Obituaries for 2023

[Cyber Liberty]

Well he now faces his maker.

Let us hope that in prison, he prayed fervently for Our Fathers forgiveness. 

[Kamaji]

Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi dead at 86

By Associated Press
June 12, 2023

Silvio Berlusconi, 86, the boastful billionaire media mogul who was Italy’s longest-serving premier despite scandals over his sex-fueled parties and allegations of corruption, died Monday, according to his television network.

Mediaset announced his death with a smiling photo of the man on its homepage and the headline: “Berlusconi is dead.”

Berlusconi was hospitalized on Friday for the second time in months for treatment of chronic leukemia.

He also suffered over the years from heart ailments, prostate cancer and was hospitalized for COVID-19 in 2020.

A onetime cruise ship crooner, Berlusconi used his television networks and immense wealth to launch his long political career, inspiring both loyalty and loathing.

*  *  *

Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/06/12/silvio-berlusconi-italys-former-prime-minister-dead-at-86/

[mountaineer]

Actor Treat Williams dies at 71 after motorcycle accident
The actor's work spanned stage, film and television, from the Broadway production "Grease" to the film "Hair" and the series "Everwood."
June 12, 2023, 10:57 PM EDT / Updated June 13, 2023, 12:30 AM EDT
By Diana Dasrath and Dennis Romero

Treat Williams, a star of stage, television and film, has died in a motorcycle accident, his family said Monday evening. He was 71.

"It is with great sadness that we report that our beloved Treat Williams has passed away tonight in Dorset, Vermont after a fatal motorcycle accident," his family said in a statement. "As you can imagine, we are shocked and greatly bereaved at this time."

Vermont State Police said in a statement that Williams was critically injured in Dorset about 4:53 p.m. Monday when a Honda SUV turned in front of him, ending in a collision that threw Williams from his 1986 Honda motorcycle.

He was taken to Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York, where he was pronounced dead, state police said. ... NBC News

[Gefn]

Cormac McCarthy, Novelist of a Darker America, Is Dead at 89

Cormac McCarthy, the formidable and reclusive writer of Appalachia and the American Southwest, whose raggedly ornate early novels about misfits and grotesques gave way to the lush taciturnity of “All the Pretty Horses” and the apocalyptic minimalism of “The Road,” died on Tuesday at his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 89.

Knopf, his publisher, said in a statement that this son, John, had confirmed the death.

Mr. McCarthy’s fiction took a dark view of the human condition and was often macabre. He decorated his novels with scalpings, beheadings, arson, rape, incest, necrophilia and cannibalism. “There’s no such thing as life without bloodshed,” he told The New York Times magazine in 1992 in a rare interview. “I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/books/cormac-mccarthy-dead.html

[berdie]

McCarthy was a good, if somewhat dark, author.

[mountaineer]

My husband is a track nerd, and the talk at his running forum is that Tori was depressed over professional and personal setbacks, and took her own life.

Wow, looks like the nerds were wrong. Still very sad.

Report: U.S. Olympic Sprinter Tori Bowie Died in Childbirth
Warner Todd Huston
13 Jun 2023
Breitbart

American Olympic gold medal winner in track and field Tori Bowie shockingly died at the age of only 32, and now an autopsy has revealed that she died from pregnancy complications.

The former sprinter was found dead at her home on May 2 after the police were called to make a welfare check on her.

An autopsy report from the Orange County (Florida) Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that Bowie was around eight months pregnant and was in active labor when she died.

Medical officials said Bowie may have suffered from issues including respiratory distress and eclampsia, according to USA Today Sports. ...

[mountaineer]

Daniel Ellsberg, who disclosed Pentagon Papers, dies at age 92
by The National Desk
Fri, June 16th 2023, 2:43 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (TND) — Daniel Ellsberg, a government consultant who in 1971 leaked what became known as the Pentagon Papers and exposed the deceit of American policymakers during the Vietnam War, has died, according to multiple reports.

He was 92 years old.

The New York Times said his cause of death was pancreatic cancer.

[mountaineer]

We’re Told Never to Meet Our Childhood Heroes. Knowing Daniel Ellsberg Proved That Wrong
Glenn Greenwald remembers the Pentagon Papers whistleblower and ceaseless anti-war activist
June 16, 2023

That you should never meet your heroes, as they are bound to disappoint you, has become such conventional wisdom that it requires no author to affirm it. In a 2020 satirical New Yorker article, Alex Witt attributed the proverb to the faceless “they” (“They say, ‘Never meet your heroes,’ ” adding, “It’s good advice. I’ve met all of my idols, and I’ve been disappointed by every single one”). Some internet pages attribute the quote to the British comedian Alan Carr after meeting Paul Newman, though that appears more apocryphal than reliable. It hardly matters who first said it; it just strikes one as intuitively true because the glaring, multi-faceted imperfections of humans when seen up close make a heroic image unlikely to survive interpersonal scrutiny.

Daniel Ellsberg, the renowned Pentagon Papers whistleblower, single-handedly destroyed the validity of this advice for me. Ellsberg was one of my two or three top childhood heroes. Though I was only four years old in 1971, when he knowingly assumed a high probability of life in prison to inform the American people about systemic lying by the U.S. government regarding the war in Vietnam, I became engrossed by both the Pentagon Papers and Watergate dramas as I entered adolescence. Those became the formative events for my understanding of politics and journalism.

 The lies told by leading Pentagon and CIA officials about the Vietnam War were numerous, and they came fast and furious from the start of the U.S. role in the war in the early 1960s to its end in the mid-1970s. The lie that led Ellsberg to risk his liberty to expose was central. Top Pentagon and other U.S. Security State officials were publicly insisting they were getting closer and closer to winning the war, all while privately admitting from the start that victory would be impossible, that the best-case scenario was a stalemate with the North Vietnamese.

Ellsberg’s remarkable moral courage and self-sacrifice to try to stop an unjust war from spiraling even further out of control played a major role in shaping my understanding of journalism, the need for transparency, the virtues of bravery, and the duties of citizenship. I read everything I could get my hands on about Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers case. That someone at the age of 40 would be willing to spend the rest of his life in prison for a political cause both mystified and excited me. Ellsberg occupied a central place in my childhood imagination about heroism, integrity, and courage.   ...

Rolling Stone

[Kamaji]

‘The Young and the Restless’ star Brett Hadley dead at 92

By Adriana Diaz
June 16, 2023

“The Young and the Restless” star Brett Hadley died Wednesday at 92, his close friend said.

His cause of death was not revealed but his photographer pal Mary Ann Halpin confirmed his passing on Facebook.

The actor was best known for his longtime role on “The Young and the Restless” as Genoa City police detective and Williams family patriarch Carl Williams.

“It is with a heavy heart that I have to say goodbye to my sweet friend Brett Hadley,” Halpin wrote.

“We were in an acting class and were the bad kids in the class. We sat in the back and giggled. I remember us sitting in his coverable WV … I will miss his playful and deep conversation, his funny flirty giggle and twinkling eyes. He took his last bow and gracefully left us yesterday.”

*  *  *

Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/06/16/the-young-and-the-restless-star-brett-hadley-dead-at-92/

[sneakypete]

‘The Young and the Restless’ star Brett Hadley dead at 92

By Adriana Diaz
June 16, 2023

“The Young and the Restless” star Brett Hadley died Wednesday at 92, his close friend said.

His cause of death was not revealed


Well,yeah,it was. He was 92  years old. 

[jmyrlefuller]

Ray Lewis III dies at 28.

The son and namesake of Hall of Fame linebacker and suspected accessory to murder Ray Lewis followed in his father's footsteps in two ways: becoming a professional football player (albeit at a lower level, rising only to the level of an indoor football team in Wyoming) and suspected criminal charges (in the younger Lewis's case, sexual assault) that were eventually dropped.

Lewis died from an apparent death of despair June 15.

https://people.com/ray-lewis-son-ray-lewis-iii-dies-at-28-7547622

[libertybele]

‘The Young and the Restless’ star Brett Hadley dead at 92

By Adriana Diaz
June 16, 2023

“The Young and the Restless” star Brett Hadley died Wednesday at 92, his close friend said.

His cause of death was not revealed but his photographer pal Mary Ann Halpin confirmed his passing on Facebook.

The actor was best known for his longtime role on “The Young and the Restless” as Genoa City police detective and Williams family patriarch Carl Williams.

“It is with a heavy heart that I have to say goodbye to my sweet friend Brett Hadley,” Halpin wrote.

“We were in an acting class and were the bad kids in the class. We sat in the back and giggled. I remember us sitting in his coverable WV … I will miss his playful and deep conversation, his funny flirty giggle and twinkling eyes. He took his last bow and gracefully left us yesterday.”

*  *  *

Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/06/16/the-young-and-the-restless-star-brett-hadley-dead-at-92/

I am an avid fan of the Y&R and have been watching it for 50 years.  The character Carl Williams hasn't been on for decades and they have recently snubbed his television son, Paul Williams (Doug Davidson).

RIP Brett Hadley

[Kamaji]

‘Back To School’ actor Paxton Whitehead dead at 85

By David Russell
June 20, 2023

Veteran character actor Paxton Whitehead, who was nominated for a Tony for his performance in “Camelot,” died last Friday. He was 85.

His son Charles told The Hollywood Reporter that he died at a hospital in Virginia.

Whitehead’s most memorable role came in the 1986 hit film “Back To School,” as Dr. Phillip Barbay, the stuffy professor who has to deal with Thornton Melon, played by Rodney Dangerfield as a businessman who attempts to earn his college degree.

He spent most of his early career on the stage, signing with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the late 1950s.

Whitehead also served as artistic director of the Shaw Festival, one of the largest repertory theater companies, which originally only featured shows written by George Bernard Shaw.

*  *  *

Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/06/20/actor-paxton-whitehead-dead-at-85/

[mountaineer]

Ray Lewis III dies at 28.  ...Lewis died from an apparent death of despair June 15.

I heard it was an overdose, but not an intentionally suicidal OD.

[Kamaji]

Former Steelers linebacker Clark Haggans dead at 46

By David Russell
June 21, 2023

Former Steelers linebacker Clark Haggans, a member of the team that won Super Bowl XL in 2005, died at 46, a popular Pittsburgh sports radio host announced Tuesday evening.

No cause of death has been given.

Haggans played 13 seasons in the NFL, including eight with the Steelers from 2000 to 2007.

He collected a career-high nine sacks during the 2005 season and sacked Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck on the opening drive of Super Bowl XL, a 21-10 Steelers triumph.

Haggans later played for the Cardinals and 49ers, again making the Super Bowl as a member of the San Francisco team that won the NFC title in 2012.

*  *  *

Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/06/21/former-nfl-steelers-linebacker-clark-haggans-dead-at-46/

[sneakypete]

Former Steelers linebacker Clark Haggans dead at 46

By David Russell
June 21, 2023

Former Steelers linebacker Clark Haggans, a member of the team that won Super Bowl XL in 2005, died at 46, a popular Pittsburgh sports radio host announced Tuesday evening.

No cause of death has been given.

Haggans played 13 seasons in the NFL, including eight with the Steelers from 2000 to 2007.

He collected a career-high nine sacks during the 2005 season and sacked Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck on the opening drive of Super Bowl XL, a 21-10 Steelers triumph.

Haggans later played for the Cardinals and 49ers, again making the Super Bowl as a member of the San Francisco team that won the NFC title in 2012.

*  *  *

Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/06/21/former-nfl-steelers-linebacker-clark-haggans-dead-at-46/

@Kamaji

Steroids abuse over the years?

[GtHawk]

@Kamaji

Steroids abuse over the years?

Maybe death is related to concussions?

[mountaineer]

Sheldon Harnick, whose lyrics for the acclaimed stage and film musical Fiddler on the Roof are some of the most recognizable and beloved in Broadway history, died Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 99.

His death was announced by spokesman Sean Katz.

In collaborations with composer Jerry Bock, Harnick gave Broadway some of its most publicly adored and critically acclaimed musicals, including 1959’s Pulitzer-winning Fiorello!, 1963’s She Loves Me and, of course, Fiddler on the Roof, the massively successful 1964 musical with a book by Joseph Stein that told the story of Jewish dairyman Tevye who struggled to support his wife and daughters on a shtetl in the Imperial Russia of 1905. ...

But the Bock-Harnick masterpiece would come in 1964 with their songs based on the Tevye tales of Sholem Aleichem. The musical to delivered to the stage such indelible characters as Tevye; wife Golde; headstrong daughters Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava; gossipy matchmaker Yente; and hapless tailor Motel among many others, Fiddler on the Roof is among the most cherished Broadway musicals in history, a staple of major stages and high school auditoriums. “Sunrise, Sunset,” with Harnick’s poignant lyrics about watching children grow up and away, would find its way into untold numbers of wedding receptions, with “If I Were A Rich Man” becoming a universal anthem of longing and what-if fantasies, marked by daydreams of wealth and “ya ba dibba dibba” musings.   ... Deadline

[Smokin Joe]

RIP, Mr. Harnick, and thanks. I enjoyed the show.

[berdie]

One of my favorite musicals.

[Smokin Joe]

One of my favorite musicals.

Yes!I am not much on musicals, in general, but that one I liked.

[deb]

Yes!I am not much on musicals, in general, but that one I liked.

It’s a great one!

[berdie]

Yes!I am not much on musicals, in general, but that one I liked.

I love musicals. But Fiddler is not the typical musical. The situations and lyrics of some of the songs are so touching that they can bring tears to my eyes, even after the multitudes of times  I've seen it, and I'm not one given to tears.


RIP, Sir. Not many can make me weepy.

[Kamaji]

Richard Ravitch, ‘titan of New York’s civic world,’ dead at 89

By Jesse O’Neill and Carl Campanile
June 26, 2023

Richard Ravitch, the former MTA chairman and lieutenant governor who is widely credited with helping New York emerge from its ’70s debt crisis, died at the age of 89 in Manhattan Sunday.

Ravitch was never elected to office, but had an immense influence on politics, transportation and civics in the state and city he called home.

“He was a steady, savvy, and brilliant leader and a public servant in the truest sense of the term,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement, confirming his death.

Born in 1933 to a Jewish Russian immigrant family in Brooklyn, Ravitch watched his father’s burgeoning HRH Construction Corporation shape the Manhattan skyline by erecting some of its most recognizable high-end apartment buildings, schools, museums and hospitals in addition to tens of thousands of affordable housing units, according to The Real Deal.

By 1960, Ravitch himself had taken the reins of the family company after attending the city’s prestigious Lincoln School and Fieldston School before graduating from Columbia University, earning a law degree at Yale University and serving in the Army, according to The New York Times.

*  *  *

Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/06/26/richard-ravitch-former-mta-chair-dead-at-89/

[jmyrlefuller]

Ugh.

Ravitch was at the center of one of the most brazen usurpations of little-r republican government in New York history.

In 2009, there was a dispute within the state Senate. Eliot Spitzer had resigned, David Paterson had ascended to the governorship, and a few members of the Democratic caucus (led by eventual corruption convict Pedro Espada) decided to mutiny on their leader (eventual corruption convict Malcolm Smith) and join a coalition with the Republicans (led by eventual corruption convict Dean Skelos and his deputy, eventual corruption convict Tom Libous—are y'all noticing a trend here?) Well, because of all this, there was no clear president pro tempore of the Senate, and thus no Lieutenant Governor... meaning if Paterson ever left the state, a constitutional crisis would ensue.

So he created a constitutional crisis of his own and appointed Dick Ravitch unilaterally, with no confirmation process... even though nothing in state law nor the state constitution permitted such a thing. And a court, with no basis, allowed it.

And we wonder why people are fleeing this God-forsaken state.