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:
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.
Didn’t I read someplace that Ms McKenzie was the first actor or actress to act in 10 different decades?
I don’t recall seeing that, but it’s not implausible. IMDB has her “babe in arms” credit in 1918, she was in stuff in the 1920s (perhaps most notably “The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln”), the 1930s (including “Assassin of Youth”, an anti-marijuana film), various stuff in the 1940s, a couple of credits in the 1950s (including Jack Webb’s newspaper movie, “-30-“), more stuff in the 1960s (including “Experiment in Terror”)…
..but nothing in the 1970s, and “S.O.B” in the 1980s is her final credit listed in IMDB. Of course, that list may not be complete: it doesn’t include “Kill a Better Mousetrap”, for example.