obituaries

cinema provocateur Ken Russell

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/ken-russell-1927-2011

RIP Ken. A crazy, crazy man.

Hans Reichel, German improv guitar guy and instrument inventor :(

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/news/rip-hans-reichel-avant-garde-guitarist-and-inventor

And of course jazz drummer Paul Motion:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2011/11/paul_motian_obituary.php

Motian

I saw him once way back with Frisell and Lovano and a few years ago with Marilyn Crispell at the Vanguard. I believe it was he who brought the latter to the attention of Lorraine Gordon. RIP.

Wow--Stalin's daughter.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/29/stalin-daughter-svetlana-peters-dies

Wow--Loretta Young and Clark Gable's secret daughter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/arts/television/judy-lewis-secret-daughter-of-hollywood-dies-at-76.html

Whose ears had to be hidden for many years.

Ha. Apparently she had surgery for that as a child. Did you hear first hand stories about this from your dad, Michael?

veteran Eastwood-film-actor Bill McKinney, who also made Ned Beatty squeal like a pig:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/bill-mckinney-1931-2011

- "Gosh, I hope I'm not typecast as Ned Beatty's rapist."
- "Aw, don't worry. When you die in 40 years, I'm sure they'll be talking about something else you did."

well, when your website is called Squeallikeapig....

So that's why I had to settle for squeallikeapig.us.

http://www.aveleyman.com/ActorCredit.aspx?ActorID=11706

ok, now i know who this guy is

http://www.grillwilson.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/ewwbl_bill_mckinney_02.jpg

Dude apparently had his in's with Clint Eastwood.

A pretty good place to be; I never realized that until I started recognizing some of the biker gang showing up in _High Plains Drifter_

The kind of death that really resonates with me: marginal people who were unforgettable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/arts/television/alan-sues-a-laugh-in-cast-mainstay-dies-at-85.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZiplrd-ooE

Aww, Sues was one of my favorites on Laugh-In. As soon as I saw this, I went to Mark Evanier's blog, certain that he'd have a post about this, and sure enough --

http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2011_12_02.html#021747 -- definitely worth reading for the Kate Smith story.

I used to poach on the Laugh-In set, watching them tape on Stage 3 of NBC in Burbank. Alan seemed to be in every sketch I saw and he was very funny, especially in the takes that got too improvisationally silly and dirty to get on the air. He'd do the routine as per the script with Henry Gibson or Joanne Worley and once the director had it on tape, they'd let the cast do it again a few more times playing with the material and pushing it farther and ad-libbing. I don't think a lot of those attempts made it onto NBC but they were awfully funny in a non-broadcast way.

I wonder if the Laugh-In DVDs include any of these alternate takes.

Christopher Logue? Really liked his Homer stuff.

Christopher Logue? Oh no, I just watched him in The Devils, too.

Former Brazil captain Sócrates dies in hospital at the age of 57

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/dec/04/brazil-socrates-dies-hospital-57

shit, that sucks about Logue. RIP.

RIP Sócrates

RIP soul singer Howard Tate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Tate

http://tothesublime.typepad.com/to_the_sublime/2011/12/howard-tate-rip.html

RIP Hubert Sumlin.

^ oh shit :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OweEOTY4B4

Damn--J. Blackfoot; Howard Tate and Hubert Sumlin...

stalin's fuckin daughter! attn DLH

Barbara Orbison, widow of Roy and owner of Taylor Swift's publishing company

http://news.yahoo.com/barbara-orbison-widow-roy-orbison-dies-la-041706874.html

Harry Morgan aka Col. Sherman T. Potter, RIP @ 96

Aw, RIP. I liked him as Bill Gannon in the few Dragnet (revival) episodes I've seen.

"In July 1997, Morgan was charged with abusing his wife the previous year, after a beating left her with injuries to her eye, foot, and arm.[7] Prosecutors dropped the charges after the 82-year-old actor completed a six-month domestic violence counseling program."

This completely baffled me at the time

Yow, I'd forgotten all about that happening.

Comic Book artist Jerry Robinson passes at 89. RIP, Jerry.

Author and critic Gilbert Adair
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/dec/09/gilbert-adair-dies

Translator of Georges Perec's 'A Void' too

Pink Floyd roadie Alan Styles... the Alan in "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" and the guy on the left of Ummagumma's back cover

http://www.minilps.net/images/stories/shop_image/product/pink-floyd-ummagumma-back-cover.jpg

http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/latest/pink-floyd-roadie-alan-styles-passes-away.html

^^RIP. He ruled.

Gilbert Adair, film writer/novelist

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2011/12/gilbert-adair-1944-2011.html

was mentioned on Friday but thanks for the link

Bill Tapia, the Duke of Uke, at 103

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/06/local/la-me-bill-tapia-20111206

Deserves his own thread, but maybe it should wait until ILX returns...

RIP Russell Hoban

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/14/russell-hoban-dies-86

yeah RIP Russell. can't think of any other author who wrote great books for both 5-year old me and 35-year old me

RIP Bert Schneider

TCM "Remembers" reel for 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=C1ZOlXXwhe0

Maybe this one embeds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ZOlXXwhe0

For Easy Rider, The Last Picture Show, and Five Easy Pieces, Bert Schneider was pretty important.

Don Sharp, director of cult schlock-horror classic 'Psychomania', and 'The Face of Fu Manchu' amongst other Hammer Horrors.

Sundazed shared this on FB earlier today...

We're brokenhearted to report that our good friend Sean Bonniwell (The Music Machine) has passed. I was beyond fortunate to have spent time in the studio with Sean, working on Music Machine material, asking a zillion questions, and just hanging out... Rest assured that his talent was no fluke - Sean was a brilliant musician, a kind man, possessed an impossibly-sharp sense of humor, and was intuitive to the point of leaving you wide-eyed. We remained good pals throughout the years. We'll miss you, Sean. And we'll see you again.

Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood of The Mothers of Invention.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/arts/helen-frankenthaler-abstract-painter-dies-at-83.html?_r=1&hp

Already mentioned on the jazzy sandbox thread, but multi-instrumentalist/composer Sam Rivers:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/music/os-sam-rivers-dead-122711-20111227,0,7009901.story

i didn't know who he was before this, but former SNL and Kids-In-The-Hall writer joe bodolai took his own life yesterday. the notes he left, leading up to his suicide, are heartbreaking.

Lynn Samuels will probably only mean anything to New Yorkers of a certain age; a call-in mainstay on WBAI and then WABC. Her voice could clean an oven, and I called her a few dozen times from the '80s on WBAL til her WABC stint ended about ten years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/nyregion/lynn-samuels-radio-talk-show-host-dies-at-69.html

(Unmentioned by the Times is that she did sound for awhile at the old Folk City bar in the Village.)

aw

RIP cheetah:

PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) — A Florida animal sanctuary says Cheetah the chimpanzee from the Tarzan movies of the early 1930s has died at age 80.

The Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor announced that Cheetah died Dec. 24 of kidney failure.
Sanctuary outreach director Debbie Cobb on Wednesday told The Tampa Tribune (http://bit.ly/rRuTeJ ) that Cheetah was outgoing, loved finger painting and liked to see people laugh. She says he seemed to be tuned into human feelings.

Cheetah was the comic relief in the Tarzan series starring American Olympic gold medal swimmer Johnny Weissmuller. Cobb says Cheetah came to the sanctuary from Weissmuller's estate sometime around 1960.
Cobb says Cheetah wasn't a troublemaker. Still, sanctuary volunteer Ron Priest says that when the chimp didn't like what was going on, he would throw feces.

omg i'm "of a certain age"

I periodically listened to Samuels on satellite radio during the 2008 campaign. Pretty sure it was her--gravelly voice, swore a lot? She was stridently pro-Hillary at the time.

I never heard her Sirius show, but judging by a couple podcast links they've put on her website, yeah, she embraced the lack of censorship:

http://lynnsamuels.com/

She was anathema at both NY stations... called both Bushes fascists or morons on WABC, and said she believed abortion was murder on Pacifica.

She also mailed me her copy of Moby's "Play" bcz she hated it.

Well, that was nice of her.

I really enjoyed Cheetah's "autobiography," Me, Cheetah. RIP.

how well did Tarzan REALLY know the jungle, calling a chimp Cheetah?