DEATHS ; Notable Passings; The Thread to Pay Last Respects

[theinterchange]

Today's reappearance of my Amos Tupper avatar is in tribute to Bosley. I've always liked him on Happy Days, Father Dowling Mysteries, and the referenced Murder She Wrote.

Randy

 

[Doctor Strange]

Not enough has been said about Bosley's starring role on Broadway in Fiorello! (the mostly forgotten hit show that Bock and Harnack wrote before Fiddler On The Roof). I had its cast album memorized long before his familiar TV roles began.

Also, I'm surprised that even the NYT obit didn't mention his role in the pilot for Rod Serling's Night Gallery: in the segment directed by young Steven Spielberg, he's the poor schlub who sells his eyes to blind millionaire Joan Crawford (who gets the bandages off just in time for a citywide blackout, making her 12 hours of sight worthless [there's your Serling twist!]) Bosley definitely made an impression, even in this small part.

Anyway, he was a better actor than his most famous roles might indicate.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the late 70s, Bosley hosted the General Mills Radio Adventure Theatre -- a followup to the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, aimed at kids. He had a perfect radio voice, too.

 

[Miss Golightly]

Simon MacCorkindale (12 February 1952 – 14 October 2010) - RIP

I can't count how many times I saw him in Death on the Nile.....

 

[W-D Forties]

Good lord, I had no idea that Simon MacCorcindale had died. He was so young! Was it an illness?

 

[Miss Golightly]

Good lord, I had no idea that Simon MacCorcindale had died. He was so young! Was it an illness?

Sadly he had cancer - so very young to die:

http://www.digitalspy.ie/showbiz/s1...0/actor-simon-maccorkindale-dies-aged-58.html

 

[Bruce Wayne]

http://www.popeater.com/2010/10/28/...?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl4|sec1_lnk3|180687

 

[HoosierDaddy]

http://www.popeater.com/2010/10/28/...?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl4|sec1_lnk3|180687

Oh my gawd...he was 72..! What a shocker..!

 

[BinkieBaumont]

Actor James MacArthur has passed away this week at the age of 72. MacArthur was the son of actress Helen Hayes and playwright Charles MacArthur.

MacArthur was an actor both on stage and on the silver screen, having starred in such Disney classics as ‘Kidnapped’, ‘Swiss Family Robinson’, and famous for his role in Hawai five 0

 

[Mr Badger]

There have been some sad passings in recent weeks.

A gent named Harry Klein, one of the UK's finest jazz musicians of the 1950s-1960s died – I only found out when I was editing an obituary for a magazine I was working on, and I recognised his name. Mr Klein, as I knew him, was a lovely man who I met while working at the public library on the King's Road in London. We used to pass the time very regularly, usually while I was taking my break outside. He probably figured me for a music buff and we had some very interesting chats about music, the nature of culture, and so on. However, a true gentleman, he never made too much of his considerable accomplishments, and treated me as his equal. A real pleasure to have known him.

In the musical world, the deaths of Solomon Burke and Reg King, two of the world's most soulful vocalists have made me sad. At 25 stone-or-so in weight, Solomon was kinda asking for it, but still – DOA at Schipol Airport is no way to go for the man who sang "Just Out Of Reach" and "Keep Looking". My wife thinks it was DVT, and she may be on to something. He was a very special fella.

From a completely different background, but still a truly soulful artist of huge talent, London-born Reg King was one of the finest UK vocalists to emerge during the mid-1960s, fronting The Action. Mixing Detroit soul with mod suss, The Action released a string of 45s for Parlophone which stand tall with the finest of that singular decade. Not for nothing were they the first band that George Martin signed and produced for his own Air Productions company. Reg had barely made music since the early-1970s but that hardly mattered. He was one of the greatest. Sad to say that the only newspaper to report on his death was, commendably, Seattle's The Stranger. How ironic that, at about the same time as his death, Action uber-fan Phil Collins was claiming them as his biggest influence in a Billboard interview. Guess that's rock'n'roll. And so is this, a UK TV documentary on The Action, with Reg narrating their 'day in the life', including some brief live clips. Enjoy:

[video=youtube;F5lUQrUM-Hk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5lUQrUM-Hk[/video]

 

[Foofoogal]

Actor James MacArthur RIP.
I always liked him. Never knew the Helen Hayes connection though.

 

[Tomasso]

Actor James MacArthur has passed away this week at the age of 72. MacArthur was the son of actress Helen Hayes and playwright Charles MacArthur.

He was also the nephew of John D. MacArthur who at the time of his death was one of the richest men in the world and whose foundation has given hundreds of millions of Genius Grants.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Actor James MacArthur RIP.
I always liked him. Never knew the Helen Hayes connection though.

He was adopted as a baby by Charles Macarthur and Helen Hayes.
HD

 

[Foofoogal]

I saw this on the news Hoosier. He was still a nice looking man.

Soon I will not have anyone left I recognize among the stars of my youth it seems.

 

[Chas]

sorry...error in the post

 

[skyvue]

Oscar-Nominated actress Jill Clayburgh Dies At 66
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jill Clayburgh, whose Broadway and Hollywood acting career stretched through the decades, highlighted by her Oscar-nominated portrayal of a divorcee exploring her sexuality in the 1978 film An Unmarried Woman, died Friday. She was 66.

Her husband, Tony Award-winning playwright David Rabe, said she died after a 21-year battle with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. She was surrounded by her family and brother when she died at her home in Lakeville, he said.

She dealt with the disease courageously, quietly and privately, Rabe said, and conducted herself with enormous grace "and made it into an opportunity for her children to grow and be human."

Clayburgh came from a privileged New York family. Her father was vice president of two large companies, and her mother was a secretary for Broadway producer David Merrick. Her grandmother, Alma Clayburgh, was an opera singer and New York socialite....

More here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131112732

 

[dhermann1]

The death of Jill Clayburgh was a shock to me. She was just great.
Also yesterday, Shirley Verrett, one of the first top magnitude African American opera stars, died.
I was a super (extra) in a production of Aida at Chautauqua in 1963, in which she sang her first Amneris. There were several dozen local kids who were in the big triumphal scene, and I'll never forget how totally nice she was to us all. At the 1976 Democratic National Convention, she sang what I think is the slowest rendition of the national anthem I've ever heard. It was like the band leader wanted to see if he could kill her by drawing out every line. She made it through brilliantly, but was painful to hear.
Also, we lost good old Sparky Anderson, manager of the famous Big Red Machine, Cincinnati Reds baseball team in the 70's, and of another championship team in Detroit in 1984. One of baseball's classic characters.

 

[lolly_loisides]

Dino De Laurentiis (8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010)
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-dino-delaurentiis-20101112,0,3294161.story

 

[LizzieMaine]

Baby Marie Osborne, who was the biggest child star in pictures during the World War One era, died last Monday -- five days after her 99th birthday. She began her career on film as a four-year-old in 1915, and starred in nearly 30 pictures before her retirement in 1919. She went on to an adult career in the wardrobe departments at several different studios, where she continued to work until the 1970s.

 

[skyvue]

Hammer horror favourite Ingrid Pitt dies aged 73
by Catherine Shoard
guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 23 November

Ingrid Pitt, Hammer horror's favourite heroine, has died aged 73 in south London. The Polish-born actor who survived imprisonment in a concentration camp during the second world war, found fame as the blood-splattered, often blouseless star of films such as COUNTESS DRACULA, and THE VAMPIRE LOVERS.

She relished being cast as predatory baddies, rather than innocent victims. Film historian Marcus Hearn, said: "She was partly responsible for ushering in a bold and brazen era of sexually explicitly horror films in the 1970s, but that should not denigrate her abilities."

Steven Soderbergh gave her a late career boost when he cast her as a sinister aunt in his 1995 noir THE UNDERNEATH. She also won fans as an author with an autobiography, Life's a Scream, and three volumes of horror trivia, including 2000's The Ingrid Pitt Book of Murder, Torture and Depravity.