The Rest In Peace and Remembrance Thread

[rfhertz]

Audio pioneer Dr. Fritz Sennheiser has passed away.

http://www.radioworld.com/article/100916

[amayo]

TV's 'People Are Funny' Host Art Linkletter Dies
Art Linkletter, host of 'People Are Funny' and 'House Party,' dies at LA home, son-in-law says
By LYNN ELBER
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES



Art Linkletter, who hosted the popular TV shows "People Are Funny" and "House Party" in the 1950s and 1960s, has died. He was 97.

His son-in-law Art Hershey says Linkletter died Wednesday at his home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles.

"Art Linkletter's House Party," one of television's longest-running variety shows, debuted on radio in 1944 and was seen on CBS-TV from 1952 to 1969.

Though it had many features, the best known was the daily interviews with schoolchildren.

"On `House Party' I would talk to you and bring out the fact that you had been letting your boss beat you at golf over a period of months as part of your campaign to get a raise," Linkletter wrote.

"All the while, without your knowledge, your boss would be sitting a few feet away listening, and at the appropriate moment, I would bring you together," he said. "Now, that's funny, because the laugh arises out of a real situation."

Linkletter collected sayings from the children into "Kids Say The Darndest Things," and it sold in the millions. The book "70 Years of Best Sellers 1895-1965" ranked "Kids Say the Darndest Things" as the 15th top seller among nonfiction books in that period.

The primetime "People Are Funny," which began on radio in 1942 and ran on TV from 1954 to 1961, emphasized slapstick humor and audience participation — things like throwing a pie in the face of a contestant who couldn't tell his Social Security number in five seconds, or asking him to go out and cash a check written on the side of a watermelon.

The down-to-earth charm of Linkletter's broadcast persona seemed to be mirrored by his private life with his wife of more than a half-century, Lois. They had five children, whom he wrote about in his books and called the "Links."

But in 1969, his 20-year-old daughter, Diane, jumped to her death from her sixth-floor Hollywood apartment. He blamed her death on LSD use, but toxicology tests found no LSD in her body after she died.

Still, the tragedy prompted him to become a crusader against drugs. A son, Robert, died in a car accident in 1980. Another son, Jack Linkletter, was 70 when he died of lymphoma in 2007.

Art Linkletter got his first taste of broadcasting with a part-time job while attending San Diego State College in the early 1930s. He graduated in 1934.

"I was studying to be an English professor," Linkletter once said. "But as they say, life is what happens to you while you're making other plans."

He held a series of radio and promotion jobs in California and Texas, experimenting with audience participation and remote broadcasts, before forming his own production company in the 1940s and striking it big with "People Are Funny" and "House Party."

Linkletter was born Arthur Gordon Kelly on July 17, 1912, in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. His unwed mother put him up for adoption when he was a baby; when he was about 7, he and his adoptive parents moved to the United States, eventually settling in San Diego.

He recalled his preacher-father forced him to take odd jobs to help the family. So Linkletter left and became a hobo, hopping trains across the West, working where he could. He recalled later that he felt the religious faith instilled by his father had been a great gift.

After leaving daily broadcasting in 1969, Linkletter continued to write, lecture and appear in television commercials.

Among his other books, were "Old Age is Not for Sissies," "How To Be a Supersalesman," "Confessions of a Happy Man," "Hobo on the Way to Heaven" and his autobiography, '`I Didn't Do It Alone."

A recording Linkletter made with his daughter Diane not long before she died, "We Love You, Call Collect," was issued after her death and won a Grammy award for best spoken word recording.

"Life is not fair ... not easy," Linkletter said in a 1990 interview by The Associated Press. "Outside, peer pressure can wreak havoc with the nicest families. So that's the part that's a gamble.

"But I'm an optimist. Even though I've had tragedies in my life, and I've seen a lot of difficult things, I still am an optimist."

Linkletter is survived by his wife, Lois, whom he married in 1935, and daughters Dawn and Sharon.


Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,

[jag]

Paul Gray, Slipknot bassist

Des Moines, Iowa; May 24, 2010 -- A local hotel worker found the bassist dead this morning. Paul Gray, known as #2, or "The Pig" in the self-titled years, the lively bassist from Los Angeles who relocated with family to Des Moines and joined Slipknot and has played for the entire Slipknot career up to this point.


Hard to believe that nobody posted this until now.

[Rock]

ABC News is reporting Gary Coleman has died.

Willis, you no longer have to explain yourself.

[genlock]

Gary Coleman has died as the result of injuries he suffered earlier this week, the hospital tells TMZ.

We've learned Gary's wife, Shannon, made the decision to pull life support early this AM.

We're told Coleman died at 12:05 PM MST. He died of a intracranial hemorrhage.

Family members and close friends were at Coleman's side when life support was pulled.

He was 42.

As TMZ first reported, Coleman was rushed to a hospital in Utah after he fell and hurt his head. He was on life support since Thursday.

There will be a press conference at the hospital at 3:00 PM PT.

[Bob Campbell]

Guess we'll know what Willis is talking about tonight.

[Dave Allen]

Watch you talkin' bout, St. Peter???

[fearpeddler]

stephen perry dead

ZEPHYRHILLS, Fla. — Police in a town near Tampa say a missing former writer for the 1980s cartoon series "Thundercats" was killed.

Stephen Perry's van was found abandoned at a Tampa hotel May 16, with a severed body part nearby. The Zephyrhills mayor has said it was an arm, but police declined to provide details — including whether Perry's body has been found or why they declared him a homicide victim Thursday.

Perry's home was found ransacked and two roommates were also missing. They have since been arrested on unrelated charges but called "persons of interest."

Perry's wrote for numerous comics and scripted the "Silverhawks" cartoon. But friends say he never made much money. He was recently broke and had trouble finding health care for his potentially fatal bladder cancer.

[fearpeddler]

Dennis Hopper dead today......

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/movies/ ... at_74.html

[Lester]

Ali-Ollie Woodson of the (newer) Temptations, dead at 58.

http://www.wral.com/entertainment/story/7697792/

[David Paleg]

Ted Koppel's son, 40, found dead in NYC apartment
Jun 1, 11:21 AM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - The 40-year-old son of former ABC News anchor Ted Koppel was found dead in an apartment in upper Manhattan, and the cause of death is being investigated, authorities said Tuesday.

Andrew Koppel was declared dead around 1:30 a.m. Monday in the apartment in the Washington Heights neighborhood, Detective John Sweeney said.

Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner, said an autopsy was performed Monday but results were pending further study, including toxicology and tissue testing.

Additional tests were needed to determine the manner and cause of death, Borakove said. They will take a few weeks to complete, she said.

Koppel had been drinking for hours with a man he met at a bar, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

"He had a straw hat on, and I had one on, and he said, 'Nice hat, man,'" his drinking partner, Russell Wimberly, told the newspaper. "We got to talking, and he started buying me drinks."

Wimberly said that Koppel drank whiskey, and that neither man had anything to eat all day.

Koppel was appointed attorney for the city Housing Authority's civil litigation division in 2001, a post he resigned in 2008, the agency said Tuesday.

Ted Koppel was the longtime anchor of the ABC News show "Nightline." Andrew Koppel, of Queens, was one of his four children. A call to the elder Koppel's publicist was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Andrew Koppel was convicted of misdemeanor assault in 1994 for striking a U.S. Senate aide during an argument at a Capitol Hill automated teller machine. At the time, he was a student at Georgetown Law School.

Wimberly said that after drinking, he and Koppel eventually wound up at the apartment, which belonged to Wimberly's friend. He and the friend, Belinda Caban, told Koppel to sleep it off and later found that he had gotten sick and appeared not to be breathing, the Post said. The two said they called 911.

[genlock]

Mercury

The Ford Motor Company announced Wednesday that it plans to discontinue its Mercury division by the end of 2010.

After an internal review of its operations, the automaker determined that growing the recently booming Ford division, and accelerating its efforts to refresh and expand the lineup of its Lincoln luxury car division were its main priorities.

The Mercury nameplate currently holds a .8 market share in the U.S., less than half of the share that was added by the Ford brand so far in 2010. Despite regularly outselling Lincoln, low brand awareness of Mercury, due in part to a lineup of vehicles that are nearly indistinguishable from the much stronger-selling Fords that they are based on, contributed to the decision.

[David Paleg]

'Golden Girl' Rue McClanahan dies
Jun 3, 12:48 PM (ET)
By DAVID BAUDER


NEW YORK (AP) - Rue McClanahan, the Emmy-winning actress who brought the sexually liberated Southern belle Blanche Devereaux to life on the hit TV series "The Golden Girls," has died. She was 76.

Her manager Barbara Lawrence said McClanahan died Thursday at 1 a.m. of a stroke.

She had undergone treatment for breast cancer in 1997 and later lectured to cancer support groups on "aging gracefully." In 2009, she had heart bypass surgery.

McClanahan had an active career in off-Broadway and regional stages in the 1960s before she was tapped for TV in the 1970s for the key best-friend character on the hit series "Maude," starring Beatrice Arthur. After that series ended in 1978, McClanahan landed the role as Aunt Fran on "Mama's Family" in 1983.

But her most loved role came in 1985 when she co-starred with Arthur, Betty White and Estelle Getty in "The Golden Girls," a runaway hit that broke the sitcom mold by focusing on the foibles of four aging - and frequently eccentric - women living together in Miami.

"Golden Girls" aimed to show "that when people mature, they add layers," she told The New York Times in 1985. "They don't turn into other creatures. The truth is we all still have our child, our adolescent, and your young woman living in us."

Blanche, who called her father "Big Daddy," was a frequent target of roommates Dorothy, Rose and the outspoken Sophia (Getty), who would fire off zingers at Blanche such as, "Your life's an open blouse."

Fellow "Golden Girl" Betty White called McClanahan a close and dear friend.

"I treasured our relationship," said White, who was working on the set of her TV Land comedy "Hot in Cleveland" on Thursday. "It hurts more than I even thought it would, if that's even possible."

McClanahan snagged an Emmy for her work on the show in 1987. In an Associated Press interview that year, McClanahan said Blanche was unlike any other role she had ever played.

"Probably the closest I've ever done was Blanche DuBois in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' at the Pasadena Playhouse," she said. "I think, too, that's where the name came from, although my character is not a drinker and not crazy."

Her Blanche Devereaux, she said, "is in love with life and she loves men. I think she has an attitude toward women that's competitive. She is friends with Dorothy and Rose, but if she has enough provocation she becomes competitive with them. I think basically she's insecure. It's the other side of the Don Juan syndrome."

After "The Golden Girls" was canceled in 1992, McClanahan, White and Getty reprised their roles in a short-lived spinoff, "Golden Palace."

McClanahan continued working in television, on stage and in film, appearing in the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau vehicle "Out to Sea" and as the biology teacher in "Starship Troopers."

She stepped in to portray Madame Morrible, the crafty headmistress, for a time in "Wicked," Broadway's long-running "Wizard of Oz" prequel.

In 2008, McClanahan appeared in the Logo comedy "Sordid Lives: The Series," playing the slightly addled, elderly mother of an institutionalized drag queen.

During production, McClanahan was recovering from 2007 surgery on her knee. It didn't stop her from filming a sex scene in which the bed broke, forcing her to hang on to a windowsill to avoid tumbling off.

McClanahan was born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in Healdton, Okla., to building contractor William McClanahan and his wife, Dreda Rheua-Nell, a beautician. She graduated with honors from the University of Tulsa with a degree in German and theater arts.

McClanahan's acting career began on the stage. According to a 1985 Los Angeles Times profile, she appeared at the Pasadena (Calif.) Playhouse, studied in New York with Uta Hagen and Harold Clurman, and worked in soaps and on the stage.

She won an Obie - the off-Broadway version of the Tony - in 1970 for "Who's Happy Now," playing the "other woman" in a family drama written by Oliver Hailey. She reprised the role in a 1975 television version; in a review, The New York Times described her character as "an irrepressible belle given to frequent bouts of 'wooziness' and occasional bursts of shrewdness."

She had appeared only sporadically on television until producer Norman Lear tapped her for a guest role on "All in the Family" in 1971.

She went from there to a regular role in the "All in the Family" spinoff "Maude," playing Vivian, the neighbor and best friend to Arthur in the starring role.

When Arthur died in April 2009, McClanahan recalled that she had felt constrained by "Golden Girls" during the later years of its run. "Bea liked to be the star of the show. She didn't really like to do that ensemble playing," McClanahan said.

McClanahan was married six times: Tom Bish, with whom she had a son, Mark Bish; actor Norman Hartweg; Peter D'Maio; Gus Fisher; and Tom Keel. She married husband Morrow Wilson on Christmas Day in 1997.

She called her 2007 memoir "My First Five Husbands ... And the Ones Who Got Away."

[David Paleg]

Former 'World's Ugliest Dog' Miss Ellie dies at 17
Jun 3, 9:14 AM EDT

PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. (AP) -- Miss Ellie, a small, bug-eyed Chinese Crested Hairless dog whose pimples and lolling tongue helped her win Animal Planet's "World's Ugliest Dog" contest in 2009, has died at age 17 after a career in resort show business in the Smoky Mountains.

The Mountain Press reported Thursday that Ellie starred in shows at the Comedy Barn in Pigeon Forge.

She also appeared on The Animal Planet cable show "Dogs 101" and was on billboards and in a commercial.

Pigeon Forge Mayor Keith Whaley proclaimed Nov. 12 as "Miss Ellie Day" for her owner's efforts to raise money for the local humane society. Over the years, Ellie helped raise more than $100,000 for the Sevier County Humane Society.

She will be cremated.

[genlock]

Coach John Wooden dies

(CNN) -- He was known as the Wizard of Westwood, the architect of a dynasty at UCLA that will never be equaled. But John Wooden leaves behind a legacy much larger than victories on a basketball court.

Wooden died Friday of natural causes at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. He was 99. His 100th birthday would have been October 14.

Wooden's children, Nan and Jim Wooden, issued a statement asking that donations be made in his name to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation or another charity of choice.

"He has been, and always will be, the guiding light for our family. The love, guidance and support he has given us will never be forgotten," the said. "Our peace of mind at this time is knowing that he has gone to be with our mother, whom he has continued to love and cherish."

[jag]

Ex-Stereophonics drummer Stuart Cable dies at 40


LONDON— Stuart Cable, the former drummer with the British rock band Stereophonics, has died at the age of 40.

South Wales Police say Cable was found early Monday at his home in the town of Aberdare, 165 miles (265 kilometers) west of London.

The force says the cause of death has not been determined, but there are no suspicious circumstances.

Cable co-founded Stereophonics with singer Kelly Jones in the early 1990s. The band had a string of British top 10 hits, including "Have a Nice Day."

Cable left the group in 2003 amid reports of conflicts with band mates.

He recently formed a new band, Killing for Company, and worked as a broadcaster, with a show on BBC Radio Wales.

[David Paleg]

'Dirty Dancing' / 'Pretty Woman' producer Reuther dies at 58
Jun 7, 5:59 PM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Producer Steve Reuther, whose credits include "Pretty Woman,""Dirty Dancing" and last year's hit romance "The Ugly Truth," has died. He was 58.

Reuther's family said he died of cancer Saturday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif.

After starting in the mailroom at the William Morris talent agency in the late 1970s, Reuther worked his way into film development. He was an executive producer on 1987's "Dirty Dancing," and along with Julia Roberts' 1990 smash "Pretty Woman," Reuther produced such films as "The Client,""Face/Off,""The Rainmaker" and "Pay It Forward."

Reuther is survived by a daughter, his mother, two brothers and a sister.

[amayo]

Marvin Isley Dead

CHICAGO (AP) -- Marvin Isley, the bass player who helped give R&B powerhouse the Isley Brothers their distinctive sound, has died at a Chicago hospital. He was 56.

Isley died Sunday morning at an inpatient hospice at Weiss Memorial Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Catherine Gianaro. She could not confirm a cause of death.

Isley stopped performing in 1996 after suffering complications from diabetes that included a stroke, high blood pressure, the loss of both legs and use of his left hand.

He joined his brothers' band in 1973. By that time, the Isley Brothers had established themselves with hits like 1959's "Shout," which sold more than 1 million records. Isley splintered off to form Isley-Jasper-Isley in the 1980s and returned to the Isley Brothers in the 1990s. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and their career has spanned six decades.

At one point there were five Isley brothers in the group, including Marvin. Today, only Ronald Isley is touring full time after a three-year stint in federal prison for tax evasion.

The group's hits included "Twist and Shout," later recorded by The Beatles, "Love The One You're With," and the Grammy-winning 1969 smash, "It's Your Thing."

In a 2001 interview, Marvin Isley told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he regretted spending decades ignoring his diabetes.

"If I would have listened, if I would have understood diabetes like I understood music, maybe these things wouldn't have happened," Isley said at the time.

In 2000, he settled a lawsuit against his older siblings stemming from a dispute over money from the estate of his deceased older brother, O'Kelly Isley, and from a $7 million plagiarism award against Michael Bolton relating to the group's 1966 song "Love Is A Wonderful Thing."

Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.

[genlock]

A man's plan to propose to his girlfriend on a mountain in the US ended in tragedy when the pair were struck by lightning, it was reported today.

Richard Butler and his girlfriend, Bethany Lott, both from Knoxville, Tennessee, were hit as they hiked in the North Carolina mountains. Lott was killed, while Butler suffered third degree burns.

Butler, 30, had driven Lott, his partner of a year, to Max Patch Bald, near Asheville, saying they would be going for a stroll.

He had planned to present her with an engagement ring at the top of the mountain.

When they reached the peak, lightning struck three times, with the third strike hitting the couple .

"She didn't say anything, and I turned around and she was lying a few feet away, and I crawled to her," Butler told the Ashville Citizen Times.

"I did CPR for probably 15 minutes and the whole time was trying her cell phone, but I couldn't get anything out."

Butler said he had not initially realised that he had been hit. "I was spun 180 degrees and thrown several feet back," he told the newspaper.

"My legs turned to Jello, my shoes were smoking and the bottom of my feet felt like they were on fire."

Butler's mother, Janet Delaney, said Lott loved the mountains. She told the Associated Press: "She hiked thousands of miles and spent a couple of years in Utah, just hiking.

"Her last words were: 'Look at how beautiful it is.'"

[Lester]

That really is "what she said".

(I'm so going to hell.)