The RIP Famous Person Thread

[Sumbitch]

Louise Suggs, LPGA founder and Hall of Famer, dies



Louise Suggs, an LPGA founder and among the best women to ever play with 61 wins and 11 majors, died Friday. She was 91.

The LPGA Tour said she died in a hospice in Sarasota, Florida, of natural causes.

Suggs was perhaps the most influential player in LPGA history. Along with being one of the 13 founders in 1950, she served as LPGA president three times and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame and the LPGA Teach and Professional Hall of Fame.

"I feel like the LPGA lost a parent," Commissioner Mike Whan said. "But I'm extremely confident that her vision, her competitiveness, and most importantly her spirit, will be with this organization forever."

The LPGA Tour rookie of the year award is named after Suggs. She won every season of her professional career and was the first player to capture the career Grand Slam at the 1957 LPGA Championship.

She finished her career with $190,251 in earnings.

A steady presence at LPGA's biggest events, her support of women's golf never wavered and Suggs never lost her sharp tongue. She was at the LPGA awards dinner in 2007 where Angela Park won the Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year award by earning $983,922.

"I wish like hell I could have played for this kind of money," Suggs said. "But if not for me, they wouldn't be playing for it, either."

Her efficient, powerful swing marked her for greatest as a teenager in Georgia. She began to get national acclaim when she won the 1947 U.S. Women's Amateur, the 1948 Women's British Amateur and the 1949 U.S. Women's Open, beating fierce rival Babe Zaharias by 14 shots.

Ben Hogan once said after watching Suggs swing that her swing "combines all the desirable elements of efficiency, timing and coordination."

"It appears to be completely effortless," Hogan said. "Yet despite her slight build, she is consistently as long off the tee and through the fairway as any of her feminine contemporaries in competitive golf."

Bob Hope once nicknamed her "Miss Sluggs" for how far she could hit the ball.

"Like a parent, she cared deeply for her LPGA family and took great pride in their successes," Whan said. "She always made time to hear my problems and challenges. Her personal guidance was priceless. Like a parent, I think she was even more proud of the LPGA players of today than she was of her own playing results".

Born in Atlanta on Sept. 7, 1923, she began playing golf on the Lithia Springs golf course that her father managed. She won the Georgia Women's Amateur twice, the North and South three times and the Women's Western Amateur twice.

She was a contemporary of the great Bobby Jones, her idol in Georgia. And long before Annika Sorenstam made headlines for playing on the PGA Tour, Suggs had her own famous competition against the men.

She took part in a 72-hole exhibition on what she once described as an executive course in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 1961. It was called the Royal Poinciana Invitational, featuring the likes of Suggs and Patty Berg, Sam Snead and Dow Finsterwald.

Playing 36 holes a day, and lacing her beloved 3-wood onto the greens, Suggs wound up winning. Recounting that event in a 2003 interview with The Associated Press, Suggs said Snead was irritated that he had finished behind a woman and was needling her.

"I finally said, 'I don't know what the hell you're bitching about. You weren't even second,'" Suggs said.

She said Snead stormed off to the parking lot and peeled out of the parking lot.

"It was the most perfect squelch I ever heard. He burned a quarter-inch of rubber," Suggs said.

That story captured the essence of Suggs. She had a drive to succeed and told it how she saw it. The title on her autobiography she published last year: "And That's That!"

The founders of the LPGA paved the way for today's game, often going to cities and doing promotions to attract attention. They had to set up the golf courses by themselves and cope with complaints and challenges.

Suggs retired in 1962 from competition, but not from the LPGA Tour.

"Golf is very much like a love affair," Suggs once said. "If you don't take it seriously, it's not fun. But if you do, it breaks your heart. Don't break your heart, but flirt with the possibility."

Suggs was the first women elected to the Georgia Athletic Hall of Fame in 1966, paving the way for women to become future inductees. The USGA honored her with its prestigious Bob Jones Award in 2007. And earlier this year, Suggs was selected to join the Royal & Ancient Golf Club when it finally invited women.

Louise Suggs, LPGA founder and Hall of Famer, dies - Business Insider

[harrybarracuda]

Jack Gold dead: Goodnight Mister Tom and Inspector Morse director dies aged 85
10:55, 12 AUGUST 2015
BY JAMES LEYFIELD



Goodnight Mister Tom and Inspector Morse director Jack Gold has died aged 85.

The double BAFTA-winning filmmaker was also known for his TV work, including directing John Thaw - who died in 2002 - in Inspector Morse and Kavanagh QC.

He also helmed the 1998 film adaptation of Goodnight Mister Tom, in which Thaw portrayed the titular character, cantankerous Tom Oakley.

Gold won a BAFTA for a programme about fox hunting, which was presented by Alan Whicker.

He went on to won another BAFTA, the Desmond Davies Award for special contribution to TV, for his work on The Naked Civil Servant.

The 1975 biographical movie starred John Hurt as Quentin Crisp.

The director's other movies included the Richard Burton-led The Medusa Touch.

He directed several other big names, including Anthony Hopkins in The Tenth Man, Peter O'Toole in Man Friday, and Christopher Plummer in Aces High.

Gold leaves behind his wife, 83-year-old actress Denyse Alexander, and their three kids, Jamie, Nicholas and Kathryn.

= = = = = = = = = = =

That was quite a good thriller for its time.... There are several links to the entire film on Youtube...

[cyrille]

So farewell then
Uggy the Jack Russell
Star of
'The Actor'
Alas you will now be deprived
Of your greatest skill.
Playing
Dead.

[harrybarracuda]

On the Buses’ actor Stephen Lewis dies aged 88
Stephen Lewis, the actor who played Inspector Cyril Blake in 1970s sitcom 'On the Buses,' has dies. He was 88.
By: ANI | August 14, 2015 12:36 PM



Stephen Lewis, the actor who played Inspector Cyril Blake in 1970s sitcom ‘On the Buses,’ has dies. He was 88.
According to his family, Stephen Lewis took his last breath “quite peacefully” in a nursing home in Wanstead, east London, in the early on Wednesday, the BBC reported.
Born in east London in 1926, Stephen Lewis began his career at the Theatre Royal Stratford East under Joan Littlewood, and had also memorably appeared as Clem ‘Smiler’ Hemmingway in more than 130 episodes of ‘Last of the Summer Wine,’ from 1988-2007.
Stephen Lewis’s nephew Peter Lewis said his uncle’s health had gradually deteriorated in recent years but that he had kept his spirits up right until the end.
Rashid Ebrahimkhan, manager of the Cambridge Nursing Home, added that Lewis was resilient until and had sustained his sense of humour.

[harrybarracuda]

Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel producer Bob Johnston dies, aged 83

Former Columbia Records producer worked on some of the most famous albums of the 60s and 70s.

JAMES HENDICOTT, 16TH AUGUST 2015



Producer Bob Johnston, who worked on a number of seminal 60s and 70s records, has passed away aged 83 in Tennesse.

Johnston was a staff producer at Columbia Records before going independent, and worked on notable albums by the likes of Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash. He's particularly famed for his work with Dylan.

Johnston linked up with Dylan shortly after the folk star went electric, in 1965. He worked with the iconic singer on six albums between the mid-60s and early-70s, a period that saw Dylan produce some of his most respected work.

His production credits include the albums 'Highway 61 Revisited', Blonde On Blonde', 'John Wesley Harding' and 'Self Portrait'. The producer is also referenced in Dylan's music, at the start of 'Nashville Skyline' track 'To Be Alone With You', before which Dylan asks "is it rolling, Bob?"


The Texan producer also worked on some of Leonard Cohen's most famous releases, including 1971 release 'Songs Of Love And Hate'. He linked up with Simon and Garfunkel on early albums 'Sound Of Silence' and 'Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme', and with Johnny Cash on six albums, including 'At Folsom Prison', 'At San Quentin' and 'I Walk The Line'.

The Austin Chronicle reported that Johnston died on Friday (August 14), following a week spent in a hospice and a memory facility. His career in music production lasted more than fifty years, much of which was spent in New York and Nashville though Johnston was born and raised in Texas. His production style was particularly noted for its flexibility, with Johnston varying from straight documentation to adding complex arrangements to songs.

In Dylan's 'Chronicles: Volume 1', he describes his producer as follows:

“Johnston had fire in his eyes. He had that thing that some people call ‘Momentum.’ You could see it in his face and he shared that fire, that spirit. Columbia’s leading folk and country producer, he was born one hundred years too late. He should have been wearing a wide cape, a plumed hat, and riding with his sword held high."

Cohen said of Johnston on the documentary 'The Stranger Music of Leonard Cohen':

"He created an atmosphere in the studio that really invited you to do your best, stretch out, do another take, an atmosphere that was free from judgment, free from criticism, full of invitation, full of affirmation. Just the way he'd move while you were singing: He'd dance for you. So, it wasn't all just as laissez[at]faire as that. Just as art is the concealment of art, laissez[at]faire is the concealment of tremendous generosity that he was sponsoring in the studio."

Read more at NME News Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel producer Bob Johnston dies, aged 83 | NME.COM

[misskit]

Julian Bond, Civil Rights Leader and ‘Saturday Night Live’ Host Dies at 75



He also narrated the ‘Eyes on the Prize’ documentary and anchored ‘America’s Black Forum'.

Julian Bond, a leader in the civil rights movement for more than fifty years, died on August 15 at his vacation home in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness his family announced. He was 75.

Bond was one of the founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was one of the most important civil rights organizations in the South during the 1960s, often pushing for change much faster than Martin Luther King, Jr. was comfortable with (some sense of the SNCC-King dynamic can be seen in the 2014 film Selma). He also narrated numerous documentaries (including Eyes on the Prize), appeared in the 1977 Richard Pryor film Greased Lighting, and hosted Saturday Night Live in its second season.

Bond got involved in the civil rights movement while a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta (where ironically he took a class with Dr. King) when he got involved in the sit-ins that swept the South in the spring of 1960. The sit-ins revived a civil rights movement that had lost momentum after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 and the Martin Luther King-led Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56.

Bond was SNCC’s Communications Director from 1961 to 1966 and he played a crucial role in helping sell the movement to the North with his straightforward approach. Newspapermen learned to trust Bond at a time when white southern lawmen and politicians often did not provide accurate information.

In 1965, following he passage of the Voting Rights Act, Bond was one of eight African Americans elected to the Georgia House of Representatives but the House voted 184-12 not to seat him because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. Bond sued and in 1966 the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that he had been denied his freedom of speech and ordered the Georgia House to seat him. The case made Bond nationally famous. In 1968 he became the first African American to be proposed as a major party’s vice presidential nominee at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. He declined, in part because, at 28, he was below the constitutional age of 35 for the office. In the ‘70s and early ‘80s he was often mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate.

Bond served in the Georgia House until 1975 and then in the Georgia Senate from 1975-1987. He ran for Congress in 1987 but lost the democratic nomination in Georgia’s 5th District to his old SNCC friend John Lewis.

Bond’s fame also brought him attention from Hollywood. He hosted Saturday Night Live in 1977, the show’s second season, and had a small role in the 1977 Richard Pryor film Greased Lighting. In 2014, Bond wrote a column for the Hollywood Reporter about how a famous skit he did with Garret Morris about light-skinned versus dark-skinned African Americans made him uncomfortable.

Julian Bond, Civil Rights Leader and ?Saturday Night Live? Host Dies at 75 - Hollywood Reporter

[harrybarracuda]

Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner Ner BAT GIRLLLLLLL!


BATMAN (1966) / 19 AUG 2015
TV'S BATGIRL YVONNE CRAIG DIES AGED 78
Share. The star also appeared in Star Trek.
BY LUKE KARMALI



Actress Yvonne Craig, who found fame as Batgirl in the original 1960s Batman TV series, has died aged 78.

According to a statement on her website, the actress passed away at her home in Pacific Palisades on Monday surrounded by family, after secretly battling against breast cancer for the past two years.

‘Fight as she did; however, over the past two plus years, she still lost her battle with metastasized breast cancer that had gone to her liver,’ the statement read.

‘Her operation right before Christmas, removed portions of her liver and some tumors as well as her gallbladder (not infected but in the way) and honestly she never totally recovered from that and more malignancies showed up again much to our dismay.

Her family added: ‘She had been in chemo almost continuously for the past two plus years since being diagnosed and that had weakened her immune system as well as her body.

‘This didn’t dampen her sense of humor or her spirit, she intended to fight and win this battle. In the end, her mind still wanted to fight but her body had given up.’

Yvonne began her career as a ballet dancer while she was still a teenager, before being discovered by the son of film director John Ford and cast in the 1959 movie The Young Land.

She later went on to appear alongside Elvis Presley in two movies, Kissin’ Cousins and It Happened At The World’s Fair, as well as appearing in a string of other TV shows and movies throughout the 60s.

However it was her TV role as Batgirl for which she will be best remembered, starring alongside Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin in the show, which ran from 1966-68.

The actress went on to appear in the third series of Star Trek in the small but significant role of Marta, an Orion slave girl who tries to kill Captain Kirk in the episode Whom Gods Destroy.

In her later life she forged a career in real estate, as well as working in the prepaid phone card business, alongside her sister Meridel Carson.

She also became heavily involved in charity and social work, campaigning for free mammograms for women who were unable to afford them.
Yvonne is survived by her husband Kenneth Aldrich, her sister and nephews Kenneth and Todd Carson.

[can123]

TV medium Colin Fry dies aged 53 - BBC News

[kmart]

^Always sad when cancer strikes a happy medium.

[misskit]

:groan:

[harrybarracuda]

9/11 'dust lady' Marcy Borders dies from cancer aged 42
03:40, 26 AUGUST 2015 UPDATED 06:23, 26 AUGUST 2015
BY CHRISTOPHER BUCKTIN



A woman whose picture became one of the iconic images of the 9/11 terror attacks, leading her to be known simply as the “Dust Lady”, has died from cancer.

Marcy Borders passed away on Monday after a year long battle against the disease.

The 42-year-old mother-of-two was pictured covered head-to-toe in thick dust after being caught up in the collapse of the Twin Towers.

Up until her death she always questioned whether her illness was related to what she endured.

“I’m saying to myself ‘Did this thing ignite cancer cells in me?” she once said.

“I definitely believe it because I haven’t had any illnesses. I don’t have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes.”

Marcy, of Bayonne, New Jersey, had only been in her job for a month working as a legal assistant for Bank of America on September 11, 2001.

Her office was on the 81st floor of 1 World Trade Centre when al Qaeda terrorists attacked flew into the two aboard two hijacked jets.

She disobeyed her boss who ordered her to stay at her desk - a move that saved her life.

Marcy, then 28, pushed her way down the stairwell to the streets below and stepped onto the pavement just as the south tower began to collapse.

A stranger pulled her into the reception of a nearby building as the other tower crumbled.

Following her death her’ brother, Michael Borders, wrote on Facebook: “I can’t believe my sister is gone."

After 9/11 she struggled as her life spiralled out of control.

She battled severe depression and became addicted to crack cocaine.

“I didn’t do a day’s work in nearly 10 years, and by 2011 I was a complete mess,” she said.

“Every time I saw an aircraft, I panicked.”

Eventually she lost custody of her two children as she checked into rehab in April 2011.

Following her death her cousin, John Borders called her a “hero” saying she, “unfortunately succumbed to the diseases that has ridden her body since 9/11.”

“In addition to losing so many friends, co-workers and colleagues on and after that tragic day. The pains from yesteryear have found a way to resurface,” he wrote on Facebook.

[Storekeeper]

Darryl Dawkins: former Sixers, Nets star dead at age 58 - NBA - SI.com

Former Sixers, Nets star Darryl Dawkins dies at age 58



RIP to Chocolate Thunder.

[Boon Mee]

Guitar Legend Stevie Ray Vaughan Died 25 Years Ago Today:

[johpam]

Bart Cumming racehorse trainer, twelve-time winner of the Melbourne cup

[bobo746]

Bart Cummings, the 'Cups King', dies aged 87 at home in Sydney | Sport | The Guardian
The racehorse trainer Bart Cummings has died at the age of 87 surrounded by family at his homestead in north-western Sydney.

His grandson and training partner James said the 87-year-old had died in his sleep in the early hours of Sunday morning.

“James Bartholomew Cummings, OAM, passed away peacefully in his sleep in the early hours of this morning, Sunday the 30th of August 2015, in his homestead at Princes Farm, Castlereagh,” a statement said.






“His final moments were spent with his family and wife of 61 years, Valmae, with whom he celebrated their anniversary on Friday.

“For Bart, aged 87, this was a fitting end. A husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather; a master trainer and a larger than life figure.

“We will miss you.”
Cummings was hailed the racehorse trainer in Australia’s history, winning the Melbourne Cup 12 times, the Golden Slipper four times, the Caulfield Cup seven times, the Cox Plate five times, the VRC Oakes nine times and the Newmarket Handicap eight times.
Cummings had been in ill health for some time and rarely ventured from his farm in recent years.

[bobo746]

https://au.movies.yahoo.com/news/a/2...us-dies-at-76/

Director Wes Craven died today in Los Angeles. Craven was 76 and passed away after battling brain cancer.
From his first feature film The Last House On The Left in 1972, Craven immediately made his mark as a genre-bending, bracingly innovative horror director with a biting sense of humour.
Craven also consistently demonstrated that he was a filmmaker with heart.
Craven reinvented the youth horror genre again in 1984 with the classic and very scary A Nightmare on Elm Street, which also introduced a then-unknown Johnny Depp.

[Storekeeper]

Self-help guru Wayne W. Dyer dies at 75

"Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, the best-selling self-help guru and author of 30 books, died late Saturday, his family and publisher said. He was 75.

A posting on Dyer's Facebook page said: "Wayne has left his body, passing away through the night. He always said he couldn't wait for this next adventure to begin and had no fear of dying. Our hearts are broken, but we smile to think of how much our scurvy elephant will enjoy the other side."

The posting was signed by his family. Within an hour, it had been shared more than 32,000 times.
Dyer died Saturday night in Maui, Hawaii, Reid Tracy, chief executive of Dyer's publisher, Hay House, told NBC News. The cause of death wasn't immediately reported, but he had been diagnosed with leukemia several years ago.

In an interview posted to the KPBS-TV, San Diego, website in 2012 after his leukemia diagnosis, Dyer said he’d begun looking at the illness as “just the body’s way of responding to, perhaps, psychological traumas, you know, from failed relationships in the past, or whatever it is, and that the body just always knows what it’s doing — and the body is perfect.”

For years, Dyer was a regular guest on Oprah Winfrey's talk show, and Winfrey's OWN network broadcast many interviews with and documentaries by him. The network began tweeting a series of interviews with Dyer beginning Sunday on the account of its spirituality and religion show "Super Soul Sunday," NBC reported.

On Sunday, Winfrey tweeted: "It was always a pleasure to talk to @DrWayneWDyer about life's big questions. He always had big answers. RIP Wayne. You brought the Light."

Deepak Chopra tweeted: "Grieving deeply at sudden passing of my life long friend @DrWayneWDyer. I saw him 2 weeks ago at Chopra Center in good spirits."

Another self-help guru, Tony Robbins, tweeted late Sunday: "Wayne Dyer has passed away today. 4 those of us who loved him it's sad, but he knew death was a transition. We send love 4his next adventure."

Dyer's Facebook page on Sunday still advertised an upcoming two-week seminar, scheduled for October and dubbed "The Holy Land and Beyond: A Spiritual Journey of Self-Discovery."

A native of Detroit, Dyer had been living in Maui".

[harrybarracuda]

Oliver Sacks dead: Neurologist and acclaimed writer dies aged 82



Oliver Sacks, the British-born neurologist and acclaimed writer once described as the “poet laureate of medicine”, has died at the age of 82.

The polymath doctor, who was the author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, announced in February that his “luck had run out” and he had terminal cancer. He added that he intended to spend his remaining months living “in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can”.

Dr Sacks’ long-time personal assistant confirmed that he had died on Saturday at his home in New York, where he had lived since 1965 after being born in London to his surgeon father and GP mother.

Among those who paid tribute to Dr Sacks, renowned for his ability to straddle academic and artistic disciplines while often combining both in his writing, were the author JK Rowling, who described him as “great, humane and inspirational”. Fellow academic Richard Dawkins said he had “greatly admired” him.

Born in 1933 and educated at Oxford University after being a wartime evacuee and a victim of boarding school bullying, Dr Sacks was best known for his books chronicling some of the medical conditions he encountered in six decades of investigating the workings of the human mind.

His 1985 collection of essays based on his clinical notes, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, was an insight neurological conditions and the remarkable mental powers of those with disabilities such as autism or Tourette’s syndrome. The book became the basis for an opera but it was Awakenings, his account of how he treated catatonic patients in the late 1960s with a drug to bring them out of their frozen state, that brought his work to a mass audience. Dr Sacks recognised the patients, based in a ward in a psychiatric hospital in the Bronx, as victims of sleeping sickness, the pandemic which swept the world between 1916 and 1927. His treatment with the then experimental drug, L-DOPA, enabled many to enjoy “enduring awakening”.

The 1990 film version of Awakenings, which starred Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, was nominated for three Oscars.

Jacqui Graham, Dr Sacks’ publicist, said he had been “unique” and always “completely full of love for life”. She told BBC News: “He died surrounded by the things he loved and the people he loved, very peacefully… He taught us a great deal, right up until the very end. He always taught us what it was to be human, and he taught us what it is to die.”

The author of more than 1,000 journal articles as well as countless letters and clinical notes, Dr Sacks was garlanded with honours, including being made a CBE by the Queen. He was professor of neurology and psychiatry at New York’s Columbia University and professor of neurology at NYU School of Medicine.

But it is for his ability to enliven the dry stuff of a clinician’s observations with an empathy-laden retelling of his patients’ lives that he will be most remembered.

His website notes that The New York Times referred to him as “the poet laureate of medicine”, while the 1973 cover of the first edition of Awakenings, quoted the eminent British literary scholar Frank Kermode saying: “This doctor’s report is written in a prose of such beauty that you might well look in vain for its equal among living practitioners of belles lettres.”

For his part, Dr Sacks, who counted among his fascinations a passion for motorbikes, was unstinting in his celebration of the infinite variation of human beings and his “gratitude” for life. He recently wrote: “I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and travelled and thought and written… Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

Link

[kmart]

Oliver Sacks dead: Neurologist and acclaimed writer dies aged 82


For his part, Dr Sacks, who counted among his fascinations a passion for motorbikes, was unstinting in his celebration of the infinite variation of human beings and his “gratitude” for life. He recently wrote: “I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and travelled and thought and written… Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

Link

Lovely quote. RIP Dr Sachs.

[harrybarracuda]

Lord Montagu dead: Founder of the National Motor Museum, dies aged 88



Lord Montagu, who established the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, has died aged 88.
A spokeswoman for Beaulieu Estate, in the New Forest, said Edward, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, died "peacefully" after a short illness.
He is survived by his wife Fiona, his son and heir Ralph, daughter Mary and second son Jonathan.

The Hampshire estate and visitor attractions are to continue to operate as usual, the spokeswoman confirmed.

An estate funeral will be held at Beaulieu, followed by a memorial service at St Margaret's in Westminster "for his friends in London and further afield", she added.
The dates are yet to be confirmed.

Lord Montagu was one of the pioneers of the stately home industry and first opened his home, Palace House, to the public in 1952.

He also founded the National Motor Museum on the 7,000-acre (2,800-hectare) estate and was a leading authority on veteran and vintage cars, usually taking part in the London to Brighton run.

At the age of two, Lord Montagu succeeded his father, John, to become the 3rd Baron.
He studied at Eton and then Oxford, after army service as a lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards.
In 1948, when he was still in the army, he made his maiden speech in the House of Lords.
Lord Montagu was involved in two infamous trials.

At the first in 1953, he was cleared of a serious offence against a 14-year-old boy scout.
However, the following year the peer was charged with homosexual acts, which were then illegal.
He pleaded not guilty but was convicted and given a 12-month jail sentence.
An obituary on the Beaulieu website said Lord Montagu went about rebuilding his life and developing the estate following his release from prison.

"While not wanting to hide his bisexuality, he was also determined to keep his private life private and refused to comment on the events of the trial, a silence broken only in 2002 with the publication of his autobiography Wheels within Wheels," it said.

Lord Montagu first opened his home to the public in 1952
Since 1983, he had been chairman of English Heritage, the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission.
He fought vigorously - though often unsuccessfully - to have various buildings listed.
Lord Montagu took over the running of the Beaulieu Estate on his 25th birthday in 1951.
It had previously been managed by his mother and the trustees since the death of his motor pioneering father in 1929.
He later described it as a "white elephant" after finding the £1,500-a-year inheritance barely covered the running costs.
"The wise solution was to get rid of it," he said.
"For me, however - neither entirely sensible nor rational - that was unthinkable."
He later recounted: "What catapulted me permanently into the major league for the future was the idea of commemorating my father's life… by exhibiting veteran cars.
"Without it, my life would have been very different and I doubt whether I would have been able to remain as owner and occupier of my ancestral home."

[Eliminator]

NO RIP for cujo, there's going to be a lot of people bashing on his coffin every day telling him that he's not funny and giving him reds for no apparent reason just because they can.

[bobo746]

R.I.P.Cujo

[harrybarracuda]

Disney's Herbie The Love Bug actor Dean Jones dies at 84
By Rachel Middleton
September 3, 2015 06:24 BST 1 2



Actor and singer Dean Jones, best known for his character race car driver Jim Douglas in The Love Bug hit Disney franchise, has died at the age of 84.

Spokesman Richard Hoffman said Jones died on Tuesday (1 September) in Los Angeles. He died of complications related to Parkinson's disease.

Jones started his career as a teenage radio host and performer in amateur musical revues before becoming a stage actor. Then, together with child star Hayley Mills, he became the face of Disney, more often than not, playing alongside intelligent animals in That Darn Cat, The Ugly Dachshund, Monkeys, Go Home, The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit and The Shaggy DA.

The New York Times said the actor's best known role was in The Love Bug where he worked with a Volkswagen Beetle called Herbie, which had a mind of its own. He reprised the role in the 1977 sequel Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo and in the 1982 TV series Herbie, the Love Bug.

Although The Love Bug was remade as a TV movie in 1997, Jones again played the part of Douglas but the star of the show was Bruce Campbell, the newspaper noted.

He has acted alongside famous names like Jane Fonda, Hayley Mills, James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, Elvis Presley, Glenn Ford and Frank Sinatra, among others.

He became a born again Christian in 1973 after a religious awakening following a night of drinking and reckless stunt driving at a construction site in which he and a passenger could have been killed.

"A tremendous sense of fulfillment that had eluded me all my life became the 'sign' I had asked God for," he recounted in his autobiography Under Running Laughter, The New York Times said.

Although he continued to appear occasionally in Hollywood films including in the 1994 Clear and Present Danger, he mostly confined his work to Christian-themed straight-to-video films, and to an organisation that he and his wife founded in 1998, the Christian Rescue Fund, a support group for Christians, Jews and others who have been persecuted because of their faith.

Jones, from Alabama, is survived by his wife of 42 years, a former model and actress, Lory, and three children - two from his first marriage, Caroline Jones and Deanna Demaree and a son Michael Patrick, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

[harrybarracuda]

Japanese-American WWII war hero Ben Kuroki dies



The Associated Press
CAMARILLO, CALIF.

Ben Kuroki, who overcame the American military's discriminatory policies to become the only Japanese American to fly over Japan during World War II, has died. He was 98.

Kuroki died Tuesday at his Camarillo, California, home, where he was under hospice care, his daughter Julie Kuroki told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday.

The son of Japanese immigrants who was raised on a Hershey, Nebraska, farm, Kuroki and his brother, Fred, volunteered for service after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.

They were initially rejected by recruiters who questioned the loyalty of the children of Japanese immigrants. Undeterred, the brothers drove 150 miles to another recruiter, who allowed them to sign up.

At the time, the Army Air Forces banned soldiers of Japanese ancestry from flying, but Kuroki earned his way onto a bomber crew and flew 58 bomber missions over Europe, North Africa and Japan during the war. He took part in the August 1943 raid over Nazi oil fields in Ploesti, Romania, that killed 310 fliers in his group. He was captured after his plane ran out of fuel over Morocco, but he managed to escape with crewmates to England.

Because of his Japanese ancestry, he was initially rejected when he asked to serve on a B-29 bomber that was to be used in the Pacific. But after repeated requests and a review of his stellar service record, Secretary of War Harry Stimson granted an exception.

Crew members nicknamed him "Most Honorable Son," and the War Department gave him a Distinguished Flying Cross. He was saluted by Time magazine in 1944 under the headline "HEROES: Ben Kuroki, American."

He was hailed a hero and a patriot at a time when tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were confined at internment camps amid fears of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast.

After the war, Kuroki enrolled at the University of Nebraska, where he obtained a journalism degree. He published a weekly newspaper in Nebraska for a short time before moving to Michigan and finally to California, where he retired as the news editor of Ventura Star-Free Press in 1984.

In 2005, he received the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal, one of the nation's highest military honors.

"I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my own country," Kuroki said at the award ceremony in Lincoln, Nebraska. "And I now feel vindication."

[panama hat]

Self-help guru Wayne W. Dyer dies at 75

Am I the only one who found this to be a bit ironic?