Literotica Cemetary

[sweet soft kiss]

1940s TV Star Robert Sterling Dies at 88

By Associated Press


LOS ANGELES -- Robert Sterling, the handsome star of 1940s movies who appeared with his wife Anne Jeffreys in the television series "Topper," died Tuesday at his Brentwood home. He was 88.

Sterling died of natural causes following a decade-long battle with shingles, said his son, Jeffrey. His wife and other close relatives were at his bedside.

Although he appeared in dozens of movies, Sterling was best known for the 1953-1956 TV series "Topper," based on the Thorne Smith novel, and the 1937 film starring Cary Grant and Constance Bennett.

Sterling and Jeffreys played George and Marion Kirby, a fun-loving couple who were killed in an accident but returned as ghosts to haunt the new occupant of their home, a banker named Cosmo Topper.

Sterling was born William Hart in 1917 in New Castle, Pa., the son of Chicago Cubs catcher William S. Hart. He attended college in Pennsylvania and worked as a clothing salesman before breaking into movies.

He proved a versatile player, especially in romantic roles, and appeared in five films in 1941, including the romantic comedy "Two-Faced Woman" with Greta Garbo and "The Penalty" with Lionel Barrymore.

After "Topper," Sterling retired from acting to become a businessman.

Sterling was married to actress Ann Sothern from 1943 to 1949 and they had a daughter, actress Tisha Sterling. He married Jeffreys in 1951 and they had three sons: Jeffrey, Dana and Tyler.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Legendary Pool Player Steve "the Miz" Mizerak Dies

May 30, 6:41 PM (ET)

MIAMI (AP) - Steve Mizerak, winner of multiple pool championships who became one of the game's more recognizable figures by appearing in training videos, beer commercials and a movie, has died at age 61, his wife said Tuesday.

Mizerak died Monday in Palm Beach County from complications stemming from gall bladder surgery, Karen Mizerak told The Associated Press. Mizerak had not returned home since entering the hospital in January, she said.

Known by his nickname "The Miz," Mizerak won four U.S. Open Championships and dozens of other billiards tournaments in his professional career, which began when he was 13. He was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 1980.

He used his talent and name recognition to make training books and videos, bringing basics such as breaks and bank shots, to more advanced techniques for trick shots, to the masses.

Mizerak also made a difficult trick shot in a now-famous commercial for Miller Lite, when the beer maker was using sports celebrities to sell its product in the 1970s and 1980s.

Mizerak appeared in the 1986 film "The Color of Money," playing an opponent of Paul Newman's character, Fast Eddie Felson.

He also branched out in the billiards merchandise business, serving as president and designer for a company he formed to make pool cues.

Born in Perth Amboy, N.J., Mizerak learned to play billiards at age 4, standing on a milk box in his father's pool hall. Later, he taught history in public school and played pool in his spare time.

Later in life, Mizerak, who lived on Singer Island, founded the Seniors Masters Tour. He opened a billiard hall in Lake Park and taught amateurs, even after suffering a stroke in 2001, his wife said.

Other survivors include his two sons, a stepson and two granddaughters.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

"Topper" memories

By Associated Press


LOS ANGELES -- Robert Sterling, the handsome star of 1940s movies who appeared with his wife Anne Jeffreys in the television series "Topper," died Tuesday at his Brentwood home. He was 88.
...

http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/topper.jpg



"Topper" was one of my favorite shows. I remember watching and enjoying the entire cast way back when!

 

[linuxgeek]

Vince Welnick

src

Grateful Dead keyboardist dead at 51
Saturday, June 3, 2006

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Vince Welnick, the Grateful Dead's last keyboard player and a veteran of several other bands, including the Tubes and Missing Man Formation, has died at age 51, the Grateful Dead's longtime publicist said.

Welnick died Friday, said Dennis McNally, who declined to release the cause. The Sonoma County coroner's office said Saturday that an autopsy would be performed next week. Welnick lived in the northern California town of Forestville, but McNally said he did not know if he died at home or in a hospital.

"His service to and love for the Grateful Dead were heartfelt and essential. He had a loving soul and a joy in music that we were lucky to share," the group said in a statement on its Web site. "Our Grateful Dead prayer for the repose of his spirit: May the four winds blow him safely home."

With long, frizzy hair and tie-dyed clothes, Welnick clearly looked the part of a member of a band that was born in 1965 in San Francisco, then the cradle of the country's emerging psychedelic counterculture. But the fact was he was largely unfamiliar with the band's music when he joined the group in 1990, and he would recall afterward that he was so nervous he could barely play at his first show with them in Cleveland. He was quickly put at ease when the audience gave him a warm welcome.

"The big thing about Vince was that he had that fearlessness to be able to go and just jump into our madness and just operate on it like it was a normal, everyday procedure," Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart recalled Saturday. "A lot of people can play but with us they just don't know how to navigate. Our music is different."

Hart recalled Welnick as not only a "nimble" keyboard player but also a fine background singer whose vocals added much to the group's songs.

"He had this real high harmony. He could go where others couldn't," Hart said.

Welnick, who grew up in Phoenix, moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s with the Beans, which soon renamed itself the Tubes. After the group temporarily disbanded in the mid-1980s, he worked with Todd Rundgren before joining the Grateful Dead.

He was the last in a long line of Grateful Dead keyboardists, several of whom died prematurely, leading some of the group's fans to conclude that the position came with a curse.

He had replaced Brent Mydland, who died of a drug overdose in 1990. Mydland had succeeded Keith Godchaux, who died in a car crash shortly after leaving the band. Godchaux had replaced the band's original keyboard player, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, a heavy drinker who died in 1973 at age 27.

McNally recalled that the legend of the curse took a lighthearted turn at Welnick's first performance with the Grateful Dead.

"Just before he was to go on for the first time, one of the sound guys went over and sat down at Vince's seat in front of the piano and it collapsed under him," he said.

The fact was, though, that two other Grateful Dead keyboardists, Bruce Hornsby and Tom Constanten, survived the supposed curse just fine. Constanten worked with McKernan in the late 1960s, and Hornsby and Welnick played alongside one another for 18 months in the early 1990s.

The band retired the name Grateful Dead and quit touring after lead guitarist Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack in 1995. The death of the group's unofficial leader hit Welnick particularly hard, McNally recalled Saturday.

"When he joined the Grateful Dead he really embraced the opportunity, both musically and emotionally," McNally recalled. "And to lose it within five years hurt him maybe worse than anybody else in the band."

In the years following Garcia's death the group's other longtime members have occasionally toured as The Other Ones or The Dead.

Welnick, who formed his own group, Missing Man Formation, occasionally went on the road himself and had been scheduled to perform later this month, according to his Web site.

Survivors include his wife, Lori.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Comics Artist Alex Toth Dies at 77

BURBANK, Calif. (June 4) - Alex Toth, a maverick comic artist who designed classic Hanna Barbera adventure cartoons such as "The Superfriends" and "Space Ghost," has died.

Toth died while sitting at his drawing table at his home in Burbank on May 27, his son Eric said. He was 77.

Eric Toth said the cause of death had not yet been determined, but his father had been in failing health for years.

Before working in animation, Toth was a comic book artist, widely regarded as brilliant, who had some success but even more frustration.

He rarely held on to an artist job for long because of a simple, subtle drawing style and a stubborn adherence to his artistic principles. And he preferred pirate tales and westerns over the more popular super hero comics.

"Toth was one of the most brilliant artists ever in comic books but also someone who was the odd man out in many ways," said comics publisher and critic Gary Groth. "He was never associated with a particular character, and he was pushed off to marginal titles."

But Toth's forms would prove influential in underground comics and graphic novels in later decades. Comic artist Will Eisner called him "a mastery of realism within a stunning illustrative style."

Toth was born in New York, where he lived and worked until settling in San Jose in the late 1950s. While living there he worked for Dell Comics on titles derived from television shows like "Sea Hunt" and "Zorro." That led to animation work in Southern California, where he moved in 1964.

Drawing for Hanna Barbera in the 1960s and 1970s, Toth designed characters for adventure cartoons "Jonny Quest" and "The Herculoids" in addition to "The Superfriends" and "Space Ghost," and he achieved the wider recognition and commercial success that had eluded him.

"The work he did there touched more lives than anything else he had done," said Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics. "He found ways to take characters like Superman from their more complicated printed form into a simpler form for animation that still held on to their power and majesty."

Toth is survived by sons Eric and Damon Toth, daughters Dana Palmer and Carrie Morash, and four grandchildren.

 

[Tati]

Singer-Songwriter Billy Preston Dead at 59

LOS ANGELES (June 6) - Keyboardist Billy Preston, a so-called "fifth Beatle" who also played with the Rolling Stones and enjoyed solo success in his own right, died in Arizona on Tuesday after a long illness. He was 59.

Preston had been in a coma at Scottsdale Healthcare Shea in Scottsdale, Arizona, since last November after suffering kidney failure and related illnesses, the legacy of a longtime battle with drugs that landed him in prison in the late 1990s.


His sister, Lettie Preston, told Reuters his condition worsened over the weekend. An autopsy will be performed, and his funeral will take place in Los Angeles, she said.


A young keyboards prodigy, the Houston , Texas, native spent most of his life in the entertainment business. While still a teenager, he played with the likes of Mahalia Jackson, Little Richard and Ray Charles . With his large Afro hairstyle, ever-present gap-toothed smile and funky clothing style, he was a popular on-stage presence.


He entered the Beatles ' orbit in 1969, as the band was on the verge of breaking up, and helped to soothe some of the tension. He performed on both sides of the "Get Back"/"Don't Let Me Down" single, which was credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston" -- the first time the band had shared the spotlight with a sideman. He also accompanied them during their last concert that year, the famous rooftop gig in London.


In the early 1970s, he topped the charts as a solo act with the Grammy-winning instrumental "Outa Space," "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing From Nothing." He also wrote Joe Cocker's 1974 hit "You Are So Beautiful."


At the same time, he was becoming a fixture with the Rolling Stones, recording such tracks as "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and "Heartbreaker," and playing on several tours.


"He's just such a great player, singer and songwriter and has spiced up so many recordings with his keyboard prowess," said current Rolling Stones tour keyboardist Chuck Leavell. "He's one of my true heroes."


Preston's private life was darker. In 1997, a California judge sentenced him to three years in prison for violating the terms of his probation for a cocaine possession conviction handed out earlier that year.


Born William Everett Preston on September 9, 1946, he moved with his family to Los Angeles when he was 2. He appeared in the 1958 film "St. Louis Blues," which starred Nat King Cole as bluesman W.C. Handy. Preston played Handy as a child. Gospel legend Mahalia Jackson was also in the film, and he would go on to play organ on some of her best-known recordings, including "In the Upper Room."


WITH THE BEATLES


In 1962, Little Richard hired Preston to join his backing band for a European tour. He met the Beatles during their residency at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, and also Sam Cooke, who signed him to his SAR label. But Cooke was killed two years later, and Preston signed with Vee Jay records, one-time American home of the Beatles , through which he released an instrumental gospel record.


After a stint playing in the house band for the TV show "Shindig," he joined Ray Charles ' band. Beatles guitarist George Harrison renewed their friendship, and brought him into the tense Apple Studios in January 1969 where the Fab Four were barely speaking to each other while working on the "Let It Be" film and recording projects.


His organ handiwork can also be heard on such Beatle songs as "Let It Be," "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and "Something."


Harrison signed him to Apple Records and co-produced Preston's two albums for the label, "That's the Way God Planned It" and "Encouraging Words."


Preston also contributed to many Beatle solo albums, including Harrison's "All Things Must Pass," John Lennon 's "Sometime in New York City" and Ringo Starr 's "Sentimental Journey." He won a Grammy as a performer on the Harrison-orchestrated 1973 album of the year "The Concert for Bangladesh."


His credits with the Rolling Stones included the albums "Sticky Fingers" and "Black and Blue." He was a favorite of Mick Jagger , who danced seductively with Preston in the video clip for "Hey Negrita." Not only did he tour with the Stones, but he also opened for them.


In his later years, he toured with Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, as well as Motown session musicians the Funk Brothers. He also was featured on Ray Charles ' last album "Genius Loves Company," as well as the latest albums by Neil Diamond and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

 

[phrodeau]

Gyorgy Ligeti's Music Was a Constant Surprise
Composer Who Refused to Be Categorized Put Unique Stamp on '2001: A Space Odyssey'

By Tim Page
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 13, 2006; Page C02

Millions of people have heard the music of Gyorgy Ligeti, although most wouldn't recognize -- or know how to pronounce -- his name.

The music of Ligeti (lig-it-tee, without an accent), who died yesterday in Vienna at 83, was used to convey the eerie strangeness of fresh discovery in Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey." Although he did not write the so-called "2001 music" -- those 90 seconds of ultra-familiar grandeur taken from Richard Strauss's tone poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra" -- the furious buzzing of Ligeti's work for unaccompanied chorus, "Lux Aeterna," is the soundtrack for several key scenes, and it is impossible to imagine the film without it.

Another work used in the film, "Atmospheres," shimmers out of silence, its clusters of sound meeting and melding through time and space. One is put in mind of a ballet of clouds, captured in time-lapse photography. Strings give way to brass, then winds, in an elaborate musical process that is as orderly as it is colorful.

There are certain composers whose music we can recognize and identify immediately. It is unnecessary to listen to more than a few minutes of any mature work by Olivier Messiaen or Philip Glass (to name two radically dissimilar artists) to realize who was responsible for its creation.

Ligeti took a different approach, reinventing himself again and again throughout his career. "I accept many different styles," he said, and his output encompassed wild experimentalism (a "Poeme Symphonique" scored for 100 metronomes), orchestral music (a whiz-bang virtuoso piano concerto) and even full-length opera (the apocalyptic satire "Le Grand Macabre").

Because one never knew quite what to expect before hearing a new Ligeti work, his music sometimes startled listeners. Yet this eclecticism allowed him to escape some paradoxical aesthetic traps that were endemic to late 20th-century composition. He insisted that his music was "neither tonal nor atonal" and while he never blithely reiterated the musical language of the past, neither did he strive to be modern or avant-garde at the expense of communication with an audience.

For example, his Piano Etudes (1986) were glittering, glassy and altogether attractive compositions in which one found pretty bows to Chopin and Debussy, the fierce energy and density of Conlon Nancarrow's studies for player piano, some of the richly contrapuntal stasis of Steve Reich, and some of the sheer giddiness of Emanuel Chabrier. Yet it was all channeled through Ligeti's restless, vivid imagination, and the final product was unmistakably his own.

He was born in 1923 and raised in what was then a predominantly ethnic Hungarian part of Transylvania. He suffered under fascism -- his father and brother were murdered by the Nazis and Ligeti spent two years in a labor camp -- and then under communism, which caused him to flee Hungary in 1957. It was Karlheinz Stockhausen, a composer just as original and far-ranging as Ligeti, who brought him to Cologne and helped introduce him to the musicians who would become his peers.

Ligeti visited the United States many times. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he was blessedly free of European chauvinism, and cited the American composers Nancarrow, Reich, Terry Riley and Elliott Carter, as well as sub-Saharan African music, as important influences on his work. Indeed, he dedicated a piece to Reich, who returned his admiration. "Ligeti seems to realize that American music is going to be very different from the European, although it may partake of the European heritage," Reich said in 1986. "But it's not really our job to do what Ligeti does, or what Stockhausen does, or what [Pierre] Boulez does. We are a different continent."

Ligeti was a shy, gracious man who generally wore an air of professorial befuddlement. His stature in the musical community grew exponentially over the years, until he was considered one of the world's great composers. The Italian musicologist Enzo Restagno summed up the early critical resistance to Ligeti: "To their ears, his music had the flaw of being liked by the people, and, according to the self-punishing aesthetics of certain leaders of opinion in those years, it was better not to trust beauty and delightfulness. Ligeti paid no attention: He was involved in projects that were too interesting."

For which we can only be grateful.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Actor Richard Stahl dies at 74

http://images.usatoday.com/life/_photos/2006/06/22/stahl.jpg


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Richard Stahl, an actor whose more than 40-year career stretched from New York theater to film and television comedies such as Laverne and Shirley, has died. He was 74.

Stahl died Sunday at the Motion Picture and Television Fund's health center in Woodland Hills after a 10-year battle with Parkinson's disease, his wife, actress Kathryn Ish, said Wednesday.

"He had been declining for some time now," she said.

Born in Detroit, Stahl did magic tricks as a boy and moved to California as a performer at age 15, Ish said. He served in the Army during the Korean War, later graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

Ish and Stahl were both off Broadway theater actors when they met in 1959. They married later that year.

In the 1960s, the pair moved to San Francisco and joined improv comedy group The Committee, Ish said. They settled in Santa Barbara in 1975.

Stahl's film credits include 1979's Five Easy Pieces, Mel Brooks' 1977 spoof High Anxiety, 1980's 9 to 5 and 1996's Ghosts of Mississippi.

He appeared on such TV shows as Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, and Barney Miller, and held a regular stint on 1980s sitcom It's A Living.

"He was a funny guy, he worked in comedy all his life," Ish said.

Stahl is survived by Ish, their daughter Allegra and son Oliver.

 

[FallenAngel2]

Aaron Spelling, prolific Hollywood producer, dies at 83

Aaron Spelling, prolific Hollywood producer, dies at 83

By The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Aaron Spelling captivated generations of television viewers with shows like "Charlie's Angels" and "Beverly Hills 90210" and left an indelible stamp on American pop culture, but he never won the critical acclaim he sought.

One of the most prolific TV producers in history, Spelling chafed at the lowbrow label critics assigned his many hit series. He called his shows "mind candy," while critics referred to them as "mindless candy."

Spelling died Friday at his Los Angeles mansion after suffering a stroke on June 18, according to publicist Kevin Sasaki. He was 83.

"The knocks by the critics bother you," he told AP in a 1986 interview.

"But you have a choice of proving yourself to 300 critics or 30 million fans." During the 1970s and 1980s, Spelling provided series and movies exclusively for ABC television network, and is credited for the network's rise to major status. Jokesters referred to it as "The Aaron Broadcasting Company."

Spelling had arrived in Hollywood virtually penniless in the early 1950s. By the 1980s, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at $300 million.

Born on April 22, 1923, Spelling grew up in a small house in Dallas "on the wrong side of the tracks," he wrote in his 1996 autobiography. He was the fourth son of immigrant Jews, his father from Poland, mother from Russia.

At 8, he suffered what he termed a nervous breakdown and spent a year in bed. He later considered that period the birth of his creative urge.

After combat and organizing entertainment in Europe during the war, he enrolled at Southern Methodist University, where he wrote and directed plays. He continued working in local theatrics after graduating.

Finding no work in New York, Spelling moved to Los Angeles, where he staged plays and acted in more than 40 TV shows and 12 movies. He later abandoned acting for the typewriter; he married a young actress he had been courting, Carolyn Jones. They divorced after 13 years, and she died of cancer in 1983.

Spelling's friendship with such actor-producers as Dick Powell, Jack Webb and Alan Ladd led to his rapid rise as a prolific writer and later producer of TV series. In 1960, Powell, head of Four Star Productions, hired him to produce shows. "Burke's Law" became Spelling's first hit series.

After Powell's death, Spelling teamed with Danny Thomas, scoring a huge success with "The Mod Squad." In 1969, Spelling signed exclusively with ABC. After ABC canceled "Dynasty" in 1989 and his contract expired, Spelling was without a running show for the first time since 1960.

"I was so depressed, I would have quit, but I like TV too much," Spelling wrote in his memoir. After a year's respite, he returned with "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Melrose Place."

Spelling and his second wife, Candy, had two children, Tori, who became a star on the two Fox serials, and Randy, who appeared in the short-lived "Malibu Shores."

Memorial services were pending.

 

[linuxgeek]

Donald Lemmon Jr. 1968-2006

src

LAS VEGAS — Donald Edward Lemmon Jr., age 37, died in a single-car accident outside of Las Vegas, Nev., on June 10, 2006.

He was born Sept. 4, 1968, in Newton Falls, the son of Donald Edward Sr. and Laura Pearl Weimer Lemmon.

On Dec.19, 2003, he married Asia Carrera in Koolina, Hawaii.

Donald grew up in Ohio and graduated from Newton Falls High School 1986.

He served in the U.S. Army, then moved back to Ohio, working as a personal trainer. He moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in a rock band. There he found success with a nutritional Web site and he became a nutritionist and personal trainer. He was a published science fiction author. He was a devoted husband and a loving father.

Survivors include his wife, Asia; one daughter from his first marriage, Carly of Ohio, one daughter from his second marriage, Catalina of St. George, Utah, and one soon-to-be-born son, Donald Edward Lemmon III; his mother, Laura of Florida; one brother, Jeff Lemmon of Newton Falls; and four half-sisters and one half-brother.

He was preceded in death by his father, Donald E. Lemmon Sr.

Private family services will be held. Arrangements were under the direction of Moapa Valley Mortuary.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Kool & the Gang Guitarist Dies at 57

Jun 23, 5:41 PM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Claydes Charles Smith, a co-founder and lead guitarist of the group Kool & the Gang, has died. He was 57.

Smith died in Maplewood, N.J., on Tuesday after a long illness, publicist David Brokaw said Thursday. Brokaw did not know the cause of death.

"We've lost a member of our family, as well as an infinitely creative and gifted artist who was with the band from the very beginning," band manager Tia Sinclair said in a statement.

Kool & the Gang grew from jazz roots in the 1960s to become one of the major groups of the 1970s, blending jazz, funk, R&B and pop. After a downturn, the group enjoyed a return to stardom in the '80s.

Smith, who was known as Charles Smith, wrote the hits "Joanna" and "Take My Heart," and was a co-writer of others, including "Celebration,""Hollywood Swinging" and "Jungle Boogie."

Born on Sept. 6, 1948, in Jersey City, N.J., he was introduced to jazz guitar by his father in the early 1960s.

Later in that decade he was in a group of New Jersey jazz musicians, including Ronald Bell (later Khalis Bayyan), Robert "Kool" Bell, George Brown, Dennis Thomas and Robert "Spike" Mickens, who became Kool & the Gang. Other members would include lead singer James "JT" Taylor.

Illness forced Smith to stop touring with the group in January.

Smith is survived by his six children, Claydes A. Smith, Justin Smith, Aaron Corbin, August Williams, Uranus Guray and Tyteen Humes, and nine grandchildren.

 

[sweet soft kiss]

Bow your heads and pass the Mustard.

Thomas G. Arthur, 84; Made Dodger Dogs a Staple of L.A. Stadium Experience
By Elaine Woo, Times Staff Writer
9:59 PM PDT, June 26, 2006

Thomas G. Arthur, whose idea to sell a foot-long hot dog to baseball fans led to the creation of the iconic Dodger Dog, died of a heart attack June 8 in St. Louis. He was 84.

Arthur ran the food concessions at Dodger Stadium for 29 years, beginning when the venue opened in 1962. When the stadium was full, his staff could sell as many as 50,000 of the extra-long frankfurters during a game.


Items such as sushi and sandwiches came and went during his years as the Dodgers' sole purveyor of fan food; in a bout of health consciousness, he even once introduced a soy dog. But the meaty Dodger Dog was the centerpiece of the stadium menu that Arthur believed meant basically four things: soda, peanuts, beer and the super-sized hot dog in a super-sized bun.

"We look for the guy who makes up his mind on the way to the park that he's going to have a hot dog," Arthur once said, explaining his conservative approach.

When the Dodgers came to Los Angeles in 1958, they played in the Coliseum, where the food concessions were operated by Arthur's company, Arthur Food Services. Four years later, when the team moved to Dodger Stadium, Arthur wanted to add some excitement to the menu. He thought back to his Coney Island childhood when he relished eating Nathan's foot-long hot dogs and decided to borrow the idea.

"The Dodger Dog was Tom's idea," said Peter O'Malley, whose family owned the Dodgers for 40 years.

"He called it the foot-long dog, but it was actually only 10 inches," recalled Steve Arthur, one of four children who survive the former ballpark food supplier, along with 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. "He got a few snide comments from people that it was really not a foot long. That's when he got the idea to call it a Dodger Dog."

It was manufactured by the Morrell meat company and later by Farmer John, one of the Dodgers' chief sponsors.

Arthur was born in Los Angeles but grew up in New York City. His father owned theaters in the Midwest and East, including, briefly, the Roxy in New York City.

Arthur graduated from Principia College in Illinois before enlisting in the Army Air Forces in 1942. He became a B-24 navigator and flew 50 missions over North Africa and Europe during World War II.

He dreamed of becoming a cartoonist or illustrator and after the war returned to Los Angeles, where he studied briefly at Art Center College of Design and the USC School of Architecture.

To make a living, he started supplying vending machines to theaters and aircraft plants. With a family to support, Arthur gave up on art and concentrated on business.

In 1955, he won his first contract with a sports venue, the Coliseum, which he served until 1976. He also had concessions at the Los Angeles Sports Arena and Chicago's Wrigley Field. In the early 1960s, he also owned the Grenadier, a restaurant on the Sunset Strip, where he put his key stadium staff to work when baseball was not in season. He sold it after a few years.

Arthur had his longest run at Dodger Stadium, where he not only supplied the food to the fans in the bleachers but to the well-heeled spectators in the more elite Stadium Club.

He also drew the sketches and other artwork for the menus.

There were few complaints over the years, but the most memorable came one day in the early 1960s when Arthur's company was a subsidiary of ABC Consolidated Corp. A movie producer sitting in a pricey dugout-level seat called him and immediately handed the phone to one of his guests. The distinctively refined voice on the line belonged to one of Hollywood's best-known actors.

"This is Cary Grant," the voice said, "and I'm a stockholder in ABC and I have a complaint: You don't have enough grill space down here for the hot dogs."

Arthur quickly went to the dugout area and installed a large grill. "All our sales went up," he recalled years later in the Daily News. He told the story to show that everyone, from average Joes to celebrities, liked hot dogs with their baseball.

By 1990, however, Arthur's hot-dog-centric recipe for success was under siege.

Other stadiums had diversified their menus with ethnic cuisine, including Japanese, Chinese and Mexican fare, and Dodger management believed their fans wanted some new food choices too.

But updating the menu meant costly upgrades in equipment, which Arthur could not afford.

He retired from the business, and in 1991 a large food service corporation became Dodger Stadium's concessionaire.

O'Malley said he had no doubt that Arthur's inspiration — the Dodger Dog — is the reason Dodger Stadium has for years topped the charts in at least one category: the number of hot dogs eaten annually at major league ballparks.

In 2005, it was No. 1 with nearly 1.7 million hot dogs consumed. Wrigley Field and Denver's Coors Field trailed with about 1.5 million, according to the latest figures compiled by the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Patsy Ramsey Dies Of Cancer

JonBenet's Mother – Once A Suspect – Never Found Daughter's Killer

June 24, 2006

(CBS/AP) Patsy Ramsey, the mother of JonBenet, died early Saturday morning CBS News has learned from a source close to the family.

The 49-year-old died from complications from cancer in Atlanta, Georgia.

"I think people will remember Patsy as some one who was falsely accused in connection with the death of her daughter," Lin Wood, the Ramsey's attorney, said on CNN, "when she should be remembered for being an incredibly loving mother, a wonderful wife and a person who showed great courage in fighting a vicious disease."

Wood said Ramsey had been battling cancer since 1993 and had suffered a recurrence three years ago. Her husband, John, was with her at the time of her death.

Patsy Ramsey is the one who made the 911 call on December 26, 1996, telling police that her daughter was missing. "There's a note left and our daughter's gone," she said breathlessly.

Ramsey said she found a ransom note on the back staircase of the family's home demanding $118,000 for the safe return of JonBenet.

Boulder police responded immediately to Ramsey's call for help, and what first looked like a kidnapping quickly became a murder investigation, when JonBenet's body was found by her father in a small storage room in the basement of her house.

An autopsy concluded JonBenet suffered a skull fracture, and was strangled and beaten.

Because of the bizarre ransom note, and the fact that JonBenet was killed in her own home, detectives focused on her parents, John and Patsy, as their prime suspects.

Boulder police brushed aside many of the leads that came in, and dismissed the possibility that an intruder had somehow slipped inside the house and committed the murder.

The police chief said the parents were "under an umbrella of suspicion," but a grand jury did not indict the couple for murder.

Throughout lengthy and sometimes hostile police interrogations, both in 1998 and 2000, the Ramseys maintained their innocence. A 2005 48 Hours report found that DNA evidence ruled out the parents as suspects and investigators were no longer focusing on the Ramsey family.

The couple wrote a book, "The Death of Innocence," which was published in 2000.

They later left Colorado and had residences in Atlanta and in Michigan, where John Ramsey unsuccessfully ran for a state House seat in 2004. The Ramseys discussed their daughter's death during the campaign.

"We can't just hold our breath and hope the killer will be found and then go on with our lives," Patsy Ramsey said in 2004. "We have to move ahead now. We can't let evil win."

No one has been charged in the death of JonBenet Ramsey..

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Eddie the Feisty Dog in 'Frasier' Dies at 16

http://cdn.news.aol.com/aolnews_photos/02/04/20060627170509990023

LOS ANGELES (June 27) - The scrappy dog known as Eddie on TV's "Frasier" has died.

The 16-year-old Jack Russell terrier, whose real name was Moose, passed away of old age Thursday at the Los Angeles home of trainer Mathilde Halberg, Halberg told People magazine.

The canine character Eddie drove Kelsey Grammer's lead character crazy for 10 years on the show.

It wasn't all acting on Moose's part, though. He was naturally "extremely mischievous," Halberg said.

His contribution to the show's and Grammer's success was publicly noted by the actor when he accepted a 1994 Emmy for best actor in a comedy.

"Most important, Moose, this is for you," Grammer added good naturedly.

Moose, who also played the older dog Skip in the 2000 film "My Dog Skip," was retired in recent years.

 

[sweet soft kiss]

http://cdn.news.aol.com/aolnews_photos/02/04/20060627170509990023

LOS ANGELES (June 27) - The scrappy dog known as Eddie on TV's "Frasier" has died.

The 16-year-old Jack Russell terrier, whose real name was Moose, passed away of old age Thursday at the Los Angeles home of trainer Mathilde Halberg, Halberg told People magazine.

The canine character Eddie drove Kelsey Grammer's lead character crazy for 10 years on the show.

It wasn't all acting on Moose's part, though. He was naturally "extremely mischievous," Halberg said.

His contribution to the show's and Grammer's success was publicly noted by the actor when he accepted a 1994 Emmy for best actor in a comedy.

"Most important, Moose, this is for you," Grammer added good naturedly.

Moose, who also played the older dog Skip in the 2000 film "My Dog Skip," was retired in recent years.

RIP Moose

 

[Bandit1]

Subject: In Memoriam - Jim Baen
Author: Arnold Bailey
Date: 29 Jun 2006 01:39 PM

We regret to inform you that publisher Jim Baen passed away on June 28th. He suffered a massive stroke on June 12, 2006 and never woke from it. Jim Baen was a founding partner of Baen Books, one of the largest independent publishers of popular fiction. Since its inception in 1984, Baen evolved to be one of the leading publishers of science fiction and fantasy, and in recent years a leader in electronic publishing and the fight against encrypted books.

Jim Baen started his career in publishing in the complaints department of Ace Books. He moved on to Galaxy magazine in 1973, where his editorial acumen turned the magazine into one of the leading short story venues of the day. He returned to Ace under publisher Tom Doherty to run the science fiction line. When Doherty left to found Tor Books, Jim went with him and established its science fiction line, purchasing its first 170 titles. In 1984 a deal with Simon and Schuster/Pocket Books gave Jim a chance to found his own independent company. S&S has distributed Baen Books ever since. Recently, Baen Books has enjoyed a string of New York Times bestsellers by such authors as David Weber, John Ringo and Eric Flint. Jim also personally worked with Jerry Pournelle, David Drake, Larry Niven, Charles Sheffield, Lois McMaster Bujold and many other authors who shaped the field of modern science fiction. In recent years Jim continued to develop a whole new generation of science fiction writers.

Jim Baen was a personal and vocal champion of unencrypted ebooks. The Baen Books Webscriptions program is a model in the field, and the discussion board at

http://www.baen.com

“Baen’s Bar,” is an active forum and thriving online community. Jim’s piquant wit and incisive commentary will be sorely missed.

Jim is survived by two daughters, Jessica Baen, 29, and Katherine Baen, 14.

The surviving partners of Baen and his heirs intend to continue Jim’s legacy of innovative, independent publishing. Longtime Baen Books executive editor Toni Weisskopf will be acting publisher and direct day-to-day operation of the company. Remembrances of Jim’s life will be held at Tri-noc-Con in Raleigh, NC Saturday, July 22 and Lacon IV, the Worldcon, in Los Angeles, CA in August.

For a complete obituary please go to author David Drake’s website:

http://www.david-drake.com

Damn.


Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than a sage among his books.
For to us, empires and kings are things of great import, but to him, they are but matters of the moment, to be overturned with a flick of his finger.
(Yes, I know it's not an exact quote, but it's close enough)

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Lloyd Richards, Tony-Winning Director

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Lloyd Richards, Tony-Winning Director Who Helped Give August Wilson a Voice, Is Dead
By Kenneth Jones
30 Jun 2006

Lloyd Richards, the groundbreaking Tony Award-winning American director who worked on Broadway, in regional theatre and in the academic community, shepherding the work of August Wilson and other new playwrights, has died, according to The O'Neill Theater Center.

Friends and colleagues in the theatre community said Mr. Richards died June 29, after a brief illness that sent him to the hospital. Friends said June 29 was his 87th birthday.

The League of American Theatres and Producers, Inc. and its members mourn the loss of Mr. Richards and will honor him by dimming the marquee lights of every Broadway theatre for one minute 8 PM June 30.

Mr. Richards served as the artistic director of the National Playwrights Conference — the O'Neill Center's founding program — for 32 years. Mr. Richards' legacy is his discovery and development of the early work of Athol Fugard, John Guare, Lee Blessing, John Patrick Shanley, Derek Wolcott, Wendy Wasserstein and August Wilson, helping give them a voice on the American stage.

He was referred to lovingly by many of the scores of actors, directors, designers and playwrights who have worked with him as "Papa."

Mr. Richards, praised for his ability to guide and edit the work of the poetry-prone August Wilson, won the 1987 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for August Wilson's Fences, which was also named Best Play that year. He also directed Broadway productions of Wilson's Seven Guitars, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Two Trains Running and The Piano Lesson.

Mr. Richards was born in Toronto, Canada in 1923, and raised in Detroit. His father died when he was nine. His mother became blind when he was a youngster, so he worked to support the family. He studied at Wayne University (now Wayne State University) and stopped his studies to serve in the Army Air Force during World War II.

Mr Richards pursued radio and theatre at Wayne when he returned after the war, and founded a theatre group in Detroit with classmates. He moved to New York City in 1947 to act, landing roles (on Broadway in The Egghead in 1957 and Freight in 1950) but he leaned toward directing as a future that had more prospects. He returned to Detroit to direct at the Nortlhland Playhouse in the 1950s.

A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry's 1959 cultural pulse-taking — a play about an urban black family's conflicts when faced with the possibilities of moving out of the ghetto — was Mr. Richards' first Broadway directing credit. A black director directing the work of a black woman playwright on the Great White Way was a watershed moment in American theatre.

His other Broadway directing credits included The Long Dream, The Moon Beseiged, the musicals I Had a Ball and The Yearling and Paul Robeson.

In 1966, Mr. Richards was named head of the actor training program at New York University's School of the Arts. He was also professor of theatre and cinema at Hunter College in New York City.

In a fertile time in the 1980s, he was artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre, which, under on his watch with colleague Ben Mordecai, mounted pre-Broadway stagings of The Cemetery Club, Ah, Wilderness!, Long Day's Journey Into Night (1988), A Walk in the Woods, Blood Knot, Master Harold…and the boys (1982), A Lesson From Aloes as well as the Wilson plays that he directed on Broadway (all but Seven Guitars played New Haven).

Mr. Richards' honors include the Drama Desk, the Pioneer Award of AUDELCO, the Frederick Douglass Award and (in 1993) the National Medal of the Arts. He has also served as President of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

He retired from his posts as dean of the Yale University School of Drama and artistic director of Yale Rep in 1991, but remained professor emeritus at Yale.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Randy Walker, Northwestern Head Football Coach, 52, Dies

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Randy Walker, the only coach to lead Northwestern's football team to three bowl games, died Thursday night at his suburban Chicago home. He was 52.

Walker died apparently of a heart attack after feeling chest pains around 10 p.m., said Mike Wolf, Northwestern's assistant athletic director.

Walker took over the Northwestern football program in 1999 after going 59-35-5 in nine seasons at Miami University in Ohio. The Big Ten Conference's coach of the year in 2000, he was an assistant at North Carolina from 1978 to 1987 and was then the running backs coach at Northwestern in 1988 and 1989 before he became the coach at Miami of Ohio, his alma mater.

A native of Troy, Ohio, Walker graduated from Miami in 1976 with a degree in social studies education. In 1981, he received a master's degree in education administration.

As a fullback at Miami, he helped lead the team to records of 11-0, 10-0-1 and 11-1 in 1973, 1974 and 1975. He was named the team's most valuable player his senior season and was inducted into the Miami Hall of Fame in 1992.

Walker was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League in 1976, but was released in training camp. He then returned to Oxford, Ohio, to help Miami as a graduate assistant.

In August 2001, Northwestern defensive back Rashidi Wheeler collapsed and died at practice. His parents sued Northwestern, and after years of legal wrangling, the family was awarded a $16 million settlement in August.

"That was a very difficult time for Randy — first of all having a player die, the media attacks," Northwestern's athletic director, Mark Murphy, said. "As it dragged on, it became more and more difficult. To me, it really shows his resiliency, the strength of his character to make it through a situation like that."

In October 2004, Walker was found to have myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.

"I've really taken my doctor's orders to heart because, frankly, I want to see my grandkids someday," he told reporters at the time.

Walker is survived by his wife, Tamara, and two children, Abbey, and Jamie, who is an assistant with the Northwestern football team.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Comic and TV Host Jan Murray Dead at 89

Jul 3, 2:01 PM (ET)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) - Funny man and game show host Jan Murray, a member of a comic rat pack that included Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis and Jack Carter, has died. He was 89.

Murray, who appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows, died Sunday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., son Howard Murray said in a telephone interview Monday.

Murray had been in deteriorating health, suffering from emphysema, heart problems and pneumonia in the last several months, his son said.

Born Murray Janofsky on Oct. 4, 1916, in New York, Murray honed his craft by watching vaudeville shows. He went on to host a string of game shows in the 1950s, including "Dollar a Second" and "Treasure Hunt" before moving to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.

By the time Murray retired 10 years ago, he had appeared in more than 20 movies. He also served as a guest host on "The Tonight Show."

Murray balanced his work with a rich family life, his son said.

"He was a person who fully loved his life and wanted to continue as long as he could," his son said.

In addition to his son, Howard, Murray is survived by his wife, Toni, son Warren, daughters Diane and Celia, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

'Perfect Wife' June Allyson Dies at 88

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LOS ANGELES (July 10) - June Allyson, the sunny, raspy-voiced "perfect wife" of James Stewart, Van Johnson and other movie heroes, has died, her daughter said Monday. She was 88.

Allyson died Saturday at her home in Ojai, with her husband of nearly 30 years, David Ashrow, at her side, Pamela Allyson Powell said. She died of pulmonary respiratory failure and acute bronchitis after a long illness.

During World War II, American GIs pinned up photos of Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable, but June Allyson was the girl they wanted to come home to. Petite, blond and alive with fresh-faced optimism, she seemed the ideal sweetheart and wife, supportive and unthreatening.

"I had the most wonderful last meeting with June at her house. ... We were such dear friends. I will miss her," lifelong friend Esther Williams said.

Allyson's real life belied the sunshiny image she presented in films of the `40s and `50s. As she revealed in her 1982 autobiography, she had an alcoholic father and was raised by a single mother in the Bronx. Her "ideal marriage" to actor-director Dick Powell was beset with frustrations.

After Powell's cancer death in 1963, she battled breakdowns, alcoholism and a disastrous second marriage. She credited her recovery to Ashrow, her third husband, a children's dentist who became a nutrition expert.

Born Eleanor Geisman on Oct. 7, 1917, Ella was 6 when her alcoholic father left. Her mother worked as a telephone operator and restaurant cashier. At 8, the girl was bicycling when a dead tree branch fell on her. Several bones were broken and doctors said she would never walk again. Months of physical therapy helped her to defy that prognosis.

"After the accident and the extensive therapy, we were desperate," Allyson wrote in her autobiography. "Sometimes mother would not eat dinner, and I'd ask her why. She would say she wasn't hungry, but later I realized there was only enough food for one."

After graduating from a wheelchair to crutches to braces, Ella was inspired by Ginger Rogers' dancing with Fred Astaire. Fully recovered, she tried out for a chorus job in a Broadway show, "Sing out the News." The choreographer gave her a job and a new name: Allyson, a family name, and June, for the month.

As June Allyson she danced on stage in "Very Warm for May" and "Higher and Higher." For "Panama Hattie," she understudied Betty Hutton and subbed for her when Miss Hutton got the measles. Her performance led to a role in "Best Foot Forward" in 1941.

MGM signed her to a contract, and she appeared in small roles. Then in "Two Girls and a Sailor" (1944), her winsome beauty and bright personality connected with U.S. servicemen. She starred in "Music for Millions," "The Sailor Takes a Wife," "Two Sisters from Boston" and "Good News."

Allyson appeared opposite Johnson in several films, and she was Stewart's wife in "The Stratton Story," "The Glenn Miller Story" and "Strategic Air Command."

Only once did she play an unsympathetic role, as a wife who torments husband Jose Ferrer in "The Shrike." It was a failure.

In 1949, she starred with Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh and Margaret O'Brien in "Little Women."

In 1945, Allyson married Powell, the crooner who turned serious actor and then producer-director and television tycoon. The marriage seemed like one of Hollywood's happiest, but it wasn't.

She began earning big money after leaving MGM, "but it had little meaning to me because I never saw the money, and I didn't even ask Richard how much it was. ... It went into a common pot with Richard's money."

The couple separated in 1961, but reconciled and remained together until his death in 1963. They had two children, Pamela, who lives in Santa Monica, and Richard Keith Powell, who lives in Los Angeles.

A few months after Powell's death, Allyson married his barber, Glenn Maxwell. They separated 10 months later, and she sued for divorce, charging he hit her and abused her in front of the children and passed bad checks for gambling debts.

On Oct. 30, 1976, she married Ashrow. It was a very peaceful time for her, Powell said, because she and Ashrow were free to travel and spend time with family and their dogs.

After her film career ended in the late `50s, Allyson starred on television as hostess and occasional star of "The Dupont Show with June Allyson." The anthology series lasted two seasons. In later years the actress appeared on TV shows such as "Love Boat" and "Murder, She Wrote."

For the last 20 years, Allyson represented the Kimberly-Clark Corp. in commercials for Depends and championed the importance of research in urological and gynecological diseases in seniors.

"Mom was always so proud of representing a product that provided such a service to senior citizens, including at that time, her own mother," Powell said.

The company established the June Allyson Foundation in honor of her work.

In 1988, she was appointed by President Reagan to the federal Council on Aging.

"For nearly 60 years, we have been hearing how much she meant to so many people from all over the world. She still gets fan mail from places like Germany and Holland. They send old photos. It was wonderful to us," Powell said.

Besides Ashrow and her children, she is survived by her brother, Dr. Arthur Peters, and her grandson, Richard Logan Powell.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Syd Barrett, Founder of Pink Floyd, Dies at 60

http://cdn.news.aol.com/aolnews_photos/03/01/20060711101809990003

Troubled Genius Composed Many of the Band's Early Songs

LONDON (July 11) - Syd Barrett, the troubled Pink Floyd co-founder who spent his last years in reclusive anonymity, has died, the band said Tuesday. He was 60.

The surviving members the legendary band - David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright - said they were "very upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death."

"Syd was the guiding light of the early band lineup and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire," they said in a statement.

Barrett co-founded Floyd in 1965 with Waters, Mason and Wright, and wrote many of the band's early songs. The group's jazz-infused rock and drug-laced, multimedia "happenings" made them darlings of the London psychedelic scene. The 1967 album "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" - largely written by Barrett, who also played guitar - was a commercial and critical hit.

But Barrett suffered from mental instability, exacerbated by his use of LSD. His behavior grew increasingly erratic, and he left the group in 1968 - five years before the release of the band's most popular album, "Dark Side of the Moon" - to be replaced by Gilmour.

Barrett released two solo albums - "The Madcap Laughs" and "Barrett" - but soon withdrew from the music business altogether. An album of previously unreleased material, "Opel," was issued in 1988.

He reverted to his real name, Roger Barrett, and spent much of the rest of his life living quietly in his hometown of Cambridge, England. Moving into his mother's suburban house, he passed the time painting and tending the garden. His former bandmates made sure Barrett continued to receive royalties from his work with Floyd.

He was a familiar figure to neighbors, often seen cycling or walking to the corner store, but rarely spoke to the fans and journalists who sought him out over the years.

Despite his brief career, Barrett's fragile, wistful songs influenced many musicians including David Bowie - who covered the Barrett track "See Emily Play."

Bowie said in a statement posted on his Web site that Barrett had been a "major inspiration."

"His impact on my thinking was enormous," Bowie write. "A major regret is that I never got to know him. A diamond indeed."

The other members of Floyd recorded the album "Wish You Were Here" as a tribute to their troubled bandmate.

It contained the song "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" - "Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun." The band also dwelt on themes of mental illness on the albums "Dark Side of the Moon" and "The Wall."

 

[sweet soft kiss]

Dr. John Money, professor, researcher of sexual identity

BALTIMORE — Dr. John Money, a psychologist and sex researcher who coined the terms "gender identity" and "gender role" and was a pioneer in studies of sexual identity, has died. He was 84.

Money died Friday at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Md., said Vivienne Stearns-Elliott, a hospital spokeswoman. Money's niece, Sally Hopkins, said Sunday her uncle died of complications from Parkinson's disease.

Money was born in New Zealand and immigrated to the United States in 1947. He conducted research for about 50 years at Johns Hopkins University, where he was a professor of medical psychology.

Money believed a person's gender identity was determined by an interaction between biological factors and upbringing. That represented a break from past thinking, in which gender identity was largely believed to be caused only by biological factors.

"He really developed that entire field of study," said Dr. Gregory K. Lehne, a Money protege and an assistant professor of medical psychology at Johns Hopkins. "Without him, that whole field of study might not have existed."

Money advised parents on what sex they should raise hermaphrodites — people born with characteristics of both sexes — to be. He also worked with people who were born with normal sex organs but did not identify with the gender they had been raised to be.

"He pioneered the concepts related to this and the psychological aspects of sex reassignment," Lehne said.

Lehne said Money appeared to enjoy the controversy his work raised because it provoked people to think in different ways about gender.

Money was involved in a highly publicized case of a boy who was raised as a girl after suffering a seared penis while being circumcised in 1966.

David Reimer was raised as "Brenda" after Money advised his parents to remove the rest of his male genitalia and recommended female hormone treatment.

Reimer was 15 when he learned his true identity and rejected further treatment as a girl. He committed suicide in 2004 at the age of 38 after failed investments drove him into poverty.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Barnard Hughes, Tony-Winning Actor of Da and Prelude to a Kiss, Dead at 90

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11 Jul 2006

Barnard Hughes, the Tony Award-winning actor who starred in Da on Broadway, and began his professional career in 1934, died July 11 at New York Presbyterian Hospital after a brief illness, his family announced.

Mr. Hughes, a Bedford Hills, NY, native, was 90. He was born July 16, 1915, the son of Owen and Madge Hughes.

The kind-eyed actor, who seemed to slide inside the skin of any of the various characters he played, might be best remembered for his humane performance as an Irish father in Hugh Leonard's Da (1978).

For his turn as the curmudgeonly father — "da," for short — haunting the memory of his playwright son, he won the Best Actor Tony Award and Outstanding Actor Drama Desk Award. He later played the role in the film version.

Mr. Hughes held jobs as a dock checker in New York harbor, a Macy's salesman and a Wall Street copyreader before auditioning for the stage on a dare from a friend. His career, which began in 1934 with one line in the Shakespeare Fellowship Repertory Company production of The Taming of the Shrew, spanned seven decades and over 400 roles on Broadway, and in television and films, appearing opposite such varied stars as Richard Burton, Robert Preston, George C. Scott, Alfred Drake, Lillian Gish, Christopher Plummer, Lauren Bacall, Alec Baldwin, Nicol Williamson, Bill Murray, Glenn Close, Kiefer Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, Jon Voight, Vanessa Redgrave, Rosemary Harris, Walter Matthau and Whoopi Goldberg.

Mr. Hughes made his Broadway debut in 1935 in Herself Mrs. Patrick Crowley. Until 1942 he toured the United States performing in stock theatrical shows. In 1945, he resumed his stage career after serving in the Army during World War II. While performing in a veteran's hospital show, he met actress Helen Stenborg, his wife of 56 years, whom he married in 1950.

The couple acted on Broadway together as late as 2000 in Noel Coward's Waiting in the Wings. He was 85 at the time. That year, he and Stenborg, who survives him, received a Drama Desk Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 1995, he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.

Also among his survivors is his son, Doug Hughes, the Tony Award-winning director known for Doubt.

Mr. Hughes also received a Tony nomination in 1973 for his performance as Dogberry in the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Much Ado About Nothing. His major Broadway credits included Advise and Consent, Nobody Loves an Albatross, Hamlet, How Now Dow Jones, Uncle Vanya, The Good Doctor, Angels Fall, End of the World, The Iceman Cometh and Prelude to a Kiss.

In 1989, he performed the role of Grandpa in the Abbey Theatre of Dublin's production of You Can't Take It with You. He returned to Dublin in 1991 to perform Da in that city's Olympia Theatre.

His film credits include "Hamlet" with Richard Burton, "Midnight Cowboy," "The Hospital," "Cold Turkey," "Where's Poppa?," "First Monday in October," "Oh, God!," "Tron," "Maxie," "The Lost Boys," "Doc Hollywood," "Sister Act 2" and "Cradle Will Rock."

His career included guest star roles on "All in the Family," "The Bob Newhart Show" and his 1977 Emmy Award-winning performance on "Lou Grant." Other TV credits included "Playhouse 90," Kraft Theatre," "Armstrong Circle Theatre," "The Guiding Light" and "As the World Turns." He starred in the television series "Doc," "Mr. Merlin" and "The Cavanaughs," and played a recurring role on the series "Blossom."

Mr. Hughes served for over a decade as President of the Episcopal Actors’ Guild and for many years on the council of The Actors’ Fund. In 1992, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Manhattan College, the school he'd dropped out of to become an actor.

His last public appearance was on June 1, 2006 at the Shubert Theatre, where in celebration of 60 years of the Tony Awards, he was photographed with 110 Best Actor and Best Actress Tony Award winners, including Natasha Richardson, Brian Dennehy, Glenn Close, Philip Bosco, Marian Seldes and Ralph Fiennes.

He is also survived by daughter Laura Hughes and a grandson, Samuel Hughes Rubin.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Benjamin Hendrickson, "As the World Turns" Soap Star

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Benjamin Hendrickson, "As the World Turns" Soap Star Who Played NYC Stages, Is Dead

06 Jul 2006

Benjamin Hendrickson, the actor who played detective Hal Munson on TV's "As the World Turns" for many years, and worked in theatre in New York City, died in his Long Island home in an apparent suicide.

According to the New York Post, Mr. Hendrickson, 55, shot himself after battling with depression since the 2003 death of his mother. He was an Emmy Award winner for his "ATWT" work. He lived in Huntington, NY, an easy commute to the Brooklyn studios where the serial is taped. His colleagues on the show regularly appear on New York City stages.

Mr. Hendrickson attended the Juilliard School. In his 2003 Emmy acceptance speech, he thanked his mother, who "scrimped and saved" to send him to the famous acting school so he could play the classics. His tone was ironic, of course, as his best known work was the TV soap, where his cop character married a famously salty fashion designer, Barbara Ryan, despite his attraction to his detective partner, Margo Hughes.

The actor's weary, hangdog look and deep-set eyes made it seem like his character spent too much overtime at the station, kept awake by caffeine and flourescent lighting. Mirth seemed a foreign thing to Hal Munson, and any contentment he encountered was fleeting. In recent years, the woes of his children weighed him down.

According to the Daily News, Mr. Hendrickson was a member of the first class of Juilliard's drama division and a founding member of the Acting Company under the late John Houseman.

Among his Broadway credits are Awake and Sing! (1984), the play with music Strider (1979), The Elephant Man (standing by for David Bowie in the title role), The Three Sisters (1975), The Time of Your Life (1975), Edward II (1975), The Robber Bridegroom (1975), Next Time I'll Sing to You (1974), Measure for Measure (1973), The Beggar's Opera (1973), The Three Sisters (1973).

His Off-Broadway credits include The Lisbon Traviata, After the Fall, The Rear Column, The Philanthropist and Life and Limb.

Mr. Hendrickson's last appearance on the CBS soap opera was today, July 12th.

 

[Tati]

Oscar Winner Red Buttons Dies at 87

Red Buttons, an impish redheaded comic whose career extended from vaudeville to early TV to an Oscar-winning dramatic role, died Thursday of vascular disease at his home in the Century City area of Los Angeles, according to publicist Warren Cowan. He was 87.

Buttons had been ill for some time, and was with family members when he died, Cowan told the Associated Press.

Born Aaron Chwatt and raised in the Bronx, Buttons got his nickname when he was a young singing waiter whose uniform had a lot of buttons on it. "Red" referred to his carrot top.

In 1952, after a long and successful career as a Borscht Belt comic (Buttons's musical theme was "The Ho-Ho Song," to which he danced on one leg), he starred in TV's The Red Buttons Show. The high point of his career came with the 1957 film adaptation of the James Michener World War II novel, Sayonara, starring Marlon Brando.

Buttons played Airman Joe Kelly, an American who marries a Japanese woman (Miyoshi Umeki). Both characters commit suicide rather than continue to endure the prejudice they encountered.

Buttons won the Supporting Actor Oscar for the role – and went on to become highly visible in movies for the next 20 years and on TV nearly until his death.

Other movies included The Big Circus, Hatari! The Longest Day, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? The Poseidon Adventure and Pete's Dragon. He also appeared on TV shows such as The Cosby Show, Roseanne and Dennis Miller Live.

In 1964, Buttons married his third wife, Alicia, with whom he had two children. Alicia Buttons died in 2001.