Archive for the ‘Obits’ Category

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Obit watch: January 24, 2021.

Sunday, January 24th, 2021

Gregory Sierra, knock-around actor.

He did some theater work, but was mostly a TV and movie actor. He was “Julio”, Fred’s sidekick on “Sanford and Son”, Carlos “El Puerco” Valdez (the guy who kidnapped Jessica) on “Soap”, and “Chano”, one of the detectives in the early seasons of “Barney Miller”. He also did a lot of guest appearances, including nearly every major detective show of the 1970s (except that one): “Police Story”, “Banacek”, “Hawaii 5-0” (the good one), “Columbo”, “McCloud”, “Mission: Impossible”, and the list goes on. He was also Lieutenant Rodriguez in the early episodes of “Miami Vice” (that character got killed off and was replaced by Edward James Olmos’s “Martin Castillo”).

His movie credits include “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” and, interestingly, “The Other Side of the Wind“.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Obits, Theatre, TV | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: January 23, 2021.

Saturday, January 23rd, 2021

Larry King. Or, as the old story goes, “Larry King Radio“.

He bragged that he almost never prepared for an interview. If his guest was an author promoting a book, he did not read it but asked simply, “What’s it about?” or “Why did you write this?”
Nor did he pose as an intellectual. He salted his talk with “ain’t,” and “the” sounded like “da.” To a public skeptical of experts, he seemed refreshingly average: just a curious guy asking questions impulsively.
“There are many broadcasters who’ll recite three minutes of facts before they ask a question,” he said in a memoir, “My Remarkable Journey” (2009, with Cal Fussman). “As if to say: Let me show you how much I know. I think the guest should be the expert.”

Posted in Obits, Radio, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 22, 2021.

Friday, January 22nd, 2021

Hank Aaron. NYT. ESPN. MLB.

Mira Furlan. She was Delenn in “Babylon 5” and “Danielle Rousseau” on “Lost”.

Posted in History, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 20, 2021.

Wednesday, January 20th, 2021

Don Sutton.

Sutton’s major league career began with the Dodgers in 1966. He went on to win 233 games during 16 seasons with the team, the most in franchise history.
“When you gave him the ball, you knew one thing,” the former Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda, who died this month, once said. “Your pitcher was going to give you everything he had.”
Sutton also pitched for the Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers, California Angels and Oakland A’s before retiring in 1988. He was elected to the Hall of Fame on his fifth attempt.

…

Sutton — whose major league career began as part of a Dodger pitching rotation that also included Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale — won 20 games only once (he had a 21-10 record in 1976). But he is tied for 14th place in career wins with Nolan Ryan, and ranked seventh in both strikeouts, with 3,574, and innings, with 5,282.1.
He holds the Dodger team records not only for career wins but also for strikeouts (2,696), starts (533), shutouts (52), home runs surrendered (309) and losses (181).

Barbara Shelley, British actress. She did a lot of horror films: “Village of the Damned”, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness”, “Quatermass and the Pit”, etc. She also did a lot of non-horror TV, including “Eastenders” and two guest shots on “12 O’Clock High”.

Posted in Movies, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 17, 2021.

Sunday, January 17th, 2021

Phil Spector. This is another one of those where I don’t have much to say, really: everyone knows the story (and if you don’t, it is recapped in the obit).

Sylvain Sylvain, of the New York Dolls.

Peter Mark Richman, actor. He had a long list of credits, including soap operas and a long list of 70’s cop/detective shows…

…including “Mannix”. (“Walk With a Dead Man”, season 3, episode 15.)

Posted in 1970s, Mannix, Music, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 14, 2021.

Thursday, January 14th, 2021

Siegfried Fischbacher, the “Siegfried” in “Siegfried and Roy”.

You may remember Roy Horn passed away in May of last year.

Mary Catherine Bateson, cultural anthropologist (and, for the record, daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson).

Posted in Geek, History, Magic, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 13, 2021.

Wednesday, January 13th, 2021

Adolfo Quiñones, street dancer. He was in “Breakin'” and “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo”, among other credits.

I got a whole bunch of stuff from Lawrence and other folks, so let’s start:

Sheldon Adelson, casino and resort hotel owner, and major donor to the Republican Party and conservative politicians in Israel.

John Riley. He was on “General Hospital” and also did a lot of appearances on non-“Mannix” 1970s detective series.

Jessica Campbell. She was “Tammy Metzler” in “Election”, and was only 38.

Lawrence sent over a report of the death of Julie Strain, “scream queen”, B-movie actress, and Penthouse Pet of the Year (1993). The site admits that she was mistakenly reported dead last year, so I would take this with a lick of salt (though they claim confirmation from multiple sources).

She was in a lot of Andy Sidaris films. (If you’re not familiar with those, and you like MST3K, you are missing a treat.)

Strain was also very much associated with fantasy comic book magazine Heavy Metal, where she was a frequent cover model, and eventually the wife of publisher (and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator) Kevin Eastman. Her image was that of the confident, assertive glamazon—at 6’1’’ plus heels she towered over many of her male co-stars. In fact, she essentially became the de facto face of Heavy Metal in 2000 when she contributed both the voice and likeness of protagonist Julie in the film Heavy Metal 2000 and its videogame spinoff Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2.

Among her other movie credits was “Exterminator City”, which Lawrence will tell you (at the drop of a hat) is the worst movie he’s ever seen. Here’s a clip from the movie which does not feature Ms. Strain, just for illumination:

As Lawrence will tell you (again) that’s the best scene in the movie.

Finally, Diana Millay, actress most famous for “Dark Shadows”.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Obits, Politics, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 12, 2021.

Tuesday, January 12th, 2021

Pat Loud, the mother in the 1970s reality show, “An American Family”. I touched on this at greater length when Bill Loud, her husband, passed away in 2018.

I’ve been holding this for a few days: Jim Bob Moffett. He was a prominent oil and mining magnate, and a large donor to UT.

He also made a whole lot of people angry back in the early 1990s when one of his companies planned a development in Southwest Austin.

Environmentalists argued that Moffett’s development would wash building materials, dirt and pollutants that accompany everyday human life into the aquifer, ultimately fouling the springs. Rather than treat the situation as a political dispute in which both sides had legitimate interests — an approach that many activists said had led them to compromise too easily — activists framed the issue as cruel business interests threatening Austin’s most beloved civic feature.
The fight culminated in a City Council meeting June 7, 1990. It is widely considered the high point of Austin civic participation: 17 hours of songs, poems, threats and pleas persuaded a glassy-eyed City Council that had seemed likely to approve the proposal to unanimously reject it. From that decision rose the Save Our Springs Coalition (now the SOS Alliance) and landmark rules that limit development in that portion of Austin.

Posted in 1970s, Austin, Obits, Politics, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 10, 2021.

Sunday, January 10th, 2021

Michael Apted. Yeah, yeah, “7 Up” and the follow-on movies, but he had an interesting career outside of that: “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, “The World Is Not Enough”, “Gorillas In the Mist”, “Gorky Park”…

John Richardson (by way of LP). Credits include “She”, “One Million Years B.C.”, and “Frankenstein ’80”.

Lawrence also sent over an obit from Mark Steyn’s website for Kathy Shaidle, their movie writer. I don’t read Mark Steyn regularly, and I wasn’t familiar with Ms. Shaidle, but from the obit, she sounds like someone I would have enjoyed knowing.

In a too short life, Kathy wrote in almost every form: She is the only writer I know who was both a respected poet nominated for major prizes and the “Ed Anger” columnist of The Weekly World News.

…

I posted this on Facebook last year:

I get over a thousand TV channels if you count my Roku. I have a Criterion Channel subscription, a bunch of DVDs still in their shrink wrap, and a pile of ‘to read’ books.

So of course because it’s on TCM (again), what I’m doing is watching All About Eve for probably the thirtieth time. #Loser.

(We watched “All About Eve” recently. It was the first time I’d seen it: it is a seriously great movie.)

Even back then, I resented being ordered around by the government.

Posted in Movies, Obits | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: January 8, 2021.

Friday, January 8th, 2021

I started working on this earlier this morning, but this is breaking just now: Tommy Lasorda. ESPN. No LAT, because you basically can’t read anything without a subscription and your ad-blocker disabled.

Neil Sheehan, author (A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam) and journalist.

“Now It Can Be Told: How Neil Sheehan Got the Pentagon Papers”.

It was a story he had chosen not to tell — until 2015, when he sat for a four-hour interview, promised that this account would not be published while he was alive.

NYT obit for William Link.

Eric Jerome Dickey, novelist.

Posted in Books, History, Media, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 5, 2021.

Tuesday, January 5th, 2021

THR is now reporting the same thing TMZ was reporting yesterday: Tanya Roberts is not dead, in spite of a statement from her rep stating that she was.

Mike Pingel told THR on Monday, “I did get confirmation [of her death], but that was from a very distraught person [Roberts’ boyfriend, Lance O’Brien],” Pingel said.
Pingel added, “And so yes, this morning at 10 a.m. … the hospital did call to say that she was still alive but it’s not looking good. We will hopefully have information [soon]. It’s upsetting.”

If it ain’t a mess, it’ll do until the mess gets here.

Edited to add: The NYT is now officially reporting Ms. Roberts’s death.

Her death, at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, was confirmed on Tuesday by her companion, Lance O’Brien. Her publicist, who was given erroneous information, had announced her death to the news media early Monday, and some news organizations published obituaries about her prematurely.

Gerry Marsden, of Gerry and the Pacemakers.

Posted in Media, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 4, 2021.

Monday, January 4th, 2021

It is the stated policy of this blog that, if you were a Bond girl, you get an obit.

Tanya Roberts has died at the age of 65. She was, of course, “Sheena: Queen of the Jungle”, Donna’s mother on “That ’70s Show”, and one of Charlie’s Angels (for the final season). She was also the Bond girl, Stacey Sutton, in “A View to a Kill”, the movie that caused me to punch out of the Bond franchise.

Edited to add: Lawrence sent me a link from TMZ that claims Ms. Roberts is still alive. However, I don’t trust TMZ any further than I can sling a piano, and THR has not retracted their story yet. I will try to keep an eye on this one.

Lawrence sent over obits for Floyd Little, noted running back, and Paul Westphal, noted basketball player and coach.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 1, 2021.

Friday, January 1st, 2021

Phyllis McGuire, last of the McGuire Sisters.

Ms. McGuire, with her older sisters Christine and Dorothy, shot to success overnight after winning the televised “Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts” contest in 1952. Over the next 15 years, they were one of the nation’s most popular vocal groups, singing on the television variety shows of Ed Sullivan, Milton Berle, Andy Williams and Red Skelton, on nightclub circuits across the country and on records that sold millions.
The sisters epitomized a 1950s sensibility that held up a standard of unreal perfection, wearing identical coifs, dresses and smiles, moving with synchronized precision and blending voices in wholesome songs for simpler times. Their music, like that of Perry Como, Patti Page and other stars who appealed to white, middle-class audiences, contrasted starkly with the rock ’n’ roll craze that was taking the world by storm in the mid-to-late ’50s.

Ms. McGuire was also famously linked aromatically with Sam Giancana. Yes, the mobster.

Ms. McGuire remained unapologetic about her relationship with Mr. Giancana. “Sam was the greatest teacher I ever could have had,” she told Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair in 1989. “He was so wise about so many things. Sam is always depicted as unattractive. He wasn’t. He was a very nice-looking man. He wasn’t flashy. He didn’t drive a pink Cadillac, like they used to say.”

Richard Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and Attorney General under Reagan and Bush.

Posted in Law, Music, Obits, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 31, 2020.

Thursday, December 31st, 2020

This is a couple of days old, but I missed it until someone mentioned it to me: William Link.

Mr. Link and his partner, Richard Levinson, created a bunch of famous TV series: “Columbo”, “Murder She Wrote”, and, of course, “Mannix”.

Link and Levinson created the character of Lt. Columbo, the cigar-chomping, perpetually underestimated detective, for an episode of the Chevy Mystery Show in 1960. Eight years later, they revisited the character (and the initial story) with a telefilm called Prescription: Murder, which starred Peter Falk as Columbo. It became a regular series in 1971, running for seven years of wealthy and powerful killers thinking themselves a step ahead of Columbo, but always slipping up just enough for the detective to catch them in a lie that cracked the case.

Burning in Hell watch: Samuel Little.

Mr. Little had confessed to having committed 93 murders between 1970 and 2005, at least 50 of which have been verified by law enforcement officers, the F.B.I. said. He had been convicted of at least eight murders, some of which were solved using D.N.A. analysis.
Many of Mr. Little’s victims were marginalized, young Black women who were estranged from their families and struggling with poverty and addiction. In many cases, their deaths did not draw the same level of attention or outrage as other killings.

Posted in Law, Mannix, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 30, 2020.

Wednesday, December 30th, 2020

Mary Ann is dead. Ginger is the last one standing.

THR:

Wells appeared in about six dozen different stage plays but was less prolific on the big screen, though her star turn in the horror film The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976), where she played a real-life murder victim, has become a cult classic. She starred in another horror film, Return to Boggy Creek (1977), after playing alongside Denver Pyle and Woody Strode in a 1975 Western, Winterhawk.

I’m sure it is documented somewhere – I can’t remember if it was discussed at all in the supplement for “Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues” (which she does not appear in) but I’d really like to know how Ms. Wells got involved with Charles B. Pierce. (Noted: he also got Jessica “Suspiria” Harper to star in one of his films, alongside Vic Morrow. I don’t know: maybe people held Pierce in higher regard back then.)

Joe Clark, the principal with the baseball bat who inspired “Lean On Me”.

Mr. Clark, who oversaw a poor, largely Black and Hispanic student body, denounced affirmative action and welfare policies and “hocus-pocus liberals.” When “60 Minutes” profiled him in 1988, he told the correspondent Harry Reasoner: “Because we were slaves does not mean that you’ve got to be hoodlums and thugs and knock people in the head and rob people and rape people. No, I cannot accept that. And I make no more alibis for Blacks. I simply say work hard for what you want.”

Pierre Cardin, fashion designer.

Posted in Obits, TV | Comments Closed

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