Dick Tufeld, a longtime radio and TV announcer who intoned
"Danger, Will
Robinson!" as the voice of the Robot in the 1960s science-fiction TV
series "Lost in Space," has died. He was 85.
Tufeld
died Sunday at his home in Studio City while watching the NFL playoffs, his
family said. He had heart disease and had been in declining health since
sustaining a fall last year.
Robert Hegyes, who
played Juan Epstein on '70s sitcom "Welcome
Back, Kotter," died Thursday, the New Jersey
Star-Ledger reports. Hegyes, who died of an
apparent heart attack after suffering chest pains at his Metuchen, N.J., home,
was 60.
Johnny Otis, the "Godfather of Rhythm and Blues," has
died at the age of 90. It's a sad day for the music world, and for me
personally, as I always felt a strong attachment to the man's music.
"Harlem Nocturne," his 1945 big band hit, was (next to "Sing,
Sing, Sing") my favorite song in the repertoire of the swing band I played in
during the 1980s in Boston. I heard a sax player keening those sad notes on the
streets of New York just the other day.
"Willie and the Hand Jive," Otis' 1958 rhythm and blues hit, was a favorite in
the bar bands I played with later. At one point we even named our band after the
song.
Sad news just starting to filter out online that we have lost
gifted cartoonist and master of St Trinians, the great
Ronald Searle.
Bloghorn’s Twitter was saying they were
hearing reports that the famous British cartoonist had passed away, then a
few minutes later
Dan Berry spotted confirmation of his death
on the
BBC news site. Little in the way of details
yet but according to the BBC his daughter Kate told Reuters that he has
“passed away peacefully in his sleep” in a hospital in France at the age of
91 after a short illness, with his family members around him.
Searle's drawings of the chaotic St Trinian's girls'
school inspired a series of films, with the first one being released in 1954
and the latest in 2009.The cartoonist also co-created the Molesworth series
and received a number of awards for his drawings, which appeared in
publications across the world.The cartoonist's name became a trending topic
on Twitter today, with many users paying tribute to the artist.
THE VILLAGES, Fla. (AP) — Singer and actress Kaye Stevens, who
performed with the Rat Pack and was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's "The
Tonight Show," has died at a central Florida hospital. She was 79.
Close friend Gerry Schweitzer confirmed that Stevens died Wednesday at the
Villages Hospital north of Orlando following a battle with breast cancer and
blood clots.
Stevens, a longtime South Florida resident, performed with Rat Pack members
including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop. She also
sang solo at venues like Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and the Plaza Hotel's
Persian Room in New York City.
During the Vietnam War era, Stevens performed for American soldiers in the war
zone with Bob Hope's USO tour.
Cheetah,
the chimpanzee who starred alongside Tarzan in the franchise films of the
early 1930s, died Saturday. He had experienced kidney failure earlier that week,
and was thought to be 80 years old.
Cheetah, also known as Cheetah-Mike, acted as Tarzan's comic sidekick "Cheeta"
and was one of several chimpanzees who appeared in the films of 1932 to 1934,
with Johnny Weissmuller in the starring role.
Doe Avedon
Siegel, 86, a model, actress and young muse for
photographer Richard Avedon, died of pneumonia
Sunday at Encino Hospital Medical Center, said her daughter-in-law Annette
Siegel.
Born April 7, 1925, in Westbury, N.Y., she married Avedon in
1944, when he was just beginning his career. He
photographed her for Harper's Bazaar, and they
divorced after five years.
She made two appearances on Broadway in the late 1940s in "The
Young and Fair" and "My Name Is Aquilon." Among her handful of film roles was
playing a stewardess to John Wayne's courageous co-pilot in the 1954 airplane
drama "The High and the Mighty." She had a few TV roles, including on the
melodramatic 1950s TV series "Big Town."
She left acting to marry director Don Siegel and raise their
family. They later divorced.
Robert Easton dies at 81; Henry Higgins of Hollywood
Robert Easton was a character actor who taught Forest Whitaker to speak like
Idi Amin and worked with Charlton Heston, Anne Hathaway and Robert Duvall.
By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times
December 22, 2011
Robert
Easton, a character actor whose command of a vast array of foreign and
American regional accents led to a flourishing second career as a dialect
coach to Hollywood stars such as
Charlton Heston and
Anne Hathaway, has died. He was 81.
Often called the Henry Higgins of Hollywood, he died of natural causes
Friday at his home in Toluca Lake, said his daughter, Heather Woodruff
Perry.
At 14, he auditioned for a spot on the popular
radio program "Quiz Kids" and toured the country with the cast of child
prodigies. By 18, the lanky, 6-foot-4 teenager was winning parts in Hollywood,
mainly playing country bumpkins because of his thick Texas drawl. He appeared on
"The Burns and Allen Show," "Father Knows Best," "The
Jack Benny Show," "The
Red Skelton Show," "Wagon Train," "Rawhide" and "Gunsmoke."
JOE SIMON, NEARING THE CENTURY MARK,
still sounded like a man energized by the passions of his boyhood.
Simon, that son of upstate New York who grew up inspired by
“Krazy Kat” and “Prince Valiant” and “The Gumps,” waxed thoughtful this past
summer of a career that spanned superheroes and romance comics, satirical humor
and sports cartoons.
Looking back at a legendary career highlighted in part by his
co-creation of Captain America exactly 70 years ago this year, what was Mr.
Simon most amazed at when considering his breadth of creative output?
“What astonishes me is that I’m still here to look back!”
Simon told Comic Riffs with characteristic wit. “But yes, I’m amazed and
grateful for all of the things I had the opportunity to try, and am still
getting to do.”
There wasn’t much that Simon had left undone professionally as
word spread Thursday that he had died in New York after a brief illness. He was
98.
Howard Tate, the Georgia-born and Philadelphia-raised singer
who dropped out of the music business in frustration after the often-brilliant
albums he made in the late 1960s and early 1970s failed to reach a wide
audience, died Friday in Burlington, New Jersey.
The 72 year old soul singer, who died of multiple myeloma and
leukemia according to Rolling Stone, returned to recording and performing in the
2000s after a chance encounter in a South Jersey supermarket led to his
rediscovery.
Working with Philadelphia producer and songwriter Jerry
Ragovoy, Tate recorded one undeniable classic album: Get It While You Can,
a 1966 release on Verve whose title track became much better known when sung by
Janis Joplin.
With agile phrasing and a keen falsetto, Tate’s voice bears a
resemblance to Al Green’s. But on cuts like “Look At Granny Run Run” (covered by
Ry Cooder) and “Stop” (recorded by Jimi Hendrix) and Ain’t Nobody Home (later
done by both B.B. King and Bonnie Raitt), Ragovoy skillfully took Tate’s down
home sound uptown, with sophisticated urban production.
Neither his debut nor the subsequent Reaction (1969)
and Howard Tate (1972) earned him a wide audience, and Tate, who had
sung with organist Bill Doggett and his fellow North Philadelphia soul man
Garnet Mimms (in the doo-wop group The Gainors) early in his career, wound up
disappearing from the music business altogether, with his absence making his
legend grow stronger.
Harry Morgan has died,
and if his name didn’t register at first when you saw the headline, try thinking
instead of Col. Potter on “M*A*S*H.” Or Detective Gannon on “Dragnet.” Or the
judge in “Inherit the Wind.” Or any of a hundred other roles he inhabited in a
long career. He was 96, and he died at home in Los Angeles.
He made his first film appearance in 1942 (“To the Shores of
Tripoli”) and was still working in 1999. He appeared in “High Noon,” “You Can’t
Take It With You” and “3rd Rock From the Sun.” In his early career he mostly did
Westerns, in supporting roles to such stars as Henry Fonda, John Wayne and Gary
Cooper.
But in his time, he was perhaps the best-known commanding
officer in America, as Col. Sherman T. Potter of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical
Hospital unit in the Korean War. He played the role on “M*A*S*H” from 1975 to
1983, trying to keep the likes of Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) and Hot Lips
Houlihan (Loretta Swit) in line. He played Col. Potter with a dry wit, a firm
but kindly man in charge.
Bill
McKinney -- who starred in the famous "Squeal
like a pig" scene in "Deliverance" (below) --
has died after a battle with lung cancer.
McKinney's Facebook page contains a
statement ... reading, "Today our dear Bill McKinney passed away at Valley
Presbyterian Hospice."
The statement continues, "An avid smoker for 25 years of his younger life, he
died of cancer of the esophagus. He was
80 and still strong enough to have filmed a Doritos
commercial 2 weeks prior to his passing,
and he continued to work on his biography with his writing partner."
Aside from playing the crazy, rapist Mountain Man in "Deliverance" -- he also
starred in 7 Clint Eastwood flicks ... including "The
Outlaw Josey Wales."
Scoop is
saddened to report the passing of one of the truly legendary figures of the
comic arts, Jerry Robinson, creator of The Joker and Robin, editorial
cartoonist, syndicate chief, and so much more. A vital, driving force on many
fronts including creator rights, his is a diverse and simply amazing legacy.
Maverick British director Ken Russell
died in his sleep Sunday at age 84. Russell’s controversial films included the
Oliver Reed-Vanessa Redgrave starrer The Devils; Women In Love; and
Tommy, the screen version of The Who’s rock opera. In the U.S., he directed
the psychedelic Altered States, but his collaboration with equally
strong-willed screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky haunted that film, and the failure of
his next film, Crimes Of Passion, sent him back to the UK. There, he
continued making films, the last of which was The Fall
Of The Louse Of Usher.
Anne McCaffrey, Author of
‘Dragonriders’ Fantasies, Dies at 85
Anne McCaffrey, a science-fiction writer widely
known as the Dragon Lady for her best-selling series of young-adult novels,
“Dragonriders of Pern,” died on Monday in County Wicklow, Ireland. She was 85.
The cause was a stroke, her publisher, Random House, told The
Associated Press. Ms. McCaffrey, who had lived in Ireland since the 1970s, died
at her home, Dragonhold — so named, she liked to say, because it had been paid
for by dragons.
The author of scores of books in a spate of different series,
Ms. McCaffrey was indisputably best known for “Dragonriders,” written over four
decades and comprising more than 20 novels.
That series, which is notable for marrying elements of fantasy
to pure science fiction, takes place on the planet Pern, which Earthlings have
settled. A utopian idyll at first, Pern has degenerated, after centuries of
human habitation, into a tense feudal society.
Andrea True, the
disco star who had such hits as 'More More More' and 'What's Your Name,
What's Your Number,'
died Nov. 7 in a Kingston, N.Y. hospital,
the Daily Freeman reports. The Gilpatric-VanVliet Funeral Home, which
handled the arrangements, announced her passing with an obituary notice. The
68-year-old's cause of death was not released.
Born in Nashville, True -- real name Andrea Marie Truden -- moved to New
York City as a teenager to pursue a career in acting. After getting small
parts in films such as 'The
Way We Were' and '40
Carats,' True
turned to pornography and became a leading
lady in the industry, appearing in movies like 'Deep Throat Part II' and
'Lady on the Couch.'
Her singing career was launched thanks to a few twists of fate. After
shooting a commercial in Jamaica in 1975, True was unable to leave the
island with the money she had earned, thanks to the country's rampant
political instability. Rather than fork over her pay, True enlisted a record
producer to help her record a song so she could leave with the master tape
and, in effect, keep her money. True put her vocals on the instrumental
track and thus 'More More More' was born.
"Karl Slover, one of the last surviving actors
who played Munchkins in the 1939 classic film, The Wizard of Oz, has died. He
was 93. The 4-foot-5 Slover died of cardiopulmonary arrest Tuesday afternoon in
a central Georgia hospital, said Laurens County Deputy Coroner Nathan Stanley.
According to friends, as recently as last weekend, Slover appeared at events in
the suburban Chicago area.
Slover was best known for playing the lead trumpeter in the Munchkins’ band
but also had roles as a townsman and soldier in the film, said John Fricke,
author of 100 Years of Oz and five other books on the movie and its star, Judy
Garland. Slover was one of the tiniest male Munchkins in the movie.
Long after Slover retired, he continued to appear around the country at
festivals and events related to the movie. He was one of seven Munchkins at the
2007 unveiling of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame dedicated to the little
people in the movie. Only three remain of the 124 diminutive actors who played
the beloved Munchkins.
Lee Pockriss, who wrote the music for midcentury pop hits
like “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” “Catch a Falling
Star” and “Johnny Angel,” died on Monday at his home in Bridgewater, Conn.
He was 87. His death was confirmed by his nephew Adam Pockriss.
Perry Como made a hit of the gentle ballad “Catch a Falling
Star” (“Put it in your pocket/Save it for a rainy day”), which Mr. Pockriss
wrote with Paul Vance, in 1957. Shelley Fabares introduced Mr. Pockriss and
Lynn Duddy’s wistful love song “Johnny Angel” (“I dream of him and me/And
how it’s gonna be”) as her teenage character on the family sitcom “The Donna
Reed Show” in 1962.
But in between, Mr. Pockriss struck a very different note
in another collaboration with Mr. Vance: “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow
Polka Dot Bikini,” a novelty number about a young woman “afraid to come out
of the water” and be seen in the revealing swimsuit she was wearing. Her
reluctance was understandable, because the navel-revealing bikini was still
considered relatively shocking outside Hollywood and the French Riviera. In
fact, the song has been credited with helping it gain acceptance.
Sid Melton, a jug-eared character actor best known for his
regular roles in the television shows
“Green Acres” and “The Danny Thomas Show”
and for his unflagging reliability as the comic relief in many science
fiction and noir films of the 1950s, died on Wednesday in Burbank, Calif. He
was 94.
His death was confirmed by a spokesman for Providence St.
Joseph Medical Center.
Mr. Melton’s acting career covered more than 70 years,
from his stage debut in a road production of the Broadway play “See My
Lawyer” in 1939 to a recurring role as the husband (deceased, appearing in
flashbacks and dreams only) of Sophia, the mother of Bea Arthur’s character,
on “The Golden Girls,” between 1985 and 1992.
“For millions of readers, Bil Keanereached out, day by
reliable day, through the pure and distilled and comforting power of a single
panel. Family Circus may play out within its distinctive circle, but to
many fans, the debut of its midcentury family felt like a keyhole, then a fully
inviting window into a reassuring world — an approachable, guileless realm of
broad grins, wide-eyed observation and the winking malapropism,” wrote The
Washington Post’s
Michael Cavna.
Keane, the creator and longtime artist of Family Circus, passed away
this week at age 89, and for all the pretense about the family-friendly strip
not being cool or cutting edge, the procession of comments seems to suggest that
there were indeed many who enjoyed his insights into family life.
Boxing legend Joe Frazier
died tonight of liver cancer. He was 67.
Popularly known as Smokin' Joe, Frazier turned pro in 1965
after winning a Gold Medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He captured the vacant
WBC and WBA Heavyweight titles with a TKO over Jimmy Ellis at Madison Square
Garden in February 1970.
But just over a year later, Frazier would become a household
name when he became the first man to defeat Muhammad Ali, winning a unaminous
decision at Madison Square Garden becoming the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion
of the World in what was billed as "The Fight of the Century." Frazier's triumph
was punctuated with a
devastating left hook which felled Ali to the canvass.
Yesterday the
heavyweight legend Joe Frazier passed away at 67 from liver cancer, and the
Times has
a lengthy rundown of tributes to the man. But
few of them focused on the boxer's music career; while he didn't have the best
voice, he produced a smattering of recordings that melded funk, soul, and
prodigious references to the fact that his main career involved wearing boxing
gloves and avoiding others' punches. (His band? The Knockouts, of course.) A few
selections from his catalog below; while they do include thematically tweaked
covers of "My Way" and Eddie Floyd's "Knock On Wood," be sure to check out
"First Round Knock-Out," the A-side to a single he cut for Motown that was
written and produced by Van McCoy, the man behind "The Hustle," and later
covered by ex-Temptation David Ruffin. (Thanks to
Jon Solomon
for the tip.)
Margaret O'Mahoney, an actress for three decades under the name Margaret Field
and the mother of actress Sally Field, died Sunday, Nov. 6, at her home in
Malibu after battling cancer for six years. She was 89. Born Margaret Morlan in
Houston, Texas, she moved to Pasadena, Calif., during WWII. She was discovered
by a talent scout on a street corner and put under contract by Paramount
Pictures. The actress began as a student of Charles Laughton, appearing in such
films as Cecil B. DeMille's "Samson and Delilah" and John Farrow's "The Big
Clock" before playing the lead in Edgar Ulmer cult classic "The Man From Planet
X."
R.I.P. Richard Gordon, producer of Fiend Without
a Face and countless B-movie classics
You might not have heard of Richard Gordon, but you've
probably seen at least a few of his movies. He produced a string of fantastic
science fiction and horror B-movies with titles like The Electronic Monster,
The Fiend Without a Face, The Haunted Strangler, First Man into Space and
Devil Doll. He worked with horror masters like Bela Lugosi and Boris
Karloff, and helped bring a level of gothic suspense to these films, without
relying on gore or special effects.
In an interview in
the book Interviews with
B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers, Gordon talks about
how he scoured old issues of Weird Tales for stories to adapt into
movies, even buying the rights to one 1930s story by Amelia Reynolds Long which
became Fiend Without a Face. Another movie, Corridors of Blood,
started out as a screenplay by a woman named Jean Scott Rogers for "a very
serious picture about surgery in the days before anesthetics," but Gordon and
his collabor injected more horror and melodrama into it, to make it a Karloff
vehicle.
The delightful Andy Rooney has sadly passed away at the age of
92. The unforgettable “60 Minutes” personality died last night following an
undisclosed surgery that saw major complications, and he never recovered.
Rooney made his final regular appearance on “60 Minutes” a
little less than a month ago with the door being left open by CBS for him “to
speak his mind on ‘60 Minutes’ when the urge hits him.”
Barbara Kent, one of the last surviving stars of
silent films, who performed alongside Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo and Harold
Lloyd, died last Thursday in Palm Desert, Calif. She was 103.
Her death was confirmed on Wednesday by a
spokesman for the Marrakesh Country Club, where she lived.
Patricia Breslin (March 17, 1931
– October 12, 2011[1])
was an American actress known for her guest roles in various
television series in the 1950s and 1960s. She
had been hospitalized for the last five months.
I can’t imagine the Raiders–or
the NFL–without him
Dead at 82
October 8, 2011
Raiders.com announced this morning that Al Davis has died.
I can’t and won’t get into anything too deep right now because
I’m about to get in a flight to Houston for the Raiders game there Sunday–and
now obviously that game and this weekend will be loaded with emotions.
Incalculable emotion over losing the man who embodied the
spirit of a franchise more than any man in sports.
Al dominated it, even while his health deteriorated. That’s a
symbol of incredible strength–and at the end, it resulted in incredible
isolation.
Couple of quick thoughts, as a billion things come to all of
us who spent any time around this unique man…
* The last few years were a testament to Davis’ will. His body
was telling him to stop working. His body waa screaming it. If you ever saw
Davis moving from place to place, you knew how difficult this was.
And Davis kept working. He was at Sunday’s game in Oakland. He
wasn’t going to stop trying to make the Raiders great again.
Steve Jobs, Apple legend, is being remembered the world over
for his technology vision and his business acumen. India is no exception with
prominent folks memorializing him.
“From humble beginnings to global visionary, Steve’s ideas and
innovations forever changed how people across the globe think about and use
technology,” Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd.,
wrote in Friday’s edition of the Economic Times.
“The outlier in Steve always questioned how things can be done
profoundly differently. His bias towards changing the world was infectious. His
boldness to take on the impossible has inspired many and will continue to do as
the world learns to live without him,” Mr. Ambani wrote.
“Steve Jobs has been one of the greatest icons of the modern
era. His untimely death is a huge loss to us all,” industrialist
Ratan Tata said in a statement. “Apple’s products, under his leadership,
have had a profound impact on mankind, unequaled by any other company in the
information and technology space,” he added.
Charles Napier as Tucker McElroy in The
Blues Brothers.
Napier as Adam in the Star Trek episode
"The Way To Eden."
In Memoriam: Charles Napier
Charles Napier, star of The Blues Brothers,
The Silence Of The Lambs and Philadelphia died
yesterday at the age of 75.
Reports from at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital, California, do
not mention his cause of death, but he had been taken to hospital in previous
years over issues with blood clots in his legs.
The much-loved tough guy character actor is perhaps best
remembered for his role as Tucker McElroy in The Blues Brothers
and his immortal line, "You're gonna look pretty funny tryin' to eat corn on the
cob with no fuckin' teeth!"
Also seen as General Hawk in the first two Austin
Powers movies, he's appeared in everything from out-and-out comedy to
more serious dramas.
Numerous sources have reported
the death of Cliff Robertson, an Oscar-winning actor with more than five
decades in the business—a prolific career that was briefly derailed when
Robertson inadvertently became the center of one of the biggest financial
scandals in Hollywood history. Robertson died Saturday, only a day after his
88th birthday.
Robertson so embodied the
square-jawed, all-American archetype that he was often called upon to play
soldiers, politicians, or wealthy playboys—and sometimes all three, as when
John F. Kennedy handpicked Robertson to portray him in the 1963 movie
PT-109. Most of that can likely be traced to his performance in the 1958
adaptation of Norman Mailer’s The Naked And The Dead; before that,
Robertson landed a supporting role opposite William Holden in Picnic,
starred in the campy Joan Crawford melodrama Autumn Leaves, and the
lightweight musical The Girl Most Likely. But after Naked And The
Dead, Robertson found himself typecast for decades in a string of war
films that he, ever his harshest critic, would often deride as “mediocre” or
“a bunch of junk” in interviews.
Eve Brent (1929 – August 27, 2011)
(often billed in acting roles as: Jean Lewis) was a Saturn Award-winning
American actress.
Born as Jean Ann Ewers in Houston, Texas, and raised in Fort Worth, she
appeared on radio and television (guest-starring roles and hundreds of
commercials), in movies and on the theater stage.
Some of her early film work includes roles in Gun Girls, 1956,
Journey to Freedom, 1957 and Forty Guns, 1957.
She became the twelfth actress to play Jane when she
appeared opposite Gordon Scott's Tarzan in the film Tarzan's Fight for Life (1958).
She also played the role in Tarzan and the Trappers.
Bluesman David “Honeyboy”
Edwards died last Monday aged 96, a dyed-in-the-wool Delta
bluesman whose final decade would be his most prolific.
Edwards came up when blues was more a lifestyle than a
commercial enterprise. When he was born in Shaw, Mississippi, the style had
already navigated the South, but began to flourish when his generation —
including friends Robert Johnson and Charley Patton
— had some of their sides recorded. Almost as much as his music, Edwards’
contribution to the blues is The World Don’t Owe Me Nothin’, his
literary autobiography that details the transient life bluesmen had in his
youth. He wouldn’t be properly recorded until folklorist Alan Lomax
found him in the ’40s, and the ’50s folk revival would also collect some of his
sides.
Sybil Jason, 83, a former child actress signed by the
Warner Brothers Studio to rival Twentieth Century Fox star Shirley Temple,
died Aug. 23 at her home in Northridge, her family announced. She had
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, on Nov. 23, 1927, Jason
began singing and dancing as a toddler. Her uncle Harry Jacobson, a pianist
who accompanied stage performers in London, found her parts in British
vaudeville productions, where she was discovered by studio head Jack Warner.
RIP Jerry Leiber: half of one of rock's greatest
songwriting teams
August 22, 2011 | 4:19pm
Take the songs of Jerry Leiber, who
died Monday at age 78, and his longtime
songwriting partner, Mike Stoller, out of the book of early rock ‘n’ roll and
you’d be left with a Grand Canyon-sized hole.
The New York-based songwriting and production team was
responsible for dozens, if not hundreds, of hits over the first decade of rock’s
history, and their legacy continues to be felt more than half a century later.
Just the Leiber-Stoller songs that Elvis Presley recorded
would constitute a cornerstone of early rock: starting with “Hound Dog” and
“Jailhouse Rock” on through “King Creole,” “Don’t,” “Loving You,” “Dirty, Dirty
Feeling,” “She’s Not You,” “Treat Me Nice,” “Trouble,” “You’re So Square (Baby
I Don’t Care),” “Bossa Nova, Baby,” and even “Santa Claus Is Back in Town.”
They crafted hits for the Coasters (“Charlie Brown,” “Yakety
Yak,” “Poison Ivy,” “Searchin’,” “Along Came Jones,” “Young Blood”), the
Drifters (“On Broadway,” “There Goes My Baby,” “Dance With Me”) , LaVern Baker
(“Saved”), Ben E. King ("Stand By Me," "Spanish Harlem," “Gypsy,” “I [Who Have
Nothing]”), The Clovers (“Love Potion #9), Peggy Lee (“Is That All There Is,”
“I’m a Woman”) and Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood (“Jackson”).
Ross Barbour, the last
remaining original member of the influential 1950s jazz and pop harmony group
the Four Freshmen, died Saturday in
Simi Valley,
Calif. He was 82.
He had been suffering from lung cancer.
Barbour died three months after his cousin and fellow Freshman
Bob Flanigan.
The Four Freshmen, whose biggest hit was the sentimental 1956
ballad "Graduation Day," were one of the most popular of the 1950s harmony
groups who took classic barbershop and pop harmony singing and steered it toward
the more innovative modern styles that would further evolve into rock 'n' roll.
They were often cited by
Brian Wilson of the
Beach Boys as one
of his prime inspirations, along with the Hi-Los, for the Beach Boys sound.
Ironically, those same rock 'n' roll groups drove '50s harmony
groups, like other early-'50s pop singers, out of mainstream favor.
An early 1960s novelty hit by the Four Preps referenced the
Four Freshmen with line that included "Of course they've been four freshmen /
For almost 20 years."
The AP reports: 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, his former publicist
said.
We dug back into the Post archives to find a pair of articles
from the 1970s about the author of songs such as “Ain’t No Mountain High
Enough,” “Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand” and “Solid As A Rock.”After the
jump, read a 1973 review of Ashford & Simpsons’ first D.C. concert and also a
1977 profile of the duo in which they discuss trying to find a new audience and
married life
Mike Flanagan, the cagey Baltimore Orioles left-hander who won
the Cy Young Award in 1979 and the World Series in 1983, has passed away at the
age of 59 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Flanagan had served in many
different roles with the team since retiring from playing, with stints as a
pitching coach, broadcaster and front office executive. In his current position,
he worked as a color commentator for the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network covering
the Orioles.
He was the last Orioles pitcher at the team’s Memorial Stadium home before it
gave way to Camden Yards, their present facility. He was brought in for the
ninth inning and struck out the last two Detroit Tigers he faced.
Bubba Smith, NFL star and 'Police Academy' actor, found
dead at home
Former NFL star and "Police Academy" movie actor Bubba Smith
was found dead Wednesday at his Los Angeles home, according to police and
coroner's office officials. He was 66.
The L.A. County coroner's office said it has not determined a
cause of death, but officials believe he died of natural causes.
The very first
James
Bond
girl, Linda Christian, who was married to Tyrone Power
has passed at age 87.
Linda's daughter, Romina Power, confirmed she
died yesterday in Palm Desert after a battle with
colon
cancer.
Born in Mexico as Blanca Rosa Welter, the
daughter of an oil exec, Linda she pursued acting after
winning a beauty
contest.
Linda made her film debut with tDanny Kaye in
1944 in Up In Arms.
The sultry beauty was offically "introduced" in 1948's
Tarzan and the Mermaids opposite ape-man Johnny Weissmuller.
Life magazine dubbed the curvy
cutie the "anatomic bomb."
In 1954 she starred as James Bond's first love interest,
Valerie Mathis, in the original
Casino
Royale
TV production which starred Barry Nelson as agent 007.
Robert Frank "Rob" Grill
(November 30, 1943 – July 11, 2011) was an American
lead singer, songwriter and bass guitarist of the rock and roll band, The Grass
Roots.
Grill launched a solo career in 1979, assisted on his solo
album by several members of Fleetwood Mac. Responding to 60s nostalgia, Grill
then reformed The Grass Roots (billed "The Grass Roots Starring Rob Grill") and
had with the toured the United States with the reunited outfit since the 1980s.
LOS ANGELES
(Hollywood Reporter) - Elaine Stewart, an alluring leading lady of the
1950s who went on to serve as a co-hostess of two hit game shows in the
'70s, died Monday at her home in Beverly Hills after a long illness.
She was 81.
In a pair of 1954 films,
Stewart starred opposite Gene Kelly and Van Johnson as nonstop
talkative socialite Jane Ashton in "Brigadoon" and played a sexy harem
princess in "The Adventures of Hajji Baba," with John Derek as the
title character.
The former model
and Montclair, N.J., native also appeared with Kirk Douglas in the
classic Hollywood insider soap "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952) and
with Richard Widmark and Karl Malden in the basic-training set "Take
the High Ground!"(1953).
In all,
Stewart appeared in 18 films in the '50s and graced the cover of Life
magazine on March 22, 1953, in a cover story with the headline,
"Budding Starlet Visits the Folks in Jersey."
Anna Massey, who as a
young actress was killed off in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Frenzy” (1972) and
later became a stalwart of British period dramas, often cast as a
waspish spinster or maiden aunt, died July 2 in London. She was 73 and
had cancer.
The actress was born in 1937 into a performing
family — her father was Canadian actor Raymond Massey, and her mother
was British actress Adrianne Allen. Her brother, Daniel Massey, also
became an actor, and her godfather was director John Ford.
Ms. Massey made her West End stage debut at 17 in “The Reluctant
Debutante” and her film debut in Ford’s 1958 police procedural
“Gideon’s Day.”
She had roles in films including Michael Powell’s
chiller “Peeping Tom” (1960), Otto Preminger’s “Bunny Lake is Missing”
(1965) and the 2002 adaptation of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” in
which she played the comic governess Miss Prism.
Ms. Massey
worked most frequently in television period dramas. She appeared in TV
adaptations of Anthony Trollope’s “The Pallisers,” Thomas Hardy’s “Tess
of the D’Urbervilles,” Charles Dickens’ ”Oliver Twist” and many others.
Peter Falk, the actor known to a generation as television’s
Lt. Columbo, died yesterday in Beverly Hills, according to ABC
News. “Falk died peacefully at his Beverly Hills home in the evening of
June 23, 2011,” according to the statement from his family. He was 83.
Say Falk’s name and the image that instantly comes to mind
is a slope-shouldered figure in a rumpled overcoat, staring down a suspect with
one eye while the other roams unnervingly free. Few actors were ever identified
with a single character as much as Falk was with Lt. Columbo, the slow-moving,
sharp-witted detective he played in more than five dozen TV movies, beginning
with 1968’s Presciption: Murder.
Gene Colan, a veteran comic-book artist whose work spanned
decades, publishers, and genres, died
yesterday due to complications resulting from liver cancer and a broken
hip. He was 84. Colan’s résumé dates back to 1944, when he started drawing
adventure comics the summer before his enlistment in the Army Air Corps. After
returning to civilian life, he began working for Timely, the precursor to
Marvel, where he met editor and future collaborator Stan Lee. From there,
Colan worked on war, crime, and Western comics before the resurgence of
superheroes in the early ’60s.
One of the unheralded legends of rock ‘n’ roll has sung
his final song.
Carl Gardner, founding lead singer of the Coasters (“Yakety
Yak,” “Charlie Brown,” “Poison Ivy,” “Searchin’”) died on
Sunday night in Port St. Lucie, Fl., at the age of 83. He had been suffering
from Alzheimer’s and congestive heart failure, according to published
reports Of course, it might be a bit of an overstatement to call Gardner
“unheralded.” The Coasters were Rock and Rock Hall of Fame inductees and
their main body of work, courtesy of the songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and
Mike Stoller, has been covered by countless artists and helped form the basis
for the Broadway show “Smokey Joe’s Café”...
James Arness, who famously played Marshal Matt Dillon on the
TV Western Gunsmoke for 20 years, passed away this morning in his
Brentwood, Calif., home, the Los Angeles Times reports.
He was 88.
Born in Minneapolis on May 26, 1923, the 6-foot-7 Arness began
his began his career as a radio announcer in Minnesota following his discharge
from the Army. He made his film debut in 1947 in The Farmer’s Daughter
before going on to appear in such Westerns as Wagon Master and Hondo
— he shared the big screen four times with John Wayne — and science fiction
movies like The Thing and Them!
Grease star Jeff Conaway has died. The actor was 60 years old.
He passed away several weeks after he was found unconscious in
his L.A. area home, having fallen
into a coma after a reported overdose.
Doctors were not able to revive him and his family recently
made the gut-wrenching, but inevitable decision to take
him off life support.
Jeff's struggles became public when he appeared on Celebrity
Rehab in 2008 and admitted addictions to cocaine, alcohol and painkillers.
Born in New York City, Conaway shot
to fame in the ’70s as a quintessential cocky guy: first in the
internationally successful Grease and then on the TV hit Taxi.
Scoop is saddened to report the
passing of the influential artist Jeffrey Catherine Jones at 4:00 AM on May 19,
2011, surrounded by family, due to complications from severe emphysema and
bronchitis.
Jones painted many covers for books including notable science
fiction and fantasy works such as Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
series and Andre Norton's Postmarked the Stars, The Zero Stone,
and Uncharted Stars, among many others, and in the mid-to-late 1970s
formed The Studio with fellow artists Bernie Wrightson, Barry Windsor-Smith, and
Michael William Kaluta.
April 2004, Atlanta ComiCon
Gwinnett Civic Center, Atlanta, GA
Jeffrey Jones, a.k.a. Jeffrey Catherine Jones, has been out of
the comics scene for a while, but came down from the Catskill mountains of
upstate New York in April 2004 to make an appearance at Atlanta
ComiCon, to the delight of many who know the artist's work.
In the late 1970s Jones was part of a highly regarded artists'
group known to the world as The Studio — its members included Michael
Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson and Barry Windsor-Smith. In the late 1990s, Jones
confronted some personal problems and, after considerable medical tests and
consultations, had a sex change operation. She had ready answers for all my
questions except one — how gender informs art. The answer she sent — the
most extensive answer of those given — was emailed by Jones after the
convention. It is almost directly from her web site, and can be seen in its
original form and entirety here.
The artist's most recent comics work is a two-page piece
titled I Bled The Sea that appeared in The
Forbidden Book. Volume 1: Journeys Into the Mystic published by Renaissance
Press in 2001. It can also be seen online here.
Actor was a regular on TV's 'Daktari' Ross Hagen, 72, a
handsomely rugged actor who was a regular on the 1960s TV series "Daktari"
and starred in the low-budget biker movies "The Hellcats" and
"The Sidehackers," died of prostate cancer May 7 at home in Brentwood,
said Lee Srednick, his partner of seven years.
Dana Wynter RIP Original Body Snatchers star dies at 79 08
May 2011 | Source: The
Hollywood Reporter
Actress Dana Wynter, who was best known for her role in
1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, has died.
Though she was born in Germany as Dagmar Winter, Wynter was
British, raised largely in the UK until the age of 16, when her father, a
respected surgeon went to Morocco to perform an operation. While there, he
visited friends in Zimbabwe (then known as Southern Rhodesia) and fell for the
place, moving his family across shortly afterwards.
Despite kicking off her studies aiming to enter the medical
field in her father’s footsteps, a love of drama and the theatre saw Wynter
break off her studies and return to the UK in the hopes of pursuing an acting
career. In 1951, she got her wish, starting with small roles, usually without a
credit, in films such as Lady Godiva Rides Again. But after
getting noticed by an agent, she decided to make the move to New York, finding
work on stage and TV.
Sada Thompson, 83, who won acclaim in matronly roles on
Broadway and was best known for her Emmy-winning role as the caring mother on
the television drama series “Family,” died May 4 at a hospital in Danbury,
Conn. According to news accounts, she had lung disease.
If not a household name, Ms. Thompson was nonetheless a
versatile and celebrated stage actress.
Critic Walter Kerr called her “one of the American
theater’s finest actresses” after seeing her in the 1970 off-Broadway
production of Paul Zindel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “The Effects of
Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.”
The NME reports
that John Maus, best known as John Walker of cult '60s vocal
trio The Walker Brothers, passed away at his
home in Los Angeles last Saturday, May 7, "after a six month battle with
liver cancer." He was 67.
Maus formed the trio with fellow singers Scott Engel and
Gary Leeds in LA in 1964. They all took the stage surname "Walker"
before relocating to the UK in 1965. The group's initial gimmick (a band of
handsome Americans selling epic vocal harmonies to the UK in the middle of
"the British invasion" of the US charts) paid off with a series of
hit singles including the astonishing "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine
Anymore."
Jackie Cooper, the pug-nosed kid who became
America’s Boy in tear-jerker films of the
Great Depression, then survived Hollywood’s notorious graveyard of child
stardom and flourished as an adult in television and modern pictures, died on
Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 88.
His agent, Ronnie Leif, said Mr. Cooper died in a
hospital after a short illness. He had homes in Beverly Hills and Palm Springs,
Calif.
It's sad news that
Elisabeth Sladen has died at the age of only 63 from cancer - best known as
Sarah Jane Smith, companion to Doctor Who she is perhaps the show's most
recognisable female character and in recent years had starred in the spin off
series, The Sarah Jane Adventures. It was Sladen who turned the role of sidekick
into star and she formed a great double act, first with third doctor, Jon
Pertwee and then with the fourth, Tom Baker.
Lumet, who began his career directing theater and then
television, helmed countless big screen classics. His first film, "12 Angry
Men," established him as a top director in 1957, while his 1970's hits
"Serpico," "Murder on the Orient Express," "Dog Day
Afternoon" and "Network" sealed his reputation as a screen
legend.
While he never won an Oscar for films he directed, in 2005 he
was awarded an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
I was sad to hear about Farley Granger's death on Sunday at 85
-- although the New York-based actor had been in frail health for a few years,
and alone since his long-time lover, Robert Calhoun, died in 2008. But I was
happy to remember a magical afternoon I spent with them at their apartment four
years ago, when Granger's autobiography was published -- the story of which I've
pulled from the archives, and run below...
In a business that rarely lets you lead your own life, Farley Granger has led a
few.
Professionally? He has acted in Hollywood classics directed by
Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray. He has worked with Luchino Visconti in
Europe, played with Julie Harris on the stage — and made cheesy foreign
shockers like "The Red-Headed Corpse" and "Something Is Crawling
in the Dark."
Personally? He has had love affairs with Shelley Winters, Ava
Gardner — and Leonard Bernstein. And then there was that time during World War
II when he lost his virginity twice in the same night — first to a beautiful
woman in a bordello, and then to a handsome officer waiting outside.
Taylor died “peacefully today in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in
Los Angeles,” said a statement from her publicist. She was hospitalized six
weeks ago with congestive heart failure, “a condition with which she had
struggled for many years. Though she had recently suffered a number of
complications, her condition had stabilized and it was hoped that she would be
able to return home. Sadly, this was not to be.”
Michael
Gough, butler in Batman movies, dies at 94
By DENNIS HEVESI The New York Times
Sat, Mar 19 - 4:54 AM
Michael Gough, the lithe, angular-faced British character
actor best known for his role as Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s trusted
butler in four Batman movies, died Thursday at his home in England. He was 94.
His grandson Dickon Gough confirmed the death.
Gough played the long-suffering, ever-available Alfred
alongside Michael Keaton in Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), then
reprised the role opposite Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995) and again in
Batman & Robin (1997), with George Clooney as his caped boss.
Legendary pinup star Jane Russell died Monday of
respiratory failure, the Associated
Press reports. She was 89. The screen legend shot to fame in the '40s after
starring in Howard Hughes' 1941 western, 'The Outlaw.' She also starred in
1953's 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' alongside Marilyn Monroe.
A picture of Duke Snider is displayed on the stadium
scoreboard in honor of his life during the game bewteeen the Los Angeles Angels
and the Los Angeles Dodgers during spring training at Camelback Ranch on
February 27, 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Dodger Hall of Famer Duke Snider dead at 84
Former Dodger star Duke Snider died Sunday at a
convalescent home in Escondido. He was 84. The “Duke of Flatbush” was a
baseball superstar for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1950s – the equal of Mays
and Mantle. Duke sparkled less in L.A. – but he had his moments.
Len Lesser, a veteran character actor perhaps best known to
modern audiences as Seinfeld’s Uncle Leo, has died
of complications from pneumonia. He was 88.
Lesser’s long career in television began in 1949 with a
role in Studio One In Hollywood. In the early days, he often found work
playing thugs and hoodlums in shows like Dragnet and Alfred
Hitchcock Presents, and worked on Westerns such as Have Gun Will Travel
and Gunsmoke. In fact, Lesser’s résumé reads like a compendium of
classic television: He had appearances on Mike Hammer, The Jack Benny
Program, Peter Gunn, Bat Masterson, The Untouchables, The Red Skelton Hour,
The Outer Limits, The Wild Wild West, My Favorite Martian, That Girl, Get
Smart, The Monkees, Green Acres, All In The Family, Bonanza, The Mod Squad,
The Bob Newhart Show, Kojak, The Rockford Files, Simon And Simon, Hardcastle
And McCormick, Remington Steele, Amazing Stories, Falcon Crest,
Thirtysomething, Boy Meets World, Mad About You, Sabrina The Teenage Witch,
Just Shoot Me, and ER.
David F. Friedman, R.I.P. -
Nudie-Cuties, Blood Feasts and Memphis Connections
February 15, 2011
A true son of the South, lifelong exploitation
maestro David F. Friedman -- the producer who, for better or worse, made
movie history and changed the horror genre forever with the invention of
such tongue-in-cheek, tongue-ripped-out-of-cheek gore films as "Blood
Feast" (1963) and "Two Thousand Maniacs" (1964)
-- died Monday (Feb. 14) at his home in Anniston, Ala., at the age of 87.
The Valentine's Day demise was perhaps
appropriate: In one of the more infamous moments in "Blood
Feast," a young beauty's heart is cut from her chest.
The great
pianist
George Shearing
died earlier today in Manhattan of congestive heart failure. The British born
pianist turned 91 on August 13 and had been retired from music for several
years, his last album being the lovely trio outing Like Fine Wine (Mack
Avenue, 2005).
Shearing made his name with a quintet that became one of the most famed and
popular sounds of 1950s jazz but also wrote hundreds of compositions of which,
surprisingly, only “Lullaby of Birdland" endures as a standard.
Joanne Siegel, who as a teenager served as Superman co-creator
Joe Shuster’s model for Lois Lane and later married his partner and co-creator
Jerry Siegel, has passed away at age 93 in Santa Monica, CA.
“She said she placed an advertisement in the classified
section of The Plain Dealer offering to model. Shuster contacted her and
she modeled for him, never realizing that she would become the basis for
Superman's love interest,” The Plain Dealer’sMichael
Sangiacomo reported.
The cause was believed to be heart failure, her longtime
manager, Siouxzan Perry, said. She said Ms. Satana was 72, though other sources
listed her birth date as July 10, 1935, which would have made her 75.
Born Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi on the Japanese island of
Hokkaido to a father of Japanese and Filipino descent and a mother who was
Cheyenne Indian and Scots-Irish, Ms. Satana spent part of her childhood in the
World War II Manzanar
internment camp for Japanese-Americans in California before her family
settled in Chicago.
Tue, Jan 3, 2012
Comics and cartoons