Literotica Cemetary

[JennyOmanHill]

Anna Lee, Veteran Film, TV Actress, Dead At 91

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Anna Lee, a veteran actress whose career in films and television spanned nearly 70 years, died Friday of pneumonia at her home in Beverly Hills.

Lee was 91. Her son, actor Jeffrey Byron, was by her side.

Lee starred as Lila Quartermaine on the daytime drama "General Hospital" from 1978 to 2003. She played the role confined to a wheelchair after she was paralyzed in a car accident.

On film, she played Sister Margaretta in "The Sound of Music" and starred in such films as "King Solomon's Mines," "The Ghost in Mrs. Muir," "Fort Apache" and "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Apart from "General Hospital," Lee's other television credits included guest roles on "Peter Gun," "77 Sunset Strip," "Perry Mason," "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour," "Hawaii Five-O" and "Mission: Impossible."

Years ago, when Lee was young and touring with the London Repertory Theatre, she was known as "the British bombshell."

Maureen O'Hara said when Lee moved to the United States in the early 1930s, "everybody fell in love with her."

Born Joan Boniface Winnifrith in 1913 in Kent, England, Lee was married three times. Her marriages to director Robert Stevenson and George Stafford ended in divorce and her third husband, Robert Nathan, died in 1985.

Byron said a memorial service will be held in Los Angeles in several weeks.

Lee will be posthumously honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at Friday's Daytime Emmy Awards.

 

[Bizkit_Writer]

Actor Tony Randall Dies at 84

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Tony Randall served as a fussy foil for Rock Hudson and Doris Day, David Letterman and Johnny Carson and, most famously, Jack Klugman on "The Odd Couple," has died at 84 after a long illness.

Randall, who had been hospitalized since December when he developed pneumonia after heart bypass surgery, died in his sleep Monday night at NYU Medical Center. His wife, Heather Harlan Randall — who had made him a father for the first time at age 77 — was by his side.

The dedicated theater advocate entered the hospital after starring in a revival of Luigi Pirandello's play "Right You Are," the 20th production of the National Actors Theatre (search), which Randall founded.

Broadway's marquee lights were being dimmed in his honor Tuesday night.

Day remembered him Tuesday as being "so brilliant, funny, sweet and dear, that it was as if God had given him everything." Randall played the fussbudget pal in Hudson-Day movies such as 1959's "Pillow Talk" and 1961's "Lover Come Back."

"He was the funniest man in movies and on television, and nothing was as much fun as working with him," the 80-year-old actress said from Carmel, Calif. "I'm so glad that his last few years with his wife and children were so happy. I loved him very much and miss him already."

"Tony Randall's passion for live theatre was unmatched," Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theatres and Producers, said in a statement. "He was a vociferous advocate for the proposition that serious plays are the lifeblood of our culture."

He was best-known, though, for playing fastidious photographer Felix Unger opposite Klugman's Oscar Madison on "The Odd Couple" (search), the sitcom based on Neil Simon's play and movie.

After Randall's death, Klugman canceled the remaining Milwaukee performances of "An Evening With Jack Klugman," his one-man show scheduled to run through Sunday, and flew to New York.

Last year, Randall told AP Radio that, thanks to reruns, it was no surprise most people knew him as Felix Unger.

"It's on all the time," he said. "People on the street say, 'Hello, Felix' to me, except for those who say, 'Hello, Oscar."'

"The Odd Couple" ran from 1970-75, but Randall won an Emmy only after it had been canceled. At the awards ceremony he quipped: "I'm so happy I won. Now if I only had a job."

The show's charm sprang from Felix's chemistry and conflict with Oscar, the sloppy sportswriter he's forced to share an apartment with after both men get divorced.

Klugman told AP Radio in 1993: "We are so apparently different, but in our approach to work, how we feel about acting, we're so close. I'm not afraid to ask him anything and he's not afraid to ask me anything."

"Tony Randall was a great man, a great talent and a great influence on my life," said Garry Marshall, who produced "The Odd Couple" series. "He taught me how to write, he taught my sister, Penny, how to act, and he taught millions of people how to laugh."

Randall's other famous television persona was as a fixture on late-night talk shows, appearing on Letterman's "Late Night" and "Late Show" more than 100 times. He also had more appearances than any other actor on Carson's "The Tonight Show," according to his publicist, Gary Springer.

"I was lucky enough to know Tony as an actor and friend," Letterman said Tuesday. "Whenever we needed a big laugh, we would bring in Tony. He always made us better for having worked with him. We will miss him very much."

In 1993, when Conan O'Brien took over the time slot at NBC that Letterman had vacated for a new show at CBS, Randall was a guest on O'Brien's debut episode.

"A lot of people didn't give me much of a chance of making it in this business and he was incredibly supportive and he gave me a pep talk," O'Brien said during the show he taped Tuesday. "I used to watch him with my dad so this is a loss for me personally as well as for all of us here."

After "The Odd Couple," Randall had two short-lived sitcoms, one of which was "The Tony Randall Show," in which he played a stuffy Philadelphia judge, from 1976-78.

From 1981-83, he played the title role in the sitcom "Love, Sidney," as a single, middle-aged commercial artist helping a female friend care for her young daughter. The show was based on a TV movie in which Sidney was gay; in the TV show, the character's sexual orientation was implied, but never specified.

"People have to remember this was 1981? '82? '83?" said Swoosie Kurtz, his "Love, Sidney" co-star. Being gay "was unacceptable on network television."

Kurtz recalled Randall's sense of humor as being "outrageous. He told the dirtiest jokes, the filthiest jokes, which you would not expect from Felix."

In an effort to bring classic theater back to Broadway, Randall founded and was artistic director of the nonprofit National Actors Theatre in 1991, using $1 million of his own money and $2 million from corporations and foundations. The company's first production was a revival of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," starring Martin Sheen and Michael York, which hadn't been staged on Broadway in 40 years.

Subsequent performances included "Night Must Fall," "The Gin Game" and "The Sunshine Boys," which reunited Randall with Klugman, in 1998. Randall also appeared in the Tony Award-winning staging of "M. Butterfly."

He also was socially active, lobbying against smoking in public places, marching in Washington against apartheid in the '80s, and helping raise money for AIDS research in the '90s.

Born Leonard Rosenberg on Feb. 26, 1920, Randall was drawn as a teenager to roadshows that came through his hometown of Tulsa, Okla.

He attended Northwestern University before heading to New York at 19, where he made his stage debut in 1941 in "The Circle of Chalk."

After Army service during World War II from 1942-46, he returned to New York, where he appeared on radio and early television. He got his start in movies in 1957.

He was married to his college sweetheart, Florence Randall, for 54 years until she died of cancer in 1992.

In 1995, Randall married Heather Harlan, who was 50 years his junior. He met her through his National Actors Theatre, where she was an intern; then-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani performed the ceremony.

The couple had two children: 7-year-old Julia Laurette and 5-year-old Jefferson Salvini. Randall told AP Radio that he couldn't believe he'd become a father for the first time in his 70s.

"It's amazing. I haven't heard anyone have a life like that," he said last year. "The most amazing, wonderful things in my life have happened since I was 70. I think that's unique."

In September, during a speech to the National Funeral Directors Association, Randall joked about how he envisioned his own ceremony: President Bush and Vice President Cheney would show up to pay their respects, but they'd be turned away because his family knows he didn't like them.

He said funerals should be planned as a celebration of life — and "a touch of humor doesn't hurt a bit

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Famed Choreographer Taylor Dies At 86

POSTED: 4:16 p.m. EDT May 18, 2004

Emmy-winning choreographer June Taylor has died.

Taylor died at the Miami Heart Institute Monday. She was 86.

Taylor founded the June Taylor Dancers in 1942 and made her television debut in 1948 on "The Toast of the Town" starring Ed Sullivan.

Two years later, she joined Jackie Gleason's "Cavalcade of Stars," winning an Emmy for her choreography.

Taylor also later choreographed the Miami Dolphins cheerleading squad.

 

[Moi]

Richard Biggs

Actor Richard Biggs (b.1961), who appeared on Babylon 5 as Dr. Stephen Franklin and who was active on the science fiction convention circuit, died on May 22. Biggs has also appeared on several soap operas and was currently filming the television series “Tremors” as Roger Garret. Initial indications are that he suffered from either an aneurysm or a massive stroke.

 

[Moi]

Lu Leonard

Actress Lu Leonard died May 14 of heart failure at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills. She was 77.



She was often typecast in roles requiring a hefty thesp, such as that of Larry Fine (news)'s wife in the Three Stooges' "Husbands Beware."


Leonard went on the road with her vaudevillian parents at one month old. When her mother died, she moved to Hollywood with her father, "Happy" Hal Price, who appeared in Republic Studios films of the '40s and '50s.


On Broadway, Leonard appeared in "The Pajama Game," "Happiest Girl in the World," "The Gay Life," "Bravo Giovanni" and "Drat! The Cat."


She was featured in the national tours of "Plain and Fancy," "The Music Man," "Oliver!" and "Man of La Mancha."


She appeared in many Los Angeles theater productions, with her most recognizable role as the matron in "Women Behind Bars." at the Coast Playhouse and Roxy Theater.


Leonard had a recurring role as William Conrad's wise secretary in "Jake and the Fat Man" and also guested on TV series including "Cagney and Lacey," "Buffalo Bill," "Who's the Boss," "Laverne and Shirley," "Facts of Life" and "Married With Children."


One of her most memorable roles in film was in "Mickey and Maude," in which she played the hatchet-faced admitting nurse. She also appeared in features including "Annie," "Starman," "You Can't Hurry Love," "Without You I'm Nothing," and "Made in America."


She leaves no survivors.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

History writer dead, 82

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Jun. 2, 2004. 01:00 AM

JFK accounts won Manchester fame
Ill-health stalled Churchill series

HARTFORD, Conn.— Historian William Manchester, who brought a novelist's flair to his stirring biographies of such 20th century giants as Winston Churchill, Douglas MacArthur and John F. Kennedy, died of cancer yesterday at 82.

Manchester wrote 18 books, including two novels, but was best known in recent years for his magisterial, multivolume biography of Churchill, The Last Lion. Two strokes prevented Manchester from completing the much-anticipated third volume, covering most of the World War II years.

"He wrote histories or biographies that just take you right there and illuminate, teach, enlighten and anger," said Paul Reid, the writer chosen to help finish that book.

The author died in his sleep at his Connecticut home, daughter Laurie Manchester said.

"He would have wanted to be remembered as a writer first and foremost, and then as a historian. Writing came to him easily, it was like breathing."

 

[KindaKinky]

Ronald Reagan 1911-2004

WASHINGTON - Ronald Reagan (news - web sites), the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was "morning again in America," died Saturday after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer's disease (news - web sites), a family friend said. He was 93.

He died at his home in California, according to the friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The White House was told his health had taken a turn for the worse in the last several days.


Five years after leaving office, the nation's 40th president told the world in November 1994 that he had been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's, an incurable illness that destroys brain cells. He said he had begun "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life."

Reagan body was expected to be taken to his presidential library and museum in Simi Valley, Calif., and then flown to Washington to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. His funeral was expected to be at the National Cathedral, an event likely to draw world leaders. The body was to be returned to California for a sunset burial at his library.

Reagan lived longer than any U.S. president, spending his last decade in the shrouded seclusion wrought by his disease, tended by his wife, Nancy, whom he called Mommy, and the select few closest to him. Now, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton are the surviving ex-presidents.

Although fiercely protective of Reagan's privacy, the former first lady let people know his mental condition had deteriorated terribly. Last month, she said: "Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him."

Reagan's oldest daughter, Maureen, from his first marriage, died in August 2001 at age 60 from cancer. Three other children survive: Michael, from his first marriage, and Patti Davis and Ron from his second.

Over two terms, from 1981 to 1989, Reagan reshaped the Republican Party in his conservative image, fixed his eye on the demise of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism and tripled the national debt to $3 trillion in his singleminded competition with the other superpower. Taking office at age 69, Reagan had already lived a career outside Washington, one that spanned work as a radio sports announcer, an actor, a television performer, a spokesman for the General Electric Co., and a two-term governor of California. At the time of his retirement, his very name suggested a populist brand of conservative politics that still inspires the Republican Party. He declared at the outset, "Government is not the solution, it's the problem," although reducing that government proved harder to do in reality than in his rhetoric.

Even so, he challenged the status quo on welfare and other programs that had put government on a growth spurt ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal strengthened the federal presence in the lives of average Americans.

In foreign affairs, he built the arsenals of war while seeking and achieving arms control agreements with the Soviet Union. In his second term, Reagan was dogged by revelations that he authorized secret arms sales to Iran while seeking Iranian aid to gain release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Some of the money was used to aid rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua.

Despite the ensuing investigations, he left office in 1989 with the highest popularity rating of any retiring president in the history of modern-day public opinion polls. That reflected, in part, his uncommon ability as a communicator and his way of connecting with ordinary Americans, even as his policies infuriated the left and as his simple verities made him the butt of jokes. "Morning again in America" became his re-election campaign mantra in 1984, but typified his appeal to patriotrism through both terms.

At 69, Reagan was the oldest man ever elected president when he was chosen on Nov. 4, 1980, by an unexpectedly large margin over incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. Near-tragedy struck on his 70th day as president. On March 30, 1981, Reagan was leaving a Washington hotel after addressing labor leaders when a young drifter, John Hinckley, fired six shots at him. A bullet lodged an inch from Reagan's heart, but he recovered.

Four years later he was re-elected by an even greater margin, carrying 49 of the 50 states in defeating Democrat Walter F. Mondale, Carter's vice president.

 

[KindaKinky]

And the tribute threads:

President Reagan

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=252176

MCMXI - MMIV

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=252265

One less commie?

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=252272

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Princess Diana's Mother Dies In Scotland

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POSTED: 1:28 pm EDT June 3, 2004

LONDON -- Princess Diana's mother has died.

A priest says Frances Shand Kydd died Thursday at her home in Scotland. She was 67 years old.

According to the priest -- who says he was with her when she died -- she'd been admitted to a hospital near her home several days ago.

Her death is confirmed by a spokesman for her son -- Earl Spencer.

 

[Violette]

Music Legend Ray Charles Dies at 73

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Ray Charles (news), the Grammy-winning crooner who blended gospel and blues in such crowd-pleasers as "What'd I Say" and ballads like "Georgia on My Mind," died Thursday, a spokesman said. He was 73.


Charles died at his Beverly Hills home surrounded by family and friends, said spokesman Jerry Digney.


Charles last public appearance was alongside Clint Eastwood (news) on April 30, when the city of Los Angeles designated the singer's studios, built 40 years ago in central Los Angeles, as a historic landmark.


Blind by age 7 and an orphan at 15, Charles spent his life shattering any notion of musical boundaries and defying easy definition. A gifted pianist and saxophonist, he dabbled in country, jazz, big band and blues, and put his stamp on it all with a deep, warm voice roughened by heartbreak from a hardscrabble childhood in the segregated South.


"His sound was stunning — it was the blues, it was R&B, it was gospel, it was swing — it was all the stuff I was listening to before that but rolled into one amazing, soulful thing," singer Van Morrison (news) told Rolling Stone magazine in April.


Charles won nine of his 12 Grammy Awards between 1960 and 1966, including the best R&B recording three consecutive years ("Hit the Road Jack," "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "Busted").


His versions of other songs are also well known, including "Makin' Whoopee" and a stirring "America the Beautiful." Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell wrote "Georgia on My Mind" in 1931 but it didn't become Georgia's official state song until 1979, long after Charles turned it into an American standard.


"I was born with music inside me. That's the only explanation I know of," Charles said in his 1978 autobiography, "Brother Ray." "Music was one of my parts ... Like my blood. It was a force already with me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me, like food or water."


Charles considered Martin Luther King Jr. a friend and once refused to play to segregated audiences in South Africa. But politics didn't take.


He was happiest playing music, smiling and swaying behind the piano as his legs waved in rhythmic joy. His appeal spanned generations: He teamed with such disparate musicians as Willie Nelson (news), Chaka Khan (news) and Eric Clapton (news), and appeared in movies including "The Blues Brothers." Pepsi tapped him for TV spots around a simple "uh huh" theme, perhaps playing off the grunts and moans that pepper his songs.


"The way I see it, we're actors, but musical ones," he once told The Associated Press. "We're doing it with notes, and lyrics with notes, telling a story. I can take an audience and get 'em into a frenzy so they'll almost riot, and yet I can sit there so you can almost hear a pin drop."


Charles was no angel. He could be mercurial and his womanizing was legendary. He also struggled with a heroin addiction for nearly 20 years before quitting cold turkey in 1965 after an arrest at the Boston airport. Yet there was a sense of humor about even that — he released both "I Don't Need No Doctor" and "Let's Go Get Stoned" in 1966.


He later became reluctant to talk about the drug use, fearing it would taint how people thought of his work.


"I've known times where I've felt terrible, but once I get to the stage and the band starts with the music, I don't know why but it's like you have pain and take an aspirin, and you don't feel it no more," he once said.


Ray Charles Robinson was born Sept. 23, 1930, in Albany, Ga. His father, Bailey Robinson, was a mechanic and a handyman, and his mother, Aretha, stacked boards in a sawmill. His family moved to Gainesville, Fla., when Charles was an infant.


"Talk about poor," Charles once said. "We were on the bottom of the ladder."


Charles saw his brother drown in the tub his mother used to do laundry when he was about 5 as the family struggled through poverty at the height of the Depression. His sight was gone two years later. Glaucoma is often mentioned as a cause, though Charles said nothing was ever diagnosed. He said his mother never let him wallow in pity.





"When the doctors told her that I was gradually losing my sight, and that I wasn't going to get any better, she started helping me deal with it by showing me how to get around, how to find things," he said in the autobiography. "That made it a little bit easier to deal with."

Charles began dabbling in music at 3, encouraged by a cafe owner who played the piano. The knowledge was basic, but he was that much more prepared for music classes when he was sent away, heartbroken, to the state-supported St. Augustine School for the Deaf and the Blind.

Charles learned to read and write music in Braille, score for big bands and play instruments — lots of them, including trumpet, clarinet, organ, alto sax and the piano.

"Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory," Charles said. "I can sit at my desk and write a whole arrangement in my head and never touch the piano. .. There's no reason for it to come out any different than the way it sounds in my head."

His early influences were myriad: Chopin and Sibelius, country and western stars he heard on the Grand Ole Opry, the powerhouse big bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie, jazz greats Art Tatum and Artie Shaw.

By the time he was 15 his parents were dead and Charles had graduated from St. Augustine. He wound up playing gigs in black dance halls — the so-called chitlin' circuit — and exposed himself to a variety of music, including hillbilly (he learned to yodel) before moving to Seattle.

He dropped his last name in deference to boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, patterned himself for a time after Nat "King" Cole and formed a group that backed rhythm 'n' blues singer Ruth Brown (news). It was in Seattle's red light district were he met a young Quincy Jones (news), showing the future producer and composer how to write music. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

Charles developed quickly in those early days. Atlantic Records purchased his contract from Swingtime Records in 1952, and two years later he recorded "I Got a Woman," a raw mixture of gospel and rhythm 'n' blues, inventing what was later called soul. Soon, he was being called "The Genius" and was playing at Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival.

His first big hit was 1959's "What'd I Say," a song built off a simple piano riff with suggestive moaning from the Raeletts. Some U.S. radio stations banned the song, but Charles was on his way to stardom.

Veteran producer Jerry Wexler, who recorded "What'd I Say," said he has worked with only three geniuses in the music business: Bob Dylan (news), Aretha Franklin (news) and Charles.

"In each case they brought something new to the table," Wexler told the San Jose Mercury News in 1994. Charles "had this blasphemous idea of taking gospel songs and putting the devil's words to them. ... He can take a gem from Tin Pan Alley or cut to the country, but he brings the same root to it, which is black American music."

Charles released "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Volumes 1 and 2" in the early '60s, a big switch from his gospel work. It included "Born to Lose," "Take These Chains From My Heart (And Set Me Free)" and "I Can't Stop Loving You," some of the biggest hits of his career.

He made it a point to explore each medium he took on. Country sides were sometimes pop-oriented, while fiddle, mandolin, banjo and steel guitar were added to "Wish You Were Here Tonight" in the '80s. Jones even wrote a choral and orchestral work for Charles to perform with the Roanoke, Va., symphony.

Charles' last Grammy came in 1993 for "A Song for You," but he never dropped out of the music scene. He continued to tour and long treasured time for chess. He once told the Los Angeles Times: "I'm not Spassky, but I'll make it interesting for you."

"Music's been around a long time, and there's going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead," he told the Washington Post in 1983. "I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it's a big record, that's the frosting on the cake, but music's the main meal."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Frank Nastasi: Actor lent voice to popular show

I had the honor of having this man as a neighbor in NYC. Frank was a witty and great actor, who enjoyed life to the fullest! He was full of fascinating stories, and I so wish he had documented them in some way.

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Frank Nastasi was known to children in the 1950s and ’60s as much for his voice as for his face.

Mr. Nastasi was Gramps the animal expert on “Wixie’s Wonderland” show for children on WXYZ-TV, and later voiced White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie and other characters on the popular children’s television show “Lunch with Soupy,” starring Soupy Sales.

The skits were goofy, and kids — and their parents — loved them.

As Soupy’s unseen TV sidekick, Mr. Nastasi tried to lure Soupy to his make-believe restaurant.

“Our food is untouched by human hands,” he told Soupy.

“How is that?” Soupy asked.

“The chef is a gorilla,” Mr. Nastasi replied.

His stint with Soupy, and as Gramps, were only chapters in a show business career that spanned 50 years.

An actor, standup comedian and song and dance man, Mr. Nastasi died of a brain tumor Tuesday, June 15, 2004, at the Cabrini Medical Center in New York City. He was 81.

He played vaudeville, the Borscht Belt, Broadway, off-Broadway, television, movies and even operas. He appeared with Sammy Davis Jr. in “Golden Boy,” said his niece, Barbara Yurgelevic of Rochester Hills.

“My uncle started performing when he was a little boy,” Yurgelevic said. “He always knew what he wanted to do and set out to do it.”

Born in Detroit in 1923, Nastasi was a World World II veteran.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Wayne State University and a master’s degree in dramatic arts from New York University.

In addition to Yurgelevic, Mr. Nastasi’s survivors include his fiance, Mona Sands; sisters Anne Venezia, Margaret Braga, Yolanda Mancina and Dolores Pizzuti; and several nieces and nephews.



Cheers to you, Frank!! See ya later!

Frank at work:
http://www.travel-watch.com/mario/images/soupymain_small.jpg

 

[Moi]

Mattie Stepanek

CBS/AP) Mattie Stepanek, the child poet whose inspirational verse made him a best-selling writer and a prominent muscular dystrophy advocate, died Tuesday from complications of the disease. He was 13.

Mattie died at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, the hospital said.

"Mattie was something special, something very special," Muscular Dystrophy Association National Chairman Jerry Lewis said in a statement. "His example made people want to reach for the best within themselves. It was easy to forget how sick he was because his megawatt personality just made you want to smile.

Mattie had dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy, a genetic disease that impaired almost all of his body's major functions, such as heart rate, breathing, blood pressure and digestion, and caused muscle weakness.

His mother, Jeni, 44, has the adult-onset form of the disease, and his three older siblings died of it in early childhood.

Mattie began writing poetry at age 3 to cope with the death of a brother. In 2001, a small Virginia publisher issued a slim volume of his poems, called "Heartsongs." Within weeks, the book reached the top of The New York Times best-seller list, the MDA said.

He wrote four other books: "Journey Through Heartsongs," "Hope Through Heartsongs," "Celebrate Through Heartsongs" and "Loving Through Heartsongs."

Mattie's poems brought him admirers including TV talks show host Oprah Winfrey and former President Jimmy Carter and made him one of the best-selling poets in recent years.

Mattie was profiled last year in The Early Show series on American heros. He said back then he knew he had accomplished a lot.

"I've gotten books published. I've met famous people that are very nice," he recollected. "I look back and I say, 'Wow. Thank you, God, for giving me this gift. And thank you for helping me to keep going.'"

 

[KindaKinky]

Entertainment - Reuters

Screen Rebel Marlon Brando Dies at 80

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Marlon Brando (news), one of the most influential actors of his generation, has died, according to media reports on Friday citing his lawyer. He was 80.

A family friend told Fox News that Brando died on Thursday night at 6:20 p.m. (2220 GMT) in a Los Angeles-area hospital after being taken there on Wednesday. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Brando, with his broken nose and rebel nature, established a more naturalistic style of acting and defined American macho for a generation with classic performances in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951), "The Wild One" (1953) and "On the Waterfront" (1954).

To many, Brando remained the motorcycle-riding rebel he played in "The Wild One." Asked what he was rebelling against, Brando replied, "Whaddya got?"

Brando won an Academy Award for "On the Waterfront" and another for his brooding, at times mumbling, portrayal of the patriarch of a Mafia family in "The Godfather" (1972).

But Brando also railed against Hollywood and chafed at the pomp of stardom throughout a stormy career. In 1973, he refused to accept his second Oscar to protest the treatment of American Indians and later professed not to know what had happened to the award.

In more recent years, Brando's brilliance as an actor was overshadowed by his eccentric reclusiveness, the turmoil in his family life and financial disputes.

Christian Brando, his son by his first wife, Welsh actress Anna Kashfi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the 1990 murder of his half-sister Cheyenne's boyfriend. Cheyenne later committed suicide, in 1995, at the age of 25.

Brando, who was paid a then-staggering $14 million for his walk-on performance in 1978's "Superman," remained enmeshed in legal disputes over money up until his final weeks.

He poured millions into Tetiaroa, a South Seas atoll he bought in 1966 and where he spent much of the 1980s living out a boyhood fascination with Tahiti rekindled during the shooting of "Mutiny on the Bounty." Movies, he said, he made only for the money. "Acting is an empty and useless profession," he said.

Still, Brando inspired a generation of beatniks and rebel actors, including James Dean. "There was a sense of excitement, of danger in his presence, but perhaps his special appeal was in a kind of simple conceit, the conceit of tough kids," wrote critic Pauline Kael of the New Yorker. "Brando represented a contemporary version of the free American," she wrote.

THE UNIVERSAL ACTOR

Brando was born on April 3, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of a calcium carbonate salesman and an actress who coached a local drama group. He was sent to a Minnesota military academy but was soon expelled.

He headed to New York, where his two sisters were studying art and drama. There he took up drama, studying with famed teacher Stella Adler and the Actors' Studio. "Marlon never really had to learn how to act. He knew," Adler once said. "Right from the start he was a universal actor. Nothing human was foreign to him." In 1946, critics voted Brando Broadway's most promising actor for his role as a returning World War II veteran in the flop "Truckline Cafe."

Brando broke his nose in backstage horseplay and gained a reputation for being moody. Auditioning for a Noel Coward comedy, Brando tossed the script aside, saying, "Don't you know there are people in the world starving?"

In 1947, playwright Tennessee Williams approved selecting Brando to play the brutish Stanley Kowalski in the stage production of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Brando resisted Hollywood until 1950, but then turned in memorable performances in Elia Kazan's 1951 film version of "Streetcar" and "Viva Zapata!" (1952), the story of a Mexican peasant revolutionary.

'I COULD HAVE BEEN SOMEBODY'

In "On the Waterfront," Brando played a one-time boxer who turns against his friends and brother in a corrupt union. In one of the most famous scenes in cinema, Brando tells his brother, played by Rod Steiger, "Oh, Charlie, oh, Charlie ... you don't understand. I could have had class. I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody, instead of a bum -- which is what I am."

In the 1960s, Brando became active in the civil rights movement, especially for American Indians. He sent Indian actress Sacheen Littlefeather to the Academy Award's platform in 1973 to describe the plight of Indians. Critics both hailed and panned his performances in "Last Tango in Paris" (1972) and "Apocalypse Now" (1979), but Brando was also legendary for being one of his toughest critics. "To this day, I can't say what 'Last Tango in Paris' was about," he wrote in his 1994 autobiography. He also claimed to have talked Francis Ford Coppola into marginalizing his role as the enigmatic Col. Kurtz in order to heighten the mystery. "What I'd really wanted from the beginning was to find a way to make my part smaller so that I wouldn't have to work as hard," he said.

In the 1990s, Brando emerged from a decade hiatus to take small roles in minor films, often for outsized fees. He played a Godfather-like mafioso for laughs opposite Matthew Broderick (news) "The Freshman," and his portrayal of a kindly psychiatrist in 1995's "Don Juan DeMarco," opposite Johnny Depp (news), earned him about $3 million in a movie budgeted at $15 million.

Brando was married three times, choosing little-known actresses as his brides -- Kashfi, Mexican actress Movita Castenada, and Tahitian Tarita Tariipia, who co-starred with him in "Mutiny on the Bounty." "He's full of deep hostilities, longings, feelings of distrust," director Kazan once said of him, "But his outer front is gentle and nice."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

http://debab.omaha.com/np_0/small/0702ahbrandosmile.jpg

Thanks, Mr. Brando, for leaving us many wonderful film memories.

to an Omaha native.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Kirk Douglas' Youngest Son Found Dead

http://images.ibsys.com/2004/0707/3501237.jpg
POSTED: 7:45 pm EDT July 6, 2004

NEW YORK -- An autopsy is planned on the body of Eric Douglas, the youngest son of Oscar-winning actor Kirk Douglas.

He was found dead of an apparent drug overdose Tuesday in a Manhattan apartment building.

Eric Douglas, who had a brief acting career in the 1980s and '90s, battled drug and alcohol problems for years.

Douglas was an aspiring actor and comedian, but he never found the success of his father or of his Academy Award-winning brother, Michael Douglas.

In recent years, the youngest of Kirk Douglas' four sons drew attention more for his problems than for any performances. In a 2000 interview, he said he spent eight days in a coma after a pill overdose a year earlier.

He had a brief acting career in the 1980s and early 90s, playing supporting roles in movies like "The Flamingo Kid" and "Delta Force 3: The Killing Game." He also appeared in an episode of the HBO program "Tales From the Crypt" opposite his father, Kirk Douglas, who earned an Emmy nomination for his role.

Police say there's no sign of foul play.

Michael Sands, a friend, said Douglas made repeated attempts to get sober. "In the end, he must have been in a lot of pain," he said.

Eric Douglas was 46.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Michael Tata featured in 'American Casino'

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jul-07-Wed-2004/photos/tata1.jpg

Green Valley Ranch official found dead

Michael Tata, a Station Casinos executive featured prominently in The Discovery Channel's new "American Casino" television series, was found dead early Tuesday inside his Henderson home. He was 33.

A 1996 graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Tata began working at Henderson's Green Valley Ranch in June 2001. After a 2 1/2-year tenure as director of hotel operations, Tata was promoted to Green Valley Ranch's vice president of hotel operations in January 2004.

A Henderson Police Department spokesman said officers responded to a call shortly after 9:30 Tuesday morning and found a dead adult male upon entering a Seven Hills area home. The address matched that of a residence county property records show is owned by Michael Tata.

The Clark County coroner's office later confirmed Tata's death was recorded late Tuesday morning. Henderson police spokesman Keith Paul said the death is under investigation, but officers found no initial signs of foul play.

Tata's death shocked his friends and colleagues at Green Valley Ranch, where he had worked since June 2001.

"Michael was the heart and soul of Green Valley Ranch's hotel operations," Vice President and General Manager Joe Hasson said in a statement. "The hotel's outstanding performance over the last three years is a direct reflection of Michael's skills and commitment ... and today we all feel like we have lost a member of our family."

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Tata moved to Las Vegas in 1993. In addition to Station Casinos, he worked at Las Vegas' MGM Grand and Four Seasons hotels and spent three years in management roles at the Four Seasons resort in Maui, Hawaii.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Isabel Sanford, 'Weezie' On 'Jeffersons' Dies At 86

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LOS ANGELES -- Actress Isabel Sanford died of natural causes in a Los Angeles hospital.

Her longtime manager reports the Emmy award-winning star of the long-running "The Jeffersons" television series died Friday in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Sanford played Tillie the housekeeper in the 1967 film, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," her feature film debut.

Earlier this year, Sanford was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

At the time, the native New Yorker said she was honored to have her own star. As Sanford put it, "Here with stars in my eyes - something that I dreamed about when I was nine years old. There are others that deserve it, but let everybody get their own."

 

[Moi]

In Case You're Having Trouble Keeping Up With Dead Celebrities

.... You can now be notified by email...





http://CelebrityDeathBeeper.com

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Re: In Case You're Having Trouble Keeping Up With Dead Celebrities

.... You can now be notified by email...

http://CelebrityDeathBeeper.com

Thanks for the link!

I'm already subscribed to many theatrical sites, but I do find it fascinating since some celebrities don't get much fanfare when they pass on.

 

[apexpark]

mariah careys career died. can we add her to the list?

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Joe Gold, founder of Gold's Gym, dies at 82

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Joe Gold, a bodybuilding pioneer who founded a beachside gym made famous by then-bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, has died. He was 82.

Gold's death on Sunday at a Los Angeles hospital was confirmed Monday by Dave Reiseman, a spokesman for Gold's Gyms. No further details were immediately available.

Gold founded his first gym in 1965 in the Venice area of Los Angeles.

"He made most of the equipment. It was custom-built for bodybuilders," said Peter McGough, editor-in-chief of Flex magazine. "That whole Venice Beach, Gold's Gym, it is sort of a hallowed era and hallowed ground for bodybuilders."

Gold, a Los Angeles native, sold the gym in 1970 and returned to the merchant marine, which he had joined after serving in the Navy in World War II.

Under new owners, Gold's Gym became a franchise operation, eventually expanding its reach to 43 states and 25 countries. Gold's also licenses the Gold's name for health-related products, such as apparel, exercise equipment, and food and drink supplements.

Gold himself returned to the gym business in 1977 when he established World Gym.

Though he had been ill in recent months, he continued going to work at the World Gym headquarters in Marina del Rey, McGough said.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Peter Baird, Who Carried on His Family's Marionette Legacy, Dies at 52

Peter Baird, a master puppeteer in the mold of his legendary parents, Bil and Cora Baird, died on Friday at a hospital in the Bronx. He was 52 and lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and in Los Angeles.

The cause was esophageal cancer, diagnosed in November, said his wife, Mavis Humes Baird.

Mr. Baird apprenticed at the knees of his parents, who led the revival of puppet theater in the United States in the 1940's, 50's and 60's. He started pulling the strings of marionettes at 5, and at 11 was taking tickets at the Bil Baird Marionette Theater in Greenwich Village.

He became a professional puppeteer before he turned 20. Most recently, he worked to preserve his father's legacy and was involved in the preproduction phase of the Paramount film "Team America: World Police," from the creators of "South Park." The film, in which marionette superheroes fight terrorism, is scheduled for release in November.

The young Peter Baird toured with Bil Baird Marionettes in this country and in Europe, especially after Cora Baird's death in 1967. After his father's death, in 1987, he also developed variations, from shadow play to computer-generated characters.

He worked in children's theater and on national tours of "L'Histoire du Soldat" and "Pinocchio." In television, he worked on "Shining Time Station" in the early 1990's.

He turned "Davy Jones' Locker," a Bil Baird Marionette show, into a film in 1995. Other films he worked on included "The Muppets Take Manhattan" (1984), "Howard the Duck" (1986) and "Strings," a Danish film made last year.

Before Bil Baird's death, father and son began a permanent exhibit of Baird marionettes and scenery at the MacNider Art Museum in Mason City, Iowa (macniderart.org). Mr. Baird recently formed an advisory group to promote it.

Besides his wife, Mr. Baird is survived by his sister, Laura Brundage, of North Bennington, Vt.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Award-Winning Composer Goldsmith Dies

Jul 22, 4:51 AM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Academy Award-winning composer Jerry Goldsmith, who created the memorable music for scores of classic movies and television shows from the "Star Trek" and "Planet of the Apes" series to "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and "Perry Mason," has died, his personal assistant said. He was 75.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

"It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!"

The man who bellowed those words to introduce the "Superman" radio show has died.

Jackson Beck was 92.

A friend said Beck died Wednesday. He had suffered a series of small strokes several years ago. He worked well into his 80s.

Beck was a master of the voice-over, using his voice to promote everything from Aqua Fresh toothpaste to Combat roach killer.

In addition to narrating Superman's adventures, Beck doubled as villains, supporting characters and the Daily Planet copy boy on the popular radio broadcasts of the 1940s.

He also portrayed Bluto in more than 300 "Popeye" cartoons.

For feature films, Beck did voice-overs for Woody Allen's"Radio Days" and "Take the Money and Run."

 

[KindaKinky]

One From Lost Cause

RIP Jun Fan…

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=263381

(20 Years since Bruce Lee's death.)