The RIP Famous Person Thread

[Bobcock]

For Australians..... Mike Gibson from ABC's Wide World Of Sports died yesterday.

[palexxxx]

^ that's sad. RIP Mike.

[bobo746]

https://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/a/2963...ession-report/
Gibson took own life after battle with depression: report

Veteran journalist Mike Gibson took his own life after a long battle with depression, according to reports.
The 75-year-old sports journalist had battled depression as a result of a number of issues, including the break up of his partner of eight years Lisa Binney and a property dispute, News Corp reports.
"He went into a very, very black place and his brother started dropping in on him every day to check he was okay," a family friend said.
"When his brother Chris phoned Gibbo on Wednesday and the phone went unanswered, he went around and discovered the body."
The former host of Wide World of Sports and The Back Page was found dead at his NSW Central Coast home on Wednesday morning.
He has been remembered as the "bloke next door", a storyteller without peer and a legend of Australian sport.

[peaches]

^^^
You could say he'd had enough.

Loved your work Mike.

R.I.P.

[Bobcock]

R.I.P bryn merrick. bass player from the damned and a local good bloke from my town..

When I mentioned this to my brother it turns out that he knew Bryn better than I realised and will be attending the funeral.

[harrybarracuda]

‘Towering Inferno’ Director John Guillermin Dies at 89
SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 | 07:28PM PT
Variety Staff



Director John Guillermin, known for “The Towering Inferno” and the 1976 “King Kong,” died Sunday at his home in the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles. He was 89.

His friend Nick Redman of Twilight Time Movies, which released several of his films on DVD, confirmed his death. On Facebook, Guillermin’s wife Mary called her husband “sensitive and passionate, full of a fierce rapture himself.”

The British director had been active for decades beginning in the late 1940s. His directing credits include 1976’s “King Kong” starring Jessica Lange, “Death on the Nile,” “The Blue Max” and “Shaft in Africa.”

“The Towering Inferno,” released in 1974, won Oscars for original song, film editing and cinematography, in addition to Golden Globes for Fred Astaire and Susan Flannery. The film starred Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden and Faye Dunaway.

Guillermin also was a writer and producer on “Melody in the Dark, “High Jinks in Society” and “Paper Gallows.” Guillermin’s other writing credits include “Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure” and “Tarzan Goes to India.”

Born in London, he attended Cambridge University. He won the Evening Standard British Film Award in 1980 for “Death on the Nile.”

He is survived by his wife and a daughter.

[harrybarracuda]

Frankie Ford, who sang 'Sea Cruise,' dies at age 76



Janet McConnaughey, The Associated Press
Published Wednesday, September 30, 2015 7:26AM EDT
NEW ORLEANS -- Frankie Ford, a rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues singer whose 1959 hit "Sea Cruise" brought him international fame when he was 19, is dead at the age of 76.
Ford died Monday of natural causes, according to the Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, coroner's office.
"He was a great guy. He had the best voice in rock and roll," said Mike Shepherd, a friend of Ford's and head of the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, which inducted Ford in 2010.
In addition to "Sea Cruise," Billboard magazine's No. 14 overall and No. 11 in rhythm and blues in 1959, Ford's hits included "Roberta," "Time after Time" and "You Talk Too Much." His version of "You Talk Too Much" aired while Joe Jones' recordings of the song were tied up in court. Jones' recording eventually reached No. 3, while none of Ford's after "Sea Cruise" made it higher than 72, the mark set by "Seventeen" in 1961.
Shepherd said Ford had been ill for some time, and had been unable to walk since he was hit by a car in Memphis several years ago.
Ford had sung since childhood. His adopted parents, Vincent and Anna Guzzo of Gretna, brought him to New York when he was five to perform on the "Ted Mack Amateur Hour." His stage name was suggested, in a nod to hot rods, by Ace Records owner Johnny Vincent, according to his biography on the hall of fame website.
Shepherd said Ford was called to Cosimo Matassa's New Orleans studio in the late 1950s to cover songs by local black musicians whose records got limited airtime because of racial discrimination. Lenny Capello and Jimmy Clanton, both from Baton Rouge, were brought in at the same time, he said.
"All the music was coming from New Orleans, yet people like Pat Boone were covering people like Little Richard and Fats Domino and getting hits. It was a black-white thing," Shepherd said.
He said all three were auditioned in one day. "The producers understood the point: This is our music, this is Louisiana's music, yet we're letting them take it out of here and making a fortune with -- I've got to say it -- white guys," Shepherd said.
A different producer took each singer, he said. Capello had a hit with "Cotton Candy," which he previously had recorded with his own band, but this time backed with New Orleans professionals, according to his biography on the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame website. Clanton became a teen idol with "Just a Dream," "Go Jimmy Go" and, in 1962, "Venus in Blue Jeans."
Ford's last performance was at the 2013 Gretna Heritage Festival.
Shepherd said he last saw Ford a couple of months ago when he visited to get items for the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame museum.
He said Ford, no longer able to walk, told him, "Son, you go up and take whatever you want, because I'm never wearing any of it again."
His choices included a sequined jacket -- dark red except for a piano keyboard in cream and black sequins.
He said Ford "put one hand on the sleeve of the jacket ... and he said, 'My mama made this for me."'

Frankie Ford, who sang 'Sea Cruise,' dies at age 76 | Entertainment & Showbiz from CTV News

[harrybarracuda]

Denis Healey, Ex-U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Dies at 98
Sam Fleming and Gonzalo



Denis Healey, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer during a period of economic turmoil and trade union unrest in the late 1970s who reportedly threatened to squeeze the rich “until the pips squeak,” has died. He was 98.
Healey died at his home in Sussex, southern England, on Saturday, the British Broadcasting Corp. said, citing a family statement. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne described Healey as a “giant of the Labour movement” who was “chancellor in the most difficult circumstances.”
Born in the year of the Russian Revolution, Healey became a member of the Communist Party as a student at Oxford University, later moving to the Labour Party where he narrowly missed out on the leadership after the party lost power to the Conservatives in 1979. He was a member of parliament for 40 years until 1992 when he entered the House of Lords.
“Healey did not attain the highest office,” wrote biographer Edward Pearce. “But because he was not obsessed with the highest office, that has been our loss not his grief.”
Healey served as defense secretary from 1964 to 1970 and then as chancellor from 1974 to 1979, when he resorted to an International Monetary Fund loan to shore up the public finances. His attempts to impose budget discipline and wage restraint were ultimately overshadowed by the period of union strife culminating in 1978’s so-called Winter of Discontent.
Disastrous
Edmund Dell, a junior minister in Healey’s Treasury, wrote of “three Healeys” during 1974-79: the “political” chancellor who inherited a disastrous situation, but postponed the medicine until after the second general election of 1974; the “orthodox” chancellor who in 1976 turned to the IMF to save the pound, and then let it rise too high when oil was discovered in the North Sea in 1977; and the “resurrected” political chancellor who aimed for election victory and a possible prime minister role.
Many in his party turned against him for yielding to IMF pressure to cut spending in return for the bailout. Labour “took its revenge on Healey for his outstanding services to the Labour government by denying him the succession to James Callaghan as leader,” Dell wrote in his 1996 book “The Chancellors.” “But he showed no resentment. He knew that there is no gratitude in politics.”
‘Most Exciting’
A multilingual polymath, Healey belonged to a generation of politicians steeped in both classical learning and the bloodshed of war. In his memoirs, “The Time of My Life,” he described chancing on a work of art by Botticelli in an Italian drawing room while he was a soldier in 1944. He said it was “the most exciting moment of my life.”
In the House of Commons, his debating style could be cutting. He once brushed off an attack by his Conservative opponent Geoffrey Howe by dismissing the experience as “rather like being savaged by a dead sheep.” It was a put-down that came to define Howe’s political character. Biographer Edward Pearce described Healey as “a thinker but not a dreamer” and “a pragmatist, someone who looked for the most intelligent way of doing the job.”
Denis Winston Healey was born on Aug. 30, 1917, in Mottingham, south east London, the son of William, an engineer, and Winifred. His family, including two siblings, moved to Yorkshire, north England, when he was five, and he later became closely associated with the working class north, attending Bradford Grammar School.
Political Affiliation
His parents chose his middle name in honor of the man who would go on to lead the nation in World War II, though Healey recalled that being named after the aristocratic, and Conservative, Churchill attracted mockery, rather than honor, in the left-wing Labour movement.
The young Healey’s first political affiliation was a brief foray with the Communist Party when he was a student studying classics at Oxford University’s Balliol College. He left the Communists some time before achieving a double first in 1940, moving on to serve with the Royal Engineers during World War II.
He saw active service in North Africa and in Italy, where he was the military landing officer for the British assault brigade at Anzio. He left the army as a major and immediately fought in the general election as a Labour candidate for the Conservative-held seat of Pudsey and Otley. Although he doubled the Labour vote, he failed to win the seat. The same year Healey married Edna Edmunds, who later became a filmmaker, historian and biographer.
Defense Secretary
After working as Labour’s international secretary, Healey won a bid for Parliament in a 1952 special election in Leeds East. He would hold the same seat despite boundary changes throughout his career in the House of Commons.
His first Cabinet role was as defense secretary under Prime Minister Harold Wilson between 1964 and 1970, a period in which he was preoccupied with the future of Britain’s nuclear deterrent and the North Atlantic alliance. He allowed the U.S. to build a military base at Diego Garcia.
That role led Healey to indulge his passion for international affairs and allowed him to broaden a network of friendships with public figures from both the rest of Europe and the U.S. He counted among his friends former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who fought in World War II in Russia. After the war, Healey was a lifelong proponent of reconciliation with Germany.
IMF Loan
His greatest test in government came as head of the Treasury in the 1970s during the premiership of James Callaghan, when the U.K. economy was mired in oil-price induced inflation and flare-ups of industrial action. The Times reported a speech he made in Lincoln in 1974 in which he said he would “squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak.” Healey would be later widely reported as saying that Labour would “tax the rich until the pips squeak,” something he always denied.
He recalled his period in the Treasury as marred by fatigue and at times ill-health as he pushed through spending cuts and attempted to broker wage restraints. “My biggest problem, frankly,” he told the Guardian in an interview in 2006, “was trying to get the unions to be sensible about pay. In my first year the overall increase in pay was 26 percent.”
In 1976, he asked the IMF for a 3.9 billion-pound loan, based on Treasury borrowing projections that subsequently proved to be overstated. In a 2004 lecture at the London School of Economics, Healey described the decision to request the IMF credit as “very, very difficult indeed and in fact totally unnecessary.” The British government drew down half its loan and had repaid it by the time Healey left office.
Mere Guesswork
The experience confirmed a life-long suspicion of statistics that had its roots in a spell during his military service when he had to count numbers of troops getting on and off trains during blackouts, a process Healey later said was mere guesswork.
When Callaghan resigned after losing the 1979 general election to Thatcher, it led to a contest for the leadership of the Labour Party which Healey lost by 10 votes to Michael Foot, effectively bringing to an end his chances of becoming leader of either his party or the country.
It was an outcome that helped bring about the split of the Labour Party in 1981, ensuring it would spend the following 16 years in the political wilderness.
Healey said in his memoirs that he had no regrets if he lost out on becoming prime minister by making unpopular decisions. “I have always been in politics in order to do something, rather than to be something,” he wrote.
Tuition Fees
Healey retired from the House of Commons in 1992 and was appointed to the House of Lords, Britain’s upper, unelected chamber of Parliament, the same year.
He became increasingly critical of Prime Minister Tony Blair, deploring the decision to go to war in Iraq and lashing out at the introduction of university tuition fees. In 2006 he said nuclear weapons were no longer needed, while in 2013 he told the New Statesman magazine that he would vote to leave the European Union. “The case for leaving is stronger than for staying in,” he said.
Healey said his greatest regret was that he didn’t serve as foreign secretary, yet many of his Labour Party colleagues bemoaned his failure to achieve the U.K.’s highest office.
“He would have been a great prime minister because he possessed in abundance the two essential requirements of that office: courage and intellect,” wrote his former ministerial colleague Roy Hattersley in the Observer newspaper in 2002. “His failure to lead the Labour Party -- and the country -- was a tragedy.”
Healey and his wife, who died in 2010, had three children Tim, Jenny and Cressida.

[snakeeyes]

Dancing at Lughnasa playwright Brian Friel dies, aged 86



The playwright Brian Friel has died this morning, aged 86.

Friel was born in Omagh in 1929 and studied at St Columb’s College, Londonderry. He worked as a teacher in Londonderry before moving to County Donegal in 1967, three years after his first stage success, Philadelphia, Here I Come, which was followed by a series of internationally regarded successes.

He has been described as one of Ireland's greatest playwrights, an “honourable heir” to JM Synge and Sean O'Casey and the Irish Chekhov.

Nobel peace laureate, John Hume, expressed his deep sadness today at the death of Friel, describing him as "a gentle literary giant".

Mr Hume said: “I am deeply saddened to learn of the death of my dear friend Brian Friel. To put simply, Brian Friel was a genius, but he was a genius who lived, breathed and walked amongst us.

“Brian leaves us with a rich and diverse legacy. His works stand alongside the very best in theatre across the world and have inspired generations of playwrights, actors and theatre professionals. I have no doubt that his work will continue to inspire the young and old alike for generations to come.

“I want to express my very sincere condolences to Brian’s family and friends at this difficult time. I hope they can take comfort from the special place he held in the hearts of Irish people and the proud legacy that he has left us all with.”

Alliance Councillor Emmet McDonough-Brown said Brian Friel “one of the finest writers in Irish history”.

Councillor McDonough-Brown said Friel’s contributions to the literary canon were “both important and enduring”.

He said: “Dancing at Lughnasa recently finished another amazing run at the Lyric Theatre in South Belfast, which reaffirmed Friel’s place in the literary history of our country. Through such works, he explored the universal themes of society, which meant he spoke to each of us.

“I was proud to support the recent inaugural Lughnasa International Friel Festival, which was funded by Belfast City Council, and was a perfect tribute to him. Although he will be sorely missed, his writings will live on and continue to be enjoyed by many.”

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Friel's most famous play, Dancing at Lughnasa, the Lyric Theatre put on the show from August 26 to September 27.

Some of his works include Philadelphia, Here I Come and Translations. He was bestowed with numerous awards including a Tony Award in New York in 2006 for Faith Healer, the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009, the UCD Ulysses Medal in 2009, and Donegal Person of the Year in 2011.

In 1992, Friel also won three Tony Awards for Dancing at Lughnasa. The play was later made into a film starring Meryl Streep.

Friel was described by former US president Bill Clinton “as an Irish treasure for the entire world”.

Mr Clinton, who has been often linked with the playwright, said that although Friel’s plays were “set in his small town of Ballybeg, the themes and issues explored in them – identity, family, and conflict – have a universal appeal".

Mr Clinton was also present at the Lughnasa International Friel Festival in August, Ireland's first cross-border arts festival, that honoured Friel with a dramatic production of one of his most important works.

Friel wrote more than 30 plays, including Lovers, and Aristrocrats. Several of his plays looked at family relationships and changes in Irish society.

He served in the Irish senate from 1987 to 1989 and was a Saoi of Aosdána, the highest honour one may receive for singular and sustained distinction in the arts.

In 1980, he formed the Field Day Theatre Company with actor Stephen Rae, its first production being Friel’s own Translations.
He married Anne Morrison in 1954 and they had five children: Mary, Paddy (who predeceased him), Judy, Sally and David.


Dancing at Lughnasa playwright Brian Friel dies, aged 86 - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

[misskit]

Singer Billy Joe Royal Dies at 73



Veteran country and pop singer Billy Joe Royal died in his sleep at his home in North Carolina on Tuesday. He was 73.

Singer B.J. Thomas shared the tragic news on Twitter.

“My best friend Billy Joe Royal died this morning. He was a sweet and talented man. Never a bad word. One of a kind,” Thomas wrote on Tuesday evening.

Royal is best known for his 1960s hits “Down in the Boondocks,” “I Knew You When” and “Cherry Hill Park,” which was his last single to appear on the Top-40 chart.

He left Columbia Records for short stints at smaller labels in the ’70s, eventually working for Mercury Records, where he released a self-titled album in 1980, before settling down with Atlantic Records in his adopted hometown of Nashville in the late ’80s. His biggest country tracks included “If the Jukebox Took Teardrops” and “Searchin’ for Some Kind of Clue.”

The singer’s most recent project was the 2009 album “His First Gospel Album.” He was set to tour with Ronnie McDowell this fall.

Billy Joe Royal Dead: Pop-Country Singer Dies at 73 | Variety








His music really brings back some childhood memories.

[Humbert]

Moochie dies at age 66!

Kevin Corcoran, the former child star who played the youngest son in Old Yeller and went on to work as a producer on such TV series as Sons of Anarchy and The Shield, died Tuesday in Santa Monica, Calif., from complications of cancer. He was 66.
Born in Santa Monica and raised with seven siblings, who also acted, Corcoran appeared in several Disney productions in the 1950s. He often played variations of a rambunctious kid named Moochie, as in three Mickey Mouse Club serials and the movie The Shaggy Dog.

[harrybarracuda]

Frank Albanese, Actor on 'The Sopranos,' Dies at 84
by Mike Barnes 10/7/2015 4:30pm PDT



Frank Albanese, who played Tony Soprano’s uncle, the retired mobster Pat Blundetto, on The Sopranos, has died. He was 84.

Albanese, who also appeared in Goodfellas (1990) and in uncredited roles in two of the three Godfather films, died Monday at a Staten Island hospice facility in New York, the website SILive.com reported.

A hard-hitting heavyweight boxer, Albanese had to give up the sport at age 19 after he suffered a brain injury. Middleweight champion Rocky Graziano (immortalized by Paul Newman in the 1956 biopic Somebody Up There Likes Me) helped get him an uncredited role in Martin Ritt’s Mafia drama The Brotherhood (1968), starring Kirk Douglas.

Albanese studied acting and appeared in Plaza Suite (1971) and in Honor Thy Father, a 1973 CBS telefilm about the Bonanno crime family. On a 1989 episode of America’s Most Wanted, he played mobster Paul Castellano, and he showed up in yet another crime film, Dead Presidents (1995).

He portrayed Tony’s (James Gandolfini) Uncle Pat, who was suffering from dementia and couldn’t remember where the bodies were buried on his farm, on four episodes of HBO’s The Sopranos between 2004 and 2007.

Frank Albanese Dead: 'Sopranos' Actor Dies at 84 - Hollywood Reporter

[harrybarracuda]

Oct 9, 3:56 AM EDT

CHEF PAUL PRUDHOMME, WHO POPULARIZED CAJUN FARE, DIES AT 75
JANET MCCONNAUGHEY REBECCA SANTANA
ASSOCIATED PRESS



NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- At his New Orleans restaurant, legendary chef Paul Prudhomme proudly showed off dishes and ingredients from his upbringing in Louisiana's rural Cajun country: blackened redfish, jambalaya and sweet potato pecan pie drew diners by the droves to his K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen.

Such fare, in turn, helped helped launch Prudhomme as a culinary superstar who brought Cajun cuisine into the mainstream. At a time when the country's top restaurants served virtually nothing but European food, Prudhomme's message to diners and other chefs was simple.

Prudhomme died Thursday after a brief illness. He was 75.

"'Be proud of our local cuisine, local culture, local accents.' Paul was the catalyst that made that happen," said fellow New Orleans chef John Folse.

Folse is one of the legions of culinary masters and Cajun food fans who are mourning the loss of Prudhomme.

In 1979, Prudhomme opened K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, a French Quarter diner that served the meals of his childhood and helped launch him into culinary superstardom.

The distinctly American chef had no formal training, but he stirred up a nationwide appetite for Cajun food by serving dishes - gumbo, etouffee and jambalaya - that were once largely unknown outside Louisiana.

"He was always on a mission and nothing was impossible for Paul. He did things his way and let the food speak for itself," said chef Frank Brigtsen, who worked for Prudhomme for seven years. "He changed the way we eat in New Orleans in a major way, by bringing Acadian or Cajun cuisine to the restaurants of the city."

Prudhomme was known for his innovations. His most famous dishes used the technique he called blackening: fish or meat coated with spices, then seared until black in a white-hot skillet. Blackened redfish became so popular, Prudhomme lamented, that customers stopped ordering the traditional Cajun dishes he loved to prepare.

"We had all this wonderful food, we raised our own rabbit and duck, and all anyone wanted was blackened redfish," he said in a 1992 interview.

Prudhomme was raised by his sharecropper parents on a farm near Opelousas, in Louisiana's Acadiana region. The youngest of 13 children, he spent much of his time in the kitchen with his mother, whom he credited for developing his appreciation of rich flavors and the fresh vegetables, poultry and seafood that she cooked.

"With her I began to understand about seasoning, about blending taste, about cooking so things were worth eating," he said.

After high school, Prudhomme traveled the country cooking in bars, diners, resorts and hotel restaurants.

He returned to New Orleans in the early 1970s and found a job as chef in a hotel restaurant. In 1975, Ella Brennan hired him to become the head chef at Commander's Palace, a bold step for the esteemed restaurant.

Brennan said at the time that the food scene was evolving rapidly and the restaurant wanted someone who could help them be part of the change.

"What we were really trying to do also was put New Orleans on the map as a food center. And Paul contributed to that in every way humanly possible," she said.

Four years after joining Commander's Palace, Prudhomme and his wife opened K-Paul's.

K-Paul's was inexpensive and unassuming - formica tables, plywood walls, drinks served in jars and customers often seated next to people they didn't know. But it was soon the most popular restaurant in New Orleans.

Prudhomme's bearded face and oversized frame became familiar on television talk shows in the 1980s, where he encouraged Americans to spice up their meals. He expanded K-Paul's and turned it into an upscale operation. He published bestselling cookbooks and created a business that sold his spicy seasoning mixtures around the country.

After Hurricane Katrina, he used the profits from his spice company to keep his restaurant afloat, bringing in trailers to the parking lot for his staff to live in and cooking thousands of meals for rescue workers, said Liz Williams, who heads the city's Southern Food and Beverage Museum.

Prudhomme's success brought regrets, as well. Prudhomme sparked the Cajun food craze, but he often said few Cajun restaurants outside Louisiana served the real thing. He worried over the common perception that all Cajun food is blistering hot.

Prudhomme's weight, as much as his cooking skills, was a career trademark. Just over 5 feet tall, he had trouble squeezing into chairs. He had a bad knee, used a cane and usually moved in a scooter instead of walking.

But later in his career he significantly slimmed down. During a 2013 cooking demonstration in New Orleans - done from his motorized scooter - he told the crowd that at one time he was 580 pounds but now weighed in at 200 pounds.

"I used to taste things this way," he said, filling his large cooking spoon. "Now I taste them this way." He poked a fork into a single piece of carrot and held it up.

----

On the Net: http://www.chefpaul.com/

[misskit]

I had dinner in K-Paul's once. The crab cakes were out of this world.

Goodbye Chef Prudhomme.

[harrybarracuda]

I had dinner in K-Paul's once. The crab cakes were out of this world.

Goodbye Chef Prudhomme.

One last dance Misskit, although you might have to wait, I think his website is taking a fearful battering.....

https://www.chefpaul.com/site.php?pageID=300&view=415

[harrybarracuda]

A couple of British TV stars of yesteryear....

British Tv Presenter Hugh Scully Has Died At The Age Of 72.



The former Antiques Roadshow host passed away at his home in Cornwall, England on Thursday (08Oct15).

Scully began his career as a freelance journalist at the BBC in 1965 and went on to work as a presenter on current affairs show Nationwide. In 1967, he was appointed the chairman of radio show Talking about Antiques and Collector's World in 1970.

Scully moved on as the host of Antiques Roadshow alongside Arthur Negus in 1981 and stayed on the programme for 19 years before joining Internet auction company QXL.com in 2000 to launch its antiques business.

He was also the founder of Fine Art Productions.

Hugh Scully | British Tv Host Hugh Scully Dies At 72 | Contactmusic.com

GORDON HONEYCOMBE, a former ITN newsreader, has died in Australia at the age of 79.

By SARAH BUCHANAN
PUBLISHED: 20:15, Fri, Oct 9, 2015 | UPDATED: 20:22, Fri, Oct 9, 2015



Gordon died after being "ill for some time" said a statement released by TV-am today.

The newsreader, who was also a successful author and playwright, was the face of ITN between 1965 and 1977.

"Gordon had recently celebrated his birthday but had been ill for some time," the TV-am statement said.

"Gordon will be remembered for his authority, intelligence and wonderful sense of humour. As his health declined he spent a few weeks in a specialist care home, but was alert and doing crosswords up to the very end."

"Gordon joined TV-am in 1984 to help beef up the news service which had been heavily criticised by the regulator - the IBA.

"He was a daily face for five years and eventually decided to leave the station in 1989, when Lisa Aziz took over.

"Gordon will be remembered for his authority, intelligence and wonderful sense of humour and great kindness."

http://http://www.express.co.uk/cele...e-dies-aged-79

[Troy]

^ R.I.P. Gordon...one of the few that bring back fond memories and my Dad will be celebrating outliving....(in a very nice sort of way)

[harrybarracuda]

Geoffrey Howe dies of suspected heart attack at the age of 88
Nicholas Reilly for Metro.co.uk Saturday 10 Oct 2015 1:15 pm



Former Chancellor Lord Geoffrey Howe has died at the age of 88 after suffering a suspected heart attack, his family has announced.

Lord Howe served as chancellor in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet from 1979 to 1983, before later becoming Foreign Secretary.

But it was his resignation as Deputy Prime Minister in 1990 that is said to have sparked the beginning of Margaret Thatcher’s downfall – after he delivered a brutal speech that heavily criticised the Prime Minister’s attitude to Europe.

He was first elected as MP for Bebington between 1964 and 1966 before becoming the MP for Reigate in 1970 and later served the East Surrey constituency from 1974.

Paying tribute, Prime Minister David Cameron described Lord Howe as the ‘quiet hero of the first Thatcher Government.’

‘Geoffrey Howe was a kind, gentle and deeply thoughtful man – but at the same time he had huge courage and resolve’, he wrote on Facebook.

‘His time as Chancellor of the Exchequer was vital in turning the fortunes of our country around, cutting borrowing, lowering tax rates and conquering inflation.

‘Lifting exchange controls may seem obvious now, but it was revolutionary back then. He was the quiet hero of the first Thatcher government.

‘He loved his politics and never stopped giving strong and sound advice. George Osborne and I benefited greatly from his wisdom and determination to improve the state of the country.

‘The Conservative family has lost one of its greats. Our thoughts are with his family.’

Link

[harrybarracuda]

Sue Lloyd-Roberts dead: BBC journalist dies aged 64 after long battle with leukaemia
21:55, 13 OCT 2015 UPDATED 03:21, 14 OCT 2015
BY LOUISE SASSOON



BBC journalist Sue Lloyd-Roberts has lost her battle with cancer, her heartbroken husband has said.

The popular correspondent and investigative reporter died after a long fight with acute myeloid leukaemia.

She received a stem cell transplant over the summer at the age of 64 after being told it was her best chance of survival.

She had been keeping a video diary of her struggle for the BBC.

<snip> (Twatter stuff)

Ms Lloyd-Roberts, who had also worked for ITN, reported on events in Syria, Burma and North Korea and campaigned for human rights.


Colleagues have remembered her as a brilliant journalist.

Sky News presenter Kay Burley said she was "magnificent" while Jane Garvey said she was a "wonderful woman".


BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet added: "Terribly sad news that Sue Lloyd-Roberts has passed away - bravest of journalists, kindest of colleagues, wonderful person.


"Sue Lloyd-Roberts was a trail blazer - taking risks, showing courage, telling the stories few others could get £RIP"


BBC Newsnight editor Ian Katz said she was "fearless" and news anchor Jane Hill said she was "a role model for female journalists".

BBC director general Tony Hall also paid tribute saying: "Her determination, bravery and courage were extraordinary.


"She went to dangerous places to give a voice to people who otherwise would not be heard.

"She was quite simply a remarkable woman who got remarkable stories.

She will be deeply missed."

Sue Lloyd-Roberts dead: BBC journalist dies aged 64 after long battle with leukaemia - Mirror Online

[Sumbitch]

I've never heard of her, Cujo.

[harrybarracuda]

Joan Leslie, Actress in 'Sergeant York' and 'Yankee Doodle Dandy,' Dies at 90
by Mike Barnes 10/15/2015 10:02am PDT



Joan Leslie, the dark-haired Hollywood ingenue who starred in High Sierra, Sergeant York, Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Sky’s the Limit — all before she turned 18 — has died. She was 90.

Leslie, who often played the sweetheart or the wholesome girl next door on the big screen, died Oct. 12 in Los Angeles, her family announced.

After signing with Warner Bros. at age 15, the Detroit native played the hobbled girl Velma in High Sierra (1941) opposite Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino, then was the love interest of Gary Cooper’s World War I hero in Sergeant York (1941).

She portrayed the wife of James Cagney’s George Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and frolicked with Fred Astaire in The Sky’s the Limit (1943) after being loaned out to RKO Radio Pictures. (Astaire once paid her a compliment when he said she “had brains in her feet.”)

Her other films at Warners include the circus movie The Wagons Roll at Night (1941), also with Bogart; The Male Animal (1942), starring Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland; Hollywood Canteen (1944), in which she played herself opposite her older sister, Betty Brodel; Where Do We Go from Here? (1945), with Fred MacMurray; and the Busby Berkeley musical Cinderella Jones (1946), also starring Robert Alda.

Looking for better parts, she took Warners to court to get out of her contract and in 1947 hooked up with Eagle-Lion Films and then Republic Pictures.

Born Joan Brodel in Detroit on Jan. 26, 1925, she and her two older siblings performed in a singing and dancing vaudeville act called The Brodel Sisters. She also worked as a child model, and when her sister Betty signed with MGM, the family moved to Burbank. At age 11, Leslie landed an uncredited role in George Cukor’s Camille, starring Great Garbo and Robert Taylor.

She then appeared in such films as Nancy Drew... Reporter (1939) and Two Thoroughbreds (1939) and had an uncredited role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940) before she signed with Warners. Her first movie under her stage name was High Sierra.

She made Repeat Performance (1947) at Republic, followed by such films as Born to Be Bad (1950), Man in the Saddle (1951) with Randolph Scott, Woman They Almost Lynched (1953), Jubilee Trail (1954) and The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956).

Leslie married obstetrician William Caldwell in 1950, had twin daughters in 1951 and slowed her career to concentrate on her family.

In the 1970s, Leslie appeared on episodes of Police Story, Charlie's Angels and The Incredible Hulk, and on a 1988 installment of Murder, She Wrote, she guest-starred opposite another 1940s starlet who starred opposite Cooper, Teresa Wright.

A funeral mass will take place at 10 a.m. on Oct. 19 at Our Mother of Good Counsel Church in Los Angeles.

Joan Leslie Dead: Actress in 'Sergeant York' and 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' Was 90 - Hollywood Reporter

[kmart]

Geoffrey Howe dies of suspected heart attack at the age of 88
Nicholas Reilly for Metro.co.uk Saturday 10 Oct 2015 1:15 pm



Former Chancellor Lord Geoffrey Howe has died at the age of 88 after suffering a suspected heart attack, his family has announced.

Lord Howe served as chancellor in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet from 1979 to 1983, before later becoming Foreign Secretary.

But it was his resignation as Deputy Prime Minister in 1990 that is said to have sparked the beginning of Margaret Thatcher’s downfall – after he delivered a brutal speech that heavily criticised the Prime Minister’s attitude to Europe.

He was first elected as MP for Bebington between 1964 and 1966 before becoming the MP for Reigate in 1970 and later served the East Surrey constituency from 1974.

Paying tribute, Prime Minister David Cameron described Lord Howe as the ‘quiet hero of the first Thatcher Government.’

‘Geoffrey Howe was a kind, gentle and deeply thoughtful man – but at the same time he had huge courage and resolve’, he wrote on Facebook.

‘His time as Chancellor of the Exchequer was vital in turning the fortunes of our country around, cutting borrowing, lowering tax rates and conquering inflation.

‘Lifting exchange controls may seem obvious now, but it was revolutionary back then. He was the quiet hero of the first Thatcher government.

‘He loved his politics and never stopped giving strong and sound advice. George Osborne and I benefited greatly from his wisdom and determination to improve the state of the country.

‘The Conservative family has lost one of its greats. Our thoughts are with his family.’

Link

Dennis Healey bought the farm about the same time. RIP.

Howe was a rare beast, an actual decent man -for a Tory.

[harrybarracuda]

Ken Taylor, the Canadian ambassador who hid American diplomats from the US embassy during the Iran hostage crisis – as immortalised in the movie ‘Argo’ – has died.



The news was confirmed by his wife Pat, who said that he had been fighting colon cancer for two months. He was 81.

She told the Associated Press: “He did all sorts of things for everyone without any expectation of something coming back.

“It’s why that incident in Iran happened. There was no second thought about it. He just went ahead and did it. His legacy is that giving is what is important, not receiving. With all his friends that’s what he did.”

Though his role in the Oscar-winning movie adaptation of the hostage crisis was overshadowed by the actions of Ben Affleck’s character, CIA man Tony Mendez, it was Taylor who took huge risks to ensure the hostages could return to the US.
It was he who took in the four US diplomats and two of their wives for three months in Tehran in 1979, after student rioters seized the US embassy, in a plot that was supported by the then prime minister of Canada Joe Clark.

He eventually masterminded the arrangement of plane tickets and issued fake Canadian passports, allowing them safe passage out of the country.

It’s been said that the movie, in which he was played by Victor Garber, seriously underplayed how vital his role was in the operation.

Clark posted on Twitter: “Ken Taylor was a Canadian hero & a valued friend.”
Added Roger Lucy, who was First Secretary at the Canadian Embassy during the hostage crisis: “He was the right man in the wrong place at the right time.
“He showed the highest degree of leadership and kept his head throughout the revolution and the hostage crisis.”

https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/post/131...dor-from-argo?

[harrybarracuda]

Three Dog Night singer Cory Wells dies, aged 73
PUBLISHED 1 HOUR AGO




NEW YORK (AFP) - Cory Wells, a singer in Three Dog Night whose radio-friendly cover songs yielded a stream of hits in the 1970s, has died, the band said on Wednesday. He was 73.

Wells, one of three singers in the Los Angeles-bred band, died unexpectedly on Tuesday in Dunkirk in western New York state, the band said on its Facebook page.

He grew up nearby in the Buffalo area, and was still touring with the band until last month when he developed severe back pain, the band said, without giving a cause of death.

"Cory was an incredible singer - a great performer, he could sing anything," wrote fellow Three Dog Night singer Danny Hutton, 73.


Three Dog Night - named for an aboriginal Australian expression on the number of dogs needed to keep warm at night - enjoyed immense popularity in the 1970s through the band's use of vocal harmonies in rock songs that were often covers. The band's other singer is Chuck Negron, 73.

Wells may be best known for taking the lead in singing Three Dog Night's version of Randy Newman's Mama Told Me (Not To Come), which topped the United States pop singles chart in 1970.

Other hits in which he took the lead included Harry Nilsson's One (Is the Loneliest Number), Laura Nyro's Eli's Coming, and Daniel Moore's Shambala.

Of partial Polish ancestry, Wells was born Emil Lewandowski and had relatives who played in polka bands. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Three Dog Night initially broke up in 1976 but returned in the 1980s with a New Wave sound.

They have remained active, despite the members' advancing age, with concerts scheduled across the US from next month through March.

[panama hat]

Joan Leslie, Actress in 'Sergeant York' and 'Yankee Doodle Dandy,' Dies at 90

She looks damn fine for 90