There’s a high bar that has to be cleared for me to link to something on ESPN.
Bonus: the Canadian Football Act (which isn’t really an act, as it has never been signed into law).
Archive for the ‘TV’ Category
Those Glorious ’70s…
Friday, April 15th, 2022Obit watch: April 13, 2022.
Wednesday, April 13th, 2022Your Gilbert Gottfried roundup, as promised: NYT (Note the correction. What did I tell you?). Variety. THR 1. THR 2.
In honor of the late #GilbertGottfried, everyone tell the filthiest, most politically incorrect joke you know. https://t.co/q60BSYgTn4 pic.twitter.com/5efeoZRV6P
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) April 12, 2022
I don’t have a lot I want to say about the late Mr. Gottfried. My close friends know how I felt about his work, and for everyone else: “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in all mankind” and “De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est.”
I will say:
1.
…the actor succumbed to a heart abnormality called recurrent ventricular tachycardia, an arrhythmia caused by myotonic dystrophy Type 2.
Myotonic dystrophy (DM) is a genetic disorder marked by progressive muscle wasting and weakness which predominantly affects the limbs and face but can create increasingly dire complications for respiratory, skeletal and cardiac muscles.
People with DM are at a higher risk of irregular heartbeat, including ventricular tachycardia, an arrhythmia in the lower chambers of the heart (ventricles) that causes the heart to beat faster. A sustained sped-up rhythm can cause a fatal drop in blood pressure.
I’ve never heard of this disorder before, but damn, what a sucky way to go.
2. It surprised me, but Mr. Gottfried’s version of the joke in “The Aristocrats” documentary was, to me, the best of them all. Apparently, I’m not the only person who felt this way.
In other news: Michel Bouquet, French actor.
…
Obit watch: April 12, 2022.
Tuesday, April 12th, 2022Patricia MacLachlan, author. (Sarah, Plain and Tall)
Kathy Lamkin, actress. Other credits include “My Name Is Earl”, “Boston Legal”, and “Bones”.
Obit watch: April 9, 2022.
Saturday, April 9th, 2022Credits beyond “One Life to Live” and a minor SF TV show from the 1960s include “Night Gallery”, “Bearcats!”, “Law and Order” (and “SVU”), “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors”…
…and “Mannix”. (“The End of the Rainbow“, season 2, episode 5.)
Obit watch: April 7, 2022.
Thursday, April 7th, 2022A frequent commentator on television and radio, as well as a prolific writer, Mr. Boehlert never shied away from searing critiques of what he saw as bias in the mainstream press and the circular impact of media on politics.
After more than a decade as a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a left-leaning media monitoring group, Mr. Boehlert had in recent years started his own newsletter, Press Run, as a vehicle for his commentary.
According to reports, he was hit by a train while bicycling.
Justice John Michalski, “an acting justice of the [New York] State Supreme Court”.
But last month, Justice Michalski came under renewed scrutiny, and his cases were once again reassigned, after federal and state investigators raided his home. He had not been charged with any crime, but he had drawn the authorities’ attention because of his ties to Peter Gerace Jr., the owner of a strip club in Cheektowaga, another Buffalo suburb.
Mr. Gerace was charged in federal court in Florida last year with sex trafficking, drug distribution and bribery of a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent. He denies the charges, and the case has since been transferred to the Western District of New York.
The former agent, Joseph Bongiovanni, has been charged with bribery, obstruction and conspiracy. An indictment detailing the charges against the two men says that Mr. Bongiovanni’s associates included people “he believed to be members of, connected to or associated with” organized crime.
Another man identified in the indictment as having links to organized crime is Michael Masecchia, a longtime Buffalo schoolteacher now facing up to life in prison after pleading guilty to gun and drug charges.
According to reports, the judge committed suicide. He had tried to kill himself last year on the same day Mr. Gerace was indicted.
Rae Allen, actress. Other credits include “Lou Grant”, “Soap”, and “The Untouchables”.
Obit watch: April 6, 2022.
Wednesday, April 6th, 2022Bobby Rydell, one of the big teen idols.
Mr. Rydell and two other affable performers who became stars in those years, Frankie Avalon and Fabian, grew up within about two blocks of one another in South Philadelphia. Long after their days on the pop chart were past them, they enjoyed great success on the oldies circuit. The three had toured extensively together since 1985, billed as the Golden Boys, and were still performing together this year.
Mr. Rydell did not just have staying power; he also made a comeback after years of alcohol abuse, which he chronicled in his autobiography, “Bobby Rydell: Teen Idol on the Rocks” (2016), written with the guitarist and producer Allan Slutsky. Near death, he had a kidney and liver transplant in July 2012. By that October he was back, singing on a cruise ship with Mr. Avalon. But five months later, he underwent cardiac bypass surgery. Some of his later appearances were charity promotions for organ donation.
…
Mr. Rydell’s recording prime encompassed the era roughly between 1959, when Elvis Presley was in the Army and Buddy Holly died in a plane crash, and 1964, when Beatlemania hit America. It didn’t hurt that Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” was broadcast in those years from Philadelphia, the home of Mr. Rydell’s label, Cameo Records.
Mr. Rydell’s repertoire included plaintive love ballads; slow, danceable tunes; occasional frenetic rockers like “Wild One” and “Swingin’ School”; and ageless songs like Domenico Modugno’s 1958 hit “Volare,” which became Mr. Rydell’s signature song in his later touring years.
Mr. Rydell was a pop phenomenon but hardly a cutting-edge rock star. Still, he sold a lot more records than some of those who were. Over the course of his recording career he placed 19 singles in the Billboard Top 40 and 34 in the Hot 100. His name alone could conjure up an entire era: The 1970s rock musical “Grease,” in both its Broadway and movie versions, was set in 1959 at the fictional Rydell High School.
…
Alan J. Hruska, lawyer, novelist, and one of the founders of Soho Press.
Nehemiah Persoff. THR. He was 102.
206 credits in IMDB. If he wasn’t in everything, he was in lots of it. “Some Like It Hot”. “On the Waterfront”. “Law and Order”. “Barney Miller”. The good “Hawaii 5-0” multiple times. “Battlestar Galactica”. “Supertrain”. “Richie Brockelman, Private Eye”. “Quincy, M.E.” “Sword of Justice” (I was just thinking about that show the other day.) “Columbo”. “McCloud”. “McMillan and Wife”. (Trivia question I don’t have an answer for: how many actors appeared on all three of the initial shows in the “NBC Mystery Movie” wheel?) “Mission: Impossible”.
And, yes, “Mannix”. (“A Puzzle for One“, season 6, episode 11.)
Obit watch: April 4, 2022.
Monday, April 4th, 2022Ted Mooney, author. (Easy Travel to Other Planets)
June Brown. Credits other than “Eastenders” include “Doctor Who”, “The Sweeney”, and “Murder By Decree”.
Obit watch: April 3, 2022.
Sunday, April 3rd, 2022In no particular order of importance:
Bill Fries, also known as “C.W. McCall”. He’s been reported dead before, but this time it seems to be confirmed.
Mr. Fries was working as an ad executive at Bozell & Jacobs in Omaha in the 1970s, when he helped to create a series of television commercials for Metz Baking Company about a trucker named C.W. McCall hauling Old Home bread in an eighteen-wheeler and a gum-snapping waitress named Mavis at the Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep On A-Truckin’ Cafe.
The ads — including one that ended with the tagline “Old Home is good buns” — became wildly popular and helped pump up Old Home bread sales as they told the story of a diesel-scented romance between Mavis and C.W., who spoke in a formidable twang voiced by Mr. Fries.
…
With a record deal from MGM, Mr. Fries spawned a cultural phenomenon with “Convoy,” an ode to renegade truckers driving across the country, written with Chip Davis, who had also written the music for the Old Home bread ads and who went on to found the group Mannheim Steamroller, known for its Christmas music.
Crackling with CB radio lingo, the song tells the story of the truckers Rubber Duck and Pig Pen who are “puttin’ the hammer down” as they thumb their noses at speed limits, industry rules and law enforcement officers — “bears” and “smokies” in CB parlance. Along the way, they end up leading 1,000 trucks and “11 longhaired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus.”
Originally recorded merely as an album filler, “Convoy” tapped into the surging popularity of trucker culture and CB radio, which truckers used to communicate during long, lonely hours on the open road. It was part of a boom in trucking-themed country songs like “Roll On Big Mama” by Joe Stampley and “Willin’” by Little Feat.
“Convoy” spent six weeks at the top of the country charts and crossed into the top of the pop charts for a week, according to The World-Herald. More than 20 million copies of the single have been sold, according to Bozell. In 1978, Mr. Peckinpah turned the song into a movie, “Convoy,” starring Kris Kristofferson as Rubber Duck.
People who know me well know this story. For the rest: when I was younger (around the time “Convoy” was a hit) I owned a 45 RPM record (kids, ask your parents about 45 RPM records) of “Convoy” that I literally wore the grooves off of. (Kids, ask your parents about record players, needles, and grooves.)
We also owned an 8-track tape (kids, ask your parents…) with that song on it, that had the track break conveniently located at about the 2:27 point in that video.
Estelle Harris. Other credits include “Once Upon A Time In America”, “Mrs. Potato Head” in the “Toy Story” sequels, a guest appearance on a spinoff of a minor SF TV show from the 1960s, and “Futurama”.
Thomas F. Staley, who built up the Harry Ransom Center.
Dr. Staley, a scholar of James Joyce, arrived at the university in 1988. Over the next 25 years, he brought a literary sensibility and a competitive zeal to acquiring collections — and keeping them from going to universities like Harvard and Yale.
Stephen Enniss, who succeeded him as the Ransom Center’s director, said Dr. Staley had been adept at persuading university administrators, donors and the public at large to preserve literature that he saw as of lasting value.
“Tom’s enthusiasms became everyone’s enthusiasms,” Dr. Enniss said by phone.
…
Not long after being hired to run the Ransom Center, Dr. Staley learned that the archives of Stuart Gilbert, Joyce’s translator and friend, were available. According to The New Yorker, the papers, which cost the Ransom Center $265,000, came with an unexpected find: Joyce’s handwritten edits of the first chapter of “Finnegans Wake.” Dr. Staley estimated that those pages alone were worth $750,000.
In the 25 years that followed, he acquired the papers of dozens of literary luminaries, including Doris Lessing, Jorge Luis Borges, J.M. Coetzee, Penelope Lively and Isaac Bashevis Singer, as well as the archives of Robert De Niro and the Life magazine photojournalist David Douglas Duncan. Dr. Staley also continued to teach English.
When Dr. Staley visited the playwright Tom Stoppard at his home in England, he found his papers scattered in his study and in another building on his property. As Dr. Staley recalled to The Times, Mr. Stoppard told him, “What you want is mostly stuff I would throw away: notes on this and that.” But there were also drafts of his plays, notes on revisions and drawings of stage sets.
On another trip, to Arthur Miller’s house in Connecticut, Dr. Staley learned that in a box Miller thought had been filled with roofing nails, he had discovered valuable notebooks and a short story — the very type of items that help fill an archive. Although parts of Miller’s archive had been at the Ransom Center for decades, a formal deal to acquire the collection, for $2.7 million, was not made until 2017.
General Charles G. Boyd (USAF- ret.).
In 1966, General Boyd, who was a captain at the time, volunteered for a dangerous mission in Vietnam — attacking surface-to-air missile sites around Hanoi. After repeated passes through enemy fire, his F-105D plane was hit and set ablaze. He had to eject, and, shortly after landing in a rice paddy, he was captured.
He spent the next 2,488 days enduring torture, isolation, malnutrition and interrogation in various squalid prisons, including the so-called Hanoi Hilton; for 18 months, he was imprisoned in a cell next to the Navy flyer John S. McCain, who would go on to become a United States senator and presidential candidate.
After his release…
He swiftly ascended in the Air Force chain of command, becoming the only former prisoner of war from the Vietnam conflict to achieve four-star rank. He also served as director of plans on the Air Force staff and as commander of the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. He finished his much-decorated 36-year Air Force career as deputy commander in chief of the United States European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, where he helped oversee the drawdown of forces at the end of the Cold War.
After he retired from the Air Force in 1995, he took on several civilian roles that built on his expertise in homeland security and foreign policy.
Among the most notable was his tenure as executive director of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, also known as the Hart-Rudman Commission, headed by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman. Barely eight months before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the commission warned — in a report that was largely ignored — that the gravest threat to the United States was the likelihood that a terrorist attack would take place on American soil and would kill large numbers of people.
Barrie Youngfellow, TV actress. (“It’s A Living”. Other credits include some cop shows, “Fernwood Tonight”, “Emergency”, and “WKRP In Cincinnati”.)
Obit watch: March 30, 2022.
Wednesday, March 30th, 2022Marvin J. Chomsky, TV director. Credits include “Roots” and “Holocaust”. Also three episodes of a minor 1960s SF TV series, the good “Hawaii 5-0”, “Mission: Impossible”, “Lancer”, “Bearcats!”, “Evel Knievel”…
…and “Mannix”. (“Little Girl Lost“, season 7, episode 4.)
Paul Herman. Credits other than “The Sopranos” and “Goodfellas” include “We Own The Night”, “Once Upon A Time In America”, and “The Last Temptation of Christ”.
Obit watch: March 25, 2022.
Friday, March 25th, 2022Scoey Mitchell, comedian and actor.
Credits (other than “Barefoot In the Park”) include “Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling”, and guest shots on “Lou Grant”, “Police Story”, and “The Six Million Dollar Man”.
Yvan Colonna. This is a couple of days old, and you’ve probably never heard of him, but the case is interesting.
Mr. Colonna was a Corsican nationalist.
In 1998, Claude Érignac, who was basically France’s appointed governor of Corsica, was shot and killed.
Mr. Colonna evaded capture for four years. He was convicted of murder in 2007. That conviction was later overturned, but he was convicted again in 2011 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Three weeks ago, Mr. Colonna was attacked by another inmate:
…a known Islamist extremist who had been convicted on terrorism charges and had a history of violent acts in prison. The inmate, identified by French authorities as Franck Elong Abé, 35, beat, strangled and suffocated Mr. Colonna in the prison gym.
Mr. Elong Abé later told investigators that he had heard Mr. Colonna make “blasphemous” comments. Prosecutors have opened an investigation. But it is still unclear how the attack was able to last nearly 10 minutes without any intervention from prison guards.
Obit watch: March 23, 2022.
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2022Lawrence tipped me off to the deaths of two actors which (per the policy of this blog) I have to note here.
Lawrence Dane. Yeah, yeah, “Bride of Chucky”. Other credits include “Lancer”, “Mission: Impossible”, “The F.B.I.”…
…and “Mannix”. (“Fly, Little One”, season 3, episode 21. “Overkill”, season 4, episode 24.)
Howard “Pepper” Martin. Sorry for the sourcing, but I haven’t seen this elsewhere.
Other credits include “Quincy, M.E.”, the 1990 revival of “Dragnet”, “T.J. Hooker”, “240-Robert”, seven appearances on “The Rockford Files”, six appearances on “Police Woman”, “Mission: Impossible”, four appearances on “Police Story”, the good “Hawaii 5-0”, “Bearcats!”…
…and he was a “Mannix” three timer. (“A Catalogue of Sins”, season 1, episode 11. “Last Rites for Miss Emma”, season 2, episode 22. “The Color of Murder”, season 4, episode 22.)
Obit watch: March 21, 2022.
Monday, March 21st, 2022Av Westin, TV news guy. (“20/20”)
Dr. Julian Heicklen, “a charismatic, cantankerous chemistry professor who dedicated his retirement years to a series of public protests in defense of civil liberties” as the paper of record describes him. He was 90.
What is sort of buried in the NYT obit is the actual nature of his protests. He was an advocate of jury nullification:
Rain or shine, he arrived every Monday — the day when juries are typically chosen — holding a sign reading “Jury Info” and handing out yellow pamphlets that explained the meaning and history of jury nullification.
Though he typically stood alone, he was one of many around the country engaged in similar protests, motivated by concerns about what they saw as unjust laws and prosecutorial overreach and convinced that jurors willing to take the law into their own hands were the last barrier to tyranny.
This being New York City, he was indicted in 2010 on charges of “jury tampering”.
The case drew extensive coverage, giving Dr. Heicklen the sort of platform he had only dreamed of, and he played it for all he could. At his bail hearing, he hung his head and refused to speak, leading the judge to ask if he was sleeping.
“I’m exercising my Fifth Amendment right to remain silent,” he finally piped up. At his arraignment hearing, he laid into the judge and prosecutors for what he called their “tissue of lies.”
The case was short-lived: Judge Kimba M. Wood threw it out in April 2012, ruling that as long as Dr. Heicklen was not targeting individual jurors, he was merely exercising his First Amendment rights.
…
Obit watch: March 19, 2022.
Saturday, March 19th, 2022John Korty, director.
He won an Emmy for “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and an Oscar for the documentary “Who Are the DeBolts? And Where Did They Get Nineteen Kids?” Other credits included “Go Ask Alice” and “Oliver’s Story”.
Robert Vincent O’Neil, writer and director. Among his credits: the original “Angel” (“High School Honor Student by Day. Hollywood Hooker by Night.”) and the sequel “Avenging Angel”. Also, the series “Lady Blue” which I do not remember:
Don Young (R-Alaska).
In a state whose small population allows for two senators but only one representative, Mr. Young, who cultivated the image of a rugged frontiersman with outsize clout in Washington, was sometimes called Alaska’s “third senator.” To this day, most Alaskans have had no congressman in their lifetimes but Mr. Young, who was first elected in 1973, during the Nixon administration.
Early in his 24th term in 2019, he became the longest-serving Republican in House history, surpassing the tenure of the former speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon of Illinois, who as a teenager had followed the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates and went on to serve 23 House terms in three discontinuous segments between 1873 and 1923. At his death Mr. Young was in his 25th term and 49th year in Congress. (John Dingell, a Democratic House member from Michigan for 59 years, was the longest-serving member of Congress in American history.)
John Clayton, former NFL reporter for ESPN and later for Seattle Sports.
“John was a pioneer as an NFL insider but also one of the kindest men you could ever work with,” said Seth Markman, vice president and executive producer at ESPN. “He literally never said no to a show that asked him to come on — from 6 a.m. to midnight, if you asked for the Professor, he was there for you. I’ll also personally remember how he loved and cared for his beloved wife Pat as she has battled multiple sclerosis. We will all miss John greatly.”
Clayton received the profession’s highest honor, now known as the Bill Nunn Memorial Award, in 2007. The award is presented annually by the Pro Football Writers of America in recognition of “long and distinguished reporting in the field of pro football.”
“It’s the highest honor any writer covering this sport can receive,” Clayton said at the time.
(Hattip to Lawrence for the Don Young and John Clayton tips.)
Obit watch: March 17, 2022.
Thursday, March 17th, 2022Peter Bowles, British actor.
Other than “To the Manor Born”, he was “Guthrie Featherstone” on “Rumpole of the Bailey”, and did guest shots on “Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)”, “Tales of the Unexpected”, “I, Claudius”, “Space: 1999”, “The Prisoner”, and appeared four times on “The Avengers”, among other credits.
When I published yesterday’s obit watch, Tyler James was the only person confirmed dead in the Andrews County car crash. Since then, the names of the others have been published:
Mauricio Sanchez
Travis Garcia
Jackson Zinn
Karisa Raines
Laci Stone
Tiago Sousa
Henrich Siemans (driver of the pickup truck)
Obit watch: March 11, 2022.
Friday, March 11th, 2022Emilio Delgado. He was most famous as “Luis” on “Sesame Street” (for 44 years), but he also did some other work: three of the “Law and Order” shows, a regular role on “Lou Grant”, “Quincy, M.E.”, and the good “Hawaii 5-0”, among other credits.
Elsa Klensch, of “Style With Elsa Klensch”.
Odalis Perez, former pitcher for the Braves and Dodgers (also the Royals and Nationals). He was 44: according to his family, he apparently fell off a ladder at his home.
Bobbie Nelson, sister of Willie Nelson and pianist and singer in his band.
(Hattip on this to FotB RoadRich.)