The rolling RIP/obituary thread - 2010 edition

Continuing from last year's thread

Knut Haugland, Sailor on Kon-Tiki, Dies at 92

pretty interesting dude! (via other ilx0rs)

kenneth noland RIP

http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/e59b798f6ab2b966b2f2582c7069f14a882fe348_m.jpg

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/06/AR2010010600147.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Tsutomu Yamaguchi. I was unaware of this guy, but his experience is mindboggling.

mary daly, radical feminist philosopher and author who taught at BC, at 81

http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=100834

Donal Donnelly, 78, actor from Brian Friel plays and Huston's film of The Dead:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/arts/06donnelly.html

RIP Art Clokey, creator of Gumby

Art Clokey, whose iconic Gumby entertained generations of children, died Friday morning.

Gumby – the slender, green clay character partly modeled after Clokey’s father – was a fixture on television through the decades, starting with an appearance on the “Howdy Doody” show in 1956. Through the years, the stop motion star made several comebacks, including a new show in the 80s, after a “Saturday Night Live” skit with actor Eddie Murphy made the character popular again. Throughout Gumby’s long run, Gumby toys – most notably, the bendable – have been a staple of toy stores everywhere.

Clokey, who lived in Los Osos, was 89.

Despite Gumby’s positive demeanor, his origins stem from tragedy. When Clokey was 9, his father was killed in a car crash. He lived with his mother for a while, but when her second husband made her choose between him and her son, Clokey was sent to an orphanage. Fortunately, he was adopted by a good family. But Clokey wouldn’t forget his father, whose head shape – characterized by a cowlick hairdo – would later provide the inspiration for Gumby’s trademark lopsided head.

After studying film at USC, Clokey taught at a private military school, where he tutored the son of Sam Engel, a 20th Century Fox producer. After Engel invited Clokey to the studio, Clokey told Engel about a 3 ½-minute film he’d made called “Gumbasia,” featuring abstract clay objects changing shapes to jazz music.

“He said, ‘Art, we’ve got to go into business,’” Clokey told the Tribune in 2002. “I went back and experimented with clay to make a character, and I took into account the density of clay and figured out how the character would be shaped so it would be easy to animate and easy to duplicate.”

While Gumby’s head was modeled after Clokey’s late father, his walk was modeled after his infant daughter.

By the late 50s, Gumby was off the air, but the Lutheran Church paid Clokey to develop another kid’s show – “Dave and Goliath” – to promote morality themes. Clokey and is wife used proceeds from that to fund more Gumby episodes, which would air again in the 60s.

By that time, Gumby toys were already ubiquitous. But Clokey had mixed feelings about commercialization.

“I didn’t allow merchandising for seven years after it was on the air,” Clokey told the Tribune, “because I was very idealistic, and I didn’t want parents to think we were trying to exploit their children.”

NYC poet/spoken-word eccentric Bingo Gazingo, struck by a taxi on New Year's Day.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/01/our-pal-bingo-gazingo-passed-away-on-new-years-day-heres-a-short-video-i-took-of-him-at-the-wfmu-record-fair-singing-his.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gfjtqrdwdo&feature=related

Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis.

Art Clokey was a great, original guy.

OH NO!!!! fuck that is sad. Really really really would love to see a DVD release of Mandala sometime.

damn, bingo gazingo :(

i met him at cmj once

Just heard about Miep. The man on the radio said she came to "embody goodness" to children, which is exactly how I thought of her when I was a kid. In the interviews I saw with her, she seemed absolutely lovely.

Art Clokey was a great, original guy.

He was an alumni of my high school and would visit every couple of years and show a bunch of movies and generally be like a beatnik grandfather to everyone - only he was the creator of Gumby too! Really awesome guy.

Very sad about Miep.

RIP Mick Green, the guitar player with Johnny Kidd and The Pirates.

> Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis.

bbc4 was, by coincidence, showing the documentary again last night and i watched it not knowing about her death until this morning. was quite a shock.

Art Rust Jr, black sports journalist who was a pioneer in NYC broadcasting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/sports/14rust.html?ref=obituaries

Wax Trax co-founder Danny Fleisher.

er, Danny Flesher.

And Canadian poet/novelist/painter P.K. Page.

Ed Thigpen, jazz drummer

Harold Bloom is ill.

A bad month for NYC pedestrians!

104 year old Coney Island strongman dies after being hit by a minivan

Aw, I went to Wax Trax when I visited Denver. Pretty sure it was recommended to me by somebody round these parts.

smart studios RIP

Taco Bell founder Glen Bell.

Mr. Country, Carl Smith

RIP guitar-players's guitar player Jimmy Wyble, who crossed over from Western Swing to jazz and LA studio work, playing with both Bob Wills (he played the solo on "Roly Poly") and Frank Sinatra, among many others. Jimmy passed away last week just shy of his 88th birthday.

(Can't find any info on the internet right now will post link when I find one)

(Can't find an obit, so read this interview instead)
http://www.jimmywyble.com/jimmy_interview.html

Dennis Stock, photographer

known for taking an iconic picture of james dean, among other photos

Now Kate McGarrigle (mother of Rufus and Martha Wainwright, sister of Anna)....WTF is up with January 2010 anyhow? http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2010/01/19/mcgarrigle-kate-obit.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/8468319.stm

Bill McLaren too.

RIP Bill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S617AieOPJo

"Erich Segal, best known as the author of Love Story, died on Sunday of a heart attack, his friend Ned Temko said today. He was 72."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/19/love-story-erich-segal-dies

RIP Chicago muckraker Carlos Hernandez Gomez -- he was only 36!

Robert B. Parker, creator of lit detective Spenser

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/robert-b-parker-mystery-writer-has-died-at-77/?hp

RIP Paul Quarrington, author and musician. Bad frigging year for the Canadian arts.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2010/01/21/paul-quarrington-obit.html

RIP Jean Simmons.

Eugene McCabe, founder of McCabe's guitar shop in LA. He hosted peformers as well as sold guitars, and I saw Tom Verlaine there for his solo acoustic tour.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gerald-mccabe22-2010jan22,0,7399865.story?track=rss

Shit, Gerald, not Eugene.

RIP, 23 year old @diditleak dude.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2010/01/the_life_and_de.php

Wow.

James Mitchell, the stage and screen actor best known for playing tycoon Palmer Cortland for 30 years on the daytime soap opera All My Children, died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 89.

RIP you

Only vaguely aware of the guy in the past but got a load of hits to my site overnight and it made me go "aww, dude with my name".

pernell roberts (bonanza, trapper john md)

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/25/pernell.roberts.obit/?hpt=T2

Novelist Louis Auchincloss, at age 92.

Sorry about Pernell Roberts, we still love 'Bonanza' in this house!

Roberts walked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the historic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, the family said.

"On the set of 'Bonanza,' he protested the use of all white crews and guest stars, finding some support but never enough to satisfy his sense of outrage," the statement said.

He produced a lot of major hit movies, but let's not forget he also did David Lynch's Dune and Blue Velvet

RIP Henryk Mikołaj Górecki.

Coleman Jacoby, TV writer for Gleason and "Bilko"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/arts/television/13jacoby.html

Baby Marie Osborne, child star of the silent era, at 99

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/arts/17osborne.html?_r=1&ref=movies

RIP Countess Dracula

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/nov/23/hammer-horror-ingrid-pitt-dies

leslie nielson??

;(((((((
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5egaR4WvLPY

Irvin Kershner

oh hells no

I remember liking A Fine Madness and The Luck of Ginger Coffey, but I.K. had a weird resume for Lucas to hire him for Empire.

i think IK taught Lucas at film school, or some similar connection?

I remember liking A Fine Madness and The Luck of Ginger Coffey, but I.K. had a weird resume for Lucas to hire him for Empire.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, November 29, 2010 3:13 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

probably the last good artistic decision Lucas ever made

Mario Monicelli, director of Big Deal on Madonna Street -- jumped out a hospital window at 95.

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2589

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/02cohen.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Neutron bomb inventor, Samuel T. Cohen.

I mean, say what you want, but that's one bitchin' weapon.

RIP Maurice Wilkes, computing pioneer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilkes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11875821

Here is Maurice Wilkes looking at one of his inventions: a foot wide, 5' long tank of mercury delay line memory, offering 32 17-bit bytes, i.e. not enough memory to store the text in this sentence as ASCII characters. (Which hadn't been invented yet anyway, obv.)

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/5339/edsac28929.jpg

Elaine of Elaine's. I guess that cameo in Morning Glory was a bad omen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/nyregion/04kaufman.html

dandy don meredith, mnf announcer. he was 72.

The celebrity deaths that resonate most for me are those I associate with the early-mid '70s, and Meredith definitely qualifies. All I remember is that he was a real character, and that listening to him and Cosell (with Gifford as stodgy-guy foil) was a real hoot.

RIP Elizabeth Edwards

Oh shit really? They were just talking about her on NPR this morning saying that she couldn't receive any further cancer treament.

Enrique Morente.

Woolly Wolstenholme of Barclay James Harvest (http://www.woollywolstenholme.co.uk/)

Sorry to hear about Woolly Wolstenholme, my brother knew him pretty well so it's hit home somewhat. Haven't listened to BJH in years but they mellotroned their way into my 14 year old brain as well as Crimson, Genesis etc. RIP, such a shame he couldn't find peace in his life.

RIP Jean Rollin:

http://www.fangoria.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2901:rip-jean-rollin&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=167

Beefheart?

^^ serious bummer

He really splits opinion among my friends, and between albums as well, but dammit I was listening to Steal Softly Thru Snow the other day and it was wonderful.

RIP Anthony Howard

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/19/political-journalist-anthony-howard-dies

just going to post that

he always seemed interesting on newsnight etc

rip big man

Ralph Coates

http://www.myfootballfacts.com/files/QuickSiteImages/THFC47.JPG

Steve Landesberg, R.I.P

http://www.avclub.com/articles/rip-steve-landesberg-barney-miller-actor,49325/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv_7VgFgeg

most deadpan sitcom of all time?

I was very young when Barney Miller was on, but I would watch it with my parents and remember Dietrich/Landesberg being my favorite.

I think he replaced Abe Vigoda? who has amazingly outlived him.

nola rapper magnolia shorty, by homicide. she was 28 :(

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/12/murder_victim_is_rapper_magnol_1.html

really sad...she actually had a great 2010 between being featured on "My Boy" by Kourtney Heart and this song "Smoking Gun" that was on a bounce comp i picked up earlier in the year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXjFHxoKvJE

her verse on "Blood Thicker" is something else the way she (a fifteen year old girl) comes in at the end of the track and outdoes all of the hot boys + baby

"they found ya dead in the projects
Have people cryin and thankin
But yo' body been stankin'
On the ground 16 holes
Shot up head to ya toes
Blood all over ya clothes
Don't fuck with me no more
Now they know
I ain't no hoe"

Judge James Pickles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f39wk4UxqUE

a day late, but RIP Steve Landesberg ... Barney Miller was one of those after-school/weekend syndicated sitcom regulars when i was growing up.

Wombles' creator Elisabeth Beresford

;_;

RIP Teena Marie

RIP Magnolia Shorty

ugh that sucks :/

Former Liverpool and Rangers player Avi Cohen

Bobby Farrell of Boney M:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/dec/30/bobby-farrell-boney-m-singer-dies

Inevitably if you're familiar with his writing, the proximity of Bobby Farrell and Teena Marie has made me think of Chuck Eddy. Hopefully all is well with Stacey Q and Kix.

Per Oscarsson, Swedish actor:

http://beta.ca.news.yahoo.com/swedish-actor-cannes-award-winner-per-oscarsson-believed-20110102-091650-339.html

Read the novel Hunger years ago; always wanted to see the film on the strength of Stanley Kauffmann's review, where he heaped praise on Oscarsson.

Pete Postlethwaite at 64. Didn't even know he was ill.

Sorry, wrong thread I suppose.