^^
Sorry, Kit. You beat me to it.
An iconic actor, if there ever was one. RIP, Mr. Jones.
Printable View
^^
Sorry, Kit. You beat me to it.
An iconic actor, if there ever was one. RIP, Mr. Jones.
http://youtu.be/6flau_loK4E?si=CtZHOdDLsiSmjsJfQuote:
Originally Posted by beachbound
Definitely falls into the category of legend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBwhjAhNmKA
^
Kevin Costner comments about James Earl Jones: “That booming voice.That quiet strength. The kindness that he radiated. So much can be said about his legacy, so I'll just say how thankful I am that part of it includes Field of Dreams.”
This was the first movie I ever saw him in. I was 15, and a huge baseball fan.
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings
https://youtu.be/vWW_G2ZAiiY?si=30wCQjkyBGjJkZf1
Alberto Fujimori, ex-president of Peru who was convicted of human rights abuses, dies at 86
LIMA, Peru — Alberto Fujimori, whose decade-long presidency began with triumphs righting Peru’s economy and defeating a brutal insurgency only to end in a disgrace of autocratic excess that later sent him to prison, has died. He was 86.
His death Wednesday in the capital, Lima, was announced by his daughter Keiko Fujimori in a post on X.
He had been pardoned in December from his convictions for corruption and responsibility for the murder of 25 people. His daughter said in July that he was planning to run for Peru’s presidency for the fourth time in 2026.
Fujimori, who governed with an increasingly authoritarian hand in 1990-2000, was pardoned in December from his convictions for corruption and responsibility for the murder of 25 people. His daughter said in July that he was planning to run for Peru’s presidency for the fourth time in 2026.
The former university president and mathematics professor was the consummate political outsider when he emerged from obscurity to win Peru’s 1990 election over writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Over a tumultuous political career, he repeatedly made risky, go-for-broke decisions that alternately earned him adoration and reproach.
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Coronation Street and Carry On star Kenneth Cope dies aged 93
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Carry On and Coronation Street star Kenneth Cope has died aged 93, his former agent said.
Cope made his name as ghost detective Marty Hopkirk in the ITV supernatural detective series, Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased).
It saw him solve crimes from beyond the grave while being visible only to his partner Jeff Randall, after being murdered during an investigation in the series’ first episode.
Sandra Chalmers, of The Artists Partnership confirmed he died surrounded by his family on Wednesday.
She shared a statement from his family which read: “Ken passed away yesterday peacefully in his sleep with his wife and family by his side.”
They described him as “an incredible icon of British TV and film”, with a six-decade career that “contributed to some of the most iconic moments in British culture” as well as being “a natural comedy actor”.
The cult classic series Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) was known as My Partner The Ghost in the US. It was later remade with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer in 2000 and lasted for two series.
Cope in 1994 said he had "happy times" making the programme.
“I used to think people liked it because they were happy times when we made it. The sun was always shining," he said.
“As a kid you wanted to be Superman, you wanted to be able to do things, to find the magic stone and rub it and a genie would appear.
“Randall and Hopkirk was quite escapist. There was a nice guy there who could do magical things.”
Born in Liverpool in 1931, he appeared in over 100 episodes of Coronation Street from 1961 to 63 as Jed Stone, before briefly returning in 2008 and 2009.
A Corrie spokesperson said: “Kenneth’s portrayal of Jed Stone, also known as Sonny Jim, on Coronation Street between 1961 and 1966 made him a firm favourite with the soap’s fans.
“He was a talented actor and writer and we were delighted when he agreed to reprise the role 42 years later in 2008.
“We are sorry to hear of his passing and our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
Cope also starred in two Carry On films, Carry On At Your Convenience (1971) and Carry On Matron (1972), and in 1963’s Carry On Jack in an uncredited role.
The actor was in the 1963 Hammer horror film The Damned and made appearances in the TV comedy-drama Minder, an episode of the espionage series The Avengers, and the Warriors’ Gate episode of Doctor Who in 1981.
He married his Coronation Street co-star actress Renny Lister in 1961, the couple had two sons Nick and Mark, who together formed a rock band called The Candyskins.
They also had a daughter, Martha, who is an actress best known for her roles in Doctors and EastEnders.
Cope spent his later years living in Southport, where he was a columnist for the Southport Visitor magazine.
The family statement also mentioned he was “a proud native Liverpudlian and a loyal supporter of Everton Football Club”, adding they are “deeply saddened by his passing and ask that his family are given privacy at this time”.
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-09-12/...r-dies-aged-93
Tito Jackson, 70, heart attack behind the wheel.
So what is that, the Jackson 3 now?
Tito Jackson: Jackson 5 star dies aged 70 '''after suffering heart attack while driving''' | Evening Standard
Iconic soul singer and Maze frontman Frankie Beverly dies aged 77
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Frankie Beverly, the iconic soul singer who founded and fronted the band Maze, has passed away aged 77, his family confirmed in a statement via social media.
The much-loved, international star died on Tuesday, September 10. The cause of death has not been confirmed.
In the statement, the family said that Beverly “lived his life with pure soul” and “for us, no-one did it better. He lived for his music, family and friends. Love one another as he would want that for us all."
They added: "During this time, as we are navigating feelings of sorrow, reflection, and remembrance we kindly ask for privacy and understanding, allowing us the space to grieve in our own way.”
Beverly founded Maze in 1970 and had been performing with the band ever since. Just this year, the group embarked on a farewell tour, playing five dates across the US, and marking the last time the singer would be seen on stage.
With a total of nine albums – eight of which earned Gold certification – Maze released a number of hit singles that entered the US and UK charts including ‘Running Away’, ‘We Need Love to Live’, ‘Back in Stride’, ‘Can’t Get Over You’, ‘Too Many Games’ and, arguably their most famous song, ‘Before I Let Go’.
‘Before I Let Go’, originally released in 1981, was subsequently covered by Beyoncé for her 2019 live album ‘Homecoming’. She also performed the track at Coachella festival, with the intention of giving her show a distinctly African American feel.
Speaking to Billboard about the cover, Beverly said it was "one of the high points of (his) life... in a class of its own" and made him "feel bigger than ever!”
Following the news of Beverly's death, Beyoncé has issued a statement via her company Parkwood Entertainment: “Thank you Frankie Beverly for bringing us all together with your music. You’ve written some of the most inspiring and uplifting songs for the world to enjoy. With your lyrics, you have humanized our experiences, through joy and pain. Thank you for teaching us about the importance of community, family, and togetherness. We will never forget you. May you rest in power.”
Other artists that have paid tribute to the late, great singer, include Alex Isley, who referred to him as ‘The voice of silky soul’, the Isley Brothers, Sheila E., Kelly Rowland, Melba Moore and DJ Spinna, who thanked Beverly for changing his life.
Beverly leaves an indelible mark on musical history. An artist that meant so much to the Black community, many fans have been fondly recalling his presence at family barbecues, parties and weddings, and Beverly has been credited with being a voice that “united Black America”.
Iconic soul singer and Maze frontman Frankie Beverly dies aged 77
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I wonder how long it will be before people have forgotten about him.
'Much loved' Simple Minds drummer Kenny Hyslop dies aged 73
Tony Soper obituary
Television presenter and writer who came up with the idea of a BBC natural history unit and led cruises to polar regions
The BBC Natural History Unit is known worldwide for blockbuster television series such as Planet Earth. The original idea for a “wildlife unit” based in Bristol came from the naturalist and TV presenter Tony Soper, who has died aged 95. But he turned down the chance to run it, as he was “more interested in making programmes than overseeing them”.
He went on to have a distinguished career as a wildlife TV presenter: his easygoing personality, craggy features and distinctive Devon burr made him a firm favourite with viewers. On screen from the early 1960s to the late 80s, he was a major influence on several generations of young naturalists. Along with figures such as Peter Scott and Bill Oddie, he was instrumental in bringing British wildlife to a wider audience.
Born in Southampton, Tony was the son of Ella (nee Lythgoe), a former shop assistant and a pillar of the local Townswomen’s Guild, and Bert Soper, a shipping agent. The family soon moved to Plymouth, and he was always a proud Devonian.
Tony attended Hyde Park elementary and Devonport high schools, passing his School Certificate in 1947. It was assumed that he would go into his father’s profession but, as he recalled, “I enjoyed the ships, but not the office.” So, after literally knocking on the door of the local BBC, he joined as a trainee engineer.
He was soon attracted by the more exciting world of radio production, and after a spell as an assistant studio manager he moved in 1950 to Bristol, to work on programmes including wildlife.
The following year, he and the producer Desmond Hawkins attended a lecture by Scott that featured film of Scott’s expeditions to Iceland. They both realised that this subject was ideally suited to the new medium of television. In January 1954 the first live wildlife TV outside broadcast, Wild Geese in Winter, was broadcast from the Wildfowl Trust HQ at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, with Tony as the unofficial assistant floor manager.
In 1956, he produced the second series of Look, a live outside broadcast programme presented by Scott. Following its success, he sent a memo to Hawkins (by then, head of programmes in Bristol) suggesting the creation of a new wildlife unit. A year later, the Natural History Unit was born, and Tony was sent out to buy the first camera: a 16mm clockwork Bolex. He put his new-found photographic skills to good use when he accompanied Scott and his wife, Philippa, to the Galápagos, for the 1960 series Faraway Look.
In 1965 he published The Bird Table Book, a guide to garden birds, which became a perennial bestseller, remaining in print until the millennium. In 1967, he began hosting the RSPB’s cruises to see flocks of avocets wintering in Devon, which continue to this day.
But it was as a TV presenter that Tony really made his name, earning the epithet “One-take Tony” for his unruffled and consistent style. He got his big break in 1962 on the children’s series Animal Magic, with Johnny Morris, but eventually decided that the anthropomorphic approach, with Morris assigning British regional accents to the animals of Bristol Zoo, was not for him, so he left the BBC to pursue a freelance career.
His affability endeared him not just to viewers, but also to his colleagues, who recall that he was always a pleasure to work with.
Tony married Rae Francis in 1960; they divorced in 1969. Two years later he married the artist and printmaker Hilary Brooke, with whom he had two sons. By then his presenting career was beginning to take off, with popular series including Soper at Large (1972), Wildtrack (1978), Beside the Sea (1979) and Discovering Birds (1983), the latter two produced by the BBC’s Continuing Education department in London.
Meanwhile, in 1980, the Natural History Unit launched the first of a series of outside broadcasts in the Birdwatch strand, an early version of Springwatch. Tony’s legendary unflappability was tested when, during a live transmission from the gannet colony at Bass Rock off the North Berwick coast, a dense wall of fog descended, making it impossible to see the birds. Somehow Tony managed to fill the time until the fog lifted.
In the early 80s Tony was the lead presenter of a live current affairs series, Nature, the first real attempt to present hard-hitting conservation stories on television. As a trainee producer on the series, I always found him kind, helpful and encouraging.
By later in the decade, however, Tony’s presenting career was on the wane, as BBC chiefs considered his relaxed, informal style to be rather old-fashioned.
Realising that he was falling out of favour, he decided to pursue a new career leading wildlife cruises, mostly to the Arctic and Antarctica: he once calculated that he had crossed the notorious Drake Passage to Antarctica more than 100 times.
This led to more books, including a series on wildlife published by the travel guide firm Bradt. His elder son Tim followed Tony into expedition tourism and co-founded EYOS Expeditions, a luxury charter company; his younger son, Jack, became a BBC radio producer. The cruise work continued until 2012, and Tony’s freelance work after that included self-publishing The Northeast Passage (2016), about the wildlife on the islands above the Arctic Circle, between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
He is survived by Hilary, his sons, and five grandchildren.
Tony Soper, wildlife TV presenter, author and naturalist, born 10 January 1929, died 18 September 2024
Tony Soper obituary | Wildlife | The Guardian
David Graham, voice of Thunderbirds and Peppa Pig characters, dies aged 99
In roles including Gordon Tracy, Brains, the Daleks and Grandpa Pig, Graham was ‘generous with his time and his talent’
David Graham, who was the voice of characters in Thunderbirds and Peppa Pig, has died aged 99, it has been confirmed.
The London-born star also voiced the evil Daleks in Doctor Who, and brought to life the Thunderbirds puppet characters including the aquanaut Gordon Tracy, the scientist Brains, and Lady Penelope’s driver, Aloysius “Nosey” Parker, in the series in which a secret organisation tried to save the world.
The TV producer Jamie Anderson, son of the Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson, told the news agency PA Media he was “very sad to confirm that David has passed away at the grand old age of 99”.
He added: “Just a few weeks ago, I was with 2,000 Anderson fans at a Gerry Anderson concert in Birmingham where we sang him happy birthday – such a joyous occasion.
And now, just a few weeks later, he’s left us. David was always kind and generous with his time and his talent. And what a talent.
“From the Daleks to Grandpa Pig and numerous voices for Anderson shows including Brains, Gordon Tracy and the iconic Parker. He will be sorely missed.”
Graham returned as Parker for ITV’s remake Thunderbirds Are Go, which aired between 2015 and 2020, but not for the 2004 live-action film, in which Ron Cook took on the role.
The original Thunderbirds, which began in 1965, was created by Gerry Anderson, who died in 2012, and his second wife, Sylvia, the voice of Lady Penelope, who died in 2016.
The official Gerry Anderson account on X posted: “David was always a wonderful friend to us here at Anderson Entertainment. We will miss you dearly, David. Our thoughts are with David’s friends and family.”
Graham played Grandpa Pig in the children’s show Peppa Pig, and also provided the voice for characters in Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom.
His in-person acting roles included Doctor Who, Coronation Street and Casualty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-9M69-rdE8
Benny Golson, jazz saxophonist and composer of surpassing grace, dies at 95
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Benny Golson, a preeminent tenor saxophonist who was also the composer of such elegant jazz standards as “I Remember Clifford,” “Along Came Betty” and “Whisper Not,” died Sept. 21 at his home in Manhattan. He was 95.
His daughter, Brielle Golson, confirmed the death but did not provide a specific cause.
Over a seven-decade career, Mr. Golson exhibited a combination of grace, warmth and technical virtuosity influenced in part by his Philadelphia childhood friend John Coltrane.
In 1959, Mr. Golson and trumpeter Art Farmer founded the Jazztet, one of the premier “hard bop” jazz groups of the era. He appeared in perhaps the most famous photograph of jazz musicians ever made, “A Great Day in Harlem,” taken by Art Kane in 1958, and was featured in an Oscar-nominated 1994 documentary about the photo, directed by Jean Bach. He was one of the last two surviving musicians among the 57 in the picture.
Mr. Golson was “without question jazz’s most significant living composer,” music journalist Marc Myers wrote in 2008. Mr. Golson began writing and arranging music in the 1940s, as a student at Howard University, and first attracted wide notice a decade later when other musicians started to record his compositions “Stablemates” and “Whisper Not.”
His best-known tune was “I Remember Clifford,” a tribute to trumpeter Clifford Brown, a friend and onetime bandmate who died, at 25, in a car accident in 1956. Mr. Golson, then on tour with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s band in California, spent two weeks crafting the poignant, slow-moving melody, which evokes both sadness and the buoyant tone of Brown’s trumpet.
Trumpeter Donald Byrd and Gillespie separately recorded the song the next year. Singer and composer Jon Hendricks later wrote lyrics to “I Remember Clifford,” which has been recorded by more than 300 musicians.
“I wanted every note to reflect Clifford Brown,” Mr. Golson said in 2008. “And I’ve always said I wished I had never written it, that he was still with us today.”
In 1958, Mr. Golson joined drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, a group that embodied muscular, blues-driven hard bop.
Mr. Golson brought several fellow Philadelphia-bred musicians into the band, including trumpeter Lee Morgan, pianist Bobby Timmons and bassist Jymie Merritt, giving the Messengers a cohesive, dynamic sound. Mr. Golson also encouraged Timmons to write one of the ensemble’s most memorable songs, the gospel-drenched “Moanin’."
Blakey gave Mr. Golson a bandstand lesson that he never forgot, playing loud rolls or shots on the drums during Mr. Golson’s sax solos.
“Finally, he hollered over at me, ‘Get up out of that hole!’ ” Mr. Golson told Myers’s JazzWax blog. “I said to myself, ‘Man, I guess I am in a hole. Nobody can hear me.’ So I started playing harder and with more bite.”
Although Mr. Golson was with Blakey for only a year, in that time he composed several pieces that have become jazz classics, including the sinuous “Along Came Betty,” “Are You Real?” and the brisk “Blues March.”
“When I originally told Art about my idea for a march, he thought I was crazy,” Mr. Golson told the Wall Street Journal in 2012. “I told him, I was thinking of a dirty, funky, greasy, march — like the ones played at football games by Black college marching bands.”
Blakey was still skeptical, but Mr. Golson persuaded him to try out the tune at Small’s Paradise, a crowded club in Harlem.
“Space was tight,” Mr. Golson recalled. “But as soon as the one-two beat began, everyone got up to dance anyway, knocking drinks off tables. Art looked over at me and said, ‘Well I’ll be damned.’ After that, Art and the Messengers played ‘Blues March’ all the time.”
By that time, Mr. Golson had a solo career underway, having released eight albums as a leader between 1957 and 1959. With Farmer, he launched the Jazztet, a group that also featured McCoy Tyner on piano and Curtis Fuller on trombone. Mr. Golson reprised earlier tunes and wrote new ones, such as “Killer Joe,” while recording with the Jazztet before he stepped away from the bandstand in 1962 to concentrate on writing.
While living in Los Angeles, he wrote for TV shows including “Mannix,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Room 222” and “M.A.S.H.,” and he arranged music for singers as diverse as Peggy Lee, Lou Rawls and Dusty Springfield.
Mr. Golson studied classical composers — “I’ve always loved melody. My heroes are Puccini, Brahms, Chopin and Duke Ellington” — and stopped playing the saxophone for 12 years. When he picked up the instrument again in the mid-1970s, Mr. Golson found that he could no longer play.
“My fingers were those of a dead man; my lips were like ripe tomatoes,” he told the music magazine Crescendo International. “It was quite a physical struggle. I had no muscles in my lips or jaws. ... I sounded so bad.”
He launched a slow comeback and, in 1982, reunited with Farmer for new version of the Jazztet. He returned to form on tenor saxophone, developing a muted, almost purring tone that was instantly recognizable, and he had a strong second act, writing new tunes and performing into his 90s.
Bennie Golson was born Jan. 25, 1929, in Philadelphia. He was a toddler when his father left the family, and he was raised by his mother, who worked as a seamstress and had boarders living at the house.
Several uncles and aunts were musical, and young Bennie — who later legally changed the spelling of his name to Benny — began taking piano lessons at 9. When he was 14, he saw Lionel Hampton’s band, featuring Arnett Cobb on tenor saxophone, at Philadelphia’s Earle Theater.
“That day my life changed,” Mr. Golson told the Newark Star-Ledger in 2004. “I told Arnett that years later, and he had tears in his eyes. I guess it was the sound of the horn, the bright lights glittering on this piece of gold plumbing, the reaction of the audience going wild. I just got caught up in that. I loved it, and I told my mother I wanted to play the saxophone.”
Despite her meager income, Mr. Golson’s mother came home one day with a new tenor saxophone for her son. As he became more skilled, he met a slightly older budding saxophone player — Coltrane — who visited the Golson home to practice and listen to records. Both were strongly influenced by the bebop revolution of the 1940s, led by Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker.
Mr. Golson and Coltrane were in their teens when they joined a local dance band, but after showing up for a gig, they discovered they had been replaced. They went back to Mr. Golson’s house, disconsolate.
“My mother looked at us,” Mr. Golson said in a 2009 interview for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Project. “I guess she felt sorry for us. She came in, and she put her arms around both of us and squeezed us. I’ll never forget it. She said, ‘Don’t worry, baby. One day you’ll be so good, the both of you, they won’t be able to afford you.’ ”
Coltrane, who died in 1967, went on to become one of the most influential tenor saxophonists in jazz history. Mr. Golson, meanwhile, enrolled at Howard, which at the time taught only classical music. He sneaked off campus at night to play in jazz clubs along Washington’s U Street corridor and had to climb over a wall to return to his dormitory.
Disputes with his conservative music teachers led Mr. Golson to leave Howard without a degree. (He was later awarded an honorary doctorate by the university.) While playing with ensembles in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, he was mentored by jazz composer Tadd Dameron, then worked his way up to big bands fronted by vibraphonist Hampton, saxophonist Earl Bostic and then Gillespie.
In 1996, Mr. Golson was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, the country’s highest honor for jazz musicians. He published an autobiography, written with Jim Merod, in 2016.
An early marriage, to Seville Golson, ended in divorce, and three sons from that marriage, Odis, Reggie and Robert, predeceased him. Mr. Golson married Bobbie Hurd in 1959. In addition to his wife and their daughter, Brielle, survivors include grandchildren.
Mr. Golson’s presence in the “Great Day in Harlem” photograph led to a speaking role in the 2004 Steven Spielberg film “The Terminal.” Tom Hanks plays an Eastern European stuck at JFK International Airport for months while hoping to complete his father’s quest: getting the autographs of all 57 musicians in the “Great Day in Harlem” photo. The only signature missing is Mr. Golson’s.
Of all the renowned musicians in the photograph — Gillespie, Blakey, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Charles Mingus — Mr. Golson and Sonny Rollins were the last survivors.
“Even now at 90, I don’t know everything there is to know,” Mr. Golson told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2019. “So when I teach master classes, sometimes the teacher learns from the kids. That’s the way it is. That’s the way it should be. Like Sonny Rollins said to me once: ‘There’s no end to this music.’"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obitu...y-golson-dies/
The famous photo is in the article
https://www.theguardian.com/music/ga...azz-photograph
Peter Jay obituary
Economic journalist and broadcaster labelled ‘the cleverest young man in England’
If ever a man was damned by being described as “the cleverest young man in England” it was the economic journalist Peter Jay. When Time magazine decided on the epithet and chose him as one of its 150 world leaders of the future in 1974, Jay was already 37, so rather old to be a young hopeful.
However, he needed next to no encouragement to believe it, having already garnered a reputation at the Times, where he was then economics editor, for arrogance. It was scarcely the magazine’s fault that his highest elected office ended up being mayor of the Oxfordshire town of Woodstock, but as his career went into a slow decline following his brief period as British ambassador to Washington in the late 1970s – having been appointed to the post by his father-in-law the Labour prime minister James Callaghan – each mishap was accompanied by the sound of chortling schadenfreude in the British press.
Jay once claimed that his career was so disjointed that it was really no career at all, yet it was nevertheless garlanded with privilege: academic success, awards for his journalism at the Times and on television, executive appointments and the most glamorous ambassadorship at the youngest age of any previous holder. But Jay, who has died aged 87, might have been born to be mocked. He took himself seriously and was, looking at the glittering prizes he collected while young, an extremely able man.
However, his talents were undermined by a lack of judgment and common sense, so that if he fell short of what he considered his due he had no one to blame but himself.
He was born into the Hampstead Labour aristocracy, the son of Douglas Jay (later Lord Jay), a sometime fellow of All Souls, Oxford, and briefly president of the Board of Trade in Harold Wilson’s first cabinet – the man who once wrote that “the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for the people” – and his wife, Peggy Jay (nee Garnett), a long-time Labour member on the Greater London council.
Their son, one of four children, was educated at Winchester, where he became head boy – it was a time when Labour leaders were not embarrassed to educate their children privately. After national service on minesweepers in the Royal Navy, he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took a first in philosophy, politics and economics and became president of the Oxford Union debating society.
When a tutor allegedly first coined the phrase about Jay being the cleverest young man in England, his reaction was to ask whether there was someone cleverer in Wales. “I was one of those people who found it great fun to compete,” he acknowledged later. “Everything was a form of game.”
At Oxford, he met and married, in 1961, Margaret Callaghan (now Lady Jay of Paddington) who was even better connected than he was with Labour’s upper reaches, as the daughter of Jim Callaghan. They had three children Patrick, Tamsin and Alice.
Fast-tracked from Oxford into the Treasury as a civil servant, he then moved seamlessly into journalism at the age of 30, in 1967, with his appointment as economics editor of the Times, a post he held for 10 years. It was an ideal platform from which to display erudition and his weekly columns each Thursday became influential in a paper that still saw itself self-consciously as being written only for top people.
Thus, when a subeditor once complained that he could not understand what Jay had written, he was loftily informed that the column was not meant for him, but only intended to be understood by three people – two Treasury civil servants and the governor of the Bank of England.
He was, however, also read by Margaret Thatcher, who absorbed Jay’s argument in the rocky economic days of the early 70s that the money supply determined the rate of inflation – monetarism – and that Britain could not spend its way out of recession.
Jay, who regarded himself as a Keynesian, was delighted when his father-in-law repeated this to the Labour conference in 1976, but professed himself less pleased when Thatcher adopted monetarism in the 80s. “When I hear that,” he admitted, “I feel like the schoolmaster who first showed Genghis Khan a map of the world.”
If his cleverness was regarded with some respect, there was nevertheless astonishment when Callaghan appointed him British ambassador to Washington in 1977, and much ribald comment about the son-in-law also rising. After all, Jay’s reputation was hardly that of a diplomat and he had had no experience of foreign affairs.
It seems the move was recommended by David Owen, the foreign secretary who was a friend. Jay promoted US investment in Britain and countered Irish republican fundraising for arms in the American-Irish community. But the appointment ended when Thatcher came into power in 1979; she put a career diplomat in his place.
The ambassadorship also had a disastrous effect on the Jays’ marriage. Already rocky before the family moved to Washington, it disintegrated as Margaret embarked on a highly publicised affair with the journalist Carl Bernstein (subsequently dramatised by Bernstein’s wife Norah Ephron in the 1983 novel Heartburn, then made into a film).
Jay himself had a fling with the family’s nanny Jane Tustian, which resulted in her pregnancy and the birth of a son, Nicholas. For several years, Jay refused to acknowledge the boy’s paternity; but ultimately, a blood test proved it and a court case obliged him to pay maintenance. Jay’s marriage ended in divorce in 1986 and the same year he married Emma Thornton, a garden furniture designer, with whom he went on to have three sons.
In the 70s, while still at the Times, Jay had been the first presenter of the LWT Sunday morning politics programme Weekend World and became a friend of its ambitious young producer John Birt, pioneer of the “mission to explain” approach, which suited Jay’s lofty tendencies. Back in London from Washington, in 1980 he became chairman and chief executive of the new TV-am channel, set up to introduce breakfast television with other celebrity luminaries such as David Frost, Angela Rippon, Anna Ford and Michael Parkinson.
Ambushed by the BBC, which hurriedly set up its own breakfast programme in advance, Jay and his colleagues soon found that their mission to explain was not what the British public wanted in the mornings, and were rapidly replaced by the puppet Roland Rat.
The hapless career moves continued when Jay was recruited by the corrupt tycoon Robert Maxwell to be his chief of staff. Despite the impressive title, he soon found that his job was little more than that of a bag carrier and general dogsbody, which came with a heavy freight of bullying and humiliation by Maxwell, who enjoyed showing his power by ringing up Jay in the middle of the night merely to ask him the time.
“I thought I could house-train him, but after 18 months it became apparent that I couldn’t,” Jay said later. “My job was futile.” Nevertheless, he remained for three years and escaped not long before Maxwell’s villainy with the company pension funds was exposed after his death, falling from his yacht in 1991. Jay’s pay-off had been handed over in time, so he avoided the penury of many of the other employees.
By that time he had been rescued by his old friend Birt, now director general of the BBC, who appointed him economics and business editor for the corporation. This became the source of some resentment. A reporting job was scarcely Jay’s forte: he did not have a sympathetic on-screen manner, did not find soundbite explanations easy, and became an increasingly distant figure, rarely seen in the newsroom or available for major stories, and even having to receive briefings from other staff on Budget days before going on air.
An alternative job was found for him in 2000 as presenter of a documentary series called Road to Riches, about the history of human economic development, which took him away from news reporting and to locations around the world. The series showed him, among other stunts, swapping bananas with a chimpanzee. Scotland on Sunday’s reviewer wrote: “Jay is so manifestly uncomfortable in his role as our cheery tour guide with a nice line in economic theory that the series jars from the outset.”
The accompanying book received warmer reviews than the series, whose publicity was scarcely helped by his admission that, not only had he not entered a shop for many years but “basically, money bores me”.
Such stumbles were chronicled by the media, which continued to enjoy his reputation for arrogance, though perhaps naivety might be a better description for a surprisingly unworldly lack of self-awareness.
“I am difficult to live with and have quite a strong personality which expresses itself in the form of this is what I want to do and this is how I want you to be. I also bark,” he confided. “I don’t feel arrogant in my head, but so many people have said it that it must be true.”
Latterly, Jay retreated to his large house on the outskirts of Woodstock to pursue his hobbies of sailing and bridge and to be elected to the town council. He served as mayor between 2008 and 2010.
He is survived by Emma and his children.
Peter Jay, journalist, broadcaster and diplomat, born 7 February 1937, died 22 September 2024
Peter Jay obituary | Newspapers | The Guardian
Maggie Smith, Oscar-winning star of stage and screen, dies aged 89
In a career that began in the 1950s, her roles ranged from Desdemona to Miss Jean Brodie, Virginia Woolf and Minerva McGonagall
Maggie Smith, the prolific, multi-award-winning actor whose work ranged from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie to Harry Potter to Downton Abbey, has died aged 89.
The news was confirmed by her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens in a statement. They said: “She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27 September.
“An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.
“We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days.
“We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.”
Smith’s gift for acid-tongued comedy was arguably the source of her greatest achievements: the waspish teacher Jean Brodie, for which she won an Oscar, prim period yarns such as A Room With a View and Gosford Park, and a series of collaborations on stage and screen with Alan Bennett including The Lady in the Van. “My career is chequered,” she told the Guardian in 2004. “I think I got pigeonholed in humour … If you do comedy, you kind of don’t count. Comedy is never considered the real thing.” However, Smith also excelled in non-comedic dramatic roles, performing opposite Laurence Olivier for the National Theatre, winning a best actress Bafta for The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, and playing the title role in Ingmar Bergman’s 1970 production of Hedda Gabler.
Born in 1934, Smith grew up in Oxford and began acting at the city’s Playhouse theatre as a teenager. While appearing in a string of stage shows, including Bamber Gascoigne’s 1957 musical comedy Share My Lettuce opposite Kenneth Williams, Smith also made inroads on film, with her first substantial impact in the 1958 Seth Holt thriller Nowhere to Go, for which she was nominated for a best supporting actress Bafta. After starring in Peter Shaffer’s stage double bill The Private Ear and The Public Eye, Smith was invited by Olivier to join the nascent National Theatre company in 1962, for whom she appeared in a string of productions, including as Desdemona to Olivier’s Othello in his notorious blackface production in 1964. (Smith repeated the role in Olivier’s film version the following year, for which they were both Oscar-nominated.)
In 1969 she was cast in the lead role of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the adaptation of the Muriel Spark novel about the Edinburgh schoolteacher with an admiration for Mussolini; Smith went on to win the best actress Oscar in 1970. Later the same year she starred in Ingmar Bergman’s production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler for the National Theatre in London’s West End; the Evening Standard’s Milton Shulman described her as “haunt[ing] the stage like some giant portrait by Modigliani, her alabaster skin stretched tight with hidden anguish.” Another Oscar nomination for best actress came her way in 1973 for the Graham Greene adaptation Travels with My Aunt, and an Oscar win (for best supporting actress) in 1979 for California Suite, the Neil Simon-scripted anthology piece in which she played an Oscar-nominated film star.
Smith continued her successful parallel film and stage careers in the 1980s. She starred opposite Michael Palin in A Private Function, the wartime-set comedy about food rationing, co-scripted by Alan Bennett, and had a colourful supporting role as gossipy cousin Charlotte Bartlett in Merchant Ivory’s A Room With a View, for which she was nominated for yet another Oscar. She followed it up with The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, a character study in which Smith played the unmarried, frustrated woman of the title. On stage she played Virginia Woolf in Edna O’Brien’s 1980 play at the Stratford Festival theatre in Canada, and in 1987 starred as tour guide Lettice Douffet in Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage. She also reunited with Bennett for his Talking Heads series on both radio and TV, playing a vicar’s wife having an affair.
Film roles continued to roll in: she starred alongside Joan Plowright and Cher in Franco Zeffirelli’s loosely autobiographical Tea With Mussolini, a dowager countess in Robert Altman’s country-house murder mystery Gosford Park, and opposite Judi Dench in Ladies in Lavender, written and directed by Charles Dance. She also accepted the prominent role of Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series, appearing between 2001 and 2011 in every instalment apart from Deathly Hallows Part 1. Meanwhile she achieved arguably her most impactful TV role as the countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, created by Gosford Park writer Julian Fellowes – reprising the role in two standalone cinema films, released in 2019 and 2022. Having played the role on stage in 1999, Smith enjoyed a late career triumph in The Lady in the Van, Alan Bennett’s memoir about the woman who lived on his driveway.
Smith was married twice: to fellow actor Robert Stephens between 1967 and 1975, and Beverley Cross between 1975 and his death in 1998.
Maggie Smith, Oscar-winning star of stage and screen, dies aged 89 | Film | The Guardian
A fine actor who leaves a fine body of work.
Her small part as aristocratic Lady Trentham in Gosford Park was a masterpiece
An outstanding actor. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was the first film I remember seeing her in and was stunned with her performance. Her screaming “assassin” near the end of the film has stuck with me for 55 years.
RIP Maggie Smith.
A nearly 70 year career. Astonishing.
Her last effort was playing Goebbels secretary in A German Life, but it doesn't appear to be on torrents anywhere. Anyone see a link?
Kris Kristofferson, ‘Blade’ Star and Country Music Legend, Dies at 88
Kris Kristofferson, the prolific and pioneering musician whose talents took him from Nashville to Hollywood and back again, has died. He was 88.
Kristofferson died on Saturday at his home in Maiu, Hawaii, his family said.
“We’re all so blessed for our time with him,” a statement read. “Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”
No cause of death was immediately shared.
A soulful singer-songwriter, Kristofferson was known for penning hits like ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ and ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night.’ On screen, he was best known to audiences for his turns in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, A Star Is Born, and the Blade franchise.
Kristofferson is survived by his wife, Lisa; his eight children, Tracy, Kris Jr., Casey, Jesse, Jody, John, Kelly and Blake; and his seven grandchildren.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kris-k...=home?ref=home
John Ashton, Beverly Hills Cop actor, dies aged 76
Veteran character actor’s career spanned over 50 years in TV and films, including Little Big League and Midnight Run
John Ashton, the veteran character actor who memorably played the gruff but lovable police detective John Taggart in the Beverly Hills Cop films, has died. He was 76.
Ashton died Thursday in Fort Collins, Colorado, his family announced in a statement released by Ashton’s manager, Alan Somers, on Sunday. No cause of death was immediately available.
In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Ashton was a regular face across TV series and films, including Midnight Run, Little Big League and Gone Baby Gone.
But in the Beverly Hills Cop films, Ashton played an essential part of an indelible trio. Though Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley, a Detroit detective following a case in Los Angeles, was the lead, the two local detectives, Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Ashton’s Taggart, were Axel’s sometimes reluctant, sometimes eager collaborators.
Of the three, Taggart – “Sarge” to Billy – was the more fearful, by-the-book detective. But he would regularly be coaxed into Axel’s plans. Ashton co-starred in all four of the films, beginning with the 1984 original and running through the Netflix reboot, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, released earlier this year.
Ashton played a more unscrupulous character in Martin Brest’s 1988 buddy comedy Midnight Run. He was the rival bounty hunter also pursuing Charles Grodin’s wanted accountant in The Duke while he’s in the custody of Robert De Niro’s Jack Walsh.
Speaking in July to Collider, Ashton recalled auditioning with De Niro.
“Bobby started handing me these matches, and I went to grab the matches, and he threw them on the floor and stared at me,” said Ashton. “I looked at the matches, and I looked up, and I said: ‘F–- you,’ and he said: ‘F–- you, too.’ I said: ‘Go –- yourself.’ I know every other actor picked those up and handed it to him, and I found out as soon as I left he went: ‘I want him,’ because he wanted somebody to stand up to him.”
Ashton is survived by his wife, Robin Hoye, of 24 years, two children, three stepchildren, a grandson, two sisters and a brother.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...ills-cop-actor
….edit…
^He did need rather a lot of makeup in that last Beverly Hills Cop outing.
^^^ I had no idea.
Quote:
Kristofferson was a Rhodes Scholar who studied at Oxford University's Merton College, earning a master's degree in English literature.
John Amos, ‘Good Times’ Dad, Dies at 84
John Amos, the TV writer turned Emmy-nominated actor who starred as the stoic father on Good Times before he was fired from the landmark sitcom for objecting to stereotypes and admittedly letting his temper get the best of him, has died. He was 84.
Amos died Aug. 21 in Los Angeles of natural causes, his son, K.C. Amos, announced.
“It is with heartfelt sadness that I share with you that my father has transitioned,” he said in a statement. “He was a man with the kindest heart and a heart of gold … and he was loved the world over. Many fans consider him their TV father. He lived a good life. His legacy will live on in his outstanding works in television and film as an actor.”
Amos, who played football at Colorado State University and had training camp tryouts with the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League, saw his showbiz career take off after he landed a gig to play WJM-TV weatherman Gordy Howard on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
The New Jersey native received his Emmy nom for portraying Toby, the older version of Kunta Kinte, on the acclaimed 1977 ABC miniseries Roots, and he had a recurring role as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on NBC’s West Wing.
MORE John Amos Dead: 'Good Times' Dad, 'Roots' Actor Was 84
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