Sgt. Charles H. Coolidge (US Army – ret.), Amercian badass. He was 99.
Sgt. Coolidge was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. He was the oldest living MoH recipient. (The current oldest is now Hershel W. Williams, who is 97.)
Edited to add: throwing some backlinks Lawrence’s way.
Breaking news, by way of Lawrence, and only from two sources at the moment: Alcee Hastings. Miami Herald in readable form.
Gloria Henry, most famous as the mother on the “Dennis the Menace” TV series.
Ritter was best known in the U.K. in recent years for playing the family patriarch in long-running Channel 4 comedy Friday Night Dinner, but was a recognizable face across numerous films, TV shows and stage plays, landing both Olivier and Tony nominations.
After his debut performance on famed police procedural drama The Bill in 1992, Ritter starred in films such as Son of Rambow, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Quantum of Solace. Ritter was recently seen in the Sky/HBO mini-series Chernobyl portraying Anatoly Dyatlov, the supervisor who was blamed for not following safety protocols leading to the nuclear disaster, and is set to appear in upcoming WWII drama Operation Mincemeat.
Arthur Kopit, playwright. Noted here because of his most famous work: “Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad”. Among his many other works: the book for “Nine”.
Malcolm Cecil, synthesizer guy.
Military History Monday strikes again! And today I’ve got two kind of odd ones for you.
“The Small Boat Navy”, a 1968 Navy propaganda film about shallow water Navy ops in Vietnam. The odd part? This is narrated by Steve Martin Perry Mason Chief Ironside Raymond Burr.
Bonus: this is a little on the short side, and just has overlaid background music, but I wanted to include it for the odd factor. Video of test flights of the prototype two seat Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II trainer jet aircraft from the 1970s.
What’s odd about this? Two things: this is the only one of these aircraft ever built.
Thing #2: The guy flying in the second seat is…Barry Goldwater. Yes, the Senator from Arizona.
Margaret Maron, noted mystery writer. She actually passed away on February 23rd, but the paper of record didn’t get around to mentioning it until yesterday. The Rap Sheet has a nice tribute.
Bunny Wailer, of the Wailers.
Fanne Foxe. Ms. Foxe was also known as “the Argentine Firecracker”, though she became most famous as the woman who jumped out of Wilbur Mills’s car.
The first whiff of trouble broke about 2 a.m. on Oct. 7, 1974, when two United States Park Service police officers spotted Mr. Mills’s car speeding with lights off near the Jefferson Memorial and pulled it over. Apparently panicking, Ms. Foxe bolted from the car and, yelling in English and Spanish, tried to escape by jumping into the Tidal Basin, a Potomac estuary with an average depth of 10 feet.
The officers pulled her out, handcuffed her when she tried to jump in again and returned her to the car, where they found Mr. Mills and several other occupants intoxicated. Mr. Mills was bleeding from his nose and facial scratches, and Ms. Foxe had two black eyes. An officer drove her to a hospital and the others to their homes.
The incident might have gone unnoticed, but a television cameraman came upon the scene and recorded it. The police filed no charges, and Mr. Mills issued a statement that cast events in an innocent light. But within days the outlines of a political sex scandal began to emerge. Mr. Mills, facing voters in November, returned home to campaign and was narrowly re-elected to his 19th term.
But under withering publicity detailing his alcoholism and peccadilloes with Ms. Foxe, including an impromptu appearance at a Boston burlesque stage where she was performing, Mr. Mills checked into an alcoholic-treatment center, resigned as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and did not run for re-election in 1976, ending a 38-year congressional career.
…
Ms. Foxe appeared on television talk shows and in Las Vegas nightclubs, was featured in Playboy magazine in 1976 and 1977 and starred in several movies as herself, including “Posse From Heaven” (1975), about a stripper who becomes a guardian angel to a cowboy, and “This Is America” (1977), a documentary featuring car crashes and a nude beauty contest.
Her 180-page paperback, “The Stripper and the Congressman” (1975, with Yvonne Dunleavy), detailed an affair that began after she and her Argentine husband, Edwardo Battistella, met Mr. Mills and his wife, Polly Mills, in their building in 1973. The couples became friends and went dancing together.
Then, the book said, Mr. Mills began visiting the Silver Slipper often. He took Ms. Foxe on a three-week junket to Antigua and promised to marry her if he could get a divorce. Ms. Foxe’s husband, with whom she had three children, divorced her just before the affair was publicly disclosed. Mr. Mills, as a recovered alcoholic who counseled other alcoholics, remained married to his wife until his death, at 82, in 1992.
…
Ms. Montgomery moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., in the late 1980s, and undertook a series of challenging late-in-life academic pursuits. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tampa in 1995 and a master’s in marine science (in 2001) and a master’s in business administration (2004) from the University of South Florida, all with magna cum laude honors.
“I’m not sure what her motivation was, but we were all very proud of her accomplishments,” Alex Montgomery said of his mother in a 2019 interview for this obituary. “She was a very intelligent woman. Remarkable. She also became a scuba-diving master at the University of South Florida and went to Cozumel, Mexico, to do some underwater filming.”
WP, and since the paper is basically unreadable without a subscription, here’s a slightly less unreadable version from archive.is.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, beat poet and owner of the City Lights Bookstore.
Rush Limbaugh. Because I think the last thing in the world El Rushbo would want me to link to is the NYT, especially since the obit that’s up now is both incomplete and kind of insulting.
The website, which seems to be under heavy load right now.
I wish I could say more, but I was never a Rush listener, or really a talk radio listener after I left high school.
Edited to add: Lawrence. Also, thank you, Chris.
I wanted to note this yesterday, but I was kind of waiting to hear back from someone.
Austin Police chief Punch Rockgroin Brian Manley is retiring at the end of March.
He’s been the police chief for about three years, but he’s been on the force for 30.
It could be that he’s fed up with the current state of Austin politics and wants to get out while the getting is good. (Lawrence has suggested that Chief Slate Slabrock would have a lot of support if he ran for mayor. I currently live outside the city limits so I can’t vote for him if he does run.)
It could just be that, after 30 years, he wants to go off and do something else. At the 30 year mark, an APD officer gets 96% of their base salary in retirement. I think that’s based on your salary for the past two years, but I could be wrong about that. At “commander” rank, base salary ranges from $138,144 to $158,160 a year: I’m not clear on what chief pay is, but even 96% of the high end for a commander is still over $150K a year. Plus Chief Roll Fizzlebeef has a MBA from St. Edward’s University (one of the reasons I like the guy) so I doubt he’d have any trouble finding a job in private business.
Another person who shall remain nameless shared some speculation that Chief Punch Sideiron resigned as part of a deal with the City Council and city manager to get them to approve a new police academy class: we’ll bring in some new recruits who will (we hope) turn into officers, and in return you get to appoint the next guy to run the department. If so, that would be fairly noble on his part.
The big question in my mind right now is: who gets the job? Somebody local (which is another reason I liked Chief Rip Slagcheek: he was a local boy), or will they bring in someone from California (like they did with the previous chief, Art damn it! Art Acevedo). I suspect the latter, but would be pleasantly surprised with the former, depending on who they do appoint. (Ken Cassady, the head of the police union, is probably right off the list of candidates.)
I wish Chief Buck Plankchest the best of luck in whatever he does next, even if it does mean I don’t have as many chances to use selections from the Dave Ryder Wiki entry.
…I know I need to update the various lists of politicians. I’ve been waiting until after the inauguration, and for the various IT teams to get things configured.
My hope is that I can get all the lists (City Council, County Commissioners, and state representatives) updated this week, as I know it is becoming increasingly urgent.
This just in: Marty Schottenheimer, NFL coach.
Schottenheimer coached the original Cleveland Browns from midway through the 1984 season to 1988, the Kansas City Chiefs from 1989 to 1998, the Washington Redskins in 2001 (the team dropped that name last July) and the San Diego Chargers from 2002 to 2006.
His teams went 200-126-1 over all, and he was named the 2004 N.F.L. coach of the year by The Associated Press when his Chargers went 12-4 after finishing the previous season at 4-12. But they were upset by the Jets in the first round of the playoffs.
Schottenheimer’s squads had a 5-13 record in playoff games.
Mary Wilson, of the Supremes.
Joe Allen, NYC restaurateur. Noted here because he was the guy who hung posters of Broadway flops on the wall of Joe Allen’s.
Ron Wright, Texas Congressman. (District 6, which is in North Texas.)
By way of Lawrence, a burning in Hell watch: Anthony Sowell, Ohio serial killer.
Leon Spinks, former heavyweight champion of the world.
Leon had fought professionally only seven times, with six victories and a draw, before facing Ali at the Las Vegas Hilton on Feb. 15, 1978, in a bout arranged by Bob Arum, one of boxing’s leading promoters.
Ali held the World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council titles. But at 36, though an overwhelming betting favorite, he was past his prime. He weighed in at 224 pounds to Spinks’s 197.
Spinks was a hard-charging brawler, but when he pressured Ali in the ring, the champion resorted to his rope-a-dope strategy, which was aimed at letting an opponent exhaust himself with punches that seldom did damage while Ali rested on the ropes.
The Spinks corner had a strategy of its own, aimed at weakening Ali.
“Jab, jab, jab, that was the plan,” Spinks’s trainer, George Benton, said in the dressing room afterward. “Hit him on the left shoulder all night with that jab.”Ali rallied in the 15th round, but Spinks warded him off and won a split decision.
He lost the WBA title to Ali in September of 1978: the WBC stripped him of the title because he wouldn’t fight Ken Norton.
Spinks’s last fight came in December 1995, when he lost a unanimous decision to Fred Houpe in an eight-round bout. Spinks was 42; Houpe was 45 and had not fought since November 1978.
Spinks retired with 26 victories (14 by knockouts), 17 losses and three draws.
George P. Shultz, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state and Nixon cabinet official.
Today’s dose of chicken soup for the you-know-what (because I’m pretty sure the actual term is trademarked, and I’ll hear about it from those people just like if I don’t refer to today’s game as the Superb Owl): Frank Shankwitz, former Arizona Highway Patrol motorcycle officer.
In 1980, he was introduced to a 7-year-old boy named Chris Greicius. Chris had terminal leukemia, and he desperately wanted to be a motorcycle officer when he grew up. He idolized Ponch and Jon from “CHiPs”.
The department had decided to make Chris’s wish come true, if just for a few days. A police helicopter ferried him to police headquarters from the hospital where he was being treated. Mr. Shankwitz was to greet him out front, next to his motorcycle.
“Figuring he’d be brought out in a wheelchair, I was surprised when the door opened and a pair of sneakers emerged,” Mr. Shankwitz wrote in his memoir, “Wish Man” (2018). “Out stepped Chris, an excited 7-year-old boy who seemed so full of life it was hard to believe he was sick.”
Mr. Shankwitz showed Chris his motorcycle, and after he and the other officers gave him a badge, the head of the department made him an honorary officer. Chris was feeling well enough to go home that night, and the next day the officers brought him a custom-made uniform.
To become a motorcycle officer, though, Chris had to pass a driving test — which he did, in his front yard, on his small battery-powered motorcycle. Mr. Shankwitz promised to bring him a special badge worn by motorcycle cops; he also called NBC, the network that aired “CHiPs,” and asked for the show’s stars, Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox, to autograph a photo.
The next day Chris was back in the hospital, and by the time Mr. Shankwitz arrived with the badge and the picture, he had fallen into a light coma. Chris had hung his uniform by the bed, and as Mr. Shankwitz pinned the badge on his shirt, the boy woke up.
“Am I an official motorcycle cop now?” Chris asked.
“You sure are,” Mr. Shankwitz replied.
Chris died later that day. Mr. Shankwitz and a colleague attended his funeral, in Southern Illinois, borrowing a pair of Illinois Highway Patrol motorcycles to accompany the hearse.
…
Eugenio Martinez has passed away at the age of 98.
Mr. Martinez was the last surviving Watergate burglar.
In January 1973 four of the five burglars — members of the so-called plumbers, an informal White House team assigned to plug information leaks — pleaded guilty so as to avoid revealing details of the bungled operation. They were convicted of conspiracy, theft and wiretapping.
The others, also Cuban-born, were Bernard L. Barker, a former Miami real estate agent and C.I.A. operative, who died in 2009; Virgilio González, a Miami locksmith, who died in 2014; and Frank A. Sturgis, a soldier of fortune, who died in 1993. (In 1971, the four had taken part in the break-in at the Los Angeles office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst who disclosed the Pentagon papers to the press.)
E. Howard Hunt, who allegedly recruited them, served 31 months in prison.
…
In 1983, after his requests for clemency had been rejected by Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, Mr. Martinez — who, it turned out, had still been on retainer to the C.I.A. at the time of the Watergate break-in — was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan.
The pardon, which was granted because Mr. Martinez had been regarded as the least culpable of the defendants, restored his right to vote. Despite the ordeal, he prided himself on one Watergate keepsake — a golden lucky clover inscribed, in Spanish, with the words “Good luck, Richard Nixon.”
Adolfo Quiñones, street dancer. He was in “Breakin'” and “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo”, among other credits.
I got a whole bunch of stuff from Lawrence and other folks, so let’s start:
Sheldon Adelson, casino and resort hotel owner, and major donor to the Republican Party and conservative politicians in Israel.
John Riley. He was on “General Hospital” and also did a lot of appearances on non-“Mannix” 1970s detective series.
Jessica Campbell. She was “Tammy Metzler” in “Election”, and was only 38.
Lawrence sent over a report of the death of Julie Strain, “scream queen”, B-movie actress, and Penthouse Pet of the Year (1993). The site admits that she was mistakenly reported dead last year, so I would take this with a lick of salt (though they claim confirmation from multiple sources).
She was in a lot of Andy Sidaris films. (If you’re not familiar with those, and you like MST3K, you are missing a treat.)
Among her other movie credits was “Exterminator City”, which Lawrence will tell you (at the drop of a hat) is the worst movie he’s ever seen. Here’s a clip from the movie which does not feature Ms. Strain, just for illumination:
As Lawrence will tell you (again) that’s the best scene in the movie.
Finally, Diana Millay, actress most famous for “Dark Shadows”.
Pat Loud, the mother in the 1970s reality show, “An American Family”. I touched on this at greater length when Bill Loud, her husband, passed away in 2018.
I’ve been holding this for a few days: Jim Bob Moffett. He was a prominent oil and mining magnate, and a large donor to UT.
He also made a whole lot of people angry back in the early 1990s when one of his companies planned a development in Southwest Austin.
Environmentalists argued that Moffett’s development would wash building materials, dirt and pollutants that accompany everyday human life into the aquifer, ultimately fouling the springs. Rather than treat the situation as a political dispute in which both sides had legitimate interests — an approach that many activists said had led them to compromise too easily — activists framed the issue as cruel business interests threatening Austin’s most beloved civic feature.
The fight culminated in a City Council meeting June 7, 1990. It is widely considered the high point of Austin civic participation: 17 hours of songs, poems, threats and pleas persuaded a glassy-eyed City Council that had seemed likely to approve the proposal to unanimously reject it. From that decision rose the Save Our Springs Coalition (now the SOS Alliance) and landmark rules that limit development in that portion of Austin.
Phyllis McGuire, last of the McGuire Sisters.
Ms. McGuire, with her older sisters Christine and Dorothy, shot to success overnight after winning the televised “Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts” contest in 1952. Over the next 15 years, they were one of the nation’s most popular vocal groups, singing on the television variety shows of Ed Sullivan, Milton Berle, Andy Williams and Red Skelton, on nightclub circuits across the country and on records that sold millions.
The sisters epitomized a 1950s sensibility that held up a standard of unreal perfection, wearing identical coifs, dresses and smiles, moving with synchronized precision and blending voices in wholesome songs for simpler times. Their music, like that of Perry Como, Patti Page and other stars who appealed to white, middle-class audiences, contrasted starkly with the rock ’n’ roll craze that was taking the world by storm in the mid-to-late ’50s.
Ms. McGuire was also famously linked aromatically with Sam Giancana. Yes, the mobster.
Richard Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and Attorney General under Reagan and Bush.
(Been a while since I’ve done one of these, hasn’t it?)
The Austin City Council has decided (based on a recommendation from the city’s Arts Commission) to “deaccession” several pieces of public art.
The big news is: one of those pieces is “Moments”. If you live in Austin, you know “Moments” better as “those blue panels bolted to the overpass wall on North Lamar Boulevard”.
“Moments” caused a stir from the beginning. It was the city’s first art-in-public-places project to be installed along a road, and its installation caused traffic backups. The piece was meant to evoke impressions of the moments contained in an experience or environment, Jean Graham, a city of Austin art in public places coordinator, told the American-Statesman at the time.
“The designer was thinking, well, you could think of the moments going by as you are waiting under the bridge in traffic,” Graham told the paper in 2003.
In [Carl] Trominski’s [the artist – DB] submission for the piece’s creation, he wrote that the site “is visualized as a Threshold between the Urban Austin and the Natural Austin. The underpass marks a journey through the city’s self-image. … This proposal intends to strengthen the expression and experience of this moment.” The signs were to “make abstract reference to musical notes, the motion of a row on Town Lake, and acts (as) a shadow indicator of the day’s progression.”
For the record, the other artworks being taken off the list are…
Here’s a presentation with some photos of the art, if (like me) you were unfamiliar with these pieces.