For the historical record: Arte Johnson, of “Laugh-In” fame.
You know, I’d never even heard of “Baggypants and the Nitwits” until now…
Obit watch: July 5, 2019.
July 5th, 2019Obit watch: July 3, 2019.
July 3rd, 2019Max Wright. He has an interesting back story: Mr. Wright knocked around a lot in television, movies, and theater.
His other television credits include appearances on “Murphy Brown,” “Quantum Leap,” “Misfits of Science,” “Cheers,” “Buffalo Bill,” “Taxi” and “The Drew Carey Show.”
He also appeared in early episodes of “Friends” as the manager of Central Perk, the coffee shop where the show’s main characters hung out, and played Norm Macdonald’s boss on the ABC sitcom “Norm.” His film credits include “All That Jazz,” “Snow Falling on Cedars,” “Reds,” “The Sting II,” “Soul Man” and “The Shadow.”
…
On Broadway he was the Second Murderer in “Richard III,” starring Al Pacino, in 1979; a neurotic landlord in Jean Kerr’s “Lunch Hour” in 1980; and an accident-prone clerk in an Andrei Serban production of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” in 1977…
He made his Broadway debut in 1968 in the original production of “The Great White Hope,” Howard Sackler’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play based on the life of the heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson, which starred James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander. He earned a Tony nomination for best performance by a featured actor in a play for his role as Pavel Lebedev in the Chekhov play “Ivanov” in 1998, a performance that also earned him a nomination for a Drama Desk Award.
He performed Shakespeare regularly; one of his most noted roles was Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the Lincoln Center Theater production of “Twelfth Night” in 1998.
Sadly and tragically, he was best known as the father on “ALF”, one of the worst television series ever to pass across the small screen.
Lawrence sent over this THR obit for Milton Quon. Speaking of back story, wow: Mr. Quon was one of the Golden Age Disney animators (he worked on “Fantasia” and “Dumbo”).
The Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles presented a retrospective exhibit of his work in 2005; he was one of five artists featured in ” ‘Round the Clock: Chinese American Artists Working in Los Angeles” at the Vincent Price Art Museum in Monterey Park, California, in 2012; and he received the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California in 2013.
And in 2017, he was featured in a father and son art exhibition in Red Bank, New Jersey, with his son Mike and in a solo exhibition at Santa Monica College’s Emeritus Gallery.
He also had a career as an actor and extra: he may have been best known as “the old Asian guy on the bus” in “Speed”. Mr. Quon was 105.
Obit watch: July 2, 2019.
July 2nd, 2019Tyler Skaggs, pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels.
He was found dead in his hotel room a few hours before the Angels played the Texas Rangers. Mr. Skaggs was 27.
ESPN. I’d link to the Dallas Morning News, but they’re being really obnoxious.
No foul play is suspected, and an investigation is ongoing, police said.
A Southlake police spokesperson said it “is not suspected” that Skaggs took his own life, according to the Los Angeles Times.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#56 in a series)
June 30th, 2019“This defendant is a walking crime-spree,” Michael Wheat, a special federal prosecutor, told the judge in court, saying she holds sway with police and has tampered with grand jury witnesses in the past.
Wow. “A walking crime-spree.” That’s pretty harsh. Who is the defendant?
Katherine Kealoha. She was a prosecutor in the Honolulu DA’s office. She is also married to the former Honolulu chief of police.
And both of them were convicted of consipracy and obstruction of justice on Friday. Also convicted: two officers with the Honolulu PD.
This whole case is kind of bat guano insane, and Hawaii is not my usual beat. So I didn’t find out about this story until yesterday, and completely missed any run-up to it. This particular set of convictions were the result of the Kealoha’s staging the theft of a mailbox. No, really. A mailbox.
The five defendants were accused of conspiring to frame Gerard Puana, Katherine Kealoha’s estranged uncle, for the alleged theft of the Kealohas’ Kahala mailbox in 2013 and then lying to federal authorities to cover their scheme.
Prosecutors said the Kealohas were trying to smear Puana and Katherine Kealoha’s grandmother Florence Puana because they were catching on to the fact that the Kealohas had used the proceeds from a reverse mortgage on Florence Puana’s home to bankroll a lavish lifestyle.
(Noted: one of those five, former HPD Major Gordon Shiraishi, was acquitted on all charges.)
So that’s a little more understandable, I guess? They tried to frame the uncle (who they didn’t get along with anyway) to keep the money faucet flowing.
I know real estate in Hawaii isn’t cheap, but how much did they get out of this reverse mortgage?
Prosecutors said Katherine Kealoha burned through $135,000 of Florence Puana’s money in six months.
By the way…
And the insanity doesn’t end there.
More (I apologize for the length, but this does give a fairly detailed account):
During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Katherine Kealoha as the ringleader of the conspiracy. She invented an alias, Alison Lee Wong, to forge documents, and tried to have her grandmother declared incompetent to silence her, prosecutors told the jury.
Jurors watched a deposition from Puana’s mother, Florence Puana, who was unable to testify in court because of her failing health.
Gerard Puana testified that Katherine Kealoha came to them with an idea about taking out a reverse mortgage on her grandmother’s home to help buy a condo her uncle wanted. Kealoha said she would consolidate her debts — which prosecutors described as massive — and promised her uncle and grandmother that she would pay off the loan.
Wheat noted that Kealoha tampered with potential witnesses, including sending letters trying to convince them Alison Lee Wong is a real person.
“Well, it’s pretty clear who Alison Lee Wong is,” Seabright said. “It’s Katherine Kealoha.”
Kealoha had an innocent man incarcerated and tried to silence her grandmother “after engaging in an outright theft of their money,” Seabright said.
“To be clear, it was her own grandmother she did this to,” he said.
She also got her firefighter boyfriend to lie about their affair to a grand jury and convinced the man whose childhood trust she controlled that his mother would go to jail if he didn’t lie and say Kealoha gave him his money, Seabright said.
And a little sting at the end:
Obit watch: June 29, 2019.
June 29th, 2019Billy Drago, character actor. He did a fair amount of TV, played Frank Nitti in Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables”, and a deputy in “Pale Rider”.
Apparently, he was also in a Mike and the Mechanics video? And a Michael Jackson video?
Obit watch: June 27, 2019.
June 27th, 2019Lieutenant Colonel Robert J. Friend (USAF – ret.), one of the Tuskegee Airmen. He was the wingman for Col. Benjamin Davis Jr., the commanding officer of the 322nd Fighter Group.
He also had a distinguished post-war career, highlighted by running Project Blue Book from 1958 to 1963.
“Do I believe that we have been visited? No, I don’t believe that,” he said. “And the reason I don’t believe it is because I can’t conceive of any of the ways in which we could overcome some of these things: How much food would you have to take with you on a trip for 22 years through space? How much fuel would you need? How much oxygen or other things to sustain life do you have to have?”
But unlike many of his colleagues, he favored further research.
“I, for one, also believe that the probability of there being life elsewhere in this big cosmos is just absolutely out of this world — I think the probability is there,” he said.
According to the paper of record, there are 11 surviving Tuskegee Airmen. LTC Friend was 99.
Beth Chapman, wife of Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Edited to add: NYT obit for Beth Chapman.
Also, NYT on Etika.
Obit watch: June 26, 2019.
June 26th, 2019Steve Dunleavy, noted tabloid journalist.
Mr. Dunleavy exposed Elvis Presley’s addiction to prescription drugs in Star and in a best-selling book that rankled Presley fans; scored exclusive interviews with the mother of Sirhan Sirhan, Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin, and Albert DeSalvo, the confessed Boston Strangler; and championed police officers, smokers and gun owners, among others.
During his run on “A Current Affair,” from 1986 to 1995, he wrestled a bear in one segment and, in another, was bitten by a witness in a rape case when he confronted her with nude photographs of her.
That book, by the way, was: Elvis: What Happened?.
…
Rod Dreher has a tribute up as well, in which he quotes Hamill (after Dunleavy’s foot was run over by a snowplow):
By way of Lawrence: Herbert Meyer.
Also by way of Lawrence: Desmond Amofah, YouTuber (under the handle “Etika”). He was 29.
His belongings were found on Manhattan Bridge on Monday. He had uploaded an eight-minute YouTube video in which he talked about suicide.
Etika was popular for playing and discussing Nintendo games on YouTube and the streaming platform Twitch.
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.
Not quite an obit, but:
Obit watch: June 24, 2019.
June 24th, 2019Don Graham, noted Texas writer.
I’m actually pretty excited about his Giant book (though I want to watch the movie first). My mother wants to read his King Ranch book, and I’ve been trying to turn up a copy for her. And I have No Name on the Bullet, but have only read parts of it: I need to dig that out and give it a full reading.
Judith Krantz. I’m sure many people enjoyed her books.
More intersections.
June 19th, 2019Mike the Musicologist and I were talking last night about this:
#GOTD-Robert Heinlein's Rifle. Heinlein graduated in 1929 from the U.S. Naval Academy; began writing science fiction novels and eventually became known as "dean" of the genre. His bolt-action Springfield Model 1903 rifle is mentioned in many of his works. Caliber:.30-06.Date:1918 pic.twitter.com/zwxDEnQB14
— NRA Museums (@NRA_museums) June 18, 2019
We speculated NRAM might be planning a week of SF related guns: sadly, today’s entry breaks the theme.
Noted.
June 18th, 2019Tweet of the day.
June 17th, 2019Because this sits at the extremely rare intersection of gun geekery and SF geekery:
GUN OF THE DAY – Edgar Rice Burrough's Pistol. Our GOTD is a Japanese Type 94 semi-automatic pistol that was manufactured in August of 1944. During WWII, Burroughs volunteered as a war correspondent and provided regular commentary from the war in the Pacific. pic.twitter.com/xz1U98FlTB
— NRA Museums (@NRA_museums) June 17, 2019
Obit watch: June 17, 2019.
June 17th, 2019Death never takes a holiday.
Gloria Vanderbilt. I wouldn’t ordinarily post so soon after someone dies, but it’s clear the paper of record has had this one in the can for a while.
Back on the train…
June 17th, 2019I’ve returned from my travel, for the record. I may talk a little about where I was at some point in the near future, but I probably won’t be doing a full fledged after action report.
One thing I will say: I can’t recommend the Sixth Floor Museum. It is expensive (a minimum of $30 for one person if you want to park your car), a Mongolian fire drill to get in to (you have to wait in line to buy tickets, or you can order them online. But either way, you then have to wait in line until your designated admission time comes around, then you have to wait in another line to actually get in the elevators up to the sixth floor.) and there’s just really not a whole lot to it that you don’t already know or haven’t heard. Most of the stuff there (Oswald’s rifle, Zapruder’s camera) isn’t even the original items (which are stored in the National Archives) but “reproductions” or similar items made around the same time.
It might be a good place to take your kids (but if you drive, you’re going to be out a minimum of $76 for a family of four) but I was generally disappointed.
Obit watch: June 15, 2019.
June 15th, 2019Franco Zeffirelli.
Did everybody born after…1964? see “Romeo and Juliet” in high school? Or was that a limited local phenomenon?
Obit watch: June 14, 2019.
June 14th, 2019Pat Bowlen, Denver Broncos owner. Not much to say about this, other than it will be interesting to watch the ownership situation play out. NYT. ESPN.
Anthony Price, British author of espionage novels. I had not heard of him before last week, but John le Carré praises his work highly in The Pigeon Tunnel.