The Rest In Peace and Remembrance Thread

[EZ103.3FM]

I heard Howard Stern talk about the death of his friend Eleanor Mondale. It sounded like they were very close back in the 90's. I posted this since Eleanor Mondale wasn't just the daughter of a former VP; she also had her own career in radio and TV. Here's an article from the Daily Beast:http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -life.html

Eleanor Mondale, 51, former vice president Walter Mondale’s glamorous and flamboyant daughter, who died of a brain tumor after a long battle on Sept. 17, created her own special aura and lifestyle.

She was an actress, television host, and radio personality, and her career was a stunning break from the longtime family tradition of commitment to public service. Besides serving as vice president, her father was a U.S. senator and ambassador to Japan. Her older brother, Ted, is a former Minnesota state senator and her younger brother, William, is a former Minnesota attorney general.

But Eleanor was different—a free spirit, an accomplished horsewoman, who loved animals and frequently rode her horse around the grounds of the vice presidential mansion. She was ambitious and restless and sought out the high life and the limelight.

“I wanted to be an actress,” she told Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine. “I think it had a lot to do with being a kid and watching how every time my dad would stand up to talk people would applaud... that was pretty cool.”

Her acting chops were visible early on, according to film producer Helen Bartlett, a childhood friend. “Every Christmas Eve our families would get together and perform skits and Eleanor was always the star. She was Miss Perfect, steady, studious and made the rest of us look really bad,” recalls Bartlett. “It’s really hard to believe that Miss Goody Two Shoes went on to become such a wild, blond bombshell.”

She was also a savvy campaigner. “Bright and funny,” says Finlay Lewis, a journalist and Mondale biographer, describing Eleanor on the 1976 campaign plane. ”She was kind of a gofer and baggage handler, always willing to help out—sometimes schlepping things for drunken reporters.”

For Michael Berman, Mondale’s White House counsel and deputy chief of staff, who babysat Eleanor and her brothers, she was ”vivacious, fun, and really enjoyed life. An atypical Norwegian daughter. She was definitely not laid back. She moved in the fast company of the entertainment world, but never lost control of her life.”

After attending St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., the leggy blonde headed to Hollywood where she landed bits in various TV shows, including Dynasty and Three’s Company, and walk-ons in a couple of unremarkable movies.

Launching her career in journalism at a Los Angeles television station, she gained the reputation of a club-hopping Paris Hilton type and femme fatale by dating a series of extremely high-profile men: Arnold Schwarzenegger, rock star Warren Zevon, James Belushi, entrepreneur Ron Perlman—and by marrying and rapidly divorcing football player Keith Van Horne and then Greg Malban, a DJ known as Greg Thunder. And though she paid her dues working for various stations in Chicago, the Today show in New York, and finally for WCCO in Minneapolis, the media considered her a party girl and dubbed her “Wild Child.” It stuck.

The ultimate headline-grabbing episode was a meeting with Bill Clinton in the White House on Dec. 6, 1997. According to the Starr Report, Eleanor and Clinton met for 40 minutes while Monica Lewinsky, who was having an affair with the president, was told to wait in an outer room. Apparently a Secret Service agent told Lewinsky about the tête-à-tête and she was so outraged that she stormed out, went to a payphone and yelled at Betty Currie, the president’s private secretary. Currie was so upset, according to the report, that she told the agents that Clinton was “irate” over their insensitive disclosure and warned a supervisor that “someone could be fired.”

Rumors of a romance between Mondale and Clinton had been circulating and denied for years. “What’s funny is every time I’ve seen the president, there have been at least five other people in the room,” she told the Chicago Sun-Times. “I don’t think we would have carried on this so-called affair right in front of Barbra Streisand and people like that!”

No matter what the circumstances, Eleanor’s straitlaced parents never blinked. “I think they were probably perplexed by her life, they were very proper Minnesotans,” says journalist Elizabeth Drew, a close friend. “But they were very supportive and if they disapproved they never let on.”

Eleanor suffered her first grand mal seizure during a camping trip in 2005 and was diagnosed with brain cancer that year. With chemotherapy and radiation she went into remission.

“It worries me,” she told Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine, ”the thought of this whole thing coming back. I’ve been lucky. But you don’t get another pass like I did.” A tumor returned and she underwent surgery in 2009.

Shortly after her original diagnosis, Eleanor married Minneapolis rock musician Chad Poling and moved to a small horse farm south of the Twin Cities, complete with an assortment of rescue animals and nine miniature horses.

Reflecting on her past marriages and ill-chosen boyfriends she has said she spent too much time and energy trying ”to fix” needy men. “That’s one of the things I like about Chad. He’s a real person. He’s had his own experiences and he isn’t threatened by mine.”

The former vice president and his wife, Joan, emailed friends, ”Our wonderful daughter Eleanor Mondale Poling, after her long and gutsy battle with cancer, went up to heaven last night to be with her angel.”

A memorial is planned for early October.

Berman, who spoke regularly with the former vice president throughout Eleanor's illness, believes that she no longer needed the attention or applause. “Fritz told me she was quiet, settled, and happy in her marriage,” Berman said. “She had found peace on her farm in Prior Lake.”

[Scott Reppert]

Maybe He Worried To Death That They Wouldn't "Make More"...
DALLAS (AP) — Arch West, a retired Frito-Lay marketing executive credited with creating Doritos as the first national tortilla chip brand, has died in Dallas at age 97.

A statement issued by the West family says he died Tuesday at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. A graveside service is scheduled for Oct. 1. Daughter Jana Hacker of Allen tells The Dallas Morning News (http://dallasne.ws/qzPm9E) the family plans on "tossing Doritos chips in before they put the dirt over the urn."

West was a marketing vice president for Dallas-based Frito-Lay in 1961 when, while on a family vacation near San Diego, he found a snack shack selling fried tortilla chips. Hacker says her father got a tepid corporate response to the tortilla chip idea but conducted marketing research that led to the Doritos rollout.

[genlock]

RICHARD SHANE VASS, 55, of Huntington, W.Va., died Sept. 25 in Thomas Memorial Hospital, South Charleston, W.Va. He was Director of Underwriting at West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Funeral service will be 2 p.m. Wednesday, Chapman's Mortuary, Huntington; entombment in Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens, Huntington. Visitation from 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Chapman's Mortuary, Huntington. www.chapmans-mortuary.com.

[David Paleg]

Reggae pioneer Leonard Dillon dies in Jamaica
Sep 29, 12:27 PM (ET)

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) - The leader of the pioneering reggae group The Ethiopians has died in Jamaica. Leonard Dillon was 68.

Daughter Patrice Dillon says her father died Wednesday at her home of lung and prostate cancer.

She says Dillon had been diagnosed with cancer in June and underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor earlier this year.

Leonard Dillon began his career using the stage name Jack Sparrow in the early 1960s. He recorded a series of ska songs, including "Bull Whip," which featured a young Bob Marley on backing vocals.

Dillon later formed The Ethiopians, a trio whose best known hits were "Train to Skaville" and "Everything Crash."

Dillon is survived by seven children.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sylvia Robinson, early hip-hop pioneer, dies
Sep 29, 4:15 PM (ET)
By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY

NEW YORK (AP) - The woman some call the mother of hip-hop has died.

Sylvia Robinson, who had a hit as a singer-songwriter with the sexually charged "Pillow Talk" but was later known as one of hip-hop's early founders as the record label owner that put out "Rapper's Delight," rap's first mainstream success, died Thursday, according to publicist Greg Walker. She was 76.

Robinson, born Sylvia Vanterpool, died of congestive heart failure at the New Jersey Institute of Neuroscience in Seacaucus, N.J.

Along with her late husband, Joe, Robinson was the owner of Sugar Hill Records. In 1979, it released the song that would become widely known as rap's first hit, "Rapper's Delight," by the Sugar Hill Gang.

Full story at Iwon/AP News.

[Scott Reppert]

"Have you ever gone over a friend's house to eat and the food just ain't no good?"

Invite Tubby Blanston over, back it up with Jimmy "Bo" Horne's "Dance Across The Floor" and you've got
an instant party...

[David Paleg]

Singer Trisha Yearwood's mother dies at age 73
Oct 1, 9:28 PM (ET)
By CHRIS TALBOTT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Gwen Yearwood, the mother of country music performer Trisha Yearwood and the co-author of two recently published cooking books with her daughter, has died at age 73.

Yearwood died early Saturday morning in Tifton, Ga., after a long fight with cancer. A statement to the Associated Press says Trisha Yearwood and her sister Beth were by their mother's side when she died.

"The family is deeply appreciative of the care and concern they've received throughout this journey," the statement said.

Gwen Yearwood, a teacher who lived in Monticello, Ga., for much of her life, wrote two cookbooks with her daughters: "Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen," released in 2008, followed by "Home Cooking with Trisha Yearwood," issued in 2010.

Trisha Yearwood, a Grammy-winning singer, was among country music's most popular acts before going into semi-retirement with her husband Garth Brooks in Oklahoma. She continues to be a popular draw when she performs and said recently she hopes soon to hit Broadway when her stepchildren are all in college.

In a recent interview with GAC to promote a cooking special she taped with her mother, Trisha Yearwood described her mother as a real example to her in many different ways. She said Gwen Yearwood's independent streak and expression of true love for her husband of more than four decades, the late Jack Yearwood, were inspirations.

"I think my mom is the bomb," Trisha Yearwood said. "I'm very lucky. I'm one of those kids who has a mom who everybody loves. So when my mom comes to Oklahoma and visits and she's gone, everybody's like, 'When's your mom coming back?'"

The family statement thanked well-wishers and asked that expressions of sympathy be directed to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which helps fund breast cancer research, in Gwen Yearwood's name.


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'North Dallas Forty' author dies in Michigan
Oct 1, 7:53 PM (ET)

BANGOR, Mich. (AP) - The seamier side of professional football was exposed by former NFL player Peter Gent's "North Dallas Forty," the 1973 novel that became a sports movie classic depicting the drugs, sex, greed and self-preservation of the game.

Gent had an unlikely five-season career playing for Dallas before penning the story loosely based on the Cowboys. It later became a movie, nestled between comedy and tragedy, showing the drinking and drugging by thinly disguised football characters.

Gent, who died Friday at his boyhood home in western Michigan, seemed pleased with how the movie turned out but usually didn't watch it years later, his son said Saturday. Gent went on to write several more books.

"He was just a brilliant guy who had a lot of other interests. He read a lot and loved history," Carter Gent said. "Watching sports didn't do much for him."

He said his father died from a pulmonary illness at his home in Bangor where he'd lived since 1990. He was 69.

Peter Gent was a star basketball player at Michigan State University in the 1960s, and was drafted by the NBA's Baltimore Bullets after averaging 21 points a game in his final college season.

But he chose a different sport. Although he didn't play football in college, Gent got an NFL tryout with the Cowboys in 1964, and spent five seasons with the team.

"He had heard you'd get $500 just for showing up," his son said. "The wide receivers coach liked him. He was long and lean and had good hands."

His 1973 novel was made into a movie, "North Dallas Forty," six years later that starred Nick Nolte as an aging player, singer-songwriter Mac Davis as a quarterback and John Matuszak, a former Raiders defensive end and notorious Super Bowl party boy.

Gent wrote a sequel, "North Dallas After Forty," as well as other books, including a memoir about coaching his son's baseball team, "The Last Magic Summer: A Season With My Son."

Gent, who was divorced, is survived by his 35-year-old son, who lives in Kalamazoo; a daughter, Holly Gent Palmo of Austin, Texas; a brother, Jamie Gent; and four grandchildren.

[genlock]

FLORENCE, Ariz. - Embattled TV pitchman Don Lapre was found dead of an apparent suicide in his cell Sunday morning.

The manner of his death has not been confirmed, but we've learned from U.S. Marshals that his body was indeed found at 8:30 a.m. Sunday at a holding facility in Florence.

Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Matt Hershey says at first glance, his death appears to be a suicide -- but the investigation is ongoing.

His trial was due to begin Tuesday.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!


Lapre was being held in federal jail without bond, awaiting trial on charges of defrauding at least 220,000 people out of nearly $52 million.

Prosecutors accused him of selling worthless vitamins that could not live up to advertising claims.

Lapre was arrested June 23 in Tempe by the U.S. Marshals Service after failing to appear a day earlier for his arraignment. He had been camping out inside a Lifetime Fitness locker room.

A grand jury indicted the 47-year-old on 41 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and promotional money laundering in connection to his company "The Greatest Vitamin in the World."

[genlock]

Apple guy dead





Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes, has died in California. Jobs was 56.

His death was reported by The Associated Press, citing Apple.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Apple guy dead





Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes, has died in California. Jobs was 56.

His death was reported by The Associated Press, citing Apple.

Holy crap.

[amayo]

In a related story, Apple has announced that Jobs will be buried in the all new I-Coffin.

[David Paleg]

Veteran U-C Coach and AD Dies
Chris Lawrence
Charleston

Metro News: The Voice of West Virginia

The longtime baseball coach and 13-year veteran Athletic Director at the University of Charleston has died. Tom Nozica died around 5:00 Thursday morning at a Charleston Hospital. He suffered from lung cancer, but didn't realize he was in poor health until he began suffering shoulder pain 10-days ago.

"To all of his knowledge and ours he was in good health until about 10-days ago," said U-C President Ed Welch. "He began having some pains and went into the hospital. All of this has happened rather quickly."

Nozica began coaching at U-C in 1969 and at age 69 was the longest serving coach in all of NCAA Division II athletics.

Full story at WV Metro News.

[David Paleg]

Charles Napier, 1936-2011

StarTrek.com is saddened to learn of the passing of actor Charles Napier, who died on October 5 after collapsing in his house. The veteran character actor, best known for playing tough guys in dozens of movies and TV shows -- including Supervixens, The Blues Brothers, Silence of the Lambs and two Austin Powers films -- made his mark on two Star Trek series... decades apart. Napier memorably played Adam in the third-season TOS episode "The Way to Eden" and General Rex Denning in the popular fourth-season Deep Space Nine episode "Little Green Men." Napier was 75. Our condolences to his family, friends and fans.

[genlock]

"Just Win, Baby"





OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Al Davis, the renegade owner of the Oakland Raiders who bucked NFL authority while exhorting his silver-and-black team to "Just win, baby!," died Saturday. He was 82.

The Hall of Famer died at his home in Oakland, the team said. The cause of death was not immediately disclosed.

Davis was one of the most important figures in NFL history - a rebel with a subpoena. That was most evident during the 1980s when he went to court - and won - for the right to move his team from Oakland to Los Angeles. Even after he moved the Raiders back to the Bay Area in 1995, he sued for $1.2 billion to establish that he still owned the rights to the L.A. market.

Before that, though, he was a pivotal figure in hastening the merger between the AFL - where he served as commissioner - and the more established NFL. Davis was not initially in favor of a merger, but his aggressive pursuit of NFL players for his fledgling league and team helped bring about the eventual 1970 combination of the two leagues into what is now the most popular sport in the country.

"Al Davis's passion for football and his influence on the game were extraordinary," Commissioner Roger Goodell said. "He defined the Raiders and contributed to pro football at every level. The respect he commanded was evident in the way that people listened carefully every time he spoke. He is a true legend of the game whose impact and legacy will forever be part of the NFL."

[Scott Reppert]

A Phrase You Wouldn't Have Heard In The 1700's: Ex-Weezer Bassist Found Dead

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Mikey Welsh, the former bass player for the alternative rock band Weezer, was found dead in a Chicago hotel, a police spokeswoman said on Sunday.

Workers at the Rafaello Hotel found Welsh unresponsive and not breathing when they went to his room on Saturday afternoon after he failed to check out as scheduled, spokeswoman Laura Kubiak said.

Welsh, 40, who left the band a decade ago, had been in Chicago to attend Weezer's appearance at RiotFest on Sunday night, a concert that will go on as scheduled, the band said on its website in notifying fans of his death.

"As sad as it is to think about, we know Mikey would never want the rock stopped on his account -- quite the contrary in fact," the band said.

Welsh left the band in 2001 after a well-publicized nervous breakdown, resurfacing later as an artist and painter.

"His chapter in the Weezer story ... was vital, essential, wild, and amazing," the band said, calling him "a unique talent, a deeply loving friend and father."

Welsh said in a posting on his Facebook page earlier in October that he was looking forward to meeting up with the band in Chicago.

The Cook County Medical Examiner's office conducted an autopsy on Sunday and listed the preliminary results as pending toxicology tests. It sometimes takes two months for the results of toxicology tests.

[jag]

"Have you ever gone over a friend's house to eat and the food just ain't no good?"

Invite Tubby Blanston over, back it up with Jimmy "Bo" Horne's "Dance Across The Floor" and you've got
an instant party...

I'm STILL trying to figure this post out, Scott. How about explaining it, if I may ask the favor?

[Scott Reppert]

"Have you ever gone over a friend's house to eat and the food just ain't no good?"

Invite Tubby Blanston over, back it up with Jimmy "Bo" Horne's "Dance Across The Floor" and you've got
an instant party...

I'm STILL trying to figure this post out, Scott. How about explaining it, if I may ask the favor?

1. It's a quote from "Rapper's Delight", which appeared in the Sylvia Robinson obituary.

2. A Saturday morning or two before this appeared on here, I took Conrad 2-3 CD's full of music I had gathered for him...on which, fairly close together, were "Rapper's Delight" from the Sugar Hill Gang and "Dance Across The Floor" by Jimmy "Bo" Horne. At some point during the listening session while the second song of the two was playing, one of says, "All we need now is for Tubby Blanston to come over", (we probably used his real last name and not his real first name).

That's about it. Aside from the fact that a few nights later Tubby was in town and we whipped out "Dance Across The Floor" and he stated that it was, indeed, one of the greatest disco songs of all time...

[David Paleg]

Longtime Motorola CEO Robert Galvin dies at 89
By Peter Svensson, Associated Press
October 13, 2011

NEW YORK – Robert Galvin, who over nearly three decades as Motorola's CEO transformed the maker of police radios and TVs into one of the world's leading electronics companies, has died. He was 89.

Galvin died Tuesday night in Chicago of natural causes, his family said.

Galvin oversaw Motorola's pioneering efforts in the cellular industry, including the creation of the first commercial cellphone in 1973 and the construction of the first cellphone network in the early 80s.

"He probably single-handedly provided this firm with more leadership and guided it through more innovation than any other single person in our 83-year history," said Greg Brown, CEO of Motorola Solutions, the half of the old Motorola that sells communications equipment to government and corporate customers.

Galvin was named CEO in 1959 at the death his father, Paul Galvin, who had founded the company in 1928. Robert Galvin, known as "Bob," remained in the post until 1986 and stayed on as chairman until 1990. He retired from the board of directors in 2001.

Galvin led the company into China with a $100 million investment in 1987. The country is still a major market for its phones. He helped create the Six Sigma quality system at Motorola, since adopted by many other companies.

"Bob saw around corners. He anticipated," Brown said.

Motorola Inc. split into two companies in January. Motorola Solutions makes police radios, bar code scanners and other products for corporate and government customers. Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. makes cellphones, and has agreed to be acquired by Google Inc.

In retirement, Galvin founded an investment firm with his sons and established two think tanks focused on energy and transportation issues.

He wrote two books on the influence of the Scottish Enlightment on the founders of the United States and published a compilation of the business philosophies that shaped Motorola.

Galvin was born in 1922 in Marshfield, Wis. He attended high school in Evanston, Ill., and attended the University of Notre Dame. He started working full time at Motorola in 1944, when it was still called Galvin Manufacturing.

Galvin is survived by his wife, Mary Barnes Galvin, four children — Gail Galvin Ellis, Dawn Galvin Meiners, and Christopher and Michael Galvin — 13 grandchildren and ten great grandchildren.

A wake is scheduled for Monday in Skokie, Ill., followed by a funeral mass the next day in Winnetka, Ill.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that gifts be directed to the Robert W. Galvin Center for Electricity Innovation at Illinois Institute of Technology, 10 W. 35th St. Suite 1700, Chicago, IL 60616, attention of Betsy Hughes.

[just saying]

Joel "Taz" DiGregorio Charlie Daniels Band keyboard player,
http://www.wsmv.com/story/15687436/char ... -car-wreck

[genlock]

Norman Corwin dies at 101


During a career that spanned more than 70 years, Norman Corwin wrote, produced and directed for radio, television, film and the stage.

His insightful writing earned Emmy and Golden Globe awards. He received an Academy Award nomination for his script for the 1956 film "Lust for Life," the biography of Vincent van Gogh starring Kirk Douglas.

But radio was Corwin's true passion.

"I find it difficult to turn down an offer to be heard," he said in a 2001 interview on public radio. "Whether it's an anniversary, whether it's on the ending of a war, whatever the subject, I am ham enough to enjoy communicating to people, to an audience."

Corwin, a creative giant of the Golden Age of Radio whose programs chronicling World War II are milestones in broadcasting, died Tuesday at his Los Angeles home of natural causes, according to the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism where Corwin remained a writer in residence until his death. He was 101.

Actor William Shatner, who narrated several of Corwin's later radio programs, called him a legend and his hero. He is "the poetic soul of discretion and a monument to artistry in America," Shatner once said.

[genlock]

Qaddafi is dead.


Clear channel vows to go on.

(Reuters) - Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya's interim rulers said.

His killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen.