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Obit watch: January 31, 2023.

Tuesday, January 31st, 2023

Lt. Col. Dr. Harold Brown (USAF – ret.)

Dr. Brown flew 30 missions during the war in Europe and later served in the Korean War. He spent 23 years in the military before retiring, earning a doctorate and becoming a college administrator.
He was one of the last surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group that included 355 pilots who served in segregated units operating from the war’s Mediterranean theater after beginning their training at the historically Black Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Fewer than 10 are still living, according to Tuskegee Airmen Inc., an organization dedicated to preserving their legacy.
After taking off from Italy at dawn on March 14, 1945, Dr. Brown, a second lieutenant at the time, was piloting a P-51 Mustang strafing a German freight train near Linz, Austria, when the locomotive exploded, hurling shrapnel into the engine of his single-propeller plane.
With only seconds before his plane lost power, he bailed out and parachuted to safety. But he landed not far from his target, where he was apprehended by two armed local constables and was soon surrounded by a furious mob of some two dozen Austrians whose town he and his comrades had just attacked.
“I was met by perhaps 35 of the most angry people I’ve ever met in my life,” Dr. Brown said on the PBS podcast “American Veteran.” “There’s no doubt murder’s on their mind.”
“It was clear that they finally decided to hang me,” he recalled in a memoir, “Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman” (2017), which he wrote with his wife. “They took me to a perfect hanging tree with a nice low branch and they had a rope. I can still visualize that tree today.
“I knew at that moment I was going to die.”
But he was rescued from the vigilantes by a third constable, who threatened to fire on the crowd to protect Dr. Brown as a prisoner of war.

…

Dr. Brown was turned over to military authorities and served six weeks in prison camps until being liberated when the war ended.

The Boeing 747.

FotB RoadRich sent over a link: Boeing will be live streaming the handover ceremony at 1 PM Pacific (4 PM Eastern, 3 PM Central) this afternoon.

Bobby Hull as promised. ESPN. Chicago Tribune.

Cindy Williams. Other credits include “Cannon”, “The First Nudie Musical”, and the good “Hawaii Five-0”. And if you haven’t seen “The Conversation”, you really should.

She auditioned for Princess Leia on Star Wars (1977) but knew deep down that Lucas wanted a younger actress, and Carrie Fisher was hired.

Kevin O’Neal, actor. Other credits include “The Fugitive” (the original), “Perry Mason” (the good one), and “Lancer”.

Posted in 1970s, History, Obits, Planes, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 6, 2023.

Friday, January 6th, 2023

Kenneth Rowe, also known as Lt. No Kum-Sok of the North Korean Air Force.

This is an interesting historical footnote (recommended for use in schools) that I was previously unaware of.

Lt. Kum-Sok was born in what was then “the northern part of the Japanese-occupied Korean Peninsula”. He became a navel cadet, transferred to the North Korean Air Force, and learned to fly MIGs.

He got his wings at 19.

…

Mr. Rowe had become a member of North Korea’s Communist Party and “played the Communist zealot,” as he put it, while serving in the Korean War. But he had been influenced by his anti-Communist father and his mother’s Roman Catholic upbringing to yearn for life in a democracy. He had been thinking of a way to get to America since Korea was divided after World War II and the Soviet-backed Kim Il-sung imposed Communist rule over what became North Korea.

On the morning of September 21, 1953, while flying in a patrol of 16 planes, he broke off from the formation and flew across the DMZ to Kimpo AFB in South Korea.

Luck was with him. The American air defense radar just north of Kimpo had been shut down for routine maintenance, and neither American planes aloft nor antiaircraft crews had spotted him.
During the late stages of the Korean War, the Air Force had dropped leaflets over North Korea offering a $100,000 reward to the first North Korean pilot to defect with a MIG. Mr. Rowe maintained that he knew nothing of that reward and said he had simply wanted to live a free life. But he accepted it.

This was the first intact MIG that the United States was able to analyze. (At least, according to the NYT: Wikipedia claims that Franciszek Jarecki, a Polish pilot, defected in one on March 5, 1953.)

Seeking to determine the MIG’s strengths and weaknesses in anticipation of future conflicts with the Soviet Union and its allies, the Air Force dispatched some of its most accomplished test pilots — including Maj. Chuck Yeager, who had gained fame in 1947 as the first flier to break the sound barrier — to put the MIG-15 through strenuous maneuvers. Their verdict: The F-86 was the superior warplane.

Again per Wikipedia (quoting Yeager’s autobiography), “the MiG-15 had dangerous handling faults…during a visit to the USSR, Soviet pilots were incredulous he had dived in it, this supposedly being very hazardous.”

He came to the United States in May 1954 and was something of a celebrity. He was introduced to Vice President Richard M. Nixon, was interviewed by Dave Garroway on NBC’s “Today” program and appeared on broadcasts for the Voice of America. He received an engineering degree from the University of Delaware, became an American citizen in 1962 and worked as an engineer for major defense and aerospace companies. He was later a professor of engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach.

He was 90 when he passed.

And his plane?

Seven decades later, that plane still exists, and resides at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.
Its red star repainted, it is on display alongside an American F-86 Sabre jet, a remembrance of the dogfights of the Korean War in the swath of sky known as MIG Alley.

Posted in History, Obits, Planes | Comments Closed

Quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore (#6 in a series).

Wednesday, December 28th, 2022

Here’s a fun little quickie: a thoughtful Christmas present from FotB RoadRich.

The 1981 Braniff annual report.

The significance of this: the 1981 annual report came out in April of 1982. Braniff’s original airline operations ceased May 12, 1982.

(“Two later airlines used the Braniff name: the Hyatt Hotels-backed Braniff, Inc. in 1983–89, and Braniff International Airlines, Inc. in 1991–92.” Also: “…continues today as a retailer, hotelier, travel service and branding and licensing company, administering the former airline’s employee pass program and other airline administrative duties.“)

Posted in Christmas, Planes | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 9, 2022.

Friday, December 9th, 2022

Squadron Leader George Leonard “Johnny” Johnson, MBE, DFM (RAF – ret.) has passed away at the age of 101.

He was the last surviving participant in the May 17, 1943 “Dambusters” raid by 617 Squadron.

This is a great story:

The crew of Sergeant Johnson’s plane — flown by the lone American on the raid, Flight Lt. Joe McCarthy, a native of Long Island who had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force — had an even tougher task
Its target, the Sorpe Dam, was an embankment lined with soil and rocks that was expected to absorb much of a bomb’s explosive power, in contrast to the two more vulnerable masonry dams.

…

Lieutenant McCarthy had to clear the steeple of a church, then dip to a level of 30 feet and fly parallel and extraordinarily close to the wall for his plane’s bomb to make a significant impact when it exploded underwater. He made repeated runs along the dam before Sergeant Johnson was satisfied that he could drop his bomb at the center point, where it could do the most damage.
“I found out very quickly how to be the most unpopular member of the crew,” Mr. Johnson recalled in a 2013 interview with the University of Huddersfield in England, explaining that his patience had increased the chances of his plane being spotted by the Germans.
At one point, he said, his rear gunner pleaded, “Will somebody just get that bomb out of here?”
“After nine dummy runs, we were satisfied we were on the right track,” Mr. Johnson wrote in his memoir. “I pushed the button and called, ‘Bomb gone!’ From the rear of the plane was heard ‘Thank Christ for that!’ The explosion threw up a fountain of water up to about 1,000 feet.”

Two Lancasters hit the Sorpe: the dam was damaged, but not breached.

The squadron leader, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, who would be killed in action later in the war, received the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award for valor. Sergeant Johnson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal.

…

His death, announced by his family on Facebook, came five years after Queen Elizabeth II conveyed the title Member of the Order of the British Empire on Mr. Johnson in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
The honor was bestowed after thousands had signed a petition asking that Mr. Johnson, a bomb-aimer during the war (the equivalent of an American bombardier), be accorded recognition in his final years as a collective tribute to the Dambusters.

…

For all the harrowing missions he took part in, Mr. Johnson said, he felt confident that he would survive.
“I didn’t feel afraid,” he told James Holland for his book “Dam Busters” (2012), in recalling his combat service between 1942 and 1944. “I was sure I was going to come back every time.”

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

Obit watch: November 14, 2022.

Monday, November 14th, 2022

Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Folsom (USMC – ret.) has passed away at 102.

In the vast undertaking to capture and hold Guadalcanal in the late summer and fall of 1942, Lieutenant Folsom was a 22-year-old aviator who had never flown at high altitude and had fired the wing guns of his Grumman F4F Wildcat only once, in a training exercise in California.
But he loved flying and, sent into the thick of air combat over Guadalcanal in the first major Allied land offensive since the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, he had two essential qualities for survival: guts and luck. His 40-pilot squadron battled Japanese Zeros that escorted the Imperial Navy’s cigar-shaped “Betty bombers,” the twin-engine Mitsubishi G4M attack planes that were his squadron’s prime targets.
During Lieutenant Folsom’s three months on the island, nearly half of his squadron’s pilots were killed or wounded. In dogfights, the faster, more maneuverable Zeros often riddled his plane with bullets. He was wounded twice by shrapnel and once by a bullet that gashed his leg. When he ran out of ammunition, he escaped by flying into clouds and circling back to his tiny airstrip, Henderson Field.

…

Flying at 20,000 feet with Wildcats on his wing, he spotted a group of Mitsubishi bombers far below, skimming the ocean surface for a torpedo attack on a flotilla of American ships in the channel between Guadalcanal and Savo Island.
“Over went our noses and down we went, vertically, in a screaming dive,” Mr. Folsom recalled. “The surface vessels were throwing up a tremendous barrage of ack-ack fire.” He leveled off just over the water, pulled in behind an enemy bomber and fired bursts from his six 50-caliber wing guns. The bomber’s tail gunner shot back. “The guns in that baby winked at me but never made a hit,” he said.
“Some of my slugs must have hit the pilot, for not 50 yards in front of me, and from about 10 feet off the surface, he skimmed in. There was a sudden lurch, followed by a cloud of spray and I was over him, headed for the next one. I followed the same tactics again, but this fellow didn’t fall such easy prey. As I came up astern, he began to skid from side to side.”
One of the bomber’s twin engines smoked, but it kept going. “Closing in again, I peppered him with the last of my ammo,” Mr. Folsom said. “This time I was rewarded by seeing him hit the water for keeps, right wing first. The plane catapulted into the sea.” He later learned that 24 Mitsubishi bombers and six Zeros had been shot down that day. The Americans had lost six planes and two pilots.

…

Lieutenant Folsom, who was awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross, went on to a distinguished military career, commanding night fighter squadrons in battles over Okinawa and in the Korean War. He was a high-altitude test pilot, served in the Office of Naval Operations in Washington and for two years was the assistant Naval attaché at the American Embassy in Norway.

I haven’t had a chance to listen to all of this yet, but here’s an oral history interview from the Library of Congress.

Kevin O’Neill, comic artist. (“The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, “Marshal Law”.)

In a statement to The Times after Mr. O’Neill’s death, Mr. Moore said: “Nobody drew like Kevin O’Neill. When I was putting together my formative ideas for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in the lead-out groove of the last century, I quickly realized that nobody save Kevin was qualified to present such a dizzying range of characters, periods, situations and styles with the vitality and ingenuity that the narrative — a ridiculous mash-up of all human fiction since classical antiquity — seemed to demand.
Their collaboration on this series, Mr. Moore said, began what was perhaps the longest, happiest and most productive partnership of both men’s careers.

John Aniston, actor. Other credits include “Airwolf”, “Mission: Impossible”, and a two-part episode of one of the spinoffs of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.

David Davis, TV guy. (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show”, “Taxi”, “The Bob Newhart Show”)

Two years later, when Mr. Davis was working on “Rhoda,” which turned Mary’s wisecracking sidekick, played by Ms. Harper, into a leading lady, he cast Ms. [Julie] Kavner as her self-deprecating sister. (She and Mr. Davis had met before, when Ms. Kavner read for a part on an episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” although another actress was cast.) A year later they were a couple.
“He gave me my career, my heart and my life,” Ms. Kavner said, noting that that was her first paying part. She went on to be the voice of Marge, the kindly matriarch with the blue bouffant, on “The Simpsons” and, among other movie roles, the star of “This Is My Life,” Nora Ephron’s 1992 film adaptation of a Meg Wolitzer novel about a stand-up comedian and her family.

…

Mr. Davis left television in 1979, after the first season of “Taxi” ended. He was 43. He wanted to spend more time with Ms. Kavner — “I got lucky and kept working,” she said, and they traveled to wherever a job took her — and was determined to make a life outside a studio lot.
“He left for the love of his life,” Mr. DeVito said, “but it was OK because we were already on our way.”

Posted in 1970s, History, Obits, Planes, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: September 20, 2022.

Tuesday, September 20th, 2022

Marva Hicks, actress.

Other credits include “Mad About You”, “Babylon 5”, and one of the spinoffs of a minor 1960s SF TV series.

This pushes the boundary of obits a bit, but: two decomposed bodies were found yesterday in the home of the former mayor of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. As far as I can tell, the bodies have not been identified yet, but the police also apparently do not suspect criminal activity.

The pilot who died on Sunday at the Reno Air Races has been identified as Aaron Hogue. He was flying a L-29 in the Jet Gold race.

Mr. Hogue was also one of the owners of Hogue Inc., which makes various firearms accessories (including grips) and knives. (I touched on them briefly in my NRAAM coverage.)

Posted in Guns, Obits, Planes, Rhode Island, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: September 19, 2022.

Monday, September 19th, 2022

Henry Silva, actor. THR. Other credits include “The F.B.I.”, “Bearcats!”, the good “Hawaii Five-O”, and “Quark”.

Lawrence emailed an obit for Cristobal Jodorowsky, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s and the star of “Santa Sangre”.

There was a fatal crash at the Reno Air Races on Sunday. The pilot’s name has not been released yet, as far as I can determine, but I will update when I have more information. Coverage from the Reno paper (by way of archive.is).

Posted in Movies, Obits, Planes, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 26, 2022.

Tuesday, July 26th, 2022

Great and good FOTB RoadRich sent over a couple of obits for Tom Poberezny, former head of the Experimental Aircraft Association. He took over for his dad, Paul Poberezny, in the 1990s and ran EAA until 2010.

One of the most talented aviators of his day, Tom was world aerobatics champion as part of team USA in 1972 and was United States Unlimited aerobatics champion the next year. He went on to become part of the three-plane Red Devils aerobatic airshow act, later known as The Eagles, along with Gene Soucy and the late Charlie Hilliard.

Yoko Shimada. Credits other than “Shogun” include “Kamen Rider”, “Chicago Story”, and “We Are Youth”.

Paul Sorvino. THR.

He was another one of those people whose personal politics I have no idea about: he acted (and sang a little) and did it well. I was always happy to see him in something.

172 acting credits in IMDB.

I’ve said before that my ideal “Law and Order” lineup is Briscoe/Logan/Stone/Kincaid. But one of our local broadcast channels was re-running the early “L&O” episodes late at night a while back, and I recorded some of the ones with Sorvino as “Phil Cerreta”. He gets a lot of attention for playing mob guys, but he was really good in that role too.

There’s one episode in particular (“Heaven”, season 2, episode 10, based on the Happy Land Social Club fire) that stands out for me. Ceretta and Logan are looking at 53 bodies lined up outside the fire:

Det. Mike Logan: I’ve never seen this many. You?
Sgt. Phil Cerreta: Not in civilian life.

This is writing (the episode is one of my favorites) but it is also acting. I can’t find a clip online, but if you watch it, Sorvino’s delivery puts a lot across in four words: this is a man who saw some stuff during the war, and still carries those memories.

Tony Dow. THR.

Other credits include “Quincy, M.E.”, “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star”, “Diagnosis Murder”, and “The Kentucky Fried Movie”.

Lawrence pointed out to me “Who Killed Maxwell Thorn?”, the final episode of “The Love Boat”, which features Wally, Beaver, June…and Peter Graves, Barbi Benton (hi, pigpen51!), Florence Henderson, Robert Reed, and Ted McGinley, among other stunt casting. I was never a big “Love Boat” fan, though I did watch it (three broadcast networks, people) but (as I told Lawrence) this whole episode is one giant wink at the audience. And (as Lawrence also pointed out) it ties in to the Tommy Westphall Catastrophe.

Edited to add: Well, crud, this is embarrassing, but I did have three sources, and they apparently made the same mistake. Tony Dow is NOT DEAD. Repeat: Tony Dow is NOT DEAD. But he is apparently in hospice care.

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

A little late…

Tuesday, May 31st, 2022

…for Memorial Day, and I don’t know how old this story is. (It just came across Hacker News, for what that’s worth.)

From Hodinkee, a story about a Rolex watch. The serial number dates it to 1947.

But there’s more to the story than it being an old watch. It spent 52 years buried in an unmarked grave…because it belonged to a CIA pilot that was killed in action.

The method for recovering the agent in question was not only difficult, but it was also dangerous. This was one of the first implementations of the so-called “All American Pick Up.” It was a technique that Downey and Fecteau had only recently trained for, and this was their first time trying it in the field. The agent on the ground would retrieve some dropped equipment: a harness, a pair of poles, and a length of line. He would then set up the poles, string the line between them, and attach the harness. The C-47 would then come in low and slow, trailing a grappling hook. The hook would snag the line, lifting the harnessed operative off the ground and into the air behind the airplane, where he’d be winched on board.

(Previously.)

Posted in Geek, History, Planes | 4 Comments »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#89 in a series)

Tuesday, May 17th, 2022

This is one of the oddest hyena watches I’ve ever done. One reason is that I’ve never seen someone accused of “illegal registration of a helicopter”. (As we will see, there’s slightly more to the story than that.)

The city of Anaheim sold land to the Los Angeles Angels for a new stadium. There’s already been one issue with the land sale violating California affordable housing law.

Now, the state attorney general has asked a court to put the deal on hold. Why?

…a detailed FBI affidavit showed {Mayor Harry] Sidhu is under investigation for public corruption, and the attorney general said he does not yet know whether the facts uncovered in the investigation could make the sale illegal.

…

However, FBI special agent Brian Adkins wrote: “I believe Sidhu illustrated his intent to solicit campaign contributions, in the amount of $1,000,000 … in exchange for performing official acts intended to finalize the stadium sale for the Angels.”

…

Adkins also said Sidhu “has attempted to obstruct an Orange County grand jury inquiry into the Angel Stadium deal.” The agent also said he believed there was probable cause that Sidhu “may have engaged in criminal offenses,” including fraud, theft or bribery, making false statements, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.

…

Sidhu, according to the affidavit, met with a witness who was cooperating with the FBI investigation, although the mayor was unaware the person was an FBI source, and coached the witness to lie to the county grand jury about what the two had discussed and when they had discussed it.

Okay, so we’ve got obstruction of justice and witness tampering, as well as bribery. I’m guessing the false statements probably involve lying to the Feds. As for the fraud:

…SIDHU is engaged in an ongoing scheme to commit honest services fraud by sharing confidential information with representatives from the Los Angeles Angels Major League Baseball team (“the Angels”) regarding negotiations related to the City’s sale of Angel Stadium with the expectation of receiving a sizeable contribution to his reelection campaign from a prominent Angels representative.

Where does the helicopter come in?

The evidence, according to the affidavit, also showed Sidhu pursued an Arizona address to register his helicopter, despite the fact that he lived in Anaheim and based the helicopter out of Chino.
Had he registered the helicopter in California, he would have owed $15,888 in sales tax. Had he registered the helicopter in Arizona, he would have owed a $1,025 vehicle tax.

I’d tend to call that “tax fraud” myself, though I also have trouble throwing stones at someone who tries to lower their tax bill (especially in California).

It should be noted that:

  • Mayor Sidhu has not actually been charged with any crimes yet, though the release of the FBI affidavit makes me think this is coming soon.
  • Nobody from the Angels has actually been accused of a crime yet.

The other odd aspect of this story is that I got tipped off to it by Field of Schemes. Neil deMause is a little more to the left than I’d like, but we find common ground in being opposed to giving tax dollars to sports franchises. This is the first actual political corruption story I’ve ever picked up from him, so take a bow, Mr. deMause.

Edited to add 5/18: Well, we have an actual indictment. But not against Mayor Sidhu: against Todd Ament, the former head of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce.

According to federal officials, Ament – with the assistance of an unnamed political consultant who federal officials describe as a partner at a national public relations firm – devised a scheme to launder proceeds intended for the Chamber through the PR firm into Ament’s bank account, authorities say.
Federal officials say Ament and the PR consultant defrauded a cannabis company that believed it was paying $225,000 for a task force that would craft favorable legislation regarding cannabis.

The way I’m reading this, the charges against Mr. Ament aren’t directly related to Mayor Sidhu or the land deal: but the Feds had Mr. Ament nailed on those charges, and used them as leverage to flip Mr. Ament, who is strongly believed (based on poor document redaction) to be “Cooperating Witness #2” in the Sidhu affidavit.

More from Field of Schemes.

Posted in California Über Alles, Helicopters, Law, Planes, Politics, Sports | 2 Comments »

Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop making “Airplane!” references…

Wednesday, May 11th, 2022

Bob Lanier has passed away at 73.

Lanier played 14 seasons with the Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks and averaged 20.1 points and 10.1 rebounds per game. He is third on the Pistons’ career list in both points and rebounds. Detroit drafted Lanier with the No. 1 overall pick in 1970 after he led St. Bonaventure to the Final Four.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Lanier was among the most talented centers in league history and added that his accomplishments went far beyond what he did on the court.
“For more than 30 years, Bob served as our global ambassador and as a special assistant to David Stern and then me, traveling the world to teach the game’s values and make a positive impact on young people everywhere,” Silver said in a statement. “It was a labor of love for Bob, who was one of the kindest and most genuine people I have ever been around.”

While this is sad and tragic, and I don’t want to minimize it, at least Kareem Abdul-Jabbar no longer has to drag him up and down the court for 48 minutes.

(Too soon?)

“I’ve got a serious situation here,” the Cessna Caravan passenger was reportedly heard telling air traffic control about 70 miles north of his final destination. “My pilot has gone incoherent. I have no idea how to fly the airplane.”
“Roger. What’s your position?” a dispatcher responded, according to the outlet.
“I have no idea,” the passenger reportedly said. “I can see the coast of Florida in front of me. And I have no idea.”

Spoiler:

“You just witnessed a couple passengers land that plane,” a controller reportedly said over the radio when the nail-biting saga came to an end.

Posted in Movies, Obits, Planes, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 15, 2022.

Friday, April 15th, 2022

Jack Newton, noted golfer.

Newton turned professional in 1971 on the European Tour and won his first event, the Dutch Open, the following year. A week later, he won another tournament at Fulford, England and, in 1974, the tour’s match play championship.
The Australian’s playoff loss in the 1975 British Open at Carnoustie came after Watson had a few rather fortuitous shots. A wire fence kept Watson’s ball in bounds on the eighth hole and the American chipped for eagle at the 14th to claim the Claret Jug by a shot over Newton.

Then, on July 24, 1983, he walked into an aircraft propeller.

His right arm was severed, he lost sight in his right eye and also sustained severe injuries to his abdomen. Doctors gave him only a 50-50 chance of surviving, and he spent nearly two months in intensive care and required lengthy rehabilitation from his injuries.
“Things weren’t looking too good for me. I knew that from the priest walking around my (hospital) bed,” Newton said later. He was 33 at the time of the accident.

…

Not to be denied from playing the game he loved, he taught himself to play golf one-handed, swinging the club with his left hand in a right-handed stance. He regularly had scores in the mid-80s for 18 holes. That translates to a handicap of about 12 or 14, one that most able-bodied amateur players would aspire to.

Mike Bossy, of the New York Islanders.

Bossy played the entirety of his 10-year career on Long Island, earning a place as both a franchise great and one of the best goal scorers the sport has ever seen, before retiring with a chronic back injury. He finished his career with 573 goals, scoring over 50 in nine straight seasons, an all-time record. Famously, he scored 50 goals in 50 games during the 1980-81 season, matching Maurice “Rocket” Richard’s record.

Franz Mohr, who the paper of record describes as the “piano tuner to the stars”. He was Steinway’s chief concert technician for 24 years.

For years, he went where the pianists went. When Vladimir Horowitz went to Russia in the 1980s, Mr. Mohr traveled with him, as did Horowitz’s favorite Steinway. Mr. Mohr made house calls at the White House when Van Cliburn played for President Gerald R. Ford in 1975, and again in 1987, when Mikhail S. Gorbachev was in Washington for arms-control talks with President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Gorbachev’s wife, Raisa, wanted Cliburn to play one of the pieces that had made him famous — Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 — but there was no orchestra. Instead, Cliburn played some Chopin and, as an encore, played and sang the Russian melody “Moscow Nights.”
“I was amazed that Van Cliburn, on the spur of the moment, remembered not only the music but all the words,” Mr. Mohr recalled in his memoir, “My Life with the Great Pianists,” written with Edith Schaeffer (1992). “The Russians just melted.”

He was also Glenn Gould’s New York piano tuner.

Mr. Mohr not only worked on the piano at the recording studio, he also rode around New York with Gould. “He loved Lincoln Town cars,” Mr. Mohr wrote in his memoir. “That is all he would drive. He once said to me: ‘Franz, I found out that next year’s model will be two inches shorter. So, you know what I did? I bought two Town Cars this year.”

And (as noted in the obit) he wrote a book, My Life with the Great Pianists (affiliate link).

He also attended to performers’ personal pianos. The pianist Gary Graffman, whose apartment is less than a block from the old location of Steinway’s Manhattan showroom, and Mr. Mohr’s home base, on West 57th Street, recalled that Mr. Mohr would come right over when a problem presented itself.
“If he came because I broke strings, he would replace the strings,” Mr. Graffman said in an interview. But if more extensive work was needed — if Mr. Graffman’s almost constant practicing had worn down the hammers and new hammers had to be installed, for example — “he would take out the insides of the piano and carry it half a block to the Steinway basement. He would work on it and carry it back.” (The unit Mr. Mohr lifted out and took down the street is known as the key and action assembly, a bewildering combination of all 88 keys and the parts that respond to a pianist’s touch, driving the hammers to the strings.)

Mr. Mohr was 94 when he passed.

Posted in Music, Obits, Planes, Sports | Comments Closed

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