The RIP Famous Person Thread

[harrybarracuda]

Quincy Jones, 91.

Quincy Jones Dead: The Musician, Composer And Icon Was 91

[david44]

RIP the great Quincy , first time with Miles Davis

[misskit]

He put out heaps of great music over the years.

[cyrille]

A very talented and cool guy.

[harrybarracuda]

Tony Todd, ‘Candyman’ Horror Icon Also Known for ‘Platoon’ and ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 69




Tony Todd, the “Candyman” star who appeared in more than 240 movies and TV shows, died November 6. He was 69.


The actor’s representatives confirmed news of his death to TheWrap; no information about the cause has been made public. The actor was “an amazing man and I will miss him every single day,” Jeffrey Goldberg, Todd’s manager of over 40 years, told TheWrap.


Todd starred as the killer in “Candyman” and the movie’s sequel, but the actor’s prolific career included arcs on “The Young and the Restless” and “24” as well as episodes of “Hawaii Five-0,” “Xena: Warrior Princess” and “Young Justice.”


Todd also starred in several “Star Trek” shows, including “The Next Generation,” “Voyager” and “Deep Space Nine.” In the “Star Trek” franchise he’s best known for portraying the Klingon Kurn, brother of Worf (Michael Dorn).


In a 1998 interview with Whoosh! Todd said “Star Trek” was “the first show that gave me access to the fan world, so I’m always grateful to them.” He also admitted that though he “didn’t wake up one day and try to become a part of the sci-fi/fantasy universe,” he wasn’t unhappy with the direction his career had taken.


Todd also enjoyed a healthy career onstage after having trained at the Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. He told the outlet that he aimed to do one play a year. “It’s honest work. It’s more direct, more interactive,” he explained. “It’s just real. You have a six-week rehearsal period as opposed to television where you basically have to rehearse on your own. In TV you just show up and do it. In theatre you learn to put more time into the material before you show up on the set.”


Tony Todd, 'Candyman' Horror Icon Also Known for 'Platoon' and 'Star Trek,' Dies at 69 - TheWrap

[cyrille]

Roy Haynes has died, aged 99.




Roy Haynes, a drummer who was one of the last remaining musicians of jazz’s swing and bebop eras, has died aged 99. His daughter Leslie Haynes-Gilmore said he had died following a short illness.

Haynes’s energetic style, which also encompassed fusion and avant-garde jazz, earned him the respect of many contemporaries across a career that began in the mid-1940s. He played with artists including Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and dozens more.


Born in 1925 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, Haynes developed an early interest in jazz before he began drumming professionally in Boston nightclubs as a teenager. He once recalled: “A teacher in school once sent me to the principal, because I was drumming with my hands on the desk in class.”

Hayes first worked under swing-era bandleaders including Sabby Lewis, Frankie Newton and Felix Barbozza, and a move to New York in 1945 saw him join the big bands of Louis Russell and Louis Armstrong, and play with star saxophonist Lester Young. By the 1950s, Haynes had developed the nickname Snapcrackle, a nod to his quick and versatile style. He toured the world backing jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan for five years in the mid-1950s, then occasionally stood in for Elvin Jones in John Coltrane’s early 60s quartet, alongside his regular work with Stan Getz and Eric Dolphy.

His versatility allowed him to shine as bebop evolved into the freer post-bop style, and he appeared on landmark releases on the Blue Note label by Andrew Hill, Jackie McLean and others. He continued his recording and touring career into the 2010s.


Hayes also released acclaimed albums as a bandleader, such as 1962’s Out of the Afternoon (with Roland Kirk), and formed his own band, the Hip Ensemble, in the late 1960s. The acclaimed drummer lived up to that band name, according to fellow jazz artist Pat Metheny, who toured with Haynes in the late 1980s: “Roy is the human manifestation of whatever it is that the word ‘hip’ was supposed to mean before it just became a word. Always in the moment, always in this time, eternal and classic and at the same time totally nonchalant about it.”

His career endured beyond the retirement of many of his contemporaries. His 2004 album Fountain of Youth and 2007’s Whereas earned him Grammy nominations, the latter when he was in his early 80s, and he received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2012. In 2008, he presented the jazz radio station on the video game Grand Theft Auto IV. Until the Covid-19 pandemic, Haynes celebrated his birthday with an annual performance at New York’s Blue Note Jazz Club – most recently at the age of 94.


In an interview with Percussive Arts Society, he once said: “Maybe the secret of staying youthful is playing the drums. I know that performing makes me feel good, and it also makes me sleep well.”

Speaking to mark Haynes’s 96th birthday, Wayne Shorter called him “a champion to me”, Branford Marsalis said he was the greatest jazz drummer ever – “if you’re thinking about the level of versatility he has, the shit’s just astounding” – while jazz singer Terri Lyne Carrington said: “Roy’s way of making the drum set more fluid is unparalleled … His playing makes me see other possibilities for myself.”

Haynes is survived by his sons Craig and Graham, the latter a cornettist recognised for his contributions to nu-jazz, and his grandson, the drummer Marcus Gilmore

Roy Haynes, jazz drummer whose career spanned nine decades, dies aged 99 | Jazz | The Guardian

[harrybarracuda]

Actor Timothy West, 90

Timothy West, star of stage, screen and television, dies aged 90

[david44]

A fine actor in many parts, married to fellow actor Pru Scales aka Mrs Fawlty, in recent years they like many tv celebs did a travel show messing about in barges, pleasant shows. I recall his lead role as a Victorain bombastic Landlord in UK comedy Brass amongst many fine roles.RIP

He also had a small part as Labelle's commander in the original Fred Zimmerman classic movie The Day of the Jackal, not the equally interesting current tv series.

Tributes paid included his friend, the writer and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth, who posted on Instagram: “A marvellous man – a marvellous actor, husband, father, friend. On stage, on screen, on a canal boat, on the end of a pier (he loved a seaside pier!), in the garden with a glass of wine, he was just the best. The great Timothy West has died at 90: what a worthwhile, well-filled life.”

Another bio here
Timothy West, star of stage, film and television, dies aged 90 | Timothy West | The Guardian

It would be wonderful to so well remembered and have brought so much pleasure to so many for so long.

[harrybarracuda]

King Crimson and ELP lyricist Peter Sinfield, 80

Peter Sinfield, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer Lyricist, Dies

The Who, Bowie and The Kinks producer Shel Talmy, 87

David Bowie and The Kinks producer Shel Talmy dies aged 87 | Hotpress

[david44]

They are dropping like flies, just amazing considering teh sez n drugs rock and roll they make 80, there's hope for us yet.

I do recall my mum used to read teh obits in paper of course you begin to realize your own mortlaity when your teenage heroes die, and some of them younnger than you.

Thans Hal seems posting on TD is good for your 'elf

[harrybarracuda]

Vic Flick, guitarist on James Bond theme song, dies at 87 after battle with Alzheimer’s


Attention Required! | Cloudflare


Fun fact: Monty Norman created the Bond theme by adapting a song he'd written for a musical book adapation about Indians in Trinidad.

[cyrille]

Are baap re!

[dirk diggler]

Former Deputy PM John Prescott dies at 86

[david44]

Ah yes bruiser aka "2 Jags John"

His response to be egged on the campaign trail was a quick Jab.

[harrybarracuda]

Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96

She claimed Auschwitz was just a work camp, not a death camp, and that nobody had been gassed to death there.

She challenged a German court to prove that the Nazis committed mass murder, and declared on TV that the Holocaust was “the biggest and most sustainable lie in history.”

She spent years in prison, as an elderly widow, for lying about the Holocaust, and was deemed the “Nazi grandma” by German media.

German Holocaust denier known as 'Nazi grandma' dies at 96 - The Jerusalem Post

[S Landreth]

Andy Paley, producer of Brian Wilson's comeback LP, dies at 73

Andy Paley, who produced for Brian Wilson and composed for ‘SpongeBob SquarePants,’ dies at 73

Andy Paley, a prolific musician and producer who worked on records by Brian Wilson, Madonna, Jonathan Richman and Jerry Lee Lewis and who wrote music for popular animated series “The Ren & Stimpy Show” and “SpongeBob SquarePants,” died Wednesday in hospice care in Colchester, Vt. He was 73.

His death was announced by a representative, Bob Merlis, who said the cause was cancer.

The Paley Brothers perform "Little Bit O' Soul" at Nuggets 50th Anniversary in Glendale, CA

[Happy As Larry]

Alice Brock, who helped inspire Arlo Guthrie’s classic ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ dies at 83

NEW YORK — Alice Brock, whose Massachusetts-based eatery helped inspire Arlo Guthrie’s deadpan Thanksgiving standard, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” has died at age 83.

Her death, just a week before Thanksgiving, was announced Friday by Guthrie on the Facebook page of his own Rising Son Records. Guthrie wrote that she died in Provincetown, Massachusetts, her residence for some 40 years, and referred to her being in failing health. Other details were not immediately available.

“This coming Thanksgiving will be the first without her,” Guthrie wrote. “Alice and I spoke by phone a couple of weeks ago, and she sounded like her old self. We joked around and had a couple of good laughs even though we knew we’d never have another chance to talk together.”

Born Alice May Pelkey in New York City, Brock was a lifelong rebel who was a member of Students for a Democratic Society among other organizations. In the early 1960s, she dropped out of Sarah Lawrence College, moved to Greenwich Village and married Ray Brock, a woodworker who encouraged her to leave New York and resettle in Massachusetts.

Guthrie, son of the celebrated folk musician Woody Guthrie, first met Brock around 1962 when he was attending the Stockbridge School in Massachusetts and she was the librarian. They became friends and stayed in touch after he left school, when he would stay with her and her husband at the converted Stockbridge church that became the Brocks’ main residence.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1965, a simple chore led to Guthrie’s arrest, his eventual avoidance of military service during the Vietnam War and a song that has endured as a protest classic and holiday favorite. Guthrie and his friend, Richard Robbins, were helping the Brocks throw out trash, but ended up tossing it down a hill because they couldn’t find an open dumpster. Police charged them with illegal dumping, briefly jailed them and fined them $50, a seemingly minor offense with major repercussions.
Alice Brock, who helped inspire Arlo Guthrie’s classic ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ dies at 83

[misskit]

What a memorable and funny story that was!

I remember my parents going to see the film and I was so upset they wouldn’t let me go with them. I was 10 at the time. Had to wait until I was a teenager to see the movie.

[david44]

My youthfulBohemian gf Sylvia and her best friend also Sylvia used to sing whole thing as we toured the Alps, thanks for the happy memories 'ceptin' Alice

[Happy As Larry]

Novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford dies aged 91

Barbara Taylor Bradford, the bestselling author of novels including A Woman of Substance, has died aged 91, her publisher has confirmed.

The novelist died peacefully at her home on Sunday after a short illness, “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”.

Described as “the grande dame of blockbusters”, Taylor Bradford published her 40th novel in 2023, the third in her Victorian family saga House of Falconer series. Cumulative sales of her books across her lifetime reached more than 91m copies, and were published in more than 40 languages and in 90 countries.

Lynne Drew, Barbara’s long-term publisher and editor at HarperCollins, said working with the writer “was a huge privilege but also a huge amount of fun. Perennially curious, interested in everyone and extraordinarily driven, she loved writing, and the conversations we had about her characters were unfailingly the best hours of my week.

“She was an inspiration for millions of readers and countless writers. I’m so proud to have been her publisher for over 20 years – working with her has been one of the great thrills of my career, and I and everyone at HarperCollins will miss her greatly.”
Born in Leeds in May 1933, Taylor Bradford attended the same nursery school as Alan Bennett. Her parents had a son who died of meningitis before she was born, which led to her mother putting “all her frustrated love into me”, Taylor Bradford told the Guardian in 2013. Her mother gave her a cultural education, she said, taking her to the cinema every week and to the Russian ballet whenever it came to Leeds. The writer fictionalised her parents’ marriage in her 1986 novel An Act of Will.

Taylor Bradford began her career as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post, and was later promoted to reporter. She went on to become the paper’s first women’s editor, before moving to London at the age of 20, where she worked for Woman’s Own and the London Evening News. An interior design column she wrote was syndicated to 183 newspapers.

She met her husband, the American film producer Robert Bradford, known as Bob, when she was 28, at a cocktail party, and they were married on Christmas Eve 1963, after which she moved to the US to be with him. It was at that point that she decided to try writing fiction, starting, and abandoning, four suspense novels. Then, in her late 30s, she “interviewed herself”, she told the Observer in 2006. “I thought: what if I get to 55, and I’ve never written a novel? I’m going to hate myself. I’m going to be one of those bitter, unfulfilled writers.”

After that, she started writing the sagas she would become known for; her debut novel, A Woman of Substance, was published in 1979 and has since sold more than 30m copies globally. Six sequels in the Emma Harte saga followed, and a long-awaited prequel, A Man of Honour, was published in 2021. Ten of the author’s books were adapted for screen by her husband, starring actors including Liam Neeson, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Elizabeth Hurley.

The actor Jenny Seagrove, who starred as Emma Harte in the TV adaptation of A Woman of Substance, said when she met Taylor Bradford in 1984 she was very nervous. “The door opens and all I can say is that a powerhouse of glamour and warmth heads towards me, grabs me, hugs me, and says … ‘You are my Emma Harte’. And that was the start of a long friendship with the force of nature that I am proud to call my friend.”

“We saw each other whenever she and her beloved Bob were in London,” Seagrove added. “We shared dog stories and talked about everything under the sun. She never changed. Success never diluted her warmth and humour or her ability to relate to everyone she met, whether a cleaner or a princess. She never, ever forgot that she was just a girl from Yorkshire that worked hard and made good.”

Taylor Bradford and her husband did not have children, which she said was never a great source of sadness to her. Bob died following a stroke in 2019, which the author described as being “devastating”.
The pair were together for 58 years and married for 56. “His last words were: ‘I love you.’ I’m so glad I told him: ‘I love you too, darling.’ A week later he was gone,” she said in 2021.

Many of Taylor Bradford’s novels follow young women from humble backgrounds who succeed through years of hard work. The author was often quoted as having said: “I write about mostly ordinary women who go on to achieve the extraordinary.”
In a foreword to the 40th anniversary edition of A Woman of Substance, the television presenter and author Fern Britton wrote that in “force of nature” protagonist Emma Harte, Taylor Bradford had “created a heroine who has inspired women for the past four decades – inspired them to be courageous, break rules and follow their dreams”.

When asked how she would like to be remembered in a 2014 interview, Taylor Bradford responded: “If at all, as a compassionate woman.”

Novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford dies aged 91 | Barbara Taylor Bradford | The Guardian

[david44]

Taylor Bradford responded: “If at all, as a compassionate woman.”

great sentiment.

Have any men here read any of those 91 million sales though?