Literotica Cemetary

[JennyOmanHill]

'Ajax Man' Actor Eugene Roche Dies at 75

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Eugene Roche, the paunchy character actor who played the kitchen-cleaning "Ajax man" in TV commercials and had memorable roles in the TV shows "All in the Family,""Magnum P.I." and "Soap," has died at age 75.

Roche was at his home with his wife in Sherman Oaks on Monday when he suffered a mild heart attack, family friend Timothy Wayne said Friday. While hospitalized at Encino hospital for further tests, he had another more serious heart attack and died on Wednesday, Wayne said.

Although his name may not be familiar to most audiences, Roche's face surely was.

Plump and jovial with glinting eyes, Roche (pronounced Roe-sh) co-starred on TV's "Webster" as a lovable landlord, and was Archie Bunker's neighborhood nemesis Pinky Peterson on "All in the Family."

He also played the curmudgeonly "old school" private investigator Luther Gillis on "Magnum P.I.," the sly attorney E. Ronald Mallu on the sitcom "Soap" and the newspaper editor Harry Burns on "Perfect Strangers."

One of his most memorable movie roles was in 1971's "Slaughterhouse-Five," based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., in which Roche played a likable POW named Edgar Derby, who amid the scorched remains of a firebombed Dresden picks up an intact porcelain figurine as a souvenir - and is promptly executed for looting by his German captors.

In the 1978 Chevy Chase-Goldie Hawn comedy "Foul Play," Roche co-starred as a hitman who poses as an archbishop in an attempt to assassinate a visiting pope.

The Boston-born actor served in the military during World War II and the Korean War before attending Emerson College. He began his acting career on stage and radio, and became a staple of TV shows and commercials and movies.

Survivors include his wife, Anntoni, and their nine children.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Former Mets Broadcaster Murphy Passes Away

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Aug. 3) -- Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Murphy, who covered the New York Mets from the team's inception in 1962 until his retirement after last season, died Tuesday. He was 79.

Murphy died at the Hospice of Palm Beach County, the team said. He had battled lung cancer since his retirement.

Murphy worked as a baseball broadcaster for 50 years, starting with the Boston Red Sox in 1954 and then moving to the Baltimore Orioles in 1960. He came to the expansion Mets in their first year, joining Lindsay Nelson and Hall of Fame slugger Ralph Kiner as the broadcast team. The trio worked together on radio and television for 17 years before Nelson left for San Francisco.

"It's like losing a brother," Kiner said in a statement. "We did everything together, we went to movies, ate together and traveled together. It's so hard to fathom he's gone. It's has been a terrible year for me -- first I lose my wife to cancer and now Bob."

Murphy spent the final 15 years of his career working on Mets radio broadcasts with Gary Cohen. Kiner called his longtime partner "the brother I never had."

Murphy's signature phrases included talking about "the happy recap," after Mets victories and cautioning fans listening to broadcasts of tight games to "fasten your seat belts."

"He could always find a silver lining, even when things weren't going well. I liked that about him," said Yankees manager Joe Torre, a former Mets manager and player. "He loved what he did for a living, right to the very end."

Murphy was honored by the Mets at Shea Stadium last September.

"I've just loved it. It's been an incredible ride," Murphy told the fans, who chanted "Mur-phy! Mur-phy!" when the broadcaster was introduced. "I'm going to start missing you all the minute I walk off this field."

Murphy received the Ford Frick Award in 1994 and was inducted into the broadcasters' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The radio booth at Shea was named in his honor last season.

The San Diego Padres' former ballpark was known as Jack Murphy Stadium from 1981-1997, named after his brother, the former sports editor of The San Diego Union, in 1981.

Murphy is survived by his wife, Joye; daughters Kevin Murphy, Kasey Murphy, Kelly Morris, Penny Haft and Patricia Haft; and son Brian Murphy. A private family gathering is scheduled for Wednesday in Florida, and the Mets said a memorial service in the New York area will take place at an unspecified date.

 

[KindaKinky]

I'm not Rick James anymore, Bitch!

'Super Freak' Musician Rick James Dead at 56
By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Flamboyant funk music pioneer Rick James, a dynamic performer whose sensuous 1981 dance hit "Super Freak" came to embody the ruinous excesses of his colorful life, died in his sleep on Friday of natural causes. He was 56.

James died at 9:20 a.m. in his home near Hollywood, a record label spokeswoman said.

The self-proclaimed "icon of drug use and eroticism," James paid the price for his longtime addiction to crack-cocaine in the early 1990s when he served three years in prison for assault and false imprisonment.

He had been in fragile health since suffering a stroke in 1998 after popping a blood vessel at a concert in Denver. But he was in upbeat spirits as recently as late June when he received a lifetime achievement award at a music industry dinner in Beverly Hills. "I'm Rick James, bitch," he defiantly proclaimed at the black-tie event.

The multi-instrumentalist had just finished recording an album that he planned to release next year, and was in talks with Hollywood studios for a movie about his life. James is perhaps best known for his smash "Super Freak," in which he sings of a "very kinky girl, the kind you don't take home to mother."
The song peaked at No. 16 on the U.S. pop charts, and found renewed life a decade later when rapper MC Hammer sampled it on "U Can't Touch This," one of the biggest rap records of all time.

His grooves and hooks also ended up on tracks by such artists as Mary J. Blige, Ashanti, LL Cool J and Will Smith, introducing him to a new generation of fans. He also collaborated with the Temptations and Smokey Robinson.

James, born James Johnson, Jr. in Buffalo, New York, started writing songs when he was 11. He joined the U.S. Navy (news - web sites) when he was 15, but deserted and went to Canada, where he formed a rock band called the Mynah Birds, featuring Neil Young (news). James eventually surrendered and was sent to the brig. He wrote and performed with little success until 1978 when his debut album "Come Get It!" sold 2 million copies, and yielded the singles "You and I," which topped the R&B charts, and "Mary Jane," which went to No. 3. His stage image -- outlandish hair braids, extravagant costumes and spiky guitars -- prompted comparisons with funk artists like Sly and the Family Stone and George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic.

"It was the best time of my life," James told Reuters in 2003. "We were doing groundbreaking tours, and a lot of drugs and drank a lot ... It's hard to reflect and remember those times. They are very vague to me -- a lot of it is a haze."

Indeed, he became a hooked on crack and began a long descent into disgrace. In 1993, he was sentenced to five years in prison (serving three) for assault and false imprisonment stemming from two grisly incidents.

In 1991, James and his then 21-year-old girlfriend, Tania Hijazi, beat up and tortured a masseuse. The woman was tied naked to a chair, burned with a hot knife and a lighter and forced to perform oral sex on Hijazi. In 1992, the couple beat up and held captive a female record label executive in a hotel on the Sunset Strip. James and Hijazi, who also went to prison, married upon his release in 1997.

RIP Super Freak.

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=267803

I'm Dead, Bi-otch!

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=267791

 

[KindaKinky]

Fay Wray

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=268594

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Julia Child, Famous Cook, Dies at 91

Julia Child, 91, America's foremost apostle of gourmet French cooking and Epicurean dining whose television programs and cookbooks helped elevate the gastronomic standards of a generation, died Friday morning at an assisted living center in Montecito, Calif., where she lived.

She had kidney failure, her niece, Philadelphia Cousins, told the Associated Press. She died two days before her 92nd birthday.

Child broadcast her culinary gospel to an audience of millions, beginning in 1963 as the hostess of a highly acclaimed public television program, "The French Chef," which launched a career of more than 30 years on public and commercial television. She was author of seven best-selling cookbooks, the first of which, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," was said at its publication in 1961 to have been the definitive English language work on French cooking.

On television the 6-foot, 2-inch Child had a superb sense of showmanship, a cheery exuberance and a delightful lack of pretense that endeared her to millions and made her a national folk hero. She often made mistakes in her kitchen, and these gaffes were not edited out of the show. This helped create a personal bond between Child and her audiences, most of whom had made similar mistakes in their own kitchens.

Her aim, Child once said, was "to have things happen as they naturally do, such as mousse refusing to leave the mold, the potatoes sticking to the skillet, the apple charlotte slowly collapsing. One of the secrets of cooking is to learn to correct something if you can, and bear with it if you cannot."

Such was her fame and influence that in November 2001, when Child left her Massachusetts home of 42 years to return to her native California, she gave her 20-by-14-foot kitchen to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. It opened to the public two years ago.

Boston's public television station, WGBH-TV, broadcast her first cooking show on a trial basis in 1962. In 1963 she became a regular fixture on the station's programming schedule. This was the period when John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy were in the White House, and their style and elegance captured the nation's imagination. They had a French chef of their own, Rene Verdon, and America was eager to learn about French cooking.

Within a few years, Child's show was being carried by 104 public television stations throughout the nation, and it became a prototype for dozens of televised cooking that followed in subsequent decades. It won the George Foster Peabody Award for distinguished achievement in educational television in 1965 and an Emmy Award in1966. Time magazine did a cover story on her in 1966, and her cookbook sales soared, opening a new chapter in the book publishing industry. There were 49 cookbooks published in the United States in 1961 when Child and two colleagues released "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." Thirty years later, American publishers were publishing more than 800 cookbooks annually.

Julia McWilliams was born in Pasadena, Calif. As a child she seldom entered the family kitchen. "Gray lamb with mint," was a typical family dinner, she later recalled. She graduated from Smith College and worked during the 1930s as a publicist and copywriter for W. & J. Sloan furniture stores in New York and Los Angeles.

During World War II she was a file clerk with the Office of Strategic Services, first in Washington and later in Ceylon and China. There she met Paul Child, an OSS mapmaker and connoisseur of fine food and wine. They spent their spare hours together sampling the delicacies of Asian cookery.

After the war, she returned to California where she took her first cooking lesson, at the Hillcliffe School of Cookery in Beverly Hills. In 1946 she married Child, who had become a Foreign Service officer. They lived in Washington until 1948 when he was assigned to Paris as an exhibits officer for the U.S. Information Agency.

Only then did Julia Child sample French cooking for the first time, and it was a new and revealing experience for her. "I didn't know such food existed," she recalled years later.

She took French lessons at the Berlitz language school to refresh her college French and then enrolled in the Cordon Bleu, the famed Parisian cooking school. Later she took private cooking lessons from master chef Max Bugnard.

Through mutual friends she met Simone Beck and later Louisette Bertholle, two French women who had been considering writing a French cookbook aimed at an American readership. Neither of them knew English, so they asked Child to join them in the project. She liked the idea but was not ready for such an undertaking.

Instead, Child suggested that they start a cooking school, which they did. It was called L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes, and it was held in her apartment on the Left Bank at five dollars a lesson.

Later Child accompanied her husband on Foreign Service assignments in Marseille, Bonn and Oslo, where she also operated cooking schools. Eventually she decided she was ready to write the cookbook. In collaboration with Beck and Bertholle, she spent years researching and writing. In her previous readings of French cookbooks, Child had been unable to find sufficient detail. She vowed that their new cookbook would correct this flaw.

Publication of the cookbook coincided with Paul Child's retirement from the Foreign Service, and the couple settled in Cambridge, Mass., because, according to Julia Child, "there are always lots of nifty people in university communities." She said she planned to "cook, write and teach."

Paul Child died in 1994. They had no children.

 

[JCSTREET]

Re: Literotica Cemetery

A lot of well known people have died this year, and threads discussing them get lost on the boards, so I'm linking as many as I can to this thread.

Starting with:

John Ritter 1948-2003
https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=196567

and

Johnny Cash 1932-2003 https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=196556

Fay Wray, August 8, 2004, aged 96

(King Kong's g/f)

Vina Fay Wray was born on 15 September 1907 in Alberta, Canada. Her family moved to Arizona when she was 3, and then to Salt Lake City when she was 5. Visits to the Kinema and participation in school plays whetted her appetite for performing. Surviving childhood hardships such as the influenza epidemic of 1918 (during which she lost a sister), Fay left for Los Angeles. Before she was 19 she appeared in a number of films, mainly westerns, under contract with Universal for $75 a week. She was nominated to be WAMPAS (Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers) Baby Star of 1926 along with other young actresses like Mary Astor, Joan Crawford, Dolores Costello, Marceline Day, Dolores Del Rio, and Janet Gaynor.

 

[KindaKinky]

Somewhere in the afterlife, King Kong is on top of the WTC, and he's holding Fay again in his arms.

 

[KindaKinky]

Mr. Bootie Mourns the loss of chica pet, a lit writer.

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=269276

You can also post the obituaries of someone you know who was close to you. It doesn't always have to be celebrities.

 

[breakwall]

Respected Czech National Hockey Coach Dies.

PRAGUE -- Ivan Hlinka, a former Pittsburgh Penguins coach who led the Czech Republic to a gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, died yesterday after being injured in a car crash. He was 54.

Hlinka's death came just more than a year after another gold-medal winning coach, Herb Brooks, died in a car accident. Brooks, who coached the US hockey team to gold in 1980, died Aug. 11, 2003, when his minivan rolled over after he lost control while driving near Minneapolis.

Hlinka was a player on Czechoslovakia's national team during the 1970s and '80s, helping the Czechs win the world championship in '72, '76, and '77. He was also on the team that won bronze at the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, and silver at the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria.

He played two seasons in the NHL with the Vancouver Canucks from 1981-83.


A fitting tribute:

"The whole country is in shock," said Oilers winger Radek Dvorak, a member of the Czech World Cup team. "Ivan was so respected. We had so many victories the last seven or eight years and he made people proud to be Czech. I know a lot of (NHL) players went to tournaments because of him. We will still play the World Cup, and we will play for Ivan."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Elmer Bernstein, Composer of Film Scores and Broadway Shows, Is Dead at 82

19 Aug 2004

Elmer Bernstein, writer of a handful of Broadway musicals and one of the last great composers from Hollywood's golden era, died at his home in Ojai, Associated Press reported. He was 82.

Mr. Bernstein composed his first score in 1950 and over the next half century executed dozens more. He was nominated for an Oscar 14 times and won for the dizzy 1967 movie musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie." That show was later converted into a Tony-winning Broadway musical with a score largely written by Jeanine Tesori and Dick Scanlan.

Mr. Bernstein himself took occasional stabs at writing musical comedy. He wrote some incidental music for the 1954 musical version of Peter Pan. He stepped up his duties with 1967's How Now, Dow Jones, writing the entire score. The short-lived show (220 performances), about a woman who proclaims a false jump in the Dow Jones average in order to get her fiancé to marry her, won him a Tony Award nomination.

He tried one more time in 1983 with the Doug Henning show Merlin. This time his writing partner was lyricist Don Black. The result was largely the same: 199 performances and another Tony nomination.

Several of his film scores, however, have stood the test of time. The brassy, jazz-inflected soundtracks of "The Sweet Smell of Success" (1957), "Walk on the Wild Side" (1962) and "The Man With the Golden Arm" (1956) are among the most memorable of their era. The thundering, percussive, Western-flavored theme of 1960's "The Magnificent Seven" has been hummed by barflies and trivia buffs for decades (not to mention used in Marlboro cigarette commercials). And most movie fans are familiar with the sweeping orchestrations found in 1956's "The Ten Commandments."

Other films Mr. Bernstein composed include "Some Came Running," "The Birdman of Alcatraz," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Great Escape," "Hud," "Hawaii," "True Grit," "National Lampoon's Animal House" (a gig which led to him scoring several more big comedies in the 1980s), "An American Werewolf in London," "My Left Foot," "The Grifters" and "Ghostbusters."

Elmer Bernstein was born in New York City on April 4, 1922, to Edward and Selma Bernstein. He was a protege of Aaron Copland and studied music with Israel Citkowitz (his mentor), Roger Sessions and Stefan Wolpe. He received a thoroughly New York education, attending the Walden School and New York University. Aside from composing, he tried his hand at acting, dancing and painting in early years.

For a brief period in the early '50s, the McCarthy witchhunts left him "gray listed" in Hollywood, forcing him to work on two low-budget science fiction films, "Robot Monster" and "Cat Women of the Moon." Ironically, both became cult classics.

He is the father of Peter, Gregory and Emilie Bernstein. Peter is also a film composer and Emilie is an orchestrator in Hollywood.

Elmer Bernstein was frequently confused with composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, leading to his nickname, "Bernstein West."

 

[Agent99]

'On Death' author Kubler-Ross dies
Among Time's top 100 thinkers of 20th century

Wednesday, August 25, 2004 Posted: 9:13 AM EDT (1313 GMT)

(AP) -- Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, an internationally known psychiatrist, author and expert on death and dying who became a pioneer for hospice care, has died, her family said. She was 78.

Kubler-Ross, who suffered a series of strokes in 1995, died Tuesday of natural causes at home.

Kubler-Ross' 1969 book "On Death and Dying" was a best seller with her theory that the dying go through five stages of grief -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Kubler-Ross wrote more than 20 books dealing with the natural phenomenon of dying with her writings translated in 26 languages, according to her Web site.

Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Kubler-Ross graduated medical school at the University of Zurich in 1957. She came to New York the following year and was appalled by hospital treatment of dying patients.

Kubler-Ross began giving lectures featuring terminally ill patients, who talked about what they were going through. That led to her 1969 book.

In 1999, Time magazine named Kubler-Ross as one of the "100 Most Important Thinkers" of the past century.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

'On Death' author Kubler-Ross dies
Among Time's top 100 thinkers of 20th century

Wednesday, August 25, 2004 Posted: 9:13 AM EDT (1313 GMT)

(AP) -- Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, an internationally known psychiatrist, author and expert on death and dying who became a pioneer for hospice care, has died, her family said. She was 78.

Kubler-Ross, who suffered a series of strokes in 1995, died Tuesday of natural causes at home.

Kubler-Ross' 1969 book "On Death and Dying" was a best seller with her theory that the dying go through five stages of grief -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Kubler-Ross wrote more than 20 books dealing with the natural phenomenon of dying with her writings translated in 26 languages, according to her Web site.

Born in Zurich, Switzerland, Kubler-Ross graduated medical school at the University of Zurich in 1957. She came to New York the following year and was appalled by hospital treatment of dying patients.

Kubler-Ross began giving lectures featuring terminally ill patients, who talked about what they were going through. That led to her 1969 book.

In 1999, Time magazine named Kubler-Ross as one of the "100 Most Important Thinkers" of the past century.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/gifs/0826ross.jpg



"On Death and Dying" opened up a new world of thought for me and many others.

Now she is able to (in her own words) "dance across the galaxies."

 

[MNGuy]

Laura Branigan passed away in her sleep last night Thursday August 26th of a Brain aneurysm.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

"Gloria"

Laura Branigan passed away in her sleep last night Thursday August 26th of a Brain aneurysm.

http://www.laurabranigan-fansite.de/background/musik.gif

Laura Branigan was 47 years old.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Neal Fredericks, 35, shot 'The Blair Witch Project'

MIAMI -- Neal Fredericks, the cinematographer of the low-budget but successful horror film "The Blair Witch Project," died in a plane crash while filming a movie over the Dry Tortugas, his agent said. He was 35.

A team of Army Special Forces divers recovered Fredericks' body inside the submerged plane Sunday, a day after the crash about 70 miles west of Key West.

 

[KindaKinky]

Indian Larry

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=274117

 

[Moi]

Fred Ebb

NEW YORK The man who wrote the lyrics for some of Broadway's biggest musicals has died.

Fred Ebb penned the words for musicals like "Chicago" and "Cabaret" -- while also writing the lyrics to the song "New York, New York."

An assistant to longtime Ebb collaborator John Kander says Ebb died of a heart attack at his New York home. He was believed to be 76.

Ebb and composer Kander wrote the scores for eleven Broadway musicals and won Tony Awards for three.

 

[Violette]

"Start by admitting from cradle to tomb isn't that long a stay…"

Even at 76, it still isn't long enough.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Actor O.L. Duke Killed in N.Y. Car Crash

Sep 11, 11:06 AM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - Actor O.L. Duke, who appeared with Denzel Washington in the movies "Malcolm X,""Antwone Fisher" and "Out of Time," was killed in a car accident Friday, police and relatives said. He was 51.

Duke was returning home after performing in the off-Broadway play, "Waitin' 2 End Hell," when a car cut him off, said his wife, Monica Duke. His vehicle jumped a divider and struck an oncoming car, according to police.

Monica Duke said her husband was an avid actor who loved attending the theater. He often spoke enthusiastically about his work with other actors, including Washington, whom he counted as a friend, she said.

Duke found career success after he replaced Washington in the original production of "A Soldier's Play," his wife said.

He also appeared in the HBO series "Oz."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Johnny Ramone of 'The Ramones' Dies at 55

LOS ANGELES (Sept. 16) - Johnny Ramone, guitarist and co-founder of the seminal punk band "The Ramones" that influenced a generation of rockers, has died. He was 55.

Ramone, who had been fighting a five-year battle with prostate cancer, died in his sleep Wednesday afternoon at his Los Angeles home surrounded by friends and family, said the band's longtime artistic director Arturo Vega.

"He was the guy with a strategy. He was the guy who not only looked after the band's interest but he also was their defender," Vega said in a telephone interview from New York.

Ramone, whose birth name is John Cummings, had been hospitalized in June at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Opry Star Skeeter Davis Dies

Skeeter Davis, a veteran of the Grand Ole Opry, died Sept. 19, at Nashville's St. Thomas Hospital. She was 73. The artist, born Mary Frances Penick in Dry Ridge, Ky., had battled breast cancer since 1988.

After meeting Betty Jack Davis in high school, she adopted the name Skeeter Davis so the duo could perform as the Davis Sisters. Recording for RCA, they scored a hit with "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know" in 1953, but faced tragedy when Betty Jack was killed in a car crash in August of that year. Betty Jack's sister Georgie joined to carry on the group until 1956.

Davis scored her first solo hit in 1958 with the Chet Atkins-produced "Lost to a Geisha Girl," which reached No. 15 on Billboard's country singles chart. She joined the Opry in 1959, the same year she earned a Grammy nomination, the first of five in her career, for the song "Set Him Free." The track reached No. 5 on the country tally.

Davis scored a huge crossover hit in 1962 with "The End of the World." Beyond reaching No. 2 on the country chart, the track also hit No. 1 on Billboard's adult contemporary tally, No. 2 on the Hot 100 and No. 4 on the R&B list.

Other country hits included "(I Can't Help You) I'm Falling Too" (No. 2, 1960) and "Gonna Get Along Without You Now" (No. 8, 1964). She also recorded hits with Bobby Bare and George Hamilton IV and collaborated on an 1985 album with NRBQ, "She Sings, They Play."

Davis married and divorced three times, first to Kenneth Depew, then to Ralph Emery, host of the television show "Nashville Now," and later to NRBQ bassist Joey Spampinato.

Funeral services will be held Wednesday at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, original home of the Grand Ole Opry.



Love this song:

Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world,
`cause you don't love me anymore?

Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when I lost your love.

I wake up in the morning and I wonder why ev'rything's the same as it was.
I can't understand, no I can't understand, how life goes on the way it does!

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when you said good-bye.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Marvin Mitchelson, Divorce Attorney To Stars, Dies At 76

LOS ANGELES -- Divorce-attorney-to-the-stars Marvin Mitchelson has died.

He was 76. His publicist says Mitchelson died Saturday in Beverly Hills after battling cancer.

Mitchelson worked on high-profile, big-money marital disputes involving scores of Hollywood stars. In his first celebrity divorce case he reprsented actor James Mason's wife, Pamela, in the 1960s, and won a then-astonishing $1 million settlement. He also successfully defended actress Joan Collins in a case involving a prenuptial agreement with ex-husband Peter Holm.

In the 1980s, Mitchelson represented actor Lee Marvin's live-in girlfriend Michelle Triola, who sued Marvin for "palimony." Triola won a $104,000 award that was later overturned.

The divorce specialist had no need for his own counsel. He was married for 45 years and often joked that he wasn't setting a good example for his divorce practice.

 

[Moi]

Big Boss Man

Ray "Big Bossman" Traylor passes away

By JASON C****** -- SLAM! Wrestling




Ray Traylor, best known for his run in the WWF as The Big Boss Man, passed away September 22, according to Dave Meltzer at the Wrestling Observer.

According to the site, Traylor, 42, had not been complaining of any pain recently other then a bad knee. His wife found him not breathing, and paramedics could not revive him.

Virginia promoter Marvin Ward, who had scheduled Traylor with Dennis Condrey and Bobby Eaton for an Oct. 30 show in Waynesboro, Va., said he was stunned by the news.

"This is just tragic," said Ward, who had talked to Traylor within the last few days and spoke with Condrey and Traylor's representatives again Thurday morning.

As they described the picture to him, Traylor and his family were visiting with his sister at his home in Dallas, Ga. Wednesday night. Traylor's two daughters went upstairs to play, while his wife Debbie briefly left the room at about 10 p.m., and returned to find him on the sofa. "It was apparently that quick," Ward said. "Everybody is just in shock."

Traylor began his career in 1986 as Jim Cornette's bodyguard Big Bubba Rogers. His career saw him perform in WWE, WCW and All Japan Wrestling, and he has competed as The Big Boss Man, The Boss, The Guardian Angel, War Machine, and under his real name and he teamed with Akeem in the late '80s as 'The Twin Towers.' At 6-foot-6, 330 pounds, he was a legitimate Twin Tower.


He had high profile feuds with Hulk Hogan, Ted Dibiase, Nailz, The Heenan Family, Vader, Al Snow, and many others. His last major run was with the WWF in 1998-99 as a part of the Corporation.

Bossman's feud with "The Mountie" Jacques Rougeau culminated in the Canadian spending a night in jail after a loss. Rougeau remembers the time fondly. "It was one of the greatest moments of my career. No matter how bad the situation looked like when I was put in jail with that big 400-pound, 7-foot guy, the Mountie always gets his man!" said Rougeau.

Traylor was indeed a prison guard in Cobb County, Georgia before turning to wrestling.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Music Patriarch Marsalis Sr. Dies

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Ellis L. Marsalis Sr., the patriarch of a family of world famous jazz musicians, including grandson Wynton Marsalis, has died. He was 96.

Marsalis' son, Ellis Jr., is a prominent New Orleans pianist and music professor who mentored crooner Harry Connick Jr. as well as four musician sons: Wynton, the trumpeter; saxophonist Branford; trombonist Delfeayo and drummer Jason.

Ellis Sr., who died Sunday, was involved in the civil rights movement through ownership of a motel in suburban New Orleans whose guests included the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., New York congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and musician Ray Charles.

He was born in Summit, Miss., and had lived in New Orleans since 1921. In 1936, he became the first black manager of an Esso service station in the city.

Marsalis opened the Marsalis Motel near the Mississippi River in 1943, a converted barn that featured a restaurant, lounge and swimming pool. The motel's business dwindled after civil rights legislation in the 1960s allowed blacks to stay at formerly all-white inns. The motel closed in 1986 and was later demolished.

He is survived by his son, a daughter and seven grandchildren.

 

[Moi]

John E. Mack

Harvard professor John E. Mack, M.D., Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Abduction and Passport to the Cosmos, was killed Sept. 27 in an automobile accident in England, sources told SCI FI Wire. Mack worked with SCI FI Channel on the miniseries Taken and participated in the network-sponsored UFO Abduction Symposium in New York in 2002.

A controversial figure in the field of UFO studies, Mack stunned the world when he published the results of his extensive research involving clients who claimed they had experienced extra-terrestrial encounters. He was also a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and founding director of the Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER). Mack's earlier books include A Prince of Our Disorder, a biography of T.E. Lawrence which earned the author a Pulitzer Prize.