|
Dick Van Patten
Actor Dick Van Patten, perhaps best known as patriarch Tom Bradford on the '80s series Eight Is Enough, has died. He was 86. The actor was born in Kew Gardens, New York, in 1928 and began his career as a child star and model. He made his Broadway debut when he was 7 years old in Tapestry in Gray. He went on to appear in nearly 30 more Broadway shows. Van Patten made the jump to television with the role of Nels Hansen in I Remember Mama, which ran from 1949 to 1957. He also went on to act in numerous other TV shows including The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Happy Days, The Love Boat and, more recently, Arrested Development, That '70s Show and Hot in Cleveland. He also acted in various Disney films, along with three movies directed by Mel Brooks (High Anxiety, Spaceballs and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.) In 2009, Van Patten penned an autobiography, Eighty Is Not Enough, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. http://www.people.com/article/dick-v...s-topheadlines ------------------------------------ I loved him as the King of Druidia in Spaceballs. Wonder how many people here actually know what I am talking about. |
Patrick Macnee
Patrick Macnee, the British-born actor best known as the stylish secret agent John Steed in the 1960s TV series "The Avengers," has died. He was 93. "The Avengers" had its debut in the United States in 1966 and ran for eight years in syndication. Macnee's character in the series was accompanied by a string of beautiful women who were his sidekicks. The most popular was Diana Rigg, who played junior agent Emma Peel from 1965 to 1968. Macnee also appeared in "Hamlet", "A Christmas Carol," ''Until They Sail," ''Les Girls," and ''Young Doctors in Love." He also had a notable role in the cult comedy classic "This Is Spinal Tap" as British entrepreneur Sir Denis Eton-Hogg. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bos....dzBE6Uxh.dpuf |
Architecture geeks will morn his passing.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...W0miaTpfZCycgw Donald Wexler, Architect Who Gave Shape to Palm Springs, Dies at 89 Here is a really great short video about his contribution to steel frame and off site pre-fab work. It's Vimeo so I can't embed it. Enjoy. http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/...-master675.jpg "Donald Wexler, an architect whose innovative steel houses and soaring glass-fronted terminal at the Palm Springs International Airport helped make Palm Springs, Calif., a showcase for midcentury modernism, died on Friday at his home in Palm Desert. He was 89. His son Gary confirmed his death. Mr. Wexler, a disciple of the California architect Richard Neutra, went to Palm Springs in the early 1950s to work for William Cody, a leading practitioner of the style known as Desert Modern. “Wexler worked from an existing Desert Modern vocabulary — indoor-outdoor spaces, walls of glass, a focus on mountain views, all very spare and minimal — and applied it to all sorts of buildings over the years,” said Peter Moruzzi, an architectural historian and the founder of the Palm Springs Modern Committee, a preservation group. “He had a profound influence not just on Palm Springs but on the entire Coachella Valley.” - New York Times |
Burt Shavitz
Burt Shavitz, the Maine beekeeper and co-founder of Burt's Bees whose face and untamed beard have been featured on thousands of cases of natural cosmetics, died Sunday of respiratory complications in Bangor, Maine. He was 80. Born in 1935, he spent his childhood in New York. After serving in the Army in Germany and a brief stint as a photographer, Shavitz left for Maine and began his celebrated eccentric lifestyle as a hippie who made his livelihood selling honey. According to The Associated Press, Shavitz' life was altered by a chance encounter with a hitchhiker, Roxanne Quimby. He struck up a friendship with the single mother, impressed with her self-reliance and back-to-land ethos. In the 1980s she began making products from his beeswax. A business partnership soon resulted and Burt's Bees was born, with Shavitz' image as a key feature of the product labels. In 1994 Quimby moved Burt's Bees to North Carolina, and the business partnership dissolved. He received an undisclosed monetary settlement and 37 acres of land in a remote corner of Maine. In 2007, Clorox purchased Burt's Bees for $925 million. After separating from the business end of Burt's Bees, Shavitz returned to a reclusive, minimalist lifestyle. He famously lived in a cluttered house with no running water and enjoyed watching wildlife. His life was featured in the 2013 documentary "Burt's Buzz." "Burt Shavitz, our co-founder and namesake, has left for greener fields and wilder woods. We remember him as a wild]bearded and free]spirited Maine man, a beekeeper, a wisecracker, a lover of golden retrievers, a reverent observer of nature and the kind face that smiles back at us from our Hand Salve." - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bos....4UoFhmsP.dpuf ------------------------------- Thanks for the almond creme stuff. |
Bobbi Kristina Brown
Bobbi Kristina Brown, the daughter of late music legend Whitney Houston and R&B singer Bobby Brown, died on July 26, surrounded by her family, at Peachtree Christian Hospice in Duluth, Georgia. She was 22.
Story |
Lynn Anderson
Lynn Anderson, country music singer most famous for the hit "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden," has died, according to the Associated Press. She was 67.
After beginning her country music career in 1966, she became a regular singer on "The Lawrence Welk Show" from 1967 to 1969. This exposure to a broad national audience paved the way for her crossover hit and signature song, "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden." The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard country chart and No. 3 on the Billboard pop chart. She won a Grammy Award and "Female Vocalist of the Year" from the Country Music Association in 1971. Further hits followed, including "You're My Man," "How Can I Unlove You," and "Cry." She frequently made guest appearances on television throughout the 1970s, including a starring role in an episode of "Starsky & Hutch." She continued to record and release music throughout her career, with her last album, "Bridges," released in June, 2015. In addition to music, she was an avid equestrian, winning several national and world championships. She also bred Quarter Horses and Paint Horses. She won the title of "California Horse Show Queen" in 1966. ------------------------------------- I still have that record. |
Flora MacDonald 89. Remarkable Canadian politician. If I wasn't typing on a miserable mini IPad, I'd type out her whole obituary. A most magnificent woman....and she spent her later years voting NDP.
|
Louise Suggs
Louise Suggs, legendary golfer and one of the founders of the LPGA Tour has died, according to the LPGA. She was 91. The winner of 61 professional tournaments, including 11 majors, Suggs helped co-found the LPGA in 1950 alongside two of her rivals, Patty Berg and Babe Zaharias. She served as LPGA president for three years, from 1955 to 1957. She was inducted into the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame in 1967 and the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1979. Suggs was a trailblazer throughout her career. She became the first woman ever elected into the Georgia Athletic Hall of Fame in 1966, paving the way for women to become future inductees. And in 1961 Suggs got the chance to prove that women golfers could compete against men. In an LPGA tournament held on a par-3 course in Palm Beach, Florida, Suggs triumphed against a 24-player field that included fellow LPGA professionals and PGA professionals including Sam Snead. http://www.lpga.com/news/2015-louise-suggs-passes-at-91 |
Gerald S. O'Loughlin
Gerald S. OLoughlin, a veteran character actor who was probably best known for playing Lieutenant Ryker on the 1970s ABC cop show "The Rookies," has died, according to the Hollywood Reporter. He was 93. OLoughlin appeared in Truman Capotes "In Cold Blood" in 1967 and also in the movies "Ensign Pulver," "Ice Station Zebra" with Rock Hudson and "The Organization" opposite Sidney Poitier. OLoughlin also starred on television as neighbor Joe Kaplan in the 1980s NBC family drama "Our House," starring Wilford Brimley. "The Rookies" ran on ABC from 1972 through 1976 and starred Georg Stanford Brown, Michael Ontkean and Kate Jackson. His character Ed Ryker guided his new troops with patience and a bit of resignation. ------------------------ I like the characters this guy played. |
Julian Bond 1940 - 2015
Julian Bond, a former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a charismatic figure of the 1960s civil rights movement, a lightning rod of the anti-Vietnam War campaign and a lifelong champion of equal rights for minorities, died on Saturday night, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was 75.
Mr. Bond died in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., after a brief illness, the center said in a statement Sunday morning. He was one of the original leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, while he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He moved from the militancy of the student group to the top leadership of the establishmentarian N.A.A.C.P. Along the way, he was a writer, poet, television commentator, lecturer, college teacher, and persistent opponent of the stubborn remnants of white supremacy. He also served for 20 years in the Georgia Legislature, mostly in conspicuous isolation from white colleagues who saw him as an interloper and a rabble-rouser. Mr. Bonds wit, cool personality and youthful face became familiar to millions of television viewers during the 1960s and 1970s; he was described as dashing, handsome and urbane. On the strength of his personality and quick intellect, he moved to the center of the civil rights action in Atlanta, the unofficial capital of the movement, at the height of the struggle for racial equality in the early 1960s. Moving beyond demonstrations, he became a founder, with Morris Dees, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy organization in Montgomery, Ala. Mr. Bond was its president from 1971 to 1979 and remained on its board for the rest of his life. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/us/julian-bond-former-naacp-chairman-and-civil-rights-leader-dies-at-75.html?_r=0 |
Juanite Moore
Annie in Imitation of Life. She was amazing. I just watched the 1959 movie and was shocked at how emotional it was still for me.
She was 99 years old. G-d Bless her |
Dr. James "Red" Duke
Dr. "Red" Duke passed away.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/dr...at-86/34914850 I remember as a young one, watching him on the news doing medical segments. |
Darryl Dawkins
"Chocolate Thunder" passes away at age 58 of a heart attack.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ba...ons&soc_trk=fb |
Oliver Sacks 1933 - 2015
Oliver Sacks, Casting Light on the Interconnectedness of Life
http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.o...iversacks4.jpg It’s no coincidence that so many of the qualities that made Oliver Sacks such a brilliant writer are the same qualities that made him an ideal doctor: keen powers of observation and a devotion to detail, deep reservoirs of sympathy, and an intuitive understanding of the fathomless mysteries of the human brain and the intricate connections between the body and the mind. Dr. Sacks, who died on Sunday at 82, was a polymath and an ardent humanist, and whether he was writing about his patients, or his love of chemistry or the power of music, he leapfrogged among disciplines, shedding light on the strange and wonderful interconnectedness of life — the connections between science and art, physiology and psychology, the beauty and economy of the natural world and the magic of the human imagination. In his writings, as he once said of his mentor, the great Soviet neuropsychologist and author A. R. Luria, “science became poetry.” In describing his patients’ struggles and sometimes uncanny gifts, Dr. Sacks helped introduce syndromes like Tourette’s or Asperger’s to a general audience. In books like “Awakenings,” “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” and “An Anthropologist on Mars,” Dr. Sacks — a longtime practicing doctor and a professor of neurology at the New York University School of Medicine — gave us case studies of patients whose stories were so odd, so anomalous, so resonant that they read like tales by Borges or Calvino. A man, with acute amnesia, who loses three decades of his life and lives wholly in the immediate present, unable to remember anything for more than a minute or two. Idiot savant twins, who can’t deal with the most mundane tasks of daily life but can perform astonishing numerical tricks, like memorizing 300-digit numbers or rattling off 20-digit primes. A blind poet who suffers from — or is gifted with — extraordinarily complex hallucinations: a milkman in an azure cart with a golden horse; small flocks of birds wearing shoes that metamorphose into men and women in medieval clothes. Dr. Sacks depicted such people not as scientific curiosities but as individuals who become as real to us as characters by Chekhov (another doctor who wrote with uncommon empathy and insight). He was concerned with the impact that his patients’ neurological disorders had on their day-to-day routines, their relationships and their inner lives. His case studies became literary narratives as dramatic, richly detailed and compelling as those by Freud and Luria — stories that underscored not the marginality of his patients’ experiences, but their part in the shared human endeavor and the flux and contingencies of life. Those case studies captured the emotional and metaphysical, as well as physiological, dimensions of his patients’ conditions. While they tracked the costs and isolation these individuals often endured, they also emphasized people’s resilience — their ability to adapt to their “deficits,” enabling them to hold onto a sense of identity and agency. Some even find that their conditions spur them to startling creative achievement. In fact, Dr. Sacks wrote in “An Anthropologist on Mars,” illnesses and disorders “can play a paradoxical role in bringing out latent powers, developments, evolutions, forms of life that might never be seen or even be imaginable in their absence.” A young woman with a low I.Q. learns to sing arias in more than 30 languages, and a Canadian physician with Tourette’s syndrome learns to perform long, complicated surgical procedures without a single tic or twitch. Some scholars believe, Dr. Sacks once wrote, that Dostoyevsky and van Gogh may have had temporal lobe epilepsy, that Bartok and Wittgenstein may have been autistic, and that Mozart and Samuel Johnson could have had Tourette’s syndrome. In his later books, Dr. Sacks increasingly turned to chronicling his own life — from his deep love of chemistry as a boy in “Uncle Tungsten,” to his experiments with L.S.D. and amphetamines in “Hallucinations,” to his coming of age as a young man and as a doctor in “On the Move.” It was a life as eclectic and adventurous as his intellectual pursuits, taking him from medical school in England to a stint as a forest firefighter in British Columbia to medical residencies and fellowship work in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He held a weight-lifting record in California, and on weekends, sometimes drove hundreds of miles on his motorcycle, from California to Las Vegas or Death Valley or the Grand Canyon. Animated by a self-deprecating sense of humor and set down in limber, pointillist prose, Dr. Sacks’s autobiographical accounts are as candid and searching as his writings about his patients, and they suggest just how rooted his compassion and intuitive understanding — as a doctor and a writer — were in his youthful feelings of fear and dislocation. He tells us about the lasting shock of being evacuated from London as a boy during the war, and being beaten and bullied at boarding school. The rest of his life, he writes, he would have trouble with the 3 B’s: “bonding, belonging, and believing.” He also writes about the frightening psychotic episodes of his schizophrenic brother, Michael, and his own feelings of shame for not spending more time with him — and his simultaneous need to get away. Science, with its promise of order and logic, provided a refuge for young Oliver from the chaos of his brother’s madness, and medicine promised both family continuity (his father was a general practitioner; his mother, a surgeon) and a way to study and try to understand brain disorders like Michael’s. From today's New York Times |
Heart broken over Oliver sacks. What an incredible loss :((
|
Dr. Wayne Dyer
A man whose words of inspiration help guided me through the years and through my growth. Dr. Wayne Dyer.
Self-Help Pioneer Dr. Wayne Dyer Dies at 75, Family and Publisher Say by M. Alex Johnson Dr. Wayne Dyer, the self-help guru whose best-seller "Your Erroneous Zones" was adopted by millions as a guide to better living, has died at 75, his family and publisher said Sunday. Dyer died Saturday night in Maui, Hawaii, said Reid Tracy, chief executive of Dyer's publisher, Hay House. The cause of death wasn't immediately reported. The world has lost an incredible man. Wayne Dyer officiated our wedding & was an inspiration to so many. Sending love pic.twitter.com/kzsCS278jr Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) August 30, 2015 Wayne Dyer has passed away today. 4 those of us who loved him it's sad, but he knew death was a transition. We send love 4his next adventure Tony Robbins (@TonyRobbins) August 31, 2015 It was always a pleasure to talk to @DrWayneWDyer about life's big questions. He always had big answers. RIP Wayne. You brought the Light. Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) August 31, 2015 The spiritualist magazine Mind Body Spirit regularly listed Dyer as one of the 10 most spiritually influential people in the world. He ranked eighth last year. |
Wes Craven, horror movie director passed away at age 76.
He directed the nightmare on elm street series. R.I.P. The horror community has lost a legend. I can't link due to being on a mobile device. |
Quote:
The world lost such a great man! |
My two cents
I would catch him on PBS as well as on OWN ( Oprah Winfrey Network. I have appreciated his motivating thoughts through the years. I am sorry for the loss for his family , friends and those in life that appreciated him. I will miss him and the knowledge along with motivation he shared with the world.
Quote:
|
Dean Jones
A Disney star of the 1960s, Dean Jones, has died of Parkinson's Disease at age 84. His boyish good looks and all-American manner made him Disney's favorite young actor for such lighthearted films as "The Shaggy D.A," "That Darn Cat!" and "The Love Bug." Over the course of his career, he'd appear in 46 films and five Broadway shows. In 1995, Jones was honored by his longtime employers with a spot in the Disney Legends Hall of Fame. |
No! Say it isn't so! I've listened to Wayne Dyer for years.
Wayne, I know you will journey well and be a blessing wherever you choose to go from here. Quote:
|
Judy Carne, a star of the U.S. comedy show "Laugh-In," has died in a British hospital. She was 76.
She was famous for popularizing the "Sock it to Me" phrase on the hit TV show that ran from 1967 to 1973. Her death was confirmed Tuesday in an e-mail by Eva Duffy, spokeswoman for Northampton General Hospital. Duffy said Carne died in the hospital on Sept. 3. Newspaper reports said she had suffered from pneumonia. Carne shot to fame with the rise of "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", a network smash hit that often featured her doused in water, taking pratfalls or suffering other humiliations. She left the show in its third season and her acting career faltered as she became heavily involved with drugs, a phase described in her autobiography. |
Martin Milner, who starred on TV on Adam-12 with Kent McCord and, earlier, on Route 66 with George Maharis, died Sunday night, Diana Downing, a representative for his fan page, confirmed. He was 83.
Milner was also known for his roles as a jazz guitarist in the brilliant 1957 film Sweet Smell of Success and in the 1967 camp classic Valley of the Dolls. Milner began acting in movies while a teen, after his father got him an agent, first appearing in the 1947 classic Life With Father. The film starred William Powell and Irene Dunne, and thus Milner, along with his co-star Elizabeth Taylor, bridged the generations in Hollywood between the golden age and contemporary era. He appeared as Officer Pete Molloy alongside Kent McCords Officer Jim Reed in NBCs Adam-12 from 1968-75. Molloy was the seasoned, savvy veteran bringing along Reed who was, at first, a rookie. |
Quote:
|
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cps...487dcf0b7b.jpg
The novelist Jackie Collins has died of breast cancer at the age of 77, her family said in a statement. "It is with tremendous sadness that we announce the death of our beautiful, dynamic and one-of-a-kind mother," the statement said. The British-born writer, sister of actress Joan Collins, died in Los Angeles, her spokeswoman said. Collins's raunchy novels of the rich and famous sold more than 500 million copies in 40 countries. In a career spanning four decades, all 32 of her novels appeared in the New York Times bestseller list. http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34305950 |
Yogi Berra passes away.
Yogi Berra, the Hall of Fame catcher renowned as much for his dizzying malapropisms as his record 10 World Series championships with the New York Yankees, has died. He was 90. Berra died of natural causes Tuesday at his home in New Jersey, according to Dave Kaplan, the director of the Yogi Berra Museum. "While we mourn the loss of our father, grandfather and great-grandfather, we know he is at peace with Mom," Berra's family said in a statement released by the museum. "We celebrate his remarkable life, and are thankful he meant so much to so many. He will truly be missed." |
Billy Joe Royal
Billy Joe Royal, a pop and country singer best known for the 1965 hit Down in the Boondocks, died on Tuesday. He was 73.
He hit the charts with two other songs by Joe South, Hush and I Knew You When, and ended the decade in the Top 20 with Cherry Hill Park (1969). In the 1980s, after signing with Atlantic Records in Nashville, Mr. Royal turned out a steady stream of country hits, beginning with Burned Like a Rocket, which reached the country Top 10 in 1985 and was climbing when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. As a gesture of respect, D.J.s stopped playing the song. He followed up with Ill Pin a Note to Your Pillow, a cover version of the Aaron Neville hit Tell It Like It Is and others. Obit |
Ken Taylor
Ken Taylor, Canada's ambassador to Iran who sheltered Americans at his residence during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis has died. Taylor kept the Americans hidden at his residence and at the home of his deputy, John Sheardown, in Tehran for three months. Taylor facilitated their escape by arranging plane tickets and persuading the Ottawa government to issue fake passports. Born in 1934 in Calgary, Taylor was heralded as a hero for helping save the Americans a clandestine operation that had the full support of then Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark's government. Some of Taylor's exploits in Iran in 1979 were later portrayed in the 2012 Hollywood film, "Argo." Taylor and others felt the film underplayed the role he and Canada played. The six U.S. diplomats managed to slip away when their embassy was overrun in 1979. They spent five days on the move, then took refuge at the Canadian Embassy for the next three months. Taylor immediately agreed to take them in without checking with the Canadian government. The CIA consulted with Canadian officials on how to organize a rescue, and Canada gave permission for the diplomats to be issued fake Canadian passports. After returning from Iran, Taylor was appointed Canadian Consul-General to New York City. In 1980, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada along with his wife Pat and other Canadian personnel involved in the escape, and was also awarded the United States Congressional Gold Medal that same year. He returned to the University of Toronto for several years as the Chancellor of Victoria College. Taylor left the foreign service in 1984 and served as Senior Vice-President of Nabisco from 1984 to 1989. He was the founder and chairman of public consulting firm Taylor and Ryan. Taylor moved the United States and lived in New York City until his death. ---------------------- Thank you Mr. Ambassador. |
Marty Ingels
Marty Ingels, a comedian, actor and talent agent who was married to actress Shirley Jones for nearly 40 years, has died in Los Angeles. He was 79. Beginning in the 1960s Ingels appeared in episodes of several TV shows, including "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "Bewitched" and co-starred in the 1962 series "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster." He also had small movie roles. The raspy-voiced actor later did voice work for hundreds of cartoons, commercials and video games. He voiced Pac-Man in the 1982 animated series. Ingels also ran a talent agency that booked movie stars such as John Wayne and Cary Grant for TV commercials. |
Robert Loggia
Robert Loggia, gravelly-voiced character actor from "Scarface," "The Sopranos," and "Big," has died of Alzheimer's disease according to The Associated Press. He was 85. Loggia's gruff voice and tough-guy looks found him plenty of work in the movies and on TV as both criminal and crime-fighter. He played a Miami drug lord usurped by Al Pacino in "Scarface" (1983), a sadistic crime boss in David Lynch's "Lost Highway" (1997), and as violent ex-con Feech La Manna in several episodes of "The Sopranos." He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor playing hard-nosed private detective Sam Ransom in "Jagged Edge" (1985). He was nominated for an Emmy in 1989 when he starred in the series, "Mancuso, FBI." In "Big" (1988) he showed off his lighter side, famously dancing on a foot-operated keyboard with Tom Hanks. He was also nominated for another Emmy as a guest star on the sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle," which referenced his humorous turn as the celebrity endorser of Minute Maid orange tangerine juice in the late 1990s. His iconic voice found its way into Disney's "Oliver & Company" (1988) as well as the hit video game "Grand Theft Auto III." He also voiced himself in an animated appearance on "Family Guy" among countless other roles. ---------------------- My favorite Robert Loggia memory: |
https://sp.yimg.com/xj/th?id=OIP.M6d...=0&w=300&h=300
Scott Weiland - former frontman for Stone Temple Pilots and current lead of Velvet Revolver passed away Thursday in his sleep on a tour stop. He was 48. |
Air Force Major Adrianna Vorderbruggen
Adrianna Vorderbruggen, 36, a major in the Air Force who is known as one of the first openly gay service members since "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed in 2011, was killed in action along with six of her fellow service members in Afghanistan on Monday. She was on a security patrol on foot near Bagram Air Base when an explosive-laden motorbike rammed into the patrol and detonated. Major Vorderbruggen had served as a special agent with the Office of Special Investigations at a number of duty stations including McCord's Air Force Base in Washington and Joint Base Andrews in Maryland before joining her unit at Eglin Air Force Base. From Eglin Air Force Base, she was deployed to Afghanistan. She was the first female OSI agent killed in the line of duty. Facebook postings on Tuesday by Vorderbruggen's loved ones mourned her death and offered condolences to her wife, Heather, and their son, Jacob. The family lives near Washington, D.C., where the couple was married in June 2012, the year after the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays was repealed. "We do find comfort in knowing that Heather and Jacob are no longer in the shadows and will be extended the rights and protections due any American military family as they move through this incredibly difficult period in their lives," said the posting from Military Partners and Families Coalition. |
Quote:
Omg I did not know this. I just saw him in concert with STP over the summer....and I remarked to my daughter how wonderful the concert was and how he was one of very few lead singers of my favorite bands who had avoided death by drug overdose. |
Dave Henderson
Dec 27 (Reuters) - Dave Henderson, an outfielder whose home run for the Boston Red Sox in the 1986 American League Championship Series ignited one of baseball's most dramatic playoff comebacks, died of a heart attack on Sunday at age 57. Henderson's 14-year career began with the Mariners and he later played for Red Sox, San Francisco Giants, Oakland A's and Kansas City Royals, hitting 197 home runs and driving in 708 runs during his MLB tenure. He was a member of the 1991 American League All-Star team and played in four World Series. He is best known for hitting a two-run home run with the Red Sox facing elimination and down to their last out in the ninth inning of the fifth game of the 1986 American League playoffs against the California Angels. Henderson's homer gave Boston the lead in a game it eventually won in extra innings. The team also won the next two games and advanced to the World Series against the New York Mets. Henderson was almost the hero again in Game 6 of the World Series when he hit the go-ahead homer in the 10th inning to help put the Red Sox on the brink of their first World Series championship since 1918. But the Mets staged a furious rally to win in the bottom of the inning and then won Game Henderson played on three straight American League pennant winners in Oakland from 1988 to 1990, winning the World Series with the A's in 1989. -------------------------------- Thanks for the memories Dave. |
George "Meadowlark" Lemon
Meadowlark Lemon, Harlem Globetrotter Who Played Basketball and Pranks With Virtuosity, Dies at 83
http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/...-master675.jpg George "Meadowlark" Lemon, whose halfcourt hook shots, no-look behind-the-back passes and vivid clowning were marquee features of the feel-good traveling basketball show known as the Harlem Globetrotters for nearly a quarter-century, died on Sunday in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he lived. He was 83. The death was confirmed by his wife, Cynthia Lemon. A gifted athlete with an entertainers hunger for the spotlight, Lemon, who dreamed of playing for the Globetrotters as a boy in North Carolina, joined the team in 1954, not long after leaving the Army. Within a few years, he had assumed the central role of showman, taking over from Reece Tatum, whom everyone called Goose, the Trotters long-reigning clown prince. Tatum was a superb ballplayer whose on-court gags or reams, as the players called them had established the teams reputation for laugh-inducing wizardry at a championship level. This was a time, however, when the Trotters were known not merely for their comedy routines and basketball legerdemain; they were also a formidable competitive team. Their victory over the Minneapolis Lakers in 1948 was instrumental in integrating the National Basketball Association, and a decade later their owner, Abe Saperstein, signed a 7-footer out of the University of Kansas to a one-year contract before he was eligible for the N.B.A.: Wilt Chamberlain. Lemon was a slick ballhandler and a virtuoso passer, and he specialized in the long-distance hook, a trick shot he made with remarkable regularity. But it was his charisma and comic bravado that made him perhaps the most famous Globetrotter. For 22 years, until he left the team in 1978, Lemon was the Trotters ringmaster, directing their basketball circus from the pivot. He imitated Tatums reams, like spying on the oppositions huddle, and added his own. He chased referees with a bucket and surprised them with a shower of confetti instead of water. He dribbled above his head and walked with exaggerated steps. He mimicked a hitter in the batters box and, with teammates, pantomimed a baseball game. And both to torment the opposing team as time went on, it was often a hired squad of foils and to amuse the appreciative spectators, he laughed and he teased and he chattered and he smiled; like Tatum, he talked most of the time he was on the court. The Trotters played in mammoth arenas and on dirt courts in African villages. They played in Rome before the pope; they played in Moscow during the Cold War before the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. In the United States, they played in small towns and big cities, in Madison Square Garden, in high school gyms, in cleared-out auditoriums even on the floor of a drained swimming pool. They performed their most entertaining ball-handling tricks, accompanied by their signature tune Sweet Georgia Brown, on The Ed Sullivan Show. Through it all, Lemon became an American institution like the Washington Monument or the Statue of Liberty whose uniform will one day hang in the Smithsonian right next to Lindberghs airplane, as the Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray once described him. Significantly, Lemons time with the Globetrotters paralleled the rise of the N.B.A. When he joined the team, the Globetrotters were still better known than, and played for bigger crowds than, the Knicks and the Boston Celtics. When he left, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were about to enter the N.B.A. and propel it to worldwide popularity. In between, the league became thoroughly accommodating to black players, competing with the Globetrotters for their services and eventually usurping the Trotters as the most viable employer of top black basketball talent. Partly as a result, the Globetrotters became less of a competitive basketball team and more of an entertainment troupe through the 1960s and 70s. They became television stars, hosting variety specials and playing themselves on shows like The White Shadow and a made-for-TV Gilligans Island movie; they inspired a Saturday morning cartoon show. In Lemons early years with the team, as the Globetrotters took on local teams and challenged college all-star squads, they played to win, generally using straight basketball skills until the outcome was no longer in doubt. But as time went on, for the fans who came to see them, the outcome was no longer the point. On Jan. 5, 1971, the Globetrotters were beaten in Martin, Tenn., by an ordinarily more obliging team called the New Jersey Reds. It was the first time they had lost a game in almost nine years, the end of a 2,495-game winning streak. But perhaps more remarkable than the streak itself was the fact that it ended at all, given that the Trotters opponents by then were generally forbidden to interfere with passes to Lemon in the middle or to interrupt the familiar reams. Lemon, as the stellar attraction, thrived in this environment, but he also became a lightning rod for troubles within the Globetrotter organization. As the civil rights movement gained momentum, the players antics on the court drew criticism from outside for reinforcing what many considered to be demeaning black stereotypes, and Lemon drew criticism from inside. Not only was he the leading figure in what some thought to be a discomforting resurrection of the minstrel show; he was also, by far, the highest-paid Globetrotter, and his teammates associated him more with management than with themselves. When the players went on strike for higher pay in 1971, Lemon, who negotiated his own salary, did not join them. After Saperstein died in 1965, the team changed hands several times, and in 1978, according to Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters (2005), by Ben Green, Lemon was dismissed after a salary dispute. He subsequently formed his own traveling teams Meadowlark Lemons Bucketeers, the Shooting Stars and Meadowlark Lemons Harlem All-Stars and continued performing into his 70s. His website says he played in 16,000 games, an astonishing claim it breaks down to more than 300 games a year for 50 years and in 100 countries, which, give or take a few, is probably true. And whatever ill feelings arose during his Globetrotter days, they were drowned out by his international celebrity and the affection he received all over the world. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003. Meadowlark was the most sensational, awesome, incredible basketball player Ive ever seen, Chamberlain said in a television interview not long before he died in 1999. People would say it would be Dr. J or even Jordan. For me, it would be Meadowlark Lemon. The facts of his early life are hazy, and evidently he wanted it that way. His birth date, birthplace and birth name have all been variously reported. The date most frequently cited and the likeliest is April 25, 1932. Many sources say he was born in Wilmington, N.C., but The Wilmington Star-News reported in 1996 that he was born in Lexington County, S.C., and moved to Wilmington in 1938. His website says he was born Meadow Lemon, though many other sources say his name at birth was George Meadow Lemon or Meadow George Lemon. The Star-News said it was George Meadow Lemon III. He became known as Meadowlark after he joined the Globetrotters. As a boy in Wilmington, he learned basketball at a local boys club; he told The Hartford Courant in 1999 that he was so poor that he practiced by using a coat hanger for a basket, an onion sack for a net and a Carnation milk can for a ball. After high school, he briefly attended Florida A&M University before spending two years in the Army. Stationed in Austria, he played a few games with the Trotters, who were then touring Europe, and he performed well enough to earn a tryout after he mustered out. He was assigned to a Globetrotters developmental team, the Kansas City Stars, before joining the Globetrotters in 1954. Asked about never having played in the N.B.A., Lemon told Sports Illustrated in 2010, I dont worry that I never played against some of those guys. Ill put it this way, he added. When you go to the Ice Capades, you see all these beautiful skaters, and then you see the clown come out on the ice, stumbling and pretending like he can hardly stay up on his skates, just to make you laugh. A lot of times that clown is the best skater of the bunch. Lemons first marriage, to the former Willye Maultsby, ended in divorce. (In 1978, she was arrested after stabbing him on a Manhattan street.) Information on survivors was not immediately available. In 1986, Lemon became an ordained Christian minister; he and his wife founded a nonprofit evangelistic organization, Meadowlark Lemon Ministries, in 1994. Man, Ive had a good run, he said at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony, recalling the first time he saw the Globetrotters play, in a newsreel in a movie theater in Wilmington when he was 11. "When they got to the basketball court, they seemed to make that ball talk, he said. I said, Thats mine; this is for me. I was receiving a vision. I was receiving a dream in my heart. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/sp...ies-at-83.html |
Natalie Cole, American Singer, Songwriter, Dies at 65
http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/m...l_nbn_20160101 |
Quote:
Amazing singer. Amazing woman. |
Wayne Rogers
Wayne Rogers, who starred as the beloved Trapper John McIntyre on "M.A.S.H." died Thursday, December 31, 2015 from complications of pneumonia. He was 82. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Rogers graduated from Princeton in 1954 with a degree in history. He turned to acting after serving in the Navy, co-starring in Stagecoach West from 1960-61. But he's best known for his iconic turn as army surgeon Trapper John on "M.A.S.H.," one of the most popular TV series in history. His characters wisecracks and hijinks with his on-air partner-in-crime, Alan Aldas Hawkeye Pierce, landed him deep in the affections of the shows fans, despite the fact that Rogers only appeared in the first three of the shows 11 seasons. Rogers remained a television fixture into the early 1990s, appearing in numerous shows, such as his recurring role on "Murder, She Wrote." He also turned an interest in finance he developed during his MASH years into a lucrative later career as a money manager and investor. In August 2006, Rogers was elected to the Board of Directors of Vishay Intertechnology, Inc and served as the head of Wayne Rogers & Co, a stock trading and investment company. He also appeared regularly as a panel member on the Fox News stock investment program, Cashin' In. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bos....zayrkcSd.dpuf |
RIP
rest in peace Natalie Cole......you and your father were both wonderful. May you do many duets with him.
|
Lesbian Pioneer Jeanne Cordova Dies at 67
Fiery lesbian feminist activist/author/publisher Jeanne Cordova died peacefully at around 4:30am at her home in Los Angeles Sunday morning. Jeanne |
| All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:20 PM. |
ButchFemmePlanet.com
All information copyright of BFP 2018