RIP

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Alice Drummond, a prolific character actress nominated for a Best Featured Actress Tony in 1970 and known for appearances in films like Awakenings, Synecdoche, New York, and Ghostbusters among many others died on November 30 from complications following a fall in her home. She was 88.

Born in 1928 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Drummond was a 1950 graduate of Pembroke College (now Brown University). She began her acting career following a move to New York with her husband, Paul Drummond whom she married in 1951. (The couple divorced in 1976). A regular on Broadway in the 1960s and 1970s, Drummond was nominated for a Tony for her performance in Murray Schisgal’s The Chinese.

Drummond also held a slew of memorable and sometimes iconic character roles on film and television. Among them, in the 1960s she appeared on the supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows, in the role of Nurse Jackson; as a New York City librarian in the beginning of the original Ghostbusters; and as a a patient in the 1990 Robin Williams film Awakenings. She was a regular on the CBS soap Where the Heart Is, appearing on the show until it ended its run in 1973, and later appeared briefly on As the World Turns, another CBS soap.

Among many television guest spots, she appeared on Spin City, Boston Legal, Ed, Law & Order, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, and Grace Under Fire.

Her most recent film appearance was in the family comedy Furry Vengeance in 2010.

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Wonderful and versatile actress.....and fellow native Rhode Islander.

I always liked her! Very sad.

[Kobi]

John Glenn, the NASA astronaut who was the first American to orbit the Earth and went on to serve in the U.S. Senate, has died at the age of 95.

Born July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, Glenn was a veteran of both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps, serving as a fighter pilot in World War II and the Korean War. After Korea, he became a test pilot, and when the newly formed NASA began recruiting astronauts in 1958, Glenn applied and was selected as one of an elite corps of astronauts: the Mercury Seven, pioneers of U.S. space flight.

On Feb. 20, 1962, Glenn became the third American in space and the first to orbit the Earth when he lifted off in Friendship 7. His observations of the journey fascinated watchers at home, particularly his description of "little specks, brilliant specks, floating around outside the capsule." When he returned from the five-hour spaceflight after touching down in the Atlantic Ocean, he was honored as a national hero, meeting President John F. Kennedy and riding in a New York City ticker-tape parade.

Glenn left NASA in 1964 and retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1965, aiming for a career in politics. His first campaign, running in 1964 for U.S. Senate as a Democrat to represent Ohio, was aborted early when he slipped and fell at home, sustaining a concussion. Glenn chose to withdraw from the race while he recovered. But when he ran again 10 years later, he was elected, and he went on to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate until his retirement in 1999.

Glenn sat on committees including the Committee on Governmental Affairs and the Special Committee on Aging, and he was the chief author of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, which President Jimmy Carter signed into law. He sought the Democratic nomination in the 1984 presidential election, polling in second place behind eventual nominee Walter Mondale.

As Glenn's political career drew to a close, he returned to space at age 77 in 1998, serving as a payload specialist on the space shuttle Discovery. Glenn lobbied hard to be included in the mission, citing the important work that could be done to research the effects of spaceflight and weightlessness on older adults.

In the years after his final space flight, Glenn founded the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at The Ohio State University, now known as the John Glenn College of Public Affairs. He taught at the school as an adjunct professor.

Glenn's many honors include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Congressional Gold Medal and six Distinguished Flying Crosses. A number of schools and roads are named after him, as well as a U.S. Navy mobile landing platform ship. Before his death, he was the oldest living former U.S. senator.

[~ocean]

RIP Allen Thicke 69 yrs.old died today playing hockey with his son.