Whipped Cream Difficulties

Connie Francis. NYT.

She made her stage debut at 4, singing “Anchors Aweigh” and accompanying herself on the accordion at Olympic Park in Irvington, N.J.
At 11, she was a regular on “Marie Moser’s Starlets,” a local television variety show. After she appeared on Ted Mack’s “Original Amateur Hour” and “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts,” Mr. Mack advised her to lose the accordion, and Mr. Godfrey advised her to change her last name to Francis.

…

“I often say, I’d like to be remembered not for the highs I’ve reached but for the depths from which I’ve risen,” she told Mr. James. “There were exhilarating highs and abysmal lows. But it was fighting to get out of those lows that I feel most proud of.”

Joanna Bacon, British actress. Other credits include “The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells”, “The Bill”, and “EastEnders”.

Bryan Braman, former NFL linebacker. (Hattip: Lawrence.)

Braman was part of the first playoff team in Texans history after signing with Houston as an undrafted free agent out of West Texas A&M. He was a regular on Houston’s special teams, with his most memorable moment coming in a helmet-less tackle of a Tennessee Titans kick returner in the 2011 regular-season finale. Braman was also a 2012 Pro Bowl alternate with Houston, and he finished his career with four years with the Philadelphia Eagles.

This is just in, and should be considered breaking news: Felix Baumgartner, noted skydiver and daredevil.

In 1999, he set the world record for the highest parachute jump from a building when he took a leap from the 1,483-foot Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
That same year, he set a record for the lowest BASE jump ever, hurtling himself from the 85-foot arm of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.
Then in 2003, Baumgartner became the first person to skydive across the English Channel with the help of a custom-designed carbon fiber wing, leaping from the craft at a height of more than six miles over Dover, England before landing safely in Cap Blanc-Nez in France.
His most famous jump was in 2012, when Baumgartner jumped 24 miles from a helium balloon, reaching a top speed of Mach 1.25 (843.6 mph) and becoming the first person to ever break the sound barrier without a vehicle.
He descended from the stratosphere in full free-fall for four minutes and 19 seconds before deploying his parachute.

This broke Joe Kittinger’s old record. (Col. Kittinger assisted with planning the jump.)

The 56-year-old Austrian extreme sports enthusiast reportedly fell ill while flying a motorized paraglider in the Italian coastal town of Porto Sant’Elpidio, crashing the craft into a hotel swimming pool.
He reportedly died instantly during the freak accident, according to media reports. A hotel employee was also injured after being struck by the glider and taken to the hospital with neck injuries.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2025 at 3:19 pm and is filed under Music, NFL, Obits, Sports, Theatre, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.