway musical failed to officially open.

He choreographed the Frank Loesser revue Perfectly Frank in 1980. A graduation to directing did not turn out well when the musical Wind in the Willows folded in four performances in 1985.

In 2005, Mr. Stevens helped reproduce some of Fosse's choreography in Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life. "A huge part of me has left…gone to light the heavens for us as he did on earth," said Rivera. "I carry Tony with me. I always have and always will. My god how I will miss him."

For all his various credits over the decades, Mr. Stevens' greatest claim to fame was the supporting role he played in providing the spark for one of Broadway's landmark musicals. In 1974 he and another dancer, Michon Peacock, organized a series of taped workshop sessions in which dancers confessed their life stories and feelings about their professions. At some point, Michael Bennett was invited to sit in as an observer. That taped material eventually led directly to the text and subject matter of A Chorus Line.

Mr. Stevens also found work in film, providing footwork for the movies "The Great Gatsby," "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," "Johnny Dangerously" and "She's Having a Baby." He also performed in the movie "Tommy."

He also was the director and choreographer of the Off-Broadway show Sheba, choreographed the Off-Broadway productions of Zombie Prom and Body Shop, and earned a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for his choreography of The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged). Tony Stevens made his Broadway debut as a dancer in the 1969 show The Fig Leaves Are Falling. He had roles in Billy and Jimmy the same year, and Georgy the next.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Former Yankees pitcher Irabu found dead

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Hideki Irabu, one of the first players to leave the Japanese leagues for the Major Leagues and who famously drew the ire of George Steinbrenner during his three seasons with the Yankees, was found dead Wednesday.

"He was found dead by an apparent suicide," Sgt. Michael Arriaga of the Los Angeles County Sherriff's Department told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Irabu, 42, was found in a home in the Los Angeles suburb of Rancho Palos Verdes. He lived in Rancho Palos Verdes, Arriaga said, but it was not immediately clear whether it was his home.

Hideki Irabu signed a four-year, $12.8 million contract with the Yankees in 1997. He went 29-20 for them in three years. (AP)

"We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Hideki Irabu. Every player that wears the pinstripes is forever a part of the Yankees family, and his death is felt throughout our organization," read a statement issued by the Yankees. "Our sympathies and support go out to his wife, Kyonsu, his two children, and all of his friends and loved ones."

The right-handed pitcher, renowned as a strikeout pitcher with a fastball in the upper-90s during his nine seasons, 1988-96, in Japan's Pacific League, signed a four-year, $12.8 million contract with the Yankees in May 1997 after forcing a trade from the Padres, who had purchased his rights from the Chiba Lotte Marines.

Irabu refused to join San Diego, saying he would only play for the Yankees. Those events led to the creation of the posting system currently utilized by Japanese players who wish to move to the Major Leagues before being eligible for free agency.

Though he went 24-16 in 1998-99, his two full seasons with the Yankees, Irabu was an enigmatic figure because of his actions, weight issues and inconsistencies on the field and off, as well as the high expectations of him based on his success in Japan.

When he failed to cover first base on a ground ball during a Spring Training game in 1999, an angered Steinbrenner called him a "fat toad" and refused to let him go with the team to Los Angeles for its final exhibition games. The Yankees owner later relented.

Irabu was the subject of a comedic line in the final episode of "Seinfeld" in 1998. As Steinbrenner's character is testifying on a witness stand, Frank Costanza, played by Jerry Stiller, stands up and shouts, "How could you spend $12 million on Hideki Irabu?"

Irabu pitched in only one postseason game for the Yankees, who won the World Series in 1998-99, allowing eight runs in 4 2/3 relief innings in a 13-1 loss to the Red Sox in the 1999 American League Championship Series. It was his last appearance for the Yankees, who traded him to the Expos after the season.

He made only 11 starts for Montreal in 2000, going 2-5 with a 7.24 ERA, and was released after pitching in only three games in 2001. He finished his Major League career with the Rangers in 2002, pitching in 38 games and recording 16 saves. He returned to Japan and pitched for the Hanshin Tigers in 2003. He pitched for the Long Beach Armada of the independent Golden Baseball League in 2009.

 

[cookiejar]

Very sad to see he passed

Frank Bender, 1941-2011


Frank Bender was an American forensic sculptor whose work - haunting faces in clay - helped identify the forgotten dead and apprehend the fugitive living. He was the best known of the country's handful of forensic sculptors - an unusual craft that stands at the nexus of art, crime, science and intuition.

Almost entirely self-taught, he never anticipated a career in forensic sculpture. Who, after all, envisions a life in which skulls, sent by hopeful law enforcement agencies, arrive periodically in the mail? (Usually the skulls had been cleaned, though not always, and luncheon visitors to Bender's home-cum-studio occasionally arrived to find one bubbling away in a pot on the stove.)

Of the 40 or so heads he sculpted over the years, most were designed to identify murder victims for whom DNA, dental records and fingerprints had come up empty.

In these cases, Bender endeavoured to turn back time, using victims' skulls to render their faces as they might have looked in life. A ''recomposer of the decomposed'' is what he called himself - quite cheerily - on his answering machine.

It was not the money that spurred Bender: he charged about $US1700 for a sculpted head and typically made only a few a year. Between assignments, he was a fine-art painter and sculptor and held various jobs, including working on a tugboat.

Francis Augustus Bender was born in Philadelphia on June 16, 1941. After serving in the navy, he embarked on a career as a photographer.

In the 1970s, Bender took night classes in painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The academy offered no anatomy classes at night, so in 1977 he took it upon himself to visit the morgue. There, he saw the body of a woman, shot in the head and unrecognisable.

''I know what she looks like,'' Bender was surprised to hear himself say.

''Do you know anything about forensics?'' a medical examiner asked him.

''I don't even know what the word means,'' he said.

Galvanised, Bender set to work, producing a bust of a woman with a long nose and cleft chin. After a photograph of it appeared in newspapers, she was identified as Anna Duval, a Phoenix woman who had flown East to recoup money from a swindler and wound up dead. Her killer was later identified as a Mob hitman.

Bender's greatest triumph came in 1989, in the case of John List. In 1971, the accountant murdered his mother, wife and three children in their New Jersey home. He then vanished.

Eighteen years later, the television show America's Most Wanted commissioned a bust from Bender for a segment on List. Working from an old photograph, he created a balding, jowly figure. In a stroke of inspiration - or perhaps luck - Bender added glasses with thick black rims, the kind he felt a straitlaced man such as List would wear.

A woman watching the broadcast in Virginia thought she recognised her neighbour, named Robert Clark, a balding, jowly accountant with thick black glasses.

Clark was arrested and fingerprints confirmed his identity as John List. Convicted and sentenced to five life terms, he died in 2008.

Bender is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Lucian Freud dies at 88; British painter

Lucian Freud, a British artist who gained fame for his intense and deeply textural nude paintings, has died. He was 88.

Freud, the grandson of the pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, died at his home in London following an illness, according to a representative for his New York dealer, William Acquavella.

The artist's best-known works feature subjects in anguished, anti-erotic poses, their psychology externalized onto their fleshy bodies. He liked to use impasto, a technique involving the thick application of paint, to create his highly textured portraits.

"I want paint to work as flesh," he once said. "As far as I am concerned, the paint is the person."

During his long career, Freud made portraits of a number of public figures. He once painted supermodel Kate Moss naked and visibly pregnant. He reportedly engaged in animated negotiations with Buckingham Palace to create his 2001 portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, who sat fully clothed. The royal painting divided the public, with some criticizing it as glum and depressing.

Freud's paintings are highly prized among museums and collectors who have been willing to pay large sums for them. In 2008, his nude portrait of a heavy-set civil servant reclining on a sofa, "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping," sold for $33.6 million at a Christie's auction, a record figure at the time.

"Unlike many artists, his late works were among his most significant contributions," Paul Schimmel, chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, said Thursday. "He got better, more ambitious and youthful. He was a very young elder statesman."

Born in Berlin in 1922, Freud was one of three sons of Austrian architect Ernst Freud and his German wife, Lucie. The family fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and eventually settled in London. Freud became a British citizen in 1939. As a boy, he studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London and the East Anglian School of Drawing and Painting. During World War II, the budding artist served with the British Merchant Navy.

Freud showed an early interest in a kind of portraiture that could strip away artifice and reveal the essence of his subjects. His first paintings were characterized by a spare, flat and emotionally uninflected style.

He gained attention for a series of paintings of his first wife, Kitty Garman, including a portrait titled "Girl with a White Dog," in which she exposes a breast while a canine dozes on her lap.

Though he is often described as a realist, Freud's work contains elements of other schools, including surrealism. One of his biggest influences was the painter Francis Bacon, another titan of the postwar art world, who became Freud's friend and helped to push his work in a more expressionist direction.

By the late '50s, Freud had embarked on what would become his signature style of textured nude paintings.

He often turned his gaze on himself. In several unflattering self-portraits, Freud painted himself in various states of undress, his aging body exposed. He frequently painted friends and close associates, and even created a nude portrait of his daughter Bella, a noted fashion designer.

"He was an extremely brave painter in the way he confronted his figures. He brought a whole new meaning to figurative painting and was extremely influential on the generations that followed," said Gretchen Berggruen, a co-owner of the John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco.

A major exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington in 1987 helped boost Freud's reputation in the United States. In 1993 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York held a retrospective of his work.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown L.A. held a retrospective in 2003 that was organized by the Tate Britain. The exhibition featured more than 100 paintings, drawings and prints, as well as new pieces.

"Freud is in reality a fine painter with a very narrow repertoire," Times art critic Christopher Knight wrote in his review of the show. Comparing him to artist Stanley Spencer, an earlier practitioner of nude portraiture, Knight wrote that "Freud's art is rarely so complex, but sometimes it does have the capacity to beguile."

Freud's personal life was a subject of much scrutiny and speculation. After his divorce from Garman, Freud was married for several years to Caroline Blackwood before they divorced. He fathered children from a number of relationships. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.

By some accounts a prickly personality, Freud reportedly did not get along with his brother Clement, the British TV personality who died in 2009.

"In company he was exciting, humble, warm and witty," his art dealer, Acquavella, said in a statement. "He lived to paint and painted until the day he died, far removed from the noise of the art world."

 

[JennyOHill2]

Former NFL Star and 'Police Academy' Actor Bubba Smith Found Dead

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LOS ANGELES – Former NFL star Bubba Smith, who went from feared defensive end on the field to endearing giant in his successful second career as an actor, has died. He was 66.

Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman Ed Winter said Smith was found dead at his Baldwin Hills home. Winter said he didn't know the circumstances or cause of death.

Police spokesman Richard French added the death does not appear to be suspicious.

The top overall pick in the 1967 draft after a sensational career at Michigan State, the 6-foot-7 Smith spent five seasons with the Baltimore Colts and two seasons each with Oakland and Houston. He won the 1971 Super Bowl with the Colts.

One of the best pass rushers in the game, Smith often drew two blockers, yet was effective enough to make two Pro Bowls and one All-Pro team. His best work, though, came in college, and Smith was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 1988.

As an actor his most memorable role was playing Moses Hightower, the soft-spoken officer in the "Police Academy" series. He also appeared in such television series as "Good Times," "Charlie's Angels," and "Half Nelson," and was a regular in the ground-breaking Miller Lite commercials featuring retired players.

Born Charles Aaron Smith, he played in high school for his father, Willie Ray Smith, in Beaumont, Texas, before heading to Michigan State, where he was an All-American in 1966.

At Michigan State he played on some of the school's greatest teams under coach Duffy Daugherty and was one of its best players. Fans in East Lansing, Mich., would chant, "Kill, Bubba, Kill" during games and his No. 95 jersey was retired in 2006.

Smith was part of two of the most famous football games ever played. In 1966, he was at Michigan State when the Spartans and Notre Dame, both undefeated, played to a 10-10 tie. Michigan State finished second behind the top-ranked Fighting Irish that season.

In 1965 and '66, Smith helped Michigan State go 19-1-1 and win consecutive Big Ten titles.

"Bubba was definitely a game changer as a defensive end," former Michigan State teammate Gene Washington said. "You simply didn't see guys with his size and quickness coming off the defensive line. His ability spoke for itself. He was a great teammate and a great leader. Bubba never had to say much because he led by example."

In 1969, Smith played for the Colts against the New York Jets in the Super Bowl. Led by Joe Namath, the Jets of the AFL upset the NFL champion Colts 16-7 in Miami.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Christopher "Chip" Mayer

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Christopher "Chip" Mayer, a television star from the 70s and 80s, died suddenly. He was 57 years old. Mayer was best known for his work on the classic television series, The Dukes Of Hazzard, where he played Vance Duke. Mayer appeared on the show for one season, and was fired after the original stars of the show, Top Wopat and John Schneider, returned after a contract dispute.

Mayer reprised his Vince Duke character in a cartoon series called The Dukes and soon, followed that up with work in the 1980 as a soap opera actor. He appeared on 134 episodes of the long-running daytime serial, Santa Barbara as T.J.

He acted in the television versions of the films Glitter, Weird Science, Silk Stalkings and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as well as starring in the films Survivor, East Meets West, Hard Time, The Hunted and Liar Liar.

Hailing from New York, Mayer was raised in Ridgewood, New Jersey, the oldest of seven children. He graduated from Colgate University with a degree in business and initially studied acting in his spare time. After winning several auditions, he decided to devote himself to acting full time.

Mayer was married three times, to actress Teri Copley, Eileen Davidson and Shauna Sullivan. He is the father of three girls, Ashley, Alexandra and Angelica.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Dan Peek of rock band America dies at 60

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Dan Peek, an original member of the rock band America who later forsook the group for a life in Christian music, died at his home in Farmington, Mo. He was 60.

Peek died in his sleep, his wife, Catherine, said. The cause is not yet known.

Formed in the late 1960s, America was known for its lush, melodic folk-rock sound and the tight vocal harmonies supplied by its members, Peek, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell. Peek, who sang lead and backup vocals, also played guitar, bass, keyboards and harmonica.

The band’s best-known songs during his tenure include its two biggest hits, “A Horse with No Name” and “Ventura Highway,” both written by Bunnell; “Sister Golden Hair,” by Beckley; and “Lonely People,” by Peek. Peek also wrote “Woman Tonight” and “Don’t Cross the River” for the band.

After leaving America in 1977, Peek recorded Christian pop, including the successful solo album “All Things Are Possible,” released in 1979. In recent years, he lived in somewhat reclusive semi-retirement while continuing to write songs.

Daniel Milton Peek was born in Panama City, Fla., on Nov. 1, 1950. His father was an Air Force officer, and Dan spent his childhood all over the United States, and in Greenland, Japan and Pakistan.

When he was a teenager, a new posting took the family to England. It was there, in a London high school, that he met the young Beckley and Bunnell, also children of U.S. military fathers.

The three began singing together in various permutations, under various names. They dissolved briefly when Peek returned to the United States to attend Old Dominion University, but joined forces again when he came back to London a year later. They called themselves, nostalgically, America.

“We wanted to set ourselves apart and not be seen as English guys trying to do American music, but instead accentuate that we were an American band,” Peek told The Jerusalem Post last year.

The group’s self-titled debut album was released in Britain in 1971 and in the United States by Warner Brothers the next year.

The band won a Grammy Award in 1973 as best new artist. A string of successful albums followed, including “Homecoming,” “Holiday,” “Hearts” and “Hideaway.” Many were produced by George Martin, who produced many of the Beatles’ records.

As Peek later recalled, those early years passed in a blur of airplanes and limousines, wealth, drugs and alcohol.

“Sex, drugs and rock 'n’ roll; it was the whole cornucopia of fleshly material,” he said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network show “The 700 Club.” “I tried everything. I tasted every possible thing. I had a spiritual compass, but I abandoned it completely.”

In 1977, distraught at the turn his life had taken, Peek became a born-again Christian. He renounced drugs and alcohol and left the band. He signed with Lamb & Lion Records, a label founded by Pat Boone, for which he recorded “All Things Are Possible.” His other albums of religious music include “Electro Voice,” “Cross Over” and “Caribbean Christmas.” (Peek and his wife lived in the Cayman Islands for many years.)

Peek is survived by his wife, the former Catherine Maberry, whom he married in 1973 (he met her, too, during his high school days in London); his parents, Milton and Gerri; and five siblings, Tom, Deborah, Rebecca, David and Angela.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Francesco Quinn, Actor in ‘Platoon,’ Dies at 48

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Francesco Quinn, a television and film actor who appeared in Oliver Stone’s searing 1986 Vietnam War film, “Platoon,”, died in Malibu, Calif. The son of the actor Anthony Quinn, he was 48.

Mr. Quinn collapsed on a street near his home, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said. His agent, Arlene Thornton, said the cause was believed to be a heart attack.

Mr. Quinn was perhaps best known for his supporting role in “Platoon” as Rhah, a raspy-voiced character who takes heroin from dead Vietnamese and tries to help new recruits in their first big battle.

In “The Tonto Woman,” a Western based on an Elmore Leonard story that became a 2008 Academy Award nominee for best live-action short, Mr. Quinn played a Mexican gunslinger.

Mr. Quinn’s television credits include guest roles on “Criminal Minds,” “ER,” “CSI: Miami,” “JAG,” “24” and “The Shield.” In 1990, he played a young Santiago, the fisherman, in the television adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea.” The old Santiago was played by his father, who died in 2001. Mr. Quinn also appeared in the CBS soap opera “The Young and the Restless” from 1999 to 2001.

Francesco Daniele Quinn was born in Rome on March 22, 1963. His mother was Jolanda Addolori, an Italian wardrobe assistant whom his father met on the set of the movie “Barabbas” and later married. Francesco Quinn is survived by his wife, the former Valentina Castellani; and three children. His first marriage ended in divorce.

 

[Denae]

Nick Ashford of Motown songwriting team Ashford & Simpson dies at age 70

Nick Ashford, one-half of the legendary Motown songwriting duo Ashford & Simpson that penned elegant, soulful classics for the likes of Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye and funk hits for Chaka Khan and others, died Monday at age 70.

Ashford, who along with wife Valerie Simpson wrote some of Motown’s biggest hits, died in a New York City hospital, said his former publicist Liz Rosenberg, who also was Ashford’s longtime friend. He had been suffering from throat cancer and had undergone radiation treatment, she said.

Though they had some of their greatest success at Motown with classics like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Reach Out And Touch Somebody’s Hand” by Ross and “You’re All I Need To Get By” by Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Ashford & Simpson also created classics for others, like the anthem “I’m Every Woman” by Khan (later remade by Whitney Houston).

They also had success writing for themselves: Perhaps the biggest known hit sung by them was the 1980s hit “Solid As A Rock.”

Ashford and Simpson’s relationship stretched more than four decades. They met in 1964 in a New York City church. Mr. Ashford, a South Carolina native, had come to the city to pursue a dance career; Ms. Simpson was a music student. After connecting with each other, they decided to start to write songs together.

Their first major success occurred when they came up with “Let’s Go Get Stoned” for Ray Charles. Soon, they came to the attention of Motown Records and began penning hits for their artists. They started out writing for Gaye and Terrell; in fact, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” was originally their hit, until Ross later rerecorded it and made it her signature song.

The duo, who were married for 38 years, also had success as their own entity, but despite “Solid As a Rock,” their hits dwarfed those that they penned for others.

In recent years, the pair continued to perform. They also were owners of the New York City restaurant Sugar Bar, where many top names and emerging talents would put on showcases.

Ashford is survived by his wife and two daughters.

 

[Super-Surprise]

Jack Layton

 

[JennyOHill2]

Hockey star Wade Belak dead at 35

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Wade Belak, an NHL hockey star who, after retiring this past March, was due to appear in the upcoming season of the CBC’s Battle of the Blades, was found dead in a Toronto condo today (August 31).

Belak played with five teams over the course of his 15-season career with the NHL, including the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Calgary Flames and most recently, the Nashville Predators. The CBC announced his participation as part of the cast for the upcoming season of Blades just over a week ago. The third season of the ice skating competition series is slated to begin on September 18; a CBC spokesperson has told the Toronto Sun that the premiere date has not been changed.

It’s shaping up to be a truly tragic off-season for the NHL, with Belak being the third player to have passed on in less than four months. New York Ranger Derek Boogaard died from what was ruled to be an accidental overdose of alcohol and the painkiller oxycodone, while former Vancouver Canuck Rick Rypien was found dead earlier this month, in what the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has termed as a “non-suspicious” death.

Belak was married, and had two children.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Jani Lane, Heavy-Metal Lead Singer, Dies at 47

Jani Lane, the flaxen-haired former lead singer for the heavy metal band Warrant who wrote its 1990 hit “Cherry Pie" and other anthems, was found dead in a hotel room near his home in Los Angeles. He was 47.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said it had not yet determined a cause, but Mr. Lane’s manager, Obi Steinman, said the death was alcohol-related. Mr. Lane had struggled with alcohol, he said.

Warrant exemplified the hair metal scene of the late 1980s and early ’90s, and Mr. Lane was its keening frontman. The band’s first album, “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich,” went double platinum after its release in 1989 on the strength of power-chord-heavy tracks like “Down Boys" and saccharine ballads like “Heaven,” both written by Mr. Lane.

Warrant is probably best known for the title track on 1990’s “Cherry Pie,” which also went double platinum, selling more than two million copies. The song, a campy, misogynistic tale of a sexual liaison interrupted by a livid father, still resonates with fans today, as does its accompanying video featuring a scantily clad model.

Mr. Lane, however, had mixed feelings about the song. He wrote it in one night after the president of Columbia Records asked him for a song like Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator.”

“I could shoot myself in the head for writing that song,” he said on the VH1 documentary “Heavy: The Story of Metal,” inserting a bleeped expletive.

But he later said in a radio interview in Kalamazoo, Mich., that he was “happy as a clam to have written a song that is still being played and still dug by so many people.”

Mr. Lane was born John Kennedy Oswald on Feb. 1, 1964 in Akron, Ohio. (His parents named him after President John F. Kennedy, undeterred by the fact that they shared the last name of the suspect in the assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald.) Mr. Lane wrote on his Web site that his parents soon changed his name to John Patrick.

Mr. Lane got his first drum kit at age 6, began playing in clubs at 11 and was performing professionally in a band by 15 while also playing the guitar and piano as well as sports in high school. After high school he moved to Florida, played drums and sang with a cover band. In 1985 he moved to Los Angeles, where he formed a band called Plain Jane and became its lead singer, adopting the name Jani Lane. Plain Jane opened for acts like Guns ’n’ Roses but never got a record deal. He joined Warrant after its founder, Erik Turner, asked him to rehearse with the band.

Mr. Lane left the band in 2003 and released a solo album, “Back Down to One,” then played off and on with the band in subsequent years.

His first two marriages ended in divorce. His first wife was Bobbie Brown, the model who performed in the “Cherry Pie” video.

He is survived by his wife, Kimberly; a brother, Eric; three sisters, Marcine Williams, Michelle Robinson and Victoria Oswald; a daughter from his first marriage, Taylar Lane; a daughter from his second marriage, Madison Lane; and two stepdaughters, Ryan and Brittany.

 

[JennyOHill2]

'Jimmy Kimmel' mourns the loss of 'Uncle Frank'

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Jimmy Kimmel's “Uncle Frank” Potenza has passed away at the age of 77, ABC confirms to CNN.

Kimmel’s uncle was a security guard for the show and contributed "great moments" on-air for nine years.

“It is with great sadness that the staff and crew of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ mourn the loss of ‘Uncle Frank’ Potenza,” the show says in a statement. “He was beloved by his co-workers and considered an Uncle to all.” Potenza was a Korean War veteran who served 20 years as a New York City police officer. He worked for 20 years as a security guard at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and five years at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York before joining Kimmel’s talk show in 2003.

“Uncle Frank” leaves behind his three daughters, as well as newborn granddaughter Franki. “His kindness and humor will be missed by everyone he touched,” says a rep for the show.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Ex-NHLers killed in Russian jet crash

Stunned Rangers react to loss of former NHL teammates, friends in Russia plane crash tragedyBY Jesse Spector
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

The plane carrying the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team of the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia crashed on takeoff Wednesday morning, killing 43 of 45 on board and shaking the hockey world to its core.

Among the dead were Alexander Karpovtsev - who was on the Rangers' Stanley Cup-winning team in 1994 and had become an assistant coach with Lokomotiv - former Blueshirts defenseman Karel Rachunek and three-time NHL All-Star Pavol Demitra.

"(Karpovtsev) was a fun-loving individual, who was also a very skilled and talented hockey player," said Mike Keenan, coach of the '94 Rangers. "He made some valuable contributions to our success. He always had a smile on his face and laughed a lot."

The thought of a team jet going down is the nightmare of every sports organization, and Wednesday's tragedy hit home for Rangers center Artem Anisimov, who is from Yaroslavl and came up through the Lokomotiv youth system.

Anisimov was drafted by the Rangers in 2006 and played for Lokomotiv through the 2006-07 season. He was at the Rangers' practice rink Wednesday as several players had begun skating to prepare for training camp, but did not take the ice.

"I know these people, half the team," Anisimov said. "Young guys, we've grown up together, you know. In Russia, they have school - it's one organization, Yaroslavl. You go to the hockey school growing up, play with the second team and then you grow up and play with the first team, so a bunch of young guys I know, and the medical staff, all the staff, I know, too. So sad."

"I feel like - it can't happen," Anisimov continued. "I don't want to believe it. The news says plane crash, and I feel sick. I feel bad. Sitting in traffic coming here, I felt terrible."

Anisimov was clearly moved by the death of Alexander Vasyunov, who played with the Devils last season and had returned to Russia.

"We grew up together and played together," Anisimov said.

Henrik Lundqvist put his head in his hands when he learned that it was Lokomotiv's plane that had gone down. The Rangers star goalie played on the Swedish national team with Stefan Liv, who was on the plane. Lundqvist is one of a few Rangers holdovers from the 2006-07 season, Rachunek's last on Broadway, while newly signed forward Mike Rupp played with the Czech blueliner on the Devils.

"It's one of those things that, we're playing a sport, but anytime there's a life lost, that's something way bigger than anything we're doing on the field or ice," said Rupp, who called Rachunek a "quiet guy with a good sense of humor."

 

[Johnny_Ray_Wilson]

Cliff Robertson dies at 88.

NEW YORK (AP) — Cliff Robertson, the handsome movie actor who played John F. Kennedy in "PT-109," won an Oscar for "Charly" and was famously victimized in a 1977 Hollywood forgery scandal, died Saturday. He was 88.

His secretary of 53 years, Evelyn Christel, said he died in Stony Brook of natural causes a day after his 88th birthday.

Robertson never elevated into the top ranks of leading men, but he remained a popular actor from the mid-1950s into the following century. His later roles included kindly Uncle Ben in the "Spider-Man" movies.

He also gained attention for his second marriage to actress and heiress Dina Merrill, daughter of financier E.F. Hutton and Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress to the Post cereal fortune and one of the world's richest women.

His triumph came in 1968 with his Academy Award performance in "Charly," as a mentally disabled man who undergoes medical treatment that makes him a genius — until a poignant regression to his former state.

"My father was a loving father, devoted friend, dedicated professional and honorable man," daughter Stephanie Saunders said in a statement. "He stood by his family, friends, and colleagues through good times and bad. He made a difference in all our lives and made our world a better place. We will all miss him terribly."

Robertson had created a string of impressive performances in television and on Broadway, but always saw his role played in films by bigger names. His TV performances in "Days of Wine and Roses" and "The Hustler," for example, were filmed with Jack Lemmon and Paul Newman, respectively. Robertson's role in Tennessee Williams' play "Orpheus Descending" was awarded to Marlon Brando in the movie.

Robertson first appeared in the "Charly" story in a TV version, "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon." Both were based on "Flowers for Algernon," a short story that author Daniel Keyes later revised into a novel. Robertson was determined that this time the big-screen role would not go to another actor.

"I bought the movie rights to the show, and I tried for eight years to persuade a studio to make it," he said in 1968. "Finally I found a new company, ABC Films. I owned 50 percent of the gross, but I gave half of it to Ralph Nelson to direct."

Critic Roger Ebert called Robertson's portrayal "a sensitive, believable one." The motion picture academy agreed, though Robertson was unable to get a break from an overseas movie shoot and was not on hand when his Oscar was announced.

Another memorable movie role, portraying future President Kennedy in the World War II drama "PT-109," presented other challenges.

Released in 1963, it was the first movie to be made about a sitting president, and dozens of actors were considered. Kennedy himself favored Robertson, but he warned him he didn't want someone trying to imitate his distinctive New England accent.

"That was fine with me," the actor commented in 1963. "I think it would have been a mistake for me to say 'Hahvahd' or try to reproduce gestures. Then the audience would have been constantly aware that an actor was impersonating the president."

He added that the film obviously couldn't be done with heroics, "like Errol Flynn gunning down 30 of the enemy. This young naval officer just does things because they have to be done."

After seeing photos of Robertson in costume, Kennedy had one critique: His hair was parted on the wrong side.

The actor dutifully trained his hair to part on the left.

"PT-109" was plagued with problems from the start: script changes, switch of directors, bad weather, snakes and mosquitoes in the Florida Keys where it was filmed.

The troubles were evident on the screen, and critics roundly rapped the film, although Robertson's work won praise.

In 1977, Robertson made the headlines again, this time by blowing the whistle on a Hollywood financial scandal.

He had discovered that David Begelman, president of Columbia Pictures, had forged his signature on a $10,000 salary check, and he called the FBI and the Burbank and Beverly Hills police departments. Hollywood insiders were not happy with the ugly publicity.

"I got phone calls from powerful people who said, 'You've been very fortunate in this business; I'm sure you wouldn't want all this to come to an end,'" Robertson recalled in 1984.

Begelman served time for embezzlement, but he returned to the film business. He committed suicide in 1995.

Robertson said neither the studios nor the networks would hire him for four years.

He supported himself as a spokesman for AT&T until the drought ended in 1981 when he was hired by MGM for "Brainstorm," Natalie Wood's final film.

Born Sept. 9, 1923, in La Jolla, Calif., Robertson was 2 when he was adopted by wealthy parents who named him Clifford Parker Robertson III. After his parents divorced and his mother died, he was reared by his maternal grandmother, whom he adored.

Robertson studied briefly at Antioch College, majoring in journalism, then returned to California and appeared in two small roles in Hollywood movies. Rejected by the services in World War II because of a weak eye, he served in the Merchant Marine.

He set his sights on New York theater, and like dozens of other future stars, profited from the advent of live television drama. His Broadway roles also attracted notice, and after avoiding Hollywood offers for several years, he accepted a contract at Columbia Pictures.

"I think I held the record for the number of times I was on suspension," he remarked in 1969. "I remember once I turned down a B picture, telling the boss, Harry Cohn, I would rather take a suspension. He shouted at me, 'Kid, ya got more guts than brains.' I think old Harry might have been right."

Robertson's first performance for Columbia, "Picnic," was impressive, even though his screen pal, William Holden, stole the girl, Kim Novak. He followed with a tearjerker, "Autumn Leaves," as Joan Crawford's young husband, then a musical, "The Girl Most Likely" with Jane Powell. In 1959 he endeared himself to "Gidget" fans as The Big Kahuna, the mature Malibu surf bum who takes Gidget under his wing.

He remained a busy, versatile leading man through the '60s and '70s, but lacked the intensity of Brando, James Dean and others who brought a new style of acting to the screen.

"I'm not one of the Golden Six," he commented in 1967, referring to the top male stars of that day. "I take what's left over."

"They all know me as a great utility player. 'Good old Cliff,' they say. Someday I'd like to be in there as the starting pitcher."

The chance came with "Charly," but after the usual Oscar flurry, he resumed his utility position.

Robertson had the most success in war movies. His strong presence made him ideal for such films as "The Naked and the Dead," ''Battle of Coral Sea," ''633 Squadron," ''Up From the Beach," ''The Devil's Brigade," ''Too Late the Hero" and "Midway."

He had a passion for flying, and he poured his movie earnings into buying and restoring World War I and II planes. He even entered balloon races, including one in 1964 from the mainland to Catalina Island that ended with him being rescued from the Pacific Ocean.

In 1957, Robertson married Lemmon's ex-wife, Cynthia Stone, and they had a daughter, Stephanie, before splitting in 1960. In 1966, he married Merrill and they had a daughter, Heather. The couple divorced in 1989.

Robertson's funeral is set for Friday in East Hampton.

 

[Johnny_Ray_Wilson]

Kara Kennedy, Ted Kennedy's oldest child, dies at 51.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kara Kennedy became teary-eyed when she accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of her ailing father at a 2009 White House ceremony, but she also managed to smile as Sen. Ted Kennedy's life was honored. After the senator died two weeks later following a battle with brain cancer, his only daughter read a psalm at his funeral Mass in Boston. It was about peace and justice and caring for poor children.

The eldest of the senator's three children, Kara Kennedy died Friday at age 51 after collapsing following her daily workout at a Washington health club. The cause of death wasn't immediately released.

Although she never sought elected office like many in her family, she helped with her father's presidential and Senate campaigns and heeded his call to give back. She worked as a filmmaker and in television and was active in an array of causes from the arts to battling fetal alcohol syndrome.

She herself had been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2002, but underwent surgery the following year that doctors had said was successful.

But her brother, Patrick Kennedy, said her cancer treatment — surgery and grueling chemotherapy and radiation — left her physically weakened.

"Her heart gave out," said Patrick Kennedy, a former Democratic congressman from Rhode Island.

"She's with dad."

In a telephone interview from her Boston home on Saturday, Joan Bennett Kennedy said she and her daughter were "best friends" who liked to take long swims together and walks on the beach. She said her daughter had fully recovered from cancer and didn't have any lingering health issues.

"She was very healthy. That's why this is such a shock," Joan Kennedy said.

Kara Kennedy was a member of the Sport & Health fitness center, though spokeswoman Nancy Terry declined to release further details about the incident, citing member privacy. A spokeswoman for the District of Columbia medical examiner said in an email that the cause of death was pending.

Kennedy's ex-husband, Michael Allen, said she frequently visited the club and went swimming every day if she could. He said details about her death would be released by The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. He said funeral arrangements are being made.

"Insofar as I'm concerned her legacy is one of courage and grit and determination in the face of her own illness and in the face of many family tragedies and limitless, absolutely limitless, devotion to our children," he said.

Kara Kennedy was born in 1960 to Edward and Joan Kennedy, just as her father was on the campaign trail for his brother John F. Kennedy during the presidential primaries.

The late senator wrote of his oldest child in his 2009 memoir, "True Compass," that "I had never seen a more beautiful baby, nor been happier in my life."

Later, she appeared with her father during his unsuccessful 1980 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, and she and her brother Edward Kennedy Jr. helped run the senator's 1988 re-election campaign.

Her lung cancer diagnosis came in 2002, and the prognosis was grim. But the family refused to accept that, the senator wrote. She had an operation in 2003, and Edward Kennedy accompanied his daughter to chemotherapy treatments.

"Kara responded to my exhortations to have faith in herself," he wrote. "Today, nearly seven years later as I write this, Kara is a healthy, vibrant, active mother of two who is flourishing."

Her children, Grace and Max, are now teenagers.

Kara Kennedy's two brothers have dealt with health issues of their own: Edward Kennedy Jr. lost a leg to bone cancer as a child, and Patrick Kennedy had surgery in 1988 to remove a non-cancerous tumor that was pressing against his spine.

"Her magnificent strength in her successful battle with lung cancer was a quiet inspiration to all of us and provided her family and fellow patients with hope," the Edward M. Kennedy Institute said in a news release.

Five months before her death, Kara Kennedy wrote of her father and the institute named in his honor in an article published in The Boston Globe Magazine. She described Christmas 1984, when her father insisted on spending the night helping relief workers feed hungry people in the Ethiopian desert. And how each summer, Ted Kennedy loaded the family into a Winnebago for road trips to hike through historic battlefields and buildings.

"What mattered to my father was not the scale of an accomplishment, but that we did our share to make the world better," she wrote. "That we learned we were part of something larger than ourselves."

In August 2009 Kara Kennedy accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, on behalf of her father. She teared up as the senator's accomplishments were read aloud. She smiled when President Barack Obama, whom Ted Kennedy had endorsed in 2008, put his arm around her shoulder in a comforting way.

Kara Kennedy, a graduate of Tufts University, also helped produce several videos for Very Special Arts, an organization founded by her aunt Jean Kennedy Smith. She also served as a board member for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute; director emerita and national trustee of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; and as a national advisory board member for the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Terry Lierman, the co-founder of NOFAS who knew Kara Kennedy for more than two decades, said she was always positive, even when she was ill, and always available when the organization needed her.

"She was always there, but she was there for the cause and not for her own visibility," Lierman said Saturday. "I always found it so refreshing."

 

[Johnny_Ray_Wilson]

Eleanor Mondale, daughter of ex-Vice President Walter Mondale, dies at 51.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Eleanor Mondale, the vivacious daughter of former Vice President Walter Mondale who carved out her own reputation as an entertainment reporter, radio show host and gossip magnet, has died at her home in Minnesota. She was 51.

Mondale, who had been diagnosed with brain cancer years earlier, died early Saturday, said family spokeswoman Lynda Pedersen said.

In a statement emailed to friends, the former vice president said he and his wife "must report that our wonderful daughter, Eleanor Mondale Poling, after her long and gutsy battle against cancer, went up to heaven last night to be with her angel."

Eleanor Mondale had been off the air at WCCO-AM in Minneapolis since March 19, 2009, when she announced that her brain cancer had returned a second time. She had surgery to remove the tumor Aug. 12, 2009, at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a posting on her CaringBridge website declared the surgery a success.

Mondale, the middle of three children born to Walter and Joan Mondale, stumped for her father in his failed campaign to unseat President Ronald Reagan in 1984. She also made calls in her father's last campaign in 2002, when the former vice president took the ballot slot of Minnesota's U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash just days before the election.

A striking blonde known on the party circuit when she was younger, Eleanor Mondale also attracted gossip. Her dalliance with the late rock musician Warren Zevon was detailed in "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon," a posthumous biography published by Zevon's ex-wife in 2007.

Mondale started as an aspiring actress, with bit parts in television's "Three's Company" and "Dynasty."

She got her start in broadcasting as an entertainment reporter at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis in 1989. She left the station after eight months, when a Twin Cities magazine was about to publish an article called, "Walter and Joan's Wild Child," that quoted her as saying "I like to get wild. But it's not murder, and I don't do drugs." Mondale denied she was forced out of the job, The Star Tribune reported.

After stints at Minneapolis radio station WLOL-FM, on cable television at E! Entertainment and ESPN and network TV on CBS' "This Morning," she returned to Minnesota in 2006 to co-host a weekday morning show on WCCO-AM with Susie Jones.

"I was terrified of her at first," Jones said Saturday. "She was so big, but you talked to her for a minute and you realized she was just as regular as you could expect ... She was uncanny, she was unpredictable. She sparkled. She was gorgeous inside and out."

She added later: "I'm going to miss her so much."

In 2005, Mondale was diagnosed with brain cancer after suffering two seizures during a camping trip. The tumor nearly disappeared after Mondale had chemotherapy and radiation, but her cancer returned in 2008. She underwent surgery and was able to return to WCCO but eventually had to take disability leave to treat the recurrence.

"She would send me texts about how her (cancer) scan was. She had it every six weeks, and she would report how it was and how big it was. She hated that part," said Jones, who visited Mondale on Thursday to say goodbye.

"She fought very hard. She did not want to die. She had a lot of dignity in the end, and died quietly and beautifully."

Mondale was married three times: to Chicago Bears offensive lineman Keith Van Horne, to fellow DJ Greg Thunder and to Twin Cities rock musician Chan Poling of The Suburbs.

Mondale and Poling married in 2005, shortly after her cancer was diagnosed, and lived on a farm near Prior Lake in the southern Twin Cities with miniature horses, cats, chickens, dogs and a cockatoo.

Along with her parents and husband, Mondale is survived by two brothers, Ted and William. Funeral arrangements are pending.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Mary Fickett, a Pillar of ‘All My Children,’ Dies at 83

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Mary Fickett, who acted in theater, film and prime-time television before becoming a legend among followers of the daytime drama “All My Children” as Ruth Martin, a nurse unafraid to speak her mind, died at her home in Callao, Va. She was 83.

The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, her daughter, Bronwyn Congdon, said.

On Broadway Ms. Fickett played Eleanor Roosevelt and replaced Deborah Kerr in “Tea and Sympathy.” She also joined with Harry Reasoner to host a CBS-TV morning news and entertainment show and appeared in a movie with Bing Crosby. But for three decades, she was best known as the pillar of a popular soap opera.

In 1973, she won the first Emmy presented to an actor for daytime drama when her character gave an impassioned speech against the Vietnam War, considered a bold move on conservative daytime TV. She received Emmy nominations as well for an episode in which her son was missing in action and for another in which she was a rape victim.

In the emotional and sexual roller coaster of soap operas, Agnes Nixon, creator of “All My Children,” juggled the conventions of the form with her mission to explore deeper issues from new perspectives. To do this in the context of a fictional small town, Pine Valley, required central characters who would, like the matriarch Ruth, embody stable values.

“There has to be some core around which other people disintegrate and come together again,” Ms. Fickett said in an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 1995. “If the place were in chaos all the time, you wouldn’t have some place to bounce off of. They’ve had problems — Ruth was raped, and she had an affair — but viewers want to believe there is a core.”

Mary Fickett was born in Buffalo on May 23, 1928, and grew up in Bronxville, N.Y. Her father was Homer Fickett, who directed the radio series “Theater Guild on the Air.” She attended Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., and made her theatrical debut on Cape Cod in 1946. She studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater under Sanford Meisner, and joined the Actors Studio, where she studied with Elia Kazan.

In 1951, The Boston Post praised her performance in “The Petrified Forest” at a theater in Falmouth, Mass., saying that she balanced “almost cold self-possession” with “romantic aspirations.”

She first came to the attention of Broadway playgoers and critics in the mid-1950s in Robert Anderson’s “Tea and Sympathy,” for which she won a Theater World Award as a housemaster’s wife at a New England school for boys who becomes attached to a student.

Her next Broadway role was as Eleanor Roosevelt in 1958 in “Sunrise at Campobello,” Dore Schary’s drama about Franklin D. Roosevelt’s adjustment to being stricken by infantile paralysis. She received a Tony nomination for her portrayal.

Brooks Atkinson, writing in The New York Times, described her evocation of Eleanor as “nervous, unkempt, all wife and mother in the beginning, but acquiring a sense of style and decision in the later scenes when she serves as her husband’s prophet.”

Ms. Fickett found steady work in television in the 1950s and ’60s, appearing in “Armstrong Circle Theater,” “Kraft Theater,” “The Untouchables” “Have Gun — Will Travel,” “Naked City” and other series. She also appeared in daytime dramas, including “The Edge of Night.” Her movie work included the 1957 film “Man on Fire,” in which she played Crosby’s ex-wife.

“Calendar,” the morning show with Mr. Reasoner, ran from 1961 to 1963. Ms. Fickett often got the interviews Mr. Reasoner refused, like one with the man who caught the ball Roger Maris hit for his 61st home run.

She was in the first episode of “All My Children” on Jan. 5, 1970, and continued regularly until 1996, when she left to take care of her sick husband, Allen Fristoe. She returned in 2000 to appear in occasional episodes.

Ms. Fickett’s first two marriages, to James Congdon and Jay Leonard Scheer, ended in divorce. Mr. Fristoe died in 2008. In addition to his daughter, she is survived by her son, Kenyon Congdon; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

ABC has canceled “All My Children,” because of what it calls “changing viewing patterns.” The last episode will be shown on Sept. 23. The network will dedicate the Sept. 21 episode to Ms. Fickett.

 

[Johnny_Ray_Wilson]

Orlando Brown. Found dead at 40.

Former offensive tackle Orlando Brown found dead at 40
By Doug Farrar
Orlando "Zeus" Brown, a 6-foot-7 offensive tackle who played for the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens in a career that lasted from 1994 through 2005, was recently found dead in his Baltimore condominium. The Ravens confirmed the news on Friday. The cause of death has not been announced.

"We send our condolences to the family of Orlando Brown," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said after Friday practice. "Everybody knew what he meant to this organization. We're forever grateful for what he did for the present team. We can't express enough sorrow for his loss."

"Zeus was just one of those characters," linebacker Jarret Johnson(notes) told the Carroll County Times. "Huge to this organization. He came over with this team from the Browns, so a lot of people in the facility know him. Just devastating news. Zeus was one of the guys who came around a lot. He'd just come hang out in the training room, come hang out back in the equipment room. Just can't say enough about the guy. Just such a terrible loss."

Brown's football career came with one notable hiccup in the middle. In 1999, he was hit in the eye with a penalty flag thrown by official Jeff Triplette during a Browns game. Brown left the field, came back on the field, and shoved Triplette. He was suspended by the league until it was discovered that the thrown flag caused Brown to suffer temporary blindness in one eye.

Brown filed a $200 million lawsuit against the NFL, claiming that his career was prematurely shortened. He eventually came to a settlement in 2002 that brought him at least $15 million. That settlement was based on the contingency that if he ever came back to the NFL, the league would receive half of his after-tax football income up to $1 million per season.

Brown did come back, signing with the Baltimore Ravens in 2003 and starting 34 games before his retirement in 2005. The NFL sued Brown in 2004 with the claim that he ignored requests to pay back the money.

Ravens director of player development Harry Swayne, who played with Brown, was particularly affected. "We just found out before the end of practice," Swayne said on Friday. "We were close friends. It's tough, it's tough. I talked to him a month ago and told him, 'Zeus, you didn't have to block half the people you played against because they were scared of you.'

"He was a puppy dog, a big old puppy dog with a little bit of a bark. He had a lot of friends around the league. He was one of the best guys. It's a tough loss."

"This is a sad day," said safety Ed Reed(notes). "Zeus was a fire-starter. He would get us going [with his energy] at practices, in training camp and in games."

"He was the original Raven," added linebacker Ray Lewis(notes). "He set the tone for how we were going to play -- tough and physical, backing down from no opponent."

Bill Belichick, who drafted Brown as Cleveland's head coach in 1994 and coached him for two seasons, had this to say:

"I am extremely shocked and saddened to hear the news about Orlando Brown. Orlando improved as a player as much as anyone I have ever seen, as he went from being a defensive lineman at South Carolina State to becoming one of the game's top offensive tackles, when he sustained his unfortunate eye injury. Orlando was a true throwback player who loved football and was as tough as they come. Without question, Orlando was an integral part of the Browns turnaround during the mid '90s and he will be missed. I offer my deepest condolences to the Brown family."