Obituaries for 2014

[Machiavelli]

Ex-U.S. Sen. Howard Baker Jr. dies

Howard H. Baker Jr., a key senator during the Watergate investigation and a former U.S. ambassador to Japan, has died. He was 88.

Baker, who served in Tokyo from 2001 until early 2005, died Thursday at his home, according to an email distributed at the law firm where Baker was senior counsel. He died as a result of complications from a stroke suffered Saturday, the email said.

The scion of a political family, Baker served 18 years in the Senate, winning widespread respect from Republicans and Democrats alike and rising to the post of majority leader.

More

Wikipedia

[ABX]

Meshach Taylor from 'Designing Women' dies at 67

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/06/29/meshach-taylor-from-designing-women-dies-at-67/

[Machiavelli]

Frank M. Robinson (1926-2014)

Author, editor, and pulp magazine scholar Frank M. Robinson, 87, died June 30, 2014. Robinson lived in San Francisco and had suffered from health problems in recent years...

His first novel, The Power (1956, filmed in 1967), was an extremely successful SF thriller -- one of the first of that genre. In the ’70s and ’80s, he co-wrote a number of technothrillers (most with SFnal elements) with Thomas N. Scortia: The Glass Inferno (1974, filmed as The Towering Inferno) ...

More

The Power is one of my favorite books.

Robinson was also a speechwriter for Harvey Milk.

Wikipedia

[Machiavelli]

More on Frank M. Robinson:

In Memoriam – Frank M. Robinson

RIP author and Harvey Milk speechwriter—and former Chicagoan—Frank M. Robinson

[Machiavelli]

Paul Mazursky dies at 84; director chronicled trends of '60s and '70s

Paul Mazursky, the Oscar-nominated writer-director who excelled at mining the urban middle class for laughs as well as tears in such movies as "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," "Blume in Love," "An Unmarried Woman" and "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," has died. He was 84.

Mazursky died of pulmonary cardiac arrest Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to family spokeswoman Nancy Willen.

A gentle satirist of contemporary society, Mazursky at his best chronicled the social trends of the late 1960s and the '70s, including its touchy-feely self-improvement fads, shifting rules for love and sex, drug experimentation and other excesses.

More

Wikipedia

IMDb

[DCPatriot]

'McHale's Navy' star Bob Hastings dies at 89




An actor best known from the 1960s sitcom "McHale's Navy," has died. Bob Hastings was 89.

Allison Knowles says her grandfather died Monday in his Burbank, California, home after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer.

Hastings won fans on "McHale's Navy" as Lt. Carpenter, a bumbling yes-man. Other memorable roles were on "All in the Family" and "General Hospital."


http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/07/02/mchale-navy-star-bob-hastings-dies-at-8-2139539308/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[mystery-ak]

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/211356-conservative-activist-richard-mellon-scaife-dies-at-at-82

Conservative activist Richard Mellon Scaife dies at 82

July 04, 2014, 08:10 am
Conservative activist Richard Mellon Scaife dies at 82

By Rachel Huggins

Richard Mellon Scaife, the billionaire heir to the Mellon banking and oil fortune, has died at age 82, the Associated Press reported Friday.

Scaife died early Friday at his home, according to his home newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

His death comes less than two months after he announced in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a newspaper he owned, that he had an untreatable form of cancer.

"Some who dislike me may rejoice at the news," wrote Scaife, "Naturally, I can't share their enthusiasm.

[Machiavelli]

Conservative activist Richard Mellon Scaife dies at 82

Richard Mellon Scaife Dies; Support for Conservative Causes Made Him Media Target

[Machiavelli]

Jim Brosnan, Who Threw Literature a Curve, Dies at 84

Jim Brosnan, who achieved modest baseball success as a relief pitcher but gained greater fame and consequence in the game by writing about it, died on June 29 in Park Ridge, Ill. He was 84.

The cause was an infection he developed while recovering from a stroke, his son, Timothy, said.

In 1959, Brosnan, who played nine years in the major leagues, kept a diary of his experience as a pitcher, first with the St. Louis Cardinals and later, after a trade, with the Cincinnati Reds. Published the next year as "The Long Season," it was a new kind of sportswriting -- candid, shrewd and highly literate, more interested in presenting the day-to-day lives and the actual personalities of the men who played the game than in maintaining the fiction of ballplayers as all-American heroes and role models.

More

Jim Brosnan is not to be confused with Jim Bouton. Bouton's book, Ball Four, came out a decade after Brosnan's first book, The Long Season.

Jim Brosnan, big-league pitcher and author of 'The Long Season,' dies at 84

Jim Brosnan dies at 84; relief pitcher wrote inside look at baseball

Wikipedia

Career statistics

[flowers]

Eileen Ford, Founder of Ford Models, Is Dead at 92

http://www.people.com/article/eileen-ford-dies

Eileen Ford, who co-founded Ford Models with her husband Jerry in 1946 – essentially inventing the modern modeling business, and exerting enormous influence on the world's views of human beauty – has died at 92.

She had been hospitalized last week after suffering a fall at her New York apartment.

In a statement to PEOPLE about her mother, Katie Ford said:

"Eileen loved Jerry and her family and her friends, as well as Le Cirque, football, ballet, bellini's, Benny Goodman, “21”, books on history, the New York Post and The New York Times, Seinfeld, The Stork Club, her flower garden, The Ritz in Paris, champagne and

[jmyrlefuller]

Dickie Jones, voice of Pinocchio in the 1940 Disney film and 1950s Western character actor, dies at 87

Actor Dick Jones appeared in more than 100 films and television shows in his long career, but he is best known by far for a role in which he was not seen on screen. At about 10, when he was known as Dickie, Jones was chosen by Walt Disney to be the voice of Pinocchio in the classic 1940 animated film. Jones, 87, died Monday night after a fall at home in Northridge, said his son, Rick Jones.

L.A. Times obituary

Wikipedia

[ABX]

Tommy Ramone

Sad news to report, as drummer Tommy Ramone, the last surviving founding member of the legendary punk band The Ramones, has passed away at the age of 62.

Following a tragic period from 2001 to 2004 where Joey, Dee Dee and Johnny Ramone all died within a few years of each other, Tommy had remained the only living founding member of The Ramones until yesterday (July 11). The drummer died after a battle with bile duct cancer.

Tommy, whose real name was Erdelyi Tamas, was born in Budapest, Hungary, but grew up in Queens, N.Y., where the Ramones famously formed. He played on the band’s first three studio albums — ‘The Ramones,’ ‘Leave Home’ and ‘Rocket To Russia’ — before leaving the band in 1978. He also appeared on the band’s 1979 live disc ‘It’s Alive.’


Read More: Founding Ramones Drummer Tommy Ramone Dies | http://loudwire.com/tommy-ramone-dies/?trackback=tsmclip

http://loudwire.com/tommy-ramone-dies/

[Machiavelli]

Lorin Maazel, Brilliant, Intense and Enigmatic Conductor, Dies at 84

Lorin Maazel, a former child prodigy who went on to hold the music directorships of the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera and several other ensembles and companies around the world, and who was known for his incisive and sometimes extreme interpretations, died on Sunday at his home in Castleton, Va. He was 84.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, said Jenny Lawhorn, a spokeswoman for Mr. Maazel. He had been rehearsing for the Castleton Festival, which takes place on his farm, in recent weeks.

More

Wikipedia

[Machiavelli]

Red Klotz, loser of thousands of games to the Harlem Globetrotters, dies at 93

Red Klotz, who owned, coached and played for a number of teams that toured with and lost to the Harlem Globetrotters -- most famously the Washington Generals -- died Saturday in his sleep in Margate, N.J., the Press of Atlantic City reported. He was 93.

Klotz was a prep basketball standout in Philadelphia, twice being named that city's high school player of the year before going on to play at Villanova. He was on the Baltimore Bullets' 1947-48 NBA championship team. At 5 feet 7, he is tied with six others as the third-shortest NBA player ever, and was the shortest player ever to be on an NBA championship team.

In 1952, Globetrotters owner Gabe Saperstein asked if Klotz would form a team to compete against the Globetrotters on a regular basis.

More

Wikipedia

Stats

I remember him well.

[Machiavelli]

Blues legend Johnny Winter dies at 70 in Zurich

Texas blues legend Johnny Winter, known for his lightning-fast blues guitar riffs, his striking long white hair and his collaborations with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and childhood hero Muddy Waters, has died. He was 70.

Winter was a leading light among the white blues guitar players, including Eric Clapton and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, who followed in the footsteps of the earlier Chicago blues masters. Winter idolized Waters -- and got a chance to produce some of the blues legend's more popular albums. Rolling Stone magazine named Winter one of the top 100 guitarists of all time.

More

Wikipedia

[Machiavelli]

Elaine Stritch, Tart-Tongued Broadway Actress and Singer, Is Dead at 89

Elaine Stritch, the brassy, tart-tongued Broadway actress and singer who became a living emblem of show business durability and perhaps the leading interpreter of Stephen Sondheim's wryly acrid musings on aging, died on Thursday at her home in Birmingham, Mich. She was 89.

Her death was confirmed by a friend, Julie Keyes. Before Ms. Stritch moved to Birmingham last year, she lived for many years at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan.

Ms. Stritch's career began in the 1940s and spanned almost 70 years. She made her fair share of appearances in movies, including Woody Allen's "September" (1987) and "Small Time Crooks" (2000), and on television; well into her 80s, she had a recurring role on the NBC comedy "30 Rock" as the domineering mother of the television executive played by Alec Baldwin.

But the stage was her true professional home. Whether in musicals, nonmusical dramas or solo cabaret shows, she drew audiences to her with her whiskey voice, her seen-it-all manner and the blunt charisma of a star.

More

Wikipedia

[DCPatriot]

http://www.tmz.com/2014/07/19/james-garner-dead-dies-maverick-rockford-files/

Legendary actor James Garner -- star of "The Rockford Files" and "The Notebook" -- has died ... TMZ has learned.

Law enforcement sources tell us an ambulance was dispatched to the actor's home in Los Angeles around 8PM Saturday evening ... and he was dead when they arrived on scene.

We do not know his cause of death at this time.

[DCPatriot]

Former Cowboys running back Robert Newhouse dead at 64

By Clarence E. Hill Jr.



Former Dallas Cowboys fullback Robert Newhouse, who will be remembered most for throwing a touchdown pass to Golden Richards while running to his left in Super Bowl XII on one of Tom Landry’s famous trick plays, died Tuesday night. He was 64.

Newhouse battled health issues since suffering a stroke in 2010.

He spent much of the past year at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., hoping to get a heart transplant.

Newhouse never got strong enough for the transplant before succumbing to heart disease at the Mayo Clinic, his son Rodd Newhouse confirmed Tuesday night.

His final days were a stark contrast to how he lived and how he played football during a 12-year career with the Cowboys that included three Super Bowl appearances and a Super Bowl title in 1977.

Generously listed at 5-foot-10, 209 pounds, Newhouse ran with power, typified by his always churning massive thighs.

He had two nicknames during his career with the Cowboys, “House” and “human bowling ball” for his low-running style through defenses with those powerful thighs.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/07/22/5988448/former-cowboys-running-back-robert.html?rh=1

[Machiavelli]

Dick Smith, Oscar-Winning Makeup Artist, Dies at 92

Dick Smith, who made flesh peel from famous actors' faces, who made the young old and the beautiful hideous and who transformed a girl into a particularly possessed tween -- all while working as one of film and television's most original and accomplished makeup artists, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 92...

Those growling jowls of Marlon Brando in "The Godfather" movies? Mr. Smith applied them.

The brooding F. Murray Abraham in "Amadeus"? Mr. Smith helped turn Mr. Abraham's Antonio Salieri, the composer and rival of the upstart young Mozart, into a hoary relic as an embittered, and somewhat mad, old man.

David Bowie aging before your eyes in "The Hunger"? Mr. Smith's were the hands of time.

And little Linda Blair, who played the 12-year-old possessed by evil in "The Exorcist"? Mr. Smith made her head spin and spew green vomit and filled her mouth with decaying teeth. He made her pupils all but erupt from her eyeballs. Years later, he still had the fiberglass version of her head, the one that swiveled 360 degrees...

More

Wikipedia

[rangerrebew]

Can we name some we would like to see join the goners?

[EC]

Can we name some we would like to see join the goners?

We ain't on enough watch lists already?

 

[jmyrlefuller]

Margot Adler, An NPR Journalist For Three Decades and Author, Dies

Margot joined the NPR staff as a general assignment reporter in 1979. She went on to cover everything from the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic to confrontations involving the Ku Klux Klan in Greensboro, N.C., to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Her reporting was singular and her voice distinct," Margaret Low Smith, NPR's vice president for news, said in an announcement to staff. "There was almost no story that Margot couldn't tell."

Adler authored Drawing Down the Moon, a 1979 book about Neopaganism which was revised in 2006.  The book is considered a watershed in American Neopagan circles, as it provided the first comprehensive look at modern nature-based religions in the US. For many years it was the only introductory work about the American Neopagan communities.

Obituary

Wikipedia

[Machiavelli]

James Brady, White House press secretary under Reagan, dies

James Brady, who served as White House press secretary under President Ronald Reagan and was badly wounded in the assassination attempt against Reagan in 1981, has died. He was 73.

Brady, later in life, became an active and outspoken advocate for gun control, and lobbied for stricter handgun and assault-weapon laws.

More

Wikipedia

[Machiavelli]

Peter Sculthorpe: Prolific Australian composer dies aged 85

Internationally renowned Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe, whose work was shaped by his love of the Australian landscape, has died aged 85.

The Launceston-born composer passed away at Wolper Jewish Hospital in Sydney after a long illness.

Sculthorpe's best-known achievement was his capacity to bring to Australians a sense of their land and history in the music of one of their own.

His many remarkable compositions were strongly influenced by Asian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music, and centred around his deep love for Australia and its landscape.

More

Wikipedia

[Machiavelli]

Solomon Islander who helped JFK save PT-109 crew dies

On a moonless night in August 1943, on a pitch-black strait in the Solomon Islands, two vessels collided.

A fireball bloomed, and the Navy gave up John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 crew for dead. But Lieutenant Kennedy fought, swimming for hours with his 10 remaining crewmembers, pulling one along by holding his life jacket strap in his teeth.

Kennedy’s heroics may have been for naught without Eroni Kumana and Biuku Gasa, two Solomon Islanders. They found Kennedy and his crew six days after the wreck, subsisting on coconuts on a small island.

The two took a message from Kennedy, which he etched into a green coconut, and paddled at great risk 35 miles through Japanese territory to deliver it to the nearest Allied base. A rescue was launched. The crew, and the future president, were saved.

Gasa died in 2005; Kumana died last week.

More

Wikipedia article on Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana