Rolling RIP/obituary thread - 2011 edition

David Nelson. All members of the Ozzie & Harriett family are now gone.

― you think you're cool, but you read ick (Phil D.), Wednesday, January 12, 2011 10:24 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

John Dye, actor in schmaltz-tv and Lifetime movies, died Monday. He was Andrew, the Angel of Death, in "Touched By an Angel". No cause of death announced yet -- he was just a few months older than me (47). Only notable really because he's from here (Amory), and his parents are bringing him home to be buried, and the funeral home 2 blocks away is handling the arrangements. Probably going to be a bit hectic later this week -- he's probably this town's most famous native.

RIP, Susannah York and Nat Lofthouse.

Susannah York was really sexy in this old Canadian film called The Silent Partner. There's a brief shot of her in this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f-oWvGv1to

also in The Killing of Sister George!

she is p sexy in skolimowski's The Shout, too. RIP supermum.

RIP Steve Prestwich (Cold Chisel drummer) and Harvey James (Sherbet guitarist)

what? uh

Don Kirshner, the impresario behind Brill Building pop, the Monkees, the Archies and his own music- television show, has died of heart failure.

Kirshner was 77 and died in Boca Raton, Florida, according to a statement from his publicist cited by Billboard.com. He was born on April 17, 1934, according to Ancestry.com, which would have made him 76.

Wow. If you're a '70s guy like me, that's a huge death. His intros to the Rock Concert show he used to oversee (later parodied by Paul Shaffer) were priceless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6o_t2Q_gkg&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

RIP. He was a high school friend of Bobby Darin, although I'm not sure that they went to same high school, as is often reported, as I learned from this most excellent book, in which he features prominently:
http://www.soulmusichq.com/images/earshot/ear8/boreve8.jpg

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postmortem/2011/01/r-sargent-shriver-95-an.html

Reynolds Price

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/books/21price.html

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu2O21kASKw

RIP Edgar Tafel - last surviving member of Frank Lloyd Wright's original Taliesin Fellowship.

His death was announced by Robert Silman, a structural engineer who was Mr. Tafel’s legal representative. Mr. Silman said Mr. Tafel was the last surviving member of the original Taliesin Fellowship, which convened in 1932 at Wright’s home and school — known as Taliesin — near Spring Green, Wis.

On his own, Mr. Tafel designed 80 houses, 35 religious buildings and 3 college campuses, among other projects.

As an apprentice in the mid- and late-1930s, he worked on two of Wright’s most important commissions: Fallingwater, the serenely cantilevered house over the Bear Run creek in rural Pennsylvania; and the Johnson Wax Building in Racine, Wis., with its fantastic forest of mushroomlike columns. He also worked on Wingspread, the home of the company’s president, Herbert F. Johnson, near Racine.

RIP "Uncle" Milton Levine - creator of the Ant Farm

Milton Levine liked to give his customers advice from the Bible: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise."

Mr. Levine, who died Jan. 16 at age 97, knew whereof he spoke. He introduced the Ant Farm to America in 1956.

A mail-order entrepreneur, Mr. Levine said he came to the revelation at a Fourth of July picnic that included the inevitable uninvited insect guests.

Mr. Levine developed the narrow green plastic case with barn and windmill that became a toy sensation of 1957-58, when two million were sold.

Mr. Levine made no claims to have invented the formicarium, as homes for ants are formally called. A patent on one was issued in 1937 to a Dartmouth professor who made and sold "Ant Palaces" from a workshop in Hanover, Vt.

But Mr. Levine, who knew a lot about ants despite lacking formal training, insisted the formicarium was older still. "They're about as old as glass itself," he told The Wall Street Journal in 1958.

The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Mr. Levine was born in Pittsburgh. His father was a dry cleaner, and Mr. Levine's main contact with ants came on visits to his uncle's farm, where he gathered them into mini-terrariums he constructed in Mason jars.

After serving in the Army in World War II, he and his brother-in-law, E. Joseph Cossman, started a mail-order business selling toy soldiers through ads in comic books. Later, they sold novelties like shrunken heads and spud guns.

The Ant Farm was initially sold by mail and later through retailers nationwide. Each Ant Farm came with a coupon for a vial of ants that was mailed separately, since ants don't have a long shelf life.

The ants themselves—red ants known as Pogonomyrmex californicus—were collected in the desert by workers armed with shovels and vacuums. At first they were paid a penny per ant, and the Christian Science Monitor reported in 1967 that the most productive of them made $3,000 weekly.

In 1965, Mr. Levine bought out Mr. Cossman, who went on to become a marketing consultant and author of "How I Made A Million In Mail Order."

Mr. Levine renamed his company Uncle Milton Industries—he said it was "Uncle" Milton because people often asked him if he was in the ant business, where was the uncle?

In a 1970 book Mr. Levine wrote, "Ant Facts and Fantasies," he explained that "this writer is of the opinion that ants are truly socialist. After all, their life is truly a communal one."

As the Cold War was winding down in 1989, Uncle Milton Industries sent representatives to Moscow to explore selling Ant Farms in the Soviet Union.

Uncle Milton Industries also offered products involving live butterflies and frogs, and other science-oriented toys.

Mr. Levine's son, Steven Levine, took over the business in the 1980s. It was sold to a private-equity firm in 2010.

"I love ants," Mr. Levine told Smithsonian magazine in 1989. "They're the greatest things on Earth. I've got three kids, and ants put them all through college. I never even step on ants, I tell you. Never."

Two things...

1. One of my favorite Huell Howser episodes EVER is the one where he visits Uncle Milton and goes ant collecting in the desert. I think Levine had just turned 90 and was hilarious. Reminded me of Bill Gaines.

2. I was on the westbound 101 freeway years ago and was passed by a giant, full-size, fully decked out Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Older gentleman was driving, but the tip off was the "ANTFARM" license plate. Pretty badass

RIP Charlie Louvin, I hardly knew ye were still alive

seems milton was a popular name for early 20th c american jewish families, see also friedman, babbitt

rubber-faced comedian Charlie Callas

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/arts/television/29callas.html

who's left from the Dean Martin roasts besides Rickles and Ruth Buzzi?

Came on to post about Callas...Never knew he was banned from The Tonight Show for shoving the Big Guy as part of a bit. For anyone who never saw him, he defies description.

Nixon impersonator David Frye. It's like a week's worth of Merv Griffin '70s guests are dropping.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/arts/29frye.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pARKb7D490c

RIP Gladys Horton, lead singer of the Marvelettes

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/gladys-horton-of-the-marvelettes-dies-at-66-20110127

who's left from the Dean Martin roasts besides Rickles and Ruth Buzzi?

RIP Gladys Horton

seems milton was a popular name for early 20th c american jewish families, see also friedman, babbitt

― nakhchivan, Thursday, January 27, 2011 1:02 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

r.i.p. milton babbitt

http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/the-blood-of-the-lamb/milton-babbitt-1916-2011-057097

Wasn't Angie Dickinson on some of those roasts as eye candy for the guys? Maybe I'm getting her and Ruth Buzzi mixed up.

yeah people get them mixed up all the time. angie was pals with all those guys.

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4J_IOyKXu0

Ali, Namath, Cosell, Hope, Barry Goldwater, Hubert Humphrey, Orson Welles, Jimmy Stewart...Wow--some other world. (There are also clips of Angie being roasted herself.)

Joey Heatherton was the ueen of Dean Martin eye candy.

<object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wnO8aIf2fco&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wnO8aIf2fco&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object>

Oh well, click on the first http://www.youtube...

John Barry.

been listening to a lot of john barry the last couple of days : (
rip

wau

I think John Barry deserves a thread of his own, really, if only for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykLCAfVa410

plus of course, so many others,: Bond themes, Midnight Cowboy, Dances with Wolves, Out of Africa, etc.

Good bye, John - thanks for the fantastic music.

Amazing, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2Jw6_Xgszk

RIP.

He also has some less well known non film stuff. I love this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yIrAXZlSx8

That's gorgeous. The album it's from is £2.79 from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Barry-English-Chamber-Orchestra/dp/B00000I60G/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1296464822&sr=8-3

I have already added a few pence to his estate by buying it this morning.

think John Barry deserves a thread of his own, really,

Agreed.

John Barry, supergenius (RIP Jan 2011)

Margaret John :(
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12342913

Brian Rust

Maria Schneider

Awwww, RIP. Must admit however the first thing I thought of was that old joke about "You'll never put a better bit of butter on your wife".

Gary Moore.

Maria Schneider's great in Last Tango. Whatever you think of the film, I can't imagine anybody more right for that character (notwithstanding that she's basically playing the young Bardot).

apparently daniel bell died last month? kind of a big one to miss

Dorothy Thompson :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Thompson_%28historian%29

Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall books:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-12380763

Former England cricketer Trevor Bailey dies in fire.

RIP "The Boil" :(

Betty Garrett, MGM musical player, blacklistee, and "All in the Family" semi-regular:

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-betty-garrett-20110213,0,2531900.story

(Goodnight, Irene Lorenzo)

Blind British jazz pianist and composer of "Lullaby Of Birdland," George Shearing:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-george-shearing-20110215,0,1741942.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29

David Hess, star of Last House on the Left and The House on the Edge of the Park:

http://www.fearnet.com/news/b24139_rip_actor_david_hess.html

Mikey Welsh, formerly of Weezer:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/09/showbiz/weezer-bassist-dead/

oh jeez

Kenneth Dahlberg, WW2 ace and Nixon fundraiser whose check helped illuminate the Watergate trail:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/us/kenneth-h-dahlberg-watergate-figure-and-wwii-ace-dies-at-94.html

I think you only hear him over the phone in All the President's Men--I believe he's the guy who calls back and harangues Ben Bradlee because he doesn't want it printed that he was having dinner with one of the Post's female reporters.

Frank Kameny, gay rights activist, 86 - died on National Coming Out Day.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/frank-kameny-dies-wasleading-gay-rights-leader/2011/10/11/gIQAIsUwdL_story.html

Dennis Ritchie, one of the creators of Unix and C.

:(

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
printf("goodbye, dennis\n");
return 0;
}

if only we could re-creat dennis. rip

Hopefully his doppelganger initialize-wise ilx poster dmr is still going strong.

RIP the original C-Man, creator of one of many languages I never quite learned properly.

Barbara Kent, 103, actress in silents and early Harold Lloyd talkies

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/movies/barbara-kent-silent-film-star-dies-at-103.html

Gene Kurtz, one-time bassist for Roy Head & The Traits, and co-writer of "Treat Her Right"

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/rocks/2011/10/gene_kurtz_treat_her_right_co-.php

Barry Feinstein

http://i.imgur.com/tySdS.jpg

Florian Albert, the 1967 winner of the Golden Ball award given to Europe's best football player, has died. He was 70.

Ferencvaros TC, Albert's Hungarian club, said the former striker died early Monday. No cause of death was given, but Albert underwent heart surgery last week.

Albert played 537 matches for Ferencvaros, scoring 383 goals and winning four Hungarian championships. He also played 75 times for Hungary, tallying 31 goals. He took part in the 1962 and 1966 World Cups and won a bronze medal at the 1960 Olympic Games.

Thanks for the Barry Feinstein link. Didn't know the name at all; fantastic body of work.

RIP Florian (xp)

Also didn't know from Barry Feinstein. Thanks.

Gilbert Cates, frequent producer of the Oscars and director of TV and film (I Never Sang for My Father):

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gilbert-cates-dies-255874

man, bubba smith RIP
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-bubbasmith

Leonard Stone, character actor who played Violet Beauregarde’s father in Wonka:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/arts/television/leonard-stone-character-actor-is-dead-at-87.html

"Crash" Collins, legendary Houston FM Rock DJ & Personality

http://www.29-95.com/music/story/sadness-alert-crash-collins-dies

Cynthia Myers, one-time Playmate and also bassist for The Carrie Nations (link NSFW obvs.)

http://blog.mrskin.com/playboy-favorite-and-russ-meyer-girl-cynthia-myers-dies-age-61-pics---14027

film/TV comic perennial Sid Melton, 94:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/arts/television/sid-melton-tv-and-film-actor-dies-at-94.html

Richard Gordon, producer of 'Insemenoid' and many other exploitation pics:

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/newsworldnation/939102-227/richard-gordon-producer-of-horror-and-science.html

Ward Fowler, are you named Ward Fowler after that episode of Columbo where William Shatner played a ham actor called Ward Fowler?

no its complete coincidence.

ok i am really, yes. i've always loved shatner's early gigantic video recorder in that episode, which provides him w his false alibi (and which of course columbo sees right through)

Pure class

are you named Ward Fowler after that episode of Columbo

Ha, I remember seeing that episode and having that exact thought.

Hal Kanter, Golden Age TV writer-director-producer, Emmy winner for The George Gobel Show (which I watched some excerpts of at a klassik komedy party on Sunday, aren't YOU jealous?).

http://www.deadline.com/2011/11/r-i-p-hal-kanter/

Heavy D :(

fucking fuck that sucks so bad

fuckin' love 'now that we've got love', but whenever i hear heavy d's name its phiphe dawg's namecheck on 'butter' that pops into my head rather than any of heavy's tunes...

Bill Keane...

whoa, he was almost 90!?

*looks up age of Marmaduke creator*

no way

TFC was a comic-page warhorse when I was in kindergarten. Schulz would be almost 90 now too.

Feels disrespectful to have his name misspelled here, it was Bill Keane, one l

strikeout hardly visible

Bill

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc

Mick Anglo, widely held to be the creator and own of Marvelman:

http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2011/mick-anglo-1916-2011/

Peter Roebuck
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/current/story/540275.html

Aw, I always relied on him to stir things up a bit during/before big Test series, and he rarely let me down.

suicide apparently, very sad.

Right, I just read the article - that is v sad. A problematic figure in many ways, for many people, including himself by the sounds of it. RIP.

According to a report on the Herald's website, Roebuck "appeared to be in a disturbed state last night" after being spoken to by police, who had removed personal items from his room.

That doesn't sound so good.

Latest word is that he jumped while a police officer was still in the room. Something to do with a load of kids he helped to house in Pietermaritzburg.

Doyle Bramhall Sr., Texas Garage & Blues Legend, co-writer of several key Stevie Ray Vaughan songs, father of Clapton & Waters sideman Doyle Jr., and general all-around Bro

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/rocks/2011/11/rip_doyle_bramhall_austin_blue.php

RIP Laura Kennedy, bass player for the NYC band Bush Tetras, of early '80s "Too Many Creeps" fame. Discussed on ILM:

Why is there no thread on the Bush Tetras?