Originally posted by vansmack:It's a publicity stunt! :p
Originally posted by Random Citizen:He was supposed to be at Sundance this week to premier his new movie "Darwin Awards" - conspiracy theorists may begin…..
Actor Chris Penn Found Dead
Santa Monica police are currently on the scene investigating the circumstances.
Dropping Like Flies
Only the good die young. I suppose Sean will live to be 96..?
Originally posted by Jaguar:
Originally posted by vansmack:That's the first thing I thought, then I remembered that he missed our party on Sunday and nobody would do that, not even for a stunt!
[qb] It's a publicity stunt! :p
Video artist Nam June Paik dead at 74
Monday, January 30, 2006; Posted: 2:53 p.m. EST (19:53 GMT)
MIAMI, Florida (AP) – Nam June Paik, the avant-garde artist credited with inventing video art in the 1960s by combining multiple TV screens with sculpture, music and live performers, has died. He was 74.
The Korean-born Paik, who also coined the term "Electronic Super Highway" years before the information superhighway was invented, died Sunday night of natural causes at his Miami apartment, according to his Web site.
Song Tae-ho, head of a South Korean cultural foundation working on a project to build a museum for the artist, said he learned of Paik's death from Paik's nephew, Ken Paik Hakuta, in New York.
Paik's work gained international praise from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, among others, and much of it is on display at the Nam June Paik Museum in Kyonggi, South Korea.
"He really led the development of a new art form, bringing the moving image into the modern art world," said John Hanhardt, senior curator of film and media arts at the Guggenheim.
Hanhardt called Paik a true friend and a prophet.
"He foresaw that video would be an artist's medium, that it would be in museums," he said. "It's a heroic achievement."
In a 1974 report commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, Paik wrote of a telecommunications network of the future he called the "Electronic Super Highway," predicting it "will become our springboard for new and surprising human endeavors." Two decades later, when "information superhighway" had become the phrase of the moment, he commented, "Bill Clinton stole my idea."
He also was often credited with coining the phrase, "The future is now."
Trained in music, aesthetics and philosophy, he was a member of the 1960s art movement Fluxus, which was in part inspired by composer John Cage's use of everyday sounds in his music. Another Fluxus adherent was the young Yoko Ono.
Paik made his artistic debut in Wiesbaden, West Germany, in 1963 with a solo art exhibition titled "Exposition of Music-Electronic Television." He scattered 12 television sets throughout the exhibit space and used them to create unexpected effects in the images being received. Later exhibits included the use of magnets to manipulate or alter the image on TV sets and create patterns of light.
He moved to New York in 1964 and started working with classical cellist Charlotte Moorman to combine video, music and performance.
In "TV Cello" they stacked television sets that formed the shape of a cello. When she drew the bow across the television sets, there were images of her playing, video collages of other cellists and live images of the performance.
In one highly publicized incident, Moorman was arrested in 1967 in New York for going topless in performing Paik's "Opera Sextronique." Said one headline: "Cops Top a Topless 'Happening.' " In a 1969 performance titled "TV Bra for Living Sculpture," she wore a bra with tiny TV screens over her breasts.
Another of Paik's pieces, "TV Buddha," is a statue of a sitting Buddha facing its own image on a closed-circuit television screen, while "Positive Egg," has a video camera aimed at a white egg on a black cloth. In a series of larger and larger monitors, the image is magnified until the actual egg becomes an abstract shape on the screen.
Paik also incorporated television sets into a series of robots. The early robots were constructed largely of bits and pieces of wire and metal; later ones were built from vintage radio and television sets.
Famous worldwide, Paik never forgot his native Korea. In 1986, public television showed Paik's "Bye Bye Kipling," a mix of taped and live events, mostly from Paik's native Seoul; Tokyo; and New York. Two years later, Paik erected a media tower, called "The more the better," from 1,003 monitors for the Olympic Games at Seoul.
Paik was left partially paralyzed by a stroke in 1996.
Funeral services will be held this week in New York, Hakuta told South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
Monday, January 30, 2006; Posted: 2:53 p.m. EST (19:53 GMT)
MIAMI, Florida (AP) – Nam June Paik, the avant-garde artist credited with inventing video art in the 1960s by combining multiple TV screens with sculpture, music and live performers, has died. He was 74.
The Korean-born Paik, who also coined the term "Electronic Super Highway" years before the information superhighway was invented, died Sunday night of natural causes at his Miami apartment, according to his Web site.
Song Tae-ho, head of a South Korean cultural foundation working on a project to build a museum for the artist, said he learned of Paik's death from Paik's nephew, Ken Paik Hakuta, in New York.
Paik's work gained international praise from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago, among others, and much of it is on display at the Nam June Paik Museum in Kyonggi, South Korea.
"He really led the development of a new art form, bringing the moving image into the modern art world," said John Hanhardt, senior curator of film and media arts at the Guggenheim.
Hanhardt called Paik a true friend and a prophet.
"He foresaw that video would be an artist's medium, that it would be in museums," he said. "It's a heroic achievement."
In a 1974 report commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, Paik wrote of a telecommunications network of the future he called the "Electronic Super Highway," predicting it "will become our springboard for new and surprising human endeavors." Two decades later, when "information superhighway" had become the phrase of the moment, he commented, "Bill Clinton stole my idea."
He also was often credited with coining the phrase, "The future is now."
Trained in music, aesthetics and philosophy, he was a member of the 1960s art movement Fluxus, which was in part inspired by composer John Cage's use of everyday sounds in his music. Another Fluxus adherent was the young Yoko Ono.
Paik made his artistic debut in Wiesbaden, West Germany, in 1963 with a solo art exhibition titled "Exposition of Music-Electronic Television." He scattered 12 television sets throughout the exhibit space and used them to create unexpected effects in the images being received. Later exhibits included the use of magnets to manipulate or alter the image on TV sets and create patterns of light.
He moved to New York in 1964 and started working with classical cellist Charlotte Moorman to combine video, music and performance.
In "TV Cello" they stacked television sets that formed the shape of a cello. When she drew the bow across the television sets, there were images of her playing, video collages of other cellists and live images of the performance.
In one highly publicized incident, Moorman was arrested in 1967 in New York for going topless in performing Paik's "Opera Sextronique." Said one headline: "Cops Top a Topless 'Happening.' " In a 1969 performance titled "TV Bra for Living Sculpture," she wore a bra with tiny TV screens over her breasts.
Another of Paik's pieces, "TV Buddha," is a statue of a sitting Buddha facing its own image on a closed-circuit television screen, while "Positive Egg," has a video camera aimed at a white egg on a black cloth. In a series of larger and larger monitors, the image is magnified until the actual egg becomes an abstract shape on the screen.
Paik also incorporated television sets into a series of robots. The early robots were constructed largely of bits and pieces of wire and metal; later ones were built from vintage radio and television sets.
Famous worldwide, Paik never forgot his native Korea. In 1986, public television showed Paik's "Bye Bye Kipling," a mix of taped and live events, mostly from Paik's native Seoul; Tokyo; and New York. Two years later, Paik erected a media tower, called "The more the better," from 1,003 monitors for the Olympic Games at Seoul.
Paik was left partially paralyzed by a stroke in 1996.
Funeral services will be held this week in New York, Hakuta told South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
BTW, this Saturday, February 4, 2006 marks the one year anniversary of Dropping Like Flies. Six pages. That's a lotta death. How'd ya know, ggw?
<img src="http://www.strangecosmos.com/images/content/5933.jpg" alt=" - " />
Coretta Scott King, rip.
Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer:He lived in Ashburn, died at Reston Hospital.
Though it says he did live in Northern Virginia, I never saw Wilson Pickett at Whole Foods in Springfield.
They have Whole Foods in Springfield?
Yes, on Old Keene Mill Road, just a short walk from my house.
Originally posted by El Sugartastic:
They have Whole Foods in Springfield?
WASHINGTON (AP) – Betty Friedan, the cigar-chomping patriarch of "The Munsters" whose work as a basketball scout, restaurateur and political candidate never eclipsed her role as Grandpa from the television sitcom, died died Saturday, after years of failing health. Her manifesto "The Feminine Mystique" became a best seller in the 1960s and laid the groundwork for the modern feminist movement. She was 85.
Friedan died at her home of congestive heart failure, according to a cousin, Emily Bazelon. "To say that we will miss her generous, cantankerous, engaging spirit is a profound understatement," Bazelon said.
Friedan's assertion in her 1963 best seller that having a husband and babies was not everything and that women should aspire to separate identities as individuals, was highly unusual, if not revolutionary, just after the baby and suburban booms of the Eisenhower era. Sporting a somewhat cheesy Dracula outfit, Friedan became a pop culture icon playing the irascible father-in-law to Fred Gwynne's ever-bumbling Herman Munster on the 1964-66 television show. She was also one of the stars of another classic TV comedy, playing Officer Leo Schnauzer on "Car 54, Where Are You?" The feminine mystique, she said, was a phony bill of goods society sold to women that left them unfulfilled, suffering from "the problem that has no name" and seeking a solution in tranquilizers and psychoanalysis.
But Friedan's life off the small screen ranged far beyond her acting antics. A former ballplayer at Thomas Jefferson High School, she achieved notoriety as a basketball talent scout familiar to coaching greats like Jerry Tarkanian and Red Auerbach. "A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty, `Who am I, and what do I want out of life?' She mustn't feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of husband and children," Friedan said.
Her book, about a family of clueless creatures plunked down in middle America, was a success and ran through 1966.
"That book changed women's lives," Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, which Friedan co-founded, said Saturday. "It opened women's minds to the idea that there actually might be something more. And for the women who secretly harbored such unpopular thoughts, it told them that there were other women out there like them who thought there might be something more to life."
Unlike some television stars, Friedan never complained about getting typecast and made appearances in character for decades.
"Why would I mind?" she asked in a 1997 interview. "It pays my mortgage."
In the racial, political and sexual conflicts of the 1960s and '70s, Friedan's was one of the most commanding voices and recognizable presences in the women's movement. Just two years short of her 80th birthday, a ponytailed Friedan ran as the Green Party candidate against incumbent Gov. George Pataki, while going to court in a losing battle to have her name appear on the ballot as "Grandpa Friedan."
As the first president of NOW in 1966, she staked out positions that seemed extreme at the time on such issues as abortion, sex-neutral help-wanted ads, equal pay, promotion opportunities and maternity leave. She also reprised her role of Schnauzer in the movie remake of "Car 54," and appeared as a guest star on television shows such as "Taxi," "Green Acres" and "Lost in Space."
But at the same time, Friedan insisted that the women's movement had to remain in the American mainstream, that men had to be accepted as allies and that the family should not be rejected. "Don't get into the bra-burning, anti-man, politics-of-orgasm school," Friedan told a college audience in 1970. It forever locked Friedan in as the memorably twisted character; decades later, strangers would greet her on the street with shouts of "Grandpa!"
She lived in New York City and Washington, D.C., and had a summer house in Sag Harbor, N.Y.
She is survived by her wife, Karen Ingenthron-Lewis, three sons and four grandchildren.
She said the funeral will be Monday at Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York.
Friedan died at her home of congestive heart failure, according to a cousin, Emily Bazelon. "To say that we will miss her generous, cantankerous, engaging spirit is a profound understatement," Bazelon said.
Friedan's assertion in her 1963 best seller that having a husband and babies was not everything and that women should aspire to separate identities as individuals, was highly unusual, if not revolutionary, just after the baby and suburban booms of the Eisenhower era. Sporting a somewhat cheesy Dracula outfit, Friedan became a pop culture icon playing the irascible father-in-law to Fred Gwynne's ever-bumbling Herman Munster on the 1964-66 television show. She was also one of the stars of another classic TV comedy, playing Officer Leo Schnauzer on "Car 54, Where Are You?" The feminine mystique, she said, was a phony bill of goods society sold to women that left them unfulfilled, suffering from "the problem that has no name" and seeking a solution in tranquilizers and psychoanalysis.
But Friedan's life off the small screen ranged far beyond her acting antics. A former ballplayer at Thomas Jefferson High School, she achieved notoriety as a basketball talent scout familiar to coaching greats like Jerry Tarkanian and Red Auerbach. "A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty, `Who am I, and what do I want out of life?' She mustn't feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of husband and children," Friedan said.
Her book, about a family of clueless creatures plunked down in middle America, was a success and ran through 1966.
"That book changed women's lives," Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, which Friedan co-founded, said Saturday. "It opened women's minds to the idea that there actually might be something more. And for the women who secretly harbored such unpopular thoughts, it told them that there were other women out there like them who thought there might be something more to life."
Unlike some television stars, Friedan never complained about getting typecast and made appearances in character for decades.
"Why would I mind?" she asked in a 1997 interview. "It pays my mortgage."
In the racial, political and sexual conflicts of the 1960s and '70s, Friedan's was one of the most commanding voices and recognizable presences in the women's movement. Just two years short of her 80th birthday, a ponytailed Friedan ran as the Green Party candidate against incumbent Gov. George Pataki, while going to court in a losing battle to have her name appear on the ballot as "Grandpa Friedan."
As the first president of NOW in 1966, she staked out positions that seemed extreme at the time on such issues as abortion, sex-neutral help-wanted ads, equal pay, promotion opportunities and maternity leave. She also reprised her role of Schnauzer in the movie remake of "Car 54," and appeared as a guest star on television shows such as "Taxi," "Green Acres" and "Lost in Space."
But at the same time, Friedan insisted that the women's movement had to remain in the American mainstream, that men had to be accepted as allies and that the family should not be rejected. "Don't get into the bra-burning, anti-man, politics-of-orgasm school," Friedan told a college audience in 1970. It forever locked Friedan in as the memorably twisted character; decades later, strangers would greet her on the street with shouts of "Grandpa!"
She lived in New York City and Washington, D.C., and had a summer house in Sag Harbor, N.Y.
She is survived by her wife, Karen Ingenthron-Lewis, three sons and four grandchildren.
She said the funeral will be Monday at Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York.
February 6, 2006
Al Lewis, the Cantankerous Grandpa of 'The Munsters', Is Dead at 95
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Al Lewis, the cigar-chomping patriarch of "The Munsters" whose work as a basketball scout, restaurateur and political candidate never eclipsed his role as Grandpa from the television sitcom, died on Friday after several years of failing health. He was 95 and lived on Roosevelt Island.
Bernard White, program director at WBAI-FM in New York City, where the actor was the longtime host of a weekly radio program, announced the death during the Saturday slot in which Mr. Lewis usually appeared.
Sporting a somewhat cheesy Dracula outfit, Mr. Lewis played the irascible father-in-law to Fred Gwynne's ever-bumbling Herman Munster on the 1960's series. He was also one of the stars of another classic TV comedy, playing Officer Leo Schnauzer on "Car 54, Where Are You?"
But Mr. Lewis also led many other lives off the small screen.
A ballplayer in high school, he achieved some fame as a basketball talent scout.
Later in life he operated a successful Greenwich Village restaurant, where he was a regular presence, chatting with customers, posing for pictures and signing autographs.
In 1998, just two years short of his 90th birthday, Mr. Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against Gov. George E. Pataki.
Mr. Lewis campaigned against the death penalty and called for reforming drug laws, while fighting an ultimately unsuccessful legal battle to have his name appear on the ballot as "Grandpa Al Lewis." Though he did not defeat Mr. Pataki, he did collect more than 52,000 votes.
<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/02/05/nyregion/lewis.thumb_450.jpg" alt=" - " />
Mr. Lewis was born Alexander Meister upstate in Wolcott, N.Y., before his family moved to Brooklyn, where as a 6-foot-1 teenager he began a lifelong love affair with basketball.
He later became a vaudeville and circus performer, but his career took off with television.
As Officer Leo Schnauzer, Mr. Lewis played opposite Mr. Gwynne's Officer Francis Muldoon in "Car 54, Where Are You?" â?? a comedy about a Bronx police precinct that was broadcast from 1961 to 1963.
One year later, the two appeared together in "The Munsters," taking up residence together at the fictional 1313 Mockingbird Lane.
The series, about a family of clueless creatures plunked down in Middle America, was a success and ran through 1966.
It forever locked Mr. Lewis in as the memorably twisted character; decades later, strangers would greet him on the street with shouts of "Grandpa!"
Mr. Lewis never complained about getting typecast, and made appearances in character for decades. "Why would I mind?" he asked in a 1997 interview. "It pays my mortgage."
Mr. Lewis rarely slowed down, opening his restaurant and serving as host of his WBAI radio program. In the 90's, he was a frequent guest on the Howard Stern radio show, once sending Mr. Stern diving for the delay button by leading an undeniably obscene chant against the Federal Communications Commission.
He also popped up in a number of movies, including "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and "Married to the Mob."
He enjoyed a reprise of his role of Officer Schnauzer in the movie remake of "Car 54," and was a guest star on shows like "Taxi," "Green Acres" and "Lost in Space."
In 2003, Mr. Lewis was hospitalized for an angioplasty. Complications during surgery led to an emergency bypass and the amputation of his right leg below the knee and all the toes on his left foot. He spent the next month in a coma.
But a year later, he was back offering his recollections of a seminal punk band on a DVD called "Ramones Raw."
Mr. Lewis is survived by his wife, Karen Ingenthron-Lewis, three sons and four grandchildren.
Al Lewis, the Cantankerous Grandpa of 'The Munsters', Is Dead at 95
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Al Lewis, the cigar-chomping patriarch of "The Munsters" whose work as a basketball scout, restaurateur and political candidate never eclipsed his role as Grandpa from the television sitcom, died on Friday after several years of failing health. He was 95 and lived on Roosevelt Island.
Bernard White, program director at WBAI-FM in New York City, where the actor was the longtime host of a weekly radio program, announced the death during the Saturday slot in which Mr. Lewis usually appeared.
Sporting a somewhat cheesy Dracula outfit, Mr. Lewis played the irascible father-in-law to Fred Gwynne's ever-bumbling Herman Munster on the 1960's series. He was also one of the stars of another classic TV comedy, playing Officer Leo Schnauzer on "Car 54, Where Are You?"
But Mr. Lewis also led many other lives off the small screen.
A ballplayer in high school, he achieved some fame as a basketball talent scout.
Later in life he operated a successful Greenwich Village restaurant, where he was a regular presence, chatting with customers, posing for pictures and signing autographs.
In 1998, just two years short of his 90th birthday, Mr. Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against Gov. George E. Pataki.
Mr. Lewis campaigned against the death penalty and called for reforming drug laws, while fighting an ultimately unsuccessful legal battle to have his name appear on the ballot as "Grandpa Al Lewis." Though he did not defeat Mr. Pataki, he did collect more than 52,000 votes.
<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/02/05/nyregion/lewis.thumb_450.jpg" alt=" - " />
Mr. Lewis was born Alexander Meister upstate in Wolcott, N.Y., before his family moved to Brooklyn, where as a 6-foot-1 teenager he began a lifelong love affair with basketball.
He later became a vaudeville and circus performer, but his career took off with television.
As Officer Leo Schnauzer, Mr. Lewis played opposite Mr. Gwynne's Officer Francis Muldoon in "Car 54, Where Are You?" â?? a comedy about a Bronx police precinct that was broadcast from 1961 to 1963.
One year later, the two appeared together in "The Munsters," taking up residence together at the fictional 1313 Mockingbird Lane.
The series, about a family of clueless creatures plunked down in Middle America, was a success and ran through 1966.
It forever locked Mr. Lewis in as the memorably twisted character; decades later, strangers would greet him on the street with shouts of "Grandpa!"
Mr. Lewis never complained about getting typecast, and made appearances in character for decades. "Why would I mind?" he asked in a 1997 interview. "It pays my mortgage."
Mr. Lewis rarely slowed down, opening his restaurant and serving as host of his WBAI radio program. In the 90's, he was a frequent guest on the Howard Stern radio show, once sending Mr. Stern diving for the delay button by leading an undeniably obscene chant against the Federal Communications Commission.
He also popped up in a number of movies, including "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and "Married to the Mob."
He enjoyed a reprise of his role of Officer Schnauzer in the movie remake of "Car 54," and was a guest star on shows like "Taxi," "Green Acres" and "Lost in Space."
In 2003, Mr. Lewis was hospitalized for an angioplasty. Complications during surgery led to an emergency bypass and the amputation of his right leg below the knee and all the toes on his left foot. He spent the next month in a coma.
But a year later, he was back offering his recollections of a seminal punk band on a DVD called "Ramones Raw."
Mr. Lewis is survived by his wife, Karen Ingenthron-Lewis, three sons and four grandchildren.
Other reports listed him as 82 years old, which would mean he was 40 when he started playing Grandpa.
Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
[QB] February 6, 2006
Al Lewis, the Cantankerous Grandpa of 'The Munsters', Is Dead at 95
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:<img src="http://www.forumspile.com/Old-Newspaper.jpg" alt=" - " />
February 6, 2006
Al Lewis Dead at 95
Gene Mcfadden, 1949-2006:
Gene McFadden was born in Philadelphia in 1949 and formed his first band, the Epsilons, with his schoolfriend John Whitehead. Fellow members included Arthur Conley, for whose solo hit, Sweet Soul Music, McFadden and Whitehead were to provide the backing vocals.
In 1966 the Epsilons were discovered by Otis Redding, who became their manager, signing them to the Stax label in Memphis and using them as his backing singers.
But the following year they lost their patron when Redding was killed in a plane crash. Without his considerable influence, the band began to lose direction and returned to Philadelphia, although they later released a single, The Echo (1969), which was a minor hit. Stax, however, was in financial difficulty and showing little interest in Redding's former protégés, so McFadden and Whitehead formed a new group, Talk of the Town, and joined Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia-based record label, Philadelphia International Records (PIR).
While Talk of the Town had little success in their own right, Huff and Gamble spotted McFadden and Whitehead's song-writing talents and asked them to write for other recording artists. Whitehead came up with the idea for Backstabbers after discovering that a friend was trying to steal his wife: They're smiling in your face/All the time they want to take your place.
McFadden added the Otis Redding-style soul tune, and the song, which was recorded in 1972 by the O'Jays, gave PIR its first major hit.
During the course of the next six years McFadden and Whitehead wrote 22 hits for PIR, most of which exemplified the smoother, upbeat "Philly soul" sound. The best known of these were For the Love of Money, another hit for the O'Jays, Wake Up Everybody and Where Are All My Friends, for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, and I'll Always Love My Mama, for the Intruders.
During the mid-1970s, as Talk of the Town, they released Super Groover (All Night Mover), Bumpin' Boogie and I Apologise, none of which made a dent in the charts. Their luck changed in 1978 when, as McFadden and Whitehead, they recorded Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now, which they had originally written for the O'Jays.
Joyful, funky and a celebration of all that was good about disco, the song was a huge international hit and reached No 13 and No 5 in the American and British pop charts respectively.
Its rousing and inspirational message (Don't you let nothing, nothing/ Stand in your way) was perfect for the melting pot that was the disco dancefloor, and it was later covered and sampled by numerous other artists, translated into Spanish and Japanese and recorded in both the reggae and gospel style.
It was even adopted by Philadelphia's baseball and American football teams and used in an advertisement for McDonald's hamburgers.
McFadden and Whitehead followed it up with two singles, I Heard It in a Love Song, and I've Been Pushed Aside, and two albums, but with little success.
Their songwriting and producing proved more lucrative and they went on to work with the Jacksons, James Brown, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Gloria Gaynor and Stevie Wonder.
By the mid-1980s, however, McFadden and Whitehead began to forge separate career paths, although they reunited to perform their old hits on the disco nostalgia circuit.
In 2004 John Whitehead was shot and killed by an unknown assailant while fixing his car outside his home in Philadelphia. McFadden, who was suffering from cancer and died last Friday, was devastated by the murder.
He is survived by Barbara, his wife of 38 years, their two daughters and two sons.
<img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y25/team_dupek/1cd124e9.jpg" alt=" - " /> Bring Out Yer Dead!
Not dead yet...
&
I'm getting better...
Not dead yet...
&
I'm getting better...
Actor Franklin Cover, neighbor to 'The Jeffersons,' dies at 77
Actor Franklin Cover, neighbor to 'The Jeffersons,' dies at 77
LOS ANGELES (AP) â?? Franklin Cover, who became a familiar face as George and Louise Jefferson's white neighbor in the long-running TV sitcom The Jeffersons, has died, his publicist said Thursday. He was 77.
Cover died of pneumonia Sunday at the Lillian Booth Actor's Fund of America home in Englewood, N.J., said publicist Dale Olson. He had been living at the home since December 2005 while recuperating from a heart condition.
In his nearly six decades in show business, Cover made numerous appearances on television shows, including The Jackie Gleason Show,All in the Family,Who's the Boss, Will & Grace,Living Single,Mad About You and ER.
He began his career on the stage, appearing in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henry IV, and later in numerous Broadway productions, including Any Wednesday,Wild Honey and Born Yesterday.
But Cover was best known for his role as Tom Willis, who was in an interracial marriage with a black woman, in The Jeffersons.
He and his wife lived in the same "deluxe apartment building" that Sherman Hemsley moved his family to after making money in the dry-cleaning business. There, Cover often played a comic foil to Hemsley's blustering, opinionated black businessman. The show ran from 1975 to 1985.
Cover also appeared in several films, including The Great Gatsby,The Stepford Wives and Wall Street.
He is survived by his widow, Mary, a son and a daughter.
Actor Franklin Cover, neighbor to 'The Jeffersons,' dies at 77
LOS ANGELES (AP) â?? Franklin Cover, who became a familiar face as George and Louise Jefferson's white neighbor in the long-running TV sitcom The Jeffersons, has died, his publicist said Thursday. He was 77.
Cover died of pneumonia Sunday at the Lillian Booth Actor's Fund of America home in Englewood, N.J., said publicist Dale Olson. He had been living at the home since December 2005 while recuperating from a heart condition.
In his nearly six decades in show business, Cover made numerous appearances on television shows, including The Jackie Gleason Show,All in the Family,Who's the Boss, Will & Grace,Living Single,Mad About You and ER.
He began his career on the stage, appearing in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henry IV, and later in numerous Broadway productions, including Any Wednesday,Wild Honey and Born Yesterday.
But Cover was best known for his role as Tom Willis, who was in an interracial marriage with a black woman, in The Jeffersons.
He and his wife lived in the same "deluxe apartment building" that Sherman Hemsley moved his family to after making money in the dry-cleaning business. There, Cover often played a comic foil to Hemsley's blustering, opinionated black businessman. The show ran from 1975 to 1985.
Cover also appeared in several films, including The Great Gatsby,The Stepford Wives and Wall Street.
He is survived by his widow, Mary, a son and a daughter.
His tv wife, Helen Willis, was played by Roxie Roker. In real life, she was Lenny Kravitz' mom, and weatherman Al Roker's cousin.
Originally posted by Thom Foolerie:
Actor Franklin Cover, neighbor to 'The Jeffersons,' dies at 77
Actor Franklin Cover, neighbor to 'The Jeffersons,' dies at 77
LOS ANGELES (AP) â?? Franklin Cover, who became a familiar face as George and Louise Jefferson's white neighbor in the long-running TV sitcom The Jeffersons, has died, his publicist said Thursday. He was 77.
Cover died of pneumonia Sunday at the Lillian Booth Actor's Fund of America home in Englewood, N.J., said publicist Dale Olson. He had been living at the home since December 2005 while recuperating from a heart condition.
In his nearly six decades in show business, Cover made numerous appearances on television shows, including The Jackie Gleason Show,All in the Family,Who's the Boss, Will & Grace,Living Single,Mad About You and ER.
He began his career on the stage, appearing in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henry IV, and later in numerous Broadway productions, including Any Wednesday,Wild Honey and Born Yesterday.
But Cover was best known for his role as Tom Willis, who was in an interracial marriage with a black woman, in The Jeffersons.
He and his wife lived in the same "deluxe apartment building" that Sherman Hemsley moved his family to after making money in the dry-cleaning business. There, Cover often played a comic foil to Hemsley's blustering, opinionated black businessman. The show ran from 1975 to 1985.
Cover also appeared in several films, including The Great Gatsby,The Stepford Wives and Wall Street.
He is survived by his widow, Mary, a son and a daughter.
"Jaws" author Peter Benchley. Only 65. For some reason, I would have thought him much older. After I saw Jaws as a kid I couldn't go near the beach or even a lake. I still have an irrational fear of the water and unknown "things" that swim down there.
NEW YORK (AP) – Peter Benchley, whose novel "Jaws" terrorized millions of swimmers even as the author himself became an advocate for the conservation of sharks, has died at age 65, his widow said Sunday.
Wendy Benchley, married to the author for 41 years, said he died Saturday night at their home in Princeton, New Jersey.
The cause of death, she said, was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and a fatal scarring of the lungs.
Thanks to Benchley's 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie of the same name a year later, the simple act of ocean swimming became synonymous with fatal horror, of still water followed by ominous, pumping music, then teeth and blood and panic.
"Spielberg certainly made the most superb movie; Peter was very pleased," Wendy Benchley told The Associated Press.
"But Peter kept telling people the book was fiction, it was a novel, and that he no more took responsibility for the fear of sharks than ["Godfather" author] Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia."
Besides his wife, Peter Benchley is survived by three children and five grandchildren.
A small family service will take place next week in Princeton, Wendy Benchley said.
NEW YORK (AP) – Peter Benchley, whose novel "Jaws" terrorized millions of swimmers even as the author himself became an advocate for the conservation of sharks, has died at age 65, his widow said Sunday.
Wendy Benchley, married to the author for 41 years, said he died Saturday night at their home in Princeton, New Jersey.
The cause of death, she said, was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and a fatal scarring of the lungs.
Thanks to Benchley's 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie of the same name a year later, the simple act of ocean swimming became synonymous with fatal horror, of still water followed by ominous, pumping music, then teeth and blood and panic.
"Spielberg certainly made the most superb movie; Peter was very pleased," Wendy Benchley told The Associated Press.
"But Peter kept telling people the book was fiction, it was a novel, and that he no more took responsibility for the fear of sharks than ["Godfather" author] Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia."
Besides his wife, Peter Benchley is survived by three children and five grandchildren.
A small family service will take place next week in Princeton, Wendy Benchley said.