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  1. #5626
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    That is sad news. She was a doll.


  2. #5627
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Oh dear. Two in quick succession.
    Oh dear that's just crap link farming.

    She died ages ago. I should have checked the date.
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    Last edited by harrybarracuda; 09-08-2022 at 08:06 AM.

  3. #5628
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Johnny Mandel, Composer Who Wrote ‘MASH’ Theme Song, Dies at 94

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    Johnny Mandel, the Oscar- and Grammy-winning songwriter of “The Shadow of Your Smile,” “Emily” and the theme from “M*A*S*H,” has died. He was 94.
    “If Johnny Mandel had just composed ‘The Shadow of Your Smile’ – one of the most beautiful songs I have been honored to record – it would have been enough to earn his standing as one of the finest composers of our time,” Tony Bennett wrote on Twitter, including a portrait of Mandel he painted himself.

    Mandel was considered one of the finest arrangers of the second half of the 20th century, providing elegant orchestral charts for a wide range of vocalists including Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole and Hoagy Carmichael.
    Mandel scored more than 30 films during his Hollywood career, including the 1960s films “The Americanization of Emily” (from which the hit song “Emily” emerged), “The Sandpiper” (which contained “The Shadow of Your Smile,” earning an Oscar and a Grammy for Song of the Year along with lyricist Paul Francis Webster), “Harper,” “An American Dream” (which included the Oscar-nominated song “A Time for Love”), “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and “Point Blank.”

    Johnny Mandel Dead: Composer Who Wrote 'MASH' Theme Song Was 94 - Variety

    The next post may be brought to you by my little bitch Spamdreth

  4. #5629
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    That is sad news. She was a doll.
    Indeed, been battling cancer for 30 years, last pic of here with her hubby 3 days ago, great looking at 73.

    The RIP Famous Person Thread-nfgf-jpg

  5. #5630
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    NEW YORK, NY.- Lamont Dozier, the prolific songwriter and producer who was crucial to the success of Motown Records as one-third of the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, died Monday in Arizona. He was 81.

    The RIP Famous Person Thread-lamont-dozier-1-jpg

    Robin Terry, the chair and chief executive of the Motown Museum in Detroit, confirmed the death but did not specify a cause.

    In collaboration with the brothers Brian and Eddie Holland, Dozier wrote songs for dozens of musical acts, but the trio worked most often with Martha and the Vandellas (“Heat Wave,” “Jimmy Mack”), the Four Tops (“Bernadette,” “I Can’t Help Myself”) and especially the Supremes (“You Can’t Hurry Love,” “Baby Love”). Between 1963 and 1972, the Holland-Dozier-Holland team was responsible for more than 80 singles that hit the Top 40 of the pop or R&B charts, including 15 songs that reached No. 1. “It was as if we were playing the lottery and winning every time,” Dozier wrote in his autobiography, “How Sweet It Is” (2019, written with Scott B. Bomar).

    Lamont Dozier, writer of numerous Motown hits, dies at 81


  6. #5631
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    To Olivia Newton John and Judith Durham of The Seekers - RIP.

    Farewell Georgie Girl and Sandy.

  7. #5632
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    The Snowman author and illustrator Raymond Briggs dies aged 88

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    Author and illustrator Raymond Briggs, best known for the 1978 classic The Snowman, has died aged 88.
    The announcement was made by his publisher, Penguin Random House.


    The Snowman was first released as a picture book - and has sold more than 5.5 million copies worldwide - before it was turned into a much-loved animation in 1982.
    Briggs also created beloved children's books Father Christmas and Fungus The Bogeyman.
    A statement from his family said: "We know that Raymond's books were loved by and touched millions of people around the world, who will be sad to hear this news. Drawings from fans - especially children's drawings - inspired by his books were treasured by Raymond and pinned up on the wall of his studio.

    "He lived a rich and full life and said he felt lucky to have had both his wife Jean and his partner of over 40 years Liz in his life.

    "He shared his love of nature with Liz on South Downs walks and on family holidays to Scotland and Wales. He also shared his sense of fun and craziness with his family, and with his family of artist friends - at get-togethers, fancy dress parties, and summer picnics in the garden.


    The Snowman author and illustrator Raymond Briggs dies aged 88 | UK News | Sky News

  8. #5633
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Issey Miyake, influential Japanese fashion designer, dies aged 84

    Issey Miyake, the Japanese fashion designer whose timeless pleats made him an industry favorite, has died aged 84. He died of cancer on August 5, his office confirmed to CNN on Tuesday.


    A funeral service has already been held with his family and close friends, his office said, adding that a memorial ceremony will not be held, in line with the designer's wishes.


    Miyake rose to international prominence in the 1980s with avant-garde designs that those who could afford his luxury pieces immediately regarded as collector's items. Today, his designs are preserved at institutions including London's Victoria and Albert Museum, New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.


    He also found a lifelong customer in Steve Jobs, who wore his black turtlenecks almost exclusively from the 1980s onward.  

    Miyake was born in the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1938. The bomb that was dropped on the city in 1945 left him with a pronounced limp that would follow him through adulthood, and his mother died three years later from radiation exposure.

    Determined not to be labeled as the designer who escaped the atomic bomb, he didn't mention his traumatic childhood until 2009, when he wrote about the experience in an op-ed in support of nuclear disarmament, published in the New York Times.

    MORE Issey Miyake, influential Japanese fashion designer, dies aged 84 - CNN Style

  9. #5634
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Actor Anne Heche died on Friday, after succumbing to injuries from a car crash days earlier, according to friends.

    She was 53 years old.

    Her friend, Nancy Davis, revealed the news in a memorial post on Instagram, writing: “Heaven has a new Angel. My loving, kind, fun, endearing and beautiful friend Anne Heche went to heaven. I will miss her terribly and cherish all the beautiful memories we have shared.”

    Heche was severely burned when she crashed into a Los Angeles home in the Mar Vista neighborhood on Aug. 5. Shortly after the crash, her car burst into flames, which took firefighters nearly an hour to extinguish, according to NBC News.

    She was taken to a hospital and initially listed in critical condition, then she reportedly fell into a coma Aug. 8.

    After Heche’s accident, the Los Angeles Police Department launched an investigation into the actor for allegedly driving under the influence and fleeing from an earlier hit-and-run, the Los Angeles Times reported. Police confirmed to the Times that they obtained a search warrant to test the actor’s blood alcohol level.

    LAPD confirmed to TMZ on Aug. 11 that Heche had cocaine in her system during the accident.

    “In preliminary testing, the blood draw revealed the presence of drugs,” the LAPD statement said. “The case is being investigated as felony DUI traffic collision.”

    In her 2001 memoir, “Call Me Crazy,” Heche discussed her traumatic upbringing and the mental health issues that arose in her adult years.

    “I’m not crazy,” she told Barbara Walters during an interview with ABC News. “But it’s a crazy life. I was raised in a crazy family, and it took 31 years to get the crazy out of me.”

    Heche’s acting career began in 1987 when she starred in the long-running soap opera “Another World.” In 1991, she won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama series for the show. She has appeared in numerous movies, including the 1996 film “The Juror,” the 1997 horror film “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” 1998′s “Six Days Seven Nights,” 1997′s Donnie Brasco” and the 2002 thriller “John Q.”

    The actor dated comedian and television host Ellen DeGeneres from 1997 to 2000. She was married to cameraman Coleman Laffoon from 2001 to 2007. Heche was also in a relationship with actor James Tupper from 2008 to 2018. She is survived by her two sons: 20-year-old Homer Laffoon, whose father is Coleman Laffoon, and 13-year-old Atlas, whose father is James Tupper.
    Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  10. #5635
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Very strange story. She's been clinically dead for days by all accounts, but they kept the machine on because she's an organ donor.

    They couldn't get the fire out to get her out of the car.

    Poor woman and what a horrible way to go.

  11. #5636
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Anne Heche has been taken off life support and has died, a representative of the US actor has confirmed.
    The 53-year-old had been taken to hospital in a critical condition after driving her car into a house in Los Angeles.

    Her family had asked for her heart to keep beating until a match for organ donation was found, in respect of her wishes.
    On Sunday, a spokesperson confirmed recipients had been identified and surgeons were ready to remove and transplant "multiple organs".

    Anne Heche taken off life support after organ recipients identified, in respect of her wishes | Ents & Arts News | Sky News

  12. #5637
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Wolfgang Petersen, 'Das Boot,' 'Air Force One,' 'The Perfect Storm' Director, Dies at 81

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    Wolfgang Petersen, the acclaimed German director of such films as "Das Boot" and the Hollywood blockbusters "The Perfect Storm" and "Air Force One," died Friday at his Brentwood, California, home. He was 81.

    His publicist confirmed to THR that the case of death was pancreatic cancer.

    Petersen had enjoyed a resurgence of interest in his work during COVID-19 when his 1995 film "Outbreak" trended.

    Born in Germany on March 14, 1941, he honed his skills as a director in the theater ahead of attending Berlin's Film and Television Academy.

    He enjoyed early success on German television before his 1974 feature-film debut, the thriller "One or the Other of Us." His 1977 gay-themed TV film "Die Konsequenz" was so controversial it was banned in Bavaria.

    Petersen impressed critics with his "Das Boot" (1982), a claustrophobic film about a German submarine crew during WWII. In spite of presenting a sympathetic portrait of Nazi soldiers, it was perceived as intended — an anti-war film whose message was that "in war, young people die for horrible reasons." It went on to receive six Oscar nominations.

    Pivoting, his first English-language film was "The NeverEnding Story" (1984), a trippy fantasy film aimed at kids, followed by 1985's "Enemy Mine," starring Louis Gossett Jr. and Dennis Quaid. The latter did not hint at his previous artistry, nor did 1991's Hitchcock pastiche "Shattered," but he hit his stride with the taut, Clint Eastwood-starring thriller "In the Line of Fire," a big hit in 1993.

    Working with Eastwood was as close as Petersen got to making a western, though his films often felt like westerns masquerading as other genres.

    Following "Outbreak," he directed one of his biggest hits, the Harrison Ford actioner "Air Force One" (1997), about a U.S. president heroically rescuing the passengers on the world's most famous plane when a group of terrorists attacks.

    "The Perfect Storm," from Sebastian Junger's 1997 book, was another smash in 2000, and his personal favorite. A film about fishermen who perish in monster storm was a risk even before its $150-million price tag, but it — like his best American films — once again connected with a wide array of filmgoers.

    His final works were "Troy" (2004), starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom, which received mixed reviews, leading to a 2007 director's cut; the 2006 remake "Poseidon"; and the German-language comedy "Four Against the Bank" (2016).

    Petersen is survived by his second wife, Maria, to whom he'd been wed for more than 40 years, his son from his first marriage, his daughter-in-law and two grandchildren.

    Wolfgang Petersen, 'Das Boot,' 'Air Force One,' 'The Perfect Storm' Director, Dies at 81

  13. #5638
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Remembering Add Sombat, a true Thai heartthrob

    Legendary actor Sombat Metanee died in his sleep at his Bangkok home on Thursday. He was 85. He was survived by his wife Karnjana and his children.

    The RIP Famous Person Thread-4d388bea-917a-4158-902e-23dd282c4aac-jpeg

    Back in his heyday half a century ago, late actor Sombat Metanee was the man of every woman’s dreams, and his movies were guaranteed blockbusters. One has to wonder how he would have done in today’s Thai entertainment industry where aesthetic standards and trends are so very different.


    Prior to his debut in the 60’s, Sombat was just a good-looking guy. He hadn’t really thought of a career in films – let alone becoming a top leading man. “I never thought about acting, but I was good-looking, smart; I have sex appeal,” Sombat was quoted as saying in a newspaper in 2006, took about his beginnings in the entertainment industry.


    His attractiveness landed him his first acting role during the scouting for a TV series Hua Jai Pratana (Heart’s Desires). He later caught the eye of film director Noi Kamolwatin. His first leading role in Roong Petch (Diamond Rainbow) release in 1961 shot him to success and his acting career took off, skyrocketing to the point that he was in the Guinness World Record as a leading actor in the most films (617 movies).

    MORE https://www.thaipbsworld.com/remembe...ai-heartthrob/
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  14. #5639
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Mikhail Gorbachev Dies at 91

    Mikhail Gorbachev, whose actions as the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union helped shape the world as we know it today, died after a "serious and long illness" late Tuesday, the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital. He was 91.


    His era started in 1985 with the reform of the Soviet system forever known by its Russian name, perestroika, and ended with the coup that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.


    While he was admired in the West for his role in ending the Cold War, he was a divisive figure at home, perceived to have instituted policies that precipitated the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the economic chaos and loss of superpower status that followed.


    Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931, to a family of Russian-Ukrainian peasants in the village of Privolnoye, in the southwestern part of Soviet Russia.


    The village was collectivized under Soviet leader’s Joseph Stalin’s first five-year plan that included forced consolidation of small landholdings into state-controlled farms, a process that claimed the lives of millions of peasants throughout the Soviet Union.


    Both of Gorbachev’s grandfathers were sent to Gulag labor camps during Stalin’s repressions of the 1930s, and his family endured the 1932-33 famine.


    Those early experiences shaped Gorbachev’s views on Stalinism and the use of violence as means to power, according to his biographer William Taubman.


    Gorbachev joined the Communist Party while in high school. He won a scholarship to the most prestigious university in the Soviet Union, Moscow State University, where he excelled and graduated from the law faculty with the highest honors. He also met and married the love of his life, Raisa.


    He attracted the attention of the Politburo in 1974 when, as party boss in the Stavropol region, his construction of the Great Stavropol Canal provided necessary irrigation and produced record crops. In 1978, he joined the ranks of the Soviet ruling elite in Moscow when he was appointed Secretary of the Central Committee.


    That same year he became the party secretary responsible for agriculture as the collective farming model began to falter. Gorbachev attempted to modernize the Soviet agricultural sector by introducing mechanization.


    During these years he also traveled to Western Europe in Soviet delegations which continued to expand and shape his views on the world and politics.


    When Gorbachev was appointed to the top job in 1985, the U.S.S.R. was in economic, social and political decline after the so-called “stagnation” period under Leonid Brezhnev and the short-lived tenures of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko.


    His twin policies of perestroika — rebuilding — and glasnost — openness — aimed to restructure the Soviet system and bring transparency to its politics by loosening state censorship.


    Gorbachev also sought to shift control from the Politburo to the Soviet people by implementing a democratically elected parliament.


    He attempted to reform the Soviet centrally-planned economy by allowing state enterprises to determine their output levels based on demand and permitting self-financing. The state would no longer rescue unprofitable enterprises, and control shifted from state to elected workers’ collectives. Most significantly, Gorbachev also allowed foreign investors to enter the Soviet market.


    His reform efforts were often undermined by bureaucrats within his own party.


    A fundamental test of the new system came on April 26, 1986, when a reactor at the Chernobyl power plant exploded and caused the world’s worst nuclear accident.


    It took Gorbachev almost three weeks to address the nation on the disaster, and 20 years later he said it had perhaps been Chernobyl, rather than perestroika, that was the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.


    The Cold War was in full swing when Gorbachev took power. Five years previously, U.S. President Jimmy Carter had refused to send athletes to the Moscow Olympics or meet with anyone from the Soviet leadership to protest the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.


    Within six years Gorbachev had withdrawn Soviet troops from Afghanistan and acted as middleman between Washington and Baghdad during the Gulf War.


    Western leaders saw Gorbachev’s leadership as an opportunity to open the Iron Curtain. He visited Britain, France, Germany, Canada and many other countries during his rule. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said in a BBC interview, “I like Mr. Gorbachev. I think we can do business together.”


    Some praised Gorbachev for watching the peaceful dissolution of the Eastern bloc, while others criticized him for allowing the communist systems in neighboring countries to collapse without any interference.


    His far-reaching agreements on arms control paved the way for the Paris Charter that ended the Cold War and united Eastern and Western Europe.


    In Nov. 1989, shortly after Gorbachev’s visit to East Germany, the Berlin wall fell.


    Gorbachev repeatedly stated that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was never his end goal, but his leadership started a chain reaction that changed the world.


    In 1990, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his accomplishments in international relations. At home, however, the loss of the Eastern bloc and Gorbachev’s to sign a new Union Treaty that would refound the U.S.S.R. as a loose confederation, angered many within his own party, turning former allies into enemies.


    In August 1991, while Gorbachev was on vacation with his family in Crimea, hardline politicians and the military staged a failed coup in Moscow and put him under house arrest. By the time he returned to the capital, Boris Yeltsin had seized the momentum and would become the first president of a new Russia. The Soviet Union didn’t last the year.


    After his political career ended, Gorbachev established the “Gorbachev Foundation” and continued to lecture and speak out on social, economic, domestic and geopolitical issues.


    His beloved Raisa, who he described as his closest confidant, died of leukemia in 1999.


    He is survived by his daughter Irina, and his granddaughters Anastasia and Ksenia.

    Mikhail Gorbachev, Last Soviet Leader and Architect of Perestroika, Dies at 91 - The Moscow Times

  15. #5640
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    I was living in San Francisco when the Gorbachevs visited. The news articles running then said Mrs. Gorbachev would ride around the Bay Area and get out at random corner stores and supermarkets to go inside and see what kinds of goods they had. She would inquire with the store employees or owners to find out how they bought their stock. She did this because the Gorbachevs thought they were being show Potemkin shops by their handlers. They couldn’t believe that all the shops could be so well supplied.

  16. #5641
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    We got an afternoon off school to go to town and see them arrive at the Townhouse when he was given Freedom of Aberdeen, 6th December, 1993.

  17. #5642
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    The RIP Famous Person Thread-ftvpam2ju3de7s7z3i76hdjzia-jpg

    Bernard Shaw, former CNN anchor and a pioneering black journalist remembered for his blunt question at a presidential debate and calmly reporting the beginning of the Gulf War in 1991 from Baghdad as it was under attack, has died. He was 82.

    He died of pneumonia, unrelated to Covid-19, at a hospital in Washington, according to Tom Johnson, CNN's former chief executive.

    A former CBS and ABC newsman, Shaw took a chance and accepted an offer to become CNN's chief anchor at its launch in 1980. He later reported before a camera hurriedly set up in a newsroom after the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Regan.


    He retired at age 61 in 2001.


    As moderator of a 1988 presidential debate between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, he asked the Democrat — a death penalty opponent — whether he would support that penalty for someone found guilty of raping and murdering Dukakis' wife Kitty.

    Dukakis' coolly technocratic response was widely seen as damaging to his campaign, and Shaw said later he got a flood of hate mail for asking it.


    "Since when did a question hurt a politician?" Shaw said in an interview aired by CSPAN in 2001. "It wasn't the question. It was the answer."


    CNN'''s first chief anchor Bernard Shaw dies at 82 - NZ Herald

  18. #5643
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Marsha Hunt, Actress Blacklisted in Hollywood, Dies at 104


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    Marsha Hunt, the bright-eyed starlet who stood out in such films as These Glamour Girls, Pride and Prejudice and Raw Deal before her career came unraveled by the communist witch hunt that hit Hollywood, has died. She was 104.


    She died from natural causes on Tuesday evening at her Sherman Oaks home, where she had lived since 1946, Roger C. Memos — writer-director of the documentary
    Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity — told The Hollywood Reporter.


    Hunt also appeared opposite Mickey Rooney in the best picture Oscar nominee The Human Comedy (1943) during a period in which she was known as “Hollywood’s Youngest Character Actress.”


    A former model who signed with Paramount Pictures at age 17, the Chicago native made her first big splash as a suicidal co-ed opposite Lana Turner in MGM’s These Glamour Girls (1939).


    Playing Walter Brennan’s sweetheart in Joe and Ethel Turp Call on the President (1939), Hunt aged from age 16 to 65 onscreen. She portrayed the dowdy sister Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (1940), and in Anthony Mann’s film noir classic Raw Deal (1948), she was the good girl opposite Claire Trevor and Dennis O’Keefe.


    Years later, in Johnny Got His Gun (1971) — penned by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo — Hunt played the mother of Timothy Bottoms’ quadruple-amputee character.

    Though she never achieved the stardom of some of her co-stars, Hunt was proud of her career, especially early on. “Before I was 30, I had played four aging roles, and I was Hollywood’s youngest character actress … no two roles alike,” she told the website Ms. in the Biz in 2015.

    In 1947, Hunt and her second husband, screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr., joined the Committee for the First Amendment, which
    questioned the legality of the House Un-American Activities Committee that was seeking to flush communists out of the entertainment industry.


    The committee, which also included Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye, John Huston and other Hollywood liberals, chartered a plane to Washington to sit in on the HUAC hearings and support 19 creatives who had been under scrutiny.


    However, Bogart and others quickly backpedaled, saying they were duped by communists and their trip to Washington was ill-advised. While that helped save their careers, Hunt did not repent. In June 1950, she was listed in Red Channels, the right-wing pamphlet that fingered scores of actors, directors, screenwriters and others for being sympathetic to “subversive” causes.


    “You know, I was never interested in communism,” she
    said in a 2004 interview. “I was very much interested in my industry, my country and my government. But I was shocked at the behavior of my government and its mistreatment of my industry.

    And so I spoke out and protested like everyone else on that flight. But then I was told, once I was blacklisted, you see, I was an articulate liberal, and that was bad. I was told that in fact it wasn’t really about communism — that was the thing that frightened everybody — it was about control and about power.


    “The way you get control is to get everyone to agree with whatever is proper at the time, whatever is accepted. Don’t question anything, don’t speak out, don’t have your own ideas, don’t be articulate about it, don’t ever be eloquent, and if you ever be one of those things, you’re controversial. And that’s just as bad, maybe worse, than being a communist. Which was still quite legal to be, you know: the Communist Party was still legal in America, running candidates for public office. But you lost your career, your good name, your savings, probably your marriage, your friends, if you had been a communist. It was appalling, just appalling.”

    Her story was told in Marsha Hunt’s Sweet Adversity, released in 2015.

    She was born Marcia Virginia Hunt in Chicago on Oct. 17, 1917. Her father, Earl, was an insurance executive and her mother, Minabel, a vocal coach. She and her family moved to New York City, and she graduated from the Horace Mann School for Girls at age 16.


    Hunt fell into a career as a model when her high school yearbook photographer used her image as an advertising sample. She was signed by the Powers Agency, becoming a sought-after “Powers Girl” and learning how to pose and behave in front of a lens.


    Friends with photographers-turned-publicists Robert and Sarah Mack, Hunt moved to Hollywood at 17, signed with Paramount when her agent, Zeppo Marx, got her $250 a week and landed the female lead in her first movie, The Virginia Judge (1935). She appeared as an ingenue and love interest in several films — John Wayne romanced her in Born to the West (1937) — but the studio declined to renew her contract in 1938.


    She landed at MGM in The Hardys Ride High (1939) and went on to appear for the studio in The Trial of Mary Dugan (1941) as a Brooklyn chorus girl; in Kid Glove Killer (1942), director Fred Zinnemann’s first U.S. feature; in the World War II drama Cry ‘Havoc’ (1943); and as the top-billed title character in the Jules Dassin romantic comedy A Letter for Evie (1946).


    An exhibitors poll had placed her among the “Top 10 Stars of Tomorrow” — others on the list included Roddy McDowall, Gloria DeHaven, Sidney Greenstreet, June Allyson and Barry Fitzgerald — and when she wasn’t acting, she was serving as a hostess at the famed Hollywood Canteen for American servicemen.


    In 1948, Hunt made her stage debut in the Hollywood-set Joy to the World, directed by Jules Dassin; two years later, she was back on Broadway in George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple and graced the cover of Life magazine.


    After Devil’s Disciple closed, Hunt departed for Europe, but when she returned, Red Channels had been published, and her career — she had made more than 50 films by then — would never be the same.


    She went on to guest-star on such shows as The Ford Television Theatre, Climax! and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, was a regular on the short-lived 1959 series Peck’s Bad Girl and later appeared on Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Ben Casey, My Three Sons, Ironside, Murder, She Wrote and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

    Hunt was a member of the SAG board and worked on various progressive committees; one counseled actress Olivia de Havilland in her groundbreaking legal case against the studio system and Warner Bros., and another petitioned studios to hire minority actors outside of stereotyped roles.

    In 1955, a trip around the world opened her eyes to the plight of Third World nations, and she threw herself into humanitarian efforts, making appearances on behalf of the United Nations and becoming what she called a “planet patriot.”


    In April 2015, she was named the inaugural recipient of the Marsha Hunt for Humanity Award, created by Kat Kramer, the daughter of the famed liberal director-producer Stanley Kramer.


    Hunt was “one of the first major actresses in Hollywood to dedicate her life to causes,” Kat Kramer noted, “and she paved the way for Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Patricia Arquette, Sharon Stone, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Tippi Hedren, Ed Begley Jr., Ed Asner and Martin Sheen — celebrities who use their fame as a voice for change.”


    Hunt can be seen in all her glamour in the 1993 book The Way We Wore: Styles of the 1930s and ’40s and Our World Since Then, which features photos of her in many of her own clothes from the era.


    Hunt moved to Sherman Oaks in 1946 and served as its honorary mayor for more than two decades. She and Presnell were married for 40 years until his death in 1986 at age 71. They had no children.


    She is survived by a nephew, actor-director Allan Hunt, and other nieces and nephews. Donations in her memory may be made to
    L.A. Family Housing.


    In 2008, Hunt starred in the 22-minute film The Grand Inquisitor, written and directed by Eddie Muller.


    “To work with her was the most rewarding collaboration of my life. I suspect it always will be,” the host of TCM’s Noir Alley said after Raw Deal and The Grand Inquisitor played back-to-back on the cable channel last month. “She is simply the most exceptional human being I’ve ever known.”

    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...ss-1235216286/

  19. #5644
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    Jazz legend Ramsey Lewis dies in Chicago home at 87

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    CHICAGO - Jazz pianist and three-time Grammy winner Ramsey Lewis died at his home in Chicago Monday morning.
    Lewis, 87, is survived by his wife Janet, his daughters, Denise and Dawn, his sons, Kendall, Frayne and Bobby, and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

    Lewis received five honorary doctorate degrees and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Artist.

    Jazz legend Ramsey Lewis dies in Chicago home at 87





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    Jean-Luc Godard death: French New Wave director dies aged 91


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    Jean-Luc Godard, the revered filmmaker at the heart of the French New Wave movement, has died at the age of 91.
    He was known for directing a run of radical, medium-changing films throughout the 1960s, including Breathless and Alphaville.

    News of Godard’s death was reported by the French newspaper Liberation.

    Along with contemporaries such as Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and François Truffaut, the Paris-born Godard was a central figure in the Nouvelle Vague, an experimental film movement that emerged in France in the late 1950s.

    Several of his films are frequently cited among the best movies ever made.

    Godard’s first feature was Breathless, released in 1960, an experimental tribute to American film noir.

    From 1961 to 1965, the French-Swiss director was married to actor Anna Karina. It was with Karina that Godard enjoyed some of his most memorable screen collaborations, including in Vivre sa vie (1962), Bande à part (1964) and Pierrot le Fou (1965).


    Several of Godard’s films were controversial in the time of their making, such as Le Petit Soldat, an early film of his that dealt with the Algerian war of independence. While the film was eventually released in 1963, it was initially banned in France due to its depiction of the French government.

    Between 1967 and 1979, Godard was married to actor Anne Wiazemsky, who starred in several of his films, among them La Chinoise (1967), Week End (1967), and One Plus One (1968).

    In 1970, Godard met Anne-Marie Miéville, who became his collaborator and later romantic partner.

    Godard continued to work prolifically into later life, enjoying what many considered to be a career resurgance after a less criticically successful period in the 1980s and 1990s.

    His 2014 film Goodbye to Language and 2018 documentary The Image Book were both given prestigious awards at the Cannes Film Festival.

    Jean-Luc Godard death: French New Wave director dies aged 91 | The Independent

  21. #5646
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    Ken Starr, leader of 'Whitewater' investigation dies at 76

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    Ken Starr, who headed the investigation that led to the impeachment of president Bill Clinton for lying about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, died on Tuesday. He was 76.

    Starr died in Houston, Texas, of complications from surgery, his family said in a statement.

    A former judge and conservative legal stalwart, Starr was best known for leading the probe that resulted in Clinton's December 1998 impeachment by the then Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

    The Democratic president was acquitted by the Senate the following year.

    Starr's involvement with Clinton began when he was appointed special counsel in 1994 to investigate a land deal known as Whitewater involving Bill and Hillary Clinton.

    That expanded into a probe of the president's affair with the 24-year-old Lewinsky, which Clinton initially denied.

    The so-called Starr Report documented the president's sexual relationship with the White House intern in graphic detail and resulted in Clinton being accused of perjury and obstruction of justice.

    Starr, who was once touted as a potential Supreme Court justice, later wrote a book about the probe -- "Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation."

    Time magazine chose Clinton and Starr as its "Men of the Year" in 1998.

    Named a judge at the age of 37 by president Ronald Reagan, Starr went on to serve as solicitor general from 1989 to 1993 under president George H.W. Bush, arguing 25 cases before the Supreme Court.

    Starr served as president of Baylor University from 2010 to 2016, when he left over the handling of sexual assault complaints against American football players at the Baptist school.

    In January 2020, Starr joined the legal team that defended Republican president Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial before the Senate.

    Starr lamented that the Senate was being called on "all too frequently" to try impeachments.

    "Indeed we're living in what I think can be aptly described as the age of impeachment," he said.

    "Like war, impeachment is hell," Starr added. "At least presidential impeachment is hell."

    Like Clinton, Trump was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate.

    Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell praised Starr as a "brilliant litigator, an impressive leader, and a devoted patriot."

    "Ken poured his remarkable energy and talent into promoting justice, defending the Constitution, and upholding the rule of law," McConnell said in a statement.

    Lewinsky, in a February 2018 article in Vanity Fair, lashed out at the special counsel's investigation which put her at the centre of a political firestorm.

    She said she had a chance meeting with Starr in December 2017 at a New York restaurant.

    "I felt determined, then and there, to remind him that, 20 years before, he and his team of prosecutors hadn't hounded and terrorised just me but also my family," she said.

    Looking for an apology, Lewinsky said she told Starr that while she wished she had made "different choices" she would have liked his office to have done the same.

    Starr gave an "inscrutable smile," Lewinsky said, and replied "I know. It was unfortunate."

    On Tuesday, Lewinsky tweeted that her "thoughts about Ken Starr bring up complicated feelings."

    "But of more importance, is that I imagine it's a painful loss for those who love him," she added. (AFP)

    Clinton investigator Ken Starr dies aged 76 - RTHK



  22. #5647
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    Henry Silva, Movie Bad-Guy Extraordinaire, Dies at 95


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    Veteran movie and TV actor Henry Silva was always very good at playing very bad, earning a place in viewers' memories for the intensity of his performances and his unusually cruel, menacingly handsome face.

    The peripheral Rat Packer, popular in Hollywood, died Wednesday in Woodland Hills, California, just shy of 96, his son Scott Silva confirmed to The New York Times.

    With over 125 credits, Silva was almost always a brute, a killer, a henchman, or — as was par for the course in the movies at the time — drafted to play "ethnic" roles, thanks to his Italian-Hispanic heritage. That meant he might play a Korean on one project and a Native American on the next.

    He somehow made his dirty work glamorous, and once said he never went to the same "dark place" when toiling in typecast parts; a veteran of the Actors Studio and of Broadway, it was no wonder.

    Among his appearances: "A Hatful of Rain" (1957), "Ocean's Eleven" (1960), "Johnny Cool" (1963), "Sharky's Machine" (1981), "Above the Law" (1998), and a career-finale cameo in the 2001 remake of "Ocean's Eleven," providing a rare graceful exit for a working actor retiring in his seventies.


    Silva was married and divorced three times. He is survived by his two sons.

    He somehow made his dirty work glamorous, and once said he never went to the same "dark place" when toiling in typecast parts; a veteran of the Actors Studio and of Broadway, it was no wonder.

    Among his appearances: "A Hatful of Rain" (1957), "Ocean's Eleven" (1960), "Johnny Cool" (1963), "Sharky's Machine" (1981), "Above the Law" (1998), and a career-finale cameo in the 2001 remake of "Ocean's Eleven," providing a rare graceful exit for a working actor retiring in his seventies.


    Silva was married and divorced three times. He is survived by his two sons.


    Henry Silva, Movie Bad-Guy Extraordinaire, Dies at 95


    * And the Manchurian candidate

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    '''Unforgettable''' long-time Play School presenter, '''Naughty''' John Hamblin dies aged 87 - ABC News

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    'Unforgettable' long-time Play School presenter, 'Naughty' John Hamblin dies aged 87

    Beloved actor and long-running Play School host John Hamblin has died at age 87.


    Key points:
    Hamblin appeared in more than 350 episodes of Playschool
    He was known for his cheeky sense of humour that appealed to children and parents alike
    He is survived by his children Emma and Myles
    Mr Hamblin was a fan favourite presenter on the children's television program for almost 30 years.


    He is recognised by generations of Australian children and their families as one of its most memorable hosts.


    Mr Hamblin began on Playschool in 1970 and appeared in more than 350 episodes of the program.


    He was known affectionately as "Naughty John" during his run on the program for his cheeky sense of humour and irreverent nature.

    After retiring from the show in 1999, John returned for a special guest appearance as part of Playschool's 50th Anniversary special in 2016.



    ABC Director of Entertainment and Specialist Jennifer Collins said his joking manner appealed to a broad audience.


    "John was an unforgettable presenter whose comedic timing and wit helped cement Playschool as one of Australia's most cherished children's programs," she said.


    "John had a wicked sense of humour and was not afraid of a double entendre.


    "His presence always managed to keep both our toddler target audience and their parents equally engaged with the show.


    "I would like to extend my condolences to John's family at this sad time."


    Mr Hamblin is survived by his children Emma and Myles.

  24. #5649
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    I wouldn't be surprised if Putin organised some massive state funeral to try and distract the russian people from his fucking lunacy.

    MOSCOW — Valery Polyakov, the cosmonaut who set the record for the longest single stay in space, has died at age 80, Russia’s space agency announced Monday.
    Polyakov’s record of 437 days in space began Jan. 8, 1994, when he and two others blasted off on a two-day flight to the Soviet space station Mir. While aboard Mir, he orbited the Earth more than 7,000 times, before returning March 22, 1995.

    https://www.ocregister.com/2022/09/21/valery-polyakov-dies-at-80-russian-cosmonaut-had-longest-single-stay-in-space/

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    Louise Fletcher, the Cruel Nurse Ratched in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ Dies at 88

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    Louise Fletcher, the sweet actress from Alabama who won an Academy Award for her turn as the heartless Nurse Ratched — one of the most reviled characters in movie history — in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, has died. She was 88.

    Fletcher died Friday of natural causes at her home in Montdurausse, France, her son Andrew Bick told The Hollywood Reporter. She had survived two bouts with breast cancer.

    A daughter of deaf parents — she made one of the most touching acceptance speeches in Oscar history — Fletcher also starred as a psychiatrist in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and played opposite Peter Falk amid the star-studded ensemble in The Cheap Detective (1978).


    On television, she portrayed the religious leader Kai Winn Adami on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and received Emmy nominations in 1996 and 2004 for her guest-starring stints on Picket Fences and Joan of Arcadia, respectively.


    She more recently played
    William H. Macy’s meth-dealing mother on Shameless and appeared in the Liev Schreiber film A Perfect Man (2013) and on the Netflix series Girlboss, starring Britt Robertson.


    After spending more than a decade away from show business to raise her two sons, Fletcher returned to Hollywood and appeared opposite Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall in the Robert Altman film Thieves Like Us (1974).


    Director
    Milos Forman, then casting 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — based on Ken Kesey’s 1962 book about life in an Oregon psychiatric hospital — spotted her in that movie.


    “He was watching it to look at Shelley Duvall to play one of the girls who comes on the ward on the party night, and there I was,” Fletcher
    recalled in a 2016 interview. “He said, ‘Who is that?’ “


    A year later, after Anne Bancroft,
    Angela Lansbury, Geraldine Page, Colleen Dewhurst and Ellen Burstyn all rejected the chance to play Nurse Ratched — many believing that the character was too impossibly wicked — Forman finally gave Fletcher the part.


    “I tried out for it many, many times,” she said. “I didn’t realize that lots of other women were turning it down. They offered it to many movie stars who declined, luckily for me. To think, what if somebody else had said yes?”


    In the film, the icy Ratched humiliates her patients and revokes their privileges on a whim. When she can’t control a new arrival, Randle McMurphy (
    Jack Nicholson), she administers shock therapy on him, then has him lobotomized.

    Fletcher knew her life had changed forever when she watched Cuckoo’s Nest with an audience for the first time and saw how people reacted to a scene in which McMurphy tries to kill her character.

    “It was in Chicago, and it was a packed house,” she recalled. “When he strangles her, the audience stood up and yelled and cheered. Stood up. It was unbelievable. I was thrilled.”


    On its 2003 list of the 100 greatest villains in the annals of motion pictures, the American Film Institute placed Nurse Ratched at No. 5, behind only Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates, Darth Vader and the Wicked Witch of the West. (
    Sarah Paulson recently revived the character in a Ryan Murphy prequel series for Netflix.)


    After Fletcher heard her name called by presenter Charles Bronson and
    at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to accept her Oscar, she said: “Well, it looks like you all hated me so much that you’ve given me this award for it, and I’m loving every minute of it. And all I can say is, I’ve loved being hated by you.”


    She then paid tribute to her parents: “And if you’ll excuse me [using sign language]: for my mother and my father, I want to say thank you for teaching me to have a dream. You are seeing my dream come true.”


    The second of four children, she was born on July 22, 1934, in Birmingham, Alabama, to an Episcopal minister, Rev. Robert C. Fletcher, and his wife, Estelle. They had both lost their hearing when they were children, he when he was struck by lightning, she to illness.


    ”If I fell down and hurt myself, I never cried,” Fletcher
    told The New York Times in 1975. “There was no one to hear me.”


    She was extremely shy, and her parents sent her to an aunt in Texas, where she lived for parts of several years before attending Ramsay High School in Birmingham and then graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1957.


    She took a trip to Los Angeles with friends and decided to stay, working as a receptionist while taking acting classes at night with the acclaimed teacher Jeff Corey. (Robert Blake was a fellow student.)


    After getting steady work on such television shows as Bat Masterson, Lawman, 77 Sunset Strip, Wagon Train and Perry Mason, the 5-foot-10 actress made her big-screen debut in the war film A Gathering of Eagles (1963), starring
    Rock Hudson.

    She had son John in 1961, and while pregnant with Andrew a year later, she decided to step away from the business. She was married to Jerry Bick, a literary agent who would produce such films as Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) and Thieves Like Us.

    Fletcher said she did not want to appear in Thieves Like Us because of her husband’s involvement, but Altman insisted.

    To prepare for her role in Cuckoo’s Nest, Fletcher observed group therapy sessions at Oregon State Hospital in Salem, where the movie was shot. She spent 11 weeks at the facility during the making of the film.

    In her New York Times interview, she described Mildred Ratched: “She was so out of touch with her feelings that she had no joy in her life and no concept of the fact that she could be wrong. She delivered her care of her insane patients in a killing manner, but she was convinced she was right.”


    Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called her performance “masterful,” and the film also won Oscars for best director, picture, actor and screenplay, a sweep matched only by It Happened One Night (1934) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).


    Fletcher never approached such acting greatness again.


    The role of Linnea, the gospel-singing mother of two deaf children in Nashville (1975), was created with her in mind, but she and her husband had a falling-out with Altman, and Lily Tomlin
    got the part (and an eventual supporting actress Oscar nom).

    Fletcher did appear in other movies including The Lady in Red (1979), Brainstorm (1983), Firestarter (1984), Invaders From Mars (1986), Flowers in the Attic (1987), Two Moon Junction (1988), Blue Steel (1989), The Player (1992) — back in good graces with Altman — Virtuosity (1995), High School High (1996), Mulholland Falls (1996), Cruel Intentions (1999) and A Map of the World (1999).

    After she and Bick divorced, she made tabloid headlines by being romantically involved with the much-younger Morgan Mason. (The son of British actor James Mason, he went on to marry singer Belinda Carlisle.)


    In addition to her sons, survivors include her sister, Roberta.


    Forever known for playing Nurse Ratched, Fletcher
    noted in 2012 that she could no longer bear to watch herself in Cuckoo’s Nest. “I was really shocked in those scenes where I was actually so cruel,” she said.

    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...st-1235226635/

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