Cy Feuer – legendary Broadway producer, director, composer, musician,
and immediate past chairman and longtime president of The League of
American Theatres and Producers – passed away this morning, May 17th,
at age 95, at home in Manhattan. During his fifty-plus year career on
Broadway, he brought to life many of America’s most enduring musicals
– both to the stage and to motion pictures.
In his honor, the marquee lights on Broadway, and at many theatres
throughout the country, will be dimmed tomorrow night at 8 p.m. for one
minute.
With his partner, the late Ernest H. Martin, he produced such musicals
as Where’s Charley, Guys and Dolls, Can-Can, The Boy Friend, Silk
Stockings, Whoop-Up, the Tony Award and Pulitzer-Prize winning How to
Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Little Me, The Goodbye
People, and The Act. He directed as well as produced Skyscraper,
Whoop-Up, Little Me, and Walking Happy, and he directed the hit John
Van Druten play I Remember Mama.
Feuer was nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning three; one for Guys
and Dolls and two for How To Succeed. Feuer received a Special Tony
Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre in 2003. His feature film
credits include the eight-time Academy Award-winning Cabaret and A
Chorus Line.
From 1989-2003, Feuer was President and later Chairman of The League of
American Theatres and Producers, Inc., the national trade association
for Broadway producers, presenters and theatre owner/operators.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Cy Feuer, one of the truly
great men of the American theatre,” commented Gerald Schoenfeld,
Chairman, The League of American Theatres and Producers, Inc. “For
more than 50 years, since Cy produced Can-Can in 1953, I have had the
joy of knowing and working with him. He will be truly missed by all of
us who have been touched by his life and work.”
“The members, board, and staff of The League of American Theatres and
Producers mourn our friend Cy Feuer, a remarkable leader and a man of
the theatre who, with Ernie Martin, produced an unprecedented series of
hit shows including Guys and Dolls and Little Me,” commented Jed
Bernstein, President, The League of American Theatres and Producers,
Inc. “A director and a musician as well as a producer, Cy was a
showman of impeccable taste, and a true legend in his field. An
inspiring leader and vociferous advocate for Broadway, he taught us by
example how to succeed in the theatre."
In 2003, Feuer published his memoir, I Got the Show Right Here: The
Amazing True Story of How an Obscure Brooklyn Horn Player Became the
Last Great Broadway Showman, written with Ken Gross, in which he looked
back on his remarkable career on Broadway and in Hollywood, working
with such legendary talent as Bob Fosse, Frank Loesser, George S.
Kaufman, Cole Porter, Julie Andrews, Abe Burrows, Gwen Verdon, John
Steinbeck, Martin Scorsese, and George Balanchine.
Born in Brooklyn, New York on January 15, 1911, Feuer later attended
New Utrecht High School, then Juilliard, where he studied music. He
pursued a music career, playing the trumpet at Radio City and other
theatres, then becoming composer and head of the Music Department of
Republic Pictures during the 1930s and ‘40s. Mr. Feuer was a captain
in the Army Air Force during World War II. In 1947, he returned to New
York, where he became a producer for the Broadway stage, a career that
lasted more than 50 years.
He is survived by two sons, Jed and Bob, and their families. A
celebration of his life will be announced at a future time.
Full Version: Dead Thread
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Tony's kicking em in a pinch today..
PALM CITY, FLA. - Martin F. Dardis, the chief investigator for the Dade County State Attorney who linked the Watergate burglars to President Nixon, has died. He was 83.
Dardis died Tuesday at a Palm City nursing home from a vascular condition, his daughter, Erin Dardis told The Associated Press.
Martin Dardis traced money found on the Watergate burglars to the Committee to Re-elect the President. The 1972 discovery led to further misdeeds, which ultimately forced the resignation of Nixon.
"He was always for the underdog," Erin Dardis told the AP. "He did things like help people get out of prison that were wrongly convicted. He would get involved for free and spend his time investigating. He always sought the truth."
In 1972, Dardis was tipped off to a Miami bank's cash connection with the Watergate burglars and subpoenaed its records. He learned that one burglar, Bernard L. Barker, had worked with the CIA during the Bay of Pigs and held an account with a recently deposited $25,000 check from a major Republican fundraiser.
Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has called that check the "connective tissue" that linked the burglars to Nixon's re-election campaign, The Miami Herald reported.
Dardis later said he was misrepresented in Carl Bernstein and Woodward's book and subsequent movie, "All The President's Men," in which he was portrayed by Ned Beatty. He told the Herald last year the movie made him seemed like a shabbily dressed "buffoon."
Dardis, a high school dropout who lied about his age to join the Army at 16, was awarded a Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts and Silver Stars for gallantry after rescuing an American pilot in World War II, the Herald reported.
He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors this summer, his daughter said.
Dardis died Tuesday at a Palm City nursing home from a vascular condition, his daughter, Erin Dardis told The Associated Press.
Martin Dardis traced money found on the Watergate burglars to the Committee to Re-elect the President. The 1972 discovery led to further misdeeds, which ultimately forced the resignation of Nixon.
"He was always for the underdog," Erin Dardis told the AP. "He did things like help people get out of prison that were wrongly convicted. He would get involved for free and spend his time investigating. He always sought the truth."
In 1972, Dardis was tipped off to a Miami bank's cash connection with the Watergate burglars and subpoenaed its records. He learned that one burglar, Bernard L. Barker, had worked with the CIA during the Bay of Pigs and held an account with a recently deposited $25,000 check from a major Republican fundraiser.
Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has called that check the "connective tissue" that linked the burglars to Nixon's re-election campaign, The Miami Herald reported.
Dardis later said he was misrepresented in Carl Bernstein and Woodward's book and subsequent movie, "All The President's Men," in which he was portrayed by Ned Beatty. He told the Herald last year the movie made him seemed like a shabbily dressed "buffoon."
Dardis, a high school dropout who lied about his age to join the Army at 16, was awarded a Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts and Silver Stars for gallantry after rescuing an American pilot in World War II, the Herald reported.
He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors this summer, his daughter said.
Lawrence 'Ramrod' Shurtliff: 1945-2006
Mainstay of Grateful Dead crew dies -- 'he was our rock'
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic
Thursday, May 18, 2006
He was a psychedelic cowboy who rode the bus with Ken Kesey and took virtually every step of the long, strange trip with the Grateful Dead. Known to one and all solely as Ramrod, he died yesterday of lung cancer at Petaluma Valley Hospital. He was 61.
"He was our rock," said guitarist Bob Weir.
Born Lawrence Shurtliff, he was raised a country boy in eastern Oregon and once won a county fair blue ribbon in cattle judging. He got the name Ramrod from Kesey while he was traveling through Mexico with the author and LSD evangelist, at the time a fugitive from justice.
"I am Ramon Rodriguez Rodriguez, the famous Mexican guide," he boasted, and he was known ever after as Ramrod.
"It fit him," said Steve Parish, his longtime associate on the Dead crew. "He used to keep us in line."
"I remember when he first showed up at 710 Ashbury," said Dead drummer Mickey Hart. "He pulled up on a Harley. He was wearing a chain with a lock around his waist. He said 'Name's Ramrod -- Kesey sent me -- I hear you need a good man.' I remember it like it was yesterday."
Ramrod joined the Dead in 1967 as truck driver and was held in such high regard by the members of that sprawling, brawling organization that he was named president of the Grateful Dead board of directors when the rock group actually incorporated in the '70s. It was a position he held until the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia in 1995. Like the rest of the band's few remaining staff, he was laid off last year.
He traveled the full length of the Dead's tangled odyssey, joining up with the band when the it first began playing out of town, about a year after the Dead got is start playing gin mills on the Peninsula.
Ramrod went to work setting up and tearing down the band's equipment for every show the Dead played. He puzzled his way through elaborate situations and circumstances: from the myriad psychedelic dungeons the band played through the '60s, to a concert at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt in 1977 to the baseball parks the Dead filled on the endless tours of the '80s and '90s up until Garcia's death.
"He was always there," said Hart, "making sure everybody was taken care of."
Hart said that it was Ramrod's practice to say "all right" at the conclusion of every performance as the band filed off the stage. "I looked forward to those 'all rights,' '' said Hart. "It was the way he said it. It was the tone that said it all -- 'it was all right ... not great.' You couldn't fool old Ramrod. I was playing for him."
Hart also remembered one New Year's Eve when he thought he might be too high to play. Ramrod solved the problem by strapping Hart to his drum stool with gaffer's tape. Hart recalled another show in San Jose with Big Brother and the Holding Company, where the starter's cannon the band used to punctuate the drum solo of "St. Stephen's" went off early.
"I looked back," Hart said. "His face was on fire. He'd lost his eyebrows. You could smell his flesh. And he was hurrying to reload the cannon in time. That was the end of the cannons."
A protege of Neal Cassady of the Merry Pranksters, the intrepid band of inner-space explorers who gathered around Kesey, Ramrod absorbed lessons from Cassady, a Beat era legend and model for the character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's landmark novel "On the Road." "He knew Neal better than anyone in our scene," said Weir.
He was a quiet, unflappable road warrior. Hart and fellow crew member Rex Jackson once decided to see how long it would take Ramrod to say something on a truck trip across the Midwest. He said nothing through three states before speaking. "Hungry?" he finally said.
"He was never a loudmouth," said Parish. "He was never anything but an honest, hard-working guy with a grip of steel and a hand that felt like leather."
He was first married to Patricia "Patticake" Luft -- their son is Strider Shurtliff, 38, of Los Angeles. His wife of the past 38 years, Francis Whalen, is recovering from an anoxic brain injury. Their son is Rudson Shurtliff, 34, of Novato.
A lifelong cigarette smoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer only a few weeks ago. Typically, he didn't want anybody to know he was dying, although band and crew members visited him daily.
Guitarist Weir said he could barely remember the Dead before Ramrod. "When he did join up, it was like he had always been there. I won't say he was the missing piece, because I don't think he was missing. He just wasn't there. But then he was there. And he always will be. He was a huge part of what the Grateful Dead was about."
Parish said he and Weir left a recent visit from Ramrod's hospital bed. "Weir said 'They say blood is thicker than water, but what we've got is thicker than blood,' " said Parish.
Mainstay of Grateful Dead crew dies -- 'he was our rock'
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic
Thursday, May 18, 2006
He was a psychedelic cowboy who rode the bus with Ken Kesey and took virtually every step of the long, strange trip with the Grateful Dead. Known to one and all solely as Ramrod, he died yesterday of lung cancer at Petaluma Valley Hospital. He was 61.
"He was our rock," said guitarist Bob Weir.
Born Lawrence Shurtliff, he was raised a country boy in eastern Oregon and once won a county fair blue ribbon in cattle judging. He got the name Ramrod from Kesey while he was traveling through Mexico with the author and LSD evangelist, at the time a fugitive from justice.
"I am Ramon Rodriguez Rodriguez, the famous Mexican guide," he boasted, and he was known ever after as Ramrod.
"It fit him," said Steve Parish, his longtime associate on the Dead crew. "He used to keep us in line."
"I remember when he first showed up at 710 Ashbury," said Dead drummer Mickey Hart. "He pulled up on a Harley. He was wearing a chain with a lock around his waist. He said 'Name's Ramrod -- Kesey sent me -- I hear you need a good man.' I remember it like it was yesterday."
Ramrod joined the Dead in 1967 as truck driver and was held in such high regard by the members of that sprawling, brawling organization that he was named president of the Grateful Dead board of directors when the rock group actually incorporated in the '70s. It was a position he held until the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia in 1995. Like the rest of the band's few remaining staff, he was laid off last year.
He traveled the full length of the Dead's tangled odyssey, joining up with the band when the it first began playing out of town, about a year after the Dead got is start playing gin mills on the Peninsula.
Ramrod went to work setting up and tearing down the band's equipment for every show the Dead played. He puzzled his way through elaborate situations and circumstances: from the myriad psychedelic dungeons the band played through the '60s, to a concert at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt in 1977 to the baseball parks the Dead filled on the endless tours of the '80s and '90s up until Garcia's death.
"He was always there," said Hart, "making sure everybody was taken care of."
Hart said that it was Ramrod's practice to say "all right" at the conclusion of every performance as the band filed off the stage. "I looked forward to those 'all rights,' '' said Hart. "It was the way he said it. It was the tone that said it all -- 'it was all right ... not great.' You couldn't fool old Ramrod. I was playing for him."
Hart also remembered one New Year's Eve when he thought he might be too high to play. Ramrod solved the problem by strapping Hart to his drum stool with gaffer's tape. Hart recalled another show in San Jose with Big Brother and the Holding Company, where the starter's cannon the band used to punctuate the drum solo of "St. Stephen's" went off early.
"I looked back," Hart said. "His face was on fire. He'd lost his eyebrows. You could smell his flesh. And he was hurrying to reload the cannon in time. That was the end of the cannons."
A protege of Neal Cassady of the Merry Pranksters, the intrepid band of inner-space explorers who gathered around Kesey, Ramrod absorbed lessons from Cassady, a Beat era legend and model for the character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's landmark novel "On the Road." "He knew Neal better than anyone in our scene," said Weir.
He was a quiet, unflappable road warrior. Hart and fellow crew member Rex Jackson once decided to see how long it would take Ramrod to say something on a truck trip across the Midwest. He said nothing through three states before speaking. "Hungry?" he finally said.
"He was never a loudmouth," said Parish. "He was never anything but an honest, hard-working guy with a grip of steel and a hand that felt like leather."
He was first married to Patricia "Patticake" Luft -- their son is Strider Shurtliff, 38, of Los Angeles. His wife of the past 38 years, Francis Whalen, is recovering from an anoxic brain injury. Their son is Rudson Shurtliff, 34, of Novato.
A lifelong cigarette smoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer only a few weeks ago. Typically, he didn't want anybody to know he was dying, although band and crew members visited him daily.
Guitarist Weir said he could barely remember the Dead before Ramrod. "When he did join up, it was like he had always been there. I won't say he was the missing piece, because I don't think he was missing. He just wasn't there. But then he was there. And he always will be. He was a huge part of what the Grateful Dead was about."
Parish said he and Weir left a recent visit from Ramrod's hospital bed. "Weir said 'They say blood is thicker than water, but what we've got is thicker than blood,' " said Parish.
I guess Tony's gone MIA since the board was hacked, but I haven't heard of any major deaths either.
Maybe Tony's popped his clogs.
Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr., a Texas patrician who made a sizable fortune in private business and an even bigger name in national government as a U.S. senator and Treasury secretary, died today. He was 85.
Bentsen, in failing health for more than a decade after a stroke in 1995, died at his home in Houston, said family spokesman Bill Maddox.
There will be a private graveside service at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston and then a memorial service at First Presbyterian Church. The dates have not been set yet.
On the state political stage for almost half a century, Bentsen was a link to the heyday of Texas Democratic politics, when the regular wing of the state party was the fiefdom of then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson and House Speaker Sam Rayburn, Bentsen's most influential early mentor.
Although Bentsen helped Johnson in the 1950s to fend off a conservative challenge for control of the party, Bentsen gained his own first statewide victory in 1970 by defeating Texas' reigning liberal icon, Sen. Ralph W. Yarborough, in the Democratic primary. In the general election that year, Bentsen beat Republican George Bush, delaying his fellow Houstonian's national political ascent.
True to his Tory Democratic roots, Bentsen was an unabashed advocate of his state's oil industry and an early proponent of cutting corporate and capital gain tax rates.
Bentsen was a member of a prosperous Rio Grande Valley family, and almost everything he touched seemed to turn to gold, be it far-flung personal investments, the insurance company he founded in the 1950s or his political career, which stretched from being Hidalgo County judge immediately after World War II to taking a seat in the Cabinet during President Clinton's first administration in 1993.
His political career, at least, was not without its disappointments. His campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, only six years after returning to Washington as a senator, cratered in the early caucuses.
Bentsen, however, could pull laurels even from the ashes, and he enhanced his standing as an astute politician in 1988 as the dogged Democratic vice-presidential running mate of Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
In the vice-presidential debate that year, Bentsen hammered Republican Sen. Dan Quayle, with an artful putdown that found its way into everyday speech.
When his younger opponent compared himself to President John F. Kennedy, Bentsen, his voice dripping with disdain, retorted: "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."
Ever the pragmatic politician, Bentsen made it clear he knew he had establishment Republican supporters in Texas who would support his simultaneous Senate re-election bid even though they would forsake Dukakis-Bentsen in the national race for the Republican ticket led by Bush, who was moving up after eight years as Ronald Reagan's vice president.
During much of the last three decades, Bentsen was one of the most respected and important voices in the nation, and sometimes beyond, on federal fiscal policy.
Throughout his business and political career, including more than a quarter-century in public life in the the nation's capital, Bentsen became known as a savant who could spot a trend before it became one.
He was also ahead of his time in private commerce. He built a financial services company in Houston in the 1960s, long before such institutions became a dime a dozen.
Bentsen was a serious man and a no-nonsense operator in a trade sometimes known for easy Ч and often phony Ч affability. Bentsen was sociable, but his public style stopped far short of the voluble, chummy demeanor that was the hallmark of many Texas colleagues.
He could freeze staff aides with a glare and insisted on virtual perfection from his assistants Ч and sometimes from his notional superiors.
An autographed picture from President Clinton was inscribed: "To my friend Lloyd Bentsen, who makes me study things until I get it right."
Bentsen returned to his high-finance roots when he left government, taking on the leadership of the advisory panel at Beacon Group, a New York-based inverstment bank.
When he suffered a mild stroke in 1998, Bentsen conceded it came at the end of a three-month travel marathon during which he had been to 15 countries on four continents in three months.
"I enjoy challenges and being involved," Bentsen said.
Bentsen had an expansive life outside of commerce and politics. He was a voracious traveler, personally keeping notes and filing away clippings about places he wanted to visit Ч in the 1970s sometimes aboard the yacht he captained. And he indulged his sporting side, once buying a house in a resort development near San Diego, Calif., because he liked its tennis pro.
Bentsen and his wife, the former Beryl Ann Longino from Lufkin, were for years among the most attractive and sought after couples on the Washington social scene.
Bentsen, with silver hair and a handsome, angular visage that spoke of his Danish heritage, outfitted himself spectacularly, whether it was a carefully tailored business suit or smartly casual chamois windbreaker.
Bentsen's wife Ч known universally as B.A., which he said stood for Bentsen's "best asset," Ч became a political personality in her own right as a member of the Democratic National Committee from Texas for many years.
Lloyd Millard Bentsen Jr. was born Feb. 11, 1921, in Mission, where his father had moved after a hardscrabble upbringing in the Dakotas.
The son attended the University of Texas, receiving a law degree. He enlisted in the Army early in World War II and was a major by the time of his discharge in 1945. He flew 50 mission in Europe and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Bentsen was among the young veterans who stormed the political barricades soon after returning from military service. He was elected county judge of his native Hidalgo County in 1946.
When a Rio Grande Valley seat in the U.S. House Ч the one once represented by Vice President John Nance Garner Ч opened in 1948, Bentsen won a special election.
Highlight of the tenure, which would make Bentsen wince with embarassment in later years, was his proposal in 1950 that President Truman threaten to use nuclear weapons against China in the Korean war.
He was, however, not an orthodox conservative Southerner. Bentsen was one of only seven House members from the old Confederacy in 1949 to vote to outlaw the poll tax Ч a registration fee that effectively kept many minorities and poor people from voting. As a businessman in the 1960s, Bentsen insisted that a Houston hotel in which he was the primary investor be open to black customers, making it the first in the city to take that step.
In 1970, Bentsen narrowly defeated Bush. The Democrat widened his margin in 1976. And in 1982, playing paterfamilias to the remainder of the state Democratic ticket, Bentsen won by almost 20 percentage points and helped gubernatorial candidate Mark White across the finish line.
In 1988, Bentsen won the Senate race by an even bigger margin, even as he and Dukakis were losing the state to Bush-Quayle.
When Clinton was elected in 1992, he asked Bentsen to become his Treasury secretary. Some presidential aides indicated the move was principally to get Bentsen out of the Senate Ч and the chairmanship of the Finance Committee, a position from which Bentsen could have blocked some of the new Democratic leader's more liberal economic proposals.
Many intimates believed that not long after arriving at the neo-classical Treasury Building next door to the White House, Bentsen wished he had never left Capitol Hill.
Bentsen refused to be drawn out very far on the question and rejected several proposals that he write about his long, varied career and ties with the most famous politicians of the post-World War II era.
Bentsen recorded an oral history with the University of Texas which cannot be opened until five years after his death.
Bentsen, in failing health for more than a decade after a stroke in 1995, died at his home in Houston, said family spokesman Bill Maddox.
There will be a private graveside service at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston and then a memorial service at First Presbyterian Church. The dates have not been set yet.
On the state political stage for almost half a century, Bentsen was a link to the heyday of Texas Democratic politics, when the regular wing of the state party was the fiefdom of then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson and House Speaker Sam Rayburn, Bentsen's most influential early mentor.
Although Bentsen helped Johnson in the 1950s to fend off a conservative challenge for control of the party, Bentsen gained his own first statewide victory in 1970 by defeating Texas' reigning liberal icon, Sen. Ralph W. Yarborough, in the Democratic primary. In the general election that year, Bentsen beat Republican George Bush, delaying his fellow Houstonian's national political ascent.
True to his Tory Democratic roots, Bentsen was an unabashed advocate of his state's oil industry and an early proponent of cutting corporate and capital gain tax rates.
Bentsen was a member of a prosperous Rio Grande Valley family, and almost everything he touched seemed to turn to gold, be it far-flung personal investments, the insurance company he founded in the 1950s or his political career, which stretched from being Hidalgo County judge immediately after World War II to taking a seat in the Cabinet during President Clinton's first administration in 1993.
His political career, at least, was not without its disappointments. His campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, only six years after returning to Washington as a senator, cratered in the early caucuses.
Bentsen, however, could pull laurels even from the ashes, and he enhanced his standing as an astute politician in 1988 as the dogged Democratic vice-presidential running mate of Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
In the vice-presidential debate that year, Bentsen hammered Republican Sen. Dan Quayle, with an artful putdown that found its way into everyday speech.
When his younger opponent compared himself to President John F. Kennedy, Bentsen, his voice dripping with disdain, retorted: "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."
Ever the pragmatic politician, Bentsen made it clear he knew he had establishment Republican supporters in Texas who would support his simultaneous Senate re-election bid even though they would forsake Dukakis-Bentsen in the national race for the Republican ticket led by Bush, who was moving up after eight years as Ronald Reagan's vice president.
During much of the last three decades, Bentsen was one of the most respected and important voices in the nation, and sometimes beyond, on federal fiscal policy.
Throughout his business and political career, including more than a quarter-century in public life in the the nation's capital, Bentsen became known as a savant who could spot a trend before it became one.
He was also ahead of his time in private commerce. He built a financial services company in Houston in the 1960s, long before such institutions became a dime a dozen.
Bentsen was a serious man and a no-nonsense operator in a trade sometimes known for easy Ч and often phony Ч affability. Bentsen was sociable, but his public style stopped far short of the voluble, chummy demeanor that was the hallmark of many Texas colleagues.
He could freeze staff aides with a glare and insisted on virtual perfection from his assistants Ч and sometimes from his notional superiors.
An autographed picture from President Clinton was inscribed: "To my friend Lloyd Bentsen, who makes me study things until I get it right."
Bentsen returned to his high-finance roots when he left government, taking on the leadership of the advisory panel at Beacon Group, a New York-based inverstment bank.
When he suffered a mild stroke in 1998, Bentsen conceded it came at the end of a three-month travel marathon during which he had been to 15 countries on four continents in three months.
"I enjoy challenges and being involved," Bentsen said.
Bentsen had an expansive life outside of commerce and politics. He was a voracious traveler, personally keeping notes and filing away clippings about places he wanted to visit Ч in the 1970s sometimes aboard the yacht he captained. And he indulged his sporting side, once buying a house in a resort development near San Diego, Calif., because he liked its tennis pro.
Bentsen and his wife, the former Beryl Ann Longino from Lufkin, were for years among the most attractive and sought after couples on the Washington social scene.
Bentsen, with silver hair and a handsome, angular visage that spoke of his Danish heritage, outfitted himself spectacularly, whether it was a carefully tailored business suit or smartly casual chamois windbreaker.
Bentsen's wife Ч known universally as B.A., which he said stood for Bentsen's "best asset," Ч became a political personality in her own right as a member of the Democratic National Committee from Texas for many years.
Lloyd Millard Bentsen Jr. was born Feb. 11, 1921, in Mission, where his father had moved after a hardscrabble upbringing in the Dakotas.
The son attended the University of Texas, receiving a law degree. He enlisted in the Army early in World War II and was a major by the time of his discharge in 1945. He flew 50 mission in Europe and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Bentsen was among the young veterans who stormed the political barricades soon after returning from military service. He was elected county judge of his native Hidalgo County in 1946.
When a Rio Grande Valley seat in the U.S. House Ч the one once represented by Vice President John Nance Garner Ч opened in 1948, Bentsen won a special election.
Highlight of the tenure, which would make Bentsen wince with embarassment in later years, was his proposal in 1950 that President Truman threaten to use nuclear weapons against China in the Korean war.
He was, however, not an orthodox conservative Southerner. Bentsen was one of only seven House members from the old Confederacy in 1949 to vote to outlaw the poll tax Ч a registration fee that effectively kept many minorities and poor people from voting. As a businessman in the 1960s, Bentsen insisted that a Houston hotel in which he was the primary investor be open to black customers, making it the first in the city to take that step.
In 1970, Bentsen narrowly defeated Bush. The Democrat widened his margin in 1976. And in 1982, playing paterfamilias to the remainder of the state Democratic ticket, Bentsen won by almost 20 percentage points and helped gubernatorial candidate Mark White across the finish line.
In 1988, Bentsen won the Senate race by an even bigger margin, even as he and Dukakis were losing the state to Bush-Quayle.
When Clinton was elected in 1992, he asked Bentsen to become his Treasury secretary. Some presidential aides indicated the move was principally to get Bentsen out of the Senate Ч and the chairmanship of the Finance Committee, a position from which Bentsen could have blocked some of the new Democratic leader's more liberal economic proposals.
Many intimates believed that not long after arriving at the neo-classical Treasury Building next door to the White House, Bentsen wished he had never left Capitol Hill.
Bentsen refused to be drawn out very far on the question and rejected several proposals that he write about his long, varied career and ties with the most famous politicians of the post-World War II era.
Bentsen recorded an oral history with the University of Texas which cannot be opened until five years after his death.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ian Copeland, a pioneering booking agent and music promoter credited with helping launch the "new wave" alternative rock movement of the 1970s and '80s with such bands as the Police, the B-52's and R.E.M, has died at age 57, relatives said on Wednesday.
Copeland succumbed to melanoma on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles where he was surrounded by family members, including younger brother Stewart Copeland, a founder and drummer of the Police, hispublicist said.
With the help of older brother Miles, Copeland began his career in show business as a booking agent in London, where he discovered the Scottish funk outfit Average White Band, who made their debut in 1973 opening for Eric Clapton.
Copeland moved in the mid-1970s to Macon, Georgia, to work for the Paragon Agency, which booked tours for popular southern rock acts like Charlie Daniels, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band.
But it was Copeland's role in helping brother Miles, founder of the International Records Syndicate (I.R.S.) label, introduce the British band Squeeze to the United States that transformed his career.
The brothers adopted a strategy of building fan support for Squeeze by booking the group on a tour of smaller nightclubs, and successfully repeated that formula to launch other bands, including the Police and the B-52's.
Their work was pivotal in establishing the "club circuit" that helped usher in the punk rock and new wave scenes to the United States.
After the demise of Paragon, Copeland moved to New York and started his own booking agency, Frontier Booking International (F.B.I.), which represented such acts as Adam Ant, the Bangles, R.E.M., nine inch nails, the Go-Go's, UB40, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Oingo Boingo, the Dead Kennedys and the Cure.
The son of a jazz musician turned U.S. intelligence officer, Copeland was born in Damascus, Syria, in the midst of a military coup. As a young man he enlisted in the U.S. Army at the height of the Vietnam War and served in the infantry, earning numerous decorations.
He is survived by his two daughters, brothers Stewart and Miles and a sister, Lorraine, a writer and producer. Memorial plans were pending.
Reuters/VNU
Copeland succumbed to melanoma on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles where he was surrounded by family members, including younger brother Stewart Copeland, a founder and drummer of the Police, hispublicist said.
With the help of older brother Miles, Copeland began his career in show business as a booking agent in London, where he discovered the Scottish funk outfit Average White Band, who made their debut in 1973 opening for Eric Clapton.
Copeland moved in the mid-1970s to Macon, Georgia, to work for the Paragon Agency, which booked tours for popular southern rock acts like Charlie Daniels, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band.
But it was Copeland's role in helping brother Miles, founder of the International Records Syndicate (I.R.S.) label, introduce the British band Squeeze to the United States that transformed his career.
The brothers adopted a strategy of building fan support for Squeeze by booking the group on a tour of smaller nightclubs, and successfully repeated that formula to launch other bands, including the Police and the B-52's.
Their work was pivotal in establishing the "club circuit" that helped usher in the punk rock and new wave scenes to the United States.
After the demise of Paragon, Copeland moved to New York and started his own booking agency, Frontier Booking International (F.B.I.), which represented such acts as Adam Ant, the Bangles, R.E.M., nine inch nails, the Go-Go's, UB40, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Oingo Boingo, the Dead Kennedys and the Cure.
The son of a jazz musician turned U.S. intelligence officer, Copeland was born in Damascus, Syria, in the midst of a military coup. As a young man he enlisted in the U.S. Army at the height of the Vietnam War and served in the infantry, earning numerous decorations.
He is survived by his two daughters, brothers Stewart and Miles and a sister, Lorraine, a writer and producer. Memorial plans were pending.
Reuters/VNU
Jazz bassist Fallon dies aged 90 (BBC)
Jack Fallon first came to the UK with the Canadian Air Force band
Jazz musician Jack Fallon, who played with Ella Fitzgerald and Duke
Ellington, has died at the age of 90.
The bassist and fiddler played the violin on The Beatles White album
and also shared a stage with Bob Hope, Marlene Dietrich and Lena Horne.
Fallon, of north London, died after a long illness, his family said.
Born in Ontario, Fallon moved to the UK in 1946. He set up a music
agency and booked the Beatles for a concert in 1962, 8 months before
their first hit.
'Nature's gentlemen'
"One of nature's gentlemen, Jack was loved and respected by everyone in
the music industry and will be sadly missed but fondly remembered," his
family said in a statement.
In his autobiography, From The Top, Fallon recalled a group of "polite
and neatly dressed" young men who approached him about a possible gig.
They were the Rolling Stones.
Fallon continued to play until well into his eighties, when a mild
stroke forced him to retire.
He is survived by his children Mark and Jane. His funeral will be held
on 7 June in London.
Jack Fallon first came to the UK with the Canadian Air Force band
Jazz musician Jack Fallon, who played with Ella Fitzgerald and Duke
Ellington, has died at the age of 90.
The bassist and fiddler played the violin on The Beatles White album
and also shared a stage with Bob Hope, Marlene Dietrich and Lena Horne.
Fallon, of north London, died after a long illness, his family said.
Born in Ontario, Fallon moved to the UK in 1946. He set up a music
agency and booked the Beatles for a concert in 1962, 8 months before
their first hit.
'Nature's gentlemen'
"One of nature's gentlemen, Jack was loved and respected by everyone in
the music industry and will be sadly missed but fondly remembered," his
family said in a statement.
In his autobiography, From The Top, Fallon recalled a group of "polite
and neatly dressed" young men who approached him about a possible gig.
They were the Rolling Stones.
Fallon continued to play until well into his eighties, when a mild
stroke forced him to retire.
He is survived by his children Mark and Jane. His funeral will be held
on 7 June in London.
Obituary: Desmond Dekker
With the 1969 song Israelites, Desmond Dekker was one of the first Jamaican musician to enjoy a worldwide hit single and the song was the first number one reggae record in the UK.
The mixture of Dekker's falsetto singing with an underlying bass vocal line provided by his backing group, The Aces, proved so popular that it was a hit three times over.
Specifically, Desmond Dekker had introduced ska to the world outside Jamaica, a brand of music that combined the indigenous Jamaican mento folk music with American rhythm and blues.
Its upbeat feel reflected the optimism engendered by the newly-gained independence from Britain in 1962.
Many of Dekker's hits including Rude Boy Train, Rudie Got Soul and 007 (Shanty Town) echoed the violent street culture of Jamaican cities, in particular Kingston, to which there had been a large migration from the countryside.
Native beat
This in turn reflected the disillusionment after the expectations of prosperity that the spirit of independence had ushered in failed to materialise.
In the late '50s some Jamaican sound system operators, notably Duke Reid and Clement Dodd, had started producing their own records, developing a native Jamaican beat called ska.
From those origins came further beats, like rock steady, reggae, raga and dub.
Desmond Dacres, as he was born in 1942, worked as a welder in Kingston.
He was orphaned as a teenager but made a success for himself after signing with Leslie Kong's Beverley's record label and releasing his first single, Honour Your Father and Mother, in 1963, a paean to homespun wisdom.
By the time of his fourth hit, King of Ska, he had become one of Jamaica's biggest stars. The song is still revered among ska fans.
After 1967, he appeared on producer Derrick Morgan's Tougher than Tough which helped begin a popular trend of glamorising the violent culture of the "rude boys" in a similar vein to which American rap music was to follow decades later.
Club performer
Following his success with Israelites, Desmond Dekker moved to the UK where ska had developed a huge following among the mods. He remained in Britain for the rest of his life.
In the 1970s he recorded the hit You Can Get It If You Really Want, written by Jimmy Cliff.
But Dekker's success started to wane by the end of the `70s and early `80s as the "two-tone" music's popularity was no longer mainstream, and reggae artists like Bob Marley were in the ascendancy.
Dekker was declared bankrupt in 1984.
But he continued to attract a following and was a regular performer on the club scene in Britain and Europe.
Re-releases of Israelites in 1975 and again in 1990, kept his head above water and ensured his name continued to resonate with the public.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/ente...ent/5019606.stm
With the 1969 song Israelites, Desmond Dekker was one of the first Jamaican musician to enjoy a worldwide hit single and the song was the first number one reggae record in the UK.
The mixture of Dekker's falsetto singing with an underlying bass vocal line provided by his backing group, The Aces, proved so popular that it was a hit three times over.
Specifically, Desmond Dekker had introduced ska to the world outside Jamaica, a brand of music that combined the indigenous Jamaican mento folk music with American rhythm and blues.
Its upbeat feel reflected the optimism engendered by the newly-gained independence from Britain in 1962.
Many of Dekker's hits including Rude Boy Train, Rudie Got Soul and 007 (Shanty Town) echoed the violent street culture of Jamaican cities, in particular Kingston, to which there had been a large migration from the countryside.
Native beat
This in turn reflected the disillusionment after the expectations of prosperity that the spirit of independence had ushered in failed to materialise.
In the late '50s some Jamaican sound system operators, notably Duke Reid and Clement Dodd, had started producing their own records, developing a native Jamaican beat called ska.
From those origins came further beats, like rock steady, reggae, raga and dub.
Desmond Dacres, as he was born in 1942, worked as a welder in Kingston.
He was orphaned as a teenager but made a success for himself after signing with Leslie Kong's Beverley's record label and releasing his first single, Honour Your Father and Mother, in 1963, a paean to homespun wisdom.
By the time of his fourth hit, King of Ska, he had become one of Jamaica's biggest stars. The song is still revered among ska fans.
After 1967, he appeared on producer Derrick Morgan's Tougher than Tough which helped begin a popular trend of glamorising the violent culture of the "rude boys" in a similar vein to which American rap music was to follow decades later.
Club performer
Following his success with Israelites, Desmond Dekker moved to the UK where ska had developed a huge following among the mods. He remained in Britain for the rest of his life.
In the 1970s he recorded the hit You Can Get It If You Really Want, written by Jimmy Cliff.
But Dekker's success started to wane by the end of the `70s and early `80s as the "two-tone" music's popularity was no longer mainstream, and reggae artists like Bob Marley were in the ascendancy.
Dekker was declared bankrupt in 1984.
But he continued to attract a following and was a regular performer on the club scene in Britain and Europe.
Re-releases of Israelites in 1975 and again in 1990, kept his head above water and ensured his name continued to resonate with the public.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/ente...ent/5019606.stm
Edouard Michelin dies in boating accident
1 hour, 15 minutes ago
Edouard Michelin, the co-managing partner of the French tire company that bears his family name, was killed Friday in a boating accident, officials said.
Michelin, who had headed the tire group since 1999, was killed near Sein island off western France's Atlantic coast, a company statement said.
Michelin, who was in his early 40s, joined the company in 1985. The company said its other managing partner, Michel Rollier, would take over.
Michelin joined the company in 1985, nearly a century after it was founded in 1889 by his great-grandfather Edouard and his great-great uncle Andre Michelin.
The younger Edouard Michelin held various posts in research, production and sales. He was a production manager at the company's Puy-en-Velay factory before becoming CEO of its North America subsidiary.
He became a managing partner in 1991, and was appointed Michelin's head on June 11, 1999.
1 hour, 15 minutes ago
Edouard Michelin, the co-managing partner of the French tire company that bears his family name, was killed Friday in a boating accident, officials said.
Michelin, who had headed the tire group since 1999, was killed near Sein island off western France's Atlantic coast, a company statement said.
Michelin, who was in his early 40s, joined the company in 1985. The company said its other managing partner, Michel Rollier, would take over.
Michelin joined the company in 1985, nearly a century after it was founded in 1889 by his great-grandfather Edouard and his great-great uncle Andre Michelin.
The younger Edouard Michelin held various posts in research, production and sales. He was a production manager at the company's Puy-en-Velay factory before becoming CEO of its North America subsidiary.
He became a managing partner in 1991, and was appointed Michelin's head on June 11, 1999.
Craig "Ironhead" Heyward had hoped to survive a 7 1/2-year fight with
recurring brain tumor long enough to share "Senior Night" with his son,
Cameron, who plays football and basketball at Peachtree Ridge High.
The football coach, Blair Armstrong, said Saturday that he had been
"contemplating moving senior night to the first game" Ч an occasion that
normally comes closer to the end of the season for most schools.
It spoke volumes about Heyward's increasing fragile health. In the end,
the wish wasn't to be. The former NFL star fullback for 11 seasons, and
a Falcon from 1994-96, died Saturday. He was 39.
"It's going to be tough," Armstrong said. "I lost my dad when I was 14."
The elder Heyward earned Pro Bowl status in 1995, when he rushed for a
career-high 1,083 yards. He first gained fame as a bruising back for the
New Orleans Saints, and also played for the Chicago Bears and
Indianapolis Colts.
"Craig Heyward truly ranks among the all-time greats in Pitt football
history," Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said in a statement released by the
university.
With his father in ailing health, Cameron transferred from Whitefield
Academy in Cobb County, to be nearer his father. The Georgia High School
Association last August granted Cameron a medical hardship allowing the
6-foot-6, 270-pounder Ч then a junior Ч to play immediately, instead of
having to sit out a year.
That gave the elder Heyward, who was paralyzed by a stroke, a chance to
see his son play.
"We'd interacted once or twice when he tried to come watch Cameron
play," Armstrong said. "He wasn't real mobile, but he'd been rehabbing.
He thought he might walk again.
"But once he lost his hearing and his sight, his organs started shutting
down."
recurring brain tumor long enough to share "Senior Night" with his son,
Cameron, who plays football and basketball at Peachtree Ridge High.
The football coach, Blair Armstrong, said Saturday that he had been
"contemplating moving senior night to the first game" Ч an occasion that
normally comes closer to the end of the season for most schools.
It spoke volumes about Heyward's increasing fragile health. In the end,
the wish wasn't to be. The former NFL star fullback for 11 seasons, and
a Falcon from 1994-96, died Saturday. He was 39.
"It's going to be tough," Armstrong said. "I lost my dad when I was 14."
The elder Heyward earned Pro Bowl status in 1995, when he rushed for a
career-high 1,083 yards. He first gained fame as a bruising back for the
New Orleans Saints, and also played for the Chicago Bears and
Indianapolis Colts.
"Craig Heyward truly ranks among the all-time greats in Pitt football
history," Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt said in a statement released by the
university.
With his father in ailing health, Cameron transferred from Whitefield
Academy in Cobb County, to be nearer his father. The Georgia High School
Association last August granted Cameron a medical hardship allowing the
6-foot-6, 270-pounder Ч then a junior Ч to play immediately, instead of
having to sit out a year.
That gave the elder Heyward, who was paralyzed by a stroke, a chance to
see his son play.
"We'd interacted once or twice when he tried to come watch Cameron
play," Armstrong said. "He wasn't real mobile, but he'd been rehabbing.
He thought he might walk again.
"But once he lost his hearing and his sight, his organs started shutting
down."
THOUGHT POLICE
`The Breakfast Club' actor Paul Gleason dies at 67
Associated Press
BURBANK, Calif. - Paul Gleason, who played the go-to bad guy in "Trading Places" and the angry high school principal in "The Breakfast Club," has died. He was 67.
Gleason died at a local hospital Saturday of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer linked to asbestos, said his wife, Susan Gleason.
"Whenever you were with Paul, there was never a dull moment," his wife said. "He was awesome."
A native of Miami, Gleason was an avid athlete. Before becoming an actor, he played Triple-A minor league baseball for a handful of clubs in the late 1950s.
Gleason honed his acting skills with his mentor Lee Strasberg, whom he studied with at the Actors Studio beginning in the mid-1960s, family members said.
Though his career, Gleason appeared in over 60 movies that included "Die Hard," "Johnny Be Good," and "National Lampoon's Van Wilder." Most recently, Gleason made a handful of television appearances in hit shows such as "Friends" and "Seinfeld."
Gleason's passions went beyond acting. He had recently published a book of poetry.
"He was an athlete, an actor and a poet," said his daughter, Shannon Gleason-Grossman. "He gave me and my sister a love that is beyond description that will be with us and keep us strong for the rest of our lives."
Actor Jimmy Hawkins, a friend of Gleason's since the 1960s, said he remembered Gleason for a sharp sense of humor.
"He just always had great stories to tell," Hawkins said.
Gleason was survived by his wife, two daughters and a granddaughter. Funeral plans were pending.
Associated Press
BURBANK, Calif. - Paul Gleason, who played the go-to bad guy in "Trading Places" and the angry high school principal in "The Breakfast Club," has died. He was 67.
Gleason died at a local hospital Saturday of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer linked to asbestos, said his wife, Susan Gleason.
"Whenever you were with Paul, there was never a dull moment," his wife said. "He was awesome."
A native of Miami, Gleason was an avid athlete. Before becoming an actor, he played Triple-A minor league baseball for a handful of clubs in the late 1950s.
Gleason honed his acting skills with his mentor Lee Strasberg, whom he studied with at the Actors Studio beginning in the mid-1960s, family members said.
Though his career, Gleason appeared in over 60 movies that included "Die Hard," "Johnny Be Good," and "National Lampoon's Van Wilder." Most recently, Gleason made a handful of television appearances in hit shows such as "Friends" and "Seinfeld."
Gleason's passions went beyond acting. He had recently published a book of poetry.
"He was an athlete, an actor and a poet," said his daughter, Shannon Gleason-Grossman. "He gave me and my sister a love that is beyond description that will be with us and keep us strong for the rest of our lives."
Actor Jimmy Hawkins, a friend of Gleason's since the 1960s, said he remembered Gleason for a sharp sense of humor.
"He just always had great stories to tell," Hawkins said.
Gleason was survived by his wife, two daughters and a granddaughter. Funeral plans were pending.
Antone: 'Heart of Austin music' had blues in his blood
Impresario nurtured musicians and city to national prominence
By Michael Corcoran
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
A giant, an institution, a generous soul whose obsessive love of the blues helped make this college town nationally known for stomping-good live music and passionate listeners is gone.
The news shot through the Austin air Tuesday afternoon like a stinging Albert King guitar lead: Clifford Antone is dead.
By giving Chicago blues legends a club in Texas to play, as well as launching a raucous classroom where upstarts such as the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Charlie Sexton and Stevie Ray Vaughan could learn at the feet of the masters, Antone forever changed the Texas music landscape. He was 56.
Police spokeswoman Laura Albrecht said officers responded to a call at the Towers of Town Lake condominiums on Interstate 35 approximately 1:15 p.m. Tuesday. They found Antone dead in his apartment. The cause of death has not been determined, pending results of an autopsy, though police said the death did not appear suspicious.
A celebration of Antone's life is planned for his namesake club for 4 p.m. Wednesday. It will be free to the public.
Fans, musicians and club owners began gathering at his namesake club on West Fifth Street around 5 p.m., leaving flowers, photos and notes.
Broken Spoke owner James White spoke of his friendship with Antone.
"It's a terrible shock," White said. "Clifford and I were such good pals. He was a great guy, and if something happened to me, I know he would come to my club."
Later Tuesday, a photograph of Antone rested in his usual seat at the Broken Spoke as Alvin Crow and his band played "Rainin' in My Heart."
"I feel like the heart of Austin music has been ripped out," said drummer Chris Layton, echoing the sentiments of many stunned mourners.
Antone was like the music scene's maitre d', greeting friends and strangers warmly, always ready to help in any way he could. He was known for paying acts more than they took in at the door, dipping into his own wallet to help both aging bluesmen and young, broke enthusiasts who moved to Austin from all over the world because they had heard that the world's greatest blues club was here.
One by one, Antone's heroes passed away — Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Jimmy Reed, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown — but not before they played the club Antone opened as a 25-year-old in 1975 on Sixth Street, back before Sixth Street was known as an entertainment district.
At that first of four locations, he'd often book them for a week at a time so the original electric blues cats wouldn't have to travel between gigs. Every night, Antone would stand at the side of the stage with a broad smile. His gushy introductions were almost as legendary as his club.
While much of the Austin population became aware of Antone mainly through two high-profile marijuana busts — in 1984 and 1997 — for which he served two stints in federal prison, those who knew him personally describe a warm, big-hearted blues encyclopedia who truly did it all for the music more than the money.
"He loved to book the big names, but he also liked to turn folks on to the great sidemen," said Connie Hancock of the Texana Dames. Eddie Taylor, Wayne Bennett, Hubert Sumlin, Matt "Guitar" Murphy and Luther Tucker may have been better known for backing others, but at Antone's they were superstars.
"Playing at Antone's for the first time was an incredible thrill," said guitarist Eve Monsees, who was called up to join a blues jam when she was just 15. "Clifford had never heard me play, but when he asked me who I liked and I said 'Magic Sam' he figured I'd be OK."
"He was a giant," said blues musician Jon Blondell. "He lived for the music, and if you were a musician, that meant he existed for you."
He backed his affinity with an unmatched knowledge of the blues and taught a class on the subject at the University of Texas for the past two years.
"How many other teachers at the University of Texas got their name in the title of the course?" said Kevin Mooney, the music professor who organized "Blues According to Clifford Antone." "He adored the students and loved giving back to them. He didn't want that class to end every day; there was so much material he wanted to share with them."
If you liked the music of Lightnin' Slim, Snooky Pryor or Sunnyland Slim, you had a good friend in Antone, the cherubic Lebanese American with the askew hair, who grew up in Port Arthur and came to love the blues when he traced the roots of acts such as Cream and Fleetwood Mac.
Yet Antone was known as much for promoting the future of music as for tracing its past.
"I used to come down from Kansas City to go to Antone's before I moved here," said musician Guy Forsyth, a mainstay on the club's stage in recent years. "It was about the third time I was there that Clifford came over and introduced himself. He could see I was digging the music and made me feel at home, a feeling Antone's had had ever since."
Antone didn't just befriend and hire younger musicians; he took them under his wing.
"When me and my family moved to town in 1980, Clifford completely opened up all his resources to help us," said Hancock.
"When Clifford came out of prison the second time (in 2003), he told me it was harder than the first time," Hancock said. "The pain was deeper, but he also seemed to want to help as many people as possible after he got out."
Antone organized a Hurricane Katrina benefit at the Erwin Center in September, starring Willie Nelson and the Neville Brothers. He has also helped surviving bluesmen like 92-year-old Pinetop Perkins move to Austin, arranging for nursing care and an apartment. "I don't know what I'm gonna do now. I may stay here; I may not," Perkins said Tuesday before playing hymns in Antone's honor in his South Austin apartment.
Antone was 18 when he moved to Austin in 1968 to attend the University of Texas, with plans to become a lawyer. That year, he was arrested for trying to smuggle a bag of marijuana across the border at Laredo. The case was dismissed, but Antone dropped out of school and discovered a new passion. "When I finally heard the Chicago blues, man, it was like I finally discovered what had been in my mind my whole life,'' he told the American-Statesman in 1997.
After the first Antone's closed, the club moved far north, but it soon found a new home on Guadalupe Street near the UT campus. Antone said that "between '75 and '85, I don't think there's any question we were the best blues club in the world."
But Antone had to relinquish ownership of the third — and some might say best — Antone's at 2915 Guadalupe St. in 1984 when he was convicted of possessing more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana and served 14 months of a five-year sentence in federal prison.
When he was released, he remained active in the booking of the club, introducing the acts and occasionally sitting in on bass guitar.
The club is currently owned by a board of directors headed by sister — and primary family survivor — Susan Antone.
Clifford Antone's troubles worsened in 1996 as federal agents investigated a drug ring responsible for smuggling more than 5 tons of marijuana from Mexico to the United States and Canada. Antone's name appeared in the ledger of an El Paso drug dealer, who used the book to keep track of his suppliers and buyers, court documents show.
Agents then raided Antone's Town Lake condo and seized $60,000 in cash, a 50-pound scale, shredded papers, 2 ounces of marijuana and a vial of cocaine.
A federal grand jury indicted Antone in 1997 on charges of conspiracy to deliver marijuana and money laundering. Facing a possible life sentence, Antone cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in 1999.
In December 2002, he was released to a halfway house in Austin, serving out the final six months of his four-year sentence.
In the hearts of local fans, Antone's musical accomplishments far overshadow his criminal record. He has helped make Austin what it is today: a live music mecca where the young learn from the old and those who move on continue to live in what they've left behind.
Singer Delbert McClinton summed up Antone in a statement he released Tuesday. "He loved the music so much," McClinton recalled. "Like nobody else I've ever known."
mcorcoran@statesman.com
Additional material from staff writers Joe Gross, Lynne Margolis and Tony Plohetski
Impresario nurtured musicians and city to national prominence
By Michael Corcoran
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
A giant, an institution, a generous soul whose obsessive love of the blues helped make this college town nationally known for stomping-good live music and passionate listeners is gone.
The news shot through the Austin air Tuesday afternoon like a stinging Albert King guitar lead: Clifford Antone is dead.
By giving Chicago blues legends a club in Texas to play, as well as launching a raucous classroom where upstarts such as the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Charlie Sexton and Stevie Ray Vaughan could learn at the feet of the masters, Antone forever changed the Texas music landscape. He was 56.
Police spokeswoman Laura Albrecht said officers responded to a call at the Towers of Town Lake condominiums on Interstate 35 approximately 1:15 p.m. Tuesday. They found Antone dead in his apartment. The cause of death has not been determined, pending results of an autopsy, though police said the death did not appear suspicious.
A celebration of Antone's life is planned for his namesake club for 4 p.m. Wednesday. It will be free to the public.
Fans, musicians and club owners began gathering at his namesake club on West Fifth Street around 5 p.m., leaving flowers, photos and notes.
Broken Spoke owner James White spoke of his friendship with Antone.
"It's a terrible shock," White said. "Clifford and I were such good pals. He was a great guy, and if something happened to me, I know he would come to my club."
Later Tuesday, a photograph of Antone rested in his usual seat at the Broken Spoke as Alvin Crow and his band played "Rainin' in My Heart."
"I feel like the heart of Austin music has been ripped out," said drummer Chris Layton, echoing the sentiments of many stunned mourners.
Antone was like the music scene's maitre d', greeting friends and strangers warmly, always ready to help in any way he could. He was known for paying acts more than they took in at the door, dipping into his own wallet to help both aging bluesmen and young, broke enthusiasts who moved to Austin from all over the world because they had heard that the world's greatest blues club was here.
One by one, Antone's heroes passed away — Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Jimmy Reed, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown — but not before they played the club Antone opened as a 25-year-old in 1975 on Sixth Street, back before Sixth Street was known as an entertainment district.
At that first of four locations, he'd often book them for a week at a time so the original electric blues cats wouldn't have to travel between gigs. Every night, Antone would stand at the side of the stage with a broad smile. His gushy introductions were almost as legendary as his club.
While much of the Austin population became aware of Antone mainly through two high-profile marijuana busts — in 1984 and 1997 — for which he served two stints in federal prison, those who knew him personally describe a warm, big-hearted blues encyclopedia who truly did it all for the music more than the money.
"He loved to book the big names, but he also liked to turn folks on to the great sidemen," said Connie Hancock of the Texana Dames. Eddie Taylor, Wayne Bennett, Hubert Sumlin, Matt "Guitar" Murphy and Luther Tucker may have been better known for backing others, but at Antone's they were superstars.
"Playing at Antone's for the first time was an incredible thrill," said guitarist Eve Monsees, who was called up to join a blues jam when she was just 15. "Clifford had never heard me play, but when he asked me who I liked and I said 'Magic Sam' he figured I'd be OK."
"He was a giant," said blues musician Jon Blondell. "He lived for the music, and if you were a musician, that meant he existed for you."
He backed his affinity with an unmatched knowledge of the blues and taught a class on the subject at the University of Texas for the past two years.
"How many other teachers at the University of Texas got their name in the title of the course?" said Kevin Mooney, the music professor who organized "Blues According to Clifford Antone." "He adored the students and loved giving back to them. He didn't want that class to end every day; there was so much material he wanted to share with them."
If you liked the music of Lightnin' Slim, Snooky Pryor or Sunnyland Slim, you had a good friend in Antone, the cherubic Lebanese American with the askew hair, who grew up in Port Arthur and came to love the blues when he traced the roots of acts such as Cream and Fleetwood Mac.
Yet Antone was known as much for promoting the future of music as for tracing its past.
"I used to come down from Kansas City to go to Antone's before I moved here," said musician Guy Forsyth, a mainstay on the club's stage in recent years. "It was about the third time I was there that Clifford came over and introduced himself. He could see I was digging the music and made me feel at home, a feeling Antone's had had ever since."
Antone didn't just befriend and hire younger musicians; he took them under his wing.
"When me and my family moved to town in 1980, Clifford completely opened up all his resources to help us," said Hancock.
"When Clifford came out of prison the second time (in 2003), he told me it was harder than the first time," Hancock said. "The pain was deeper, but he also seemed to want to help as many people as possible after he got out."
Antone organized a Hurricane Katrina benefit at the Erwin Center in September, starring Willie Nelson and the Neville Brothers. He has also helped surviving bluesmen like 92-year-old Pinetop Perkins move to Austin, arranging for nursing care and an apartment. "I don't know what I'm gonna do now. I may stay here; I may not," Perkins said Tuesday before playing hymns in Antone's honor in his South Austin apartment.
Antone was 18 when he moved to Austin in 1968 to attend the University of Texas, with plans to become a lawyer. That year, he was arrested for trying to smuggle a bag of marijuana across the border at Laredo. The case was dismissed, but Antone dropped out of school and discovered a new passion. "When I finally heard the Chicago blues, man, it was like I finally discovered what had been in my mind my whole life,'' he told the American-Statesman in 1997.
After the first Antone's closed, the club moved far north, but it soon found a new home on Guadalupe Street near the UT campus. Antone said that "between '75 and '85, I don't think there's any question we were the best blues club in the world."
But Antone had to relinquish ownership of the third — and some might say best — Antone's at 2915 Guadalupe St. in 1984 when he was convicted of possessing more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana and served 14 months of a five-year sentence in federal prison.
When he was released, he remained active in the booking of the club, introducing the acts and occasionally sitting in on bass guitar.
The club is currently owned by a board of directors headed by sister — and primary family survivor — Susan Antone.
Clifford Antone's troubles worsened in 1996 as federal agents investigated a drug ring responsible for smuggling more than 5 tons of marijuana from Mexico to the United States and Canada. Antone's name appeared in the ledger of an El Paso drug dealer, who used the book to keep track of his suppliers and buyers, court documents show.
Agents then raided Antone's Town Lake condo and seized $60,000 in cash, a 50-pound scale, shredded papers, 2 ounces of marijuana and a vial of cocaine.
A federal grand jury indicted Antone in 1997 on charges of conspiracy to deliver marijuana and money laundering. Facing a possible life sentence, Antone cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in 1999.
In December 2002, he was released to a halfway house in Austin, serving out the final six months of his four-year sentence.
In the hearts of local fans, Antone's musical accomplishments far overshadow his criminal record. He has helped make Austin what it is today: a live music mecca where the young learn from the old and those who move on continue to live in what they've left behind.
Singer Delbert McClinton summed up Antone in a statement he released Tuesday. "He loved the music so much," McClinton recalled. "Like nobody else I've ever known."
mcorcoran@statesman.com
Additional material from staff writers Joe Gross, Lynne Margolis and Tony Plohetski
Japanese director Imamura dies at 79
Director Shohei Imamura, who portrayed modern Japan's
downtrodden in raw realism and eroticism and became the
first Japanese to win the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes
twice, died of cancer here Tuesday.
He was 79.
Often considered the top Japanese director since the late
Akira Kurosawa, Imamura was a pioneer of the country's New
Wave movement, moving away from classical themes to focus on
prostitutes, ex-convicts and other characters from the
underground.
"He died at a hospital where he had been treated for about a
month since he fell ill," said Mitsuo Hirakawa, chief
secretary of the Japan Academy of Moving Images, which
Imamura founded in 1975.
"Mr. Imamura seemed healthy and cheerful when he attended a
party with our faculty last March," he said, adding that he
had not known of any plan by the director to shoot a new
film.
The cause of death was a metastatic liver tumor resulting
from cancer for which he underwent surgery in June last
year, Imamura Studio said.
Imamura won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1983 for the "The
Ballad of Narayama," a tale of a man who follows village
tradition to let his mother die on a mountain top.
He won the top award again in 1997 for "The Eel," about a
man who was imprisoned for murdering his wife and meets
another woman as he tries to start a new quiet life in a
village.
He also directed the 1989 film "Black Rain" depicting the
aftermath of the world's first atomic bombing in Hiroshima.
"I realized that Imamura's movies had die-hard fans at
Cannes when I was asked many questions about the director,"
Japanese actor Koji Yakusho, who starred in "The Eel," said
about his attendance at the festival this month.
"I feel so sad that we cannot see more Imamura movies that
are original and powerful. He was a treasure of Japanese
cinema," added the 50-year-old.
Born in 1926 in Tokyo to a doctor father, Imamura entered a
technical school to escape being drafted into the imperial
army during its conquest of Asia.
He went to study Western literature at prestigious Waseda
University and was profoundly marked by the poverty and
chaos in the aftermath of the war, which had left Tokyo
lying in ruins.
He had his break into cinema as an assistant to director
Yasujiro Ozu in the early 1950s but within a decade moved in
another direction, portraying the downtrodden of
20th-century Japan.
Imamura joined contemporaries Nagisa Oshima and Masahiro
Shinoda to lead the country's "Nouvelle Vague" in cinema.
He took a new perspective on the country's then soaring
spirits with the 1970 film "A History of Postwar Japan as
Told by a Bar Hostess." In his 1975 documentary
"Karayuki-san," he profiled Japanese women sent as
prostitutes to Southeast Asia to accompany wartime troops.
In his last feature-length film, "Warm Water Under a Red
Bridge" in 2001, he depicted the love and sex of a
middle-aged man.
"I have always regretted that I lacked lightness," Imamura
said about the movie. "I aim to produce movies which we can
laugh at and cry at in a big way."
In 2002, he joined 10 other directors such as Claude
Lelouch, Sean Penn and Ken Loach -- who took home the latest
Palme d'Or this week -- to contribute short episodes to the
omnibus production "September 11" in response to the terror
attacks in the United States.
Imamura portrayed a rural man who returns home from an
oveseas battlefield at the end of World War II, locks
himself up in a pen and acts as a snake in protest at
mankind over war.
"I am beginning to love short films with low budgets," he
said at that time. "I want to do a few more."
Apart from Imamura, three other directors including Francis
Ford Coppola won the Palme d'Or twice.
Director Shohei Imamura, who portrayed modern Japan's
downtrodden in raw realism and eroticism and became the
first Japanese to win the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes
twice, died of cancer here Tuesday.
He was 79.
Often considered the top Japanese director since the late
Akira Kurosawa, Imamura was a pioneer of the country's New
Wave movement, moving away from classical themes to focus on
prostitutes, ex-convicts and other characters from the
underground.
"He died at a hospital where he had been treated for about a
month since he fell ill," said Mitsuo Hirakawa, chief
secretary of the Japan Academy of Moving Images, which
Imamura founded in 1975.
"Mr. Imamura seemed healthy and cheerful when he attended a
party with our faculty last March," he said, adding that he
had not known of any plan by the director to shoot a new
film.
The cause of death was a metastatic liver tumor resulting
from cancer for which he underwent surgery in June last
year, Imamura Studio said.
Imamura won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1983 for the "The
Ballad of Narayama," a tale of a man who follows village
tradition to let his mother die on a mountain top.
He won the top award again in 1997 for "The Eel," about a
man who was imprisoned for murdering his wife and meets
another woman as he tries to start a new quiet life in a
village.
He also directed the 1989 film "Black Rain" depicting the
aftermath of the world's first atomic bombing in Hiroshima.
"I realized that Imamura's movies had die-hard fans at
Cannes when I was asked many questions about the director,"
Japanese actor Koji Yakusho, who starred in "The Eel," said
about his attendance at the festival this month.
"I feel so sad that we cannot see more Imamura movies that
are original and powerful. He was a treasure of Japanese
cinema," added the 50-year-old.
Born in 1926 in Tokyo to a doctor father, Imamura entered a
technical school to escape being drafted into the imperial
army during its conquest of Asia.
He went to study Western literature at prestigious Waseda
University and was profoundly marked by the poverty and
chaos in the aftermath of the war, which had left Tokyo
lying in ruins.
He had his break into cinema as an assistant to director
Yasujiro Ozu in the early 1950s but within a decade moved in
another direction, portraying the downtrodden of
20th-century Japan.
Imamura joined contemporaries Nagisa Oshima and Masahiro
Shinoda to lead the country's "Nouvelle Vague" in cinema.
He took a new perspective on the country's then soaring
spirits with the 1970 film "A History of Postwar Japan as
Told by a Bar Hostess." In his 1975 documentary
"Karayuki-san," he profiled Japanese women sent as
prostitutes to Southeast Asia to accompany wartime troops.
In his last feature-length film, "Warm Water Under a Red
Bridge" in 2001, he depicted the love and sex of a
middle-aged man.
"I have always regretted that I lacked lightness," Imamura
said about the movie. "I aim to produce movies which we can
laugh at and cry at in a big way."
In 2002, he joined 10 other directors such as Claude
Lelouch, Sean Penn and Ken Loach -- who took home the latest
Palme d'Or this week -- to contribute short episodes to the
omnibus production "September 11" in response to the terror
attacks in the United States.
Imamura portrayed a rural man who returns home from an
oveseas battlefield at the end of World War II, locks
himself up in a pen and acts as a snake in protest at
mankind over war.
"I am beginning to love short films with low budgets," he
said at that time. "I want to do a few more."
Apart from Imamura, three other directors including Francis
Ford Coppola won the Palme d'Or twice.
Henry Bumstead, the veteran Hollywood production designer who won Academy Awards for his work on "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Sting" and whose longtime association with actor-director Clint Eastwood kept him on the job into his 90s, has died. He was 91.
Bumstead, who reportedly had prostate cancer, died Wednesday in Pasadena, his family said.
In a nearly 70-year career that began when he was a draftsman in the art department at RKO in the late 1930s, Bumstead's first picture as an art director was the 1948 Paramount drama "Saigon," starring Alan Ladd.
Bumstead received his Academy Awards for his depiction of 1930s rural Alabama in director Robert Mulligan's 1962 drama "To Kill a Mockingbird" and for re-creating Depression-era Chicago in George Roy Hill's 1973 comedy-drama "The Sting."
He also received Oscar nominations for his work on Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 romantic thriller "Vertigo" and for Eastwood's 1992 western "Unforgiven."
Bumstead, who was affectionately known as Bummy, had more than 100 films to his credit, including "Come Back, Little Sheba," "Cinderfella," "The Great Waldo Pepper," "Slap Shot," "The Front Page," "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here," Martin Scorsese's 1991 version of "Cape Fear," "Mystic River" and "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil."
Bumstead recently completed work on Eastwood's companion movies "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Red Sun, Black Sand," the last of a 13-film collaboration.
"Bummy was one of a kind," Eastwood said in a statement Friday. "He seamlessly bridged the gap between what I saw on the page and what I saw through the camera lens. He is a legend in his field and a cherished friend. We will all miss him terribly."
Bumstead once described his job as a production designer by saying, "In a nutshell, my job is to break down the script, find the best possible locations, make a budget and design the appropriate sets that correspond to the story."
For Eastwood's 2002 crime thriller "Blood Work," which was shot in and around Los Angeles and Long Beach, he built the elaborate interior of an old freighter with a flooded engine room.
"That was a big set, and I got to do some wonderful aging," Bumstead told The Times in 2002. "I'm a stickler for aging — the rust and the dirt. It was just a beautiful set."
The tall and bearish Bumstead was an unpretentious, down-to-earth survivor of the old Hollywood studio system.
"I love doing films," he said in a 2002 interview with the Dallas Morning News in which he made note of his career longevity and said, "I've never been laid off, I've never been fired and I've never looked for a job."
In the same interview, Bumstead added: "I wouldn't be working now at my age if it weren't for Clint Eastwood."
Their professional relationship began on the 1972 western "Joe Kidd," directed by John Sturges and starring Eastwood. That was followed by the Eastwood-directed 1973 western "High Plains Drifter."
While working on "Million Dollar Baby," Eastwood's Oscar-winning 2004 drama about a female boxer starring Eastwood and Hilary Swank, Bumstead learned that he had prostate cancer.
"Clint furnished me with a car and driver and a wheelchair," he told Daily Variety last year. "I went through radiation and chemotherapy, but I was still able to work for him."
"What really makes him invaluable is that he has a great reservoir of memory and technique of working with everybody from Hitchcock to [Billy] Wilder," Eastwood told Variety. "Of that era, he's the last man standing."
Lloyd Henry Bumstead was born in Ontario on March 17, 1915.
He received a scholarship to USC, where he briefly played football and studied architecture.
After finishing his sophomore year, he received a call to work at RKO for the summer as an apprentice draftsman at $35 a week.
In 1937 he went to work at Paramount and, he recalled in a 2005 interview with MovieMaker magazine, "That was when I made the decision to make movies my life."
At Paramount, he worked for German-born art director Hans Dreier, who headed the art department and provided Bumstead with a valuable lesson. As he told MovieMaker:
"One day, he walked into my office, briefly looked over my sketches, nodded his head and said, 'Ah-ha! The character who inhabits that room must be a very learned man.' Then he walked away. I didn't know what he meant, so I went back to the script, re-read it and shook my head because the main character was anything but an educated person.
"When I looked at my drawing, I realized that I had designed the main character's house with more bookcases than you would find in most people's homes. The bulb went on and I realized my first lesson: Design sets that are livable for the specific type of people who inhabit them, and don't try to show every trick you know."
Bumstead, who enlisted in the Navy during World War II and was stationed in Washington, D.C., said in the 2002 Times interview that he also was taken under the wing of Dreier's assistant, Roland Anderson, who was Cecil B. DeMille's art director.
"I worked for him seven years before I became an art director," Bumstead said.
He was working on director Michael Curtiz's 1956 costume drama "The Vagabond King" when he was recommended to Hitchcock for the director's 1956 thriller "The Man Who Knew Too Much."
In addition to "Vertigo," Bumstead also worked on Hitchcock's 1969 film "Topaz" and his 1976 film "Family Plot," the director's final movie.
In 1998, Bumstead received the Art Directors Guild's lifetime achievement award.
He is survived by his wife of 23 years, Lena; three sons, Robert, Marty and Steven; a daughter, Ann Jones; two stepdaughters, Carolyn Ehret and Sue-Ellen Gittings; and 11 grandchildren.
The family requests that contributions in Bumstead's memory be made to the USC School of Architecture, care of Dottie O'Carroll, Watt Hall 204, Los Angeles, 90089-0291.
Bumstead, who reportedly had prostate cancer, died Wednesday in Pasadena, his family said.
In a nearly 70-year career that began when he was a draftsman in the art department at RKO in the late 1930s, Bumstead's first picture as an art director was the 1948 Paramount drama "Saigon," starring Alan Ladd.
Bumstead received his Academy Awards for his depiction of 1930s rural Alabama in director Robert Mulligan's 1962 drama "To Kill a Mockingbird" and for re-creating Depression-era Chicago in George Roy Hill's 1973 comedy-drama "The Sting."
He also received Oscar nominations for his work on Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 romantic thriller "Vertigo" and for Eastwood's 1992 western "Unforgiven."
Bumstead, who was affectionately known as Bummy, had more than 100 films to his credit, including "Come Back, Little Sheba," "Cinderfella," "The Great Waldo Pepper," "Slap Shot," "The Front Page," "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here," Martin Scorsese's 1991 version of "Cape Fear," "Mystic River" and "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil."
Bumstead recently completed work on Eastwood's companion movies "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Red Sun, Black Sand," the last of a 13-film collaboration.
"Bummy was one of a kind," Eastwood said in a statement Friday. "He seamlessly bridged the gap between what I saw on the page and what I saw through the camera lens. He is a legend in his field and a cherished friend. We will all miss him terribly."
Bumstead once described his job as a production designer by saying, "In a nutshell, my job is to break down the script, find the best possible locations, make a budget and design the appropriate sets that correspond to the story."
For Eastwood's 2002 crime thriller "Blood Work," which was shot in and around Los Angeles and Long Beach, he built the elaborate interior of an old freighter with a flooded engine room.
"That was a big set, and I got to do some wonderful aging," Bumstead told The Times in 2002. "I'm a stickler for aging — the rust and the dirt. It was just a beautiful set."
The tall and bearish Bumstead was an unpretentious, down-to-earth survivor of the old Hollywood studio system.
"I love doing films," he said in a 2002 interview with the Dallas Morning News in which he made note of his career longevity and said, "I've never been laid off, I've never been fired and I've never looked for a job."
In the same interview, Bumstead added: "I wouldn't be working now at my age if it weren't for Clint Eastwood."
Their professional relationship began on the 1972 western "Joe Kidd," directed by John Sturges and starring Eastwood. That was followed by the Eastwood-directed 1973 western "High Plains Drifter."
While working on "Million Dollar Baby," Eastwood's Oscar-winning 2004 drama about a female boxer starring Eastwood and Hilary Swank, Bumstead learned that he had prostate cancer.
"Clint furnished me with a car and driver and a wheelchair," he told Daily Variety last year. "I went through radiation and chemotherapy, but I was still able to work for him."
"What really makes him invaluable is that he has a great reservoir of memory and technique of working with everybody from Hitchcock to [Billy] Wilder," Eastwood told Variety. "Of that era, he's the last man standing."
Lloyd Henry Bumstead was born in Ontario on March 17, 1915.
He received a scholarship to USC, where he briefly played football and studied architecture.
After finishing his sophomore year, he received a call to work at RKO for the summer as an apprentice draftsman at $35 a week.
In 1937 he went to work at Paramount and, he recalled in a 2005 interview with MovieMaker magazine, "That was when I made the decision to make movies my life."
At Paramount, he worked for German-born art director Hans Dreier, who headed the art department and provided Bumstead with a valuable lesson. As he told MovieMaker:
"One day, he walked into my office, briefly looked over my sketches, nodded his head and said, 'Ah-ha! The character who inhabits that room must be a very learned man.' Then he walked away. I didn't know what he meant, so I went back to the script, re-read it and shook my head because the main character was anything but an educated person.
"When I looked at my drawing, I realized that I had designed the main character's house with more bookcases than you would find in most people's homes. The bulb went on and I realized my first lesson: Design sets that are livable for the specific type of people who inhabit them, and don't try to show every trick you know."
Bumstead, who enlisted in the Navy during World War II and was stationed in Washington, D.C., said in the 2002 Times interview that he also was taken under the wing of Dreier's assistant, Roland Anderson, who was Cecil B. DeMille's art director.
"I worked for him seven years before I became an art director," Bumstead said.
He was working on director Michael Curtiz's 1956 costume drama "The Vagabond King" when he was recommended to Hitchcock for the director's 1956 thriller "The Man Who Knew Too Much."
In addition to "Vertigo," Bumstead also worked on Hitchcock's 1969 film "Topaz" and his 1976 film "Family Plot," the director's final movie.
In 1998, Bumstead received the Art Directors Guild's lifetime achievement award.
He is survived by his wife of 23 years, Lena; three sons, Robert, Marty and Steven; a daughter, Ann Jones; two stepdaughters, Carolyn Ehret and Sue-Ellen Gittings; and 11 grandchildren.
The family requests that contributions in Bumstead's memory be made to the USC School of Architecture, care of Dottie O'Carroll, Watt Hall 204, Los Angeles, 90089-0291.
MIAMI (AP) -- Steve Mizerak, winner of multiple pool championships who became one of the game's more recognizable figures by appearing in training videos, beer commercials and a movie, has died at age 61, his wife said Tuesday.
Mizerak died Monday in Palm Beach County from complications stemming from gall bladder surgery, Karen Mizerak told The Associated Press. Mizerak had not returned home since entering the hospital in January, she said.
Known by his nickname "The Miz," Mizerak won four U.S. Open Championships and dozens of other billiards tournaments in his professional career, which began when he was 13. He was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 1980.
He used his talent and name recognition to make training books and videos, bringing basics such as breaks and bank shots, to more advanced techniques for trick shots, to the masses.
Mizerak also made a difficult trick shot in a now-famous commercial for Miller Lite, when the beer maker was using sports celebrities to sell its product in the 1970s and 1980s.
"He falls in there with Minnesota Fats and [Willie] Mosconi and some of the more popular players," said Stephen Ducoff, executive director of the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based billiard congress. "He's a recognizable household name."
Mizerak appeared in the 1986 film "The Color of Money," playing an opponent of Paul Newman's character, Fast Eddie Felson.
He also branched out in the billiards merchandise business, serving as president and designer for a company he formed to make pool cues.
Born in Perth Amboy, N.J., Mizerak learned to play billiards at age 4, standing on a milk box in his father's pool hall. Later, he taught history in public school and played pool in his spare time.
"He touched so many people. Everyone loved him, the kids at school looked up to him," Karen Mizerak said.
Later in life, Mizerak, who lived on Singer Island, founded the Seniors Masters Tour. He opened a billiard hall in Lake Park and taught amateurs, even after suffering a stroke in 2001, his wife said.
Other survivors include his two sons, a stepson and two granddaughters.
A church service was scheduled for Friday.
Mizerak died Monday in Palm Beach County from complications stemming from gall bladder surgery, Karen Mizerak told The Associated Press. Mizerak had not returned home since entering the hospital in January, she said.
Known by his nickname "The Miz," Mizerak won four U.S. Open Championships and dozens of other billiards tournaments in his professional career, which began when he was 13. He was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 1980.
He used his talent and name recognition to make training books and videos, bringing basics such as breaks and bank shots, to more advanced techniques for trick shots, to the masses.
Mizerak also made a difficult trick shot in a now-famous commercial for Miller Lite, when the beer maker was using sports celebrities to sell its product in the 1970s and 1980s.
"He falls in there with Minnesota Fats and [Willie] Mosconi and some of the more popular players," said Stephen Ducoff, executive director of the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based billiard congress. "He's a recognizable household name."
Mizerak appeared in the 1986 film "The Color of Money," playing an opponent of Paul Newman's character, Fast Eddie Felson.
He also branched out in the billiards merchandise business, serving as president and designer for a company he formed to make pool cues.
Born in Perth Amboy, N.J., Mizerak learned to play billiards at age 4, standing on a milk box in his father's pool hall. Later, he taught history in public school and played pool in his spare time.
"He touched so many people. Everyone loved him, the kids at school looked up to him," Karen Mizerak said.
Later in life, Mizerak, who lived on Singer Island, founded the Seniors Masters Tour. He opened a billiard hall in Lake Park and taught amateurs, even after suffering a stroke in 2001, his wife said.
Other survivors include his two sons, a stepson and two granddaughters.
A church service was scheduled for Friday.
grateful Dead Keyboardist dead...
From www.dead.net
Another loss to our family
June 2, 2006
The wheel is turning almightily fast. Life is
loss, but our times have turned sorrowful indeed.
It is with heavy hearts that we must tell you
that Vince Welnick passed away today, June 2,
2006. His service to and love for the Grateful
Dead were heart-felt and essential. He had a
loving soul and a joy in music that we were lucky
to share. We grieve especially for his widow Lori,
his sister Nancy, and the rest of his family.
Our Grateful Dead prayer for the repose of
his spirit: May the four winds blow him safely home.
From www.dead.net
Another loss to our family
June 2, 2006
The wheel is turning almightily fast. Life is
loss, but our times have turned sorrowful indeed.
It is with heavy hearts that we must tell you
that Vince Welnick passed away today, June 2,
2006. His service to and love for the Grateful
Dead were heart-felt and essential. He had a
loving soul and a joy in music that we were lucky
to share. We grieve especially for his widow Lori,
his sister Nancy, and the rest of his family.
Our Grateful Dead prayer for the repose of
his spirit: May the four winds blow him safely home.
Just wanted to post this alternate obit. for Craig Heyward:
QUOTE
We'll always have lather thingie
Saturday, May 27, 2006, 9:49 PM
He was the face of manliness that introduced men to the benefits of liquid body soap. Zest with lather thingie was a better shower experience.
Ironhead Heywood is dead at 39.
There's always something fun about watching a fat man run. Jerome Bettis showed this to us last year. There's just more enjoyment watching them run through people versus running away.
I think they enjoy it more too. Athletes like Ironhead are usually the ones with the biggest hearts. They respect the game because hard work, more than natural talent, is what made them successful.
Ironhead played briefly with the Bears. Nothing too distinguishing about his career there. I'll remember him in New Orleans teaming with the versatile Dalton Hilliard, giving the Saints a monster backfield.
5/27/2006 9:49:19 PM
Saturday, May 27, 2006, 9:49 PM
He was the face of manliness that introduced men to the benefits of liquid body soap. Zest with lather thingie was a better shower experience.
Ironhead Heywood is dead at 39.
There's always something fun about watching a fat man run. Jerome Bettis showed this to us last year. There's just more enjoyment watching them run through people versus running away.
I think they enjoy it more too. Athletes like Ironhead are usually the ones with the biggest hearts. They respect the game because hard work, more than natural talent, is what made them successful.
Ironhead played briefly with the Bears. Nothing too distinguishing about his career there. I'll remember him in New Orleans teaming with the versatile Dalton Hilliard, giving the Saints a monster backfield.
5/27/2006 9:49:19 PM
The great singer-songwriter and performer Billy Preston, the real "Fifth Beatle," has died after a long illness as a result of malignant hypertension that resulted in kidney failure and other complications.
As a result of a medical insult, he'd been in a deep coma since last November 21, but was still struggling to recover. He died at Shea Scottsdale Hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he'd lived for the last couple of years.
Billy was called the Fifth Beatle because he played keyboards on "Let It Be," "The White Album" and "Abbey Road." He also played on the Rolling Stones' hit song "Miss You," and often played with Eric Clapton. He also did the organ work on Sly & the Family Stone's greatest hits.
Preston's own hits include "Nothing From Nothing," "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "You Are So Beautiful," which Joe Cocker turned into an international hit.
Preston was actually mentored by Ray Charles, and acts like Little Richard (see below), Mahalia Jackson and James Cleveland had a huge impact on him at a young age.
In the early '60s, Billy went to Europe with Little Richard who was playing in Hamburg. The Beatles were the opening act, and as the story goes, he was the one who made sure they got fed.
His friendship with them lasted through the 1960s and he was the first act signed to Apple Records, thanks to George Harrison. The resulting album is called "That's the Way God Planned It."
In 1971, Preston played in "The Concert for Bangladesh." Last year, in one of his final appearances, he performed at a reunion in Los Angeles for the release of the Bangladesh DVD with Clapton and Harrison's son Dhani on guitar.
More recently, Billy can be heard on the latest albums by Neil Diamond and Red Hot Chili Peppers. He's also featured on the Starbucks soul album "Believe to My Soul," featuring Mavis Staples and Ann Peebles.
I had the good fortune to know Billy the last few years, and saw him perform — as chronicled in this column — last August at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut and last October at the Atlantis in the Bahamas.
He was one of those spectacular performers who put everything into his show, even though he had no working kidneys by then and was receiving dialysis. He was a warm, wonderful human being with a mile-wide smile. He was also a genius musician, the likes of whom we will not see again.
Rest in peace, Billy. You deserve it.
As a result of a medical insult, he'd been in a deep coma since last November 21, but was still struggling to recover. He died at Shea Scottsdale Hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he'd lived for the last couple of years.
Billy was called the Fifth Beatle because he played keyboards on "Let It Be," "The White Album" and "Abbey Road." He also played on the Rolling Stones' hit song "Miss You," and often played with Eric Clapton. He also did the organ work on Sly & the Family Stone's greatest hits.
Preston's own hits include "Nothing From Nothing," "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "You Are So Beautiful," which Joe Cocker turned into an international hit.
Preston was actually mentored by Ray Charles, and acts like Little Richard (see below), Mahalia Jackson and James Cleveland had a huge impact on him at a young age.
In the early '60s, Billy went to Europe with Little Richard who was playing in Hamburg. The Beatles were the opening act, and as the story goes, he was the one who made sure they got fed.
His friendship with them lasted through the 1960s and he was the first act signed to Apple Records, thanks to George Harrison. The resulting album is called "That's the Way God Planned It."
In 1971, Preston played in "The Concert for Bangladesh." Last year, in one of his final appearances, he performed at a reunion in Los Angeles for the release of the Bangladesh DVD with Clapton and Harrison's son Dhani on guitar.
More recently, Billy can be heard on the latest albums by Neil Diamond and Red Hot Chili Peppers. He's also featured on the Starbucks soul album "Believe to My Soul," featuring Mavis Staples and Ann Peebles.
I had the good fortune to know Billy the last few years, and saw him perform — as chronicled in this column — last August at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut and last October at the Atlantis in the Bahamas.
He was one of those spectacular performers who put everything into his show, even though he had no working kidneys by then and was receiving dialysis. He was a warm, wonderful human being with a mile-wide smile. He was also a genius musician, the likes of whom we will not see again.
Rest in peace, Billy. You deserve it.
QUOTE(Tony @ Jun 3 2006, 03:42 PM) [snapback]102099[/snapback]
grateful Dead Keyboardist dead...
From www.dead.net
Another loss to our family
June 2, 2006
The wheel is turning almightily fast. Life is
loss, but our times have turned sorrowful indeed.
It is with heavy hearts that we must tell you
that Vince Welnick passed away today, June 2,
2006. His service to and love for the Grateful
Dead were heart-felt and essential. He had a
loving soul and a joy in music that we were lucky
to share. We grieve especially for his widow Lori,
his sister Nancy, and the rest of his family.
Our Grateful Dead prayer for the repose of
his spirit: May the four winds blow him safely home.
Heh. Four down, one to go.
QUOTE(Tony @ Jun 6 2006, 01:29 PM) [snapback]104221[/snapback]
As a result of a medical insult, he'd been in a deep coma since last November 21, but was still struggling to recover. He died at Shea Scottsdale Hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he'd lived for the last couple of years.
damn. Billy's gone.
Alex Toth, 77, Comic Book Artist and 'Space Ghost' Animator, Dies
Alex Toth, an influential comic book artist best known for his work on "Zorro" and for his animation on children's television shows like "Jonny Quest," died on May 27 at his home in Burbank, Calif. He was 77.
The cause was heart failure, said his son, Eric Toth, who said that his father was at his drawing board when he died.
Gary Groth, editor of The Comics Journal, said Mr. Toth was "among the greatest comic book artists ever," though he was not famous for any particular character.
"He was an artist's artist, just because of his mastery of the form," Mr. Groth said. His style was not particularly popular among general comic book readers, Mr. Groth said, "but every cartoonist who cared deeply about his craft learned something by looking at his work."
Alexander Toth was born in Manhattan on June 25, 1928, the son of a house painter. He graduated from the High School of Industrial Arts. While in high school, he was taken under the wing of Milton Caniff, the creator of "Terry and the Pirates."
In 1947, Mr. Toth was hired by Sheldon Mayer, an editor at DC Comics, to work on "Green Lantern" and "Dr. Mid-Nite." Over the next two decades, he developed a sparse style, employing sharp contrasts. He moved to California in the late 1950's.
Mr. Toth worked on "Hot Wheels" for DC Comics, and was acclaimed for his work on "Zorro." In the 1970's, he created the character Jesse Bravo, a daredevil pilot, for the comic book "Bravo for Adventure."
But as comic books moved toward greater violence, which Mr. Toth outspokenly deplored, he increasingly clashed with editors and publishers. By the late 60's, he had started working on storyboards for children's television, including "Space Ghost," "Jonny Quest" and "Super Friends."
"These are Saturday-morning kid shows," Mr. Groth said, "and because they were pretty antiseptic, he didn't have any moral problems with that."
Besides his son Eric, of Holland, Mich.; Mr. Toth is survived by another son, Damon Toth of Costa Mesa, Calif.; and two daughters, Dana Palmer of Mexico Beach, Fla., and Carrie Morash of Evanston, Wyo. His marriage to Christina Schraber Hyde ended in divorce in 1968.
Oh yeah... Super Friends.
QUOTE(Ted Falconi @ Jun 6 2006, 12:55 PM) [snapback]104390[/snapback]
Alex Toth, 77, Comic Book Artist and 'Space Ghost' Animator, Dies
Alex Toth, an influential comic book artist best known for his work on "Zorro" and for his animation on children's television shows like "Jonny Quest," died on May 27 at his home in Burbank, Calif. He was 77.
The cause was heart failure, said his son, Eric Toth, who said that his father was at his drawing board when he died.
Gary Groth, editor of The Comics Journal, said Mr. Toth was "among the greatest comic book artists ever," though he was not famous for any particular character.
"He was an artist's artist, just because of his mastery of the form," Mr. Groth said. His style was not particularly popular among general comic book readers, Mr. Groth said, "but every cartoonist who cared deeply about his craft learned something by looking at his work."
Alexander Toth was born in Manhattan on June 25, 1928, the son of a house painter. He graduated from the High School of Industrial Arts. While in high school, he was taken under the wing of Milton Caniff, the creator of "Terry and the Pirates."
In 1947, Mr. Toth was hired by Sheldon Mayer, an editor at DC Comics, to work on "Green Lantern" and "Dr. Mid-Nite." Over the next two decades, he developed a sparse style, employing sharp contrasts. He moved to California in the late 1950's.
Mr. Toth worked on "Hot Wheels" for DC Comics, and was acclaimed for his work on "Zorro." In the 1970's, he created the character Jesse Bravo, a daredevil pilot, for the comic book "Bravo for Adventure."
But as comic books moved toward greater violence, which Mr. Toth outspokenly deplored, he increasingly clashed with editors and publishers. By the late 60's, he had started working on storyboards for children's television, including "Space Ghost," "Jonny Quest" and "Super Friends."
"These are Saturday-morning kid shows," Mr. Groth said, "and because they were pretty antiseptic, he didn't have any moral problems with that."
Besides his son Eric, of Holland, Mich.; Mr. Toth is survived by another son, Damon Toth of Costa Mesa, Calif.; and two daughters, Dana Palmer of Mexico Beach, Fla., and Carrie Morash of Evanston, Wyo. His marriage to Christina Schraber Hyde ended in divorce in 1968.
Dropped dead over his drawing board, talk about working right up to the end!
Obituary: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was Iraq's most notorious insurgent - a shadowy figure associated with spectacular bombings, assassinations and the beheading of foreign hostages.
The Jordanian-born militant first appeared in Iraq as the leader of the Tawhid and Jihad insurgent group, merging it in late 2004 with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
But most information on him was restricted to what his enemies and supporters have attributed to him.
While many analysts argued he had used the Iraqi insurgency as a springboard to expand his operations, others said his influence was exaggerated.
Pretext for war
In the run-up to the Iraq war in February 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations that Zarqawi was an associate of Osama Bin Laden who had sought refuge in Iraq.
Intelligence reports indicated he was in Baghdad and - according to Mr Powell - this was a sure sign that Saddam Hussein was courting al-Qaeda, which, in turn, justified an attack on Iraq.
But some analysts at the time contested the claim, pointing to Zarqawi's historical rivalry with Bin Laden.
Both men rose to prominence as "Afghan Arabs" - leading foreign fighters in the "jihad" against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
It was a far cry from Zarqawi's youth as a petty criminal in Jordan, remembered by those who knew him as a simple, quick-tempered and barely literate gangster.
But after the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan, Zarqawi went back to Jordan with a radical Islamist agenda.
Sentenced to death
He spent seven years in prison there, accused of conspiring to overthrow the monarchy and establish an Islamic caliphate.
Not long after his release under a general amnesty, he fled the country.
Jordan tried him in absentia and sentenced him to death for allegedly plotting attacks on American and Israeli tourists.
Western intelligence indicated Zarqawi had sought refuge in Europe.
German security forces later uncovered a militant cell which claimed Zarqawi was its leader.
Cell members told their German interrogators their group was "especially for Jordanians who did not want to join al-Qaeda".
According to the German intelligence report, this "conflicts with... information" from America.
Kurdish connection
The next stop on his itinerary was his old stamping ground - Afghanistan.
He is believed to have set up a training camp in the western city of Herat, near the border with Iran.
Students at his camp supposedly became experts in the manufacture and use of poison gases.
It is during this period that Zarqawi is thought to have renewed his acquaintance with al-Qaeda.
He is believed to have fled to Iraq in 2001 after a US missile strike on his Afghan base.
US officials argue that it was at al-Qaeda's behest that he moved to Iraq and established links with Ansar al-Islam - a group of Kurdish Islamists from the north of the country.
Sectarian strategy
In October 2002, Zarqawi was blamed for the assassination of US aid official Laurence Foley in Amman.
Months later, in 2003, he was named as the mastermind of a series of lethal bombings - from Casablanca in Morocco to Istanbul in Turkey.
It is in Iraq, though, that he was said to have been most active.
A letter released by the Americans in February 2004 seemed to support their claim that targeting Shias is central to Zarqawi's strategy in Iraq.
In it, Zarqawi appeared to share his plans for igniting sectarian conflict in Iraq as a means of undermining the US presence there.
Within days of the letter's release, bomb attacks on recruiting centres for the Iraqi security forces had killed nearly 100 people.
Another approach that sent shockwaves around the world was the beheadings of foreign hostages, which were posted on the internet in video footage attributed to the Tawhid and Jihad group.
Bin Laden rival?
The US military claimed to have injured Zarqawi in an assault in 2005. A statement released by al-Qaeda appeared to confirm this but said the injuries were minor.
Several men alleged to be key aides of Zarqawi have also been killed or captured - but these appeared to have had no effect on his group's ability to operate.
The US offered a $25m bounty on Zarqawi's head - the same sum they offered for Bin Laden himself.
But in the last year, he seemed to have been able to move his campaign beyond Iraq's borders again, claiming responsibility for a triple suicide bombing in the Jordanian capital Amman in November 2005, as well as other attacks.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was Iraq's most notorious insurgent - a shadowy figure associated with spectacular bombings, assassinations and the beheading of foreign hostages.
The Jordanian-born militant first appeared in Iraq as the leader of the Tawhid and Jihad insurgent group, merging it in late 2004 with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
But most information on him was restricted to what his enemies and supporters have attributed to him.
While many analysts argued he had used the Iraqi insurgency as a springboard to expand his operations, others said his influence was exaggerated.
Pretext for war
In the run-up to the Iraq war in February 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations that Zarqawi was an associate of Osama Bin Laden who had sought refuge in Iraq.
Intelligence reports indicated he was in Baghdad and - according to Mr Powell - this was a sure sign that Saddam Hussein was courting al-Qaeda, which, in turn, justified an attack on Iraq.
But some analysts at the time contested the claim, pointing to Zarqawi's historical rivalry with Bin Laden.
Both men rose to prominence as "Afghan Arabs" - leading foreign fighters in the "jihad" against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
It was a far cry from Zarqawi's youth as a petty criminal in Jordan, remembered by those who knew him as a simple, quick-tempered and barely literate gangster.
But after the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan, Zarqawi went back to Jordan with a radical Islamist agenda.
Sentenced to death
He spent seven years in prison there, accused of conspiring to overthrow the monarchy and establish an Islamic caliphate.
Not long after his release under a general amnesty, he fled the country.
Jordan tried him in absentia and sentenced him to death for allegedly plotting attacks on American and Israeli tourists.
Western intelligence indicated Zarqawi had sought refuge in Europe.
German security forces later uncovered a militant cell which claimed Zarqawi was its leader.
Cell members told their German interrogators their group was "especially for Jordanians who did not want to join al-Qaeda".
According to the German intelligence report, this "conflicts with... information" from America.
Kurdish connection
The next stop on his itinerary was his old stamping ground - Afghanistan.
He is believed to have set up a training camp in the western city of Herat, near the border with Iran.
Students at his camp supposedly became experts in the manufacture and use of poison gases.
It is during this period that Zarqawi is thought to have renewed his acquaintance with al-Qaeda.
He is believed to have fled to Iraq in 2001 after a US missile strike on his Afghan base.
US officials argue that it was at al-Qaeda's behest that he moved to Iraq and established links with Ansar al-Islam - a group of Kurdish Islamists from the north of the country.
Sectarian strategy
In October 2002, Zarqawi was blamed for the assassination of US aid official Laurence Foley in Amman.
Months later, in 2003, he was named as the mastermind of a series of lethal bombings - from Casablanca in Morocco to Istanbul in Turkey.
It is in Iraq, though, that he was said to have been most active.
A letter released by the Americans in February 2004 seemed to support their claim that targeting Shias is central to Zarqawi's strategy in Iraq.
In it, Zarqawi appeared to share his plans for igniting sectarian conflict in Iraq as a means of undermining the US presence there.
Within days of the letter's release, bomb attacks on recruiting centres for the Iraqi security forces had killed nearly 100 people.
Another approach that sent shockwaves around the world was the beheadings of foreign hostages, which were posted on the internet in video footage attributed to the Tawhid and Jihad group.
Bin Laden rival?
The US military claimed to have injured Zarqawi in an assault in 2005. A statement released by al-Qaeda appeared to confirm this but said the injuries were minor.
Several men alleged to be key aides of Zarqawi have also been killed or captured - but these appeared to have had no effect on his group's ability to operate.
The US offered a $25m bounty on Zarqawi's head - the same sum they offered for Bin Laden himself.
But in the last year, he seemed to have been able to move his campaign beyond Iraq's borders again, claiming responsibility for a triple suicide bombing in the Jordanian capital Amman in November 2005, as well as other attacks.
VIENNA, Austria - Composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who fled Hungary after the
1956 revolution and gained fame for his opera "Le Grand Macabre" and
his work on the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space
Odyssey," died Monday. He was 83.
Ligeti, celebrated as one of the world's leading 20th century musical
pioneers, died in Vienna after a long illness, said Christian
Krauscheid, a spokesman for his publisher, Schott Music in Germany.
Ligeti (pronounced lig'-ih-tee) was born in 1923 to Hungarian parents
in the predominantly ethnic Hungarian part of Romania's Transylvania
region. His father and brother later were murdered by the Nazis. He
took Austrian citizenship after fleeing his ex-communist homeland and
became known for "Macabre," which he wrote in 1978.
He began studying music under Ferenc Farkas at the conservatory in
Cluj, Romania, in 1941, and continued his studies in Budapest. But in
1943, he was arrested as a Jew and sentenced to forced labor for the
rest of World War II.
1956 revolution and gained fame for his opera "Le Grand Macabre" and
his work on the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space
Odyssey," died Monday. He was 83.
Ligeti, celebrated as one of the world's leading 20th century musical
pioneers, died in Vienna after a long illness, said Christian
Krauscheid, a spokesman for his publisher, Schott Music in Germany.
Ligeti (pronounced lig'-ih-tee) was born in 1923 to Hungarian parents
in the predominantly ethnic Hungarian part of Romania's Transylvania
region. His father and brother later were murdered by the Nazis. He
took Austrian citizenship after fleeing his ex-communist homeland and
became known for "Macabre," which he wrote in 1978.
He began studying music under Ferenc Farkas at the conservatory in
Cluj, Romania, in 1941, and continued his studies in Budapest. But in
1943, he was arrested as a Jew and sentenced to forced labor for the
rest of World War II.
Zany reliever who set World Series record dead at 70
By BEN WALKER, AP Baseball Writer
Moe Drabowsky, the prankster pitcher who delighted in putting pythons in teammates' shoes and wound up as a World Series star for the Baltimore Orioles when they won their first championship in 1966, is dead. He was 70.
Drabowsky died Saturday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center in Little Rock, spokeswoman Liz Caldwell said Sunday. He had been ill with multiple myeloma, the Orioles said.
Drabowsky worked for the Orioles' organization the last 13 seasons as their Florida pitching instructor, overseeing players in extended spring training and on rehab assignments.
More than anything, Drabowsky was known for being one of the most zany players in the majors -- he loved to make crank calls from bullpen phones and once gave commissioner Bowie Kuhn a hotfoot. In a 1987 interview with The Associated Press, while working as a minor league pitching coach for the Chicago White Sox, he lamented that the game wasn't so playful anymore.
"Players seem to be more serious now," he said then. "I would tend to believe they don't have as much fun. You don't find the same kind of characters in the game today. Egos are a big factor. And the guys are making so much money."
The highlight of Drabowsky's 17-year career came in Game 1 of the 1966 World Series. He set a record for relievers by striking out 11 over 6 2-3 scoreless innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers, starting the underdog Orioles toward a sweep.
Drabowsky pitched from 1956-72 with the Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Braves, Cincinnati, Kansas City Athletics, Baltimore, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis and the White Sox. He was 88-105 with 55 saves and a 3.71 ERA.
Drabowsky also was the answer to several trivia questions. He gave up Stan Musial's 3,000th career hit, was the losing pitcher in Early Wynn's 300th career victory and was the first Royals pitcher to win a game.
Yet Drabowsky developed more of a reputation for what he did off the field.
Slipping sneezing powder into the air conditioning system of the opponent's locker room was a pet trick. So was putting goldfish in the other team's water cooler. He was a master at hotfoots and claimed Kuhn as one of his victims, lighting the commissioner's shoe on fire during the Orioles' 1970 Series win over Cincinnati.
Oh, and the snakes: Because of Drabowsky, they'd show up in shaving kits, lockers and many other places. During a reunion dinner in Baltimore, in fact, one of them slithered out of Brooks Robinson's bread basket and frightened him.
Drabowsky made his share of crank calls from bullpen phones, too. He used the one at Anaheim Stadium to order takeout food from a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong. His favorite gag ever, he said, came at old Municipal Stadium in Kansas City.
"I had pitched there for a few years so I was familiar with the phone system. I knew the extension of the Kansas City bullpen and you could dial it direct from the visitor's bullpen," Drabowsky once recalled.
"One game, Jim Nash of the Athletics is cruising against us in about the fifth inning. So I call their bullpen and shout 'Get Krausse up' and hang up.
"You should've seen them scramble, trying to get Lew Krausse warmed up in a hurry," Drabowsky said. "It really was funny."
Born Myron Walter Drabowsky in 1935 in Poland, he was a young boy when his family left the country and made it to the United States.
Drabowsky, by the way, once said he never intended to be a kooky character. When he broke into the majors, he actually was ostracized by some teammates for being too serious.
"I signed with the Cubs in 1956 for $75,000, which was a lot of money then," he remembered. "Some of the guys used to get on me pretty good, saying I was strange because I carried The Sporting News under one arm and the Wall Street Journal under the other."
By BEN WALKER, AP Baseball Writer
Moe Drabowsky, the prankster pitcher who delighted in putting pythons in teammates' shoes and wound up as a World Series star for the Baltimore Orioles when they won their first championship in 1966, is dead. He was 70.
Drabowsky died Saturday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center in Little Rock, spokeswoman Liz Caldwell said Sunday. He had been ill with multiple myeloma, the Orioles said.
Drabowsky worked for the Orioles' organization the last 13 seasons as their Florida pitching instructor, overseeing players in extended spring training and on rehab assignments.
More than anything, Drabowsky was known for being one of the most zany players in the majors -- he loved to make crank calls from bullpen phones and once gave commissioner Bowie Kuhn a hotfoot. In a 1987 interview with The Associated Press, while working as a minor league pitching coach for the Chicago White Sox, he lamented that the game wasn't so playful anymore.
"Players seem to be more serious now," he said then. "I would tend to believe they don't have as much fun. You don't find the same kind of characters in the game today. Egos are a big factor. And the guys are making so much money."
The highlight of Drabowsky's 17-year career came in Game 1 of the 1966 World Series. He set a record for relievers by striking out 11 over 6 2-3 scoreless innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers, starting the underdog Orioles toward a sweep.
Drabowsky pitched from 1956-72 with the Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Braves, Cincinnati, Kansas City Athletics, Baltimore, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis and the White Sox. He was 88-105 with 55 saves and a 3.71 ERA.
Drabowsky also was the answer to several trivia questions. He gave up Stan Musial's 3,000th career hit, was the losing pitcher in Early Wynn's 300th career victory and was the first Royals pitcher to win a game.
Yet Drabowsky developed more of a reputation for what he did off the field.
Slipping sneezing powder into the air conditioning system of the opponent's locker room was a pet trick. So was putting goldfish in the other team's water cooler. He was a master at hotfoots and claimed Kuhn as one of his victims, lighting the commissioner's shoe on fire during the Orioles' 1970 Series win over Cincinnati.
Oh, and the snakes: Because of Drabowsky, they'd show up in shaving kits, lockers and many other places. During a reunion dinner in Baltimore, in fact, one of them slithered out of Brooks Robinson's bread basket and frightened him.
Drabowsky made his share of crank calls from bullpen phones, too. He used the one at Anaheim Stadium to order takeout food from a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong. His favorite gag ever, he said, came at old Municipal Stadium in Kansas City.
"I had pitched there for a few years so I was familiar with the phone system. I knew the extension of the Kansas City bullpen and you could dial it direct from the visitor's bullpen," Drabowsky once recalled.
"One game, Jim Nash of the Athletics is cruising against us in about the fifth inning. So I call their bullpen and shout 'Get Krausse up' and hang up.
"You should've seen them scramble, trying to get Lew Krausse warmed up in a hurry," Drabowsky said. "It really was funny."
Born Myron Walter Drabowsky in 1935 in Poland, he was a young boy when his family left the country and made it to the United States.
Drabowsky, by the way, once said he never intended to be a kooky character. When he broke into the majors, he actually was ostracized by some teammates for being too serious.
"I signed with the Cubs in 1956 for $75,000, which was a lot of money then," he remembered. "Some of the guys used to get on me pretty good, saying I was strange because I carried The Sporting News under one arm and the Wall Street Journal under the other."
Composer Gyorgy Ligeti dies
Creator of opera 'Le Grand Macabre' was 83
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press Writer
Published June 12, 2006, 9:17 AM CDT
VIENNA, Austria -- Composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who fled Hungary after the 1956 revolution and gained fame for his opera "Le Grand Macabre" and his work on the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," died Monday. He was 83.
Ligeti, celebrated as one of the world's leading 20th-century musical pioneers, died in Vienna after a long illness, said Christiane Krauscheid, a spokeswoman for his publisher, Germany-based Schott Music. Details were unavailable, but Austrian media said he spent the last three years in a wheelchair.
Ligeti (pronounced lig'-ih-tee) was born in 1923 to Hungarian parents in the predominantly ethnic Hungarian part of Romania's Transylvania region. His father and brother later were murdered by the Nazis. He took Austrian citizenship after fleeing his ex-communist homeland and became known for "Macabre," which he wrote in 1978.
He began studying music under Ferenc Farkas at the conservatory in Cluj, Romania, in 1941, and continued his studies in Budapest. But in 1943, he was arrested as a Jew and sentenced to forced labor for the rest of World War II.
After the war, Ligeti resumed his studies with Farkas and Sandor Veress at Budapest's Franz Liszt Academy. After graduation in 1949, he did research on Romanian folk music before returning to the academy as an instructor in harmony, counterpoint and formal analysis.
Ligeti's early work was heavily censored by Hungary's repressive regime, but his arrival in Vienna in 1956 opened up new possibilities. In the Austrian capital, he met key players in Western Europe's avant-garde music movement such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gottfried Michael Koenig and Herbert Eimert, who invited him to join an electronic music studio at West Germany's state radio in Cologne in 1957.
He won early critical acclaim for his 1958 electronic composition "Artikulation" and the orchestral "Apparitions." He gained notoriety for a technique he called "micropolyphony," which wove together musical color and texture in ways that transcended the traditional borders of melody, harmony and rhythm.
Ligeti spoke at least six languages, including his native Hungarian, German, French, and English, said Stephen Ferguson, who worked as his assistant and editor at Schott Music from 1992-96.
"He was one of the few avant-garde composers who found his way into the modern program," Ferguson said. "He was fascinated by patters, but at the same time created wonderful atmospheres, such as in '2001: A Space Odyssey,' or in 'Clocks and Clouds.'
"He reintroduced techniques of polyphony out of the tradition of Bach and Palestrina with a playful and innovative sense of sound. He developed a new sound -- cluster sound -- which fascinated Kubrick and propelled Legiti to the top of the great composers of the second half of the 20th century."
An excerpt from his 1966 work "Lux Aeterna" was used on the bestselling soundtrack for Kubrick's "Space Odyssey," winning Ligeti a global audience.
Kubrick returned to Ligeti in 1999, using the composer's Musica Ricercata II (Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale), as the theme for what turned out to be his final film, "Eyes Wide Shut."
Creator of opera 'Le Grand Macabre' was 83
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press Writer
Published June 12, 2006, 9:17 AM CDT
VIENNA, Austria -- Composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who fled Hungary after the 1956 revolution and gained fame for his opera "Le Grand Macabre" and his work on the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," died Monday. He was 83.
Ligeti, celebrated as one of the world's leading 20th-century musical pioneers, died in Vienna after a long illness, said Christiane Krauscheid, a spokeswoman for his publisher, Germany-based Schott Music. Details were unavailable, but Austrian media said he spent the last three years in a wheelchair.
Ligeti (pronounced lig'-ih-tee) was born in 1923 to Hungarian parents in the predominantly ethnic Hungarian part of Romania's Transylvania region. His father and brother later were murdered by the Nazis. He took Austrian citizenship after fleeing his ex-communist homeland and became known for "Macabre," which he wrote in 1978.
He began studying music under Ferenc Farkas at the conservatory in Cluj, Romania, in 1941, and continued his studies in Budapest. But in 1943, he was arrested as a Jew and sentenced to forced labor for the rest of World War II.
After the war, Ligeti resumed his studies with Farkas and Sandor Veress at Budapest's Franz Liszt Academy. After graduation in 1949, he did research on Romanian folk music before returning to the academy as an instructor in harmony, counterpoint and formal analysis.
Ligeti's early work was heavily censored by Hungary's repressive regime, but his arrival in Vienna in 1956 opened up new possibilities. In the Austrian capital, he met key players in Western Europe's avant-garde music movement such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gottfried Michael Koenig and Herbert Eimert, who invited him to join an electronic music studio at West Germany's state radio in Cologne in 1957.
He won early critical acclaim for his 1958 electronic composition "Artikulation" and the orchestral "Apparitions." He gained notoriety for a technique he called "micropolyphony," which wove together musical color and texture in ways that transcended the traditional borders of melody, harmony and rhythm.
Ligeti spoke at least six languages, including his native Hungarian, German, French, and English, said Stephen Ferguson, who worked as his assistant and editor at Schott Music from 1992-96.
"He was one of the few avant-garde composers who found his way into the modern program," Ferguson said. "He was fascinated by patters, but at the same time created wonderful atmospheres, such as in '2001: A Space Odyssey,' or in 'Clocks and Clouds.'
"He reintroduced techniques of polyphony out of the tradition of Bach and Palestrina with a playful and innovative sense of sound. He developed a new sound -- cluster sound -- which fascinated Kubrick and propelled Legiti to the top of the great composers of the second half of the 20th century."
An excerpt from his 1966 work "Lux Aeterna" was used on the bestselling soundtrack for Kubrick's "Space Odyssey," winning Ligeti a global audience.
Kubrick returned to Ligeti in 1999, using the composer's Musica Ricercata II (Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale), as the theme for what turned out to be his final film, "Eyes Wide Shut."
did Sidd Finch die?
Sir Peter Smithers, the man who inspired the James Bond books and who has died at the age of 92, was not only a spy but a politician, a barrister, a diplomat who headed the Council of Europe - and one of the 20th century's great gardeners.
His wartime exploits in naval intelligence alongside Commander Ian Fleming, later author of the Bond titles, helped provide the model for 007. Smithers organised the last-minute escape of British refugees as the Nazis advanced through France; he captured German spies landing in England and later, as a tall, charming, upper-crust naval attaché, he spread disinformation in the diplomatic set in wartime Washington.
Unlike some war heroes who retire into obscurity once peace is declared, Smithers went on to become Tory MP for Winchester, a Foreign Office minister and eventually secretary-general of the Council of Europe. A passionate European, he was even more passionately opposed to a federal Europe dominated by Brussels. He never forgave the then foreign secretary Sir Anthony Eden for sabotaging attempts to build the Council of Europe into a substantial political institution.
He felt that by Eden's "suicidal policy, Britain surrendered the initiative in Europe". The leadership vacuum was filled by the French and the result was a progressively more federal Europe. When they met in the House of Commons smoking room, Eden would say to Smithers: "Now please don't bore me with Europe." By the time Smithers stepped down as secretary-general in 1969, the political tide in Britain was turning in favour of joining the European Economic Community.
Yet Smithers, widely regarded as one of the most effective secretaries-general, made the Council of Europe a much more formidable body even though council members were responsible to their own governments and not to Brussels bureaucrats.
His view of a non-federal Europe of nation states was very much akin to that of Margaret Thatcher and the two became close.
Whatever his political disappointments, Smithers could always take comfort from his first love - his gardens. A great plantsman and a brilliant photographer of flowers and plants, he created superb gardens wherever he went: in Mexico where he was the naval attaché; in Winchester; in Strasbourg; and finally at Vico Morcote above Lake Lugano in Switzerland. This last was described as one of the 500 greatest gardens in the world since the time of the Romans. His interest in gardening started early. Born in Yorkshire in 1913, the son of an army officer, Peter Henry Berry Otway Smithers was "brought up by nanny and granny during world war one". Nanny was a naturalist who fed him hawthorn shoots and fried blackbirds' eggs. Educated at Harrow he "fell for lilies in a big way" and began an index of every plant and packet of seeds he ever acquired. The number eventually totalled over 32,000.
He took a first in modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1954 was awarded a doctorate for his life of Joseph Addison, the 18th century essayist and poet. He was called to the bar but on the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. After a serious bout of measles he seemed headed for a desk job but was rescued by Fleming, who posted him to the Secret Intelligence Service in Paris. When Paris fell, Smithers and Fleming moved to Bordeaux and destroyed all British papers in the consulate.
After a period back in Britain Smithers was posted first to Washington and then to Mexico, where he met his American wife, Dojean Sayman. He and Dojean, who died earlier this year, had two daughters.
His wartime exploits in naval intelligence alongside Commander Ian Fleming, later author of the Bond titles, helped provide the model for 007. Smithers organised the last-minute escape of British refugees as the Nazis advanced through France; he captured German spies landing in England and later, as a tall, charming, upper-crust naval attaché, he spread disinformation in the diplomatic set in wartime Washington.
Unlike some war heroes who retire into obscurity once peace is declared, Smithers went on to become Tory MP for Winchester, a Foreign Office minister and eventually secretary-general of the Council of Europe. A passionate European, he was even more passionately opposed to a federal Europe dominated by Brussels. He never forgave the then foreign secretary Sir Anthony Eden for sabotaging attempts to build the Council of Europe into a substantial political institution.
He felt that by Eden's "suicidal policy, Britain surrendered the initiative in Europe". The leadership vacuum was filled by the French and the result was a progressively more federal Europe. When they met in the House of Commons smoking room, Eden would say to Smithers: "Now please don't bore me with Europe." By the time Smithers stepped down as secretary-general in 1969, the political tide in Britain was turning in favour of joining the European Economic Community.
Yet Smithers, widely regarded as one of the most effective secretaries-general, made the Council of Europe a much more formidable body even though council members were responsible to their own governments and not to Brussels bureaucrats.
His view of a non-federal Europe of nation states was very much akin to that of Margaret Thatcher and the two became close.
Whatever his political disappointments, Smithers could always take comfort from his first love - his gardens. A great plantsman and a brilliant photographer of flowers and plants, he created superb gardens wherever he went: in Mexico where he was the naval attaché; in Winchester; in Strasbourg; and finally at Vico Morcote above Lake Lugano in Switzerland. This last was described as one of the 500 greatest gardens in the world since the time of the Romans. His interest in gardening started early. Born in Yorkshire in 1913, the son of an army officer, Peter Henry Berry Otway Smithers was "brought up by nanny and granny during world war one". Nanny was a naturalist who fed him hawthorn shoots and fried blackbirds' eggs. Educated at Harrow he "fell for lilies in a big way" and began an index of every plant and packet of seeds he ever acquired. The number eventually totalled over 32,000.
He took a first in modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1954 was awarded a doctorate for his life of Joseph Addison, the 18th century essayist and poet. He was called to the bar but on the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. After a serious bout of measles he seemed headed for a desk job but was rescued by Fleming, who posted him to the Secret Intelligence Service in Paris. When Paris fell, Smithers and Fleming moved to Bordeaux and destroyed all British papers in the consulate.
After a period back in Britain Smithers was posted first to Washington and then to Mexico, where he met his American wife, Dojean Sayman. He and Dojean, who died earlier this year, had two daughters.
Hollywood director Sherman dies at 99
By BOB THOMAS, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 19, 11:51 PM ET
LOS ANGELES - Vincent Sherman, who directed — and romanced — Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth and Joan Crawford during his heyday as a leading Hollywood filmmaker in the 1940s and '50s, has died. He would have been 100 on July 16.
His death Sunday night of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital was announced Monday by his son, Eric Sherman.
"Vince was in good condition until two months ago," said actress Francine York, his companion for the last nine years. "In January he had appeared on a documentary about Humphrey Bogart, and he told a lot of good stories. He was the last of the gentlemen, a real Southern gentleman."
Sherman, whose film career was seriously damaged by Hollywood's communist "red scare," later became a successful director of such television series as "The Waltons," "Doctors Hospital," "Baretta," "Trapper John, M.D." and "77 Sunset Strip."
He had begun as an actor, appearing on Broadway and in a handful of movies, among them 1933's "Counselor at Law," in which he had a small but memorable role as a young anarchist opposite John Barrymore. He also wrote several screenplays, including "Crime School," which starred Bogart and the Dead End Kids.
Because of his ability to evoke powerful performances from strong-willed female stars — he also directed Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan and Patricia Neal — Sherman became known as a woman's director, a title he hated. He was quick to point out that he also directed Errol Flynn in "The Adventures of Don Juan," Paul Newman in "The Young Philadelphians," Bogart in "All Through the Night," Richard Burton in "The Ice Palace" and Ronald Reagan in "The Hasty Heart."
Sherman also gained a reputation for romancing many of his famous actresses, and he wrote about them in his 1996 autobiography, "Studio Affairs."
Though both were married at the time, he and Davis had an affair that began during the filming of 1943's "Old Acquaintance" and continued through "Mr. Skeffington," which was released the following year. His dalliance with Crawford lasted through three movies, and another with Hayworth happened during "Affair in Trinidad," after she had divorced Aly Khan.
Sherman's wife, Hedda, tolerated his extramarital adventures, and their marriage lasted 53 years. She died in 1984.
During the early 1950s, his thriving career foundered as he was dropped without explanation by Warner Bros. A federal agent had told the studio Sherman was suspected of communist ties.
"I wasn't a communist," he remarked in 1997, "but I knew people like John Garfield who'd been blacklisted, and I stood beside them."
Other studios shunned him, and he was caught in "a Kafkaesque situation."
After five years, he became employable again but never recovered his knack for skillful melodrama. His last major feature was a lame western comedy, "The Second Time Around," with Debbie Reynolds and Andy Griffith in 1961.
"My strong points were my relationships with actors; I got good performances from people," he said in a 1997 interview. "My weak points were in accepting assignments when I should have said no."
Turning to television, he worked well into the 1980s.
Born Abram Orovitz to one of the only two Jewish families in Vienna, Ga., in 1906, Sherman learned at an early age to defend himself against the taunts of his schoolmates.
After graduating from Oglethorpe University, he sought an acting career in New York, joining the left-wing Group Theater. Since ethnic names for actors were unfashionable, he changed his to Vincent Sherman. Squarely built with black hair and a ruggedly handsome face, he quickly began appearing on Broadway.
In the late 1940s Warner Bros. hired Sherman under an acting-writing-directing contract, and he was assigned to the studio's B-picture unit, adapting old movies into remakes.
He broke out as a director in 1942 with a gripping melodrama "The Hard Way."
Although he would go on to direct many important projects, he never rose to the level that would afford him consideration for an Academy Award.
"Of the 30 pictures that I made, I really liked only 10 or 12 of them," he said in 1997. "The rest were what we called bread-and-butter pictures."
Besides his son, Sherman is survived by a daughter, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
By BOB THOMAS, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 19, 11:51 PM ET
LOS ANGELES - Vincent Sherman, who directed — and romanced — Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth and Joan Crawford during his heyday as a leading Hollywood filmmaker in the 1940s and '50s, has died. He would have been 100 on July 16.
His death Sunday night of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital was announced Monday by his son, Eric Sherman.
"Vince was in good condition until two months ago," said actress Francine York, his companion for the last nine years. "In January he had appeared on a documentary about Humphrey Bogart, and he told a lot of good stories. He was the last of the gentlemen, a real Southern gentleman."
Sherman, whose film career was seriously damaged by Hollywood's communist "red scare," later became a successful director of such television series as "The Waltons," "Doctors Hospital," "Baretta," "Trapper John, M.D." and "77 Sunset Strip."
He had begun as an actor, appearing on Broadway and in a handful of movies, among them 1933's "Counselor at Law," in which he had a small but memorable role as a young anarchist opposite John Barrymore. He also wrote several screenplays, including "Crime School," which starred Bogart and the Dead End Kids.
Because of his ability to evoke powerful performances from strong-willed female stars — he also directed Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan and Patricia Neal — Sherman became known as a woman's director, a title he hated. He was quick to point out that he also directed Errol Flynn in "The Adventures of Don Juan," Paul Newman in "The Young Philadelphians," Bogart in "All Through the Night," Richard Burton in "The Ice Palace" and Ronald Reagan in "The Hasty Heart."
Sherman also gained a reputation for romancing many of his famous actresses, and he wrote about them in his 1996 autobiography, "Studio Affairs."
Though both were married at the time, he and Davis had an affair that began during the filming of 1943's "Old Acquaintance" and continued through "Mr. Skeffington," which was released the following year. His dalliance with Crawford lasted through three movies, and another with Hayworth happened during "Affair in Trinidad," after she had divorced Aly Khan.
Sherman's wife, Hedda, tolerated his extramarital adventures, and their marriage lasted 53 years. She died in 1984.
During the early 1950s, his thriving career foundered as he was dropped without explanation by Warner Bros. A federal agent had told the studio Sherman was suspected of communist ties.
"I wasn't a communist," he remarked in 1997, "but I knew people like John Garfield who'd been blacklisted, and I stood beside them."
Other studios shunned him, and he was caught in "a Kafkaesque situation."
After five years, he became employable again but never recovered his knack for skillful melodrama. His last major feature was a lame western comedy, "The Second Time Around," with Debbie Reynolds and Andy Griffith in 1961.
"My strong points were my relationships with actors; I got good performances from people," he said in a 1997 interview. "My weak points were in accepting assignments when I should have said no."
Turning to television, he worked well into the 1980s.
Born Abram Orovitz to one of the only two Jewish families in Vienna, Ga., in 1906, Sherman learned at an early age to defend himself against the taunts of his schoolmates.
After graduating from Oglethorpe University, he sought an acting career in New York, joining the left-wing Group Theater. Since ethnic names for actors were unfashionable, he changed his to Vincent Sherman. Squarely built with black hair and a ruggedly handsome face, he quickly began appearing on Broadway.
In the late 1940s Warner Bros. hired Sherman under an acting-writing-directing contract, and he was assigned to the studio's B-picture unit, adapting old movies into remakes.
He broke out as a director in 1942 with a gripping melodrama "The Hard Way."
Although he would go on to direct many important projects, he never rose to the level that would afford him consideration for an Academy Award.
"Of the 30 pictures that I made, I really liked only 10 or 12 of them," he said in 1997. "The rest were what we called bread-and-butter pictures."
Besides his son, Sherman is survived by a daughter, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
The Los Angeles judge who presided over the murder trial of Charles Manson and his followers has died.
Charles Older was 88. He died Saturday of complications from a fall.
A longtime friend and former law partner describes Older as "a Renaissance man" who enjoyed painting and golf. He'd also been a war hero -- serving as a pilot with the Flying Tigers and shooting down at least 18 Japanese planes during World War Two.
Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi remembers Older as a man who handled the circus-like trial in a firm, fair and dignified way.
Manson tried to attack the judge at one point in the proceedings.
After the trial, Older sent a Los Angeles Times reporter to jail for refusing to reveal the source for a story he wrote on the case.
Charles Older was 88. He died Saturday of complications from a fall.
A longtime friend and former law partner describes Older as "a Renaissance man" who enjoyed painting and golf. He'd also been a war hero -- serving as a pilot with the Flying Tigers and shooting down at least 18 Japanese planes during World War Two.
Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi remembers Older as a man who handled the circus-like trial in a firm, fair and dignified way.
Manson tried to attack the judge at one point in the proceedings.
After the trial, Older sent a Los Angeles Times reporter to jail for refusing to reveal the source for a story he wrote on the case.
Claydes Charles Smith, a co-founder and lead guitarist of the group
Kool & the Gang, has died. He was 57.
Smith died in Maplewood, N.J., on Tuesday after a long illness,
publicist David Brokaw said Thursday. Brokaw did not know the cause of
death.
"We've lost a member of our family, as well as an infinitely creative
and gifted artist who was with the band from the very beginning," band
manager Tia Sinclair said in a statement.
Kool & the Gang grew from jazz roots in the 1960s to become one of the
major groups of the 1970s, blending jazz, funk, R&B and pop. After a
downturn, the group enjoyed a return to stardom in the '80s.
Smith, who was known as Charles Smith, wrote the hits "Joanna" and
"Take My Heart," and was a co-writer of others, including
"Celebration,""Hollywood Swinging" and "Jungle Boogie."
Born on Sept. 6, 1948, in Jersey City, N.J., he was introduce to jazz
guitar by his father in the early 1960s.
Later in that decade he was in a group of New Jersey jazz musicians,
including Ronald Bell (later Khalis Bayyan), Robert "Kool" Bell, George
Brown, Dennis Thomas and Robert "Spike" Mickens, who became Kool & the
Gang. Other members would include lead singer James "JT" Taylor.
Illness forced Smith to stop touring with the group in January.
Smith is survived by his six children, Claydes A. Smith, Justin Smith,
Aaron Corbin, August Williams, Uranus Guray and Tyteen Humes, and nine
grandchildren.
Kool & the Gang, has died. He was 57.
Smith died in Maplewood, N.J., on Tuesday after a long illness,
publicist David Brokaw said Thursday. Brokaw did not know the cause of
death.
"We've lost a member of our family, as well as an infinitely creative
and gifted artist who was with the band from the very beginning," band
manager Tia Sinclair said in a statement.
Kool & the Gang grew from jazz roots in the 1960s to become one of the
major groups of the 1970s, blending jazz, funk, R&B and pop. After a
downturn, the group enjoyed a return to stardom in the '80s.
Smith, who was known as Charles Smith, wrote the hits "Joanna" and
"Take My Heart," and was a co-writer of others, including
"Celebration,""Hollywood Swinging" and "Jungle Boogie."
Born on Sept. 6, 1948, in Jersey City, N.J., he was introduce to jazz
guitar by his father in the early 1960s.
Later in that decade he was in a group of New Jersey jazz musicians,
including Ronald Bell (later Khalis Bayyan), Robert "Kool" Bell, George
Brown, Dennis Thomas and Robert "Spike" Mickens, who became Kool & the
Gang. Other members would include lead singer James "JT" Taylor.
Illness forced Smith to stop touring with the group in January.
Smith is survived by his six children, Claydes A. Smith, Justin Smith,
Aaron Corbin, August Williams, Uranus Guray and Tyteen Humes, and nine
grandchildren.
A publicist for Aaron Spelling says the pioneering television producer has died at age 83.
Patsy
Ramsey, mother of slain infant JonBenet Ramsey, died Saturday of
ovarian cancer.
According to The Associated Press, a Colorado television station
reported that Ramsey died in Atlanta. It quoted her lawyer, L. Lin
Wood.
CNN also confirmed Ramsey's death.
Wood did not return a call to The Associated Press seeking comment.
However, Wood did speak to CNN and said that Ramsey died at
approximately 3:30 a.m. Saturday after struggling to battle a
recurrence of the cancer.
Ramsey had been battling the disease for three years, Wood told CNN.
Ramsey and her husband, John, moved to Atlanta following intense media
scrutiny surrounding the death of their 6-year-old daughter. The child
beauty queen was found dead in the basement of the family's Boulder,
Colo., home in 1996.
Ramsey, mother of slain infant JonBenet Ramsey, died Saturday of
ovarian cancer.
According to The Associated Press, a Colorado television station
reported that Ramsey died in Atlanta. It quoted her lawyer, L. Lin
Wood.
CNN also confirmed Ramsey's death.
Wood did not return a call to The Associated Press seeking comment.
However, Wood did speak to CNN and said that Ramsey died at
approximately 3:30 a.m. Saturday after struggling to battle a
recurrence of the cancer.
Ramsey had been battling the disease for three years, Wood told CNN.
Ramsey and her husband, John, moved to Atlanta following intense media
scrutiny surrounding the death of their 6-year-old daughter. The child
beauty queen was found dead in the basement of the family's Boulder,
Colo., home in 1996.
I still think she was somehow involved in her daughter's murder.
Whateva newbs, show us yer tits
176-year-old ‘Darwin’s tortoise’ dies in zoo
‘Grand old lady’ Harriet may have been scientist’s find from Galapagos
SYDNEY, Australia - A 176-year-old tortoise believed to be one of the world’s oldest living creatures has died in an Australian zoo.
The giant tortoise, known as Harriet, died at the Queensland-based Australia Zoo owned by “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin and his wife Terri. Irwin said he considered Harriet a member of the family.
“Harriet has been a huge chunk of the Irwin family’s life,” Irwin said Saturday. “She is possibly one of the oldest living creatures on the planet and her passing today is not only a great loss for the world but a very sad day for my family. She was a grand old lady.”
Senior veterinarian Jon Hanger told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Friday that Harriet died of heart failure.
Harriet was long reputed to have been one of three tortoises taken from the Galapagos Islands by Charles Darwin on his historic 1835 voyage aboard the HMS Beagle.
However, historical records, while suggestive, don’t prove the claim. And some scientists have cast doubt on the story, with DNA tests confirming Harriet’s age but showing she came from an island that Darwin never visited.
According to local legend, Harriet was just five years old and probably no bigger than a dinner plate when she was taken from the Galapagos to Britain.
The tortoise spent a few years in Britain before being moved to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens in Australia’s tropical Queensland state in the mid-1800s. There she was mistaken for a male and nicknamed Harry, according to Australia Zoo, which later bought the 330-pound tortoise in 1987.
Harriet was believed to be the world’s oldest living tortoise, and one of its oldest living creatures. Despite her longevity, however, Harriet is not the world’s oldest known tortoise.
That title was awarded by the Guinness Book of World Records to Tui Malila, a Madagascar radiated tortoise that was presented to the royal family of Tonga by British explorer Captain James Cook in the 1770s. It died in 1965 at the ripe age of 188.
‘Grand old lady’ Harriet may have been scientist’s find from Galapagos
SYDNEY, Australia - A 176-year-old tortoise believed to be one of the world’s oldest living creatures has died in an Australian zoo.
The giant tortoise, known as Harriet, died at the Queensland-based Australia Zoo owned by “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin and his wife Terri. Irwin said he considered Harriet a member of the family.
“Harriet has been a huge chunk of the Irwin family’s life,” Irwin said Saturday. “She is possibly one of the oldest living creatures on the planet and her passing today is not only a great loss for the world but a very sad day for my family. She was a grand old lady.”
Senior veterinarian Jon Hanger told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Friday that Harriet died of heart failure.
Harriet was long reputed to have been one of three tortoises taken from the Galapagos Islands by Charles Darwin on his historic 1835 voyage aboard the HMS Beagle.
However, historical records, while suggestive, don’t prove the claim. And some scientists have cast doubt on the story, with DNA tests confirming Harriet’s age but showing she came from an island that Darwin never visited.
According to local legend, Harriet was just five years old and probably no bigger than a dinner plate when she was taken from the Galapagos to Britain.
The tortoise spent a few years in Britain before being moved to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens in Australia’s tropical Queensland state in the mid-1800s. There she was mistaken for a male and nicknamed Harry, according to Australia Zoo, which later bought the 330-pound tortoise in 1987.
Harriet was believed to be the world’s oldest living tortoise, and one of its oldest living creatures. Despite her longevity, however, Harriet is not the world’s oldest known tortoise.
That title was awarded by the Guinness Book of World Records to Tui Malila, a Madagascar radiated tortoise that was presented to the royal family of Tonga by British explorer Captain James Cook in the 1770s. It died in 1965 at the ripe age of 188.
Music legend Arif Mardin has died of pancreatic cancer in New York.
Mardin made his name with Atlantic Records with his work with Aretha Franklin. He was with the label 1963 to 2001 before leaving to set up his own label at EMI where he developed the talents of Norah Jones.
His career started in 1956 when he met jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie in Turkey who inspired him to take up a scholarship in the USA.
At Atlantic, he first worked as an assistant to co-founder Nesuhi Ethegun before becoming studio manager, then house manager then arranger.
In 1967, he arranged Aretha Franklin’s ‘I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You’ album as well as her soul classic ‘Respect’.
What followed in the 60’s was work with The Rascals, Dusty Springfield and Laura Nyro and the 70’s with Hall & Oates, Bette Midler and Roberta Flack.
The major success of his career came in 1974 when he took up production chores for a waning Aussie pop band called The Bee Gees. Mardin produced hits like ‘Jive Talking’ and ‘You Should Be Dancing’, relaunching the band’s career and sending them to supergroup status.
That followed even more successes for Mardin with Rod Stewart, Average White Band, George Benson and Carly Simon.
It didn’t stop in the 80’s either. Mardin worked on Phil Collins first solo album ‘Face Value’ and again with Bette Midler for her now signature tune ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’.
A memorial service for Mardin is expected to be planned for New York and he will be buried in his birth country Turkey.
Mardin made his name with Atlantic Records with his work with Aretha Franklin. He was with the label 1963 to 2001 before leaving to set up his own label at EMI where he developed the talents of Norah Jones.
His career started in 1956 when he met jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie in Turkey who inspired him to take up a scholarship in the USA.
At Atlantic, he first worked as an assistant to co-founder Nesuhi Ethegun before becoming studio manager, then house manager then arranger.
In 1967, he arranged Aretha Franklin’s ‘I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You’ album as well as her soul classic ‘Respect’.
What followed in the 60’s was work with The Rascals, Dusty Springfield and Laura Nyro and the 70’s with Hall & Oates, Bette Midler and Roberta Flack.
The major success of his career came in 1974 when he took up production chores for a waning Aussie pop band called The Bee Gees. Mardin produced hits like ‘Jive Talking’ and ‘You Should Be Dancing’, relaunching the band’s career and sending them to supergroup status.
That followed even more successes for Mardin with Rod Stewart, Average White Band, George Benson and Carly Simon.
It didn’t stop in the 80’s either. Mardin worked on Phil Collins first solo album ‘Face Value’ and again with Bette Midler for her now signature tune ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’.
A memorial service for Mardin is expected to be planned for New York and he will be buried in his birth country Turkey.
Eddie the dog dies at 16
Moose, the Jack Russel terrier who played Eddie for ten years on the sitcom Frasier, has died at his owner's home in California.
Mathilde Halberg, Moose's owner and trainer, said he died of old age on Thursday evening, according to reports in the American entertainment magazine People.
Moose was a mischievous dog in his younger years, frequently running away, according to Ms Halberg.
He was given up by his former owners after he chased horses and killed the neighbour's cat.
Ms Halberg rescued Moose from the pound in the early 1990s.
Moose played a starring role in the 2000 feature My Dog Skip (as the older Skip), but he was best known as Frasier's father Martin's dog on the award-winning NBC sitcom.
He retired from acting when he turned 10. His son, Enzo, took over his role on the sitcom.
Moose's autobiography, My Life as a Dog, co-authored by Brian Hargrove, was published in 2000.
Moose, the Jack Russel terrier who played Eddie for ten years on the sitcom Frasier, has died at his owner's home in California.
Mathilde Halberg, Moose's owner and trainer, said he died of old age on Thursday evening, according to reports in the American entertainment magazine People.
Moose was a mischievous dog in his younger years, frequently running away, according to Ms Halberg.
He was given up by his former owners after he chased horses and killed the neighbour's cat.
Ms Halberg rescued Moose from the pound in the early 1990s.
Moose played a starring role in the 2000 feature My Dog Skip (as the older Skip), but he was best known as Frasier's father Martin's dog on the award-winning NBC sitcom.
He retired from acting when he turned 10. His son, Enzo, took over his role on the sitcom.
Moose's autobiography, My Life as a Dog, co-authored by Brian Hargrove, was published in 2000.
Wasn't Moose in The Mask? Possibly his finest moment. (To be fair, I haven't seen it since it hit theaters, and I was still watching Saturday morning cartoons back then.)
Kathleen O'Hara Wood, the widow of cult film director Ed Wood, died of cancer of the esophogus at Hollywood Presbyterian Queen of Angels Hospital on June 26, 2006. She was 84. She and Wood were together for 27 years before the director's death in December of 1978. She had also served as art director on Wood's 1959 film "Night of the Ghouls". She was portrayed by Patricia Arquette in Tim Burton's 1994 bio-film "Ed Wood" starring Johnny Depp. She also appeared as herself in the 1994 documentary "Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora". Kathleen Wood had a small role in the 1998 film "I Woke Up Early the Day I Died", based on a Ed Wood script.
QUOTE(undo @ Jun 4 2006, 11:51 PM) [snapback]102544[/snapback]
Just wanted to post this alternate obit. for Craig Heyward:
QUOTE
We'll always have lather thingie
He was the face of manliness that introduced men to the benefits of liquid body soap. Zest with lather thingie was a better shower experience.
Ironhead Heywood is dead at 39.
He was the face of manliness that introduced men to the benefits of liquid body soap. Zest with lather thingie was a better shower experience.
Ironhead Heywood is dead at 39.
That lather thingy is the best.
QUOTE(Tony @ Jun 24 2006, 10:48 AM) [snapback]117431[/snapback]
Patsy
Ramsey, mother of slain infant JonBenet Ramsey, died Saturday of
ovarian cancer.
According to The Associated Press, a Colorado television station
reported that Ramsey died in Atlanta. It quoted her lawyer, L. Lin
Wood.
CNN also confirmed Ramsey's death.
Wood did not return a call to The Associated Press seeking comment.
However, Wood did speak to CNN and said that Ramsey died at
approximately 3:30 a.m. Saturday after struggling to battle a
recurrence of the cancer.
Ramsey had been battling the disease for three years, Wood told CNN.
Ramsey and her husband, John, moved to Atlanta following intense media
scrutiny surrounding the death of their 6-year-old daughter. The child
beauty queen was found dead in the basement of the family's Boulder,
Colo., home in 1996.
Karma can be a bitch sometimes.
DETROIT -- A Marine and one-time recruiter who appeared in Michael Moore's documentary film "Fahrenheit 9/11" has died in a roadside bombing in Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Raymond J. Plouhar, 30, died Monday of wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Iraq's volatile Anbar province, the Defense Department said Tuesday.
Plouhar, who was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., had taken four years off from active duty to serve as a recruiter in Flint , Mich., after donating one of his kidneys to his uncle. He is seen in the 2004 film approaching prospective recruits in a mall parking lot.
"It's better to get them when they're in ones and twos and work on them that way," he says in the film.
Although Plouhar willingly appeared in the movie, which is critical of the Bush administration's actions after Sept. 11, 2001, his father said Plouhar didn't realize it would criticize the war.
"I'm proud that my son wanted to protect the freedom of this country whether we all agree with the war or not," he said.
Plouhar grew up in Lake Orion, about 30 miles north of Detroit.
He is survived by a wife and two children, ages 5 and 9. They live in Arizona.
Staff Sgt. Raymond J. Plouhar, 30, died Monday of wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Iraq's volatile Anbar province, the Defense Department said Tuesday.
Plouhar, who was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., had taken four years off from active duty to serve as a recruiter in Flint , Mich., after donating one of his kidneys to his uncle. He is seen in the 2004 film approaching prospective recruits in a mall parking lot.
"It's better to get them when they're in ones and twos and work on them that way," he says in the film.
Although Plouhar willingly appeared in the movie, which is critical of the Bush administration's actions after Sept. 11, 2001, his father said Plouhar didn't realize it would criticize the war.
"I'm proud that my son wanted to protect the freedom of this country whether we all agree with the war or not," he said.
Plouhar grew up in Lake Orion, about 30 miles north of Detroit.
He is survived by a wife and two children, ages 5 and 9. They live in Arizona.
Science Fiction Publisher Jim Baen dead at 63. Below is David Drake's obit:
QUOTE
Jim Baen called me on the afternoon of June 11. He generally phoned on weekends, and we'd usually talk a couple more times in the course of a week; but this was the last time.
In the course of the conversation he said, "You've got to write my obituary, you know." I laughed (I'll get to that) and said, "Sure, if I'm around--but remember, I'm the one who rides the motorcycle."
So I'm writing this. Part of it's adapted from the profile I did in 2000 for the program book of the Chicago Worldcon at which Jim was Editor Guest of Honor. They cut my original title, which Jim loved: The God of Baendom. I guess they thought it was undignified and whimsical.
The title was undignified and whimsical. So was Jim.
James Patrick Baen was born October 22, 1943, on the Pennsylvania-New York border, a long way by road or in culture from New York City. He was introduced to SF early through the magazines in a step-uncle's attic, including the November, 1957, issue of Astounding with The Gentle Earth by Christopher Anvil.
The two books Jim most remembered as being formative influences were Fire-Hunter by Jim Kjelgaard and Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C Clarke. The theme of both short novels is that a youth from a decaying culture escapes the trap of accepted wisdom and saves his people despite themselves. This is a fair description of Jim's life in SF: he was always his own man, always a maverick, and very often brilliantly successful because he didn't listen to what other people thought.
For example, the traditional model of electronic publishing required that the works be encrypted. Jim thought that just made it hard for people to read books, the worst mistake a publisher could make. His e-texts were clear and in a variety of common formats.
While e-publishing has been a costly waste of effort for others, Baen Books quickly began earning more from electronic sales than it did from Canada ($6,000/month). By the time of Jim's death, the figure had risen to ten times that.
Jim didn't forget his friends. In later years he arranged for the expansion of Fire-Hunter so that he could republish it (as The Hunter Returns, originally the title of the Charles R Knight painting Jim put on the cover).
Though Clarke didn’t need help to keep his books in print the way Kjelgaard did, Jim didn't forget him either. Jim called me for help a week before his stroke, because Amazon.com had asked him to list the ten SF novels that everyone needed to read to understand the field. Against the Fall of Night was one of the titles that we settled on.
Jim's father died at age fifty; he and his stepfather didn't warm to one another. Jim left home at 17 and lived on the streets for several months, losing weight that he couldn't at the time afford. He enlisted in the army as the only available alternative to starving to death.
Jim spent his military career in Bavaria where he worked for the Army Security Agency as a Morse Code Intercept Operator, monitoring transmissions from a Soviet callsign that was probably a armored corps. One night he determined that 'his' Soviet formation was moving swiftly toward the border. This turned out to be an unannounced training exercise--but if World War III had broken out in 1960, Jim would've been the person who announced it.
Jim entered CUNY on the GI Bill and became a Hippie. Among other jobs he managed a Greenwich Village coffee house, sometimes acting as barker as well: ‘Come in and see tomorrow's stars today!’ None of the entertainers became tomorrow's stars, but that experience of unabashed huckstering is part of the reason that Jim himself did.
Jim's first job in publishing was as an assistant in the Complaints Department of Ace Books. He was good at it--so good that management tried to promote him to running the department. He turned the offer down, however, because he really wanted to be an SF editor.
In 1973 Jim was hired at Galaxy and If magazines when Judy-Lynn Benjamin left. He became assistant to Ejler Jakobson, who with Bernie Williams taught Jim the elements of slash and burn editing.
Unfortunately, this was a necessary skill for an editor in Jim's position. The publisher wasn't in a hurry to pay authors, so established writers who could sell elsewhere preferred to do so. Galaxy and If published a lot of first stories and not a few rejects by major names. Material like that had to be edited for intelligibility and the printer's deadline, not nuances of prose style.
Apart from basic technique Jim had very little to learn from his senior, who shortly thereafter left to pursue other opportunities. Jim's first act as editor was to recall stories that his predecessor had rejected over Jim's recommendation. When in later years I thanked him for retrieving the first two Hammer stories, Jim responded, ''Oh, David--Jake rejected much better stories than yours!" (Among them was Ursula K LeGuin's Nebula winner, The Day Before the Revolution.)
Ace Books, in many ways the standard bearer of SF paperback publishing in the Fifties, had fallen on hard times in the Seventies. Charter Communications bought the company and installed Tom Doherty as publisher. Tom hired Jim to run the SF line. The first thing the new team did was to pay Ace's back (and in some cases, way back) royalties. By the time the famous SFWA audit of Ace Books was complete, the money had already been paid to the authors; a matter of some embarrassment to the SFWA officers who were aware of the facts.
Ace regained its position as an SF line where readers could depend on getting a good story. (To Homer, that was the essence of art; not all writers and editors of more recent times would have agreed.) As well as pleasing readers, the Ace SF line made money for the company; unfortunately (due to decisions from far above the level of publisher) SF came to be the only part of the company that did make money. Tom left Ace in 1980, founded Tor Books, and hired Jim to set up the Tor SF line.
Which Jim did, following the same pattern that had revived Ace: a focus on story and a mix of established authors with first-timers whom Jim thought just might have what it took. It worked again.
In fact it worked so well that when Simon and Schuster went through a series of upheavals in its Pocket Books line in 1983, management decided to hire Jim as their new SF editor. Jim thought about the offer, then made a counter-offer: with the backing of two friends, he would form a separate company which would provide S&S with an SF line to distribute. S&S agreed and Baen Books was born.
Jim used the same formulas with his new line as he had at Ace and Tor, and again he succeeded. If that were easy, then past decades wouldn’t be littered with the detritus of so many other people's attempts to do the same thing.
Even more than had been the case at Ace and Tor, Jim was his own art director at Baen Books--and he really directed, rather than viewing his job as one of coddling artists. Baen Books gained a distinct look. Like the book contents, the covers weren't to everyone's taste--but they worked.
Jim had the advantage over some editors in that he knew what a story is. He had the advantage over most editors in being able to spot talent before somebody else had published it. (Lois Bujold, Eric Flint, John Ringo and Dave Weber were all Baen discoveries whom Jim promoted to stardom.)
Furthermore, he never stopped developing new writers. The week before his stroke, Jim bought a first novel from a writer whom Baen Books had been grooming through short stories over the past year.
The most important thing of all which Jim brought to his company was a personal vision. Baen Books didn't try to be for everybody, but it was always true to itself. In that as in so many other ways, the company mirrored Jim himself.
When Jim called me on June 11, he told me he was dying. I thought he was simply having a bad interaction among prescription drugs. Though the stroke that killed him occurred the next day in hospital, Jim was right and I was wrong--again.
After that opening, Jim said, "I'm just going to say it: we've known each other all these years and you seem to like me. Why?"
That's a hell of a thing to be hit with out of the blue. Jim had always known that he was socially awkward and that he not infrequently rubbed people the wrong way, but it wasn't something we discussed. (And it's obviously not a subject on which I could be of much help.)
If I'd been a different person, I'd have started out by listing the things he did right: for example, that I'd never met a more loving father than Jim was to his two children (Jessica Baen, 29, Jim's daughter with Madeline Gleich, and Katherine Baen, 14, Jim's daughter with Toni Weisskopf). Being me, I instead answered the question a number of us ask ourselves: "How can you like a person who's behaved the way you know I have?" I said that his flaws were childish ones, tantrums and sulking; not, never in my experience, studied cruelty. He agreed with that.
And then I thought further and said that when I was sure my career was tanking--
"You thought that? When was that?"
In the mid '90s, I explained, when Military SF was going down the tubes with the downsizing of the military. But when I was at my lowest point, which was very low, I thought, "I can write two books a year. And Jim will pay me $20K apiece for them--"
"I'd have paid a lot more than that!"
And I explained that this wasn't about reality: this was me in the irrational depths of real depression. And even when I was most depressed and most irrational, I knew in my heart that Jim Baen would pay me enough to keep me alive, because he was that sort of person. He'd done that for Keith Laumer whom he disliked, because Laumer had been an author Jim looked for when he was starting to read SF.
I could not get so crazy and depressed that I didn't trust Jim Baen to stand by me if I needed him. I don't know a better statement than that to sum up what was important about Jim, as a man and as a friend.
--Dave Drake
In the course of the conversation he said, "You've got to write my obituary, you know." I laughed (I'll get to that) and said, "Sure, if I'm around--but remember, I'm the one who rides the motorcycle."
So I'm writing this. Part of it's adapted from the profile I did in 2000 for the program book of the Chicago Worldcon at which Jim was Editor Guest of Honor. They cut my original title, which Jim loved: The God of Baendom. I guess they thought it was undignified and whimsical.
The title was undignified and whimsical. So was Jim.
James Patrick Baen was born October 22, 1943, on the Pennsylvania-New York border, a long way by road or in culture from New York City. He was introduced to SF early through the magazines in a step-uncle's attic, including the November, 1957, issue of Astounding with The Gentle Earth by Christopher Anvil.
The two books Jim most remembered as being formative influences were Fire-Hunter by Jim Kjelgaard and Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C Clarke. The theme of both short novels is that a youth from a decaying culture escapes the trap of accepted wisdom and saves his people despite themselves. This is a fair description of Jim's life in SF: he was always his own man, always a maverick, and very often brilliantly successful because he didn't listen to what other people thought.
For example, the traditional model of electronic publishing required that the works be encrypted. Jim thought that just made it hard for people to read books, the worst mistake a publisher could make. His e-texts were clear and in a variety of common formats.
While e-publishing has been a costly waste of effort for others, Baen Books quickly began earning more from electronic sales than it did from Canada ($6,000/month). By the time of Jim's death, the figure had risen to ten times that.
Jim didn't forget his friends. In later years he arranged for the expansion of Fire-Hunter so that he could republish it (as The Hunter Returns, originally the title of the Charles R Knight painting Jim put on the cover).
Though Clarke didn’t need help to keep his books in print the way Kjelgaard did, Jim didn't forget him either. Jim called me for help a week before his stroke, because Amazon.com had asked him to list the ten SF novels that everyone needed to read to understand the field. Against the Fall of Night was one of the titles that we settled on.
Jim's father died at age fifty; he and his stepfather didn't warm to one another. Jim left home at 17 and lived on the streets for several months, losing weight that he couldn't at the time afford. He enlisted in the army as the only available alternative to starving to death.
Jim spent his military career in Bavaria where he worked for the Army Security Agency as a Morse Code Intercept Operator, monitoring transmissions from a Soviet callsign that was probably a armored corps. One night he determined that 'his' Soviet formation was moving swiftly toward the border. This turned out to be an unannounced training exercise--but if World War III had broken out in 1960, Jim would've been the person who announced it.
Jim entered CUNY on the GI Bill and became a Hippie. Among other jobs he managed a Greenwich Village coffee house, sometimes acting as barker as well: ‘Come in and see tomorrow's stars today!’ None of the entertainers became tomorrow's stars, but that experience of unabashed huckstering is part of the reason that Jim himself did.
Jim's first job in publishing was as an assistant in the Complaints Department of Ace Books. He was good at it--so good that management tried to promote him to running the department. He turned the offer down, however, because he really wanted to be an SF editor.
In 1973 Jim was hired at Galaxy and If magazines when Judy-Lynn Benjamin left. He became assistant to Ejler Jakobson, who with Bernie Williams taught Jim the elements of slash and burn editing.
Unfortunately, this was a necessary skill for an editor in Jim's position. The publisher wasn't in a hurry to pay authors, so established writers who could sell elsewhere preferred to do so. Galaxy and If published a lot of first stories and not a few rejects by major names. Material like that had to be edited for intelligibility and the printer's deadline, not nuances of prose style.
Apart from basic technique Jim had very little to learn from his senior, who shortly thereafter left to pursue other opportunities. Jim's first act as editor was to recall stories that his predecessor had rejected over Jim's recommendation. When in later years I thanked him for retrieving the first two Hammer stories, Jim responded, ''Oh, David--Jake rejected much better stories than yours!" (Among them was Ursula K LeGuin's Nebula winner, The Day Before the Revolution.)
Ace Books, in many ways the standard bearer of SF paperback publishing in the Fifties, had fallen on hard times in the Seventies. Charter Communications bought the company and installed Tom Doherty as publisher. Tom hired Jim to run the SF line. The first thing the new team did was to pay Ace's back (and in some cases, way back) royalties. By the time the famous SFWA audit of Ace Books was complete, the money had already been paid to the authors; a matter of some embarrassment to the SFWA officers who were aware of the facts.
Ace regained its position as an SF line where readers could depend on getting a good story. (To Homer, that was the essence of art; not all writers and editors of more recent times would have agreed.) As well as pleasing readers, the Ace SF line made money for the company; unfortunately (due to decisions from far above the level of publisher) SF came to be the only part of the company that did make money. Tom left Ace in 1980, founded Tor Books, and hired Jim to set up the Tor SF line.
Which Jim did, following the same pattern that had revived Ace: a focus on story and a mix of established authors with first-timers whom Jim thought just might have what it took. It worked again.
In fact it worked so well that when Simon and Schuster went through a series of upheavals in its Pocket Books line in 1983, management decided to hire Jim as their new SF editor. Jim thought about the offer, then made a counter-offer: with the backing of two friends, he would form a separate company which would provide S&S with an SF line to distribute. S&S agreed and Baen Books was born.
Jim used the same formulas with his new line as he had at Ace and Tor, and again he succeeded. If that were easy, then past decades wouldn’t be littered with the detritus of so many other people's attempts to do the same thing.
Even more than had been the case at Ace and Tor, Jim was his own art director at Baen Books--and he really directed, rather than viewing his job as one of coddling artists. Baen Books gained a distinct look. Like the book contents, the covers weren't to everyone's taste--but they worked.
Jim had the advantage over some editors in that he knew what a story is. He had the advantage over most editors in being able to spot talent before somebody else had published it. (Lois Bujold, Eric Flint, John Ringo and Dave Weber were all Baen discoveries whom Jim promoted to stardom.)
Furthermore, he never stopped developing new writers. The week before his stroke, Jim bought a first novel from a writer whom Baen Books had been grooming through short stories over the past year.
The most important thing of all which Jim brought to his company was a personal vision. Baen Books didn't try to be for everybody, but it was always true to itself. In that as in so many other ways, the company mirrored Jim himself.
When Jim called me on June 11, he told me he was dying. I thought he was simply having a bad interaction among prescription drugs. Though the stroke that killed him occurred the next day in hospital, Jim was right and I was wrong--again.
After that opening, Jim said, "I'm just going to say it: we've known each other all these years and you seem to like me. Why?"
That's a hell of a thing to be hit with out of the blue. Jim had always known that he was socially awkward and that he not infrequently rubbed people the wrong way, but it wasn't something we discussed. (And it's obviously not a subject on which I could be of much help.)
If I'd been a different person, I'd have started out by listing the things he did right: for example, that I'd never met a more loving father than Jim was to his two children (Jessica Baen, 29, Jim's daughter with Madeline Gleich, and Katherine Baen, 14, Jim's daughter with Toni Weisskopf). Being me, I instead answered the question a number of us ask ourselves: "How can you like a person who's behaved the way you know I have?" I said that his flaws were childish ones, tantrums and sulking; not, never in my experience, studied cruelty. He agreed with that.
And then I thought further and said that when I was sure my career was tanking--
"You thought that? When was that?"
In the mid '90s, I explained, when Military SF was going down the tubes with the downsizing of the military. But when I was at my lowest point, which was very low, I thought, "I can write two books a year. And Jim will pay me $20K apiece for them--"
"I'd have paid a lot more than that!"
And I explained that this wasn't about reality: this was me in the irrational depths of real depression. And even when I was most depressed and most irrational, I knew in my heart that Jim Baen would pay me enough to keep me alive, because he was that sort of person. He'd done that for Keith Laumer whom he disliked, because Laumer had been an author Jim looked for when he was starting to read SF.
I could not get so crazy and depressed that I didn't trust Jim Baen to stand by me if I needed him. I don't know a better statement than that to sum up what was important about Jim, as a man and as a friend.
--Dave Drake
Nature Creator George Page Dies
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/29/2006 1:59:00 PM
George Page, 71, creator and narrator of PBS' signature Nature series,
died of cancer June 28 in Equinunk, Pa.
Ill health had prompted his departure from the show in 1998. Nature,
the hour show that looked at news of the natural world, debuted in 1982
and launches its 25th season this fall.
“The world has lost a great storyteller, and I have lost a dear
friend," said PBS President Paula Kerger. She is former COO of WNET New
York, which produced the show and where Page spent the majority of his
TV career.
His is the second WNET and Nature-related loss for PBS in as many
weeks. Veteran PBS producer and station executive Bill Lamb, who headed
production of Nature when he was at WNET, died June 17.
Page spent 26 years at WNET, including serving as director of science
and natural history programs.
Page's broadcasting career, which spanned more than 50 years, included
local station and network news--he was foreign correspondent, bureau
chief and producer for NBC News--and PBS executive posts before he
joined WNET in 1972.
In 1980, he began developing Nature, which grew to be one of PBS'
highest rate and most popular shows.
He started in radio at age 14 where, ironically, at least in this
context, one of his duties was hosting “Obituary Column of the
Air.”
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/29/2006 1:59:00 PM
George Page, 71, creator and narrator of PBS' signature Nature series,
died of cancer June 28 in Equinunk, Pa.
Ill health had prompted his departure from the show in 1998. Nature,
the hour show that looked at news of the natural world, debuted in 1982
and launches its 25th season this fall.
“The world has lost a great storyteller, and I have lost a dear
friend," said PBS President Paula Kerger. She is former COO of WNET New
York, which produced the show and where Page spent the majority of his
TV career.
His is the second WNET and Nature-related loss for PBS in as many
weeks. Veteran PBS producer and station executive Bill Lamb, who headed
production of Nature when he was at WNET, died June 17.
Page spent 26 years at WNET, including serving as director of science
and natural history programs.
Page's broadcasting career, which spanned more than 50 years, included
local station and network news--he was foreign correspondent, bureau
chief and producer for NBC News--and PBS executive posts before he
joined WNET in 1972.
In 1980, he began developing Nature, which grew to be one of PBS'
highest rate and most popular shows.
He started in radio at age 14 where, ironically, at least in this
context, one of his duties was hosting “Obituary Column of the
Air.”
NU football coach dead at 52
Walker dies of apparent heart attack
By Terry Bannon
Published June 29, 2006
Northwestern football coach Randy Walker, who had lifted the Wildcats' football program to one of its highest levels of success in decades, died Thursday night of an apparent heart attack.
Walker, 52, was stricken at approximately 10 p.m., a school spokesman said. In October, 2004, he was hospitalized for two days with myocarditis, an inflamation of the heart muscle. It is commonly caused by a virus, which doctors believe causes the initial inflamation.
In April, Walker signed a contract extension through the 2011 season, and he often expressed the desire that Northwestern would be his last coaching job.
A native of Troy Ohio, Walker led the Wildcats to a share of the 2000 Big Ten title and an Alamo Bowl berth. The Wildcats played in the 2003 Motor City Bowl and the Sun Bowl last season.
He had a 37-46 record at Northwestern since arriving in 1999, making him the secong winningest coach in NU history. Before that, was head coach at his alma mater, Miami of Ohio, for nine years.
He is survived by his wife Tammy, daughter Abbey and son Jamie.
"Our deepest sympathies go out to his wife, Tammy, and his two Children," athletic director Mark Murphy said. "This is a devastating loss, not only four our atheltic probram but for the entire Northwestern comunity. Randy tryl embraced Northwestern and its mission, and cared deeply for his studendt athletes both on and off the field."
Walker dies of apparent heart attack
By Terry Bannon
Published June 29, 2006
Northwestern football coach Randy Walker, who had lifted the Wildcats' football program to one of its highest levels of success in decades, died Thursday night of an apparent heart attack.
Walker, 52, was stricken at approximately 10 p.m., a school spokesman said. In October, 2004, he was hospitalized for two days with myocarditis, an inflamation of the heart muscle. It is commonly caused by a virus, which doctors believe causes the initial inflamation.
In April, Walker signed a contract extension through the 2011 season, and he often expressed the desire that Northwestern would be his last coaching job.
A native of Troy Ohio, Walker led the Wildcats to a share of the 2000 Big Ten title and an Alamo Bowl berth. The Wildcats played in the 2003 Motor City Bowl and the Sun Bowl last season.
He had a 37-46 record at Northwestern since arriving in 1999, making him the secong winningest coach in NU history. Before that, was head coach at his alma mater, Miami of Ohio, for nine years.
He is survived by his wife Tammy, daughter Abbey and son Jamie.
"Our deepest sympathies go out to his wife, Tammy, and his two Children," athletic director Mark Murphy said. "This is a devastating loss, not only four our atheltic probram but for the entire Northwestern comunity. Randy tryl embraced Northwestern and its mission, and cared deeply for his studendt athletes both on and off the field."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/5136580.stm
Obituary - Fred Trueman
Fred Trueman was without doubt one of the greatest fast bowlers ever to play Test cricket for England.
An aggressive and whole-hearted performer, his performances for Yorkshire and the national team made him a national sporting hero in the 1950s and 60s.
Nicknamed 'Fiery Fred', his finest hour came at The Oval in 1964 when he became the first man to take 300 Test wickets when he had Australia's Neil Hawke caught at slip by Colin Cowdrey.
When asked whether he thought anyone would surpass his achievement, his reply was typically forthright: "If anyone beats it, they'll be bloody tired".
Trueman was only 17 years old when he was first called to the Yorkshire nets at Headingley.
And only four years later he made his Test debut against India on his home ground after being granted leave from his National Service in the Royal Air Force to play in the game.
Wisden recorded the match as being "crammed with exciting incidents, remarkable collapses and gallant recoveries".
Ultimately, it ended in a seven-wicket victory for England after India were reduced to 0-4 at the start of their second innings, three of the batsmen dismissed by Trueman in the space of eight deliveries.
He went on to take 29 wickets in the series, including figures of 8-31 in the third Test at Old Trafford when India were bowled out for 58.
It helped establish a reputation for hostility and destructiveness which lasted throughout his 13-year Test career.
In a 1999 article for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, broadcaster Michael Parkinson recalled the sight of Trueman in full cry.
He wrote: "...I see him running in to bowl, chin jutting, hair flopping, culminating in that glorious moment of delivery which remains the classic example of how the body should be poised to deliver a cricket ball with maximum velocity and accuracy."
Trueman was named one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year in 1953 and at the end of that summer played against Australia in a Test match for the first time, taking 4-86 in the first innings of a game England won by eight wickets.
In all, he played in 19 Ashes Test matches, claiming 79 wickets - 11 of them coming in a single game at Headingley in 1961.
Stories about Trueman became the stuff of legend.
On one occasion, when an opposition batsman walked through the gate onto the outfield, he was told: "Don't bother shutting it. You'll be back soon."
And when a Cambridge University student he had just bowled said "That was a very good ball, Mr Trueman", he responded with "Ay, wasted on thee."
Trueman also played a full part for Yorkshire, taking 1,745 wickets for the club and helping them become the dominant team in county cricket, winning the Championship seven times between 1959 and 1968.
He retired after the 1968 season, the personal highlight of which was captaining Yorkshire to an innings win over the touring Australians at Sheffield, a match in which he took three wickets in each innings.
Thereafter, despite a brief comeback to play Sunday League cricket for Derbyshire, he became known for regular appearances on TV and radio and as an entertaining after-dinner speaker.
Typically, Trueman pulled no punches when assessing the merits of players from the modern era or the idea of central contracts for England stars.
"I learned to bowl for Yorkshire. If you couldn't take 100 wickets in a season, you weren't given a contract.
"All players are interested in now is rest," he said in 2001.
Trueman, who was also awarded an OBE in 1989 for his charity work, had no regrets about missing out on the financial rewards enjoyed by Test cricketers nowadays.
"I'm happy that I played cricket at the time that I did. People enjoyed the game then," he added.
FRED TRUEMAN FACTFILE
Born: Stainton, Yorks 6.2.1931
Test record
67 matches, 307 wickets, average 21.57, best bowling
8-31, 981 runs, highest score 39 not out
First-class record
603 matches, 2,304 wickets, average 18.29, best bowling 8-28, 9,231 runs, average 15.56, highest score 104
Obituary - Fred Trueman
Fred Trueman was without doubt one of the greatest fast bowlers ever to play Test cricket for England.
An aggressive and whole-hearted performer, his performances for Yorkshire and the national team made him a national sporting hero in the 1950s and 60s.
Nicknamed 'Fiery Fred', his finest hour came at The Oval in 1964 when he became the first man to take 300 Test wickets when he had Australia's Neil Hawke caught at slip by Colin Cowdrey.
When asked whether he thought anyone would surpass his achievement, his reply was typically forthright: "If anyone beats it, they'll be bloody tired".
Trueman was only 17 years old when he was first called to the Yorkshire nets at Headingley.
And only four years later he made his Test debut against India on his home ground after being granted leave from his National Service in the Royal Air Force to play in the game.
Wisden recorded the match as being "crammed with exciting incidents, remarkable collapses and gallant recoveries".
Ultimately, it ended in a seven-wicket victory for England after India were reduced to 0-4 at the start of their second innings, three of the batsmen dismissed by Trueman in the space of eight deliveries.
He went on to take 29 wickets in the series, including figures of 8-31 in the third Test at Old Trafford when India were bowled out for 58.
It helped establish a reputation for hostility and destructiveness which lasted throughout his 13-year Test career.
In a 1999 article for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, broadcaster Michael Parkinson recalled the sight of Trueman in full cry.
He wrote: "...I see him running in to bowl, chin jutting, hair flopping, culminating in that glorious moment of delivery which remains the classic example of how the body should be poised to deliver a cricket ball with maximum velocity and accuracy."
Trueman was named one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year in 1953 and at the end of that summer played against Australia in a Test match for the first time, taking 4-86 in the first innings of a game England won by eight wickets.
In all, he played in 19 Ashes Test matches, claiming 79 wickets - 11 of them coming in a single game at Headingley in 1961.
Stories about Trueman became the stuff of legend.
On one occasion, when an opposition batsman walked through the gate onto the outfield, he was told: "Don't bother shutting it. You'll be back soon."
And when a Cambridge University student he had just bowled said "That was a very good ball, Mr Trueman", he responded with "Ay, wasted on thee."
Trueman also played a full part for Yorkshire, taking 1,745 wickets for the club and helping them become the dominant team in county cricket, winning the Championship seven times between 1959 and 1968.
He retired after the 1968 season, the personal highlight of which was captaining Yorkshire to an innings win over the touring Australians at Sheffield, a match in which he took three wickets in each innings.
Thereafter, despite a brief comeback to play Sunday League cricket for Derbyshire, he became known for regular appearances on TV and radio and as an entertaining after-dinner speaker.
Typically, Trueman pulled no punches when assessing the merits of players from the modern era or the idea of central contracts for England stars.
"I learned to bowl for Yorkshire. If you couldn't take 100 wickets in a season, you weren't given a contract.
"All players are interested in now is rest," he said in 2001.
Trueman, who was also awarded an OBE in 1989 for his charity work, had no regrets about missing out on the financial rewards enjoyed by Test cricketers nowadays.
"I'm happy that I played cricket at the time that I did. People enjoyed the game then," he added.
FRED TRUEMAN FACTFILE
Born: Stainton, Yorks 6.2.1931
Test record
67 matches, 307 wickets, average 21.57, best bowling
8-31, 981 runs, highest score 39 not out
First-class record
603 matches, 2,304 wickets, average 18.29, best bowling 8-28, 9,231 runs, average 15.56, highest score 104
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