Showing posts with label Obit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obit. Show all posts

Sunday, June 17, 2012

RODNEY KING, 47

Can't we all just get along?

Not now.

From Gawker:
Rodney King, who was at the center of a police brutality trial after a vicious 1991 beating, has died at 47. 
The officers who attacked King were acquitted in 1992, leading to the Los Angeles riots. 
According to TMZ's sources, King's fiancée found him dead at the bottom of a pool, but there are few other details at this time.

Sunday, June 03, 2012

RICHARD DAWSON, 79

The once-ubiquitous television personality died in Los Angeles on Saturday night. He was 79.

From The Associated Press:
Dawson won a daytime Emmy Award in 1978 as best TV game show host. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called him "the fastest, brightest and most beguilingly caustic interlocutor since the late great Groucho bantered and parried on 'You Bet Your Life.'" The show was so popular it was released as both daytime and syndicated evening versions.
He was known for kissing each woman contestant, and at the time the show bowed out in 1985, executive producer Howard Felsher estimated that Dawson had kissed "somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000."

"I kissed them for luck and love, that's all," Dawson said at the time.

He reprised his game show character in a much darker mood in the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film "The Running Man," playing the host of a deadly TV show set in a totalitarian future, where convicts try to escape as their executioners stalk them. "Saturday Night Live" mocked him in the 1970s, with Bill Murray portraying him as leering and nasty, even slapping one contestant (John Belushi) for getting too fresh.
Plus Dawson was part of the whole "Hogan's Heroes" bunch in the 1960s, making it OK to laugh at Nazis.

Friday, May 25, 2012

LED ZEPPELIN II, 64


He was born George Blackburn, but he changed his name after a divorce last year to honor the band, and to get a fresh start.

Wasn't much of a start. Blackburn died in Illinois of a heart attack. He was 64.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

EUGENE POLLEY, 96


The man who made us lazy is dead.

Eugene Polley invented a little thing called the remote control back in 1955 for Zenith. Before his gadget became the norm, people actually had to get their asses out of the chair or off the couch to change the channel (back in L.A. in the pre-cable days, we had five, count 'em, five channels to enjoy).

As a result, asses weren't so gargantuan, and channel-flipping wasn't so fun.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Thursday, June 25, 2009

ELVIS PRESLEY, PART II

Michael Jackson's death has the cable pundits speculating on parallels between the King of Pop and the Queen of Pulp, Anna Nicole Smith. Both so sad, the talking heads say. Both so alike.

Gah. Let the heads blather with their short-term memory. Jackson's death is simply Elvis Presley, Part Two. We have a Memphis newspaper from Aug. 17, 1977, the morning after Presley literally left the building. The early word then was that Presley died of a heart attack. Heart just stopped. Nothing to see here, so take care of your own business and move along.

Hindsight gives us the real story -- Presley keeling off the toilet, colon clogged from too many years relying on a bad diet of fatty foods and tasty prescription pills. "Cardiac arrest" was only the technical cause of death, and there was nothing natural about why Presley's heart stopped after a brief 42 years.

Michael Jackson died Thursday of cardiac arrest at 50. Another ticker technicality. In recent years, Jackson admitted under oath that he'd replaced Bubbles the Chimp with a new monkey, this one biting into the back of his neck thanks to doctors willing to write 'scripts to a musical genius. No useless filler, like those pesky street bags of smack. Only the best legal high for pop-culture royalty.

Friends say Jackson was clean and working hard, preparing for his ironically named "This Is It" concert tour. The tox reports may show nothing acute. The damage was chronic.

The thirty and fortysomethings are freaked out tonight, just like our older siblings and parents were when Elvis died. And like Godfather II, EP2 is better than the original. Elvis could sing and swivel, but he couldn't write a decent song. MJ walked around with "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" percolating in his head. He was the most magnificent entertainer in the last half of the last century, and maybe that's why he was such a freak. Great genius, great madness. A thinner line than the one separating love and hate.

Elvis Part II is a story so massive, MTV broke format on Thursday and started playing Michael Jackson videos. Imagine -- videos on MTV. If that's what it takes, get Madonna on an experimental plane, stat.

Friday, April 03, 2009

AKIKO HIRATA, 81

The matriarch of the CHATTER typing clan died Monday, March 30. She was diagnosed with lung cancer last summer.

A service will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at Pershing Memorial Hospital in Brookfield, Mo., where Mom worked for many years.

Many people in Brookfield knew her by her American name, Jo Ann Davis. Everyone knew her as a big heart inside a tiny body.

It'll be OK. She said so herself.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

NATASHA RICHARDSON, 45

The actress died Wednesday, according to WCBS:
"Liam Neeson, his sons, and the entire family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Natasha. They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time."
Richardson died of an apparent head injury from a skiing accident.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, 149

Two months shy of its 150th anniversary, the Colorado newspaper announces its own death:
Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Rocky-owner Scripps, broke the news to the staff at noon (Thursday), ending nearly three months of speculation over the paper's future.

"People are in grief," Editor John Temple said at a news conference later.

Boehne told staffers that the Rocky was the victim of a terrible economy and an upheaval in the newspaper industry.

"Denver can't support two newspapers any longer," Boehne told staffers, some of whom cried at the news. "It's certainly not good news for you, and it's certainly not good news for Denver."

Reaction came from across the nation and around the block.

"The Rocky Mountain News has chronicled the storied, and at times tumultuous, history of Colorado for nearly 150 years. I am deeply saddened by this news, and my heart goes out to all the talented men and women at the Rocky," U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said in a statement. "I am grateful for their hard work and dedication to not only their profession, but the people of Colorado as well."
The last issue of the paper is Friday.

Founded in 1859 by William Byers, the Rocky won four Pulitzers in the past decade.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

MOURN THE CHRON

This is the year daily newspapering descends into a coma. This week the Philadelphia Inquirer went bankrupt. Now, word of two significant dailies possibly going nips-up. As Reuters reports:
San Francisco may lose its main newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, as owner Hearst Corp cuts a "significant" number of jobs and decides whether to shut or sell the money-losing daily. The privately held New York-based publisher already is considering shutting a second West Coast paper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, in the face of a devastating decline in advertising revenue and big losses.
Wingnuts on both fringes will cheer the decline of American newspapering. They will realize, too late, that killing the tree means no fruit for anyone.

Friday, February 20, 2009

SOCKS, 19


The cat that lived in the White House during the Clinton Administration died Friday. WCSH reports:
Socks had been suffering from cancer of the jaw. The cat lived in Washington with (Bill) Clinton's former White House secretary, Betty Currie.

Socks was the grand marshal of a parade in 2002, and was a fixture on the White House lawn with Buddy, the Clintons' dog.

Curry said she planned to have Socks cremated.
RIP, kitty.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

BETTIE PAGE, 85

Legendary pinup. Died Thursday night in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since a Dec. 2 heart attack.

The Los Angeles Times reports:
"Bettie Page captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality," said Roesler, chairman of the Indianapolis-based CMG Worldwide, who was at Page's side when she died. "She was a dear friend and a special client and one of the most beautiful and influential women of the 20th century."

A religious woman in her later life, Page was mystified by her influence on modern popular culture. "I have no idea why I'm the only model who has had so much fame so long after quitting work," she said in an interview with The Times in 2006.

She had one request for that interview: that her face not be photographed.

"I want to be remembered," she said, "as I was when I was young and in my golden times. ... I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people's perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form."
The best way to be remembered.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

NEAL HEFTI, 85

Composed the theme from the TV series "Batman." Also came up with themes for "The Odd Couple," "Barefoot in the Park."

He used to be a Big Band trumpeter. And he won a Grammy for the Batman theme. Truly, a blessed life.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Sunday, August 03, 2008

ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN, 89

Death announced late Sunday by his son. He was a Nobel Prize winner.

According to The Associated Press:
Through unflinching accounts of the years he spent in the Soviet gulag, Solzhenitsyn's novels and non-fiction works exposed the secret history of the vast prison system that enslaved millions. The accounts riveted his countrymen and earned him years of bitter exile, but international renown.

And they inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person's courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire.
Ivan Denisovich lives on.

Friday, July 04, 2008

JESSE HELMS, 86

The former U.S. Senator died early Friday, proving his patriotism by expiring on the Fourth of July.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

BILL DIAL, 66

Smitty passes along an e-mail from Engineer Doug about the June 2 death of actor-turned-producer Bill Dial. Radioheads might remember him for his role as engineer Bucky Dornster in "WKRP in Cincinnati"

Dial appeared in two episodes, including "Turkeys Away," with its famous Les Nessman live report:
"Oh, they're plunging to the earth right in front of our eyes! One just went through the windshield of a parked car! Oh, the humanity! The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement!
As God is our witness.

Monday, June 16, 2008

TONY SCHWARTZ, 84

Media consultant. "Highly reclusive," according to The New York Times. Helped create the seminal moment in modern American politics.

From the Times obit:
“Media consultant” is barely adequate to describe Mr. Schwartz’s portfolio. In a career of more than half a century, he was variously an art director; advertising executive; urban folklorist who captured the cacophony of New York streets on phonograph records; radio host; Broadway sound designer; college professor, media theorist and author who wrote books about the persuasive power of sound and image; and maker of commercials for products, candidates and causes. What was more, Mr. Schwartz, who had suffered from agoraphobia since the age of 13, accomplished most of these things entirely within his Manhattan home.

Of the thousands of television and radio advertisements on which Mr. Schwartz worked, none is as well known, or as controversial, as one that was broadcast exactly once: the so-called “daisy ad,” made for Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential campaign in 1964.

Produced by the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach in collaboration with Mr. Schwartz, the minute-long spot was broadcast on Sept. 7, 1964, during NBC’s “Monday Night at the Movies.” It showed a little girl in a meadow (in reality a Manhattan park), counting aloud as she plucks the petals from a daisy. Her voice dissolves into a man’s voice counting downward, followed by the image of an atomic blast. President Johnson’s voice is heard on the soundtrack:

“These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.”
His mentor and friend was Marshall McLuhan. Figures.

Monday, June 02, 2008

BO DIDDLEY, 79

From The Associated Press:
A spokeswoman says Diddley died of heart failure. He had suffered a heart attack in August 2007, three months after suffering a stroke while touring in Iowa.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

HARVEY KORMAN, 81

Hedley Lamarr has left the building. Damn.

Korman died Thursday at UCLA Medical Center. He won Emmys for "The Carol Burnett Show." And, of course, he was Hedley Lamarr. It was a 10-gallon hat, and we did enjoy the show.