DEATHS ; Notable Passings; The Thread to Pay Last Respects

[Doctor Strange]

Character actor Kevin Conway:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/theater/kevin-conway-dead.html

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kevin-conway-dead-gettysburg-actor-was-77-1277389

But the obit doesn't mention one of my favorite performances - Dr. Haber in the excellent 1980 TV adaptation of Ursula Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven_(film)

 

[Frunobulax]

Tragically, the great Orson Bean.

https://abc7.com/5912587

 

[BobHufford]

Robert Conrad, dead at 84. RIP.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/n...sV83dzwSVB07NxkUpg3ZRsCwqW5XP1-iZWPnIa7gvXOQ8

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

Loved him as Pappy in Baa Baa Black Sheep and of course James West.
Rip

 

[Frunobulax]

RIP James West.

I'll bet he'd still kick your butt if you tried to knock that battery off his shoulder.

 

[MisterCairo]

As a kid in the 70s, this was THE coolest thing ever, beating even the intro to Hogan's Heroes, and that gave me chills...

 

[Héctor Fernández]

Robert Conrad was a tough hombre. In Wild, Wild, West, he made James Bond cool before James Bond became a thing.

Robert Conrad, dead at 84. RIP.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/n...sV83dzwSVB07NxkUpg3ZRsCwqW5XP1-iZWPnIa7gvXOQ8

 

[Frunobulax]

Um, OK...

 

[MisterCairo]

Former child actor Raphael Coleman, from the first Nanny McPhee film and others, collapsed and died during a run, only 25:

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/entertainm...-BBZScz6?li=AAggNb9&ocid=iehp#image=BBYVH7A|2

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the greatest baseball writers of the latter half of the twentieth century died last week at the age of 92. Roger Kahn grew up in Flatbush, within throwing distance of Ebbets Field, and was a devoted Dodger fan from childhood. He grew up in an intellectual family -- his father was an editor for the highbrow radio quiz program "Information Please" -- and while his interest in baseball horrified his mother, his father encouraged it, leading young Roger to a career as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune's sports department. Within just a few years, he was the youngest beat reporter in the National League, traveling with the Dodgers for the 1952 and 1953 seasons. He formed an especially close friendship with Jackie Robinson, and became his partner in a magazine focusing on "Negro sports," before moving on to a long association with "Sport" magazine.

In 1970, Kahn wondered what had become of the players he'd gotten to know with the Dodgers. So he looked them up -- traveling all over the US to talk with them again about the directions their lives had taken since baseball -- and the result was "The Boys of Summer," a moody book combining baseball with ruminations on the meaning of human mortality. There had never been anything else quite like it, and it took the publishing world by storm -- kicking off an entire genre of literary baseball books that continues down to the present day.

Kahn wrote extensively almost to the end of his life -- he published his last book, "Rickey and Robinson," in 2014, to "set the record straight" about the relationship between those two baseball legends. I read "The Boys of Summer" not long after it came out, and it made me think about The Game in a way I'd never considered -- and in a way that's never left me since.

 

[Fading Fast]

One of the greatest baseball writers of the latter half of the twentieth century died last week at the age of 92. Roger Kahn grew up in Flatbush, within throwing distance of Ebbets Field, and was a devoted Dodger fan from childhood. He grew up in an intellectual family -- his father was an editor for the highbrow radio quiz program "Information Please" -- and while his interest in baseball horrified his mother, his father encouraged it, leading young Roger to a career as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune's sports department. Within just a few years, he was the youngest beat reporter in the National League, traveling with the Dodgers for the 1952 and 1953 seasons. He formed an especially close friendship with Jackie Robinson, and became his partner in a magazine focusing on "Negro sports," before moving on to a long association with "Sport" magazine.

In 1970, Kahn wondered what had become of the players he'd gotten to know with the Dodgers. So he looked them up -- traveling all over the US to talk with them again about the directions their lives had taken since baseball -- and the result was "The Boys of Summer," a moody book combining baseball with ruminations on the meaning of human mortality. There had never been anything else quite like it, and it took the publishing world by storm -- kicking off an entire genre of literary baseball books that continues down to the present day.

Kahn wrote extensively almost to the end of his life -- he published his last book, "Rickey and Robinson," in 2014, to "set the record straight" about the relationship between those two baseball legends. I read "The Boys of Summer" not long after it came out, and it made me think about The Game in a way I'd never considered -- and in a way that's never left me since.

I reread "The Boys of Summer" several years ago and it was as powerful the second time through.

I met Roger's son Gordon, an architect, also, several years ago. It was an informal meeting and, while he'd entertain questions about his father, I could quickly tell he wanted to talk about other things (understandably), so we chatted about architecture (he's an architect). That's it, there's nothing more to that story.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's a couple of images from that book that really haunted me -- Billy Cox, a truly great third baseman, tending bar in a sleazy club in a grubby little town, while patrons got into obscene fights while he was trying to talk to Kahn, and Carl Furillo as an embittered construction worker at the World Trade Center, damning Walter F. O'Malley to hell for releasing him while he was injured. I think reading those scenes were the first moments I started to think of ballplayers as *people.*

 

[Fading Fast]

There's a couple of images from that book that really haunted me -- Billy Cox, a truly great third baseman, tending bar in a sleazy club in a grubby little town, while patrons got into obscene fights while he was trying to talk to Kahn, and Carl Furillo as an embittered construction worker at the World Trade Center, damning Walter F. O'Malley to hell for releasing him while he was injured. I think reading those scenes were the first moments I started to think of ballplayers as *people.*

It's stories like those that makes it hard to hear all the laments of these guys making $10, $20, $30 million a year. To be sure, I have no issue with them getting as much as they can, but my God, don't complain to the public about any of it - Any. Of. It.

 

[MisterCairo]

Paula Kelly, whom I had a crush on from her early series Night Court days, has died, aged 77:

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/entertainm...ace-emmy-nominee-was-77/ar-BBZUFJ4?ocid=ientp

I never knew why she left (pushed out?) the show, Markie Post eventually taking the key lead as the defence lawyer.

 

[MisterCairo]

How did I beat Trench Friend to this?

German filmmaker Joseph Vilsmaier, perhaps best known, certainly to me, for the film Stalingrad, has died, aged 81:

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/entertainm...own-for-stalingrad-dies/ar-BBZVh3r?ocid=ientp

 

[Trenchfriend]

@MisterCairo
I didn't really knew him.

 

[Frunobulax]

Paula Kelly, whom I had a crush on from her early series Night Court days, has died, aged 77:

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/entertainm...ace-emmy-nominee-was-77/ar-BBZUFJ4?ocid=ientp

I never knew why she left (pushed out?) the show, Markie Post eventually taking the key lead as the defence lawyer.



View attachment 212581

Probably a shake-up looking for the right chemistry and a love interest for Harry. The pilot had a different defense attorney, then they went through Ellen Foley before settling on Post, who did the dance with Harry until the end of the series.

 

[belfastboy]

There's a couple of images from that book that really haunted me -- Billy Cox, a truly great third baseman, tending bar in a sleazy club in a grubby little town, while patrons got into obscene fights while he was trying to talk to Kahn, and Carl Furillo as an embittered construction worker at the World Trade Center, damning Walter F. O'Malley to hell for releasing him while he was injured. I think reading those scenes were the first moments I started to think of ballplayers as *people.*

Thank you Curt Flood!

 

[belfastboy]

One of the greatest baseball writers of the latter half of the twentieth century died last week at the age of 92. Roger Kahn grew up in Flatbush, within throwing distance of Ebbets Field, and was a devoted Dodger fan from childhood. He grew up in an intellectual family -- his father was an editor for the highbrow radio quiz program "Information Please" -- and while his interest in baseball horrified his mother, his father encouraged it, leading young Roger to a career as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune's sports department. Within just a few years, he was the youngest beat reporter in the National League, traveling with the Dodgers for the 1952 and 1953 seasons. He formed an especially close friendship with Jackie Robinson, and became his partner in a magazine focusing on "Negro sports," before moving on to a long association with "Sport" magazine.

In 1970, Kahn wondered what had become of the players he'd gotten to know with the Dodgers. So he looked them up -- traveling all over the US to talk with them again about the directions their lives had taken since baseball -- and the result was "The Boys of Summer," a moody book combining baseball with ruminations on the meaning of human mortality. There had never been anything else quite like it, and it took the publishing world by storm -- kicking off an entire genre of literary baseball books that continues down to the present day.

Kahn wrote extensively almost to the end of his life -- he published his last book, "Rickey and Robinson," in 2014, to "set the record straight" about the relationship between those two baseball legends. I read "The Boys of Summer" not long after it came out, and it made me think about The Game in a way I'd never considered -- and in a way that's never left me since.

Boys of Summer ...one of my all time favourite reads. I loved Kahn's work.

 

[belfastboy]

There's a couple of images from that book that really haunted me -- Billy Cox, a truly great third baseman, tending bar in a sleazy club in a grubby little town, while patrons got into obscene fights while he was trying to talk to Kahn, and Carl Furillo as an embittered construction worker at the World Trade Center, damning Walter F. O'Malley to hell for releasing him while he was injured. I think reading those scenes were the first moments I started to think of ballplayers as *people.*

I think I have related this story here....In 1969 at Christmas break from uni I travelled to San Fran. Driving around I ended up in Monterey close to midnite looking for a motel. I found one, lights still on and went into the office, smacked the bell on the counter and as I waited for someone to appear I enjoyed looking at the baseball memorabilia on the wall. Lots of pictures of one my favourite players...Don Mossi and Detroit Tiger memorabilia.

Well, damned if a guy that looked just like an aged Don Mossi did not appear from behind the curtain. Damned if it wasn't Mr Mossi, running a motel, in the middle of nowhere, checking in a punk kid at midnight. I went to sleep feeling sad that night.....not sure why but I suspect it had something to do with broken dreams.....not Mr Mossi's but my own smashed illusions.