What a great life! And what a great actor, Tony Curtis has taken his final bow at age 85. Yeah, he’s best known for his cross-dressing role in Some Like it Hot–hence this picture–but he had such a wide variety of roles, it really would be tough to choose just one. From one of the original teen heartthrobs to leading man, Curtis always delivered.
You will be missed, but thank you for all the entertainment. You did good, Tony.
Jimi Heselden, the multi-millionaire owner of the Segway company died in a freak accident yesterday when he rode one of the high-tech two-wheel machines off a cliff and into a river. (UK Mail)
James J. Kilpatrick, the cuddly curmudgeon conservative, was 89, and you can point to him for the proliferation of idiotic talking pundits from the print media on the teevee machine. He pioneered that trend on Point/Counterpoint segment on 60 minutes, which lead to the much better parody on Saturday Night Live.
Washington Post
Cathy is giving up her hunt for the perfect bathing suit after 34 years. Aaack.
I’ve never been sure if Cathy was a plus for women or a minus – but I do know that Cathy Guisewite’s career has been an absolute plus. There have been very few female cartoonists, let alone hugely successful ones. So even as much as I never enjoyed Cathy (wrong demographic, I guess), I think she will be missed.
(Full disclosure: I met Cathy Guisewite once years ago, she’s a genuinely nice person and she looks nothing like her star.)
George Steinbrenner died at age 80 this morning, in Tampa Bay, Florida.
For a fee, the US Olympics Committee would fly a flag at half mast in his memory.
The Senate has lost one of its legends with the death of Robert C. Byrd, an orphan child who married a coal miner’s daughter and rose from the hollows of West Virginia coal country to become the longest serving senator in U.S. history.
(And so the second wave in our Summer of Death 2 begins.)
McClanahan was 76 and she died this morning of a massive stroke. I’m sure that she will always be best remembered for her Golden Girls role of man-hungry Blanche Devereaux, but she was quite an accomplished Broadway star before going to the teevee.
I think the best thing about the Golden Girls was how they let the rest of us know that women of a certain age were still sexual beings. Blanche, er Rue, was central to that theme. She will be missed – and thanks for all the laughs.
This leaves us with only one Golden Girl, Betty White.
Dennis Hopper, the iconic bad boy, has died at age 74 of prostate cancer. He owned his roles (good and bad) like very few other actors. Some of his movies were crap, but he made the most of whatever material he had; he never gave a boring performance. He lived so hard, it actually is amazing he made it to 74.
Man, this sucks. He will be missed.
Scrap TVGary Coleman died today in Utah at age 42 of a brain hemorrhage.
The grim curse of Diff’rent Strokes continues with this sad news. Coleman was never able to make the leap from child star to adult, and his life was just one tabloid story after another, which is sad because he really was a cute kid, he had great comic timing. From the Jack Benny slow-burn, to the full-on Nathan Lane spit-takes, he was really gifted. I’m not sure if he will be missed, but I’m kinda sad for him for all the right reasons.
I’m really sorry to see that Dixie Carter has gone to that great encore in the sky. She will always be Julia Sugarbaker to me. Yeah, I know Dixie was actually a GOPer in real life, but that only shows what a great talent she had. Julia/Dixie defined feminism for me in so many ways at an age when I needed to understand it.
Strong women absolutely rule. Thanks for teaching me that, Dixie.
From managing the notorious Sex Pistols (and installing Johnny Rotten therein)…
… to hiring a 14-year old Annabella Lwin as the lead singer of one of my favorite Pop bands of all time, Bow-wow-wow (after kicking out Adam from the Antz), McClaren’s record is certainly both influential and exploitive.
McLaren spent much of the ’80s doing some interesting sampling and early techno…
…and also some exploitation of urban black culture – before Madonna got a hold of it.
The last McLaren album that I remember buying was Paris, which I like very much, and not just because he convinced unbelievably beautiful Catherine Deneuve to perform on the album. He seemed to have moved into a different artistic phase:
I lost track of him shortly after that. Now, it is not to say that McLaren was a genius, but he certainly had an eye for talent and his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist (at least for a while) before others caught on; I was never really sure what his artistic vision was, because it seemed to change constantly. But I enjoyed being along for the ride.
McLaren was 64.
John Forsythe, the handsome, smooth-voiced actor who made his fortune as the scheming oil tycoon in TV’s “Dynasty” and the voice of the leader of “Charlie’s Angels,” has died after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 92.
Go there. McQueen was awesome.
In the spring of 1963, Steve McQueen was on the brink of superstardom, already popular from his big-screen breakout as one of The Magnificent Seven and just a couple months away from entering the Badass Hall of Fame with the release of The Great Escape. Intrigued by his dramatic backstory and his off-screen exploits — McQueen was a reformed delinquent who got his thrills racing cars and motorcycles — LIFE sent photographer John Dominis to California to hang out with the 33-year-old actor and see what he could get. Three weeks and more than 40 rolls of film later, Dominis had captured some astonishingly intimate and iconic images, photos impossible to imagine in today’s restricted-access celebrity world. Only a handful of those photos have ever been published… but now, in celebration of what would have been McQueen’s 80th birthday (March 24), LIFE.com presents these never-before-seen gems from that legendary assignment, along with insights from Dominis about the time he spent with the man who would become known as the King of Cool. Pictured: At his home in Palm Springs, McQueen practices his aim before heading out for a shooting session in the desert.
Robert Culp was 79 when he died yesterday.
His career started off with the ground-breaking, racially integrated ’60s spy show, I Spy. His credits at IMDB are extensive, and he was nominated for many Golden Globe awards (no small feat, that).
The Commercial AppealAlex Chilton, 1950 – 2010, died of a heart attack at age 59, too young, too soon. If you listened to any rock music over the past, hell, 59 years, you heard music influenced by Alex Chilton. He stood alone.
The flag at Tengrain’s Little Hut is at half mast.
Click the link above and get a randome quote from Bea Arthur from the Golden Girls. On a day like today, we could all use a little laughter.
FlickrThe shortest dude in the world, Ping-Ping, has ascended to heaven at age 21.
(Via the Aristocrats, who else?)
Daily Mail UK – Peter Graves, dead at 83, will never watch another gladiator movie.
IdolatorI’ve been struggling with how to address the sad death this morning of Corey Haim from a fatal — and accidental — overdose.
I’ve already read and heard a lot of noise from the smug holier-than-thou crowd saying it is just another example of how liberal Hollywood is fatal; Corey’s death is already being described as a cautionary tale for early fame and the inevitable burn out of child stars, poor family values, use-them-up-and -spit-them-out, fast lifestyle and so on.
I won’t dispute that the success rate of child stars into adult stars is depressingly small. Imagine being a has-been by age 20 or 30, and I think you can see why so many of these kids flame out.
But all that aside, there is another story here. This is a story of addiction. The GOP are going to use this sad death for more law and order BS. Addiction is not a crime, addiction is a medical condition and ought to be treated as such. I don’t think Hollywood has a monopoly on drug addiction as the meth addicts in Jebusland show us.
I have no idea what kind of demons Corey Haim battled, or why he didn’t have better tools, a better family to help him. But he did have one good friend who tried: Corey Feldman, arguably the lesser of the two Coreys, told the producers of their reality show that he would no longer do the program until Haim got the help he needed. This effectively cancelled the show, and indeed cancelled Feldman’s own second chance of a career. That’s a good friend, and I’m glad Corey Haim had him. Props to Feldman. Seriously.
In the end, if we live on it is only as someone’s memory. We can make a choice about how we remember Corey Haim, as a real person with real talent or as an addict who died of a drug overdose in a nameless, faceless building in Los Angeles and a talking point for the GOP. For me, Haim will always be the scene stealing, broken-voiced kid in The Lost Boys, singing in the bubbles in a bathtub, soon to learn that his big brother (played by Jason Patrick) is a vampire. “And wait until Mom finds out!” might be the best line ever in a horror movie.
A moment of silence for the inventor of the Easy-Bake Oven, please. He is done, the light is out. Let’s hope he’s not somewhere burnt.
The Desert Times tells us…
With most Democrats voting no, the Utah House approved a resolution Tuesday that questions global warming while asking the federal government not to proceed with “cap-and-trade” legislation or CO2 regulation.
Sponsor Rep. Kerry Gibson, R-Ogden, a dairy farmer said some argue that if the Environmental Protection Agency goes forward with cap and trade on CO2, it could lead to a “cow tax.”
Cows like his own could be measured for “belches” and “other gases they produce,” which in turn could lead to a head tax that would increase the cost of milk and meat to consumers.
Mr. Gibson, I think you should worry more about your own gases, but I digress. There is other news from Utah that we must consider in this light:
Fred Morrison, a pilot and carpenter most often credited with inventing that most ubiquitous of backyard toys, the Frisbee, died on Tuesday at his home in Monroe, Utah. He was 90 and had lung cancer.
Mr. Morrison, I salute you. I spent more time with my Frisbees in college than I did with my professors, and I think I came out ahead for that. Ultimate Frisbee, Frisbee Golf, you name it, I played it.
So there we have it: Utah, the land of great contrasts. It’s like Texas, but with shiney undies.
His office released this notice:
Congressman John P. Murtha (PA-12) passed away peacefully this afternoon at 1:18 p.m. at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA. At his bedside was his family.
Murtha, 77, was Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in February of 1974, Murtha dedicated his life to serving his country both in the military and in the halls of Congress. A former Marine, he became the first Vietnam War combat Veteran elected to the U.S. Congress.
This past Saturday, February 6, 2010, Murtha became Pennsylvania’s longest serving Member of Congress.
A complete biography is available on his website.
The novelist JD Salinger, whom everyone either loved or hated, has left us. From the biographical details in the article, it sounds like he was a real character, not exactly a nice guy, either. But most gifted authors probably are not nice guys; it comes with the territory, maybe.
My older brother and sister (Seven- and Eight-Grain) both told me that A Catcher in the Rye was transformational for them and for their generation, but by my time assigned to read it, I just thought Holden Caufield was a whiney boomer; nothing about it resonated with me, and I barely remember it now. I suppose I need to read it again.
So many people loved his work, though, and he did make a huge impact on the culture and society. It is a significant loss, and I think we are grateful for his having been with us.
UPDATE 1: The New Yorker has made Salinger’s stories published by them available to anyone.
Oh, this is really sad, a true gentleman and a brilliant scholar, Howard Zinn wrote the best selling book, A People’s History of the United States and changed the way many of us view history.
I had a chance to meet him (briefly) last year at the Progressive Conference; he was in real life as kind and warm as he appeared on the media.
SFGate.com – click the image to go to SFGate and see Ethel’s, er, Vivian Vance’s scrapbook, newly discovered.
SFGate.comOh, man. This is sad: Pendergrass was 59 and had cancer. He was in a car accident in his late 20s that left him paralyzed, and later founded the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance, an organization whose mission is to encourage and help people with spinal cord injuries achieve their maximum potential in education, employment, housing, productivity and independence.
He was a huge talent, a great human being, and what a voice! Thanks for all the hits, Teddy.
Heiress, 30, stiff.
Cops: her death was natural:
Coke was organic.
…favorite son, Oral Roberts, who is dead at age 91, thus proving again that only the good die young.
I guess his flock did not raise enough cash – in January 1987, during a fundraising drive, Roberts announced to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would “call him home” – but keep the faith Xristian Xrazies, because ol’ Oral’s kid claimed that his daddy could raise the dead, and has.
Our Summer of Death moves into the somber season with the passing of Edward Woodward. Film buffs may know him from Breaker Morant, and teevee machine aficionados will know him as The Equalizer. Either way, he was quite an accomplished actor and we are sorry to see him go. He was 79-years old, so he had extra innings and a life that was well-lived.
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