Literotica Cemetary

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Jeanne Cooper

LOS ANGELES — Jeanne Cooper, the enduring soap opera star who played grande dame Katherine Chancellor for nearly four decades on “The Young and the Restless,” has died. She was 84.

Cooper died Wednesday morning in her sleep, her son the actor Corbin Bernsen wrote on Facebook. The family confirmed the death to CBS, according to a network spokeswoman.
She was in a Los Angeles-area hospital, according to Bernsen’s spokesman, Charles Sherman, who said the cause of death was not immediately available.

“One of the last great broads in our business — Jeanne Cooper, Mom — is now stirring up trouble in great beyond,” her family said in a statement.

Cooper will be remembered “as a daytime television legend and as a friend who will truly be missed by all of us here at the network,” said Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment, adding that the actress brought “indelible charm, class and talent to every episode.”

“Heaven just gained one feisty angel,” cast member Melissa Claire Egan posted on her Twitter account.

“A very sad day for all of us. You will be deeply missed,” tweeted Jessica Collins, also on the serial.

Cooper joined the daytime serial six months after its March 1973 debut, staking claim to the title of longest-tenured cast member. The role earned her 11 Daytime Emmy nominations and a trophy for best actress in a drama series in 2008.

“God knows it’s claimed a big part of my life,” she told The Associated Press in March as CBS’ ”The Young and the Restless” celebrated its milestone 40th anniversary.

As the years passed, Cooper brushed aside thoughts of saying goodbye to the show and its fictional Wisconsin town of Genoa City.

“What would I do? I’m no good at crocheting. My fingers would bleed,” she told the AP as she turned 83 in October.

But on April 12 Bernsen tweeted that his mother faced an “uphill battle” for an undisclosed illness. In subsequent days he wrote of her gradual improvement and said that she’d been taken off breathing equipment.

In a Facebook posting April 17, Bernsen said his mother cursed several times, “showing me that she’s becoming her old self, not thrilled about the situation, and ready to get out of the hospital and shake up the world.”

On Wednesday he wrote that she remained a fighter until the end: “She has been a blaze her entire life, that beacon, that boxer I spoke of earlier. She went the full twelve rounds and by unanimous decision... won!”

Cooper, born in the California town of Taft in 1928, attended the College of the Pacific and performed in local theater productions before her professional career began with the 1953 film “The Redhead from Wyoming” starring Maureen O’Hara. Other film credits include 1968’s “The Boston Strangler” with Tony Curtis and 1967’s “Tony Rome” with Frank Sinatra.

She had a parallel career in TV, with shows including “The Adventures of Kit Carson” in 1953 and “The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse” in 1954 and “Bracken’s World” in 1969-70.

In a recurring role on “L.A. Law,” she played the mother to Bernsen’s character, Arnie, and received a 1987 Emmy nomination for best guest actress in a drama. Bernsen later joined his mother on her series, making several appearances as a priest, Father Todd.

But it was her role on “The Young and the Restless” that made her a TV star intimately familiar to viewers.

In 1984, Cooper’s real-life facelift was televised on the show as her character underwent the surgery at the same time, and had no regrets about it.

“It opened up reconstructive surgery for so many people, youngsters getting things done,” she said. “To this day, people will come up to me and say, ‘Thank you so much for doing that. My mom or I had something done, and not just cosmetic surgery.’ That was an incredible experience in my life.”

“The Young and the Restless” has topped the daytime serial ratings for more than 24 years, in part because of the continuity provided by Cooper and its other long-time stars including Eric Braeden. It held its ground as the genre diminished in popularity and the majority of soaps vanished.

Cooper’s 30-year marriage to Harry Bernsen ended in divorce. The couple have three children, Corbin, Caren and Collin, and eight grandchildren.

 

[Lorilei]

I didn't realize Corbin Bernsen was her son!

 

[slave_]

TV pioneer, famed psychologist Joyce Brothers dies

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Joyce Brothers, who pioneered the television advice show and was called the mother of media psychology, has died, her daughter said Monday. She was 85.

"She passed away peacefully and in her home ... with her family all around her," Lisa Brothers Arbisser said.

Brothers, whose charming, reassuring demeanor appealed to television audiences, became a television star as a game show contestant, a sports interviewer, then as a psychologist answering audience questions about relationships and other emotional subjects.

She grew her fame as a frequent guest on television talk shows and as an advice columnist for Good Housekeeping magazine for four decades and for newspapers throughout the United States.

She also made many cameo appearances parodying herself on television sitcoms and in movies.

She once told a reporter, "I don't give advice. I just tell people, 'This is what we know.' "

But give advice was what she did, and America listened:

"Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success."

"The best proof of love is trust."

"Marriage is not just spiritual communion and passionate embraces; marriage is also three meals a day, sharing the workload and remembering to carry out the trash."

Dispensing advice on public airwaves didn't please all of her colleagues. Some members of the American Psychological Association asked early in her media career that her membership be revoked because they didn't think dispensing advice outside a one-on-one setting was appropriate.

Media psychology became part of the organization's structure in 1986, according to the APA website.

Born Joyce Diane Bauer, she married Milton Brothers in 1949, according to a biography provided by her family. He died in 1989.

Brothers became a practicing psychologist in 1958, five years after she got her master's degree at Columbia University.

By then, she had already caused a stir on television, winning the top prize on "The $64,000 Question" in 1955. The topic: boxing.

The family biography said she appeared on the show when her husband was in medical school and they were living with her parents. Her husband suggested she try out as a boxing expert, seeing that would make her an unusual contestant -- a woman versed in pugilism. When the show asked her to be on, she memorized the Encyclopedia of Boxing in a few weeks.

She repeated her success two years later on "The $64,000 Challenge," leading to a job on "Sports Showcase."

In 1958, she was the host of a self-titled show on local television that became so popular, NBC syndicated the program nationally.

Amid the quiz show scandal of the late 1950s, she demonstrated her well-versed knowledge of boxing to a congressional panel, her family biography said.

Years later, she wrote books and had radio shows. And America saw her often on television, not only giving advice but making fun of herself. On one episode of the ABC smash hit "Happy Days," she counseled Fonzie's dog, Spunky. She made a vocal appearance on the animated series "The Simpsons" in the memorable "Last Exit to Springfield" episode.

On an episode of "Frasier," a show about one of TV's famous fictional psychologists, she took Frasier Crane's place in a commercial about nuts.

Brothers also appeared on shows like "The Love Boat" playing a character, often a doctor.

She is survived by her sister, Elaine Goldsmith; her daughter; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

The family didn't disclose the cause of her death, which happened in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Her funeral is scheduled for Tuesday at Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Founding member of The Doors dies at 74

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Ray Manzarek, a founding member of the 1960s rock group The Doors whose versatile and often haunting keyboards complemented Jim Morrison's gloomy baritone and helped set the mood for some of rock's most enduring songs, has died. He was 74.

Manzarek died Monday in Rosenheim, Germany, surrounded by his family, said publicist Heidi Robinson-Fitzgerald. She said the musician's manager, Tom Vitorino, confirmed Manzarek died after being stricken with bile duct cancer.

The Doors' original lineup, which also included drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robbie Krieger, was only together for a few years and they only made six studio albums. But the band has retained a large and obsessive following decades after Morrison's death, in 1971. The Doors have sold more than 100 million records and songs such as "Light My Fire" and "Riders On the Storm" are still "classic" rock favorites. For Doors admirers, the band symbolized the darker side of the Los Angeles lifestyle, what happened to the city after the sun went down and the Beach Boys fans headed home.

Next to Morrison, Manzarek was the most distinctive-looking band member, his glasses and wavy blond hair making him resemble a young English professor more than a rock star, a contrast to Morrison's Dionysian glamour — his sensuous mouth and long, dark hair. Musically, Manzarek's spidery organ on "Light My Fire" is one of the most instantly recognizable sounds in rock history.

But he seemed up to finding the right touch for a wide range of songs — the sleepy, lounge-style keyboards on "Riders On the Storm"; the liquid strains for "The Crystal Ship"; the barrelhouse romps on "Roadhouse Blues." The Doors always considered themselves "more" than a rock band and Manzarek, Densmore and Krieger often managed a flowing rapport that blended rock, blues and jazz behind Morrison's self-consciously poetic lyrics.
"There was no keyboard player on the planet more appropriate to support Jim Morrison's words," Densmore said in a statement. "Ray, I felt totally in sync with you musically. It was like we were of one mind, holding down the foundation for Robby and Jim to float on top of. I will miss my musical brother."

The Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Their records have been reissued frequently and the band was the subject of a 1991 Oliver Stone movie, "The Doors," starring Val Kilmer as Morrison and Kyle MacLachlan as Manzarek, who complained that the film stereotyped Morrison as a hopeless drunk and also omitted calmer, more humorous times. The Doors' fame has hardly faded even though they're one of the few groups not to allow their music to be used for commercials, a source of great tension among surviving members. Manzarek and Krieger reportedly supported licensing the songs, and Densmore has resisted. The group also feuded when Krieger and Manzarek formed a new group, Doors of the 21st Century. Densmore objected, and Krieger and Manzarek performed under various names.

Other Doors albums included "The Soft Parade," ''Waiting for the Sun" and their last record with Morrison, "L.A. Woman."

Manzarek briefly tried to hold the band together on the albums "Other Voices" and "Full Circle," neither of which had critical or commercial success. He played in other bands over the years, working with X and Iggy Pop among others. He also wrote a memoir, "Light My Fire," and a novel, "The Poet In Exile," in which he imagines receiving messages from a Morrison-like artist who had supposedly died.

Born and raised in Chicago, Manzarek studied piano as a child and briefly considered a career in basketball. After graduating from DePauw University, he headed west to study film at UCLA. A few months after graduation, he and Morrison met in 1965 on Venice Beach in California. As Manzarek would often recall, Morrison read him some lyrics — Let's swim to the moon/Let's climb through the tide/Penetrate the evening that the/City sleeps to hide" — that became the start of "Moonlight Drive."

"I'd never heard lyrics to a rock song like that before," Manzarek told Billboard in 1967. "We talked a while before we decided to get a group together and make a million dollars."
By 1966, they had been joined by Krieger and Densmore and were a sensation live, especially during the theatrical, Oedipal epic, "The End." They were the house band at the famed Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles before being signed by Elektra Records and releasing a self-titled album in 1967, one of the most talked-about debuts in rock history.

"Well, to me, my God, for anybody who was there it means it was a fantastic time," Manzarek told The Republican in Massachusetts during an interview last year. "We thought we could actually change the world — to make it a more Christian, Islamic, Judaic Buddhist, Hindu, loving world. We thought we could. The children of the '50s post-war generation were actually in love with life and had opened the doors of perception. And we were in love with being alive and wanted to spread that love around the planet and make peace, love and harmony prevail upon earth, while getting stoned, dancing madly and having as much sex as you could possibly have."

Manzarek is survived by his wife, Dorothy; his son Pablo and two brothers, Rick and James.

 

[JennyOHill2]

S.W.A.T. Star Dies; Steve Forrest Was 87

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Steve Forrest, best known for his role as Dan "Hondo" Harrelson on the 1970s hit S.W.A.T. died on in Thousands Oaks, California.

He was 87.

Sources confirm to The Hollywood Reporter that the actor was surrounded by family members at the time of his passing.

Forrest first struck in big in the 1953 film So Big and then transitioned to the small screen on such shows as Playhouse 90, Lux Video Theater, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

But it was his role for two seasons on Aaron Spelling's S.W.A.T. that truly struck. The drana was the basis for the 2003 film of the same name.

Forrest popped up on Dallas, Malibu, and Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge.

He is survived by his wife of 65 years, Christine; three sons; and four grandchildren.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Margaret Groening, inspiration for "The Simpsons" mom, dies at 94

Margaret Groening, the mother of "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening and inspiration for the matriarch character on the long-running series, has died, according to an obituary in The Oregonian. She was 94.

Groening died peacefully in her sleep. Her husband, cartoonist Homer Groening, died in 1996.

Homer and Marge, of course, are the names of the parents on "The Simpsons." And those aren't the only characters whose names came from Groening's family.

Margaret Groening, born Margaret Wiggum in 1919, married high school sweetheart Homer because "he made her laugh the most," according to the obituary. She is survived by her brother, Arnold; her children, Mark, Matt, Lisa and Maggie; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Another daughter, Patricia, died in January 2013.

In a separate article, The Oregonian pointed out that while Groening had said in interviews that she didn't go by Marge, that "didn't stop fans from equating her with the ever-tolerant, ever-doting mother on 'The Simpsons.'"

 

[JennyOHill2]

‘All In The Family’ Star Jean Stapleton Dies At 90

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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Jean Stapleton, known to generations as Edith Bunker in the classic CBS sitcom “All in the Family,” has died.

Ms. Stapleton died Friday at her New York City home, according to multiple published reports.

Ms. Stapleton was born in the city in 1923, and made her acting debut in the off-Broadway play “American Gothic.” She made numerous Broadway appearances, taking the stage in “Damn Yankees,” “Funny Girl” and other classic productions.

In 1971, Ms. Stapleton began an eight-year run in the groundbreaking sitcom “All in the Family,” alongside Carroll O’Connor as her husband, Archie Bunker; Sally Struthers as their daughter, Gloria; and Rob Reiner as their son-in law, Mike – better known as “Meathead.”

After “All in the Family” ended its run in 1979, Ms. Stapleton appeared on the spinoff “Archie Bunker’s Place” for its first season, but decided to leave the show after the first season with the explanation that Edith Bunker had died of a stroke.

Ms. Stapleton won three Emmys and was nominated a fourth time for her work on “All in the Family,” and also received Emmy nominations for her roles as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1982 CBS TV movie “Eleanor, First Lady of the World,” and as “Aunt Vivian” in the ABC sitcom “Grace under Fire,” the Hollywood Reporter recalled.

Ms. Stapleton also made single-episode appearances in two other classic CBS sitcoms – “Murphy Brown,” where she played Miles Silverberg’s grandmother Nana Silverberg, and “Everybody Loves Raymond,” where she played Ray’s aunt Alda.

Her last major appearance was in the 1998 romantic comedy movie “You’ve Got Mail,” with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.

Mrs. Stapleton is survived by her children, John and Pamela. Her husband, William Putch, died in 1983, and her television husband, O’Connor, died in 2001.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

*sniffle* Bye, Edith R.I.P.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., dies at age 89

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Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., the last World War II veteran serving in the Senate, died due to complications from viral pneumonia at 4:02 a.m. Monday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell, his office announced. He was 89 years old.

The Democrat had health problems in recent years and had missed several Senate votes in the first months of the year. He had the flu and missed the Senate's Jan. 1 vote to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff of rising taxes and falling government spending, then missed several votes two months later because of leg pain.

A chest cold kept him from attending a May 29 tribute in New York honoring him for his contributions to the Jewish community and Israel.

He had been diagnosed in February 2010 with B-cell lymphoma of the stomach and underwent chemotherapy treatments until he was declared in June 2010 to be free of cancer. He worked between the treatments. The diagnosis came just days after the death of West Virginia's Robert Byrd made Lautenberg the oldest member of the Senate.

Before going to Washington, he was a successful businessman who co-founded the firm Automatic Data Processing.

Lautenberg is survived by his wife, Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg; six children and their spouses and 13 grandchildren.

Lautenberg announced in February that he would not seek reelection next year, opening the door for Newark's Democratic Mayor Cory Booker and others to run for the Senate seat.

Lautenberg's death creates a vacancy that Republican Gov. Chris Christie will fill temporarily. According to New Jersey election law, Christie will appoint someone to the seat until a special election can be held.

President Obama said in a statement, "Michelle and I were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Senator Frank Lautenberg, a proud New Jerseyan who lived America's promise as a citizen, and fought to keep that promise alive as a senator.

"[H]e improved the lives of countless Americans with his commitment to our nation's health and safety, from improving our public transportation to protecting citizens from gun violence to ensuring that members of our military and their families get the care they deserve."

In the Senate, Lautenberg was a longtime advocate of Amtrak and other transportation causes, as well as environmental, health care and veterans' issues. Lately, he had helped lead efforts in the Senate to craft gun control measures, introducing a bill to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

Lautenberg was a staunch gun control advocate and frequent critic of the tobacco industry, and he fought for greater government spending on transportation and the environment. He wrote the laws banning smoking on domestic airline flights and setting the national minimum drinking age of 21.

Along with Lautenberg's legislative accomplishments, he had a string of electoral coups, including an upset over someone he called "the most popular candidate in the country" in his first race for Senate, and a victory in a strange, abbreviated, back-from-retirement campaign 20 years later.

He served nearly three decades in the Senate in two stints, beginning with an upset victory in 1982 over Republican Rep. Millicent Fenwick, the pipe-smoking, pearl-wearing patrician who was the model for the cartoon character Lacey Davenport in "Doonesbury."

He initially retired in 2000 after 18 years in the Senate, saying he did not have the drive to raise money for a fourth campaign. He served on the boards of three companies, two graduate schools and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

But New Jersey Democrats recruited Lautenberg out of retirement in September 2002 as an 11th-hour replacement for Robert Torricelli, Lautenberg's longtime rival, who had abandoned his re-election bid just five weeks before Election Day.

Republicans went to court to prevent what they called the Democratic Party's ballot "switcheroo." When that failed, they attacked Lautenberg as a political relic ill-suited for dangerous times.

But Lautenberg surged to an easy win over Republican Douglas Forrester and returned to the Senate in 2003 at age 78, resuming his role as a leading liberal, and he made it clear that his return to office was no mere cameo.

When Democrats regained a Senate majority in 2007, he returned to the powerful Appropriations Committee, on which he had served for 15 years.

At age 84, he beat back a Democratic primary challenge in 2008 and went on to another easy win in the November general election. It made him the first New Jersey person ever elected to five Senate terms.

"People don't give a darn about my age," Lautenberg said. "They know I'm vigorous. They know I've got plenty of energy."

 

[cleaver]

Secretary of Defense - Deacon Jones

1938-2013

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[Igor_1066]

James Gandolfini

(CNN) -- James Gandolfini, best known for his role as an anxiety-ridden mob boss on HBO's "The Sopranos," died Wednesday while on vacation in Italy. He was 51.

The exact cause of death is not known, but his managers said it was possibly a heart attack.

His body is in a hospital morgue in Rome. Once the U.S. Embassy issues a death certificate, Gandolfini's remains can be returned to the United States.

"It is with immense sorrow that we report our client, James Gandolfini, passed away today while on holiday in Rome, Italy," managers Mark Armstrong and Nancy Sanders said in a joint statement. "Our hearts are shattered and we will miss him deeply. He and his family were part of our family for many years and we are all grieving."

The actor had been scheduled to make an appearance at the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily this week.

Gandolfini won three Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Tony Soprano, the angst-wracked mob boss who visited a therapist and took Prozac while knocking off people. "The Sopranos" aired from 1999 to 2007.
Photos: James Gandolfini
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2000: 'Sopranos' success surprised me

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Edie Falco, the actress who played Tony's wife Carmela, said she was "shocked and devastated" by the news.

"He was a man of tremendous depth and sensitivity, with a kindness and generosity beyond words. I consider myself very lucky to have spent 10 years as his close colleague. My heart goes out to his family," Falco said in a statement Thursday. "The love between Tony and Carmela was one of the greatest I've ever known."

"Jimmy was the spiritual core of our Sopranos family, and I am stunned at this devastating loss," said Chris Albrecht, the former president of HBO who gave the green light to the show. "He was a great talent, but an even better man. My thoughts are with his family."

HBO is owned by TimeWarner, which is also CNN's parent company.

Actor Steve Van Zandt, who played Tony Soprano's confidant Silvio Dante, felt equally close to Gandolfini in real life. "I have lost a brother and a best friend," he posted on Twitter. "The world has lost one of the greatest actors of all time."

Gandolfini was born September 18, 1961, in Westwood, New Jersey, according to Biography.com.

He graduated from Rutgers University and, as the story goes, worked as a bartender and a bouncer in New York City until he went with a friend to an acting class.

He got his start on Broadway, with a role in the 1992 revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire" with Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin.

Entertainers, politicians mourn Gandolfini

Gandolfini's big screen debut came in the role of a heavy in the bloody "True Romance" in 1993.

His breakthrough on the small screen came in 1999 with the role of Tony Soprano.

"He was a genius. Anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances knows that," David Chase, who developed "The Sopranos," said in a statement. "...A great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes."

Gandolfini, who was notoriously press shy, had a reputation in the tabloids for being sometimes difficult.

"He wasn't easy sometimes. But he was my partner, he was my brother in ways I can't explain and never will be able to explain," Chase said.
Friends react to Gandolfini's death
2007: 'The Sopranos' TV legacy
2007: James Gandolfini on the red carpet
Photos: People we lost in 2013

'Sopranos,' Gandolfini left mark on N.J. businesses

While Gandolfini was known for sometimes ruthless, often imposing characters, those who worked with him described an actor who put his heart into a role.

"He was just so good at the emotion. A very passionate man and a very, very tender man," Matthew Warchus, who directed Gandolfini in the 2009 Broadway play "God of Carnage," told CNN. "I really loved him and admired him a great deal."

Larry King, who saw Gandolfini in Las Vegas just weeks ago, told CNN the actor was "jovial and seemed happy."

"He stamped himself in 'The Sopranos' so much, people have overlooked his many diversified roles he's performed," King said. "He was a very diverse character actor, who became a star."

IReporter Shana O'Neil worked in an office, where Gandolfini was shooting in 1994. She remembers him as "Jersey through and through" with a great smile. "I just always think of him as that guy."

His Sopranos fame, she said, changed nothing about the way she remembers him.

Best quotes from the mouth of Tony Soprano

Gandolfini's acting credits included roles in "The Last Castle" with Robert Redford, "The Mexican" with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, and "Surviving Christmas" with Ben Affleck.

In recent years, he had starred in several movies, including the Oscar-nominated "Zero Dark Thirty," "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" and "Killing Them Softly."

Gandolfini was also known to children, voicing Carol, a wild thing, in the 2009 movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic "Where the Wild Things Are."

He took to the stage to do a reading of Sendak's "In The Night Kitchen" to mark the author's 80th birthday.

News of the actor's death spread quickly, drawing shock and sadness from those who had worked with him.

"James Gandolfini was a kind, funny, wonderful guy. I'm so lucky to have worked with him. Sending love to his family. Such a sad, sad day," Olivia Wilde, who starred with the actor in "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone," said in a post on Twitter.

Gandolfini lives on in collectibles

Actor Steve Carell of "Office" fame, who also appeared in "Wonderstone", simply said on Twitter: "James Gandolfini. What a great loss."

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie described himself as a "huge fan" of Gandolfini.

"It's an awful shock. James Gandolfini was a fine actor, a Rutgers alum and a true Jersey guy," he said.

If his managers are right, and he died of a heart attack, it struck much too early, said CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

"(The) average age of someone having a first heart attack -- if this is in fact what we're talking about -- is usually in the mid-60s," he said.

Risk factors such as smoking, lack of exercise, obesity and high cholesterol can lower the age range significantly, according to Gupta.

Gandolfini is survived by his wife, Deborah, and their 9-month-old daughter, Liliana. He is also survived by a son, Michael, from another marriage.

 

[JennyOHill2]

'Family Ties' creator Gary David Goldberg dies

Gary David Goldberg, creator of classic TV series "Family Ties," has died at the age of 68.

Goldberg passed away at his home in California on Sunday after a battle with brain cancer, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He helped launch Michael J. Fox's career in the 1980s with Family Ties, which won Goldberg an Emmy Award for outstanding writing in 1987.

The sitcom, which ran from 1982 to 1989, starred Fox as the young Republican son of two liberal ex-hippies, a concept Goldberg once admitted was inspired by his own relationship with his daughter, Shana. Goldberg went on to co-create "Spin City," which also featured Fox, and he picked up a second Emmy in 1979 for his TV drama "Lou Grant."

During his career, Goldberg wrote episodes of "M*A*S*H" and "The Bob Newhart Show," and he stepped behind the camera to direct Jack Lemmon in 1989 comedy movie "Dad," as well as John Cusack in 2005 romantic comedy "Must Love Dogs."

He is survived by his daughter Shana Goldberg-Meehan, a TV writer who was an executive producer on the hit sitcom "Friends" and its spinoff, "Joey."

 

[JennyOHill2]

Country singer Slim Whitman dies

(CNN) -- Slim Whitman, the high-pitched yodeling county music singer whose productive career spanned decades, died Wednesday, his son-in-law told CNN. He was 90.

The singer-songwriter, born Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr., died of heart failure at Orange Park Medical Center in Florida, Roy Beagle said.

Whitman gained fame in Europe as well as the United States. "Love Song of the Waterfall," which a Country Music Television biography calls his "breakthrough" hit, was released in the early '50s.

His next single "Indian Love Call" brought him stardom, according to the bio.

"Whitman joined the Grand Ole Opry, and then went to Britain in 1956 as the first country singer to play the London Palladium. Throughout the late '50s and early '60s, he had a string of British hits, including 'Tumbling Tumbleweeds,' 'Unchain My Heart,' and 'I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen," the bio said.

He gained cult status after he filmed a TV commercial that touted a released of his top greatest hits, a compilation that was a great success.

"Between 1980 and 1984, Whitman had a small run of minor hits, highlighted by 1980's number 15 hit 'When.' In the late '80s, he returned to television-marketed albums, releasing Slim Whitman: Best Loved Favorites in 1989 and 20 Precious Memories in 1991. During the '90s, Whitman recorded infrequently but continued to tour successfully, particularly in Europe and Australia," CMT said.

His music was featured in the 1996 film "Mars Attacks!" In the film, the sound of Whitman's "Indian Love Call" made the heads of invading Martians explode.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Dennis Farina dead at 69

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Dennis Farina, a Chicago native and police officer who turned to acting, has died at 69 in Arizona, his publicist said today.

Farina, best known as detective Joe Fontana on the long-running TV series "Law & Order," suffered a blood clot in his lung, publicist Lori De Waal said.

Farina was an 18-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, a detective who moonlighted on Chicago theater stages and in small movie roles. In the 1980s he was on the NBC television series "Crime Story."

He became a full-time actor much in demand for feature films ("Midnight Run," "Saving Private Ryan," "Get Shorty," "Snatch"), TV movies ("The Case of the Hillside Strangler," "Empire Falls") and TV series ("The In-Laws," "Buddy Faro").

He then became one of the stars of "Law & Order," playing tough, nattily dressed Detective Joe Fontana.

Farina was born on Feb. 29, 1944, the fourth son and youngest of the seven children of Joseph and Yolanda Farina. The father was a doctor, the mother a homemaker, and they raised their kids in a home at 549 W. North Ave. in an area that was then a working-class neighborhood with a broad ethnic mix predominated by Italians and Germans.

He went to school right around the corner from his home, at St. Michael's Elementary and St. Michael's Central High School.

After graduating from high school, Farina decided to "get the Army out of the way" and served three years before returning to Chicago. He worked for a while at the South Water produce market until, on the advice of his older brother, a lawyer, he joined the police force and studied criminal justice at Truman Junior College.

 

[SeaDaddy1]

Eugene Wilkinson. 1st Captain of the world's 1st nuclear submarine dies at 94.

Better late post than never. This guy is considered to be the submarine community's "Neil Armstrong".

Eugene Wilkinson died July 11, 2013.


Cmdr. Eugene Wilkinson
U.S. Navy

SAN DIEGO — As the boat moved down the channel into Long Island Sound, the captain ordered a message sent ashore that forever changed the strategy of naval warfare: “Underway on nuclear power.”

With those words on the morning of Jan. 17, 1955, Cmdr. Eugene Wilkinson signaled that Nautilus, the Navy’s first nuclear-powered submarine, a bold and technically complex project, was a success.

The primacy of diesel-powered submarines, forced to surface regularly and thus vulnerable to counterattack, was over. Future U.S. submarines would be nuclear.

With its onboard reactor, the Nautilus could stay submerged almost indefinitely and could move faster than any diesel submarine. It could detect and strike an enemy before the foe knew what was happening.

In the middle of the Cold War, with the United States and Soviet Union vying for dominance at sea, Nautilus “was definitely a game-changer,” said Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Amdur, director of the Submarine Force Museum near Groton, Conn., where the Nautilus is now a floating museum.

Wilkinson, Amdur said, receives much of the credit. “He’s our Neil Armstrong,” someone who went where no one had gone before and helped America beat the Soviets in a race for prestige and scientific prowess.

A World War II hero who became an executive in the civilian nuclear industry after retiring from the Navy, Wilkinson died July 11 at his home in Del Mar, north of San Diego. He was 94.

Wilkinson proved adept at navigating the tricky engineering challenges of nuclear propulsion and the prickly personality of Adm. Hyman Rickover, the “father” of the nuclear Navy.

He remained Nautilus’ first captain for two more years, then moved on to serve as commanding officer of a nuclear-powered surface ship, the guided-missile ship Long Beach. Promoted to vice admiral, he held several important commands before retiring in 1974 as deputy chief of naval operations for submarine operations.

At the Navy’s submarine school at New London, Conn., one of the main buildings is Wilkinson Hall. He is held up as a model of leadership: charismatic, fair, decisive, Amdur said.

Eugene Parks Wilkinson was born Aug. 10, 1918, in Long Beach, Calif. After his father died in a car accident and his mother from illness, he lived with his grandparents in the Imperial Valley east of San Diego, where they ran a creamery.

He enrolled at then-San Diego State College with the intent to study medicine. Instead he studied chemistry and physics and received his degree in 1938 at age 19. He then spent an additional two years on campus teaching chemistry and mathematics while doing course work toward a doctorate at the University of Southern California.

In 1940, he enlisted in the Navy, received an officer’s commission and served for a year on the cruiser Louisville before being assigned to submarine school.

Sent to the Pacific, Wilkinson deployed on eight combat patrols, including on the submarine Darter at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of World War II.

The Darter attacked the Japanese fleet with gusto in an effort to prevent it from advancing on the invasion force of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. It launched “one of the greatest torpedo shoots of World War II,” including sinking the heavy cruiser Maya and striking other enemy ships before being forced heavily aground, according to Navy historians.

For his role in leading the daring attack, Wilkinson was awarded a Silver Star for valor, a rarity for a junior officer.

The battle marked Wilkinson as an officer destined for advancement and, after the war ended, he was assigned to Rickover’s nuclear reactor project in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and then sea duty as commanding officer of the submarines Volodor, Sea Robin and Wahoo before joining the Nautilus project in 1953.

His selection as the first commanding officer of Nautilus had a surprising element. He was a graduate of a then-obscure state college, not the Naval Academy like many senior officers.

Wilkinson sometimes liked to gently poke at his peers who were Annapolis alums, telling them that graduation from such a prestigious institution made them more interested in tradition than innovation.

While given to spreading the congratulations to his crew, he was rightly proud of what Nautilus accomplished.

“Remember it took the Navy 50 years to shift from sail to steam,” he liked to say, “and they changed to nuclear overnight.”

When some initial problems occurred, Wilkinson stood up to the doubters. The brilliant but ever-impatient Rickover would call and begin yelling in his squeaky voice, “What? What? What the hell are you talking about?”

In retirement, Wilkinson saw the humor in the situation. “You know, new construction, it all leaks a little at first,” he once said.

In 1979, after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, Wilkinson was asked by industry leaders to take the lead in devising safety standards. The result was the creation of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations.

Wilkinson is survived by sons Dennis, Stephen and Rod; daughter Marian Casazza; and four grandchildren. His wife, Janice, died in 2000.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Lou Reed Is Dead At 71

In a statement on Facebook right after his liver surgery in May, Reed wrote: "I am a triumph of modern medicine, physics and chemistry. I am bigger and stronger than stronger than ever."

Because he was much smarter than us, Reed put it best on his mortality-driven album Magic & Loss, in a quote that has been dear to my heart
since I first heard it: "There's a bit of magic in everything, and then some loss to even things out."

http://gothamist.com/2013/10/27/lou_reed_is_dead_at_71.php

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...d-leader-and-rock-pioneer-dead-at-71-20131027

Reed’s ambiguous sexual persona and excessive drug use throughout the Seventies was the stuff of underground rock myth. But in the Eighties, he began to mellow. He married Sylvia Morales and opened a window into his new married life on 1982’s excellent The Blue Mask, his best work since Transformer. His 1984 album New Sensations took a more commercial turn and 1989’s New York ended the decade with a set of funny, politically cutting songs that received universal critical praise. In 1991, he collaborated with Cale on Songs For Drella, a tribute to Warhol. Three years later, the Velvet Underground reunited for a series of successful European gigs.

Reed and Morales divorced in the early Nineties. Within a few years, Reed began a relationship with musician-performance artist Laurie Anderson. The two became an inseparable New York fixture, collaborating and performing live together, while also engaging in civic and environmental activism. They were married in 2008.

Reed continued to follow his own idiosyncratic artistic impulses throughout the ‘00s. The once-decadent rocker became an avid student of T'ai Chi, even bringing his instructor onstage during concerts in 2003. In 2005 he released a double CD called The Raven, based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe. In 2007, he released an ambient album titled Hudson River Wind Meditations. Reed returned to mainstream rock with 2011’s Lulu, a collaboration with Metallica.

“All through this, I’ve always thought that if you thought of all of it as a book then you have the Great American Novel, every record as a chapter,” he told Rolling Stone in 1987. “They’re all in chronological order. You take the whole thing, stack it and listen to it in order, there’s my Great American Novel.”

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Georges Lautner, died at age 87, in Paris on Friday November 22, 2013

“He was a scientist of popular cinema,” said Lautner’s friend Rémy Julienne, who announced his death late on Friday night.

Georges Lautner
Né le 24 Janvier 1926 à Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France
Décédé le 22 Novembre 2013

http://www.france24.com/en/20131123...s-delon-belmondo-death-film-cinema?autoplay=1

PARIS (AP) — Director Georges Lautner, whose films from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are part of the French canon and still adored, has died.

He was 87. The cause of death was not announced.

Of the dozens of films he made, ‘‘Les Tontons Flingeurs,’’ which appeared as ‘‘Monsieur Gangster’’ for Anglophone audiences, was perhaps the most beloved.

His films were often hilarious and wildly popular; lines from several have entered the popular imagination and quoted almost
as if proverbs. His movies are still frequently screened on French television.

Lautner is credited with guiding a generation of actors, including Jean-Paul Belmondo.

On Saturday, President Francois Hollande lamented Lautner’s passing a day earlier, noting that his movies were ‘‘great popular comedies
that became cult films of our cinematic heritage.’’

http://www.boston.com/news/world/eu...autner-dies/7oAExqSEHm3rHliAlMs4LO/story.html

 

[suehprom]

Russell Johnson, the Professor on 'Gilligan's Island,' Is Dead at 89

Russell Johnson, the actor whose genius Professor Roy Hinkley was always one coconut away from inventing a way off "Gilligan’s Island," has died of natural causes. He was 89.

Dawn Wells, who played fellow castaway Mary Ann, said her friend passed away this morning after being in hospice for a short period of time.

"Russell was 100 percent a gentleman," she told "The Insider." "A genuine, dear, wonderful man."

Wells also took to Facebook to express her sadness.

The other person Wells was referencing was castmate Bob Denver, who died in 2005 at the age of 70.

Before his three-hour tour took a bad a turn, Johnson was a player in 1950s science-fiction classics "This Island Earth" and "It Came From Outer Space." He also scored two appearances on "The Twilight Zone" and acted opposite Ronald Reagan in the 1953 western "Law and Order."

Prior to acting, Johnson served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He earned a Purple Heart when his plane was shot down over the Philippines in 1945.

Johnson was married three times, most recently to actress Constance Dane.

Speaking to Yahoo TV, Johnson's agent Mike Eisenstadt had fond memories of the small-screen star. "Great guy, very respectful, he loved his family," said Eisenstadt, who also represented Wells, Denver, and Tina "Ginger" Louise. The agent called the classically trained Johnson a "very positive guy" who loved his fans but chose to live away from Hollywood in Washington state. "He didn't want to be in that scene," he said.

TV Land, which was already planning to add "Gilligan's Island" reruns to its lineup on Monday, offered condolences in a statement from president Larry W. Jones: "We are deeply saddened to have learned of the passing of Russell Johnson, the beloved 'Professor.' We extend our deepest condolences to his family. ‘Gilligan's Island’ is one of the most iconic television series in pop culture history. The news about Russell makes its return to TV Land on Monday all the more meaningful.”

As word of his death spread, those fans flocked to Twitter to pay tribute to the TV icon.

http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/r...lligan-s-island--is-dead-at-89-205226838.html

 

[Weird Harold]

Russell Johnson, the actor whose genius Professor Roy Hinkley was always one coconut away from inventing a way off "Gilligan’s Island," has died of natural causes. He was 89.

Dawn Wells, who played fellow castaway Mary Ann, said her friend passed away this morning after being in hospice for a short period of time.

"Russell was 100 percent a gentleman," she told "The Insider." "A genuine, dear, wonderful man."

Wells also took to Facebook to express her sadness.

The other person Wells was referencing was castmate Bob Denver, who died in 2005 at the age of 70.

Before his three-hour tour took a bad a turn, Johnson was a player in 1950s science-fiction classics "This Island Earth" and "It Came From Outer Space." He also scored two appearances on "The Twilight Zone" and acted opposite Ronald Reagan in the 1953 western "Law and Order."

Prior to acting, Johnson served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He earned a Purple Heart when his plane was shot down over the Philippines in 1945.

Johnson was married three times, most recently to actress Constance Dane.

Speaking to Yahoo TV, Johnson's agent Mike Eisenstadt had fond memories of the small-screen star. "Great guy, very respectful, he loved his family," said Eisenstadt, who also represented Wells, Denver, and Tina "Ginger" Louise. The agent called the classically trained Johnson a "very positive guy" who loved his fans but chose to live away from Hollywood in Washington state. "He didn't want to be in that scene," he said.

TV Land, which was already planning to add "Gilligan's Island" reruns to its lineup on Monday, offered condolences in a statement from president Larry W. Jones: "We are deeply saddened to have learned of the passing of Russell Johnson, the beloved 'Professor.' We extend our deepest condolences to his family. ‘Gilligan's Island’ is one of the most iconic television series in pop culture history. The news about Russell makes its return to TV Land on Monday all the more meaningful.”

As word of his death spread, those fans flocked to Twitter to pay tribute to the TV icon.

http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/r...lligan-s-island--is-dead-at-89-205226838.html

Yet another icon of my youth gone.

 

[CaptainKirk]

David Madden of 'The Partridge Family'

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/01/17/arts/MADDEN-obit/MADDEN-obit-master180.jpg

Dave Madden, a comic actor who played the child-hating agent on the hit 1970s sitcom “The Partridge Family,” died on Thursday in Florida. He was 82.

He died at a hospice center near his home in the Jacksonville area, his niece Mary Frances Miller said.

“The Partridge Family,” which ran on ABC from September 1970 to March 1974, revolved around a widowed mother and her five children who form a band. Towering and rumpled, Mr. Madden played Reuben Kincaid, the agent who managed the band and regularly clashed with its impish preteen bassist, played by Danny Bonaduce.

The series starred Shirley Jones, with her real-life stepson David Cassidy as the resident heartthrob. But it was Mr. Madden and the freckle-faced Mr. Bonaduce who were the reigning comic duo.

“His relationship with Danny Bonaduce is what made the show work,” Ms. Jones said of Mr. Madden on Thursday, “this strange, mad little boy and the grown man who was even worse as a father figure.”

Though Mr. Madden played a man bedeviled by the youngsters surrounding him, off camera he “loved kids,” Ms. Jones said.

Mr. Bonaduce later wrote that during his troubled youth Mr. Madden served as his surrogate father.

Before “The Partridge Family,” Mr. Madden was part of the ensemble on the “Laugh-In” comedy series, sipping and sometimes spitting milk along with joining in the show’s zany sketches and crazy jokes.

He later had a recurring role as a customer at Mel’s Diner on the long-running sitcom “Alice.”

David Joseph Madden was born on Dec. 17, 1931, in Ontario, Canada, and grew up in North Terre Haute, Ind. He began show business as a nightclub comic and then landed his first acting job on the short-lived sitcom “Camp Runamuck” in the mid-1960s.

He also appeared on such series as “Bewitched,” “Barney Miller,” “Happy Days,” “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island.”

In 2007 he published a memoir, “Reuben on Wry.”

Survivors include his wife and a daughter and son, both from a previous marriage.

 

[KindaKinky]

Thank you to those that have kept this thread going for this long.

 

[Igor_1066]

Joe Cocker Dead at 70

Joe Cocker Is Dead at 70; Raspy-Voiced Rock Star With Distinctive Moves
By BEN SISARIODEC. 22, 2014
Photo


Joe Cocker, the gravelly British singer who became one of pop’s most recognizable interpreters in the late 1960s and ’70s with passionate, idiosyncratic takes on songs like the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends,” died on Monday at his home in Crawford, Colo. He was 70.

The cause was lung cancer, his agent, Barrie Marshall, said.

Mr. Cocker had been a journeyman singer in Britain for much of the 1960s, building a reputation as a soulful barreler with full-throated versions of Ray Charles and Chuck Berry songs. But he became a sensation after his performance of “With a Little Help From My Friends” at the Woodstock music festival in 1969.

His appearance there, captured in the 1970 concert film “Woodstock,” established him as one of pop’s most powerful and irrepressible vocalists. With his tie-dyed shirt and shaggy mutton chops soaked in sweat, Mr. Cocker, then 25, pleadingly teased out the song’s verses — “What would you do if I sang out of tune?/Would you stand up and walk out on me?” — and threw himself into repeated climaxes, lunging and gesticulating in ways that seemed to imitate a guitarist in a heroic solo.


On Twitter, Ringo Starr wrote on Monday, “Goodbye and God bless to Joe Cocker from one of his friends.” In a statement, Paul McCartney recalled hearing Mr. Cocker’s record of the song. “It was just mind-blowing, totally turned the song into a soul anthem,” he said, “and I was forever grateful for him for having done that.”

After Woodstock, Mr. Cocker toured widely and took his place as perhaps the rock world’s most distinctive interpreter of others’ songs — an art then going out of fashion with the rise of folk-inspired singer-songwriters and groups, like the Beatles, that wrote their own material.

His other hits included a version of the Box Tops’ hit “The Letter” and the standard “Cry Me a River,” both in 1970, and “You Are So Beautiful,” in 1975. His only No. 1 single was “Up Where We Belong,” recorded as a duet with Jennifer Warnes for the 1982 film “An Officer and a Gentleman,” for which he won his only Grammy Award.

Almost from the start of his fame, Mr. Cocker struggled with alcohol and drug addiction.

“If I’d been stronger mentally, I could have turned away from temptation,” he said in an interview last year with The Daily Mail, the British newspaper. “But there was no rehab back in those days. Drugs were readily available, and I dived in head first. And once you get into that downward spiral, it’s hard to pull out of it. It took me years to get straight.”

His early tours — particularly “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” in 1970, which was documented in a live album and film of the same name — were rowdy affairs, awash in both drugs and the artistic excesses of the era. The sprawling “Mad Dogs” entourage included not only more than 30 musicians, among them the keyboardist and songwriter Leon Russell and the drummer Jim Keltner, but also spouses, babies and pets.


At the same time, Mr. Cocker’s onstage contortions had, for better or worse, become his signature. John Belushi performed a sendup on “Saturday Night Live” in 1975 that ended with his convulsing on the floor; the next year Mr. Cocker performed Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright” on the show, joined by Mr. Belushi in imitation.

Asked about his mannerisms in an interview last year with The Guardian, Mr. Cocker said that they “came with my frustration at having never played guitar or piano.” He added: “It’s just a way of trying to get feeling out. I get excited, and it all comes through my body.”

John Robert Cocker was born on May 20, 1944, in Sheffield, England, and began playing drums and harmonica in 1959 with a group called the Cavaliers. Influenced by Ray Charles and skiffle stars like Lonnie Donegan, he soon switched to lead vocals and rebranded himself Vance Arnold — a name inspired by both the American country singer Eddy Arnold and a character from the Elvis Presley film “Love Me Tender.”

While still a budding teenage performer, Mr. Cocker had kept his day job as a gas fitter for the East Midlands Gas Board. He was given a six-month leave when he signed with Decca in 1964. But his version of the Beatles “I’ll Cry Instead” and a tour slot opening for Manfred Mann drew little notice, so he went back to gas fitting for a time.


Mr. Cocker’s career began to take shape around 1965 when he and the keyboardist Chris Stainton formed the Grease Band, which played Motown covers in pubs throughout northern England before relocating to London two years later. In 1968, the group’s single “Marjorine,” released under Mr. Cocker’s name, became a minor hit, and a version of “With a Little Help From My Friends” — with Jimmy Page on guitar and B. J. Wilson, from Procol Harum, on drums — went to No. 1 in England.

Woodstock made Mr. Cocker a worldwide star, but throughout the 1970s his career was dogged by problems with drugs. He sometimes forgot the words to songs onstage, and while on tour in Australia in 1972 he was arrested on a charge of possession of marijuana.

“Up Where We Belong” resuscitated Mr. Cocker’s career in 1982, leading to numerous other songs in film soundtracks, among them Randy Newman’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On” in “9 1/2 Weeks” (1986) and “When the Night Comes,” from “An Innocent Man” (1989), which went to No. 11 on Billboard’s pop chart.

Meanwhile, Mr. Cocker was reaching millions of younger fans as the Woodstock version of “With a Little Help From My Friends” was used as the theme song for the ABC comedy series “The Wonder Years,” which started in 1988. He performed at Woodstock ’94, the 25th-anniversary version of the festival.

In all, Mr. Cocker released more than 20 studio albums, most recently “Fire It Up” in 2012.

He is survived by his wife, Pam; a brother, Victor; a stepdaughter, Zoey Schroeder; and two grandchildren.

At a concert in September, Billy Joel called Mr. Cocker “a great singer who is not very well right now.” He added: “I think he should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I’m amazed that he’s not yet, but I’m throwing in my vote for Joe Cocker.”

 

[Super-Surprise]

Daniel Thompson, Whose Bagel Machine Altered the American Diet, Dies at 94

Daniel Thompson, Whose Bagel Machine Altered the American Diet, Dies at 94

Daniel Thompson, who five decades ago automated the arcane art of bagel making, a development — seen variously as saving grace and sacrilege — that has sent billions of mass-produced bagels raining down on the American heartland, died on Sept. 3 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 94.

His family announced the death last week.

A California math teacher turned inventor, Mr. Thompson was a shaper of postwar suburban culture in more than one respect: He also created the first wheeled, folding Ping-Pong table, a fixture of American basements from the mid-20th century onward.

But it was for the bagel machine that Mr. Thompson remained best known. The invention changed the American diet, ushering in the welter of packaged bagels — notably Lender’s — now found in supermarkets nationwide, and making the bagel a staple of fast-food outlets.

“There was a kind of schism in bagel-making history: pre-Daniel Thompson and post-Daniel Thompson,” Matthew Goodman, the author of “Jewish Food: The World at Table,” said in an interview on Monday. “What happened with the advent of the automated bagel-making machine was that bagel makers were capable of producing far more bagels than had ever been imagined.”

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/09/22/business/22THOMPSON-OBIT1/22THOMPSON-OBIT1-master675.jpg
Daniel Thompson, in apron, in 1968 with a machine that manufactured 4,800 bagels an hour. Credit Steve Thompson

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/09/22/business/22THOMPSON-OBIT2/22THOMPSON-OBIT2-articleLarge.jpg
Mr. Thompson, left, with his father, Meyer Thompson, while making bagels and doughnuts in 1970. Credit Steve Thompson

What was more, Mr. Thompson’s machine proved to be a mirror of midcentury American history. For bound up in the story of its introduction is the story of Jewish assimilation, gastronomic homogenization, the decline of trade unionism, the rise of franchise retailing and the perennial tension between tradition and innovation.

If Mr. Thompson’s brainchild, in the eyes of grateful consumers, democratized the bagel, there remain mavens who charge that his machine, along with those of later inventors, denatured the soul of a cherished cultural artifact. To these stalwarts, centered in the bagel redoubts of New York and Montreal, even invective-rich Yiddish lacks words critical enough to describe a machine-made bagel, though “shande” — disgrace — perhaps comes closest.

“Is what happened to the bagel a good thing or a bad thing?” Mr. Goodman said on Monday. “To me, it’s kind of a tragic story. What happened is that the bagel lost, both literally and metaphorically, its Jewish flavor.”

The tough, round heart of North American Jewish cuisine, with European roots reaching back hundreds of years, the bagel was until the mid-1960s available only in cities with thriving Jewish neighborhoods, most emblematically New York. Its shape — which sprang from dough that was rolled by hand, coiled into rings and boiled in a kettle before being baked in a wood- or coal-fired oven — was said to symbolize the circle of life.

Such bagels, prized by purists but increasingly difficult to find now, were known for an earthy taste, an elastic crumb and a glossy, dauntingly hard crust born of their turn in the kettle. The softer bagel that is ubiquitous today, which idealists deplore as little more than cotton wool, arose partly as a consequence of mechanization: Some bagel-making machines (though not Mr. Thompson’s, his family said) can accommodate only a looser, more watery dough.

As vaunted as it was in American cities, the traditional bagel for years remained so obscure — so ethnic — that as late as 1960 The New York Times Magazine felt obliged to define it for a national readership as “an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis.”

Bagel-making was still a skilled trade then, restricted to members of the International Beigel Bakers Union, as the name was Romanized after the organization was founded in New York in 1907. (Until well into the 1950s, the minutes of the union’s board meetings were taken down in Yiddish.)

The bagel-maker’s craft was passed down from father to son, fiercely guarded from outsiders’ prying eyes. In a contingency that seemed straight out of Damon Runyon, or perhaps “The Untouchables,” nonunion bakers trying to make and sell bagels risked paying for it with their kneecaps.

“Every bagel that was made in New York City up until the 1960s was a union bagel — every one,” Mr. Goodman said. “The reason why this union was strong was that they were the only ones who knew how to make a proper bagel. And that was the keys to the kingdom.”

The union — New York’s Local 338, with some 300 members — could hold the entire metropolitan area gastronomic hostage and, in disputes with bakery owners over working conditions, often did.

“Bagel Famine Threatens in City,” an alarmed headline in The Times read in 1951, as a strike loomed. (It was followed the next day by the immensely reassuring “Lox Strike Expert Acts to End the Bagel Famine.”)

Then, in the early 1960s, Mr. Thompson’s machine changed the bagel forever.

The son of Meyer Thompson, a Jewish baker of bagels from Hull, England, and the former Annette Berman, Abraham Thomas Thompson was born on Jan. 16, 1921, in Winnipeg, Canada, where his father had established a bakery. When he was a few weeks old, to memorialize a cousin who had recently died, his parents changed his name to Daniel.

The family moved to Los Angeles when Daniel was a baby. As a young man he served in World War II with the Army Air Forces in the Pacific; he later graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied industrial arts and mathematics. Afterward, Mr. Thompson taught high school math and junior high school wood shop in Los Angeles.

Like his father before him, Mr. Thompson was a tinkerer. In 1953, he received United States patent No. 2,645,539 for his “Folding Table, Tennis Table, or the Like.” Though the table did not make him wealthy, his family said, it did give him the wherewithal to attain the grail his father had long sought: an automated bagel maker.

The elder Mr. Thompson had experimented with a series of bagel-making machines over the years, but none proved commercially viable. In the late 1950s, the son perfected the father’s creation, building a functional machine that took the labor out of rolling and forming the dough.

“It meant that any Joe off the street could make a bagel,” Mr. Goodman explained. “And that was one of a confluence of factors that in less than a generation turned the bagel, which had once been smaller and crusty and flavorful, into something that is large and pillowy and flavorless — it had turned into the kind of baked good that Americans like, à la Wonder Bread.”

In 1961, Mr. Thompson and his wife, Ada, established the Thompson Bagel Machine Manufacturing Corporation. Two years later, Lender’s, which had been making bagels in New Haven since the 1920s, leased the first Thompson machine.

Where a traditional bagel baker could produce about 120 bagels in an hour, Mr. Thompson’s machine let a single unskilled worker turn out 400. This allowed Lender’s to make bagels in immense quantities and sell them, bagged and frozen, in supermarkets.

Before long, as The NY Baker’s Bench observed, the Thompson machine, “like the steam drill and John Henry, put the hand-rollers of New York’s Local 338 out of business.”

Mr. Thompson resided in Palm Desert, Calif. Besides his wife, the former Ada Schatz, whom he married in 1946, his survivors include two sons, Stephen and Craig, who now oversee the family bagel-machine business; a daughter, Leslie; a brother, Robert; and three grandchildren.

Lender’s, which still uses Thompson machines, is today among the largest makers of bagels in the United States, producing 750 million a year.

The largest direct retailer of bagels in the country, which last year sold consumers more than 224 million in flavors like multigrain, cinnamon raisin and blueberry, is Dunkin’ Donuts. The company’s offerings also include a “bagel twist” — an elongated strand of baked dough in which the circle of life has been broken entirely.

 

[Aella_]

Still applies.

 

[anchoredinocean]

Still applies.

Shit, I was hoping you were announcing your own death. Just my luck.