The RIP Famous Person Thread

[hallelujah]

No mention of Ugo Ehiogu on Thursday?



Fit as a fiddle, only 44 years old and Spurs under 23 coach. Heart attack on the training ground.

The fragility of life.

[Davis Knowlton]

^There a thread for dead sports people. Might be in there.

[Maanaam]

NEW YORK (AP) " Erin Moran, the former child star who played Joanie Cunningham in the sitcoms "Happy Days" and "Joanie Loves Chachi," died Saturday at age 56.

Erin Moran, Joanie Cunningham in "Happy Days," dies at 56 - World - NZ Herald News

[Davis Knowlton]

^See post 5 before yours.

[Storekeeper]

^Quite young. Drugs?

Though drugs weren't specifically mentioned I saw an article that said she enjoyed a "hard partying" lifestyle. And recently evicted from her trailer.

[Davis Knowlton]

^Yeah. Like many child stars, there was a lot of drama in her life over the years.

[harrybarracuda]

No mention of Ugo Ehiogu on Thursday?



Fit as a fiddle, only 44 years old and Spurs under 23 coach. Heart attack on the training ground.

The fragility of life.

https://teakdoor.com/the-sports-room/...-thread-5.html

[hallelujah]

^ Righto chaps.

[Cold Pizza]

^Quite young. Drugs?

No results yet.

[harrybarracuda]

Robert M Pirsig, ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ Author, Dies at 88
The writer inspired generations to road trip across America with his 1974 philosophical novel
Debbie Emery | April 24, 2017 @ 5:18 PM



Robert M. Pirsig, the author of philosophical novel “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” has died. He was 88.

Pirsig passed away at his home in South Berwick, Maine, on Monday, The New York Times reported.

His publisher, William Morrow, confirmed his death, saying the writer’s health had been failing.

Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Pirsig was a college writing instructor and freelance technical writer when he penned his first book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values” in 1974.

The “novelistic autobiography” was an instant hit — selling a million copies in its first year and several million more since.

It was followed in 1991 with “Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals,” which was a sequel of sorts but not as successful.

“Zen” was rejected 121 times before finally being published by William Morrow & Company, whose editor James Landis said prior to publication: “The book is brilliant beyond belief. It is probably a work of genius and will, I’ll wager, attain classic status,” according to the Times.

Not only was it a best-seller, but the book — inspired by a 1968 motorcycle trip that Pirsig took with his son Christopher (pictured above) — evolved into an enduring work of modern philosophy.

Pirsig enlisted in the U.S. Army after World War II and cemented his philosophical beliefs while stationed in South Korea, NPR reported. He was hospitalized for mental illness upon his return to Minneapolis, during which time he started working on his debut book.

In the introduction, Pirsig said that, despite its title, “It should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It’s not very factual on motorcycles, either.”

The description of his 17-day road trip from Minnesota to California is punctuated by numerous philosophical discussions, referred to as Chautauquas by the author, on topics including epistemology, ethical emotivism and the philosophy of science.

Pirsig is survived by his second wife, Wendy, children Ted and Nell, and three grandchildren.

His son, Chris, who figured prominently in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” was stabbed to death during a mugging outside the San Francisco Zen Center in 1979.

Robert M Pirsig, 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' Author, Dies at 88

[harrybarracuda]

^Quite young. Drugs?

(CNN)Former "Happy Days" child star Erin Moran, 56, likely died from complications of Stage 4 cancer, the Harrison County (Indiana) Sheriff's Department and medical examiner said Monday in a joint statement.

Moran was found dead in her home in New Salisbury on Saturday, authorities said.
"A subsequent autopsy revealed that Mrs. Moran likely succumbed to complications of Stage 4 cancer," the statement said.

Standard toxicology tests were performed and the results are pending, the statement said, but no illegal narcotics were found at Moran's residence.

Erin Moran likely died of cancer complications, officials say - CNN.com

[Davis Knowlton]

^Quite young. Drugs?

(CNN)Former "Happy Days" child star Erin Moran, 56, likely died from complications of Stage 4 cancer, the Harrison County (Indiana) Sheriff's Department and medical examiner said Monday in a joint statement.

Moran was found dead in her home in New Salisbury on Saturday, authorities said.
"A subsequent autopsy revealed that Mrs. Moran likely succumbed to complications of Stage 4 cancer," the statement said.

Standard toxicology tests were performed and the results are pending, the statement said, but no illegal narcotics were found at Moran's residence.

Erin Moran likely died of cancer complications, officials say - CNN.com

Interesting. A bit more research revealed that booze, not drugs, was the cause of much of the turmoil in her life.

[Digby Fantona]

Jonathan Demme, director of The Silence of the Lambs, dies at 73 - BBC News


Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, has died in New York at the age of 73.
His publicist confirmed he died from complications from oesophageal cancer.
Born in 1944, Demme's other features included Philadelphia, Something Wild and the Talking Heads documentary Stop Making Sense.

[harrybarracuda]

Photo added.

Jonathan Demme, director of The Silence of the Lambs, dies at 73 - BBC News




Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, has died in New York at the age of 73.
His publicist confirmed he died from complications from oesophageal cancer.
Born in 1944, Demme's other features included Philadelphia, Something Wild and the Talking Heads documentary Stop Making Sense.

[harrybarracuda]

Florence Finch, Unsung War Hero Who Took On Japanese, Dies at 101
By SAM ROBERTS APRIL 28, 2017



Florence Finch was an atypical hometown hero. For nearly 50 years after World War II, virtually no one outside of her family knew that she was a highly decorated Coast Guard veteran and a former prisoner of war whose exploits had been buried in time.

“Women don’t tell war stories like men do,” her daughter, Betty Murphy, of Ithaca, N.Y., said recently.

And even on those rare occasions when she recalled her heroics in the Philippines — supplying fuel to the Filipino underground, sabotaging supplies destined for the Japanese occupiers, smuggling food to starving American prisoners and surviving torture after she was captured — Mrs. Finch did so with the utmost modesty.

“I feel very humble,” she once said, “because my activities in the war effort were trivial compared with those of the people who gave their lives for their country.”

It was perhaps reflective of that modesty that when she died on Dec. 8 at 101 in an Ithaca nursing home, the news did not travel widely. Newspapers in central New York carried a brief obituary, but her death went unreported virtually everywhere else.

It was only after the announcement by the Coast Guard on Thursday that she would be buried with full military honors on Saturday at Pleasant Grove Cemetery in Cayuga Heights, N.Y., that word of her death spread nationwide.

Indeed, the almost five-month delay in her memorial owed something to Mrs. Finch’s solicitous nature. Near death, she had made it clear that she did not want her funeral to disrupt her relatives’ Christmas holidays or to make mourners travel during a dark and icy Southern Tier winter. (Besides, she relished the annual resurgence wrought by spring.)

So it was put off. The funeral is to be held in Ithaca, with the military honors coming afterward, a ceremony befitting this Philippine-born daughter of an American father and Filipino mother — one who, in 1947, received the Medal of Freedom (the forerunner of today’s Presidential Medal of Freedom), the nation’s highest award to a civilian.

When the Japanese occupied the Philippines from 1942 to 1945, Mrs. Finch posed as a Filipino, but she became a United States citizen after the war. “Because she was over 18, she could have chosen to be American or Filipino,” Ms. Murphy said. “When the Japanese landed, she chose to be mum, but in her heart she had chosen to be an American.”

Mrs. Finch was born Loring May Ebersole on Oct. 11, 1915, in Santiago, on Luzon Island in the northern Philippines. (It is unclear how her first name became Florence.) Her father, Charles, had fought in the Philippines for the Army during the Spanish-American War and remained there after it was over. Her mother was the former Maria Hermosa.

Betty, as Mrs. Finch was known all her life, graduated from high school and was hired as a stenographer at Army Intelligence headquarters in Manila under Maj. E. C. Engelhart. While working there, she met Charles E. Smith, a Navy chief electrician’s mate. They married in August 1941, a few months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 7.

When the war did begin, Mr. Smith reported to his PT boat. He died on Feb. 8, 1942, trying to resupply American and Filipino troops trapped on Corregidor Island and the Bataan Peninsula.

Five weeks earlier, Manila had fallen to the Japanese.

Mrs. Finch (then Mrs. Smith) convinced the occupying forces that she was Filipino and, armed with superior penmanship, wangled a job writing gas rationing vouchers for the now Japanese-run Philippine Liquid Fuel Distributing Union.

Unbeknown to her employer, however, she was actually collaborating with the Philippine resistance movement. Her job enabled her to divert precious fuel supplies to the underground and help sabotage shipments to the Japanese. After she learned of her husband’s death, her efforts became even more vigorous. (She was honored by the Philippine government in 2011.)

Meanwhile, Major Englehart (he became a lieutenant colonel) managed to get word to her that he had been captured and that he and fellow war prisoners were being maltreated. She helped smuggle food, medicine, soap and clothing to them in a prison until she was caught.

Confined to a two-by-four-foot cell, she was interrogated and then tortured, enduring repeated shocks from electrical clamps on her fingers. She never talked. She was tried and sentenced to three years’ hard labor at the Women’s Correctional Institution in Mandaluyong, just outside Manila.

When she was finally freed by American troops on Feb. 10, 1945, she weighed 80 pounds.

Rather than remain in her native country, she moved to Buffalo, where her father’s sister lived. She joined the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve, or the SPARs (a contraction of the Coast Guard motto “Semper Paratus” — Always Ready). She enlisted, she said, to avenge her husband.

When her superiors learned of her wartime exploits, she was awarded the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Ribbon; the Coast Guard described her as the first woman to receive the decoration. The Medal of Freedom was bestowed for meritorious service.

After the war ended, she was discharged as a seaman second class in 1946 and enrolled in secretarial school in New York City, where she met and married an Army veteran, Robert Finch. A chemist, he was hired by Agway, the agricultural products supplier, and moved the family to Ithaca.

Mr. Finch died in 1968. In addition to her daughter, Betty, Mrs. Finch is survived by a son, Bob; a sister, Olive Keats; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

As Mrs. Finch was rearing her children and working as a secretary at Cornell University, her neighbors never suspected that they were in the presence of a war hero.

In the early 1990s, though, she was rediscovered by the military after she completed a government questionnaire that she had received in conjunction with plans to erect the Women in Military Service for America Memorial in Washington. The Coast Guard named a building on Sand Island in Hawaii in her honor in 1995.

Ms. Murphy decided to alert the news media about the building dedication, noting that her mother would be in attendance.

“It was the first anyone knew,” Ms. Murphy said. “I figured it was time. And when she came home and people met her at the bus station, she was flabbergasted.”

In 2015, the Coast Guard’s official blog said of Mrs. Finch, “Of the thousands of women who have served with honor in the United States Coast Guard, one stands out for her bravery and devotion to duty.”

Her wartime legacy will be publicly honored again on Saturday by a military honor guard. But privately her heroism endured without medals, plaques or flags.

“It had not defined her,” Ms. Murphy said, “but it defined how she lived her life.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/u...-war-hero.html

[Wonton]

Respect for a life well lived, Florence Finch

[blue]

Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, has died

A pile of shit glorifying a serial killer

[harrybarracuda]

Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, has died

A pile of shit glorifying a serial killer

It was fiction you fucking moron.

[Latindancer]

JeZUZ, blue....that's a bit rabid.

I thought that movie was a salutary warning to all of us that psychopaths have, and will always, live amongst us.
The price of peace is eternal vigilance.

[harrybarracuda]

JeZUZ, blue....that's a bit rabid.

I thought that movie was a salutary warning to all of us that psychopaths have, and will always, live amongst us.
The price of peace is eternal vigilance.

I think blue thinks Anthony Hopkins really is a cannibal.

[ENT]

JeZUZ, blue....that's a bit rabid.

I thought that movie was a salutary warning to all of us that psychopaths have, and will always, live amongst us.
The price of peace is eternal vigilance.

Better watch yer back Ld, or the hungry ghosts will get ya.

[BaitongBoy]

Florence Finch was an atypical hometown hero.

Quite a woman, she was...Full of fire, yet humble...Great style and indomitable spirit...

[harrybarracuda]

Harry Huskey, computer pioneer, dies at 101
Last updated 08:58, May 2 2017



Harry Huskey, who has died aged 101, was one of the last of a generation of scientists who pioneered the computer revolution during and after the Second World War.

He worked with Alan Turing, built what was arguably the world's first "personal computer", a vast contraption.

His career began in 1944 when, as a young mathematics teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, he was recruited to a secret military project known as the Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator.

The Eniac, as it became known, was primarily used to calculate angles to fire artillery in specific weather conditions, but is regarded as the world's first electronic, general-purpose programmable computer.

At 33m long and containing 18,000 vacuum tubes, which were always blowing out, occupied 180 sq m of floor space and could execute just 5000 instructions per second.

By contrast, today's iPhone 6, weighing 4.55 ounces, can carry out 25 billion instructions per second.

After the war ended, Huskey travelled to Britain where he worked for a year with Alan Turing on a prototype of Turing's Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) at the National Physical Laboratories.

In 1948 he joined the staff of the US National Bureau of Standards where he was responsible for the design and construction of the bureau's Western Automatic Computer (SWAC), the fastest computer of its time.

The fact that computers (and the human "electronic brains" working on them) were regarded by the public of the time as something of a joke was illustrated in 1950, when Groucho Marx invited Huskey to be a contestant on his You Bet Your Life radio quiz show, teamed up with a scrap merchant. (They lost.)

Huskey went on to teach at the University of California, Berkeley, and design the G-15, a computer inspired by Turing's ACE which, though about the size of two large refrigerators, was small enough for a single engineer to operate.

He wrote software for the machine and became the first person to own a "personal computer" after having one installed at his home in Berkeley.

Sold to the Bendix Aviation Corporation, the G-15 went on the market in the mid-1950s and more than 400 were manufactured, finding a niche in civil engineering, before the series was discontinued in the early 1960s.

From 1954 he taught at the University of California, Berkeley, then in 1967 he joined the new computer and information science programme at the University of California, Santa Cruz, directing its computer centre until he retired as professor emeritus in 1986.

In the late 1960s he was co-leader of a UN Development Programme-funded project which led to the installation of the first computer - an ICL 1902S - in Burma.

Harry Huskey and his first wife Velma were working on a biography of the 19th-century English mathematician and computer programming pioneer Ada Lovelace when Velma died in 1991. In 1994 he married Nancy Whitney, who died in 2015. He is survived by three daughters and a son of his first marriage.

Harry Huskey, computer pioneer, dies at 101 | Stuff.co.nz

[bobo746]

A pile of shit glorifying a serial killer

WTF are you smoking ?

[BaitongBoy]

Ada Lovelace

Linda's great great grandmother?...