Departed During 2022

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Departed During 2022

#1 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sun Jan 02, 2022 9:42 pm

World-renowned Kenyan conservationist Richard Leakey dies at 77

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/02/world/ri ... index.html

CNN)Kenyan paleoanthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey, who unearthed evidence that helped prove humankind evolved in Africa, died on Sunday at the age of 77, Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta confirmed in a statement.

"I have this afternoon, Sunday 2nd January 2022, received with deep sorrow the sad news of the passing away of Dr. Richard Erskine Frere Leakey, Kenya's former Head of Public Service," Kenyatta's statement said.
"On behalf of the people of Kenya, my family and on my own behalf, I send heartfelt condolences and sympathies to the family, friends and associates of Dr. Richard Leakey during this difficult period of mourning."
Leakey came from a family of renowned archeologists. His mother, Mary Leakey, discovered evidence in 1978 that man walked upright much earlier than had been thought. She and her husband, Louis Leakey, unearthed skulls of ape-like early humans, shedding fresh light on our ancestors.

Richard Leakey is perhaps best known for his discovery of fossils, particularly the 1984 excavation of the bones of "Turkana Boy," a nearly complete skeleton of a young male Homo erectus dating to 1.6 million years ago. He also became a leading force in the effort to stop the poaching of elephants and rhinos in Kenya, according to the Royal Society.
Besides his work as a scientist, he held a number of official positions in Kenya, including director of the National Museums of Kenya and chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

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Re: Departed During 2022

#2 Post by llondel » Sun Jan 02, 2022 9:44 pm

I would have assumed he was 20 years older than that, I guess my dating methods need to be recalibrated.

Also, definitely not a thread where you'd want the dubious honour of being mentioned in the first post.

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Re: Departed During 2022

#3 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sun Jan 02, 2022 10:12 pm

llondel wrote:
Sun Jan 02, 2022 9:44 pm
I would have assumed he was 20 years older than that, I guess my dating methods need to be recalibrated.

Also, definitely not a thread where you'd want the dubious honour of being mentioned in the first post.
What number post would you prefer to be mentioned in? :-? :ymdevil:

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Re: Departed During 2022

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Jan 03, 2022 1:56 am

PHXPhlyer wrote:
Sun Jan 02, 2022 9:42 pm
World-renowned Kenyan conservationist Richard Leakey dies at 77

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/02/world/ri ... index.html

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He led an adventurous, and brave life, all told...
Softly spoken and seemingly devoid of personal vanity, Leakey’s campaigning methods could nevertheless be eye-catching.

He masterminded a spectacular publicity stunt of burning a pyre of ivory by setting fire to 12 tonnes of tusks – making the point that once removed from elephants they had no value.

He also held his nerve when implementing a shoot-to-kill order against armed poachers.

Leakey’s illustrious career, however, was beset with health challenges. In 1969 he was diagnosed with terminal kidney disease.

Ten years later and seriously ill he received a kidney transplant from his brother, Philip, and recovered to full health.

Then in 1993 his small Cessna plane crashed in the Rift Valley. He survived but lost both legs. Sabotage was suspected but never proved.

He told the Financial Times that he endured “regular threats” and lived with armed guards, adding: “But I made the decision not to be a dramatist and say: ‘They tried to kill me.’ I chose to get on with life.”

Leakey was eventually forced out of KWS and began a career as a prominent opposition politician, joining the voices against Moi’s corrupt regime.

His political career met with less success, and in 1998 he was appointed by Moi to head Kenya’s civil service in charge of fighting official corruption. The task proved impossible, however, and he resigned after just two years.

In 2015, as another elephant-poaching crisis gripped Africa, Kenyatta invited Leakey back to KWS, this time as chairman of the board, a position he would hold for three years.

Dr Paula Kahumbu, the head of Wildlife Direct, a conservation group founded by Leakey, paid tribute on Twitter, saying: “Richard was a very good friend and a true loyal Kenyan. May he Rest In Peace.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... dies-at-77
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Re: Departed During 2022

#5 Post by limeygal » Wed Jan 05, 2022 10:59 am

I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture given by him when he came here in the early 90s. A very interesting speaker.

The Leakeys were quite an interesting family. Louis Leakey encouraged those amazing women-Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas. He certainly knew how to pick them.

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Re: Departed During 2022

#6 Post by PHXPhlyer » Thu Jan 06, 2022 6:34 pm

Peter Bogdanovich, director of 'The Last Picture Show' and 'Paper Moon,' dies at 82

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/mov ... -rcna11232

Peter Bogdanovich, the Hollywood filmmaker who parlayed his youthful obsession with American cinema and formative experience as a magazine critic into a career as the director of 1970s classics such as "The Last Picture Show" and "Paper Moon," died Thursday.

He was 82.

Bogdanovich died of natural causes just before 1 am. Thursday, according to his daughter, Antonia Bogdanovich.

"We would like to ask for your respect of our privacy while we mourn the death of our loved one, our precious man," she said in a statement.

In his glory days, Bogdanovich was considered a moviemaking wunderkind, celebrated for his technical mastery and encyclopedic knowledge of film history. He championed and emulated classical genres and forms.

In his 20s, he churned out monographs on Golden Age auteurs like Orson Welles and Howard Hawks. He was just 32 when his third feature, the melancholy coming-of-age portrait "The Last Picture Show," dazzled critics and collected eight Oscar nominations.

He rose to national prominence during the “New Hollywood” wave of the late 1960s and ‘70s, a time when iconoclastic young directors got the keys to the proverbial kingdom.

Bogdanovich's career was a rollercoaster. He followed "The Last Picture Show" with two warm-hearted hits: the screwball pastiche "What's Up, Doc?" (1972) and the father-daughter dramedy "Paper Moon" (1973).

But those back-to-back successes were followed by a string of commercial failures that tarnished his reputation, including the literary adaptation "Daisy Miller" (1974). His filmography was sometimes overshadowed by one of the defining tragedies of his life.

In the summer of 1980, Bogdanovich's girlfriend, model and actor Dorothy Stratten, was murdered by her estranged husband. The killing led Bogdanovich to take a four-year hiatus from directing and shadowed the rest of his life.

In recent decades, Bogdanovich made films only intermittently, and almost never with the same commercial visibility or critical acclaim of his early works. But he remained a cult figure among cinephiles, revered as the country's unofficial chief film professor.

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Re: Departed During 2022

#7 Post by PHXPhlyer » Fri Jan 07, 2022 3:35 pm

Sidney Poitier, trailblazing Hollywood icon who broke barriers for Black actors, dies at 94

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/mov ... s-n1256724

Sidney Poitier, the renowned Hollywood actor, director and activist who commanded the screen, reshaped the culture and paved the way for countless other Black actors with stirring performances in classics such as “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” died, a source close to the family told NBC News on Friday.

He was 94.

In a groundbreaking film career that spanned decades, Poitier established himself as one of the finest performers in America. He made history as the first Black man to win an Academy Award for best actor and, at the height of his fame, he became a major box-office draw.

Poitier, who rejected film roles based on offensive racial stereotypes, earned acclaim for portraying proud, keenly intelligent men in 1960s landmarks such as “Lilies of the Field,” “A Patch of Blue,” “To Sir, With Love,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

He said he felt a responsibility to represent Black excellence at a time when the vast majority of movie stars were white and many Black performers were relegated to subservient or buffoonish roles.

“I felt very much as if I were representing 15, 18 million people with every move I made,” Poitier once wrote about the experience of being the only Black person on a movie set.

He won the best actor Oscar in 1964 for his depiction of an ex-serviceman who helps East German nuns build a chapel in “Lilies of the Field.” The first Black man to win that honor, he remained the only one until Denzel Washington in 2002 — the same year Poitier received an honorary Oscar “in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human.”

In the course of his public life, Poitier was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, two Golden Globe awards (including a lifetime achievement honor in 1982), and a Grammy for narrating his autobiography, “The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography,” published in 2000.

Poitier was born prematurely Feb. 20, 1927, in Miami, to Bahamian parents while they were on vacation in the United States. He grew up in the Bahamas, spending his early years around his father’s tomato farm on Cat Island before the family relocated to Nassau. The teenage Poitier returned to the U.S., where he enlisted in the U.S. Army and briefly served in a medical unit.

He eventually made his way to New York City and discovered a passion for the performing arts. He applied to the American Negro Theatre, but he was rejected because of his accent, so he spent the next several months practicing American enunciation. When he re-applied, he was accepted into the company and, in 1946, he made his Broadway debut in “Lysistrata.”

Poitier made his feature debut in the 1950 film noir “No Way Out” and the following year appeared in “Cry, the Beloved Country,” a British film set in apartheid-era South Africa. He gained greater attention in the 1955 drama “Blackboard Jungle” as a troubled but musically gifted student at an inner-city high school.

He broke through in 1958 with “The Defiant Ones,” teaming up with Tony Curtis for the tale of two escaped prisoners forced to survive while shackled together. The film was a critical smash, and Poitier and Curtis were both nominated for best actor Oscars. (They lost to David Niven for “Separate Tables.”)

“The Defiant Ones” opened up exciting career opportunities for Poitier. He drew praise as the crippled beggar Porgy in Otto Preminger’s musical “Porgy and Bess” (1959), adapted from the George Gershwin opera, and the determined Walter Lee Younger in “A Raisin in the Sun” (1961), adapted from the Lorraine Hansberry play.

Academy Award Winners and Presenters
Gregory Peck, who presented Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress, Anabella, who accepted the Oscar for Patricia Neal for her role in the film Hud, Sidney Poitier, Best Actor for his performance in the movie Lilies Of The Field, and actress Anne Bancroft, who presented the Oscar to Poitier, Backstage at the 1964 Academy Awards in Los Angeles.Bettmann Archive
In the 1960s, Poitier leveraged his Oscar win for “Lilies in the Field” and his national celebrity. He refused roles based on racist caricatures and gravitated to films that celebrated the main character’s dignity, grace, intellect and honor.

When he started acting, he said in a 1967 interview, “the kind of Negro played on the screen was always negative, buffoons, clowns, shuffling butlers, really misfits. This was the background when I came along 20 years ago and I chose not to be a party to the stereotyping.

“I want people to feel when they leave the theater that life and human beings are worthwhile,” Poitier added. “That is my only philosophy about the pictures I do.”

“A Patch of Blue,” released in 1965, was a pathbreaking portrait of the relationship between Poitier’s educated office worker and Elizabeth Hartman’s blind white woman. The film further established him as one of the key leading men in Hollywood.

Two years later, in 1967, Poitier went on one of the most incredible runs of his career. He played a tough but compassionate school teacher in “To Sir, With Love,” Philadelphia detective Virgil Tibbs in the Southern crime drama “In the Heat of the Night,” and a widower engaged to the daughter of white San Francisco liberals in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

The three films addressed race relations with varying degrees of intensity. “In the Heat of the Night,” anchored by Poitier’s galvanizing performance (“They call me Mister Tibbs!”), won the best picture Oscar. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” filmed when interracial marriage was still illegal in many states, was one of the few at the time to depict interracial love favorably.

Poitier’s work from the period drew its share of criticism, however. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” released as the American film history was on the cusp of a stylistic revolution (“Easy Rider,” “The Graduate,” and so on), struck some viewers as dated and square. Poitier, for his part, was sometimes faulted for playing idealized characters with few personal foibles.

In the early 1970s, Poitier went behind the camera. He made his directorial debut with the Western “Buck and the Preacher” (1972) casting himself alongside Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee. Poitier directed Belafonte again in “Uptown Saturday Night,” where they were joined by comedian Bill Cosby.

Poitier went on to direct Cosby in “Let’s Do it Again” (1975), “A Piece of the Action” (1977), and the family-geared misfire “Ghost Dad” (1990).

Poitier stepped away from acting for much of the 1980s, although he directed the hit Gene Wilder-Richard Pryor buddy comedy “Stir Crazy” (1980) and cast Wilder again two years later for “Hanky Panky,” co-starring “Saturday Night Live” alum Gilda Radner.

President Barack Obama presents the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Sidney Poitier during ceremonies in the East Room of the White House on Aug. 12, 2009.J. Scott Applewhite / AP file
In the late 1980s, Poitier returned to acting, cropping up in “Shoot to Kill” and “Little Nikita,” both released in 1988. He delivered a memorable supporting turn in the cult comedy “Sneakers” (1992), and he went on to play Thurgood Marshall and Nelson Mandela in made-for-TV movies.

By the 2000s, Poitier effectively retired from screen acting, but he remained creatively productive. He published the autobiography “The Measure of a Man” in 2000; a follow-up book, “Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter,” in 2008; and a novel, “Montaro Caine,” in 2013.

He served as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan for a decade, from 1997 to 2007, and he continued to inspire young talent across the performing arts.

Poitier is survived by his wife, Joanna Shimkus, a retired actress from Canada; and six daughters: two — Anika and Sydney Tamiaa — with Shimkus; and four — Beverly, Pamela, Sherri and Gina — with his first wife, Juanita Hardy. Poitier also has eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

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Re: Departed During 2022

#8 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Jan 08, 2022 8:17 am

I first saw Sydney Poitier in To Sir With Love, in SA, at school at the age of 10, at the height of Apartheid. The film and his superb performance made a huge impact on our little white minds! ;))) May he rest in peace.
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Michael Lang

#9 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Jan 09, 2022 7:15 pm

Michael Lang, a co-creator and promoter of the 1969 Woodstock music festival, has died.

Michael Pagnotta, a spokesperson for Lang’s family, said the 77-year-old had non-Hodgkin lymphoma and died on Saturday at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

“He was absolutely an historic figure, and also a great guy,” Pagnotta said. “Both of those thing go hand in hand.”

With partners Artie Kornfeld, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, Lang put together the festival billed as “three days of peace and music” in the summer of 1969, as the Vietnam war raged and led disaffected young Americans to turn away from traditional mores and embraced a lifestyle that celebrated freedom of expression.

Around 400,000 people descended on the hamlet of Bethel, about 50 miles north-west of New York City, enduring miles-long traffic jams, torrential rain, food shortages and overwhelmed sanitary facilities.

More than 30 acts performed on the main stage at the base of a hill on land owned by farmer Max Yasgur, concertgoers treated to famous performances from artists including Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, The Who and Jefferson Airplane.

Lang, sporting a head of bushy brown hair, is seen throughout Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary that chronicled the festival.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/ ... c-festival

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Re: Departed During 2022

#10 Post by PHXPhlyer » Mon Jan 10, 2022 1:08 am

Comedian Bob Saget found dead in a Florida hotel room
The 65-year-old performer's cause of death wasn't immediately known.


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries ... -rcna11551

Actor and comedian Bob Saget was found dead in an Orlando-area hotel room Saturday, authorities said. He was 65.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office confirmed his death, first reported by TMZ, in a tweet that said, "Bob Saget found unresponsive in hotel room today."

Deputies had responded to a room in the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes based on a report of someone unresponsive there, the office said.

The star of television's "Full House" was "pronounced deceased on scene," the sheriff's office said.

"Detectives found no signs of foul play or drug use in this case," it said.

The performer was beloved as a comedian's comedian, a rare Hollywood talent who could portray a wholesome father in prime-time and still maintain a stand-up presence by exploring sometimes dark and epithet-laden humor.

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Re: Departed During 2022

#11 Post by PHXPhlyer » Tue Jan 11, 2022 5:00 pm

European Parliament President David Sassoli dies at 65

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/euro ... -rcna11774

BRUSSELS — David Sassoli, an Italian journalist who worked his way up in politics while defending the downtrodden and oppressed to become president of the European Union’s parliament, died in an Italian hospital on Tuesday at 65.

European Council President Charles Michel called Sassoli a “sincere and passionate European. We already miss his human warmth, his generosity, his friendliness and his smile.”

Sassoli, a socialist, had been hospitalized since Dec. 26 because of abnormal functioning of his immune system, his spokesman Roberto Cuillo said. Sassoli will be buried Friday at Rome’s Santa Maria degli Angeli, the church where state funerals are held.

Sassoli had been struggling for months with poor health after he suffered pneumonia caused by the legionella bacteria in September. His health steadily declined afterward and he was forced to miss several important legislative meetings. Yet, as much as possible, he stayed on the job, where his vigor and easy smile had always been a trademark. He was at his strongest when he took up the cause of migrants who died crossing the Mediterranean or dissidents such as Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is taking on the Kremlin from a jail cell.

“Everyone loved his smile and his kindness, yet he knew how to fight for what he believed in,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, reminiscing how Sassoli had traveled to Germany to see the infamous Berlin Wall come down well over three decades ago.

European unity was his benchmark, just as much as justice among all Europeans was.

“Our union has lost at the same time an Italian patriot, a great European and a tireless humanist,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.

Over the past few months, he improved enough to preside over a European Parliament session in December to give the EU’s main human rights award, the Sakharov Prize, to Navalny’s daughter. High in symbolism, it showed him at his best. A few weeks later, his wishes for the new year showed him as an optimist with great expectations.

“We can be that hope when we don’t ignore those in need. When we don’t build walls on our borders. When we fight all forms of injustice. Here’s to us, here’s to hope,” he said in the address.

He is survived by his wife, Alessandra Vittorini, and his children, Livia and Giulio. Flags flew half-staff and the European Parliament opened a condolences register. The European Commission will hold a minute of silence when it meets on Wednesday.

Pope Francis, who received Sassoli in an audience last year, sent an unusually heartfelt telegram of condolences to Sassoli’s wife, paying tribute to him as an “animated believer of hope and charity ... who, in a peaceful and respectful way, worked for the common good with a generous commitment.”

A lifelong fan of the Fiorentina football club, he emulated the refined style of the team where Gabriel Batistuta and Roberto Baggio thrived. But in the end, like the Florence club, he also never got to reach the very highest level. Being head of the European Parliament doesn’t compare to being a prime minister or leading the European Commission or Council.

Sassoli came to lead the European legislature in 2019 following an intricate bout of political infighting among EU leaders, which also saw the German Christian Democrat von der Leyen become European Commission president and the Belgian free-market liberal Michel take the job as EU Council president. Sassoli and von der Leyen were picked by EU leaders practically out of the blue, stunning themselves and the rest of the world.

Even if he was often overshadowed by von der Leyen and Michel, Sassoli led an institution which has become ever more powerful over the years and has become instrumental in charting the course of the European Union in many sectors, be it the digital economy, climate or Brexit.

An adroit political shaker, using his bonhomie to the hilt, he helped steer several of the most important political issues facing the EU to a successful conclusion — and none more so than the 1.8 trillion-euro pandemic recovery fund and seven-year budget.

Yet his 2 1/2 years in charge was affected by both the pandemic, which often turned the European parliament into a remote digital institution where his human warmth lost impact, and his own deteriorating health.

His pinnacle came on the European scene but he was just as respected in his native Italy.

Italian Premier Mario Draghi sent condolences on behalf of the Italian government and paid tribute to Sassoli as “a man of institutions, a profound pro-European, a passionate journalist, Sassoli was a symbol of balance, humanity, generosity.”

The head of Sassoli’s Democratic Party and a longtime friend, Enrico Letta, praised Sassoli’s European passion and vision and vowed to carry them forward, though “we know we’re not up to it.”

Sassoli was first elected to the European Parliament in 2009. He won another term in 2014 and served as its vice president. He started out as a newspaper journalist before entering broadcasting as a high-profile presenter in Italy. It was a stepping stone for his political career.

He had considered running for the second part of the five-year term which starts next week, but decided not to run for reelection when lawmakers choose their new president in Strasbourg, France.

Roberta Metsola, the Christian Democrat who was set to take over from Sassoli next week, said “I am heartbroken. Europe has lost a leader, I have a lost a friend, democracy has lost a champion.” She said Sassoli “dedicated his life to making the world a better, fairer place.”

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Re: Departed During 2022

#12 Post by PHXPhlyer » Wed Jan 12, 2022 10:58 pm

They're dropping like flies.

Ronnie Spector, '60s pop icon and 'Be My Baby' singer, dies at 78


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries ... -rcna12001

Ronnie Spector, known for singing iconic 1960s hits such as "Be My Baby" and "Walking in the Rain," died Wednesday following a battle with cancer, according to a statement from her family.

Spector, 78, led the girl group the Ronettes and was known for rocking the cat-eye makeup and beehive hair that became synonymous with the era. A New York City native who grew up in East Harlem, Spector quickly became an international sensation.

The group's looks and powerful vocals — plus songwriting and producing help from Phil Spector — turned them into one of the premier acts of the girl-group era, touring England with the Rolling Stones and befriending the Beatles.

"Ronnie lived her life with a twinkle in her eye, a spunky attitude, a wicked sense of humor and a smile on her face," her family said Wednesday. "She was filled with love and gratitude. Her joyful sound, playful nature and magical presence will live on in all who knew, heard or saw her."

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Re: Departed During 2022

#13 Post by Wodrick » Wed Jan 12, 2022 11:17 pm

https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/ITORRO10?cm_ven=localwx_pwsdash

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Re: Departed During 2022

#14 Post by PHXPhlyer » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:48 am

One of the last Tuskegee Airmen dies
Charles E. McGee passed peacefully in his sleep Sunday morning at age 102, his family said


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries ... -rcna12432

Charles McGee, one of a handful of Tuskegee Airmen pilots still alive in 2022, has died, his family announced Sunday. He was 102.

McGee, of Bethesda, Maryland, died peacefully in his sleep Sunday morning, his loved ones said in a statement. He received numerous awards, including the Bronze Star, and in 2020 President Donald Trump honored him in the State of the Union address, on the day he was promoted to honorary brigadier general.

He died with "his right hand over his heart, and was smiling serenely,” his youngest daughter, Yvonne McGee, who was at his side, said in the family's statement.

McGee, part of a heroic group of Black pilots and support staffers trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, flew more than 400 missions spanning World War II to Vietnam. In the Second World War, the airmen's 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group of combat pilots, including bomber escorts, never lost a bomber to enemy action.

"I fell in love with flying," McGee told NBC affiliate WBAL of Baltimore in 2016.
Many of the nearly 1 million Black Americans who served in World War II saw it as a battle on two fronts, one against fascism overseas and another against the racist laws and attitudes that oppressed people of color at home.

The U.S. was in the untenable position during the war of opposing Adolf Hitler’s fascism, racism and religious intolerance while maintaining racism at home.

Although the armed forces weren't desegregated until three years after World War II, many people believe the sacrifices of Black service members, including the Tuskegee Airmen, helped lay ground for the civil rights breakthroughs of the 1950s and '60s.

"We didn't enter training to say we’re going to go down to Tuskegee to set the world on fire," McGee told WBAL. "But it turned out that what we accomplished dispelled biases and generalization and, in some cases, racism."

The airmen were the subject of an eponymous 1995 movie starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Laurence Fishburne.

McGee, who was born in Cleveland, used his experience to inspire new generations of fliers. He encouraged young people to become pilots, get educated and excel.

His mantra could be summarized by what he called the "four Ps," his family said: "Perceive, Prepare, Perform, and Persevere."

“He was a wonderful human being," his son Ron McGee said in the statement. "I feel proud and privileged to be called his son."

For his 100th birthday, in 2019, McGee was treated to time behind the yoke of a private jet for a flight between Frederick, Maryland, and Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.

His family said his last flight was in December as a passenger on an Air Force T-37 VIP Air Transport from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, to Joint Base San Antonio–Randolph, where he visited the 99th Flying Training Squadron. It is the only active flight training squadron whose legacy began in the Tuskegee Airmen era.

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Re: Departed During 2022

#15 Post by FD2 » Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:31 pm

Hardy Krüger, German actor pushed into the Waffen-SS in youth who later starred in The Wild Geese and Barry Lyndon.

An unlikely heart throb in the UK after his sympathetic portrayal of a captured fighter pilot in 'The One That Got Away'.

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Re: Departed During 2022

#16 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:40 pm

FD2 wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:31 pm
Hardy Krüger, German actor pushed into the Waffen-SS in youth who later starred in The Wild Geese and Barry Lyndon.

An unlikely heart throb in the UK after his sympathetic portrayal of a captured fighter pilot in 'The One That Got Away'.
A very good actor, and never to be forgotten as the German model plane designer in The Flight of the Phoenix....

Full movie here...

Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

PHXPhlyer
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Re: Departed During 2022

#17 Post by PHXPhlyer » Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:43 pm

Also, the author of a book I have read and reread several times, "The Upside-Down Tree". :YMAPPLAUSE: :-bd

PP

Karearea
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Re: Departed During 2022

#18 Post by Karearea » Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:48 pm

Hardy Krüger
...his sympathetic portrayal of a captured fighter pilot in 'The One That Got Away'.
Great film. It's on YT. Gripping.
And with the morn, those angel faces smile...

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Re: Departed During 2022

#19 Post by G-CPTN » Thu Jan 20, 2022 8:57 pm

When working in Germany (around 1970) I decided to attend the cinema to see the 'One that got away'.
It was dubbed into German.

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FD2
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Re: Departed During 2022

#20 Post by FD2 » Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:23 pm

Staying with relatives we watched a John Wayne western that was also dubbed into German! Maybe they're bad on subtitles!!

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