Peter O'Toole
 

Joan Fontaine
 

Hollywood stalwart Joan Fontaine, best known for her roles in director Alfred Hitchcock's 1939 Rebecca and her Best Actress Oscar-winning role in his 1940 film Suspicion, died Sunday at her northern California home, according to several reports. She was 96.

In addition to playing a mousey spouse in both the Hitchcock films, first alongside Laurence Olivier and then to Cary Grant, Fontaine's other well-known movies included 1943's The Constant Nymph, which got her a third Oscar nomination, 1944's Jane Eyre with Orson Welles, 1952's Ivanhoe with Robert Taylor, and 1957's controversial Island in the Sun with Harry Belafonte.

Her final role was in a 1994 TV movie.

Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in Tokyo to British parents, Fontaine recalled for PEOPLE in 1978: "My mother, Lilian de Havilland ... was beautiful, gracious and a talented actress. My father was an English professor at Waseda and Imperial universities in Tokyo who left Mother for our Japanese maid when I was 2. My mother later married a department store manager, George Milan Fontaine, but she remained the dominant figure in our lives."

While her older (by one year) sister, Olivia de Havilland, best known for playing Melanie in Gone with the Wind, sought an acting career, Joan studied at the American School in Tokyo before joining de Havilland in Los Angeles, where she too got a screen test.

Among Fontaine's earliest roles were in 1939's all-star The Women at MGM, with Cary Grant that same year, in RKO's Gunga Din.

Fontaine lived out her days in Carmel, Calif. She had two children from her four marriages. Her husbands were actor Brian Aherne, TV producer William Dozier, producer Collier Young and journalist Alfred Wright Jr.

In her PEOPLE interview, Fontaine, who now leaves her sister as one of the last survivors of Hollywood's Golden Age, spoke of how she wanted to die.

"At age 108," she said, "flying around the stage in Peter Pan, as a result of my sister cutting the wires. Olivia has always said I was first at everything – I got married first, got an Academy Award first, had a child first. If I die, she'll be furious, because again I'll have got there first!"

http://www.people.com/people/article...ntent=My+Yahoo

R.I.P. Uncle Phil
 

>linkyloo<

Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers dies at 74
 

LOS ANGELES - Phil Everly, who with his brother Don formed an influential harmony duo that touched the hearts and sparked the imaginations of rock 'n' roll singers for decades, including the Beatles and Bob Dylan, died Friday. He was 74.

Phil and Don Everly helped draw the blueprint of rock 'n' roll in the late 1950s and 1960s with a high harmony that captured the yearning and angst of a nation of teenage baby boomers looking for a way to express themselves beyond the simple platitudes of the pop music of the day.

The Beatles, early in their career, once referred to themselves as "the English Everly Brothers." And Bob Dylan once said, "We owe these guys everything. They started it all."

The Everlys' hit records included the then-titillating "Wake Up Little Susie" and the universally identifiable "Bye Bye Love," each featuring their twined voices with lyrics that mirrored the fatalism of country music and a rocking backbeat that more upbeat pop. These sounds and ideas would be warped by their devotees into a new kind of music that would ricochet around the world.

In all, their career spanned five decades, although they performed separately from 1973 to 1983. In their heyday between 1957 and 1962, they had 19 top 40 hits.

The two broke up amid quarrelling in 1973 after 16 years of hits, then reunited in 1983, "sealing it with a hug," Phil Everly said.

Although their number of hit records declined in the late 1980s, they made successful concert tours in this country and Europe.

They were inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, the same year they had a hit pop-country record, "Born Yesterday."

Don Everly was born in 1937 in Brownie, Kentucky, to Ike and Margaret Everly, who were folk and country music singers. Phil Everly was born to the couple on Jan. 19, 1939, in Chicago where the Everlys moved to from Brownie when Ike grew tired of working in the coal mines.

The brothers began singing country music in 1945 on their family's radio show in Shenandoah, Iowa.

Their career breakthrough came when they moved to Nashville in the mid-1950s and signed a recording contract with New York-based Cadence Records.

Their breakup came dramatically during a concert at Knott's Berry Farm in California. Phil Everly threw his guitar down and walked off, prompting Don Everly to tell the crowd, "The Everly Brothers died 10 years ago."

During their breakup, they pursued solo singing careers with little fanfare. Phil also appeared in the Clint Eastwood movie "Every Which Way but Loose." Don made a couple of records with friends in Nashville, performed in local nightclubs and played guitar and sang background vocals on recording sessions.

Don Everly said in a 1986 Associated Press interview that the two were successful because "we never followed trends. We did what we liked and followed our instincts. Rock 'n' roll did survive, and we were right about that. Country did survive, and we were right about that. You can mix the two but people said we couldn't."

In 1988, the brothers began hosting an annual homecoming benefit concert in Central City, Kentucky, to raise money for the area.

Phil Everly
 

Man. My sister and I used to love to sing to the Everly Brothers when we were kids. Mom and Dad used to play the tapes in the car.

Carl Goodman

Co-founder of Act Up

http://oblogdeeoblogda.me/2014/01/06...mmits-suicide/

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

Russell Johnson, who played Professor Roy Hinkley on Gilligan's Island, has passed away at age 89.

Johnson was a busy but little-known character actor when he was cast in the slapstick 1960s comedy about seven people marooned on an uncharted Pacific island.

His character, high school science teacher Roy Hinkley, built generators and other gadgets out of scraps of junk found on the island. Johnson later joked that the one thing The Professor never figured out how to do was to fix the leaky boat so the group could get back to civilization.

Dave Madden
 

NEW YORK (AP) — The actor who played the agent on the hit 1970s sitcom "The Partridge Family" has died in Florida. Dave Madden was 82.

Madden was best known for his role as Reuben Kinkaid, who managed the family band and clashed with the precocious pre-teen bassist played by Danny Bonaduce (bahn-uh-DOO'-chee).

Before "The Partridge Family," Madden was part of the comedy ensemble on the "Laugh-In" variety series.

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

Madden was born in Ontario, Canada, and grew up in Terre Haute, Ind.

He began show business as a nightclub comic and landed his first acting job on the short-lived sitcom "Camp Runamuck" in the mid-1960s.

RIP

Geez, I remember him from all three of those shows. I don't feel old until I have a moment like this.

Ruth Robinson Duccini -Died January 16, 2014 Las Vegas, Nevada
 

Pete Seeger, Legendary Folk Singer, Dies at Age 94
 

Pete Seeger, the banjo-picking troubadour who sang for migrant workers, college students and star-struck presidents in a career that introduced generations of Americans to their folk music heritage, died on Monday at the age of 94.

Seeger – with his a lanky frame, banjo and full white beard – was an iconic figure in folk music. He performed with the great minstrel Woody Guthrie in his younger days and marched with Occupy Wall Street protesters in his 90s, leaning on two canes.

He wrote or co-wrote "If I Had a Hammer," "Turn, Turn, Turn," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine." He lent his voice against Hitler and nuclear power. A cheerful warrior, he typically delivered his broadsides with an affable air and his banjo strapped on.

"Be wary of great leaders," he told the Associated Press two days after a 2011 Manhattan Occupy march. "Hope that there are many, many small leaders."

With The Weavers, a quartet organized in 1948, Seeger helped set the stage for a national folk revival. The group – Seeger, Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman – churned out hit recordings of "Goodnight Irene," "Tzena, Tzena" and "On Top of Old Smokey."

Seeger also was credited with popularizing "We Shall Overcome," which he printed in his publication People's Song, in 1948. He later said his only contribution to the anthem of the civil rights movement was changing the second word from "will" to "shall," which he said "opens up the mouth better."

"Every kid who ever sat around a campfire singing an old song is indebted in some way to Pete Seeger," Arlo Guthrie once said.

Pete and Toshi Seeger were married July 20, 1943. The couple built their cabin in Beacon, N.Y., after World War II and stayed on the high spot of land by the Hudson River for the rest of their lives together. The couple raised three children. Toshi Seeger died in July at age 91.

His musical career was always braided tightly with his political activism, in which he advocated for causes ranging from civil rights to the cleanup of his beloved Hudson River. Seeger said he left the Communist Party around 1950 and later renounced it. But the association dogged him for years.

http://www.people.com/people/article...s-topheadlines

More News to Come
 

Seems it was a drug over dose

>linkyloo<

No!!! I love him! :(

I'm shocked
 

I loved his portrayal of Truman Capote. He did a fantastic job. Was a gifted actor.

aaaargh...

What???
 

I don't read this thread; I've been here once before and don't know why I poked my head in today. I'm literally in the middle of The Master, I pulled it up this morning because of him. I still have his imdb.com tab up because I was searching for the name of this movie. I had paused it to talk with a friend and jumped here to the planet before resuming.

WTF? I read Snow's headline, set the laptop aside before even knowing details and ran upstairs repeating, "No, no, no, no, no..." I'm beside myself right now. He's one of my favorites and once the denial wears off I'm really going to freak. Herion? God damm it!

Gwen Avery
 

Gwen Avery, singer/songwriter/musician, has died at the age of 71. Avery was best known for her composition “Sugar Mama”, which was featured on Olivia Records’ groundbreaking collection, Lesbian Concentrate, in 1977. Originally slated to release a solo album on Olivia, she toured with her labelmates Linda Tillery and Mary Watkins on the Varied Voices of Black Women Tour, which also featured poet Pat Parker and Vicki Randle providing supporting vocals and percussion.

Avery stood apart in the Women’s Music Movement: a woman of color who understood the connection between her grandmother’s juke joint and the women’s music movement that Olivia Records was at the center of. Avery was quoted as saying “I dressed differently. I would wear satin suits and platform shoes with an afro with neckties and beautiful silk shirts. They were wearing plaid shirts and blue jeans.“ In an interview with the San Francisco Gate in 2002, she maintained that “the same issues of race and classism that confounded the early feminist and gay rights movements also infected the women’s music scene. I’ve always felt like a warrior or soldier. I’ve learned to deal with separation, isolation in the crowd, rejection in the abandonment.”

Her solo album never came to be via Olivia Records, but she continued to work on the road until her debut solo album, Sugar Mama, was released independently in 2001.

She spent the last decade of her life performing in the Bay Area’s Russian River region, bridging the gap between the blues and gospel, continuing to thrill audiences with her distinct interpretation of the rich heritage of black music. She performed numerous times at June Millington’s Institute for the Musical Art as well. Millington recalls “Gwen used to come to IMA to hang and rest her weary bones. We’d laugh—a lot! Then we’d jam and she’d let me play bass. She’d look at me and say ‘Wow! You can really play this!’ I didn’t even hear the blues until I was 19 or so, certainly not growing up in the Phillipines, but somewhere we met and knew without words. It was strong and true.”

Grammy nominated singer/songwriter/producer Linda Tillery reflects:

Gwen Avery was an authentic blues and gospel singer. She was raised in a juke joint, where from an early age, she heard first hand, the sounds of Black Troubadors weaving tales of love, passion, frustration and pleas to God - any god, for release from Jim Crow, segregation and the horrible legacy of racism in America.

Lesbian yes, Black woman yes, real deal soulful singer, yes. Yet I wonder how many people really understood her gift? You would have had to listen to Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Mahalia to recognize the "time stamp" that marked her unique style. She became the "Sugar Mama" of Women's Music, no longer a prisoner of love denied but a champion of love out in the open - raw and unashamed. That was her gift to us all.

Jazz vocalist Rhiannon describes her as “a tough, fragile woman..an open book in a way, with such tender passion for music and life. Vulnerable, flawed, capable of singing all that complex, powerful feeling. Not easy for her, and what she gave us was unique.”

By Tim Dillinger

The name Gwen Avery rang a bell with me and then I remembered where I saw her: at the Michigan Women's Music Festival. And yes, there are many who will never go there because of its policy regarding trans women but it should also not be forgotten that this is where Gwen Avery, Linda Tillery and Rhiannon found an audience of 12000 and, for me, where I first saw that women's bodies could be beautiful in 12000 versions. I've not gone back in many years, for many policy and personal reasons, but I do not regret that I once had a chance to see these remarkable women perform.

Heartbreaking. What a waste.

Marius - 18 months
 

Feb 9 (Reuters) - The Copenhagen Zoo went ahead with a plan to shoot and dismember a healthy giraffe on Sunday and feed the 18-month-old animal's carcass to lions - an action the zoo said was in line with anti-inbreeding rules meant to ensure a healthy giraffe population.

The giraffe, named Marius, was shot in the head and then cut apart in view of children, according to a video of the incident released by the Denmark-based production company Localize.

The zoo's plans had sparked an outcry from animal rights activists. A British zoo had offered to give Marius a home and even started an online petition to save the giraffe, gathering more than 25,000 signatures.

In a statement in English posted on the zoo's website, entitled "Why does Copenhagen Zoo euthanize a giraffe?" the zoo stated its intention to euthanize the giraffe "in agreement with the European Breeding Program" and said that transferring the animal to another zoo would "cause inbreeding."

"As this giraffe's genes are well represented in the breeding program and as there is no place for the giraffe in the zoo's giraffe herd, the European Breeding Program for Giraffes has agreed that Copenhagen Zoo euthanize the giraffe," said the statement from the zoo's scientific director, Bengt Holst. "When breeding success increases, it is sometimes necessary to euthanize."


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...,4203458.story

Ralph Waite, who played the kind patriarch of a tight-knit rural Southern family on the TV series "The Waltons," has died, his manager said Thursday. He was 85.

Waite, a native of White Plains, N.Y., served in the U.S. Marines before earning a bachelor's degree from Bucknell University and a master's degree from Yale University Divinity School, according to a 2010 profile by The Desert Sun.

He became an ordained Presbyterian minister and then worked at a publishing house, the paper said, before falling under the spell of acting. Waite appeared on the stage before moving onto the big screen with roles in 1967's "Cool Hand Luke" and 1970's "Five Easy Pieces," in which he played the brother of Jack Nicholson's character.

Waite received an Emmy nomination for "The Waltons" and another for his performance in the ABC miniseries "Roots."

Waite appeared last year in episodes of the series "NCIS," in which he played the dad of star Mark Harmon's character. He also appeared in "Bones" and "Days of Our Lives."

Jim Fregosi - shortstop/manager MLB
 

ATLANTA (AP) - Jim Fregosi, a former All-Star who won more than 1,000 games as a manager for four teams, died Friday after an apparent stroke. He was 71.

James Louis Fregosi was born in 1942 in San Francisco and starred in baseball, football basketball and track and field at Serra High School. He signed with the Boston Red Sox out of high school and went to the Angels in the 1960 expansion draft.

Fregosi was an infielder in the majors from 1961 to 1978, hitting .265 with 151 homers and 706 RBIs. His best seasons came with the Angels, where he was six-time All-Star as a shortstop. Fregosi left the Angels in a 1971 trade with the New York Mets that sent Nolan Ryan to California.

Fregosi later played for the Texas Rangers and Pittsburgh Pirates. He began his managing career at 36 with the Angels in April 1978 - two days after his final game as a player with the Pirates.

Fregosi managed the Philadelphia Phillies to the 1993 National League pennant and the 1979 California Angels to their first American League Western Division title. He also managed the Chicago White Sox and Toronto Blue Jays. In 15 seasons as a manager, he posted a 1,028-1,094 record.

Fregosi ended more than 50 years in baseball as a special assistant to Braves general manager Frank Wren.

---------


When I was a kid, I thought this guy was a hunk.

Rage Against the Dying of a Light: Stuart Hall (1932-2014)

Shirley Temple Black
 

Chris Jones

2:35 p.m. CST, February 14, 2014



Shirley Temple Black, who died Monday, was, as Shirley Temple, the biggest child star of them all. In the last two years of her contract with 20th Century Fox in the late 1930s, she was making $250,000 a picture, and she made four movies a year for that studio. In 1958, the Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, shrewdly observing the relatively low top income tax rates when Temple was at her peak in the late 1930s and her parents' careful management of her trust fund, included her on a very short list of Hollywood's all-time richest women.

"Considering she's been working since she was a child of 4," Hopper wrote. "She must have accumulated a monumental pile."

For Temple did not occupy some cable niche on a Disney Channel sitcom. With her effervescent personality, healthy curls and perfect white teeth, not to mention her uncommon ability to mimic the doings of adult women stars, she was a mainstream star with a fan base that ranged from kids to middle-aged men. And she was an enthusiastic endorser, forever clutching myriad dolls in her own image and putting her face on everything from cola to soap, bringing in thousands a day. Her income in 1938 was said to be the seventh highest in the United States. She was bigger than Rin Tin Tin.



One need only browse this newspaper's archive to understand the wattage of Temple's stardom between about 1934 and 1939:

"Shirley Temple Chief Interest in This Movie: 'Now and Forever' Not Much in Way of Story."

"Shirley Temple Pins Own Police Badge on G-Man Hoover."

"Shirley Temple Won't Help in Vote Campaign."

"Studio Ready to Compromise Today on Shirley Temple's Pay"

In 1938, when Temple was 9 and at the peak of her fame, she came to Chicago (her mother was born on Adams Street) on a press tour, replete with her family, a huge entourage of assistants and the protection of two of Hoover's G-Men — personally assigned by the man himself — ready to stand guard outside the Edgewater Hotel. She upbraided photographers for their lack of imagination, telling them "everyone's getting the same shot," with "good-natured severity" and insisting that "when I'm talkin', you oughtn't to shoot."

Incredibly, Temple's handlers had the child posing on a window ledge, waving her feet while assuring everyone she would not fall. "Is this your idea of a vacation?" asked one veteran Tribune reporter, incredulous at the circus. "Oh yeah," was Temple's reply, her legs dangling over the edge. "I love to pose."

And then it all came to an end. Temple did not begin to twerk like Miley Cyrus, nor did she appear naked in German Vogue. She did not, like Britney Spears, alumna of "The Mickey Mouse Club," don a short Catholic schoolgirl skirt and cavort around arenas in sexualized poses. She did not, like Vanessa Hudgens, appear in an edgy movie like "Spring Breakers," wherein college students partake of a beach bacchanal. She did not even do the equivalent of those things for her own era. To what extent Temple's departure from Hollywood was her own decision, and to what degree it was forced upon her due to her audience disappearing as fast she combed out her curls, is open to question. And it's not that Temple completely disappeared. She had a modest TV career. She never totally walked away.

But it seems reasonable to conclude that Temple, having made her "monumental pile," did not make any attempt to change her identity into the opposite of herself.

It would be a simplification to say that her legacy is without adult complexity. Some critics have observed this week that Temple, who looks like a miniature woman on-screen, was always objectified in complex ways. Still, in the early 1940s, when Temple would have needed a redo that would have involved the repudiation of the image she'd cultivated, the great minds at the powerful talent agencies were less sophisticated at such reinventions, which require not only consent from multiple parties (and the audience) but also a great deal of careful planning.

By both those who paid her and those who watched her, Temple was seen as having one image, strange but singular.

Did Temple's relative lack of post-adolescent beauty or the absence of a great adult voice save her from further exploitation? Perhaps. Did her early start and incomparable dominance of her industry mean there was just nothing left to crave in the Hollywood candy store? It seems that way. Was she just too famous to be insecure about her own demise? Maybe. Whatever. It's impossible not to see this one message of her extraordinary life, walking away just as she was rather than succumbing to the urge to twerk.

Temple, by many accounts, was a happy teen and found a more normal adult life. In 1960, she told this newspaper — which headlined a story about her afterlife "Can This Be Our Shirley?" — that she was happy in her "overflowing life."

"It is because I am Mrs. Charles Alden Black," she said, "housewife and mother of three happy and healthy children. Not because I was Shirley Temple."

Of course, the real story here is that Temple did not stay merely Mrs. Charles Alden Black, (her husband famously claimed never to have seen one of his wife's movies when he married her), but she became Richard M. Nixon's U.S. ambassador to Ghana (from 1974-76) and then George H.W. Bush's ambassador to what was then Czechoslovakia (1989). By many accounts, she was a diplomat who batted away the low expectations of less famous denizens of the State Department and enjoyed widespread respect. She was an influential spokesman for many causes. Her past fame was fascinating abroad.

In her 1988 autobiography, Temple wrote that her father lost most of her movie fortune through poor business deals. By then, she had other money.

No other could be quite like Shirley Temple. But people underestimate the future use of degrees and careers in the arts: President Barack Obama spoke disparagingly, albeit lightly so, of degrees in art history in a recent speech about the utility of a college education. He's wrong about that. And you only have to read the account of how the 9-year-old Temple cajoled and charmed this newspaper's reporters on that day in 1939, partly helping them and partly helping herself. That's a pretty good snapshot of a diplomat's job.

Temple knew all about the power of celebrity when few did. She learned how to give her audience what it wanted and yet turn that into a springboard. She knew when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em and, perhaps most crucially of all, she understood that, rather than just changing your suit, it's always better to come back carrying a whole new deck.

Mary Grace Canfield
 

NTA BARBARA, California (AP) — Mary Grace Canfield, a veteran character actress who played handywoman Ralph Monroe on the television show "Green Acres," has died. She was 89.

Canfield had appearances on a number of TV shows during a four-decade career, including "General Hospital" and "The Hathaways." She was Harriet Kravitz on four episodes of the 1960s series "Bewitched."

But she was best known for her role of Ralph Monroe in some 40 episodes of "Green Acres," which ran from 1965 to 1971.

Monroe greeted folks in the town of Hootersville with a cheery "howdy doody," wore painters' overalls and was forever working on the Douglas family's bedroom with her brother, Alf.

February 17th, 2014
 

Christopher Malcolm died Saturday at age 67 ... his death was first confirmed by his daughter on Twitter.

Malcolm originated the role of Brad in 1973 in the London production of RHS ... playing the newlywed groom who takes refuge with his wife Janet in the home of sweet transvestite Dr. Frank-N-Furter.

The stage show was turned into a film in 1975 -- but without Malcolm -- the role of Brad was played by Barry Bostwick.

Malcolm was an accomplished Shakespearean actor who also appeared as starfighter pilot Zev Senesca in "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" ... and had numerous directing and producing credits.

Cause of death is unknown.

Jim Lange - Dating Game
 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Jim Lange, the first host of the popular game show "The Dating Game," has died at his home in Mill Valley, Calif. He was 81.

Later, after "The Dating Game" brought him national recognition, he also hosted the game shows "Hollywood Connection," ''$100,000 Name That Tune" and "The New Newlywed Game."

Lange also worked as a disc jockey for decades in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, and upon his retirement from broadcasting in 2005, he was the morning DJ for KABL-FM, which specializes in playing classics from the Big Band era to the 1970s.


Memories.

Socialist icon Tony Benn, RIP
 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...-benn-obituary

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...twing-outsider

David Brenner
 

David Brenner, the wry stand-up comic and pundit from Philadelphia who as a favorite of Johnny Carson appeared more times on The Tonight Show than any other guest, died Saturday. He was 78.

By one estimate, the perpetually grinning Brenner appeared on The Tonight Show 158 times and guest-hosted the NBC late-night show on a handful of other occasions when Carson took time off. One book says he made more talk-show appearances than any other guest in history.

Brenner was born on Feb. 4, 1936, and lived in poor sections of South and West Philadelphia. His father, Louis, was a vaudeville singer, dancer and comedian who performed as “Lou Murphy,” and Brenner always said he was the funniest man he ever met. His dad gave up the stage and a Hollywood movie contract because his rabbi father objected to him working on Friday nights; three of Brenner's uncles also were rabbis, but the future comic never found the calling.

After high school, Brenner spent two years in the Army, then attended Temple University, where he majored in mass communications. He went on to write, direct or produce 115 TV documentaries, many about the plight of people fighting poverty, as the head of the documentary departments at Westinghouse Broadcasting and Metromedia Broadcasting.

Brenner, though, was discouraged that his documentary work never affected change.

At the beginning, I thought, 'Well, you just present the public with a problem and some possible solutions and society will use that information to make things better for people,' ” he said in a 2008 interview with the Philadelphia Jewish Voice. “I eventually realized my naivete. It isn’t that we’re seeking the answers; we just don’t want to implement them. So I decided rather than try to solve problems, I would help people forget ’em.”

A contemporary of Freddie Prinze, Andy Kaufman, Steve Landesberg, Gabe Kaplan, Richard Lewis and others, Brenner perfected the art of observational comedy, or, as he once described it, "dumb things that we say or do."

During his long career, Brenner also appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, The David Frost Show, The Mike Douglas Show, Late Show With David Letterman, Real Time With Bill Maher and The Daily Show and was a frequent guest of Howard Stern on his radio program.

He wrote five books, including 2003's I Think There's a Terrorist in My Soup: How to Survive Personal and World Problems With Laughter -- Seriously.

It was said that Brenner, as a final request, "asked that $100 in small bills be placed in his left sock 'just in case tipping is recommended where I'm going.' His final resting spot will read, 'If this is supposed to be a joke -- then I don't get it!' "

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/comedia...lkA1ZJUDQwM18x

Kate O'Mara
 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...ra-dies-age-74

Best known for her parts in the BBC shows, Howard's Way and those (unintentionally hilarious) opening shots of Triangle. Also known for playing Alexis Colby's sister in the 80s American show Dysentery (sic)

I saw her as one of Lear's daughters in a late 80s touring version of Lear...she appeared to be wearing her Dysentery outfits at the time :|

RIP Kate