Dead, Arthur "Art" Buchwald on January 17, 2007 at the age of 81, he was an American humorist best known for his long-running column in The Washington Post, which in turn was carried as a syndicated column in many other newspapers.
Born to an Austrian-Hungarian Jewish immigrant family on October 20, 1925, he was the son of Joseph Buchwald, a curtain manufacturer, and Helen Klineberger, who later spent 35 years in a mental hospital.
He was the youngest of four, with three older sisters—Alice, Edith, and Doris.
Buchwald's father put him in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York City when the family business failed during the Great Depression.
Buchwald was moved about between several foster homes, including a Queens boarding house for sick children (he had rickets) operated by Seventh-day Adventists.
In 1949 he left USC and bought a one-way ticket to Paris.
Eventually, he got a job as a correspondent for Variety in Paris.
In January 1950, he took a sample column to the offices of the European edition of The New York Herald Tribune.
Titled "Paris After Dark", it was filled with scraps of offbeat information about Parisian nightlife.
Buchwald was hired and joined the editorial staff.
His column caught on quickly, and Buchwald followed it in 1951 with another column, "Mostly About People".
They were fused into one under the title "Europe's Lighter Side".
Buchwald also enjoyed the notoriety he received when U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower's press secretary, Jim Hagerty, took seriously a spoof press conference report claiming that reporters asked questions about the president's breakfast habits.
After Hagerty called his own conference to denounce the article as "unadulterated rot," Buchwald famously retorted, "Hagerty is wrong.
I write adulterated rot."
On August 24, 1959, TIME magazine, in reviewing the history of the European edition of The Herald Tribune, reported that Buchwald's column had achieved an "institutional quality."
In 1988, Buchwald made headlines not for his popular column, but for his lawsuit against Paramount Pictures over a script idea.
He believed that his idea was used as the basis for the film Coming to America, starring Eddie Murphy. After a lengthy court battle, the two sides reached a settlement in 1995.
Around this time, Buchwald wrote the 1994 memoir Leaving Home.
He again explored his own experiences in I’ll Always Have Paris (1996).
Buchwald’s last book, Too Soon to Say Goodbye (2006), chronicles his time at a hospice after being told he only had a short time to live because of kidney problems.
He defied doctor’s expectations and lived long enough to reflect on his own passing in this work.
Buchwald later wrote about his depression, hoping to share with others the ability to endure such pain.
He also suffered a series of setbacks to his health.
When his kidneys started to fail, he refused dialysis, and instead, prepared for his own death.
Wednesday 2 December 2015
Michael Kidd, American film and stage choreographer, Died at 92
Michael Kidd died on December 23, 2007, at the age of 92, he was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and staged some of the leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940s and 1950s.
Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side on August 12, 1915, the son of Abraham Greenwald, a barber, and his wife Lillian, who were refugees from Czarist Russia.
He moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School.
He studied chemical engineering at the City College of New York, in 1936 and 1937, but left after being granted a scholarship to the School of American Ballet.
He toured the country as a member of the corps de ballet of Lincoln Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan, and performed in roles that included the lead in Billy the Kid, choreographed by Eugene Loring, which featured an orchestral arrangement by Aaron Copland.
Kidd's first choreography on Broadway was for E.Y. Harburg's Finian's Rainbow, a lyrical musical that explored racial prejudice.
Kidd won his first Tony Award for that play.
However, his next Broadway musicals were not successful.
They were Hold It, a college musical, and the Kurt Weill/Alan Jay Lerner musical Love Life, directed by Elia Kazan, which both had short runs in 1948.
Next came Arms and the Girl (1950), directed by Rouben Mamoulian, with Pearl Bailey and Nanette Fabray, also a flop.
Kidd's work for the 1954 film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers brought him acclaim.
The film was directed by Stanley Donen, with music by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul and lyrics by Johnny Mercer.
It was written directly for the screen and based on the short story "The Sobbin' Women", by Stephen Vincent Benét, which was based in turn on the ancient Roman legend of The Rape of the Sabine Women.
He initially turned down the assignment, recalling in 1997: "Here are these slobs living off in the woods.
They have no schooling, they are uncouth, there's manure on the floor, the cows come in and out—and they're gonna get up and dance? We'd be laughed out of the house."
In 1975 Kidd surprised critics by starring in the Michael Ritchie cult film Smile (1975), a devilishly wicked and clever satire on beauty pageants.
The versatile Michael also directed occasionally for both film (Danny Kaye's Merry Andrew (1958)) and TV (All in the Family (1971), Laverne & Shirley (1976).
The Academy rectified this awkward situation by awarding him an honorary trophy in 1997 for his outstanding services to the art of dance, joining an extremely small and illustrious group that includes Jerome Robbins ("West Side Story") and Onna White ("Oliver").
Kidd believed that dance needed to derive from life, saying that his "dancing is based on naturalistic movement that is abstracted and enlarged” and that "all my movements relate to some kind of real activity".
He always wanted dance to serve the story, and when beginning a new work he would write a scenario, explaining how the plot drove the characters to dance.
His biggest influences were Charlie Chaplin, "because he expressed through movement the aspirations of the little man", and the dancer and choreographer Léonide Massine, "because he expressed more than just balletic ability—he was always a character on stage, an exaggerated character, which I do all the time: an exaggeration of ordinary movement".
Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side on August 12, 1915, the son of Abraham Greenwald, a barber, and his wife Lillian, who were refugees from Czarist Russia.
He moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School.
He studied chemical engineering at the City College of New York, in 1936 and 1937, but left after being granted a scholarship to the School of American Ballet.
He toured the country as a member of the corps de ballet of Lincoln Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan, and performed in roles that included the lead in Billy the Kid, choreographed by Eugene Loring, which featured an orchestral arrangement by Aaron Copland.
Kidd's first choreography on Broadway was for E.Y. Harburg's Finian's Rainbow, a lyrical musical that explored racial prejudice.
Kidd won his first Tony Award for that play.
However, his next Broadway musicals were not successful.
They were Hold It, a college musical, and the Kurt Weill/Alan Jay Lerner musical Love Life, directed by Elia Kazan, which both had short runs in 1948.
Next came Arms and the Girl (1950), directed by Rouben Mamoulian, with Pearl Bailey and Nanette Fabray, also a flop.
Kidd's work for the 1954 film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers brought him acclaim.
The film was directed by Stanley Donen, with music by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul and lyrics by Johnny Mercer.
It was written directly for the screen and based on the short story "The Sobbin' Women", by Stephen Vincent Benét, which was based in turn on the ancient Roman legend of The Rape of the Sabine Women.
He initially turned down the assignment, recalling in 1997: "Here are these slobs living off in the woods.
They have no schooling, they are uncouth, there's manure on the floor, the cows come in and out—and they're gonna get up and dance? We'd be laughed out of the house."
In 1975 Kidd surprised critics by starring in the Michael Ritchie cult film Smile (1975), a devilishly wicked and clever satire on beauty pageants.
The versatile Michael also directed occasionally for both film (Danny Kaye's Merry Andrew (1958)) and TV (All in the Family (1971), Laverne & Shirley (1976).
The Academy rectified this awkward situation by awarding him an honorary trophy in 1997 for his outstanding services to the art of dance, joining an extremely small and illustrious group that includes Jerome Robbins ("West Side Story") and Onna White ("Oliver").
Kidd believed that dance needed to derive from life, saying that his "dancing is based on naturalistic movement that is abstracted and enlarged” and that "all my movements relate to some kind of real activity".
He always wanted dance to serve the story, and when beginning a new work he would write a scenario, explaining how the plot drove the characters to dance.
His biggest influences were Charlie Chaplin, "because he expressed through movement the aspirations of the little man", and the dancer and choreographer Léonide Massine, "because he expressed more than just balletic ability—he was always a character on stage, an exaggerated character, which I do all the time: an exaggeration of ordinary movement".
Evel Knievel, American daredevil and entertainer, Died at 69
Dead, Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel on November 30, 2007 at the age of 69, he was an American daredevil and entertainer, born in Butte, Montana on October 17, 1938, Knievel ended high school after his sophomore (second) year and got a job in the copper mines with the Anaconda Mining Company as a diamond drill operator.
However, he preferred motorbiking to all this "unimportant stuff", as he put it.
He was then promoted to surface duty where he drove a large earth mover.
Knievel was fired when he made the earth mover do a motorcycle-type wheelie and drove it into Butte's main power line. \
The incident left the city without electricity for several hours.
Without work, Knievel began to find himself in more and more trouble around Butte.
After a police chase in 1956 in which he crashed his motorcycle, Knievel was taken to jail on a charge of reckless driving.
When the night jailer came around to check the roll, he noted Robert Knievel in one cell and William Knofel in the other.
Raised by his grandparents in Butte, a copper-mining town, he began doing motorcycle stunts as a teenager.
Knievel married hometown girlfriend, Linda Joan Bork, in 1959. They separated in the early 1990s.
They had four children, Kelly, Robbie, Tracey and Alicia.
After Evel retired, he managed Robbie's stunt career.
Knievel married his longtime partner, Krystal Kennedy-Knievel in 1999.
They divorced a few years later but remained together.
Knievel had 10 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
In 1999, he underwent a liver transplant after nearly dying of hepatitis C, which he believed he had contracted from a blood transfusion after one of his many violent spills.
Knievel started the Butte Bombers, a semi-pro hockey team.
To help promote his team and earn some money, he convinced the 1960 Olympic Czechoslovakian hockey team to play the Butte Bombers in a warm-up game to the Olympics.
Knievel was ejected from the game minutes into the third period and left the stadium.
When the Czechoslovakian officials went to the box office to collect the expense money the team was promised, workers discovered the game receipts had been stolen.
The United States Olympic Committee wound up paying the Czechoslovakian team's expenses to avoid an international incident.
After the birth of his first son, Kelly, Knievel realized that he needed to come up with a new way to support his family financially.
Using the hunting and fishing skills his grandfather had taught him, Knievel started the Sur-Kill Guide Service.
He guaranteed that if a hunter employed his service and paid his fee, they would get the big game animal they wanted or he would refund their money.
Business was very good until game wardens realized that Knievel was taking his clients into Yellowstone National Park to find prey.
Knievel, 29, used his own money to have actor/director John Derek produce a film of the Caesars' jump.
To keep costs low, Derek used his then-wife Linda Evans as one of the camera operators.
It was Evans who filmed Knievel's famous landing.
On the morning of the jump, Knievel stopped in the casino and placed his last 100 dollars on the blackjack table (which he lost), stopped by the bar and had a shot of Wild Turkey and then headed outside where he was joined by several members of the Caesars staff, as well as two showgirls.
After doing his normal pre-jump show and a few warm up approaches, Knievel began his real approach.
When he hit the takeoff ramp, he felt the motorcycle unexpectedly decelerate.
However, he preferred motorbiking to all this "unimportant stuff", as he put it.
He was then promoted to surface duty where he drove a large earth mover.
Knievel was fired when he made the earth mover do a motorcycle-type wheelie and drove it into Butte's main power line. \
The incident left the city without electricity for several hours.
Without work, Knievel began to find himself in more and more trouble around Butte.
After a police chase in 1956 in which he crashed his motorcycle, Knievel was taken to jail on a charge of reckless driving.
When the night jailer came around to check the roll, he noted Robert Knievel in one cell and William Knofel in the other.
Raised by his grandparents in Butte, a copper-mining town, he began doing motorcycle stunts as a teenager.
Knievel married hometown girlfriend, Linda Joan Bork, in 1959. They separated in the early 1990s.
They had four children, Kelly, Robbie, Tracey and Alicia.
After Evel retired, he managed Robbie's stunt career.
Knievel married his longtime partner, Krystal Kennedy-Knievel in 1999.
They divorced a few years later but remained together.
Knievel had 10 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
In 1999, he underwent a liver transplant after nearly dying of hepatitis C, which he believed he had contracted from a blood transfusion after one of his many violent spills.
Knievel started the Butte Bombers, a semi-pro hockey team.
To help promote his team and earn some money, he convinced the 1960 Olympic Czechoslovakian hockey team to play the Butte Bombers in a warm-up game to the Olympics.
Knievel was ejected from the game minutes into the third period and left the stadium.
When the Czechoslovakian officials went to the box office to collect the expense money the team was promised, workers discovered the game receipts had been stolen.
The United States Olympic Committee wound up paying the Czechoslovakian team's expenses to avoid an international incident.
After the birth of his first son, Kelly, Knievel realized that he needed to come up with a new way to support his family financially.
Using the hunting and fishing skills his grandfather had taught him, Knievel started the Sur-Kill Guide Service.
He guaranteed that if a hunter employed his service and paid his fee, they would get the big game animal they wanted or he would refund their money.
Business was very good until game wardens realized that Knievel was taking his clients into Yellowstone National Park to find prey.
Knievel, 29, used his own money to have actor/director John Derek produce a film of the Caesars' jump.
To keep costs low, Derek used his then-wife Linda Evans as one of the camera operators.
It was Evans who filmed Knievel's famous landing.
On the morning of the jump, Knievel stopped in the casino and placed his last 100 dollars on the blackjack table (which he lost), stopped by the bar and had a shot of Wild Turkey and then headed outside where he was joined by several members of the Caesars staff, as well as two showgirls.
After doing his normal pre-jump show and a few warm up approaches, Knievel began his real approach.
When he hit the takeoff ramp, he felt the motorcycle unexpectedly decelerate.
Tuesday 1 December 2015
Joan Bosch Palau, Spanish film director, Died at 89
Joan Bosch Palau also called Juan Bosch was born on May 31, 1925 in Barcelona, and died on November 17, 2015.
He was a Spanish film director and screenwriter.
Joan Bosch Palau has been a director since 1957.
He worked on marked trails to 1983, A Rolls for Hippolytus.
Joan participated in the script, alone or in collaboration with others, of several movies and many others of their own.
Joan also directed some short films.
His parents were Joan Bosch Palau Dalmau and Maria Estrada.
Jacinto Goday, an architect who shoots his first film, in 1944.
He and producer Joan Bosch offered to collaborate on the project as an assistant director to accept this willingly.
His work lasted over time until when Joan Bosch left in May 1946 to Morocco to film military service had not yet been completed.
The same film would end up being titled The Adventures of Captain Guido (1946).
Joan Bosch Palau passed away at 89 years old.
He was a Spanish film director and screenwriter.
Joan Bosch Palau has been a director since 1957.
He worked on marked trails to 1983, A Rolls for Hippolytus.
Joan participated in the script, alone or in collaboration with others, of several movies and many others of their own.
Joan also directed some short films.
His parents were Joan Bosch Palau Dalmau and Maria Estrada.
Jacinto Goday, an architect who shoots his first film, in 1944.
He and producer Joan Bosch offered to collaborate on the project as an assistant director to accept this willingly.
His work lasted over time until when Joan Bosch left in May 1946 to Morocco to film military service had not yet been completed.
The same film would end up being titled The Adventures of Captain Guido (1946).
Joan Bosch Palau passed away at 89 years old.
Jan Monrad, Danish comedian and entertainer, Died at 64
Jan Monrad was born on March 18, 1951, in Amager, Copenhagen and died November 20, 2015.
He was a Danish comedian and entertainer before his death.
After, Jan and Soren Rislund formed the duo Monrad & Rislund in 1978.
Both comedians delivered plat, in a good way, satire during the 1980s in satire program Friday Open on Danish Radio P3.
Jan also worked at Ekstra Bladet for 14 years, where he work as back-skibent, reviewer and travel reporter.
He left behind his wife, the lived in Holbaek in the northwestern part of new Zealand, together.
Jan Monrad passed away at 64 yrs old due to a blood clot in the lungs.
He was a Danish comedian and entertainer before his death.
After, Jan and Soren Rislund formed the duo Monrad & Rislund in 1978.
Both comedians delivered plat, in a good way, satire during the 1980s in satire program Friday Open on Danish Radio P3.
Jan also worked at Ekstra Bladet for 14 years, where he work as back-skibent, reviewer and travel reporter.
He left behind his wife, the lived in Holbaek in the northwestern part of new Zealand, together.
Jan Monrad passed away at 64 yrs old due to a blood clot in the lungs.
Saturday 21 November 2015
Ron Hynes, 'man of a thousand songs,' dead at 64
Hynes, who had been battling cancer, was rushed to hospital earlier this week. Hynes, known for years as "the man of a thousand songs," was born in December 1950 in St. John's. He was raised in Ferryland.
Hynes released seven solo albums, starting with Discovery in 1972. The record holds the distinction of being the first made up of all original material from a Newfoundland artist. Read more >>>
Dead, Fred Thompson American politician and actor
Fred Thompson was born in Sheffield, Alabama on August 19, 1942, the son of Ruth Inez (née Bradley) and Fletcher Session Thompson (born Lauderdale County, Alabama, August 26, 1919, died Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, May 27, 1990), who was an automobile salesman.
Fred attended public school in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, graduating from Lawrence County High School, where he played high school football. Thereafter, he worked days in the local post office, and nights at the Murray bicycle assembly plant.
Fred Thompson then entered Florence State College (now the University of North Alabama), becoming the first member of his family to go to university.
He later transferred to Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis, where he earned a double degree in philosophy and political science in 1964, as well as scholarships to both Tulane and Vanderbilt University law schools.
Fred Thompson went on to earn his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the Vanderbilt Law School in 1967.
Fred attended public school in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, graduating from Lawrence County High School, where he played high school football. Thereafter, he worked days in the local post office, and nights at the Murray bicycle assembly plant.
Fred Thompson then entered Florence State College (now the University of North Alabama), becoming the first member of his family to go to university.
He later transferred to Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis, where he earned a double degree in philosophy and political science in 1964, as well as scholarships to both Tulane and Vanderbilt University law schools.
Fred Thompson went on to earn his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the Vanderbilt Law School in 1967.
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