Departed During 2024

[CharlieOneSix]

Steve Wright at the age of 69 - probably the best BBC Radio 2 presenter. Really enjoyed his programmes over many years.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68287707

[PHXPhlyer]

Pamela Salem, Miss Moneypenny in Bond movie ‘Never Say Never Again,’ dead at 80

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/23/entertai ... index.html

London
CNN
—
British actress Pamela Salem, who starred alongside Sean Connery as Miss Moneypenny in the 1983 James Bond film “Never Say Never Again,” has died at age 80, production company Big Finish announced Friday.

Salem, who was born in India in 1944, also worked with the late Connery in the 1978 comedy heist movie “The First Great Train Robbery.”

Her TV career included roles in TV shows including “ER,” “The West Wing” and “Doctor Who.”

Salem, who moved to the US in the 1990s, also enjoyed a career as a co-writer and radio and theater producer alongside her husband Michael O’Hagan, Big Finish said.

Big Finish producer David Richardson led tributes to “lovely” Salem, recalling: “Whenever there was a Big Finish recording for her, she’d fly in from Miami on her own steam, without fuss or fanfare, and appear at the studio armed with the warmest smiles, the biggest hugs and often presents.

“She was a very gentle person – always interested in everyone, from her co-stars to the production team to the guest actors and visitors.

He added: “As a performer she’d been on my radar since I was a child – I’d seen and enjoyed her in Jason King, Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, Into the Labyrinth… as I grew up she was Miss Moneypenny in Never Say Never Again, appeared in dozens of episodes of EastEnders and after moving to the US guest starred in ER and The West Wing. Pamela had an extraordinary career and carried it lightly.”

PP

[Karearea]

A face familiar to me from many films and television series:

John Savident (21 January 1938 – 21 February 2024) was a British actor, known for his numerous television roles, including his portrayal of Fred Elliott in the soap opera Coronation Street from 1994 to 2006. He was also known for his performance as Monsieur Firmin in the West End cast of The Phantom of the Opera. Other credits included The Avengers (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Professionals (1978), Blake's 7 (1979), Yes Minister (1980), Gandhi (1982), The Remains of the Day (1993) and Middlemarch (1994). ...

Wikipedia: John Savident

Guardian: John Savident obituary

[PHXPhlyer]

Richard Lewis, revered comic and 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' star, dies at 76
The comedian and actor passed away peacefully in his home after suffering a heart attack on Tuesday night.

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop ... rcna141028

Richard Lewis, the beloved stand-up comedian and a star of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," has died, his publicist announced.

He was 76 years old.

Lewis passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack Tuesday night, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham.

The actor previously revealed that he had been living with Parkinson's disease in April of last year.

Joyce Lapinsky, Lewis’ wife, "thanks everyone for all the love, friendship and support and asks for privacy at this time," according to the statement shared by Abraham.

Lewis can be seen co-starring in the final season of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which is currently airing on HBO.

I liked him in Robin Hood - Men in Tights.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Fuller article on Richard Lewis:

Comedian Richard Lewis dead at 76

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/28/entertai ... index.html

Comedian and actor Richard Lewis, whose self-deprecating humor and acerbic wit in shows like “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Anything but Love” entertained audiences for decades, has died, according to his publicist Jeff Abraham. He was 76.

Abraham said in an email to CNN that the entertainer passed away “peacefully” at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday night after having a heart attack.

In April of 2023, Richard revealed that he had been living with Parkinson’s disease.

Known as a comic’s comic, Lewis made his first appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” in 1974, becoming a staple of the late-night comedy scene.

On screen, Lewis has played himself for years on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” opposite his friend Larry David, at one point joking during an episode this season about which one of them looked worse.

As his career blossomed with cable specials in the 1980s, Lewis also migrated into acting roles, starring opposite Jamie Lee Curtis in the sitcom “Anything but Love,” playing Prince John in Mel Brooks’ movie comedy “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and branching out into drama as a struggling alcoholic in the 1995 film “Drunks.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for HBO (which, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery), said Lewis’ “comedic brilliance, wit and talent were unmatched.”

“Richard will always be a cherished member of the HBO and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ families, our heartfelt condolences go out to his family, friends and all the fans who could count on Richard to brighten their days with laughter,” the statement read.

Born in Brooklyn and raised in New Jersey, Lewis attended Ohio State University, writing ad copy while moonlighting by writing jokes for comedians before he began his stand-up career, turning his personal neuroses into the focus of his act.

Lewis’ representative said the comic’s wife, Joyce Lapinsky, thanked “everyone for all the love, friendship and support and asks for privacy at this time.”

PP

[Woody]

Dave Myers, one half of the hairy bikers team

https://planetradio.co.uk/planet-rock/n ... yers-dead/


They’ve got a current series on the BBC available on IPlayer, last programme was aired on Tuesday night, featuring Merseyside and even featured Sans Cafe on The Dock Road, which is a great place to visit,

[PHXPhlyer]

Steve Lawrence, singer and half of stage duo Steve & Eydie, dies at 88
Lawrence died from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease, a family spokesperson said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries ... rcna142396

NEW YORK — Steve Lawrence, a singer and top stage act who as a solo performer and in tandem with his wife Eydie Gormé kept Tin Pan Alley alive during the rock era, died Thursday. He was 88.

Lawrence, whose hits included “Go Away Little Girl,” died from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease, said Susan DuBow, a spokesperson for the family.

Lawrence and Gormé — or Steve & Eydie — were known for their frequent appearances on talk shows, in night clubs and on the stages of Las Vegas. The duo took inspiration from George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and other songwriters.

Soon after Elvis Presley and other rock music pioneers began to dominate radio and records, Lawrence and his wife were approached about changing their style.

“We had a chance to get in on the ground floor of rock ‘n’ roll,” he recalled in a 1989 interview. “It was 1957 and everything was changing, but I wanted to be Sinatra, not Rick Nelson."

“Our audience knows we’re not going to load up on heavy metal or set fire to the drummer — although on some nights we’ve talked about it,” he joked.

Although Lawrence and Gormé were best known as a team, both also had huge solo hits just months apart in the early 1960s.

Dionne Warwick, a longtime friend, said in a statement that Lawrence was “resting with comfort in the arms of the Heavenly Father. My heartfelt condolences go out.” Carol Burnett, in a statement, called Lawrence one of her favorite guests on her variety show. “He was also my very close friend,” she said. “He will always be in my heart.”

Lawrence scored first in 1962 with the achingly romantic ballad “Go Away Little Girl,” written by the Brill Building songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Gormé matched his success the following year with “Blame It on the Bossa Nova,” a bouncy tune about a dance craze of the time that was written by Brill hitmakers Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.

By the 1970s, Lawrence and his wife were a top draw in Las Vegas casinos and nightclubs across the country. They also appeared regularly on television, making specials and guesting on various shows.

In the 1980s, when Vegas cut down on headline acts and nightclubs became scarcer, the pair switched to auditoriums and drew large audiences.

“People come with a general idea of what they’re going to get with us,” Lawrence said in 1989. “It’s like a product. They buy a certain cereal and they know what to expect from that package.”

Lawrence launched his professional singing career at age 15. After two failed auditions for “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” TV show, he was accepted on the third try, going on to win the competition and the prize of appearing on Godfrey’s popular daytime radio show for a week.

King Records, impressed by the teenager’s strong, two-octave voice, signed him to a contract. His first record, “Poinciana,” sold more than 100,000 copies, and his high school allowed him to skip classes to promote it with out-of-town singing dates.

After several guest appearances on Steve Allen’s television show, Lawrence was hired as a regular. When the program became NBC’s “Tonight” in 1954, he went with it, singing and exchanging quips with Allen. The series set the pattern for the long-running “The Tonight Show.”

“I think Steve Allen was the biggest thing that happened to me,” said Lawrence, who stayed with the show’s host for five years, honing his comedic skills and attracting a wide audience with his singing. “Every night I was called upon to do something different. In its own way it was better than vaudeville.”

Early in the series’ run, a young singer named Eydie Gormé joined the cast. After singing together for four years, she and Lawrence were married in 1957.

Until Gormé’s death, in 2013, they remained popular, whether working together in concert or making separate TV appearances.

His reasoning: “If we did television together all the time, why should anyone go see us in a club?”

He appeared in such shows as “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Diagnosis Murder” and “The Nanny.”

He and his wife did star together in “The Steve Lawrence-Eydie Gormé Show” in 1958 and Lawrence had his own series, “The Steve Lawrence Show,” in 1965.

He also made stage appearances without Gormé, including a starring role in a 1962 summer stock version of “Pal Joey.” He made it to Broadway in 1964 — and earned a Tony Award nomination — in the musical “What Makes Sammy Run?” based on Budd Schulberg’s classic novel about a New York hustler who claws his way to the top of the entertainment world.

Critics praised Lawrence but gave the play bad reviews. Still, it turned a profit, and insiders attributed its success to his performance.

Lawrence also had a few character roles in movies, most notably “Stand Up and Be Counted,” “Blues Brothers 2000,” “The Lonely Guy” and “The Yards.”

Native-born New Yorkers, Lawrence and Gormé lived in a Manhattan apartment during their early years together. When the center of TV entertainment shifted to Hollywood, they moved to Beverly Hills.

Born Sidney Liebowitz in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, Lawrence was the son of a Jewish cantor who worked as a house painter. He began singing in his father’s synagogue choir at 8, moving on to bars and clubs by his mid-teens. He took his name from the first names of two nephews.

He and Gormé had two sons, David, a composer, and Michael. Long troubled with heart problems, Michael died of heart failure in 1986 at age 23.

“My dad was an inspiration to so many people,” his son David said in a statement. “But, to me, he was just this charming, handsome, hysterically funny guy who sang a lot. Sometimes alone and sometimes with his insanely talented wife. I am so lucky to have had him as a father and so proud to be his son.”

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Eric Carmen, known for songs ‘All by Myself’ and ‘Hungry Eyes,’ dies at 74

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/11/entertai ... index.html

Eric Carmen, the former lead vocalist of The Raspberries and singer of “All by Myself,” is dead, according to his website. He was 74, according to IMDb.

“It is with tremendous sadness that we share the heartbreaking news of the passing of Eric Carmen,” a post on his website says. “Our sweet, loving and talented Eric passed away in his sleep, over the weekend.”

“It brought him great joy to know, that for decades, his music touched so many and will be his lasting legacy,” the post said.

No cause of death was given.

Carmen was the frontman of the 1970s pop-rock group The Raspberries. After the band broke up, he launched a solo career that included hits such as “All by Myself” and “Hungry Eyes.”

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Marcello Gandini, designer of the world’s most famous supercar, dies at 85

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/16/style/ma ... index.html

Look at almost any modern high-horsepower supercar and you will see the work of auto designer Marcello Gandini. Sharp lines, a low stance, doors that swing up; all were influenced by Gandini’s seminal work, the Lamborghini Countach.

The Countach and its predecessor, the Lamborghini Miura, are widely regarded as the first modern supercars, creating the template for a vehicle category that still marks the pinnacle in automotive performance and design. Gandini designed both of those cars and, if he had done nothing else, he would still be remembered.

But in addition to his work for Lamborghini, Gandini produced cars for automakers including BMW, Fiat and Ferrari. He designed rally racing cars, economy hatchbacks (such as the first Volkswagen Polo and the Renault Supercinq, a follow up the Renault 5), concept cars and at least one helicopter.

He died Wednesday at the age of 85 in Turin, Italy, the city where he was born and where — throughout his career at the Gruppo Bertone design studio and, later, his own firm — he worked much of his auto design magic.

Creating the supercar
Gandini’s radical, sharp-edged Countach was designed as a replacement for the Lamborghini Miura, a car with curved edges and rows of black “eyelashes” around its circular headlights. While the Miura was considered one of the most beautiful cars ever made, it was not radical — rather, it was the perfection of sports car design up to that time. The Countach, unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in 1971, meanwhile, was angular and sharp-edged like shattered crystal.

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but nothing better has been done since,” Gandini said of the Countach during a 2019 interview with CNN at Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile, Italy’s National Automobile Museum in Turin.

Before the Countach came the Lancia Statos HF Zero in 1970. Looking at that sportscar, it’s almost hard to imagine that it is, in fact, a drivable automobile. Instead of doors, the cabin is entered through an upward swinging windshield. When driving, rear visibility is afforded by a temporary rearview mirror that attaches to the nearly horizontal windshield. (Rear visibility in the first Countach models was through a periscope built into the roof.)

Starting from nuts and bolts
Gandini’s interest in automobiles started with machinery rather than design. When he was five years old his father bought him a Meccano set, the metal building toy known as an Erector Set in the United States. Children could build cars, airplanes and machines with thin metal sheets and bars held together by tiny nuts and bolts.

At 18, Gandini became a mechanic. A wealthy friend with a Fiat OSCA 1500S he liked to race asked Gandini to work on its engine. Gandini decided to alter the car’s body as well, a project that became his entrance into automotive design.

“I always loved things that moved,” Gandini said. “Not static objects. They never attracted me.”

In 1965 he joined the Turin-based auto design firm Gruppo Bertone, replacing the famous and highly influential Giorgetto Giugiaro. Gandini’s first project, a body that went over a Porsche 911’s chassis and engine, was exhibited at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show. That car was sold at a Gooding & Co. auction in Pebble Beach, California, for $1.4 million in 2018.

“Gandini was not just a designer; he was a visionary, whose skill and creativity redefined the aesthetic standards of sports and luxury cars, influencing generations of designers and enthusiasts,” Bertone wrote in a tribute posted Wednesday on its official Instagram page.

The starting point for all his designs, Gandini said, was purpose. Each suited a need.

Prototypes, or concept cars, were his favorites, though, he said. They gave Gandini the opportunity to create entirely new automotive forms. He loved the opportunity to start from a clean sheet of paper. And, in these cases, the need was simple.

“When we are talking about a prototype,” he told CNN in 2019, “The most important thing is to create a sensation. As much sensation as possible.”

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Thomas Stafford, NASA astronaut who led Apollo-Soyuz joint mission, dies at 93
If there was a common theme to the four missions Stafford flew, it was 'meetings in space.'

https://www.space.com/nasa-astronaut-th ... SmartBrief

Former NASA astronaut Thomas Stafford, who flew to the moon before leading the first international space mission carried out by the United States and Russia, has died at the age of 93.

Stafford's death on Monday (March 18) came after an extended illness, according to Max Ary, director of the Stafford Air and Space Museum in Oklahoma.

"This nation has lost one of its great heroes," said Ary in a call with collectSPACE.com "We are so shocked and saddened by his passing. It's just hard to say because he was bigger than life."

A member of NASA's second class of astronauts selected in 1962, Stafford made four flights into space. His contributions to space exploration continued far beyond his career as an astronaut, up until the time of his death.

"Today General Tom Stafford went to the eternal heavens which he so courageously explored as a Gemini and Apollo astronaut as well as a peacemaker in Apollo-Soyuz. Those of us privileged to know him are very sad but grateful we knew a giant," said Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator, in a statement.

Two for two
Stafford's first flight assignment was canceled while he and Gemini 6 mission commander Walter "Wally" Schirra were sitting on the launch pad. Set to lift off on Oct. 25, 1965, the two astronauts were tasked with performing a rendezvous with the upper stage of an Atlas-Agena rocket, but their target never reached orbit.

"We could hear it thunder off down the pad," said Stafford in a 1997 NASA oral history interview. "When the Agena lifted off, they had made some changes to have an oxidizer fuel lead-in change, and it did it wrong, and the thing lifted off and blew [up] over the Atlantic Ocean."

NASA managers quickly made new plans to launch Schirra and Stafford on an alternate Gemini 6A mission to rendezvous with the Gemini 7 spacecraft crewed by Frank Borman and Jim Lovell.

"We'd never done that before, had two spacecraft go," said Stafford.

This time, Stafford narrowly missed a second scrub and a possibly much worse outcome.

On Dec. 12, 1965, eight days after the Gemini 7 crew had made it into orbit, the Titan II rocket carrying Schirra and Stafford ignited its twin nozzle LR87 engine and then, 1.5 seconds later, shut down. Mission rules stated that the astronauts should have ejected from the capsule, but sensing no movement, Schirra decided not to abort.

His quick thinking not only saved Gemini 6A launch vehicle, which successfully lifted off just three days later, but also may have spared his and Stafford's lives.

"It turns out ... had we had [ejected, we] would have been two Roman candles going out, because we were [in] 15 or 16 psi pure oxygen, soaking in that for an hour and a half," Stafford said. "With that fire going off like that, it would have burned [our] suits."

Fortunately, the two were safe and on Dec. 15, 1965, the Gemini 6A spacecraft met the Gemini 7 spacecraft for the first rendezvous in space. Though they did not dock, but the two capsules came within a foot (30 centimeters) of each other.

"We flew in formation there for several hours ... and got within a couple inches of them," said Stafford.

Stafford and Schirra returned to Earth the next day, splashing down in the North Atlantic Ocean where they were recovered by the USS Wasp aircraft carrier.

Five months later, Stafford's second mission began almost just like his first, with the failed launch of an Agena target vehicle. NASA had learned from its earlier errors, though, and had an alternate ready to go, the Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ATDA), built from the reentry control section of a Gemini.

The Gemini 9A mission launched on June 3, 1966, with Stafford as commander and Gene Cernan as pilot.

Stafford flew a successful rendezvous with the ATDA, but as he and Cernan first approached the target, it became clear that it was tumbling and its fairing had not been jettisoned.

"We got up close [and] I could see this weird thing," said Stafford. "I came right up close to it, and it just broke out in sunrise, and here was the shroud. I called it the "angry alligator" [as] it looked just like that. And it was slowly rotating."

The shroud's "jaws" prevented Gemini 9A from docking and proposals by both engineers on the ground and the astronauts aboard the spacecraft to remedy the situation were called off out of concern that attempting to free the straps holding the shroud in place could pose a harm to the crew. Instead, Stafford and Cernan moved on to their second goal: an extravehicular activity (EVA) or spacewalk.

"So [Cernan was] supposed to out for about two hours and 30-some minutes, go take this rocket pack and get into it and fly it around and maneuver around," said Stafford, referring to the Air Force's experimental Astronaut Maneuvering Unit (AMU). "So he goes out in front and does a few little maneuvers and he's having a very difficult time. There was nothing for him to hold on to."

Cernan's problems continued to mount. His back hurt due to the rigidity of his suit, he was overheating in the direct sunlight and then his visor fogged up to the point he could no longer see. As a result, Stafford made the decision to call off the AMU test and end the EVA.

"I said [to Mission Control], 'Look, I've called it off. He's fogged over, he can't see. We've semi-lost one way of two-way com. [He's] not going to fly the rocket pack.' My main thing was to get him in before the next sunset, so we got all squared away and he got in," said Stafford.

The Gemini 9A crew returned to Earth the next day, landing on June 6, 1966, to again be recovered by the USS Wasp.

Snoopy to the moon
Three years later, on May 18, 1969, Stafford, Cernan and John Young launched together on a "dress rehearsal" for the first moon landing.

Led by Stafford as the mission's commander, the Apollo 10 astronauts were only the second crew in history fly to the moon. Once in lunar orbit, Stafford and Cernan moved into the lunar module "Snoopy" and closed the hatch on Young, who remained inside the command module "Charlie Brown."

Stafford was at Snoopy's controls as he and Cernan came within just 7.8 miles (14.4 kilometers) of the moon's surface, the point at which a powered descent for a touchdown would begin on the landing mission to follow.


PP

[PHXPhlyer]

M. Emmet Walsh, unforgettable character actor from 'Blood Simple' and 'Blade Runner,' dies at 88
Walsh died from cardiac arrest on Tuesday at a hospital in St. Albans, Vermont, his longtime manager Sandy Joseph said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/m- ... rcna144404

LOS ANGELES — M. Emmet Walsh, the character actor who brought his unmistakable face and unsettling presence to films including “Blood Simple” and “Blade Runner,” has died at age 88, his manager said Wednesday.

Walsh died from cardiac arrest on Tuesday at a hospital in St. Albans, Vermont, his longtime manager Sandy Joseph said.

The ham-faced, heavyset Walsh often played good old boys with bad intentions, as he did in one of his rare leading roles as a crooked Texas private detective in the Coen brothers’ first film, the 1984 neo-noir “Blood Simple.”

Joel and Ethan Coen said they wrote the part for Walsh, who would win the first Film Independent Spirit Award for best male lead for the role.

Critics and film geeks relished the moments when he showed up on screen.

Roger Ebert once observed that “no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.”

Walsh played a crazed sniper in the 1979 Steve Martin comedy “The Jerk” and a prostate-examining doctor in the 1985 Chevy Chase vehicle “Fletch.”

In 1982’s gritty, “Blade Runner,” a film he said was grueling and difficult to make with perfectionist director Ridley Scott, Walsh plays a hard-nosed police captain who pulls Harrison Ford from retirement to hunt down cyborgs.

Born Michael Emmet Walsh, his characters led people to believe he was from the American South, but he could hardly have been from any further north.

Walsh was raised on Lake Champlain in Swanton, Vermont, just a few miles from the U.S.-Canadian border, where his grandfather, father and brother worked as customs officers.

He went to a tiny local high school with a graduating class of 13, then to Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

He acted exclusively on the stage, with no intention of doing otherwise, for a decade, working in summer stock and repertory companies.

Walsh slowly started making film appearances in 1969 with a bit role in “Alice’s Restaurant,” and did not start playing prominent roles until nearly a decade after that when he was in his 40s, getting his breakthrough with 1978’s “Straight Time,” in which he played Dustin Hoffman’s smug, boorish parole officer.

Walsh was shooting “Silkwood” with Meryl Streep in Dallas in the autumn of 1982 when he got the offer for “Blood Simple” from the Coen brothers, then-aspiring filmmakers who had seen and loved him in “Straight Time.”

“My agent called with a script written by some kids for a low-budget movie,” Walsh told The Guardian in 2017. “It was a Sydney Greenstreet kind of role, with a Panama suit and the hat. I thought it was kinda fun and interesting. They were 100 miles away in Austin, so I went down there early one day before shooting.”

Walsh said the filmmakers didn’t even have enough money left to fly him to New York for the opening, but he would be stunned that first-time filmmakers had produced something so good.

“I saw it three or four days later when it opened in LA, and I was, like: Wow!” he said. “Suddenly my price went up five times. I was the guy everybody wanted.”

In the film he plays Loren Visser, a detective asked to trail a man’s wife, then is paid to kill her and her lover.

Visser also acts as narrator, and the opening monologue, delivered in a Texas drawl, included some of Walsh’s most memorable lines.

“Now, in Russia they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else. That’s the theory, anyway,” Visser says. “But what I know about is Texas. And down here, you’re on your own.”

He was still working into his late 80s, making recent appearances on the TV series “The Righteous Gemstones” and “American Gigolo.”

And his more than 100 film credits included director Rian Johnson’s 2019 family murder mystery, “Knives Out” and director Mario Van Peebles’ Western “Outlaw Posse,” released this year.

Johnson was among those paying tribute to Walsh on social media.

“Emmet came to set with 2 things: a copy of his credits, which was a small-type single spaced double column list of modern classics that filled a whole page, & two-dollar bills which he passed out to the entire crew,” Johnson tweeted. “‘Don’t spend it and you’ll never be broke.’ Absolute legend.”

PP

[CharlieOneSix]

Capt. Eric Moody (84) - who in 1982 suffered the loss of all four engines on his 747 due to flying through a volcanic ash cloud.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.”

https://www.airlineratings.com/news/mir ... last-time/

[Woody]

Capt. Eric Moody (84) - who in 1982 suffered the loss of all four engines on his 747 due to flying through a volcanic ash cloud.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.”

Not a single mention on any internal BA communications

[PHXPhlyer]

Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win the best supporting actor Oscar, dies at 87

https://www.azfamily.com/2024/03/29/lou ... r-dies-87/

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 87.

Gossett’s nephew told The Associated Press that the actor died Thursday night in Santa Monica, California. No cause of death was revealed.

Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

He earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school’s production of “You Can’t Take It with You” while he was sidelined from the basketball team with an injury.

“I was hooked — and so was my audience,” he wrote in his 2010 memoir “An Actor and a Gentleman.”

His English teacher urged him to go into Manhattan to try out for “Take a Giant Step.” He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at age 16.

“I knew too little to be nervous,” Gossett wrote. “In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn’t.”

Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He was soon acting and singing on TV shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen.

Gossett became friendly with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau and Steve McQueen at an offshoot of the Actors Studio taught by Frank Silvera.

In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” along with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands.

He went on to become a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964.

Gossett went to Hollywood for the first time in 1961 to make the film version of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places to allow Black people.

In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in “Companions in Nightmare,” NBC’s first made-for-TV movie that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O’Neal.

This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios had rented him a convertible. Driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s officer who ordered him to turn down the radio and put up the car’s roof before letting him go.

Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff’s officers, who had him lean against the car and made him open the trunk while they called the car rental agency before letting him go.

“Though I understood that I had no choice but to put up with this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel,” Gossett wrote in his memoir. “I realized this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car — which, in their view, I had no right to be driving.”

After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who told him he broke a law prohibiting walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other officers arrived and Gossett said he was chained to a tree and handcuffed for three hours. He was eventually freed when the original police car returned.

“Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,” he wrote. “But it was not going to destroy me.”

In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was pulled over by police on Pacific Coast Highway while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were searching for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left.

He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism doesn’t exist.

Gossett made a series of guest appearances on such shows as “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad,” “McCloud” and a memorable turn with Richard Pryor on “The Partridge Family.”

In August 1969, Gossett had been partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate’s house. He headed home first to shower and change clothes. As he was getting ready to leave, he caught a news flash on TV about Tate’s murder. She and others were killed by Charles Manson’s associates that night.

“There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet,” he wrote.

Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He later added Jr. to his name to honor his father.

Gossett broke through on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. The sprawling cast included Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton and John Amos.

Gossett became the third Black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category in 1983. He won for his performance as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman” opposite Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also won a Golden Globe for the same role.

“More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor,” he wrote in his memoir.

“The Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like ‘Enemy Mine,’ ‘Sadat’ and ‘Iron Eagle,’” Gossett said in Dave Karger’s 2024 book “50 Oscar Nights.”

He said his statue was in storage.

“I’m going to donate it to a library so I don’t have to keep an eye on it,” he said in the book. “I need to be free of it.”

Gossett appeared in such TV movies as “The Story of Satchel Paige,” “Backstairs at the White House, “The Josephine Baker Story,” for which he won another Golden Globe, and “Roots Revisited.”

But he said winning an Oscar didn’t change the fact that all his roles were supporting ones.

He played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of “The Color Purple.”

Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after his Oscar win. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with toxic mold syndrome, which he attributed to his house in Malibu.

In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalized with COVID-19.

He is survived by sons Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the 7-year-old in a TV segment on children in desperate situations. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett.

Gossett’s first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975 as did his third to actor Cyndi James-Reese in 1992.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the 'God particle' has died at 94
His work helps scientists understand one of the most fundamental riddles of the universe: how the Big Bang created something out of nothing 13.8 billion years ago.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science ... rcna147088

LONDON — Nobel prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the so-called “God particle” that helped explain how matter formed after the Big Bang, has died at age 94, the University of Edinburgh said Tuesday.

The university, where Higgs was emeritus professor, said he died Monday following a short illness.

Higgs predicted the existence of a new particle, which came to be known as the Higgs boson, in 1964. He theorized that there must be a sub-atomic particle of certain dimension that would explain how other particles — and therefore all the stars and planets in the universe — acquired mass. Without something like this particle, the set of equations physicists use to describe the world, known as the standard model, would not hold together.

Higgs’ work helps scientists understand one of the most fundamental riddles of the universe: how the Big Bang created something out of nothing 13.8 billion years ago. Without mass from the Higgs, particles could not clump together into the matter we interact with every day.

But it would be almost 50 years before the particle’s existence could be confirmed. In 2012, in one of the biggest breakthroughs in physics in decades, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, announced that they had finally found a Higgs boson using the Large Hardron Collider, the $10 billion atom smasher in a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel under the Swiss-French border.

The collider was designed in large part to find Higgs’ particle. It produces collisions with extraordinarily high energies in order to mimic some of the conditions that were present in the trillionths of seconds after the Big Bang.

Higgs won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work, alongside Francois Englert of Belgium, who independently came up with the same theory.


Scientists say God particle discovered
02:33
Edinburgh University Vice Chancellor Peter Mathieson said Higgs, who was born in Newcastle, was “a remarkable individual — a truly gifted scientist whose vision and imagination have enriched our knowledge of the world that surrounds us.”

“His pioneering work has motivated thousands of scientists, and his legacy will continue to inspire many more for generations to come.”

Born in Newcastle, northeast England on May 29, 1929, Higgs studied at King’s College, University of London, and was awarded a PhD in 1954. He spent much of his career at Edinburgh, becoming the Personal Chair of Theoretical Physics at the Scottish university in 1980. He retired in 1996.

One highlight of Higgs’ illustrious career came the 2013 presentation at CERN in Geneva where scientists presented in complex terms — unfathomable to most laypeople and based on statistical analysis -- that the boson has been confirmed. He broke into tears, wiping down his glasses in the stands of a CERN lecture hall.

“There was an emotion — a kind of vibration -- going around in the auditorium,’’ Fabiola Gianotti, the CERN director-general told The Associated Press. “That was just a unique moment, a unique experience in a professional life.’’

“Peter was a very touching person. He was so sweet, so warm at the same time. And so always interested in what other people had to say,’’ she said. “Able to listen to other people … open, and interesting, and interested.”

Gianotti recalled how Higgs often bristled at the term “God particle” for his discovery: “I don’t think he liked this kind of definition,” she said. “It was not in his style.”


PP

[PHXPhlyer]

O.J. Simpson, former NFL star whose murder trial gripped nation, dies at 76
Simpson, who was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife and her friend in a televised trial that became a cultural phenomenon, has died of cancer, his family announced.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oj ... rcna147382

O.J. Simpson, the former NFL star who was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife and her friend in a televised trial that gripped the nation, has died of cancer at age 76, according to his family.

"He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren," the family said in a statement posted to X. "During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace."

Reports circulated in February that Simpson had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was in hospice care as he underwent chemotherapy. Simpson denied that he was in hospice in a video posted to X, but did not address whether he or not he'd been diagnosed with cancer.

“Hospice? Hospice? You talking ‘bout hospice?” Simpson said in the video with a laugh, adding that he doesn’t know who started the rumors.

Orenthal James Simpson played 11 seasons in the National Football League, known as "The Juice" to his fans, but his sports legacy took a backseat in the 1990s after his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson was killed.

Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were found stabbed to death outside of her Los Angeles home on June 12, 1994.

When Los Angeles Police officers went to Simpson's home to speak to him about the murders, Simpson did not answer the door but officers noticed blood on the door of his vehicle.

Once a revered athlete, Simpson went from a Hall of Fame icon to a murder suspect.

Days later, officials charged Simpson with the murders and he attempted to evade arrest, resulting in an infamous hourslong police chase along Southern California's highways in Simpson's white Ford Bronco.

Simpson's case went to trial in 1995 and was broadcast to millions of viewers across the nation. He was acquitted of both murders in a controversial verdict. Two years later, he was found civilly liable for the double homicide.

PP

[G-CPTN]

So, he hasn't evaded death?

[PHXPhlyer]

Of note to many here...it was prostate cancer that did him in!

PP

[G-CPTN]

I thought it was that men died WITH prostate cancer rather than because of it.

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health ... eading-One

[PHXPhlyer]

Apparently, O J couldn't outrun it.

PP