Brash boxer 'Macho' Camacho dies in Puerto Rico
 

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Hector ''Macho'' Camacho was a brash fighter with a mean jab and an aggressive style, launching himself furiously against some of the biggest names in boxing. And his bad-boy persona was not entirely an act, with a history of legal scrapes that began in his teens and continued throughout his life.

The man who once starred at the pinnacle of boxing, winning several world titles, died Saturday back in the Puerto Rican town of Bayamon where he was born, ambushed in a parking lot in a car where packets of cocaine were found.

Camacho, 50, left behind a reputation for flamboyance - leading fans in cheers of ''It's Macho time!'' before fights - and for fearsome skills as one of the top fighters of his generation.

Camacho fought professionally for three decades, from his humble debut against David Brown at New York's Felt Forum in 1980 to an equally forgettable swansong against Saul Duran in Kissimmee, Florida, in 2010.

In between, he fought some of the biggest stars spanning two eras, including Sugar Ray Leonard, Felix Trinidad, Oscar De La Hoya and Roberto Duran.

Larry Hagman
 

Loved these shows. Grew up watching them both. He was a brilliant performer and will be missed.

http://i449.photobucket.com/albums/q...ows/jeanie.jpg

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...ar/jrewing.jpg

RIP
 

RIP Macy's Parade Clown

me, too. i loved "i dream of genie".

Civil rights leader Lawrence Guyot dies at 73
 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawrence Guyot, a civil rights leader who survived jailhouse beatings in the Deep South in the 1960s and went on to encourage generations to get involved, has died.

Mississippi native, Guyot (pronounced GHEE-ott) worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and served as director of the 1964 Freedom Summer Project, which brought thousands of young people to the state to register blacks to vote despite a history of violence and intimidation by authorities. He also chaired the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which sought to have blacks included among the state's delegates to the 1964 Democratic National Convention. The bid was rejected, but another civil rights activist, Fannie Lou Hamer, addressed the convention during a nationally televised appearance.

Guyot was severely beaten several times, including at the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary known as Parchman Farm. He continued to speak on voting rights until his death, including encouraging people to cast ballots for President Barack Obama.

Guyot participated in the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Summer Project to make sure a new generation could learn about the civil rights movement.

There is nothing like having risked your life with people over something immensely important to you," he told The Clarion-Ledger in 2004. "As Churchill said, there's nothing more exhilarating than to have been shot at — and missed."

His daughter said she recently saw him on a bus encouraging people to register to vote and asking about their political views. She said he was an early backer of gay marriage, noting that when he married a white woman, interracial marriage was illegal in some states. He met his wife Monica while they both worked for racial equality.

"He followed justice," his daughter said. "He followed what was consistent with his values, not what was fashionable. He just pushed people along with him."

Susan Glisson, executive director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi, called Guyot "a towering figure, a real warrior for freedom and justice."

When she attended Ole Miss, students reached out to civil rights activists and Guyot responded.

"He was very opinionated," she said. "But always — he always backed up his opinions with detailed facts. He always pushed you to think more deeply and to be more strategic. It could be long days of debate about the way forward. But once the path was set, there was nobody more committed to the path."

Glisson said Guyot's efforts helped lay the groundwork for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

"Mississippi has more black elected officials than any other state in the country, and that's a direct tribute to his work," she said.

Guyot was born in Pass Christian, Miss., on July 17, 1939. He became active in civil rights while attending Tougaloo College in Mississippi, and graduated in 1963. Guyot received a law degree in 1971 from Rutgers University, and then moved to Washington, where he worked to elect fellow Mississippian and civil rights activist Marion Barry as mayor in 1978.

"When he came to Washington, he continued his revolutionary zeal," Barry told The Washington Post on Friday. "He was always busy working for the people."

Guyot worked for the District of Columbia government in various capacities and as a neighborhood advisory commissioner.

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton told The Post in 2007 that she first met Guyot within days of his beating at a jail in Winona, Miss. "Because of Larry Guyot, I understood what it meant to live with terror and to walk straight into it," she told the newspaper. On Friday, she called Guyot "an unsung hero" of the civil rights movement.

"Very few Mississippians were willing to risk their lives at that time," she said. "But Guyot did."

In recent months, his daughter said he was concerned about what he said were Republican efforts to limit access to the polls. As his health was failing, he voted early because he wanted to make sure his vote was counted, he told the AFRO newspaper.

i still have the 45 record of song Who Shot J.R., ... i remember buying it in alabama on summer vacation. Dallas was televised on friday nights. during football season, i'd come home from the game hoping to watch at least some of the show.

Sasha McHale, 23, daughter of former Celtics player
 

Just one week and a half into the NBA's 2012-13 season, Rockets coach Kevin McHale took leave of his crew on Nov. 10 to attend to what the team at the time called a personal family matter. A few weeks later, we've learned the sad truth of what forced the Basketball Hall of Famer to step away from the group he's coached since 2011.

McHale's daughter, Alexandra ''Sasha'' McHale, passed away at age 23 on Saturday. The team did not announce the reason behind her untimely passing, but longtime Houston Chronicle beat writer Jonathan Feigen is reporting that Sasha McHale had long been suffering from lupus, and was hospitalized recently with a condition unfortunately spurred on by the autoimmune disease.

The Rocket coach's daughter passed away in Minnesota — Kevin McHale was raised in the area, played at the University of Minnesota, and returned to the NBA in 1995 after retirement from the Boston Celtics as a longtime executive and eventual coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Deborah Raffin
 

Deborah Raffin,59, who had brief but successful careers both as an actress – 7th Heaven, among other shows – and a book publisher, died of leukemia.

Through no fault of her own, Raffin made a string of bad movies in the '70s, including 40 Carats and Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough. Nevertheless, she cannily kept her face and figure before the public modeling for fashion magazines.

She and her husband, Michael Viner, founded the L.A.-based Dove Books-on-Tape, which they eventually expanded into a highly successful book publishing and movie and TV production. Among their authors were Amy Tan and Sidney Sheldon.

Before her prolific publishing career – Raffin served as co-executive producer on 1,600 titles and line-produced more than 400 audio books – she also played what remained her meatiest role, as the real-life Brooke Hayward, daughter of legendary Hollywood agent and producer Leland Hayward and troubled screen star Margaret Sullavan. The highly rated CBS TV movie was 1980's Haywire, based on Brooke's best-selling memoir.

On the CW's 7th Heaven, she played Aunt Julie for 11 years, from 1996 to 2007.

David Oliver Relin, Co-Author of Three Cups of Tea
 

David Oliver Relin, a journalist who co-authored the controversial best-selling book Three Cups of Tea, has committed suicide, the New York Times reports. He was 49.

Relin, who co-wrote the 2006 book with Greg Mortenson about how Mortenson, a former mountain climber, started building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, "suffered emotionally and financially as basic facts in the book were called into question," the Times says.

His family said Relin "suffered from depression" but would not give further details surrounding his death.

As a journalist during the '90s, Relin focused on telling humanitarian stories including articles about child soldiers and traveling to Vietnam. This work was what led Viking Books to pair him with Mortenson.

Three Cups of Tea sold over four million copies, but in 2011 60 Minutes and author Jon Krakauer – who released an E-book titled Three Cups of Deceit – both questioned the validity of major points in the book.

Relin did not speak publicly about the accusations, but hired a lawyer to defend him in a federal lawsuit that claimed he and Mortenson defrauded readers. The suit was dismissed earlier this year.

LA Times
By Chris Barton
December 5, 2012, 1:33 p.m.
When thinking about Dave Brubeck, you can't help but also consider time, and not just how much of it fans received from the prolific jazz pianist up to his death Wednesday at age 91.

A titan of West Coast jazz, Brubeck was linked with California for much of his career. He was born in Concord, studied at what is now is the University of the Pacific in Stockton and recorded for Berkeley-based Fantasy Records, which helped forge the Bay Area's sound in the '50s. But regardless of where a listener was based, the Dave Brubeck catalog was an inevitable destination.

Part of the reason is "Time Out," the aptly named 1959 recording that stands with Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," Charles Mingus' "Mingus Ah Um" and Ornette Coleman's "Shape of Jazz to Come" as a groundbreaking album during a pivotal year in the evolution of jazz. Where Davis explored modal structures and Coleman blazed into a new world of saxophone, Brubeck was equally inventive for his experimentation with jazz's heartbeat.

Jenni Rivera
 

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Jenni Rivera, the California-born singer who rose through personal adversity to become a superstar adored by millions in a male-dominated genre of Mexican-American music, was confirmed dead in a plane crash in northern Mexico, the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed Monday.

Rivera, 43, began her career working in the office of her father's small Mexican music label in Long Beach, California. Gifted with a powerful, soulful voice, she recorded her first album, "Chacalosa," in 1995. It was a hit, and she followed it with two other independent albums, one a tribute to slain Mexican-American singer Selena that helped expand her following.

A mother of five children and grandmother of two, the woman known as the "Diva de la Banda" was known for frank talk about her struggles to give a good life to her children despite a series of setbacks.

Her parents were Mexicans who had migrated to the United States. Two of her five brothers, Lupillo and Juan Rivera, are also well-known singers of grupero music.

She studied business administration and formally debuted on the music scene in 1995 with the release of her album "Chacalosa". Due to its success, she recorded two more independent albums, "We Are Rivera" and "Farewell to Selena.

At the end of the 1990s, Rivera was signed by Sony Music and released two more albums. Widespread success came when she joined Fonovisa and released her 2005 album titled "Partier, Rebellious and Daring."

She was also an actress, appearing in the indie film Filly Brown, which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival, as the incarcerated mother of Filly Brown.

She was filming the third season of "I love Jenni," which followed her as she shared special moments with her children and as she toured through Mexico and the United States. She also has the reality shows: "Jenni Rivera Presents: Chiquis and Raq-C" and her daughter's "Chiquis 'n Control."

Galina Vishnevskaya
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya, who conquered audiences all over the world with her rich soprano, has died. Vishenvskaya, widow of famed cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, was 86.

She made her professional stage debut in 1944 singing operetta. After a year studying with Vera Nikolayevna Garina, she won a competition held by the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (with Rachmaninoff's song "O, Do Not Grieve" and Verdi's aria "O patria mia" from Aida) in 1952. The next year, she became a member of the Bolshoi Theatre.

On 9 May 1960, she made her first appearance in Sarajevo at the National Theatre, as Aida. In 1961, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Aida; the following year she made her debut at the Royal Opera House with the same role. For her La Scala debut in 1964, she sang Liù in Turandot, opposite Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli.

In addition to the roles in the Russian operatic repertoire, Vishnevskaya has also sung roles such as Violetta, Tosca, Cio-cio-san, Leonore, and Cherubino.

Benjamin Britten wrote the soprano role in his War Requiem (completed 1962) specially for her.

Vishnevskaya was married to the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich from 1955 until his death in 2007; they performed together regularly (he on piano or on the podium). Both she and Rostropovich were friends of Dmitri Shostakovich, and they made an electrifying recording of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for EMI. According to Robert Conquest, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stayed at their dacha from 1968 while writing much of The Gulag Archipelago.[2]

In 1974, the couple asked the Soviet government for an extended leave and left the Soviet Union. Eventually they settled in the United States and Paris. In 1982, the soprano bade farewell to the opera stage, in Paris, as Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. In 1987, she stage directed Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride in Washington, D.C. In 1984, Vishnevskaya published a memoir, Galina: A Russian Story, and in 2002, she opened her own opera theatre in Moscow, the "Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre".

In 2006, she was featured in Alexander Sokurov's documentary Elegy of a life: Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya. In 2007, she starred in his film Aleksandra, playing the role of a grandmother coming to see her grandson in the Second Chechen War. The film premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.

Iconic musician Ravai Shankar dies at 92.
 

"LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sitarist and composer Ravi Shankar, who helped introduce the sitar to the Western world through his collaborations with The Beatles, died near his home in Southern California on Tuesday, his family said. He was 92.

Shankar, a three-time Grammy winner with legendary appearances at the 1967 Monterey Festival and Woodstock, had been in fragile health for several years and last Thursday underwent surgery, his family said in a statement.

"Although it is a time for sorrow and sadness, it is also a time for all of us to give thanks and to be grateful that we were able to have him as a part of our lives," the family said. "He will live forever in our hearts and in his music."

The statement said Shankar had suffered from upper respiratory and heart issues over the past year and underwent heart-valve replacement surgery last week.

The surgery was successful but he was unable to recover.

"Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the surgeons and doctors taking care of him, his body was not able to withstand the strain of the surgery. We were at his side when he passed away," his wife Sukanya and daughter Anoushka said.

Shankar lived in both India and the United States. He is also survived by his daughter, Grammy-winning singer Norah Jones, three grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Shankar performed his last concert with his daughter Anoushka Shankar on November 4 in Long Beach, California, the statement said. The night before he underwent surgery, he was nominated for a Grammy for his latest album "The Living Room Sessions, Part 1."

Shankar is credited with popularizing Indian music through his work with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and The Beatles in the late 1960s.

(Reporting by Elaine Lies and Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Eric Walsh)"

source: http://ca.reuters.com/article/entert...8BB08420121212

En paz descanse, Linda madre, Diva y Reina...Gracias Kobi, for sharing this. I'm still in disbelief.

Su amiga, Canela

9-time LPGA Tour winner Colleen Walker
 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Colleen Walker, the former LPGA Tour player who won nine times during her 23-year career, died Tuesday night after her second battle with cancer. She was 56.

Walker played the LPGA Tour from 1982 to 2004. She had a career-high three victories in 1992 and won her lone major title in 1997 in the du Maurier Classic in Canada. In 1998, she won the Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average and finished a career-high fifth on the money list.

Swiss opera diva Lisa Della Casa
 

Swiss-born soprano Lisa Della Casa, a member of the Vienna State Opera whose performances of Mozart and Richard Strauss won her wide acclaim as one of the finest sopranos of her generation, has died at the age of 93.

Della Casa was born near the Swiss capital Bern in 1919 and later trained in Zurich. She first performed in 1941 in the Swiss town of Solothurn-Biel, in the title role of Madame Butterfly, and went on to perform on many of the world's great opera stages including the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House and La Scala.

With her Covent Garden debut as Richard Strauss's Arabella in 1953, she became identified for the role because of her singing and her beauty. That same year she debuted as Countess Almaviva at the Metropolitan in New York in 1953, where she also was a favorite.