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Quick obit watch update.

Wednesday, May 15th, 2019

The NYT updated their Tim Conway obit in place (and included the dentist sketch, which they didn’t previously).

I was going to link to the LAT obit…but I couldn’t find one. Mr. Conway’s death (in LA) got no play on the LAT homepage. I finally found, by searching the site, that they’d run the generic AP obit and apparently a few photos, but all of this was buried.

Cleveland Plain Dealer.

“Here’s this fellow from this town outside of Cleveland, Chagrin Falls,” Harvey Korman said of his friend and “Carol Burnett Show” co-star before they brought their “Together Again’’ show to Cleveland’s Palace Theatre in 2003. “His mother is a Rumanian seamstress. His father is an Irish groom. And their issue, one child, is this comedy genius. How does that happen? He is indeed one of the most inventive and innovative comedy minds in our business.
“I truly believe he was born too late. I think if he were born in the era of the Chaplins, the Keatons and the Lloyds, he would have been right up there with the great silent clowns.”

Posted in 1970s, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Not exactly an obit watch…

Tuesday, May 14th, 2019

…but I wanted to post this now, in memory of Tim Conway. Fuller obits will come, probably tomorrow.

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

Obit watch: May 13, 2019.

Monday, May 13th, 2019

Doris Day.

I can’t find a good clip, but I rather liked Ms. Day in the 1956 version of “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. (I liked Jimmy Stewart in that movie, too, but I think the 1934 version moves faster and has a more satisfying climax. Don’t get me wrong: both are good Hitchcock films.)

Peggy Lipton, of “Mod Squad” and “Twin Peaks” fame. I wish I had more to say about her, but I was just a little too young for “The Mod Squad” and pretty much missed “Twin Peaks” the first time around.

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

Obit watch: May 10, 2019.

Friday, May 10th, 2019

Jim Fowler, Marlin Perkins’s sidekick on “Wild Kingdom” and later frequent late-night talk show guest.

Here’s something we hope you really like:

Posted in 1970s, Mammals, Obits, Reptiles, TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: April 25, 2019.

Thursday, April 25th, 2019

Wow. Lots going on.

This is breaking news: Lawrence beat me to it (because I had to wait for my lunch hour to post).

Former Williamson County DA Jana Duty was found dead in a South Texas condo yesterday.

I have a WCDA tag for reasons: if you go back and look, or read Lawrence’s post, you’ll see that former DA Duty was controversial and apparently had some issues during her tenure. But this is still a sad and awful thing.

Mark Medoff, playwright. He was best known for “Children of a Lesser God”, which won multiple Tony awards and was the basis for the Oscar winning Marlee Matlin movie.

This one is for Mike the Musicologist: Heather Harper, soprano.

An unanticipated performance in 1962 brought Ms. Harper international attention when, on 10 days’ notice, she substituted for Galina Vishnevskaya in the premiere of Britten’s “War Requiem.” The work was written to dedicate the new Coventry Cathedral in England, the original 14th-century structure having been bombed into ruin during World War II.
As a gesture of reconciliation, Britten, a pacifist, had intended the soloists to be the tenor Peter Pears (an Englishman), the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (a German) and Ms. Vishnevskaya (a Russian). But the Soviet government refused to allow Ms. Vishnevskaya to travel to Coventry for the premiere. Ms. Harper, just turned 32, took her place and triumphed.

She did a lot of work with Britten (including Ellen in the 1969 BBC production of “Peter Grimes”) but she had a larger repertoire, including singing “Lohengrin” at Bayreuth.

Fay McKenzie, actress. Her story is interesting:

Ms. McKenzie made her screen debut in 1918, when she was 10 weeks old, cradled in Gloria Swanson’s arms in “Station Content,” a five-reel silent romance. Her last role was a cameo appearance with her son, Tom Waldman Jr., in “Kill a Better Mousetrap,” a comedy, based on a play by Scott K. Ratner, that was filmed last summer and has yet to be released.

She was also in five Blake Edwards movies and five Gene Autry movies. Ms. McKenzie was 101 when she passed.

Ken Kercheval. He did a lot of TV work (no “Mannix”, though) and was probably most famous as Cliff Barnes on “Dallas”. (He was also in “Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell“, which I’d kind of like to watch. Lawrence, however, does not seem to care much for movies involving demonic dogs.)

Finally, Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg. Noted:

As the crown prince, he fled Luxembourg with the grand ducal family after Germany invaded the country in May 1940 and found refuge in France, Portugal, the United States and Canada before moving to Britain to join the Irish Guards, a regiment of the British Army, as a private in 1942.
He participated in the Allies’ invasion of Normandy in 1944 and fought in the Battle for Caen there. Three months later he took part in the liberation of Brussels.
Among other honors, he received a Silver Star from the United States, a War Medal from Britain and the French Croix de Guerre. He was promoted to colonel in the Irish Guards in 1984 and was made an honorary general of the British Army in 1995.

Posted in 1970s, Cops, Movies, Music, Obits, Theatre, TV, Wagner, WCDA | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: April 16, 2019.

Tuesday, April 16th, 2019

Thanks to Alan Simpson for providing Gene Wolfe obit links. I’m still holding off a bit on posting here, as I’d like to see some things come together first.

In the meantime: Georgia Engel, Ted Baxter’s girlfriend/wife on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”. Apparently, she also had a gig on “Everybody Loves Raymond”, but I was one of the people who didn’t love Raymond. And she had a pretty substantial theater career, both before and after MTM.

“I was walking down the street one day after ‘Dolly’ closed to cash my unemployment check for $75,” Ms. Engel told The Toronto Star years later, “when I ran into John and he told me I had to be in his play ‘The House of Blue Leaves.’ I was so thrilled, until I got my first paycheck. I was making $74, one dollar less than unemployment.”

Posted in 1970s, Books, Obits, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 10, 2019.

Wednesday, April 10th, 2019

Charles Van Doren has passed away at the age of 93.

I wrote a little about this a while back, but to recap: Mr. Van Doren was from a cultured and educated family, had batchelor’s and master’s degrees, taught at Columbia University, and was “handsome, personable” with “an honest look about him”.

He was recruited by Albert Freedman to appear on the quiz show “Twenty-One” (he didn’t even own a TV at the time), and knocked off Herb Stempel, the reigning champion. (From some accounts I’ve seen, the producers basically felt Mr. Van Doren was “more appealing” to the audience than Mr. Stempel.)

Mr. Van Doren won $129,000 in 1956 money (the paper of record claims that’s equivalent to $1 million today).

In succeeding months, as rumors and skepticism over TV quiz shows grew, some contestants admitted that the programs had been fixed. The networks denied it, and Mr. Van Doren insisted that he had not taken part in any deceptions. Besides misleading the press and public, he continued to deceive his family and friends, and even lied to a Manhattan grand jury about his performances.
But on Nov. 2, 1959, he told congressional investigators that the shows had all been hoaxes, that he had been given questions and answers in advance, and that he had been coached to make the performances more dramatic.

Mr. Van Doren served a suspended sentence for second-degree perjury (for lying to the grand jury), went on to work for Encyclopaedia Britannica, and wrote a couple of books after he retired. (He also collaborated on some books with Mortimer Adler.)

The famous New Yorker article from 2008.

As far as I can tell, Herb Stempel is still alive at the age of 92.

Posted in Books, History, Law, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 9, 2019.

Tuesday, April 9th, 2019

Seymour Cassel, character actor.

As the obit notes, he did a lot of work with John Cassavetes and Wes Anderson. But his list of credits goes beyond that. He did a guest shot on “Convoy” (the TV series) and was in “Convoy” (the movie). He did several episodes of “12 O’Clock High” and “The F.B.I.”, was in two “Batman” episodes, guested on “Matlock”, and was even in one “ST:TNG” episode.

Never did a “Mannix”, though, as far as I can tell.

(Noted: “Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight”. Just read the summary.)

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

Obit watch: April 4, 2019.

Thursday, April 4th, 2019

David Fechheimer, private investigator. Noted here because this is one of the better NYT obits for a not-so-famous person I’ve read in a while.

Ron “The Ghoul” Sweed, late night TV host in Cleveland during the 70s.

Sweed broke into Cleveland TV in 1971 on WKBF Channel 61. He wore a lab coat and was armed with an assortment of low-rent props, from Cheez Whiz to firecrackers to flying pierogis, kielbasa and slime. He quickly was syndicated in six other markets — Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
He got his start working as an assistant for another late-night TV legend, Ernie “Ghoulardi” Anderson. He received Anderson’s permission to appear as the Ghoul in 1971.

(Previously. Hattip: Lawrence.)

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

Obit watch: March 20, 2019.

Wednesday, March 20th, 2019

Richard Erdman, noted character actor. He was on “Community”, which I never watched. But before that, he seems to have done guest shots on many TV shows of the 1970s and 1960s (except “Mannix”). Like everyone else in Hollywood, he was also in “Tora! Tora! Tora!”, and played Hoffman in “Stalag 17”.

Al Silverman passed away on Sunday. He worked in publishing, spending 16 years with Book of the Month Club and later becoming an editor with Viking Books.

Before that, he was a freelance sportswriter and later editor in chief of “Sport” magazine. While he was editing “Sport”, he met and wrote about Gayle Sayers, who was recovering from a knee injury. Ultimately, Mr. Silverman and Mr. Sayers collaborated on Mr. Sayers’s autobiography, I Am Third. And, in turn, a chapter from that book became the basis for “Brian’s Song”.

“I don’t remember my father talking about his greatest projects, but in terms of royalties, it was the best,” Brian Silverman said by telephone.

Another great story:

When the running back Paul Hornung was celebrated for leading the Green Bay Packers to the 1961 National Football League championship, Sport awarded him a 1962 Corvette. Mr. Hornung soon after sold the car and got into a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service in United States Tax Court after he failed to disclose the full market value of the car as part of his gross income for 1962.
“My father testified to Hornung’s defense that he should not pay income tax on the car,” Brian Silverman said. His father argued that the car was an unsolicited reward for Mr. Hornung’s talents and thus should be tax-exempt — “the same as a Nobel Prize, because football was Hornung’s art and he performed it to an award-winning degree.” Mr. Hornung lost the case.

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

Does this count as a tax-fattened hyena watch?

Tuesday, March 12th, 2019

Lawrence is all over the Felicity Huffman/Lori Loughlin bribery case, which apparently also involves a UT tennis coach. Additional coverage from ESPN. NYT coverage.

The story is developing, I don’t have as much time as I’d like to keep on top of it, and I don’t want to tread on Lawrence’s turf (although it doesn’t look like anyone was taking bribes to admit giant spiders to Yale. Yet.), so I’d recommend keeping an eye on the three sites above for updates.

Posted in Law, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 9, 2019.

Saturday, March 9th, 2019

I held back on these yesterday because I wanted to give them 24 hours to shake out.

Dan Jenkins, noted Texas author (Semi-Tough) and sports writer. NYT.

If you want to get a taste of his work, you could do worse than browse through the “SI 60“, especially “The Disciples Of St. Darrell On A Wild Weekend: A Texas football odyssey” and “The Sweet Life Of Swinging Joe: Joe Namath, celebrity and New York City“.

Jan-Michael Vincent, for the historical record.

Carmine “The Snake” Persico, noted Mafia boss.

“He was the most fascinating figure I encountered in the world of organized crime,” said Edward A. McDonald, a former federal prosecutor who was in charge of a Justice Department unit that investigated the Mafia in the 1970s and ’80s. “Because of his reputation for intelligence and toughness, he was a legend by the age of 17, and later as a mob boss he became a folk hero in certain areas of Brooklyn.”

…

The extent of Mr. Persico’s influence and authority in the Mafia was exposed at a watershed federal trial in 1986 in Manhattan. He and the reputed bosses of the Genovese and Lucchese crime families were convicted of being members of the Commission, the select body that resolved major disputes and set policies for the five New York crime families: the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese factions.
At the trial, Mr. Persico, a high school dropout, decided to represent himself, and he won the praises of lawyers and judges for his acumen in questioning witnesses, writing legal briefs and raising points of law.
His unorthodox trial tactics failed, however, and he was convicted, along with Anthony Corallo, the accused boss of the Lucchese family, and Anthony Salerno, a high-ranking member of the Genovese family. Each man was sentenced to 100 years in prison without the possibility of parole after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit murders, racketeering and leading a criminal enterprise, the Commission.

Posted in Books, Law, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 5, 2019.

Tuesday, March 5th, 2019

Luke Perry, for the record. I wish I could say more, other than 52 is too young.

Nathaniel Taylor. He was perhaps best known as “Rollo” on “Sanford and Son”.

Last and least, serial killer Juan Corona.

I thought about using the “is burning in Hell” line for the late Mr. Corona. But if you read the NYT obit (and I’ve seen these facts referenced elsewhere), there were some…questionable things that went on during his two trials:

Prosecutors were found to have misplaced or mishandled evidence, and forensic tests that ought to have been done early on were delayed. At one point a prosecutor improperly suggested that Mr. Corona’s refusal to testify suggested that he was guilty.
The judge, who repeatedly expressed dismay at the prosecutors’ performance, reminded the jury that the burden of proof rested totally on the prosecution. Mr. Corona was convicted on Jan. 18, 1973, and sentenced to life in prison. (The California Supreme Court had overturned the state’s death penalty months before the trial.)

…

Even after finding Mr. Corona guilty, some jurors said they were “shocked” and “flabbergasted” that his defense had presented no psychiatric evidence on his behalf. His original public defender had planned to have him plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but the family retained a lawyer who spurned that approach. Later, the lawyer was found to have been angling for a book deal about the case.
In May 1978, a California appeals court overturned the conviction, declaring that Mr. Corona’s defense had been inept and compromised.

During the second trial, Mr. Corona’s new lawyers suggested that the actual killer was his half-brother, Natividad Corona, who had disappeared somewhere in Mexico. Mr. Corona was convicted again. As far as I can tell, he’d been in jail or prison since 1971.

Posted in 1970s, Law, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 2, 2019.

Saturday, March 2nd, 2019

Katherine Helmond. Alzheimer’s got her at 89. THR. (Hattip: Lawrence.)

I didn’t watch “Who’s the Boss?” and my parents wouldn’t let me watch “Soap” first run. But:

Ms. Helmond became a well-regarded stage actress in New York and beyond. In 1966, working with the Trinity Square Repertory Company in Providence, R.I., she took on the role of Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

Her TV credits go back to 1955, and include “Car 54, Where Are You?”, “Hec Ramsey”, “Harry O”, “Meeting of Minds” (she played Emily Dickinson)…

…and, believe it or not, two episodes of “Mannix”. (“A Fine Day for Dying” and “A Rage to Kill”.)

And she was in three Terry Gilliam movies: “Time Bandits”, “Brazil”, and “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas”.

She sounds like someone I would have enjoyed hanging out with, maybe over a cheeseburger and the amusing house red.

Posted in 1970s, Mannix, Movies, Obits, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 27, 2019.

Wednesday, February 27th, 2019

Dick Churchill passed away earlier this month at the age of 99.

The Germans captured Mr. Churchill, a squadron leader at the time, after they shot down the bomber he was flying over the Netherlands in 1940. In 1942 he was transferred to Stalag III, a camp in what is now Zagan, Poland, a little more than 100 miles southeast of Berlin and then a part of Germany, where a few hundred prisoners soon began excavating escape tunnels.

…

Mr. Churchill helped dig the three main tunnels, which the prisoners called Tom, Dick and Harry. It was arduous, nerve-racking work, conducted with improvised tools and the constant risk of discovery or a cave-in.
“You didn’t have any air,” Mr. Churchill said, “and you had a little fat lump lamp which was Reich margarine, which spluttered, with a bit of pajama cord or something similar, which sucked up the oil and gave you a little bit of a light. And you hacked away at your sand, pushed it behind you where another fool took it further back.”
The tunnels were cleverly concealed, but Tom was discovered by the Germans in 1943 and Dick proved unusable. On a frigid night in March 1944, Mr. Churchill was one of 76 prisoners to make their way through the tunnel called Harry and out of Stalag III.

…

Most of the escapees were recaptured in days — only three made it to freedom — and 50 were killed for the attempt. Mr. Churchill said he thought he was spared because his captors believed he might be related to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and could be a useful bargaining chip. (After he made it back to England he said that they were not related as far as he knew).

Mr. Churchill was the last surviving member of the escape party.

Jeraldine Saunders.

Ms. Saunders, who also wrote a widely syndicated astrology column for the Tribune Company as well as a book on hypoglycemia, had an eclectic résumé to say the least. She was a model as well as an author; a practitioner of numerology and palm reading as well as an astrologer. She liked dating younger men and at age 89 filmed a segment for the TLC series “Extreme Cougar Wives” (with a boyfriend, not a husband).

She was most famous as the author of The Love Boats (link goes to revised edition on Amazon, and yes, I will get a tiny kickback if you buy the book), about her time as a cruise ship hostess and cruise director. That book inspired three TV movies, and ultimately “The Love Boat” television series.

Mark Bramble, who wrote the book for the musical “Barnum” and co-wrote the book for “42nd Street”. Oddly, when I was in my late teens, I saw “Barnum” with Stacy Keach in the title role. But I don’t remember very much about the music or the book…

I’ve avoided writing about Brody Stevens because:

  • I wasn’t familiar with his work. I’ve seen him described, mostly on Twitter, as “a comedian’s comedian”.
  • Everything I’ve seen before now has been on Twitter. Yesterday’s NYT was the first reliable report I’ve seen.
  • I find his death at 48 depressing, and don’t know what else I can say about it.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a surprisingly good page of additional resources.

Posted in 1970s, Boats, Books, Heroism, History, Obits, Theatre, TV | 2 Comments »

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