In Memorium #01

‘Dynasty’ actor, Christopher Cazenove, dies of Septicemia (Blood Poisoning)

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‘Dynasty’ actor Christopher Cazenove dies
- 64-year-old who played Ben Carrington had blood poisoning, family says
By Belinda Goldsmith, Reuters
updated 3:09 a.m. ET, Thurs., April 8, 2010

LONDON - British actor Christopher Cazenove has died at the age of 64 after losing a battle with septicaemia, his family said on Wednesday, the second "Dynasty" star to die in the past week.

Cazenove, who attended the upmarket school Eton College, made his name playing aristocratic roles in a string of British TV shows but was best known for playing the role of Ben Carrington in the glitzy U.S. soap opera "Dynasty."

Cazenove's death in a London hospital comes just days after the death of John Forsythe who also starred in the popular series that aired from 1981 until 1989.

"Christopher died peacefully on April 7 surrounded by his loved ones having contracted septicaemia (blood poisoning) at the end of February," said a family statement released widely to the media through his agent, Lesley Duff.

"Despite a valiant fight and the untiring efforts of the wonderful team at St Thomas's (Hospital in London), he was overwhelmed. All who knew and loved him will be devastated by the loss of this incredible man who touched so many lives."

Cazenove was married to actress Angharad Rees for more than 20 years and they had two sons, but the eldest was killed in a car crash in 1999 aged 25.

Forsythe, who played Cazenove's brother Blake Carrington in Dynasty, died last week in Santa Ynez, California, at the age of 92 after a year-long battle with cancer.

Casenove first found fame in the 1970s British mini-series "The Duchess of Duke Street," and appeared on screen, stage and on radio. Following his Dynasty stint, he appeared in the Hollywood movie "Three Men and a Little Lady" in 1990 and "A Knight's Tale" in 2001.
 
http://www.popeater.com/2010/04/10/meinhardt-raabe-dead/
'Wizard of Oz' Munchkin Meinhardt Raabe Dead at 94
By
PopEater Staff
Posted
Apr 10th 2010 08:00AM
'Wizard of Oz' actor Meinhardt Raabe died Friday morning in Orange Park, Florida of a presumed heart attack, the NY Times has confirmed. He was 94.

According to his caregiver, Cindy Bosnyak, Raabe was taken to a nearby hospital after he collapsed and went into cardiac arrest at the Penney Retirement Community in Penney Farms, Florida, where he had lived since 1986. Prior to collapsing, Raabe complained of having a sore throat.

Raabe was best known for his uncredited, 13-second role in the Oscar-winning classic, during which he uttered the famous lines "As coroner, I must aver, I thoroughly examined her. And she's not only merely dead, She's really most sincerely dead." He was one of the last surviving Munchkins, according to the report.
Though the 'Wizard of Oz' marked his only appearance on the big screen, Raebe, who was 4 feet 7 inches at his tallest, had a long and successful career, including an almost 30-year stint as Little Oscar, mascot of Oscar Mayer meats.

A University of Wisconsin graduate and World War II veteran, Raebe was married to the late Marie Hartline, who died in 1997. He is survived by his sister, Marion Ziegelmann.

http://news.yahoo.co...it_dixie_carterhttp://www.imdb.com/news/ni2045251/
'Designing Women' star Dixie Carter dies at 70
By ANDREW DALTON, Associated Press Writer
4:22 a.m. ET, Thurs., April 11, 2010

LOS ANGELES – "Designing Women" star Dixie Carter, whose Southern charm and natural beauty won her a host of television roles, has died at age 70.

Carter died Saturday morning, according to publicist Steve Rohr, who represents Carter and her husband, actor Hal Holbrook. He declined to disclose the cause of death or where she died. Carter lived with Holbrook in the Los Angeles area.

"This has been a terrible blow to our family," Holbrook said in a written statement. "We would appreciate everyone understanding that this is a private family tragedy."

A native of Tennessee, Carter was most famous for playing wisecracking Southerner Julia Sugarbaker for seven years on "Designing Women," the CBS sitcom that ran from 1986 to 1993. The series was the peak of a career in which she often played wealthy and self-important but independent Southern women.

She was nominated for an Emmy in 2007 for her seven-episode guest stint on the ABC hit "Desperate Housewives."

Carter's other credits include roles on the series "Family Law" and "Different Strokes."

She married Holbrook in 1984. The two had met four years earlier while making the TV movie "The Killing of Randy Webster," and although attracted to one another, each had suffered two failed marriages and were wary at first.

They finally wed two years before Carter landed her role on "Designing Women." Holbrook appeared on the show regularly in the late 1980s as her boyfriend, Reese Watson.

The two appeared together in her final project, the 2009 independent film "That Evening Sun," shot in Tennessee and based on a short story by Southern novelist William Gay.

The middle of three children, Carter was born in 1939 in McLemoresville, Tenn.

Carter was the daughter of a grocery and department store owner who died just three years ago at 96. She said at the time of his death that he taught her to believe in people's essential goodness.

"When I asked him how he handled shoplifting in his new store, which had a lot of goods on display, making it impossible to keep an eye on everything, he said, 'Most people are honest, and if they weren't, you couldn't stay in business because a thief will find a way to steal,'" Carter said. "'You can't really protect yourself, but papa and I built our business believing most people are honest and want to do right by you.'"

Carter grew up in Carroll County and made her stage debut in a 1960 production of "Carousel" in Memphis. It was the beginning of a decades-long stage career in which she relied on her singing voice as much as her acting.

She appeared in TV soap operas in the 1970s, but did not become a national star until her recurring roles on "Different Strokes" and another series, "Filthy Rich," in the 1980s.

Those two parts led to her role on "Designing Women," a comedy about the lives of four women at an interior design firm in Atlanta.

Carter and Delta Burke played the sparring sisters who ran the firm. The series also starred Annie Potts and Jean Smart.

The show, whose reruns have rarely left the airwaves, was not a typical sitcom. It tackled such topics as sexism, ageism, body image and AIDS.

"It was something so unique, because there had never been anything quite like it," Potts told The Associated Press at a 2006 cast reunion. "We had Lucy and Ethel, but we never had that exponentially expanded, smart, attractive women who read newspapers and had passions about things and loved each other and stood by each other."

Carter appeared on the drama "Family Law" from 1999 to 2002, and in her last major TV appearance she played Gloria Hodge, the surly mother-in-law to Marcia Cross's Bree on "Desperate Housewives."

Carter said the role was far from the kindly woman she played on "Designing Women." "It's a vast difference," Carter said while filming the series. "Gloria Hodge doesn't have any redeeming qualities except her intelligence."
 
I heard on the TV news that Lynn Redgrave has lost her battel with cancer. How sad for the Redgrave family to have another tragedy strike them.
http://today.msnbc.m...-entertainment/
Actress Lynn Redgrave dies at 67
- Member of acting dynasty found fame as title character of 'Georgy Girl'
By Hillel Italie, Michael Kuchwara
The Associated Press
updated 4:26 p.m. ET, Mon., May 3, 2010

NEW YORK - Lynn Redgrave, an introspective and independent player in her family's acting dynasty who became a 1960s sensation as the unconventional title character of "Georgy Girl" and later dramatized her troubled past in such one-woman stage performances as "Shakespeare for My Father" and "Nightingale," has died. She was 67.

Her publicist Rick Miramontez, speaking on behalf of her children, said Redgrave died peacefully Sunday night at her home in Kent, Conn. Children Ben, Pema and Annabel were with her, as were close friends.

"Our beloved mother Lynn Rachel passed away peacefully after a seven year journey with breast cancer," Redgrave's children said in a statement Monday. "She lived, loved and worked harder than ever before. The endless memories she created as a mother, grandmother, writer, actor and friend will sustain us for the rest of our lives. Our entire family asks for privacy through this difficult time."

Redgrave was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2002, had a mastectomy in January 2003 and underwent chemotherapy.

Her death comes a year after her niece Natasha Richardson died from head injuries sustained in a skiing accident and just a month after the death of her older brother, Corin Redgrave.

The youngest child of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, Lynn Redgrave never quite managed the acclaim — or notoriety — of elder sibling Vanessa Redgrave, but received Oscar nominations for "Georgy Girl" and "Gods and Monsters," and Tony nominations for "Mrs. Warren's Profession," "Shakespeare for My Father" and "The Constant Wife." In recent years, she also made appearances on TV in "Ugly Betty," "Law & Order" and "Desperate Housewives."

"Vanessa was the one expected to be the great actress," Lynn Redgrave told The Associated Press in 1999. "It was always, 'Corin's the brain, Vanessa the shining star, oh, and then there's Lynn.'"

In theater, the ruby-haired Redgrave often displayed a sunny, sweet and open personality, much like her ebullient offstage personality. It worked well in such shows as "Black Comedy" — her Broadway debut in 1972 — and again two years later in "My Fat Friend," a comedy about an overweight young woman who sheds pounds to find romance.

Redgrave's play "Nightingale" at off-Broadway's Manhattan Theatre Club in 2009 was the last time she appeared on stage in New York. Lights on Broadway marquees will be dimmed Tuesday.

"She was adored by audiences, and although she embarked on a medical treatment as previews began, she never missed a show and gave magnificent performances eight times a week," said Lynne Meadow, artistic director of MTC.

"We admired her strength, her talent, her courage and her enormous good heart. There wasn't a stage hand, a press rep, a box office person who didn't worship Lynn. She was true theatre royalty."

Tall and blue-eyed like her sister, she was as open about her personal life as Vanessa has been about politics. In plays and in interviews, Lynn Redgrave confided about her family, her marriage and her health. She acknowledged that she suffered from bulimia and served as a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers. With daughter Annabel Clark, she released a 2004 book about her fight with cancer, "Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery From Breast Cancer." <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">Redgrave was born in London in 1943 and despite self-doubts pursued the family trade. She studied at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, and was not yet 20 when she debuted professionally on stage in a London production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream." Like her siblings, she appeared in plays and in films, working under Noel Coward and Laurence Olivier as a member of the National Theater and under director/brother-in-law Tony Richardson in the 1963 screen hit "Tom Jones." <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">"Before I was born, my father was a movie star and a stage star," the actress told the AP in 1993. "I was raised in a household where we didn't see our parents in the morning. We lived in the nursery. Our nanny made our breakfast, and I was dressed up to go downstairs to have tea with my parents, if they were there." <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">True fame caught her with "Georgy Girl," billed as "the wildest thing to hit the world since the miniskirt." The 1966 film starred Redgrave as the plain, childlike Londoner pursued by her father's middle-aged boss, played by James Mason. <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">Dismissed by critic Pauline Kael as a false testament to free thinking, the movie was branded "cool" by moviegoers on both side of the Atlantic and received several Academy Award nominations, including one for Redgrave and one for the popular title song performed by the Australian group The Seekers. <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">"All the films I've been in — and I haven't been in that many attention-getting films — no one expected anything of, least of all me," Redgrave said in an AP interview in 1999. <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">"Georgy Girl" didn't lead to lasting commercial success, but did anticipate a long-running theme: Redgrave's weight. She weighed 180 pounds while making the film, leading New York Times critic Michael Stern to complain that Redgrave "cannot be quite as homely as she makes herself in this film. <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">"Slimmed down, cosseted in a couture salon, and given more of the brittle, sophisticated lines she tosses off with such abandon here, she could become a comedienne every bit as good as the late Kay Kendall," he wrote.

Films such as "The Happy Hooker" and "Every Little Crook and Nanny" were remembered less than Redgrave's decision to advocate for Weight Watchers. She even referenced "Georgy Girl" in one commercial, showing a clip and saying, "This was me when I made the movie, because this is the way I used to eat." <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">At age 50, Redgrave was ready to tell her story in full. As she wrote in the foreword to "Shakespeare for My Father," she was out of work and set off on a "journey that began almost as an act of desperation," writing a play out of her "passionately emotional desire" to better understand her father, who had died in 1985.

In the 1993 AP interview, Redgrave remembered her father as a fearless stage performer yet a shy, tormented man who had great difficulty talking to his youngest daughter. <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">"I didn't really know him," Redgrave said. "I lived in his house. I was in awe of him and I adored him, and I was terrified of him and I hated him and I loved him, all in one go." <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">Redgrave credited the play, which interspersed readings from Shakespeare with family memories, with bringing her closer to her relatives and reviving her film career. She played the supportive wife of pianist David Helfgott in "Shine" and received an Oscar nomination as the loyal housekeeper for filmmaker James Whale in "Gods and Monsters." She also appeared in "Peter Pan," "Kinsey" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic." <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">On stage, she looked at her mother's side of the family in "The Mandrake Root" and "Rachel and Juliet." <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">"Nightingale" touched upon her health, the life of her grandmother (Beatrice Kempson) and the end of her 32-year marriage to actor-director John Clark, who had disclosed that he had fathered a child with the future wife of their son Benjamin. She sat at a desk and worked from a script, but it didn't affect what the AP called "her touching, beautifully realized performance," the AP wrote last year. <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">Lynn Redgrave is survived by six grandchildren, her sister Vanessa, and four nieces and nephews. <BR itxtvisited="1"><BR itxtvisited="1">A private funeral will be held later this week.
 
http://www.freep.com/article/20100510/NEWS07/100510004/1320/Legendary-singer-Lena-Horne-dies

Legendary singer Lena Horne dies
By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press
Posted: 3:47 a.m. May 10, 2010

NEW YORK — Lena Horne, the enchanting jazz singer and actress who reviled the bigotry that allowed her to entertain white audiences but not socialize with them, slowing her rise to Broadway superstardom, died Sunday. She was 92.

Horne died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Gloria Chin. Chin would not release any other details.

Horne, whose striking beauty and magnetic sex appeal often overshadowed her sultry voice, was remarkably candid about the underlying reason for her success.

“I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept,” she once said. “I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.”

In the 1940s, she was one of the first black performers hired to sing with a major white band, the first to play the Copacabana nightclub and among a handful with a Hollywood contract.

In 1943, MGM Studios loaned her to 20th Century-Fox to play the role of Selina Rogers in the all-black movie musical “Stormy Weather.” Her rendition of the title song became a major hit and her signature piece.

On screen, on records and in nightclubs and concert halls, Horne was at home vocally with a wide musical range, from blues and jazz to the sophistication of Rodgers and Hart in songs like “The Lady Is a Tramp” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.”

In her first big Broadway success, as the star of “Jamaica” in 1957, reviewer Richard Watts Jr. called her “one of the incomparable performers of our time.”

Songwriter Buddy de Sylva dubbed her “the best female singer of songs.”

But Horne was perpetually frustrated with the public humiliation of racism.

“I was always battling the system to try to get to be with my people. Finally, I wouldn’t work for places that kept us out ... it was a damn fight everywhere I was, every place I worked, in New York, in Hollywood, all over the world,” she said in Brian Lanker’s book “I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America.”

While at MGM, she starred in the all-black “Cabin in the Sky,” in 1943, but in most of her other movies, she appeared only in musical numbers that could be cut in the racially insensitive South without affecting the story. These included “I Dood It,” a Red Skelton comedy, “Thousands Cheer” and “Swing Fever,” all in 1943; “Broadway Rhythm” in 1944; and “Ziegfeld Follies” in 1946.

“Metro’s cowardice deprived the musical of one of the great singing actresses,” film historian John Kobal wrote.

Early in her career Horne cultivated an aloof style out of self-preservation, becoming “a woman the audience can’t reach and therefore can’t hurt” she once said.

Later she embraced activism, breaking loose as a voice for civil rights and as an artist. In the last decades of her life, she rode a new wave of popularity as a revered icon of American popular music.

Her 1981 one-woman Broadway show, “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music,” won a special Tony Award. In it, the 64-year-old singer used two renditions — one straight and the other gut-wrenching — of “Stormy Weather” to give audiences a glimpse of the spiritual odyssey of her five-decade career.

A sometimes savage critic, John Simon, wrote that she was “ageless. ... tempered like steel, baked like clay, annealed like glass; life has chiseled, burnished, refined her.”

When Halle Berry became the first black woman to win the best actress Oscar in 2002, she sobbed: “This moment is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll. ... It’s for every nameless, faceless woman of color who now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.”

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne, the great-granddaughter of a freed slave, was born in Brooklyn June 30, 1917, to a leading family in the black bourgeoisie. Her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, wrote in her 1986 book “The Hornes: An American Family” that among their relatives was a college girlfriend of W.E.B. Du Bois and a black adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Dropping out of school at 16 to support her ailing mother, Horne joined the chorus line at the Cotton Club, the fabled Harlem night spot where the entertainers were black and the clientele white.

She left the club in 1935 to tour with Noble Sissle’s orchestra, billed as Helena Horne, the name she continued using when she joined Charlie Barnet’s white orchestra in 1940.

A movie offer from MGM came when she headlined a show at the Little Troc nightclub with the Katherine Dunham dancers in 1942.

Her success led some blacks to accuse Horne of trying to “pass” in a white world with her light complexion. Max Factor even developed an “Egyptian” makeup shade especially for the budding actress while she was at MGM.

But in his book “Gotta Sing Gotta Dance: A Pictorial History of Film Musicals,” Kobal wrote that she refused to go along with the studio’s efforts to portray her as an exotic Latin American.

“I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become,” Horne once said. “I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”

Horne was only 2 when her grandmother, a prominent member of the Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, enrolled her in the NAACP. But she avoided activism until 1945 when she was entertaining at an Army base and saw German prisoners of war sitting up front while black American soldiers were consigned to the rear.

That pivotal moment channeled her anger into something useful.

She got involved in various social and political organizations and — along with her friendship with Paul Robeson — got her name onto blacklists during the red-hunting McCarthy era.

By the 1960s, Horne was one of the most visible celebrities in the civil rights movement, once throwing a lamp at a customer who made a racial slur in a Beverly Hills restaurant and in 1963 joining 250,000 others in the March on Washington when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. Horne also spoke at a rally that same year with another civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, just days before his assassination.

It was also in the mid-’60s that she put out an autobiography, “Lena,” with author Richard Schickel.

The next decade brought her first to a low point, then to a fresh burst of artistry. She had married MGM music director Lennie Hayton, a white man, in Paris in 1947 after her first overseas engagements in France and England. An earlier marriage to Louis J. Jones had ended in divorce in 1944 after producing daughter Gail and a son, Teddy.

In the 2009 biography “Stormy Weather,” author James Gavin recounts that when Horne was asked by a lover why she’d married a white man, she replied: “To get even with him.”

Her father, her son and her husband, Hayton, all died in 1970-71, and the grief-stricken singer secluded herself, refusing to perform or even see anyone but her closest friends. One of them, comedian Alan King, took months persuading her to return to the stage, with results that surprised her.

“I looked out and saw a family of brothers and sisters,” she said. “It was a long time, but when it came I truly began to live.”

And she discovered that time had mellowed her bitterness.

“I wouldn’t trade my life for anything,” she said, “because being black made me understand.”
 
I am shocked and saddened by the passing of Gary Coleman. He lived a hard and troubled life. Rest In Peace, Gary.

Diff'rent Strokes Star Gary Coleman Dies at 42
By Stephen M. Silverman

Friday May 28, 2010 02:35 PM EDT

Gary Coleman, who by age 11 had skyrocketed to become TV's brightest star but as an adult could never quite land on solid footing, has died after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He was 42.

Coleman died at 12:05 p.m. at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, Utah, where he had been in a coma.

"He was removed from life support; soon thereafter, he passed quickly and peacefully," his manager John Alcantar says. "By Gary’s bedside were his wife and other close family members."

The actor suffered an intracranial hemorrhage at his Utah home on Wednesday night. On Thursday, he was "conscious and lucid," the hospital says in a statement, "but by early afternoon that same day, Mr. Coleman was slipping in and out of consciousness and his condition worsened."

Precocious Child
Despite congenital health problems which led to his never growing taller than 4'8," Coleman experienced a towering achievement at the start of his career.

As Arnold Jackson, the plucky Harlem boy adopted into a wealthy white household on Diff'rent Strokes from 1978-86 – with his much-mimicked catchphrase of, "What'choo talkin' 'bout, Willis?" – Coleman was pulling down as much as $100,000 per episode, though it was later reported that three-quarters of the money ended up being shelled out to his parents, advisers, lawyers and the IRS.

At the pinnacle of his fame in 1979 PEOPLE reported that Coleman had grown up in Zion, Ill., north of Chicago, with nephritis, a potentially fatal kidney defect.

He underwent two transplants before the age of 14. At one stage in his life, he underwent dialysis four times a day in order to survive.

"The reason I survived is that I had a kidney that wouldn't give up," he once said. "Now I got a Greek kidney donated from a kid who was hit by a car."

"His talent," said his mother, Sue, "may be God's way of compensating him for what he's been through, and the fact that he'll never have the physical size of other boys."

Coleman's father, Willie, worked for a pharmaceutical company near Chicago, where Gary started modeling at age 5 after he wrote a brazen pitch letter to Montgomery Ward. (He could read at 3½.)

That led to commercials for McDonald's and Hallmark cards before producer Norman Lear cast him in a pilot remake of The Little Rascals, which didn't get picked up, en route to Diff'rent Strokes.

Troubled Lives
As has been chronicled, the three children on the series grew up into troubled lives. Dana Plato, 34, died of a drug overdose in 1999. (Plato's son, Tyler Lambert, never came to terms with his mother's death, and committed suicide on May 6, 2010. He was 25.)

The show's Willis, actor Todd Bridges, now 45, was first arrested in 1994 after allegedly ramming someone's car during an argument, He also has owned up to serious drug habit, which he struggled to beat.

By 1999, Coleman also faced troubles of his own. Long gone from Diff'rent Strokes, he had gone broke. His string of misadventures and humiliations included a bitter lawsuit that fractured his family, reports of erratic behavior (his father claimed Gary tried to run him over with a car during an argument in 1986) and a stint in 1998 as a security guard on a movie set.

All told, Coleman had amassed and lost an estimated $18 million fortune. Although he argued that his parents had a huge role in dissipating his wealth, he makes no apologies for having spent like a star. "I have lifestyle requirements," he said at the time. "Photos, meetings, lunches, dinners, facial care, tooth care. It requires an exorbitant amount of money."

Also in 1999, Coleman pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace after he punched a female autograph-seeker in California, for which he claimed self-defense. The previous year, he was again in the headlines, after allegedly hitting a pedestrian with his truck after arguing with him in a Salt Lake City bowling alley. In 2007, there was an incident involving a public argument with a female companion.

Married at 40
At times, there appeared to be turnarounds in his fortunes. In February 2008 – at the age of 40 – Coleman married for the first time. He'd met his bride, Shannon Price, on a movie set the previous August. She was 22.

Coleman admitted that Price was the first woman in his life. "I never got the opportunity to be romantic or feel romantic with anyone," he said. "I wasn't saving myself, she just happened to be the one.

Their relationship, they both admitted, was often rocky. "We may go a week and not speak to each other," he said, while she claimed, "He lets his anger conquer him sometimes … He throws things around, and sometimes he throws it in my direction." Still, they remained together, and Price survives him.

In recent months, Coleman suffered a series of medical problems. He had been admitted to hospitals three times this year: in January, for reasons that were not disclosed; in February, when he suffered a seizure on the set of TV's The Insider; and again on May 26.

"Thanks to everyone for their well wishing and support during this tragic time," his manager says. "Now that Gary has passed, we know he will be missed because of all the love and support shown in the past couple of days. Gary is now at peace and his memory will be kept in the hearts of those who were entertained by him throughout the years.”
 
Actor Dennis Hopper has passed away from Prostate Cancer.
He was friends with Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda

He is known for the movies Rebel Without a Cause and Easy Rider in the 1960s, and acclaimed movies like Hoosiers and Blue Velvet in the 1980s.

I remember his role as the oxygen-tank breathing bad guy terrorising Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet. A seriously scary guy!

http://www.cbc.ca/ar...it.html?ref=rss
Dennis Hopper dies at 74
Actor, director had prostate cancer
by Timothy Neesam and Martin Morrow, CBC News

Last Updated: Saturday, May 29, 2010 | 7:15 PM ET

Actor Dennis Hopper, the Hollywood elder statesman who appeared in such classic movies as Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now, has died.

A Reuters report says the 74-year-old performer died Saturday at his home in Venice, Calif. He had been suffering from prostate cancer.

Hopper appeared extremely frail and bone-thin in recent months.

The celebrated actor, Oscar-nominated filmmaker and noted visual artist rose to fame in mid-century Hollywood as a co-star and friend to rebel icon James Dean.

Actor Dennis Hopper, the Hollywood elder statesman who appeared in such classic movies as Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now, has died.

A Reuters report says the 74-year-old performer died Saturday at his home in Venice, Calif. He had been suffering from prostate cancer.

Hopper appeared extremely frail and bone-thin in recent months.

The celebrated actor, Oscar-nominated filmmaker and noted visual artist rose to fame in mid-century Hollywood as a co-star and friend to rebel icon James Dean.

When Hopper was 13, his family moved to San Diego and it was there he began his pursuit of acting, apprenticing with a local theatre. By the late 1950s, he was studying at the famed Actors Studio in New York.

Hopper made his on-screen debut portraying an epileptic in an episode of the Richard Boone television series Medic. That same year, he was cast in the 1955 movie Rebel Without a Cause. Its star, James Dean, would become one of his closest friends and the two were reunited on set in the movie Giant.

After Dean's shocking death in a car accident in September 1955, many noted that Hopper began taking on his friend's defiant attitude, even refusing direction while at work as an actor.

On the set of From Hell to Texas, Hopper famously began improvising scenes, causing as many as 80 takes and making enemies with the crew. After that incident and the erratic behaviour that followed it, he was largely blacklisted from prominent Hollywood projects and relegated to B-movies.

During this period, he took roles in a raft of television shows, including The Twilight Zone and Bonanza. Gradually, he worked his way back into Hollywood's good graces, including nabbing roles in two John Wayne movies, The Sons of Katie Elder and True Grit.

Hopper's major comeback was 1969's Easy Rider, which also featured Jack Nicholson, Terry Southern and Peter Fonda.

The story of two motorcyclists in search of freedom as they ramble through the southern U.S., the movie was released at the peak of the hippie movement. Capturing the zeitgeist of the time and resonating both with audiences and critics, it landed Hopper a host of honours, including best first film at the Cannes Film Festival and an original screenplay Oscar nomination (which he shared with Fonda and Southern).

His notoriety grew during the 1970s as he balanced roles in movies like Apocalypse Now with three short-lived marriages (to Brooke Howard, Michelle Phillips and Daria Halprin) and an ongoing battle with drugs.

Hopper entered a drug rehabilitation program in the early 1980s, after which he began another prolific period of creativity, as an actor (in acclaimed movies like Hoosiers and Blue Velvet), a filmmaker (for 1988's Colours ) and a visual artist.

More recent credits include villainous turns in the 1994 hit Speed, 1995's Waterworld, the first season of TV anti-terrorism thriller 24 and a role in the TV adaptation of the Oscar-winning movie Crash.
Pop art champion

Throughout his film career, Hopper was also an active artist, visual arts champion and collector.

His own oeuvre — which spanned abstract expressionism, black-and-white photo portraiture and massive canvases inspired by Los Angeles billboards — was exhibited in museums and galleries around the globe.

Hopper cultivated friendships with such seminal artists as Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Ed Ruscha.

Often describing himself as "an art bum," he amassed one of the world's most enviable collections of contemporary American art, started when he began buying works by artist friends living and working in California and by artists he admired.

In some cases, he purchased paintings at an artist's early — even first — show. He reportedly picked up one of Warhol's first paintings of Campbell's Soup cans for just $75 US.

He lost the Warhol, and other works from his early collection, in a costly divorce from his fourth wife, Katherine La Nasa, in 1992.
Late-life controversy

Hopper revealed in October 2009 that he had been battling prostate cancer for about seven years. He returned to the headlines just three months later when he filed for divorce from his fifth wife, Victoria Duffy. The couple was together for nearly two decades and were raising a young daughter together, Galen.

At the time, the actor said he wanted to focus on his health.

"I wish Victoria the best, but only want to spend these difficult days surrounded by my children and close friends," said the actor in a statement released on Jan. 18, 2010. He was starting another round of chemotherapy.

Hopper is survived by his three adult children, Marin, Ruthanna and Henry, young daughter Galen, and a granddaughter, Violet.

Rest In Peace, Dennis.
 
Actress Rue McClanahan of TV's "The Golden Girls" has passed away. Rest In Peace, Rue.

http://jam.canoe.ca/Television/2010/06/03/14242941.html
'Golden Girl' McClanahan dies

By WENN.COM

Golden Girls star Rue McClanahan has died after suffering a major stroke on Thursday morning.

The actress' manager, Barbara Lawrence, has confirmed the star died at a hospital in New York, surrounded by her family. She was 76.

Lawrence tells People.com, "She passed away at 1am this morning. She had a massive stroke... She went in peace."


The show first aired in 1985 and ran for seven years, earning her an Emmy Award in 1987 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

She successfully battled breast cancer in 1997 but her later years were marred by ill health and she underwent triple bypass surgery in 2009, before suffering a minor stroke in January.

She was married six times and is survived by her son, Mark Bish, from her first marriage to Tom Bish. She separated from her sixth husband, Morrow Wilson, earlier this year.

White, who is the last surviving star of The Golden Girls, has paid tribute to her late pal.

A statement from the 84-year-old actress reads, "Rue was a close and dear friend. I treasure our relationship. It hurts more than I ever thought it would, if that's even possible."

It has been a rough three years for fans of the beloved show - Getty died in 2008 and Arthur lost a battle with cancer last year.
 
Country Music Legend/Sausage Entrepreneur Jimmy Dean has passed away.

The highlight of his career was probably his appearance in the 1971 James Bond movie, 'Diamonds Are Forever' as reclusive Las Vegas billionaire Willard Whyte.

http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2010/06/14/14379041.html
Country legend Jimmy Dean dies
By Reuters

Country music legend Jimmy Dean has died at the age of 81.

The singer passed away suddenly on Sunday evening at his home in Varina, Virginia, according to his wife, Donna Meade Dean.

Donna has revealed she left her husband eating in front of the television, but when she returned he had lost consciousness. Dean was pronounced dead later that evening. A spokesman for the Henrico County Police department tells CNN.com Dean's death appears to be the result of natural causes.

Dean made his first foray into showbusiness after leaving the U.S. airforce in the 1940s, hosting a radio show and forming a band called the Texas Wildcats. In the 1950s he hosted a series of TV shows before scoring a number one hit in America with 1961's 'Big Bad John' - the song that won Dean a Grammy Award.

Dean scored several more chart hits in the 1960s with songs including 'Stand Beside Me,' 'Sweet Misery' and 'A Thing Called Love,' and he also became a successful TV star, guest-hosting the 'Tonight Show' and fronting his own self-titled programme 'The Jimmy Dean Show.'

He later tested out his acting skills with several film and TV projects - including his best-known role as reclusive Las Vegas billionaire Willard Whyte in 1971 James Bond movie, 'Diamonds Are Forever.'

Dean also became known for his famous food firm, the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company, which he set up in 1969 with his brother Don.

The company later became known as the Sara Lee Corporation and Dean was a longtime spokesman for the brand.

The veteran star was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in February and was due to be inducted in October.

He is survived by three children, Garry, Connie and Robert, from his marriage to Mary Sue Dean, as well as his second wife Donna Meade Dean.
 
Former NBA star Manute Bol has passed away. The 7 foot 7 inch tall Sudanese was dedicated to humanitarian work in Africa, and Sudan in particular.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-obit-bol

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/Manute-...61910?GT1=39002
Former NBA player Bol dies at 47
Updated Jun 19, 2010 5:29 PM ET

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP)
Manute Bol, a lithe 7-foot-7 shot-blocker from Sudan who spent 10 seasons in the NBA and was dedicated to humanitarian work in Africa, died Saturday. He was 47.

Bol died at the University of Virginia Hospital in Charlottesville, where he was being treated for severe kidney trouble and a painful skin condition, Tom Prichard, executive director of the group Sudan Sunrise, said in an e-mail.

"Sudan and the world have lost a hero and an example for all of us,'' Prichard said. "Manute, we'll miss you. Our prayers and best wishes go out to all his family, and all who mourn his loss.''

Bol played 10 seasons in the NBA with Washington, Golden State, Philadelphia and Miami and later worked closely as an advisory board member of Sudan Sunrise, which promotes reconciliation in Sudan. Bol averaged 2.6 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.3 blocked shots.

"Manute's impact on this city, our franchise and the game of basketball cannot be put into words,'' 76ers president and general manager Ed Stefanski said in a statement. "He ... was continually giving of himself through his generosity and humanitarian efforts in order to make the world around him a much better place, for which he will always be remembered.''

Bol was hospitalized in mid-May during a stopover in Washington after returning to the United States from Sudan. Prichard said then that Bol was in Sudan to help build a school in conjunction with Sudan Sunrise but stayed longer than anticipated after the president of southern Sudan asked him to make election appearances and use his influence to counter corruption in his home county.

He said Bol had undergone three dialysis treatments and developed Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a condition that caused him to lose patches of skin.

Prichard said the skin around Bol's mouth was so sore that he went 11 days without eating and could barely talk.

Prichard said it's believed that Bol contracted the skin disease as a reaction to kidney medication he took while in Africa.

Janis Ricker, operations manager of Sudan Sunrise, said Saturday that the organization would continue its work building the school in Bol's home village in southern Sudan. The building still lacks a second floor roof, she said.

She said Bol's goal was to build 41 schools throughout Sudan.

"We are in the process of still helping Manute build a school, and we will continue with that,'' Ricker said.
 
Vonetta McGee obituary

Actress Vonetta McGee, wife of Alias co-star Carl Lumby, passed away on July 9, 2010 of Cardiac Arrest.

http://www.guardian....-mcgee-obituary

Vonetta McGee obituary
- Actress famous for her roles in blaxploitation films of the 1970s

Alex Cox guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday 20 July 2010 18.08 BST

The actress Vonetta McGee, who has died aged 65 after a cardiac arrest, was a heroine of 1970s blaxploitation movies, but I pursued her because she had also appeared in the greatest of all Italian westerns, Sergio Corbucci's Il Grande Silenzio (The Great Silence). The year was 1983, and I was in the fortunate position of having a feature to direct: Repo Man. The cast was a large one for a low-budget movie. It included all types: method actors from New York, punks from the LA hardcore scene, disgruntled Hollywood character actors and refugees from the theatre, but only one star, as I soon discovered.

Not that Vonetta behaved in a "starry" fashion. She was completely approachable and a professional, always one of the team. Nevertheless, of all the actors in my film, Vonetta was the one with the credits. She was the one who had acted opposite Jean-Louis Trintignant, Klaus Kinski, Clint Eastwood and Sidney Poitier.

Lawrence Vonetta McGee – named after her father – was born in San Francisco. Her family planned for her to have a career in law, and she began studying pre-law at San Francisco State College, but she became involved in amateur theatre and was bitten by the acting bug. Vonetta left college without graduating and joined the diaspora of American actors – experienced and aspirant – who moved to Rome in the 1960s to find work at the Cinecittà film studios.

Her filmographies list her first feature as Faustina, a comedy directed by Luigi Magni in 1968, but Il Grande Silenzio was made the previous year and opened in Italy at Christmas in 1967. In the film, Vonetta was a pioneer woman whose outlaw husband has been murdered by a bounty hunter, played by Kinski. She hires a mute gunfighter – Silence, wonderfully played by Trintignant – to kill the killer, thus setting in train the grim, tragic and terrible events of Corbucci's film.

Vonetta gave a fine performance as the vengeance-bent widow, Pauline. She was extraordinarily beautiful: tall, dark, with enormous and expressive eyes. 20th Century-Fox bought the rights to Il Grande Silenzio and then suppressed the film, considering it too pessimistic. But it was hugely influential on other filmmakers (Eastwood attempted a remake, Joe Kidd, directed by John Sturges), and for Vonetta, a career in American movies followed inevitably.

Poitier invited her to return to the US to appear with him in The Lost Man (1969). She starred (as "the Negress") in John Huston's The Kremlin Letter the following year. Thereafter came the string of blaxploitation pictures which made her famous: Blacula, The Big Bust-Out (both 1972) and Shaft in Africa (1973). In essence, these were genre pictures that starred black actors instead of white ones. They proved immensely popular with audiences, but tended to be disdained or ignored by mainstream film critics.

Vonetta disliked the "blaxploitation" label: she was proud of the black part, proud of the strong, take-charge characters she had played in the films, but did not consider them exploitative in any way. She was a smart woman, who saw no difference between these and other popular entertainments, whatever the colour of the stars.

A role in Eastwood's The Eiger Sanction (1975) and an increasing amount of episodic television work followed. Vonetta then suffered health problems and took a break from acting. Repo Man marked her return to the screen. When making the film, I grilled her about Il Grande Silenzio and about working with Corbucci. He was the nicest man, she told me (how appropriate, given the savagery and sadism that characterise his extraordinary films). "And he never tried to put the make on me! His wife, Nori, was usually on set, and they were such a happy couple. They made it a great environment to work in."

Those were Vonetta's two lessons to a young director: do not try to put the make on your leading lady, and make a nice environment for the actors to be creative in. This was excellent advice. In Repo Man she was both elegant and a perfect action heroine: diving into the fight sequences with gusto, demolishing a pair of blond brutes played by Biff Yeager and Steve Mattson.

In the mid-80s, Vonetta appeared in Cagney & Lacey as the wife of a detective played by Carl Lumbly. She and Carl married in 1986 and had a son, Brandon. In 1990, she appeared, briefly but memorably, opposite Sy Richardson and Danny Glover in Charles Burnett's fine film To Sleep With Anger.

Last year, casting another movie in LA, I tried to track Vonetta down, and hire her again. But the word came back that she had "absolutely" retired, and was living in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

She is survived by Carl and Brandon, and by her mother, Alma, three brothers and a sister.

• Lawrence Vonetta McGee, actress, born 14 January 1945; died 9 July 2010
 
What a shame. Nancy Dolman, wife of Martin Short has passed away.

Nancy was a cast member of "Godspell" in Toronto with Victor Garber, Marty Short and other future stars Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, and Paul Shaffer.

Rest in Peace Nancy. My condolences to Marty and Nancy's family.

http://omg.yahoo.com/news/martin-shorts-wife-nancy-dolman-dies-at-58/46141?nc
Martin Short's Wife, Nancy Dolman, Dies at 58
Yahoo! Buzz - August 24, 2010 7:35 PM PDT
By Mike Krumboltz, Yahoo!

Martin Short's wife, Nancy Dolman, has died at the age of 58. The pair had been married for 30 years.

News of Dolman's passing sent Web searches soaring for her biography, photos, and cause of death. E! Online reports that Dolman had been battling cancer for three years. RadarOnline.com reports that "there will be no funeral service for the actor's wife per her own wishes."

Short and Dolman met while working together on a Canadian production of the musical "Godspell" in the 1970s. A blog dedicated to the musical's production hosts Dolman's original biography from the program.

According to The Toronto Star, that Canadian production had quite the cast. In addition to Short and Dolman, the cast included the late Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, and Victor Garber, most famous for his work on "Alias." And that's not all: The musical director was none other than Paul Shaffer of "Late Show With David Letterman" fame.

Ms. Dolman had other acting roles, including one on the popular ABC sitcom "Soap," in which she played Annie Selig. She retired from acting in 1985 to focus on raising the three children she had with Martin.

Popeater explains that Short is sadly no stranger to death in the family: "In a 1984 interview with People, the actor spoke of losing his oldest brother in an auto accident when Martin was only 12, and of the deaths of both his parents before he was 21."

On his parents' deaths, Martin once remarked, "I never looked at it as if it was a tragedy -- that I didn't have them my whole life. You learn some sense of priorities. Our whole family took the attitude that if you have wonderful moments, don't second-guess them, just enjoy them."
 
I just found out that PBS-TV's Jack Horkheimer, Astronomer-host of the Star Gazer 5-minute educational snippets had died.

The jolly host was known for his enthusiastic admonation "Keep Looking Up" to encourage the viewer looking up at the night sky to do "naked-eyes-only" astronomical observation.

Rest in Peace, Jack.

http://en.wikipedia....Jack_Horkheimer
Jack Horkheimer, born Foley Arthur Horkheimer (June 11, 1938 – August 20, 2010), was the executive director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium. He was best known for his astronomy show Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer, which started airing on PBS on November 4, 1976.

Jack Horkheimer was born in 1938 to a wealthy family in Randolph, Wisconsin. His father owned a publishing firm and was the mayor of Randolph, Wisconsin for 24 years. Horkheimer started his show business career in 1953 at the age of 15 when he hosted a radio show on WBEV. In 1956, he graduated from Campion Jesuit High School.

During the summers away from college, he travelled the country playing jazz on the piano and organ under the name "Horky". His agents at the Artists Corporation of America ended up giving him the stage name "Jack Foley". He later changed this to "Jack Foley Horkheimer". He graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor of science degree in 1963 as a distinguished scholar.

He moved to Miami, Florida in 1964 for health reasons and began volunteering at the Miami Science Museum planetarium. He later became its director in 1973.

Horkheimer started his astronomy career in 1964, when he was 26, after he moved to Miami and met astronomer Arthur Smith. Smith was the president of the Miami Museum of Science and the chief of the Southern Cross Astronomical Society. Horkheimer started volunteering at planetarium writing shows and was later offered a position with the museum.

Smith asked Horkheimer to run the Miami Space Transit Planetarium when it opened in 1966. Horkheimer's shows were successful and the planetarium went from losing money to becoming profitable. Horkheimer worked his way up to become the planetarium's educational director and eventually the executive director.

Horkheimer changed the planetarium show from a science lecture to a multimedia event including music, lights and narration. He created the Child of the Universe show for the planetarium in 1972, which became famous and used in other planetariums across the country. Sally Jessy Raphael portrayed the voice of the solar system in this show. The show won an international award from the society of European astronomers in 1976. Horkheimer became the executive director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium in 1973 and stayed there for 35 years until his retirement in 2008.

Jack Horkheimer was probably best known for his naked-eye astronomy television show Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler, which started in 1976 and was broadcast nationally in 1985. Created, produced and written by Horkheimer, the show changed its name to Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer in 1997 because Internet searches were producing results for the adult magazine Hustler.

Horkheimer was known nationally for his commentaries about "astronomical events." He was a science commentator for local Miami news station. starting in 1973. In 1986, he co-organized an event for viewing Halley's Comet, traveling around the world aboard the supersonic airliner Concorde. He appeared on CNN several times, narrating solar eclipses and even hosted shows on Cartoon Network.

Horkheimer was born with a congenital degenerative lung disease known as bronchiectasis and, as a result, suffered from chronic pain. His ailment was not diagnosed until he was 18 years old. During this time, he suffered from radiation sickness and lost his hair as the result of medical X-Ray treatments. In 1957, he had to leave the Honolulu Academy of Fine Arts because it was suspected that he had tuberculosis. His health issues caused him to move to Miami in 1964 for the humid warm climate.

Horkheimer had been close to death on several occasions because of his health issues. As a result, he had prepared a grave site next to his parents. He also had a tombstone prepared and wrote his own epitaph, which reads;

"Keep Looking Up" was my life's admonition;
I can do little else in my present position.

Horkheimer died at his Florida home on the morning of August 20, 2010 at the age of 72.His death was related to the respiratory ailment that he suffered from since childhood.

Horkheimer had never been married and did not have any children. His death was confirmed by his niece, Kathy, and Tony Lima, marketing vice president for the Miami Science Museum, Horkheimer's employer. An email circulated among the museum's staff, stated that they were "very saddened to have just learned that our resident Star Gazer, Jack Horkheimer, passed away today after being ill for quite some time."

http://www.astronomy.../horkheimer.pdf
Jack Stargazer | Stargazing & Astronomy Resource
 
1950s pop singer Eddie Fisher dies at age 82
Singer Eddie Fisher, father of Carrie Fisher and Joely Fisher has died.

He was a teen heartthrob in the 1950s. He married and divorced Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100924/ap_on_en_mu/us_obit_eddie_fisherhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100924/ap_on_en_mu/us_obit_eddie_fisher
'50s pop singer Eddie Fisher dies at age 82
Raquel Maria Dillon, Associated Press Writer
September 24, 2010 – 6:34 pm Eastern Daylight Time

LOS ANGELES – Pop singer Eddie Fisher, whose clear voice brought him a devoted following of teenage girls in the early 1950s before marriage scandals overshadowed his fame, has died at age 82.

He passed away Wednesday night at his home in Berkeley of complications from hip surgery, his daughter, Tricia Leigh Fisher of Los Angeles, told The Associated Press.

"Late last evening the world lost a true America icon," Fisher's family said in a statement released by publicist British Reece. "One of the greatest voices of the century passed away. He was an extraordinary talent and a true mensch."

The death was first reported by Hollywood website deadline.com.

In the early 50s, Fisher sold millions of records with 32 hit songs including "Thinking of You," "Any Time," "Oh, My Pa-pa," "I'm Yours," "Wish You Were Here," "Lady of Spain" and "Count Your Blessings."

His fame was enhanced by his 1955 marriage to movie darling Debbie Reynolds — they were touted as "America's favorite couple" — and the birth of two children.

Their daughter Carrie Fisher became a film star herself in the first three "Star Wars" films as Princess Leia, and later as a best-selling author of "Postcards From the Edge" and other books.

Carrie Fisher spent most of 2008 on the road with her autobiographical show "Wishful Drinking." In an interview with The Associated Press, she told of singing with her father on stage in San Jose. Eddie Fisher was by then in a wheelchair and living in San Francisco.

When Eddie Fisher's best friend, producer Mike Todd, was killed in a 1958 plane crash, Fisher comforted the widow, Elizabeth Taylor. Amid sensationalist headlines, Fisher divorced Reynolds and married Taylor in 1959.

The Fisher-Taylor marriage lasted only five years. She fell in love with co-star Richard Burton during the Rome filming of "Cleopatra," divorced Fisher and married Burton in one of the great entertainment world scandals of the 20th century.

Fisher's career never recovered from the notoriety. He married actress Connie Stevens, and they had two daughters. Another divorce followed. He married twice more.

Edwin Jack Fisher was born Aug. 10, 1928, in Philadelphia, one of seven children of a Jewish grocer. At 15 he was singing on Philadelphia radio.

After moving to New York, Fisher was adopted as a protege by comedian Eddie Cantor, who helped the young singer become a star in radio, television and records.

Fisher's romantic messages resonated with young girls in the pre-Elvis period. Publicist-manager Milton Blackstone helped the publicity by hiring girls to scream and swoon at Fisher's appearances.

After getting out of the Army in 1953 following a two-year hitch, hit records, his own TV show and the headlined marriage to Reynolds made Fisher a top star. The couple costarred in a 1956 romantic comedy, "Bundle of Joy," that capitalized on their own parenthood.

In 1960 he played a role in "Butterfield 8," for which Taylor won an Academy Award. But that film marked the end of his movie career.

After being discarded by Taylor, Fisher became the butt of comedians' jokes. He began relying on drugs to get through performances, and his bookings dwindled. He later said he had made and spent $20 million during his heyday, and much of it went to gambling and drugs.

In 1983, Fisher attempted a full-scale comeback. But his old fans had been turned off by the scandals, and the younger generation had been turned on by rock. The tour was unsuccessful.

He had added to his notoriety that year with an autobiography, "Eddie: My Life, My Loves." Of his first three marriages, he wrote he had been bullied into marriage with Reynolds, whom he didn't know well; became nursemaid as well as husband to Taylor, and was reluctant to marry Connie Stevens but she was pregnant and he "did the proper thing."

Another autobiography, "Been There, Done That," published in 1999, was even more searing. He called Reynolds "self-centered, totally driven, insecure, untruthful, phony." He claimed he abandoned his career during the Taylor marriage because he was too busy taking her to emergency rooms and cleaning up after her pets, children and servants. Both ex-wives were furious, and Carrie Fisher threatened to change her name to Reynolds.

At 47, Fisher married a 21-year-old beauty queen, Terry Richard. The marriage ended after 10 months. His fifth marriage, to Betty Lin, a Chinese-born businesswoman, lasted longer than any of the others. Fisher had two children with Reynolds: Carrie and Todd; and two girls with Stevens: Joely and Tricia.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Fisher_(singer)
Edwin Jack "Eddie" Fisher (August 10, 1928 – September 22, 2010) was an American singer and entertainer, who was one of the world's most famous and successful singers in the 1950s, selling millions of records and having his own TV show. He was married to Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, and Connie Stevens. His divorce from his first wife, Debbie Reynolds, to marry his best friend's widow, Elizabeth Taylor, garnered scandalously unwelcome publicity at the time.

Early life
Fisher, fourth of seven children, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Russian-born Jewish immigrants Kate (née Winokur) and Joseph Fisher. His father's surname was originally Tisch or Fisch, but was anglicised to Fisher upon entry into the United States. To his family, Fisher was always called "Sonny Boy", a nickname derived from the song of the same name in Al Jolson's film The Singing Fool (1928).

Fisher attended Thomas Junior High School, South Philadelphia High School, and Simon Gratz High School. It was known at an early age that he had talent as a vocalist and he started singing in numerous amateur contests, which he usually won. He made his radio debut on WFIL, a local Philadelphia radio station. He also performed on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, a popular radio show which later moved to TV. Because he became a local star, Fisher dropped out of high school in the middle of his senior year to pursue his career.

Career
By 1946, Fisher was crooning with the bands of Buddy Morrow and Charlie Ventura. He was heard in 1949 by Eddie Cantor at Grossinger's Resort in the Borscht Belt. After performing on Cantor's radio show he was an instant hit and gained nationwide exposure. He then signed with RCA Victor.

Fisher was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1951, sent to Texas for basic training, and served a year in Korea. From 1952 to 1953, he was the official vocal soloist for The United States Army Band (Pershing's Own) and a tenor section member in the United States Army Band Chorus (an element of Pershing's Own) assigned at Fort Myer in the Washington, D.C. Military District. The photos of him in uniform during his time in the service did not hurt his civilian career. After his discharge, he became even more popular singing in top nightclubs. He also had a variety television series, Coke Time with Eddie Fisher (NBC) (1953–1957), appeared on Perry Como's show, The Gisele MacKenzie Show, The Chesterfield Supper Club and The George Gobel Show, and starred in another series, The Eddie Fisher Show (NBC) (1957–1959, alternating with Gobel's series).

A pre-Rock and Roll vocalist, Fisher's strong and melodious tenor made him a teen idol and one of the most popular singers of the early 1950s. He had seventeen songs in the Top 10 on the music charts between 1950 and 1956 and thirty-five in the Top 40.

In 1956, Fisher costarred with then-wife Debbie Reynolds in the musical comedy Bundle of Joy. He played a serious role in the 1960 drama Butterfield 8 with second wife Elizabeth Taylor. His best friend was showman and producer Mike Todd, who died in a plane crash in 1958. Fisher's affair and subsequent marriage to Taylor, Todd's widow, caused a show business scandal because he and Reynolds had a very public divorce. It was because of the unfavorable publicity surrounding the affair and divorce that NBC cancelled Fisher's television series in March 1959.

In 1960, he was dropped by RCA Victor and briefly recorded on his own label, Ramrod Records. He later recorded for Dot Records. During this time, he had the first commercial recording of "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof. This technically counts as the biggest standard Fisher can claim credit for introducing, although it is rarely associated with him. He also recorded the album Eddie Fisher Today which showed that he had more depth than his singles from earlier years had shown. The Dot contract was not successful in record sales terms, and he returned to RCA Victor and had a minor single hit in 1966 with the song "Games That Lovers Play" with Nelson Riddle, which became the title of his best selling album. During the time Fisher was the most popular singer in America[citation needed], in the mid 1950s, singles, rather than albums, were the primary recording medium. His last album for RCA was an Al Jolson tribute, You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet. In 1983 he attempted a comeback tour but this was not a success. Eddie Fisher's last album was recorded around 1984 on the Bainbridge record label. Fisher tried to stop the album from being released, but it turned up as After All. The album was produced by William J. O'Malley and arranged by Angelo DiPippo.

Fisher performed in top concert halls all over the United States and headlined in major Las Vegas showrooms. He headlined at the Palace Theater in New York City as well as London's Palladium.

Fisher has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for recording, at 6241 Hollywood Boulevard, and one for television, at 1724 Vine Street.

Personal life
Fisher had five marriages and four children:

Debbie Reynolds (1955–1959; divorced)
- Carrie Fisher (born 1956)
- Todd Fisher (born 1958)

Elizabeth Taylor (1959–1964; divorced)

Connie Stevens (1967–1969; divorced)
- Joely Fisher (born 1967)
- Tricia Leigh Fisher (born 1968)

Terry Richard (1975–1976; divorced)

Betty Lin (1993–2001; she predeceased him)

In 1981, Fisher wrote an autobiography, Eddie: My Life, My Loves (ISBN 0-06-014907-8). He wrote another autobiography in 1999 titled Been There, Done That (ISBN 0-312-20972-X). The later book devotes little space to Fisher's singing career, but recycled the material of his first book and added many new sexual details that were too strong to publish before. His daughter Carrie declared, upon publication: "That's it. I'm having my DNA fumigated."

When interviewed, Debbie Reynolds will characteristically say that she could understand being dumped "for the world's most beautiful woman (Taylor)", previously a close friend. Taylor and Reynolds later resumed their friendship, and mocked Fisher in their TV movie These Old Broads, wherein their characters ridiculed the ex-husband they shared, named "Freddie."

Fisher broke his hip on September 9, 2010 and died 13 days later on September 22, 2010 at his home in Berkeley, California, due to complications from his hip surgery. He was 82 years old.
 
:( Legendary Hollywood Leading Man, Actor/Painter/Author Tony Curtis has died.

He was born as Bernard Schwartz on June 3, 1925 in the Bronx, New York City.
He died at his home in Las Vegas on Wednesday night at 9:25 MDT of cardiac arrest.

I remembered Tony did the voice of "Stony Curtis" on an episode of TV's "The Flintstones". :LOL:

Farewell, Tony. You will be missed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100930/ap_on_...t_tony_curtis_8
Coroner: Actor Tony Curtis dies at Las Vegas home
By KEN RITTER, Associated Press Writer – 30 mins ago

LAS VEGAS – Tony Curtis, the Bronx tailor's son who became a 1950s movie heartthrob and then a respected actor with such films as "Sweet Smell of Success," "The Defiant Ones" and "Some Like It Hot," has died. He was 85.

The actor died at 9:25 p.m. MDT Wednesday at his Las Vegas area home of a cardiac arrest, Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy said Thursday.

After a series of frivolous movies that exploited his handsome physique and appealing personality, Curtis moved to more substantial roles, starting in 1957 in the harrowing show business tale "Sweet Smell of Success."

In 1958, "The Defiant Ones" brought him an Academy Award nomination as best actor for his portrayal of a white racist escaped convict handcuffed to a black escapee, Sidney Poitier. The following year, he donned women's clothing and sparred with Marilyn Monroe in one of the most acclaimed film comedies ever, Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot."

His first wife was actress Janet Leigh of "Psycho" fame; actress Jamie Leigh Curtis is their daughter.

In later years, he returned to film and television as a character actor after battling drug and alcohol abuse. His brash optimism returned, and he allowed his once-shiny black hair to turn silver. He also became a painter whose canvasses sold for as much as $20,000.

"I'm not ready to settle down like an elderly Jewish gentleman, sitting on a bench and leaning on a cane," he said at 60. "I've got a helluva lot of living to do."

Curtis perfected his craft in forgettable films such as "Francis," "I Was a Shoplifter," "No Room for the Groom" and "Son of Ali Baba."

He first attracted critical notice as Sidney Falco, the press agent seeking favor with a sadistic columnist, played by Burt Lancaster, in the 1957 classic "Sweet Smell of Success."

In her book "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," Pauline Kael wrote that in the film, "Curtis grew up into an actor and gave the best performance of his career."

Other prestigious films followed: Stanley Kubrick's "Spartacus," "Captain Newman, M.D.," "The Vikings," "Kings Go Forth," "Operation Petticoat" and "Some Like It Hot." He also found time to do a voice acting gig as his prehistoric lookalike, Stony Curtis, in an episode of "The Flintstones."

"The Defiant Ones" remained his only Oscar-nominated role.

"I think it has nothing to do with good performances or bad performances," he told The Washington Post in 2002. "After the number of movies I made where I thought there should be some acknowledgment, there was nothing from the Academy."

"My happiness and privilege is that my audience around the world is supportive of me, so I don't need the Academy."

In 2000, an American Film Institute survey of the funniest films in history ranked "Some Like It Hot" at No. 1. Curtis — famously imitating Cary Grant's accent — and Jack Lemmon play jazz musicians who dress up as women to escape retribution after witnessing a gangland massacre.

Monroe was their co-star, and he and Lemmon were repeatedly kept waiting as Monroe lingered in her dressing room out of fear and insecurity. Curtis fumed over her unprofessionalism. When someone remarked that it must be thrilling to kiss Monroe in the film's love scenes, the actor snapped, "It's like kissing Hitler." In later years, his opinion of Monroe softened, and in interviews he praised her unique talent.

In 2002, Curtis toured in "Some Like It Hot" — a revised and retitled version of the 1972 Broadway musical "Sugar," which was based on the film. In the touring show, the actor graduated to the role of Osgood Fielding III, the part played in the movie by Joe E. Brown.

After his star faded in the late 1960s, Curtis shifted to lesser roles. With jobs harder to find, he fell into drug and alcohol addiction.

"From 22 to about 37, I was lucky," Curtis told Interview magazine in the 1980s, "but by the middle '60s, I wasn't getting the kind of parts I wanted, and it kind of soured me. ... But I had to go through the drug inundation before I was able to come to grips with it and realize that it had nothing to do with me, that people weren't picking on me."

He recovered in the early '80s after a 30-day treatment at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage.

"Mine was a textbook case," he said in a 1985 interview. "My life had become unmanageable because of booze and dope. Work became a strain and a struggle. Because I didn't want to face the challenge, I simply made myself unavailable."

One role during that era of struggle did bring him an Emmy nomination: his portrayal of David O. Selznick in the TV movie "The Scarlett O'Hara War," in 1980.

His health remained vigorous, though he did get heart bypass surgery in 1994.

Curtis took a fatherly pride in daughter Jamie Leigh's success. They were estranged for a long period, then reconciled. "I understand him better now," she said, "perhaps not as a father but as a man."

He also had five other children. Daughters Kelly, also with Leigh, and Allegra, with second wife Christine Kaufmann, also became actresses. His other wives were Leslie Allen, Lisa Deutsch and Jill VandenBerg, whom he married in 1998.

He had married Janet Leigh in 1951, when they were both rising young stars; they divorced in 1963.

"Tony and I had a wonderful time together; it was an exciting, glamorous period in Hollywood," Leigh, who died in 2004, once said. "A lot of great things happened, most of all, two beautiful children."

Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz in the Bronx in 1925, the son of Hungarian Jews who had emigrated to the United States after World War I. His father, Manny Schwartz, had yearned to be an actor, but work was hard to find with his heavy accent. He settled for tailoring jobs, moving the family repeatedly as he sought work.

"I was always the new kid on the block, so I got beat up by the other kids," Curtis recalled in 1959. "I had to figure a way to avoid getting my nose broken. So I became the crazy new kid on the block."

His sidewalk histrionics helped avoid beatings and led to acting in plays at a settlement house. He also grew to love movies. "My whole culture as a boy was movies," he said. "For 11 cents, you could sit in the front row of a theater for 10 hours, which I did constantly."

After serving in the Pacific during World War II and being wounded at Guam, he returned to New York and studied acting under the G.I. Bill. He appeared in summer stock theater and on the Borscht Circuit in the Catskills. Then an agent lined up an audition with a Universal-International talent scout. In 1948, at 23, he signed a seven-year contract with the studio, starting at $100 a week.

Bernie Schwartz sounded too Jewish for a movie actor, so the studio gave him a new name: Anthony Curtis, taken from his favorite novel, "Anthony Adverse," and the Anglicized name of a favorite uncle. After his eighth film, he became Tony Curtis.

The studio helped smooth the rough edges off the ambitious young actor. The last to go was his street-tinged Bronx accent. His diction became a Hollywood joke, as when he uttered to Piper Laurie in a medieval potboiler "The Prince Who Was a Thief": "Yonder lies the castle of my fodder."

Curtis pursued another career as an artist, creating Matisse-like still lifes with astonishing speed. "I'm a recovering alcoholic," he said in 1990 as he concluded a painting in 40 minutes in the garden of the Bel-Air Hotel. "Painting has given me such a great pleasure in life, helped me to recover."

He also turned to writing, producing a 1977 novel, "Kid Cody and Julie Sparrow." In 1993, he wrote "Tony Curtis: The Autobiography."
 
TV Series Creator/Producer/Writer/Actor Stephen J. Cannell dies.

If you don't remember his name, you'll probably recognise his creations: The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, The A-Team, Wiseguy, 21 Jump Street, Silk Stalkings, and The Commish.

Cannell appeared as himself in the pilot of the ABC show "Castle" and again in season 2. Along with authors James Patterson and Michael Connelly, he was one of Castle's poker buddies. His Stephen J. Cannell Productions closing logo is of him typing out a script and withdrawing the finished paper.

http://www.filmschoo...-dead-at-69.php
Dyslexia Claims Another File: Stephen Cannell Dead At 69
By Rob Hunter
on October 1, 2010

Hollywood has apparently traded in the "rule of threes" in favor of a much higher multiple when it comes to celebrity deaths. Tony Curtis, Sally Menke, Greg Giraldo, Gloria Stuart… and now one more name is added to the recent list of losses.

Stephen J Cannell died yesterday at his home in Pasadena. If you don't recognize his name then it may be because you don't like televised fun. Because if you watched TV in the 70′s, 80′s, or 90′s the odds are you've seen and enjoyed his work in at least one lighthearted action show. The list of TV shows he created and/or wrote episodes for is staggering… a small sampling includes recognizable series like Adam-12, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Baretta, The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, Hardcastle & McCormick, Riptide, The A-Team, Stingray, Wiseguy, and 21 Jump Street. Again, that's just a fraction of his work.

Cannell's writing accomplishments are that much more impressive when you take into account that he had been dyslexic since early childhood. He wrote over 450 television episodes, authored 14+ mystery novels, and most recently could be seen as one of Nathan Fillion's poker buddies on ABC's Castle. His energy and enthusiasm for entertaining others will be missed.

http://en.wikipedia....ephen_J_Cannell
Stephen Joseph Cannell (February 5, 1941 – September 30, 2010) was an American television producer, writer, novelist and occasional actor, and the founder of Stephen J. Cannell Productions.

Cannell was born in Los Angeles, California, and raised in nearby Pasadena. His parents, Carolyn (née Baker) and Joseph Knapp Cannell, owned a chain of furniture stores. Cannell struggled with dyslexia in school, but did graduate from the University of Oregon in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism. At UO, he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity.

After college, Cannell spent four years working with the family business before selling his first script to the Universal series It Takes a Thief in 1968. He was quickly hired by the television production branch of Universal Studios and was soon freelance writing for such other crime shows as Ironside and Columbo. Not long after, he received his first full-time gig as the story editor of Jack Webb's police series Adam-12, then in its fourth season (1971–1972).

Cannell created or co-created nearly 40 television series, mostly crime dramas, including The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, The A-Team, Wiseguy, 21 Jump Street, Silk Stalkings, and The Commish. In the process he had, by his own count, scripted more than 450 episodes, and produced or executive produced over 1,500 episodes.

He described his early financial arrangements in a 2002 interview, saying that at Universal,

" I signed a deal as a head writer to make $600 a week. I was the cheapest writer on the lot. It was the lowest deal you could do by Writers Guild standards. But I'd been working for my dad for $7000 a year. I was at Universal for eight years and I never renegotiated my deal but once. It was late in my arrangement with Universal. There was one thing in my deal that my agent had managed to get in there — I had good fees for my pilots. The reason they did it is that they never thought I was going to write a pilot. So they'd give me $70,000 to write a two-hour pilot and a $100,000 production bonus if it ever got made. Then I became the hottest pilot writer at Universal. I was writing two or three pilots a season. I was making $400,000 a year in pilot fees."

For many years, Cannell's office was at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, though his shows (with the exception of Hunter and The Greatest American Hero) were almost always distributed by Universal Studios. The closing logo of his production company features him typing, before throwing the sheet from his typewriter whereupon it animates to become his company logo against a black screen (the one sheet of paper lands on a stack of paper forming a letter C). It was updated often, the main differences being Cannell's clothes, sometimes new awards were in the background and (rarely) a new office for the live-action part. Early examples are also notable for Cannell smoking a pipe as he types. The logo has become part of American pop culture and has been parodied on both The Simpsons and Family Guy.

Later life and career
Cannell also acted occasionally, including a regular supporting role as "Dutch" Dixon on his series Renegade. He also took a turn in an episode of Silk Stalkings, in which the script called for one character to tell him, "You look just like that writer on TV," to which Cannell's character responds, "I get that all the time." He also served as the host of the 1995–1996 syndicated documentary series U.S. Customs Classified, focusing on the work of the U.S Customs Service. Cannell appeared as himself in the pilot of the ABC show Castle and again in season 2. Along with James Patterson and Michael Connelly, he was one of Castle's poker buddies.

In an effort to lower production costs,[citation needed] Cannell opened a studio facility in Vancouver, British Columbia toward the end of the 1980s. One of the first series shot there was 21 Jump Street, the highest-rated show of the new Fox network's first season.[citation needed] Scene of the Crime, a mystery anthology series for CBS's late-night schedule, was also filmed in Vancouver and hosted by Cannell. New World Communications acquired his production company in 1995. Cannell then founded the Cannell Studios. One of the first shows produced by the newly-established Cannell Studios was the short-lived but critically-acclaimed corporate drama Profit.

In the 2000s, Cannell turned his attention to novels. As of 2008, he had written 14, half of which featured the character of detective Shane Scully of the Los Angeles Police Department. The eighth book in that series, On the Grind (St. Martin's Press), was scheduled for release January 2009.

Cannell collaborated with Janet Evanovich on the book No Chance, which was to be the first in a series.[citation needed] It was scheduled for release in October 2007, but as of July 2007 was unreleased.

The documentary Dislecksia: The Movie features an interview with Cannell, in which he discusses his struggles with dyslexia and how he managed to be such a successful writer despite his difficulties reading. During the interview, he mentions how he used to hire typists to overcome his "spelling problem", as he refers to his dyslexia, but also describes how he feels his condition has enriched his life.

Cannell's hit TV series The A-Team was remade into a 2010 feature length film. Cannell served as a producer and creative consultant for the project.

Personal life
As of 2009, Cannell lived in Los Angeles. He married his high school sweetheart, Marcia; he "asked her to go steady in the eighth grade". Together they had two daughters, Tawnia and Chelsea, and two sons, Cody and Derek.[9] Derek died in 1981 at age 15 when a sand castle he was building at the beach collapsed and suffocated him.

Cannell was dyslexic, and was a spokesperson on the subject. According to an episode of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story, Cannell frequently had to dictate ideas or even complete scripts to a personal secretary. He discussed his experiences as a dyslexic in the upcoming documentary Dislecksia: The Movie.

Cannell continued to write on a typewriter (an IBM Selectric) and only used a computer for research purposes.[citation needed]

Death
Cannell died September 30, 2010, due to complications associated with melanoma.

Filmography (both acting and/or writing for Television)
21 Jump Street
Adam-12
The A-Team
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Baretta
Booker
Broken Badges
Castle (as himself)
Chase
Cobra
The Commish
The D.A.
Diagnosis Murder (acting)
The Duke
The Greatest American Hero
Hardcastle and McCormick
The Hat Squad
Hawkeye
Hunter
J.J. Starbuck
The Last Precinct
Magnum, P.I. (acting)
The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage
Pacific Blue (acting)
Palace Guard
Profit
The Quest
Renegade (also acting)
Richie Brockelman, Private Eye
Riptide
The Rockford Files
The Rousters
Santa Barbara (acting)
Silk Stalkings (also acting)
Sonny Spoon
Stingray
Stone
Street Justice
Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (also acting)
Toma
Top of the Hill
Unsub
Wiseguy

Farewell Stephen. You will be missed!
 
Simon MacCorkindale
Simon MacCorkindale
Simon MacCorkindale, the actor who died on October 14 aged 58, built a 30-year stage and television career playing handsome, often roguish, charmers – most recently the consultant Harry Harper in the popular BBC hospital drama Casualty.

Published: 6:34PM BST 15 Oct 2010

Early in his career, his talent for playing stiff-upper-lipped romantic leads won him flattering accolades such as "Boy's Own Brit". He was acclaimed as a new Errol Flynn or David Niven, whose "flawless looks, perfect features, perfect hair, perfect skin" were admired by one breathless female critic in The Sunday Telegraph.

In 1985 he was touted as a possible successor to Sean Connery and Roger Moore in the role of James Bond. The rumour put MacCorkindale – who had often maintained that he would be a superstar by the age of 35 – three years ahead of schedule. But he never did become 007.

Simon Charles Pendered MacCorkindale was born on February 12 1952 at Ely, Cambridgeshire, the son of Scottish parents. His father, a station commander in the RAF, was sent to 17 different postings in as many years, and Simon spent his childhood in perpetual transit, settling only briefly at various bases in Britain, Germany or Belgium.

Educated at Haileybury, where he was head boy and played rugby, he wanted to follow his father into the RAF, but at 13 failed an eyesight test. After considering a career in the Diplomatic Service, he decided to train for the stage at the Theatre of Arts in London.

His ambition was to direct rather than to act, and indeed he did later find success as a writer and director. But acting parts kept coming, despite his initial intention to remain out of the limelight, and in the mid-1970s he made his breakthrough on television as Lucius, the son of the Emperor Augustus, in the highly-regarded series I, Claudius.

In 1977 MacCorkindale won the role that propelled him on to the international stage, starring as the smooth murderer, Simon Doyle, opposite Peter Ustinov's Poirot in the feature film of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile.

After co-starring with Michael York and Jenny Agutter in a film version of Erskine Childers's The Riddle of the Sands (1979) and appearing as a younger-than-usual Macbeth at the Ludlow Festival of 1980, he spent several years in California.

But roles in major Hollywood films were not forthcoming. Instead he starred in a short-lived television adventure series called Manimal, about a man who could assume the form of various animals. The special-effects led show, which was also aired in Britain in 1984, preceded his appearance in the American soap Falcon Crest from 1984 until 1986.

Stealing Heaven (1988), based on the story of Abelard and Heloise, was a film which he co-produced with his second wife, Susan George. It was panned by The Daily Telegraph as "a dire medieval teen-pic", but MacCorkindale was already planning another film about the mysterious case of Lord Lucan, predicated on the earl's innocence. This project, for which MacCorkindale also wrote the script and in which he planned to star, was finally abandoned in 1996 after he fell out with the backers.

He joined the cast of Casualty in February 2002.

In 2006 MacCorkindale was diagnosed with bowel cancer, after complaining of feeling unwell while recording Casualty in Bristol. But his illness did not stop him taking a six-month sabbatical from the BBC at the end of that year to return to the stage for the first time for 20 years, when he joined a touring production of Agatha Christie's The Unexpected Guest.

In May 2007, contrary to previous indications, he was told that the disease had spread to his lungs, and that he had five years to live. He left Casualty later that year. But he refused to end his career, and in 2008 again returned to live theatre, appearing as Captain Georg von Trapp in a West End production of The Sound of Music. His last role was as Sir David Bryant in the television police series New Tricks.

"I don't want people to think that I'm pale, losing my hair, losing weight and on the way out," he said in 2009. "I'm not. I'm as active as I've ever been."

In the last year he spent much of his time with Susan George, whom he had married in 1984, at their 45-acre Georgian stud farm on Exmoor, where they bred Arabian thoroughbred horses.

Simon MacCorkindale married first, in 1976, the actress Fiona Fullerton. The union was later dissolved. There were no children of either of his marriages.

I remember Simon from appearing in "Manimal" and Primetime Soaps "Falcon Crest" and "Dynasty". Later he was a co-executive producer for the Canadian/Spanish/UK 2000 syndicated TV series Queen of Swords guest starring as the sadistic sea captain Charles Wentworth in the episode "Runaways", He also co-produced the 2002 syndicated Canadian/French/UK TV series Adventure Inc., four of the 22 episodes being filmed in the UK. Both series were part financed by Amy International. He also produced and composed music for the 1989 film Djavolji raj (That Summer of White Roses), starring his wife Susan George and Tom Conti.

R.I.P. Simon MacCorkindale.
 
http://www.telegraph...Corkindale.html
Simon MacCorkindale
Simon MacCorkindale, the actor who died on October 14 aged 58, built a 30-year stage and television career playing handsome, often roguish, charmers – most recently the consultant Harry Harper in the popular BBC hospital drama Casualty.

Published: 6:34PM BST 15 Oct 2010

Early in his career, his talent for playing stiff-upper-lipped romantic leads won him flattering accolades such as "Boy's Own Brit". He was acclaimed as a new Errol Flynn or David Niven, whose "flawless looks, perfect features, perfect hair, perfect skin" were admired by one breathless female critic in The Sunday Telegraph.

In 1985 he was touted as a possible successor to Sean Connery and Roger Moore in the role of James Bond. The rumour put MacCorkindale – who had often maintained that he would be a superstar by the age of 35 – three years ahead of schedule. But he never did become 007.

Simon Charles Pendered MacCorkindale was born on February 12 1952 at Ely, Cambridgeshire, the son of Scottish parents. His father, a station commander in the RAF, was sent to 17 different postings in as many years, and Simon spent his childhood in perpetual transit, settling only briefly at various bases in Britain, Germany or Belgium.

Educated at Haileybury, where he was head boy and played rugby, he wanted to follow his father into the RAF, but at 13 failed an eyesight test. After considering a career in the Diplomatic Service, he decided to train for the stage at the Theatre of Arts in London.

His ambition was to direct rather than to act, and indeed he did later find success as a writer and director. But acting parts kept coming, despite his initial intention to remain out of the limelight, and in the mid-1970s he made his breakthrough on television as Lucius, the son of the Emperor Augustus, in the highly-regarded series I, Claudius.

In 1977 MacCorkindale won the role that propelled him on to the international stage, starring as the smooth murderer, Simon Doyle, opposite Peter Ustinov's Poirot in the feature film of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile.

After co-starring with Michael York and Jenny Agutter in a film version of Erskine Childers's The Riddle of the Sands (1979) and appearing as a younger-than-usual Macbeth at the Ludlow Festival of 1980, he spent several years in California.

But roles in major Hollywood films were not forthcoming. Instead he starred in a short-lived television adventure series called Manimal, about a man who could assume the form of various animals. The special-effects led show, which was also aired in Britain in 1984, preceded his appearance in the American soap Falcon Crest from 1984 until 1986.

Stealing Heaven (1988), based on the story of Abelard and Heloise, was a film which he co-produced with his second wife, Susan George. It was panned by The Daily Telegraph as "a dire medieval teen-pic", but MacCorkindale was already planning another film about the mysterious case of Lord Lucan, predicated on the earl's innocence. This project, for which MacCorkindale also wrote the script and in which he planned to star, was finally abandoned in 1996 after he fell out with the backers.

He joined the cast of Casualty in February 2002.

In 2006 MacCorkindale was diagnosed with bowel cancer, after complaining of feeling unwell while recording Casualty in Bristol. But his illness did not stop him taking a six-month sabbatical from the BBC at the end of that year to return to the stage for the first time for 20 years, when he joined a touring production of Agatha Christie's The Unexpected Guest.

In May 2007, contrary to previous indications, he was told that the disease had spread to his lungs, and that he had five years to live. He left Casualty later that year. But he refused to end his career, and in 2008 again returned to live theatre, appearing as Captain Georg von Trapp in a West End production of The Sound of Music. His last role was as Sir David Bryant in the television police series New Tricks.

"I don't want people to think that I'm pale, losing my hair, losing weight and on the way out," he said in 2009. "I'm not. I'm as active as I've ever been."

In the last year he spent much of his time with Susan George, whom he had married in 1984, at their 45-acre Georgian stud farm on Exmoor, where they bred Arabian thoroughbred horses.

Simon MacCorkindale married first, in 1976, the actress Fiona Fullerton. The union was later dissolved. There were no children of either of his marriages.

I remember Simon from appearing in "Manimal" and Primetime Soaps "Falcon Crest" and "Dynasty". Later he was a co-executive producer for the Canadian/Spanish/UK 2000 syndicated TV series Queen of Swords, guest starring as the sadistic sea captain Charles Wentworth in the episode "Runaways", He also co-produced the 2002 syndicated Canadian/French/UK TV series Adventure Inc., four of the 22 episodes being filmed in the UK. Both series were part financed by Amy International. He also produced and composed music for the 1989 film Djavolji raj (That Summer of White Roses), starring his wife Susan George and Tom Conti.

R.I.P. Simon MacCorkindale.
 
Barbara Billingsley, the iconic mom from TV's "Leave It To Beaver" has passed away. :(

She also was memorable as the 'jive talking white lady' on movie "Airplane".

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/celebrity....dex.html?hpt=T2
(CNN) -- Barbara Billingsley, who wore a classy pearl necklace and dispensed pearls of wisdom as America's quintessential mom on "Leave it to Beaver," has died at age 94, a family spokeswoman said Saturday.

The actress passed away at 2 a.m. (5 a.m. ET) Saturday at her home in Santa Monica, California, after a long illness, spokeswoman Judy Twersky said. A private memorial is being planned.

Actor Jerry Mathers, who played Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, called Billingsley a lifetime mentor.

"Barbara was a patient advisor and teacher. She helped me along this challenging journey through life by showing me the importance of manners, and respect for others," Mathers said in a statement. "She will be missed by all of her family, friends, fans and most especially by me."

Tony Dow, who played Beaver's brother, Wally Cleaver, also reflected on Billingsley's legacy.

"She was as happy as a lark being recognized as America's mom," Dow told CNN's Don Lemon. "She had a terrific life and had a wonderful impact on everybody she knew, and even people she didn't know."

The actress won a new legion of fans in a brief, but memorable, scene in the 1980 send-up movie "Airplane."

"Oh, stewardess. I speak jive," Billingsley said in her role -- much different from her June Cleaver persona -- as an elderly passenger comforting an ill man on the flight. She, the sick man and his seat companion engaged in street-slang banter.

From the moment its catchy theme song sounded in black-and-white TV sets of the 1950s, "Leave it to Beaver" enthralled Americans during a time of relative prosperity and world peace. Its characters represented middle-class white America.

June Cleaver dutifully pecked the cheek of her husband, Ward (played by the late Hugh Beaumont), when he came home to learn about the latest foibles -- nothing serious -- committed by Beaver and Wally.

"Ward, I'm very worried about the Beaver," was a common refrain.

The parents would dispense moralistic advice to their sons. The boys' friends included Lumpy and the obsequious Eddie Haskell, who avoided trouble and often buttered up Ward and June.

"That's a lovely dress you're wearing, Mrs. Cleaver," Eddie would typically say to Billingsley's character.

Perhaps fittingly, "Leave it to Beaver" was canceled in 1963 on the eve of the JFK assassination, the Vietnam War and the tumult of the 1960s.

In the 1980s, Dow appeared with Billingsley in "The New Leave it to Beaver." She shifted from being a mom figure to a good friend who supported his directing and artistic endeavors, Dow said.

"She always had a positive thing to say," said Dow, 65.

Mathers spoke of Billingsley's talent during a 2000 appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live."

"We kind of stifled her, because her true talent didn't really come out in 'Leave it Beaver.' She was like the straight man, but she has an awful lot of talent."

Born December 22, 1915, in Los Angeles, Billingsley began her career as a model in New York City in 1936.

She was under contract to MGM in 1945 before becoming a household name with the launch of "Leave it to Beaver" in 1957.

Billingsley also voiced the role of Nanny in Nickelodeon's "Muppet Babies" from 1984 to 1991.

Billingsley is related by marriage to actor/producer Peter Billingsley, known for his starring role as Ralphie in the seasonal TV-movie classic "A Christmas Story," according to the Internet Movie Database. Peter Billingsley's mother, Gail Billingsley, is the cousin of Barbara's first husband, Glenn.

Billingsley, whose second and third husbands predeceased her, is survived by her two sons, Drew Billingsley of Granada Hills, California, and Glenn Billingsley of Phillips Ranch, California.

Asked once to compare real-life families to TV families, Billingsley responded, "I just wish that we could have more families like those. Family is so important, and I just don't think we have enough people staying home with their babies and their children."
 
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