Literotica Cemetary

[sweet soft kiss]

Hank Stram Football Hall of Fame Coach Dies at 82

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram, who took the Kansas City Chiefs to two Super Bowls and was known for his inventive game plans and exuberance on the sideline, died Monday, his family said. He was 82.

Stram had been in declining health for several years and Dale Stram attributed his father's death to complications from diabetes. He died at St. Tammany Parish Hospital, near his home in Covington, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. He built a home there during his two-year stint as coach of the Saints and retired there.

"Pro football has lost one of its most innovative and creative coaches and one of its most innovative and creative personalities as well," Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt said in a telephone interview.

Stram was the Chiefs' first and winningest coach. He took over the expansion Dallas Texans of the upstart AFL in 1960 and coached them through 1974, moving with them to Kansas City where they were renamed the Chiefs in 1963.

The gregarious, stocky, blazer-wearing Stram carried a rolled up game plan in his hand as he paced the sideline. He led the Chiefs to AFL titles in 1962, '66 and '69 and to appearances in the first Super Bowl, a 35-10 loss to Green Bay, and the fourth, a 23-7 victory over Minnesota in 1970.

He had a 124-76-10 record with the Chiefs and in 17 seasons as a head coach was 131-97-10 in the regular season and 5-3 in the postseason.

Stram was credited with the two-tight end offense that provided an extra blocker.

He was the first coach to wear a microphone during a Super Bowl and Stram's sideline antics, captured by NFL Films, helped bring the league into the video age.

Stram later coached two seasons with the Saints and enjoyed a successful second career in CBS' television and "Monday Night Football" radio booths as an analyst.

Stram made his mark in the booth by consistently telling the audience what would happen before it did.

"I think they'll go deep here," he would tell his partner, Jack Buck.

"Elway to throw," Buck would respond. "He's looking deep. He throws deep. Caught by Steve Sewell at the 11-yard line. You called that one, Coach."

"John just saw what I saw," Stram would say.

Stram was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2003. The then-80-year-old had to be pushed onto the stage in a wheelchair and his induction speech was videotaped.

In an interview that year, Stram said he would accept another coaching job in a minute.

"I've lived a charmed life," he said. "I married the only girl I ever loved and did the only job I ever loved."
start quote Pro football has lost one of its most innovative and creative coaches and one of its most innovative and creative personalities as well. end quote
-- Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt


Len Dawson, the Hall of Fame quarterback who played under Stram at Kansas City, also called him an innovator.

"He was responsible for doing a lot of the things in the '60s that teams are still using now," said Dawson, citing the moving pocket and the triple stack defense.

"His whole life was football that's what he was born for, I think. He had a passion for it, not just a liking," Dawson said. "He was really sincere when he talked about the team being a family. Everybody really loved him."

Hall of Fame linebacker Willie Lanier, who played for the Chiefs under Stram, said his former coach was able to elevate his players to new levels of success.

"All of us had a great joy in being able to experience the sport at the level we did because of his creative mind and the kind of personality that he put around you," he said from his home in Midlothian, Va. "That allowed everyone to perform at levels higher than they would have without him."

Hunt hired Stram, then an assistant at Miami, Fla., in 1959 after Oklahoma's Bud Wilkinson and then-New York Giants assistant Tom Landry turned down the team.

"He had never been a head coach before and you never know how that's going to work out. In our case it worked out tremendously. I think it worked out great for his career, too, because he ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame," Hunt said. "He deserves to be there."

Stram is survived by his wife Phyllis, sons Henry, Dale, Stu and Gary, daughters Julia and Mary Nell, and a sister, Dolly.

His sons said a private memorial service was being planned for later this week.

 

[RoryN]

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram, who took the Kansas City Chiefs to two Super Bowls and was known for his inventive game plans and exuberance on the sideline, died Monday, his family said. He was 82.

No shit? Bummer.

Wasn't he the one who introduced Gatorade to the NFL (and thus, the world) after bringing it up from Florida?

 

[MNGuy]

Renaldo "Obie" Benson, the original member of The Four Tops, died on Friday in Detroit at age 69 of lung cancer that was just diagnosed after he'd had a leg amputated several weeks ago, report The Detroit News and The Associated Press. The Four Tops lost Lawrence Payton in 1997, and Levi Stubbs hasn't performed for several years due to illness. The other surviving member is Abdul "Duke" Fakir.

 

[linuxgeek]

Screenwriter Ernest Lehman

ARRL

Screenwriter Ernest Lehman, K6DXK, SK -- Noted screenwriter Ernest Lehman, K6DXK, died July 2 after a lengthy illness. He was 89. The six-time Oscar nominee's film credits include North by Northwest, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Sound of Music. Some of his other screenwriting credits include The King and I, Hello, Dolly! and Portnoy's Complaint--which he also directed and produced. In 2001, Lehman received a honorary Oscar--a lifetime achievement award--from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "in appreciation of a body of varied and enduring work." Presenting the Oscar to Lehman was famed actress Julie Andrews. In announcing the award, then-Academy President Robert Rehme called Lehman "not only a prolific screenwriter, but an accomplished novelist, journalist and motion picture producer, whose films rank as genuine classics."

IMDB

One of the most critically and commercially successful screenwriters in Hollywood history, Lehman grew up on Long Island, graduated from NY's City College. One of his first jobs was as a copywriter for a Broadway publicist. This experience would later be reflected in his novel and screenplay, "Sweet Smell of Success." He also worked as a radio comedy writer, and as editor of a financial magazine. He freelanced short stories for the likes of Collier's magazine and one of these fiction piece 'The Comedian' led to his first job in Hollywood as a screenwriter for Paramount in the mid 1950s. Nick Roddick, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, praised Lehman as "a champion of the well-crafted, what-happens-next screenplay." Served as president of the Writers Guild of America from 1983-85.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

1940s Musical Star June Haver Dies at 79

Jul 6, 11:27 AM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (AP) - June Haver, the sunny blond star of 1940s musicals who was promoted as the next Betty Grable but gave up her career to briefly enter a convent, has died. She was 79.

Haver, who was married for years to actor Fred MacMurray, died of respiratory failure Monday at her home, her family said.

A role in Twentieth Century Fox's "Home in Indiana" in 1944 brought her to the attention of studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck, who envisioned the wholesome, vivacious actress following in Grable's footsteps as Hollywood's next blonde pinup girl.

Dubbed the "pocket Grable," she costarred with Grable herself in "The Dolly Girls" before going on to appear in a series of other frothy musicals that appealed to wartime audiences. They included "Three Little Girls in Blue,""I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" and "Oh, You Beautiful Doll."

She also appeared with MacMurray, her future husband, in "Where Do We Go From Here?" in 1945. And the studio loaned her to Warner Bros. for two of her most popular musicals, 1949's "Look for the Silver Lining" (as Broadway star Marilyn Miller) and 1950's "The Daughter of Rosy O'Grady."

But Haver's chances of succeeding Grable diminished when Fox discovered another promising blonde, Marilyn Monroe, and Haver's personal life was becoming mired in turmoil.

A marriage to trumpet player Jimmy Zito fell apart after just six weeks. She reunited with a previous fiance, studio dentist John Duzik, but he died of complications of surgery.

Devastated, Haver turned to the Roman Catholic Church for solace, and in 1953 she stunned Hollywood by announcing she was spurning her $3,500-a-week contract to become a novice nun at the Sisters of Charity convent in Kansas. Her last film, "The Girl Next Door," was released that same year.

Just eight months later, Haver left the convent to return to Hollywood.

"I think I made the right decision to go into the convent and try it out," she remarked in 1987. "And I made the right decision to leave."

Soon after leaving, she bumped into MacMurray, recently widowed, at a party and they wed six months later. She largely retired from performing at that time.

"I had been making movies for 10 years, and I think I got it all out of my system," she explained. "I made 14 musicals, which is a lot of singing and dancing. I wanted to be a wife and mother."

Their marriage endured until MacMurray's death in 1991.

Haver, who was born June Stovenour, grew up in Illinois and Ohio, singing on radio as a child and appearing in local stage productions. She was still in her teens when she signed a contract with Twentieth Century Fox and made her film debut in 1943 as a hatcheck girl in "The Gang's All Here."

Haver is survived by daughters Kate and Laurie MacMurray; stepson Robert MacMurray; stepdaughter Susan Pool; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

 

[cookiejar]

Doc Baker on 'Little House' Dies at 77

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - Veteran television character actor Kevin Hagen, who left behind a string of Western bad guy roles to become the kindly Dr. Hiram Baker in "Little House on the Prairie," has died. He was 77.

Hagen died at his home here on Saturday a year after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer, his wife, Jan Hagen, said Monday.

Born in Chicago, the son of professional ballroom dancers, Hagen did not start acting until he was 27, by which time he had worked for the U.S. State Department in Germany, earned a degree in international relations from the University of Southern California, and served in the Navy following World War II, his wife said.

After a year of law school at UCLA, Hagen decided to drop out, and try his hand at acting.

"I just found it absolutely became part of me," Hagen said of acting in a 2004 interview with the Grants Pass Daily Courier. "It was something I couldn't walk away from. Do it or die."

Hagen got his big break a year later when a Hollywood agent saw him as the domineering patriarch Ephraim Cabot in Eugene O'Neil's "Desire Under the Elms," and got him a part in the television series "Dragnet," the start of a long career in television and film.

Hagen's first movie role was in the 1958 Disney film "The Light in the Forest," but he credited his role as a Confederate deserter who murders the son of a Virginia farmer played by James Stewart in the 1965 film "Shenandoah" with starting him on a long trail of TV Western heavies.

"It was fun," he told The Oregonian newspaper in 1985. "You could be as mean as you wanted to be. There's a heavy in all of us."

Hagen had guest-starring roles on "Gunsmoke," "Rawhide," and "Cheyenne," and won his first regular role in the 1958 series, "Yancy Derringer," in which he played a city administrator of post-Civil War New Orleans.

Though the show only ran a year, he got more work than ever in series that included "Bonanza," "Perry Mason," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," and "Mission: Impossible."

He was best known for his portrayal of Doc Baker in "Little House on the Prairie," which ran from 1974 to 1983.

"The joke when Michael Landon asked him if he could drive a buggy when they were putting "Little House" together was, Kevin said, 'Yeah, as long as there isn't a horse attached,'" his wife recalled.

Hagen moved to Grants Pass in 1992 after appearing in a celebrity golf tournament, but did not give up acting. He performed a one-man show he wrote based on the Doc Baker character called, "A Playful Dose of Prairie Wisdom." While performing that show he met his fourth wife, Jan. They were married in 1993.

Raised by his mother, two aunts and a grandmother, Hagen moved to Portland as a teenager, playing baseball and football at Jefferson High School. He attended Oregon State University before enlisting in the U.S. Navy after World War II, serving in San Diego.

Baker is also survived by a son, Kristopher Hagen, of Bakersfield, Calif.

No services were planned.

http://www.actordatabase.com/kevinhagen/kh1.jpg

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Singer 'Big' Al Downing Dead at Age 65

Tue Jul 5, 9:54 PM ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - "Big" Al Downing, a singer-songwriter and pianist who had success in country, rockabilly, rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll and even disco, has died after suffering from leukemia. He was 65.

He was one of the few successful black country artists.

Born in Centralia, Okla., Downing grew up listening to country music and learned to play piano at a young age.

He began his career as a keyboard player in rockabilly singer Wanda Jackson's band, performing on Jackson's biggest hit, "Let's Have a Party."

As a solo artist, he and his band the Chartbusters charted two rock songs in 1964. A soul duet with Little Esther Phillips made the charts in 1963, and a disco record charted in 1975, according to the Country Music Association's Encyclopedia of Country Music.

Downing returned to his country roots in the late 1970s and had moderate hits with "Mr. Jones" and "Touch Me (I'll Be Your Fool Once More)."

Downing, a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, performed "Mr. Jones" on the Grand Ole Opry in May.

Over the years, his songs were recorded by Fats Domino, Bobby Blue Bland, Tom Jones and Webb Wilder.

Downing is survived by his wife of 27 years, Beverly, and four stepsons.

 

[linuxgeek]

Vietnam-Era Commander Westmoreland Dies

Vietnam-Era Commander Westmoreland Dies src: AP

July 18, 2005, 11:02 PM EDT


CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Retired Gen. William Westmoreland, who commanded American troops in Vietnam -- the nation's longest, most divisive conflict and the only war America lost -- died Monday night. He was 91.

Westmoreland died of natural causes at Bishop Gadsden retirement home, where he had lived with his wife for several years, said his son, James Ripley Westmoreland.

The silver-haired, jut-jawed officer, who rose through the ranks quickly in Europe during World War II and later became superintendent of West Point, contended the United States did not lose the conflict in Southeast Asia.

"It's more accurate to say our country did not fulfill its commitment to South Vietnam," he said. "By virtue of Vietnam, the U.S. held the line for 10 years and stopped the dominoes from falling."

He would later say he did not know how history would deal with him.

"Few people have a field command as long as I did," he said. "They put me over there and they forgot about me. But I was there seven days a week, working 14 to 16 hours a day.

"I have no apologies, no regrets. I gave my very best efforts," he added. "I've been hung in effigy. I've been spat upon. You just have to let those things bounce off."

Later, after many of the wounds caused by the divisive conflict began to heal, Westmoreland led thousands of his comrades in the November, 1982, veterans march in Washington to dedicate the Vietnam War Memorial.

He called it "one of the most emotional and proudest experiences of my life."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Former British PM Edward Heath Dies at 89

Sun Jul 17, 4:27 PM ET

LONDON - Sir Edward Heath, a former British prime minister defeated in government by pay strikes and in opposition by Margaret Thatcher in 1970s, died Sunday, a spokesman said. He was 89.

A carpenter's son who broke the tradition of blue bloods leading the British Conservative Party, he was a born politician whose major achievement was to negotiate Britain's 1973 entry into the European Community. The entry overturned years of resistance both domestically and by France, which had vetoed Britain's entry in 1967.

In 1992, he became Sir Edward, a member of the country's most prestigious order of chivalry, the knights of the Garter.

"He was a man of great integrity and beliefs he held firmly from which he never wavered, and he will be remembered by all who knew him as a political leader of great stature and importance," Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday.

Heath came to power in 1970 pledging to end Britain's long cycle of post-World War II decline, but he was thwarted and, in the end, brought down by militant unions.

In 1974, with Britain reduced to a three-day week by striking coal miners, Heath called an election demanding "who governs?" in a challenge to the unions. He lost to Harold Wilson's Labor Party and lost again when Wilson called an election in October that year.

In all, Heath had taken the party to defeat by Labor three times since becoming leader of the party in 1965.

The Tories rebelled and in February 1975 another outsider, the grocer's daughter Margaret Thatcher, successfully challenged him for the party leadership.

He remained in the House of Commons as a rank-and file legislator, a bulky, unforgiving figure sniping ineffectively at his right-wing successor.

"This rather shy, rather withdrawn man, felt deeply affronted," said William Whitelaw, who also tried for the leadership in 1975 and then became Thatcher's loyal deputy.

"Certainly he would mind more than most people who had been beaten by a woman," said Whitelaw. He added that Heath, who never married, had no wife to say, "What's the good of feeling so bitter about it?"

During Thatcher's 15 years as party leader, Heath's name disappeared from the Conservatives' official folklore. The 1987 election manifesto, for example, described the history of Conservative policy toward Europe without mentioning Heath.

Edward Richard George Heath was born in Broadstairs, a harbor town in the southeast England county of Kent, on July 9, 1916, the elder of two sons.

Encouraged by his mother, Heath began piano lessons as a small boy. It became a lifetime interest.

From his state school, Heath won a scholarship to Oxford University. Like Mrs. Thatcher, he emerged from Oxford with an upper-class accent. After World War II service as an artillery officer, Heath worked briefly as a civil servant and then as an editor of the Anglican Church Times.

He was elected to the House of Commons for Bexley and Sidcup in 1950, and represented the solidly Conservative south England district through his long political career. To the end, Heath remained an unusual politician in that he never tried to be liked.

Awkward silences would fall during interviews with journalists. In the Thatcher era, he would often sit staring glumly ahead during party conventions.

Both as prime minister and leader of the opposition he conducted symphony orchestras. He had two Steinway pianos in his house, Arundells, in the south England cathedral city of Salisbury, and another in his apartment in London's Belgravia district.

His 1976 book, "Music, a Joy for Life," was a best seller. So was one he wrote on yachting after taking his yacht Morning Cloud to victory in Australia in the Hobart-Sydney race.

Stripped of power, he was sensitive to suggestions that his life was lonely or empty.

"I enjoy my own company," he said, looking back in a 1989 newspaper interview, "I don't think I ever regret not getting married. A lot of politicians seem to regret they've got wives."

 

[Ladyhawke]

'Star Trek' Star James Doohan Dies By BOB THOMAS, Associated Press Writer



LOS ANGELES - James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and movies who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died Wednesday. He was 85.


Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.

He had said farewell to public life in August 2004, a few months after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

The Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space adventure on NBC in 1966. A master of dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven different accents.

"The producers asked me which one I preferred," Doohan recalled 30 years later. "I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, 'If this character is going to be an engineer, you'd better make him a Scotsman.'"

The series, which starred William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as the enigmatic Mr. Spock, attracted an enthusiastic following of science fiction fans, especially among teenagers and children, but not enough ratings power. NBC canceled it after three seasons.

When the series ended in 1969, Doohan found himself typecast as Montgomery Scott, the canny engineer with a burr in his voice. In 1973, he complained to his dentist, who advised him: "Jimmy, you're going to be Scotty long after you're dead. If I were you, I'd go with the flow."

"I took his advice," said Doohan, "and since then everything's been just lovely."

"Star Trek" continued in syndication both in the United States and abroad, and its following grew larger and more dedicated. In his later years, Doohan attended 40 "Trekkie" gatherings around the country and lectured at colleges.

The huge success of George Lucas' "Star Wars" in 1977 prompted Paramount Pictures, which had produced "Star Trek" for television, to plan a movie based on the series. The studio brought back the TV cast and hired director Robert Wise. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was successful enough to spawn five sequels.

The powerfully built Doohan, a veteran of D-Day in Normandy, spoke frankly in 1998 about his employer and his TV commander.

"I started out in the series at basic minimum_ plus 10 percent for my agent. That was added a little bit in the second year. When we finally got to our third year, Paramount told us we'd get second-year pay! That's how much they loved us."

He accused Shatner of hogging the camera, adding: "I like Captain Kirk, but I sure don't like Bill. He's so insecure that all he can think about is himself."

James Montgomery Doohan was born March 3, 1920, in Vancouver, British Columbia, youngest of four children of William Doohan, a pharmacist, veterinarian and dentist, and his wife Sarah. As he wrote in his autobiography, "Beam Me Up, Scotty," his father was a drunk who made life miserable for his wife and children.

At 19, James escaped the turmoil at home by joining the Canadian army, becoming a lieutenant in artillery. He was among the Canadian forces that landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. "The sea was rough," he recalled. "We were more afraid of drowning than the Germans."

The Canadians crossed a minefield laid for tanks; the soldiers weren't heavy enough to detonate the bombs. At 11:30 that night, he was machine-gunned, taking six hits: one that took off his middle right finger (he managed to hide the missing finger on screen), four in his leg and one in the chest. Fortunately the chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case.

After the war Doohan on a whim enrolled in a drama class in Toronto. He showed promise and won a two-year scholarship to New York's famed Neighborhood Playhouse, where fellow students included Leslie Nielsen, Tony Randall and Richard Boone.

His commanding presence and booming voice brought him work as a character actor in films and television, both in Canada and the United States.

Oddly, his only other TV series besides "Star Trek" was another space adventure, "Space Command," in 1953.

Doohan's first marriage to Judy Doohan produced four children. He had two children by his second marriage to Anita Yagel. Both marriages ended in divorce. In 1974 he married Wende Braunberger, and their children were Eric, Thomas and Sarah, who was born in 2000, when Doohan was 80.

In a 1998 interview, Doohan was asked if he ever got tired of hearing the line "Beam me up, Scotty."

"I'm not tired of it at all," he replied. "Good gracious, it's been said to me for just about 31 years. It's been said to me at 70 miles an hour across four lanes on the freeway. I hear it from just about everybody. It's been fun."

 

[pipercatt]

James Doohan was a good man. The world feels just a little smaller now.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Actress Geraldine Fitzgerald Dies at 91

Jul 18, 6:52 PM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - Geraldine Fitzgerald, who appeared in such classic 1930s films as "Dark Victory" and "Wuthering Heights" and later had a career on the New York stage, has died after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. She was 91.

Fitzgerald died Sunday at her Manhattan home, Tom Goodman, a spokesman for Fitzgerald's family, said Monday.

The Irish-born actress received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Isabella Linton in "Wuthering Heights" (1939), appearing with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in director William Wyler's memorable screen version of the Emily Bronte novel.

That same year she also starred with Bette Davis, George Brent and Humphrey Bogart in the popular Hollywood tearjerker "Dark Victory."

Fitzgerald had a tumultuous career at Warner Bros. in the 1940s, refusing roles and being placed on suspension by the studio. Yet during that decade she managed to appear in such films as "Shining Victory" (1942), "The Gay Sisters" (1943), "Watch on the Rhine" (1944) and "Nobody Lives Forever" (1946), a film noir gem which starred John Garfield.

In later years, she appeared as a character actress in such movies as "Ten North Frederick" (1958), "The Pawnbroker" (1965), "Rachel, Rachel" (1968), "Harry and Tonto" (1974), "Arthur" (1981) and "Easy Money" (1983).

"I was a great fan. She was a consummate actress, and I just loved everything she did," said Shirley Jones, who co-starred with Fitzgerald in the 1970s made-for-TV movie "Yesterday's Child.""It was a great joy for me to work with her."

Fitzgerald received a Tony nomination in 1982, for directing "Mass Appeal," Bill C. Davis' play about the conflicts between an older and younger priest.

Among her New York stage appearances were roles in several Eugene O'Neill revivals, most notably as Mary Tyrone in a 1971 off-Broadway production of "Long Day's Journey into Night," which starred Robert Ryan. In 1977, she starred with Jason Robards in a revival of O'Neill's "A Touch of the Poet."

Fitzgerald also developed a nightclub act, called "Geraldine Fitzgerald Singing Songs of the Street" - later shortened to "Streetsongs" - in which she would talk and sing about her life, including reminiscences from her childhood.

Born in Dublin, Fitzgerald made her stage debut in 1932 at the Gate Theater and later appeared in several British films. She came to New York to act with Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater, but was quickly signed by Hollywood.

Fitzgerald's first marriage to Edward Lindsay-Hogg ended in divorce. She later married businessman Stuart Scheftel, who died in 1994.

Fitzgerald is survived by a son, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg of Los Angeles, and a daughter Susan Scheftel of New York.

 

[beetlebum]

Jul 18, 6:52 PM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - Geraldine Fitzgerald, who appeared in such classic 1930s films as "Dark Victory" and "Wuthering Heights" and later had a career on the New York stage, has died after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. She was 91.

Fitzgerald died Sunday at her Manhattan home, Tom Goodman, a spokesman for Fitzgerald's family, said Monday.

The Irish-born actress received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Isabella Linton in "Wuthering Heights" (1939), appearing with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in director William Wyler's memorable screen version of the Emily Bronte novel.

That same year she also starred with Bette Davis, George Brent and Humphrey Bogart in the popular Hollywood tearjerker "Dark Victory."

Fitzgerald had a tumultuous career at Warner Bros. in the 1940s, refusing roles and being placed on suspension by the studio. Yet during that decade she managed to appear in such films as "Shining Victory" (1942), "The Gay Sisters" (1943), "Watch on the Rhine" (1944) and "Nobody Lives Forever" (1946), a film noir gem which starred John Garfield.

In later years, she appeared as a character actress in such movies as "Ten North Frederick" (1958), "The Pawnbroker" (1965), "Rachel, Rachel" (1968), "Harry and Tonto" (1974), "Arthur" (1981) and "Easy Money" (1983).

"I was a great fan. She was a consummate actress, and I just loved everything she did," said Shirley Jones, who co-starred with Fitzgerald in the 1970s made-for-TV movie "Yesterday's Child.""It was a great joy for me to work with her."

Fitzgerald received a Tony nomination in 1982, for directing "Mass Appeal," Bill C. Davis' play about the conflicts between an older and younger priest.

Among her New York stage appearances were roles in several Eugene O'Neill revivals, most notably as Mary Tyrone in a 1971 off-Broadway production of "Long Day's Journey into Night," which starred Robert Ryan. In 1977, she starred with Jason Robards in a revival of O'Neill's "A Touch of the Poet."

Fitzgerald also developed a nightclub act, called "Geraldine Fitzgerald Singing Songs of the Street" - later shortened to "Streetsongs" - in which she would talk and sing about her life, including reminiscences from her childhood.

Born in Dublin, Fitzgerald made her stage debut in 1932 at the Gate Theater and later appeared in several British films. She came to New York to act with Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater, but was quickly signed by Hollywood.

Fitzgerald's first marriage to Edward Lindsay-Hogg ended in divorce. She later married businessman Stuart Scheftel, who died in 1994.

Fitzgerald is survived by a son, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg of Los Angeles, and a daughter Susan Scheftel of New York.

DATTEBAYO!!!!!!!!!

hello, fellow naruto-watching person <3

 

[linuxgeek]

7-July-2005: 56 London bomb victims

src: @Ireland Online

All 56 London bomb victims named
20/07/2005 - 17:50:07

All 56 people known to have died in the London bombings have now been named.

Among them were 52 victims and four suicide bombers.

The bomber who single-handedly killed the most victims was thought to be GERMAINE LINDSAY, 19.

Lindsay, who lived in Aylesbury, Bucks with his pregnant wife and their first child, killed himself and 26 others at Russell Square. They were:

• SUSAN LEVY, 53, a mother-of-two of Newgate Street village, Cuffley, Herts. She died in hospital.

• CIARAN CASSIDY, 22, of Upper Holloway, north London.

• MIHAELA OTTO, 46, a dental technician of Mill Hill, north London.

• ARTHUR EDLIN FREDERICK, 60, of Seven Sisters, north London.

• ADRIAN JOHNSON, 37, a married father-of-two from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts.

• PHIL BEER, 22, a hair stylist from Borehamwood, Herts.

• GANZE GUNORAL, 24, a Turkish national and language student.

• JAMES MAYES, 28, an analyst for the Healthcare Commission from Islington, north London.

• BEHNAZ MOZAKKA, 47, from Finchley, north London, a biomedical officer at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

• HELEN JONES, 28, a London-based accountant whose family come from Annan in the Scottish Borders.

• CHRISTIAN SMALL, 28, an advertising sales worker from Walthamstow, east London.

• KAROLINA GLUCK, 29, a Polish national who was living in Finsbury Park, north London.

• RACHELLE YUEN, 27, an accountant from Mill Hill, north London, who was originally from Mauritius.

• MONIKA SUCHOCKA, 23, a trainee accountant from Poland, who was living in Archway, north London.

• JAMES ADAMS, 32, a mortgage broker from Peterborough, Cambs.

• ELIZABETH DAPLYN, 26, an administrator from north London who worked at University College Hospital.

• IHAB SLIMANE, 19, a waiter originally from Paris who was living in Finsbury Park, north London.

• LEE HARRIS, 30, an architect whose partner and childhood sweetheart SAMANTHA BADHAM, 36, also died. The pair met more than a decade ago in Hereford.

• EMILY JENKINS, 24, who was set to become a midwife and was the youngest of four children of Nick and Sarah Jenkins of Kew, south west London.

• OJARA IKEAGWU, 55, a married mother of three and social worker from Luton.

• MALA TRIVEDI.

• SHELLEY MATHER, 26, from New Zealand.

• ATEEQUE SHARIFI, 24, an Afghan national who was living in Hounslow, west London.

• ANNA BRANDT, 42, a Polish national who was living in Wood Green, north London.

• MIKE MATSUSHITA, 37, a Vietnamese-American former tour guide.

HASIB HUSSAIN, 18, who lived with his family in the Leeds suburb of Holbeck, blew up himself and 13 others in the bus blast at Tavistock Square. They were:

• SAM LY, 28, from Melbourne, Australia, who died in hospital.

• JAMIE GORDON, 30, a City worker from from Enfield, north London.

• PHILIP RUSSELL, 28, a financier from Kennington, south London.

• SHYANUJA PARATHASANGARY, 30, a post office worker from Kensal Rise, north London.

• MIRIAM HYMAN, 31, a picture researcher of Barnet, north London.

• WILLIAM WISE, 54.

• SHAHARA ISLAM, a 20-year-old bank cashier and devout Muslim from Plaistow, east London.

• ANTHONY FATAYI-WILLIAMS, 26, an oil executive from Hendon, north-west London.

• GLADYS WUNDOWA, 50, of Ilford, Essex, who worked as a cleaner at University College London.

• ANAT ROSENBERG, 39, a charity worker from Israel who was living in Finsbury Park, north London.

• NEETU JAIN, 37, a computer analyst from Hendon, north London.

• GILES HART, 55, a BT engineer and father of two from Hornchurch, Essex.

• MARIE HARTLEY, 34, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancs.

MOHAMMAD SIDIQUE KHAN, 30, who lived in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, with his wife and their young daughter, was believed to have been responsible for the Edgware Road blast in which he and six others died. They were:

• JENNIFER NICHOLSON, 24, of Reading, Berkshire, who worked for a music company in London.

• JONATHAN DOWNEY, 34, from Milton Keynes, an HR systems development officer with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

• COLIN MORLEY, 52, of Finchley, north London.

• DAVID FOULKES, 22, a newspaper sales manager from Oldham, Greater Manchester.

• LAURA WEBB, 29, from Islington, north London.

• MICHAEL STANLEY BREWSTER, 52, a father of two from Derby.

SHEHZAD TANWEER, 22, who lived with his parents in the Beeston area of Leeds, killed himself and seven others at Aldgate. They were:

• LEE BAISDEN, 34, an accountant for the London Fire Brigade.

• ANNE MOFFAT, 48, from Old Harlow, Essex, who worked as head of marketing and communications for Girlguiding UK.

• RICHARD ELLERY, 21, a shop worker from Ipswich.

• FIONA STEVENSON, 29, a solicitor living in central London whose parents were from Little Baddow, Essex.

• RICHARD GRAY, 41, a tax manager from Ipswich.

• BENEDETTA CIACCIA, a 30-year-old business analyst from Norwich.

• CARRIE TAYLOR, 24, from Billericay, Essex.

The whereabouts of Philip Duckworth, believed missing following the bomb attacks, have yet to be established.

 

[Ladybird]

src: @Ireland Online

All 56 London bomb victims named
20/07/2005 - 17:50:07

All 56 people known to have died in the London bombings have now been named.

Among them were 52 victims and four suicide bombers.

The bomber who single-handedly killed the most victims was thought to be GERMAINE LINDSAY, 19.

Lindsay, who lived in Aylesbury, Bucks with his pregnant wife and their first child, killed himself and 26 others at Russell Square. They were:

• SUSAN LEVY, 53, a mother-of-two of Newgate Street village, Cuffley, Herts. She died in hospital.

• CIARAN CASSIDY, 22, of Upper Holloway, north London.

• MIHAELA OTTO, 46, a dental technician of Mill Hill, north London.

• ARTHUR EDLIN FREDERICK, 60, of Seven Sisters, north London.

• ADRIAN JOHNSON, 37, a married father-of-two from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts.

• PHIL BEER, 22, a hair stylist from Borehamwood, Herts.

• GANZE GUNORAL, 24, a Turkish national and language student.

• JAMES MAYES, 28, an analyst for the Healthcare Commission from Islington, north London.

• BEHNAZ MOZAKKA, 47, from Finchley, north London, a biomedical officer at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

• HELEN JONES, 28, a London-based accountant whose family come from Annan in the Scottish Borders.

• CHRISTIAN SMALL, 28, an advertising sales worker from Walthamstow, east London.

• KAROLINA GLUCK, 29, a Polish national who was living in Finsbury Park, north London.

• RACHELLE YUEN, 27, an accountant from Mill Hill, north London, who was originally from Mauritius.

• MONIKA SUCHOCKA, 23, a trainee accountant from Poland, who was living in Archway, north London.

• JAMES ADAMS, 32, a mortgage broker from Peterborough, Cambs.

• ELIZABETH DAPLYN, 26, an administrator from north London who worked at University College Hospital.

• IHAB SLIMANE, 19, a waiter originally from Paris who was living in Finsbury Park, north London.

• LEE HARRIS, 30, an architect whose partner and childhood sweetheart SAMANTHA BADHAM, 36, also died. The pair met more than a decade ago in Hereford.

• EMILY JENKINS, 24, who was set to become a midwife and was the youngest of four children of Nick and Sarah Jenkins of Kew, south west London.

• OJARA IKEAGWU, 55, a married mother of three and social worker from Luton.

• MALA TRIVEDI.

• SHELLEY MATHER, 26, from New Zealand.

• ATEEQUE SHARIFI, 24, an Afghan national who was living in Hounslow, west London.

• ANNA BRANDT, 42, a Polish national who was living in Wood Green, north London.

• MIKE MATSUSHITA, 37, a Vietnamese-American former tour guide.

HASIB HUSSAIN, 18, who lived with his family in the Leeds suburb of Holbeck, blew up himself and 13 others in the bus blast at Tavistock Square. They were:

• SAM LY, 28, from Melbourne, Australia, who died in hospital.

• JAMIE GORDON, 30, a City worker from from Enfield, north London.

• PHILIP RUSSELL, 28, a financier from Kennington, south London.

• SHYANUJA PARATHASANGARY, 30, a post office worker from Kensal Rise, north London.

• MIRIAM HYMAN, 31, a picture researcher of Barnet, north London.

• WILLIAM WISE, 54.

• SHAHARA ISLAM, a 20-year-old bank cashier and devout Muslim from Plaistow, east London.

• ANTHONY FATAYI-WILLIAMS, 26, an oil executive from Hendon, north-west London.

• GLADYS WUNDOWA, 50, of Ilford, Essex, who worked as a cleaner at University College London.

• ANAT ROSENBERG, 39, a charity worker from Israel who was living in Finsbury Park, north London.

• NEETU JAIN, 37, a computer analyst from Hendon, north London.

• GILES HART, 55, a BT engineer and father of two from Hornchurch, Essex.

• MARIE HARTLEY, 34, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancs.

MOHAMMAD SIDIQUE KHAN, 30, who lived in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, with his wife and their young daughter, was believed to have been responsible for the Edgware Road blast in which he and six others died. They were:

• JENNIFER NICHOLSON, 24, of Reading, Berkshire, who worked for a music company in London.

• JONATHAN DOWNEY, 34, from Milton Keynes, an HR systems development officer with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

• COLIN MORLEY, 52, of Finchley, north London.

• DAVID FOULKES, 22, a newspaper sales manager from Oldham, Greater Manchester.

• LAURA WEBB, 29, from Islington, north London.

• MICHAEL STANLEY BREWSTER, 52, a father of two from Derby.

SHEHZAD TANWEER, 22, who lived with his parents in the Beeston area of Leeds, killed himself and seven others at Aldgate. They were:

• LEE BAISDEN, 34, an accountant for the London Fire Brigade.

• ANNE MOFFAT, 48, from Old Harlow, Essex, who worked as head of marketing and communications for Girlguiding UK.

• RICHARD ELLERY, 21, a shop worker from Ipswich.

• FIONA STEVENSON, 29, a solicitor living in central London whose parents were from Little Baddow, Essex.

• RICHARD GRAY, 41, a tax manager from Ipswich.

• BENEDETTA CIACCIA, a 30-year-old business analyst from Norwich.

• CARRIE TAYLOR, 24, from Billericay, Essex.

The whereabouts of Philip Duckworth, believed missing following the bomb attacks, have yet to be established.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Blues Legend Long John Baldry Dies

Jul 22, 8:02 PM (ET)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) - Long John Baldry, the British blues legend who helped launch the careers of such rock greats as Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones, has died, his agent and friends said. He was 64.

Baldry was admitted to a Vancouver hospital with respiratory problems in April and died of a chest infection Thursday, agent Frank Garcia said on the musician's Web site.

"The music world has lost an absolute legend," said close friend Anya Wilson, a Toronto music publicist who worked with Baldry in the 1970s.

"They've lost one of the first and most powerful white blues singers - an innovator, an entrepreneur of new music and one of the most wonderful people you could hope to meet."

Baldry, nicknamed Long John because of his 6-foot-7 height, was born in East Maddon, England, but became a Canadian citizen in 1981.

Credited as one of the main forces in British blues, rock and pop music in the 1960s, he first hit the top of the U.K. singles charts in 1967 with "Let the Heartaches Begin."

One of his most memorable hits was "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie-Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll" was co-produced by Stewart and Elton John.

Although Baldry released over 40 albums - that included the songs "You've Lost That Loving Feeling,""Come and Get Your Love" and "A Thrill's a Thrill" - singing was considered his forte.

He was perhaps best known for nurturing the nascent talent of a host of musicians who are now worldwide superstars.

Baldry's early 1960s stage act featured the likes of Stewart, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Jimmy Paige and Ginger Baker.

 

[sweet soft kiss]

TV Dinner Promoter Dies at 83

The Man Who Gave America a Taste Of the Future

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 22, 2005; Page C01

Gerald E. Thomas had one little idea that changed the sociology of the American family, encouraged the feminist movement, ignited the obesity epidemic and introduced countless Americans to something called Salisbury steak. And all for less than a dollar.

Thomas, who died this week at the age of 83, didn't invent the TV dinner (the U.S. Army and later an airline "food service" company had the same concept before), but he did invent the TV Dinner, C.A. Swanson & Sons' hugely popular meal-ready-to-heat.


TV Dinners were never any good, but they were always cool. Long before instant meals got snooty -- all those Le Menus and Lean Cuisines -- you could count on TV Dinners to taste nothing like Mom's own. Something about the processing and cooking and freezing of all those unlike foods -- fried chicken, succotash and peas and cubed carrots, mashed potatoes -- made serving it and eating it a challenge. Despite what seemed like hours of heating, which produced a table-scorching metal ingot upon removal from the oven, no one could ever quite get all the various foods to stay at the same temperature. While the apple cobbler in the little center compartment would sear the roof of your mouth, half the fried chicken would remain in permafrost, and the brown gravy would be transformed into crusty black carbon.

In this way, TV Dinners prepared us for airline food, microwave cooking, chicken nuggets, salads-in-a-cup and all the other modern-miracle simulations of actual food.

None of that mattered back when, of course. If you are of a certain age, you remember your first encounter


with a TV Dinner almost as an encounter with the modern world itself. The very concept -- a self-contained meal requiring nothing more than defrosting and heating -- seemed an extraordinary triumph of the Atomic Age, a tangible example of the future promised by 1950s industrial films and "The Jetsons" (which you could watch while eating your dinner). If your dinner came like this today, you imagined, then tomorrow it would come in a pill. Next, your jet pack could deliver you to school.

The TV Dinner, like the birth control pill, fostered its own revolution in personal relations, and not always in a good way. Just as cheap, reliable and available birth control freed women (and men) from a profound consequence of sex, TV Dinners created another (albeit more prosaic) kind of "freedom" -- relief from hours spent in the kitchen. Women could work outside the home, because food processing technology had foreshortened some of their traditional responsibilities. (How many men and children arrived home at night to find a handwritten note reading, "Left dinner in the freezer. Just warm it up. Love, Mom"?)

Thanks to such "convenience," more moms had more time on their hands, and fewer were late to their consciousness-raising meetings. Moms left TV Dinners behind, and Dads cooked them, and this had a way of adding to the popular mythology of male culinary ineptitude. The meal was never really served until Dad had burned his hands on it and screamed profanities at it.

And yet the TV Dinner preceded something darker still in family dynamics. Thanks to the TV Dinner (and its accessory, the TV tray), the household center of gravity moved from the dining room to the "family room" or den, or wherever the television was regally ensconced. Every member of the family could now sit simultaneously on the sofa, eat dinner and watch a program. In addition to encouraging sloth, the family TV meal discouraged interaction. Mealtime conversation ceased (or was slipped in during commercials), and a disastrous sort of quietude prevailed. At least this was better than what followed. Soon, a second TV set arrived in the house, and the "family dinner" carried on in two locations. You could easily imagine an anti-advertisement for the TV Dinner: "Honey, we never talk anymore . . . thanks to Swanson's!"

A Swanson salesman, Thomas thought he had a clever way to get rid of 520,000 pounds of unsold turkeys following the post-Thanksgiving lull of 1952. On one of his sales calls, Thomas noticed that his customer was shipping boxes of foil-wrapped aluminum trays to Pan American Airlines, which was experimenting with ways to serve hot meals to its passengers. On his flight home, Thomas designed his own three-segment version of the tray, and talked the Swanson brothers into setting up an assembly line (two dozen women armed with ice cream scoops) to plop turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and peas into 8,000 trays.

The next year, Swanson sold more than 10 million of them at 98 cents each.

Thomas, and Swanson, had unknowingly caught several converging waves. In 1953, more married women and married women with young children were employed outside the home than in any year in American history, including during World War II (part of a trend that has not abated since). Thus, the need for speed in the kitchen.

But the real breakthrough was the name Thomas bestowed on his brainchild. At the time, just 10 percent of households had TV sets, though it's probable that the other 90 percent wanted one. In 1998, upon being inducted into the Frozen Food Hall of Fame (if you go, check out the fabulous Flavorless Peas exhibit!), Thomas said one of his motivations was to link eating and TV. "Anything that was connected with TV was like anything connected today with . . . personal computers," he said. "That's cool. You're with it if you're into that. That's what TV was." Swanson cleverly designed the package to look like a TV screen.

One of the original aluminum trays that Thomas designed now belongs to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. But his most enduring legacy may be his original coinage. By 1962, TV was so pervasive, and the product so well established, that Swanson dropped the name TV Dinner altogether. It hoped to induce consumers to eat reheated meals any time of the day. And it did -- the frozen-foods aisle of the average supermarket is clogged with heat 'n' serve foods for breakfast, lunch and snack time.

Even now, these are known by the name Thomas gave them, "TV dinners." Someday, in that distant Jetsonian future, we may still be eating something called that, too.

Let's hope it wasn't all the alummiun that did him in.

 

[Freya]

Let's hope it wasn't all the alummiun that did him in.

That's the funniest obit I've ever read.

 

[sweet soft kiss]

That's the funniest obit I've ever read.

LOL... I enjoy cultural icons and oddities..

 

[linuxgeek]

last surviving Comanche code talker

Charles Chibitty (November 20, 1921 – July 20, 2005) was a Comanche code talker who used his native language to relay messages for the Allies during World War II. Chibitty, and 16 other Comanches had been recruited by the U.S. military for this purpose since Comanche was a language that was entirely unkown to the Germans, who were unable to ever decipher it. (The Navajos performed a similar duty in the Pacific War.)

Chibitty was born on November 20, 1921, in a tent 16 miles west of Lawton, Oklahoma. He attended high school at the Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas and enlisted in the Army in 1941. He served in the Army's Fourth Signal Company in the Fourth Infantry Division.

Chibitty's work—and that of the other Comanches who served in Europe—was not recognized by the U.S. government until 1999, when he received the Knowlton Award from the Pentagon, which recognizes outstanding intelligence work. Unfortunately, by the time this recognition came around, Chibitty was the only surviving Comanche code talker.

In interviews with the media, he liked to name all of his Comanche colleagues so that they wouldn't be forgotten. They are: Larry Saupitty, Willie Yackeschi, Morris Sunrise, Perry Noyobad, Haddon Codynah, Robert Holder, Clifford Ototivo, Forrest Kassanavoid, Roderick Red Elk, Simmons Parker, Melvin Permansu, Wellington Mihecoby and Elgin Red Elk.

He died in July 2005 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

 

[linuxgeek]

Innocent casualty in the war against terrorism

Jean Charles de Menezes (7 January 1978 – 22 July 2005) was a Brazilian electrician living in London, who was shot dead by Metropolitan Police officers at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground in a case of mistaken identity. From Gonzaga in Minas Gerais, Menezes had lived in the United Kingdom for three years before his death. While his shooting was reported to have occurred as a result of the police investigation into the 21 July 2005 London bombings, it was later revealed that he had nothing to do with the attempted attacks.

The day before the shooting, four attempted bomb attacks were carried out at three locations on the Underground, and on a bus in Bethnal Green. It was immediately apparent that the perpetrators of the attempted bombings had not died in the explosions, prompting a large-scale police investigation with the aim of tracking them down. Some officers followed Menezes, at the time reported as being of South Asian appearance, to Stockwell station after seeing him emerge at around 10:00 from a house in Scotia Road in Tulse Hill they were observing because of a suspected link to the previous day's bombings. The house had reportedly been identified from materials found inside the unexploded bags used by the bombers. Menezes caught a bus to Stockwell station, and was challenged by police on his arrival there and ordered to stop.

The officers who followed Menezes were apparently suspicious of his clothing and behaviour. It was believed that his thick clothing made police officers concerned that he was hiding explosives underneath, and was a potential suicide bomber. The Observer reported that he was dressed in "baseball cap, blue fleece and baggy trousers." Reuters reported Mark Whitby, a witness to the shooting, as saying that he was wearing a large winter coat, and "looked out of place." Another eyewitness, Anthony Larkin, told the BBC that Menezes appeared to be wearing a "bomb belt with wires coming out." No such device was ever found, but his occupation as an electrician may explain the presence of wires. Later reports suggested he was on his way to fit a fire alarm.


src: wikipedia

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Eugene Record was leader of the Chi-Lites

The New York Times

Eugene Record, the leader of the 1970s harmony group the Chi-Lites -- which scored hits with mellifluous soul ballads like "Oh Girl" and "Have You Seen Her?" -- died Friday. He was 64.

The cause was cancer, Jack Bart, the president of the group's booking agency, told The Associated Press. The place of death was not announced.

With smooth, yearning vocals and streamlined arrangements, the Chi-Lites, named after the group's hometown, Chicago, mingled sentimental street-corner doo-wop with the sounds of Motown and funk to create a sleek new soul style in the early 1970s. "Oh Girl" became a No. 1 hit in 1972, and 11 of the group's songs reached the Top 20 on the R&B charts from 1969 to 1974.

Record wrote or helped to write many of the group's most popular songs and frequently sang the lead, as well, in a velvety and often melancholic tenor. He sometimes sang in a euphoric falsetto, as he did in "Stoned Out of My Mind," which he wrote with his former wife and songwriting partner, Barbara Acklin.

Another device favored by Record was the pensive spoken verse, which he used in "Have You Seen Her?" and "A Letter to Myself."

The Chi-Lites' biggest hits have remained radio staples for decades, and the group's songs have frequently been covered by other performers.

The Chi-Lites' origins were in the late-1950s doo-wop era. Record formed the Chanteurs with Robert Lester and Clarence Johnson and released a single in 1959. The next year, Creadel Jones and Marshall Thompson joined them, and the group became the Hi-Lites, changing its name to the Chi-Lites in 1964.

The group signed with the Brunswick label in 1968, and began to taste success that year with the song "Give It Away," which reached No. 10 on the R&B charts. But it was a string of hits in the early '70s that established the group's reputation. In addition to its breezy and romantic ballads, the Chi-Lites had a handful of stern political songs, including "(For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People" and "There Will Never Be Any Peace (Until God Is Seated at the Conference Table)," both written by Record.

His survivors include his wife, Jackie.



"Have You Seen Her?" -- I just love this song.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Lawrence Welk Accordion Player Floren Dies

ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, Calif. - Myron Floren, an accordion player who entertained generations of television viewers on "The Lawrence Welk Show," died Saturday. He was 85.

Floren died of cancer at his Rolling Hills Estates home in Los Angeles County, according to Margaret Heron, syndication manager for the show.

A consummate musician versed in everything from polka to Bach, he joined Lawrence Welk's band in 1950 and stayed on until the television show ended in 1982.

The orchestra, which also included saxophonist Dick Dale and singer Jim Roberts, was famous for bouncing, effervescent dance music that Welk began playing as a young man in his native North Dakota.

More recently, Floren performed at music festivals around the country.

Born on a farm outside Roslyn, S.D., in 1919, he took up the instrument after hearing an accordion player at a fair as a child.

Floren was survived by his wife, Berdyne, five daughters and seven grandchildren.



Showing my age again! "The Lawrence Welk Show" was the first show my entire family watched together when I was young.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Danny Simon, Neil's Big Brother, Dead at 85

27 Jul 2005

Danny Simon, a comedy writer and teacher of comedy writing whose talent to amuse ran in the family, died July 26 in Portland, Oregon, according to his brother playwright Neil Simon.

Mr. Simon died following complications from a stroke. The Bronx native was 85.

The son of Mamie and Irving Simon, Mr. Simon and his younger brother Neil began writing together in the late 1940s for a variety of radio and television shows. A fictionalized account of their early creative aspirations was seen in Neil Simon's play, Broadway Bound. The relationship of two men, or brothers, is central to many of Neil Simon's plays, from Come Blow Your Horn to The Odd Couple to Brighton Beach Memoirs and Lost in Yonkers.

"Danny made me laugh...he made everyone laugh," Neil Simon wrote July 26. "He was a character (in more ways than one) in at least nine or ten of my plays, and I'm sure will probably be there again in many plays to come."

The Simon brothers were part of Sid Caesar's legendary team of writers which included Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart , Sheldon Keller, Mel Tolkin and later Woody Allen on "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour." The brothers also collaborated on "The Red Buttons Show," "The Phil Silvers Show" and "The Jackie Gleason Show."

Woody Allen once said, "Everything I learned about comedy, I learned from Danny Simon."

Danny and Neil Simon continued writing together until 1954 when Neil began devoting himself to writing for the theatre and Danny stayed in television, initially as head writer for NBC's "Colgate Comedy Hour." Later television credits include "Make Room for Daddy," "The Facts of Life" and "Diff'rent Strokes." He also provided material for Joan Rivers' guest-hosting appearances on "The Tonight Show."

In 1980 Mr. Simon accepted an offer to lecture on comedy writing at the University of Southern California. He subsequently gave three-day writing seminars in colleges all across the country.

"Not only did prominent writers flock to his classes, but so did studio heads and major television executives," Neil Simon wrote of his brother. "He knew comedy. He made more friends in Los Angeles than were peopled in countries far and wide."

Mr. Simon is survived by his son, Michael Simon of Portland, OR, and his daughter Valerie Simon of Los Angeles, and two grandchildren.

 

[sweet soft kiss]

ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, Calif. - Myron Floren, an accordion player who entertained generations of television viewers on "The Lawrence Welk Show," died Saturday. He was 85.


Showing my age again! "The Lawrence Welk Show" was the first show my entire family watched together when I was young.

I used to watch with my Grandma when I would stay over there on Saturday nights while my parents would go out. I had to be very quite while Lawrence Welk was on. This makes me sad. Another piece of my childhood drifting away.