The RIP Famous Person Thread

[Dragonfly94]

not many Thais seem to make it on here. Luang Phor Khoon, Thailands most well known living monk dies at 92

Luang Phor Khoon passes away | Bangkok Post: news

[harrybarracuda]

Elisabeth Bing, Lamaze International co-founder, dies at 100
Her 1950s' 'fad' changed the way mothers, fathers and doctors approached the delivery room
The Associated Press Posted: May 16, 2015 10:29 PM ET Last Updated: May 16, 2015 10:31 PM ET



When Elisabeth Bing became interested in childbirth techniques in the 1950s, women were often heavily medicated and dads were generally nowhere near the delivery room.

The German-born Bing, the Lamaze International co-founder who popularized what was known as natural childbirth and helped change how women and doctors approached the delivery room, died Friday at 100 in her New York apartment, the organization said Saturday. The cause of her death wasn't immediately known.

Trained as a physical therapist, Bing taught breathing and relaxation techniques to generations of expectant mothers, wrote several books about birth and pregnancy, and encouraged women and men to be better prepared, active and inquisitive participants in the arrival of their babies.

"I was certainly considered a radical," she wrote in Lamaze's magazine in 1990. By then, she noted, childbirth education had become common: "This so-called fad has been proven not to be a fad."

Born July 8, 1914, in Berlin, Bing fled Nazi Germany with her family for England, where she got her physical therapy training. Working with new mothers got her thinking about delivery practices, an interest she brought with her to the United States in 1949.

Breathing, mental preparation

She learned about ideas advanced by some doctors, including French obstetrician Dr. Fernand Lamaze, for using breathing and mental preparation to manage labour pain without medication. She and the late Marjorie Karmel established what is now Lamaze International in 1960 to spread the strategies.

Bing gave birth herself at 40, going into a fast labour during which she was given spinal anesthesia and nitric oxide. She told The New York Times in 2004 that she had gleaned that childbirth training wasn't about refusing drugs, but rather about teaching a woman "to help herself as far as she can go."

Household word

Lamaze became a household word, woven into pop culture. Its signature classes involved both women and men, with the idea that fathers could provide emotional and mental support in the delivery room.

Over the years, the idea of refusing all painkillers during labour fell out of favour with many women, and some couples sought shorter birth preparation classes than Bing's six-week program.

Still, she told The New York Sun in 2004, "I feel we have changed the whole attitude toward obstetrics and pregnant women, not necessarily technical changes, but the psychological and practical approaches to pregnancy."

Lamaze International, which has about 2,000 childbirth educators around the world, now more broadly promotes healthy and natural birth practices and preparation. Bing's influence lingers there, as in delivery rooms around the country, president Robin Elise Weiss said Saturday.

"Even if people haven't heard her name," Weiss said, "she's impacted how they give birth."

[Boon Mee]

^ We lost an absolute legend today.

RIP BB King.

Saw him several times in clubs when he'd come up to Santa Barbara. He liked small venues.

[harrybarracuda]

Dr. David Sackett, Who Proved Aspirin Helps Prevent Heart Attacks, Dies at 80
By SAM ROBERTS MAY 19, 2015



Dr. David Sackett, whose clinical trials proved the value of taking aspirin in preventing heart attacks and strokes, and who helped pioneer the use of statistical data in treating patients, died on Wednesday in Markdale, Ontario. He was 80.

The cause was cancer, said a family spokesman, Dr. R. Brian Haynes of the department of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Dr. Sackett founded the department in 1968.

Within his profession, Dr. Sackett was known for helping to develop evidence-based medicine, which is defined as making treatment less subjective by integrating a doctor’s clinical expertise with the results of carefully controlled studies.

Dr. Sackett also developed methods for evaluating health care innovations and for teaching medical students how to apply research results in their clinical practice.

In addition to benchmark studies on the benefits of aspirin, his research teams showed the value of surgically removing arterial plaque, developed news ways to treat high blood pressure and demonstrated the effectiveness of nurse practitioners.

Doctors now routinely recommend daily doses of aspirin for many patients who have had a stroke or heart attack or who face even a relatively low risk of one in the next decade.

Dr. Sackett was the author or co-author of 10 books, including “Evidence-Based Medicine” and “Clinical Epidemiology: A Basic Science for Clinical Medicine.” He remained at McMaster for 26 years and served as physician in chief of medicine and head of the division of general internal medicine at Chedoke Hospital, also in Hamilton.

In 1994, he left to establish the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine as a professor at the University of Oxford in England. He retired from clinical practice in 1999 and returned to Canada.

David Sackett was born on Nov. 17, 1934, in Chicago. He said he adopted the middle name Lawrence when he was baptized as an adolescent because his older brother was attending Lawrence College, in Appleton, Wis., and his girlfriend had a younger brother named Larry.

His father, DeForest, was a designer and artist. His mother, the former Margaret Ross, was a homemaker. Bedridden for months as a child with polio, David recovered and exercised to develop into an accomplished runner. He also became a voracious reader and, he said, the youngest member of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartets Singing in America (also known as the Barbershop Harmony Society).

He graduated from Lawrence College, where he was torn between a career in zoology and one in physiology, he recalled in an oral history. (The closest he had come to epidemiology, he said, was reading Sinclair Lewis’s novel “Arrowsmith,” about a doctor who deals with an outbreak of bubonic plague.)

Teachers and friends convinced him that he could better understand physiology by becoming a physician. He received his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and a master of science degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. He was recruited by the United States Public Health Service and sent to the Chronic Disease Research Institute in Buffalo.

Dr. Sackett was invited to join the faculty at McMaster’s newly opened medical school when he was 32.

Dr. Sackett, who lived in Markdale, is survived by his wife, the former Barbara Bennett; four sons, David, Charles, Andrew and Robert; eight grandchildren; and a brother, Jim.

He said in the oral history interview that he was most proud of “the brilliant young people I taught and mentored” and of his “ability to translate, demystify, explain, promote and popularize research methods.”

His colleagues also appreciated his sense of humor. He recalled that while he was testifying in a case as an expert witness, a lawyer handed him a research paper supposedly proving the safety of a drug that was in dispute. He read the paper and concluded that it was flawed.

“Well, I could take several more days and show you dozens more papers on this topic, but the jury would probably want to lynch me,” the lawyer insisted.

“I would welcome that,” Dr. Sackett said.

“Well, we could meet after the trial and go over these papers together,” the lawyer suggested.

To which Dr. Sackett replied, “No, I meant that I would welcome the lynching.”

[Sumocakewalk]

The Nation / DPA
May 25, 2015

John Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician whose life and struggles with schizophrenia was the subject of the Oscar-winning movie A Beautiful Mind, has died in a car crash,US police confirmed Sunday.

New Jersey police told DPA that both Nash, 86, and his wife, Alicia,82, were killed after a car crash. They were in a taxi traveling along the New Jersey Turnpike when the driver lost control, reported the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Police said the couple was ejected from the car, which has led to speculation they were not wearing seat belts.

Nash was on his way home from the airport after returning from a trip to Norway, where he had accepted the Abel Prize, which is given for achievements in mathematics.

Nash was best known in the field of mathematics for his work in game theory and won the 1994 Nobel economics prize. However, his struggles with schizophrenia that inspired A Beautiful Mind provided him with an even wider measure of fame.

Russell Crowe, who portrayed Nash in the film, wrote on Twitter:"Stunned...my heart goes out to John & Alicia & family. An amazing partnership. Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts."

Nash was born on June 13, 1928, in Bluefield, West Virginia, a small town in the Appalachians. He spent most of his academic career at Princeton University in New Jersey and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mathematician John Nash killed in car crash - The Nation

[harrybarracuda]

There was a brief glimmer of hope at one time that the two-party system that was crippling Britain would finally be broken, but its light has been extinguished, and Charles Kennedy, who had massive alcohol problems in recent years which crippled his career, has been extinguished too. Shame. One of the few politicians who actually seemed vaguely genuine.

RIP

Former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy has died aged 55

By Gloucestershire Echo | Posted: June 02, 2015

Charles Kennedy, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats has died aged 55.



The political giant died at home his family said this morning. A cause of death has not yet been established but it is not believed to be suspicious.

Mr Kennedy lost his seat in the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency in the general election. Previously he led the Liberal Democrats between 1999 and 2006, increasing the number of Lib Dem MPs twice in general elections.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said Mr Kennedy was one of the "most gifted politicians of his generation".

"Charles devoted his life to public service, yet he had an unusual gift for speaking about politics with humour and humility which touched people well beyond the world of politics," he said in a statement.

"He was one of the most gentle and unflappable politicians I have ever known, yet he was immensely courageous too not least when he spoke for the country against the invasion of Iraq."

Known as 'Chat Show Charlie', Mr Kennedy was a favourite among political journalists, known for his wit, warmth and charm.

He fronted the TV show 'Have I Got News For You' and was known to struggle with alcohol in recent years.

Twitter was filled with tributes to Mr Kennedy:
Charlie was a politician it was impossible not to like. #charleskennedy #RIP

— Nicky Campbell (@NickyAACampbell) June 2, 2015
Charles Kennedy was one of the most gifted politicians of a generation, he always spoke with great humour, humility and courage.

— Nick Clegg (@nick_clegg) June 2, 2015
Charles Kennedy was a kind man, a good dad and a substantial political leader. We will all miss him. Hope his family are given privacy.

— tom_watson (@tom_watson) June 2, 2015

In his final publication via Twitter, Mr Kennedy wrote this after the election defeat on libdemvoice.org:

"I am very fond of political history. If nothing else, we can all reflect on and perhaps tell our grandchildren that we were there on "The night of long sgian dubhs!"

I would very much like to thank my home team. They have been so energetic, dedicated and selfless to the task. Indeed, with them, I would like to thank the very many over the years who have made possible the previous seven successful general election campaigns locally.

I spare a thought for, and this is true of so many constituencies, for members of staff. It is one thing for elected representatives to find themselves at the mercy of the electorate; it is quite something else for the other loyal and skilled people who, sadly, will in due course be searching for employment. I wish them well and stand ready to help. I am sure that their professionalism will stand them in good stead.

It has been the greatest privilege of my adult and public life to have served, for 32 years, as the Member of Parliament for our local Highlands and Islands communities. I would particularly like to thank the generation of voters, and then some, who have put their trust in me to carry out that role and its responsibilities.

Locally, I wish my successor the very best. The next House of Commons will have to finalise the Smith Commission package, giving effect to the referendum "Vow" over further powers. I am saddened not to be involved in that process.

However, from the perspective of the Highlands & Islands, the case for more powers being returned to us which have been lost to the Central Belt over the past five years, has to be heard as well.

On the national picture, I am indeed sorry to learn of Nick's decision but respect entirely his characteristic sense of personal, political and party principle.

The eligible candidates must reflect with care and collectively before we rush into the best way forward – out of this political debris we must build with thought and care.

Nick, I do hope, will be able to contribute with gusto to the great European debate which is now looming.

It is one, as a Liberal Democrat, in which I wish to be actively engaged myself.

The next few years in politics will come down to a tale of two Unions – the UK and the EU. Despite all the difficult challenges ahead the Liberal Democrat voice must and will be heard.

We did so over Iraq; we can do so again. Let us relish the prospect."

[harrybarracuda]

Controversial sporting hero and corporate criminal Alan Bond dies at 77

05/06/2015 - 07:47:44



Alan Bond, the polarising global entrepreneur who became an Australian hero by bankrolling a historic America’s Cup yacht race victory before going to prison over the nation’s biggest corporate fraud, has died. He was 77.
Bond, who had rheumatic fever as a child which weakened his heart, died in Fiona Stanley Hospital in the west Australian city of Perth of complications following open heart surgery, said his son, John Bond. The surgery involved replacing a heart valve that had previously been replaced almost 20 years ago, and repairs to two other valves.

“He never regained consciousness after his surgery on Tuesday and has been on life support since that time,” John Bond told reporters. “To a lot of people, dad was a larger-than-life character who started with nothing and did so much. He really did experience the highs and lows of life.
“To us, however, he was just dad – a father who tried his best to be the best dad he could.”
The flamboyant, London-born former sign writer divided Australians. Some remember him as a national sporting hero who transformed his once-sleepy adopted home of Perth into a global business centre. To others, he will always be an audacious corporate criminal who was only exposed when his global business empire crashed in the early 1990s.
Perhaps Bond’s proudest moment came in 1983 when he headed the Australia II syndicate that won the America’s Cup from the New York Yacht Club that had held it since 1851. Australia II’s then-revolutionary winged keel had ended the longest winning streak in the history of sport.
Bond had already been honoured as Australian of the Year in 1978 for sponsoring earlier unsuccessful America’s Cup challenges.
Perth’s neighbouring port town of Fremantle, where Bond arrived as a 12-year-old with his immigrant family in 1950, played host to the next yacht race in 1987. But Australia has never again won the prestigious trophy contest.
His fall came in the 1990s when he was bankrupted owing 1.8 billion Australian dollars, his flagship company Bond Corporation Holdings Ltd collapsed and he was sent to prison three times for corporate crimes.
He pleaded guilty in 1997 to corporate law charges related to the siphoning of AUS $1.2 billion from one of his companies, Bell Resources, to prop up Bond Corp. At the time, it was Australia’s biggest-ever corporate fraud.
Bond won a High Court appeal against his seven-year prison sentence and walked free in 2000 after serving a little more than three years.
He was sentenced in 1996 to three years in prison on convictions that he had improperly used his position as a director of Bond Corp in a series of transactions that cost that public company millions of dollars and enabled Bond’s family company to buy French impressionist Edouard Manet’s painting La Promenade at a discount price.
He was still in prison when he pleaded guilty the next year to the corporate law charges.
He was sentenced in 1992 – the year he was bankrupted – to two-and-a-half years in prison after being found guilty of inducing a former friend to contribute to the rescue of the doomed Rothwells merchant bank while concealing a multimillion dollar fee Bond’s family company made from the deal. He served only a few months before he was retried and acquitted.
Bond was born in the Hammersmith district of west London, the second child of Frank and Kathleen Bond.
He followed the footsteps of his father, who was a commercial painter, by becoming an apprentice sign writer at 14 despite failing a spelling test set by his employer, Fremantle firm Parnell Signs, according to Paul Barry’s biography The Rise and Fall of Alan Bond.
Bond completed less than four years of his five-year apprenticeship before starting a rival business, Nu-Signs, in Fremantle with his father.
Bond showed early business acumen. But his honesty was always in question.
When he was 18 years old, he was convicted in a Fremantle court of two attempted home burglaries. He was fined and placed on a good behaviour bond.
He started making big money in the 1960s, when he branched into property development around Perth.
He was one of Australia’s wealthiest people by the 1980s, as Bond Corp gathered brewing, media and mining assets around the world.
In 2008, Bond made BRW magazine’s annual list of Australia’s 200 richest individuals for the first time in 18 years. BRW ranked Bond at 157th place with an estimated fortune of 255 million dollars through interests including an African diamond mine and Madagascan oil fields.
“All things involving Bond and money are opaque, so we were very wary of overstating Bond’s wealth,” BRW editor in chief Sean Aylmer said at the time.
He is survived by his first wife Eileen and their children John, Craig and Jody.

[Cujo]

Controversial sporting hero and corporate criminal Alan Bond dies at 77

05/06/2015 - 07:47:44



Alan Bond, the polarising global entrepreneur who became an Australian hero by bankrolling a historic America’s Cup yacht race victory before going to prison over the nation’s biggest corporate fraud, has died. He was 77.
Bond, who had rheumatic fever as a child which weakened his heart, died in Fiona Stanley Hospital in the west Australian city of Perth of complications following open heart surgery, said his son, John Bond. The surgery involved replacing a heart valve that had previously been replaced almost 20 years ago, and repairs to two other valves.

“He never regained consciousness after his surgery on Tuesday and has been on life support since that time,” John Bond told reporters. “To a lot of people, dad was a larger-than-life character who started with nothing and did so much. He really did experience the highs and lows of life.
“To us, however, he was just dad – a father who tried his best to be the best dad he could.”
The flamboyant, London-born former sign writer divided Australians. Some remember him as a national sporting hero who transformed his once-sleepy adopted home of Perth into a global business centre. To others, he will always be an audacious corporate criminal who was only exposed when his global business empire crashed in the early 1990s.
Perhaps Bond’s proudest moment came in 1983 when he headed the Australia II syndicate that won the America’s Cup from the New York Yacht Club that had held it since 1851. Australia II’s then-revolutionary winged keel had ended the longest winning streak in the history of sport.
Bond had already been honoured as Australian of the Year in 1978 for sponsoring earlier unsuccessful America’s Cup challenges.
Perth’s neighbouring port town of Fremantle, where Bond arrived as a 12-year-old with his immigrant family in 1950, played host to the next yacht race in 1987. But Australia has never again won the prestigious trophy contest.
His fall came in the 1990s when he was bankrupted owing 1.8 billion Australian dollars, his flagship company Bond Corporation Holdings Ltd collapsed and he was sent to prison three times for corporate crimes.
He pleaded guilty in 1997 to corporate law charges related to the siphoning of AUS $1.2 billion from one of his companies, Bell Resources, to prop up Bond Corp. At the time, it was Australia’s biggest-ever corporate fraud.
Bond won a High Court appeal against his seven-year prison sentence and walked free in 2000 after serving a little more than three years.
He was sentenced in 1996 to three years in prison on convictions that he had improperly used his position as a director of Bond Corp in a series of transactions that cost that public company millions of dollars and enabled Bond’s family company to buy French impressionist Edouard Manet’s painting La Promenade at a discount price.
He was still in prison when he pleaded guilty the next year to the corporate law charges.
He was sentenced in 1992 – the year he was bankrupted – to two-and-a-half years in prison after being found guilty of inducing a former friend to contribute to the rescue of the doomed Rothwells merchant bank while concealing a multimillion dollar fee Bond’s family company made from the deal. He served only a few months before he was retried and acquitted.
Bond was born in the Hammersmith district of west London, the second child of Frank and Kathleen Bond.
He followed the footsteps of his father, who was a commercial painter, by becoming an apprentice sign writer at 14 despite failing a spelling test set by his employer, Fremantle firm Parnell Signs, according to Paul Barry’s biography The Rise and Fall of Alan Bond.
Bond completed less than four years of his five-year apprenticeship before starting a rival business, Nu-Signs, in Fremantle with his father.
Bond showed early business acumen. But his honesty was always in question.
When he was 18 years old, he was convicted in a Fremantle court of two attempted home burglaries. He was fined and placed on a good behaviour bond.
He started making big money in the 1960s, when he branched into property development around Perth.
He was one of Australia’s wealthiest people by the 1980s, as Bond Corp gathered brewing, media and mining assets around the world.
In 2008, Bond made BRW magazine’s annual list of Australia’s 200 richest individuals for the first time in 18 years. BRW ranked Bond at 157th place with an estimated fortune of 255 million dollars through interests including an African diamond mine and Madagascan oil fields.
“All things involving Bond and money are opaque, so we were very wary of overstating Bond’s wealth,” BRW editor in chief Sean Aylmer said at the time.
He is survived by his first wife Eileen and their children John, Craig and Jody.

Wow, Bondy carked it.

[harrybarracuda]

Tariq Aziz, Saddam's Foreign Minister, Dies At 79
JUNE 05, 201512:31 PM ET



Tariq Aziz, the man who became the public face of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein's regime, has died in custody 12 years after surrendering as Baghdad fell to invading U.S. troops, an Iraqi government official has confirmed. Aziz was 79.

The Associated Press reports the former foreign minister and deputy prime minister "died on Friday afternoon after he was taken to the al-Hussein hospital in the city of Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, according to provincial governor Yahya al-Nassiri."

Aziz surrendered in April 2003 and was sentenced to death by the country's Supreme Court. However, as the AP notes:

"Aziz's religion rescued him from the hangman's noose that was the fate of other members of the top regime leadership.

"After he was sentenced to death, the Vatican asked for mercy for him as a Christian. Iraq's president at the time, Jalal Talabani, then refused to give the death sentence his required signature, citing Aziz's age and religion."

But his religion limited his influence in the Sunni Muslim-dominated government, the BBC says, adding "when Baghdad fell, his lack of influence was reflected in his lowly ranking as the eight of spades in the US military's famous 'deck of cards' used to identify the most-wanted players in Saddam's regime."

Aziz first came to international prominence during the first Gulf War in 1991 as a staunch defender of the regime's actions. His signature black-rimmed glasses and the military uniform he often wore, combined with his command of English, made him the most recognizable figure in the regime after Saddam himself.

Aziz and Hussein reportedly became acquainted in the 1950s when they were both activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.

The BBC adds:

"He frequently represented Iraq on the international stage, speaking fluent English and giving a monstrous regime an urbane, often charming face. And like Saddam, he was often seen puffing on fat Cuban cigars.
"When Iraq found itself in dock, as it did after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, it invariably fell to Tariq Aziz to explain Saddam's actions to an exasperated world. He did it doggedly, often infuriatingly, for decades."
During a jailhouse interview in September 2010, Aziz told the AP that he understood that he had "no future" outside of prison walls. "I'm sick and tired but I wish Iraq and Iraqis well," he said.

Tariq Aziz, Saddam's Foreign Minister, Dies At 79 : The Two-Way : NPR

[harrybarracuda]

Actor Richard Johnson dies, aged 87



British actor Richard Johnson, whose career spanned film, theatre and TV, has died aged 87, his family has said.
Johnson made his film debut in the 1950s and featured in numerous films, alongside stars such as Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier and Charlton Heston.
A founder member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Johnson played several lead roles including Romeo and Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar.
He also appeared in several TV dramas such as Lewis and Silent Witness.
Johnson died after a short illness at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea, London. He is survived by his wife Lynne, who he married in 2004, and his four children.
He had been married several times and he met his second wife, American actress Kim Novak, when the pair starred in the 1965 film The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders.
Richard Johnson
He played the lead role in a BBC production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, alongside Dame Helen Mirren
Johnson was born in Upminster, Essex, and he left his training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) to join Sir John Gielgud's company.
He joined the Royal Navy during World War Two and then made his film debut in 1959, when he appeared in the MGM film Never So Few, starring Frank Sinatra and Gina Lollobrigida.
He also appeared in The Haunting (1963) and Khartoum (1966), opposite Laurence Olivier and Charlton Heston.
His family said he was offered and turned down the role of James Bond after playing British spy Bulldog Drummond in Deadlier Than the Male (1967) and its sequel Some Girls Do (1969).
Recent film credits include The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), Scoop (2006) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001).

Actor Richard Johnson dies, aged 87 - BBC News

[harrybarracuda]

Ronnie Gilbert, Clarion Voice Of Folk Band The Weavers, Dies At 88
JUNE 07, 2015 8:01 AM ET

Ronnie Gilbert, the female voice in the influential 1950s folk quartet the Weavers, which also included Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman, has died at age 88.

Gilbert died of natural causes on Saturday, at a retirement home in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Mill Valley, her longtime partner Donna Korones was quoted by The Associated Press as saying.

The four, with Gilbert singing contralto, came together in 1948 and are credited with a folk revival that helped spawn such performers as Bob Dylan, the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary. But the group's leftist political views put them on the radar of the McCarthy-era anti-communist movement and the group lost their recording contract in 1951.

"We sang songs of hope in that strange time after World War II, when already the world was preparing for Cold War," Gilbert said in an interview in 1982 for the documentary The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time. "We still had the feeling that if we could sing loud enough and strong enough and hopefully enough, it would make a difference."

The New York Times labeled the group as "[like-minded] musicians with progressive political views" who performed "work songs, union songs and gospel songs, and became known for American folk standards like 'On Top of Old Smoky,' 'Goodnight, Irene' (first recorded by the blues singer Lead Belly), Woody Guthrie's 'So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh' and 'The Hammer Song' (a.k.a. 'If I Had a Hammer') by Mr. Seeger and Mr. Hays."

Gilbert "had a courageous voice: There was a tremendous sense of joy and energy and courage in her voice," wrote Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary wrote in a booklet included in a boxed set of recordings by the Weavers. "She was able to be very gentle, too; she did wonderful ballads and lullabies and things; but there was that trumpet sound she had that I found very encouraging, because it said, oh, you too! You're not a misfit, there's somebody else out there with a big voice!"

After the quartet disbanded, Gilbert went to a solo career as a singer and stage actor.

The History Channel writes: "The Weavers enjoyed a significant comeback in the late 1950s, but the group never shook its right-wing antagonists. On the afternoon of January 2, 1962, in advance of a scheduled appearance on The Jack Paar Show, the Weavers were told by NBC officials that their appearance would be canceled if they would not sign a statement disavowing the Communist party. Every member of the Weavers refused to sign."

[harrybarracuda]

Waited until The Goonies 30th anniversary. Very considerate.

Goonies actress Mary Ellen Trainor dies aged 62



Goonies actress Mary Ellen Trainor has died at home aged 62.

Trainor played Mikey Walsh's mum in the 1980s classic and also appeared in all the Lethal Weapon movies.

A statement from Trainor's long-time friend Kathleen Kennedy confirmed her death in California.

She said: "Mary and I have been close since our days together as college room-mates and she even provided the introduction to Steven Spielberg that jump-started my career. She was a great actress, warm friend and generous spirit."

Trainor got her start in the film business as a producer's assistant on a number of movies including the 1979 Steven Spielberg film 1941, which her eventual husband, director Robert Zemeckis, wrote.

After the couple married in 1980, Zemeckis cast Trainor in her first film, Romancing The Stone, as the kidnapped sister of Kathleen Turner's character.

She made a number of cameos in Zemeckis's films, including Forrest Gump and Back To The Future.

Trainor also became a regular fixture in some of the biggest films of the 1980s such as Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and The Goonies.

Zemeckis and Trainor, who divorced in 2000, had one child, Alex Zemeckis.

A memorial service will be held on June 19.
Last updated Tue 9 Jun 2015

Goonies actress Mary Ellen Trainor dies aged 62 - ITV News

[harrybarracuda]

Famed Manson family prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi dies at 80
By REBECCA TROUNSON



Vincent Bugliosi, the Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who gained worldwide fame for his successful prosecutions of Charles Manson and his followers for the brutal 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others, has died. He was 80.

Bugliosi, who went on to become a best-selling true crime writer, co-authoring the compelling account “Helter Skelter” about the Manson murders and the sensational trial that followed, died Saturday in a Los Angeles hospital.

He had had health issues in recent years and the cancer that he had overcome three years ago had recently returned and metastasized, according to his wife, Gail.

Along with the crime and courthouse tales that were his biggest sellers, Bugliosi turned his literary attention to other topics. He excoriated George W. Bush in a 2008 book for the U.S. military deaths in Iraq, arguing that the former president should be tried for murder. In another, published in 2011, the former prosecutor, a longtime agnostic, coolly evaluated the evidence for the existence of God.

Bugliosi was always aware, however, of his primary legacy.

“No matter what I do, I’ll be forever known as the Manson prosecutor,” he told The Times in 1994.

The events leading to that prosecution began on the night of Aug. 8, 1969, when, acting on Manson’s orders, four of the cult leader’s followers drove to the Hollywood Hills, ending up around midnight at the secluded Benedict Canyon estate Tate shared with her husband, director Roman Polanski, who was out of the country.

Five people, including the pregnant Tate, would be stabbed or shot to death on the sprawling property. Tate, who begged for her life and that of her nearly full-term baby, was also hanged.

The other victims at the Tate residence or on the grounds were Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring, 35; Voytek Frykowski, 32, a friend of Polanski’s; Abigail Folger, 25, a coffee heiress and girlfriend of Frykowski; and Steven Parent, 18, who had been visiting the property’s caretaker.

Hours later, across town in Los Feliz, grocery chain owners Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were tied up, tortured and killed in a similar manner inside their home.

Breathtaking in their brutality, the multiple killings terrified Los Angeles and set the region on edge. Gun sales skyrocketed in Beverly Hills and nearby communities. Business boomed for security firms, and off-duty police were hired to patrol the homes of the wealthy.

Aided by a jailhouse tip, investigators would eventually link the murderous rampage to Manson and several of his followers living on a remote former movie ranch above Chatsworth.

Bugliosi had been in the L.A. County district attorney’s office just five years when he was asked to help build the case against Manson and those accused with him: Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten. (Another defendant, Charles “Tex” Watson, would be tried separately.)

Two months into what would become a nearly 10-month trial — a record length and, at $1 million, a record cost for its time — Bugliosi became the chief prosecutor on the Manson case after a more senior attorney was removed by the district attorney’s office for making public comments about it.

The courtroom proceedings were marked by the defendants’ bizarre behavior: Manson and the women known as his “girls” carving Xs in their foreheads and shaving their heads; other members of the Manson “family” holding vigil outside the downtown L.A. courthouse; Manson lunging at Judge Charles Older with a sharpened pencil.

Bugliosi argued before jurors that the motive for the murders was Manson’s bizarre plan to trigger a race war, called Helter Skelter, from a Beatles song of the same name. The prosecutor said the cult leader believed that blacks would win the war but would eventually hand over power to Manson and his all-white followers, who planned to survive the carnage by hiding out in Death Valley.

In 1971, two separate juries found Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel and Watson guilty on seven counts of first-degree murder. Van Houten was convicted of two murders.

Bugliosi sought and won death sentences for all five defendants, but the sentences were reduced to life in prison after the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in 1972. (The Legislature later reenacted the death penalty statute, but the life terms for the Manson defendants were unchanged.) Atkins died in prison in 2009; the others remain behind bars.

Stephen R. Kay, a former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who worked with Bugliosi on the Manson trial, said the chief prosecutor recognized the significance of the case from the beginning in a way Kay, then 27, and at least some others in the office did not.

“Another attorney had told me, ‘This is just another big case and in five years, everyone will forget about it,’” Kay said in a 2012 interview with the Times. “But Vince really understood the potential all along, that this was the case of a career.”

Kay also remembers Bugliosi’s meticulous trial preparation and ability to work effectively on very little sleep. “I don’t think I’ve ever known anybody to be as hard a worker as Vince,” Kay said. “He would go home after the trial every day, take a nap for an hour, get up and work until 3 or 4 a.m., sleep for a couple more hours and go back to work.

“And he always appeared fresh, never tired.”

In the course of the trial, Bugliosi also quietly engaged a writer, Curt Gentry, to work with him on crafting “Helter Skelter,” a detailed account of the murders and the complex court case, published in 1974.

Vincent T. Bugliosi was born in Hibbing, Minn., on Aug. 18, 1934, the son of Ida and Vincent Bugliosi Sr. His father ran a small grocery store and was later employed as a railroad conductor.

Bugliosi earned money as a youngster by mowing lawns, delivering newspapers and other small jobs. He also excelled at tennis, winning a state championship in Minnesota when he was 16. His family later moved to Los Angeles and Bugliosi graduated from Hollywood High School.

He attended the University of Miami on a tennis scholarship, earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He later received a law degree from UCLA, where he was president of his 1964 graduating class.

In 1956, he married Gail Talluto, whom he had met in college. Their daughter, Wendy, was born in 1964 and their son Vincent J. in 1966.

He is survived by his wife and two children.

After the Manson trial propelled him into the limelight, Bugliosi ran twice for Los Angeles County district attorney. In the first race, in 1972, he forced incumbent Joseph Busch into a runoff but lost; in 1976, Bugliosi was defeated by incumbent John Van de Kamp.

After leaving the district attorney’s office, Bugliosi became a defense attorney but accepted relatively few cases. “I just don’t want to defend the same kind of people I used to send to death row,” he told the Duluth News-Tribune in 2001.

Mainly, he wrote books, more than a dozen in all, sometimes with co-authors, and always the same way, in long-hand, on a yellow legal pad.

In 1996, he published “Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away with Murder,” in which he dug through the details of the case against Simpson for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. Bugliosi castigated the prosecutors and judge who handled the case as all but incompetent.

The book he considered his best was “Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” a 1,600-page volume published in 2007. In it, he examined the assassination and investigation in minute detail, scornfully dismissing the conspiracy theorists who questioned that Lee Harvey Oswald had committed the crime, and that he acted alone.

But he often said that inevitably, most conversations with him turned to the Manson case.

“Years ago, I spoke at a book convention in Richmond, Va.,” Bugliosi told a Newsweek interviewer in 2009. “I arrived at the station at the same time as William Manchester and Arthur Schlesinger, both Pulitzer Prize winners. The whole cab ride, Manchester and Schlesinger are tossing me questions about Charles Manson: That’s all they wanted to talk about.”

He was often asked to explain the enduring interest.

“The very name Manson has become a metaphor for evil… ,” Bugliosi told the Times in 1994. “He has come to represent the dark and malignant side of humanity, and for whatever reason, there is a side of human nature that is fascinated with ultimate evil.”

Trounson is a former Times staff writer.

Times staff writer Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.

[email protected]

[Sumocakewalk]

R.I.P. Vincent.

Although I have not read the book "Helter Skelter", the 1976 made for TV movie based on it is one of my favorite non-fiction crime films. Fascinating details about the bizarre crime spree of Manson and his 'family'.

[Sumbitch]

^ Also, fascinating that Manson applies for parole every time he is eligible to, innit? He's been eligible 12 times, the last time in 2012 when he was 77. At his next scheduled parole hearing he will be 92. That's 15 years in between hearings, the max. under California law.

[harrybarracuda]

Still wacko as far as I remember. Will probably die in there. No great loss, apart from taxpayers money.

[Sumbitch]

^ The rest of the Mickey Mouse Club is still in there too, except for Tax, er, Tex who died in 2009. RIP

[Boon Mee]

Vincent Musetto, the genius behind ‘Headless Body in Topless Bar’ headline dies at 74.





Longtime ​New York ​ Post news editor and film critic Vincent Musetto — who wrote what’s arguably the most famous headline in newspaper history — died on Tuesday.
He had just turned 74 in May.

Musetto was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three weeks ago. He passed away while in hospice care at Calvary Hospital in The Bronx with Claire, his wife of 50 years, by his side.

“He wasn’t in any pain. He was comfortable,” said his daughter Carly VanTassell. “He passed peacefully in his sleep.”

Col Allan, ​ The Post’s​ Editor-in-Chief, lauded Musetto for his warmth and razor-sharp wit.

Modal Trigger

“VA Musetto was one of the legends of our business, and he became famous for a truly classic headline: `Headless Body in Topless Bar,’ ” Allan said.

“But for those who worked with him and mourn him today, VA offered so much more. Humor. A sharp critical eye. A personal warmth with his colleagues, and deep love for ​The Post and its readers. All will miss him.”

Musetto etched his place in New York journalism history when he wrote “Headless Body in Topless Bar,” the screaming front page ​headline​ of the​ April 15, 1983 ​ edition of ​ The Post.

Musetto’s headline perfectly summed up the gruesome murder of Queens bar owner Herbert Cummings.

Charles Dingle fatally shot the topless bar owner and then took four women hostage, raped one and had another cut off Cummings’ head.

In a 1987 interview with People magazine, Musetto – who began his career at The Post in 1973 – said the murder and decapitation was known early in the reporting process.

Musetto immediately thought of the “topless” headline but needed confirmation that Cummings’ watering hole was, in fact, a jiggle joint.

Reporter Maralyn Matlick jumped on a garbage can, looked inside the bar and spotted a sign, “Topless Dancing Tonight.”
“Someone said it might be a topless bar, but we weren’t sure, and then the idea of the headline came around, so we were really questioning to make sure it was a topless bar,” Musetto recalled.

“We sent the reporter, this girl, and she so determined that it was a topless bar. I just wrote it, and everyone said `ha ha,’ but I didn’t think it would live in infamy.”
Dingle was serving 25 to life for Cummings’ murder. He was last denied parole in early 2012 before dying.

“I knew this was coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take,” said heartbroken, former Post city editor Dick Belsky, who worked alongside assistant managing editor Musetto when the “topless” headline was hatched. “Vincent was my friend for a long, long time. So many memories.”

Even hours after Musetto’s passing was announced by his family on Tuesday, “Headless Body in Topless Bar” was trending on Twitter – both in New York and the United States.

“He [Musetto] enjoyed the notoriety of `Headless Body in Topless Bar’ but that wasn’t his favorite headline,” Belsky said.

That honor went to “Granny Executed in Her Pink Pajamas,” a headline that topped coverage of serial killer Margie Velma Barfield’s 1984 execution in North Carolina.
At the time, Barfield was the first woman put to death in 22 years and she remains the last female executed in North Carolina.

Musetto famously went on David Letterman’s show in 1986 when the gap-toothed funnyman went over some of the Post man’s favorite headlines.

In addition to “Headless” and “Granny,” they showed off Musetto’s:
“Koch Kicks Butt,” about then-mayor Koch’s crusade to ban smoking in parks and other public spaces;

“Curse of the Capewoman,” about the wife of Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy who, while wearing a cape, vowed to kill the pilot who bombed her home;
“Power Losses Hobble Gobble,” about a blackout on Thanksgiving Day; and
“Big Flap over Foul Turkeys,” about contaminated turkeys on the market.
But all the talk came back to “Headless Body in Topless Bar.”

Letterman could barely keep a straight face as he read it out loud, muttering and smiling, “Oh my gosh now.”

“That is the most infamous headline ever written,” Musetto said.
When Letterman asked Musetto his favorite words for headlines, he quickly responded: “My favorite words are coed, love, nightmare … tots works.”
Musetto was survived by his wife, daughter and brother Andrew.

Belsky said he’ll always remember Musetto for his trademark shock of gray hair.
“He was such a character, the same guy in his early 70s. He looked like a guy from Woodstock with that hair,” Belsky fondly recalled. “He loved serious movies, he loved the cinema. Just calling him a `character’ doesn’t capture what a serious guy he was.”

The genius behind ?Headless Body in Topless Bar? headline dies at 74 | New York Post

RIP Vince

[panama hat]

Never heard of that headline, but it is quite good!

[harrybarracuda]

Never heard of that headline, but it is quite good!

The best one I ever heard was on an article about Library cuts in Essex:

"Book Lack in Ongar".

[Latindancer]

Musetto was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three weeks ago.

It only has a 5% recovery rate, but Jesus, that was fast !

[harrybarracuda]

Musician James Last dies at Florida home
13:56 10 June 2015 Press Association

German composer and big band leader James Last, whose trademark easy listening music brought him international success, has died aged 86.

One of the most popular band leaders of the post-war period, Last died on Tuesday in Florida after a short illness and his family was with him at the time, his Berlin-based promoters said.

“The distinguished and prominent artist lived for music and wrote music history. James Last was the most successful German band leader of all time,” Semmel Concerts said in a written statement.

A public memorial is planned in the northern port city of Hamburg for his fans.

Last, who was born Hans Last in the northern city of Bremen in 1929, was known for his “happy music”, arranging pop hits in a big band style, as well as for his party albums.

His music sold in the millions and he performed about 2500 live concerts during a career spanning five decades after clinching his first record deal in 1964, according to his website.

He gave a farewell tour, Non-Stop Music, which ended in April in Cologne.

His music will live on in lifts worldwide.

[BaitongBoy]

His music will live on in lifts worldwide.

Heh...That's worth a slice of green pie...

[harrybarracuda]

His music will live on in lifts worldwide.

Heh...That's worth a slice of green pie...

'Strue tho ennit?

[harrybarracuda]

Jun 11, 1:06 AM EDT

'ROCKY,' 'RAGING BULL' PRODUCER ROBERT CHARTOFF DIES AT 81



SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) -- Robert Chartoff, the Oscar-winning movie producer behind the boxing classics "Rocky" and "Raging Bull," died Wednesday, associates said. He was 81.

Chartoff died at his home in Santa Monica, California, Lynn Hendee, the president of his company, Chartoff Productions. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.

Born in Depression-era New York City, Chartoff had been a movie producer for nearly a decade when he found his career-defining hit in 1976's "Rocky," the small-budget movie starring and written by Sylvester Stallone that became a blockbuster and won three Academy Awards including best picture.

Chartoff and his partner Irwin Winkler would go on to produce all seven movies in the "Rocky" series, including the forthcoming "Creed," which is in post-production and due for release later this year.

He kept working into his late 70s and 80s, his recent credits including 2013's "Ender's Game" with Harrison Ford and 2014's "The Gambler" with Mark Wahlberg.

He also produced a different, darker take on boxing in the Martin Scorcese-directed "Raging Bull" in 1980.

His other credits included 1983's "The Right Stuff," which won four Oscars, and 1969's "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" a cult hit starring Jane Fonda.

He had five children with three different wives, and is survived by his current wife jenny Weyman.