The RIP Famous Person Thread

[harrybarracuda]

The star of the Discovery Channel's extreme fishing show Deadliest Catch Blake Painter has died. He was 38.


According to E! news, no cause of death has been given. However, reports say Painter's body was discovered at his home in Clastop County, Oregon, by friends on Friday morning.

Painter, who was an expert crab fisherman, appeared on Deadliest Catch as the captain of the Maverick for two seasons in 2006-2007.

The local sheriff's office said no foul play was suspected. An autopsy and toxicology report had been ordered.


The Discovery Channel is yet to comment on Painter's death.

Painter is not the first Deadliest Catch captain to die. In 2010, Phil Harris, captain of the Cornelia Marie, died of a stroke while in port at St Paul Island.

In 2016, Harris' son and fellow crew member Jake was allegedly assaulted by two people in Spokane, Washington.

In 2017, while Discovery was filming season 13, a fishing boat from the same fleet was lost at sea with its six crew.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainmen...04323152/.html

[harrybarracuda]

Robert Mandan, who starred as the wealthy, womanizing Chester Tate in the ’70s sitcom “Soap,” has died. He was 86.


Mandan’s friend, screenwriter Gary Goldstein, told TheWrap that the actor passed away April 29 after suffering a long illness.

Mandan was best known for his work on “Soap,” which kicked off Billy Crystal’s career as one of television’s first openly gay characters.


He also appeared in countless other TV shows over his 60-year acting career, including “The Streets of San Francisco,” “Mission: Impossible,” “All in the Family,” “CHiPs,” “Three’s Company,” “Facts of Life” and “ER.”


His feature films include “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” opposite Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton, “The MatchMaker” with Janeane Garofalo and “Zapped!” with ’80s teen heartthrobs Scott Baio and Willie Aames.

Mandan is survived by his wife of 55 years, Sherry Dixon.

https://www.thewrap.com/robert-manda...ap-dies-at-86/

[harrybarracuda]

Well that's the Munchkins gone.

Jerry Maren: Last Wizard of Oz Munchkin dies aged 98



Jerry Maren, the last surviving actor to play a Munchkin in the original Wizard of Oz film, has died in California at the age of 98.

Maren portrayed one of the 124 members of the Munchkin Lollipop Guild in the classic 1939 film.

The role saw him become known as the "lollipop kid" after handing a lollipop to Dorothy - played by Judi Garland.

His funeral service was held on Saturday at Forest Lawn cemetery in Hollywood Hills.

Maren, real name Gerard Marenghi, had been suffering from dementia is recent years, TMZ reported.

Actress Pam Dubious paid tribute to her "close friend" in a post on Facebook.

"Jerry was a kind, and loving man, who never let his stature get in the way of his eternal strive for happiness, and a good life... RIP sweet Jerry," she wrote.
'Greatest fun'

Maren featured alongside 123 fellow actors of restricted growth in the film adaptation of L Frank Baum's children's book, all of whom played characters inhabiting the fictional Munchkinland.

Speaking to The Independent in 2009, Maren described the experience as the "greatest fun I ever had in my life".
The actor also described Garland, who was 16 as the time of filming, as "an angel".

"She was a movie star and I'd figured she'd be a pain in the neck. But she was glad to meet us, and we were glad to meet her," he said.

Marin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on behalf of the Munchkins in 2007.

Beyond his iconic appearance in Wizard of Oz, Maren continued acting, landing parts in a number of movies and TV shows, including Planet of the Apes and Seinfeld.

He married Elizabeth Barrington, a fellow actor, in 1975. The pair remained together until her death in 2011, aged 69.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-44386487

[harrybarracuda]

I met Peter many times because his clubs were a great place to entertain overseas visitors (as long as you were on expenses!).

Always took the time to greet and chat dining guests at his clubs, and was a very genial and down to earth host.

RIP

British nightclub pioneer Stringfellow dies aged 77




Peter Stringfellow, Britain's legendary nightclub owner who pioneered striptease, died Thursday at the age of 77 after suffering from cancer, his publicist said.

He began his career in the 1960s booking acts such as The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, but made his name with glitzy clubs filled with scantily clad women, becoming the first to win a licence for nude shows.

"It's very sad news. He passed away in the early hours of this morning. It was kept very private, he didn't want to tell," said his publicist Matt Glass.

With his long hair and habit of posing on a gold throne with a gaggle of beautiful girls, Stringfellow came to personify a particular type of playboy debauchery and was often a target of campaigners.

But those who knew him say he was warm and kind, and he claimed he was a feminist.

He was a firm supporter of the Conservative party, in particular Margaret Thatcher, but threatened to quit over his opposition to Britain's withdrawal from the EU.

Stringfellow was born in Sheffield, northern England, in 1940, and began booking acts in small venues in the city -- some, the Beatles, turning out to be huge stars.

The son of a steelworker, Stringfellow had a brief brush with the law, serving a prison sentence in 1962 for selling stolen carpets, which he said was a sharp lesson.

He opened his first eponymous club in Covent Garden, in London's West End, in 1980, and also bought The Hippodrome, starting its first ever gay night.

Other clubs followed in New York, Miami and Beverly Hills, although the expansion was too quick and he was declared bankrupt.

Back in London, he started again, providing what he called "adult entertainment" with topless dancers, and later becoming the first night club owner to secure a licence for fully nude dancers.

Stringfellow claimed to have welcomed many A-list stars into his clubs, everyone from late physicist Stephen Hawking to Marvin Gaye, Tom Jones, Prince and Rod Stewart.

He underwent treatment for lung cancer after being diagnosed in 2008, but kept it a secret, and the seriousness of his latest illness was also kept under wraps.

He was married three times and is survived by his wife, Bella, and four children.

https://www.afp.com/en/news/205/brit...77-doc-15o7j61

[kmart]

^That's sad. Met him once in his club in the late 80's, seemed a really good bloke. RIP.

[harrybarracuda]

I always thought his history was clubs, but he dabbled in music too.

The Beatles, Kinks and Jimi Hendrix were among his early bookings with Stringfellow later recalling how he rang Brian Epstein from a phone box and negotiated an £85.00 fee for the then little-known Fab Four to play Sheffield's Azena Ballroom. Soon after agreeing the booking, Beatlemania erupted, landing the flamboyant entrepreneur the first of many successful business deals.


"Brian (Epstein) gave me his word and he stuck to it. I picked the Beatles up in a Ford Anglia," Stringfellow told The Yorkshire Post in 2014. "It was just pandemonium when the Beatles came on stage. It was the most exciting night of my life," he remembered some fifty years later.

The mid to late 1960s also saw Howlin' Wolf, Wilson Pickett, The Small Faces, Stevie Wonder, The Searchers, Elton John, The Who, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones perform at Stringfellow's various Sheffield venues, The Black Cat Club, The Blue Moon and King Mojo Club.

That first one reminds me of our local Con Club that booked a young Steve Davis for an exhibition for peanuts after he reached the WC quarter finals in 1980. By the time the date arrived the following year, he'd won most of the tournaments on offer and bless him, he still honoured it at the price agreed which was about a twentieth of his fee at the time.

[cisco999]

Dwight "The Catch" Clark

Go Niners!

[raycarey]

anthony bourdain.

dead at 61.

apparently it was suicide.

[Ukan Kizmiaz]

^ damn - suicide...?!!

I liked his shows.

[harrybarracuda]

Anthony Bourdain Dies at 61

By Shirley Halperin



Anthony Bourdain, the star chef and host of the acclaimed food and travel shows "No Reservations" and "Parts Unknown," died Friday morning.

Bourdain, 61, died by suicide, CNN reported. Bourdain grew up in Leonia and graduated from Dwight-Englewood High School.


Bourdain began his career as a wunderkind in the culinary world, helming some of New York City's most high-profile restaurants. But much of Bourdain's popularity came from his bucking of trends, often speaking out against many of the highbrow conventions of high cuisine.

Bourdain became most well-known for his globetrotting travel and food show "No Reservations," which saw him trek across the world. Often Bourdain would eschew the Michelin-star rated restaurants in favor of street food vendors.

https://eu.northjersey.com/story/ent...-61/683956002/

[BaitongBoy]

Eunice Gayson, first James Bond girl, dead at 90...

[bobo746]

For the Metal Heads.

Vinnie Paul, Pantera Drummer and Co-Founder, Dies at 54

Vinnie Paul, the drummer who helped to usher in a new era of metal as a member of the hugely influential Pantera, has died. He was 54. No cause of death has yet been confirmed.
"Vinnie Paul Abbott wasn’t just a drummer, he was an iconic fixture in the metal and hard rock community, a pioneer, and an absolute legend," his label, Eleven Seven, said in a statement. "Today, the world not only lost a legend, but also a genuine human being who lived to put a smile on the faces of everyone he met."

https://noisey.vice.com/en_au/article/ywe9kw/vinnie-paul-pantera-hellyeah-damageplan-rip

[Davis Knowlton]

Old man Harrison, the grumpy founder of the Vegas pawn shop featured in "Pawn Stars", has died at 77. Apologies, as he's not really 'famous', but his was an interesting story and for a TV show, "Pawn Stars" can be good.

[Loy Toy]

I actually like watching Pawn Stars although the show script is mainly orchestrated.

[bobo746]

Pawn Stars' star Richard Harrison, known as 'The Old Man,' dies

Richard Harrison, best known to viewers of the History Channel reality series "Pawn Stars" as "The Old Man," died Monday morning after a long battle with Parkinson's Disease, according to his son, Rick Harrison. Rick Harrison, who co-starred with his father on the series, said on Instagram that his father died "surrounded by those he loved."
"He was my hero and I was fortunate to get a very cool 'Old Man' as my dad," he wrote. "He lived a very full life and through the History television show 'Pawn Stars' touched the lives of people all over, teaching them the value of loving your family, hard work and humor."

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/25/entertainment/pawn-stars-the-old-man-richard-harrison-dead/index.html

[VocalNeal]

I actually like watching Pawn Stars although the show script is mainly orchestrated.

Chumlee was the star? Still RIP.

[VocalNeal]

Honda's Asimo robot bows out

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Com...finds-new-life

[bobo746]

Alan Longmuir death: Bay City Rollers star dies aged 70


Alan Longmuir, founding member of Scottish pop band The Bay City Rollers, has died aged 70.
He died in hospital “surrounded by loved ones” after being flown home from Mexico, where he had contracted an illness, according to reports.
Liam Rudden, writer and director of I Ran With The Gang, a long-running show about the musician, said: “Having worked closely with Alan for the last seven years I am devastated by the news he

[Latindancer]

Note to self : when old, do not go to Mexico or similar countries....too many diseases.

I wonder what the "illness" was ?

[harrybarracuda]

1950s movie heartthrob Tab Hunter dies aged 86



Tab Hunter, the blond actor and singer who was a heartthrob for millions of teenage girls in the 1950s with such films as Battle Cry and Damn Yankees! before receiving new attention decades later when he revealed that he was gay, has died aged 86.

Producer and longtime partner Allan Glaser said Hunter died of a blood clot in his leg that caused cardiac arrest.

Glaser called the death was “sudden and unexpected”.

Hunter was a star for several years, topping the Billboard pop charts in 1957 with his recording of Young Love, in addition to his hit movies.

But in his 2005 memoir, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making Of A Movie Star, Hunter recounted the stresses of being adored by millions of young women when he was actually gay.

He wrote: “I believed, wholeheartedly – still do – that a person’s happiness depends on being true to themselves.

“The dilemma, of course, that was being true to myself – and I’m talking sexually now – was impossible in 1953.”

Born Arthur Andrew Kelm, his screen tab (slang for “name” at the time) was fabricated by Henry Willson, the same talent agent who came up with the names Rock Hudson and Rory Calhoun.

The legend goes that Willson said to the young man: “We’ve got to find something to tab you with. Do you have any hobbies?”

His client answered: “I ride horses. Hunters.”

“That’s it!” his agent replied. “We’ll call you Tab Hunter.”

With no dramatic training, Hunter was cast in a minor role in the 1950 drama, The Lawless. The fuss over the young actor began two years later when he appeared bare-chested opposite Linda Darnell in the British-made Island of Desire.

Soon his handsome face and muscular build appeared on magazine covers. Warner Bros, alert to the increasingly important youth market, signed him to a contract.

Hunter made a flurry of movies in the latter half of the 1950s, aimed at capitalising on his popularity with young girls.

The films included such war dramas as Battle Cry (with Van Heflin) and Lafayette Escadrille (featuring Clint Eastwood in a small role).

He made the Westerns The Burning Hills (with Natalie Wood) and They Came To Cordura (alongside Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth). He also made romantic comedies like The Pleasure of His Company, with Fred Astaire and Debbie Reynolds.

A highlight was the 1958 film Damn Yankees!, an adaptation of the hit Broadway musical.

After his career declined somewhat from the 1960s onwards, Hunter won new fans in the 1980s by appearing in cult movies alongside Divine, the 300-pound transvestite, in John Waters’ 1981 film Polyester and Paul Bartel’s Lust in the Dust (1985), co-produced by Hunter himself.

Of Polyester, Hunter wrote: “Everybody got the joke. … For both John and me, our collaboration paid huge dividends: I’d helped ‘legitimise’ his brand of movie, and he made me ‘hip’ overnight.”

In his memoir, he said that his career flourished despite some innuendo and smear articles in the scandal sheets – “clear evidence that despite its self-righteous claims, Confidential magazine did not influence the taste and opinions of mainstream America”.

[harrybarracuda]

Lord Carrington, Former U.K. Foreign Secretary, Dies at 99




Lord Carrington, a versatile British politician who held senior posts under Conservative prime ministers from Winston Churchill to Margaret Thatcher and who was secretary general of NATO in the last years of the Cold War, died on Monday. He was 99.


His death was confirmed by Prime Minister Theresa May. She did not say where he died.

The best-remembered act of Lord Carrington’s long political career was a resignation. His decision in 1982 to step down as foreign secretary, because he had failed to anticipate what he described as the “humiliating affront” of Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands, is frequently cited in Britain as a rare example of an honorable ministerial departure.

Lord Carrington, the sixth baron of Carrington, was the longest-serving member of the House of Lords and a descendant of textile merchants, bankers and members of Parliament dating to the 18th century. He attended Eton and Sandhurst, was a decorated officer in World War II and could have spent the rest of his days in anonymous baronial splendor on his family’s Buckinghamshire estate.

Instead, he plunged into postwar politics, diplomacy and public service. In a public career that spanned nearly five decades, Lord Carrington was parliamentary secretary of agriculture, first lord of the Admiralty and, in a succession of cabinet posts, secretary of defense, energy and foreign affairs.



In diplomatic assignments, he was the ambassador to Australia, represented Britain in formative talks for what became the European Union and helped negotiate the independence of Zimbabwe. He also led unsuccessful European peace talks in 1991 and 1992 among the warring states of Yugoslavia.

In politics, he was chairman of the Conservative Party for two years and served in the governments of Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Edward Heath, as well as those of Churchill and Mrs. Thatcher. He was sometimes mentioned as a possible prime minister.



As secretary general of NATO from 1984 to 1988, he presided over the 16-nation Atlantic alliance at a time of rising tensions in the final years of the Cold War. With the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact alliance decaying but still strong, he envisioned a need for new arms-control agreements and renewed commitments by Western Europe and America to the common defense.

David Lidington, the Conservative lawmaker for the area including Lord Carrington’s family home, described him on Twitter as the last surviving member of the postwar Churchill government, with a career “given to public service.”

Peter Alexander Rupert Carington was born on his family’s estate near Aylesbury, England, on June 6, 1919, the only son of Rupert and Sybil Marion Carington. The family name has one “R” and its hereditary title two, an eccentricity decided by the College of Arms, Britain’s heraldic authority, when an ancestor, Robert Smith, took the name Carington and was designated First Baron of Carrington by King George III in 1796.


Peter Carington graduated from the Sandroyd School and Eton College, and succeeded to his title in 1938 with the death of his father. Though eligible to take his seat in the House of Lords on his 21st birthday in 1940, he did not do so until after the war.

In 1942, he married Iona McClean. They had three children, Alexandra, Virginia and Rupert. Lady Carrington died in 2009. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

After officer’s training at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, he was commissioned in the Grenadier Guards and served in France and the Low Countries in World War II, rising to the rank of acting major and winning the Military Cross for his role in capturing and holding a vital bridge against the Germans in 1944.

After the war, he was elected to the Buckinghamshire County Council, where he focused on agricultural production, and in 1946 took his seat in the House of Lords. After Churchill, Britain’s wartime leader, returned to power in 1951, Lord Carrington became parliamentary secretary of agriculture and served briefly as parliamentary secretary of defense.

In 1956 he was named high commissioner to Australia, where his father had been born and where his family had extensive interests. He had a deep attachment to Australia. In and out of public life, he visited the country almost every year and was popular there, known for his informality and dry wit.

He was lured back to Britain in 1959 by an offer from the Macmillan government of a post that he coveted: first lord of the Admiralty. As the head of Britain’s navy over the next four years, he sought to modernize the fleet and to break centuries-old traditions that governed planning and procedures.



The result was a smaller, more mobile navy with less resources for aging capital ships and more for submarines, guided-missile destroyers and advanced frigates. Britain’s first nuclear sub, the Dreadnought, was built on his watch.

He was the leader of the House of Lords in 1963 and 1964, and simultaneously a minister without portfolio in the Douglas-Home government, with his principal responsibilities in foreign affairs. He was a member of Mr. Heath’s cabinet as defense secretary from 1970 to 1974, and briefly as energy secretary in 1974. He was also chairman of the Conservative Party from 1972 to 1974. Over the next five years, with the party out of power, he was leader of the opposition in the House of Lords.

As foreign secretary under Mrs. Thatcher from 1979 to 1982, he led talks that ended a revolutionary war in Rhodesia and created an independent Zimbabwe. But he resigned abruptly after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, where it claimed sovereignty. Lord Carrington said he had misread Argentina’s intentions and failed to anticipate the attack, which was repulsed by Britain in a popular 74-day undeclared war.

He was chairman of the General Electric Company of the United Kingdom in 1983. In later years, he was chairman of the auction house Christie’s and a director of Barclays Bank, Schweppes, The Daily Telegraph and other companies.

His autobiography, “Reflecting on Things Past: The Memoirs of Peter Lord Carrington,” was published in 1988.

In 1999, the House of Lords Act removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. But Lord Carrington and some other former leaders of the body were given life peerages, extending their rights of membership for the rest of their lives. At his death, Lord Carrington had been a member of the House of Lords for 78 years.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/o...gton-dead.html

[Cujo]

Never heard of him.

[tomcat]

...I wonder who selected his frames...

[toslti]

Definitely not missed by Rhodesians and their former military.

[Cujo]

She had a good run. Seen a lot of life.

Nancy Sinatra Sr, the childhood sweetheart of Frank Sinatra who became the first of his four wives and the mother of his three children, has died. She was 101.




Her daughter, Nancy Sinatra Jr, tweeted that her mother died Friday and a posting on her web page said she died at 6:02 p.m. but didn’t indicate where she died.


“She was a blessing and the light of my life,” her daughter said.




Nancy Sinatra
✔
@NancySinatra
My mother passed away peacefully tonight at the age of 101. She was a blessing and the light of my life. Godspeed, Momma. Thank you for everything. ����


Attempts to reach representatives for Sinatra Jr late Friday were unsuccessful.


Nancy and Frank Sinatra had been dating as teenagers and married at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic church in Jersey City, New Jersey, on 4 February 1939, just as Frank’s singing career was about to take off. Three years before marrying the then Nancy Barbato, he had landed a 15-minute radio show on local station WAAT.
During the marriage’s early years, the Sinatras lived in a modest apartment in Jersey City, where their two eldest children were born. For a time she was employed as a secretary while her husband worked as a singing waiter.


After Sinatra became a pop-music sensation in the 1940s, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where the singer would also become a movie star, raconteur, man about town and notorious womanizer.


That latter accomplishment led Sinatra to leave him after an affair with actress Ava Gardner became public knowledge. Weeks after the pair’s divorce became final in 1951, Sinatra’s ex-husband married Gardner, while Sinatra went on to raise the couple’s three children: Nancy, Frank Jr. and Tina.


After the gossip over the divorce and Gardner marriage died down, Nancy Sinatra devoted herself to family and numerous celebrity friends, largely withdrawing from the spotlight. She not only outlived her husband, who died in 1998, but her son, who died in 2016.


She is credited, under the name Nancy Barbato, on the Internet Movie Database with just two TV and film appearances, in her daughter Nancy’s 1975 concert film, Nancy and Lee in Las Vegas, and in 1974 on her friend Dinah Shore’s talk show.


In later years she would become known as Nancy Sr, especially after daughter Nancy became a 1960s singing star in her own right with These Boots are Made for Walking and other hit songs.


She also remained friendly with her ex-husband, the latter being said to have put in requests over the years for pasta and other Italian food dishes she was known to be an expert at preparing. She never remarried.


“There is no bitterness, only great respect and affection between Sinatra and his first wife,” Gay Talese wrote in 1966. “And he has long been welcome in her home and has even been known to wander in at odd hours, stoke the fire, lie on the sofa, and fall asleep.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...ra-dies-at-101