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R.I.P.
Nov 5, 2011 10:05:10 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Nov 5, 2011 10:05:10 GMT -5
R.I.P. Andrew Aiken "Andy" Rooney, 4-time Emmy-winning TV commentator-writer ("A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney", 60 Minutes, 1978-2011) and author (Common Nonsense, Years of Minutes, Out of My Mind), died at age 92 from complications after surgery
"Andy always said he wanted to work until the day he died, and he managed to do it, save the last few weeks in the hospital," said his 60 Minutes colleague, correspondent Steve Kroft. In 1993, CBS released a two-volume VHS tape set of the best of Rooney's commentaries and field reports, called "The Andy Rooney Television Collection - His Best Minutes." In 2006, CBS released three DVDs of his more recent commentaries, "Andy Rooney On Almost Everything," "Things That Bother Andy Rooney," and "Andy Rooney's Solutions." His final appearance on 60 Minutes was on 2 Oct 2011 - it was his 1,097th commentary. R.I.P. Andy Rooney. You certainly deserve it.
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R.I.P.
Nov 7, 2011 23:48:34 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Nov 7, 2011 23:48:34 GMT -5
R.I.P. "Smokin'"Joe Frazier, International Boxixg Hall of Fame Heavyweight boxing champion, died at age 67 of liver cancer in Philadelphia.
Frazier was a star amateur fighter, winning the Middle Atlantic Golden Gloves in 1962, 1963 and 1964. He also earned the gold medal at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. In February 1970, Frazier picked up the WBC and WBA champion belts with a win over Jimmy Ellis. And 13 months later, he fought Muhammad Ali for the first time. Frazier and Ali had an epic rivalry that makes today's worst media wars look tame in comparison. Ali's level of trash talk was at times well over the line, in the opinion of many, but Frazier made him pay in their first fight, winning a clear fifteen round decision at Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. It was the pinnacle of his career. The two would meet twice more, with Ali winning a 1974 rematch at Madison Square Garden (UD-12), and then arguably the most grueling fight in boxing history in 1975, the famed "Thrilla in Manila." But Frazier's career, which wasn't long but was spectacular, also crossed the path of George Foreman, who knocked Frazier out twice in 1973 and 1976. Joe Frazier was one of the world's most popular and most admired fighters, and he was indeed a fighter, in and out of the ring, from the day he was born until his passing tonight.
R.I.P. "Smokin'"Joe Frazier. You were one of the all-time greats.
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R.I.P.
Nov 8, 2011 13:27:51 GMT -5
Post by Coldwarrior on Nov 8, 2011 13:27:51 GMT -5
I read Andy Rooney's autobiography. He was a pretty good football player in his youth. My image of him is that he wasn't that big but for his generation, he was big enough. He certainly had guts. He flew along on bombing missions over Germany and spent a good deal of time near the front during the war. He was opposed to the war before and during until he saw the death camps in Germany. Then he knew the war was neccessary. While driving back from the front near the end of the war, a German soldier with a rifle surrendered to him by running out to the road in front of his jeep. Andy wasn't armed. He told the soldier to put his rifle behind the seat and drove him to a rear area processing center for POW's. Those of us who have watched his segment will miss him. He just said the things we were thinking.
Smoking Joe Frasier, Joe never backed up. He was always boring in after his opponent without let up. That in itself was intimidating. After all of the Frasier - Ali fights both fighters were exhausted. At least one of them required both fighters to spend time in the hospital to recover. Anyone who has boxed even for a few minutes understands how exhausting boxing can be. The punches thrown whether the hit or not takes a toll on the body. It is less demanding to get hit than to hit the other guy. As professionals they learn to conserve energy but a long fight takes everything a person has and then some. I don't believe there is another sport that needs physical conditioning as much as boxing. Ali and Frasier fought 14 rounds in one fight. Neither would quit. It was a battle of will power as much as skill. It was the best heavyweight fight in history. There will never be another like it. RIP Joe, your fight is over.
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R.I.P.
Nov 13, 2011 10:11:51 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Nov 13, 2011 10:11:51 GMT -5
R.I.P. Evelyn Hausner Lauder, Austrian-born exeutive at cosmetics giant Estee Lauder Cos. (founded by her mother-in-law), who created with her friend Alexandra Penney, the pink ribbon campaign for breast cancer awareness, died at age 75 from complications of nongenetic ovarian cancer at her Manhattan home.
The campaign started small with Lauder and her husband, Leonard, largely financing the little bows given to women at department store makeup counters to remind them about breast exams, but grew into fundraising products, congressional designation of October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month and $330 million in donations — $50 million from Estee Lauder and its partners — to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which Lauder also started. That money helped establish the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, which opened in 2009. When it launched, it was so little known that some people thought it symbolized AIDS awareness. "There had been no publicity about breast cancer, but a confluence of events — the pink ribbon, the color, the press, partnering with Elizabeth Hurley, having Estee Lauder as an advertiser in so magazines and persuading so many of my friends who are health and beauty editors to do stories about breast health — got people talking," she said. Then, three years after distributing the first pink ribbon, a flight attendant noted it on Lauder's lapel and said, "I know that's for breast cancer." "From there, it became ubiquitous," she remembered. She worked at Estee Lauder's Fifth Avenue headquarters, which, despite its annual revenue of $2.48 billion, was run much like a family business. Over the years, Evelyn Lauder would hold many positions there and she helped develop its lines of skin care, makeup and fragrance, coming up with the name of its popular Clinique brand in the 1960s. Leonard and Evelyn Lauder's son William is executive chairman of Estee Lauder Cos. and another son Gary, is managing director of Lauder Partners LLC., a technolog investment firm. R.I.P. Evelyn Hausner Lauder.
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R.I.P.
Nov 26, 2011 11:50:38 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Nov 26, 2011 11:50:38 GMT -5
R.I.P. Anne Mccaffrey, award winning sci-fi writer, died at her rural home south of Dublin of a stroke at age 85.
She wrote two dozen 'Dragonriders of Pern' novels. and was the first woman to win the top two prizes for science fiction writing, the 1968 Hugo and the 1969 Nebula. was born in Cambridge, Mass., on April 1, 1926, and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1947, moved to Ireland in 1970 after filing for divorce from her husband of 20 years. She had ancestral ties to Ireland, which also had just launched a unique program to woo novelists to live there exempt from income tax. Recently, she began a co-authorship with her son Todd, who became the sole author of the last three dragonridger books. R.I.P. Anne Mccaffrey, writer. I, for one, will sorely miss your other series - The Ship Who and Damia's Children.
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R.I.P.
Nov 26, 2011 11:51:35 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Nov 26, 2011 11:51:35 GMT -5
Tom Wicker, New York Times journalist, died at age 85 of an apparent heart attack at his home in Rochester, Vt.
Made prominent by his coverage of the Kennedy assassination and the 1971 Attica prison riots, Mr. Wicker became Washington bureau chief for The New York Times in 1964 and with "In the Nation" an iconoclastic columnist (1966-1991). He was named associate editor of the Times in 1968. As an author, Wicker recounted his experiences as an observer and mediator at Attica in A Time to Die (1975), which was later made into a TV movie. Among his other nonfiction books were Kennedy Without Tears: The Man Beneath the Myth (1964), JFK and LBJ: The Influence of Personality Upon Politics (1968), On Press (1978), One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream (1991), Tragic Failure: Racial Integration in America (1996), George Herbert Walker Bush]/i] (2004) and Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy (2006). Beginning in the early '50s, Wicker also wrote novels, sometimes under the pen name Paul Connolly. His 1973 political novel Facing the Lions and 1984 Civil War tale Unto This Hour were bestsellers.
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R.I.P.
Dec 3, 2011 17:09:37 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Dec 3, 2011 17:09:37 GMT -5
Bill McKinney, actor (Deliverance), died at age 80 of esophogeal cancer at Valley Presbyterian Hospital.
McKinney's chillingly crazed mountain man in Deliverance is one of his most memorable roles, particularly the "squeal like a pig" line he utters in the scene in which he assaults Ned Beatty. Entertainment Weekly calls it "one of the most unsettling scenes ever put on film." McKinney is credited in more than 100 films, including seven of Clint Eastwood projects, such as 1976's The Outlaw Josey Wales. R.I.P. for today the angels are playing "Dueling Banjos."
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R.I.P.
Dec 7, 2011 14:48:38 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Dec 7, 2011 14:48:38 GMT -5
R.I.P. Harry Morgan, veteran Emmy-winning character actor (Col. Potter on TV's M*A*S*H) in 10 TV series, 50 films and the Broadway stage, died at age 96 at his home in Brentwood, Calif. of pneumonia.
He appeared in mostly supporting roles on the big screen, playing opposite such stars as Henry Fonda, John Wayne, James Garner, Elvis Presley and Dan Aykroyd. On television, he was more the comedic co-star, including roles on December Bride, its spin-off Pete and Gladys, as Sgt. Joe Friday's loyal partner in later Dragnet episodes and on CBS-TV's long-running M*A*S*H series, for which he earned an Emmy award in 1980. One of his earliest films was The Ox Bow Incident in 1943 with Fonda. Other films included: High Noon, What Price Glory, Support Your Local Sheriff, The Apple Dumpling Gang and The Shootist. R.I.P. Harry Morgan.
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R.I.P.
Dec 7, 2011 21:26:02 GMT -5
Post by susala on Dec 7, 2011 21:26:02 GMT -5
I missed McKinney's death. Of course, I didn't even know his name but I remember seeing Deliverance with a clarity that's undimmed by the forty years that have passed since I had that experience. That scene with Ned Beatty was truly horrific. The next day, I had a biology quiz. It was the end of the quarter and the TA handed out packets of Lifesavers to each student. Then he pointed out the chemical compound that represented sugar and instructed us to explain what happened to the molecule once it entered our system. I remembered about half of the process. The movie was still roiling around in my head so I turned the essay question into a short story combining the scientific facts that I remembered and the plot of the movie. I know it sounds bizarre but the TA liked it so much that he gave me a perfect score and ten extra points which meant that I got a B in the course instead of a C!
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R.I.P.
Dec 9, 2011 18:44:58 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Dec 9, 2011 18:44:58 GMT -5
Now there's a story!!
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R.I.P.
Dec 18, 2011 9:42:38 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Dec 18, 2011 9:42:38 GMT -5
R.I.P. Vaclav Havel, dissident Czech playwright & 1st Czech president, died at age 75 at his weekend house in the northern Czech Republic.
'Velvet Revolution' icon, who came to symbolize the power of the people to peacefully overcome totalitarian rule, was described by Pres. George W. Bush as 'one of liberty's great heroes.' As a playwright, he wove theater into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia after four decades. He became his country's first democratically elected president and oversaw his country's bumpy transition to democracy and a free market economy, as well its peaceful 1993 breakup into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He was credited with laying the groundwork that brought his Czech Republic into the 27-nation European Union, and was president when it joined NATO in 1999.
Havel first made a name for himself after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion that crushed the Prague Spring reforms of Alexander Dubcek and other liberally minded communists in what was then Czechoslovakia. Havel's plays were banned as hard-liners installed by Moscow snuffed out every whiff of rebellion. But he continued to write, producing a series of underground essays that stand with the work of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov as the most incisive and eloquent analyses of what communism did to society and the individual. One of his best-known essays, "The Power and the Powerless" written in 1978, borrowed slyly from the immortal opening line of the mid-19th century Communist Manifesto, writing: "A specter is haunting eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called 'dissent.'" In the essay, he dissected what he called the "dictatorship of ritual" — the ossified Soviet bloc system under Leonid Brezhnev — and imagined what happens when an ordinary greengrocer stops displaying communist slogans and begins "living in truth," rediscovering "his suppressed identity and dignity." Havel was detained countless times and spent four years in communist jails. His letters from prison to his wife became one of his best-known works. "Letters to Olga" blended deep philosophy with a stream of stern advice to the spouse he saw as his mentor and best friend, and who tolerated his reputed philandering and other foibles.
Havel's arrest in January 1989 at another street protest and his subsequent trial generated anger at home and abroad. Pressure for change was so strong that the communists released him again in May. That fall, communism began to collapse across Eastern Europe, and in November the Berlin Wall fell. Eight days later, communist police brutally broke up a demonstration by thousands of Prague students. It was the signal that Havel and his country had awaited. Within 48 hours, a broad new opposition movement was founded, and a day later, hundreds of thousands of Czechs and Slovaks took to the streets. In three heady weeks, communist rule was broken. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones arrived just as the Soviet army was leaving. Posters in Prague proclaimed: "The tanks are rolling out — the Stones are rolling in." On Dec. 29, 1989, Havel was elected Czechoslovakia's president by the country's still-communist parliament. Three days later, he told the nation in a televised New Year's address: "Out of gifted and sovereign people, the regime made us little screws in a monstrously big, rattling and stinking machine." When the Czech Republic joined NATO in March 1999, and the European Union in May 2004, his dreams came true. "I can't stop rejoicing that I live in this time and can participate in it," Havel exulted.
Early in 2008, Havel returned to his first love: the stage. He published a new play, [i[Leaving[/i[, about the struggles of a leader on his way out of office, and the work gained critical acclaim. Theater, he told the AP, was once again his major interest. "My return to the stage was not easy," he said. "It's not a common thing for someone to be involved in theater, become a president, and then go back."
A former chain-smoker, Havel had a history of chronic respiratory problems dating back to his years in communist jails. He was hospitalized in Prague on Jan. 12, 2009, with an unspecified inflammation, and had developed breathing difficulties after undergoing minor throat surgery.
"Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred," Havel famously said. It became his revolutionary motto which he said he always strove to live by.
R.I.P. Vaclav Havel, You served your country exceptionally well.
(Vaclav Havel during secret meeting at the Czech-Polishborder with Zbigniew Janas of the dissident union "Solidarity" on Jun 26, 1989. The sign reads: "Attention, do not cross the border.")
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R.I.P.
Jan 20, 2012 12:17:06 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Jan 20, 2012 12:17:06 GMT -5
R.I.P. Etta James, 'Matriarch of R&B,' died at age 73 of leukemia at home surrounded by family.
Etta James was a 6-time Grammy winer and a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame. Her most famous hit was in 951, "At Last", reaching #47 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became a favorite at weddings. R.I.P. Etta James.
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R.I.P.
Jan 20, 2012 12:43:11 GMT -5
Post by sparkle on Jan 20, 2012 12:43:11 GMT -5
REST IN PEACE ETTA
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R.I.P.
Jan 22, 2012 12:32:56 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Jan 22, 2012 12:32:56 GMT -5
R.I.P. [Jpseph Vincent] Joe Paterno, former Penn State coach and the winningest major college football coach of all time, died at age 85 of metastic small cell carcinoma of the lung (and a broken heart) at a State Collee hospital.
JoePa was a graduate of Brown University and was hired as an assistant coach at Penn State in 1950 and never left. He was made head coach of Penn State shortly after the end of the 1965 season, remaining the Nittany Lions head coach for the next 46 years. He was the face of both the football program and the university. During his tenure as head coach, he had 409 wins, the most in Division I history, a record 37 bowl game appearances and 2 national championships. And he was a great man off the field too, donating millions back to Penn State that included a new library for the college. Just in the past few weeks he and his wife donated another $100,000 to the library. Unfortunately, at this time his legacy has been tarnished by the child sex abuse scandal that has rocked the football program and university. And he didn't get a chance to defend himself and his actions before becoming so seriously ill. I, for one, hope in time, all the good he did will be remembered and that a great-but-fallible human being will ultimately be defined by the totality of his life, both the good and the bad. R.I.P. JoePa.
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R.I.P.
Jan 22, 2012 12:42:07 GMT -5
Post by sparkle on Jan 22, 2012 12:42:07 GMT -5
By Piya Sinha-Roy | Reuters – Thu, Jan 19, 2012.. . .
... .
. .
Related Content. . .. Musician Johnny Otis in an undated publicity image. REUTERS/Courtesy BMI Arc …
.. . .
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Johnny Otis, singer of the 1958 hit "Willie and the Hand Jive", has died in California at the age of 90. Otis died on Tuesday in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena, his friend and music historian Tom Reed told Reuters. "His role in pop and rock'n'roll music made him a legend, he could do it all. He is one of the greatest talents of American music and he was a great American," said Reed. Born John Alexander Veliotes in December 1921 to Greek-American parents in northern California, the young musician grew up in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Berkeley, immersing himself in their culture and music, listening to blues, gospel and swing sounds. Otis founded his own band in the mid-1940s and scored his first hit with the song "Harlem Nocturne". He went on to have R&B hits with "Mistrustin' Blues" and "Double Crossing Blues" in the 1950s and "Willie and the Hand Jive," in 1958. The singer also composed Etta James' first hit, "The Wallflower" which gained chart success in 1955, the 1961 hit "Every Beat of My Heart" for Gladys Knight and the Pips, and produced "Hound Dog," made famous by Elvis Presley in 1956. Otis became a disc jockey for Los Angeles radio station KFOX, and was also heavily involved in politics and the civil rights movement. He wrote about both in his 1968 debut book, "Listen to the Lambs," in which the 1965 Watts riots played a central theme. He also became an ordained minister, opening the Landmark Community Church in Los Angeles in the late 1970s. He later moved back to northern California to become an organic farmer. But the pioneering musician never moved away from his first love, music, and toured well into his 70s, headlining blues and jazz festivals along with his son, Shuggie Otis. Otis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. (Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant)
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R.I.P.
Feb 1, 2012 14:17:57 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Feb 1, 2012 14:17:57 GMT -5
R.I.P. Don Cornelius, creator of the long-running TV dance show Soul Train creator, died at age 74 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Sherman Oaks,, Calif. home.
Soul Train began in 1970 in Chicago and aired in syndication from 1971 to March 2006, featuring primarily African-American musicians. It brought the best R&B, soul and later hip-hop acts to TV and had teenagers dance to them. It was one of the first shows to showcase African-Americans prominently, although the dance group was racially mixed. Cornelius was the first host and executive producer. As the smooth-talking host with a deep voice, Cornelius gave to hip young kids of the '70s what American Bandstand creator Dick Clark offered to viewers in the early days of rock 'n' roll. Popular features on the show included the "Soul Train Line," where individual dancers showed off their moves between two lines of people, and the "Soul Train Scramble Board," where dancers unscrambled letters that spelled the name of that night's performer or a prominent African-American. The show began each episode by welcoming viewers to "the hippest trip in America" and closed by wishing them "love, peace and soul." Quincy Jones said that he was "deeply saddened" at the sudden passing of his friend, colleague and business partner. "Before MTV there was 'Soul Train,' that will be the great legacy of Don Cornelius," he said. "His contributions to television, music and our culture as a whole will never be matched." R.I.P. Don Cornelius.
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R.I.P.
Feb 1, 2012 21:33:25 GMT -5
Post by Macbeth on Feb 1, 2012 21:33:25 GMT -5
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R.I.P.
Feb 1, 2012 21:33:50 GMT -5
Post by Macbeth on Feb 1, 2012 21:33:50 GMT -5
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R.I.P.
Feb 1, 2012 21:35:04 GMT -5
Post by Macbeth on Feb 1, 2012 21:35:04 GMT -5
sorry folks...I don't seem to have gotten the copy/paste quite sorted out......
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R.I.P.
Feb 2, 2012 23:16:59 GMT -5
Post by Flying Horse on Feb 2, 2012 23:16:59 GMT -5
R.I.P. Angelo Dundee, International Boxing Hall of Fame trainer who helped motivate Muhammad Ali and many other boxing champs, died at age 90 in Florida from natural causes.
He was hired to be Ali's trainer and cornerman in 1960 back when the brash-talking, quick-jabbing boxer went by the name Cassius Clay. Dundee was there through Ali's historic name change, his brawls with George Foreman, "Smokin" Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and Leon Spinks. He was there all the way toward the end of Ali's career in his punishing loss to Larry Holmes in 1980. After watching Ali get battered for round after round, Dundee stopped the fight after the 10th round fighting off objections from others in the corner and the bruised, as well as the puffy-eyed Ali. Dundee was also in the corner of Sugar Ray Leonard giving sage advice during some of Leonard's most memorable fights. During Leonard's 1981 battle with Tommy Hearns, Dundee uttered the emphatic phrase that some say spurred the listless boxer to a dramatic comeback. Sensing that Leonard was behind on the judge's scorecards before the 13th round, Dundee leaned close to Leonard and said in a fatherly tone: "You're blowing it now son! You're blowing it." Leonard snapped out of it and knocked Hearns out in the 14th round to gain another welterweight championship. Dundee started his career training Hall Fame boxer Carmen Basilio and also trained champs Jimmy Ellis, Luis Rodriguez, Sugar Ramos, Ralph Dupas and Willie Pastrano. "Dad lived a great life, and he did a great job living it," his son Jimmy Dundee said. R.I.P. Angelo Dundee, International Boxing Hall of Fame trainer.
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