DEATHS ; Notable Passings; The Thread to Pay Last Respects

[MrBern]

T-Model Ford, Late-Blooming Bluesman, Is Dead

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/arts/music/t-model-ford-late-blooming-bluesman-is-dead.html?ref=obituaries

[video=youtube;D8j3NUzPBw4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8j3NUzPBw4[/video]

 

[Miss Golightly]

Actor Mel Smith has died aged 60:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/actor-mel-smith-dies-at-his-london-home-1.1470477

 

[LizzieMaine]

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has died at 92. Over ten administrations, from JFK to Obama, she took no crap from anyone.

 

[Joan Holloway]

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has died at 92. Over ten administrations, from JFK to Obama, she took no crap from anyone.

That's sad
Did she still work, or did she stop working before dying?

 

[dhermann1]

You may recall an unfortunate incident about 4 years ago where a politically incorrect comment forced to retire at age 88. Doesn't matter. She was a giant in her profession.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Indeed. Those who insist that the women of the Era were all cringing, fawning, repressed little flibbertigibbets could learn a lot from reviewing Helen Thomas's life.

 

[MrBern]

Herr Trautmann
from fallschirmjäger to footballer to OBE

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/sports/soccer/bert-trautmann-won-iron-cross-and-fa-cup-dies-at-89.html?src=recg

 

[dhermann1]

Fasssskinatin'.

 

[MikeBravo]

Former White House correspondent Helen Thomas has died at 92. Over ten administrations, from JFK to Obama, she took no crap from anyone.

She seemed like a great woman, not that we heard a lot about her in this country, but I did see her interviewed once or twice.

There was a disgusting incident a few years ago, the exact details escape me, when she questioned something the Bush administration was saying. The Press Secretary was completely out of line and abusive and none of her so-called peers supported her, they just sat there like good little lap dogs while this wonderful woman was humiliated.

Possibly the last of her kind?

 

[AmateisGal]

She seemed like a great woman, not that we heard a lot about her in this country, but I did see her interviewed once or twice.

There was a disgusting incident a few years ago, the exact details escape me, when she questioned something the Bush administration was saying. The Press Secretary was completely out of line and abusive and none of her so-called peers supported her, they just sat there like good little lap dogs while this wonderful woman was humiliated.

Possibly the last of her kind?

I don't think that was the Bush administration, but during the Obama administration.

 

[LizzieMaine]

While the incident that ended Thomas's career occured in 2010, it was former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer who headed the campaign to get her fired. Thomas made some unguarded comments to a student reporter about her views on certain actions of the Israeli government, and Fleischer siezed on these as a way of settling his own scores with her.

What a lot of people overlooked when this whole thing was going on was that Thomas was of second-generation Lebanese descent -- her parents had been Lebanese immigrants. While she could have expressed her views in a more diplomatic manner than she did, no one should have been particularly shocked to find that she held such views.

 

[hatguy1]

Dennis Farina (From Detective Joe Fontana character in "Law and Order" fame) died today of a blood clot to the lung. What's most amazing is that Dennis Farina actually was a real life cop before he became an actor playing one on TV. He was an 18-year veteran of the Chicago PD and - as a detective - moonlighted in Chicago stage theater and small movie roles. Then he hit the big time and left law enforcement for being a full-time actor. RIP, Detective Fontana/Dennis Farina.

 

[gtdean48]

Dennis Farina (From Detective Joe Fontana character in "Law and Order" fame) died today of a blood clot to the lung. What's most amazing is that Dennis Farina actually was a real life cop before he became an actor playing one on TV. He was an 18-year veteran of the Chicago PD and - as a detective - moonlighted in Chicago stage theater and small movie roles. Then he hit the big time and left law enforcement for being a full-time actor. RIP, Detective Fontana/Dennis Farina.

Liked him a great deal in Crime Story...never knew he was real detective before acting...

 

[Tomasso]

His performance in "Get Shorty" was sublime. He was one of the good guys.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Hate to hear that he is gone. I enjoyed his performances. Good actor that seemed genuine.

 

[Touchofevil]

Dennis Farina (From Detective Joe Fontana character in "Law and Order" fame) died today of a blood clot to the lung. What's most amazing is that Dennis Farina actually was a real life cop before he became an actor playing one on TV. He was an 18-year veteran of the Chicago PD and - as a detective - moonlighted in Chicago stage theater and small movie roles. Then he hit the big time and left law enforcement for being a full-time actor. RIP, Detective Fontana/Dennis Farina.

Liked him a lot in everything I ever saw him in starting with Crime Story back in the mid-eighties. I was talking about how good of an actor he was today while watching him on a Xfinity commercial. Very sad to hear about his passing.

 

[Stormy]

Solong Dennis, and thanks for the wonderful characters you gave us. The lights in Tinseltown are not as bright now that you're gone.

 

[Young fogey]

RIP Dennis Farina

The world was a better place when Mike Torello patrolled the streets.

CBS Chicago is reporting that the veteran actor “died Monday morning in a Scottsdale, Ariz., hospital after suffering a blood clot in his lung. He was 69.” They’re playing up his two years as Jerry Orbach’s initial replacement on Law & Order, particularly since, as CBS notes, Farina “was the only actor on ‘Law & Order’ who actually served in law enforcement, serving as a Chicago police officer for 18 years,” before becoming an actor at age 37. But the show to look for is Crime Story, which Michael Mann produced as his follow-up to Miami Vice (where Farina appeared in three episodes as a Godfather-esque Mafioso), and is available for rental on Netflix.

Crime Story began to fizzle near the end of its first season, but the first 18 or so episodes, set in Chicago, before the series relocated in Las Vegas, were great fun to watch. Set in the Mies van der Rohe-era Chicago of the early, pre-Miranda JFK ’60s, it was sort of Mad Men meets Goodfellas, (years before each of those titles) with plenty of smoking, skinny ties, and fedoras, and features a highly watchable blend of Vice-like cinematography, which was still unique for television in the mid-’80s, and the great duel of wits (and occasionally guns, fists, etc.) between Farina’s tough Chicago PD lieutenant and Tony Denison as Ray Luca, the show’s lead gangster. (Denison is now a co-star on TNT’s Major Crimes series.)

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Classy jazz musician Peter Appleyard will be missed. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts...eyard-dead-at-85-reports-say/article13299479/

 

[rjb1]

"Crime Story" was a great show. Even the opening credits were fun to watch. (And Del Shannon's "Runaway" was a great theme song.)