'star of crocodile dundee dies' was the headline I read.Quote:
Originally Posted by 39TG
Which was a bit naughty.
I thought to myself that he'd had it coming since those Foster's ads. :D
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'star of crocodile dundee dies' was the headline I read.Quote:
Originally Posted by 39TG
Which was a bit naughty.
I thought to myself that he'd had it coming since those Foster's ads. :D
Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
This gave me a bit of a wrench...he was a great lyricist. And I always enjoyed his only album, particularly this lovely piece : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW6jjhmdFHQ
Greg Gumbel, famed US sportscaster, dies at 78
Famed American sports commentator Greg Gumbel has died from cancer at the age of 78, his family announced on Friday.
Gumbel, who for decades worked for CBS Sports, was considered a fixture in US sports, particularly American football and basketball.
In 2001, he became the first black sports commentator to give play-by-play announcements of the Super Bowl.
In a statement, his family said that "he leaves behind a legacy of love, inspiration and dedication to 50 extraordinary years in the sports broadcasting industry; and his iconic voice will never be forgotten".
The statement added that Gumbel "passed away peacefully surrounded by much love after a courageous battle with cancer".
"Greg approached his illness like one would expect he would, with stoicism, grace and positivity."
Originally from New Orleans, Gumbel grew up in Chicago and first joined CBS in 1989 after having spent years working at New York Knicks basketball and Yankees baseball games for the Madison Square Garden Network.
His start, however, came in the early 1970s, when an executive at a local NBC affiliate in Chicago asked him to broadcast a high school basketball game every weekend.
"He said, 'I have this idea and I want you to take it and run with it'," Gumbel recalled in a 2021 interview. "We introduced our audience to a lot of guys who went on to become famous."
Jim Nantz, a veteran of CBS Sports and another prominent sports anchor, referred to Gumbel as "broadcasting royalty."
"He was as selfless a broadcaster as anyone in the industry has ever known," he said. "Our careers interesected for nearly 35 years, and he was a consumate teammate and friend."
"He really was one of the greats," another long-time colleague Lesley Visser told CBS News, the BBC's US partner. "He just had a light touch, he had a wit about him and everyone loved working with him."
"Greg had an innate dignity that he brought to the table," she added.
At CBS Sports, Gumbel had two stints as the host of the popular "NFL Today" pre-game, halftime and post-game show, including three Super Bowls in 1992, 2013 and 2016.
Gumbel also spent four years at NBC Sports, where he hosted the "NFL on NBC" show and several other Super Bowl pre-game shows.
He briefly stepped away from NFL coverage in 2003, before returning in 2005 and continued in that role until 2022.
The longtime sportscaster also served as the primetime anchor for CBS Sports during the 1994 Olympic Winter Games, as well as co-anchor during weekday broadcasts of the 1992 Winter Games.
Additionally, he was a play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball and became a fixture of college football broadcasts.
In March of this year, he missed his first National Collegiate Athletic Association - or NCAA - basketball tournament since 1997 due to unspecified health issues.
He had signed an extension with CBS in 2023 that allowed him to return to covering college basketball while stepping away from his work covering the NFL.
Gumbel is survived by his wife Marcy, daughter Michelle and younger brother Bryant, who is also a prominent broadcaster and a former host of the "Today" show.
Greg Gumbel, famed US sportscaster, dies at 78
J Carter former POTUS dies aged 100
Jimmy Carter death updates: 39th US president dies aged 100 | The Independent
Carter, who was the longest-living former American president, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday, December 29, according to his son.
He served as president for one term from 1977 to 1981, but is just as well-known for his humanitarian service after leaving Washington, DC, working for Habitat for Humanity and negotiating peace deals.
He continued his volunteer work for decades after leaving office until he entered hospice care in February 2023.
Carter, who throughout his political life went by Jimmy rather than James, was a towering figure in Democratic politics, both during and after his time in the White House.
As president, he emphasized human rights in his foreign policy, championed environmentalism at a time when it was not yet popular and appointed record numbers of women and people of color during his administration.
P.S...Pete Sinfield did all the lyrics for King Crimson's Court Of The Crimson King by himself, and Who guitarist and composer Pete Townshend called the album "an uncanny masterpiece."
^ He was a decent fellow and probably would have had a second term if Reagan hadn't done a deal with Iran to keep the hostages locked up until inauguration day.
Fucking scumbag.
Far too decent a man to occupy the Oval Office. And the selfless life he lived after his Presidency, is proof of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
RIP
^ What he said.
R.I.P. Jimmy Carter. I knew him more via his Habitat for Humanity than for his presidency. Yes, he seemed like a very decent human being.
Accdg to a news report that I've watched, he's the only US president who lived up to 100 yrs old. So here's to you, JC! (raises glass)
A great American.
As others have said re Jimmy Carter. A truly decent human being of which there should be more in this world.
The only 2 things I recall from his presidency are the interest rates and a friend and I going into a Brooklyn bar and the friend having a knife held to his throat when someone announced he was Iranian - he was from Ecuador
I’m sure your friend is gonna feel a lot more welcome, in Trump’s America.Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy As Larry
Man accused of attacking TV reporter, saying “This is Trump’s America, now!”
Man accused of attacking TV reporter, saying '''This is Trump'''s America now''' | AP News
Johnnie Walker, BBC Radio DJ, dies aged 79
Veteran BBC DJ Johnnie Walker has died at the age of 79, it has been announced.
Walker, who hosted Radio 2’s Sounds of the 70s and The Radio 2 Rock Show, began his career as a pirate DJ in the 60s on Radio Caroline, before joining Radio 1 in 1969. He left the station after causing controversy by describing the Bay City Rollers as “musical garbage” and clashing with his bosses over an insistence on playing album tracks.
After a period broadcasting in California, he returned to the UK in the early 80s and rejoined Radio 1 in 1987 to present Saturday afternoon show The Stereo Sequence, as well as working on a number of stations including Radio 5 (now 5 Live), before joining Radio 2, eventually taking on the Drivetime slot.
In June 2003, he announced to the nation that he was taking time off to be treated for cancer, eventually beating his diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma of the colon. He returned nine months later and won the Gold award at the Sonys. In 2006 he was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s new year honours list.
In 2020, Walker began broadcasting his shows from his Dorset home as a result of being diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an inflammation of the lungs.
In June 2024, Walker and his wife, Tiggy, talked about having been informed by doctors that the condition was terminal. On their podcast, Walker and Walker: Johnnie and Tiggy, Tiggy said that Johnnie had been told by a consultant to “prepare to go at any moment.”
“[Tiggy] very lovingly helps me get into bed and gives me a nice kiss good night, and then she has to wonder whether I’m still going to be alive in the morning,” said Johnnie. “Which must be pretty hard for her”.
Johnnie Walker, BBC Radio DJ, dies aged 79 | Johnnie Walker | The Guardian
Lovely bloke met him once,as I had a family member who was at BBC in 82 he laughed as we were both wearing same cowboy boots.
Makes you realize how old you are when so many childhood heroes, stars, footballers gone many yoinger than !.
Thanks for all the great songs and I'll raise a glass of Johnnie Walker what else at midnight.
Should have been given some kind of award really.Quote:
He left the station after causing controversy by describing the Bay City Rollers as “musical garbage”
Jocelyn Wildenstein, “Catwoman” New York Tabloid Fixture, Dies at 79
Attachment 121041
Jocelyn Wildenstein, a New York tabloid fixture known for her surgery-enhanced feline features that led her to being dubbed “Catwoman,” has died.
Wildenstein’s partner Lloyd Klein told AFP she died of a pulmonary embolism in Paris. Though Wildenstein’s actual birthday has proven hard to track down, Klein told AFP that she was 79. Other outlets have also reported that she was 84 at the time of her death.
The New York City socialite became a tabloid fixture in the 1990s amid her divorce from billionaire art dealer husband Alec Wildenstein. Though she was well known, she was notably nicknamed “Catwoman” due to her distinct facial features.
Jocelyn Wildenstein Dead: 'Catwoman' New York Tabloid Fixture Was 79
Wayne Osmond, 73.
Well it's a start.
Wayne Osmond dead: Osmond Brothers singer was 73
David Lodge, Campus Trilogy novelist and academic, dies aged 89
The author of more than two dozen books is best known for his trio set in a fictionalised version of the University of Birmingham, where he worked from 1960 to 1987
British author and critic David Lodge, best known for his Campus Trilogy of novels, has died aged 89.
Lodge wrote more than two dozen novels and works of nonfiction, as well as television scripts and plays. He was shortlisted for the Booker prize twice, first for his 1984 novel Small World and then in 1988 for the novel Nice Work, which are the second and third instalments of his celebrated Campus Trilogy.
He died peacefully with close family at his side, said his publisher Vintage, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Lodge’s “contribution to literary culture was immense, both in his criticism and through his masterful and iconic novels, which have already become classics”, said his publisher Liz Foley.
Lodge was born on 28 January 1935 in Dulwich, south London, and grew up in Brockley, which he described as a “a somewhat seedy, neglected bit of London”. He attended Catholic school in Blackheath, where the headteacher encouraged him to go to university.
He graduated with a first from University College London before entering national service for two years. “After about three weeks of basic training … I was quite sure that I wanted to go back to the academic life,” he said. His experience in the army formed the basis of his second novel, Ginger, You’re Barmy, published in 1962.
In 1959, aged 24, he married Mary Jacob, whom he had met aged 18. For a year, he worked for the British Council in London, teaching English to foreign students.
In 1960 he published his first novel, The Picturegoers, which he had started writing while in the army. The book is set in and around a cinema in “Brickley”, based on Brockley, and explores Catholicism, which would continue to be a major theme of Lodge’s work.
The same year, he began teaching in the department of English at the University of Birmingham, where he would work until he retired to concentrate on writing in 1987. He became a professor of English literature in 1976.
Birmingham became the model for the fictional Midlands university of Rummidge, where his trilogy of campus novels are set.
The first, Changing Places, was published in 1975. Subtitled “A Tale of Two Campuses”, the novel follows two academics participating in an academic exchange between Rummidge and Euphoric State University, which was based on Berkeley, California.
Changing Places is “the most formally experimental” of the trilogy with parts of it written as play text and one section composed of newspaper clippings, wrote Natasha Tripney in the Guardian in 2011. “But all three share a postmodern playfulness, a generous dusting of literary reference.”
His other novels include The British Museum Is Falling Down, Out of the Shelter, How Far Can You Go?, Paradise News and Therapy.
At Birmingham, Lodge met the English author Malcolm Bradbury. Upon Bradbury’s death, Lodge wrote in the Guardian that Bradbury was his “oldest and closest friend in the literary world” and that he had encouraged Lodge “to work the vein of comedy that was his own forte”.
In 1963, Lodge and Bradbury collaborated with undergraduate student Jim Duckett on a revue for the Birmingham Repertory theatre. “I have happy memories of hilarious script-writing sessions, with Jim and me pacing up and down, while Malcolm pounded out and improved our lines on an upright typewriter,” wrote Lodge. “I’m not sure that writing was ever such fun again.”
Lodge’s critical works include The Art of Fiction, Consciousness and the Novel and The Practice of Writing. He also wrote a trilogy of memoirs: Quite a Good Time to Be Born, Writer’s Luck and Varying Degrees of Success, published between 2015 and 202
Lodge was appointed a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1997 and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1998. In 1976, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Small World and Nice Work were adapted for TV; while the script for Small World was written by Howard Schuman, Lodge himself wrote the screenplay for Nice Work.
In 1994, Lodge adapted Dickens’ 1844 novel Martin Chuzzlewit for a BBC series. He wrote three plays: Home Truths, Secret Thoughts and The Writing Game, which was also adapted for television.
Lodge “was a true gentleman”, said his literary agent Jonny Geller. “Warm, generous and kind, and a lunch with David would involve laughter and serious conversation about contemporary writing. His social commentary, meditations on mortality and laugh-out-loud observations make him a worthy addition to the pantheon of great English comic writers that links him to Wodehouse, Waugh, Amis and others.”
David Lodge, Campus Trilogy novelist and academic, dies aged 89 | Books | The Guardian
French far-right National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen dies aged 96
Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the French far-right Front National party, now known as National Rally (RN), has died at 96. More details to follow.
The founder and longtime leader of the French far-right Front National party, since rebranded by his daughter as the National Rally (RN), Jean-Marie Le Pen, died on Tuesday, the family said.
He was 96.
https://www.euronews.com/2025/01/07/french-far-right-national-front-founder-jean-marie-le-pen-dies-aged-96
Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary, Co-Writer of ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ Dies At 86
Peter Yarrow, singer-songwriter best known for the hit “Puff the Magic Dragon” with folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, has passed away at age 86.
Peter Yarrow, singer-songwriter best known as one-third of folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, has passed away at age 86. The group’s activist-focused harmonies in favor of civil rights and against war delighted fans throughout the 1960s. Yarrow also co-wrote the group’s biggest hit, “Puff the Magic Dragon.”
According to publicist Ken Sunshine, Yarrow died in New York on Tuesday, after battling bladder cancer for the past four years.
Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dies At 86
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojjv6wA11Go
Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy As Larry
Your bar caper seems like an odd thing to recall when talking about Jimmy Carter's death but I get your point.
Sam Moore of Sam & Dave Dies at 89
Sam Moore, one-half of Grammy-winning R&B duo Sam & Dave, died Friday morning at 89. Deadline reported that the cause of death was listed as complications from recovering from surgery. Best known for hits “Soul Man,” “Hold On I’m Coming,” and “I Thank You,” Moore was an icon of soul who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for his discography with singing partner Dave Prater in 1992. He also performed for six presidents throughout his career, including the late former president Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and President-elect Donald Trump. Music icon Bruce Springsteen paid tribute to his longtime friend in an Instagram post Saturday writing, “Over on E Street, we are heartbroken to hear of the death of Sam Moore, one of America’s greatest soul voices.” He continued, “There simply isn’t another sound like Sam’s soulful tenor in American music.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ONNSlk--tE
Sam Moore of Sam & Dave Dies at 89
Comedian Tony Slattery has died aged 65 following a heart attack, his partner announced.
Slattery appeared on the Channel 4 comedy improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? and comedy shows Just A Minute and Have I Got News For You.
A statement on behalf of his partner Mark Michael Hutchinson said: “It is with great sadness we must announce actor and comedian Tony Slattery, aged 65, has passed away today, Tuesday morning, following a heart attack on Sunday evening.”
Born November 9, 1959, Slattery was the contemporary of Dame Emma Thompson, Sir Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie at the University of Cambridge.
He was the former president of the improvisation group Cambridge Footlights, and had recently been touring a comedy show in England and launched a podcast, Tony Slattery’s Rambling Club, in October.
Outside of stand-up, Slattery appeared in 1980s and 1990s films including crime thriller The Crying Game, Peter’s Friends with Laurie, Sir Stephen and Dame Emma, and black comedy How To Get Ahead In Advertising with Richard E Grant.
Comedian Tony Slattery dies aged 65 after heart attack | Times Series
David Lynch stunning cineaste
David Lynch, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive director, dies aged 78 | Film | The Guardian
David Lynch, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive director, dies aged 78
Film-maker who specialised in surreal, noir style mysteries made a string of influential, critically acclaimed works including Wild at Heart and Eraserhead
- David Lynch: the great American surrealist who made experimentalism mainstream
- David Lynch – a life in pictures
Andrew Pulver
Thu 16 Jan 2025 18.25 GMT
ShareDavid Lynch, the maverick American director who sustained a successful mainstream career while also probing the bizarre, the radical and the experimental, has died aged 78.
“It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch,” read a Facebook post. “We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, “Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.” It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”
Last August, Lynch said he had been diagnosed with emphysema and in November, spoke further about his breathing difficulties. “I can hardly walk across a room,” he said. “It’s like you’re walking around with a plastic bag around your head.”
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Lynch ploughed a highly idiosyncratic furrow in American cinema: from his beginnings as an art student making experimental short films, to the cult success of his surreal first feature Eraserhead, and on to a string of award-winning films including Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Mulholland Drive, as well as the landmark TV show Twin Peaks. He received three best director Oscar nominations (for Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man and Mulholland Drive), and was given an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar in 2019; he won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival for Wild at Heart in 1990.
Lynch also avidly practiced transcendental meditation, setting up the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace in 2005; he also produced paintings, released albums (including collaborations with Julee Cruise, Lykke Li and Karen O), created a long-running YouTube weather report and opened a nightclub in Paris in 2011. In 2018 he explained his reclusive lifestyle to the Guardian: “I like to make movies. I like to work. I don’t really like to go out.” In 2024 he revealed his lifetime cigarette habit had resulted in debilitating emphysema.
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View image in fullscreenIsabella Rossellini and producer David Lynch on the set of Zelly and Me. Photograph: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis/Getty Images
Born in Missoula, Montana in 1946, Lynch went to art college in the 1960s and made his first experimental short, Six Men Getting Sick, while a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Lynch moved to Los Angeles in 1971 and studied film-making at the AFI Conservatory, where he began filming his first feature Eraserhead. Finally finishing it in 1976, the surreal black-and-white fable was received largely with bafflement, and rejected from most film festivals, but in the late 70s became something of a success on the late-night “midnight movie” circuit.
Eraserhead’s impact led to an offer from Mel Brooks’ production company to direct The Elephant Man; starring John Hurt in a biopic of Joseph Merrick, the film about the disfigured 19th-century man was nominated for eight Oscars and secured Lynch’s Hollywood status. After turning down an offer to direct Return of the Jedi, Lynch agreed to make an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi novel Dune, but the film was substantially recut in postproduction and proved a commercial and critical disaster. Instead of a planned Dune sequel, Lynch decided to make a more personal film: his dark noir thriller Blue Velvet was a cult hit and a hugely influential critical success on its release in 1986, and it resulted in Lynch’s second best director Oscar nomination.
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Lynch then embarked on another noirish project, the opaque and surreal murder-mystery Twin Peaks that – unusually for notable film directors of the period – was envisioned as a TV series; Lynch developed it with former Hill Street Blues writer Mark Frost. A mix of small town comedy, police procedural and surreal dreamworld, and described as “the most hauntingly original work ever done for American TV”, Twin Peaks defied early predictions of failure on its broadcast in 1990; as a pioneer of “high-end TV” it is arguably Lynch’s most influential work. A second series was broadcast later in 1990, a feature film prequel Fire Walk With Me was released in 1992, and a third series launched more than a quarter of a century later in 20As Twin Peaks went into production, Lynch began working on a feature film adaptation of Barry Gifford’s novel Wild at Heart, and cast Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern in the lead roles in a violent, haunting road movie with echoes of The Wizard of Oz. Wild at Heart premiered at Cannes in 1990 and won the Palme d’Or.In 1997 Lynch began to edge back to his avant garde roots with Lost Highway, a surreal thriller starring Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette, which flopped at the box office. In complete contrast Lynch released The Straight Story in 1999, a bluntly straightforward story about an elderly man (played by Richard Farnsworth) who drives 240 miles across the country on a motorised lawnmower.
Lynch then embarked on another highly successful project: Mulholland Drive. Initially it appeared to go disastrously wrong, as Lynch had pitched it as a Twin Peaks-style TV series. A pilot was shot and then cancelled by TV network ABC. But the material was picked up by French company StudioCanal, who gave him the money to refashion it as a feature film. A noir-style mystery drama, it was another big critical success, secured Lynch a third best director Oscar nomination and in 2016 was voted the best film of the 21st century. Lynch followed it in 2006 with the three-hour surreal thriller Inland Empire, shot on video and starring Dern as an American movie star who appears to mysteriously transport into the Polish original of a film she is working on.
Thereafter Lynch appeared to step back from feature films, with only the third series of Twin Peaks in 2017 representing a big film-making project, although reports suggest he had been working on a series for Netflix. Lynch took acting roles in other people’s work, most notably as Gus the Bartender in Seth MacFarlane’s The Cleveland Show, and as legendary director John Ford in Steven Spielberg’s loosely autobiographical 2022 movie The Fabelmans.
Lynch was married four times and had a long-term relationship with his Blue Velvet star Isabella Rossellini.17.