The RIP Famous Person Thread

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Originally Posted by beachbound

Michael Madsen dead at 67

Michael Madsen, the gravel-voiced character actor best known for playing sneering tough guys in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" and "Kill Bill: Vol. 2," died Thursday morning from cardiac arrest, according to his manager, Ron Smith.

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Quite a decent character actor and kept busy!

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Madsen’s most iconic performances include Mr Blonde, a psychopathic criminal in the 1992 crime thriller Reservoir Dogs, and Budd, the younger brother of the antagonist in the Kill Bill movies, both directed by Tarantino.

In addition to his appearances in other Tarantino films like The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, Madsen’s prolific career saw him play more than 300 roles over the course of 40 years.

Among his other notable films are Thelma & Louise, Free Willy, Donnie Brasco and the 2002 James Bond flick Die Another Day.

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Norman Tebbit: Former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher's government dies aged 94 | Politics News | Sky News

Michael Madsen’s Cause of Death Revealed by Personal Doctor

Authorities in Los Angeles have confirmed the cause of actor Michael Madsen’s death: heart failure. Madsen’s doctor told a local NBC affiliate that apart from his official cause of death, heart disease and alcoholism will be named as contributing factors on his death certificate. Madsen shot to prominence in the 90s with brash, eccentric characters in films including “Reservoir Dogs” and “Donnie Brasco”—in which he played a sadistic ex-con and a murderous mob boss, respectively—and he enjoyed a long-running collaboration with moviemaker Quentin Tarantino. After his breakout role in “Reservoir Dogs,” Madsen scored parts in three more of Tarantino’s films (and, notably, turned down the role of Vincent Vega in “Pulp Fiction.”) Despite maintaining his sobriety in recent years, Madsen was said to have struggled with drinking and debt in the weeks leading up to his death. A friend of his told The Sun last month that the actor was at risk of losing his home, and asked to borrow $10,000 three weeks before his death. Madsen is survived by his six children, as well as his sister Virginia and mother Elaine. Virginia is an Oscar-nominated actress, while Elaine is an Emmy-winning filmmaker and author.

Michael Madsen’s Cause of Death Revealed by Personal Doctor

David Gergen, Washington Veteran Who Advised Four Presidents, Dies at 83

David Gergen, an inside-the-Beltway veteran who helped shape the public images of four presidents, mostly Republicans, and who, after a turn as a magazine editor, trod a well-worn path from political insider to television commentator, died on Thursday in Lexington, Mass. He was 83.


His death, at a retirement community, was caused by Lewy body dementia, his son, Christopher, said. Mr. Gergen previously lived in Cambridge, Mass.


It was Mr. Gergen who devised a line in the 1980 presidential election that helped secure victory for the Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan, over Jimmy Carter, the incumbent Democrat. In that era of high inflation, onerous interest rates and a national psyche wounded by Iran’s holding of 52 Americans hostage, Mr. Carter was already on the ropes. The clincher came in a televised debate a week before the election when Mr. Reagan asked viewers a Gergen-suggested question that hit political pay dirt: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”


For many Americans, the answer was no.


“Rhetorical questions have great power,” Mr. Gergen said years later.

MORE nytimes.com

Feel sorry for the family.

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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Bradley John Murdoch, known as the "Outback Killer" and convicted of murdering British backpacker Peter Falconio who vanished in arid central Australia 24 years ago, has died, authorities said Wednesday. He was 67. Murdoch died on Tuesday night in the palliative care unit of the Alice Springs Hospital, according to a statement from the Northern Territory Department of Corrections. He was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer in 2019 and was recently transferred to the hospital from the Alice Springs prison. His death leaves the mystery of the whereabouts of Falconio´s body unsolved. The territory's police did not immediately respond to queries from The Associated Press whether Murdoch had provided any clues before he died.

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'Outback Killer' Bradley John Murdoch dies at 67,... | Daily Mail Online

Iconic space skydiver Felix Baumgartner dies aged 52 as new stunt ends in tragedy

Daredevil Felix Baumgartner has died at 56 years old after a paragliding stunt went wrong. The Austrian is known across the world for his daring tricks and became a household name in 2012 when he jumped out of a helium balloon from 24 miles in space.

Baumgartner's latest stunt ended in tragedy when, according to Sky Austria, he suffered a "sudden onset of illness" while paragliding in Italy. He was in Porto Sant'Elpidio when the accident occurred, with reports claiming that the illness made him lose control and crash into the ground below.

Baumgartner crashed into a hotel swimming pool, with claims that he was killed instantly upon impact. Meanwhile, a hotel employee is also believed to have been injured in the accident, having been struck by the paragliding equipment as it came towards the ground. The employee involved was taken to the hospital for checks on potential neck injuries, but isn't said to be in a serious condition.


Iconic space skydiver Felix Baumgartner dies aged 52 as new stunt ends in tragedy | Other | Sport | Express.co.uk

Connie Francis, ‘Pretty Little Baby’ and ‘Stupid Cupid’ Singer, Dies at 87


Connie Francis, the chart-topping pop singer of ’50s and ’60s classics like “Stupid Cupid,” “Where the Boys Are” and the recently TikTok viral “Pretty Little Baby,” has died, her rep confirmed to Variety. She was 87.


Connie Francis Dead: 'Pretty Little Baby,' 'Stupid Cupid' Singer Was 87

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EQX...;start_radio=1

NEW YORK, July 18 (Reuters) - Alan Bergman wrote a song with his future wife on the day they first met. Over the next 60 years they never stopped making music together. Bergman was one half of one of the greatest American songwriting duos. The other was his wife Marilyn, who died in 2022. Together, the couple wrote the lyrics for "The Way We Were" and "The Windmills of Your Mind," tunes for the film "Yentl," and the theme songs for 1970s television comedies "Maude," "Alice" and "Good Times." "It was a terrible song, but we loved the process," Bergman said in 2011 of that first collaboration. "And from that day on, we've been writing together." The songwriting team went on to win three Oscars, four Emmys and two Grammy awards, and to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980. Their lyrics were set to the music of composers including Michel Legrand, Marvin Hamlisch, John Williams and Quincy Jones. Singers ranging from Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra to Johnny Mathis, Barbra Streisand and Sting recorded their songs. Bergman died on Thursday, aged 99, family spokesperson Ken Sunshine told Reuters. reuters.com

Dave Cousins obituary

Founder and frontman of the Strawbs, the folk-rock group best known for their 1973 hit Part of the Union

The one song by the Strawbs most likely to feature in pop quizzes is Part of the Union, the rowdy working man’s singalong that reached No 2 on the British singles chart in 1973. Yet, written by band members Richard Hudson and John Ford, it could hardly have been less typical of the output of Dave Cousins, the band’s founder and mainstay. Cousins, who has died aged 85, piloted the group through countless changes of personnel and musical styles for more than 50 years, and was at the helm for the band’s final performance at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention in 2023.

He drew early inspiration from Lonnie Donegan and was greatly influenced by folk musicians such as Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. Hearing a recording of the bluegrass musicians Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs prompted him to learn the banjo, and he formed the Strawberry Hill Boys with Tony Hooper and Arthur Phillips. He drew extra creative fuel from Bob Dylan and California jangle-rockers the Byrds – Cousins’s voice carried echoes of both Dylan and the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn – and recalled how he used a guitar tuning taught to him by Joni Mitchell on the Strawbs’ debut album.

“I developed my musical and songwriting styles from using these alternate tunings,” he later explained to the Musical U website. “I use tunings that I’ve worked out myself, that I don’t think anyone else uses. There’s one definite advantage to it – you write songs that are very different to what anybody else writes.”

As the group morphed into the Strawbs and Cousins began writing material such as The Man Who Called Himself Jesus and the 22-verse epic The Battle (both from the 1969 debut album Strawbs), it became clear that this was an artist with his own distinctive voice and an eclectic range of interests. In 2021 he told the vinylwriter website: “Medieval buildings and churches. Ancient hill forts and long barrows. The nails from the hands of Christ. These are all embedded in the songs.”

The Strawbs catalogue is littered with ingenious, arresting and often powerfully emotional music, creating an unusual fusion of folk and traditional music with the exploratory urges of prog-rock. The three-part song Autumn, from the album Hero and Heroine (1974), sounds like the King’s College Choir duetting with King Crimson. Down By the Sea, from Bursting at the Seams (1973), ranges from a huge twanging guitar figure through passages of savage power chords, dreamy folk-rock and a crescendo of brass, violins and kettle drums. On the band’s final album, The Magic of It All (2023), Cousins was still ready to challenge the listener with the 7/4 time signature of Ready (Are We Ready)

He was born David Hindson in Camberwell, south London, the only child of Joseph Hindson and his wife, Violet (nee Luck). His father was killed in action in the second world war seven months later, and his mother remarried when David was six, duly giving him the surname of his stepfather, Jack Cousins.

David met his future Strawbs collaborator Hooper on his first day at Thames Valley grammar school in Twickenham, south-west London, and the pair of them became half of the skiffle group the Gin Bottle Four. Cousins developed his musical interests further when studying at the University of Leicester, where he was active in the jazz club and folk society while earning a degree in statistics and pure mathematics.

After the death of his stepfather, Cousins worked at a variety of jobs in publishing and advertising to help boost the family finances, but music was his primary goal. In 1963 the Strawberry Hill Boys (named after an area of Twickenham) made their debut on BBC radio, playing a blend of folk and bluegrass with Cousins on banjo, Hooper on guitar and Phillips on mandolin.

The group then featured on recordings with other artists, teaming up with the guitarist Steve Benbow for an album called Songs of Ireland (1965) and with the singer Sandy Denny for All Our Own Work. The latter was recorded in Denmark in 1967, where Cousins had toured as a solo artist and had been working as a producer for Danmarks Radio, though it was not released until 1973, when it was credited to “Sandy Denny and the Strawbs”.

The first recording released as the Strawbs (comprising Cousins, Hooper and Ron Chesterman on double bass) was the single Oh How She Changed (1968) on A&M Records. It was produced and arranged by Gus Dudgeon and Tony Visconti, themselves rising stars in the music business. The pair also produced the group’s debut album, Strawbs. The material was mostly written by Cousins, as it was on the second album, Dragonfly (1970), where his penchant for ambitious, elaborately structured pieces revealed itself in the 11-minute The Vision of the Lady of the Lake.

They scored a UK Top 30 hit with their third album, Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios, mostly recorded live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. This featured new band members Rick Wakeman on keyboards (though he would soon leave to join Yes), Hudson on drums and Ford on bass, with Cousins contributing the lengthy compositions The Antique Suite and Where is This Dream of Your Youth.

From the Witchwood (1971) made the Top 40, while Grave New World (1972) climbed to No 11 and Bursting at the Seams (1973) reached No 2. The latter was greatly boosted by two hit singles, Part of the Union and the Cousins-composed Lay Down, a slice of raunchy folk-rock that climbed to No 12 in the UK. Cousins had drawn inspiration for Lay Down from the 23rd psalm, The Lord Is My Shepherd.

The excellent Hero and Heroine album reached No 35 on the UK chart in 1974, as well as No 95 in the US, but subsequent releases failed to chart in Britain, though Ghosts (1975) cracked the US Top 50 and prompted the band to focus their touring efforts on the US. Nomadness (1975) was their last release on A&M.

In 1980 Cousins left the band to pursue his interest in radio, working as a programme controller at Radio Tees before joining DevonAir Radio. He was influential in arranging the merger between DevonAir and Capital Radio, which earned him an executive position at Capital, and went on to play key roles with Xfm (now Radio X) and Radio Victory.

In 1983 Cousins’s appearance on Wakeman’s Channel 4 TV show GasTank triggered a Strawbs reunion to headline the Cambridge folk festival, and the group would make sporadic live appearances over the next few years. They played a 25th anniversary tour in 1993, and in 1998 Cousins staged a 30th anniversary show at Chiswick House in west London. Fortieth and 50th anniversary events would follow at Twickenham Stadium and Lakewood, New Jersey.

In 2001 Cousins joined the guitarists Brian Willoughby and Dave Lambert to form Acoustic Strawbs, and they released the album Baroque & Roll (2001), followed by an international tour. The full electric Strawbs reformed in 2004 and released their 16th studio album, Déjà Fou, on their own Witchwood label. Regular album releases followed, up to The Magic of It All.

Cousins also released several solo albums, from Two Weeks Last Summer (1972) to the live album Moving Pictures (2015). His autobiography, Exorcising Ghosts: Strawbs and Other Lives, was published in 2014.
Dave was married three times. His third wife was Geraldine, with whom he settled in Kent.

He is survived by five children.

David Cousins (David Joseph Hindson), musician and radio executive, born 7 January 1940; died 13 July 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDy6qXIWC8&list=RDcDDy6qXIWC8&sta rt_radio =1

Ozzy Osbourne dies just weeks after farewell show.

Ozzy Osbourne dies just weeks after farewell show | Ents & Arts News | Sky News

FFS.

Well I guess that explains the farewell show.

Ozzy got to 76. A fair innings, all things considered.

And there goes Hulk Hogan, aged 71.

Trumpanzee so no loss really.

Talking of trumpanzees, South Park S27E01. He's going to have a fucking cow :)

Chuck Mangione, dead at 84

Chuck Mangione, '''Feels So Good''' musician and bandleader, dead at 84 - ABC News

https://youtu.be/NDSBV0vTfTo?si=rpg4gwh2_yZIzrES

Cleo Laine, Britain's most successful jazz singer, dies aged 97

Versatile vocalist straddled jazz, classical, pop and musical theatre with four-octave range, and collaborated for decades with husband, John Dankworth
Dame Cleo Laine, the UK’s most successful and celebrated jazz singer, has died aged 97.

A statement from her children Jacqui and Alec reads: “It is with deepest sadness that we announce the passing of our dearly beloved mother, Cleo, who died peacefully yesterday afternoon. We will all miss her terribly. The family wish to be given space to grieve and ask for privacy at this very difficult time.”

She was well known for a longstanding collaboration with her late husband, the composer and reed player John Dankworth, singing with his jazz bands from the mid-1950s onwards. But she also had a stellar solo career, including in the US, where she became the only female artist to be nominated for Grammy awards in pop, jazz and classical categories; few singers have the versatility to deliver atonal Arnold Schoenberg pieces and to have duetted with Ray Charles.

Laine was born in Uxbridge, west London, in 1927, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an English farmer’s daughter (her original name was Clementina Campbell, though she was registered at birth as Clementine Bullock, her mother’s surname). She was raised in nearby Southall and had an unassuming youth, working at various jobs after leaving school including as a hairdresser, librarian and pawnbroker. Still a teenager, she married George Langridge and had a son, Stuart.

She sang in clubs after work, but became a professional singer in her mid-20s after successfully auditioning for Dankworth’s band the Dankworth Seven. “In a sense, with them, I started at the top,” she later said. She earned £7 a week, and changed her name to the snappier Cleo Laine. Her marriage faltered – Langridge “thought my career was a pipe-dream”, she said – and Laine left him for Dankworth, marrying him in 1958.

She developed her voice, eventually reaching a four-octave range and becoming one of the most esteemed proponents of the scat singing style. She acted in plays and musical theatre in London, as well as performing with Dankworth and his band; in 1961, she crossed over into the British pop charts with You’ll Answer to Me reaching No 5.

She and Dankworth achieved further recognition with their jazz arrangements of poetry by Shakespeare, ee cummings, WH Auden and TS Eliot. Emboldened by a successful Australian tour, they began live performances in New York. US reviewers received her rapturously, and Laine cemented her American career with concerts backed by her husband at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, alongside musical theatre on Broadway. She recorded an acclaimed album of Stephen Sondheim numbers, duetted with Ray Charles for a recording of Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess, and made collaborative albums with the guitarist John Williams and the flautist James Galway. In 1992, she supported Frank Sinatra for a five-night residency at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

In 1970, she and Dankworth founded the Stables venue in the grounds of their home in Wavendon, Buckinghamshire, which has gone on to present concerts by Dave Brubeck, Amy Winehouse and many others, and hosts music education projects.
In 1979 she was awarded an OBE and in 1997 she was made a dame. Dankworth was knighted in 2006.

The couple continued to tour together until shortly before Dankworth’s death on 6 February 2010, aged 82. Laine performed later that night, alongside their musician children Jacqui and Alec, for a scheduled concert celebrating 40 years of the Stables; she only announced her husband’s death at the end of the concert. “It wasn’t so much ‘the show must go on’ – I’m not that committed to the stage,” she said in 2010. “I instinctively knew Johnny would want it to. That if I had died he would have gone on.
Johnny and me – we were joined at the hip.”

She is survived by Jacqui and Alec. Her son Stuart died in 2019, aged 72.

Cleo Laine, Britain's most successful jazz singer, dies aged 97 | Jazz | The Guardian

Influential musical satirist Tom Lehrer dies at 97 - Los Angeles Times

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvhYqeGp_Do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY

In a 1959 Time article, the magazine described Lehrer and fellow comedians Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl as the symbols of a new “sick” comedy. “What the sickniks dispense is partly social criticism liberally laced with cyanide, partly a Charles Addams kind of jolly ghoulishness, and partly a personal and highly disturbing hostility toward all the world.”
Lehrer’s work opened the door for generations of musical satirists including Randy Newman and “Weird Al” Yankovic and exerted an influence on everything from the musical skits of “Saturday Night Live” to the mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap.”

Years ago, whenever I thought of Cleo Laine I thought of scat.

How the internet has changed things.

One for Looper.

Shunsaku Tamiya, former president and chairman of Tamiya, Inc., passed away on July 18. His death was announced on July 21, with funeral services attended by close family and friends. Mr Tamiya led the transformation of Tamiya into a world-renowned manufacturer of high-precision plastic model kits, radio control vehicles, and motorized Mini 4WD racers.
He joined the company founded by his father originally as a transport firm, and switched to supplying lumber after the war. That brought about an expansion into wooden models, primarily of ships and planes. After a fire destroyed the company’s lumber supply, it focused primarily on the models.
Not long after, plastic technology improved and began taking over the model kit market. Shunsuke Tamiya spearheaded the shift to puramo (a portmanteau of “plastic” and “model”) and in the process changed the industry. He helped fuel enthusiasm for cars, as well as other types of transportation, for generations of children and adults alike.

RIP Shunsaku Tamiya, the man who made plastic model kits a global obsession | Japanese Nostalgic Car

Flaco Jiménez, Grammy award-winning tejano music legend, dies at 86

The singer-songwriter and accordionist won six Grammy awards and worked with the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan
Flaco Jiménez, master of the accordion and pioneer of tejano music, has died at the age of 86.

“It is with great sadness that we share tonight the loss of our father, Flaco Jimenez,” reads a post from his family on Facebook. “He was surrounded by his loved ones and will be missed immensely. Thank you to all of his fans and friends – those who cherished his music. And a big thank you for all of the memories. His legacy will live on through his music and all of his fans.”

The cause of death is unknown but a January post from his family stated that he was “in the hospital facing a medical hurdle”.
According to his son Arturo, his last words were “Ya estoy cansado”, which translates to “I’m tired.”
Jiménez won six Grammy awards in his career, including for country instrumental performance and tejano music performance, and a lifetime achievement award in 2015. “This one, the lifetime achievement, is top of the line,” he said at the time. “You can’t go higher than that one.”
His sound was instrumental in defining tejano and conjunto music. The Guardian’s Piper LeMoine wrote that “the soundtrack of the American south-west would be incomplete” without these two genres.

“The way I learned to play the accordion was on the wild and happy side, much like Cajun and zydeco music,” he once said in an interview. “One of my early idols was Clifton Chenier. The way he played, it was like the accordion was yelling at you: hey, take this. I like to make my accordion yell and scream and make it happy.”

After performing in San Antonio in the 1960s, Jiménez went to New York City and worked with artists including Bob Dylan, Carlos Santana, Willie Nelson and the Rolling Stones.
His first solo album was released in 1972 and he would go on to record more than 25 in his career.

A tribute was paid by Cesar Rosas, a member of Los Lobos who worked with Jiménez on the song Don’t Worry Baby.
“Not only was Flaco my musical mentor, but he was also a dear friend to all of us Los Lobos,” Rosas said to the San Antonio Express-News. “He was such a musical influence on me that [he] made me run out and buy a bajo sexto and start using it in my band. He will forever be in my heart. What a tremendous loss.”

Flaco Jimenez, Grammy award-winning tejano music legend, dies at 86 | Music | The Guardian

Loni Anderson, star of TV hit 'WKRP in Cincinnati,' dies at 79

Actress Loni Anderson, best known for her role on the 1970s and '80s TV sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati," has died at 79.


Anderson, who played receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on the CBS comedy about the staff of an AM radio station in Ohio, died at a Los Angeles hospital at noon PT on Sunday, Aug. 3, following "an acute prolonged illness," the actress' representative Cheryl J. Kagan confirmed to USA TODAY.


She was surrounded by her family, who wrote in a statement: “We are heartbroken to announce the passing of our dear wife, mother and grandmother."


Anderson earned two Primetime Emmy nominations and three Golden Globe nods for her performance as Marlowe during the four-year run of "WKRP."

Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Aug. 5, 1945, to environmental chemist Klaydon Carl Anderson and model Maxine Hazel, Anderson got her showbiz start on the beauty pageant circuit. She was a runner-up in the Miss Minnesota competition, as well as collected the titles Miss Thermo-Jac Clothing, Miss County Style Ford and Queen of the Hole-In-One.

Anderson, who studied art at the University of Minnesota, transitioned to an acting career with appearances in local commercials and theater shows. Following her first marriage to Bruce Hasselbeck, Anderson married fellow actor Ross Bickell, and the couple moved to Los Angeles in 1975 to pursue their dreams of stardom in the film and television industry.


The budding actress, who was born a brunette, dyed her dark locks platinum blonde as she cut her teeth with minor roles on the 1970s series "Barnaby Jones," "The Bob Newhart Show" and "Three's Company."




Anderson landed the role of Marlowe on "WKRP" toward the end of the decade, and the breakout role's blonde bombshell persona helped transform her into a sex symbol. A pinup photo of the actress in a skimpy white bikini was one of the best-selling posters of the '70s.

Anderson and Bickell divorced in 1981, and the actress's next marriage was to movie star Burt Reynolds. The couple, who met on the set of the 1983 racing comedy "Stroker Ace," married in 1988 and later adopted a child, a son named Quinton.

Anderson and Reynolds divorced in 1994, and their split was defined by a headline-making custody battle over their son, which included accusations of a tumultuous marital relationship.


Anderson is survived by her husband Bob Flick (they wed in 2008), daughter Deidra, son Quinton, stepson Adam and four grandchildren.

A private family service will be held at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, followed by a celebration of life at a future date.

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Radio legend James Whale dies aged 74 after battle with cancer .
Radio legend James Whale dies aged 74 after battle with cancer as tributes pour in - LBC