All the California dominants eat Topper's Pizza.

Looks like Bret Michaels is next.

Meinhardt Raabe, who played the Munchkin coroner in “The Wizard of Oz” is really most sincerely dead.

http://chestertontribune.com/Obituar..._of_oz_mun.htm

Many years ago when I was still nursing, I cared for a very elderly woman who had once worked for the family of Sir Micheal Redgrave. It was during the war years and later, and she was also godmother of Lynn Redgrave who died today.

Just before my patient died in London when she was almost a hundred years old, Lynn flew in from La La Land and spent some time quietly caring for the frail old woman and talking about the good old days, when all the Redgrave clan were living by the river in Chiswick.

I found her to be the least precious of the family and the most generous with her time. She brought great happiness and comfort to a dying woman and I really liked her.

I hate cancer.

Stormy Weather, indeed.
 

:(

RIP, Ms Horne.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/05/1....html?hpt=Sbin

:(

Every time I hear her name, the lyrics just arise unbidden in my head...


But during...
National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek
It's fun to eulogize
The people you despise
As long as you don't let 'em in your school

He's one of the 20% who actually survived. I was scared for his family and fans, but I didn't really care for him on TV at all.

I cried all day when Patrick Swayze died. I think it was because I grew up watching his movies, and I could totally recollect times in my life just by watching certain movies of his. His life outside Hollywood was just as spectacular, and he had a very loving marriage that I think everyone could admire, and something I strive for. He was an amazing man.

(I didn't scroll back in the thread- I'm going to assume he's already been listed- but I'm new dammit!! :P )

Tom Lehrer is funny as hell. My father bought "That was the Year That Was" when it was originally released. My siblings and I thought it was hilarious, now my son and his friends are into it.

Not a "celebrity" but the end of an era
 

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1


NEW YORK (AP) - A Broadway public relations firm says the last Ziegfeld Girl has died.
Boneau/Bryan-Brown says Doris Eaton Travis died Tuesday at age 106. It hasn't said where or how she died.

Travis was one of the legendary Ziegfeld Follies Girls, the chorus girls who wore elaborate costumes for the Ziegfeld Follies series of Broadway theatrical productions in the early 1900s.

She also was a supporter of the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS fundraising organization and appeared often in its annual Easter Bonnet Competition.

She was from West Bloomfield, Mich.

holy crap... 106??? Jeez, she's lived lives for TWO people

Shit, so that means ONE person only has 53 years??! I don't have much time left, then...:mecry:

RIP Gary Coleman

Goodnight, catch-phrase slinging short non-threatening black dude who generally seemed happy with his lot in life.

To quote his name-sake character from "Avenue Q", "it sucks to be me."

they didn't fully explain this purported "fall" though. ???

I saw the headline only--what kind of a stroke did he have anyway?

I heard he fell while having a seizure and hit his head

and boy, there were sure a bunch of unhappy and dysfunctional people that came out of Different Strokes. Makes me wonder about it and the people behind it.

a diff'rent one?

ouch :lol: ouch :lol: ouch

Clappity clap clap clap.

I had to endure an entire night of short life jokes from the cow orkers.

That, however, is brilliant.

Won't get much play outside of the Philadelphia area, but another piece of our childhood has passed ... Wee Willie Webber (a DJ on a local Top 40 station, but also the host of afternoon children's TV programming, including introducing us all to the wonders of Ultraman) died this week.

Art Linkletter

Dennis Hopper has left the building.

that really is a bummer. Hope you have fun in the afterlife, Dennis!

There have certainly been a lot of them this year - is anyone scoring in the pool?

Been there, done that. lol!!

I just watched Blue Velvet, had forgotten Hopper's great role in that.

My grandma had an Art Linkletter's Kids Say the Darndest Things book. I read that thing cover to cover, a few times, after I first found it hiding in a part of the closet that had just a handful of books. A treasure of a find!

RIP to both.

I just visualized an unholy mashup of Art Linkletter's Kid's say the darndest things with Frank Booth. I'm going to think of puppies now.

Never mix Lynch and Darn Things Said. :headshake

lots of weird and mysterious celebrity (or near-celebrity) deaths recently. What's up with Ted Koppel's son? Goes on a fatal drinking binge? Parties with a strange man (a waiter, no less) when he has a girlfriend and a new baby? Has a roommate at 40 years of age? I guess he's gonna carry that big L on the forehead into the afterlife.

Coleman's wife's call to 911? unfuckingbelievable! Who doesn't help their dying spouse because they're afraid of a little blood?

Oh, and she made the decision to "pull the plug" and yet they weren't even married...had been divorced a couple years!

That whole "I can't deal with blood" thing would certainly go out the window if someone you loved needed you, wouldn't it?

Weird!

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...-dog-dies.html


Former 'World's Ugliest Dog' Miss Ellie dies at 17
Jun. 3, 2010 06:32 AM
Associated Press
.

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

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

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

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

She will be cremated.

A sad day to be sure.

Well... Would you really want an open casket? :greenface

Well I will miss her "Like I'm the only person who's ever mixed a margarita in a sailor's mouth!" ... RIP Rue McClanahan!

ME too - Thats the second hit for the golden girls this year.
RIP Rue.

And Betty White, the last remaining, might be at the height of her popularity!

RIP Rue.

John Wooden, 99, Legendary U.C.L.A. Coach, Dies
The last shot for the wizard of Westwood!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/sp.../05wooden.html

Ron Zappe, died June 1st.

Nom nom potato chips.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapp%27s)

Anyone who makes food, is aces, with me... so it's always a shame, when they die.

Jimmy Dean country singer and sausage guy has passed. I remember when Big Bad John was popular on the radio.

Some good info here too.

Link


As an aside - Does it seem like there are a ton of famous people dying lately?

Yes

I see two factors:

1) Age. The celebrities with whom one is most familiar usually come from the generation above. Their time is come -especially for those who lived in the fast lane.

2) Technology. More TV, more movies, more internet, more media.... more celebrities to die and more coverage of their death.

In some cases, not enough. My dream "celebrity" death headline:

"Cast of "Jersey Shore" die in horrific hottub accident!"

There are too many "Dream Celebrity Deaths" to list. I don't really want them to die, I just want them to go away and shut up.

Manute Bol dead at 47

R.I.P.
Edith Shane
http://i45.tinypic.com/xemn4g.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/bu...hayek.html?hpw

Nicolas Hayek Dies at 82; His Swatch Saved an Industry
By MARGALIT FOX
Published: June 28, 2010

Nicolas Hayek, a Lebanese-born business consultant who is widely credited with having saved the Swiss watch industry with the introduction of the Swatch, the inexpensive, plastic — and, as it transpired, highly collectible — wristwatch that made its debut in 1983, died Monday in Biel, Switzerland. He was 82.


Salvatore Di Nolfi/KEYSTONE, via Associated Press
Nicolas Hayek was asked to help shut the troubled Swiss watch industry, but instead he revived it by introducing the Swatch.
Mr. Hayek, a founder and the chairman of the Swatch Group, died of heart failure while working at the company’s headquarters, according to an announcement on the company Web site.

The formation of the Swatch Group, which in addition to Swatch today comprises high-end watch brands like Breguet, Omega, Longines, Tissot, Calvin Klein and Mido, made Mr. Hayek one of Switzerland’s wealthiest men. The exquisite irony is that the company came about after Mr. Hayek was brought in to help shut the foundering Swiss watch industry altogether.

A flamboyant figure with a roguish sense of humor, Mr. Hayek was “a rare phenomenon in Europe — a genuine business celebrity,” as The Harvard Business Review described him in 1993.

Nicolas Hayek was born in Beirut in 1928 and moved to Switzerland as a young man. After studying mathematics, physics and chemistry at the University of Lyon in France, he started a consulting firm, Hayek Engineering, in Zurich in the early 1960s.

By the 1970s, the vaunted Swiss watch industry, a pillar of the national economy for centuries, was in jeopardy. Japanese watchmakers like Seiko had begun to undercut Swiss prices. And public tastes were shifting from the finely wrought analog timepieces in which Swiss artisans had long specialized to the pale flickering faces of mass-market digital watches.

In the early 1980s, with no apparent remedy in sight, a group of Swiss banks asked Mr. Hayek to compile a report on how the watchmaking industry might best be liquidated. Instead, he merged two of its former titans, Asuag and SSIH, which between them owned brands like Omega, Longines and Tissot.

Mr. Hayek bought a majority stake in the reorganized group, known as SMH — the Société Suisse de Microélectronique et d’Horlogerie. (He was fond of telling interviewers that the initials stood for “Sa Majesté Hayek” — “His Royal Highness Hayek.”)

In 1983, SMH introduced the Swatch. Lightweight, with vibrantly colored bands and breezy novelty faces, it was remarkably inexpensive to produce. (It had 51 parts, as opposed to the nearly 100 needed to make a traditional wristwatch.) It retailed for less than $35 when it was first marketed in the United States later that year.

The Swatch quickly became a sought-after collector’s item worldwide. It was very likely the first time that ordinary people had even considered owning multiple watches. (Mr. Hayek himself was known to appear in public wearing as many as eight — four to an arm — though at least a few of these were from his luxury brands.) Several hundred million Swatches have been sold since the brand’s inception.

The success of the Swatch also resuscitated the high-end brands under the SMH umbrella. The company, whose name was changed to the Swatch Group in the 1990s, generated about $4.9 billion in sales last year, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

By redirecting consumers’ attention to Swiss watchmaking as a whole, the little plastic watch lifted all boats. Even the expensive brands, like Breguet, “we will continue to sell — and sell well,” Mr. Hayek told the publication Swiss News in 2008. He added, “We sell the mentality of Switzerland.”

Mr. Hayek stepped down as the Swatch Group’s chief executive in 2002 and was succeeded by his son, Nicolas Jr. His daughter Nayla sits on the company’s board. Information about other survivors could not be confirmed.

Over time, the humble Swatch itself was borne upward by its own success: the company has issued limited-edition Swatches designed by noted artists like Keith Haring. In 1992, The New York Times reported, a Swatch by Kiki Picasso, a pseudonym of the French artist Christian Chapiron, sold at auction at Christie’s in London for $28,000.

A good actress and stunningly beautiful
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/mo....html?_r=1&hpw

Vonetta McGee, Film and TV Actress, Dies at 65
By MARGALIT FOX
Published: July 15, 2010
Vonetta McGee, a film and television actress originally known for blaxploitation pictures like “Blacula,” “Hammer” and “Shaft in Africa,” died on July 9 in Berkeley, Calif. She was 65 and a Berkeley resident.

Vonetta McGee with William Marshall in “Blacula,” from 1972.
The cause was cardiac arrest, said Kelley Nayo, a family spokeswoman.

In “Blacula” (1972), Ms. McGee portrayed the love interest of Mamuwalde (William Marshall), an African prince who, after an ill-fated trip to Transylvania centuries earlier, re-emerges in modern Los Angeles as a member of the thirsty undead.

Reviewing the film in The New York Times, Roger Greenspun called Ms. McGee “just possibly the most beautiful woman currently acting in movies.”

In “Hammer” (1972), Ms. McGee appeared opposite Fred Williamson in the tale of a young black prizefighter. In “Shaft in Africa” (1973), the third installment in the private-eye series starring Richard Roundtree, she played an emir’s daughter.

Ms. McGee’s other films include “The Kremlin Letter” (1970); “Detroit 9000” (1973); “Thomasine & Bushrod” (1974); and “The Eiger Sanction” (1975), directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.

Lawrence Vonetta McGee, named for her father, was born in San Francisco on Jan. 14, 1945. While studying pre-law at San Francisco State College, she became involved in community theater. She left college before graduating to pursue an acting career.

Ms. McGee’s first film work was in Italy, where her credits include the 1968 films “Faustina,” in which she played the title role, and “Il Grande Silenzio” (“The Great Silence”). After seeing her Italian work, Sidney Poitier arranged for her to be cast in her first American film, “The Lost Man” (1969), in which he starred.

In later years Ms. McGee had recurring roles on several television shows, among them “Hell Town,” “Bustin’ Loose,” “L.A. Law” and “Cagney & Lacey,” on which she portrayed the wife of Detective Mark Petrie, played by Carl Lumbly. Ms. McGee and Mr. Lumbly were married in 1986.

Besides Mr. Lumbly, Ms. McGee is survived by their son, Brandon Lumbly; her mother, Alma McGee; three brothers, Donald, Richard and Ronald; and a sister, also named Alma McGee.

Though she was associated in public memory with the genre, Ms. McGee deplored the term “blaxploitation.” It wasn’t the “black” that troubled her — that was a source of pride. It was the “exploitation.”

“She was constantly a person who preferred roles where women got to make choices,” Ms. Nayo said on Friday. “Where women got to be strong.”

Pooka needed my help to reach some dishes on a high shelf in the kitchen cabinet, she said "see that small bowl up there" and I said "so you need my help to reach the minute bowl. ???"

Gloria Stuart died on the 26th. She is most recently famous for playing old Rose in The Titanic.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/20...alg_gloria.jpg

She was quite the babe back in the day.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_v94HclVn6h...ria+Stuart.jpg

RIP Arthur Penn, director of "Bonnie and Clyde", "The Miracle Worker", "The Chase", "Alice's Restaurant", "Little Big Man" and "Penn and Teller Get Killed".

No relation to Sean Penn, Michael Penn, the late Chris Penn, nor to Penn Jillette.

RIP comedian Greg Giraldo, of an accidental overdose of prescription medications.

http://www.tmz.com/2010/09/29/comedi...ription-pills/

Damn - add him to the list...

You forgot to mention Gloria Stuart was 100 years old. Damn! quite a run.

Tony Curtis

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39433821

Stephen J. Cannell

He was responsible for a lot of television that I really, really liked.

Bucket seal has passed.

http://funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/...Fallen+friend/