RIP

[Kobi]

George Kennedy, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in “Cool Hand Luke,” died Sunday. He was 91.

Kennedy’s film credits also included “The Dirty Dozen,” the “Airport” movies, a series of “Naked Gun” comedies and the disaster film “Earthquake,” among many others.

Kennedy also starred as rival rancher Carter McKay in the long-running CBS drama “Dallas” for three seasons. His many television appearances included roles on “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Peter Gunn,” “Bonanza,” “Maverick,” “McHale’s Navy” and “Gunsmoke.”

As an author, Kennedy wrote three books, including the 1983 murder mystery “Murder on Location,” the novel “Murder on High,” published the following year, and his 2011 autobiography, “Trust Me.”

[Kobi]

Pat Conroy, whose tortured family life and the scenic marshlands of coastal South Carolina served as unending sources of inspiration for his fiction, notably the novels “The Great Santini,” “The Lords of Discipline” and “The Prince of Tides.”

obit

[Kobi]

http://tennischannel.com/watch-now/court-report/b3f7fa3e-21e7-d892-e78547e1ae43a47a/"]Tennis tribute to Bud[/URL]


Loved watching and listening to this guy. His wardrobe choices were an extra perk.

[Jesse]

Former first lady Nancy Reagan has died, according to a spokeswoman with the Reagan Library. She was 94.

The cause of death was congestive heart failure, according to her rep Joanne Drake. "Mrs. Reagan will be buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, next to her husband, Ronald Wilson Reagan, who died on June 5, 2004," Drake wrote in a statement...http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...l_nbn_20160306

[Soon]

After reading this interview, I realize why I was so drawn to her books at one point in my life. I think I read Hotel du Lac at least a couple of times in my twenties.

Anita Brookner, the final interview: 'praise is irrelevant'

Brookner prize-winning author and art historian Anita Brookner died on March 15, 2016, aged 87. The bestselling novelist, who won the 1984 award for Hotel Du Lac, lived a reclusive life in her final years. This, her last interview, was conducted by Mick Brown in 2009, when it was first published in The Telegraph.

.....

And I read the first sentence: "Dr Weiss, at 40, knew that her life had been ruined by literature." I thought, well that's a damned good sentence – such an interesting sentence that I had to read on. Her books have a very page-turning quality. They're beautifully constructed. And while there aren't hugely dramatic events taking place, within the world about which she writes you get a very clear and compelling portrait of human nature.'

....

In Hotel du Lac the timorous, middle-aged romantic novelist Edith Hope, sent into exile by her friends for reneging on her wedding promise to dull, dependable Geoffrey, has her moral probity challenged by the suave voluptuary Philip Neville. 'One can be as pleasant or as ruthless as one wants,' Neville argues. 'If one is prepared to do the one thing one is drilled out of doing from earliest childhood – simply please oneself – there is no reason why one should ever be unhappy again.' 'Or perhaps entirely happy,' Edith replies.

---------------------------



Anita Brookner’s subversive message – the courage of the single life deserves respect

“I do not sigh and yearn,” she says, “for extravagant displays of passion”. What she wants is something much more modest. “What I crave,” she says, “is the simplicity of routine. An evening walk, arm in arm, in fine weather. A game of cards.” But you can’t do this, she decides, with someone you don’t love. And so she turns him down.

Brookner’s heroines are single not because they are too dowdy, but because they are too honest. They know that life is full of compromise, but they still see a compromise too far. If they don’t exactly live what the philosopher Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation”, they have certainly learned to live with quiet courage because of the choices they have made.

[Kobi]

Joe Santos, best known for playing Lt. Dennis Becker, the frustrated L.A. policeman pal of James Garner's private detective on The Rockford Files, died Friday. He was 84.

The Brooklyn native played Becker, who had a love-hate relationship with Garner's Jim Rockford, on 112 episodes of The Rockford Files, which ran on NBC from 1974-80. He was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series in 1979 and reprised the role for several telefilms.

His 40-year career was filled with roles as good cops on such series as Police Story, Magnum, P.I. and Hardcastle and McCormick and on the 1973 miniseries The Blue Knight opposite William Holden, though he played a bad guy, Consigliere Angelo Garepe, on The Sopranos.

Santos also portrayed a detective in the Al Pacino starrer The Panic in Needle Park (1971) and a reporter in the Frank Sinatra film The Detective (1968). He also was in such films as The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (1971), Shaft’s Big Score! (1972), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), Blue Thunder (1983), The Last Boy Scout (1991) and Chronic (2015).

http://news.yahoo.com/rockford-files...lfMQRzZWMDc2M-

[storyspinner70]

I just watched him on Rockford Files last night

Rockford Files Star, Joe Santos, Dies at 84
http://bit.ly/1pQZgyt




Dr. Giggles is gone

Larry Drake: Emmy Award-Winning Actor Known for Role on 'LA Law' Dies at 66, Agent Says
http://www.people.com/article/larry-...book_peoplemag

[Kobi]

Frank Sinatra Jr., who carried on his famous father’s legacy with his own music career and whose kidnapping as a young man added a bizarre chapter to his father’s legendary life, died Wednesday. He was 72.

https://www.yahoo.com/music/sinatra-...003227750.html

--------------------------



The older he got, the more he looked like his Dad.

[Kobi]

Larry Drake, best known for playing Benny on “L.A. Law,” died on Thursday at the age of 66.

The actor’s role as office messenger Benny Stulwicz on the NBC cop drama was hailed as a revolutionary portrayal of developmental disorders for the time, and earned him two Primetime Emmy Awards in 1988 and 1989. He reprised the role in the 2002 TV movie.

He also starred in as the villain Durant in Sam Raimi‘s 1990 cult hit “Darkman” alongside Liam Neeson and Frances McDormand, as well as the direct-to-video sequel “Darkman II: The Return of Durant.”

Though he had recently taken a step back from acting to teach, Drake’s recent credits included the 2009 thriller “Dead Air,” and guest roles on “7th Heaven,” “Six Feet Under” and “Boston Legal.”

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/larry-drake...232728060.html

[Kobi]

Firefighters, police, and citizens lined the road as a State police-escorted motorcade arrived in Falmouth, Massachusetts, with the body of Deputy Sherriff John Robert Kotfila Jr. on Sunday evening.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers and citizens followed the procession from Logan Airport to pay their respects to the fallen officer of the Hillsborough County Sherriff’s Department, whose cruiser was struck by a wrong-way driver in Brandon, Florida, near Tampa, on March 12.

Kotfila was a traffic crash investigator always out helping the injured, writing reports, and investigating vehicular accidents. At 1 a.m. he was working on his fifth crash of the day that involved an adult and teenager. He had driven to Tampa General Hospital to see how they were doing and was heading home around 2:45 a.m. when he died. John had worked for the sheriff’s office for six years.

Reports say the courageous officer had actually driven his patrol car into the path of a female driver headed towards the wrong-way vehicle. Hillsborough County Sherriff David Gee hailed Kotfila’s exemplary bravery and how he gave his life so that another person could live.

Deputy John Kotfila Jr. , 30, was a third-generation police officer. He is survived by his wife and 2 young daughters.

-------------------------------------

John was a local kid and one of the good guys.

Welcome home dude. You done good. You made us proud. Rest in peace.

[Kobi]

Actor Ken Howard, who starred in the 1970s series "The White Shadow" and served as president of SAG-AFTRA, has died at age 71.

Howard's career spanned four decades in TV, theater and film. In the CBS series "The White Shadow," which aired from 1978 to 1981, he starred as a white coach to an urban high school basketball team — a part, one of Howard's best known, that drew on the personal history of the 6 feet 6 inch tall actor, who played basketball growing up on Long Island in New York and at Amherst College.

He was a staple character actor on television, starring opposite Blythe Danner in "Adam's Rib" on ABC and appearing as the chipper Kabletown boss Hank Hooper on NBC's "30 Rock."

Howard played Thomas Jefferson on Broadway in "1776," a role he reprised in the 1972 film. He won a Tony Award for Robert Marasco's Catholic boarding school drama "Child's Play."

After making his film debut opposite Liza Minnelli in 1970's "Tell Me That You Love Me," Howard's films included "Rambo," ''In Her Shoes" and "Michael Clayton." He won an Emmy for his performance in HBO's "Grey Gardens" in 2009.

He was also familiar to viewers of the Screen Actors Guild Awards, providing an update on the union's accomplishments during the televised awards ceremony.

Howard was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 2009 and was a catalyst for its 2012 merger with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union. Combined, the groups represent 160,000 actors, broadcasters and recording artists.

Howard was the first president of SAG-AFTRA and was re-elected to the post last year.

http://news.yahoo.com/actor-ken-howa...212315843.html

[Kobi]

Joe Garagiola, legendary broadcaster and former MLB catcher, died today. He was 90.

Outside of baseball fans Garagiola is best known for his two stints as a panelist on The Today Show from 1967 – 1973 and again from 1990 – 1992. His colorful personality served him well during a broadcasting career that spanned seven decades. He had a 30-year association with NBC as a baseball announcer, providing both play-by-play duties as well as color commentary at various points during his career on television and radio.

Garagiola was born on February 12, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. He grew up across the street from future baseball legend Yogi Berra in the Italian-American neighborhood known as The Hill. The block on Elizabeth Avenue became retroactively known as “Hall of Fame Place.”

Following the end of his playing career, Garagiola entered the broadcast booth, and it was here that his personality and often self-deprecating humor shined. He called radio broadcasts for the Cardinals from 1955 – 1962. He joined NBC’s national broadcasting team in 1961 and became was a fixture of the NBC baseball crew for decades and called three World Series, 1984, 1986 and 1988.

Following his departure from NBC Sports he joined the broadcasting booth for the California Angels cable-televised games in 1990 and did part-time color commentary for the Arizona Diamondbacks from 1998 – 2012.

In addition to broadcasting baseball he was a regular panelist on The Today Show and occasionally guest-hosted The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Other broadcasting jobs included hosting the Orange Bowl Parade and the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

In 1991 he was awarded baseball’s Ford C. Frick award for outstanding broadcasting accomplishments and honored at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

http://www.legacy.com/news/celebrity...a-sr-1926-2016

[Gemme]

Comedian Garry Shandling passed away.


Garry Shandling has died at the age of 66, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.

No additional details were immediately available, Shandling's publicist and agency did not return requests for comment.

The comedian, whose career has spanned decades in the industry, is known for his turns with the Larry Sanders Show and Garry Shandling Show.

He recently appeared in Marvel's Captain America: Civil War as well as in Iron Man 2 as well as cameoing in a slew of comedies including The Dictator, Funny People and Zoolander.

Born in Chicago, Shandling's family relocated to Tucson, Ariz., to help treat his older brother, Barry, who suffered from cystic fibrosis. Barry died at age 10 but the family remained.

[Kobi]

Earl Hamner Jr., the Virginia-born writer who created not only TV’s folksy, Depression-era family drama “The Waltons” but the California wine country prime-time soap opera “Falcon Crest,” died Thursday. He was 92.

In a long career that included writing episodes of “The Twilight Zone” in the 1960s and adapting the E.B. White classic “Charlotte’s Web” for a 1973 animated film, Hamner was best known for tapping his childhood memories of growing up in a large family in rural Virginia during the Great Depression.

“Spencer’s Mountain,” Hamner’s childhood-inspired 1961 novel, was turned into a 1963 movie starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara.

His 1970 book “The Homecoming: A Novel About Spencer’s Mountain,” inspired by Christmas Eve 1933 when Hamner’s father was late in arriving home, was turned into “The Homecoming: A Christmas Story,” a two-hour CBS television movie that introduced the family, renamed the Waltons, to television viewers in December 1971.

Its success led to the weekly hourlong TV series.

In a 1973 interview with Good Housekeeping magazine, Hamner said he thought “people are hungry for a sense of security. They’re hungry, too, for real family relationships — not just rounding up the family for a cookout but real togetherness where people are relating honestly."

Expanding on his feeling that there was “a need” for the Waltons in contemporary American society, Hamner wrote in a 1972 guest column for The Times: “Audiences in all entertainment media have been brutalized by crudities, vulgarity, violence, indifference and ineptitude.”

With “The Waltons,” he wrote, “we are attempting to make an honest, positive statement on the affirmation of man.”

While still overseeing “The Waltons,” Hamner created “Falcon Crest,” which debuted on CBS in 1981 and ran until 1990.

The hourlong drama set in the fictitious Tuscany Valley in California starred Jane Wyman as the powerful and manipulative Falcon Crest winery owner and family matriarch Angela Channing and Robert Foxworthy as her nephew, Chase Gioberti.

After leaving “Falcon Crest” after the fifth season, Hamner formed a production company with TV executive and novelist Don Snipes, whose programs included “Snowy River: The McGregor Saga,” an hourlong series that ran on the Family Channel from 1993 to 1996.

Hamner and Snipes also co-wrote the 2000 mystery novel “Murder in Tinseltown.”

Hamner’s credits include writing the 1963 movie “Palm Springs Weekend” and creating the short-lived TV series “Apples Way” in the 1970s and “Boone,” another short-lived series in the 1980s.

He also wrote the 1968 TV adaptation of “Heidi,” and 8 episodes of the Twilight Zone.

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituar...324-story.html

[Kobi]

James Noble, the actor who played the absent-minded Gov. Eugene Gatling on the 1980s hit TV sitcom "Benson," died March 28. He was 94.

The show, which starred Robert Guillaume as the butler turned lieutenant governor, has shown up in syndication on the Nick at Night and TV Land cable channels.

Noble's acting credits include stints on Broadway, most notably in "The Big Knife," "The Velvet Glove," and "A Far Country."

Noble appeared on daytime TV soap operas including "The Brighter Day," "The Edge of Night," "As the World Turns," "Another World," "The Doctors," and "A World Apart."

His acting wasn't limited to the small screen. His film credits include "The Sporting Club," "Dragonfly," "10," "Being There," and "Airplane II."

---------------------------------


This is getting depressing.

[Kobi]

Oscar-winning actress Patty Duke, who hit the trifecta of stardom with her turns on TV, in the movies, and on Broadway, is dead. She was 69.

The Queens-born daughter of a troubled cashier and alcoholic cab driver, Duke overcame a dark childhood to become one of the Hollywood's most respected actresses and president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1985 to 1988.

Duke rocketed to fame in the 1960's as the star of "The Patty Duke Show," which ran for 104 episodes over three seasons, and in which she played her rambunctious self as well as her more demure "identical cousin."

Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1982, Duke devoted her later years to championing mental health programs and raising her three sons, two of whom — Sean Astin and Mackenzie Astin — followed in their mother's footsteps and became actors as well.

Duke made her Broadway debut at age 12 playing Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker." Three years later, at age 16, Duke won the best supporting actress Academy Award reprising her role as the young Helen in the celebrated 1962 screen adaptation of the play.

Then in 1979, Duke won an Emmy playing Keller's teacher — the role originally played on Broadway by Anne Bancroft — in a TV version of the same play.

After "The Patty Duke Show" was cancelled, Duke starred in the camp classic "Valley of the Dolls." She won a second Emmy in 1976 for her turn in the TV mini-series "Captains and the Kings." And she also appeared in TV shows like Police Story, Hawaii 5-O and Night Gallery.

Later, Duke became an advocate for the mentally ill, working with the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...7326?cid=sm_fb

[TheHinduPose]

Theguardian.com
'Queen of the curve' Zaha Hadid dies aged 65 from heart attack
by Mark Brown.

Dame Zaha Hadid, the world-renowned architect, whose designs include the London Olympic aquatic centre, has died aged 65. The British designer, who was born in Iraq, had a heart attack on Thursday while in hospital in Miami, where she was being treated for bronchitis.

Hadid’s buildings have been commissioned around the world and she was the first woman to receive the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) gold medal.


From the swooping space-age shopping mall to the Z-shaped school with a running track through it, here are the buildings that Zaha Hadid will be remembered for

A lengthy statement released by her company said: “It is with great sadness that Zaha Hadid Architects have confirmed that Dame Zaha Hadid DBE died suddenly in Miami in the early hours of this morning.

“She had contracted bronchitis earlier this week and suffered a sudden heart attack while being treated in hospital. Zaha Hadid was widely regarded to be the greatest female architect in the world today.”

Speaking from Mexico, Richard Rogers, whose buildings include the Pompidou Centre and the Millennium Dome, told the Guardian that the news of Hadid’s death was “really, really terrible”.

“She was a great architect, a wonderful woman and wonderful person,” Lord Rogers said. “Among architects emerging in the last few decades, no one had any more impact than she did. She fought her way through as a woman. She was the first woman to win the Pritzker prize.

“I got involved with her first in Cardiff when the government threw her off the project in the most disgraceful way. She has had to fight every inch of the way. It is a great loss.”

Jane Duncan, RIBA’s president, said: “Dame Zaha Hadid was an inspirational woman, and the kind of architect one can only dream of being. Visionary and highly experimental, her legacy, despite her young age, is formidable.

“She leaves behind a body of work from buildings to furniture, footwear and cars, that delight and astound people all around the world. The world of architecture has lost a star today.”

The architect Daniel Libeskind said he was devastated by her death. “Her spirit will live on in her work and studio. Our hearts go out,” he said.

From the Olympic Aquatics Centre to a new Serpentine gallery, from Beijing to Baku, Zaha Hadid's buildings are everywhere. But she divides opinion: she's a genius, say some, but to critics she has lost touch with her original ideals. By Rowan Moore

Stirling prize winner Amanda Levete said: “She was an inspiration. Her global impact was profound and her legacy will be felt for many years to come because she shifted the culture of architecture and the way that we experience buildings. When my son was very young, Zaha showed him how to write his name in Arabic. It was the moment I realised the genesis of her remarkable architectural language.

“She was an extraordinary role model for women. She was fearless and a trailblazer – her work was brave and radical. Despite sometimes feeling misunderstood, she was widely celebrated and rightly so.”

Architect Graham Morrison said: “She was so distinct that there isn’t anybody like her. She didn’t fit in and I don’t mean that meanly. She was in a world of her own and she was extraordinary.”

The British culture minister, Ed Vaizey, posted on Twitter, saying he was stunned at the news and praising her “huge contribution to contemporary architecture”.
The London Aquatics Centre built for the 2012 Olympic Games.
The London aquatics centre built for the 2012 Olympic Games. Photograph: John Walton/PA

The London mayor, Boris Johnson, tweeted: “So sad to hear of death of Zaha Hadid, she was an inspiration and her legacy lives on in wonderful buildings in Stratford and around the world.”

Sign up to The Guardian Today and get the must-read stories delivered straight to your inbox each morning

Hadid, born in Baghdad in 1950, became a revolutionary force in British architecture even though she struggled to win commissions in the UK for many years. The Iraqi government described her death as “an irreplaceable loss to Iraq and the global community”.

She studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before launching her architectural career in London at the Architectural Association.

By 1979, she had established her own practice in London – Zaha Hadid Architects – and gained a reputation across the world for groundbreaking theoretical works including the Peak in Hong Kong (1983), Kurfürstendamm 70 in Berlin (1986) and the Cardiff Bay opera house in Wales (1994).

The first major build commission that earned her international recognition was the Vitra fire station in Weil Am Rhein, Germany (1993), but her scheme to build the Cardiff opera house was scrapped in the 1990s and she did not produce a major building in the UK until the Riverside museum of transport in Glasgow was completed in 2011.

Other notable projects included the Maxxi: Italian National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome (2009), the London aquatics centre for the 2012 Olympic Games (2011), the Heydar Aliyev centre in Baku (2013) and a stadium for the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar.
Heydar Aliyev cultural centre in Baku, Azerbaijan.
One of Hadid’s notable projects, the Heydar Aliyev cultural centre in Baku, Azerbaijan. Photograph: View Pictures/Rex

Buildings such as the Rosenthal Centre of Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (2003) and the Guangzhou opera house in China (2010) were also hailed as architecture that transformed ideas of the future. Other designs include the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in Kensington Gardens, west London, and the BMW factory in Leipzig, one of her first designs to be built.

She became the first female recipient of the Pritzker architecture prize in 2004 and twice won the UK’s most prestigious architecture award, the RIBA Stirling prize. Other awards included the Republic of France’s Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale.

Hadid won acclaim in Scotland for designing the popular Riverside Museum in Glasgow, known for its distinctive roof structure. Muriel Gray, chair of the board of governors at the Glasgow School of Art, tweeted a picture of the Riverside museum with the message: “Horrible shocking news that Zaha Hadid, incredible architectural trailblazer has just died. Huge loss to design.”

Hadid was recently awarded the RIBA’s 2016 royal gold medal, the first woman to be awarded the honour in her own right.

Architect Sir Peter Cook wrote in his citation at the time: “In our current culture of ticking every box, surely Zaha Hadid succeeds, since, to quote the royal gold medal criteria, she is someone who ‘has made a significant contribution to the theory or practice of architecture … for a substantial body of work rather than for work which is currently fashionable’.

“For three decades now she has ventured where few would dare … Such self confidence is easily accepted in film-makers and football managers, but causes some architects to feel uncomfortable. Maybe they’re secretly jealous of her unquestionable talent. Let’s face it, we might have awarded the medal to a worthy comfortable character. We didn’t. We awarded it to Zaha: larger than life, bold as brass and certainly on the case.”
A computer generated image of the stadium
A computer-generated image of the stadium to be built in al-Wakrah for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Speaking in February on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Hadid said: “I don’t really feel I’m part of the establishment. I’m not outside, I’m on the kind of edge, I’m dangling there. I quite like it … I’m not against the establishment per se. I just do what I do and that’s it.”

Levete, who co-designed the spaceship-like media centre at Lord’s cricket ground, described her as “a true and loyal friend … a confidante and someone I could turn to for advice”.

She said: “She was an absolute inspiration to many and her global impact was really profound.”

Kelly Hoppen, the interior designer who appeared in BBC2’s show Dragons’ Den, tweeted: “Deeply saddened by the news of Zaha Hadid’s death. She was an iconic architect who pushed the boundaries to another level xx ZahaHadid”

Angela Brady, a former president of RIBA, described Hadid as “one of our greatest architects of our time”.

She added: “She was a tough architect, which is needed as a woman at the top of her profession and at the height of her career. She will be sadly missed as an iconic leader in architecture and as a role model for women in architecture.”

A spokeswoman for BMW said: “She was an icon in the world of architecture, groundbreaking in her way to create with a very distinctive style. On the 10th anniversary of our Leipzig plant’s central building which she was the architect for , Zaha said that she felt it gave testament to the plant’s vision. We are glad she felt this way, too.”

Author Kathy Lette tweeted Hadid’s “beautiful, undulating feminine designs proved that u didn’t need a phallic edifice complex 2 be a brilliant architect”.

Tamara Rojo, English National Ballet director and dancer, tweeted: “Devastated by the passing of the great Zaha Hadid” with a picture of “her stunning Opera House in Guangzhou where we performed last year”.

http://www.zaha-hadid.com/

[not2shygrrl]

Mother Angelica 92 year old doughty nun who founded EWTN in a garage with practically no funds passed away. She grew EWTN into TV, radio and other venues all through out the world reaching Catholics and Christians alike. She suffered a debilitating stroke in Dec 2015 and lost her battle on Easter Sunday. RIP .......May God bless you Mother Angelica and accept you into his kingdom.

[storyspinner70]

Merle Haggard, who over six decades composed and performed one of the greatest repertoires in country music, capturing the American condition with his stories of the poor, the lost, the working class, heartbroken and hard-living, died at his home in the San Joaquin Valley, California, after a battle with pneumonia, his spokeswoman Tresa Redburn confirmed. He was 79.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/ne...at-79-20160406

[Jesse]

Dang it Merle, you split on your birthday! Journey well, my friend!

Originally Posted by storyspinner70

Merle Haggard, who over six decades composed and performed one of the greatest repertoires in country music, capturing the American condition with his stories of the poor, the lost, the working class, heartbroken and hard-living, died at his home in the San Joaquin Valley, California, after a battle with pneumonia, his spokeswoman Tresa Redburn confirmed. He was 79.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/ne...at-79-20160406