YBTL 2005 Deaths To Date
(Update
12/28/05)
Legendary cartoonist
Will Eisner who created the Spirit, a hero without superpowers, has died at the
age of 87 on Monday 01/3/05 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. where he lived. Will Eisner, an innovative comic-book
artist who created the Spirit, a hero without superpowers, and the first modern
graphic novel, "A Contract With God," died on Monday in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., where he lived. He was 87. His death came after quadruple bypass surgery, said Denis
Kitchen, his friend and publisher.
Eisner's work was notable
for its gritty, expressionist storytelling. The Spirit was a masked detective
who, like Batman, lacked superpowers. What made the Spirit strip stand out was
its verbal austerity and the film noir-like composition of its images, full of
rain and urban shadows. In fact, Eisner was the first to break out of the grid
format, expanding or contracting the panel according to the mood of a scene, or
breaking free of panels altogether to allow the image to spill across an entire
page.
Comics fans call the Spirit "The Citizen Kane" of comics for
its innovation, its seriousness and its influence. It featured a detective,
Denny Colt, who was killed off on the third page. Or so it seemed. It turned out that Colt wasn't exactly
dead. He was reborn as a man in a blue suit, a blue mask and blue gloves: the
Spirit. As Bob Andelman, the author of the forthcoming biography "Will
Eisner: A Spirited Life," describes the comic hero, he was "the
cemetery-dwelling protector of the public and pretty girls in particular."
After the Spirit solved his final case, Eisner wrote and illustrated
training manuals for the U.S. Army for a quarter century. In 1978, he returned
to commercial comics with the publication of A Contract With God, the story of
an immigrant Jew in 1930s New York. He coined the term "graphic
novel" to describe the book-length tale told in sequential pictures. He wrote dozens of books with themes
serious and frivolous. One of the comic industry's highest honors, the Eisner
Award, is named for him.
William Erwin Eisner was born March 6, 1917, in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Jewish
immigrants. He knew intimately tenement life that would act as backdrops for
his art.
Ol’ Dying Bastards picks up the 20 point solo hit and 4 points
for The Harry Helmsley Award for the First Stiff of the Year for a grand total
of 24 points.
Louis
J. Robichaud, the man credited with transforming New Brunswick into a modern,
bilingual province, died Thursday 01/6/05 at the age of 79. Robichaud swept
into power at age 34, leading the Liberal Party to victory in 1960. The first
Acadian elected premier in the province, he served for 10 years. Known as
"Little Louis" because of his short height, Robichaud united the
numerous education, taxation, health-care and social welfare systems in the
province under the Program for Equal Opportunity.
His
government also revised liquor laws, created collective bargaining rights for
the civil service, established a department of youth, appointed a provincial
ombudsman, adopted a non-premium medicare system, and revitalized the
province's natural resources sector, particularly mines and forests. He also
created the Université de Moncton, and passed the Official Languages Act,
making New Brunswick the only officially bilingual province in the country.
Robichaud
said he never understood the opposition to his policies, including a campaign
by the richest man in the province, industrialist K. C. Irving.
Doctors
discovered Robichaud's cancer weeks ago, but it was already out of control,
said his former deputy minister Robert Pichette.
He
is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, three children: Paul, Rene and Monique,
along with several grandchildren.
Forrest
Tucker's Ghost, Mafia Actuary and Putnam's Tomahawk Chop score 16
points each.
Rock & roll manager and writer Danny
Sugerman, best known as the manager of the Doors and the co-author of the best-selling
Jim Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive, passed away Wednesday night
01/5/05 at the age of 50 after a lengthy battle with lung cancer. Sugerman
parlayed an early love affair with the Doors' music -- detailed in his colorful
and humorous tales of rock & roll excess, Wonderland Avenue -- into a job
answering the band's fan mail at age thirteen. From that point on, he developed
a close friendship with Morrison and the rest of the quartet.
"He was a fine, good and decent man," Doors
keyboardist Ray Manzarek told Rolling Stone. "Smart as a whip with a very
high I.Q. He was my great friend. I've known him since he was fourteen years
old, and he gradually developed into one of the new breed of Jewish American
Buddhists. His heart was in the heavens and he is now in the light with the
Buddha and Jim Morrison."
Sugerman also went on to manage Iggy Pop, but he
maintained his connection with the Doors, serving as a consultant on Oliver
Stone's 1990 biopic The Doors.
Sugerman is survived by his wife Fawn (formerly Fawn
Hall), his brother Joseph and his sister Nan. A recovering addict, Sugerman was
active in such organizations as the Drug Policy Foundation, Musicians
Assistance Program and NARAS' MusiCares Foundation.
Forrest Tucker's Ghost, Black Plague, E-Brake and La Morte la Diventa all pick up 14 points plus 8 bonus points (4 for under 65, 4 for under 55) for a nifty total of 22 points each.
Named
lieutenant-governor in February, 2000, Hole was well known for her
philanthropy, and her support for literacy. A gardening enthusiast, Hole, along
with her husband, ran one of Western Canada's largest retail gardening stores.
The author of many gardening books, Hole was a regular contributor to a number
of newspapers, including the Globe and Mail, Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun.
She also made a number of appearances on CBC TV's Canadian Gardener. She was
famous for the hugs she offered to almost everyone she met.
Last
October an addition at the Royal Alexandra Hospital was named the Lois Hole
Hospital for Women.
Mafia
Actuary and Monty Python's Dying Circus pick up 18 points each.
Ruth Warrick, one of
ALL MY CHILDREN's original cast members as the portrayer of Phoebe English
Tyler Wallingford, died 01/15/05 in her New York City home of complications
from pneumonia. She was 88.
Born in St. Joseph, MO, Warrick got her start in professional acting at NYC's
Mercury Theater, headed by actor and director Orson Welles, with whom she later
would make her film debut, in Citizen Kane. Thirty-plus film roles would
follow. Warrick first graced television in 1953 on GUIDING LIGHT, then on AS
THE WORLD TURNS and PEYTON PLACE (for which she received her first Emmy
nomination). In 1970, she joined AMC for its premiere, went on to earn a pair
of Daytime Emmy nods for her portrayal of Phoebe, and was honored last May with
a Lifetime Achievement Emmy. Her Broadway career included runs in Irene
(opposite Debbie Reynolds), Take Me Along (with Jackie Gleason) and Pal
Joey.
"Acting was Ruth's passion and her life," shares TV niece Julia Barr
(Brooke). "She was a real pip — a grand dame and a consummate
professional. I will miss her very much."
Charlie Bell, who
began his McDonald's Corp. career as a part-time worker in a suburban Sydney
restaurant and later became chief executive of the fast-food icon, died Monday
01/17/05 of colon cancer in his native Australia, McDonald's announced. He was
44.
Bell was diagnosed with cancer last May, only a month after ascending to the top job. He left the fast food giant in November, after several rounds of treatment. Bell started at a Sydney-area restaurant in 1975 and became the youngest store manager in Australia by the age of 19. From 1993 until late 1999 Bell was managing director of McDonald's Australia. He then served as president of McDonald's Europe until December 2002, when he was named president and chief operating officer and a board member of McDonald's.
"Charlie
Bell gave his all to McDonald's," said Andrew J. McKenna, chairman of the
company's board. "Even during his hospitalization and chemotherapy,
Charlie led this company with pride and determination."
Bell was replaced as CEO by Jim Skinner, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company's
third CEO in a year. Bell was chosen to follow former chief James Cantalupo,
who died of a heart attack in April 2004.
Zhao Ziyang, the
former Chinese Communist Party leader who helped pioneer reforms that launched
China's economic boom but was ousted after the 1989 Tiananmen Square
pro-democracy protests, died Monday 01/17/05 at a Beijing hospital. He was 85.
The cause of death wasn't immediately announced, but the official announcement
of Zhao's passing said he suffered from multiple ailments of the respiratory
and cardiovascular systems. Zhao had lived under house arrest for 15 years. A
premature report of his death last week prompted the Chinese comment to break
its long silence about him and disclose that he had been hospitalized.
Zhao, a former premier and dapper, articulate protege of the late supreme
leader Deng Xiaoping, helped to forge bold economic reforms in the 1980s that
brought China new prosperity and flung open its doors to the outside world. In
the end, he fell out of favor with Deng and was purged on June 24, 1989, after
the military crushed the student-led pro-democracy protests. He was accused of
"splitting the party" by supporting demonstrators who wanted a faster
pace of democratic reform.
Zhao was last seen in public on May 19, 1989, the day before martial law was
declared in Beijing, when he made a tearful visit to Tiananmen Square to talk
to student hunger strikers. He apologized to the students, saying, "I have
come too late." Usually seen dressed in tailored Western suits, Zhao
served as premier in 1980-1987, then took over as general secretary of the
Communist Party, the most powerful post in China. He helped initiate sweeping
changes that invigorated an economy mired in the ruins of the 1966-76 Cultural
Revolution. Austere central planning gave way to material incentives and market
forces that made China the world's fastest-growing economy. Those changes also
brought inflation, income gaps between the rich and poor, corruption and other
problems that Zhao would be blamed for when the conservatives drove him from
power. Deng brought Zhao to Beijing in 1980 as a vice premier and member of the
party's powerful Politburo.
Bam Morris Up The
Middle, Curb Your Dogma, Die2K, Life'll Kill Ya and Van Owens Body score 12
points each.
David Nuuhiwa Sr., 82, a
Hawaiian whose expertise brought him celebrity in California surfing circles,
died Friday 01/21/05 in Hawaii from stomach cancer. In December, he was
inducted into the Surfers' Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach, Calif.
"Uncle" David was also a legend in the world of martial arts. From 1953 to 1965 David had 822 matches and untold honors, never having lost a bout in competition. He had won the rare red belt in Karate, of which he was one of only five in the world to hold this rank and the only American ever to hold this honor.
Among his famous feats of skill, David had battled an eight foot Watusi Warrior in Africa and had killed a charging bull with one snap of his wrist and powerful shoulders. This feat was demonstrated on such television shows as 'You Asked For It.' He also appeared on the Ed Sullivan show and the Steve Allen show and was a stuntman in the movie 'Mr. Roberts.'
Bam Morris Up The Middle picks up a gnarly 20 points for the solo
Active Squad hit, while Die2K gets 3 points for having Nuuhiwa on the Taxi
Squad.
Johnny Carson, the
long-time host of NBC television`s "Tonight Show," has died at the
age of 79 on Sunday 01/23/05.
Carson, a pioneer of late night television comedy and the talk show format in
the United States, stepped down as host of the "Tonight Show" in
1992, when he was replaced by the current host Jay Leno.
The Nebraska-born Carson had hosted the "Tonight Show" since 1962. He
interviewed scores of celebrities during his years on the ground-breaking
broadcast. Carson`s final guests were singer Bette Midler and comedian Robin
Williams. His last show was seen by an audience of 50 million across the United
States according to NBC.
Carson was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1987 and awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992.
He underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 1999.
Deadbeats, Deadly Negative, Fecal Matter, Gone With The Wind, He's Dead John, Life is a Bitch Then You Die and To Die For score 8 points each for the Active Squad hits. Genius In the Lamp's Yes We Got a Video, Inverse Genesis and Six Feet Under score 3 points each for placing Johnny on their Taxi Squads.
Philip Johnson, the innovative
architect who promoted the "glass box" skyscraper and then smashed
the mold with daringly nostalgic post-modernist designs, has died. He was 98.
Johnson died Tuesday night 01/25/05 in New Canaan, Conn., where he lived,
according to Joel S. Ehrenkranz, his lawyer. John Elderfield, a curator at the
Museum of Modern Art, also confirmed the death Wednesday.
Philip Cortelyou Johnson was born July 8, 1906, in Cleveland, the only son of
Homer H. Johnson, a well-to-do attorney, and his wife, Louise. After graduating
with honors from Harvard in 1927 with a degree in philosophy, he toured Europe
and became interested in new styles of architecture.
That interest became his life's work in 1932, when Johnson was appointed
chairman of the department of architecture of the Museum of Modern Art in New
York. That same year, he mounted an influential exhibition, "The
International Style: Architecture 1922-1932."
Johnson's work ranged from the severe modernism of his own home to the
Chippendale-topped AT&T Building in New York City, now owned by Sony, and
the IDS Center in Minneapolis.
Crypt Kickers, Excuse Me For Coffin, Go Fish, Goodbye Cruel World, Mafia
Actuary and Yersinia Pestis all score 10 points each; 4 of those teams with
their first hit of year.
Ivan
Noble, the BBC News journalist who has been writing about his treatment for a
brain tumour for the past two years, has died aged 37. Thousands of users of
the BBC News website followed regular accounts of his cancer, which last year
included a second period of remission. In November, however, his tumour began
to grow again and last month he was admitted to a London hospice. Ivan
died on Monday 01/31/05 and leaves a wife and two children.
Pete Clifton, editor of BBC News Interactive, said: "Ivan's column and his tremendous spirit have been an inspiration to all of us - to his many readers around the world and to his colleagues at the BBC.
"He asked to write the diary soon after the original diagnosis. He
wanted to talk openly about cancer, to demystify the disease and allow
people to talk freely about it. And, as a journalist, he wanted to carry on
writing absorbing material for the site. Typically, he delivered on every
count. The dialogue that opened up between Ivan and the readers was remarkable.
We will all miss Ivan, and his column, but I think his
humour, bravery and compassion will leave a lasting impression on us all."
Ivan was born in Leeds in 1967 and was educated at comprehensive schools
in Luton and Leeds before studying German at the University of
Aston in Birmingham. He lived in East Germany from 1988 until 1990 where he
worked as a translator. After graduation he joined the BBC, initially as a
translator, then as a sub-editor in Nairobi. He became an internet journalism
trainer and in 2001 joined the BBC News website science and technology team as
a journalist.
Forrest Tucker's Ghost scores 20 points for the solo hit plus 8
bonus points (under 65 + under 55) for a whopping 28 points!
German boxing legend
Max Schmeling, one of the greatest heavyweight fighters of all time, has died
at age 99. The former world champion, one of Germany's biggest sports idols,
died Wednesday 02/02/05, according to his foundation in Hamburg. Born Sept. 28,
1905, of humble origins in a small town in the state of Brandenburg, Schmeling
first got interested in boxing after seeing a film about the sport.
He became the first German and European heavyweight world champion when he beat
Jack Sharkey in New York on June 12, 1930, after the American was disqualified
for a fourth-round low blow. But it was his two fights against Louis that set
off a propaganda war between the Nazi regime and the United States on the eve
of World War II. Schmeling lost his title to Sharkey two years later on a
disputed decision, but came back to knock out the previously unbeaten Louis in
the 12th round on June 19, 1936, which the Nazi regime trumpeted as a sign of
"Aryan supremacy''. Schmeling came into the fight as a 10-1 underdog, and
his victory is considered one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. But, in
a rematch at New York's Yankee Stadium in June 1938, Louis knocked Schmeling
out in the first round to retain the world title.
With the outbreak of war, Schmeling found himself conscripted (at the Minister
of Sport's suggestion, and with Hitler's approval) into the armed forces,
despite being, at 35, over the age of conscription. Schmeling served in the
Third Parachute Regiment for three and a half years, taking part in the May
1941 airborne invasion of Crete, during which he injured his leg and back. He
was discharged in 1943 with the rank of corporal and the Iron Cross 2nd Class
(awarded for propaganda purposes).
Having lost his farm in eastern Germany, Schmeling, then aged 42, returned to
the ring in 1947, managing three wins (all by knockout) and two losses (both on
points), before finally retiring in 1948 with a record of 56 wins, 4 draws, and
10 losses.
Following a number of agricultural ventures, Schmeling was awarded a lucrative
Coca-Cola bottling and distribution franchise in 1957, which he continued to
run until Anny Ondra's death 30 years later, after which he retired to his
Hamburg home. He became firm friends with Joe Louis, and helped financially
when the latter's health began to fail.
In a poll conducted in the era of Boris Becker, Steffi Graf and Michael
Schumacher, Max Schmeling was voted Germany's outstanding sports personality of
the century, a fitting accolade for a fine boxer (who, as one fellow fighter
eloquently put it, "could hit like a bastard") and a brave man.
22 teams score with the passing of Schmeling (18 get 8 points, 4 get 3 points). This is the most popular hit so far.
Ernst Mayr, a Harvard
University evolutionary biologist called "the Darwin of the 20th
century," died on Thursday 02/03/05, the school says. He was 100. Born in
1904 in Kempten, Germany, Mayr earned a medical degree from the University of
Greifswald in 1925. Descended from generations of doctors, he broke off his
medical career and turned his attention to zoology, earning a doctorate from
the University of Berlin just 16 months later.
A member of the Harvard faculty for more than half a century, Mayr was
considered the world's most eminent evolutionary biologist. He almost
single-handedly made the origin of species diversity the central question of
evolutionary biology that it is today, Harvard said.
In an interview with The Boston Globe before his 100th birthday last year, Mayr
said he always had "tremendous curiosity" and balked at suggestions
he stop working. "People say to me, Why don't you retire?' I say, 'My God,
why should I retire? I enjoy what I'm doing,'" he told the Globe.
Through his travels in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, Mayr showed what
Darwin had never quite established: that new species arise from isolated
populations.
Mayr's death came amid renewed debate in the United States over the teaching of
evolution. One Pennsylvania school district recently became the first in the
country to begin teaching "intelligent design" -- an alternative to
evolution that contends nature was created by an all-powerful being.
Black Plague, Life'll Kill Ya and Metabolically Challenged each pick up 16 points for Mayr, now the early leader for oldest stiff of the year.
Ossie Davis, the actor distinguished for
roles dealing with racial injustice on stage, screen and in real life, died on
Friday 02/04/05. He was 87.
Davis, the husband and partner of actress Ruby Dee, was found dead Friday in
his hotel room in Miami, where he was making a film called "Retirement,"
according to Arminda Thomas, who works in his office in suburban New Rochelle,
NY.
Davis, who wrote, acted, directed and produced for the theater and Hollywood,
was a central figure among black performers of the last five decades. He and
Dee celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1998 with the publication of a
dual autobiography, "In This Life Together." Their partnership called
to mind other performing couples, such as the Lunts, or Hume Cronyn and Jessica
Tandy. Davis and Dee first appeared together in the plays "Jeb," in
1946, and "Anna Lucasta," in 1946-47. Davis' first film, "No Way
Out" in 1950, was Dee's fifth. Both had key roles in the television series
"Roots: The Next Generation" (1978), "Martin Luther King: The
Dream and the Drum" (1986) and "The Stand" (1994). Davis
appeared in three Spike Lee films, including "School Daze," "Do
the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever."
Dead Like Me gets a big boost of 20 points with the solo hit.
Veteran
rhythm-and-blues singer Tyrone Davis died Wednesday 02/09/05, four months after
he suffered a stroke that left him in a coma, his business partner said. He was
66. Davis was hospitalized in September and was undergoing rehabilitation at a
suburban Chicago nursing home at the time of his death.
Born in Greenville, Miss., Davis came under the influence of blues
legends Bobby "Blue" Bland, Little Milton and Otis Clay. He sang at
clubs in Chicago before landing his first recording contract. Davis began his
career in the 1960s, and his baritone voice and warm and romantic singing style
made him popular in the 1970s. He was best known for the hits "Can I
Change My Mind" and "Turn Back the Hands of Time" for the Dakar
label. Davis moved to Columbia Records in 1976, where he recorded several hits,
including "Give It Up (Turn It Loose)" and the ballad "In the
Mood."
As his popularity faded in the 1980s, he was released by Columbia, though
he continued to record. He was promoting his latest release when he suffered
the stroke.
Already Dead scores the 20 point solo hit, while Die2K gets
3 for the Taxi Squad score.
Playwright Arthur
Miller, the creator of The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, has died at the
age of 89 at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut on Thursday evening 02/10/05, having
battled with cancer, pneumonia and a heart condition.
He was one of the most significant American writers of the 20th Century.
New York-born Miller was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman in
1949 at the age of just 33. His play The Crucible was inspired by the hysteria
of the McCarthy witch hunts which he became embroiled in. When he testified in
front of a congressional committee in 1956 he refused to reveal any names and
so was held in contempt. The decision was overturned two years later. The
Crucible, set during the Salem trials of the 1690s led to suspected witches
being killed amid mass hysteria.
Although already considered one of the foremost literary giants of his
era he was catapulted into the pop culture sphere following his marriage to
actress Monroe. The tempestuous marriage lasted just five years.
Among Miller's other plays were A View from the Bridge and later works
were The Ride Down Mount Morgan and The Last Yankee. The main character in
Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman, became a symbol of the struggle of the
"little man" to realise the American Dream.
Dark Clouds and Silva Linings, Goodbye Cruel World and Hannibal Lechter's
All You Can Eat Buffet score their first 14 points of the year. Dead Like Me
rounds out the scoring for Miller.
Former
priest James Porter, whose widespread molestation of dozens of children
foreshadowed the clergy sex abuse scandal that swept the Roman Catholic church,
died Friday 02/11/05. Porter, 70, died at New England Medical Center in Boston,
where he had been treated since being transferred from a Department of
Correction medical facility last month. A cause of death was not immediately
available, but Porter's attorney had said the former priest had incurable
cancer.
Porter's case was the first high-profile one involving allegations that a
priest had molested children in his parish - and that the church had simply
moved him from parish to parish to try to avoid scandal. Porter pleaded guilty
in 1993 to molesting 28 children, but once told a television reporter that he
molested as many as 100 children during his time as a priest in the 1960s and
early 1970s in the Fall River Diocese.
Porter left the priesthood in 1974, married and became the father of four
children. He was convicted of molesting his children's teenage baby sitter in
1987, and was released from a Minnesota jail after serving four months. He
returned to face trial in Massachusetts, and in 1993 pleaded guilty to
molesting 28 children and was sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison.
He was scheduled to be released in January 2004, but the state moved to
have him classified as sexually dangerous to keep him behind bars indefinitely.
During the hearing, his victims took to the stand to tell wrenching stories of
being raped or molested.
Bam Morris Up The Middle, Curb Your Dogma, Die2K and Mafia Actuary pick
up 14 points each.
Sister Lucia
Marto dos Santos, the last of three children who claimed to have seen the
Virgin Mary in a series of 1917 apparitions in the town of Fatima, died Sunday
02/13/05. She was 97. Sister Lucia, a Roman Catholic nun, had been ill for the
past three months and died Sunday at the Convent of Carmelitas in Coimbra, 120
miles north of Lisbon.
Lucia and two of her cousins, siblings Jacinta and Francisco, said in
1917 that the Virgin Mary had been appearing to them once a month and
predicting events, such as world wars, the reemergence of Christianity in
Russia, and one that Church officials say foretold the 1981 attempted
assassination of Pope John Paul II. The appearances took place on the 13th day
of each month in Fatima, a town about 70 miles north of Lisbon. The first
sighting was May 13, and the appearances continued for another five months,
ending abruptly in October. Shortly after, Jacinta and Francisco died of
respiratory diseases. But Lucia became a nun and penned two memoirs while
living in convents. In recent years she suffered from blindness and deafness.
The pope has visited the shrine in Fatima three times since becoming
pontiff in 1978, spending a few minutes with Lucia during a 1991 trip to the
site. He has claimed the Virgin of Fatima saved his life after he was shot by a
Turkish gunman in St. Peter's Square in 1981. The attack, on May 13, coincided
with the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, and John Paul credits the Virgin's
intercession for his survival. In 2000, he visited Fatima to beatify Jacinta
and Francisco.
Bam Morris Up
The Middle gets
a big 20 points for the solo hit on the soon-to-be-saint.
Actress Sandra Dee, a perky
blonde teen matinee idol of the 1950s and 1960s who played the title role in
the surfer film "Gidget," died Sunday 02/20/05 in Thousand Oaks,
California, a hospital spokeswoman said. Dee died shortly before 6 a.m. at Los
Robles Hospital & Medical Center near Los Angeles. She was 63. Dee's death
was caused by complications from kidney disease for which she had been
hospitalized for two weeks prior to her death.
A former child actress and model, Dee made her film debut
in "Until They Sail" in 1957. She rose to stardom in the 1959 film
"Gidget," about a teenage girl who falls for a surfer. The same year
Dee and Troy Donahue starred as teenage lovers in the popular film "A
Summer Place."
In 1960, Dee married Darin. Together the young duo
starred in "Come September" (1961), "If A Man Answers"
(1962), and "That Funny Feeling" (1965). Dee also took over the title
role from Debbie Reynolds in the popular "Tammy" film series,
starring in "Tammy and the Doctor," (1963) and "Tammy Tell Me
True" (1961). Dee and Darin divorced in 1967 and her career faded shortly
thereafter. She never remarried. Her popularity was briefly revived after the
film "Grease" (1978) patterned a lead character after her and named
one of its signature songs "Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee."
She was portrayed last year by Kate Bosworth in the film
"Beyond the Sea," which also starred Kevin Spacey as Darin.
Deadbeats scores a big 24 points (20 for the solo hit and 4 for the Under 65 bonus) and shakes up the standings.
John Raitt, the robust
baritone who created the role of Billy Bigelow in the original New York
production of "Carousel" and sang with Doris Day in the movie
"Pajama Game," died Sunday 02/20/05. He was 88. Raitt, the father of
the blues and rock singer and songwriter Bonnie Raitt, died peacefully from complications
with pneumonia at his Pacific Palisades home. John Emmett Raitt was born Jan.
10, 1917, in Santa Ana, Calif. At Fullerton Union he excelled in track, winning
a scholarship to the University of Southern California. He concluded his
college education at the University of Redlands in 1940.
His deep, resonant voice developed early, and he sang at service clubs and
churches throughout Southern California. His professional debut came in 1940 as
a chorus singer in "HMS Pinafore" with the Los Angeles Civic Light
Opera, where he would be a frequent star in later years.
With little operatic training, he sang lead roles in "The Barber of
Seville" and "Carmen" at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. That led
to the fateful meeting with Rodgers and Hammerstein. Raitt had become well
known on the West Coast for his handsome presence and ringing voice when in
1944 he was invited to New York to try out for the role of Curly in the road
company of "Oklahoma!" He was rushed from Penn Station to the St.
James Theater and an audition with Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers. In
1995, Raitt recalled: "I hadn't sung since California, so I said, `Do you
mind if I warm up?' I sang Figaro's aria from `The Barber of Seville.' Then I
sang all of Curly's songs.'" There was silence when he finished. The
problem was not his voice, which was both melodic and powerful, but his height.
At 6 feet 2 was he too tall for Curly? Hammerstein reasoned: "I'm a tall
man. Why can't Curly be tall?" Raitt was hired for the Chicago company of
"Oklahoma!"
Rodgers and Hammerstein had been working on their second collaboration,
"Carousel," and they chose Raitt for the role of the doomed hero
Billy Bigelow. Raitt astounded the opening night audience in 1945 with his
dynamic Soliloquy, which he called "practically a one-act opera which took
six and a half minutes to sing." He said Hammerstein had been inspired to
write it when he heard the newcomer sing Figaro at the audition.
Raitt's star status on Broadway was assured, and after the long run in "Carousel"
he appeared in "Magdalena," "Three Wishes for Jamie" and
"Carnival in Flanders." He lacked a big crossover to film until
"The Pajama Game" in 1954. "The Pajama Game" became a
successful movie with Raitt and several others in their stage roles and Doris
Day for popular appeal. The numbers "Hey, There," "Steam
Heat" and "Once a Year Day," choreographed by Bob Fosse, helped
make the 1957 film a delight. Despite his good notices, it was Raitt's only
starring movie (he had played two minor roles while briefly under contract to
MGM in 1940).
In his later years, Raitt was overshadowed by the fame of his blues-singing
daughter. He delighted in her success and approved of her campaigning for civil
rights, peace and other causes. "She used to be known as John Raitt's
daughter; now I'm known as Bonnie Raitt's father," he observed. After she
had become a big attraction in pop music, they sometimes appeared together,
singing duets with her song "Blowing Away" and his "Hey,
There."
In his 80s, he continued touring with a one-man show, "An Evening with
John Raitt," and made appearances with Bonnie on the Boston Pops broadcast
and her own concerts.
Bonnie and two brothers, Steven and David, were born to Raitt's first marriage
to Marjorie Haydock. They divorced in 1971. A second marriage to Kathleen Smith
Landry ended in divorce in 1981. That year he learned from an old Santa Ana
friend that Raitt's high school sweetheart had recently been widowed.
"Having played Zorba, I believe in grabbing at life," he recalled.
"So I called her and this sweet voice answered. `I'm free now,' I told
her, `and I'm coming to dinner.'"
Raitt and Rosemary Kraemer were married in 1981. Bonnie sang "Safe in Your
Arms" at the wedding. Raitt sang "My Heart's Darling" at her
1991 wedding to actor Michael O'Keefe.
Raymond
Mhlaba, an African National Congress veteran who was sentenced with Nelson
Mandela to life imprisonment in 1964 for trying to overthrow South Africa's apartheid
regime, has died at age 85. "Oom Ray," as he was widely known, died
of cancer Sunday 02/20/05 at a hospital in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth.
Born in an Eastern Cape village, Mhlaba dropped out of
school because of lack of money. He worked in a dry cleaning factory in Port
Elizabeth, an experience that turned him into a committed trade unionist and
political activist. In 1943, he joined the Communist Party, which was banned in
1950. He joined the ANC in 1944. After the ANC was banned in 1960, Mhlaba fled
to China for military training. He returned to South African in 1962 and became
commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe,
the military wing of the ANC.
Mhlaba was arrested in a sweep by security forces on the
ANC's underground headquarters at a farm in Rivonia in northern Johannesburg in
1963. Mandela, Mhlaba and six others - including Govan Mbeki, the father of the
current president - stood trial for sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the
government. In June 1964 they were sentenced to life in prison and sent to
Robben Island, the notorious prison on a remote island near Cape Town. Together
with other Rivonia defendants, Mhlaba was released in 1989.
When the ANC swept to power in the first democratic
multiracial elections in 1994, Mhlaba became premier of the newly created
province of the Eastern Cape. He resigned in 1997 for health reasons and
subsequently acted as ambassador to Rwanda and Burundi.
He is survived by his wife and three children.
Bam Morris Up the Middle and Die2K each pick up 18 points for Mhlaba.
Gene Scott, the
shaggy-haired, cigar-smoking televangelist whose eccentric religious broadcasts
were beamed around the world, has died. He was 75. Scott died Monday 02/21/05
after suffering a stroke.
Hans
Bethe, who worked on the Manhattan Project and won a belated Nobel Prize in
physics in 1967 for figuring out how the sun and stars generate energy, has
died at age 98. He died at his home Sunday, 03/06/05. He had joined the faculty
at Cornell University in 1935 after fleeing Nazi Germany.
Bethe
was the last of the giants of the golden age of 20th-century physics. During
World War II, he was a key figure in the building of the first atomic bomb as
head of the Manhattan Project's theoretical physics division at Los Alamos,
N.M.
Bethe also made major discoveries about how atoms are built up from smaller particles, about what makes dying stars blow up, and how the heavier elements are produced from the ashes of these supernovas.
Excuse Me For Coffin, Mafia Actuary, Monty Python's Dying Circus and Van Owens Body receive 14 points each for Bethe. Life’ll Kill Ya gets 3 points for the Taxi Squad hit.
Country
singer Chris LeDoux died Wednesday 03/09/05 of complications from liver cancer.
He was 56. He was diagnosed with cancer last year, and was undergoing radiation
treatments. In 2000, LeDoux successfully underwent a liver transplant after
being diagnosed with liver disease. LeDoux had recorded 22 albums on his own
Lucky Man Music label when Garth Brooks mentioned his name in the hit song,
"Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)" in 1989. Shortly thereafter,
LeDoux signed with Brooks' label, Capitol Nashville, where he recorded 15
albums and sold nearly six million copies.
LeDoux underwent a liver transplant in October 2000 after
being diagnosed with a rare liver disease, primary sclerosing cholangitis. In
November 2004, LeDoux confirmed he had been diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma,
a slow-growing cancer of the bile duct.
Born Oct. 2, 1948, in Biloxi, Miss., Chris LeDoux was raised
in Austin, Texas. His father was an Air Force pilot who moved the family
throughout the U.S. While spending time in Texas and Wyoming, LeDoux gained an
interest in music and the rodeo. In 1976, he earned the title of world champion
bareback rider from the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA).
Already Dead and Monty Python's Dying Circus each
pick up 22 points (18 + 4 for Under 65).
Glenn
Davis, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1946 and helped lead Army to three
national championships, died Wednesday 03/09/05. He was 80. Davis died of
complications from prostate cancer at his home in La Quinta, located about 110
miles east of Los Angeles.
Davis starred as a halfback for Army when it won national
titles in 1944 and 1945. The Cadets and Notre Dame played to a scoreless tie in
1946, and split the national championship. Davis teamed with fullback Felix
"Doc" Blanchard as one of the most heralded backfields in the history
of college football. He was known as "Mr. Outside" to Blanchard's
"Mr. Inside."
Davis scored 59 touchdowns and gained 4,129 yards in
rushing and receiving in his college career. He still holds NCAA records for
most yards gained per play in one season, averaging 11.5 yards per carry in
1945; 8.3 career yards per carry; and he and Blanchard share the record for
most touchdowns (97) and points (585) scored by teammates in a career. In 1946,
Davis won the Heisman and was voted male athlete of the year by The Associated
Press.
In 1944, after a famous season-ending win over Navy, Gen.
Douglas MacArthur even took time out from his war duties to send this wire:
"The greatest of all Army teams ... We have stopped the war to celebrate
your magnificent success. MacArthur." After serving his military
obligation, Davis joined the Los Angeles Rams, playing on the team that won the
1951 NFL championship before a knee injury cut his career short in 1952.
Bam Morris Up The Middle, Die2K and Forrest Tucker's Ghost get 16 points each for Davis.
William
Lehman, 91, a used-car dealer who later served 20 years in the U.S. House of
Representatives and became a force on transportation legislation, died
Wednesday 03/16/05 at a hospital in Miami Beach. His heart was weakened from a
recent bout with pneumonia.
Mr. Lehman, known as "Alabama Bill" when he was
in business, owed his nickname to his birthplace. But he spent most of his
car-sales career in Miami, a district he served as a Democrat in the House from
1973 to 1993.
Lehman rose through House ranks to become chairman of a
House Appropriations Committee panel that oversaw transportation spending,
giving him broad authority over billions of dollars for highways, seaports and
mass transit systems. He helped bring federal funding for several major
transportation projects in the Miami area, including Metrorail and a causeway
in northwestern Miami-Dade that bears his name. He was unopposed for
re-election in 1988 and won in 1990 with 78 percent of the vote. He had a
liberal voting record, opposing a constitutional amendment banning
flag-burning, voting against military aid to Nicaragua's contra rebels and
against sending troops to the Persian Gulf in the first Iraq war. He also went
to Cuba in 1988 and negotiated release of three political prisoners and was an
advocate for Haitian refugees.
Die2K gets 20 points for the solo hit on a Taxi Squad Call-Up.
Diplomat
and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian George F. Kennan, who gave the name
"containment" to postwar foreign policy in a famous but anonymous
article, died Thursday 03/17/05 at his Princeton home. Kennan was 101.
Identified only as "X," Kennan laid out the
general lines of the containment policy in the journal "Foreign
Affairs" in 1947, when he was chief of the State Department's policy
planning staff. The article also predicted the collapse of Soviet Communism
decades later. "It is clear that the main element of any United States
policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm
and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies," Kennan wrote.
When the Communist Party was finally driven from power
in the Soviet Union after the failed hardline coup in August 1991, Kennan
called it "a turning point of the most momentous historical
significance."
Bury Me Shallow, Curb Your Dogma, Die2K, Forrest Tucker's Ghost, Mafia Actuary and Van Owens Body all pick up 10 points for Kennan.
Former
Labour Prime Minister Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, has died aged 92 on
03/26/05 at home in East Sussex, just 11 days after he watched his wife Audrey die
aged 91. Lord Callaghan, who would have been 93 on Sunday, recently became the
oldest living former British PM in history. He succeeded Harold Wilson as Prime
Minister in 1976, and remained in office until the Labour defeat at the General
Election in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher formed an administration.
Leonard James Callaghan was born 27 March, 1912, the son
of James Callaghan, Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy. He held each of the
major offices of Chancellor, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Prime
Minister during his career.
He entered Civil Service as a Tax Officer, 1929;
Assistant Secretary, Inland Revenue Staff Federation, 1936-47 (with an interval
during the Second World War when he served in the Royal Navy); joined the
Labour Party in 1931; Labour MP for Cardiff South 1945-50; Labour MP for SE Cardiff 1950-83; Labour MP for
Cardiff South & Penarth 1983-87; Parliamentary Secertary, Ministry of
Transport, 1947-50; Chairman, Committee on Road Safety, 1948-50; Parliamentary
and Financial Secretary, Admiralty, 1950-51; Opposition spokesman: Transport,
1951-53; Fuel and Power 1953-55; Colonial Affairs 1956-61; Shadow Chancellor
1961-64; Chancellor of the
Exchequer 1964-67; Home Secretary 1967-70; Shadow Home Secretary, 1970-71;
Opposition Spokesman on Employment, 1971-72; Shadow Foreign Secretary, 1972-74;
Secretary of State for Foreign
& Commonwealth Affairs, 1974-76; Prime Minister and First Lord of the
Treasury, 1976-79; Leader of the Labour Party, 1976-80; Leader of the
Opposition, 1979-80; Father of the House of Commons, 1983-87
He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1964, and was
appointed a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in 1987. He
was ennobled with a life peerage on standing down as a Member of Parliament in
1987.
The Big Casino gets on the board with the solo hit on Callaghan.
Terri
Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose 15 years connected to a feeding
tube sparked an epic legal battle that went all the way to the White House and
Congress, died Thursday 03/31/05, 13 days after the tube was removed. She was
41.
Schiavo died at the Pinellas Park hospice where she lay
for years while her husband and her parents fought over her fate in the
nation's longest, most bitter right-to-die dispute.
Schiavo suffered severe brain damage in 1990 after her
heart stopped because of a chemical imbalance that was believed to have been
brought on by an eating disorder. Court-appointed doctors ruled she was in a
persistent vegetative state, with no real consciousness or chance of recovery.
The feeding tube was removed with a judge's approval
March 18 after Michael Schiavo argued that his wife told him long ago she would
not want to be kept alive artificially. His in-laws disputed that, and argued
that she could get better with treatment.
During the seven-year legal battle, Florida lawmakers,
Congress and President Bush tried to intervene on behalf of her parents, but
state and federal courts at all levels repeatedly ruled in favor of her
husband.
After the tube that supplied a nutrient solution was
disconnected, protesters streamed into Pinellas Park to keep vigil outside her
hospice, with many arrested as they tried to bring her food and water. The
Vatican likened the removal of her feeding tube to capital punishment for an
innocent woman. The Schindlers pleaded for their daughter's life, calling the
removal of the tube "judicial homicide."
Frozen
Heads scores a big 28 points (20 for the solo hit, 4 for Under 65 and 4 for
Under 55) for being the only team leader with the foresight to pick Schiavo.
Frank
Perdue, who built a backyard egg business into one of the nation's largest
poultry processors using the folksy slogan, "It takes a tough man to make
a tender chicken," has died. He died after a brief illness at the age of
84 on Thursday 03/31/05.
At the time of his death, Perdue was chairman of the
executive committee of the board of directors of Perdue Farms Inc.,
headquartered in Salisbury, MD. Perdue turned over the day-to-day
responsibilities of running the company over to his son, Jim Perdue, in 1991.
In 1971, Perdue became his company's television pitchman,
and the first to advertise chickens by brand. His tough, folksy TV persona
helped boost sales from $56 million in 1970 to more than $1.2 billion by 1991.
Still Auditioning for the Choir Invisible gets the first solo Taxi Squad hit of the year for 5 points.
Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) died
on Saturday 04/02/05 at 9:37 p.m. (2:37 p.m. EST).
John Paul will be remembered for his role in the collapse
of communism in Europe and his unyielding defense of traditional Vatican
doctrines as leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics. Huge crowds had
staged a tearful vigil in St. Peter's Square, praying for a man already being
dubbed by some Catholics as "John Paul the Great." The Pope's health
had deteriorated steadily over the past decade and earlier this year took a
sharp turn for the worse.
The Pontiff, once a lithe athlete and powerful speaker,
was already racked by arthritis and Parkinson's Disease, his voice often
reduced to a raspy whisper. He was rushed to hospital twice in February and had
to have a tracheotomy to ease serious breathing problems. But he never regained
his strength from the operation and failed dramatically on two occasions to
address crowds at St. Peter's Square. On Wednesday doctors inserted a feeding
tube into his stomach to try boost his energy levels. A day later he developed
a urinary infection and high fever that soon precipitated heart failure, kidney
problems and ultimately death.
According to pre-written Church rules, the Pontiff's
mourning rites will last 9 days and his body is likely to be laid to rest in
the crypt underneath St Peter's Basilica. The conclave to elect a new Pope will
start in 15 to 20 days, with almost 120 cardinals from around the world
gathering in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel to choose a successor. There is no
favorite candidate to take over. Karol Wojtyla was himself regarded as an
outsider when he was elevated to the papacy on Oct. 16, 1978. Few would have
predicted then that the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years would throw off the
stiff trappings of the papacy, travel the globe and leave an indelible mark on
history.
In over a quarter century on the world stage, he was both
a champion of the downtrodden and an often contested defender of orthodoxy
within his own church. Historians say one of the Pope's most lasting legacies
will be his role in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989.
"Behold the night is over, day has dawned anew," the Pope said during
a triumphant visit to Czechoslovakia in 1990. A decade after witnessing the
fall of communism, he fulfilled another of his dreams. He visited the Holy Land
in March 2000, and, praying at Jerusalem's Western Wall, asked forgiveness for
Catholic sins against Jews over the centuries.
But while many loved the man, his message was less
popular and he was a source of deep division in his own church. Critics
constantly attacked his traditionalist stance on family issues, such as his
condemnation of contraception and homosexuality, and hope the next Pope will be
more liberal. However, he has appointed more than 95 percent of the cardinals
who will elect his successor, thus stacking the odds that his controversial
teachings will not be tampered with.
41 teams get 8 points each for the Active Squad hit,
while Cellar Dwellers and Stiff Sloths get the Taxi Squad
consolation of 3 points each.
Nobel
laureate Saul Bellow, a master of comic melancholy who in Herzog, Humboldt's
Gift and other novels both championed and mourned the soul's fate in the modern
world, died Tuesday 04/05/05 at his home in Brookline, Mass. He was 89.
The son of Russian immigrants, Bellow was born Solomon
Bellows on July 10, 1915, in Lachine, Que. He dropped the final "s"
from his last name and changed his first name to Saul when he began publishing
his writing in the 1940s.
He was the first writer to win the National Book Award
three times: in 1954 for The Adventures of Augie March, in 1965 for Herzog and
in 1971 for Mr. Sammler's Planet. In 1976, he won the Pulitzer Prize for
Humboldt's Gift. That same year Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize in
literature, cited for his "human understanding and subtle analysis of
contemporary culture." In 2003, the Library of America paid the rare tribute
of releasing work by a living writer, issuing a volume of Bellow's early
novels.
He had five wives, three sons and, at age 84, a daughter.
He met presidents (John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson) and movie stars (Marilyn
Monroe, Jack Nicholson). He feuded with writers (Truman Capote, Norman Mailer),
and helped out writers, notably William Kennedy, on whose behalf he lobbied to
get his work published.
After teaching for many years at the University of
Chicago, Bellow stunned both the literary and academic world by leaving the
city with which he was so deeply associated. In 1993, he accepted a position at
Boston University, where he taught a freshman-level class on "young men on
the make" in literature.
Crypt
Kickers, Dark Clouds and Silva Linings , Go Fish, Goodbye Cruel World and
The Big Casino each receive 12 points for Bellow.
Prince
Rainier III, whose marriage to American film star Grace Kelly brought elegance
and glamour to one of Europe's oldest dynasties, died Wednesday 04/06/05 at the
hospital treating him for heart, kidney and breathing problems. He was 81. He
had been Europe's longest-reigning monarch. Rainier, who assumed the throne on
May 9, 1949, also endured the tragedy of his famous wife's death and relentless
scandals — including international criticism of the principality's tax laws —
that plagued the final two decades of his rule.
The leader of Europe's longest-ruling royal family, the
Grimaldis, Rainier suffered recurring health problems in recent years. The silver-haired,
portly prince underwent heart surgery in 1999. He had two operations the
following year, including having a nodule removed from a lung, and was
hospitalized in 2002 for fatigue and bronchitis. Rainier's royal palace
announced his death nearly a full month after he was first admitted with a lung
infection to a heart and chest clinic that overlooks Monaco's glittering,
yacht-filled harbor. Recurrent chest infections put him in the hospital on
numerous occasions. Most recently, he was hospitalized March 7 at Monaco's
Cardio-Thoracic Center with a chest infection. He was placed in intensive care
two weeks later with heart and kidney failure and hooked up to a respirator.
Monaco had been preparing for the demise of its prince for several years.
Rainier's
heir is Crown Prince Albert, who is unmarried and has no children. Monaco
changed its succession law in 2002 to allow power to pass from a reigning
prince who has no descendants to his siblings. Albert has two sisters, Princess
Caroline and Princess Stephanie, both of whom have children.
Adios
Amigos, Bury Me Shallow, Decay NY, Forrest Tucker's Ghost, Ghostwriter, La
Morte la Diventa, Life is a Bitch, Then You Die, Metabolically Challenged,
Monty Python's Dying Circus and The Leader of the Pack and Now He's Gone
all pick up 8 points for the
monarch.
Dale
Messick, whose long-running comic strip "Brenda Starr, Reporter'' gave her
entry into the male world of the funny pages, has died at age 98. Messick,
whose strip ran in 250 newspapers at its peak in the 1950s, died Tuesday
04/05/05.
Born in South Bend, Ind., on April 11, 1906, with the
name Dalia — a moniker she jettisoned to further her career — Messick developed
her artistic skills early, scribbling illustrations on her schoolbooks and
telling stories to her classmates. She studied art and got a job at a greeting
card company, only to quit in a huff — in the depths of the Depression — when
her boss dropped her pay to make a new hire. She cried all the way home, but
regrouped, moving to New York and getting a job at another greeting card
company, working on her strips at night. Her break came when her work came to
the attention of another woman, Mollie Slott, who worked for publisher Joseph
M. Patterson. Patterson, reputed to be no fan of women cartoonists, wouldn't
take the slot for daily publication but it began running in the Sunday comics
in June 1940. The name came from a '30s debutante; she borrowed the figure and
flowing red hair from film star Rita Hayworth.
Messick, who received the National Cartoonist Society's
Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997, married a man in the art
supply business, Everett George, with whom she had her daughter. She later
married attorney Oscar Strom. Neither marriage lasted.
In old age, Messick moved to Northern California to be
near her daughter and two grandchildren, Curt and Laura. She joked about
writing her autobiography, "Still Stripping at 80,'' never completed but
retitled a decade later to "Still Stripping at 90.'' She did write a
single-panel strip "Granny Glamour'' until age 92.
Messick had a stroke in 1998.
Excuse
Me For Coffin and Life'll Kill Ya each get 18 points for Messick.
Chalmers
Roberts, a former diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post and the author
of a number of books, died of congestive heart failure at his home in Bethesda,
Md., on Friday 04/08/05. He was 94.
The bulk of Roberts' reporting came in the 1950s and 60s
as the Post's chief diplomatic correspondent. He covered stories from the Cold
War to the Watts riots in 1965.
Roberts also contributed to the Post's efforts to print
the Pentagon Papers. His deep understanding of the Vietnam War and his ability
to report and write quickly is credited as part of the Post's success in
publishing the papers.
Roberts' books include "First Rough Draft: A
Journalist's Journal of Our Times," "The Nuclear Years: The Arms Race
and Arms Control 1945-70," "Washington Past and Present," and
"How Did I Get Here So Fast? Rhetorical Questions and Available Answers
From a Long and Happy Life."
Already
Dead scores 20 points for the solo hit on Roberts.
John
Fred Gourrier, who was best known for his 1960's hit "Judy in Disguise
(With Glasses)," has died at the age of 63. Gourrier, who went by the
stage name "John Fred," died Friday 04/15/05 at Tulane Hospital in
New Orleans after being ill for months.
John Fred and His Playboy Band had a regional following
in the South when they recorded their parody of the popular Beatles' song
"Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" in 1967. Written by Gourrier and
fellow band member Andrew Bernard, "Judy In Disguise" was recorded in
New Orleans with the Fats Domino band Dec. 17.By the following January, it had
replaced another Beatles song, "Hello Goodbye," as the No. 1 song in
the nation and stayed at the top of the charts for two weeks.
Although "Judy in Disguise" was the only Top 40
song the group ever had, Gourrier made the charts before. He formed his first
group while he was still in high school and recorded a song titled
"Shirley."
Forrest Tucker’s Ghost scores a big 24 points (20
points for the solo hit + 4 points Under 65), while The Famous Final Scene
garners 7 points (3 points Taxi Squad + 4 points Under 65) for the One Hit
Wonder.
Cuban
salsa legend Juan Pablo Torres, member of the group "Cuban Masters,"
died at the age of 59 on Sunday 04/17/05. Torres, who also played alongside
Cachao and Patato Valdez, died late Sunday in Miami of an inoperable brain tumor
after spending days in a coma. The trombonist was born in Puerto Padre, Cuba,
in 1946.
Torres was one of the top trombonists in Cuban music, and
recorded more than a dozen albums with the likes of Bebo Valdez, Tito Puente,
Paquito D'Rivera and Arturo Sandoval.
In 2001, he joined the "Cuban Masters, Los
originales" with Cachao Lopez, Patato Valdez, Jose Fajardo and Alfredo
"Chocolate" Armenteros. Their album was nominated for a Grammy as
well as a Latin Grammy.
Already Dead and Forrest Tucker’s Ghost
score 22 points each (18 points + 4 points Under 65) for the Salsa King.
Sam
Mills, an undersized linebacker who became a Pro Bowl player with New Orleans
and Carolina and was later an assistant coach for the Panthers, died Monday
04/18/05 after fighting cancer for nearly two years. He was 45. Mills, who was
diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine in August 2003 but continued to
coach Carolina's linebackers between chemotherapy treatments, died at his home.
A five-time Pro Bowl selection, the 5-foot-9, 225-pound
Mills spent the final three seasons of his 12-year NFL career with the
Panthers, beginning with their inaugural season in 1995. There is a statue of
him outside Bank of America Stadium and he is the only player in the team's
Hall of Honor. Mills spent his first nine NFL seasons with the New Orleans
Saints, following three seasons in the United States Football League. He
finished his career with 1,319 tackles while starting 173 of 181 games.
He joined the Panthers' coaching staff upon his
retirement.
Forrest
Tucker's Ghost, Monty Python's Dying Circus and No Bones About It
score 24 points each (16 points + 8 points Under 55) for the former gridiron
man.
Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen - Queensland's longest-serving
premier - has died in a Kingaroy hospital. The 94-year-old former politician
was taken to the South Burnett hospital on Monday where his condition steadily
worsened. He had been heavily sedated and was having trouble breathing. Doctors
confirmed Sir Joh passed away about 6:00pm AEST on Saturday 04/23/05 with his
family by his side. He was premier from 1968 to 1987.
The New
Zealand-born farmer from Kingaroy entered parliament in 1947. In January 1968,
Joh became Country Party leader, and seven months later was Premier of
Queensland, after the sudden death of Jack Pizzey. During his 19 years in
power, Sir Joh was renowned for his "can-do" attitude towards
development, and his uncompromising approach to unionists, protesters and political
opponents.
In the late 1980s,
the Fitzgerald Inquiry into corruption became increasingly embarrassing for his
government.As the situation came to a head, Sir Joh tried unsuccessfully to
sack five ministers for disloyalty, but instead he was dumped by his party and
ultimately resigned as premier on December 1, 1987.In 1991 he fought a perjury
charge arising from the Fitzgerald Inquiry, but a district court jury could not
reach a verdict. He pursued business interests until health problems restricted
him to his home at Kingaroy.
Bam
Morris Up The Middle and Die2K each garner 18 points for the
Australian leader.
Oscar-winning
actor Sir John Mills, star of more than 100 films including "Great
Expectations," "War and Peace" and "Ryan's Daughter,"
died Saturday 04/23/05 after a short illness. He was 93. Mills died at home in
Denham, west of London.
Mills, whose talent was first spotted by Noel Coward,
studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and started his career on stage,
appearing plays like "Goodbye Mr. Chips," and "Of Mice and
Men." His 1929 appearance as Hamlet at the Old Vic Theatre in London
established him as one of the most talented actors of his generation, ideally
suited to the great Shakespearean roles. Later, he headed for Hollywood,
appearing in a raft of acclaimed films. He won the 1971 Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actor in "Ryan's Daughter." His film and stage credits
also include “Hamlet”, “Frankenstein”, “Big Freeze”, “Around the World in 80
Days”, “A Tale of Two Cities”, “Sherlock Holmes and the Masks of Death”,
“Gandhi”, “The Thirty-Nine Steps”,
“Run Wild, Run Free” and “Swiss Family Robinson”. He also appeared in
the “Cats” video as Gus the Theater Cat.
Mills is survived by his wife, playwright Mary Hayley
Bell, his son, Jonathan, and daughters Juliette and Hayley, both actors.
Ace
Reloaded: Fallen Skaters, Bloody Mary, Decay NY, Excuse Me For Coffin, Spectral
Evidence and Van Owens Body all receive 10 points each for the
accomplished actor. Ghostwriter picks up 3 points for the Taxi Squad
hit.
Jimmy Martin, a pioneering bluegrass
singer and guitarist who performed with the Blue Grass Boys and many other
musicians, died Saturday 05/14/05. He was 77. Martin died in a Nashville
hospice, more than a year after he was diagnosed with bladder cancer .
Thurl
Ravenscroft of Fullerton, Calif., whose voice was known worldwide through his
work in movies, TV and at Disneyland, died Sunday 05/22/05 from prostate
cancer. He was 91. His was the voice of Tony the Tiger, the Kellogg's Frosted Flakes
mascot for over 50 years.
Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft was born Feb. 6, 1914, in
Norfolk, Neb. He moved to California in 1933 to study interior design at the
Otis College of Art and Design. While in school he was encouraged to go into
show business and auditioned at Paramount studios to be a singer. By the
mid-1930s, he was appearing regularly on radio, first on a program titled
"Goose Creek Parson." In the late 1930s, he appeared on the "The
Kraft Music Hall" with Bing Crosby, singing backup in a group called the
Paul Taylor Choristers. That group eventually became the Sportsmen Quartette.
After military service during World War II, he returned
to Hollywood, later becoming involved in the Mellomen singing group, and began
a career in radio, movies, television and commercials. The group could sing
anything from rock `n' roll to bebop to barbershop, and it performed with a
list of stars including Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra and Elvis
Presley.
In 1952, Ravenscroft achieved a measure of immortality,
thanks to a TV commercial.
"I'm the only man in the world that has made a
career with one word: Grrrrreeeeat!" Ravenscroft roared in a 1996
interview with The Orange County Register. "When Kellogg's brought up the
idea of the tiger, they sent me a caricature of Tony to see if I could create
something for them. After messing around for some time I came up with the
`Great!' roar, and that's how it's been since then."
Ravenscroft's involvement with Disneyland goes back to
opening day in 1955, when he was the announcer for many of the ceremonies and
events. His voice has been heard on numerous Disneyland attractions and rides,
including Adventure Through Inner Space (1967-1986). He was the original
narrator on Submarine Voyage.
In 1966, Dr. Seuss and Chuck Jones teamed up to do
"How the Grinch Stole Christmas" for CBS. Ravenscroft recalled the
Grinch fondly, saying, "That was my chance to prove I could really
sing." The success of the Grinch led to other projects with Dr. Seuss,
including "Horton Hears a Who" and "The Cat in the Hat."
His singing career continued into the 1970s. As a member
of the Johnny Mann Singers, he sang on 28 albums, appeared on television for
three seasons and performed for President Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev at the White
House.
Crypt
Kickers, Dead Like Them, Excuse Me For Coffin, Ol' Dying Bastards, Still
Auditioning for the Choir Invisible, The Famous Final Scene and Van
Owens Body each grrrrrrrrrrrab 8 points for the voice man.
Comic
actor Howard Morris, best known for his portrayal of Ernest T. Bass on
"The Andy Griffith Show," died Saturday 05/21/05 at his home in the
Hollywood section of Los Angeles. He was 85. Morris was born in New York City
on Sept. 4, 1919. He married and divorced five times.
Morris served in the Army's entertainment unit during
World War II and was stationed in Hawaii. After the war, he had a brief stint
as a Shakespearian actor.
Morris enjoyed a long and varied career in show business,
from being a key player in the acting ensemble of Sid Caesar's "Your Show
of Shows" in the 1950s, to his stint on the Griffith Show, to providing
voices for dozens of animated characters, including Beetle Bailey and Atom Ant.
He also directed TV shows and films, including the pilot episode of the Mel
Brooks series "Get Smart," the Doris Day film "With Six you get
Eggroll," and the film version of Woody Allen's "Don't Drink the
Water," starring Jackie Gleason.
But
it was probably as the love-challenged, poetry-spouting hillbilly on "The
Andy Griffith Show" that most people remember Morris. His fan Web site is
named for the character that appeared in only a handful of episodes, but made a
large impact with viewers. In the 1950s, he joined a comedy sketch group
including Carl Reiner and Imogene Coca on several TV variety shows, including
"Admiral Broadway Review," "Your Show of Shows" and
"Caesar's Hour."
Spectral
Evidence picks up 20 points for the solo hit.
Eddie
Albert, the actor best known as the constantly befuddled city slicker-turned-farmer
in television's "Green Acres", has died. He was 99. Albert died of
pneumonia Thursday 05/26/05 at his home in the Pacific Palisades area. He was a
tireless conservationist, crusading for endangered species, healthful food,
cleanup of Santa Monica Bay pollution and other causes.
Albert achieved his greatest fame on "Green
Acres" as Oliver Douglas, a New York lawyer who settles in a rural town
with his glamorous wife, played by Eva Gabor, and finds himself perplexed by
the antics of a host of eccentrics, including a pig named Arnold Ziffel. He was
nominated for Academy Awards as supporting actor in "Roman Holiday"
(1953) and "The Heartbreak Kid" (1972). The actor moved smoothly from
the Broadway stage to movies to television. Besides the 1965-1971 run in
"Green Acres", he costarred on TV with Robert Wagner in
"Switch" from 1975 to 1978 and was a semi-regular on "Falcon
Crest" in 1988.
Rarely the star of films, Albert often portrayed the
wisecracking sidekick, fast-talking salesman or sympathetic father. His stardom
came in television, especially with "Green Acres", in which,
ironically, he played straight man. The show joined "The Beverly
Hillbillies", "Petticoat Junction" and other high-rated CBS
comedies of the 1960s and '70s.
Albert's mother was not married when he was born, in
1906. After marrying, she changed his birth certificate to read 1908. Edward
Albert Heimberger was born in Rock Island, Illinois, grew up in Minneapolis and
worked his way through two years at the University of Minnesota. Amateur
theater led to singing engagements in nightclubs and on radio. During that time
he dropped his last name "because most people mispronounced it as
'Hamburger'". Moving to New York, Albert acted on radio and appeared in
summer stock before he broke into Broadway and the movies. His break in show
business came during the '30s in the Broadway hit "Brother Rat," a
comedy about life at Virginia Military Institute. Warner Bros. signed him to a
contract and cast him in the 1938 film. According to Hollywood gossip, he was
caught in a dalliance with the wife of Jack L. Warner and the studio boss
removed him from a film and allowed him to languish under contract. The actor
left Hollywood and appeared as a clown and trapeze artist in a one-ring Mexican
circus. He escaped his studio contract by joining the Navy in World War II and
served in combat in the South Pacific. He received a Bronze Star for his heroic
rescue of wounded Marines at Tarawa, his son said. Albert managed to
rehabilitate his film career after the war, beginning with "Smash-up"
with Susan Hayward in 1947. Among his other films: "Carrie,"
"Oklahoma!" "The Teahouse of the August Moon", "The
Sun Also Rises", "The Roots of Heaven", "The Longest
Day", "Miracle of the White Stallions", "The Longest
Yard" and "Escape to Witch Mountain".
"Green Acres" made Albert a rich man and
allowed him to pursue his causes. He traveled the world for UNICEF. He
continued acting into his 80s, often appearing in television movies.
Albert was married to the dancer-actress Margo for 40
years until her death in 1985. In addition to his son, Edward Albert, Jr.,
Albert is survived by a daughter, Maria Albert Zucht, and two granddaughters.
15 teams score 8 points each for the Active Squad hit,
while Fecal Matter, Maggot On Your Sleeve and No Bones About It receive
3 points each for a hit on their Taxi Squads.
Leon
Askin, the actor who played Gen. Albert Burkhalter in the 1960s television
comedy "Hogan's Heroes," has died, Austrian officials said Friday
06/03/05. The actor was 97. Neither city officials nor the Vienna hospital
where he died disclosed the cause of his death.
Askin was best known for his role as the Nazi general who
constantly threatened to send the prisoner of war camp's inept commander, Col.
Wilhelm Klink, to the Russian front because of his stupidity.
"Beverly Hills school children would call after me,
'Klink, Klink!'" Askin wrote on his Web site. "People driving through
Beverly Hills who saw these children raising their arms in the Hitler salute
couldn't continue out of sheer shock and amazement and brought traffic to a
standstill."
Born Leo Aschkenasy in Vienna on Sept. 18, 1907, Askin
worked as a cabaret artist in the 1930s before fleeing first to France and then
to the United States to escape persecution by the Nazis.
He had roles in dozens of films, including Billy Wilder's
"One, two, three" and the Austrian director Fritz Lang's "Das
Testament des Dr. Mabuse." In the course of his career, he appeared
opposite Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Peter Ustinov.
Askin took up residence in Vienna in 1994, returning to
his roots in cabaret. He also took roles in Vienna's Festwochen and the city's
second opera, the Volksoper.
He was decorated with Vienna's Gold Medal of Honor, one
of the most distinguished prizes the city offers.
Bam Morris Up The Middle, Curb Your Dogma,
Deadbeats, Death March, Inverse Genesis, Mafia Actuary, Metabolically
Challenged, Monty Python's Dying Circus and Spectral Evidence all
receive 8 points for the Active Roster hit while Maggot On Your Sleeve receives
3 points for Askin on the Taxi Squad.
Karl
Mueller, a founding member of the Twin Cities rock band Soul Asylum, died
Friday 06/17/05 after suffering from throat cancer. He was 41.
Mueller played the bass guitar for Soul Asylum, which he
co-founded in 1984 with friends Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy. The band enjoyed
several years of underground and critical success but was best known for its
multi-platinum 1992 release "Grave Dancers Union" and the hit
"Runaway Train."
Mueller was diagnosed with cancer in May 2004 and
underwent radiation treatment. The cancer was in remission in October when a
legion of Twin Cities music scene veterans banded together for a "Rock for
Karl" benefit concert at the Quest to help defray Mueller's medical costs.
Soul Asylum also performed, with Mueller participating in a full set of music.
Mueller, Pirner and Murphy started together in 1981 as
Loud Fast Rules before evolving into Soul Asylum in 1984 with the album,
"Say What You Will Clarence ... Karl Sold the Truck" for Twin/Tone
Records of Minneapolis.
At first, Soul Asylum played second banana on the local
scene to the Replacements and Hüsker Dü. But after making three albums for
Twin/Tone, it graduated to a major label, A&M, recording two more albums
before moving to Columbia in '92 for "Grave Dancers Union," the
quartet's biggest seller.
Life'll Kill Ya and Van Owens Body each
grab a hefty 26 points (18 points + 4 for under 65 & 4 for under 55) for
the bassist.
Cardinal
Jaime Sin, one of Asia's most prominent religious leaders and a key figure in
the "people power" revolts that ousted two Philippine presidents,
died Tuesday 06/21/05. He was 76. The cardinal had been in ill health for years
and retired as Manila archbishop in November 2003. He was unable to attend the
Vatican conclave that chose a new pope in April. He was hospitalized Sunday
with a high fever and suffered multiple organ failure before his death early
Tuesday.
Sin was the Philippines' moral compass, known for his
vocal stances on everything from birth control to poverty, politics and the
U.S.-led war in Iraq. When he spoke, presidents listened. He stepped down as
head of the Manila archdiocese, which he served for nearly three decades, after
reaching retirement age of 75. Declining health forced him to curtail his
appearances, but he still remained a staunch guardian of democracy. Hours
before hundreds of soldiers and officers staged a failed revolt against
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in July 2003, he urged Filipinos to be
vigilant against groups plotting to violently overturn the country's democratic
institutions.
The 14th of 16 children of a Chinese merchant and a
Filipino woman, Sin had a sense of humor about his name, often referring to his
residence as "the house of Sin."
He burst onto the international stage when he called on
Filipinos to surround the police and military headquarters in metropolitan
Manila in 1986 to protect then-military Vice Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos and
Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, who broke away from dictator Ferdinand
Marcos. That led to the "people power" revolution which ousted Marcos
over alleged corruption and human rights violations. The largely peaceful
revolt became a harbinger of change in authoritarian regimes worldwide. Marcos
died in exile in Hawaii in 1989.
But the country's problems continued, partly because of
the endemic corruption that blossomed under Marcos. "We got rid of Ali
Baba, but the 40 thieves remained," Sin once quipped.
Sin also helped lead street protests that led to the
ouster of President Joseph Estrada over alleged corruption and misrule in
January 2001. The church wasn't fond of Estrada, a notorious womanizer who
sired children by several women and was known for late-night drinking and
gambling sessions.
Although revered by many Filipinos, Sin came under
criticism over his active advocacies. He had a thorny relationship with
President Fidel Ramos, a Protestant whose 1992-98 administration promoted the
use of artificial birth control. Sin advocated only natural methods.
Impoverished followers of Estrada, denouncing Sin and
other politicians who forced their leader from power, stormed the presidential
palace in May 2001 in riots that killed six people. Sin issued an unprecedented
apology to the poor shortly thereafter, acknowledging that the church had
neglected them and made them easy prey for selfish, powerful people. He assured
them that the church is not "anti-Estrada, but pro-morality."
Curb Your Dogma and Go Fish each score 18
points for the Cardinal.
Paul
Winchell, born Paul Wilchen on December 21, 1922, died Friday 06/24/05 at the
age of 83. He was a ventriloquist and voice actor whose fame flourished in the
1950s and 1960s. He was also an amateur inventor and he patented an artificial
human heart which he donated to the University of Utah.
The ventriloquist figures for which he was best known
include Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff. Both figures were carved by
Chicago-based figure maker Frank Marshall. His later career included a great
deal of voice-over acting for animated cartoons, including the Hanna-Barbera
character Dick Dastardly, Fleegle from The Banana Splits, the Scrubbing Bubble
and Gargamel from The Smurfs. He was also known for voicing the character
Tigger from Disney's Winnie the Pooh films.
He leaves five children, one son Stacy Paul Winchell
and a daughter Stephanie from his first marriage to Dorothy (Dottie) Movitz, an
estranged daughter April Winchell, a comedian and voice actress, from his
marriage to actress Nina Russel and two step-sons Larry and Keith Freeman from
his most recent marriage to Jean Freeman.
Spectral Evidence picks up an important solo hit
on the dummy jockey/voice guy/inventor.
John
Fiedler, a stage and screen actor who won fame as the voice of Piglet in Walt
Disney's Winnie-the-Pooh films, died Saturday, 06/25/05. He was 80.
Fiedler's stage credits included the part of Medvedenko
in "The Sea Gull" starring Montgomery Clift and the Broadway
productions of "A Raisin in the Sun" with Sidney Poitier and
"The Odd Couple" starring Walter Matthau and Art Carney. He landed
character parts in movies, including "True Grit" with John Wayne and
"A Touch of Mink" with Cary Grant. He also played parts on TV,
including "Star Trek" and "The Bob Newhart Show."
But he became famous for the squeaky voice of the
ever-worrying Piglet. Fiedler continued voicing Piglett, most recently this
year in "Pooh's Heffalump Movie." Last year, he did
"Winnie-the-Pooh: Springtime with Roo," and in 2003, "Piglet's
Big Movie."
In addition to his brother, Fiedler is survived by a
sister, Mary Dean.
Spectral Evidence gets another important solo hit for another great voice actor.
Grammy
award winner Luther Vandross, whose deep, lush voice on such hits as "Here
and Now" and "Any Love" sold more than 25 million albums while
providing the romantic backdrop for millions of couples worldwide, died Friday
07/01/05. He was 54. A spokesman at John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison,
N.J., said that Vandross "never really recovered from" a stroke two
years ago.
Since the stroke in his Manhattan home on April 16,
2003, the R&B crooner stopped making public appearances - but amazingly
managed to continue his recording career. In 2004, he captured four Grammys as
a sentimental favorite, including best song for the bittersweet "Dance
With My Father." Vandross, who was still in a wheelchair at the time,
delivered a videotaped thank you. Vandross also battled weight problems for
years while suffering from diabetes and hypertension.
He was arguably the most celebrated R&B balladeer
of his generation. He made women swoon with his silky yet forceful tenor, which
he often revved up like a motor engine before reaching his beautiful
crescendos. Vandross was a four-time Grammy winner in the best male R&B
performance category, taking home the trophy in 1990 for the single "Here
and Now," in 1991 for his album "Power of Love," in 1996 for the
track "Your Secret Love" and a last time for "Dance With My
Father."
The album, with its single of the same name, debuted at
No. 1 on the Billboard charts while Vandross remained hospitalized from his
stroke. It was the first time a Vandross album had topped the charts in its
first week of release. In 2005, he was nominated for a Soul Train Music Award
for a duet with Beyonce on "The Closer I Get To You."
A career in music seemed predestined for the New York
native; both his parents were singers, and his sister, Patricia, was part of a
1950s group called the Crests. But he happily toiled in the musical background
for years before he would have his first hit. He wrote songs for projects as
varied as a David Bowie album ("Fascination") and the Broadway
musical "The Wiz" ("Everybody Rejoice (Brand New Day)"),
sang backup for acts such as Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand, and even became
a leading commercial jingle singer.
Vandross' first big hit came as the lead vocalist for
the group Change, with their 1980 hit, "The Glow of Love." That led
to a recording contract with Epic Records, and in 1981, he made his solo
recording debut with the disc "Never Too Much." The album, which
contained his aching rendition of "A House is Not a Home," became an
instant classic. Over the years, Vandross would emerge as the leading romantic
singer of his generation, racking up one platinum album after another and
charting several R&B hits, such as "Superstar," "Give Me The
Reason" and "Love Won't Let Me Wait." Yet, while Vandross was a
household name in the black community, he was frustrated by his failure to
become a mainstream pop star. Indeed, it took Vandross until 1990 to score his
first top 10 hit - the wedding staple "Here & Now."
Another frustration for Vandross was his lifelong
battle with obesity. Health problems ran in his family, and Vandross struggled
for years to control his waistline. When he first became a star, he was a hefty
size; a few years later, he was almost skinny. His weight fluctuated so much
that rumors swirled that he had more serious health problems than the
hypertension and diabetes caused by his large frame.
Vandross' two sisters and a brother died before him.
The lifelong bachelor never had any children, but doted on his nieces and
nephews. The entertainer said his busy lifestyle made marriage difficult;
besides, it wasn't what he wanted.
Goodbye
Cruel World gets the big score of 28 points (20 for solo active hit + Under
65 + Under 55), while Elvis’ Rotting Corpse and To Die For get 11
points each (3 for Taxi Squad + Under 65 + Under 55) for the crooner.
Hank
Stram, who took the Kansas City Chiefs to two Super Bowls and was known for his
inventive game plans, died Sunday 07/03/05 at a hospital in suburban New
Orleans. He was 82.
Stram had been in declining health for several years
and his son attributed death to complications from diabetes. He died at St.
Tammany Parish Hospital, near his home in Covington, across Lake Pontchartrain
from New Orleans. He had built the home there during his two-year stint as head
coach of the Saints.
Stram took over the expansion Dallas Texans of the
upstart AFL in 1960 and coached them through 1974, moving with them to Kansas
City where they were renamed the Chiefs in 1963. The gregarious, stocky,
blazer-wearing Stram carried a rolled up game plan in his hand as he paced the
sideline. He led the Chiefs to AFL titles in 1962, '66 and '69 and to
appearances in the first Super Bowl, a 35-10 loss to Green Bay, and the fourth,
a 23-7 victory over Minnesota in 1970.
He had a 124-76-10 record with the Chiefs and in 17
seasons as a head coach was 131-97-10 in the regular season and 5-3 in the
postseason. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2003 and the
Chiefs Hall of Fame in '87. Stram is the Chiefs' all-time winningest coach.
Already
Dead, Curb Your Dogma, Genius In the Lamp's Yes We Got a Video, Ghostwriter,
Hannibal Lechter's All You Can Eat Buffet, Life'll Kill Ya, Mafia Actuary,
Sneezin' & Coffin and Van Owens Body all garner 8 points each for the
coaching great.
Retired
Vice Adm. James Stockdale, a former prisoner of war and Ross Perot's running
mate in 1992 died Tuesday 07/05/05. He was 81. The Navy did not provide a cause
of death but said he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He died at his
home in Coronado, Calif.
In the 1992 presidential election, Stockdale became
independent candidate Perot's vice presidential running mate, initially as a
stand-in on the ticket but later as the candidate. Stockdale gave a stumbling
performance in the nationally televised vice-presidential debate against Dan
Quayle and Al Gore and later said he didn't feel comfortable in the public eye.
During the debate, he commented on an exchange between Quayle and Gore:
"I think America is seeing right now the reason this
nation is in gridlock. The trickle-downs and the tax-and-spends, or whatever
you want to call them, are at swords point."
When Perot ran again in 1996 as the candidate of his
Reform Party, Stockdale had rejoined the Republican Party.
Stockdale was born in Abingdon, Ill., and graduated from the
U.S. Naval Academy in 1947. During the Vietnam War, he was a Navy fighter pilot
based on the USS Oriskany and flew 201 missions before he was shot down on
Sept. 9, 1965. He became the highest-ranking naval officer captured during the
war, the Navy said. He endured more than 7 1/2 years as a prisoner, spending
four of them in solitary confinement, before his release in 1973. He was
tortured repeatedly, according to the Navy.
Stockdale received 26 combat decorations, including the
Medal of Honor, the nation's highest medal for valor, in 1976. A portion of his
award citation reads: "Stockdale ... deliberately inflicted a near mortal
wound to his person in order to convince his captors of his willingness to give
up his life rather than capitulate. He was subsequently discovered and revived
by the North Vietnamese who, convinced of his indomitable spirit, abated their
employment of excessive harassment and torture of all prisoners of war."
He retired from the military in 1979.
Survivors include his wife, Sybil, and four sons.
Already Dead, E-Brake, Go Fish, Spectral Evidence, The
Famous Final Scene and Yersinia Pestis all pick up 10 points for the
war hero.
Ernest
Lehman, a six-time Oscar nominee whose screenwriting and production credits
include such classics as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,"
"West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music," died Saturday
07/02/05. He was 89. Lehman died at University of California, Los Angeles
Medical Center from an undisclosed illness, according to a statement posted Tuesday
on the Web site of the Writers Guild of America, West.
Lehman's career began in 1954 with "Executive
Suite." He received four Academy Award nominations for screenwriting - for
"North by Northwest," "West Side Story," "Virginia
Woolf" and "Sabrina" - and two Oscar nominations as a producer,
for "Hello, Dolly!" and "Virginia Woolf." Among Lehman's
other screenwriting credits are "Sweet Smell of Success," "The
King and I," "From the Terrace," "The Prize" and
"Hello, Dolly!"
Lehman, who received five Writers Guild of America
awards and nine WGA nominations, received the guild's prestigious Screen Laurel
Award in 1972. In 2001, he became the first screenwriter to receive a lifetime
achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Born in New York City, Lehman grew up on Long Island
and studied creative writing at City College of New York before working as a
copywriter for a Broadway theater publicist, an experience he tapped in writing
his novella and the screenplay for "Sweet Smell of Success."
He sold his first story, "Double-Cross," to
Liberty magazine in 1943 and spent the next 10 years as a freelancer, writing
stories, novellas and radio comedy, and editing a financial magazine. After his
short story "The Comedian" appeared in Collier's in 1953, he was
brought to Hollywood by Paramount.
Lehman directed one film, "Portnoy's
Complaint," based on Philip Roth's best-selling novel. For that
production, starring Richard Benjamin, he adapted the screenplay, directed and
produced under his Chenault Prods. banner for Warner Bros.
Lehman essentially retired from his scriptwriting in
1979, His last project was a TV miniseries adaptation of the novel "The
French Atlantic Affair." "Sabrina" was remade in 1995.
Spectral Evidence gets a big boost of 20 points
with the solo hit on the screenwriter/producer/director.
Veteran
television character actor Kevin Hagen, who left behind a string of Western bad
guy roles to become the kindly Dr. Hiram Baker in "Little House on the
Prairie", has died. He was 77. Hagen died at his home here on Saturday
07/09/05 a year after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer.
Born in Chicago, the son of professional ballroom
dancers, Hagen did not start acting until he was 27, by which time he had
worked for the U.S. State Department in Germany, earned a degree in
international relations from the University of Southern California, and served
in the Navy following World War II. After a year of law school at UCLA, Hagen
decided to drop out, and try his hand at acting.
Hagen got his big break a year later when a Hollywood
agent saw him as the domineering patriarch Ephraim Cabot in Eugene O'Neil's
"Desire Under the Elms" and got him a part in the television series
"Dragnet", the start of a long career in television and film. Hagen's
first movie role was in the 1958 Disney film "The Light in the
Forest", but he credited his role as a Confederate deserter who murders
the son of a Virginia farmer played by James Stewart in the 1965 film
"Shenandoah" with starting him on a long trail of TV Western heavies.
Hagen had guest-starring roles on "Gunsmoke",
"Rawhide" and "Cheyenne" and won his first regular role in
the 1958 series, "Yancy Derringer", in which he played a city administrator of post-Civil War
New Orleans. Though the show only ran a year, he got more work than ever in
series that included "Bonanza", "Perry Mason", "The
Man From U.N.C.L.E." and "Mission: Impossible". He was best
known for his portrayal of Doc Baker in "Little House on the Prairie"
which ran from 1974 to 1983.
He performed a one-man show he wrote based on the Doc
Baker character called "A Playful Dose of Prairie Wisdom". While
performing that show he met his fourth wife, Jan. They were married in 1993.
Raised by his mother, two aunts and a grandmother, Hagen
moved to Portland as a teenager, playing baseball and football at Jefferson
High School. He attended Oregon State University before enlisting in the U.S.
Navy after World War II, serving in San Diego.
Dark Clouds and Silva Linings, Die2K, E-Brake, Forrest
Tucker's Ghost, Ghostwriter and Putnam's Tomahawk Chop all earn 10
points for the star of the large and small screens.
Bishop
Joseph Delaney, leader of more than 400,000 Catholics in the Fort Worth Roman
Catholic Diocese, has died at age 70. Delaney, who has been bishop of the north
central Texas diocese since 1981, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003,
but had said the cancer was in remission.
During nearly 24 years as bishop of the Fort Worth
Diocese, Joseph Patrick Delaney developed a reputation for a passionate
leadership of inclusion. He was a champion of the poor and worked to include
North Texas' growing Hispanic population with Spanish language services and
reached out to people of other faiths.
Delaney died in his sleep Monday night 07/11/05 at his
Fort Worth home. His housekeeper discovered his body Tuesday morning. Although
he had battled pancreatic cancer since 2003, he also had other health problems.
An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.
Only a few diocese churches had Spanish language
services when Bishop Delaney came to lead the 28-county Fort Worth diocese in
September 1981. Two-thirds of those churches have Spanish languages now. In
addition to his deep concern for his Catholic flock, Bishop Delaney reached out
to other denominations. Bishop Delaney, a one-time parochial high school
teacher and superintendent, also was an advocate of Catholic education.
Bishop Delaney came to Fort Worth from Brownsville,
where he served the church in the Valley with distinction. He was dogged by
allegations that he kept priests accused of sexual abuse in ministry and
shielded their names from the public. The Fort Worth Diocese had recently
agreed settle an abuse lawsuit by paying $4.1 million to two people who accused
the Rev. Thomas Teczar. The bishop had given Father Teczar parish assignments
during the late 1980s and early 1990s after a Massachusetts diocese barred the
priest from duty because of misconduct with boys.
It wasn't until 2004 that Bishop Delaney gave a public
accounting of the diocese's abuse problem, two years after the U.S. church
pledged openness and reform following the clergy abuse crisis in Boston. The
bishop acknowledged that eight priests had been accused since the diocese was
formed in the late 1960s. But he continued to keep the men's names confidential
until last month – after The Dallas Morning News, along with the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram, sought court intervention to unseal church records about the
priests.
The son of a police officer, Bishop Delaney was born in
Fall River, Mass., where he attended parochial schools and graduated from
Monsignor Coyle High School in nearby Taunton, Mass. Bishop Delaney immediately
began studying to become a priest after graduating from high school, entering
Cardinal O'Connell Minor Seminary in Boston in 1952. He graduated from The
Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in 1957. He then studied at
the North American College in Rome, where he received a licentiate of theology
and was ordained on Dec. 18, 1960, for the Diocese of Fall River. Bishop
Delaney's first assignment was as an assistant priest at Sacred Heart Parish in
Taunton, Mass. He later taught religion and was chaplain at Monsignor Coyle
High, now Coyle and Cassidy High School, in Taunton, and was assistant
superintendent of schools for the Fall River Diocese. He also taught swimming
and sailing to boys at the Fall River Diocesan Cathedral Camp in East Freetown,
Mass. In May 1967, Bishop Delaney came to Texas and served as assistant pastor
of churches in Pharr and McAllen, and pastor of churches in parishes in
Brownsville. He was named co-chancellor of the diocese in 1971. In 1981, he
became the second person to serve as bishop of the Fort Worth diocese.
Curb Your Dogma gets 20 points for the solo hit on
the bishop.
Sir
Edward Heath, a former British prime minister defeated in government by pay
strikes and in opposition by Margaret Thatcher in 1970s, died Sunday 07/17/05.
He was 89.
A carpenter's son who broke the tradition of blue bloods
leading the British Conservative Party, he was a born politician whose major
achievement was to negotiate Britain's 1973 entry into the European Community.
The entry overturned years of resistance both domestically and by France, which
had vetoed Britain's entry in 1967. In 1992, he became Sir Edward, a member of
the country's most prestigious order of chivalry, the knights of the Garter.
Heath came to power in 1970 pledging to end Britain's
long cycle of post-World War II decline, but he was thwarted and, in the end,
brought down by militant unions. In 1974, with Britain reduced to a three-day
week by striking coal miners, Heath called an election demanding "who
governs?" in a challenge to the unions. He lost to Harold Wilson's Labor
Party and lost again when Wilson called an election in October that year. In
all, Heath had taken the party to defeat by Labor three times since becoming
leader of the party in 1965. The Tories rebelled and in February 1975 another
outsider, the grocer's daughter Margaret Thatcher, successfully challenged him
for the party leadership.
He remained in the House of Commons as a rank-and file
legislator, a bulky, unforgiving figure sniping ineffectively at his right-wing
successor. During Thatcher's 15 years as party leader, Heath's name disappeared
from the Conservatives' official folklore. The 1987 election manifesto, for
example, described the history of Conservative policy toward Europe without
mentioning Heath.
Edward Richard George Heath was born in Broadstairs, a
harbor town in the southeast England county of Kent, on July 9, 1916, the elder
of two sons. Encouraged by his mother, Heath began piano lessons as a small
boy. It became a lifetime interest. From his state school, Heath won a
scholarship to Oxford University. Like Mrs. Thatcher, he emerged from Oxford
with an upper-class accent. After World War II service as an artillery officer,
Heath worked briefly as a civil servant and then as an editor of the Anglican
Church Times. He was elected to the House of Commons for Bexley and Sidcup in
1950, and represented the solidly Conservative south England district through
his long political career. To the end, Heath remained an unusual politician in
that he never tried to be liked. Awkward silences would fall during interviews
with journalists. In the Thatcher era, he would often sit staring glumly ahead
during party conventions.
Both as prime minister and leader of the opposition he
conducted symphony orchestras. He had two Steinway pianos in his house,
Arundells, in the south England cathedral city of Salisbury, and another in his
apartment in London's Belgravia district. His 1976 book, "Music, a Joy for
Life," was a best seller. So was one he wrote on yachting after taking his
yacht Morning Cloud to victory in Australia in the Hobart-Sydney race.
Crypt Kickers gets a solo hit and 20 points for
the "old boy".
Geraldine
Fitzgerald, who appeared in such classic 1930s films as "Dark
Victory" and "Wuthering Heights" and later had a career on the
New York stage, has died after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. She was
91. Fitzgerald died Sunday07/17/05 at her Manhattan home.
The Irish-born actress received an Academy Award
nomination for her performance as Isabella Linton in "Wuthering
Heights" (1939), appearing with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in
director William Wyler's memorable screen version of the Emily Bronte novel.
That same year she also starred with Bette Davis, George Brent and Humphrey
Bogart in the popular Hollywood tearjerker "Dark Victory." Fitzgerald
had a tumultuous career at Warner Bros. in the 1940s, refusing roles and being
placed on suspension by the studio. Yet during that decade she managed to
appear in such films as "Shining Victory" (1942), "The Gay
Sisters" (1943), "Watch on the Rhine" (1944) and "Nobody
Lives Forever" (1946), a film noir gem which starred John Garfield. In
later years, she appeared as a character actress in such movies as "Ten
North Frederick" (1958), "The Pawnbroker" (1965), "Rachel,
Rachel" (1968), "Harry and Tonto" (1974), "Arthur"
(1981) and "Easy Money" (1983).
Fitzgerald received a Tony nomination in 1982, for
directing "Mass Appeal," Bill C. Davis' play about the conflicts
between an older and younger priest. Among her New York stage appearances were
roles in several Eugene O'Neill revivals, most notably as Mary Tyrone in a 1971
off-Broadway production of "Long Day's Journey into Night," which
starred Robert Ryan. In 1977, she starred with Jason Robards in a revival of
O'Neill's "A Touch of the Poet." Fitzgerald also developed a
nightclub act, called "Geraldine Fitzgerald Singing Songs of the
Street" - later shortened to "Streetsongs" - in which she would
talk and sing about her life, including reminiscences from her childhood.
Born in Dublin, Fitzgerald made her stage debut in 1932
at the Gate Theater and later appeared in several British films. She came to
New York to act with Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater, but was quickly
signed by Hollywood.
Fitzgerald's first marriage to Edward Lindsay-Hogg ended
in divorce. She later married businessman Stuart Scheftel, who died in 1994.
Fitzgerald is survived by a son, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg of Los Angeles,
and a daughter Susan Scheftel of New York.
The Last Round-Up scores a big solo hit for 20
points.
Retired
Gen. William Westmoreland, who commanded American troops in Vietnam, the nation's longest conflict and the
only war America lost, died Monday 07/18/05. He was 91.
Westmoreland died of natural causes at Bishop Gadsden
retirement home, where he had lived with his wife for several years. The
silver-haired, jut-jawed officer, who rose through the ranks quickly in Europe
during World War II and later became superintendent of West Point, contended
the United States did not lose the conflict in Southeast Asia. He would later
say he did not know how history would deal with him. Later, after many of the
wounds caused by the divisive conflict began to heal, Westmoreland led
thousands of his comrades in the November, 1982, veterans march in Washington
to dedicate the Vietnam War Memorial. He called it "one of the most
emotional and proudest experiences of my life."
William Childs Westmoreland was born near Spartanburg,
S.C., on March 26, 1914, into a banking and textile family. His love of
uniforms began early. He was an Eagle Scout and attended The Citadel for a year
before transferring to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in
1936 and, during his senior year, held the highest command position in the
cadet corps.
Westmoreland saw action in North Africa, Sicily and
Europe during World War II. He attained the rank of colonel by the time he was
30. As commander of the 34th Field Artillery Battalion fighting German Field
Marshal Erwin Rommel, he earned the loyalty and respect of his troops for
joining in the thick of battle rather than remaining behind the lines at a
command post. He was promoted to brigadier general during the Korean War and
later served in the Pentagon under Army Chief of Staff Maxwell Taylor.
Westmoreland became the superintendent of West Point in
1960 and, by 1964, was a three-star general commanding American troops in
Vietnam.
After his four-year tour in Vietnam, Westmoreland was
promoted to Army chief of staff. He retired from active duty in 1972 but he
continued to lecture and participate in veterans' activities.
Westmoreland was married to the former Katherine
"Kitzy" Van Deusen and the couple had three children. A decade after
his retirement, Westmoreland fought another battle involving Vietnam. In 1982,
he filed a $120 million lawsuit against CBS over a documentary "The
Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception," which implied he had deceived
President Johnson and the public about enemy troop strength in Vietnam. After
an 18-week trial in New York, the case was settled shortly before it was to go
to the jury. The settlement was characteristic of the general's ambivalent
relationship with the press. In his autobiography, "A Soldier
Reports," Westmoreland wrote that in Vietnam, while he "tried to avoid
any vendetta against the press," he sometimes resented the time he had to
spend correcting "errors, misinterpretations, judgments and
falsehoods" contained in news reports. But he wrote that the press is
"such a bulwark of the American system, that it is well to tolerate some
mistakes and derelictions to make every effort to assure that total freedom and
independence continue to exist."
In later years, Westmoreland often spoke to Vietnam
veterans' groups, accepting invitations to visit veterans' groups in all 50
states.
Bloody Mary, Inverse Genesis and Van Owens Body
each receive 16 points for the military man.
James
Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original
"Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures who responded to the
command "Beam me up, Scotty," died early Wednesday 07/20/05. He was
85. Doohan died at his Redmond, Washington, home with his wife of 28 years,
Wende, at his side. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease.
The Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a
character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space
adventure on NBC in 1966. A master of dialects from his early years in radio,
he tried seven different accents. "The producers asked me which one I
preferred," Doohan recalled 30 years later. "I believed the Scot
voice was the most commanding. So I told them, 'If this character is going to
be an engineer, you'd better make him a Scotsman.' "
The series, which starred William Shatner as Capt. James
T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as the enigmatic Mr. Spock, attracted an enthusiastic
following of science fiction fans, especially among teenagers and children, but
not enough ratings power. NBC canceled it after three seasons.
When the series ended in 1969, Doohan found himself
typecast as Montgomery Scott, the canny engineer with a burr in his voice. In
1973, he complained to his dentist, who advised him: "Jimmy, you're going
to be Scotty long after you're dead. If I were you, I'd go with the flow."
"I took his advice," said Doohan, "and since then everything's
been just lovely."
15 teams get the minimum 8 points for the Active Squad
hit on Scotty.
Eugene
Record, founder of the legendary Chicago-based vocal group The Chi-Lites, died
Friday 07/22/05 after a long battle with cancer. Record, 64, was the composer
of many hits including The Chi-Lites classic, "Have You Seen Her?"
and "Oh Girl," among others.
The Chi-Lites were formed in Chicago in 1959, and Record
slowly emerged as the group's lead singer, songwriter and producer. He retired
in the mid-1980s from the group. Record started The Chi-Lites with Marshall
Thompson and Robert "Squirrel" Lester. Record was "a real
gentleman" whose soft-spoken voice had much to do with the group's
popularity.
In 2003, The Chi-Lites' song, "Are You My
Woman?" was the basis for Beyonce's hit, "Crazy in Love."
The Chi-Lites and Record most recently appeared in the
documentary "Only the Strong Survive," directed by D.A. Pennebaker.
Record is survived by his wife Jackie.
Bam Morris Up The Middle, Die2K and Forrest
Tucker's Ghost each get 20 points (16 Active Squad + 4 Under 65) for the
music legend.
Pat
McCormick, the walrus-mustachioed comedian and comedy writer who made regular
appearances on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson and "The
Gong Show," has died at 78. He died Friday 07/29/05 at the Motion Picture
and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA where he was admitted in 1998
following a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.
He wrote for numerous comedians and performers, including
Phyllis Diller, Merv Griffin and Red Skelton. He was also a frequent celebrity
roaster, bringing down the house on many occasions. He was the guy that made
comedians laugh and was responsible for writing Johnny Carson's funniest quips.
If you liked your comedy twisted, warped, insane, wacky, ridiculous and
hilariously funny, Pat was your man. In one 1974 "Tonight Show," he
streaked naked across the stage behind Carson during the opening monologue.
His other credits include Big Enos Burdett in the 3
"Smokey and the Bandit" films and parts in "The Shaggy DA",
"Scavenger Hunt" and "Under the Rainbow".
McCormick is survived by his son Ben McCormick and a
grandson.
No Bones About It scores a solo Taxi Squad hit for
5 points.
"The
Incomparable" Hildegarde died peacefully Friday night 07/29/05 at the
nursing home where she'd been residing for the past few years, at age 99.
She was born Loretta Sell Hildegarde in Adell, Wisconsin
and raised in New Holstein, Wisconsin. Her father, a merchant, played the drums
and fiddle and her mother was an organist who directed the church choir. When
she was twelve, the family moved to Milwaukee, where she and her two sisters
participated in the school choir and orchestra. Her first desire was to be a
concert pianist and she enrolled for awhile at the School of Music at Marquette
University. However, circumstances prevented her from continuing, so she went
on to find work in vaudeville.
After several years of this, Gus Edwards
"discovered" Hildegarde and sent her across the country in a
travelling show. Later she went to Paris where she gave her first command
performance for King Gustav of Sweden in the Casanova, a Parisian Boite. She
continued to appear in many famous rooms in London, Cannes, Brussels and at
private concerts.
In the late 40's and through the 50's Hildegarde was
considered by many to be the top dinner and supper club entertainer in America
but it was in New York where she headquartered her performances.
Hildegarde's favorite prop was her handkerchiefs, of
which she had a large collection of (even her table cards featured tiny hankies
embedded in them). She sported stunning gowns by Fontana of Rome. Roses, long
gloves and upswept hair were also personal signatures.
SickSyndi scores a huge Active Squad solo hit on
the cabaret singer, while Death March gets only 3 points for the Taxi
Squad hit.
Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, who moved his country closer
to the United States but ruled the world's largest oil-producing nation in name
only since suffering a stroke in 1995, died early Monday 08/01/05. He was said
to be 84. Crown Prince Abdullah, the king's 81-year-old half brother and the
country's de factor ruler, was appointed the new monarch.
Fahd died at the King
Faisal Specialist Hospital in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where he was admitted
on May 27 for unspecified medical tests, an official at the hospital told The
Associated Press on condition of anonymity. At the time of his widely publicized
hospitalization that caused concern home and abroad, officials said he was
suffering from pneumonia and a high fever.
During his rule, the
portly, goateed Fahd, who rose to the throne in 1982, inadvertently helped fuel
the rise of Islamic extremism by making multiple concessions to hard-liners,
hoping to boost his Islamic credentials. But then he also brought the kingdom
closer to the United States and agreed to a step that enraged many
conservatives: the basing of U.S. troops on Saudi soil after the 1990 Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait. In his last years, Fahd was more of a figurehead than the
actual ruler — so he was sidelined as the close relationship he nurtured with
the United States deteriorated after the Sept. 11 attacks. Fifteen of the 19
hijackers were Saudis, and many in the U.S. administration blamed kingdom's
strict Wahabi school of Islam for fueling terrorism.
Visitors who saw King Fahd
after his 1995 stroke reported he was barely aware of what was going on around
him. Foreign dignitaries usually were allowed brief meetings with him, their
visits lasting only as long as it took to film TV footage for the state-run
stations. On newscasts, the king was shown seated as he extended his hand to
visitors or sipped coffee. Occasionally, policy statements, comments or
speeches were issued in his name, and he was shown chairing ministerial
meetings when Abdullah was out of town.
Fahd was proclaimed the
fifth king of Saudi Arabia on June 13, 1982, three years after two events that
would fuel the rise of Islamic extremism in Saudi Arabia. In 1979, Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic in Shiite Iran and, in the same
year, radical Muslims briefly took over the holy mosque in Mecca, proclaiming
the royal family not Islamic enough to rule. Those developments, coupled with
the king's reputation as a former gambler and womanizer, made the
liberal-leaning Fahd move toward appeasing the country's powerful religious
establishment, including the morals police who enforce the strict social codes
that oblige women to veil and ban men and women from mingling. Saudi Arabia did
not want Shiite Iran to be seen as more Islamic than the Sunni kingdom,
birthplace of Islam. So Fahd took the title "custodian of the two holy
mosques" — referring to Islam's holiest shrines at Mecca and Medina — and
he poured millions of dollars into the religious establishment and into
enlarging fundamentalist universities.
In the 1980s, Riyadh,
Washington and Islamabad, Pakistan, mobilized Islam to fight Soviet occupiers of
Afghanistan. Millions of Saudi riyals were donated to that effort and thousands
of Saudis joined the jihad, including bin Laden, in a recruitment drive
encouraged by the government. The king's official biography says Fahd was
"an ardent supporter" of the Afghan mujahedeen. But after the Soviet
withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, Fahd, like U.S. and Pakistani officials,
gave little attention to the mujahedeen, who turned that country into a
training ground for their attacks, including the 9/11 suicide hijackings.
Earlier in his rule, Fahd was credited with turning Saudi Arabia into one of
the Middle East's most modern states.
When Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 and looked like he also might take Saudi Arabia,
Fahd was persuaded by the United States to allow hundreds of thousands of U.S.
and other Western troops, including women, into his insular, rigidly Muslim
kingdom to face the Iraqis.
The move was sharply
criticized by fundamentalist Muslims who oppose Western influence and spawned
the first potent opposition to Fahd's rule. Demonstrations were quelled and
hundreds of clerics detained. Radicals set off bombs at two U.S. military posts
in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, killing 25 Americans. Bin Laden, who had
earlier been stripped of his Saudi citizenship by Fahd's government, was
incensed the Saudis opted to rely on Western troops for protection, spurning
his offer to use the mujahedeen who had fought in Afghanistan to liberate
Kuwait. He became even more determined in his opposition to the Saudi royal
family.
The stroke left Fahd with
short-term memory loss and an inability to concentrate for long stretches. Even
before the stroke, Fahd suffered from arthritis, diabetes and a bad knee. Fahd,
the son of the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, King Abdul-Aziz, got an
elementary school education with a heavy emphasis on religion at a school set
up by Abdul-Aziz for his 42 sons. He loved the good life and traveled often,
enjoying years of high living. But when he was in his late 20s, he was summoned
and told that to maintain his place in the succession he had to shape up. In
1953, he became the nation's first education minister, laying the foundation
for a nationwide school system that grew from 30,000 students to over 3.2
million students today enrolled in seven universities, 83 colleges and over
18,000 schools throughout the country. In 1962, he became interior minister and
then crown prince in 1975 when King Faisal was slain by a deranged nephew. Fahd
was de factor ruler during the seven-year reign of his brother Khaled, a devout
and apolitical man, and took the throne formally at Khaled's death in 1982.
The monarch always
appeared in the traditional flowing white robe and "mishlah" — the
camel-colored cape adorned with spun gold. He was a night-owl who slept during
the day and often opened weekly ministerial meetings near midnight. His short
working hours and centralized style — he insisted on approving even minor
details — left a constant bottleneck of paperwork.
Details about Fahd's
private life are little known, but he is believed to have had three wives and
eight sons. His eldest son, Faisal, died in 1999 of a heart attack.
Death March, E-Brake,
Ghostwriter, Metabolically Challenged and Monty Python's Dying Circus each receive 12 points
for the Saudi King.
Sue
Gunter, a Hall of Fame coach and pioneer in women's college basketball, died
Thursday 08/04/05. She was 66. Gunter, who had suffered from emphysema, died at
her home in Baton Rouge.
She coached for 40 years, 22 at LSU where she took teams
to 13 NCAA tournaments and laid the foundation for trips to the NCAA Final Four
the past two years. She was voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in March and
will now be inducted posthumously on Sept. 9 in Springfield, Mass.
Gunter had missed only one game in her career -- for her
mother's funeral -- before suffering a severe emphysema attack on her way to a
game in Jan. 2004. The condition forced Gunter, a smoker for more than 30 years
before kicking the habit in 1994, to the sidelines for the rest of the 2004
season. Tethered to an oxygen tank, she continued to attend practices and film
sessions for the rest of the season, but was unable to be at games. Her
longtime protege, Pokey Chatman, filled in for her and took the team to the Final
Four, then was named her successor when Gunter retired at the end of the
season.
After retirement Gunter limited her activities because of
the illness. She watched all the LSU games on television, however, including
their Final Four run in 2005 when she was hospitalized with pneumonia. Gunter
saw women's basketball go from half-court to a full-court high speed game that
had begun to rival the men's game in popularity.
Gunter had 21 seasons with at least 20 victories and 708
wins overall. She was not credited for two years at Middle Tennessee, when her
teams were 44-0, or her first four years at Stephen F. Austin, because official
records were never turned over to the NCAA.
Even with the six missing years, Gunter was No. 3 in wins
and games coached and fourth in 20-win seasons. Gunter was inducted into the
Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in June, 2000.
Gunter played on the 1960-62 U.S. teams that competed
against the Soviet Union.
Raven picks up 20 points for the solo hit on
Coach.
Barbara
Bel Geddes, the veteran stage and screen actress known to millions as matriarch
Miss Ellie Ewing on the CBS serial Dallas, died Monday 08/08/05 of lung cancer
at her home in Northeast Harbor, Maine. She was 82 years old.
Born in New York City on Oct. 31, 1922 to noted
theatrical designer Norman Bel Geddes, young Barbara made her stage debut at
age 18. Her first theatrical role was seven years later in the 1947 Henry Fonda
drama, The Long Night. One year later, her star rose significantly as Katrin
Hanson in the beloved family drama, I Remember Mama, which resulted in an
Academy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Other notable
movie roles included the Elia Kazan drama Panic in the Streets (1950), the
Alfred Hitchcock thriller Vertigo (1958) and The Five Pennies opposite Danny
Kaye in 1959.
At the same time, Bel Geddes was making a name for
herself on the small screen with guest appearances on Robert Montgomery
Presents, Toast of the Town, On Trial, and Studio One. Fans of the anthology Alfred
Hitchcock Presents will remember Bel Geddes as the sweet widow/murderer in the
episode titled, “Lamb to the Slaughter.” She was also nominated for Tony Awards
as Best Dramatic Actress for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1956, and Mary, Mary in
1961.
When CBS announced it was producing a new limited series
in 1978 called Dallas, critics took notice upon hearing Bel Geddes had signed
on for the role as kind but stern Miss Ellie Ewing. Although the initial order
was for just six episodes, Dallas went on to become one of the most popular
dramas in the history of television, running for 13-years, and spawning Knots
Landing, which actually ran for one season longer.
After leaving her Emmy winning role on Dallas in 1984
after six seasons, Bel Geddes returned in 1985 (following Donna Reed’s
ill-fated turn as Miss Ellie) and stayed with the serial for another five
years.
Her final on-camera appearance was in 1997 documentary,
Obsessed with Vertigo.
Adios Amigos and Decay NY pick up 18 points each for the
venerable actress.
Former
Negro Leagues star Ted ``Double Duty'' Radcliffe, believed to be the oldest
living professional baseball player, died Thursday 08/11/05. He was 103.
Radcliffe, given his singular nickname by sports writer Damon Runyon after
catching Satchel Paige in the first game of a doubleheader in the 1932 Negro
League World Series and pitching a shutout in the second game, died from
complications after a long bout with cancer.
Radcliffe was frequently in the crowd at U.S. Cellular
Field and occasionally visited the White Sox clubhouse. He made it a tradition
in recent years to throw out the first ball on his July 7 birthday. Two weeks
ago, he was scheduled to travel to Alabama for a ceremony at 95-year-old
Rickwood Field, where he played for the Birmingham Black Barons in the
mid-1940s, but fell ill and was hospitalized in Chicago.
In May, Radcliffe was among 14 Negro Leagues players
honored in a pregame ceremony at RFK Stadium before the Chicago Cubs played
Washington. Sitting in a golf cart behind the plate, Radcliffe made the
ceremonial first pitch by handing the ball to Nationals coach Don Buford.
A six-time All-Star - fittingly, three times as a pitcher
and three times as a catcher - Radcliffe outlived his contemporaries in the
Negro Leagues and players from his era in the majors. Strict records on the
minor leagues from those days are not kept, but there are no players known to
have been older than Radcliffe. As he approached his 100th birthday, Radcliffe
was living in a retirement center about a half-mile from Comiskey Park. His
apartment was filled with bats, gloves, plaques, posters, and his easy chair
sat next to a window facing a sandlot.
Radcliffe was raised in Mobile, Ala., and went on to play
for more than 15 teams in the Negro Leagues from the late 1920s to the early
1950s. His brother, Alex, also played in the league. As player-manager of the
integrated Jamestown Red Sox in 1934, Radcliffe was the first black man to
manage professional white players. At age 41, Double Duty won the Negro
American League MVP award and a year later homered into the upper deck of Old
Comiskey Park during the East-West All-Star Game. In 1945 with the Kansas City
Monarchs, Radcliffe roomed with Jackie Robinson, and he was later credited with
integrating two semi-pro leagues.
At age 96, Radcliffe returned to the field, throwing one
pitch for the Schaumburg Flyers in an independent Northern League game. In
1997, Radcliffe was inducted into the "Yesterday's Negro League Baseball
Players Wall of Fame" in Milwaukee.
Radcliffe earned the State of Illinois Historical Committee's Lifetime
Achievement Award and was honored by Mayor Richard M. Daley as an outstanding
Chicagoan. He was inducted into the Illinois Department of Aging Hall of Fame
in 2002 and a WGN-TV documentary about his life, narrated by Morgan Freeman,
won an Emmy Award.
Every year since his 99th birthday (including his 103rd
birthday this July), Double Duty threw a ceremonial first pitch for the White
Sox at U.S. Cellular Field. Always a friendly face at the ballpark, Radcliffe
enjoyed dozens of White Sox games each season and gladly entertained players
and fans with his wealth of stories.
Excuse Me For Coffin, Fresh Flesh, Frozen Heads, Genius
In the Lamp's Yes We Got a Video, Mafia Actuary, Monty Python's Dying Circus,
Putnam's Tomahawk Chop and Sneezin' & Coffin all get 8 points
for the “Hall of Famer”.
Chief
Justice William H. Rehnquist died Saturday evening 09/03/05 at his home in suburban
Virginia. He was surrounded by his three children when he died in Arlington.
The Chief Justice battled thyroid cancer since being diagnosed last October and
continued to perform his duties on the court until a precipitous decline in his
health the last couple of days.
Rehnquist was appointed to the Supreme Court as an
associate justice in 1971 by President Nixon and took his seat on Jan. 7, 1982.
He was elevated to chief justice by President Reagan in 1986. His death ends a
remarkable 33-year Supreme Court career during which Rehnquist oversaw the
court's conservative shift, presided over an impeachment trial and helped
decide a presidential election.
Rehnquist, 80 and ill with cancer, presided over
President Clinton's impeachment trial in 1999, helped settle the 2000
presidential election in Bush's favor, and fashioned decisions over the years
that diluted the powers of the federal government while strengthening those of
the states.
The chief justice passed up a chance to step down over
the summer, which would have given the Senate a chance to confirm his successor
while the court was out of session, and instead Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
announced her retirement to spend time with her ill husband. Bush chose John
Roberts, a former Rehnquist clerk and friend, to replace O'Connor. Rehnquist
said in July that he wanted to stay on the bench as long as his health would
allow.
Rehnquist announced last October that he had thyroid
cancer. He had a trachea tube inserted to help him breathe and underwent radiation
and chemotherapy treatments. Details of the chief justice's illness and his
plans had been tightly guarded. He looked frail at Bush's inauguration in
January and missed five months of court sessions before returning to the bench
in March.
On the court's final meeting day of the last term, June
27, Rehnquist appeared gaunt and had difficulty as he announced the last
decision of the term - an opinion he wrote upholding a Ten Commandments display
in Texas. His breathing was labored, and he kept the explanation short. He had
no public appearances over the summer, although he was filmed by television
crews in July as he left the hospital following two nights for treatment of a
fever.
Rehnquist had an extraordinary career, with many historic
milestones.
In 1999, he presided over Bill Clinton's impeachment
trial from the presiding officer's chair seat in the Senate, something only one
other chief justice had done. A year later he was one of five
Republican-nominated justices who voted to stop presidential ballot recounts in
Florida, effectively deciding the election for Bush over Democrat Al Gore.
"The Supreme Court of Florida ordered recounts of
tens of thousands of so-called `undervotes' spread through 64 of the state's 67
counties. This was done in a search for elusive - perhaps delusive - certainty
as to the exact count of 6 million votes," he wrote.
Rehnquist, who championed states' rights and helped speed
up executions, is the only member still on the court who voted on Roe v. Wade,
the landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion. He opposed that decision,
writing: "Even today, when society's views on abortion are changing, the
very existence of the debate is evidence that the `right' to an abortion is not
so universally accepted as (Roe) would have us believe."
He believed there was a place for some religion in
government. He wrote the 5-4 decision in 2002 that said parents may use public
tax money to send their children to religious schools. Two years later, he was
distressed when the court passed up a chance to declare that the Pledge of
Allegiance in public schools is constitutional.
"The phrase 'under God' in the pledge seems, as a
historical matter, to sum up the attitude of the nation's leaders, and to
manifest itself in many of our public observances," he wrote.
Rehnquist leaves without accomplishing the legal
revolution he had hoped for as the nation's 16th chief justice. As Rehnquist
read it, the Constitution lets states outlaw abortion and sponsor prayers in
public schools but bars them from giving special, affirmative-action
preferences to racial minorities and women. The court he led disagreed.
In 2003, for example, the court preserved affirmative
action in college admissions and issued a landmark gay rights ruling that struck
down laws criminalizing gay sex, both over Rehnquist's objections. And last
year, Rehnquist disagreed when the court ruled that the government cannot
indefinitely detain terrorism suspects and deny them access to courts
Rehnquist was somewhat of a surprise choice when
President Nixon nominated him to the court in 1971. He was a 47-year-old
Justice Department lawyer with a reputation for brilliance and unbending
conservative ideology when he was chosen to fill the seat of retiring Justice
John Marshall Harlan. Rehnquist, who practiced law in Phoenix before moving to
Washington, was the court's youngest member.
For years he was known as the "Lone Ranger" for
his many dissents on a then-liberal court that left him ideologically isolated
on the far right. Succeeding appointments of conservative justices and
Rehnquist's elevation by President Reagan to the federal judiciary's top job in
1986 transformed his role into one of leading and nurturing an increasingly
conservative Supreme Court.
Rehnquist was the force behind the court's push for
greater states' rights. The chief justice has been the leader of five
conservatives, sometimes called "the Rehnquist five," who generally
advocate limited federal government interference.
Those five - Rehnquist and O'Connor, Scalia, Anthony
Kennedy and Thomas - have voted together to strike down federal laws intended
to protect female victims of violent crime and keep guns away from schools, on
grounds that those issues were better dealt with at the local level. They
split, however, in a recent decision upholding the federal government's right
to ban sick people from smoking marijuana even in states that have laws
allowing the treatment.
The Rehnquist five were together in the Bush v. Gore
decision, which critics predicted would tarnish the court's hard-won luster.
The closing paragraph of a book Rehnquist wrote on the court's history may
stand as his answer to criticism.
Rehnquist noted that the court makes "demonstrable
errors" from time to time, but he added, "It and the country have
survived these mistakes and the court as an institution has steadily grown in
authority and prestige."
He had deflected criticism about his views on race during
his 1971 confirmation, and the one 15 years later when he became chief justice.
As a law clerk to Justice Robert Jackson, Rehnquist wrote memos in 1952 that
appeared to suggest Jackson should oppose Brown v. Board of Education, the
landmark ruling that declared public school segregation unconstitutional.
As chief justice, Rehnquist drew complaints when he led a
group of lawyers and judges in a rendition of "Dixie" at a conference
in Virginia in 1999. He did not respond to a black lawyers' organization that
called the song an offensive "symbol of slavery and oppression."
Rehnquist, a widower since 1991, dodged questions about
his legacy in a March 2004 interview. He said that he tried to keep the court
running smoothly and keep the peace among the justices.
"To get everybody working harmoniously together is
not a small feat," he said on PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show."
"You have to have a very high boiling point."
Within the court, Rehnquist was a far more popular chief
justice than his predecessor, Warren Burger. Liberal Justice John Paul Stevens
said in 2002 that Rehnquist brought "efficiency, good humor and absolute
impartiality" to the job. Some justices complained that Burger was
heavy-handed and pompous.
Rehnquist's grandparents emigrated to the United States
from Sweden in 1880 and settled in Chicago. His grandfather was a tailor, his
grandmother a school teacher. Rehnquist grew up in Wisconsin, the son of paper
salesman and a translator.
He at first had planned to be a college professor, but a
test showed him suited to the legal field. In 1952, he graduated first in his
class at Stanford University's law school, where he briefly dated O'Connor, the
high court's first female justice.
Rehnquist caused great amusement when he departed from tradition
by adding four shiny gold stripes to each sleeve of his black robe in 1995. The
flourish was inspired by a costume in a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta.
A close student of the Supreme Court's traditions and
history, he was a stickler for decorum. He frequently admonished hapless
lawyers who did not show what Rehnquist regarded as proper courtesy in the
courtroom. His gravelly monotone silenced any who kept talking past their
allotted time.
He was the enthusiastic host of an annual, old-fashioned
employee Christmas party at the court. At a time when many schools, government
offices and private businesses quietly did away with overtly Christian holiday
symbols, Rehnquist led the singing of traditional Christmas carols.
Rehnquist has led a quiet social life outside the court.
Until recently, he walked daily, as tonic for a chronic bad back, and played
tennis with his law clerks. He enjoyed bridge, spending time with his eight
grandchildren, charades and a monthly poker game with Scalia and a revolving
cast of powerful Washington men. He liked beer, and smoked in private.
The only chief justice older than Rehnquist was Roger Taney, who presided over the high court in the mid-1800s until his death at 87. Rehnquist was also closing in on the record for longest-serving justice. Only four men were on the court 34 years or longer.
24 teams score 8 points in our second biggest hit this
year.
Clarence
"Gatemouth" Brown, the singer and guitarist who built a 50-year
career playing blues, country, jazz and Cajun music, died Saturday 09/10/05 in
his hometown of Orange, Texas, where he had gone to escape Hurricane Katrina.
He was 81. Brown, who had been battling lung cancer and heart disease, was in
ill health for the past year. The musician was with his family at his brother's
house when he died. Brown's home in Slidell, La., a bedroom community of New
Orleans, was destroyed by Katrina.
Although his career first took off in the 1940s with
blues hits "Okie Dokie Stomp" and "Ain't That Dandy," Brown
bristled when he was labeled a bluesman. In the second half of his career, he
became known as a musical jack-of-all-trades who played a half-dozen
instruments and culled from jazz, country, Texas blues, and the zydeco and
Cajun music of his native Louisiana. By the end of his career, Brown had more
than 30 recordings and won a Grammy award in 1982.
Brown's versatility came partly from a childhood spent in
the musical mishmash of southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas. He was
born in Vinton, La., andgrew up in Orange, Texas. Brown often said he learned
to love music from his father, a railroad worker who sang and played fiddle in
a Cajun band. Brown, who was dismissive of most of his contemporary blues
players, named his father as his greatest musical influence.
Brown started playing fiddle by age 5. At 10, he taught
himself an odd guitar picking style he used all his life, dragging his long,
bony fingers over the strings. In his teens, Brown toured as a drummer with
swing bands and was nicknamed "Gatemouth" for his deep voice. After a
brief stint in the Army, he returned in 1945 to Texas, where he was inspired by
blues guitarist T-Bone Walker. Brown's career took off in 1947 when Walker
became ill and had to leave the stage at a Houston nightclub. The club owner
invited Brown to sing, but Brown grabbed Walker's guitar and thrilled the crowd
by tearing through "Gatemouth Boogie" -- a song he claimed to have
made up on the spot.
He made dozens of recordings in the 1940s and '50s,
including many regional hits -- "Okie Dokie Stomp," "Boogie
Rambler," and "Dirty Work at the Crossroads." But he became
frustrated by the limitations of the blues and began carving a new career by
recording albums that featured jazz and country songs mixed in with the blues
numbers.
Brown -- who performed in cowboy boots, cowboy hat and
Western-style shirts -- lived in Nashville in the early 1960s, hosting an
R&B television show and recording country singles. In 1979, he and country
guitarist Roy Clark recorded "Makin' Music," an album that included
blues and country songs and a cover of the Billy Strayhorn-Duke Ellington
classic "Take the A-Train." Brown recorded with Eric Clapton, Ry
Cooder, Bonnie Raitt and others, but he took a dim view of most musicians --
and blues guitarists in particular. He called B.B. King one-dimensional. He
dismissed his famous Texas blues contemporaries Albert Collins and Johnny
Copeland as clones of T-Bone Walker, whom many consider the father of modern
Texas blues.
Survivors include three daughters and a son.
28IF, Already Dead, Bam Morris Up The Middle, Die2K,
Forrest Tucker's Ghost, Mafia Actuary, Maggot On Your Sleeve and
Spectral Evidence all get the minimum 8 points for Gatemouth.
Robert
Wise, who won four Oscars as producer and director of the classic 1960s
musicals "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music," has
died. He was 91. Wise died Wednesday 09/14/05 of heart failure after falling
ill and being rushed to the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical
Center. Wise had appeared in good health when he celebrated his 91st birthday
Saturday.
Wise was nominated for seven Oscars, including the four
he won, during a career that spanned more than 50 years. The other nominations
were for editing the 1941 Orson Welles classic "Citizen Kane,"
directing 1958's "I Want to Live!" and producing 1966's "The
Sand Pebbles," which was nominated for best picture. Wise directed 39
films in all, ranging from science fiction ("The Day the Earth Stood
Still") to drama ("I Want to Live!") to war stories ("Run
Silent Run Deep") to Westerns ("Tribute to a Bad Man").
With the big-budget productions "West Side
Story" and "The Sound of Music," he helped create two of the
most critically acclaimed and popular musicals of all time. "West Side
Story" was the tale of "Romeo and Juliet" set in the New York
City tenement slums of the early 1960s. Co-directed by Wise and Jerome Robbins,
with music by Leonard Bernstein, it won 10 Academy Awards. "The Sound of
Music," which told the story of the singing von Trapp family's escape from
Nazi-ruled Austria, won five Oscars. It was for many years the top-grossing
film of all time. Wise gave much of the credit for the film's success to its
stars, Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.
He also credited Orson Welles, for whom he edited
"The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Citizen Kane," as a major
influence, adding that the actor-director-writer was "as close to a genius
as anyone I have ever met. Citizen Kane" was "a marvelous film to
work on — well-planned and well-shot," Wise once said. It has topped many
polls over the years as the best film ever made.
Wise moved up from film editor to director almost by
accident when he was assigned to finish "The Curse of the Cat People"
after the original director fell too far behind schedule on that 1944 film.
Pleased with his work, horror film producer Val Lewton assigned Wise to direct
"The Body Snatcher" the following year. Other films Wise directed
include "The Set-Up" in 1949; "Destination Gobi" in 1952;
"Executive Suite" in 1954; "Two for the Seesaw" in 1962;
"The Haunting" in 1963; "The Andromeda Strain" in 1971; and
"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979.
Born Sept. 10, 1914, in Winchester, Ind., Wise dropped
out of college during the Depression after his brother, an accountant at RKO,
helped get him a job at the studio. He worked his way up to film editor or
co-editor on such movies as "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle,"
"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "The Devil and Daniel Webster."
In addition to his four Oscars, Wise was awarded the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award,
a special Oscar for sustained achievement, in 1966. He also received the
Directors Guild of America's highest honor, the D.W. Griffith Award, in 1988.
More recently, he served as president of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Directors Guild of America.
The Big Casino gets a big boost with a solo Active
Squad hit on the old school Hollywood bigwig. Bloody Mary gets 3 points
for the Taxi Squad hit.
Simon
Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor who helped track down Nazi war criminals
following World War II, then spent the later decades of his life fighting anti-Semitism
and prejudice against all people, died Tuesday 09/20/05. He was 96. Wiesenthal,
who helped find one-time SS leader Adolf Eichmann and the policeman who
arrested Anne Frank, died in his sleep at his home in Vienna.
A survivor of five Nazi death camps, Wiesenthal changed
his life's mission after the war, dedicating himself to tracking down Nazi war
criminals and to being a voice for the 6 million Jews who died during the
onslaught. He himself lost 89 relatives in the Holocaust. Wiesenthal spent more
than 50 years hunting Nazi war criminals, speaking out against neo-Nazism and
racism, and remembering the Jewish experience as a lesson for humanity. Through
his work, he said, some 1,100 Nazi war criminals were brought to justice.
Wiesenthal was first sent to a concentration camp in
1941, outside Lviv, Ukraine. In October 1943, he escaped from the Ostbahn camp
just before the Germans began killing all the inmates. He was recaptured in
June 1944 and sent back to Janwska, but escaped death as his SS guards
retreated with their prisoners from the Soviet Red Army. Wiesenthal's quest
began after the Americans liberated the Mauthausen death camp in Austria where
Wiesenthal was a prisoner in May 1945. It was his fifth death camp among the
dozen Nazi camps in which he was imprisoned, and he weighed just 99 pounds when
he was freed. He said he quickly realized "there is no freedom without
justice," and decided to dedicate "a few years" to that mission.
Even after turning 90, Wiesenthal continued to remind and to warn. While
appalled at atrocities committed by Serbs against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in
the 1990s, he said no one should confuse the tragedy there with the Holocaust.
He was born on Dec. 31, 1908, to Jewish merchants at
Buczacs, a small town near the present-day Ukrainian city of Lviv in what was
then the Austro-Hungarian empire. He studied in Prague and Warsaw and in 1932
received a degree in civil engineering. He apprenticed as a building engineer
in Russia before returning to Lviv to open an architectural office. Then the
Russians and the Germans occupied Lviv and the terror began.
After the war, working first with the Americans and later
from a cramped Vienna apartment packed with documents, Wiesenthal tirelessly
pursued fugitive war criminals. He was perhaps best known for his role in
tracking down Eichmann, who organized the extermination of the Jews. Eichmann
was found in Argentina, abducted by Israeli agents in 1960, tried and hanged
for crimes committed against the Jews. Wiesenthal often was accused of
exaggerating his role in Eichmann's capture. He did not claim sole
responsibility, but said he knew by 1954 where Eichmann was.
Among others Wiesenthal tracked down was Austrian policeman
Karl Silberbauer, who he believed arrested the Dutch teenager Anne Frank and
sent her to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she died. Wiesenthal
decided to pursue Silberbauer in 1958 after a youth told him he did not believe
in Frank's existence and murder, but would if Wiesenthal could find the man who
arrested her. His five-year search resulted in Silberbauer's 1963 capture.
Wiesenthal did not bring to justice one prime target — Dr. Josef Mengele, the
infamous "Angel of Death" of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Mengele died in South America after eluding capture for decades.
Wiesenthal's long quest for justice also stirred
controversy.
In Austria, which took decades to acknowledge its own
role in Nazi crimes, Wiesenthal was ignored and often insulted before being
honored for his work when he was in his 80s. In 1975, then-Chancellor Bruno
Kreisky, himself a Jew, suggested Wiesenthal was part of a "certain
mafia" seeking to besmirch Austria. Kreisky even claimed Wiesenthal collaborated
with Nazis to survive. Ironically, it was the furor over Kurt Waldheim, who
became president in 1986 despite lying about his past as an officer in Hitler's
army, that gave Wiesenthal stature in Austria. Wiesenthal's failure to condemn
Waldheim as a war criminal drew international ire and conflict with American
Jewish groups. But it made Austrians realize that the Nazi hunter did not
condemn everybody who took part in the Nazi war effort. Wiesenthal did
repeatedly demand Waldheim's resignation, seeing him as a symbol of those who
suppressed Austria's role as part of Hitler's German war and death machine. But
he turned up no proof of widespread allegations that Waldheim was an accessory
to war crimes.
Wiesenthal earned many awards, including Austria's Golden
Decoration of Merit, which was presented by President Heinz Fischer at
Wiesenthal's home in June. He also wrote several books, including his memoirs,
"The Murderers Among Us," in 1967, and worked regularly at the small
downtown office of his Jewish Documentation Center even after turning 90.
Bloody Mary, Crypt Kickers, Curb Your Dogma, Dark
Clouds and Silva Linings , Elvis' Rotting Corpse, Excuse Me For Coffin, Killers
of Hope, Life'll Kill Ya, Monty Python's Dying Circus, The Famous Final Scene and
Zombies in Training all get an 8-point boost for the Nazi Hunter.
Molly
Yard, a liberal political activist who rose to become president of the National
Organization for Women, has died. She was 93. Yard died Wednesday 09/21/05 in
the Fair Oaks Nursing Home in Pittsburgh, where she had lived for seven years.
Yard was elected president of NOW in 1987 and served
until she stepped down in December 1991, after suffering a stroke at her office
in Washington, D.C., that May. Yard was born in Shanghai, China, and moved to
Pittsburgh in 1953 after attending Swarthmore College in suburban Philadelphia.
She worked for various political candidates, including
President John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Democratic nominee George McGovern in
1972. She became active in NOW in Pittsburgh in 1974 and joined its national
staff in 1978. At that time, NOW was campaigning for the Equal Rights Amendment
and Yard raised more than $1 million for that drive in less than six months
while lobbying in Washington, D.C.
Yard made NOW more visible and worked against Robert H.
Bork, whom the Senate rejected as President Ronald Reagan's nominee to the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1987.
Crypt Kickers and Still Auditioning for the
Choir Invisible get 18 points each on the hit for Yard right when they needed
it.
Don
Adams, who gained worldwide fame and three Emmy Awards starring as Agent 86,
Maxwell Smart, in the classic television comedy GET SMART, died Sunday09/25/05
at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills. He was 82. Although he had been in
failing health for more than two years due to bone lymphoma, his death resulted
from a sudden lung infection for which he was hospitalized the previous day.
Born Donald James Yarmy on April 13, 1923 [correct,
despite frequently reported erroneous dates] in New York City to
Irish-Hungarian parents, Adams hoped for an engineering career. He joined the
U.S. Marines in the early days of World War II and served as a drill
instructor. He saw combat in the invasion of Guadalcanal and was the only
survivor of his platoon. He contracted blackwater fever and nearly died,
remaining hospitalized for more than a year.
Following the war, he embarked on a career as an
impressionist and stand-up comedian, appearing in small clubs in Florida and
Washington D.C. He married singer Adelaide Adams and took her professional last
name as his own stage name. In 1954, his stand-up act, written with his boyhood
friend Bill Dana, landed him a contestant spot on ARTHUR GODFREY'S TALENT
SCOUTS, which he won. This led to scores of appearances on comedy and variety
series such as THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW and Ed Sullivan's THE TOAST OF THE TOWN,
and ultimately to a regular job on THE PERRY COMO SHOW. He also played in stock
and in 1962 starred with Anthony Perkins in the Broadway play HAROLD.
Divorced and remarried (to dancer Dorothy Bracken), Adams
in 1963 reunited with Bill Dana on THE BILL DANA SHOW, playing inept hotel
detective Byron Glick, a forerunner to his most famous characterization. NBC
placed Adams under contract and gave him the starring role in Mel Brooks's and
Buck Henry's spy spoof GET SMART. As the bumbling yet intrepid secret agent
Maxwell Smart, Adams was an instant success. With his alluring straight-woman
partner Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), Adams became a comic icon of the 1960s,
popularizing dozens of catch-phrases that still resound today: "Would you
believe?", "Missed it by THAT much!", "...and LOVING
it!" and "Sorry about that, Chief."
Adams reveled in the show and its popularity, and
particularly enjoyed writing and directing several episodes. GET SMART ran for
five seasons and
brought Adams wealth, awards, and worldwide fame. At the
same time, he continued to achieve recognition as one of the funniest and most
popular
stand-up comedians of his generation.
Adams returned in a new series in 1971, THE PARTNERS,
which, though slightly more serious than GET SMART, still had him playing a
bumbling
law-enforcement officer. This time he starred with Rupert
Crosse, the two playing a pair of none-too-bright detectives. The show lasted
one season.
Except for the intriguing but unsuccessful DON ADAMS'S
SCREEN TEST (a contest show in which Adams directed famous stars and amateurs
in scenes from classic movies), he did not return to series television for
fourteen years.
Instead he guest-starred on sitcoms, variety shows, and
occasional TV movies. He played Las Vegas showrooms and nightclubs, though he
grew
increasingly reluctant to perform before live audiences.
With the distinctive voice of his on-screen persona, he had long been active in
voice-over work. Even during the GET SMART period he had been popular among
children as the voice of the animated TENNESSE TUXEDO, and later was even more
popular in his title role as INSPECTOR GADGET.
Divorced again, he married a third time in 1977 (to Judy
Luciano). During this period, Adams starred in and directed a number of
commercials, winning a CLIO Award for directing. In 1980, he reluctantly
returned to the Maxwell Smart character in a feature film, THE NUDE BOMB, which
he hated. He also brought the character briefly back to television in the 1989
TV movie GET SMART, AGAIN!
In 1985, he returned to series television in a Canadian
sitcom, CHECK IT OUT, in which he played the manager of a supermarket. The show
was popular enough to run for three seasons on American TV, but it mainly
provided a paycheck for Adams and a co-starring role for a pre-NYPD BLUE Gordon
Clapp.
In later years, he hoped for a chance at serious roles,
of which he had done many in his early years in summer stock. But the
opportunity never arrived. A role was actually written for him by his
son-in-law for the revived ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS in 1986, but the producers
feared he could not subsume his comedic persona, and the role went to Martin
Landau.
Instead, he returned to the role that had made him world
famous, in a third revival of Maxwell Smart. The 1995 series version of GET
SMART featured Adams as Smart, now promoted to Chief of the secret agency
CONTROL. Barbara Feldon also returned as his wife and colleague, but instead of
the couple who had made television history, the show focused on the bumbling
spy efforts of their son Zach Smart. Only seven episodes aired before the new
show was cancelled.
Adams spent the remainder of his career doing commercials
and voice work, mostly in new INSPECTOR GADGET productions. In 1999, he made a
cameo voice appearance in the live-action INSPECTOR GADGET feature film
starring Matthew Broderick as Gadget.
Like his brother, the late comedian Dick Yarmy, Adams was
an inveterate horse-player. His leisure time was largely spent either at
racetracks or in
card games at the Playboy Mansion, and with pals such as
Hugh Hefner, James Caan, and Don Rickles. Divorced for the third time, he lived
alone in a luxury apartment in Century City. He was a devoted history buff, and
was an amateur expert on the lives of Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler. He was
a talented poet and painter and had at one time considered a career as an
artist.
His health declined in recent years with the onset of
lymphoma, but took a precipitous turn for the worse following the death last
year of his daughter, actress-casting director Cecily Adams. In recent weeks he
had declined to continue medications or treatment for his ailments. Following
his emergency hospitalization on September 24, he was unable to breathe on his
own. As per his instructions, life-support systems were turned off
Sunday night. Two of his former wives and three of his
children, as well as other family members, were with him when he died.
Thanks to Jim Beaver for this obit.
Deadbeats, E-Brake, Fecal Matter, Six Feet Under and
Zombies in Training all garner 12 points for the talented Mr. Adams.
Actor
Nipsey Russell, known as "the poet laureate of television," passed away
Sunday 10/02/05 at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City of cancer. He was 82.
Russell was born in 1923, although some reports had him born in 1924. Russell
did not retain a birth certificate.
Russell achieved his first major role as Officer Anderson
in "Car 54, Where Are You?".
He appeared on a string of game shows and variety shows, such as the
"Dean Martin Roasts," "Laugh-In," "Jackie Gleason
Show," among many others.
In the 1970s, Russell rode the wave of popular game shows
that relied on witty celebrity contestants for their zing. He appeared
regularly on "To Tell the Truth" and "Match Game."
Thanks to his habit of reading humorous poems on
late-night TV, a skill crafted at the University of Cincinnati, Russell earned
his moniker as the poet laureate of television. He showcased the talent
regularly on "The Tonight Show" and other popular talk shows of the
day.
Russell adapted easily to the changing mores of
television, becoming a staple on sitcoms like "Spin City," "The
Chris Rock Show" and "227" in the late 1990s. His most recent TV
work was at the end of 2003, when he appeared on half a dozen episodes of
"Hollywood Squares."
Dead Like Them and Knock Knock Knocking on
Death's Door each get the gift of 18 points for Nipsey.
Tom
Cheek, who called every game in the history of the Toronto Blue Jays until last
year, died Sunday 10/09/05 after a battle with brain cancer. He was 66. Cheek,
who died at his home in Oldsmar, Fla., was best known for his streak, which
ended at 27½ seasons on June 3, 2004, because of his father's death. He called
4,306 consecutive regular season games, plus 41 more in the postseason, since
the Blue Jays began playing in 1977.
Shortly after his father's death, Cheek was diagnosed
with a brain tumor. He had partially successful surgery to remove it last June
13, 2004, his 65th birthday. He underwent chemotherapy afterward and returned
to call some games, while fighting short-term memory loss.
On Aug. 29, 2004, Cheek was honored by the Blue Jays with
his induction into the Level of Excellence, the club's highest award for
individual achievement. Cheek became just the seventh inductee and only the
second member of non-uniformed personnel so honored. In this past year, Cheek
was named as one of ten finalists for the Ford C. Frick Award, recognizing
baseball broadcasting excellence and carrying with it induction into the Hall
of Fame. Cheek was in good spirits this spring and was to be back in the booth
in 2005 until a second round of cancer hit him in the spring.
A straight-shooter who was friendly, charming and sincere
in person, Cheek was the same on the radio, avoiding gimmicks and catchphrases.
His knack for capturing the moment was best demonstrated by his call on Joe
Carter's 1993 World Series winning home run -- "Touch 'em all Joe, you'll
never hit a bigger home run in your life." That became his calling card.
Cheek, who was born June 13, 1939, in Pensacola, Fla., is
survived by his wife, Shirley, their three children and seven grandchildren.
Dead As a Doornail, Putnam's Tomahawk Chop and
Raven each receive 16 points for the Iron Man of Baseball Broadcasting.
Nearly
50 years ago, Rosa Parks made a simple decision that sparked a revolution. When
a white man demanded she give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, the then
42-year-old seamstress said no. At the time, she couldn't have known it would
secure her a revered place in American history. But her one small act of
defiance galvanized a generation of activists, including a young Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr., and earned her the title "mother of the civil rights
movement."
Mrs. Parks died Monday evening 10/24/05 at her home of
natural causes, with close friends by her side. She was 92. She was born Rosa
Louise McCauley on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala. Family illness interrupted
her high school education, but after she married Raymond Parks in 1932, he
encouraged her and she earned a diploma in 1934. He also inspired her to become
involved in the NAACP.
In 1955, Jim Crow laws in place since the post-Civil War Reconstruction
required separation of the races in buses, restaurants and public
accommodations throughout the South, while legally sanctioned racial
discrimination kept blacks out of many jobs and neighborhoods in the North.
Mrs. Parks, an active member of the local chapter of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was riding on a
city bus Dec. 1, 1955, when a white man demanded her seat. She refused, despite
rules requiring blacks to yield their seats to whites. Two black Montgomery
women had been arrested earlier that year on the same charge, but Mrs. Parks
was jailed. She also was fined $14. Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of
the bus system organized by a then little-known Baptist minister, the Rev.
King, who later earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
The Montgomery bus boycott, which came one year after the
U.S. Supreme Court's landmark declaration that separate schools for blacks and
whites were "inherently unequal," marked the start of the modern
civil rights movement. The movement culminated in the 1964 federal Civil Rights
Act, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations. After taking
her public stand for civil rights, Mrs. Parks had trouble finding work in
Alabama. Amid threats and harassment, she and her husband, Raymond, moved to
Detroit in 1957. She worked as an aide in Conyers' Detroit office from 1965
until retiring Sept. 30, 1988. Raymond Parks died in 1977.
Mrs. Parks said upon retiring from her job with Conyers
that she wanted to devote more time to the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for
Self Development. The institute, incorporated in 1987, is devoted to developing
leadership among Detroit's young people and initiating them into the struggle
for civil rights.
"Rosa Parks: My Story," was published in
February 1992. In 1994 she brought out "Quiet Strength: The Faith, the
Hope and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation," and in 1996 a
collection of letters called "Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's
Youth."
She was among the civil rights leaders who addressed the
Million Man March in October 1995. In 1996, she received the Presidential Medal
of Freedom, awarded to civilians making outstanding contributions to American
life. In 1999, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's
highest civilian honor. Mrs. Parks received dozens of other awards, ranging
from induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor to an NAACP Image Award for
her 1999 appearance on CBS' "Touched by an Angel."
Her later years were not without difficult moments. In
1994, her home was invaded by a 28-year-old man who beat her and took $53. She
was treated at a hospital and released. The man, Joseph Skipper, pleaded
guilty, blaming the crime on his drug problem. Mrs. Parks rarely was seen in
public after 2001, when she canceled a meeting with President Bush. In court
papers filed in September 2004 in connection with her lawsuit over the rap
group OutKast's song "Rosa Parks," her lawyers said she had dementia.
After losing the OutKast lawsuit, her attorney, said Mrs. Parks "has once
again suffered the pains of exploitation." A later suit against OutKast's
record company was settled out of court. In 2002, her landlord threatened to
evict her from her high-rise apartment in downtown Detroit after her caregivers
missed rental payments. Riverfront Associates decided in October 2004 to let
her live there rent-free permanently.
24 teams gather another 8 points for the civil rights
icon.
Al
Lopez, a Hall of Fame catcher and manager who led the Cleveland Indians and
Chicago White Sox to American League pennants in the 1950s, died Sunday
10/30/05 at 97. Lopez had been hospitalized in Tampa since Friday, when he
suffered a heart attack at his son's home. Lopez was the oldest living member
of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Lopez hit .261 with 51 homers and 652 RBIs during a
19-year career in which he was one of baseball's most durable catchers and set
the record for most games caught in the major leagues at 1,918. The record was
later broken by Bob Boone, then Carlton Fisk. Lopez was best known for being
the only AL manager to lead teams that finished ahead of the New York Yankees
between 1949-64. He helped the Indians to the 1954 pennant and, until last
week, was the last manager to lead the White Sox to the World Series - their
1959 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The two-time All-Star's first full season in the majors
was 1930, and he played 18 seasons for Brooklyn, Boston, Pittsburgh and
Cleveland. He managed the Indians from 1951-56 and the White Sox from 1957-65
and 1968-69. Every off-season, Lopez returned to Tampa, where he was born in
1908. Lopez caught Bob Feller, Dizzy Dean and Dazzy Vance, but never forgot
working as a teenager with Walter Johnson, who won 417 games and possessed a
legendary fastball. During spring training in 1925, the Washington Senators
hired the 15-year-old Lopez to catch batting practice for $45 a week. Johnson
was nearing the end of his career by then, but still made an impression on the
youngster.
Although he held the record for most games caught until
Bob Boone caught his 1,919th game in 1987, Lopez was elected to the Hall of
Fame in 1977 as a manager with a .581 winning percentage. The Indians won a
then-AL record 111 games in 1954, and his 1959 "Go-Go" White Sox won
Chicago's first AL pennant since 1919. His teams finished second to the Yankees
every other season that decade. Lopez's second stint as manager of the White
Sox ended May 2, 1969, when he resigned for health reasons with a career record
of 1,422-1,026.
With Lopez's death, former New York Yankees shortstop
Phil Rizzuto, 88, becomes the oldest living member of the Hall. Lopez remained
active in his retirement, frequently shooting his age in golf, and he also
closely followed the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, his son said.
Lopez had lived alone in Tampa since his wife, Connie,
died in 1983. He is survived by Lopez Jr., three grandchildren and nine
great-grandchildren.
Crypt Kickers, Death March, Excuse Me For Coffin,
Fecal Matter, Knock Knock Knocking on Death's Door, Life'll Kill Ya and
Still Auditioning for the Choir Invisible all receive 8 points for the
HOFer.
Skitch
Henderson, the Grammy-winning conductor who lent his musical expertise to Frank
Sinatra and Bing Crosby before founding the New York Pops and becoming the first
"Tonight Show" bandleader, died Tuesday 11/01/05. He was 87.
Henderson died at his home in New Milford, CT of natural causes.
Born in England, Lyle Russell Cedric Henderson moved to
the United States in the 1930s, eking out a living as a pianist, playing
vaudeville and movie music in Minnesota and Montana roadhouses. He got his big
break in 1937, when he filled in for a sick pianist touring with Judy Garland
and Mickey Rooney. When the tour
wrapped up in Chicago, he used the original pianist's ticket and went to
Hollywood. There he joined the music department at MGM and played piano for Bob
Hope's "The Pepsodent Show." His friendship with Hope put him in
touch with other stars of the day, including Crosby, who became a mentor to
Henderson.
He studied with the noted composer Arnold Schoenberg and
Henderson's talented ear brought him renown from some of the era's most
successful musicians. "I could sketch out a score in different keys, a new
way each time," Henderson said earlier this year. That quicksilver ability
earned him the nickname "the sketch kid," which Crosby urged him to
adapt to "Skitch." It stuck.
During World War II, Henderson flew for both the Royal
Air Force and the United States Army Air Corps. At his estate in New Milford,
which he shared with his wife, Ruth, Henderson kept a collection of aviation
memorabilia. Even at 87, he had said he hoped to fly the Atlantic once more.
After the war, Henderson toured as Sinatra's musical
director and lived what he called a "gypsy lifestyle," touring the
country with various bands. It was Sinatra's phone call that lured Henderson to
New York.
He served as musical director for the "Lucky
Strike" radio show and "The Philco Hour" with Crosby. And when
NBC moved to television, the studio brought Henderson along as musical
director. In 1954, NBC pegged him as the bandleader for Steve Allen's
"Tonight Show," which brought Henderson into the nation's living
rooms every night. Even as the hosts changed from Allen to Jack Paar to Johnny
Carson, Henderson was a constant.
He founded the New York Pops in 1983, using popular tunes
to make orchestral music exciting.
In 1975, Henderson was sentenced to six months in prison
and a $10,000 fine for filing false income tax statements. He was convicted of
wrongly reporting that he donated musical scores and arrangements worth
$350,000 to the University of Wisconsin in 1969. His defense lawyer blamed the
tax violations on bad advice from an accountant.
Even in his late 80s, Henderson maintained a tireless
work schedule as music director for the Pops, where he regularly served as
conductor. He also was a frequent guest conductor at a number of orchestras
around the world.
Dead Like Them, Elvis' Rotting Corpse, Fecal Matter,
Inverse Genesis and The Famous Final Scene pick up 12 points for the
Pops conductor.
Robert
Tisch, co-owner of the New York Giants and a civic leader in New York City for
several decades, died at his home Tuesday 11/15/05 of brain cancer. He was 79.
Tisch's death followed by three weeks the passing of the Giants' other
co-owner, Wellington Mara, on Oct. 25, also of cancer. Wellington Mara was the
son of team founder Timothy J. Mara.
Tisch bought 50 percent of the Giants from Tim Mara,
Wellington Mara's nephew, in 1991, not long after the Giants defeated Buffalo,
20-19, to win Super Bowl XXV. He also was U.S. postmaster general from 1986 to
88 and chairman and director of Loews Corp., a company he and his late brother,
Laurence Tisch, had purchased in 1959 when it was known as Loews Theaters, a theater
chain. The company changed its name to Loews Corp. in 1971 and currently owns
and operates Loews Hotels, the Lorillard Tobacco Co. and 97 percent of Bulova
Corp., among other interests.
Tisch was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in
2004 and had curtailed his regular visits to Giants practices and games.
12 teams picked up 8 points each for the triply famous
Tisch. 28IF receives 3 points for having on their Taxi Squad.
Broadcasting
pioneer Ralph Edwards, who spotlighted stars and ordinary people as host of the
popular 1950s show "This Is Your Life," died Wednesday 11/16/05 of
heart failure. He was 92. Edwards, whose career as producer and host included
"Truth or Consequences" and "People's Court," died in his
sleep in his West Hollywood home, publicist Justin Seremet said.
Edwards first hit it big in radio in 1940 with
"Truth or Consequences," a novelty show in which contestants who
failed to answer trick questions - the "truth" - had to suffer
"the consequences" by performing some elaborate stunt. Then came
television. The Federal Communications Commission approved commercial
broadcasts beginning on July 1, 1941, after a few years of experimental
broadcasts, and NBC's New York station was the first to make the changeover.
Edwards did 'Truth or Consequences' on television in July 1941. It was the
first commercial show for NBC. The United States' entry into World War II five
months later disrupted TV's progress. "Truth or Consequences," which
prospered on radio in the interim, returned to television in 1950. Earlier that
same year, the citizens of little Hot Springs, N.M., voted 1,294-295 to change
the town's name to Truth or Consequences. Edwards had promised to broadcast the
radio show from the town that agreed to the change.
"This Is Your Life" also was born on radio and
then migrated to television, running on NBC-TV from 1952 to 1961. It featured
guests, many of them celebrities, who were lured in on a ruse, then surprised
by Edwards announcing, "This is your life!" Relatives and old friends
then would be brought on to reminisce about the guest. Among the people he
caught unaware were Marilyn Monroe, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Bob Hope,
Andy Griffith, Buster Keaton, Barbara Eden, Bette Davis, Shirley Jones, Jayne
Mansfield and Carol Channing. But not all guests were entertainers. A 1953
episode profiled Hanna Bloch Kohner, a survivor of the Holocaust. Edwards said
he and his staff used all kinds of subterfuge to surprise guests. Some would
run away and be pulled back, all in fun, but broadcaster Lowell Thomas made
headlines when he refused to play along on a 1959 show. According to the
reference book "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV
Shows," one person was off limits for the surprise treatment: Edwards
himself. He told staff members he would fire every one of them if they put him
on.
Edwards had a hand in other shows, producing or creating
"Name That Tune," "Cross Wits," "Superior Court,"
"It Could Be You," "Place the Face," "About
Faces," "Funny Boners," "End of the Rainbow,"
"Who in the World," "The Woody Woodbury Show" and
"Wide Country." In the '80s, Ralph Edwards Productions' show "The
People's Court" made a star of retired Judge Joseph A. Wapner.
Edwards broke into radio in 1929 in Oakland as a
16-year-old high school student. He worked at KROW and KFRC in San Francisco
while attending college at the University of California at Berkeley.
Edwards said he went back to Truth or Consequences, N.M.,
dozens of times over the years. Besides changing the name, townspeople made
Edwards an honorary member of the Sheriff's Posse. The name continues a
half-century later. Periodic efforts to reverse the change failed.
He also appeared in several motion pictures: "Seven
Days Leave," "Radio Stars on Parade," "Bamboo Blonde,"
"Beat the Band," "I'll Cry Tomorrow," "Manhattan
Merry-Go-Round" and "Radio Stars of 1937."
Edwards' wife,
Barbara, died in 1993 after 53 years of marriage. Their children are a son,
Gary, who worked with Edwards; and two daughters, Christine and Laurie.
Ace Reloaded: Fallen Skaters, Bloody Mary, Crypt
Kickers, Dead Men Walking and SickSyndi all get 12 points for the
Master of Ceremonies.
Harold Stone, a veteran character actor who worked
with everyone from Humphrey Bogart to Jerry Lewis over a 40-year career in
television and films, has died. He was 92. Stone died Friday 11/18/05 of
natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital
in Los Angeles.
Known for his chiseled features, Stone appeared in 30 films
including "Spartacus," "The Big Mouth," "The Wrong
Man" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told." He also had more than
150 roles on television, mostly in crime shows and police dramas, according to
Internet Movie Database. In 1964, Stone earned an Emmy nomination for his
portrayal of an Army medic who becomes a nurse in an episode of the CBS drama
"The Nurses." An only child, he was born Harold Hochstein on March 3,
1913, in New York City. The third-generation actor made his stage debut at 6
with his father, Jacob Hochstein, in the Yiddish play "White Slaves."
He had one line -- "mama" -- that he failed to remember on opening
night.
After graduating from New York
University, he studied medicine at the University of Buffalo during the
Depression but was forced to drop out to support his mother and fell back on
acting.
On Broadway, he debuted in 1939
in "The World We Make" and appeared in four more plays there before
making his uncredited film debut in
"The Blue Dahlia" (1946).
In 1956, he appeared with Bogart in "The Harder They Fall." Lewis
directed Stone in three films, including "The Big Mouth," "Which
Way to the Front?" and "Hardly Working."
Until he retired in 1980, he was
an often-menacing presence on TV crime shows and police dramas. He also
appeared in about 30 films, including
Alfred Hitchcock's "The
Wrong Man" (1956), "Spartacus" (1960) and "The Greatest
Story Ever Told" (1965).
Stone is survived by two sons, a daughter and four grandchildren.
Spectral Evidence gets a big 20-point boost for the solo hit on the
character actor.
Richard Burns, the only Englishman to win the world
rally championship, died from the effects of a brain tumor. He was 34.
Burns, the 2001 champion, died
Friday 11/24/05 after going into a coma, seven months after surgery to remove
the tumor.
His last race was in 2003, when
he led the championship. On the way to the Rally of Wales, he passed out at the
wheel of his car and the resulting examinations diagnosed an astrocytoma, a
form of tumor.
He had chemotherapy and
radiotherapy in 2004 but was forced into April's surgery when his health
deteriorated. The procedure alleviated the symptoms and allowed him to stay
active for a time. In August, he attended a parade of the cars he had driven.
"From the outset Richard knew that the odds were heavily
against him and yet he fought his illness with bravery and good humor,"
said a statement on Burns' Web site.
Forrest Tucker's Ghost captures 28 points (20 for the solo hit, 4 for the
Under 65 and 4 for the Under 55) on the Rally Champ.
Actress Wendie Jo Sperber has died of breast cancer at
home Wednesday 11/30/05 in Los Angeles. She was 46.
She starred in "Bosom
Buddies" with Tom Hanks and was in the "Back to the Future"
movies with Michael J. Fox. Her other films included “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”,
“Used Cars” and “Bachelor Party”.
Sperber founded the
"we-Spark" cancer support center.
Tom Hanks said of her, "She
met the challenges of her illness with love, cheer, joy, altruism through
we-SPARK, and an unstoppable supply of goodness. We are going to miss her as
surely as we are all better for knowing her."
She is survived by her
parents and a son and daughter.
11 teams collected 16
points (8 points + U65 + U55) for the Plus-sized comedienne.
Marc Lawrence, whose pockmarked face and brooding
mannerisms made him a natural for roles as the tough guy, gangster and
undertaker in dozens of movies beginning in the 1930s, has died. He was 95.
Lawrence died early Monday 12/02/05 at his Palm Springs home from heart
failure. After spending eight days in the hospital a few weeks ago, doctors
told the family that Lawrence was very sick and likely wouldn't live much
longer.
Born in New York City in 1910,
Lawrence acted in plays through high school before attending City College of
New York. After years of stage performances in Eva Le Gallienne's company,
Lawrence signed a contract with Columbia Pictures in 1932. Over the next 60
years, Lawrence would play the mob boss, thug and general bad guy in dozens of
films. "Lawrence was perhaps the only character actor of the 1930s and
1940s still being cast in similar gangsterish roles in the 1980s and 1990s, in
such films as The Big Easy (1987) and Ruby (1992)," wrote Leonard Maltin
in "Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia." Lawrence, however, also
stepped outside the rogue genre, taking on roles like a mountaineer in
"Shepherd of the Hills" in 1941 and an old hotel owner in "From
Dusk Till Dawn" in 1996.
During the communist scare in the
United States in the 1950s, Lawrence was called before the House Un-American
Activities Committee, where he admitted he had once been a Communist Party
member. He also reluctantly implicated several co-workers as alleged communist
sympathizers, testimony that blacklisted him and brought his U.S. movie career
to a halt. Lawrence then departed for Europe, where he took on diverse roles in
dozens of Italian movies in the 1960s, also directing crime films and spaghetti
westerns.
Lawrence returned to the United States in the 1980s, resuming his
vetted role as underworld thug. He also wrote and directed low-budget movies,
keeping busy into his 90s. His last movie appearance was "Looney Tunes:
Back in America" in 2003, a minor role as one of many Acme vice
presidents.
Life’ll Kill Ya gets a huuuuge solo hit worth 20 points on the “bad
guy” actor.
Richard Pryor, the caustic yet perceptive
actor-comedian who lived dangerously close to the edge both on stage and off, has
died. He was 65. Pryor died shortly before 8 a.m. on Saturday 12/10/05 of a
heart attack at a hospital in the San Fernando Valley. Pryor, whose audacious
style influenced an array of stand-up artists, had been ill for years with
multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the nervous system.
Regarded early in his career as
one of the most foul-mouthed comics in the business, Pryor gained a wide
following for his expletive-filled but universal and frequently personal
insights into modern life and race relations. Among those most influenced by
his comedy were fellow black artists such as Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall and
Damon Wayans, as well as Robin Williams, David Letterman and others. Pryor's
pioneering success made their roads to stardom all the smoother.
A series of hit comedies in the
'70s and '80s, as well as filmed versions of his concert performances, helped
make him one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood. He was one of the first
black performers to have enough leverage to cut his own Hollywood deals. In
1983, he signed a $40 million, five-year contract with Columbia Pictures. Among
his films: "Stir Crazy," "Silver Streak," "The Bingo
Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings," "Which Way Is Up?"
and "Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip."
Pryor nearly lost his life in
1980, when he suffered severe burns over 50 percent of his body while
freebasing cocaine at his home. An admitted "junkie" at the time,
Pryor spent six weeks recovering from the burns and much longer from drug and alcohol
dependence. He battled multiple sclerosis throughout the '90s.
In his last movie, the 1991 bomb
"Another You," Pryor's poor health was clearly evident. Pryor made a
comeback attempt the following year, returning to standup comedy in clubs and
on television while looking thin and frail, and with noticeable speech and
movement difficulties.
In 1995, he played an embittered
multiple sclerosis patient in an episode of the television series "Chicago
Hope." The role earned him an Emmy nomination as best guest actor in a
drama series.
While Pryor's material sounds
modest when compared with some of today's raunchier comedians, it was startling
material when first introduced. He never apologized for it. Pryor was fired by
one hotel in Las Vegas for "obscenities" directed at the audience. In
1970, tired of compromising his act, he quit in the middle of another Vegas
stage show with the words, "What the (blank) am I doing here?" The
audience was left staring at an empty stage. He didn't tone things down after he
became famous. In his 1977 NBC television series "The Richard Pryor
Show," he threatened to cancel his contract with the network. NBC's
censors objected to a skit in which Pryor appeared naked save for a
flesh-colored loincloth to suggest he was emasculated.
In his later years Pryor mellowed
considerably, and his film roles looked more like easy paychecks than artistic
endeavors. His robust work gave way to torpid efforts like "Harlem
Nights," "Brewster's Millions" and "Hear No Evil, See No
Evil."
Born in 1940, to a Peoria, Ill.,
construction worker, Pryor grew up in a brothel his grandmother ran and where
his mother worked. His first professional performance came at age 7, when he
played drums at a night club. Following high school and two years of Army
service, he launched his performing career. He eventually played dives and bars
throughout the United States, honing his comedy skills. By the mid-'60s, he was
appearing in Las Vegas clubs and on the television shows of Ed Sullivan, Merv
Griffin and Johnny Carson. His first film role came with a small part in 1967's
"The Busy Body." He made his starring debut as Diana Ross' piano man
in 1972's "Lady Sings the Blues."
He also wrote scripts for the
television series "Sanford and Son," "The Flip Wilson Show"
and two specials for Lily Tomlin. He collaborated with Mel Brooks on the script
for the movie "Blazing Saddles."
Later in his career, Pryor used
his films as therapy. "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling," was an
autobiographical account of a popular comedian re-examining his life while
lying delirious in a hospital burn ward. Pryor directed, co-wrote, co-produced
and starred in the film.
He had his legal problems over
the years. In 1974, Pryor was sentenced to three years' probation for failing
to file federal income tax returns. In 1978, he allegedly fired shots and
rammed his car into a car occupied by two of his wife's friends.
Pryor was married six times, most recently to Flynn. The two had a
son, Steven. Previous children included a son, Richard, and daughters Elizabeth,
Rain and Renee. Daughter Rain became an actress. In an interview in 2005, she
told the Philadelphia Inquirer that her father always "put his life right
out there for you to look at. I took that approach because I saw how well
audiences respond to it. I try to make you laugh at life." One of his
ex-wives, Jennifer Lee, returned to Pryor's side after he fell ill, serving as
his assistant and companion.
18 teams benefit from the
passing of the brash performer, all catching 8 points.
Former Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire, a political
maverick who became Congress' leading scourge of big spending and government
waste, has died. The 90-year-old Proxmire, who suffered from Alzheimer's
disease, died around 1 a.m. ET Thursday 12/15/05 at Copper Ridge, a
convalescent home in Sykesville, Maryland.
The senator's monthly
"Golden Fleece" awards, which he began in 1975 to point out what he
thought were frivolous expenditures of taxpayers' money, became a Washington
tradition. Proxmire, who also became a familiar face on the television network
Sunday news shows, was elected to the Senate in 1957 in a special election to
fill the seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. He was
re-elected in 1958 to his first six-year term and was returned to the same post
four more times.
Long before the McCain-Feingold
campaign finance reform law, and at a time when millions were spent campaigning
for Senate seats, Proxmire made a point of accepting no contributions. In 1982
he registered only $145.10 in campaign costs, yet gleaned 64 percent of the
vote. Over the years, the rebel Democrat developed an image of penny-pinching
populism that played well with his home-state voters. But his support of the
expensive system of dairy price supports -- widely criticized by others as
symbolic of government largess gone amok -- won him strong backing from his
state's dairy farmers.
The son of a wealthy physician in
Lake Forest, Illinois, Proxmire graduated from Yale University and Harvard
Business School. He served with military intelligence in World War II and later
moved to Wisconsin to begin a career in politics. After three unsuccessful
attempts at winning the governorship, Proxmire won McCarthy's vacant seat. Soon
he carved out an independent streak on Capitol Hill by introducing amendments
without consulting the party heads, filibustering, and even criticizing the
dictates of then-Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. Despite his attacks against
waste in the Pentagon and elsewhere in government, Proxmire remained tireless
in his defense of milk price supports. He did vote in 1975 to kill the $50
million Kickapoo Dam in his own state, which he contended was a waste of
taxpayers' money.
In more than two decades,
Proxmire did not travel abroad on Senate business and he returned more than
$900,000 from his office allowances to the Treasury. He repeatedly sparked his
colleagues' ire by staunchly opposing salary increases, fighting against such
Senate 'perks' as a new gym in the Hart office building and keeping the Senate
open all night long -- at a cost of thousands of dollars -- so he alone could
argue against increasing the national debt limit. Even so, his reputation was
that of a workaholic and even his strongest critics found him to be one the
chamber's most disciplined, intelligent and persistent members. He held the
longest unbroken record in the history of the Senate for roll call votes.
Proxmire groomed his physical
prowess as well as political. He kept in shape with rigorous exercise, ran
several miles to work each day, and wrote a book about keeping fit. He even got
a facelift and a hair transplant. Although he was generally considered a
liberal Democrat when he began his political career, Proxmire later said he
found such labels useless. He opposed abortion, school busing and was rated by
the National Taxpayers Union consistently as the toughest foe of government
waste. He was a staunch advocate for a balanced budget. Even though he
condemned Pentagon officials for cost-overruns on such things as the C5-A cargo
plane, he was a supporter of a strong defense.
He has listed his greatest legislative victory as the forcing the
halt to the SST supersonic jet airliner, despite opposition from the Nixon
administration, the aircraft industry and several powerful senators. As
Proxmire increased in seniority, he became less of a budget nitpicker and more
of an effective legislator. He served for six years as head of the Senate
Banking Committee, where he first opposed, and then backed, the federal bailout
for New York City. He also focused on consumer legislation, pushed a
"truth in lending law" through Congress to protect borrowers and
attempted to get the Federal Reserve System open to public scrutiny.
Knock Knock Knocking on
Death's Door and The Famous
Final Scene score 18 points each for the former Senator.
Jack Anderson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning muckraking
columnist who struck fear into the hearts of corrupt or secretive politicians,
inspiring Nixon operatives to plot his murder, died Saturday 12/17/05. He was
83. Anderson died at his home in Bethesda, Md., of complications from
Parkinson's disease.
Anderson gave up his syndicated
Washington Merry-Go-Round column at age 81 in July 2004, after Parkinson's
disease left him too ill to continue. He had been hired by the column's
founder, Drew Pearson, in 1947. The column broke a string of big scandals, from
Eisenhower assistant Sherman Adams taking a vicuna coat and other gifts from a
wealthy industrialist in 1958 to the Reagan administration's secret arms-for-hostages
deal with Iran in 1986.
It appeared in some 1,000
newspapers in its heyday. Anderson took over the column after Pearson's death
in 1969, working with a changing cast of co-authors and staff over the years.
A devout Mormon, Anderson looked
upon journalism as a calling. He was considered one of the fathers of
investigative reporting, renowned for his tenacity, aggressive techniques and
influence in the nation's capital. Anderson won a 1972 Pulitzer Prize for
reporting that the Nixon administration secretly tilted toward Pakistan in its
war with India. He also published the secret transcripts of the Watergate grand
jury. Such scoops earned him a spot on President Nixon's "enemies
list." Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy has described how he and
other Nixon political operatives planned ways to silence Anderson permanently -
such as slipping him LSD or staging a fatal car crash - but the White House
nixed the idea.
Over the years, Anderson was
threatened by the Mafia and investigated by numerous government agencies trying
to trace the sources of his leaks. In 1989, police investigated him for
smuggling a gun into the U.S. Capitol to demonstrate security lapses. Known for
his toughness on the trail of a story, he was also praised for personal
kindness. Anderson's son Kevin said that when his father's reporting led to the
arrest of some involved in the Watergate scandal, he aided their families
financially.
Anderson began his newspaper
career as a 12-year-old writing about scouting activity and community fairs in
the outskirts of Salt Lake City, Utah. His first investigative story exposed
unlawful polygamy in his church. He was a civilian war correspondent during
World War II and later, while in the Army, wrote for the military paper Stars
and Stripes. After he went to work with Pearson, the team took on
communist-hunting Sen. Joseph McCarthy, exposed Connecticut Sen. Thomas Dodd's
misuse of campaign money, and revealed the CIA's attempt to use the Mafia to
kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Anderson also wrote more than a
dozen books.
He was diagnosed with Parkinson's
in 1986. In a speech a decade later, he made light of the occasional,
uncontrollable shaking the disease caused. "The doctors tell me it's
Parkinson's," he said. "I suspect that 52 years in Washington caused
it."
He is survived by his wife, Olivia, and nine children.
Already Dead gets big solo hit worth 20 points for the syndicated
muckraker.
John Diebold, the business visionary who preached
computerization as the future of worldwide industry during the era of Elvis and
Eisenhower, died Monday 12/26/05 at his suburban home.in Bedford Hills, N.Y.,
from esophageal cancer. He was 79.
Although Diebold is now
hailed as a prophet of the computerized future, his zeal for computers was less
than widespread in the 1950s. After graduating from the Harvard Business School
in 1951, he was hired by a New York management consulting firm. But he was
fired three times by the company over his insistence that clients should
consider computerizing. "I was too early," he once said. "It was
before the first computer was installed for business use." The native of
Weehawken, N.J., then laid out his bold vision of a computerized future with
his 1952 book "Automation," which presented the radical notion of
using programmable devices in daily business. The influential book, since
hailed as a management classic, was reissued on the 30th and 40th anniversaries
of its publication.
Oddly enough, his vision
of the future was conceived while serving in the Merchant Marines during World
War II. He watched the ship's anti-aircraft fire control mechanisms, with its
crude self-correcting mechanisms, and envisioned adapting the technology for
business use. Diebold, who held degrees in business and engineering, was also
responsible for a dozen books - including nine that collected his speeches and
scholarly articles.
In 1954, when Elvis
Presley was recording in Sun Studios and President Eisenhower was in the White
House, Diebold launched his consulting firm John Diebold & Associates. That
year, General Electric unveiled the first full-scale computer system for a
business. Diebold was now the go-to guy in a brand-new way of doing business.
Over the next half-century, he provided counsel to AT&T, IBM, Boeing and
Xerox, along with the cities of Chicago and New York and the countries of
Venezuela and Jordan. He was appointed by President Kennedy in 1963 to the U.S.
delegation for the inaugural U.N. Conference on Science and Technology for
Developing Countries.
A perfect example of Diebold's
influence on daily life was his firm's 1961 creation of an electronic network
for the Bowery Savings Bank in New York. The system allowed immediate updates
of all transactions, allowing customers to bank at any branch. His company also
developed a network that changed the way hospitals keep their records, allowing
researchers to collect medical records and statistics electronically. Some of
his ideas took time to reach fruition. In 1963, Diebold presented newspaper
executives with a plan to use keyboards for inputting stories that could be
edited on computer consoles - a
system that did not became standard until the 1980s.
Dark Clouds and Silva
Linings and Go Fish
each get 18 points for technology pioneer.
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