The Rest In Peace and Remembrance Thread

[David Paleg]

1940s gospel legend Marie Knight dies in NYC at 84
Aug 31, 11:48 PM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - Gospel legend Marie Knight has died in New York City at age 84. She came to prominence while touring with Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1940s and singing hits such as "Beams of Heaven."

Her manager, Mark Carpentieri, says she died Sunday at a Harlem nursing home of complications from pneumonia.

Knight was raised in Newark, N.J. She began touring the national gospel circuit with evangelist Frances Robinson.

In 1946, she partnered with Tharpe. The two became the most popular gospel artists of the 1940s with hits including "Didn't it Rain" and "Up Above My Head." They toured throughout the 1950s.

Knight began a comeback in 2002, working on a tribute to Tharpe. In 2007, her manager's M.C. Records company released "Let Us Get Together," her first full-length album in more than 25 years.

[David Paleg]

Blanche Frisch Maier of Frisch's Big Boy dies
Blanche Frisch Maier, daughter of Frisch's Restaurants founder and mother of CEO, dies at 82
Wednesday September 2, 2009, 11:31 am EDT


CINCINNATI (AP) -- Blanche Frisch Maier (MY'-ur), the matriarch of the regional Frisch's Big Boy restaurant chain, has died at the age of 82.

Her daughter says Maier died of complications from lung cancer Tuesday at her home near Cincinnati.

Maier was the daughter of Frisch's Restaurants Inc. founder David Frisch and worked in the family's first restaurant. Her late husband, Jack Maier, was the company's chairman, and her son, Craig Maier, is now the CEO. Frisch's operates Big Boy restaurants in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

Blanche Maier was passionate about the arts, serving for years on the Cincinnati Ballet board. Daughter Karen Maier, Frisch's corporate vice president of marketing, says her mother was a self-described "klutz" but thought the ballet was beautiful.

[genlock]

Jim KM0X ----read zero--- (previously W0NJB) passed away recently in CA from complications of an illness. Jim retired from radio station KMOX in St. Louis and resided with his wife in Orange Beach, AL


Jim White KMOX radio has died

[David Paleg]

Columnist Army Archerd dies at 87
By DERRIK J. LANG, AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang, Ap Entertainment Writer
Wed Sep 9, 7:14 am ET

LOS ANGELES – Army Archerd, whose breezy column for the entertainment trade publication Daily Variety kept tabs on various Hollywood doings for more than a half-century, has died. He was 87.

Archerd's wife, Selma, said he died Tuesday at UCLA Medical Center of mesothelioma, a cancer of the lungs strongly tied to asbestos exposure. She said the cancer was the result of his time spent in shipyards while serving in the Navy during World War II. She said he had become very ill over the last two years, especially in the last two weeks.

"He was the love of my life," said Selma.

Over the years, Archerd won praise from the Hollywood establishment for always checking the accuracy of his news tips before printing them. He had an extensive phone directory of much-guarded private numbers that he would use to call movie stars and studio bosses directly to ferret out which rumors were true and which were not.

His biggest scoop came in 1985 when he was first to report that veteran leading man Rock Hudson had AIDS. It was the first time a major Hollywood star was disclosed to be an AIDS victim, and it helped break down some of the secrecy surrounding the disease.

Archerd — born Armand Archerd in New York in 1922 — also broke the story that Julia Roberts had jilted fiance Keifer Sutherland in 1991 and that longtime bachelor Warren Beatty had married Annette Bening in 1992. His source for the Beatty-Bening story was Beatty himself.

Full story at Yahoo news.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Jim KM0X ----read zero--- (previously W0NJB) passed away recently in CA from complications of an illness. Jim retired from radio station KMOX in St. Louis and resided with his wife in Orange Beach, AL. Jim White KMOX radio has died.

Extras, mark your calendars. KM-zero-X will be available in September 2011.

[genlock]

I met Jim at Dayton Hamvention a couple years ago.
Short, white hair, crew cut.
Onery old dude.
Said he didn't miss working at all.
Loved ham radio.
Formerly W0NJB.
RIP JIM.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Nothing personal against Jim. Actually, a compliment of sorts.
KM-zero-X is an awesome vanity call.
Like W-zero-WO would be.
Unless a relative or a club snaps that up, it'll be a feeding frenzy at the callsign desk two years from now.

[David Paleg]

World's oldest person dies in Los Angeles at 115
By JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press Writer
Fri Sep 11, 5:03 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Although she liked her bacon crispy and her chicken fried, she never drank, smoked or fooled around, Gertrude Baines once said, describing a life that lasted an astonishing 115 years and earned her the title of oldest person on the planet.

It was a title Baines quietly relinquished Friday when she died in her sleep at Western Convalescent Hospital, her home since she gave up living alone at age 107 after breaking a hip.

She likely suffered a heart attack, said her longtime physician, Dr. Charles Witt, although an autopsy was scheduled to determine the exact cause of death.

"I saw her two days ago, and she was just doing fine," Witt told The Associated Press on Friday. "She was in excellent shape. She was mentally alert. She smiled frequently."

Baines was born in Shellman, Ga., on April 6, 1894, when Grover Cleveland was in the White House, radio communication was just being developed and television was still more than a half-century from becoming a ubiquitous household presence.

Full story at Yahoo News.

[David Paleg]

‘M*A*S*H’ writer Larry Gelbart dies at 81
Mel Brooks once called Gelbart, ‘the wittiest man in the business’
Associated Press
Fri Sep 11, 7:28 pm ET

LOS ANGELES - Larry Gelbart, the award-winning writer whose sly, sardonic wit helped create such hits as Broadway’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” the films “Tootsie” and “Oh, God!” and television’s “M*A*S*H,” is dead.

Gelbart died at his Beverly Hills home Friday morning after a long battle with cancer, said Creative Artists Agency, which represented him. He was 81.

Gelbart, who won a Tony for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” an Emmy for “M*A*S*H” and was nominated for two Oscars, is most likely best remembered for the long-running TV show about Army doctors during the Korean War.

From MSNBC.msn.com.

[David Paleg]

Cossette, father of the Grammy Awards, dies at 85
Sep 12, 11:54 AM (ET)

TORONTO (AP) - Pierre Cossette, who founded the modern Grammy Awards and produced the globally televised music awards ceremony for 35 years, died of congestive heart failure at a Montreal hospital. He was 85.

The Canadian producer's death was announced late Friday in Santa Monica, Calif., by the Recording Academy.

"It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our dear friend and father of the Grammy Awards, Pierre Cossette," Academy president and CEO Neil Portnow said.

Cossette, a native of Valleyfield, Quebec, was an accomplished television and theater producer who managed some of American pop music's most influential early bands. But he is best known for guiding the Grammy Awards from its early days as a stuffy, unsuccessful production to the industry institution it has become.

In its early years, the Grammy show was an hourlong compilation of recorded performances, and it was not a commercial success. When the production rights became available in 1971, Cossette already had a successful career in the music business as a producer and manager.

He had the ambitious idea to turn the show into a grand musical showcase full of live performances, but he had difficulty selling networks on his vision. Executives were particularly skeptical that there was an audience for a performance-based TV show. But Cossette - nicknamed "Showbiz" - persevered.

The Grammy Museum, which opened in December 2008, is called the Pierre Cossette Center and contains a corner exhibit dedicated to him.

In an interview before the 2009 Grammy Awards, Cossette said the acknowledgment served as validation of his life's work.

"I was thrilled," he said. "I could only think back to when we first started it, in ballrooms and dance halls and hotel rooms, and (then it) finally growing up to this monster thing. And all the trials, tribulations of getting there. Booking the places then having to cancel because either the Academy or the record industry wouldn't support it. My part of it, proving them wrong, was exciting for me."

Cossette produced the Grammy Awards until 2005, when his son took over the job for Cossette Productions.

Before working on the Grammys, Cossette served as personal manager for Ann-Margret, Vic Damone, Dick Shawn, and Rowan & Martin. He is credited with pioneering the Las Vegas lounge act format. Soon, Cossette struck out on his own by founding Dunhill Records, where the roster included the Mamas and the Papas, Steppenwolf, Johnny Rivers and Three Dog Night.

He later sold the label and became a TV producer. He got his start with Johnny Mann's "Stand Up and Cheer," and expanded his roster to include "The Glen Campbell Show," Sammy Davis's "Sammy and Company,""Salute,""ShaNaNa," and "The Andy Williams Show."

Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

[David Paleg]

Jim Carroll, poet and punk rocker, dead at 60
Sep 14, 8:36 AM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - Jim Carroll, the poet and punk rocker who wrote "The Basketball Diaries," died Friday. He was 60.

He died from a heart attack at his home in Manhattan, his ex-wife Rosemary Carroll told the New York Times.

In the 1970s, Carroll was a fixture of the burgeoning downtown New York art scene, where he mixed with artists such as Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, Larry Rivers and Robert Mapplethorpe. His life was shaped by drug use, which he wrote about extensively.

Carroll also published several poetry collections, while his 1980 album, "Catholic Boy," has been hailed as a landmark punk record, and he became known for one of its songs, "People Who Died."

But it was "The Basketball Diaries," his autobiographical tale of life as a sports star at Trinity, an elite private high school in Manhattan, that brought him his widest audience. The son of a bar owner, Carroll attended the school on a basketball scholarship.

The book, which began life as a journal, was first published in 1978 and then became even more popular, particularly on college campuses, when it was issued as a mass-market paperback two years later. A 1995 movie version starred Leonardo DiCaprio.

His poetry career started even earlier. Carroll was in his teens when he first received recognition for his poems, especially "Organic Trains" in 1967 and then "4 Ups and 1 Down" in 1970. Among his other works are collections such as "The Book of Nods" (1986), "Fear of Dreaming" (1993) and "Void of course: Poems 1994-1997" (1998).

Carroll left New York in 1973 and moved to California, where he met his future wife Rosemary Klemfuss. They later divorced.

It was Smith who encouraged his music, and he formed the Jim Carroll Band. Among his other albums were the less successful "Dry Dreams" (1982) and "I Write Your Name" (1984).

[Bob Campbell]

I saw the Jim Carroll Band in Richmond in 1980. Awesome artist. I still listen to "Catholic Boy" regularly. I wonder if his death was drug related.

[Scott Reppert]

LOS ANGELES – Patrick Swayze, the hunky actor who danced his way into viewers' hearts with "Dirty Dancing" and then broke them with "Ghost," died Monday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.

"Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months," said a statement released Monday evening by his publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were given.

Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from a particularly deadly form of cancer.

He had kept working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting "The Beast," an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot. It drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A&E said it had reluctantly decided not to renew it for a second season.

Swayze said he opted not to use painkilling drugs while making "The Beast" because they would have taken the edge off his performance. He acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the disease.

When he first went public with the illness, some reports gave him only weeks to live, but his doctor said his situation was "considerably more optimistic" than that.

"I'd say five years is pretty wishful thinking," Swayze told ABC's Barbara Walters in early 2009. "Two years seems likely if you're going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it."

A three-time Golden Globe nominee, Swayze became a star with his performance as the misunderstood bad-boy Johnny Castle in "Dirty Dancing." As the son of a choreographer who began his career in musical theater, he seemed a natural to play the role.

A coming-of-age romance starring Jennifer Grey as an idealistic young woman on vacation with her family and Swayze as the Catskills resort's sexy (and much older) dance instructor, the film made great use of both his grace on his feet and his muscular physique.

It became an international phenomenon in the summer of 1987, spawning albums, an Oscar-winning hit song in "(I've Had) the Time of My Life," stage productions and a sequel, 2004's "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights," in which he made a cameo.

Swayze performed and co-wrote a song on the soundtrack, the ballad "She's Like the Wind," inspired by his wife, Lisa Niemi. The film also gave him the chance to utter the now-classic line, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

And it allowed him to poke fun at himself on a "Saturday Night Live" episode, in which he played a wannabe Chippendales dancer alongside the corpulent — and frighteningly shirtless — Chris Farley.

A major crowdpleaser, the film drew only mixed reviews from critics, though Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times, "Given the limitations of his role, that of a poor but handsome sex-object abused by the rich women at Kellerman's Mountain House, Mr. Swayze is also good. ... He's at his best — as is the movie — when he's dancing."

Swayze followed that up with the 1989 action flick "Road House," in which he played a bouncer at a rowdy bar. But it was his performance in 1990's "Ghost" that showed his vulnerable, sensitive side. He starred as a murdered man trying to communicate with his fiancee (Demi Moore) — with great frustration and longing — through a psychic played by Whoopi Goldberg.

Swayze said at the time that he fought for the role of Sam Wheat (director Jerry Zucker wanted Kevin Kline) but once he went in for an audition and read six scenes, he got it.

Why did he want the part so badly? "It made me cry four or five times," he said of Bruce Joel Rubin's Oscar-winning script in an AP interview.

"Ghost" provided yet another indelible musical moment: Swayze and Moore sensually molding pottery together to the strains of the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody." It also earned a best-picture nomination and a supporting-actress Oscar for Goldberg, who said she wouldn't have won if it weren't for Swayze.

"When I won my Academy Award, the only person I really thanked was Patrick," Goldberg said in March 2008 on the ABC daytime talk show "The View."

Swayze himself earned three Golden Globe nominations, for "Dirty Dancing," "Ghost" and 1995's "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar," which further allowed him to toy with his masculine image. The role called for him to play a drag queen on a cross-country road trip alongside Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo.

His heartthrob status almost kept him from being considered for the role of Vida Boheme.

"I couldn't get seen on it because everyone viewed me as terminally heterosexually masculine-macho," he told the AP then. But he transformed himself so completely that when his screen test was sent to Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin pictures produced "To Wong Foo," Spielberg didn't recognize him.

Among his earlier films, Swayze was part of the star-studded lineup of up-and-comers in Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel "The Outsiders," alongside Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez and Diane Lane. Swayze played Darrel "Dary" Curtis, the oldest of three wayward brothers — and essentially the father figure — in a poor family in small-town Oklahoma.

Other '80s films included "Red Dawn," "Grandview U.S.A." (for which he also provided choreography) and "Youngblood," once more with Lowe, as Canadian hockey teammates.

In the '90s, he made such eclectic films as "Point Break" (1991), in which he played the leader of a band of bank-robbing surfers, and the family Western "Tall Tale" (1995), in which he starred as Pecos Bill. He appeared on the cover of People magazine as its "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1991, but his career tapered off toward the end of the 1990s, when he also had stay in rehab for alcohol abuse. In 2001, he appeared in the cult favorite "Donnie Darko," and in 2003 he returned to the New York stage with "Chicago"; 2006 found him in the musical "Guys and Dolls" in London.

Swayze was born in 1952 in Houston, the son of Jesse Swayze and choreographer Patsy Swayze, whose films include "Urban Cowboy."

He played football but also was drawn to dance and theater, performing with the Feld, Joffrey and Harkness Ballets and appearing on Broadway as Danny Zuko in "Grease." But he turned to acting in 1978 after a series of injuries.

Within a couple years of moving to Los Angeles, he made his debut in the roller-disco movie "Skatetown, U.S.A." The eclectic cast included Scott Baio, Flip Wilson, Maureen McCormack and Billy Barty.

Swayze had a couple of movies in the works when his diagnosis was announced, including the drama "Powder Blue," starring Jessica Biel, Forest Whitaker and his younger brother, Don, which was scheduled for release this year.

Off-screen, he was an avid conservationist who was moved by his time in Africa to shine a light on "man's greed and absolute unwillingness to operate according to Mother Nature's laws," he told the AP in 2004.

Swayze was married since 1975 to Niemi, a fellow dancer who took lessons with his mother; they met when he was 19 and she was 15. A licensed pilot, Niemi would fly her husband from Los Angeles to Northern California for treatment at Stanford University Medical Center, People magazine reported in a cover story.

[Scott Reppert]

Out of all the deaths mentioned so far on here, Jim Carroll is the one that hits the closes home. I remember walking into the WFGM studio ("Stereo 98" days) after working an evening at 'TCS. John Conrad was working and Tim Satterfield was there and we were going to enjoy some wings (I still wonder if the red sauce stain is on the wall above the garbage can!). When I opened the door I heard this music and immediately drifted toward the production room, where we would usually have what WE wanted to listen to playing...while the rest of the station speakers had the "BM" playing. And the music that Tim had brought that evening from 'CLG was "Catholic Boy" by The Jim Carroll Band. The great part about it was that he had also brought along the long version/short version Atco promo 45 of "People Who Died" to give to me and Conrad so that we could play it at 'TCS. We had no record service at that time at "The T", so within the week I had the LP and we played "Nothing Is True", "Three Sisters" and "Wicked Gravity".

If you have never experienced side one of "Catholic Boy" beyond "People Who Died" (if you have even ever heard it) you need to explore it...

[David Paleg]

Irish boxer who won bronze in Beijing dies at 27
Associated Press
Updated: September 15, 2009, 12:19 PM EDT


LONDON (AP) - Darren Sutherland, who won an Olympic bronze medal in boxing at last year's Beijing Games, has been found dead at his home, manager Frank Maloney said. He was 27.

Sutherland was found hanged at his home Monday by Maloney, who was taken to the hospital suffering from shock. Tests revealed that the 55-year-old manager had recently had a heart attack.

Sutherland, who fought for Ireland at the Olympics and was unbeaten in his first four pro fights, who was due to appear with Maloney at a news conference on Tuesday to talk about his next fight, which had been scheduled for Oct. 16.

The Metropolitan Police said Sutherland, who was not married and had no history of personal problems, was pronounced dead just after 3 p.m. Monday. His death is not being treated as suspicious, police said.

Olympic middleweight champion James DeGale, the man who beat Sutherland in Beijing, paid tribute to his former rival.

"He had an Olympic bronze medal and his whole life to look forward to," the Englishman said. "He had a great future and my heart goes out to everyone who knew him."

Former world featherweight champion Barry McGuigan, who was born in Ireland, said Sutherland had the ability to win a world title.

"I am deeply shocked and deeply saddened by this news and my heart goes out to Darren's family," McGuigan said Tuesday. "It is an absolute tragedy. I would describe Darren as a phenomenal talent.

"He represented his country with pride as an amateur and I believe he would have become a world champion in the professional ranks one day."

Maloney, a former manager of world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, remained in the hospital but doctors were allowing him to work on his laptop. He is expected to be there for a few days.

[David Paleg]

'Laugh-In' actor Henry Gibson dies at 73
Sep 16, 6:44 PM (ET)
By DERRIK J. LANG

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Henry Gibson, the veteran comic character actor best known for his role reciting offbeat poetry on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In," has died. He was 73.

Gibson's son, James, said Gibson died Monday at his home in Malibu after a brief battle with cancer.

After serving in the Air Force and studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Gibson - born James Bateman in Germantown, Pa., in 1935 - created his Henry Gibson comic persona, a pun on playwright Henrik Ibsen's name, while working as a theater actor in New York. For three seasons on "Laugh-In," he delivered satirical poems while gripping a giant flower.

After "Laugh-In," Gibson went on to appear in several films, including "The Long Goodbye" and "Nashville," which earned him a Golden Globe nomination. His most memorable roles included playing the menacing neighbor opposite Tom Hanks in "The 'Burbs," the befuddled priest in "Wedding Crashers" and voicing Wilbur the Pig in the animated "Charlotte's Web."

His recent work included playing cantankerous Judge Clarence Brown on ABC's "Boston Legal" for five seasons and providing the voice of sardonic, eye-patched reporter Bob Jenkins on Fox's "King of the Hill." In 2001, Gibson returned to the stage in New York in the Encores! New York City Center production of Rodgers and Hart's "A Connecticut Yankee."

Gibson is survived by three sons and two grandchildren.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

NCAA’s Brand dies after battling pancreatic cancer
By MICHAEL MAROT, AP Sports Writer
Sep. 16, 4:54 pm

INDIANAPOLIS (AP)—The NCAA says Myles Brand has died after battling pancreatic cancer. He was 67.

The university president turned NCAA chief who pushed for tighter academic standards in college sports and took on Bob Knight died Wednesday.

Brand announced he had cancer in January at the NCAA convention and continued to run the organization’s day-to-day operations.

He became the first university president to run college sports’ largest governing body, and worked to change the perception that wins supersede academics in college athletics.

It’s the first time a sitting NCAA president has died.

[unchoopfan]

Sep 16, 9:32 PM EDT

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary dead at 72

DANBURY, Conn. (AP) -- Mary Travers, one-third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died.

The band's publicist, Heather Lylis, says Travers died at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday. She was 72 and had battled leukemia for several years.

Travers joined forces with Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey in the early 1960s.

The trio mingled their music with liberal politics, both onstage and off. Their version of "If I Had a Hammer" became an anthem for racial equality. Other hits included "Lemon Tree," "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Puff (The Magic Dragon.)"

They were early champions of Bob Dylan and performed his "Blowin' in the Wind" at the August 1963 March on Washington.

And they were vehement in their opposition to the Vietnam War, managing to stay true to their liberal beliefs while creating music that resonated in the American mainstream.

The group collected five Grammy Awards for their three-part harmony on enduring songs like "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Puff (The Magic Dragon)" and "Blowin' in the Wind."

At one point in 1963, three of their albums were in the top six Billboard best-selling LPs as they became the biggest stars of the folk revival movement.

It was heady stuff for a trio that had formed in the early 1960s in Greenwich Village, running through simple tunes like "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

They debuted at the Bitter End in 1961, and their beatnik look - a tall blonde flanked by a pair of goateed guitarists - was a part of their initial appeal. As The New York Times critic Robert Shelton put it not long afterward, "Sex appeal as a keystone for a folk-song group was the idea of the group's manager, Albert B. Grossman, who searched for months for `the girl' until he decided on Miss Travers."

Their debut album came out in 1962, and immediately scored a pair of hits with their versions of "If I Had a Hammer" and "Lemon Tree." The former won them Grammys for best folk recording, and best performance by a vocal group.

"Moving" was the follow-up, including the hit tale of innocence lost, "Puff (The Magic Dragon)" - which reached No. 2 on the charts, and generated since-discounted reports that it was an ode to marijuana.

Album No. 3, "In the Wind," featured three songs by the 22-year-old Dylan. "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "Blowin' in the Wind" both reached the top 10, bringing Dylan's material to a massive audience; the latter shipped 300,000 copies during one two-week period.

"Blowin' In the Wind" became an another civil rights anthem, and Peter, Paul and Mary fully embraced the cause. They marched with King in Selma, Ala., and performed with him in Washington.

In a 1966 New York Times interview, Travers said the three worked well together because they respected one another. "There has to be a certain amount of love just in order for you to survive together," she said. "I think a lot of groups have gone down the tubes because they were not able to relate to one another."

With the advent of the Beatles and Dylan's switch to electric guitar, the folk boom disappeared. Travers expressed disdain for folk-rock, telling the Chicago Daily News in 1966 that "it's so badly written. ... When the fad changed from folk to rock, they didn't take along any good writers."

But the trio continued their success, scoring with the tongue-in-cheek single "I Dig Rock and Roll Music," a gentle parody of the Mamas and the Papas, in 1967 and the John Denver-penned "Leaving on a Jet Plane" two years later.

They also continued as boosters for young songwriters, recording numbers written by then-little-known Gordon Lightfoot and Laura Nyro.

In 1969, the group earned their final Grammy for "Peter, Paul and Mommy," which won for best children's album. They disbanded in 1971, launching solo careers - Travers released five albums - that never achieved the heights of their collaborations.

Over the years they enjoyed several reunions, including a performance at a 1978 anti-nuclear benefit organized by Yarrow and a 35th anniversary album, "Lifelines," with fellow folkies Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Dave Van Ronk and Seeger. A boxed set of their music was released in 2004.

They remained politically active as well, performing at the 1995 anniversary of the Kent State shootings and performing for California strawberry pickers.

Travers had undergone a successful bone marrow transplant to treat her leukemia and was able to return to performing after that.

"It was like a miracle," Travers told The Associated Press in 2006. "I'm just feeling fabulous. What's incredible is someone has given your life back. I'm out in the garden today. This time last year I was looking out a window at a hospital." She also said she told the marrow donor "how incredibly grateful I was."

But by mid-2009, Yarrow told WTOP radio in Washington that her condition had worsened again and he thought she would no longer be able to perform.

Mary Allin Travers was born on Nov. 9, 1936 in Louisville, Ky., the daughter of journalists who moved the family to Manhattan's bohemian Greenwich Village. She quickly became enamored with folk performers like the Weavers, and was soon performing with Seeger, a founding member of the Weavers who lived in the same building as the Travers family.

With a group called the Song Swappers, Travers backed Seeger on one album and two shows at Carnegie Hall. She also appeared (as one of a group of folk singers) in a short-lived 1958 Broadway show called "The Next President," starring comedian Mort Sahl.

It wasn't until she met up with Yarrow and Stookey that Travers would taste success on her own. Yarrow was managed by Grossman, who later worked in the same capacity for Dylan.

In the book "Positively 4th Street" by David Hajdu, Travers recalled that Grossman's strategy was to "find a nobody that he could nurture and make famous."

The budding trio, boosted by the arrangements of Milt Okun, spent seven months rehearsing in her Greenwich Village apartment before their 1961 public debut.

Travers lived for many years in Redding, Conn.

[David Paleg]

Movie pianist Art Ferrante dies in Fla. at 88
Sep 21, 11:43 AM (ET)

LONGBOAT KEY, Fla. (AP) - Famed 1960s-era movie pianist Art Ferrante has
died at his Florida home at age 88.

Ferrante's longtime manager says he died Saturday of natural causes in
Longboat Key, about 60 miles south of Tampa. Along with partner Lou
Teicher, Ferrante recorded themes to movies such as "The
Apartment,""Lawrence of Arabia," and "Cleopatra."

Ferrante and Teicher were known as "The Movie Theme Team" and performed
together for 40 years after meeting as children at The Juilliard School in
New York.

Teicher died last year at age 83.

Ferrante is survived by his wife, daughter and two granddaughters.

[David Paleg]

William Safire, speechwriter and columnist, dies
Sep 27, 2:56 PM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist, language expert and former White House speechwriter William Safire has died. He was 79.

His assistant Rosemary Shields says Safire died Sunday morning at a Maryland hospice. She says he had been diagnosed with cancer.

Safire spent more than 30 years writing on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. In his "On Language" column in The New York Times Magazine and 15 books, Safire traced the origins of words and everyday phrases such as "straw-man,""under the bus" and "the proof is in the pudding."

As a speechwriter in the Nixon White House, Safire penned Vice President Spiro Agnew's famous phrase, "nattering nabobs of negativism," a tongue-in-cheek alliteration that Safire claimed was directed not at the press but Vietnam defeatists.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Dropping like flies.