The RIP Famous Person Thread

[harrybarracuda]

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Bob Thomas, the longtime Associated Press writer and dean of Hollywood reporters who covered a record 66 Oscar ceremonies, reported on the biggest stars, from Clark Gable to Tom Cruise, and filed AP's bulletin that Robert F. Kennedy had been shot, died Friday. He was 92.

Thomas, a last link to Hollywood's studio age who retired in 2010, died of age-related illnesses at his longtime Encino, Calif., home, his daughter Janet Thomas said.

A room filled with his interview subjects would have made for the most glittering of ceremonies: Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Groucho Marx and Marlon Brando, Walt Disney and Fred Astaire. He interviewed rising stars (James Dean), middle-aged legends (Humphrey Bogart, Jack Nicholson) and elder institutions (Bob Hope).

Thomas' career began in 1944, when Hollywood was still a small, centralized community, tightly controlled by a handful of studios, and continued well into the 21st century. During his nearly seven decades writing for the AP, Thomas reviewed hundreds of films and television shows, compiled hundreds of celebrity obituaries and wrote numerous retrospective pieces on Hollywood and how it had changed.

He was the author of nearly three dozen books, including biographies of Disney, Brando and Crawford and an acclaimed portrait of studio mogul Harry Cohn, "King Cohn." He wrote, produced and appeared in a handful of television specials on the Academy Awards and was a guest on numerous television programs including "The Tonight Show," ''Good Morning America" and "Nightline." His biographies of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes and the comedy team of Abbott and Costello were made into television movies.

He is listed twice in Guinness World Records, for most consecutive Academy Awards shows covered by an entertainment reporter and for longest career as an entertainment reporter (1944-2010).

In 1988, he became the first reporter-author awarded a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

But one of his biggest stories had nothing to do with entertainment.

Helping out during the 1968 presidential election, Thomas had been assigned to cover Sen. Kennedy on the night the New York Democrat won the California primary. Minutes after declaring victory, Kennedy was shot to death in the kitchen of Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel.

"I was waiting in the press room for Kennedy to arrive when I heard what sounded like the popping of balloons in the hotel kitchen," Thomas would recount years later.

"I rushed into the kitchen where men were screaming and women sobbing," he recalled. "I jumped onto a pile of kitchen trays and saw Kennedy lying on the floor, his head bloody."

He ran to a phone and delivered the bulletin to The Associated Press.

As the son of a newspaper editor turned Hollywood press agent, Robert Joseph Thomas seemed destined to become an entertainment writer from his earliest days. In junior high school and high school he wrote entertainment columns for the campus newspaper, and in college his favourite reading was the industry trade paper Daily Variety.

But when he joined the AP in Los Angeles in 1943, it was with aspirations of becoming a war correspondent. The closest he got to that was when the wire service named him its Fresno, Calif., correspondent, a job he gave up after little more than a year.

"It gets so damn hot in Fresno in the summer and nothing much ever happens there," he once told a colleague.

He returned to the AP's LA bureau in 1944 and was soon named its entertainment reporter. He was also told that the byline he'd been using — Robert J. Thomas — had to go.

"Too formal for a young guy who's going to work the Hollywood beat," he said the AP's bureau chief told him. "From now on your byline is 'Bob Thomas.'"

Soon he would become a ubiquitous presence in Hollywood, attending awards shows, wandering studio back lots or going from table to table at the Polo Lounge, Musso and Frank and other favoured Hollywood hangouts of the day. The gentlemanly, soft-spoken reporter with the wry sense of humour rarely had trouble getting people to talk to him and enjoyed access to the stars that modern journalists rarely attain, whether visiting with Nicholson at his home or chatting on the set with Tracy and Hepburn.

Although he insisted he never became friends with the people he covered, Thomas did strike up close, long-lasting acquaintanceships with many, and he had the anecdotes to prove it.

There was the time he tried, unsuccessfully, to match the hard-drinking Richard Burton drink for drink on the set of the 1964 film "Night of the Iguana."

Another time, he showed up for an interview with Betty Grable armed with a tape measure. He had been sent, he told the actress, to determine if her figure had suffered during her recent pregnancy. Grable good naturedly let him measure her.

"Can you imagine doing that with Michelle Pfeiffer today?" he once asked. "In those days, it really seemed like a playground."

Thomas even received fan mail from the stars. Soon after her marriage to actor John Agar in 1950, Shirley Temple wrote: "John and I want you to know that we are very grateful to you for the manner in which you handled the story on our wedding."

Some sent telegrams: "Thanks for sending the article to me; I got a kick out of reading it," Jimmy Durante wrote via Western Union in 1951. "Boy, you're great."

But Thomas also had his share of run-ins.

Doris Day and Frank Sinatra went months without talking to him after he quoted them candidly in stories, and Tracy cut off contact for years when something Thomas said about him offended the Oscar-winning actor. The fiercely private Brando never spoke with him again after Thomas published the biography "Marlon."

His encyclopedic knowledge of the industry was well appreciated by his colleagues. A former AP editor, Jim Lagier, would recall that Thomas had a filing system at his home that rivaled that of any news bureau.

"Because if you call Bob Thomas at two o'clock in the morning and say, 'Bob, Mary Smith has died,' he would say, 'Mary Smith,' and then, suddenly you could hear the filing cabinets were opening. He would start dictating the lead," Lagier told the AP in 2008 during an oral history interview.

Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the AP, worked with Thomas in the Los Angeles bureau in the early 1980s.

"Bob was an old-fashioned Hollywood reporter and he knew absolutely everyone," she said. "He had a double-helping of impish charm with the stars, but back at the office, he was the quiet guy who slipped into a desk at the back and poked at the keyboard for a while, then handed in a crisp and knowing story soon delivered to movie fans around the world.

"Some days, you'd even get a smile out of him before he headed out the door again."

Through the years, Thomas' enthusiasm for his profession never waned.

"I get to interview some of the most beautiful people in the world," he said in 1999. "It's what I always wanted to do, and I just can't stop doing it."

Thomas is survived by his wife of 67 years, Patricia; daughters Nancy Thomas, Janet Thomas and Caroline Thomas; and three grandchildren.

[harrybarracuda]

Glenn Edward McDuffie, the young sailor who can be seen in one of the most iconic photos from the end of World War II, has died in Dallas, according to family members.

The WWII vet was 86.

McDuffie was 18 when he was captured in the famous kiss photo with nurse Edith Shain. She died in 2010 at the age of 91.

McDuffie spent 50 years in Houston before moving in 2009 to North Texas to live with his daughter, Glenda Bell, his only living offspring.

McDuffie collaborated with Houston Police Department forensic artist Lois Gibson in 2007 to prove that he was the sailor sharing that lusty kiss with Shain in Times Square on Aug. 14, 1945. The kiss was captured by the famous Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt on V-J Day.

Gibson spent much of the last decade championing McDuffie's claim. She said when they met, McDuffie was frustrated for not being acknowledged as the sailor in the photo. That honor instead went to George Mendonsa.

"Glenn told me that there was no tongue in the kiss, but that it was a wet one," said Gibson on Friday.

She said the reason his left arm was cocked the way it was in the picture was because he was half-expecting a jealous boyfriend or husband to come at him.

"I heard someone running and stopping right in front of us. I raised my head up, and it was a photographer," McDuffie told the Houston Chronicle in 2007.

"I tried to get my hand out of the way so I wouldn't block her face, and I kissed her just long enough for him to take the picture."

After taking precise measurements of McDuffie's wrists, knuckles, arms, forehead and ears, Gibson compared them to enlargements of the famous photo. To replicate the image, Gibson had McDuffie pose embracing a pillow, a substitute for the nurse.

Gibson said Friday that McDuffie didn't want a real-life stand in for the nurse.

McDuffie spent his later years traveling the gun show and air show circuit, signing copies of the famous photo for fans young and old. Many women would ask to recreate the kiss with him, but they usually got to kiss his cheek, Gibson said, the older he got.

McDuffie enjoyed the celebrity status that came with him being identified as the sailor in the famous photo.

"My dad loved it, he ate it up," said Bell, his daughter, on Friday. "He finally got the recognition that he deserved after so many men tried to say that it was them in the photo."

Any time someone invited him to come somewhere, like fundraisers for veterans, McDuffie was there, Bell said.

"He would recreate the kiss with women happily, but not with men," she said. He even recreated it with Diane Sawyer for a TV segment.

He needed help with crowd control, his daughter says. When he appeared in public, he was mobbed with attention, which he didn't shy away from.

"He would wear his WWII veterans cap, and that alone would gain him attention. When they found out who he was, they would all get tears in their eyes," said Bell.

Bell said that her father will be interred next week at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery.

McDuffie joined the U.S. Navy at 15. He admitted that he lied to get in and forged a few documents with the help of his friend. He served as a gunner's mate in the war.

[Mr Lick]

Ken Gregory - obituary

Ken Gregory was the 'first professional racing driver manager’ in Formula One, and helped fuel the success of Stirling Moss




Ken Gregory, who has died aged 87, was known as “Britain’s most famous racing manager” for his defining role in the professional careers of Sir Stirling Moss and Peter Collins; throughout the 1950s and 1960s he developed the image of the racing driver as a brand, and, as a Formula One team owner, helped introduce modern-day commercial sponsorship into the sport.


Gregory first met Moss in 1949 via his involvement with the Half-Litre Car Club (subsequently British Racing and Sports Car Club), one of the major organising bodies of the emergent 500cc Formula Three single-seater racing scene. They bonded over a mutual interest in motorsport and women; it also helped that Gregory secured the respect of Stirling’s father, Alfred Moss, himself a former racing driver.


The following year Gregory helped to organise the inaugural car races at Brands Hatch, previously the preserve of motorcycles, becoming the circuit’s director and winning its Junior Championship in a Cooper Mark IV-JAP. The 20-year-old Moss had been among the first to inspect the circuit, and in November that year both men joined Jack Niell in an F3 Kieft CK51-Norton at Montlhery, returning home with 13 international speed records. By 1951 Moss had made Gregory’s flat his London base, and the pair were travelling to races together throughout Britain and on the Continent. Restlessly ambitious and facing an increasingly busy schedule, Moss pressed Gregory to continue his organisational role on a more formal basis.




Ken Gregory (right) with Stirling Moss, in his Kieft CK51-Norton, and Ken Martin at Goodwood in 1951


Gregory’s acceptance marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the sport.

“[Moss] was the first ever professional racing driver, in that his only income was from racing,” he explained. “[That] made me the first professional racing driver manager.” A co-founder and director of Stirling Moss Ltd, established in 1954, Gregory was at the head of the publicity machine that turned Stirling Moss into a household name.

He provided the press with quotes on Moss’s behalf and vetted endorsements for maximum impact, most memorably in the case of Craven A cigarettes, sales of which rose dramatically in response to a series of advertisements featuring the young driver.

As Moss’s career took him abroad for longer stretches Gregory increasingly consulted Alfred Moss on key business decisions, investing a considerable sum of Stirling’s own money – without his prior knowledge – into the purchase of a Maserati 250F for the 1954 GP season.

Within a year the move had paid off, Moss’s standing being such that Gregory was able to secure him a crucial and highly lucrative contract with Mercedes-Benz as team-mate to Juan Manuel Fangio. On July 17 1955 Moss drove the Mercedes-Benz W196 at the British Grand Prix at Aintree, and won – the first Englishman ever to do so.

Ken Gregory was born at Ashton-under-Lyne on July 26 1926 and educated at Patterdale School in the Lake District. After employment as a gardener, office worker and garage apprentice, at 16 he joined the Army Technical School; he then qualified as a Horsa pilot in the Glider Pilot Regiment during the Second World War, completing his training just as peace was declared. With no particular motorsport inclinations, in 1949, on leaving the Army, he became a general assistant with the RAC’s Competitions Committee in Pall Mall. After attending that year’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone he was hooked.

As Moss’s career on the track went from strength to strength, Gregory’s workload also increased. The RAC appointed him to organise Nassau’s celebrated Bahama Week races, and he also became involved with importing Heinkel bubble cars. During the same period he got to know the rising driving star Peter Collins, nominating him to accompany Moss for the 1955 Targa Florio, where they placed first.


Ken Gregory (centre) with Alfred Moss and Stirling Moss

Collins asked Gregory to become his manager later that year. For Gregory it was a markedly different experience, the 24-year-old Collins being “delightfully vague” in sharp contrast to Moss’s single-mindedness. Their association saw Collins take victory in three GPs, driving for Ferrari. But it was also all too brief: in August 1958 Collins was killed when his car overturned on the track of the German Grand Prix at Nürburgring.

Despite the personal and professional blow Gregory remained active in the racing community for several more years, managing the British Racing Partnership (BRP) at world championship level from 1958 to 1964. Established by himself and Albert Moss for Stirling’s benefit, in 1960 the BRP was approached by the Yeoman Credit Company, which wished to finance an entire team under the company banner.

It was the first such sponsorship deal in F1 history, and a source of some consternation among racing purists at the time. Though BRP’s success was patchy, it provided opportunities to several driving talents, including Cliff Allison, Henry Taylor, Hans Herrmann and Masten Gregory.

Moss, meanwhile, was recording ever more successes, until his 1962 crash at Goodwood put an end to both his professional career and to his partnership with Ken Gregory; but not before the manager had dealt with the media fallout from the accident. “[Stirling] received 400 letters a day, and the press were desperate to get to him,” he recalled. “I eventually sold the rights to a bedside interview for £10,000.”
Gregory continued with BRP and his other interests, including his own charter airline, Gregory Air Taxis, which flew stars such as The Beatles and Frank Sinatra. Latterly Gregory expanded into publishing, notably starting Cars & Car Conversions magazine.

A British Racing Drivers Club life member, he also wrote the successful Behind the Scenes of Motor Racing.

Ken Gregory is survived by his third wife, Julie, and by two daughters and a son.

[Mr Lick]

John Tyson - obituary

John Tyson was an explorer who mapped the Kanjiroba Himal, won an MC in Malaya and ran a school in Nepal



John Tyson outside a climbing hut in the Swiss Alps Photo: COURTESY TYSON FAMILY


John Tyson, who has died aged 85, was a modest English schoolmaster who made it his personal mission to map the Kanjiroba Himal, a remote group of mountain peaks in north-west Nepal — among the most rugged and forbidding in the Himalayas.


The topography of the region features several enormous and highly complex mountain ranges, surrounded and divided by steep-sided river gorges. While the lower hillsides suffer landslides from monsoon rain all summer, the upper hillsides are prone to avalanches all winter.


A detailed topographical mapping of Nepal had been carried out in the 1920s, but the Kanjiroba Himal was one of the regions left blank. While Tyson did much to rectify that omission, it remains the least explored part of Nepal to this day.




Distant view of the snow-covered peaks of the Kanjiroba Himal (CORBIS)

Tyson’s quest began in 1961 when he led the first of several small surveying missions to the region, with the aim of mapping the principal mountain ranges and locating, and if possible climbing, the highest summit, Mount Kanjiroba (22,580ft). The expedition succeeded in making the first ascents of several 20,000ft peaks which gave excellent views for map-making, but they were unable to locate a viable route on to the Kanjiroba Himal along the sheer-sided scree-covered gorge of the Jagdula river.




In 1964 he led another expedition via the Langu Khola, the gorge of the Langu river which, after rising in the gentle uplands of Dolpo, thunders between sheer walls through the Kanjiroba massif. As Tyson explained in an article in Alpine Journal in 1970, the route could only be used in winter when the Langu dwindled sufficiently to enable a route to be forced along its shore. Only then could trees be felled to make temporary bridges, across which heavily-laden porters would have to maintain their balance above the deadly, churning waters. Another route along the gorge, “a shikari [hunting] track with exposed rock-pitches high on the cliff side”, was almost impossible for travellers with loads.




After forcing the first sections of the Langu gorge with flimsy bridges, the expedition members found themselves only a dozen miles from Mount Kanjiroba and, though supplies and time were beginning to run out, they pressed on, hoping to make an attempt on the summit: “A southern tributary valley [the Pukchang Khola] joined the Langu at this point, aligned only a little to the west of south, dark and narrow, thickly forested on both sides of the stream except when vertical rock walls thousands of feet high blocked out the daylight,” Tyson recalled. “Exchanging the nervous tensions of the swift Langu current for the exasperations of steep jungle, we cut a way which opened out through birch woods and moorlands of azalea and junipers, gaining height rapidly to the tongues of northern glaciers.”

Eventually they reached a point from where they could see the two highest summits of the Kanjiroba Himal shining in the sunlight. But “from our own peak, Bhulu Lhasa, a little over 20,000ft, we now saw that the main peaks were quite inaccessible and that almost at our feet was the gorge we should have taken, leading northwards to the Langu, buried deep in the valley system.”




Upper panorama: View from the South-east ridge of Kanjiroba Himal to the highest summit (22,580 ft), looking west to north-east. On the right is the great snow-field from which the lower panorama is taken. Lower panorama: View of Eastern ranges of the Kanjiroba Himal from near the great snow-field three miles north-east of the highest summit. Far to the south the Kagmara Lekh is visible (JOHN TYSON)
In 1963 the Royal Geographical Society recognised Tyson’s work with the Ness Award; and three years later the results of his surveying — a map of the Kanjiroba Himal and the adjacent area in the Karnali region — was published in the Geographical Journal.

But in the meantime the government of Nepal had imposed a ban on climbing.

Following the lifting of the ban in 1969, Tyson led a further expedition to explore the northern side of the Kanjiroba Himal, but had to abandon attempts on the north-west and north-east ridges as too dangerous. The expedition came close to disaster when, climbing a smooth rocky rib above a lateral moraine, they looked up to see a huge avalanche thundering towards a gully beside them. The expedition’s Sherpas were partly protected by a large overhanging rock, “but the rest of us were knocked breathless by the air-pressure and blinded by flying snow which drove straight through clothing to the skin”. Tyson’s rucksack was carried away, though he managed to recover many of the lighter essentials, such as his sleeping bag, in the debris 1,000ft below.



Ultimately the expedition opted to try the technically easier south-east ridge, but the monsoon arrived early, and by the time they set off the ridge was creaking and groaning as warm winds began to sap the snow. Forced to turn back before making a final assault, Tyson and his companions ran out of food and had to live partially on wild honey as they waited for porters to arrive to help them out of the Langu gorge.

By this time the river was in spate, and for eight miles they had to edge their way across narrow cliffs hundreds of feet above the water.

As they emerged from the gorge, the Sherpas prepared a puja (act of worship) at a shrine to the god who controls the water sprites of the Langu. “But all were equally relieved to be alive after more than a fair share of luck,” Tyson wrote.

Others would come and reach the highest point, he reflected, “but will not perhaps experience to the full the excitement of exploring unknown valleys, of piecing the map together, and travelling with such companions as I have had.” In 1970 he was delighted to receive a telegram from a Japanese team which, using his map, had succeeded in reaching the summit of Mt Kanjiroba. It read simply: “With your permission, we have climbed your mountain.”

)
Youtube video of a French expedition to the Kanjiroba Himal in 2013 (in French)

John Baird Tyson was born at Partick, Scotland, on April 7 1928 and brought up in London, where his father was Surmaster (deputy headmaster) of St Paul’s School. He acquired a passion for climbing during family holidays in Scotland, France and Switzerland.

After Rugby School, Tyson did National Service as a second lieutenant in the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, from 1947 to 1949, mostly on attachment to the Seaforth Highlanders in Malaya during the early months of the Emergency. His platoon proved among the most effective of that period in ambushing communist guerrillas, and in 1949 he was awarded an MC — a rare accolade for a National Service officer — for his courage and leadership during patrols in the Segamat district. On two occasions he had placed himself in the centre of the front line as his platoon pursued retreating guerrillas, continuing to lead the advance despite coming under enemy fire. In seven months his platoon accounted for 13 rebels, nine killed and four wounded.

After demobilisation Tyson read Geography at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1952 led the first ever Oxford University Scientific Expedition to the Himalayas. In addition to work on several high-altitude scientific projects in the Tehri-Gahrwal region, the team made first ascents of Gangotri I and Gangotri III, both more than 21,000 ft high.

In 1953 he joined the Scottish mountaineer WH Murray on an exploratory journey to the Api and Nampa region in the far north-west of Nepal, which had newly opened its borders to foreigners. There were delays in receiving the necessary permits, and the monsoon arrived while they were on the almost uninhabited north side of the Api mountain complex, making the river passes impossible to negotiate. The party had to extricate itself by making a dangerous and illegal journey through a corner of Tibet, which had been recently occupied by the Chinese.

After a year working as an instructor at the Outward Bound Mountain School in Eskdale, Cumbria, in 1955 Tyson filled a year’s temporary vacancy at Rugby School. The same year he teamed up with Chris Brasher and the celebrated runner Roger Bannister to climb the Finsteraarhorn in the Alps. Though a competent rock-climber, Bannister had little snow and ice experience; and the local Oberland guides, upset at missing out on their usual peak fees, complained about the “suicidal” recklessness of Brasher and Tyson in leading Bannister up a “killer mountain”, inspiring lurid stories in the press.

After two years’ teaching Geography at Christ’s Hospital, West Sussex, in 1958 Tyson returned to Rugby. In 1966, however, he was invited to become “headmaster designate” of a proposed National School in Nepal, based on the English direct grant model, to be funded by British aid money. He spent much time over the next three years in locating a suitable site at Budhanilkantha, just north of Kathmandu, and working on initial plans for the school. However, a series of delays to the project (which finally got up and running in 1972) forced him to withdraw in 1969 in order not to miss a promotion to a housemastership at Rugby.



John Tyson receiving the Prasiddha Prabal Gorkha Dakshin Bahu award from King Birendra of Nepal (COURTESY TYSON FAMILY)

He finally got his chance to run a school in the Himalayas in 1975 when he was appointed headmaster of Yangchenphug School, another school supported by British aid, in Bhutan. But India was seeking to make Bhutan a client state of Delhi and as a result Tyson found himself effectively a prisoner in Bhutan as the Indian Government refused to him essential travel permits through border regions that would allow him to return to Britain. The British Government, frustrated by the position, finally decided to cease its financial support for the school, at which point the Indian permits for suddenly ceased to be a problem.

After three years in Bhutan, Tyson served as Headmaster at Reed’s School, Cobham intil 1982 when an envoy from the Government of Nepal invited him to return as headmaster to Budhanilkantha School. He spent six happy years at the school and in 1987 was appointed Prasiddha Prabal Gorkha Dakshin Bahu by King Birendra. In 1989 he was appointed OBE.



John Tyson meeting up again with his old porter Thondup, during his last visit to the Kanjiroba Himal in 1998 (COURTESY TYSON FAMILY)

Tyson undertook one last journey around the Kanjiroba Himal in 1998, at the age of 70, accompanied by his son James and other friends.

The 30- day trek took the party over 18,000 foot passes and Tyson took great pleasure in a reunion in Dalphu with Thondup, the leader of his porters from 1964 and 1969. He made three films about his Kanjiroba expeditions, all of which were shown on the BBC, served as a council member of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Mount Everest Foundation.

Tyson remained an adventurous traveller, but, during a trip to Swaziland in 2009, a bite from a spider led to infections which forced the amputation of both his legs. As a result his last years were spent in a wheelchair.

In 1957 he married Phebe Pope, who survives him with their daughter and two sons.


John Tyson, born April 7 1928, died March 10 2014

[FloridaBorn]

Comedian David Brenner, 'Tonight Show' Favorite, Dies
Associated Press By LYNN ELBER
25 minutes ago


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This July 13, 1977 file photo shows comedian David Brenner. (AP Photo)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — David Brenner, the lanky, toothy-grinned "Tonight Show" favorite whose brand of observational comedy became a staple for other standups, including Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Reiser, died Saturday. He was 78.
Brenner, who had been fighting cancer, died peacefully at his home in New York City with his family at his side, according to Jeff Abraham, his friend and publicist.

"David Brenner was a huge star when I met him and he took me under his wing. To me, historically, he was the godfather of hip, observational comedy," comedian Richard Lewis said in a statement. "He mentored me from day one. ... His passing leaves a hole in my life that can never be replaced."

The tall, thin and always sharply dressed Brenner became one of the most frequent visitors to Johnny Carson's "Tonight" in the 1970s and '80s.

His 150-plus appearances as guest and substitute host turned the former documentary filmmaker into a hot comedian, one who was ubiquitous on other talk shows and game shows.
He also briefly hosted his own syndicated talk show in 1987 and starred in four HBO specials.

Brenner moved with the times, trading routines about the humor of everyday life for jokes about social and political issues, and appearing on MSNBC and Fox News Channel cable programs.

Although his career faltered, he worked steadily through 2013 doing standup. A four-day gig last December included a New Year's Eve show at a Pennsylvania casino-resort in which he showcased young comedians.

Brenner, who was raised in working-class south Philadelphia and graduated with honors from Temple University, was "always there helping a bright young comedian, whether it be Richard Lewis, Freddie Prinze or Jimmie Walker, and he was still doing it until the very end," Abraham said.

In a statement, Walker called Brenner "a true comic genius" who was "my mentor and taught me about life and comedy."

Although Brenner took a brief stabs at TV fame, with the 1976 sitcom "Snip" and the talk show "Nightlife" he hosted in 1987, he didn't achieve the success of Seinfeld's self-titled NBC sitcom or Reiser's "Mad About You," and he saw Jay Leno follow Carson as "Tonight" host.

Brenner's take on his career path, as he described it in a 2000 interview with The Associated Press, was that he put family before stardom.

He said a long custody battle with a girlfriend over their son, Cole, forced him to curtail his TV appearances and visibility beginning in the mid-1980s, when Brenner lived in Aspen, Colo.

"In a nutshell, I couldn't work more than 50 nights a year (out of town) or I'd be an absentee father," he said. "That was when they were giving out the talk shows, the sitcoms."

He was asked if he regretted his decision.

"I didn't even make a decision. I didn't even think about it. How could you not do it? I don't mean to sound noble," Brenner said. "Besides, I come from the slums of Philadelphia and everything in my life is profit. My downside is what most people would strive a lifetime to get to."

Decades ago, he had burned out on filmmaking — "You don't change the world by doing documentaries," he told "CBS Sunday Morning" in 2013 — and decided to give comedy a try. He was on the verge of quitting when his effort to impress talent bookers at "Tonight" worked.

His career soared after his first appearance in January 1971. He went from being nearly broke to overwhelmed by a then-hefty $10,000 in job offers the day after he was on the show.

"I never thought this was going to turn my life upside down and give me my whole future," he told "Sunday Morning."

He also recalled how hard Carson made him work on "Tonight," asking Brenner to do a monologue each time he appeared. Other veteran comics headed straight for the couch to banter with the host.

Carson's explanation was "I like to sit back, smoke a cigarette and laugh for six minutes," Brenner recalled.

In a 1995 interview with the AP, Brenner imagined a different path with "Tonight."

"I really believe that had ... Johnny Carson retired in the early '80s, then I would be sitting behind that desk," he said. "I don't think there's any doubt."

Brenner wrote five books, including the post-9/11 "I Think There's a Terrorist in My Soup," published in 2003. His last HBO special, "David Brenner: Back with a Vengeance," debuted live in 2000.

In a statement, his family said he left a last laugh: A final request that $100 in small bills be placed in his left sock "just in case tipping is recommended where I'm going."

Besides son Cole, Brenner is survived by his wife, Ruth, sons Wyatt and Slade and a grandson, Wesley. Funeral plans were not immediately announced.

https://tv.yahoo.com/news/comedian-d...222814425.html

Geez I'm feeling old but lately these deaths are older then I expect. Always liked his comedy..

[Mr Lick]

Lord Ballyedmond - obituary

Lord Ballyedmond was a pharmaceutical entrepreneur who became one of the richest men in Northern Ireland and a politician on both sides of the border




Lord Ballyedmond, who has died in a helicopter crash aged 70, founded the largest veterinary pharmaceutical company in the world and became one of the richest people in Northern Ireland; he was also variously reported to be either the first or second person ever to have sat in the upper houses of both the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom.


Edward Enda Haughey (no relation of the former Taoiseach Charlie Haughey) was born on January 5 1944 into a Roman Catholic family and grew up on the family smallholding in Kilcurry, north of Dundalk, Co Louth, on the southern side of the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.


Educated at the Christian Brothers School in Dundalk, Haughey, like many young Irishmen of his generation, emigrated immediately after leaving school, heading for New York where he became a salesman with a pharmaceutical company, working his way up to regional marketing manager.


In the late 1960s, reckoning that Britain and the EEC were about to follow American practice and introduce tougher rules on the manufacturing and dispensing of veterinary antibiotics, he decided to return to Ireland and set up an operation based on these new American norms. In 1968 he duly set up Norbrook Laboratories in Newry, Co Down.


It was the year that Northern Ireland lurched into the headlines with Catholic civil rights marches and Newry was deep in the Province’s turbulent border country. During the ensuing Troubles, Norbrook Laboratories remained a rare beacon of hope in an otherwise gloomy economic scene.


12 May 2011 At first Haughey simply imported veterinary products from Holland and relabelled them, but he invested serious money in R&D and the operation expanded swiftly. A major breakthrough came with the patenting of a long-acting antibiotic for animals that offered a cost-saving one-shot therapy — especially welcome for farmers in the United States and Africa with cattle on the prairies.

Over the next 40 years Norbrook Laboratories, which remained family-owned, prospered beyond anything Haughey could have imagined, building a range of drug products which, as he explained, covered “everything from ladies’ poodles to the lion”.

The company increased profit margins by making many of its own raw ingredients. It won the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement four times and the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2011. Later the company expanded into developing and marketing human medical products, and became heavily involved in HIV/Aids research in Africa. Now worth £660m, it exports more than 80 per cent of its products worldwide.

Haughey was appointed OBE in 1987, and in 2008 was awarded an honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons

Haughey maintained a relatively low profile until the Fianna Fail-led government of Albert Reynolds appointed him first chairman of the newly-established Irish Aviation Authority in 1993. The following year, as he was leaving office, Reynolds appointed him to the Irish upper house, the Seanad. He was reappointed by Bertie Ahern in 1997 and, though he rarely spoke in debates, remained a member of the house until 2004.



Lord Ballyedmond outside one of his homes, Corby Castle in Cumbria (CATERS NEWS AGENCY)

In 2001, however, he emerged, along with Sir Paul Getty and spread-betting magnate Stewart Wheeler, as one of three multi-millionaire contributors to the former Tory leader William Hague’s election war chest, thus finding himself in the curious position of being a supporter of both the Fianna Fail brand of republicanism in Ireland and the British Conservative Party.

In fact, Haughey’s views were strongly, if quietly, pro-Unionist. In the late 1990s he played an important behind-the-scenes role in negotiations in the run-up to the signing of the 1998 Belfast Agreement and in 2004 the Ulster Unionists under David Trimble nominated him to the House of Lords, where he took the title of Lord Ballyedmond of Mourne. But he continued to support the Conservative Party and in 2007 he left the UUP to join the Tories.

According to last year’s Sunday Times “Rich List” Lord Ballyedmond was worth £860m.

In addition to his pharmaceutical interests, he became involved in the aviation business, founding Haughey Air, a charter helicopter business and, for a time, owning Carlisle Airport. He also invested in sporting estates and luxury homes in Ireland, North and South, in England and Scotland, and further afield, commuting between his various properties in his helicopter or private jet.

Lord Ballyedmond was killed with three other people when a helicopter came down in thick fog in a field in Gillingham, near Beccles, Norfolk, on Thursday evening. It was reported that the helicopter was flying to Northern Ireland from Gillingham Hall, an estate he had bought in 2005 for £2.25 million.

In 1972 he married Mary Gordon Young, a solicitor, who survives him with their daughter and two sons.


Lord Ballyedmond, born January 5 1944, died March 13 2014

[Neverna]

Lord Ballyedmond was killed with three other people when a helicopter came down in thick fog in a field in Gillingham, near Beccles, Norfolk, on Thursday evening. It was reported that the helicopter was flying to Northern Ireland from Gillingham Hall, an estate he had bought in 2005 for £2.25 million.

Don't tell KK in KL but Lord Ballyedmond was suing the makers of the helicopter in which he crashed.

[harrybarracuda]

Lord Ballyedmond was killed with three other people when a helicopter came down in thick fog in a field in Gillingham, near Beccles, Norfolk, on Thursday evening. It was reported that the helicopter was flying to Northern Ireland from Gillingham Hall, an estate he had bought in 2005 for £2.25 million.

Don't tell KK in KL but Lord Ballyedmond was suing the makers of the helicopter in which he crashed.

Bit of idiot for flying on them if he thought they were faulty, don't you think?

[Troy]

TV cook Clarissa Dickson Wright dies

Clarissa Dickson Wright, one half of TV cookery duo Two Fat Ladies with the late Jennifer Paterson, has died in Edinburgh aged 66.
The former barrister filmed four series of the BBC Two programme before Paterson's death in 1999.
"Her fun and laughter, extraordinary learning and intelligence, will be missed always, by so many of us," said a statement from her agent.
Dickson Wright died on Saturday at Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary.


BBC News - TV cook Clarissa Dickson Wright dies


I thought the TV show was great....


Have a couple of her cookery books and they are pretty damn good....

[Mr Lick]

^ Lovely charismatic lady but best not to follow her eating habits

[Mr Lick]

Tributes have poured in for fashion designer L'Wren Scott, discovered dead in her New York City flat in an apparent suicide.

Scott, who was believed to be 49, was found by her assistant at 10:00 local time (14:00 GMT) on Monday.

Supermodel Naomi Campbell, Vogue editor Anna Wintour and singer Madonna were among those who eulogized Scott.

Rolling Stones frontman Sir Mick Jagger meanwhile hit out at a report that he had recently split from the designer.

Scott was found dead by her assistant 90 minutes after sending her a text message asking her to come to her Manhattan apartment without specifying why, reports the Associated Press news agency.

Police said there was no sign of foul play and no note was found

[harrybarracuda]

A marvellous achievement. The first man to go on strike in space!

William Pogue, record-setting astronaut, dies at 84

By Bart Barnes, Washington Post
Posted March 18, 2014, at 6:37 a.m.

Retired Air Force Col. William Pogue, who died March 3 at 84, was an astronaut and Skylab pilot who flew around the Earth for 84 days in 1973 and 1974. At the time, it was the longest spaceflight ever.

When he splashed down on Feb. 8, 1974, he had traveled more than 34.5 million miles, made 1,214 revolutions of the Earth, walked in space for a total of 13 hours on Thanksgiving and Christmas days, and saw the sun rise and set over the Earth more than 1,300 times.

It was an astonishing feat of technology. It took 19 miles of magnetic tape to store the scientific data collected on the voyage.

Col. Pogue considered it the adventure of a lifetime. But it was barely half over when he and his two crew mates grew restless and discontent.

They had a view of the cosmos from their spacecraft that few other humans had ever seen, but they were spending all their waking hours in the nitty-gritty of gathering information and making repairs, such as fixing a leak in a coolant line or readjusting a malfunctioning radar antenna. Every third day, one of them was, in effect, a guinea pig for psychological or medical studies.

What they wanted and had scant time for was to contemplate the universe, to think about the deeper meaning of their spaceflight, and about themselves.

“We were just hustling the whole day,” Pogue told a NASA oral history project in 2000.

Pogue and his crew mates became so fed up with their work schedule that on the 45th day of the voyage they staged a work stoppage, refusing to perform certain pre-assigned tasks. The mini-strike was settled when mission control officers made concessions and modified the work schedule.

The rest of the trip was more fulfilling.

“I try to put myself into the human situation, instead of trying to operate like a machine,” Pogue later told Science News magazine.

Since then, a period of “down time” has been scheduled in spaceflights to mitigate work pressure on astronauts, a NASA officer said. But he also noted that time in space is short and precious and that the agency wants to make the best possible use of it.

William Reid Pogue was born Jan. 23, 1930, in Okemah, Okla. He graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University in 1951 and joined the Air Force the same year. He flew 43 combat missions during the Korean War.

For two years, he was a pilot with the Thunderbirds, the Air Force precision acrobatic team. He also received a master’s degree in mathematics at Oklahoma State University.

In 1966, he became a NASA astronaut and was subsequently selected as the pilot for the Skylab III mission. He retired from the Air Force in 1975, the year after the flight.

His death, at his home in Cocoa Beach, Fla., of causes that weren’t disclosed, was announced by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

His wives Helen Dittmar and Jean Ann Baird are dead. Survivors include his third wife, Tina Pogue of Cocoa Beach; three children from his first marriage; and four stepchildren. A complete list of survivors could not be confirmed.

In retirement, Pogue was a consultant to aeronautics and flight companies and organizations.

He also embarked on the lecture circuit and spoke at more than 500 schools and 100 civic clubs over 40 years. Almost all of these appearances included a time for questions, the most frequent of which — asked at 90 percent of his public appearances — was “How do you go to the bathroom in space?”

It would become the title of Pogue’s 1985 children’s book.

The answer, as quoted in Boys’ Life magazine, was:

“In our ‘waste management compartment,’ we used a funnel-shaped device to collect urine. A toilet for solid-waste collection was mounted on the wall (with zero gravity, there is no up or down in space). You had to use a seat belt to keep from floating off the seat.”

The space longevity record set by Pogue and his crew mates stood until 1978, when it was broken by Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Romanenko and Georgi Grechko on the space station Salyut 6.

[wasabi]

The Sun newspaper had a front page spread about the Scott woman,then a further 4 pages about Jagger's life. The other trashy news paper the Star was almost as bad in it's coverage.
Beggars belief that anybody outside her circle would be interested in an old girl topping herself.
Never heard of her anyway.
Then Jagger cancels his Perth gig in Aus. Why?.

[harrybarracuda]

The Sun newspaper had a front page spread about the Scott woman,then a further 4 pages about Jagger's life. The other trashy news paper the Star was almost as bad in it's coverage.
Beggars belief that anybody outside her circle would be interested in an old girl topping herself.
Never heard of her anyway.
Then Jagger cancels his Perth gig in Aus. Why?.

Presumably as a mark of respect. Are you a completely heartless bastard?

[BaitongBoy]

A marvellous achievement. The first man to go on strike in space!

He flew around the earth for 84 days...And died at age 84...

[palexxxx]

A marvellous achievement. The first man to go on strike in space!

He flew around the earth for 84 days...And died at age 84...

and this is on page 84.

[BaitongBoy]

^Well spotted...

[FloridaBorn]

^^Wow! Freakyyyyyyy!!

[harrybarracuda]

An Impressive CV....

Oswald Morris - Cinematographer Oswald Morris Dies At 98
by WENN | 19 March 2014
British cinematographer Oswald Morris has died at the age of 98.
Morris died at his home in Dorset, England on Monday (17Mar14).
In his 50 year career, he worked as the cinematographer and director of photography for some of Hollywood's most acclaimed directors, including Stanley Kubrick, Sidney Lumet and Franco Zeffirelli, and he became John Huston's sidekick, collaborating with the filmmaking legend on eight movies, including Moby Dick.
Morris' other films include Look Back In Anger, The Guns Of Navarone, Of Human Bondage, Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun, Scrooge, Equus, The Great Muppet Caper and his last film, The Dark Crystal, in 1982.
In 1972, he won the Best Cinematography Oscar for Fiddler on the Roof, and he earned nominations in the same category for Oliver! in 1969 and The Wiz in 1979.
Morris also won three consecutive BAFTA Awards for Best Cinematography from 1965 to 1967, and received the organisation's Academy Fellowship in 1997.
He was also lauded with the American Society of Cinematographers' International Award in 2000, the Society of Cinematographers' Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and the Order of the British Empire in 1998 for his services to cinematography and the film industry.

[billy the kid]

Then Jagger cancels his Perth gig in Aus. Why?.

PR exercise. when Brian Jones died he said fuk it, the show must go on.

[FloridaBorn]

Not easy to sing when your voice is crackling.. Pretty sure no matter the nature of their relationship he'd be more then a little choked up. Probably better to cancel then put on a crap show for those who paid handily to see him perform.

[harrybarracuda]

Cracking news lads! Satan's got another little helper!

The Westboro Baptist Church, well known for their protests outside of funerals and concerts and their anti-gay views, lost their founder, Fred Phelps late Wednesday evening.
The former pastor died at the age of 84 in Kansas.
Three of Fred's children confirmed of his passing, with his son, Timothy, and daughter, Shirley, announcing the news to local media outlets in town.
The former pastor's estranged son, Nathan, broadcasted on Facebook that his father was on the edge of death at a hospice in Topeka this past Saturday.

Phelps believed any misfortune, most infamously the deaths of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, was God’s punishment for society’s tolerance of homosexuality. He and his followers carried forward their message bluntly, holding held signs at funerals and public events that used ugly slurs and read “Thank God for dead soldiers.” God, he preached, had nothing but anger and bile for the moral miscreants of his creation.

Good riddance you evil bastard!

[FloridaBorn]

Yah that's no loss to anyone who matters...

[harrybarracuda]

Brazil legend Bellini dies at 83
March 20, 2014

By Associated Press

Hilderaldo Bellini, Brazil's captain when they won their first World Cup in 1958, died on Thursday from complications following a heart attack. He was 83.

The Hospital 9 de Julho confirmed Bellini's death in a statement.

The central defender became widely known for being the first captain to raise the World Cup trophy above his head as a symbol of triumph. The gesture became immortalised with a statue of Bellini in front of Maracana Stadium.

He had a heart attack on Tuesday and had been hospitalised since then. Local media said he had also been suffering from Alzheimer's.

Bellini also won the 1962 World Cup and appeared in the 1966 tournament. He played for Brazilian clubs Vasco da Gama, Sao Paulo and Atletico Paranaense.

[Mr Lick]

Richard Cremer - obituary

Richard Cremer was a doctor whose discovery that sunlight could cure jaundiced babies led to the development of phototherapy





Richard Cremer, who has died aged 89, was the doctor who discovered the curative value of sunlight on jaundiced babies, which led to the use of phototherapy machines in neonatal wards across the world.

Cremer made his landmark discovery early in his career, while working as a registrar in paediatrics at Rochford General Hospital, Essex, during the hot summer of 1956.

Working alongside PW Perryman and DH Richards, he noticed the effect of direct sunlight on a specimen of blood taken from a jaundiced baby. The yellowish skin tone that is the tell-tale sign of jaundice is caused by high levels of bilirubin — a neurotoxic substance found in the blood that is normally excreted in bile or metabolised in urine.


In the course of performing an exchange blood transfusion for a baby whose bilirubin count was rising rapidly, he took a preliminary, pre-exchange, blood test. He then satisfactorily completed the exchange of blood. A post-exchange level was lower, as had been anticipated. However, the pre-exchange ample had gone missing. When it was eventually found, Cremer found that its bilirubin level was unexpectedly low.

The mislaid sample had stood on a window sill in direct sunlight.


Richard Cremer was born on January 4 1925 in Blean, Kent. His father, Hubert Cremer CBE, was head of the chemical engineering department at King’s College, London, and after schooling at Westminster School Richard Cremer studied Medicine at his father’s university. On graduation he was posted, on National Service, to Kenya, a country he grew to love. It was here that, as a Royal Army Medical Corps doctor, he first tended to newborn babies.



Cremer followed his eureka moment at Rochford with extensive research. Alongside Perryman and Richards, he discovered that wavelengths of light in the blue spectrum of sunlight changed bilirubin — which can be dangerous to the newborn brain — into a non-toxic isomer (the same molecular formula but in a different chemical structure). They proved that it was the wavelength and not the attendant heat from the sun which had the healing effect. They then charted the results of sunlight on blood taken from babies given short intermittent exposure to sunshine.






A baby in a phototherapy 'light cradle'

After investigating the effects of sunlight they turned their focus to the potential benefits of artificial light sources. They tracked down as many different sources as they could find, looking for one that would safely emit the necessary blue wavelength. They found it in a 24in GEC fluorescent tube. From this, with the help of the engineering department of the hospital, they constructed the first phototherapy cradle. Although slightly less effective than sunlight, they judged these machines to be safer and more reliable. The first models were ominous-looking Heath Robinson style contraptions: reflective stainless-steel lids to which eight blue-light fluorescent tubes were fixed, were lowered over cots.

In all of these developments, the trio were supported by Judy Ward, the ward Sister of Rochford’s Premature Baby Unit, a friend of Cremer’s who had early on noted the disappearance of yellow colouring on the skin of babies left exposed to sunlight — and its retention in covered skin.

Cremer, Perryman and Richard’s pioneering work was chronicled in The Lancet (1958) and, later, in an article in Archives of Disease in Childhood (1975). Their research led to the worldwide use of phototherapy for babies who are jaundiced, greatly reducing the need for exchange

transfusion and reducing a common cause of infant brain damage. They noted, however, that jaundice due to Rhesus incompatibility would still need exchange transfusion.

After Rochford, Cremer worked as a registrar at Harefield Hospital, alongside the renowned cardiologist Sir Walter Somerville, and Hillingdon Hospital, before going into general practice.

Dr Richard Cremer married, in 1958, Dr Patricia Hegarty, an anaesthetist, who he met whilst working in Tunbridge Wells before his appointment to Rochford. His wife survives him with their two daughters and a son