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Obit watch: March 3, 2022.

Thursday, March 3rd, 2022

Farrah Forke, actress. Credits include a recurring role as “Alex Lambert” on “Wings”, and also a recurring role on “Lois & Clark” as “Mayson Drake”.

She was a good Texan, and died at 54.

Alan Ladd Jr. He was a big deal Hollywood producer. Among his credits:

During his tenure, Fox produced some of its most successful films, including Star Wars (1977), which he optioned after Universal rejected it. He championed George Lucas’ movie against the wishes of his board of directors, and the film became one of the most profitable in history.
“The only meeting I had with Laddie about the script, … he said, ‘Look, it doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever, but I trust you. Go ahead and make it.’ That was just honest,” Lucas once said. “I mean, it was a crazy movie. Now you can see it, know what it is, but before you could see it, there wasn’t anything like it. You couldn’t explain it. You know, … it was like this furry dog driving a spaceship. I mean, what is that?”

More:

As a studio executive and producer, Ladd — the son of screen idol Alan Ladd (This Gun for Hire, Shane) — had a hand in 14 best picture nominees. His imprint can be found on such touchstone films as Young Frankenstein (1974), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), The Omen (1976), Breaking Away (1979), Body Heat (1981), Chariots of Fire (1981), Blade Runner (1982) and Moonstruck (1987).
Before it was fashionable, Ladd supported films with strong female-centric themes, including Robert Altman’s 3 Women (1977); Julia (1977), starring Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave; 11-time Academy Award nominee The Turning Point (1977); Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman (1978), starring Jill Clayburgh; Norma Rae (1979), which earned Sally Field an Oscar for best actress; and the Bette Midler-starring The Rose (1979).
Ladd upped the ante by making a woman the main protagonist in a big-budget action film with Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), starring Sigourney Weaver, and he greenlighted Thelma & Louise (1991), the icon of feminist cinema toplined by Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis.

He won an Oscar for “Braveheart”.

Kirk Baily, voice actor. Lawrence sent me this obit, but I don’t have a source I am willing to link to.

Lawrence also sent over an obit for Katie Meyer, Stanford soccer goalie, who died too young at 22.

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

Obit watch: March 2, 2022.

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022

THR obit for Veronica Carlson.

Ralph Ahn, actor. He seems to be mostly known as “Tran” on “New Girl”, but other credits include “ER”, “Walker: Texas Ranger”, and “Hunter”.

Lawrence sent over an obit for Nick Zedd, “founder of the Cinema of Transgression movement and an uncompromising auteur whose crude, no-budget oeuvre influenced filmmakers from Christoph Schlingensief to Quentin Tarantino”.

He shot his first distributed film, They Eat Scum, in 1979 on Super 8 film with funds loaned by his parents and by the movie’s star, Donna Death. The short followed a roving gang of nonactor punks turned zombies, whose peregrinations were set to the earsplitting yowls of local New York bands and, inexplicably, the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” Zedd released They Eat Scum under his own Penetration Films imprint, describing it on the cassette label “a disgusting outlay of cheapness, decadence, nihilism, and everyday cannibalism” and an “achievement of noncommittal, unblinking savagery, a true expression of the punk ethos.”
Future films lived up to this promise, among them 1983’s Geek Maggot Bingo, which starred Richard Hell and was panned in TV Guide as “a nothing little zit of a 16mm movie.” Writing in the East Village Eye, Cookie Mueller, who starred in a number of John Waters movies, declared, “I have never in my lifetime of experience with low-budget films seen one this low . . . It lies somewhere below the subculture, even beneath the New York subway system.” Waters himself would later say of Zedd, “Nick Zedd makes violent, perverted art films from Hell—he’s my kind of director!”

Danny Ongais, one of the great figures in auto racing.

Ongais was born in Kahului and remains the only native Hawaiian who has ever competed in the Indy 500. He made 11 starts from 1977 and 1996, earning four top 10 finishes and a fourth-place result in 1979.

…

During the 1981 Indy 500, Ongais survived one of the most dramatic crashes in the race’s history when his car disintegrated after hitting the wall, leaving his legs and arms exposed as it burst into flames and skidded to a stop. He suffered several season-ending injuries, but returned to drive in the race the following year.

Video of the crash. I can’t embed it, because it is “age restricted” and “only available on YouTube”.

Dottie Frazier has passed away at 99. This is another one of those folks you’ve probably never heard of, but the obit is relevant to my interests.

Ms. Frazier was a diver. She learned to skin dive when she was young:

She seemingly had as many diving stories as she had dives.
There was the time she faced down a shark in the waters off Mexico. The time a large seal wanted the fish she was bringing back to her boat and slammed into her, breaking four ribs. The time she broke her leg snow skiing and made herself a special wet suit with an ankle-to-chest zipper so she could be rolled into it and thus keep diving with the busted limb.

She wasn’t initially impressed with the early scuba gear, but it grew on her.

…in 1955 she tried to enroll in a Los Angeles County underwater instructors certification course, sending in the required fee. She was sent a letter saying the course was for men only, but when she told that news to a friend and respected fellow diver, Jim Christiansen, he asked, “Did they return your check?”
“When I told him no, they had not, he said, ‘Just be ready; I’m picking you up,’” she told the podcast “The League of Extraordinary Divers” in 2016.

She went on to become one of the first, if not the first, women certified as a diving instructor in the United States.

In addition to her work as a scuba instructor, Ms. Frazier, a member of the Women Divers Hall of Fame, operated the Penguin Dive Shop in Long Beach for 15 years beginning in the 1950s and designed and sold wet suits and dry suits. She learned hard-hat diving as well — the kind used in underwater commercial work — but didn’t pursue the career possibilities because, at about five feet tall and not much more than 100 pounds, she found the equipment too cumbersome and restraining.
Ms. Frazier was energetic and adventurous even in her 90s. At 93 she went ziplining. In 2019, she finally sold the last of her motorcycles. In the “Neutral Buoyancy” interview, she noted that longevity seemed to go along with diving.
“A lot of the original divers have made it to a great age,” she said. “Being underwater does things to your spirit.”

Posted in Cars, Movies, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 1, 2022.

Tuesday, March 1st, 2022

David Boggs, co-inventor (with Bob Metcalfe) of Ethernet.

“He was the perfect partner for me,” Mr. Metcalfe said in an interview. “I was more of a concept artist, and he was a build-the-hardware-in-the-back-room engineer.”

Ned Eisenberg, actor. THR. He was a regular on “Law and Order: SVU”. Other credits include “Million Dollar Baby”, “Flags of Our Fathers”, and guest shots on “The Equalizer” (original recipe) and “Miami Vice”.

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

Obit watch: February 28, 2022.

Monday, February 28th, 2022

John Landy, runner, sportsman, and historical footnote.

Mr. Landy was the second man to run the mile in less than four minutes.

On June 21 — 46 days after Bannister’s historic race — Landy lowered the world record even more, to 3:57.9, in Turku, Finland. (According to the timing rules of the day, which called for mile records to be listed in fifths rather than tenths of a second, the time was listed as 3:58.0; it is now recognized as 3:57.9, the actual time recorded by four timers.)

On August 7, 1954 (48 days after Landy’s record) he and Roger Bannister went head to head in Vancouver, BC.

As expected, Landy led from the start, building a 15-yard lead. But Bannister — by then Dr. Bannister — closed in on the last lap, and Landy could sense him coming. Rounding the final turn, he peeked over his left shoulder to see where Bannister was. But Bannister was on his right, and as Landy’s head was turned, Bannister stormed by him, and won, in 3:58.8. Landy came in second, in 3:59.6.
It was the first time two men had bettered four minutes in the same race. Today, a statue outside the stadium commemorates the moment.

Mr. Landy cut his foot the night before the race, and ran on four stitches.

Above all, Landy was a sportsman, as exemplified in a startling moment in the 1956 Australian track and field championships in Melbourne, just before the Olympics there.
Landy had entered the race hoping to break the world record for the mile. But with the race underway, a 19-year-old competitor, Ron Clarke, was bumped only strides ahead of him and fell to the track. Landy leapt over him and, as he did, accidentally spiked him on his right shoulder. Landy stopped, ran back to Clarke, brushed cinders from Clarke’s knees and said, “Sorry.”
“Keep going,” Clarke said. “I’m all right.”
Clarke got up, and he and Landy started after the others, who by then were 60 yards ahead. Landy caught them and won in 4:04.2.
Gordon Moyes, an Australian minister who was there, later called it “the most incredibly stupid, beautiful, foolish, gentlemanly act I have ever seen.”

Lawrence sent over an obit for Veronica Carlson, noted actress in Hammer horror films.

Among her most famous roles were Maria in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Anna Spengler in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed and Elizabeth Heiss in The Horror of Frankenstein.

IMDB entry.

Posted in Movies, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Notes on film.

Sunday, February 27th, 2022

The Saturday Night Movie Group watched “Foreign Correspondent” last night.

Summary: it is a damn good movie, though the radio broadcast ending probably went down more smoothly in 1940. Today, it seemed to me to be a bit over the top and somewhat laughable instead of patriotic (which I believe was the original intent). The original ending of the film involved “two of the characters discuss[ing] the events of the film on a transatlantic seaplane trip” but Hitch was expecting war, and called in Ben “The Front Page” Hecht to write that ending.

I never really thought of Hitchcock as being strong on special effects, but the practical effects work (especially the plane crash scene) is outstanding. And much of that is due to William Cameron Menzies, who previously did the burning of Atlanta for “Gone With the Wind”, another movie we watched just a few weeks ago.

The fun thing about “Foreign Correspondent” is that everywhere you look, there’s a rabbit hole to go down.

For example, the movie dialogue was written by James “Lost Horizon” Hilton and Robert Benchley. Benchley seems to be mostly forgotten now, but he was a major humorist and writer, member of the Algonquin Round Table, and even did a little acting. He plays “Stebbins” in the movie.

Laraine Day, who plays the love interest, was only 19 when the movie was shot. She went on to appear in “The High and the Mighty”, and in seven of the nine Lew Ayres “Dr. Kildare” films as his long suffering girlfriend/fiance. She missed the first one, “Young Dr. Kildare”, but appeared in all of them through the eighth, “Dr. Kildare’s Wedding Day”. The studio had other plans for her, so her character was…

…struck by a truck when she steps into the street with her mind on her happiness instead of traffic. Kildare rushes to her side when told of her accident and arrives just before she dies. Her last words: “This is going to be much easier for me than it is for you.”

She went on to marry, believe it or not, Leo Durocher (husband number two for her).

During her marriage to Durocher, Day was often referred to as “The First Lady of Baseball”. While Durocher was managing the New York Giants, she wrote the book Day With the Giants.

She was also a member of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a committed Republican, supporting Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan.

My favorite rabbit hole, however, is George Sanders, who plays a major supporting role as “ffolliott”. He looks like a villain, but surprisingly turns out to be a decent guy (though I could never shake the feeling he wanted to steal Laraine Day away from Joel McCrea, and I would not have blamed him). I feel like I should have known a lot of this trivia already, but if I did look it up, I forgot it.

Saunders had an interesting career, including voicing Shere Khan in “The Jungle Book”, playing “Mr. Freeze” in a two-part “Batman” (1966) episode, and – the reason I should have known all this – he was “Addison DeWitt” in “All About Eve” (and won an Oscar for that role).

He was married four times. His second wife was Zsa Zsa Gabor: they were married for five years. Lawrence commented that’s about average for Zsa Zsa’s husbands, though she had some really short marriages later on, and Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt kind of skews the numbers.

His fourth wife was Magda Gabor, Zsa Zsa and Eva’s older sister. They were married for a month (December 5, 1970 – January 6, 1971).

Saunders was in poor health, suffered from dementia, lost a lot of money in failed investments, and had an on-again off-again relationship with a girlfriend the last four years of his life. He was deeply depressed.

So on April 23, 1972, he checked into a hotel, called a friend, swallowed five bottles of Nembutal, and died two days later. Quoting Lawrence again, when you swallow five bottles of Nembutal, you’re obviously pretty serious about checking out: this wasn’t any half-hearted “hope someone finds me” effort. Then again, given his described health problems, I can’t say I blame him. He was 65.

The Criterion blu-ray (affiliate link) is nice, and includes a documentary on the visual effects that’s just about the right length.

Posted in Movies, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 25, 2022.

Friday, February 25th, 2022

Joe Wanenmacher, founder and owner of the Tulsa Arms Show, one of (if not the) largest gun shows in the world.

Mike the Musicologist and I have been lucky enough to attend a few of the Tulsa shows. The obit says that Mr. Wanenmacher had mostly handed off operational responsibilities to his other family members, but he still built the show into what it is today. Our hat is off to him.

(Hattip on this to our great and good friend David Carroll.)

Sandy Nelson, drummer and subject of one of the most interesting obits I’ve read in the NYT recently.

He had a big hit in 1959 with “Teen Beat”, which was based on a drum riff he heard in a strip club:

“While they were looking at these pretty girls in G-strings, guess what I was doing?” he told The Las Vegas Weekly in 2015. “I was looking at the drummer in the orchestra pit.”
“He was doing kind of a ‘Caravan’ beat,” he added, referring to a jazz standard. “‘Bum ta da da dum’ — small toms, big toms. That’s what gave me the idea for ‘Teen Beat.’”

He had a second big hit with “Let There Be Drums” in 1961. In 1963, he had a motorcycle accident and lost part of his right leg: he retrained himself to play the bass with his left leg.

He did a bunch of instrumental albums in the 1960s and 1970s, many of which featured covers:

“I think the worst version ever of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ was done by me,” Mr. Nelson told L.A. Weekly in 1985, “and, oddly enough, it was a big seller in the Philippines. I guess they like squeaky saxophones or something.”

But he also continued to do experimental work:

His friend and fellow musician Jack Evan Johnson said that Mr. Nelson was especially proud of “The Veebles,” a whimsical five-track concept album released on cassette in 2016 that had an extraterrestrial sound and theme.
“It’s about a race of people from another planet,” he told The Las Vegas Sun in 1996, when the long-gestating project was just beginning to take shape. “They’re gonna take over the Earth and make us do nothing but dance, sing and tell dumb jokes.”

(I checked: there was a CD version of this, but it is out of print. Amazon and Apple Music do not show a digital version, though some of Mr. Nelson’s other work is available from both.)

Mr. Nelson acknowledged that he had not handled his early success well.
“I spent most of the money on women and whiskey, and the rest I just wasted,” he told The Review-Journal.

…

Mr. Nelson settled in Boulder City, Nev., in about 1987 and became a colorful local fixture, running a pirate radio station out of his house for about seven years before the FCC shut him down, Mr. Johnson said. And then there was the cave.

Yes. He dug a cave in his backyard.

The project took him 12 years.
“I got a ‘cave tour’ once,” Mr. Johnson said by email, “and it was quite something, precarious even — dug down at a very steep angle into the hard desert soil, with no kind of support structure whatsoever and just enough room to scoot down into it for a ways until the room opened up at the bottom.”
“He had an electric keyboard down there,” he added.

Kenny Burrough, wide receiver for the Houston Oilers during the 1970s.

Burrough, who famously wore No. 00 with the Oilers, played 11 seasons in Houston and made the Pro Bowl in 1975 and 1977. His 6,906 receiving yards still ranks third all-time in Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans history behind only Ernest Givins (7,935) and Drew Hill (7,477). His 47 touchdowns ties him for second on the franchise list behind 1960s Oilers receiver Charley Hennigan.

Sally Kellerman. THR.

Other than the original “Hot Lips”, credits include a guest spot on an early episode of a minor 1960s SF TV series, “Back to School”, “T.H.E. Cat”, “Coronet Blue”, the legendary “Delgo“, and a whole bunch of other stuff…

…including “Mannix”. (“The Solid Gold Web“, season 2, episode 23. She plays a former love interest of Mannix.)

Posted in 1970s, Guns, Mannix, Movies, Music, NFL, Obits, Radio, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 22, 2022.

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022

A mega sized roundup today, mostly due to FotB RoadRich.

Frank Pesce. Among his credits (other than the “Beverly Hills Cop” movies and “Top Gun”) are guest spots on “Jake and the Fatman”, “Miami Vice”, “Airwolf”, “Blue Thunder” (the series), and “The Master”.

Lindsey Pearlman. She appeared on “Vicious”, “Chicago Justice”, and “General Hospital”, among other credits. She was 43.

Zoe Sozo Bethel, Miss Alabama 2021.

Along with being named Miss Alabama 2021, the mother of one was a conservative commentator who was involved with organizations such as Project Veritas, Liberty University and Turning Point USA, the Heavy reported.

Bob Beckel. He used to host “The Five” on the Fox News Channel.

Beckel was campaign manager during Democratic Party nominee Walter Mondale’s ill-fated run for the presidency in 1984.
He also served in the State Department during the Carter administration.

Peter Earnest. He used to work for the CIA…and went on to become the first executive director of the International Spy Museum. I’ve never been there, but my beloved and indulgent sister and her family have. One of these days, I have to make it back to DC.

Mr. [H. Keith] Melton, an early member of the museum’s board, was instrumental in hiring Mr. Earnest, and Mr. Earnest later helped persuade Mr. Melton to donate the bulk of his remaining collection, approximately 7,000 items, including the ice ax used to assassinate the exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky.

Just in case you were wondering. Also:

Posted in Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 14, 2022.

Monday, February 14th, 2022

Ivan Reitman. THR.

IMDB. Everybody plays up “Ghostbusters”, but he also did “Stripes”, produced “Animal House”…and let’s not forget “Cannibal Girls”. (Never seen it, but it sounds like it could be fun.)

Posted in Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 9, 2022.

Wednesday, February 9th, 2022

Douglas Trumbull, noted SFX guy.

Some of his credits:

  • “2001: A Space Odyssey”
  • “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”
  • “Blade Runner”
  • “The Andromeda Strain”
  • “Silent Running” (director/effects)
  • “Brainstorm” (director)

He also did effects and was an executive producer on “The Starlost“, and did effects for the first movie based on a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.

I can’t find it online now (I tried both DuckDuckGo and Bing) but I have a vivid memory of an advertisement in the late 70s/early 80s, possibly in “Scientific American”, featuring Douglas Trumbull endorsing HP calculators. When the time came, that was a big motivator for me to go the RPN route.

Posted in Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 3, 2022.

Thursday, February 3rd, 2022

John C. Koss, headphone innovator.

Mr. Koss and his friend Martin Lange Jr., an engineer, developed a portable stereo phonograph in 1958 that they called a “private listening station.” It had a turntable, speakers and a privacy switch that let users plug headphones into a jack. But most of the headphones available, like those used by telephone operators, shortwave radio users and pilots, were incompatible and not stereophonic.
So they rigged up cardboard cups that contained three-inch speakers and chamois pads from a flight helmet, and they attached them to a headband made of a bent clothes hanger covered with a rubber shower hose.
“And, oh man, whew, it was just bouncing in my ears,” Mr. Koss said in an undated video interview on the Koss Corporation’s website. “It was a great sound. Now the whole thing was there. Anybody that listened to it, it was like the first time you drove in a car or the first time you did anything.”

…

“For many industry professionals, the Koss Pro/4 headphone was the entry into good stereophonic sound that could be heard on headphones,” Jim Anderson, a professor at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, said in an email, referring to a product first produced in 1962. “Koss set a standard for construction quality and audio for many years and had the market virtually to themselves.”

Jean-Jacques Beineix, French director. His first movie was “Diva”.

I wanted to see “Diva” when it was theatrically released because: moped chase in a subway. But at the time, this was impossible for me. I don’t recall it ever playing when UT had a film program. But now, it is available in a reasonably priced Kino Lorber blu ray (affiliate link). And I believe it is on the list: if not, it will be shortly.

He also directed “Betty Blue”, which seems to have divided critics. Interestingly, before “Diva”, he worked as a second assistant/second unit director on several films…including “The Day the Clown Cried”.

Sister Janet Mead, Australian nun…and, with all due respect, musical footnote.

Sister Janet’s recording of “The Lord’s Prayer,” which featured her pure solo vocal over a driving drumbeat — she had a three-octave range and perfect pitch — became an instant hit in Australia, Canada and the United States. It soared to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 during Easter time in 1974, and she became one of the few Australian recording artists to have a gold record in the United States.
The record sold more than three million copies worldwide, two million of them to Americans. Nominated for the 1975 Grammy Award for best inspirational performance, it lost to Elvis Presley and his version of “How Great Thou Art.”
Along with Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” famously covered by the Byrds in 1965, “The Lord’s Prayer” is one of the very few popular songs with lyrics taken from the Bible.

…

She later described the period of her record’s success as a “horrible time,” largely because of demands by the media.
“It was a fairly big strain because all the time there are interviews and radio talk-backs and TV people coming and film people coming,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Shunning the spotlight, she declined most interview requests and all offers to tour the United States.

…

Sister Janet later withdrew from the public eye almost entirely, and her third album, recorded in 1983, was filed away in the Festival Records vaults. The tapes, including a 1983 version of “The Lord’s Prayer” and covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Cat Stevens, were rediscovered by Mr. Erdman in 1999 and included on the album “A Time to Sing,” released that year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Sister Janet’s hit single.

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits, Religion | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 2, 2022.

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022

Bob Wall, noted ass kicker.

He was in three out of five Bruce Lee films post 1968: “The Way of the Dragon”, “Enter the Dragon” and “Game of Death”. (He played O’Hara, the bad guy’s bodyguard, in “Enter the Dragon”.)

A 9th degree black belt, Wall for years trained alongside good friend Chuck Norris; they first met in the mid-1960s and were business partners in a chain of karate studios. In addition to Way of the Dragon (1972), they appeared together in Code of Silence (1985), Invasion U.S.A. (1985), Firewalker (1986), Hero and the Terror (1988), Sidekicks (1992) and in episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger.

…

Inducted into the Professional Karate Hall of Fame in 1975, Wall taught combat skills to the likes of Elvis Presley, Steve McQueen, Jack Palance, Brian Keith, Freddie Prinze Sr. and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He also hired Jackie Chan as a stuntman for Enter the Dragon.

Monica Vitti, Italian actress. She was in Michelangelo Antonioni’s movies (“L’Avventura”, “La Notte”, “L’Eclisse”).

A romantic relationship blossomed between Ms. Vitti and Antonioni during the filming of “L’Avventura” and grew stronger in the years that followed. At one point, before their relationship became widely known, Ms. Vitti lived in an apartment just below Antonioni’s in Rome, and the director had a trap door and spiral staircase installed so they could see each other whenever they liked without rousing outside notice.

She was also “Modesty Blaise” in the 1966 movie.

Posted in Movies, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 22, 2022.

Saturday, January 22nd, 2022

Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk. Tricycle:

Known to his thousands of followers worldwide as Thây—Vietnamese for teacher—Nhat Hanh was widely considered among Buddhists as second only to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in the scope of his global influence. The author of some 100 books—75 in English—he founded nine monasteries and dozens of affiliated practice centers, and inspired the creation of thousands of local mindfulness communities. Nhat Hanh is credited with popularizing mindfulness and “engaged Buddhism” (he coined the term), teachings that not only are central to contemporary Buddhist practice but also have penetrated the mainstream. For many years, Thich Nhat Hanh has been a familiar sight the world over, leading long lines of people in silent “mindful” walking meditation.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of Thich Nhat Hanh’s role in the development of Buddhism in the West, particularly in the United States. He was arguably the most significant catalyst for the Buddhist community’s engagement with social, political, and environmental concerns. Today, this aspect of Western Buddhism is widely accepted, but when Nhat Hanh began teaching regularly in North America, activism was highly controversial in Buddhist circles, frowned upon by most Buddhist leaders, who considered it a distraction from the focus on awakening. At a time when Western Buddhism was notably parochial, Nhat Hanh’s nonsectarian view motivated many teachers to reach out and build bonds with other dharma communities and traditions. It would not be an exaggeration to say that his inclusive vision laid the groundwork for the flourishing of Buddhist publications, including Tricycle, over the past 35 years.

I am not a Buddhist, and I am spectacularly bad at Zen. But I enjoy reading about Zen, and I was familiar with him from my reading.

Thich Nhat Hanh dismissed the idea of death. “Birth and death are only notions,” he wrote in his book “No Death, No Fear.” “They are not real.”
He added: “The Buddha taught that there is no birth; there is no death; there is no coming; there is no going; there is no same; there is no different; there is no permanent self; there is no annihilation. We only think there is.”

“Nhat Hanh is my Brother” by Thomas Merton.

Louie Anderson. THR.

Breck Denny, writer and actor. He was only 34: according to his family, he died of a “rare spontaneous splenic artery rupture”.

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

Obit watch: January 21, 2022.

Friday, January 21st, 2022

Marvin Lee Aday, also known as “Meat Loaf”. THR. NYPost. IMDB.

(I can’t confirm it now, but I remember a legend that the NYT did a story about Meat Loaf…and, as is their custom on second and subsequent reference, referred to him as “Mr. Loaf”.)

Edited to add 1/22: Since I posted this obit, the NYT has added a note to their coverage discussing the “Mr. Loaf” story. They assert it is not true. And apparently he preferred to be called “Meat”:

In 1971, Meat Loaf was cast in the Los Angeles production of the musical “Hair.” He later joined the original LA Roxy cast of “The Rocky Horror Show” in 1973, playing the parts of Eddie and Dr. Everett Scott. After the success of the musical, Meat Loaf was asked to reprise his role as Eddie in the 1975 film adaptation, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which became one of the most beloved cult films of all time.

Later, Mr. Steinman was trying to write a post-apocalyptic musical based on “Peter Pan,” but, unable to secure the rights for the tale, he turned the work into “Bat Out of Hell,” bringing in Meat Loaf to give the songs the style and energy that made them hits. The title track alone is a mini-opera in itself, clocking in at nearly 10 minutes and featuring numerous musical breakdowns. The album’s seven tracks also included the songs “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” and “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”

In 2013, he told The Guardian that he was definitely retiring from music after another farewell tour. “I’ve had 18 concussions,” he said. “My balance is off. I’ve had a knee replacement. I’ve got to have the other one replaced.” He wanted to “concentrate more on acting,” he added, since “that’s where I started and that’s where I’ll finish.”

…

According to his autobiography, Meat Loaf was born on Sep. 27, 1947, but news reports of his age varied over the years. In 2003, he showed a reporter from The Guardian newspaper a passport featuring a birth date of 1951 and later said about the discrepancy, “I just continually lie.”

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits, Theatre | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: January 20, 2022.

Thursday, January 20th, 2022

Hardy Kruger (also billed as Hardy Krüger). Sloppy obit from THR.

His character in “The Flight of the Phoenix” was not a German solider or a Nazi baddie, and that movie came out in 1965, not 1975. But he was excellent in it. (Noted: Criterion is releasing it on blu-ray in March. Affiliate link.)

Edited to add: THR corrected their obit shortly after I posted this. It no longer refers to Kruger’s character in “Phoenix” as a German solider, and has the correct date for the movie.

Edited to add 2: NYT obit, which was not up when I first posted.

He was also good in “Barry Lyndon”. I’ve seen “The Wild Geese”, but cut up for TV a long time ago, and I’d like to watch it again.

Carol Speed. Credits include “The Mack” and “Disco Godfather”.

Ron Franklin, fomer ESPN announcer.

Franklin worked at ESPN from 1987 through 2011. He was fired after reportedly saying, off-air, to sideline reporter Jeanine Edwards, “Listen to me, sweet baby, let me tell you something …” When she told him not to talk to her like that, he responded, “Okay, then listen to me asshole.”

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Obit watch: January 19, 2022.

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022

Yvette Mimieux. THR.

Other than “Weena” in the 1960 “The Time Machine” and “Where the Boys Are”, credits include “Jackson County Jail”, “The Black Hole”, “Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell”, “Diamond Head” (opposite Cheston!) and a “doomed surfer” in “Dr. Kildare”.

Gaspard Ulliel. He was the young Hannibal in “Hannibal Rising”, and is in the coming Marvel series “Moon Knight”. He was only 37, and died as a result of a skiing accident.

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