DEATHS ; Notable Passings; The Thread to Pay Last Respects

[Apple Annie]

RIP Paul Newman
Not only an actor but a truly great philanthropist.
Best wishes to his family, and a thank you to him for all the good work he did.

 

[dhermann1]

Kingston Trio's Nick Reynolds

I was there in July 1959 at the Amphitheater in Chautauqua when the Kingston Trio performed. There are photos of it on several of their album covers. What a great night that was. People forget how big the Kingston Trio was. They were probably the biggest act between Elvis (1956) and the Beatles (1963). In the winter of 1958 you could not go ANYWHERE in the USA without hearing "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley" coming out of every radio within earshot. Nick Reynolds was one of the original three. Sad to see him go.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...S?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

 

[Hondo]

Actress, singer Edie Adams dies at 81

Oh My! how did some of us old timers forget this?
if I missed a post, if someone remembered, please move if so,
I remember her well, the B/W cigar commercials (yeah I am that old) :eusa_doh:
What a beautiful women, check out "Its a Mad Mad World"
Edie R.I.P. we'll miss you, say hello to Ernie

Actress, singer Edie Adams dies at 81
Tony winner gained fame as television foil to husband Ernie Kovacs

LOS ANGELES - Actress and singer Edie Adams, the blonde beauty who won a Tony Award for bringing Daisy Mae to life on Broadway and who played the television foil to her husband, comedian Ernie Kovacs, has died. She was 81.

Adams died Wednesday in a Los Angeles hospital from pneumonia and cancer, publicist Henri Bollinger said.

A graduate of Juilliard School of Music, Adams hoped to become an opera singer but instead went on to gain fame for her sketches with Kovacs and her pivotal roles in two top Broadway musicals.

For nearly two decades, she also was the sexy spokeswoman for Muriel cigars, singing and breathily cooing in TV commercials: “Why don’t you pick one up and smoke it sometime?”

She was born Elizabeth Edith Enke in 1927 in Kingston, Pa., and grew up in Tenafly, N.J. She first attracted notice on the TV show “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.” Kovacs was then performing his innovative comedy show on a Philadelphia TV station, and his director saw her and invited her to audition.

“Here was this guy with the big mustache, the big cigar and the silly hat,” she recalled in 1982. “I thought, ‘I don’t know what this is, but it’s for me.”’

When she auditioned for the Kovacs show, she knew a lot about opera but only three pop songs, she recalled.

“I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it,” she said.

With her innocent face and refreshing manner, Adams became the ideal partner for Kovacs’ far-out humor. They eloped to Mexico City in 1954.

Kovacs moved his show — which appeared in various guises in the 1950s and early 1960s — to New York, where he became the darling of critics and discriminating viewers and hugely influential on other comedians. Both Kovacs and Adams garnered Emmy nominations in 1957 for best performances in a comedy series.

Adams found success on Broadway as well.

She was acclaimed for her role as the sister to Rosalind Russell’s character in the 1953 “Wonderful Town,” the Comden-Green-Bernstein musical based on “My Sister Eileen.”

In 1957, Adams won a Tony for best featured (supporting) actress in a musical for her role as Daisy Mae in “Li’l Abner,” based on Al Capp’s satirical comic strip.


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“Edith Adams makes a wonderful Daisy Mae with her busty blouse, brief skirt and bare legs — the hill-billy girl with a touch of Al Capp’s Hollywood glamour,” The New York Times wrote.

She and Kovacs moved to Hollywood in the late 1950s, and both became active in films.

In Billy Wilder’s classic “The Apartment,” the 1960 Oscar winner for best picture, Adams played the spurned secretary to philandering businessman Fred MacMurray.

Among her other movies were “Lover Come Back,” “Call Me Bwana” (with Bob Hope), the all-star comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” (as Sid Caesar’s wife), “Under the Yum Yum Tree,” “The Best Man” and “The Honey Pot.”

In early 1962, Kovacs left a star-filled baby shower for Mrs. Milton Berle and crashed his car into a light pole, dying instantly. He had been a carefree gambler and profligate buyer of unneeded things. He once telephoned his wife and said he had bought the California Racquet Club, with its nightclub, shops and mortgages.

His widow was faced with debts of $520,000, trouble with the Internal Revenue Service and a nasty custody battle over Kovacs’ daughters, Betty and Kippie, from his first marriage. She and Kovacs also had a daughter Mia, born in 1959.

Berle, Frank Sinatra, Jack Lemmon, Dean Martin and other stars organized a TV special to raise money for her and her daughters.

“No,” she said, “I can take care of my own children.”

For a solid year, she worked continuously. She did movies, TV musical revues and a Las Vegas act where Groucho Marx introduced her with the comment: “There are some things Edie won’t do, but nothing she can’t do.”

She won custody of her stepdaughters, tearfully telling reporters after the verdict: “This is the way Ernie would have wanted it.”

Over a career that spanned some six decades, Adams also appeared in various stage productions; had a short-lived TV show in 1963 that earned her two Emmy nominations; performed in nightclubs and released several albums.

In the 1980s and 1990s, she made appearances on such TV shows as “Murder, She Wrote” and “Designing Women.” She also played Tommy Chong’s mother, Mrs. Tempest Stoner, in the first Cheech and Chong movie, “Up in Smoke,” in 1978.

Over the years, she strove to keep Kovacs’ comedic legacy alive by buying rights to his TV shows and repackaging them for television and videocassettes.

After her widowhood, she had two brief marriages to photographer Martin Mills and trumpeter Pete Candoli.

She is survived by her son, Joshua Mills. Daughter Mia Kovacs was killed at 22 in a 1982 car accident.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27221101/

 

[dhermann1]

There's a film clip of Ernie introducing her on his show. You can just see that he's utterly dazzled by her. She was one heck of a great lady. I'm really sorry to see this. And of course I LOVED LOVED LOVED Ernie Kovacs.

 

[MrBern]

BLACKWELL

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/fashion/AP-CA-Obit-MrBlackwell.html

Mr. Blackwell, the acerbic designer whose annual worst-dressed list skewered the fashion felonies of celebrities from Zsa Zsa Gabor to Britney Spears, has died. He was 86.

"The list is and was a satirical look at the fashion flops of the year," he said in 1998. "I merely said out loud what others were whispering. ... It's not my intention to hurt the feelings of these people. It's to put down the clothing they're wearing."

He told the Los Angeles Times in 1968 that designers were forgetting that their job "is to dress and enhance women. ... Maybe I should have named the 10 worst designers instead of blaming the women who wear their clothes."

 

[52Styleline]

Thank you for that post. Somehow I missed that bit of news. She was an excellent vocalist in her day.

 

[Flivver]

Edie Adams

"Muriel Panetelas with the taste that's so sublime...why don't you pick one up and smoke it sometime...smoke Muriel...Muriel Cigars!"

One of the most memorable TV ads from my childhood...sung by a very beautiful lady.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7EbLIdE88Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVYySKyBbUs

 

[LizzieMaine]

Studs Terkel, 1912-2008

A moment of silence, please, for a great journalist, raconteur, and chronicler of the lives of ordinary people. His books "Hard Times" and "The Good War" remain the definitive oral histories of those who lived thru the best and the worst of the Era. If you haven't read them, you need to.

 

[KilroyCD]

Norman "Hurricane" Smith 1923-2008

This happened earlier this year, but it was only yesterday that I had heard of the passing of former Beatles recording engineer and Pink Floyd producer/recording engineer Norman "Hurricane" Smith. Smith was also a recording artist, best known on this side of the Atlantic for his hit 1972 single "Oh Babe, What Would You Say" which reached #3 on the Billboard charts here in the USA.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/mar/11/obituaries.mainsection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJdkCs5RdQg

 

[imported_the_librarian]

A moment of silence, please, for a great journalist, raconteur, and chronicler of the lives of ordinary people. His books "Hard Times" and "The Good War" remain the definitive oral histories of those who lived thru the best and the worst of the Era. If you haven't read them, you need to.

I'll second Studs. Just found a great quote:

"...I've always felt, in all my books, that there's a deep decency in the American people and a native intelligence - providing they have the facts, providing they have the information...."
(source: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/studs_terkel.html)

 

[H.Johnson]

Rest in Peace Yma Sumac

Incomparable songstress and artiste extraordinaire Yma Sumac has died.

She will be best remembered for her role in The Big Lebowski by the Coen Brothers, but for most of us 'oldies' our favourite cameo role would be in Secret of the Inca with Charlton Heston (which character is sometimes recognised as the progenitor of Indiana Jones).

Her exotic screen and cabaret presence and her unrivalled vocal range ensure that she will live long in the hearts of her fans. Once seen and heard, never forgotten.

Rest in peace, Yma Sumac.

 

[vitanola]

Incomparable songstress and artiste extraordinaire Yma Sumac has died.

She will be best remembered for her role in The Big Lebowski by the Coen Brothers, but for most of us 'oldies' our favourite cameo role would be in Secret of the Inca with Charlton Heston (which character is sometimes recognised as the progenitor of Indiana Jones).

Her exotic screen and cabaret presence and her unrivalled vocal range ensure that she will live long in the hearts of her fans. Once seen and heard, never forgotten.

Rest in peace, Yma Sumac.

What a remarkable voice!

Her "Xtaby" records on Capitol, while they are amusing excursions into 1950's exotica, do not hold a candle to her performances on Peruvian Odeon, with the troupe of Moieses Vivenco. On these discs, with their sympathetic accompniments, her true artistry shines.

Sleep well, lovely little bird!

 

[H.Johnson]

Amen. 'The Wild Creatures' seems to me to redefine what music is about.

Enjoy Bo Mambo -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhUBJZdL8BY

 

[warbird]

Michael Crichton passed away at his LA home after a battle with cancer.

I enjoyed reading most of his books.

 

[MrBern]

YMA SUMAC - 4 Octave voice

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/arts/music/04sumac.html

Yma Sumac, a Peruvian singer who burst on the American scene in the 1950s in a tornado of exotic publicity with a voice that glided preternaturally across four octaves, leading her to top record charts, fill nightclubs and become a cult heroine, died Saturday in Los Angeles. She was 86.

“The creatures of the forest taught me how to sing,” she said in an interview with Newsday in 1989.

She appeared in “Secret of the Incas” (1954)

 

[MrBern]

Michael Crichton passed away at his LA home after a battle with cancer.

I enjoyed reading most of his books.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/books/06appr.html

 

[H.Johnson]

Sid Lucas, RIP

World War 1 veteran Sid Lucas has died, aged 108. Mr Lucas did not actually see active service in WW1, as it finished just as his training ended. He emigrated from Britain to Australia in the 1920s.

 

[MrBern]

USMC Who Halted Vietnamese Attack, Dies at 69

this is quite the read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/washington/04ripley.html

Col. John W. Ripley, Marine Who Halted Vietnamese Attack, Dies at 69

highlight:

“This was 1972,” he added, “and people didn’t pay too much attention to war heroes at that time.”

Going back and forth for three hours while under fire, Captain Ripley swung hand over hand along the steel I-beams beneath the bridge, securing himself between girders and placing crates holding a total of 500 pounds of TNT in a diagonal line from one side of the structure to the other. The I-beam wings were just wide enough to form pathways along which he could slide the boxes.

When the boxes were in place on the bridge, Captain Ripley attached blasting caps to detonate the TNT, then connected them with a timed-fuse cord that eventually extended hundreds of feet.

“He had to bite down on the blasting caps to attach them to the fuses,” John Grider Miller, author of “The Bridge at Dong Ha,” said on Monday. “If he bit too low on the blasting cap, it could come loose; if he bit too high, it could blow his head apart.”

Captain Ripley bit safely, and the timed-fuse cord gave him about half an hour to clamber off the bridge. Moments later, his work paid off with a shock wave that tossed him into the air but otherwise left him unharmed.

By placing the crates diagonally along the bridge, Mr. Miller said, Captain Ripley had created “a twisting motion that ripped the bridge apart from its moorings so it couldn’t fall back in place, but collapsed into the river.”

There were about 600 South Vietnamese marines near the south end of the bridge. “South Vietnam would have been in big trouble,” said Fred Schultz, senior editor of Naval History Magazine, a publication of the United States Naval Institute. “The force numbers defending on that side could not have held against that North Vietnamese force.”

The destruction of the bridge created a bottleneck for the North Vietnamese, allowing American bombers to blunt what became known as the Easter offensive.

Captain Ripley was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions at the bridge.

 

[Fletch]

Bill Moyers's Now program closed tonight with a memorial to John Leonard, the eloquent and perceptive commentator on movies, books, and television for NYT, TNR, CBS, NPR and many others. It was lung cancer at 69; I hadn't even known he was sick.

Washington Post obit

 

[Lady Day]

Singer Miriam Makeba dies




LD