Obituaries for 2017

[musiclady]

Herb Anderson also played John Hammond, Sr. in that badly-bowdlerised film
The Benny Goodman Story which had Steve Allen (who actually did
look a little like Goodman) in the title role and Donna Reed as the Alice
Hammond who married Goodman. The bowdlerising only began with
the fact that, unlike in the film, Goodman didn't play "Memories of You"
at Carnegie Hall as a way to propose to her . . .

Mmmmmm......... love that movie anyway!

[EasyAce]

@Restored

Not if I am quoting my personal hero,Foghorn Leghorn.

@sneakypete
You were actually quoting Sen. Beauregard Claghorn, the "Allen's Alley" character
(from radio's Fred Allen Show) from whom Foghorn Leghorn was ripped off
entirely . . . but let's not get technical . . . ;)

Kenny Delmar was a fine dramatic actor who appeared frequently in the Theatre
Guild radio productions and in many serious plays. Kenny was also an accomplished
dialectician. The Senator Claghorn character was only one of the vocal cartoons
culled from his gallery of comedy creations.
---Fred Allen, in his memoir Treadmill to Oblivion

The Fred Allen Show, "Les Miserables Reprise; Allen's Alley: The Chicken Surplus" (NBC, 3 December 1946)

Delmar created Senator Claghorn based on a blustery rancher he had known. But Delmar
never voiced Foghorn Leghorn---Mel Blanc (himself a considerable radio presence; he'd
first done the Happy Postman character on Burns & Allen's show, and played Jack Benny's
hapless violin teacher and other roles) did. Delmar actually made a feature film as Claghorn,
the comedy It's a Joke, Son in 1947.

[EasyAce]

Mmmmmm......... love that movie anyway!

@musiclady
I loved it when I was younger . . . and hadn't yet read John Hammond's memoir, in which he
roasted the film's inaccuracies including and especially about the courtship of Benny Goodman
and Alice Hammond and the fact that Hammond's wealthy family weren't the musical snobs
they were portrayed to have been in the film. I still think it's entertaining, but I can't take it
seriously as a true story of Goodman's life and success.

[musiclady]

@musiclady
I loved it when I was younger . . . and hadn't yet read John Hammond's memoir, in which he
roasted the film's inaccuracies including and especially about the courtship of Benny Goodman
and Alice Hammond and the fact that Hammond's wealthy family weren't the musical snobs
they were portrayed to have been in the film. I still think it's entertaining, but I can't take it
seriously as a true story of Goodman's life and success.

I guess I don't take any Hollywood Biopic too seriously.  I like to hear the music, know the story is enhanced, and just enjoy it.  I also liked that Benny Goodman did his own clarinet stuff in it. (Heard him perform a Classical concert and he was phenomenal).

I liked when John Hammond started tapping his foot at the Carnegie concert.  I thought that was a nice touch.


Oh........ and I particularly enjoyed Jimmy Stewart as Glenn Miller.  Maybe my favorite Biopic.

[EasyAce]

Oh........ and I particularly enjoyed Jimmy Stewart as Glenn Miller.  Maybe my favorite Biopic.

@musiclady
For bowdlerising that one was even worse---and it only began with the fact that, while the movie
kept using Miller's supposed aversion to the song as a kind of running gag, until his Army Air Force
band played it as a "new thing" in his memory, he actually recorded "Little Brown Jug" before
going into the AAF and had a big hit with it.

[EasyAce]

@musiclady
If you haven't seen it yet, I'll save you the trouble regarding Jersey Boys, the film based on the
musical based on the lives of the Four Seasons---it may be one of the worst Hollywood bowdlerisings
of them all, and the fact that Clint Eastwood (director) was the culprit makes it even worse. I'll send
you the review I wrote of it when the film came out.

[AllThatJazzZ]

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/bowdlerize

Who knew I'd learn a new word today on an obituary thread?! Life is unpredictable to say the least.

BTW, can bowdlerizing also pertain to sculptures and statues? If so, I'd say that a whole bunch of them are being bowdlerized because they've been deemed offensive.  + 

[EasyAce]

BTW, can bowdlerizing also pertain to sculptures and statues? If so, I'd say that a whole bunch of them are being bowdlerized because they've been deemed offensive.  + 

I'm pretty sure it could.

[musiclady]

@musiclady
For bowdlerising that one was even worse---and it only began with the fact that, while the movie
kept using Miller's supposed aversion to the song as a kind of running gag, until his Army Air Force
band played it as a "new thing" in his memory, he actually recorded "Little Brown Jug" before
going into the AAF and had a big hit with it.

I know the Glenn Miller story isn't authentic, but it's so much fun, doncha think??  (Well, until he dies, that is).

I can't think of anything that Jimmy Stewart's been in that I didn't like.  Our whole family went into mourning when he died.  (Not really, but we were sad at his passing).

I'll take your advice on Jersey Boys and avoid it.  I heard the language was pretty bad, but if it's not even the real story in this day and age (I give old Hollywood some slack), then it's really not worth seeing.

(Thanks for the review.  I'll get to it when I have a few moments).

@EasyAce

[EasyAce]

I know the Glenn Miller story isn't authentic, but it's so much fun, doncha think??  (Well, until he dies, that is).

Actually . . . no, it wasn't that much fun even with Jimmy Stewart. He was more wooden in that
film than Glenn Miller actually was, and from what I've read about Miller he wasn't exactly
the life of the party himself. And I didn't much like the over-presence of Chummy MacGregor
(Harry Morgan) in the film, when anyone who knew anything about the Miller operation deeper
than buying his records knew MacGregor was actually a marginal musical influence while
being one of Miller's few true intimates. (It's said MacGregor was so fond of dragging the tempos
that he drove half the musicians in the band to the nearest rye bottle. MacGregor himself was
made a consultant on the Miller film, which is kind of like inviting James Carville to be a consultant
on a film biography of Bill Clinton . . .)

The most fun I ever had with Glenn Miller in fact or fiction was finding in a second-hand shop
a two-album set of the Miller band's recordings for the two films they made before Miller went
into the AAF. They cut the stuff fresh on the 20th Century Fox sound stage and, for whatever
reason, delivered performances that provided the only time in Miller's recording history that
you could actually say the Miller band kicked. ass. Close your eyes, remove the Modernaires
and Tex Benecke's vocals, and you'd swear you were listening to Tommy Dorsey when Sy Oliver
was his arranger. I hope those recordings get a reissue soon.

[GtHawk]

He was best known as the dad of  Dennis the Menace before he entered politics.

No, come on, everyone knows he was the founder of Anderson's Split Pea Soup.

[Suppressed]

James Moody; History Department, Lake Superior State University
Well-loved by his students.
His last class was Monday. Tuesday night he was in hospice care, and this morning he died.

[Applewood]

Dedicated to the end.  May he rest in peace.

[Sanguine]

That's the way to go. 

[sneakypete]

James Moody; History Department, Lake Superior State University
Well-loved by his students.
His last class was Monday. Tuesday night he was in hospice care, and this morning he died.

When ya gotta go,that's the way to do it.

[dfwgator]

That's the way to go.

I want to go peacefully in my sleep.  Unlike the screaming passengers in my car.

[mountaineer]

James Moody; History Department, Lake Superior State University
Well-loved by his students. His last class was Monday. Tuesday night he was in hospice care, and this morning he died.

Sure, now who has to box up all those books?!?

(Sorry, still a little stressed from having so much of my mother's stuff in our basement three years after her death.   ^-^ )

[Suppressed]

I want to go peacefully in my sleep.  Unlike the screaming passengers in my car.

Credit: Jack Handey

[Smokin Joe]

Sure, now who has to box up all those books?!?

(Sorry, still a little stressed from having so much of my mother's stuff in our basement three years after her death.   ^-^ )

I'd volunteer if I could haul them home!

[dfwgator]

From a few days ago....

Thousands of fans and celebrities bid au revoir to 'French Elvis' Johnny Hallyday
https://news.sky.com/story/thousands-of-fans-and-celebrities-bid-au-revoir-to-french-elvis-johnny-hallyday-11163027

A very talented performer, and Frenchman who loved America and American culture.

[mountaineer]

I just saw a story about Hallyday's funeral and was unaware of his passing. He was such a big star in France, but nearly unknown in the US.

[dfwgator]

I just saw a story about Hallyday's funeral and was unaware of his passing. He was such a big star in France, but nearly unknown in the US.

I liked this one....

! No longer available

[Machiavelli]

Ken Shapiro, Whose ‘Groove Tube’ Satirized TV, Dies at 75

Ken Shapiro, a former child television actor whose hit 1974 film, “The Groove Tube,” anticipated “Saturday Night Live” by a year with sketches that wickedly satirized TV, died on Nov. 18 at his home in Las Cruces, N.M. He was 75.

His daughter, Rosy Rosenkrantz, said the cause was cancer.

Mr. Shapiro’s film, with a cast that included Chevy Chase, a future “S.N.L.” star, and the comedian Richard Belzer, was simultaneously inspired by Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs’s TV comedy shows of the 1950s and invigorated by the nudity, profanity and raunchiness commonplace in 1970s movies.

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[Cyber Liberty]

Ken Shapiro, Whose ‘Groove Tube’ Satirized TV, Dies at 75

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It's time for Koko the Clown!

! No longer available

[Machiavelli]

RIP: Bruce Brown, 1937-2017: Iconic California surf filmmaker passes away (The Endless Summer)

Drew Kampion
Surfline
December 11, 2017

Bruce Brown, longtime surf filmmaker and director of the seminal “Endless Summer” just passed at 80 years old.

Drew Kampion wrote the following for our Surfing A-Z entry on Brown:

Prior to 1964, the media saw surfers as rebellious thugs, and Hollywood made them out to be a bunch of idiots. Filmmaker Bruce Brown single-handedly changed that with The Endless Summer. It portrayed the wave as a kind of Holy Grail and surfers as knights on a quest. In one stroke, he replaced Hollywood's buffoonery with the popular mythology that endures today.

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