The RIP Famous Person Thread

'Annie,' 'The Producers' writer Thomas Meehan dies at 88
3:23 PM CDT Aug 22, 2017

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Tony Award-winning author Thomas Meehan, known for popular Broadway musical "Annie," has died. He was 88.

His death was confirmed by lyricist Martin Charnin.

"Annie" ran for more than 2,300 shows. It earned Meehan his first Tony Award.

He also wrote "Ain't Broadway Grand," "Bombay Dreams," "Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge" and "The Producers."

Meehan wrote books for musicals "Young Frankenstein" and "Cry-Baby." he co-wrote the book for "Elf the Musical" and "Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin." He also wrote the book for the musical adaptation of the original "Rocky" film.

'She had no idea': Man pops the question during solar eclipse

Comic actor Jay Thomas dies aged 69

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YEREVAN, AUGUST 25, ARMENPRESS. American comic actor Jay Thomas, who starred on the sitcoms Murphy Brown and Cheers, has died at the age of 69, The Hollywood Reporter reports.

He died after a long battle with cancer.

Thomas played the obnoxious TV talk-show host Jerry Gold (and Candice Bergen's on-again, off-again boyfriend) on CBS' Murphy Brown from 1989-98 — winning a pair of Emmys — after his stint as Rhea Perlman’s husband Eddie LeBec, a French-Canadian goalie with the Boston Bruins, on NBC's Cheers. On the latter, his character winds up appearing in an ice show and gets killed by a Zamboni.

Thomas also starred on his own sitcom, playing an egotistical sportswriter opposite Susan Dey and then Annie Potts on CBS' Love and War, a 1992-95 series created by Murphy Brown's Diane English.


https://armenpress.am/eng/news/90302...s-aged-69.html

It's from the BBC.

It's official.

Rich Piana has passed.

RIP.

Celebrity US bodybuilder Rich Piana dies aged 46 after collapsing two weeks ago - BBC Newsbeat

drew morphett rip

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Tobe Hooper, Director Of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Dies at 74
By Paul Heath - Aug 27, 2017

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Tobe Hooper, the legendary filmmaker of such horror classics as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist, has sadly passed away at the age of 74.

Hooper passed away on Saturday 26th August in Sherman Oaks, California, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner, though the circumstances of his death were not known.

Hooper directed the classic ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ back in 1974 for less than $300,000. It went to gross over $30 million, despite being banned in many global territories for many years, including the UK. He went on to direct the Steven Spielberg-produced Poltergeist in 1982. Both films had remakes made in the past few years.

Hooper also had the likes of Salem’s Lot, The Mangler, and Night Terrors on his resume throughout his multi-decade career.

Tobe Hooper, Director Of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Dies at 74

Perhaps it was Wes Craven who offered the definitive comment on Tobe Hooper’s macabre masterpiece from 1975, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Craven called it “Mansonite” and in a spirit of dark humour he applied the adjective as much to the film’s creator as the thing itself. The director had invaded our minds with this diabolically horrible film and very much moved the furniture around in our skulls.

This was the nightmarish story of a man called Leatherface who wears a gruesome mask and kills people with a variety of implements including a chainsaw. Like Norman Bates before, and Dr Hannibal Lecter afterwards, the grisly, skin-crawling, skin-flaying Leatherface had been taken from the real-life story of Ed Gein, the 50s serial killer who made trophies out of human remains.

But it is not merely that Leatherface is an implacable, irrational and essentially motiveless killer: he is part of a secret family or cult within whose enclosed society these horrendous acts have become normalised as part of an evolved ritual. The point is that the “family”, so readily evoked as the benchmark of wholesome American normality, can be anything but. Families are private; families keep their own secrets; families mind their own business. In the wilderness, where outsiders are rare, where neighbours are 30 minutes’ drive away, and the uniformed forces of law and order further still, this can mean a great many things.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre became a locus classicus of the censorship and screen violence debates here when it was refused a certificate by the British Board of Film Classification upon its first release in 1975, and then in the 1980s, as the era of VCR and video rental dawned, had its brief video release cancelled along with many other ultraviolent provocations such as Hooper’s next film Eaten Alive (1977), Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980), Wes Craven’s Last House On The Left (1972) — notably inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s Virgin Spring — and Meir Zarchi’s I Spit On Your Grave (1980).

These became the much-feared, much-gloated-over “video nasties” and were refused certificates for two decades after this. But then, inevitably, the rules were relaxed and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre progressed to being a cult classic, a movie revered by new generations of directors. The masked figure became a staple of horror and of course The Texas Chainsaw Massacre featured that strangely persistent trope: the final girl, the young woman who achieves a queasy, Pyrrhic victory of survival, balanced against the monster’s own survival, an undiminished threat which, quite unlike any other movie genre, flavours the closing credits with that sense of non-ending, and open-ended fear and possible sequel.

Tobe Hooper learned — or rather taught — a lesson which had been imbibed by other film-makers like George A. Romero and belatedly by Hitchcock himself. Pure low-budget horror can be a liberating challenge, and for a technically gifted director it offers the chance to unleash electrifyingly powerful forces within an audience. Another kind of film might hope, with a cleverly composed series of shots, to make its audience sigh, or laugh, or cheer or choke up with tears. A horror director, with approximately the same skillset, can get a colossally bigger payoff: a scream of horror, a yelp of fear that you will remember for the rest of your life. And a brilliant low-budget horror picture can turn huge profits, despite or because of the restrictions on distribution. The economics of horror, particularly in that era, created masterminds of genre cinema — like Tobe Hooper.

As for censorship and violent movies, it has been many years since this was a hot-button issue, long since replaced by cyberbullying and grooming on social media. The most strident newspapers in the UK prefer now to pursue winnable campaigns and it has dawned us that these films are now readily available and civilisation as we know it has not come to an end. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, for all its guignol gore, actually showed less explicit horror than people imagined.

Many people have ineradicable memories of first having seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as teenagers. I in fact saw it much later, as a student, so had maybe become a bit hardened — or liked to think so. The Tobe Hooper films which really did cause the evacuation of my living daylights were The Funhouse (1981) and Poltergeist (1982). Poltergeist is a brilliant, but atypical Tobe Hooper film about the ghosts in a brand new house belonging to a real estate developer. But the auteur-ist bragging rights arguably belong to Steven Spielberg who wrote and produced, and was himself in touch with the forces of B-movie darkness.

The authentic slash of Hooper nastiness belongs to The Funhouse which I saw on video, and creeped me out most royally. Four attractive teens get trapped in a carnival, pursued by a horribly deformed killer. The scene in the ghost train in which one of them takes an axe to what they think is their pursuer is one of the most purely horrible, perhaps even evil things I have ever seen in a film. My callous friends all laughed heartily at it. I pretended to do the same. Perhaps I was not a natural audience for Hooper’s genius. But it has only just occurred to me that my friends were pretending too.

Tobe Hooper was an inheritor of that potent streak of madness that has been with us since Titus Andronicus and then the Jacobean nightmares of the English stage; he was a horror director of pure dark inspiration.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/201...merican-family

Two of the worst films I have ever taken the time to watch.

Whatever...........RIP.

I never watched them, sick people to even think of it.

Fucking brilliant films.

"Granpappy makes the best head cheese" :rofl:

RIP Tobe.

Upon its October 1974 release, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was banned outright in several countries, and numerous theaters later stopped showing the film in response to complaints about its violence.

While it initially drew a mixed reception from critics, it was enormously profitable, grossing over $30 million at the domestic box office. It has since received a positive reappraisal and gained a reputation as one of the best and most influential horror films in cinema history.

It is credited with originating several elements common in the slasher genre, including the use of power tools as murder weapons and the characterization of the killer as a large, hulking, faceless figure. The popularity of the film led to a franchise that continued the story of Leatherface and his family through sequels, remakes, one prequel, comic books and video games.

His Most Famous Work Fascinated Theater Audiences and Movie Goers Worldwide: ‘Elephant Man’ Author Bernard Pomerance Dies at 76
Aug 29, 2017

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A writer whose most famous work became a Tony Award-winning play and an acclaimed film that earned eight Oscar nominations has died. USA Today reports that Bernard Pomerance, best known for writing “The Elephant Man,” died Saturday of complications from cancer at his home in Galisteo, N.M. He was 76.

“The Elephant Man’s” title role was played by some of Hollywood’s top stars, including Bradley Cooper and John Hurt.

“‘The Elephant Man’ was based on a true story and has been frequently revived since its 1979 New York debut. It examines the life of John Merrick, an extremely disfigured but indomitable man who becomes a celebrity in Victorian London,” USA Today reports. “On Broadway, such diverse performers as David Bowie and Mark Hamill eventually followed the mesmerizing Philip Anglim in the title role. Billy Crudup starred in a 2002 revival, and Cooper led one in 2014 that earned four Tony nominations.”

David Lynch’s 1980 film adaptation, which starred Hurt, earned eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Hurt and Best Director for Lynch.

“Pomerance’s tale showcases the triumph of a very human spirit, personified by the sensitive, almost saintly Merrick,” the report notes. “He is a man who finds safe haven in a London hospital after spending much of his life in second-rate carnivals as a freak attraction — and then blossoms into the confidante of celebrated actresses, statesmen and even royalty.”

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His Most Famous Work Fascinated Theater Audiences and Movie Goers Worldwide: ?Elephant Man? Author Bernard Pomerance Dies at 76 | TVWeek

Walter Becker, Steely Dan Co-Founder, Dead at 67

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted bassist-guitarist's partnership with Donald Fagen yielded classic LPs like 'Aja,' 'Katy Lied' and 'Pretzel Logic'
Walter Becker, guitarist, bassist and co-founder of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted band Steely Dan, died Sunday at the age of 67.

Becker's official site announced the death; no cause of death or other details were provided.
"Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967," Donald Fagen wrote in a tribute to Becker. "He was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny."
Becker missed Steely Dan's Classic East and West concerts in July as he recovered from an unspecified ailment. "Walter's recovering from a procedure and hopefully he'll be fine very soon," Fagen told Billboard at the time. Becker's doctor advised the guitarist not to leave his Maui home for the performances.

Becker and Fagen first became collaborators when they were both students at New York's Bard College. After working as songwriters (Barbra Streisand's "I Mean to Shine") and members of Jay and the Americans' backing band, the duo moved to California in the early Seventies to form Steely Dan – named after a sex toy in William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch – alongside guitarists Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and Denny Dias, drummer Jim Hodder and singer David Palmer.
Following the release of their debut 1972 LP Can't Buy a Thrill, the lineup would change again with Palmer's exit; while Steely Dan would routinely rotate musicians, Becker and Fagen remained the group's core members. Despite the ever-changing lineup, Steely Dan made their stamp on music with a string of pristine, sophisticated albums with "calculated and literary lyrics" that blurred the lines of jazz, pop, rock and soul.
"I'm not interested in a rock/jazz fusion," Becker told Rolling Stone in 1974. "That kind of marriage has so far only come up with ponderous results. We play rock & roll, but we swing when we play. We want that ongoing flow, that lightness, that forward rush of jazz."
He added, "I learned music from a book on piano theory. I was only interested in knowing about chords. From that, and from the Harvard Dictionary of Music, I learned everything I wanted to know."

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Walter Becker, Steely Dan Co-Founder, Dead at 67 - Rolling Stone

Loved these bloke's back in the day.

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Read Rickie Lee Jones' Poignant Tribute to Steely Dan's Walter Becker

Read Rickie Lee Jones' Poignant Tribute to Walter Becker - Rolling Stone

It's a Country and Western double header!

Country Music Legend, Don Williams, Dies at 78
September 9, 2017

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Don Williams, the American Country Music Hall of Fame member whose imposing height and warm, reassuring voice earned him the nickname “Gentle Giant,” died yesterday after a short illness.
An internationally popular country star, Williams recorded dozens of hit songs, including “Tulsa Time,” “Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good” and “It Must Be Love.” He was 78.

“In giving voice to songs like ‘Good Ole Boys Like Me,’ ‘Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good,’ and ‘Amanda,’ Don Williams offered calm, beauty, and a sense of wistful peace that is in short supply these days. His music will forever be a balm in troublesome times. Everyone who makes country music with grace, intelligence, and ageless intent will do so while standing on the shoulders of this gentle giant,” Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young said in a statement yesterday.

Born in Floydada, Texas, on May 27th, 1939, Williams was raised in Portland, Texas, where he learned guitar from his mother. Initially performing in Corpus Christi in a duo called Strangers Two with singer Lofton Kline, Williams and his partner met singer Susan Taylor and formed the folk-pop trio that would be called the Pozo-Seco Singers. Based in Nashville, the trio earned two Top 40 tunes, “I Can Make It With You,” and “Look What You’ve Done,” in late 1966.
After the group disbanded, Williams returned to Texas to sell furniture in his father’s store before returning to Music City to embark on a solo career. “Cowboy” Jack Clement signed Williams as a songwriter to his Jack Music publishing company, where he recorded demos for songwriter-producer Allen Reynolds, who later went on to helm projects for Crystal Gayle and Garth Brooks, among many others.

When other artistes proved reluctant to record Williams’ songs, Clement signed him as an artiste to his JMI Records, releasing his first country single, “Don’t You Believe,” in 1972. In 1974, the label issued “We Should Be Together,” which became the singer’s first Top Five hit. Later that year, he scored the first of 17 Number One singles with the romantic “I Wouldn’t Want to Live If You Didn’t Love Me.” The visionary Clement also shot some of the industry’s first-ever music videos for Williams’ early hits.
In 1980, Williams, who had quickly gained an overseas following, was named Artiste of the Decade by the readers of the London-based magazine, Country Music People. That same year, he reached the pop Top Forty with the tender “I Believe in You,” Between 1974 and 1991, of the nearly 50 singles he released, first on Dot, then ABC/Dot – which would become MCA – then Capitol and finally RCA, all but three reached the Top Ten.

In 1976, Williams became an Opry member, and was crowned CMA Male Vocalist of the Year in 1978, with his version of Danny Flowers’ “Tulsa Time” earning CMA Single of the Year. In 1981, he joined Emmylou Harris on “If I Needed You,” a Top Five duet that would introduce the masses to the work of songwriter Townes Van Zandt. In the late Eighties, Williams quit touring after suffering back problems but soon picked up, with several hits for RCA until 1991’s “Lord Have Mercy on a Country Boy” ended his streak. Williams was consistently an international ambassador of country music, earning a massive following in Europe, especially in the U.K. and Ireland, as well as Australia and Africa.
In addition to his recording career, Williams appeared in the 1975 Burt Reynolds films W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings and 1980’s Smokey and the Bandit II. He later name-checked Reynolds in the 1982 Bob McDill-penned hit, “If Hollywood Don’t Need You (Honey, I Still Do),” which was one of the many singles co-produced by Williams with longtime collaborator Garth Fundis.

In 2004, he released his My Heart to You LP for Sugar Hill Records; although he staged a 2006 farewell tour, he came out of retirement in October 2010, the same month he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. By that time, he had released more than 35 albums. His most recent studio album, Reflections, was released in 2014. He retired from touring for good two years later.

Williams’ songs have been recorded by country superstars Alan Jackson and Lee Ann Womack, as well as rock legends Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton. Just one day before he turned 78, last May, tribute album Gentle Giants: The Songs of Don Williams was issued. A testament to his widespread and long-lasting influence, the LP featured performances of beloved Williams hits by Alison Krauss, Chris Stapleton, Pistol Annies, Brandy Clark, Keb’ Mo’, Trisha Yearwood, Garth Brooks, Lady Antebellum, songwriter Roger Cook, Dierks Bentley, John Prine and Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires. A special tribute to the longtime Grand Ole Opry member was also performed on the Opry stage just days after that album was released. That same month, the concert CD/DVD package, Don Williams in Ireland: The Gentle Giant in Concert, was released, featuring an onstage performance from the Emerald Isle.

Country Music Legend, Don Williams, Dies at 78 | THISDAYLIVE

Troy Gentry of Montgomery Gentry Dies at 50

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Troy Gentry of the country duo Montgomery Gentry died in a helicopter crash on Friday (Sept. 8) at the Flying W Airport in Medford, New Jersey, where his was scheduled to perform later the day. He was 50.

Both Gentry and one other aboard the flight perished. Gentry's bandmate, Eddie Montgomery, was not on the helicopter.

The band's Twitter account confirmed the news of Gentry's death, noting the crash took place around 1 p.m. local time.

Montgomery Gentry has sold 5.2 million albums in the U.S. through Aug. 31, 2017, according to Nielsen Music. The duo’s best-selling album is 2002’s My Town, which sold has sold 1 million.

The pair has moved 6.4 million song downloads and collected 163.1 million on-demand streams in the U.S. as well.

Troy Gentry of Montgomery Gentry Dies at 50 | Billboard

Sir Peter Hall: Theatre giant dies aged 86
12 September 2017

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Founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company and former National Theatre director Sir Peter Hall has died at the age of 86.
He died on Monday at University College hospital in London, surrounded by his family, the National Theatre said.
During his career he staged the English language premiere of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and the world premiere of Harold Pinter's Homecoming.
Sir Peter had been diagnosed with dementia in 2011.
There will be a private family funeral, with details of a memorial service to be announced at a later date.

Sir Peter became director of the National in 1973 and was responsible for the theatre's move from the Old Vic to the purpose-built complex on the South Bank.
He founded the RSC at the age of just 29 in 1960 and then led the company until 1968.
Rufus Norris, current director of the National Theatre, said: 'We all stand on the shoulders of giants and Peter Hall's shoulders supported the entirety of British theatre as we know it.
"All of us, including those in the new generation of theatre-makers not immediately touched by his influence, are in his debt. His legendary tenacity and vision created an extraordinary and lasting legacy for us all."
'Godfather of British theatre'
Other former National Theatre directors lined up to pay tribute.
Sir Nicholas Hytner said: "Peter Hall was one of the great figures in British theatrical history, up there in a line of impresarios that stretches back to Burbage.
"He was the great theatrical buccaneer of the 20th century and has left a permanent mark on our culture," he added.
Sir Trevor Nunn described Sir Peter as "not only a thrilling and penetrating director, he was also the great impresario of the age".
And Sir Richard Eyre said Sir Peter "was - and is - the godfather (in both senses) of British theatre".

After leaving the National Theatre in 1988, he formed the Peter Hall Company (1988 - 2011) and in 2003 became the founding director of the Rose Theatre Kingston.
Throughout his career, Sir Peter was also a champion of public funding for the arts.
His other works included the London and Broadway premieres of Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce (1977) and the 1987 production of Antony and Cleopatra, starring Dame Judi Dench and Anthony Hopkins.
He also directed his daughter, the actress Rebecca Hall, in a 2003 production of Shakespeare's As You Like It.
Sir Peter's last production at the National Theatre was Twelfth Night in 2011.
He was also a renowned opera director and was the artistic director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera between 1994 and 1990).
In 1983, he staged Wagner's Ring Cycle to honour the 100th anniversary of the composer's death.
Sir Peter is survived by his wife, Nicki, children Christopher, Jennifer, Edward, Lucy, Rebecca and Emma and nine grandchildren.
His former wives, Leslie Caron, Jacqueline Taylor and Maria Ewing also survive him.

Sir Peter Hall: Theatre giant dies aged 86 - BBC News

Edith Windsor, who won a Supreme Court fight for same-sex marriage in the US, dies at 88

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Gay rights activist Edith Windsor died in New York on Tuesday, her lawyer Roberta Kaplan said. Although the cause of death was not specified, the 88-year-old had suffered from heart ailments for years.

Windsor was an LGBT rights pioneer. It was her case from 2009 in the United States Supreme Court that helped repeal parts of a federal law against gay marriage and paved the way for marriage equality in the country. In 2015, the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case gave same-sex couples the right to marry across the US.

“Few were as small in stature as Edie Windsor – and few made as big a difference to America,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement, calling her one of the “quiet heroes” whose efforts fueled the cause of equality.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Windsor “showed the world that love can be a powerful force for change”.

https://scroll.in/latest/850477/edit...-us-dies-at-88

The Sopranos actor Frank Vincent dies aged 78

Frank Vincent, who played the cruel mob boss Phil Leotardo on The Sopranos, has reportedly died. He was 78.
Vincent died of complications from heart surgery in New Jersey, TMZ reported.
Appearing alongside the late James Gandolfini in the critically acclaimed HBO crime drama, Vincent began acting in 1976 when he co-starred in the low-budget crime film The Death Collector alongside Joe Pesci.

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The Sopranos actor Frank Vincent dies aged 78 - 9News

Author J.P. Donleavy, who met scorn and then celebration with 'The Ginger Man,' dies at 91

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J.P. Donleavy, the incorrigible Irish American author and playwright whose ribald debut novel "The Ginger Man" met scorn, censorship and eventually celebration as a groundbreaking classic, has died at age 91.
Donleavy, a native New Yorker who lived his final years on an estate west of Dublin, died Monday in Ireland. His death was confirmed by personal assistant Deborah Goss.
The author of more than a dozen books, he sometimes was compared to James Joyce as a prose stylist, but also was admired for his sense of humor. "The Ginger Man," first published in 1955, sold more than 45 million copies and placed No. 99 on a Modern Library list of the greatest English language fiction of the 20th century.
"The Ginger Man' has undoubtedly launched thousands of benders, but it has also inspired scores of writers with its vivid and visceral narrative voice and the sheer poetry of its prose," American novelist Jay McInerney wrote in the introduction for a 2010 reissue.

When the novel was published, authorities targeted its profanity and graphic sexual content. It was banned in Ireland and the United States. Several publishers rejected the book before it was acquired by Paris-based Olympia Press, which specialized in explicit and avant-garde materials. To Donleavy's fury, Olympia released the book through an imprint dedicated to pornography.
"The Ginger Man" is an ambling, picaresque tale about the adventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, an American in Dublin after World War II who neglects and abuses his wife and child, mooches off his friends, bilks his landlords, drinks wherever he can run up a tab and rarely lets a woman's appearance go unnoticed.

"I have discovered one of the great ailments of Ireland, 67 percent of the population has never been completely naked in their lives," Sebastian observes. "I am bound to say that this must cause a great deal of the passive agony one sees in the street."
Often cited as prophetic of the cultural revolution of the 1960s, "The Ginger Man" sold so well that it enabled Donleavy to buy Olympia after he and the publisher spent years suing each other over rights to the book.

The author initially had less success adapting "The Ginger Man" for the stage. The play opened in London in 1959 with Richard Harris as Dangerfield, but closed within days in part because of objections from the Roman Catholic Church. A New York production starred Patrick O'Neal, who later opened a Manhattan restaurant and named it after Donleavy's book.

"The Ginger Man" is also among the most prominent novels never to have been made into a feature film, although those trying included Robert Redford, Mike Nichols and Johnny Depp.
Donleavy, a bearded, green-eyed man who spoke with an Anglicized accent, never lost his affinity for odd and provocative behavior. Cornelius Christian, the protagonist of "A Fairy Tale in New York," arrives at U.S. Customs with his wife's body in a box. In "A Singular Man," the wealthy George Smith composes a will that calls for his estate to be auctioned off and the proceeds "converted to banknotes of small denominations and placed in a steel receptacle six feet high and one foot in diameter."

Reviewing "A Singular Man" in 1963 for the National Observer, a little known Hunter S. Thompson praised Donleavy as a "humorist in the only sense of the word that has any dignity," one "forever at war with despair."
Sebastian Dangerfield was based on a classmate at Trinity College, but Donleavy seemed to share many of his vices, telling the Associated Press in 1992 that at school "I took my degree in drinking and harlotry in the finer pubs of Dublin."
He was married (and divorced) twice and was nonchalant when interviewers noted that his second wife twice conceived children with other men. He became an Irish citizen in middle age after the government granted artists tax-exempt status.

"Money, above all things," Donleavy responded when asked by the Paris Review in 1975 about his motivations. "Fame goes, but money never does. It's got its own beauty. It's never gone to ashes in my mouth. I've always exquisitely enjoyed it. And maybe a little bit of revenge."
The son of Irish immigrants, James Patrick Donleavy was born in New York City, wrote poetry as a child and had some early success as a painter before turning to fiction in his early 20s. As he explained to the Paris Review, he thought the novel was his quickest path to fame and set out to write a book that would "shake the world."

Donleavy served in the Navy during World War II, attended Trinity in the late 1940s and began working on "The Ginger Man" soon after. The author would endure a wave of rejections and recalled a visit to the Boston offices of Little, Brown and Company, which had recently published of J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher In the Rye."

"The editor called me around there on a hot, sweaty afternoon," he told the Paris Review. "He sat me a good distance away from his desk, and the manuscript was in a shadowy corner of the room. He leaned back in his chair very nervously and pointed at the manuscript, with his hand trembling, and said, 'There's obscene libel in that book!' So that was the end of Little, Brown."

Donleavy lived long enough in Ireland to absorb his adopted country's dark humor about mortality. "When I die," he once wrote, "I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Dublin." Another time, he composed an epitaph in rhyme:
"When I'm dead, I hope it may be said: his sins were scarlet, but his books were read."

Author J.P. Donleavy, who met scorn and then celebration with 'The Ginger Man,' dies at 91 - LA Times

Harry Dean Stanton

Harry Dean Stanton, whose scruffy looks and off-beat demeanour made him a favourite of directors seeking a character actor to add eccentricity or melancholy to the screen, has died from natural causes, his agent said. He was 91.

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Stanton, who appeared in some 70 movies and many television shows including Repo Man, Paris, Texas and most recently David Lynch's reboot of television's Twin Peaks, died peacefully at Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles, his agent John Kelly said in a statement.

Stanton's final on-screen role can be seen in the upcoming film Lucky.
YouTube: Harry Dean Stanton appears in the upcoming Indie film, Lucky.

In a career spanning 60 years, Stanton's roles were not always big but were meaningful and could add a special quirk or flavour to a film.

Sometimes he said very little in his roles, but with a long, craggy face highlighted by unkempt hair and sad, droopy eyes, Stanton had a strong physical presence and made a point of not over-acting.

"He's one of those actors who knows that his face is the story," his friend Sam Shepard, the playwright and actor, said in the 2012 documentary Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction.
YouTube: Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction trailer.

Shepard himself passed away in July this year at the age of 73.

Stanton credited Jack Nicholson with giving him vital professional advice. Nicholson had written a part for Stanton in the Western Ride the Whirlwind and told him, "Let the wardrobe do the acting and just play yourself."

"After Jack said that, my whole approach to acting opened up," Stanton told Entertainment Weekly.
Jack Nicholson and Harry Dean Stanton arrive at a premiere in 2002.
Photo: Jack Nicholson (L) and Harry Dean Stanton (R) arrive at a film premiere in 2002. (Reuters: Adrees Latif)

Stanton's eclectic body of work

Stanton worked with many of Hollywood's most notable directors, including Frances Ford Coppola (The Godfather Part Two and One From the Heart), Sam Peckinpah (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), Martin Scorsese (The Last Temptation of Christ), Ridley Scott (Alien), and Lynch (Wild at Heart, The Straight Story, and Inland Empire).

Stanton could be taciturn to the point of mystery. In Partly Fiction, when Lynch asked him how he would like to be remembered, Stanton replied: "It doesn't matter."

Two 1984 films cemented his reputation in Hollywood: Repo Man and Paris, Texas.

Repo Man became an independent cult film favourite with Stanton as a comically grizzled and paranoid car repossession expert trying to pass on his dubious code of ethics to his apprentice.

In Paris, Texas, written by Shepard and directed by Wim Wenders, he played an emotionally broken, nearly silent man trying to put his life and family back together — a portrayal that many in Hollywood thought should have at least earned Stanton an Oscar nomination.
Harry Dean Stanton lokos at a young kid in Paris Texas
Photo: One of Harry Dean Stanton's most prolific roles was in Paris, Texas. Here he appears alongside Hunter Carson. (Imdb: Road Movies Film Production)

Other notable Stanton movies were Pretty in Pink, The Missouri Breaks, Red Dawn, Escape From New York, The Green Mile and Cool Hand Luke."

In the 1960s, Stanton was frequently seen on US television in classic cowboy shows such as Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Bonanza and Have Gun, Will Travel.

In 2008-2009 he played a manipulative polygamist on the HBO series "Big Love."
Stanton portrayed a polygamist in HBO's Big Love.
Photo: Stanton portrayed a polygamist in HBO's Big Love. (Imdb: Big Love)

Stanton was born July 14, 1926, in West Irvine, Kentucky, to a tobacco farmer father and hairdresser mother who divorced when he was a teenager.

Stanton, who was a cook at the battle of Okinawa during his US Navy service in World War Two, became interested in acting while attending the University of Kentucky and pursued acting at the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse in California.

In the 1960s, Stanton and Nicholson were was part of a clique of hard-living Hollywood rebels who also included Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and various rock stars.

Stanton told an interviewer that he and Hopper had a running joke that some of Hopper's best work — in "Blue Velvet" and an Oscar-nominated part in "Hoosiers" — came in roles that Stanton had turned down.

Stanton made a second career of music, playing regularly in Los Angeles and sometimes touring with the Harry Dean Stanton Band, in which he sang and played guitar and harmonica.

Stanton never married but once told an interviewer he had "one, maybe two" sons.

Harry Dean Stanton, Repo Man, Twin Peaks Star, dies aged 91 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

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Originally Posted by bobo746

The Sopranos actor Frank Vincent dies aged 78


Frank Vincent, who played the cruel mob boss Phil Leotardo on The Sopranos, has reportedly died. He was 78.
Vincent died of complications from heart surgery in New Jersey, TMZ reported.
Appearing alongside the late James Gandolfini in the critically acclaimed HBO crime drama, Vincent began acting in 1976 when he co-starred in the low-budget crime film The Death Collector alongside Joe Pesci.

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The Sopranos actor Frank Vincent dies aged 78 - 9News

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ne of the really great Mafia characters!
O

^^ I met him many years ago. A John Huston movie, Wise Blood, in which Harry Dean Stanton starred, was being filmed in a friend of mine's house down the street. I'd walk over there sometimes to watch and talk to those guys.

^^Now go get your fukn shoe shine box!

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Originally Posted by misskit

^^ I met him many years ago. A John Huston movie, Wise Blood, in which Harry Dean Stanton starred, was being filmed in a friend of mine's house down the street. I'd walk over there sometimes to watch and talk to those guys.

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That's very cool.

Man I didn't realise he was so old. Good innings!

A remarkable actor.

RIP.

Soviet officer who averted cold war nuclear disaster dies aged 77
‘Gut instinct’ told Lt Col Stanislav Petrov that apparent launch of US missiles was actually early warning system malfunction

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Marc Bennetts in Moscow
Monday 18 September 2017 16.24 BST Last modified on Monday 18 September 2017 16.25 BST


A Soviet officer whose cool head and quick thinking saved the world from nuclear war has died aged 77.


Stanislav Petrov was on duty in a secret command centre outside Moscow on 26 September, 1983, when a radar screen showed that five Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles had been launched by the United States toward the Soviet Union.


Red Army protocol would have been to order a retaliatory strike, but Petrov – then a 44-year-old lieutenant colonel – ignored the warning, relying on a “gut instinct” that told him it was a false alert.


“The siren howled, but I just sat there for a few seconds, staring at the big, back-lit, red screen with the word ‘launch’ on it,” he told the BBC’s Russian Service in 2013. “All I had to do was to reach for the phone; to raise the direct line to our top commanders.”


Instead of triggering a third world war, Petrov called in a malfunction in the early warning system. But even as he did so, he later admitted, he wasn’t entirely sure he was doing the right thing.


“Twenty-three minutes later I realised that nothing had happened. If there had been a real strike, then I would already know about it. It was such a relief,” he said.


It later emerged that the false alarm was the result of the a satellite mistaking the reflection of the sun’s rays off the tops of clouds for a missile launch.


“We are wiser than the computers,” Petrov said in a 2010 interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. “We created them.”


The incident occurred at the height of the cold war, just three weeks after the Soviet army had shot down a Korean passenger jet, killing all 269 people on board.


Ronald Reagan had recently called the Soviet Union the “evil empire,” and Yuri Andropov, the ailing Soviet leader, was convinced the Americans were plotting a surprise nuclear attack.


Petrov was never honoured by the Soviet authorities for his role in saving the world from thermonuclear conflict. He was, however, reprimanded by his authorities for failing to describe the incident correctly in the logbook that night.


His story did not become widely known until 1998, when Gen Yury Votintsev, the retired commander of Soviet missile defence, published his memoirs. In the following years, Petrov achieved worldwide recognition for his actions.


He was honoured by the Association of World Citizens at the UN headquarters in 2006 as “the man who averted a nuclear war”. In 2013, he was awarded the prestigious Dresden peace prize.


He was also the subject of a 2013 documentary film entitled The Man who Saved the World.


The son of a second world war fighter pilot, Petrov was born in Vladivostok on 9 September 1939. He later studied at a Soviet air force college in Kiev.


He died on 19 May in Fryazino, a Moscow suburb, where he lived alone on a state pension, but his death was only reported on Monday. No cause of death has been announced. He is survived by a son and a daughter.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-aged-77#img-1

Jake LaMotta: Legendary Raging Bull boxer dies at 95

"I just want people to know, he was a great, sweet, sensitive, strong, compelling man with a great sense of humour, with eyes that danced," Mrs LaMotta said.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption He often wore a hooded leopard-print robe into the ring
Image caption His rough style made him one of the most famous fighters in boxing during the 1940s and 1950s

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Born on 10 July 1922 to Italian parents in the Bronx area of New York City, he took up boxing after being rejected by the US military due to a medical condition.

Sports commentators praised his willingness to take a severe beating in order to get close enough to land the best punches on his opponent.

His stamina in the ring, which he honed during a prison sentence, earned him the nickname "The Bronx Bull".

One writer for the Associated Press described how he fought with "blows bouncing off him like ball bearings off a battleship".

Born on 10 July 1922 to Italian parents in the Bronx area of New York City, he took up boxing after being rejected by the US military due to a medical condition.

Sports commentators praised his willingness to take a severe beating in order to get close enough to land the best punches on his opponent.

His stamina in the ring, which he honed during a prison sentence, earned him the nickname "The Bronx Bull".

One writer for the Associated Press described how he fought with "blows bouncing off him like ball bearings off a battleship".
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LaMotta first won national recognition two years after landing on the professional boxing circuit, when he handed Sugar Ray Robinson his first ever defeat in 1943.

His rough style, and strong chin, made him one of the most famous fighters in boxing during the 1940s and 1950s at a time when boxing was one of the nation's most popular sports.

After resisting Mafia efforts to control him, he later admitted to intentionally losing a fight at the behest of mobsters in 1947, causing him to suffer a suspension from the sport.

According to the International Boxing Hall of Fame, his career record was 83 wins, 19 losses, 4 draws, and 30 knockouts.

After retiring from the ring in 1954, he went on to act in several films, also touring as a stand-up comedian.

"The truth of the matter?" he told the Chicago Sun-Times in 1996. "The punches never hurt me.

"My nose was broken six times, my hands six times, a few fractured ribs. Fifty stitches over my eyes. But the only place I got hurt was out of the ring."
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption In 1949 LaMotta defeated Robert Villemain after a 12-round bout in Madison Square Garden, New York City.

In the lead up to the filming for Raging Bull, LaMotta spent nearly a year personally training De Niro to box in a New York City gym, according to ESPN.

The film's stark style may have originated in LaMotta's own autobiography, in which he wrote: "Sometimes, at night, when I think back, I feel like I'm looking at an old black-and-white movie of myself.

"Not a good movie, either, jerky, with gaps in it, a string of poorly lit sequences, some of them with no beginning and some with no end. No musical score..."

After the film debuted, he expressed puzzlement as to why he had allowed his life to be depicted, and even worked on set as a consultant.

"When I saw the film I was upset. I kind of look bad in it," he told a reviewer.

"Then I realised it was true. That's the way it was... It's not the way I am now, but the way I was then."


Jake LaMotta: Legendary Raging Bull boxer dies at 95 - BBC News

And I thought he was just a game show front man....



Eggheads and The Chase stars pay tribute as Fifteen To One host William G Stewart dies aged 84
Sarah Deen for Metro.co.ukFriday 22 Sep 2017 12:35 am

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Tributes have been coming in for Fifteen To One presenter William G Stewart.


Stewart died aged 84 after a brief illness, his agent confirmed on Thursday.


He fronted the tough Channel 4 game show from 1988 to 2003, and produced and directed sitcoms such as Bless This House and Love Thy Neighbour.


Fifteen To One was rebooted in 2013 for a celebrity special presented by The Last Leg host Adam Hills, and returned the following year with Sandi Toksvig at the helm.


William G Stewart dead: Quiz stars pay tribute to Fifteen To One host | Metro News

Comic & actor Bobby Knutt dies aged 71

Monday 25th September 2017, 3:21pm

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Actor and comedian Bobby Knutt has died.
He has been recently best known for his role as grandfather Eddie Dawson in ITV sitcom Benidorm (pictured).
Knutt died suddenly this morning whilst on holiday in the south of France.
Born Robert Andrew Wass in Sheffield, he rose to stardom as a comic in the hit entertainment series The Comedians in the 1970s, having turned professional at the age of 20. He was a keen musician and had also enjoyed success on the variety/cabaret circuit, until a medically-sustained injury stopped him playing guitar in 2012.
Knutt was last seen on screen in the ninth series of Benidorm, broadcast earlier this year. A tenth series has already completed filming, and is expected to be on screens early in 2018.
A staple of the northern club circuit, his TV work also included The Wheeltappers And Shunters Social Club, Marti, and the Frankie Howerd childrens' sitcom All Change. Outside of comedy he had appeared in Emmerdale and Coronation Street, and was a pantomime regular in his home city, appearing in at least 14 productions between Sheffield's Lyceum and Crucible theatres.
Benidorm creator and writer Derren Litten broke the news on Twitter this afternoon, saying: "Very sad Benidorm news guys. The wonderful Bobby Knutt has passed away suddenly aged 71. Sending our Beni love to his family."

https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/news/2788/bobby_knutt_rip/

Brit Hat Trick.

Liverpool actor Tony Booth dies at the age of 85

Booth was famous as the 'Scouse git' and father-in-law of PM Tony Blair



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Liverpool actor Tony Booth - famous as the “Scouse git” in TV sitcom Till Death Us Do Part - has died at the age of 85.
Booth, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2004 and had also suffered heart problems, died on Monday night.
A statement released on behalf of his wife Steph Booth said: “It is with sadness we announce the death of Antony Booth, actor and political campaigner.
“Tony passed away late last night with close family members in attendance.
“The family ask for their privacy to be respected at this time.”
Fr many, their abiding memory of Tony Booth will be his role as “Scouse git” Mike. With his socialist views - which reflected his own beliefs - and broad Scouse accent, he regularly goaded his bigoted father-in-law Alf Garnett in the 1960s sitcom Till Death Us Do Part.
Tony actually filmed a special episode in Anfield during a game as he sat in the then Kemlyn Road stand, where he got to meet Bob Paisley too.
As well as being an actor, Tony was a political campaigner and also had a colourful private life, having married four times.
He was the dad of Cherie Booth, who went on to marry future PM and Labour leader Tony Blair.
Among Tony Booth’s four marriages, his most famous was his second, to Coronation Street star Pat Phoenix, who played Elsie Tanner in the long-running soap.
The pair met and had a brief relationship in the 1950s while doing a play together, but Tony was already married to Gale, the mother of his daughters, Lyndsey and Cherie.
Twenty-five years later, fate brought Pat and Tony together again after Tony suffered an accident in 1979. Trying to climb into his flat, he fell into a drum of paraffin and suffered 42% burns to his lower body.

They rekindled their relationship and they famously, and heartbreakingly, married in Pat’s hospital room just six days before her death from lung cancer in 1986.
Speaking about their love affair in 2007, Tony said: “Pat was absolutely the most fantastic, vibrant woman I’d ever met in my life
“Fate brought us together. Pat helped turn my life around.”
Tony’s four marriages and many other relationships produced eight daughters.
When his son-in-law Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997, his political views proved to be an occasional thorn in the PM’s side. However he was a staunch defender of his eldest, Cherie, who inherited her political leanings from her proud father.

Liverpool actor Tony Booth dies at the age of 85 - Liverpool Echo

Bloody hell, who had the Yankee?

Liz Dawn, Coronation Street's Vera Duckworth, dies aged 77
Actor, who starred in long-running ITV soap for 34 years, has died at home, her family announces
Tuesday 26 September 2017 12.07 BST First published on Tuesday 26 September 2017 11.15 BST

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Liz Dawn, who played Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street for 34 years, has died aged 77.


A statement from her family said the actor had died peacefully on Monday night. “We are devastated and heartbroken at the passing of our much-loved wife, mother, sister, grandmother and great-grandmother, the incredible Liz Dawn,” said the family.


“She has been the love, light and inspiration in our lives and we are bereft at her passing.”


Dawn, whose real name was Sylvia Butterfield, was born in Leeds and first appeared on Coronation Street in 1974. She remained on the ITV soap until 2008, when health problems meant she could no longer be on the show and her character Vera Duckworth died in her sleep.


She returned briefly in 2010 when she famously appeared as a ghost just as her husband Jack died in the same chair as her, and the pair had a final dance.


The statement read: “We have been blessed to have Liz in our lives, as she was such a kind, considerate and caring friend and colleague. As Coronation Street’s Vera Duckworth for 34 years, Liz brought so much joy and happiness to so many. She was a wonderful actress who will forever be a true Coronation Street legend.”


On behalf of ITV and the programme, Coronation Street’s executive producer, Kieran Roberts, said: “Liz Dawn was a true Coronation Street legend, a brilliant actor and a wonderful person. Everyone lucky enough to have worked with Liz during her 34 years playing Corrie icon Vera Duckworth will remember her with huge affection.”


Dawn had suffered from the incurable lung disease emphysema since 2004 and in 2013 she revealed her health had deteriorated further after she had a heart attack. She said: “I have only got a third of my lungs now … and I do get so breathless. I can’t walk for more than a few steps without needing my chair so I just go everywhere in it now.”


Dawn married her first husband, Walter Bradley, in Leeds in 1957, and the pair had a son before separating less than two years later. She then married the electrician Donald Ibbertson in 1965 and had three daughters with him. Her first major role came in the 1974 drama Leeds United, which appeared in the BBC’s Play for Today slot, and she was then given a small role in Coronation Street. It wasn’t until her character Vera married Jack Duckworth in 1979 that she became a core character in the soap and the pair’s turbulent but loving relationship proved fruitful for drama.


Tracey Brabin, an MP who used to be on Coronation Street, paid tribute to Dawn, saying: “So sad ... the amazing warm hearted, generous and hilarious Liz Dawn has died. Working with Liz and Bill was highlight of my time at Corrie.”


Antony Cotton, who plays Sean Tully in the soap, tweeted: “Liz was a wonderful actress, a fascinating storyteller, a hilarious comedian and most importantly a brilliant friend.”


Kym Marsh, who plays Michelle Connor, wrote: “I’m so sad. What a wonderful lady. She will be so missed.”


https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...h-dies-aged-77

A tip of that hat to Freddy Shepherd, the former Newcastle owner who created much mirth, who passed away on Monday.

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In March 1998, Shepherd and Douglas Hall were the target of a News of the World exposé, led by the "Fake Sheikh" Mazher Mahmood. The pair, believing Mahmood to be a wealthy Arab prince trying to set up a business deal, were caught mocking the club's own supporters for spending extortionate amounts of money on merchandise, calling female supporters "dogs", and mocking star striker Alan Shearer by calling him the "Mary Poppins of football", all while frequenting a brothel.
Amidst heavy media coverage, the Newcastle Independent Supporters Association and the then Minister for Sport, Tony Banks, called for the resignation of the pair. Although reports from sources close to Shepherd initially indicated he was contractually unable to resign, he and Hall had both left their posts within two weeks of the scandal breaking.
His general approach to running the club, as well as the ongoing fallout from the News of the World story, earned Shepherd a number of unflattering nicknames such as "Fatty Shepherd", the "Fat Controller" and "Baron Greenback".

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Hugh Hefner Dead at 91


Sex sells and Hugh Hefner found a way to sell it perhaps better than anybody in the 20th century.
The founder of Playboy and the publishing house built up around the pioneering men's magazine, which combined sex and intellectual stimulation, has died. He was 91.
"Hugh M. Hefner, the American icon who in 1953 introduced the world to Playboy magazine and built the company into one of the most recognizable American global brands in history, peacefully passed away today from natural causes at his home, The Playboy Mansion, surrounded by loved ones," Playboy confirmed in a statement to E! News. "He was 91 years old."

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Interesting life.
Hugh Hefner Dead at 91; Playboy Founder and Publishing Legend Stoked the Sexual Revolution With Iconic Magazine | E! News Australia

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Originally Posted by bobo746

surrounded by loved ones

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They will need a couple of guys sitting on the lid to nail the coffin shut then :)

I don't think even the blue pills can help at 91.:)

Thanks for years of teenage wanks, Hugh. RIP.

Now that's a guy who lived life to the full.

A little creepy seeing all those gold diggers pretending they were attracted to the wrinkled old fart though.

:)

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Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

Thanks for years of teenage wanks, Hugh. RIP.

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We lost one of our brothers today. Hugh Hefner passed away at 91. Playboy founder Hugh Hefner joined the Army as an infantry clerk after graduating from high school in 1944. While there, he contributed cartoons for Army newspapers. He was honorably discharged in 1946.

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https://army.togetherweserved.com/ar...rson&ID=350061

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"Hugh Marston Hefner, born on April 9, 1926, in Chicago, Illinois, was the elder of two sons born to Grace and Glenn Hefner, strict Methodists with deep Midwestern roots. Hefner went to Sayre Elementary School and then to Steinmetz High School on the west side of Chicago where, reportedly, his IQ was 152. His teachers, however, described him as "unenthusiastic." While in high school, Hefner founded a school newspaper—an early sign of his journalistic talents.

Hefner served two years in the U.S. Army toward the end of World War II, and was discharged in 1946. He studied at the Chicago Art Institute for two years before enrolling at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he majored in psychology. In 1949, while in college, he met his first wife, Mildred Williams. Hefner earned his bachelor's degree in 1950.

In the early 1950s, Hefner was leading a life typical of many of his peers. He was fresh out of college, young and ambitious, and in an entry-level job with a major corporation at the Chicago office of Esquire magazine. Esquire was a racy publication for men that had transformed itself into a refined periodical, featuring articles on everything from men's fashion to literary works by such writers as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It also featured illustrations from pinup artists such as George Petty and Alberto Vargas. Hefner worked for Esquire as a promotional copywriter until 1953, when he left the magazine because he was denied a $5 raise.

Starting a Magazine

Out on his own Hefner was determined to start his own publication, one that was similar to Esquire but better. He raised $8,000 from 45 investors—including $1,000 from his mother—to launch Playboy magazine. Hefner had planned to name the magazine "Stag Party" but was forced to change the name to avoid a trademark infringement with the existing Stag magazine. A friend suggested the name "Playboy," after a defunct automobile company in Chicago. Hefner liked the name, as he thought it reflected high living and sophistication.

Hefner produced the first edition of Playboy out of his Hyde Park, Chicago, kitchen. It hit newsstands in December 1953, but did not carry a date because Hefner was unsure as to whether or not a second issue would be produced. To help ensure its success, Hefner had purchased a color photograph of actress Marilyn Monroe in the nude—which had been taken before her movie star career—and placed it in the centerfold of the magazine. The first issue quickly sold 50,000 copies, and became an instant sensation".

RIP Hef, you changed a lot for the good.

Genuinely fascinating guy that one. He will of course be remembered mostly for Playboy but he was a pretty complex character.