Author Topic: Dropping Like Flies  (Read 2529218 times)

ggw

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Dropping Like Flies
« on: February 04, 2005, 04:48:00 pm »
Lot of death notices today.
 
 Max Schmeling, German Boxer, Is Dead at 99
 

 
 Max Schmeling, the German boxer whose legendarily brief 1938 heavyweight title bout against Joe Louis was so fraught with political and racial overtones that it was called "the undercard of World War II," died Wednesday at his home in Hollenstedt, Germany, near Hamburg. He was 99 years old.
 
 In one of boxing's most memorable nights and surely among the most electrifying 124 seconds in the history of sport, Louis, then heavyweight champion of the world, crushed Schmeling before 70,000 fans at Yankee Stadium.
 
 For Louis, the first-round knockout was sweet revenge: two years earlier, in what many consider one of the greatest upsets in heavyweight history, Schmeling had knocked out the undefeated, heavily-favored Louis in the 12th round.
 
 The Nazis had embraced Schmeling after his victory over Louis, touting him as proof of German racial superiority. Schmeling never joined the Nazi Party himself. But from the moment Hitler came to power in 1933, he had walked a tightrope, seeking simultaneously to please the Nazis while maintaining his relations in New York, the world capital of boxing, where he made most of his money and where a large percentage of the boxing community - managers, promoters, fans - was Jewish.
 
 In later life Schmeling came to be known as one of sport's finest ambassadors and a generous man who would help to pay a stricken Louis' medical bills.
 
 
 Actor Ossie Davis Found Dead in Hotel
 
 Ossie Davis, the imposing, unshakable actor who championed racial justice on stage, on screen and in real life, often in tandem with his wife, Ruby Dee, has died. He was 87.
 
 Davis was found dead Friday in his hotel room in Miami Beach, Fla., according to officials there. He was making a film called ``Retirement,'' said Arminda Thomas, who works in his office in suburban New Rochelle and confirmed the death.
 
 
 Ernst Mayr, 100, Premier Evolutionary Biologist
 
 Dr. Ernst Mayr, the leading evolutionary biologist of the 20th century, died on Thursday in Bedford, Mass. He was 100.
 
 Dr. Mayr's death, in a retirement community where he had lived since 1997, was announced by his family and Harvard, where he was a faculty member for many years.
 
 He was known as an architect of the evolutionary or modern synthesis, an intellectual watershed when modern evolutionary biology was born. The synthesis, which has been described by Dr. Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard as "one of the half-dozen major scientific achievements in our century," revived Darwin's theories of evolution and reconciled them with new findings in laboratory genetics and in field work on animal populations and diversity.
 
 One of Dr. Mayr's most significant contributions was his persuasive argument for the role of geography in the origin of new species, an idea that has won virtually universal acceptance among evolutionary theorists. He also established a philosophy of biology and founded the field of the history of biology.
 
 "He was the Darwin of the 20th century, the defender of the faith," said Dr. Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, a historian of science at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
 
 
 Eric Griffiths, 64, Member of Band That Became Beatles, Dies
 
 ric Griffiths, a guitarist for the Quarrymen, the rock and skiffle band led by John Lennon that eventually evolved into the Beatles, died on Saturday at his home in Edinburgh. He was 64.
 
 The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Rod Davis, who played banjo in the original group.
 
 Mr. Griffiths was born in Denbigh, Wales, and moved with his family to Liverpool at a young age. On his first day at Quarry Bank School when he was at 11, he met two students, John Lennon and Pete Shotton, who, Mr. Griffiths later said, shared an interest in "music, girls and smoking."
 
 The friends began to play skiffle, the ragtag mix of American blues and early rock 'n' roll that captivated English youth in the mid-50's. The band rehearsed at Mr. Griffiths's home while his mother was at work, and began to perform in Liverpool. Along with other revolving members, Lennon and Mr. Griffiths played guitar, Mr. Shotton played washboard percussion, Bill Smith played tea-chest bass and Colin Hanton played drums.
 
 At a concert on July 6, 1957 - a hallowed date in Beatles lore - the Quarrymen were heard by a 15-year-old Paul McCartney, who soon joined the group. The next year George Harrison joined as another guitarist and Mr. Griffiths was asked to switch to bass. The instrument was prohibitively expensive, so he left the group and joined the British merchant navy. He first heard "Please Please Me," the Beatles' first No. 1 hit, on the radio while on duty in the Persian Gulf.
 
 John Vernon, 'Animal House's' Wormer, dies
 
 LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- John Vernon, a stage-trained character actor who played cunning villains in film and TV and made his comedy mark as Dean Wormer in "National Lampoon's Animal House," has died. He was 72.
 
 Movie fans may know him best for his role in "Animal House" as Dean Wormer, who is bent on expelling the hard-partying Delta fraternity house. The movie, starring John Belushi and Tim Matheson, is one of the most popular comedies ever made.
 
 Vernon went on to work with other celebrated filmmakers including Alfred Hitchcock ("Topaz," 1969); Don Siegel ("Dirty Harry," 1971), and Clint Eastwood ("The Outlaw Josey Wales," 1976).

Guiny

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2005, 05:45:00 pm »
The John Vernon one was the saddest I think. He had some good roles.

Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2005, 05:47:00 pm »
Ruby Dee would probably disagree with Rob Gee.
 
 
Quote
Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
  The John Vernon one was the saddest I think. He had some good roles.

Frank Gallagher

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2005, 06:15:00 am »
Do flies actually "drop"? I mean they don't just pop-off in mid-flight do they? I see them on window sills on their backs buzzing frantically before expiring. And why do flies always go to window sills to die?

vansmack

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2005, 05:16:00 pm »
Merle Kilgore Dies
 
 Country music songwriter/manager was seventy
 
 Country music songwriter, recording artist and manger Merle Kilgore died Sunday night of congestive heart failure related to treatment for lung cancer. He was seventy.
 
 Kilgore wrote several million-selling hits, including "More and More" for Webb Pierce, "Wolverton Mountain" for Claude King and "Johnny Reb" for Johnny Horton. He also co-wrote Johnny Cash's 1963 hit song "Ring of Fire" with Cash's then-future wife June Carter, and served as best man at the couple's wedding.
 
 Born Wyatt Merle Kilgore in Chickasha, Oklahoma, in 1934, Kilgore grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, working as a DJ and singing on local radio stations. At the age of eighteen, he was signed to Imperial Records and wrote "More and More" -- a number Number One country hit for Pierce in 1954. Kilgore continued his recording success throughout the Sixties, by releasing several solo albums and scoring hits with songs like "Love Has Made You Beautiful" and "Dear Mama."
 
 In 1962, Kilgore moved to Nashville, where he became a behind-the-scenes force, managing Hank Williams Jr.'s career for more than thirty years.
 
 Kilgore was voted the Country Music Association's first-ever Manager of the Year in 1990, and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter's Hall of Fame in 1998. He also appeared in several movies, including Coal Miner's Daughter and Nashville.
 
 Kilgore is survived by his wife, Judy, and five children: sons Steve and Duane Kilgore and daughters Pam Compton, Kim Pomeroy and Shane McBee.
27>34

ggw

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2005, 05:41:00 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
  The John Vernon one was the saddest I think. He had some good roles.
It's people like you that lead to negative stereotypes of Americans.

Jaguär

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2005, 11:00:00 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
   
Quote
Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
  The John Vernon one was the saddest I think. He had some good roles.
It's people like you that lead to negative stereotypes of Americans. [/b]
Too right!   ;)

Guiny

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #7 on: February 08, 2005, 09:47:00 am »
Quote
Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
 It's people like you that lead to negative stereotypes of Americans. [/QB]
Brave, brave, brave man. I'll just leave it at that.   :cool:

ggw

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #8 on: February 11, 2005, 12:52:00 pm »
Playwright Arthur Miller dead at 89
 
 
 ROXBURY, Connecticut (AP) -- Arthur Miller, the Pulitzer prize-winning playwright whose most famous fictional creation, Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman," came to symbolize the American Dream gone awry, has died, his assistant said Friday. He was 89.
 
 Miller, who had been hailed as America's greatest living playwright, died Thursday night at his home in Roxbury of heart failure, his assistant, Julia Bolus, said Friday. His family was at his bedside, she said.
 
 His plays, with their strong emphasis on family, morality and personal responsibility, spoke to the growing fragmentation of American society.
 
 "A lot of my work goes to the center of where we belong -- if there is any root to life -- because nowadays the family is broken up, and people don't live in the same place for very long," Miller said in a 1988 interview.
 
 "Dislocation, maybe, is part of our uneasiness. It implants the feeling that nothing is really permanent."
 
 Miller's career was marked by early success. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for "Death of a Salesman" in 1949, when he was just 33 years old.
 
 His marriage to Marilyn Monroe in 1956 further catapulted the playwright to fame, though that was publicity he said he never pursued.
 
 In a 1992 interview with a French newspaper, he called her "highly self-destructive" and said that during their marriage, "all my energy and attention were devoted to trying to help her solve her problems. Unfortunately, I didn't have much success."
 
 "Death of a Salesman," which took Miller only six weeks to write, earned rave reviews when it opened on Broadway in February 1949, directed by Elia Kazan.
 
 The story of Willy Loman, a man destroyed by his own stubborn belief in the glory of American capitalism and the redemptive power of success, was made into a movie and staged all over the world.

Frank Gallagher

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #9 on: February 11, 2005, 01:18:00 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by ggw™:
  Miller, who had been hailed as America's greatest living playwright, died Thursday night at his home in Roxbury of heart failure,
Err....don't we ALL die of heart failure?

thirsty moore

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #10 on: February 11, 2005, 01:27:00 pm »
Jimmy Smith.  I saw him play once on a bill with Lou Donaldson a few years ago at the Blue Note.  Some drunk kept pestering him, and Smith basically told the guy to fuck off.

vansmack

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #11 on: February 11, 2005, 01:29:00 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by econo:
  Jimmy Smith.  
He was great on NYPD Blue.
27>34

Bombay Chutney

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #12 on: February 11, 2005, 02:19:00 pm »
One less Doobie:
 
 Doobie Drummer Dead
 
 The Doobies are mourning one of their brothers.
 
  Keith Knudsen, longtime drummer for jukebox-filling 1970s band the Doobie Brothers, died Tuesday at age 56 after a battle with pneumonia.
 
 He died at a hospital outside San Francisco, where he spent more than a month fighting the disease, band manager Bruce Cohn told the Associated Press.

Jaguär

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #13 on: February 14, 2005, 11:30:00 pm »
Sister Lucia
 
 I guess the Pope will be next.

Frank Gallagher

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Re: Dropping Like Flies
« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2005, 06:22:00 am »
Quote
Originally posted by Bombay Chutney:
  One less Doobie:
 
 Doobie Drummer Dead
 
 The Doobies are mourning one of their brothers.
 
  Keith Knudsen, longtime drummer for jukebox-filling 1970s band the Doobie Brothers, died Tuesday at age 56 after a battle with pneumonia.
 
 He died at a hospital outside San Francisco, where he spent more than a month fighting the disease, band manager Bruce Cohn told the Associated Press.
DOOBIE DOOBIE DONE!!!!!!!  :D