^ I was a bit young to appreciate that when it came out. In 1967 he is describing most Americans as Social Democrats. He would be pilloried for saying that now.
Funny man, he was.
^ I was a bit young to appreciate that when it came out. In 1967 he is describing most Americans as Social Democrats. He would be pilloried for saying that now.
Funny man, he was.
Alan Davidson, star of tied 1960 Test, dies at 92
Former Australia allrounder played 44 Tests and claimed 186 wickets at a remarkable average of 20.53
Alan Davidson, the Australia allrounder who played a starring role in the 1960 tied Test, has died at the age of 92.
In a Test career that spanned 1953 to 1963, Davidson played 44 times and claimed 186 wickets at a remarkable average of 20.53. It is the second-lowest average for any bowler with more than 150 Test wickets behind SF Barnes (16.43). He was also a very useful batter with five Test fifties and a first-class average of 32.96
In the tied Test against West Indies in Brisbane, which he played with a broken finger, he became the first player to score 100 runs and take 11 wickets in the same match. Only Ian Botham, Imran Khan and Shakib Alan Hasan have since achieved the feat.
Alan Davidson star of tied 1960 Test dies at 92
The next post may be brought to you by my little bitch Spamdreth
Australian media personality, Bert Newton passed away yesterday at age 83
Lionel Blair: veteran actor, dancer and entertainer dies aged 92
Lionel Blair, the veteran actor, dancer and entertainer, has died at the age of 92, his agent has said.
Born Henry Lionel Ogus, he grew up in Stamford Hill, north London after his family moved from Canada, worked on television as an actor, tap dancer, presenter and choreographer across a seven-decade career. He died on Thursday morning surrounded by his family, according to his management company.
The entertainer went on to work in the West End but decided to give up acting in 1947 during which he took up his stage name Lionel Blair.
In the 1960s he rose to stardom by being part of variety shows as part of his dance troupe in addition to appearing in films including The Limping Man, A Hard Day’s Night and The Beauty Jungle.
He will perhaps be most remembered as one of the team captains on Give Us a Clue, a gameshow based on charades which aired from the 1970s until the 1990s.
Blair also wrote a musical based on Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which toured around the UK for six months.
In recent years, he made appearances on shows including Celebrity Big Brother in 2004 and The Real Marigold Hotel.
He married Susan Blair in 1967 and the couple have three children.
Blair fed his early passion for performing while sheltering from air raids during the the second world war. When it began, he was evacuated from north London to Oxford with his sister Joyce and mother Deborah.
However, the family’s stint in the countryside did not last long and they returned to London after witnessing a German plane crash leading to his father, Myer, calling them back to the capital.
“If that can happen there, what’s the point of being in the country away from each other?” Blair said his father told him.
His father’s parents were Russian, though Blair described him as “the archetypal north London barber”. Blair was 13 when his father died after going in for surgery on a hernia and duodenal ulcer.
Tributes have been paid by numerous celebrities on social media. Christopher Biggins, TV star and friend of Blair, said they often spoke on the phone. He told BBC News: “He was just the most wonderful, kind, funny, real giver of life. His energy was extraordinary.”
He said Blair had a “great sense of humour” and is a “tribute to his wonderful family”, describing him as the “king of the pantomime” and a man who was “adored” by the public.
The standup comedian Ed Byrne tweeted: “One of the highlights of my short lived Saturday morning radio show on BBC London (which I co hosted with my mother) was when we had Lionel Blair as a guest.
“Smoking fags and knocking back gin and tonics with us at 11am. We even got him to tap dance on a sheet of plywood. Legend,” he said.
The author Emma Kennedy tweeted: “I am very glad I got to meet Lionel Blair.
“He was a Phenomenon. Full of magical, fruity, end with a wink anecdotes. What a career. What a talent. RIPLionel.”
Danny Baker, the broadcaster, wrote on Twitter: “A true chum, an entertainer beyond compare, an archive of a golden era, an immeasurable talent.
“Impossible to think he won’t be in some Green room somewhere, dropping names and living out fantastic tales. A Giant. Really.”
The actor Julian Clary tweeted: “RIP dear Lionel Blair. A showbiz trooper if ever there was.”
In an interview with the Guardian in 2013, the entertainer discussed the secret behind his long marriage to Susan. He said: “The secret of a successful marriage is memories.
“You must have memories together.
“That’s why my dad insisted that we went everywhere together, so we could talk about things.
“I’m so lucky to have a wife who is a nest builder. Her nest is the most important thing in the world to her.”
The actor maintained a coyness over his true age and once famously said: “I am 59 plus VAT.”
Lionel Blair: veteran actor, dancer and entertainer dies aged 92 | Lionel Blair | The Guardian
A trio of musicians:
Astro, founding member of UB40: UB40'''s Astro Dead: Founding Member Dies at 64 | Billboard
Brazilian sertajeno legend Marília Mendonça: Marilia Mendonca, Brazilian Singer and Latin Grammy Winner, Dies at 26
808 State keyboardist Andrew Barker: 808 State's Andrew Barker dies at the age of 53
A solid actor with a long career in both film and television.
Dean Stockwell, ‘Quantum Leap’ and ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Star, Dies at 85
Dean Stockwell, a prolific actor best known for celebrated roles on the sci-fi drama “Quantum Leap” and the acclaimed 2000s reboot of “Battlestar Galactica,” died Monday. He was 85.
TMZ first reported Stockwell’s death. According to Deadline, Stockwell died in his home of natural causes.
The son of actor Harry Stockwell and younger brother of actor Guy Stockwell, Dean Stockwell was born in North Hollywood in 1936 and began acting when he was 7 years old, when his father was in New York as part of the Broadway cast of “Oklahoma.” After a small part in the play “Innocent Voyage,” Stockwell was signed to a contract with MGM and went on to appear in films such as “Anchors Away” and “The Green Years,” both major hits in 1946.
He continued acting into his teens but took a brief break after graduating high school to attend the University of California, Berkley. He resumed acting in 1956, beginning a prolific period of his career that lasted a decade. Though he appeared in a few movies, Stockwell’s primary work was on television, with appearances on shows like “Combat!” and “The Eleventh Hour” among others.
After quitting acting and spending a brief period in the mid-60s living as a hippie, Stockwell returned to acting in 1968, working steadily in television and film roles, before his career started to fade at the end of the 70s. By the early 80s, he was working in real estate to make ends meet.
He had a comeback that proved permanent in 1984 with roles in the films “Paris, Texas” and David Lynch’s adaptation of “Dune.” This kicked off an extremely prolific period as a character actor. Among his more notable roles, he appeared in “Blue Velvet,” “Beverly Hills Cop II” and “To Live and Die in LA.” He had a breakthrough for his role in 1988’s “Married to the Mob,” for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards.
Dean Stockwell, 'Quantum Leap' and 'Battlestar Galactica' Star, Dies at 85
Always found it amazing how many movies Stockwell has popped up in from the time he was just a child.
I’ll always remember him most for this scene.
^^ and ^ I knew Dean Stockwell from the 2000s reboot of Battlestar Galactica. He played one of the Cylons - he was a complex character there.
RIP Mr Stockwell
F.W. de Klerk, South Africa's final apartheid president, dies at 85
Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Frederik Willem de Klerk, the final South African president to rule during the country's brutal apartheid system and the man who took the first steps to end that system, has died at the age of 85, his foundation announced Thursday.
De Klerk, who commonly went by his initials, F.W., died at his home in the Fresnaye area of Cape Town.
De Klerk was president of South Africa between 1989 and 1994 and was the country's final ruler during the decades-long racist and White minority rule era known as apartheid.
In 1990, de Klerk announced in an address to South Africa's Parliament that Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist and revolutionary, would be released from prison after nearly 30 years. It was also de Klerk who took steps to lift the government ban on opposition groups like the African National Congress.
In 1993, de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela for their work against apartheid and laying a foundation for democracy in South Africa.
He entered the political arena as a conservative politician who initially defended the separation of races. Later, recognizing the possibility of civil war in South Africa, he initiated broad reforms and plans for a new constitution once he took up the presidency.
Mandela succeeded de Klerk as president of South Africa in 1994 after Black citizens were allowed to vote for the first time. Mandela died in 2013.
F.W. de Klerk, South Africa's final apartheid president, dies at 85 - UPI.com
Bestselling author Wilbur Smith dies aged 88
Author Wilbur Smith died at his home in South Africa on Saturday after a decades-long career in writing, his office said. He was 88.
With 49 titles under his belt, Smith became a household name, with his swashbuckling adventure stories taking readers from tropical islands to the jungles of Africa and even Ancient Egypt and World War II.
“Global bestselling author Wilbur Smith died unexpectedly this afternoon at his Cape Town home after a morning of reading and writing with his wife Niso by his side,” said a statement released on the Wilbur Smith Books website, as well as by his publishers Bonnier Books UK.
“The undisputed and inimitable master of adventure writing, Wilbur Smith’s novels have gripped readers for over half a century, selling over 140 million copies worldwide in more than thirty languages.”
The statements did not reveal the cause of death.
His 1964 debut novel When the Lion Feeds, the tale of a young man growing up on a South African cattle ranch, became an instant bestseller and led to 15 sequels, tracing an ambitious family’s fortunes for more than 200 years.
Born in Zambia in 1933 to a British family, he was also a big game hunter, having grown up experiencing the forest, hills and savannah of Africa on his parents’ ranch. He also held a pilot’s licence and was a scuba diver.
As a conservationist, he managed his own game reserve and owned a tropical island in the Seychelles.
He credited his mother with teaching him to love nature and reading, while his father – a strict disciplinarian – gave him a rifle at the age of eight, the start of what he acknowledged was a lifelong love affair with firearms and hunting.
He contracted cerebral malaria when he was just one-year-and-half – an ailment so serious there were fears he would be brain damaged if he survived.
“It probably helped me because I think you have to be slightly crazy to try to earn a living from writing,” he later reflected.
His bestselling Courtney Series was the longest running in publishing history, spanning generations and three centuries, “through critical periods from the dawn of colonial Africa to the American Civil War, and to the apartheid era in South Africa”, said his publisher.
But it was with Taita, the hero of his Egyptian Series, that Wilbur “most strongly identified, and River God remains one of his best-loved novels to this day”, it added.
In his 2018 memoir On Leopard Rock, Smith recounts having had “tough times, bad marriages … burnt the midnight oil getting nowhere, but it has, all in the end, added up to a phenomenally fulfilled and wonderful life.
“I want to be remembered as somebody who gave pleasure to millions,” he wrote.
His office thanked “millions of fans across the world who cherished his incredible writing and joined us all on his amazing adventures”.
His books have been translated into around 30 languages and several made into films, including Shout at the Devil with Lee Marvin and Roger Moore in 1976.
Smith “leaves behind him a treasure-trove of novels,” including unpublished co-authored books, according to Kate Parkin, a managing director at Bonnier Books.
Kevin Conroy Scott, his literary agent for the past decade, described him as “an icon, larger than life” and said his “knowledge of Africa, and his imagination knew no limitations”.
He was married four times, with his last wife, Mokhiniso Rakhimova from Tajikistan, his junior by 39 years.
Bestselling author Wilbur Smith dies aged 88 | Wilbur Smith | The Guardian
^Loved his books - read them all when I was a kid.
I don't think I've ever seen "Shout at the Devil". A few torrents around, not many seeders though.
Fucking youtube is brilliant innit
And you can actually switch it to 1080p.
And download it (1.7Gb).
Thanks for that!
^ Similar in some ways to "The Sea Wolves"? The Pirate Bay - The galaxy's most resilient bittorrent site
Mick Rock pop photographer
An icon bbc
Mick Rock, the photographer who took iconic images of stars like David Bowie and Queen, has died at the age of 72.
Once dubbed "the man who shot the 70s", Rock also worked with the likes of Iggy Pop, Blondie, Lou Reed.
A statement on his Twitter page read: "It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share our beloved psychedelic renegade Mick Rock has made the Jungian journey to the other side."
Sharon Osbourne paid tribute, saying his work would "live on forever".
She added: "We lost a legend, a true artist Mick Rock."
So may great pix on google here's a few faves
Much as appreciate Khvn Barrycud'ass film links witty tiffs if I had only one Harry
I'd have to look away when she was on Tv in case I creamed my pants without success, Bowie Queen etc etc
My own dear teerak is very similar with her Fart of Glass
RIP FW.
Composer Stephen Sondheim dies at 91 - US media
The American composer and songwriter Stephen Sondheim has died at his home in Connecticut aged 91, according to the New York Times. He was a titan of musical theatre who turned the unlikeliest of subjects into entertainment landmarks.
From Sweeney Todd and the president killers of Assassins to the fairy tale-based Into the Woods, his works boasted an audacity, complexity and linguistic dexterity that few of his peers could rival.
Born in New York in March 1930, the composer and lyricist saw his first Broadway musical at the age of nine.
The following year he met Oscar Hammerstein II, of The King and I and Oklahoma! fame, who became his mentor as he made his first forays into musical theatre.
After some adolescent experiments with the form, he was commissioned to turn Front Porch in Flatbush, a play by twin brothers Julius and Philip Epstein, into a musical.
The resulting piece, called Saturday Night, did not open on Broadway in 1954 as planned, following the death of its producer, Lemuel Ayers. Indeed, it would be 43 years before it received its professional premiere in London.
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