The RIP Famous Person Thread

[kmart]

RIP Errol.

Listening to Hot Chocolate was a bit like Barry White. Great erm, mood / backing music to any romantic tryst. Owe you a few, mate.

[harrybarracuda]

Last known member of NASA-recruited German moon rocket design team dies at 95
AP



BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA – The last known surviving member of the German engineering team that came to the United States after World War II and designed the rocket that took astronauts to the moon has died.

Oscar Carl Holderer died Tuesday in Alabama, son Michael Holderer said Wednesday. He was 95.

Holderer said his father suffered a stroke last week and did not recover.

Born in Germany the year after World War I ended, Holderer came to the United States in 1945 with a group of 120 rocket engineers led by Wernher von Braun. Their move was part of a project called “Operation Paperclip” that transferred technology for the German V-2 and other rockets to the United States.

“He brought our first rocket wind tunnel in this country from Germany and personally set it up,” said Ed Buckbee, a space historian and former NASA publicist.

First based at White Sands, New Mexico, the team moved in 1950 to north Alabama’s Redstone Arsenal, where they used early computers, slide rules and pencils to design the Saturn V rocket that first took astronauts to the lunar surface in 1969.

Holderer said his father — a mechanical engineer, designer and fabricator who became a U.S. citizen in 1955 — designed the high-speed wind tunnel that was used to develop Saturn and then oversaw its construction at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, located at Redstone.

“He was one of the more hands-on members of the team,” said Holderer. “He had his own machine shop here in town as a hobby.”

Some members of the von Braun team eventually returned to Germany and others spread out across the United States after retirement, but Holderer was the last known survivor of the original group, Buckbee said.

“He was a very talented man, not only an aeroballistics expert but very accomplished in design and fabrication,” said Buckbee.

While von Braun and some high-level members of his team faced questions about alleged Nazi ties, Holderer didn’t. “He was just never at that level of supervision,” Buckbee said.

Following his retirement from NASA in 1974, Holderer built training devices that are still in use at the state-run U.S. Space and Rocket Center, located near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

Working in his shop, Holderer converted the tail section of a jetliner into a small theater for the space museum.

“They would tilt it back to simulate acceleration,” said Holderer.

Survivors include his wife, two sons and two stepchildren. The family will hold a visitation Friday, followed by private interment.

[Bobcock]

Hot Chocolate.... Emma is still on my favourites playlist...

[harrybarracuda]

Maurice Flanagan, who helped launch Emirates airline, dies
Associated Press By ADAM SCHRECK
9 hours ago




DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Sir Maurice Flanagan, a British aviation executive who helped get Emirates airline off the ground and guided its breakneck growth for nearly three decades, has died. He was 86.

The Dubai-based airline he shepherded into existence with backing from the emirate's government went on to become the Mideast's biggest carrier — and a force in the global aviation industry.

The carrier's parent company, Emirates Group, announced Flanagan's death Thursday, just hours after it reported an annual profit of $1.5 billion. It said he died at his home in London, surrounded by friends and loved ones. It did not provide a cause of death.

"The Emirates Group, and Dubai, has lost a great friend today. Maurice was a man of great character, and a legend in the aviation industry," Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates' chairman and CEO, said.

"He was generous with his time, forthright in his views, and a person who gave 110 percent to everything he did. It was a great personal pleasure and privilege to have worked with him," Sheikh Ahmed added.

Born on Nov. 17, 1928 in Leigh, England, Flanagan spent years working for British Airways before taking a post in 1978 as director and general manager of Dnata, the ground services company at Dubai's airport.

He was tapped in 1985 to lead a 10-man team charged with launching the new airline and became Emirates' first managing director. The fledgling carrier started with just two planes on Oct. 25 that year, according to Emirates' official history.

Today, it operates more than 230 planes, including the world's biggest fleet of both the Boeing 777 and double-decker Airbus A380. Its parent reported sales of more than $26 billion last fiscal year.

Queen Elizabeth II knighted Flanagan in 2010, citing his services to Britain's aviation industry and British exports. He retired as executive vice chairman of Emirates Group in 2013.

Flanagan is survived by his wife, Audrey, son Julian, and his daughters Siobhan and Claire.

[harrybarracuda]

Kenan Evren dies at 97; Turkish general led 1980 coup and became president
May 9 at 7:00 PM



Kenan Evren, the Turkish general who led a 1980 coup that ended years of violence but whose rule unleashed a wave of arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings, died May 9 at a military hospital in Ankara. He was 97.

The state-run Anadolu Agency reported the death of the general, who ruled as president for seven years after the coup. No cause was reported.

Gen. Evren was hailed as a hero at the time of the coup for ending fighting between rightists and leftists that left some 5,000 people dead and put the country on the brink of a civil war.

He later became one of the country’s most controversial figures, remembered more for the torture of former militants and their supporters and for introducing a constitution that restricted freedoms and formalized the military’s role in politics. Turkish political leaders are today still scrambling to change the constitution he helped institute.

Last year, Gen. Evren was convicted of crimes against the state and sentenced to life imprisonment, becoming the first general to be tried and convicted for leading a coup in Turkey which has a history of military takeovers.

The trial was made possible after the Islamic-rooted government of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan secured constitutional amendments in a 2010 referendum. It was intended as a showcase trial that would help put an end to the military’s interventions once and for all.

Too frail to attend the trial, Gen. Evren testified from his hospital bed and said: “We did what was right at the time and if it happened today we would carry out a coup again.”

Gen. Evren, the head of the Turkish military, sent tanks rolling through the streets at 4 a.m. on Sept. 12, 1980, wresting power from a civilian government that was unable to keep order. It was the country’s third coup since 1960.

A vast majority of Turks welcomed the coup at the time. In urban centers, soldiers dismantled checkpoints manned by militias. Civilians were no longer afraid to send their children to schools and the economy, which had nearly ground to a halt, had a chance to recover.

But soldiers also rounded up some 650,000 people, most of them leftist militants. Torture was common, and at least 299 people died in the jails.

Gen. Evren said that torture was not sanctioned by the military. Forty-nine people, mostly leftist militants, were executed after being convicted by military tribunals.

When asked about the hangings, Gen. Evren responded: “Should we feed them instead?”

Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2000 as part of reforms to join the European Union.

Gen. Evren indicated in 1982 that the military was getting weary of stepping in to repair damage caused by incompetent politicians.

“We want to extricate ourselves from position of washers of the pots they [civilian politicians] dirty. We want to return to the task of defending the country,” he declared.

Gen. Evren’s junta ruled until November 1983 when the generals voluntarily reinstated civilian rule. Gen. Evren, however, remained in power after being elected to a seven-year term as president in a 1982 referendum.

The same referendum also approved the new constitution, which restricted labor unions and freedom of association, put universities, which were the scene of violence in the 1970s, under strict state control, and muzzled freedom of expression.

It also gave the military political influence through the National Security Council, a forum of generals and top political leaders that still meets every two months to discuss internal and foreign affairs. A special clause ensured that no criminal charges could be brought against the coup leaders.

Gen. Evren defended the constitution, saying it was designed to avoid the mistakes that led to the civil strife of the 1970s.

Gen. Evren set elections for 1983 -- but only allowed three parties with carefully vetted leaders to run. Former leaders such as Suleyman Demirel, who was ousted by the coup, and former premier Bulent Ecevit, whom he also blamed for the country’s ills, were barred from running.

On the eve of the elections, Gen. Evren all but told voters to cast their ballot in favor of a retired general who headed one of the three parties. That backfired and Turgut Ozal, a liberal whom Gen. Evren had put in charge of the economy, won an overwhelming majority, ushering in an era of economic liberalism.

To Gen. Evren’s dismay, another referendum, in 1987, lifted the ban on old politicians and both Demirel and Ecevit returned to politics: Demirel as president and Ecevit as prime minister.

In 2010, Turks approved in a referendum a series of amendments to the constitution, lifting the coup leaders’ immunity from prosecution. Human rights activists rushed to petition courts for Gen. Evren’s prosecution the next day.

Kenan Evren was born on July 17, 1917, in Alasehir, western Turkey, the son of immigrants from the Balkans. He graduated from the country’s war college in 1938, and later served in the Turkish contingent that fought with U.N. forces in the Korean War. He was promoted to general in 1964 and rose to the top military rank in 1978.

After his retirement, he moved to the Mediterranean coastal town of Marmaris and took up painting.

His wife, Sekine, died in 1982. He is survived by three daughters.

Kenan Evren dies at 97; Turkish general led 1980 coup and became president - The Washington Post

[harrybarracuda]

'Nine to Five' Actress Elizabeth Wilson Dies at 94



Elizabeth Wilson, a Tony-winning character actor on stage, in films, and on TV from the 1950s through the early 2000s, has died at 94. Wilson, a favorite of director Mike Nichols in the '60s and '70s, is most famous as the nosy executive assistant from the 1980 hit film "Nine to Five," in which she appeared with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton.

Wilson also appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock classic "The Birds" (1962), and played Dustin Hoffman's clueless mother in "The Graduate" (1967), named by the American Film Institute as one of the 20 best films of all time. She played the cousin of Edith Bunker (the late Jean Stapleton) on the '70s TV milestone "All in the Family."

According to the New York Times, Wilson, whose last role was on TV in 2002, never married, and is survived by her sister and several nieces and nephews.

'Nine to Five' Actress Elizabeth Wilson Dies at 94 | ExtraTV.com

[panama hat]

British crime writer Ruth Rendell, one of Britain's best-selling authors, died in hospital on Saturday at the age of 85, her publisher said.

She is best known as the creator of Detective Chief Inspector Wexford.

The books were definitely better than the film versions . . . rather boring, really

Hot Chocolate frontman Errol Brown has died, aged 71. His manager, Phil Dale, said the singer had been suffering from liver cancer. He died at home in the Bahamas.

Sad, but living on the Bahamas meant his life wasn't foul

Oscar Carl Holderer, The last known surviving member of the German engineering team that came to the United States after World War II

Oh, they 'came' . . . rather than 'were brought'

Survivors include his wife, two sons and two stepchildren.

Survived? Survived what?

. . . is survived by sounds better, though still odd.

[harrybarracuda]

The Mutilator: Sydney serial killer William Macdonald dies as NSW's oldest, longest-serving prisoner
Updated 13 minutes ago



A Sydney serial killer, known as The Mutilator, has died aged 90 after becoming the longest-serving and oldest prisoner in New South Wales.

William Macdonald, was jailed for life in 1963 for murdering four men in Sydney and another in Brisbane.

Macdonald was widely regarded as Australia's first serial killer, and gained notoriety for slicing off his victim's genitals.

Born Allan Ginsberg in England in 1924, Macdonald would lure his victims into dark places before attacking them.

His victims were killed in 1961 and 1962 in inner-city areas including Darlinghurst and Moore Park.

During his trial, some members of the jury reportedly fainted while hearing the gruesome details of his crimes.

Macdonald was being held in Sydney's Long Bay Jail before he was taken under guard to Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital where he died of natural causes on Tuesday.

He was declared insane when convicted of the killings but was later found to be sane enough to be released back into society.

He reportedly chose to remain in prison.

In 2003, the Sunday Herald Sun quoted him as saying: "I have no desire to go and live on the outside. I wouldn't last five minutes".

His victims, mostly derelicts, were stabbed dozens of times with a long-bladed knife before MacDonald would cut off their penis and testicles.

Between 1961 and 1962, MacDonald was responsible for a series of grisly murders in Sydney before being caught in Melbourne in May 1963.

Born in England, he arrived in Australia in 1955, when, soon after arriving, he was charged for touching a detective’s penis in a public toilet.

His first victim was Amos Hurst, 55, who MacDonald befriended after meeting him outside the Roma Street railway station in May 1961.

The pair began a massive drinking session and went back to Hurst’s apartment and kept drinking. Williams began to strangle Hurst and killed him with a punch to the head.

Police believed the drunk had died from natural causes but MacDonald fled to Sydney, where his killing spree went into overdrive.

On June 4, 1961, a man’s nude body was found at the Sydney Domain Baths. He had been stabbed more than 30 times and castrated with a long-bladed knife. MacDonald had thrown his genitalia into Sydney Harbour.

The victim, Alfred Greenfield, was approached by MacDonald while he sat on a park bench near St Vincent’s Hospital and then lured to the Domain, where they kept drinking.

His injuries caused a frenzy among the press, who nicknamed him The Mutilator.

Soon after, his next victim, William Cobbin, was stabbed repeatedly and mutilated in a public toilet in at Moore Park.

MacDonald severed his genitalia, placed them into a plastic bag along with his knife and departed the scene.

In March 1962, he killed Frank McLean, stabbing him in the neck in a Darlinghurst lane after a drinking session.

He stabbed him six times before slicing off his genitalia and put them into a plastic bag which he took home and got rid of the next day.

On June 6, 1962, MacDonald went to a bar in Pitt Street, where he befriended a 42-year-old derelict named James Hackett. Again they drank together before MacDonald stabbed him in the neck, then after a struggle stabbed him in the heart. His body was not found for three weeks.

After this murder he fled for a while to Brisbane and New Zealand but returned to Sydney, where a workmate came suspicious about him and went to police, who in turn released the story to the Daily Mirror.

MacDonald had fled to Melbourne but was arrested at the railway station where he was working as a porter.

When questioned, MacDonald admitted to the killings, saying he had an irresistible urge to kill after he was raped as a teenager in England.

MacDonald was imprisoned at Long Bay Hospital and was soon certified as insane and transferred to a secure mental hospital.

[harrybarracuda]

‘King of Blues’ B.B. King, 89, Dies Amid Tug-Of-War Between Children, Longtime Manager
May 14, 2015 10:43 PM

LAS VEGAS (AP) – ‘King of the Blues’ legend B.B. King dead in Las Vegas at age 89, his attorney says.
King was in the middle of a tug of war between some of his children and his longtime manager.
Three of King’s 11 surviving children appeared in a Las Vegas courtroom last week in a bid to take control of their father’s affairs. Two said they suspect the musician’s manager of stealing his money and neglecting his medical care. All three complained they were blocked from seeing him in home hospice care.
But a judge tossed the dispute out of court, saying two investigations found no evidence King was being abused and that King’s longtime business manager, Laverne Toney, should remain in legal control of his affairs.
King was hospitalized recently after police were called to his home in a dispute about his condition between Toney and Patty King. No one was arrested, and the musician returned home to hospice care shortly afterward.

[Davis Knowlton]

Had a unique playing style on his guitar, Lucille. A favorite. RIP.

[harrybarracuda]

[Davis Knowlton]

^I was just thinking of that song!

[misskit]

He could really play the Blues like no one else.

Goodbye, B.B.King.

[pompeysbroke]

RIP BB King.

Saw him in concert, Adelaide I think, late 80s, bloody marvelous it was too. Another legend gone.

[Dragonfly94]

Great performer, no doubt another family arguing over the estate

[Chittychangchang]

[Loy Toy]

^ We lost an absolute legend today.

RIP BB King.

[patsycat]

^I was just thinking of that song!

Me too. Sad news again about a great musician who has molded our musical memories.

RIP.

[Sumbitch]

RIP to the godfather of the blues guitar.

[harrybarracuda]

Robert Drasnin, ‘Twilight Zone’ Composer, Dies at 87



Robert Drasnin, composer of “The Kremlin Letter” and many classic TV shows including “Twilight Zone,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “Mission: Impossible,” died Wednesday, May 13, at Providence Tarzana Medical Center. He was 87. Death was due to complications from a recent fall.

Drasnin, whose credits also include scores for “The Wild Wild West,” “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” “Lost in Space,” “Police Story” and “Hawaii Five-0,” served as director of music for CBS Television from 1977 to 1991.

He was born Nov. 17, 1927, in Charleston, W.Va., but lived in Southern California from 1938. He majored in music at UCLA, receiving his B.A. in 1949, and was soon on the road playing saxophone, clarinet and flute for bandleaders Skinnay Ennis and Les Brown.

After Army service during the Korean War, he returned to UCLA as a graduate student and became associate conductor of the UCLA Symphony. During the 1950s he also played with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra and Red Norvo’s quintet.

Drasnin’s scoring career began in the ’50s, composing for live television dramas including “Climax,” “Studio One,” “Ford Startime” and “Playhouse 90.”

He scored a handful of feature films including John Huston’s “The Kremlin Letter” and the early Jack Nicholson western “Ride in the Whirlwind,” but he was most active in TV. His other series assignments included “The Time Tunnel,” “I Spy,” “Daniel Boone,” “Mannix,” “Cannon,” “The Rookies” and “Barnaby Jones.”

He also composed music for more than a dozen TV-movies including the Lee J. Cobb version of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” and such early ABC telefilms as “Daughter of the Mind,” “The Old Man Who Cried Wolf,” “Crowhaven Farm” and “Dr. Cook’s Garden.”

While head of CBS’s music department in the 1980s, he worked with the Grateful Dead on music for the revived “Twilight Zone” series, along with scoring several episodes himself.

His 1959 exotica album “Voodoo” became a cult favorite and inspired a 2007 sequel, “Voodoo II.” The popularity of those albums led him to return to live performance in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Drasnin was also active as an educator, teaching film scoring, orchestration and music theory at Cal State Northridge from 1976 to 1991; and in the film scoring program of UCLA Extension from 1993 through 2014. He was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2008.

Survivors include his wife Marlene; a brother, documentary producer Irv Drasnin; three children and three grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at a later date.

Bob Drasnin Dead; Composed Scores for Twilight Zone, Mission: Impossible | Variety

[pompeysbroke]

“Hawaii Five-0,”

Bloody marvelous. RIP, Bob

[Sumocakewalk]

^ Although Robert Drasnin composed scores for Hawaii Five-O, the theme music for the show was actually composed by Morton Stevens, according to wikipedia.

The theme music of the television show Hawaii Five-O continues to be popular. The tune was composed by Morton Stevens, who also composed numerous episode scores. The theme was recorded by The Ventures, whose version reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.

The Ventures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[pompeysbroke]

oh, ok, RIP anyway

[Latindancer]

“The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “Mission: Impossible”.......fantastic music in it's time. I had never heard of this guy before. RIP, dude...

[harrybarracuda]

“The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “Mission: Impossible”.......fantastic music in it's time. I had never heard of this guy before. RIP, dude...

When they do those quiz rounds to name the show from the theme, his have got to be amongst the most memorable.