You spread joy and good cheer everywhere you go.

BOSTON Former Red Sox and NBC television broadcaster Curt Gowdy died at his home in Florida Monday, after a long battle with leukemia. He was 86 years old.

Gowdy's family was with him at the time of his death.

He was the radio voice of the Red Sox from 1951 to 1965. That time included his famous call of Ted Williams' final home run in his final at-bat at the end of the 1960 season.

Gowdy left the Red Sox to join NBC Sports, where he was the network's lead television broadcaster for it's baseball game of the week. From 1966 to 1975, he called the play-by-play for every World Series and All-Star game for NBC.

In his long career, he also announced Super Bowls, NCAA basketball championships and the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.

He also spent two decades as the host of "The American Sportsman".

Gowdy was named National Sportscaster of the Year three times.

He joined the writers and broadcasters wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984.

Clifton James (Bo's Drummer) R.I.P.

From Bo's webmaster, David Blakey --

We were greatly saddened to learn
of the death of former BO DIDDLEY band drummer Clifton James in
Chicago, IL on Thursday morning (February 16th). He was 69.
BO DIDDLEY's original drummer, Clifton began playing with the band in
1954 and continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s, playing on many of
BO DIDDLEY's classic Chess recordings, including "Bo Diddley", "I'm A
Man", "Diddley Daddy", "Pretty Thing", "Bring It To Jerome", "Diddy Wah
Diddy", "Who Do You Love", "Cops & Robbers" and "Road Runner".
He was the drummer for BO DIDDLEY's landmark November 1955 appearance
on the Ed Sullivan CBS Television show, which is now widely hailed as
the earliest example of rock music on TV and for which Clifton received
an award in Chicago last month, recognizing him as a rock music-
television pioneer. He also appeared in BO DIDDLEY's highly acclaimed
live performance in the 1966 AIP movie "The Big TNT Show" and in DA
Pennebaker's 1970 "Sweet Toronto" concert film.
Throughout the 1960s, Clifton toured and recorded sessions with many of
the Chess Records greats, including Willie Dixon, the Flamingos, Buddy
Guy, the Moonglows, Koko Taylor, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson and
Howlin' Wolf, before touring with his own blues band in the 1970s.
In May 2002, Clifton was reunited on-stage with BO DIDDLEY and former
band members Billy Boy Arnold and Jody Williams at that year's Chicago
Blues Festival and in April last year he made another triumphant return
to live performance at the New Orleans 2005 Ponderosa Stomp series of
concerts, backing BO DIDDLEY's former guitarist LADY BO. He had been
scheduled to perform once again with LADY BO, Billy Boy Arnold and Jody
Williams at a BO DIDDLEY band reunion show at this year's upcoming
Ponderosa Stomp event in May.
As an integral part of BO DIDDLEY's bands in the 1950s and 1960s,
Clifton James' pioneering drumming skills, utilising complex cross-
rhythms, helped create the original BO DIDDLEY sound and thereby shaped
the beat of rock & roll. We send our sincere condolences to his family
and friends at this very sad time.

Cowsills Lead Singer William Cowsill Dies
By SHELLEY KNAPP, AP

CALGARY, Alberta (Feb. 19) - William Cowsill, lead singer of the 1960s singing family band The Cowsills, which inspired the TV series "The Partridge Family," has died. He was 58.

Cowsill, who was suffering from emphysema, osteoporosis, and other ailments, died in Calgary, Alberta, on Friday, according to the family and Canadian record producer Neil MacGonigill. He had been in deteriorating health.

The Cowsills, inspiration for the "The Partridge Family," recorded a series of top hits between 1967 and 1970, including "The Rain, The Park and Other Things" and "Hair."

Four Cowsill brothers played in the band: Barry on bass, William on guitar, Bob on guitar and organ, and John on drums. Their mother, Barbara, and little sister, Susan, eventually joined the group.

Barry disappeared after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on Aug. 29. His body was recovered Dec. 28 from the Chartres Street Wharf.

The band's career began in Newport, R.I. They were spotted by a producer for NBC's "Today" show which booked them for an appearance that led to a record deal.

The band broke up in the 1970s. William, the oldest brother, moved to Canada about 35 years ago, where he continued his music career with Blue Northern, The Blue Shadows and the Co-Dependents.

Cowsill is survived by two sons.

02/19/06 21:04 EST

Damn I could have sworn I posted this a few days ago. Guess not.

Curtis Lee dies; had a hit with "Pretty Little Angel Eyes"
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 15:48:37 -0800

CURTIS LEE ALDERSON, 68, of Memphis, died February 9, 2006 at St.
Francis Hospital in Memphis. Curtis was a musician most of his life
starting in the early fifties. He played bass guitar in several bands
in the Memphis area. He moved to California in the mid-fifties and
formed his own band "Curtis Lee and the other three." He later moved to
Las Vegas where he played in several clubs, often opening for well
known stars for over ten years. He made several recordings, one of them
being "Pretty Little Angel Eyes" which is still being played today on
some "Oldie" stations. After losing his eye in an accident in
California, he moved back to Memphis in the 70s and later went to work
for T.B.E. in the 80s, managing concessions at the health department
and later for Arlington Developmental Center until he retired in 2003.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Buford and Mossie Lee Alderson
of Memphis, and a sister, Mary Lois Young of Oklahoma. He is survived
by two sons, Craig and Sonny Alderson, and a daughter, Karie Alderson,
all of Las Vegas; two brothers, a sister, two grandaughters, and a
companion, Sherrie Lewis of Arlington, TN. Graveside services will be 2
pm Monday, February 13 at Memphis Memory Gardens.

Surf manager, last to see Holly, dies

By PEGGY SENZARINO, Of The Globe Gazette

CLEAR LAKE — Former Surf Ballroom manager Carroll Anderson never got over the image of an airplane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson as it left the Mason City Airport on Feb. 3, 1959.

It was Anderson who arranged the fateful flight to take the trio to their next engagement at Moorhead, Minn., after their appearance at the Surf Ballroom.

Anderson, 86, died Monday at the Muse Norris Hospice Inpatient Unit in Mason City.

He was manager of the Surf from 1950 to 1967.

“I took them to the airport and put them on the plane,” Anderson said in a 1995 Globe Gazette interview. “I closed the door of the plane and shook hands with each one of them.”

Anderson watched the plane take off and gain altitude. It appeared to Anderson that the plane flew over the horizon.

The plane, in fact, was falling out of the sky.

He learned the next morning that the plane had failed to check in at Alexandria, Minn., its first checkpoint. Then came the awful news of the fatal crash.

“I was hurt badly,” Anderson said in 1995. “It was something I couldn’t get over. Three young entertainers so full of life and they performed for you so magnificently.

“I’ll never get it out of my mind.”

Anderson’s wife, Lucille, said her husband talked a lot about those times and especially the plane crash.

“He really felt bad about it,” she said.

Anderson was inducted into the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

After leaving the Surf in 1967, the couple owned and operated Carroll’s Cafe in downtown Clear Lake for seven years and then Anderson returned to carpentry work.

One of his great passions was the outdoors. His wife said he would spend two months in the spring and two months in the summer at a Canadian resort, working on various projects.

“He’d been coming here for 40 or 50 years, probably back before the roads were even in,” said Mark Mattice, part-owner of Pine Point Resort near Thunder Bay, Ontario.

“He was a good guy.”

Anderson served as a member of the Clear Lake City Council and was a long-time member of the Clear Lake Noon Lions Club.

“He was always friendly and a very distinguished gentleman,” said Mike Grandon of Clear Lake, a frequent customer in Carroll’s Cafe.

That must be one rockin' spot.

Speaking of Terry Kath, I think he shot himself because he couldn't stand to work with his exceedingly lame bandmates anymore. He was the sole rocker of Chicago.

Gospel music pianist Anthony Burger, who played for the popular Gaither Homecoming shows and earned Dove Award nominations for his albums of instrumental music, collapsed and died during a performance. He was 44.

He died Wednesday while performing on a Gaither Homecoming cruise out of Miami, said family friend Tom Rowland, mayor of Cleveland, Tenn., where Burger grew up.

"They have not done an autopsy yet, but they suspect it was a heart attack," Rowland said.

Burger, who lived near Nashville in Brentwood, Tenn., released many albums and videos of his piano music. His records included renditions of "Old Time Religion" and "Hallelujah Chorus" alongside secular classics like Debussy's "Clair de Lune."

Most recently, he'd been a guest artist and pianist for Gaither Homecoming concerts headlined by gospel superstar Bill Gaither.

Two Gaither albums and videos featuring Burger are currently in the top 10 on both music video and contemporary Christian album sales charts. "Gaither Homecoming: Live From Toronto," has Burger's "Shout to the Lord/Rhapsody in Blue Medley," and "Canadian Homecoming" features his "Gettin' Ready to Leave This World."

Also this year, Burger's album "A Tribute to Bill and Gloria Gaither" was nominated for the Gospel Music Association's Dove Award in the instrumental album category. Another album, "New Born Feeling," was nominated in the same category in 1997.

Earlier in his career Burger played for the Celestials and the Southern gospel quartet The Kingsmen. He performed at the White House and on "Today" as well as the Billy Graham Crusade and won awards from the Southern Gospel Association.

As a small child, Burger fell onto a furnace grate and was burned on his hands, legs and face. Burger said in his biography that "gradually, the Lord healed my hands because he had a job for me to do." Burger started playing when he was 3 years old and debuted on the radio at age 5, Rowland said.

Burger is survived by his wife, LuAnn, two sons and a daughter. Funeral arrangements were pending.

Bruce Hart, 68, Lyricist for 'Sesame Street,' Dies
By BEN SISARIO, NY Times
Published: February 23, 2006

Bruce Hart, who wrote lyrics for "Sesame Street" and "Free to Be ...
You and Me," died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 68.

The cause was lung cancer, said his wife, Carole.

Mr. Hart and his wife were among the first writers on "Sesame Street"
when it began in 1969 as a children's show that tried to be equally
entertaining and educational. To shake up the creative process, its
producers hired people new to children's television.

Mr. Hart, who had written for "Candid Camera" and composed the lyrics
to "One Way Ticket," a hit for Cass Elliott, was hired to write
sketches and help with the theme song. With a clear whistle of a melody
and lyrics that seemed to come straight from the mind of a happy child,
the song Ч written with Joe Raposo and Jon Stone Ч became a
touchstone of children's music:

Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away

On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?

"That opening bar summoned children all over the world to the
television set," said Phil Donahue, a longtime friend. "Its purity is
its strength."

Mr. Hart and his wife left "Sesame Street" after the first season and
went on to a variety of other projects for children and young people,
including "Free to Be ... You and Me," the groundbreaking album and
television special created by Marlo Thomas, which featured Mel Brooks,
Harry Belafonte, Michael Jackson and other celebrities. Ms. Hart was a
writer and producer of the special, with Ms. Thomas, and Mr. Hart wrote
many of the songs with a longtime collaborator, Stephen Lawrence.

They also wrote, and Mr. Hart directed, a 1979 television musical for
teenagers, "Sooner or Later." A song from that show with lyrics by Mr.
Hart, "You Take My Breath Away," became a hit for the star, Rex Smith.

The Harts also produced a short-lived but acclaimed television show,
"Hot Hero Sandwich," and a series of educational films about
psychology, among many other projects. Mr. Hart also wrote a 1988
television movie for adults, "Leap of Faith," starring Anne Archer and
Sam Neill.

Besides his wife, Mr. Hart is survived by a brother, Alan, of Akron,
Ohio.

Noted Russian poet Gennady Aigi dies at 71


MOSCOW (AP) - Russian poet Gennady Aigi, who was often considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in literature, has died at age 71, news agencies reported Friday.

Aigi died Tuesday in Moscow of an unspecified illness and on Friday was buried in his native village of Shaimurzino, in the Volga River area about 650 kilometres east of Moscow, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

His poems, written in the indigenous language of the Chuvashia region, were translated into scores of other languages and Aigi himself was a noted translator into Chuvash of poets of other countries.

Born in 1934, his father was a village teacher who set an early example for Aigi's future by translating the works of Alexander Pushkin into Chuvash.

Aigi began publishing in Chuvash regional publications in 1949 and became regarded as a member of the avant garde. His first book came out in 1958 and in the same year he was rejected from the Gorky Literature Institute "for writing hostile books of poems that undermine the basis of the socialist-realist method."

He began writing in Russian in 1960 at the advice of novelist Boris Pasternak, but his Russian-language poems were only sparsely published in the Soviet Union and he became better known abroad than at home. His books began appearing in the Soviet Union amid the reforms of the late 1980s.

Many of Aigi's poems are characterized by short - even one-word - lines and terse pastoral images such as misty fields and smoke rising from the chimneys of peasant huts.

In an interview published by Russia's New Times this month, Aigi said he had little interest in the post-modern poetry of recent years. He also lamented that poets were abandoning the aim of writing with moral authority, saying "(now) we have swagger, a rope to pull, and ambition to pursue. I still remember the cynical joke: a poet is no different from other dogs, except that he is a talking dog."

Survivors include his sister, author Eva Lisina, and his son Alexei, a noted composer.

Actor Don Knotts dies at 81; made being a nerd OK

By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer

Saturday, February 25, 2006

(02-25) 14:35 PST Los Angeles (AP) --

Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show," has died. He was 81.

Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs "The Andy Griffith Show," and another Knotts hit, "Three's Company."

Unspecified health problems had forced him to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown in August 2005.

The West Virginia-born actor's half-century career included seven TV series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him TV immortality and five Emmies.

The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld." The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.

As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.

Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character and doesn't mind being remembered that way.

His favorite episodes, he said, were "The Pickle Story," where Aunt Bea makes pickles no one can eat, and "Barney and the Choir," where no one can stop him from singing.

"I can't sing. It makes me sad that I can't sing or dance well enough to be in a musical, but I'm just not talented in that way," he lamented. "It's one of my weaknesses."

Knotts appeared on six other television shows. In 1979, Knotts replaced Norman Fell on "Three's Company," playing the would-be swinger landlord to John Ritter, Suzanne Somers and Joyce DeWitt.

Early in his TV career, he was one of the original cast members of "The Steve Allen Show," the comedy-variety show that ran from 1956-61. He was one of a group of memorable comics backing Allen that included Louis Nye, Tom Poston and Bill "Jose Jimenez" Dana.

Knotts' G-rated films were family fun, not box-office blockbusters. In most, he ends up the hero and gets the girl — a girl who can see through his nervousness to the heart of gold.

In the part-animated 1964 film "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," Knotts played a meek clerk who turns into a fish after he is rejected by the Navy.

When it was announced in 1998 that Jim Carrey would star in a "Limpet" remake, Knotts responded: "I'm just flattered that someone of Carrey's caliber is remaking something I did. Now, if someone else did Barney Fife, THAT would be different."

In the 1967 film "The Reluctant Astronaut," co-starring Leslie Nielsen, Knotts' father enrolls his wimpy son — operator of a Kiddieland rocket ride — in NASA's space program. Knotts poses as a famous astronaut to the joy of his parents and hometown but is eventually exposed for what he really is, a janitor so terrified of heights he refuses to ride an airplane.

In the 1969 film "The Love God?," he was a geeky bird-watcher who is duped into becoming publisher of a naughty men's magazine and then becomes a national sex symbol. Eventually, he comes to his senses, leaves the big city and marries the sweet girl next door.

He was among an army of comedians from Buster Keaton to Jonathan Winters to liven up the 1963 megacomedy "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Other films include "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, 1966; "The Shakiest Gun in the West," 1968; and a few Disney films such as "The Apple Dumpling Gang," 1974; "Gus," 1976; and "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo," 1977.

In 1998, he had a key role in the back-to-the-past movie "Pleasantville," playing a folksy television repairman whose supercharged remote control sends a teen boy and his sister into a TV sitcom past.

Knotts began his show biz career even before he graduated from high school, performing as a ventriloquist at local clubs and churches. He majored in speech at West Virginia University, then took off for the big city.

"I went to New York cold. On a $100 bill. Bummed a ride," he recalled in a visit to his hometown of Morgantown, where city officials renamed a street for him in 1998.

Within six months, Knotts had taken took a job on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders," playing a wisecracking, know-it-all handyman. He stayed with it for five years, then came his series TV debut on "The Steve Allen Show."

He married Kay Metz in 1948, the year he graduated from college. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1969. Knotts later married, then divorced Lara Lee Szuchna.

In recent years, he said he had no plans to retire, traveling with theater productions and appearing in print and TV ads for Kodiak pressure treated wood.

The world laughed at Knotts, but it also laughed with him.

He treasured his comedic roles and could point to only one role that wasn't funny, a brief stint on the daytime drama "Search for Tomorrow."

"That's the only serious thing I've done. I don't miss that," Knotts said.

Very funny man. I'm surprised that he was only 81.

We need to all meet up at the Regal Beagle and have a drink in his honor.

Darren Macgavin has died also.

with all the horrible movies made from tv shows Threes Company is one that could actually work with a decent cast

This could be the excuse we need for a San Diego SO get together, since "Three's Company" was supposed to be here. I still haven't found which bar is supposed to tbe Reagal Beagle, but I'm still looking.

Just heard from my sources that Octavia Butler has died.

Huh? I thought it was Santa Monica, but I could be wrong...

At any rate - Don Knotts was a comic genius. And Barney Fife is the greatest second banana character in television history.

Otis Chandler, the former publisher of the Los Angeles Times who transformed his family’s provincial, conservative newspaper into a respected national media voice, died early Monday. He was 78.

Chandler had been suffering from a degenerative brain disorder known as Lewy body disease, said Tom Johnson, who succeeded Chandler as publisher.

Chandler’s wife, Bettina, was with him when he died, Johnson said.

Chandler was the scion of a family that wielded financial and political power in the Los Angeles area for decades.

As publisher, he spent most of his career chafing against what he sensed was an East Coast bias against Los Angeles and fought to elevate the Times to a par with Eastern rivals.

“No publisher in America improved a paper so quickly on so grand a scale, took a paper that was marginal in qualities and brought it to excellence as Otis Chandler did,” David Halberstam wrote in his 1979 book “The Powers that Be.”

With his blond hair, weightlifter physique and love of surfing and hot cars, Chandler was a quintessential Californian of his generation.

He was an avid hunter as well as a collector of antique cars and motorcycles. He bagged an elephant in Mozambique, antelope in Chad, a leopard in Kenya and the four rarest species of bighorn sheep in North America. Many of his trophies were displayed at his home and at his Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife in Oxnard.

Chandler resigned as the paper’s publisher in 1980 following 20 years at the helm.

He remained mostly quiet about the paper’s operation after he left as chairman and editor in chief in 1985. But he returned as a newsroom hero in 2000 to publicly chide the paper’s management, which he blamed for an embarrassing scandal and severe cost-cutting that damaged its reputation.

Soon after, the Chandler Family Trust sold newspaper parent company Times Mirror Co. to the Tribune Co.

“I was building up a hell of a head of steam,” he said in an interview in The New York Times in 2000. “The Times is not as dear to me as my own family, but it’s close.”

Otis Chandler was born in 1927, the son of Times publisher Norman Chandler and great-grandson of Times founder Harrison Gray Otis.

His mother was Dorothy Chandler, the philanthropist and arts patron who led a campaign in the 1950s to save the financially troubled Hollywood Bowl and a drive to build a permanent home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic — the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Chandler was groomed from an early age to take control of the family’s newspaper. He worked as a printer’s apprentice, reporter and in the advertising and circulation departments.

He succeeded his father as publisher in 1960 at age 33.

The paper then was considered parochial and partisan, a mouthpiece for conservative political causes.

Almost immediately, Chandler initiated changes designed to make the paper one of the country’s best. He moved it toward the political center and angered conservative allies — and family members — by publishing a series of stories on the right-wing John Birch Society.

He hired more reporters, raised salaries, opened overseas bureaus and beefed up the paper’s coverage of Washington.

Chandler also expanded the reach of Times Mirror, starting a news service with The Washington Post and acquiring newspapers, television stations and other media outlets.

Chandler’s efforts resulted in the Times winning seven Pulitzer prizes during his tenure.

“In his determination to bring the Los Angeles Times to the front rank of the nation’s newspapers, Otis Chandler came to stand for the best of what we journalists believe in,” said Louis D. Boccardi, retired chief executive of The Associated Press. “He was a beacon for quality journalism and he brought that passion to his beloved Times and the other Times Mirror newspapers. He brought those same standards to The Associated Press as a director, and those standards both challenged and enriched us.”

While serving on the board of Times Mirror until 1998, Chandler approved the hiring of Mark Willes, a cereal company executive with no newspaper experience, to run Times Mirror in 1995 when the company was mired in sagging profits.

Chandler remained silent while Willes shuttered New York Newsday, a paper Chandler had opened, and began to collapse the walls traditionally separating the business operations of the company from the editorial side.

That policy culminated in the 1999 publication of a special Sunday magazine section on the newly opened Staples Center, the downtown sports arena.

It was later revealed that the paper split about $2 million in advertising revenue from the magazine with the arena. The deal led to widespread unrest in the newsroom and the paper later issued a front-page apology.

In 2000, disgusted with the direction the paper was headed, Chandler dictated a statement that was read aloud in the newsroom: “... I have reluctantly decided that I can no longer sit idly by and watch a very serious decline in the morale of people throughout the Times.”

Chandler railed against “this unbelievably stupid and unprofessional handling of the Staples special section.”

He also criticized the management for staff cuts and reductions in the size of the paper, which he said threatened its credibility.

“Respect and credibility for a newspaper is irreplaceable,” Chandler wrote. “The trust and faith in a newspaper by its employees, its readers, and the community is dearer to me than life itself.”

In addition to his wife, survivors include sons Harry and Michael and daughters Carolyn Chandler and Cathleen Chandler.

Don Knotts & Darren McGavin join a select list of actors who appeared in the same movie and died on the same day. - "No Deposit, No Return" (1976) & "Hot Lead & Cold Feet"(1978) - Deaths reported Feb.25, 2006.

These come to mind...any others?

Raymond Massey & David Niven, "Stairway to Heaven" (1946)
both died July 29, 1983.

John Fiedler & Paul Winchell died 1 day apart last year,(June 24 & 25, 2005) they were the voices of Piglet & Tigger in Winnie the Pooh cartoons.

Orson Welles and Yul Brynner appeared in BITKA NA NERETVI (1970)
("The Battle of Neretva") and died on the same day, October 10, 1985.


Elizabeth Montgomery & Elisha Cook, Jr., were both in "Johnny Cool" (1963) & both died May 18, 1995.

LOS ANGELES -- Dennis Weaver, the slow-witted deputy Chester Goode in the TV classic western "Gunsmoke" and the New Mexico deputy solving New York crime in "McCloud," has died. The actor was 81.

Weaver died of complications from cancer Friday at his home in Ridgway, in southwestern Colorado, his publicist Julian Myers said.

Weaver was a struggling actor in Hollywood in 1955, earning $60 a week delivering flowers when he was offered $300 a week for a role in a new CBS television series, "Gunsmoke." By the end of his nine years with "Gunsmoke," he was earning $9,000 a week.

When Weaver first auditioned for the series, he found the character of Chester "inane." He wrote in his 2001 autobiography, "All the World's a Stage," that he said to himself: "With all my Actors Studio training, I'll correct this character by using my own experiences and drawing from myself."

The result was a well-rounded character that appealed to audiences, especially with his drawling, "Mis-ter Dil-lon."

At the end of seven hit seasons, Weaver sought other horizons. He announced his departure, but the failures of pilots for his own series caused him to return to "Gunsmoke" on a limited basis for two more years. The role brought him an Emmy in the 1958-59 season.



In 1966, Weaver starred with a 600-pound black bear in "Gentle Ben," about a family that adopts a bear as a pet. The series was well-received, but after two seasons, CBS decided it needed more adult entertainment and cancelled it.

Next came the character Sam McCloud, which Weaver called "the most satisfying role of my career."

The "McCloud" series, 1970-1977, juxtaposed a no-nonsense lawman from Taos, N.M., onto the crime-ridden streets of New York City. His wild-west tactics, such as riding his horse through Manhattan traffic, drove local policemen crazy, but he always solved the case.

He appeared in several movies, including "Touch of Evil," "Ten Wanted Men," "Gentle Giant," "Seven Angry Men," "Dragnet," "Way ... Way Out" and "The Bridges at Toko-Ri."

Weaver also was an activist for protecting the environment and combating world hunger.

He served as president of Love Is Feeding Everyone (LIFE), which fed 150,000 needy people a week in Los Angeles County. He founded the Institute of Ecolonomics, which sought solutions to economic and environmental problems. He spoke at the United Nations and Congress, as well as to college students and school children about fighting pollution and starvation.

"Earthship" was the most visible of Weaver's crusades. He and his wife Gerry built a solar-powered Colorado home out of recycled tires and cans. The thick walls helped keep the inside temperature even year around.

"When the garbage man comes," Jay Leno once quipped, "how does he know where the garbage begins and the house ends?"

Weaver responded: "If we get into the mindset of saving rather than wasting and utilizing other materials, we can save the Earth."

The tall, slender actor came by his Midwestern twang naturally. He was born June 4, 1924, in Joplin, Mo., where he excelled in high school drama and athletics. After Navy service in World War II, he enrolled at the University of Oklahoma and qualified for the Olympic decathlon.

He studied at the Actors Studio in New York and appeared in "A Streetcar Named Desire" opposite Shelley Winters and toured in "Come Back, Little Sheba" with Shirley Booth.

Universal Studio signed Weaver to a contract in 1952 but found little work for him. He freelanced in features and television until he landed "Gunsmoke."

Weaver appeared in dozens of TV movies, the most notable being the 1971 "Duel." It was a bravura performance for both fledgling director Steven Spielberg and Weaver, who played a driver menaced by a large truck that followed him down a mountain road. The film was released in theaters in 1983, after Spielberg had become director of huge moneymakers.

Weaver's other TV series include "Kentucky Jones," "Emerald Point N.A.S.," "Stone" and "Buck James." From 1973 to 1975, he served as president of the Screen Actors Guild.

Weaver is survived by his wife; sons Rick, Robby and Rusty; and three grandchildren.

WARNER ROBINS -- Retired Brig. Gen. Robert L. Scott, author of "God is My Co-Pilot," died early Monday. He was 97.

Scott, a native of Macon, rose to nationwide prominence during World War II, first as a fighter ace in the China-Burma-India theater then as author of "God is My Co-Pilot," an account of his wartime exploits.

The book was later made into a 1945 feature-length movie. Scott -- who retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general -- never lost his "fighter ace" prominence and later used that fame to great effect in supporting Middle Georgia's Museum of Aviation.

"He's been our resident hero, cheerleader and biggest fan," said Pat Bartness, museum foundation president and chief operating officer. "He's been the biggest drawing card we've had. Without him, the museum would just be a different place and not as exciting. He will be sorely missed."

When Scott joined the museum staff in the mid-1980's, he had accomplished more than most people dream of, according to museum director Paul Hibbitts.

"Because of that, his impact has not only been local but national," said Hibbitts. "I've run into people all over the country who have asked me about him. His being part of the museum has opened a lot of doors for us. He's added a lot of credibility. He put us on the map."

Scott's story is the stuff of legend: He flew a homemade glider off the roof of a three-story house at age 12 and crash landed on a spiky Cherokee rose bush. With the Flying Tigers, he earned five of his 22 aerial victories in May 1942 when he flew more than 200 hours in combat.

He won three Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Silver Stars and five Air Medals.

Scott had to tell a couple of little white lies to get into the fight against Japan. At 33, he was considered too old for combat when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and he expected to stay at his training job in California.

Then came a phone call.

"One night about 3 a.m., the phone rang. A man asked `did you ever fly a B-17,' Scott said in a 1996 interview. "So I said yes, I have flown a B-17. But I never had. I got my airplane and went to work."

He was assigned to a mission to bomb Tokyo from China -- but the plan was scrubbed, so his job reverted to flying planes loaded with gasoline and ammunition over Japanese-held territory to Gen. Claire Chennault's "Flying Tigers" in China. Scott later wangled his way into the legendary unit.

Scott was an outspoken proponent of an independent Air Force. His stance didn't make him popular at the Pentagon, where he was assigned after the war to a board studying whether to create a separate Air Force.

Scott's public support for independence got him ousted from the board.

"They exiled me to Arizona to command a fighter-bomber wing," Scott said. "I considered that a promotion."

In the mid 1980's, he was a retired widower getting lonesome in Arizona. Then, the museum called and asked for memorabilia.

He had a picture that was too big to mail, Scott said, so he delivered it in his car. He stayed on and works for the museum as its official fundraising chairman and unofficial piece of living history.

"I'm thinking about writing a new book,"' Scott said in 1996, as autograph seekers approached him, "and calling it `You Can Go Home Again.' "

Dennis Weaver, who starred in two popular tv series, Gunsmoke & McCloud, has died of cancer at age 81. Celebrities always seem to die in three.

Tony mentioned Weaver up above.

Darrin McGavin...guy was a wonderfully warm individual onscreen.

Scroll Scroll Scroll your board.



Seattle Conductor Milton Katims Dies Age 96


Conductor and violist Milton Katims, an important figure in Seattle's music scene for almost 25 years, died yesterday aged 96, reports the Seattle Times.

Katims was music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra from 1954 to 1976, transforming the part-time, floundering ensemble, which was operating on a budget of less than $200,000, into one of the region's most respected symphonies.

Gerard Schwarz, currently the Seattle Symphony's music director, told the Times, "Our orchestra could not be where it is today were it not for Milton's tremendous accomplishments during his 22-year tenure as music director. His musical gifts were extraordinary as an educator, orchestra musician, chamber musician, soloist and conductor. Milton transformed the Seattle Symphony during his tenure as our music director and was instrumental in the growth of our city into an important cultural center."

Katims was born in New York City to Russian-Hungarian parents and was educated at Columbia. He was a talented violinist and violist as a boy; later playing viola with ensembles such as the Budapest String Quartet and editing viola music. He was principal violist of the NBC Symphony, where Toscanini encouraged his interest in conducting. In 1947 Katims became assistant conductor of the NBC Symphony, launching a conducting career that would take him across America and to Israel and Japan, among others.

Katims guest conducted a number of prestigious orchestras over the years; including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, London Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra and Montreal Symphony.

His New York contacts stood him in good stead in Seattle, as he was able to lure top soloists such as Issac Stern to the West Coast. He also had a talent for spotting emerging talent, bringing then unknowns such as cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Horacio Gutierrez.

He vastly increased the Seattle Symphony's repertory, did frequent premieres, expanded family programs, and staged concert versions of 20th century operas such as Poulenc's La Voix Humaine. He also played a major role in converting the Civic Auditorium into the Opera House.

His accomplishments did not guarantee him an easy tenure in Seattle however; in the mid-1970s trustees, musicians and audiences began to complain about his musical tastes and leadership style. Katims and his followers put up a strong defense, but he was ousted at the end of the 1976 season.

He moved to Texas after being appointed artistic director at the University of Houston's school of music, where he remained for eight years. He returned to Seattle to retire.

Obituary: Linda Smith

Comedian Linda Smith was one of the sharpest performers on the stand-up circuit, but in recent years had become a favourite of diverse audiences on BBC radio and television.

Her roots, in Erith, south-east London, were working-class, but she stubbornly refused to fit any stereotype, her deadpan diatribes about everyday irritations resonating with millions.

She studied English and Drama at Sheffield University and joined a professional touring theatre company in 1983, where she met her partner, Warren Lakin.

Turning to stand-up comedy, she won the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year in 1987.

Throughout the 1990s, she made the annual pilgrimage to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performing her own show and collaborating with others.

And the mid-90s saw the start of her prolific career on BBC radio, as a regular panellist on the former Radio Five's weekly news satire programme, The Treatment.

From there she graduated to writing and performing in two critically-acclaimed series of her own Radio 4 sitcom, A Brief History of Time Wasting.

She was the first woman team captain and regular on the network's News Quiz and a frequent panel guest on two long-running Radio 4 favourites, Just a Minute and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

Linda Smith also presented Home Truths and Pick of the Week and in 2002 was voted Wittiest Person in a poll of Radio 4 listeners.

She also won a following on television through several appearances on Have I Got News For You, along with Room 101, Q.I., Mock the Week, They Think It's All Over and Call My Bluff, while she contributed her own take on current affairs as a panellist on Question Time.

Dedicated humanist

She still managed to find time for a 35-date national tour in 2004, performing her show, Wrap Up Warm, to sell-out audiences.

Linda Smith blended the topical with the personal, the political with the surreal and silly.

She had a wealth of subjects to grumble about: motorway service stations, the trains, inane daytime television commercials for sun awnings or loans, all delivered in a downbeat fashion that belied a penetrating insight to social trends.

Besides this, Linda Smith was a great fan of the rock musician and actor, Ian Dury, and president of the British Humanist Association.

In this connection, she recently said: "With fundamentalism on the rise, the rational voice of humanism needs to be heard."

Radio 4 Controller Mark Damazer said Linda Smith was a Radio 4 giant.

"She was incredibly funny, but also generated energy and warmth in every programme she ever did", he said.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/ente...ent/4759922.stm

Seeing that no one else has done it the past couple of days, I will post a link about Octavia Butler.

Acclaimed Science Fiction Author Octavia Butler Dies After Falling at Home
Date: Tuesday, February 28, 2006
By: Jackie Jones, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

The science fiction world was reeling Monday over the news that Octavia Butler, one of the few celebrated black science fiction writers, had died Friday.

Butler was pronounced dead at Northwest Hospital after a fall at her home in Lake Forest Park, outside of Seattle. It's reported that she struck her head on the cobbled walkway outside her home.

Butler, 58, was known for addressing issues of class, race and politics in her work. She was the only science fiction writer to ever receive the coveted MacArthur Fellowship, known as the “genius grant,” which she won in 1995.

In 2000, she won the Nebula Award, science fiction’s highest prize, for her novel “Parable of the Talents.” The story was set in a futuristic utopian community that had been ravaged by civil war. The book explored intolerance, the growing gap between rich and poor and environmentalism.


Butler began writing at age 10, and told friends she embraced science fiction after seeing a schlocky B-movie called "Devil Girl from Mars" and thought, "I can write a better story than that." In 1970, she took a bus from her hometown of Pasadena, California, to attend a fantasy writers workshop in East Lansing, Michigan.

Her first novel, "Kindred," in 1979, featured a black woman who travels back in time to the South to save a white man. She went on to write about a dozen books, plus numerous essays and short stories. Her most recent work, "Fledgling," an examination of the "Dracula" legend, was published last fall.

Steven Barnes, a fellow black science-fiction writer, told BlackAmericaWeb.com that Butler was “the realest writer I’ve ever known. She was more deeply into her art than any sane person ought to be.”

Barnes said he and Butler became friends more than 25 years ago when they ended up in the same neighborhood, after Barnes moved into his mother’s home following her death. They became fast friends, frequently having dinner at each other’s homes and talking about writing and various issues.

Barnes said that Butler was such an intellectual giant that she sometimes risked being overwhelmed by her quest for perfection and deep understanding. He also noted that the early years of her career could not have been kind to her as a nearly lone black and female science fiction writer at a time when that was simply unheard of.

“Slogging through that morass requires almost superhuman strength,” Barnes said. “She simply was an extraordinary human being. Being an artistic soul means you have to expose your skin to the elements.”

Butler had completed a book tour in the fall and had begun to decline speaking engagements because of health problems and a desire to concentrate on her writing.

“She was working on a new novel, and she always had herself on several things at once,” Leslie Howle, senior manager for education and outreach at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“She was funny, warm, solicitous, caring, kind -- everything you want out of a good friend,” said Howle, who said she had known Butler since 1985. She said Butler enjoyed nature, and the pair went on a trip to the mountains or the ocean every summer.

While she had a reputation for being “private and hermit-like,” Howle said, Butler enjoyed the company of a small, close-knit group of friends and was always up for chatting on the phone or receiving visitors.

She also was seriously committed and outspoken in her efforts to end social injustice. “The current (George W. Bush) administration made her irate and despairing,” Howle said.

“She thought the Bush administration was destroying the planet,” Barnes said. “And she was this extraordinary intellectual woman. She could make her case.”

Barnes said Butler was a meticulous researcher and that to engage in debate with her came at your own peril, if you were not prepared. “If you got into an argument with Octavia," he said, "you better come to play.”

Burler's death "was such a shock," science fiction author" Peter J. Heck told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "She had a lot of good books left in her."

Heck said he first met Butler in a telephone interview when he was editor of “Xignals,” WaldenBooks’ science fiction newsletter which was promoting her book “Parable of the Sower.”

“I was on the phone with her about an hour, and I was charmed by her,” Heck said. “Her responses to questions tended to (show) …that she was really interested in answering the question. A lot of (authors) will say what they think people need to hear to read the book.”

Heck said Butler’s willingness to tackle “uncomfortable” issues in her books was virtually unparalleled among science fiction writers. “She was one of the first to make that a consistent focus of her work,” he said.

On science fiction Web sites Monday, words like “devastated” and “shocked’ were used repeatedly as word of Butler’s death spread.

“I’m stunned,” Diane McClure, a copy editor at the Newark Star-Ledger, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I first discovered her when I moved to a new town for a new job, and I knew no one. I was feeling lonely, and I went to the library for something familiar and comforting. I was looking through the science fiction section and saw a book titled ‘Wild Seed.’ I pulled it off the shelf and there was a drawing of a black woman on the cover. I’d never seen that before. I grabbed it, read it and have been a fan ever since.”

“Devastation comes to mind,” author Leslie Esdaile Banks told BlackAmericaWeb.com when reached at her home in Philadelphia Monday afternoon.

Banks said she had just learned hours earlier that Butler had died. On deadline for the seventh of her nine-book Vampire Huntress series, Banks had turned off the Internet, radio and television over the weekend to concentrate on work.

"When I [heard the news],” Banks said, “I was like, ‘Wow, a serious beacon of light in that whole genre of writing -- in that whole genre of thinking -- just went out.’”

Banks said she once moderated a panel on which Butler sat at a Celebration of Black Writing conference in Philadelphia a few years ago, but really only knew Butler “as an admirer. She was someone who had opened the door first for the rest of us.”

She said she saw Butler at a book signing in December “and I stood there gaping like anyone else,” as she waited in line to have her book signed.

Butler was born in Pasadena. Her father died when Butler was young of heart failure, Howle said.

In various interviews, Butler described herself as a shy daydreamer, who struggled to overcome dyslexia and that she took up writing at age 10 to “escape loneliness and boredom” and that by 12, her interest in science fiction began to develop. She moved to Seattle in 1999.

That dyslexia, along with other health issues, including high blood pressure, led Butler to give up driving in later life, Howle said.

Howle said Butler’s relatives were en route to Seattle and that funeral services would be held in Pasadena. She said the Science Fiction Museum & Hall of Fame is planning a memorial service to be held later this week.




In my opinion, every one of her novels are great. But the two I like best are her first, Kindred and Wild Seed. Last night, I dug out some of her novels from storage. I am in the middle of Parable Of The Sower. Damn, what a loss.
Cheers,
Janine

Cajun music pioneer EDWIN DUHON died on Sunday (26FEB06). He was 95.

Duhon formed the Louisiana group THE HACKBERRY RAMBLERS with fiddler LUDERIN DARBONE in 1933, which went on to become the longest-running band in the US.

In 2002, the duo received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment For The Arts.

Duhon said at the time, "Luderin claims he organised The Hackberry Ramblers, but I'm the one that started it.

"He's like a brother, so I don't want to take him to court."

He can consider himself at home.

Info on that Memorial Service:

http://www.sfhomeworld.org/make_contact/de...asp?display=cal

Novelist Busch dies at 6 4


Los Angeles Times Frederick Busch, the author of close to 30 books, many of them novels and collections of short stories about the hardships and anguish of ordinary people, has died. He was 64.

A former professor of literature at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., Busch suffered a heart attack during a visit to New York City and died Feb. 23 at Bellevue Hospital Center, said his family.
He had been a resident of Sherburne, in central New York state.

Using his local environs as the setting for many of his novels, Busch, ''brought central New York alive for millions of readers,'' Colgate President Rebecca S. Chopp said in a statement this week.

He was often referred to as a ''writer's writer,'' and his work was compared to such literary masters as Raymond Carver and John Cheever. He received a number of prestigious awards, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters fiction award in 1986 and the PEN/Malamud prize in 1991. Busch once said his personal goal was to be, ''a really honest, minor writer of the 20th Century.''
Literary critics gave him high praise.

Busch is, ''an artist who counts, a writer who matters to the cultural life of the nation,'' wrote Donald J. Greiner in the Dictionary of Literary Biography in 1980. Greiner also wrote a critical study of Busch's work called ''Domestic Particulars: The Novels of Frederick Busch'' in 1988.

Many of Busch's stories are about good people going through hard times. ''Manual Labor'' (1974) tells of a married couple struggling with repeated miscarriages. ''Rounds'' (1979) follows a medical doctor as he copes with the death of his son. ''Girls'' (1997), one of Busch's best-received novels, is about a husband and wife who are losing touch after 20 years together.

Two of Busch's novels blend fictional characters with figures from history. ''The Mutual Friend'' (1978) is about 19th century British novelist Charles Dickens. The Guardian of London newspaper called it one of the 10 best books of the year, though a reviewer for The New York Times said it was, ''often brilliant, but inert.''
''The Night Inspector'' (1999), features American author Herman Melville, a once prominent writer who was nearly forgotten by the time he died in the late 1800s. In Busch's story Melville interacts with a Civil War veteran in what a reviewer for Publishers Weekly called a ''serious, nuanced, meditation on history.''
Busch's interest in his vocation led to a book of essays called, ''A Dangerous Profession: A Book about the Writing Life'' (1998). In it he reflected on the work of Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene and other authors he admired. He alsodescribed his own experiences as a writer.

''Read this book if you are a beginning writer who wants the assurance that others, too, have written, submitted and been rejected over and over again,'' wrote a reviewer for The New York Times. ''Read it if you are an established writer and want to see the continuing doubt and despair of those who have produced great books.''

Born in Brooklyn, he graduated from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. He married Judith Burroughs in 1963 and they had two children, Benjamin and Nicholas.

Busch joined the faculty of Colgate in 1966. The next year he received his master's degree in literature from Columbia University.

He continued to teach at Colgate until 2003. One of his most popular courses featured living writers, many of whom he brought to the campus to read and discuss their work with students. He was also the acting director of the creative writing program at the University of Iowa in 1978-79.
At the time of his death, Busch was a visiting professor teaching creative writing at the University of Michigan.

Besides his wife and sons, he is survived by a grandchild, Alexandra.

Paul Avrich, 74, a Historian of Anarchism, Is Dead
By NADINE BROZAN
Published: February 24, 2006 New York Times

Paul Avrich, a historian of the anarchist movement that played a role in the Russian Revolution and flourished in America in the 19th and early 20th centuries, died on Feb. 16 at Mount Sinai Hospital. He was 74 and lived in Manhattan.

The cause was complications from Alzheimer's disease, said his wife, Ina Avrich.

Named distinguished professor of history at Queens College in 1982, Dr. Avrich, whose field was Russian history, wrote 10 books, mainly about anarchism, the belief that society is better off without the constraints of government.

Dr. Avrich became the confidant of well-known figures in the anarchist movement.

"He considered himself a scholar, teacher and chronicler of the movement and had great sympathy and affection for them," his wife said. Dr. Avrich took issue with the prevalent image of the anarchist as violent and amoral.

"Every good person deep down is an anarchist," he was quoted as saying in the announcement by Queens College of his elevation to distinguished professor. Three of the 20th century's literary giants, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw and Eugene O'Neill, were anarchists in their youth, Dr. Avrich said, and he had hoped to write a book about O'Neill.

In an interview with The New York Times in 1972, he said that the Vietnam War and the women's movement had reignited interest in the concept of personal freedom over government control. He added: "In America, such individuals and groups were in a sense pioneers of social justice. Many of the anarchists in this country and in the world have either been neglected or scorned, and I would like to play a role in resurrecting them."

The subjects of his books included the Kronstadt naval base rebellion of 1921, an uprising of sailors against the Bolshevik regime that left more than 10,000 dead or wounded; the Haymarket Riot of 1886, in which seven Chicago police officers were killed by a bomb thrown at a workers' gathering; and the Sacco and Vanzetti case. He interviewed hundreds of adherents of the movement for one book, "Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America."

Born in Brooklyn to Rose Zapol Avrich, an actress in the Yiddish theater, and Murray Avrich, a dress manufacturer, he graduated from Cornell and earned his master's and doctoral degrees at Columbia. His dissertation was on the labor movement in the Russian Revolution, and after Khrushchev opened the country to exchange students, he went to the Soviet Union to do research.

In New York, his interest intensified when he met a number of anarchist thinkers at a meeting called by Freie Arbeiter Stimme (Free Voice of Labor), an anarchist Yiddish newspaper.

Mrs. Avrich said her husband collected letters, papers, books and photos of leading anarchists and donated a collection of 20,000 items to the Library of Congress. He even named his cats for the anarchists Piotr Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin.

Dr. Avrich spent his entire academic career at Queens College, where he began as a Russian history instructor in 1961 and retired in 1999. He was also on the faculty of the City University Graduate Center.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by two daughters, Jane and Karen Avrich of Manhattan, and a sister, Dorothy Avrich of Miami.


A little late but I just found out.
Cheers,
Janine

Su-wheet! Too bad you and I are the only ones who'll get that line.

He was a talented kid, all things considered. RIP.

enlighten us puleez.

Hey! I got the reference, too! We've had several threads on Musical Theater Appreciation, just not on the latest version of the board.

It's the song he sings in Oliver!

Y'know, "Consider yourself, one of the family/Consider yourself at home..."

Harry Browne, two-time Libertarian Party presidential candidate, has died of effects of a neurological disorder that had been plaguing him suddenly in past months.


Beyond his early libertarian movement bonafides, as a disciple and colleague of the amazing and bizarre Joseph Andrew Galambos (a libertarian educatational entrepreneur in Southern California in the 1960s with his Free Enterprise Institute), Browne was also a prominent voice and thinker in two major, though inchoate, social movements, or at least idea-viruses, that helped make the 1970s as funky and fascinating as they were: a "me decade" pioneer with his How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World (1973, and still abundantly worth reading today) and a guru of hard money and its bleeding over into survivalism with a series of books including How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation (1970) and You Can Profit from A Monetary Crisis (1974).


Browne was a controversial figure in the LP, at first because he had for years been one of the loudest anti-political voices in the movement before changing his mind and seeking the presidential nomination, and winning it, in 1996. He had been so loud and firm an anti-political voice, in fact, that the term "Browneing Out" was used in the 1970s in libertarian circles to mean retreating from any commitment to further libertarian goals through political action, or any sort of action. Part of finding freedom in an unfree world to Harry was freeing yourself from various "traps" including any expectations on others' part, or any cause's part, that you owed them a damn thing. He also later became embroiled in a complicated fooferaw in LP circles over links between his campaign team and party officials, and choices regarding what his campaign time and money were spent on, that were considered untoward, unfair, and/or unwise by some in the LP.


Browne was the subject of one of the more controversial feature stories in Reason's history, Nick Gillespie's brutally realistic assessment of the reality of the LP's position in the political world during Browne's first LP run for the gold in 1996.


Harry was a distant pal, and I did research assistance for him on his campaign book Why Government Doesn't Work. He was quite open and helpful to me in researching my forthcoming history of the modern American libertarian movement, due out early next year from PublicAffairs. I'll miss knowing he's around. Although his ideas about how libertarianism should be pursued changed, he was a consistently hardcore and vital voice for liberty. I hope he has in some sense escaped the most complicated and constraining trap of all.


Lew Rockwell provides an informative and kind assessment of Browne's life and achivement at the Mises Blog.

I voted for him at least once, maybe both times.

Harry Browne, RIP

~Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

http://blog.mises.org/archives/004752.asp


How sad to hear the news that Harry Browne (born June 17, 1933), author and long-time spokesman for libertarian causes, died yesterday, March 1, 2006. He was a man of great principle who courageously and consistently stood up for liberty even when his position clashed with mainstream political culture and public opinion. He was a great writer who worked hard to turn a phrase in a way that would serve to educate people about free markets and the free society. He was a supremely thoughtful man, who read voraciously to educate himself, was not adverse to admitting error, and constantly struggled to say what was true as he understood it.

Harry goes way back in the history of modern libertarianism. His book How You Can Profit From the Coming Devaluation, which came out in 1970, was a blockbuster in its day. He foresaw what would result from Nixon's abandonment of the gold standard. In contrast to legions of mainstream economists, he knew from his reading of the Austrian economists such as Murray Rothbard that an inflationary period was on the horizon and that gold prices would not go down but up. Those who followed his advice did well indeed.

But the book also had pedagogical merit. It introduced the community of readers that buy how-to books on investments to the Austrian School of economic thought. He explained the origin and nature of money, and how the gold standard had been destroyed by governments, not for good reasons, but to provide fuel for the growth of power. He explained how the business cycle results from monetary manipulation by the central bank, a theory that had been originated by Mises. He applied the theory to contemporary events.

Harry was a founder of what was called the "hard-money movement"—that group of writers and consultants who rallied around gold and silver as inflation hedges in hard times. But he differed from many people in this crowd because he was willing to change his advice depending on circumstances of time and place. In the 1980s, for example, he came to advocate a balanced portfolio of mutual funds alongside precious metals. His "permanent portfolio" made money during one of the great stock run-ups of American history.

During the 1990s, he worked tirelessly for libertarian causes. He had never been a big enthusiast for the Libertarian Party but in 1996, he graciously threw his hat into the ring as an aspirant to its presidential nomination.

He won the bid, and proceeded to dedicate himself to the opportunity to educate the American people about government and libertarian principles. His book Why Government Doesn't Work is as good a campaign book as has appeared in the history of American elections. In 2000, he was an effective and dedicated candidate again. He didn't need to make these runs, and he probably regretted it later at some level, but, at the time, he saw this as an opportunity for public service, a chance to do more good and reach more people.

How did his presidential bids do at the polls? About as well as most third-party candidates do in a two-party system. Many people who might have voted for him either stayed home or worried at the last minute that they would be throwing away their votes or helping a candidate whom they feared, by failing to vote for the lesser of two evils.

It is extremely difficult for any third-party candidate to overcome this problem. However: it was also during this period that many people in the two parties began to fear the Libertarian vote on grounds that, as small as it might be, it was enough to make a margin of difference in any race. The LP went from being dismissed to being feared, and this was Harry's doing.

He was exceptional as a public speaker during the campaigns. No matter whether the topic was taxes, education, states rights, war and foreign policy, or the drug war, he took the right position and explained it in a way that allowed anyone to see his point of view. He changed minds, and stuck to principle the whole time. Harry was not tempted to sell out his message for the sake of more votes. He didn't trim or compromise. His energies were spent trying to think of ways to make the core message more marketable and understandable.

Harry went through two ideological permutations that we can look back on with some degree of regret. His second book called How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World conflated libertine choices in personal lifestyle with ideologically driven libertarian political philosophy. This was regrettable insofar as it contributed to the public perception of libertarians as nothing more than people who want bourgeois income without bourgeois institutions and values.

In the early 1980s, he went in the opposite direction, sympathizing far too much with the Republican agenda and even temporarily showing sympathies for Reaganite foreign policy. In this he foreshadowed the sad descent of many current-day libertarians into the miasma of DC policy wonkery and political gamesmanship.

To his credit, however, these were temporary diversions from a lifetime of solid writing and thinking. In his lastyears, few writers have been as good as Harry on all aspects of the Bush administration. After 9-11, when others fell silent or acquiesced to regime priorities, he stuck his neck out and defended personal liberty against the surveillance state, less government against the homeland-security state, and peace against the war on terror. He never hesitated. He wrote the truth with grace and good humor, and clicked "Send."

As we look back on the history of the libertarian movement, and we think of those who have contributed mightily to making the idea of radical liberty more mainstream and popular, Harry Browne emerges as a giant. He was talented, dignified, sincere, and dedicated, and he showed genuine courage in the face of fantastic pressure to get him to cave in. All lovers of liberty should be grateful for him, his life, his writings, and his legacy.

We will all miss you terribly, Harry. May you find the freedom in the next life for which you fought so hard in this.

Police: Ex-Jackson 5 drummer slain

By Jeremy Gorner
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 2, 2006, 4:39 PM CST

Johnny Jackson, a former drummer for the Jackson 5, was found stabbed to death at a house in Gary, Ind., police said this afternoon.

Around 11:23 p.m. Wednesday, officers responded to an emergency call from the home, in the 2600 block of Connecticut Street, and found Johnny Jackson unconscious with a stab wound to his chest, Gary police Cmdr. Jack Arnold said.

The victim, 54, of the 300 block of Grant Street in Gary, was pronounced dead at 12:20 a.m. at the scene today by the Lake County, Ind., coroner's office.

A witness who lives upstairs in the home heard a disturbance coming from downstairs between Jackson and a female acquaintance of Jackson's, Arnold said. The witness went downstairs to see what was going on and found Jackson lying in the first-floor living room area before calling 911.

No one was in custody this afternoon and detectives were conducting a homicide investigation, according to Arnold. A description of the female acquaintance was unavailable, and Arnold did not know how the two knew each other.

Arnold said police believe Johnny Jackson was a first cousin of Michael Jackson. The Jackson 5 lived in Gary before becoming pop music stars in the 1960s.

BERKELEY, Calif. - Owen Chamberlain, who shared the 1959 Nobel Prize in physics as co-discoverer of the antiproton in atomic physics, has died at age 85, officials at the University of California, Berkeley, said Wednesday.

Chamberlain, a professor emeritus of physics at the university, died Tuesday of Parkinson's disease at his Berkeley home, officials said.

Chamberlain and Berkeley physicist Emilio Segre shared the Nobel Prize for discovering the antiproton, which is the counterpart to the positively charged proton.

"The discovery opened up a whole new field of physics and expanded our understanding of particle physics," said Chamberlain's colleague and former student Herbert Steiner, a professor of physics at UC Berkeley.

Besides his scientific achievements, Chamberlain was a humanist and social activist who took part in Free Speech Movement demonstrations in the 1960s and spoke out on race relations, the Vietnam War and many liberal causes, Steiner said. In the 1950s and 1960s, he campaigned for a nuclear test ban treaty.

Chamberlain retired in 1989, but had continued to attend weekly department meetings, including one last week, Steiner said.

Chamberlain was born July 10, 1920, in San Francisco. He graduated from Dartmouth College and then enrolled at UC Berkeley, where he joined the Manhattan Project. He was present at the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico, where he lost a $5 bet it would not explode.

Chamberlain went on to work at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago while obtaining a doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago and then returned to Berkeley in 1948 as a physics instructor.

He was a student of Segre's in the 1940s at Berkeley and after getting his doctorate returned to work in Segre's group at the Radiation Laboratory, now known as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - A former Indiana women's basketball coach whom the school paid to settle a discrimination lawsuit four years ago was found dead at his Florida home, a medical examiner said.

Jim Izard, 57, coached IU from 1989 to 2000, compiling a 188-159 record.

He died of a gunshot wound Tuesday at his home in Rosemary Beach, Fla., said Donna Shank, spokeswoman for the Walton County, Fla., Sheriff's office. The Pensacola Medical Examiners Office ruled the death a suicide.

Izard's wife, Sarah Izard, formerly Warner, who played for him at IU from 1995 to 1998, called authorities.

His lawsuit had alleged IU violated federal law when it fired him as coach after 12 years and hired Kathi Bennett - then 37 - in March 2000. The federal complaint alleged that former athletics director Clarence Doninger told Izard that the university wanted to hire a female coach.

Izard also claimed that IU violated equal-pay law by giving Bennett a five-year contract that paid her $110,000 her first year.

Izard had worked on a year-to-year basis, earning $76,775 his final year. That total matched the settlement amount, with $26,065 for emotional distress, $20,000 for regular wages and $30,710 going to Izard's attorneys.

IU denied Izard's claims. The settlement that Izard signed in February 2002 said he acknowledged that IU was not admitting any fault.

After his firing, Izard vowed never to coach again. But he coached women's basketball for two years at Berry College in Rome, Ga. He was not coaching at the time of his death.

Izard led Indiana to the NCAA Tournament in 1994 and 1995, was the NIT runner-up in 1992 and helped the team the NIT Final Four in 1998.

Izard was fired after the Hoosiers went 10-18 and were bounced from the first round of the Big Ten tournament. His IU teams were only 84-123 in Big Ten play.

Services for Izard will be held Saturday in Fulton, Miss. Senters Funeral Home of Fulton is in charge of arrangements.

CHICAGO A legendary Chicago bassist who backed up such blues greats as Little Walter, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf has died.

Mississippi native Willie Kent was 70.

Blue Chicago general manager Patrick McCoy says Kent died at his home yesterday after a battle with cancer.

Kent was born in Inverness, Mississippi. By 1952, a 16-year-old Kent had made his way to Chicago and soon became a regular at area nightclubs.

Before 1989, he had only two recordings available, but had appeared on dozens of other artists' albums as the backing bassist. Throughout his career, Kent played with a who's who of Chicago blues performers.

For the past two decades he was the front man for Willie Kent and the Gents.

Survivors include his wife, Ruth.

I always hoped he'd play Jagger in a biopic.

Baltimore, MD John Sandusky, a highly-respected NFL coach, passed
away last night at the Coral Springs (FL) Medical Center due to
complications from internal bleeding. Sandusky, who coached for the
Baltimore Colts (1959-72), Philadelphia Eagles (1973-75) and the Miami
Dolphins (1976-94), was born on Dec. 28, 1925.

Sandusky coached both offensive and defensive lines in his career and
was the Assistant Head Coach of the Dolphins from 1989 through 1994.
Among the many players he coached are five NFL Hall of Famers: DT Artie
Donovan, DE Gino Marchetti and T Jim Parker of the Colts; and C Jim
Langer and C Dwight Stephenson of the Dolphins.

Amazingly, Sandusky’s O-line at the Dolphins did not allow a sack for
19 straight games in 1988-89, including giving up just seven sacks in
the 1988 season.

“Big John” was an All-America offensive tackle at Villanova
University (1946-49) before joining the Cleveland Browns in 1950. He
played both offensive and defensive lines for the Browns, who played in
six NFL title games in Sandusky’s six seasons with the team. Sandusky
finished his playing career in 1956 with the Green Bay Packers.

Sandusky’s sons, Gerry and Jim, and daughter, Ruth Ann (McFadden),
were at his side when he passed, as were his wife, Shirley, and
daughter, Jenny, whom John had adopted. John’s first wife, Ruth,
passed away in 1985. Gerry is the current radio voice of the Baltimore
Ravens and sports director at WBAL-TV.

A viewing will be held this Thursday (3/9) from 2 to 8 p.m. at the T.M.
Ralph Funeral Home, 371 NW 136th Ave., Sunrise, FL (33325). A funeral
mass will take place Friday at 10 a.m. at St. Mark’s Catholic Church,
5601 S. Flamingo Rd., SW Ranches, FL (33330).

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Joe Sandusky
Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 1068, Sparks, Maryland (21152). (John’s
son Joe died in 1978 due to complications from pneumonia.)