The Rest In Peace and Remembrance Thread

[genlock]

LOS ANGELES — Captain Lou Albano, the charismatic professional wrestler who appeared in Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” video, has died. He was 76.

World Wrestling Entertainment confirmed the death Thursday on its Web site.

Albano performed with WWE from 1983 to 1996, when he was inducted into its hall of fame. He began his wrestling career in Canada in 1953.

Albano expanded his fan base greatly when he played Lauper’s father in the video for her hit single on a fledgling MTV in 1983. He later claimed to be the catalyst for her success, according to WWE.

[David Paleg]

Wiseman, who played villain in 1962 'Dr. No,' dies
Oct 21, 7:51 AM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - Joseph Wiseman, an actor who played the sinister scientist and title character of Dr. No in the first James Bond feature film, has died. He was 91.

Wiseman, who had been in declining health, died Monday at his home in Manhattan, his daughter, Martha Graham Wiseman, told The New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

A screen and stage actor, Wiseman's film credits include "Detective Story" (1951) and "The Unforgiven" (1960). He also had guest roles on television shows "Law & Order,""The Streets of San Francisco,""The Twilight Zone" and "The Untouchables," according to The New York Times.

He is likely best known, however, for his villainous role in "Dr. No," the first in a long string of James Bond movies. The 1962 film introduced Sean Connery as James Bond and also starred Ursula Andress.

Wiseman was born in Montreal on May 15, 1918. He moved to the United States with his family when he was a boy.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Wiseman started acting when he was a teenager, getting his start in summer stock.

In 1938, he was given a small part in his first Broadway play, Robert E. Sherwood's "Abe Lincoln in Illinois."

Wiseman's other Broadway credits include "Joan of Lorraine" (1946), "Antony and Cleopatra" (1947), "Detective Story" (1949); and most recently in the stage adaptation of Abby Mann's film "Judgment at Nuremberg" (2001).

"Stage acting was what he wanted to be remembered for," Wiseman's daughter told the Los Angeles newspaper.

[jag]

Vic Mizzy dies at 93; film and TV composer wrote 'Addams Family' theme song
He also composed the theme music for the 1965-71 rural comedy 'Green Acres.'

"Two finger snaps and you live in Bel-Air," Mizzy once said, referring to his success with the "Addams Family" song.

Related
A writer of memorable sitcom songs
By Dennis McLellan

October 20, 2009


Vic Mizzy, a film and television composer best known for writing the memorable theme songs for the 1960s sit-coms "Green Acres" and "The Addams Family," has died. He was 93.

Mizzy died of heart failureSaturday at his home in Bel-Air, said Scott Harper, a friend and fellow composer.

A veteran writer of popular songs such as "There's a Faraway Look in Your Eye" and "Pretty Kitty Blue Eyes," Mizzy launched his TV career in 1960 when he was asked to compose music for the dramatic anthology series "Moment of Fear."

He quickly moved on to score episodes of "Shirley Temple's Storybook" and "The Richard Boone Show" and to write the themes for "Klondike" and the Dennis Weaver series "Kentucky Jones."

Then came an offbeat assignment: “The Addams Family,” the 1964-66 TV series based on Charles Addams' macabre magazine cartoons and starring John Astin as Gomez Addams and Carolyn Jones as his wife, Morticia.

For his theme song, Mizzy played a harpsichord, which gives the theme its unique flavor. And because the production company, Filmways, refused to pay for singers, Mizzy sang it himself and overdubbed it three times. The song, memorably punctuated by finger-snapping, begins with: "They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ooky: the Addams family."

In the 1996 book "TV's Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes From 'Dragnet' to 'Friends,' " author Jon Burlingame writes that Mizzy's "musical conception was so specific that he became deeply involved with the filming of the main-title sequence, which involved all seven actors snapping their fingers in carefully timed rhythm to Mizzy's music."

For Mizzy, who owned the publishing rights to "The Addams Family" theme, it was an easy payday.

"I sat down; I went 'buh-buh-buh-bump [snap-snap], buh-buh-buh-bump," he recalled in a 2008 interview on CBS' "Sunday Morning" show. "That's why I'm living in Bel-Air: Two finger snaps and you live in Bel-Air."

The season after "The Addams Family" made its debut, Mizzy composed the title song for “Green Acres,” the 1965-71 rural comedy starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.

For "Green Acres," Burlingame observed in his book, Mizzy "again conceived the title song as intertwined with the visuals" of the show's title sequence and telling the story of wealthy Oliver and Lisa Douglas moving from New York to a farm in the country.

Burlingame on Monday described the themes for "The Addams Family" and "Green Acres" as "two of the best-remembered sitcom themes of all time."

"Vic was an old-school songwriter who believed in melody and hummability," Burlingame said. "He thought that people ought to be able to easily remember a theme.

"Vic was one of the wittiest composers I ever met, and he had an uncanny ability to incorporate his own personal sense of humor into his music."

Mizzy's use of bass harmonica and fuzz guitar in the music of "Green Acres," for example, "was somehow perfect for that show's setting, and it only added to the humor of the situations," Burlingame said.

In the case of "The Addams Family," he said, "you've got the harpsichord, which lends this antique, sort of macabre quality to the theme. But then you add the lyrics, which make it funny. So you have the perfect combination of macabre and amusing. It was just right for that show's sensibility."

Mizzy's many TV credits include writing the themes for Phyllis Diller's 1966-67 sitcom "The Pruitts of Southampton" and "The Don Rickles Show" (1968-69), for which Mizzy also conducted the orchestra.

Among his movie credits as a composer are the Don Knotts comedies "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken," "The Reluctant Astronaut," "The Shakiest Gun in the West," "The Love God?" and "How to Frame a Figg."

Born in Brooklyn on Jan. 9, 1916, Mizzy learned to play the piano as a child. While he was a student at New York University, he and his friend Irving Taylor began writing songs and sketches for variety shows.

They appeared on radio's "Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour" and won an amateur contest on the Fred Allen show. The team's first published song was "Your Heart Rhymes with Mine."

Mizzy, who served four years in the Navy during World War II, had a number of hits with Taylor, including "Three Little Sisters" and "Take It Easy." Under a later partnership with Mann Curtis, Mizzy had hits such as "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time," "The Whole World Is Singing My Song" and "The Jones Boy."

Mizzy is survived by his daughter Lynn Mizzy Jonas; his brother Sol; and two grandchildren.

[rfhertz]

Soupy Sales, a comic with a gift for slapstick who attained cult-like popularity in the 1960s with a pie-throwing routine that became his signature, has died. He was 83.

Sales had numerous ailments and died Thursday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, said Kathy O'Connell, a longtime friend.

As the star of "The Soupy Sales Show," he performed live on television for 13 years in Detroit, Los Angeles and New York before the program went into syndication in the United States and abroad.

Ostensibly for children, the show had broad appeal among adults who found Sales' puns, gags and pratfalls deliciously corny and camp. His cast consisted of goofy puppets with names like White Fang, Black Tooth and Pookie, and a host of off-camera characters, including the infamous naked girl.

The high point of every show came when a sidekick launched a pie into Sales' face. Sales once estimated that he was hit by more than 25,000 pies in his lifetime.

The gag became more than hilarious; it evolved into a hip badge of honor. Frank Sinatra was first in a long line of celebrities who clamored for the privilege to be cream-faced, including Tony Curtis, Mickey Rooney, Sammy Davis Jr., Dick Martin and Burt Lancaster.

"I've never done a pretentious show; it's always had a live feeling, the kind of thing that comes across when you don't know what's going to happen next," Sales told author Gary Grossman in the 1981 book "Saturday Morning TV." "I've never done anything simply because I thought I could get away with it. I've just wanted to do the funniest show."

The possibility of humor dogged Sales from the start. He was born Milton Supman on Jan. 28, 1926, in the North Carolina backwater of Franklinton. The Supmans were the only Jews in town. Sales' father ran a dry goods store that sold sheets to the Ku Klux Klan.

The family name was often mispronounced as "Soupman." To make matters worse, his parents, who had nicknamed his brothers "Hambone" and "Chickenbone," dubbed him "Soupbone." Eventually, Milton became just Soupy.

His father died when he was 5, prompting a move to Huntington, W.Va. Sales acted in school plays and in high school was voted most popular boy.

World War II did not dampen his showbiz ambitions. He fought in the Pacific theater in the Navy and participated in the invasion of Okinawa but managed to entertain crew mates with routines broadcast on the ship's PA system.

After his discharge, Sales returned to West Virginia and enrolled in Marshall College as a journalism major, earning a bachelor's degree in 1949. He went to work for a radio station in Huntington as a scriptwriter. At night he did stand-up in nightclubs. Soon he became a disc jockey.

In the early 1950s he moved to Ohio, where a Cleveland station manager gave him the professional name of Soupy Hines. That was nixed in Detroit, where his new station manager thought Hines would be confused with an advertiser, the Heinz soup line. Thus was Soupy Sales born.

In 1953, Sales launched a daily live children's show on Detroit's WXYZ-TV, called "Soupy Sales Comics." The show caught on, causing the station to give him a nighttime slot for "Soupy's On." Sales created characters such as Wyatt Burp, a belch-prone sheriff, and Calypso King Harry Bella, a crazy-eyed South American with a mop top.

In 1955, the show was picked up by ABC as a summer replacement for "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" and renamed "The Soupy Sales Show." Its star soon became Detroit's top-rated daytime television personality.

Sales was joined by White Fang, "the meanest dog in the United States," and Black Tooth, "the nicest dog in the United States," of whom all that viewers saw were giant paws. Other characters included his irrepressible girlfriend, Peaches, the vivacious Marilyn Monwolf, and a bloodthirsty neighbor, the Count, who touted an album titled "Love in Vein."

Every show featured a segment called Words of Wisdom, an opportunity to offer silly sayings such as "Be true to your teeth and they won't be false to you."

The highlight of each show, of course, was the pie-throwing, which Sales elevated to an art.

Sales took his first pie in the face in 1950 when he played an Indian in a spoof of the James Stewart movie "Broken Arrow." That pie was real. Later, he would switch to shaving-cream pies. But he swore that the secret of a good pie was the crust: If it stuck to the face, it was, in Sales' opinion, no good.

"A pie has to hit you and explode into a thousand pieces," the expert explained, "so you see the person's face and see it take away his dignity."

[David Paleg]

'Palimony' figure Michelle Triola Marvin dies
By ROBERT JABLON
Associated Press Writer
October 31, 2009 - 12:28 a.m

LOS ANGELES — Michelle Triola Marvin whose landmark lawsuit against her
former lover, "Dirty Dozen" actor Lee Marvin, placed the word "palimony"
into the family law lexicon and changed the legal rights of unmarried
cohabiting partners, died Friday at age 76.

She underwent surgery for lung cancer last year and died at the Malibu
home of actor Dick Van Dyke, her partner of 30 years, said family
spokesman Bob Palmer.

Michelle Marvin's birth name was Triola and she met Lee Marvin while
working as an extra in his 1964 movie "Ship of Fools." They lived together
for six years and she took his last name but never married. The
relationship ended in 1970.

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

From TV Guide online:
Jon & Kate Plus 8 Caregiver Dies at 72
Nov 1, 2009 12:05 PM ET

Janet Weidenheimer, who was known as Nana Janet when taking care of the children on Jon & Kate Plus 8, has died. She was 72.

Weidenheimer, who appeared several times in early seasons of the show, most notably while riding a horse at the sextuplets' third birthday party, was a friend of the Gosselin family and regularly volunteered to help Kate take care of the children.

She passed away on Oct. 28, according to Entertainment Tonight. Details about her death have not been released, but funeral services were scheduled to take place in Pennsylvania Saturday.

[David Paleg]

Founder of San Diego Comic-Con dies at 76
Nov 4, 2:29 PM (ET)

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Sheldon Dorf, who founded the world famous Comic-Con
International comic book convention, has died. He was 76.

A longtime friend, Greg Koudoulian, says the Ocean Beach resident died at
a San Diego hospital on Tuesday from kidney failure. He had diabetes and
had been hospitalized for about a year.

Dorf, a freelance artist and comic strip letterer, founded Comic-Con in
San Diego in 1970 after moving from Detroit.

Today, the convention draws 125,000 fans a year and is a major gathering
for comic book fans, artists, writers and movie stars.

Koudoulian says Dorf was friends with comic greats such as Marvel artist
Jack Kirby and "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz. He says Dorf was also
instrumental in helping budding artists find audiences.

[David Paleg]

Drummer Jerry Fuchs dies in elevator shaft fall
Nov. 9, 2009, 11:16 AM EST
WENN

Drummer Jerry Fuchs has been killed in a freak accident in which he plunged to his death in an elevator shaft.

The 34-year-old musician was attending a fundraiser in Brooklyn, New York to benefit The Uniform Project, which raises money for children living in India's slum neighbourhoods.

He was travelling in a freight elevator with an unnamed male guest when it stopped a few feet above the fifth floor.

Fuchs and the other man opened the door and attempted to jump out, but while the other man landed safely, the star's clothing got caught and he fell five stories.

The rocker, who played for the indie rock bands !!!, Juan MacLean and, most recently, Maserati, was found by his friends and later died at New York's Bellevue hospital.

His friend, Alex Frankel, tells the New York Post, "We found him in the elevator shaft. He was no longer able to speak."

Fuchs' mother, Joy, paid tribute to her son, adding: "He touched lives. His gift for music touched many lives."

Fuchs is the second !!! drummer to meet a tragic death; Mikel Gius was killed while riding his bicycle in 2005.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Do you guys scan the Obituaries for these posts?
Most of these people are really obscure.

I'm just sayin' ...

[jag]

Obscure?

Which of these would you classify as "obscure?"

[Scott Reppert]

Drummer Jerry Fuchs dies in elevator shaft fall

Fuchs is the second !!! drummer to meet a tragic death; Mikel Gius was killed while riding his bicycle in 2005.

The name being heard the most in chatter as a replacement is Joe "Mama" Besser...

[David Paleg]

Some of them I see posted on another message board I read on a daily basis. Others are on the Iwon or yahoo home pages when I bring up a browser. If it has to do with music (or what poses as music), I think there might be somebody at one of the stations that might be interested.

[Bob Campbell]

Was Jerry Fuchs famous?

[genlock]

Klaus Fuch's brother?

[David Paleg]

Edward Woodward Dead At 79

Veteran British actor Edward Woodward has died at the age of 79.
Woodward, best known for his roles in cult horror film The Wicker Man and hit TV series Callan and The Equalizer, passed away in hospital after battling illnesses including pneumonia.

In a statement, his agent Janet Glass says: "Universally loved and admired through his unforgettable roles in classic productions such as Breaker Morant, The Wicker Man, Callan, The Equalizer and many more, he was equally fine and courageous in real life, never losing his brave spirit and wonderful humour throughout his illness.

"He was further sustained by the love of his wife, Michele, children, Tim, Peter, Sarah and Emily, his grandchildren and numerous friends. His passing will leave a huge gap in many lives."

[cgarison]

80s Crime shows were somewhat cliche, but it was interesting to have one where the hero drove a Jaguar which was the only motor vehicle at the time less reliable than the same generation of Harley Davidson motorcycle.

[genlock]

I thought this guy w a good actor.
RIP.

[Dave Allen]

Ken Ober, 52, host of MTV's "Remote Control" dead over the weekend of unknown causes. If for no other reason he should have been killed years ago for unleashing Adam Sandler on us.

[David Paleg]

Robert Degen, Who Had a Hand in the Hokey Pokey, Dies at 104
By Roger DuPuis II (STAFF WRITER, the Times-Tribune)
Published: November 27, 2009

A Scranton native credited with having his right hand in - penning the famed "Hokey Pokey" - died this week at the age of 104.

Robert Degen died Monday at St. Joseph Hospital in Lexington, Ky., where he had lived for many years. According to his obituary, he wrote the song in 1944 with the late Joe Briar.

"He was very proud that he wrote that song," Mr. Degen's son, jazz pianist Bob Degen, told The Times-Tribune on Thursday night in a phone interview from his home in Frankfurt, Germany.

The origins of the popular tune - and its namesake dance - are surrounded by a bit of mystery and controversy.

Some sources suggest the dance was born in Great Britain. Often dubbed "The Hokey Cokey" there, its dance motions have been criticized in recent years as deriving from a Protestant "hocus pocus" parody of the Roman Catholic Mass in the 17th or 18th century.

Critics of that theory point out that the popularity of the combined song and dance is clearly a 20th century phenomenon, and they seem to have been a hit with Allied soldiers in England during World War II - though historians still debate whether the fad started over here or over there. Either way, it took off in the postwar years and the tune was recorded by several artists.

At least two other musicians claimed authorship of the music. One was Anglo-Irishman Jimmy Kennedy; the other was Detroit-born Larry LaPrise, both now deceased.

But Mr. Degen held a 1944 copyright for "The Hokey-Pokey Dance," issued five years before Mr. LaPrise recorded the song. Reports indicate Mr. Degen filed suit against Mr. LaPrise in the 1950s and settled out of court.

Whatever its origins, "The Hokey Pokey" took on a life of its own, and not just in English-speaking countries.

"A lot of people here in Europe know it and were influenced by it," said the younger Mr. Degen, who went on to become a noted name on the Frankfurt jazz scene.

A 1957 Scranton Times feature story and photo showed 13-year-old "Bobby Degen of South Scranton" posed at the keyboard, noting that "veteran musicians consider him a pianist of unusual promise," and that he already was a dues-paying member of the American Federation of Musicians. Having played the piano since age 4, the Prospect Avenue youth also composed his own arrangement of his father's famous song, the story added.

Speaking from Germany Thursday, the younger Mr. Degen said his father had been a musician since the 1920s and continued until he was in his 60s. "As far as I know he played up until about 1969," Bob Degen said.

Mr. Degen met his wife of 74 years, Vivian Elaine Gibson Degen, when the two were touring with a Country and Western band, their son said. Mrs. Degen, an Arkansas native, still lives in Kentucky, as does their younger son, Bill.

Bob Degen - who has lived in Germany since 1965 but has made frequent return visits to the U.S. - said he started playing gigs with his father as early as age 10, recalling jobs in Scranton and Carbondale, and later, to visit the jazz clubs of New York.
"He was wonderful to me," Bob Degen said. "He was just a great dad.

That's what it's all about.

[David Paleg]

Dapper TV hero Gene Barry stage star dies at 90
Dec 11, 9:54 AM (ET)
By BOB THOMAS

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Always dapper, Gene Barry overcame his reluctance to take the starring role in the TV series "Bat Masterson" when he found out the Western lawman had worn a derby and carried a gold-handled cane in real life.

"I went over to the wardrobe department, picked out a brocaded vest, looked in the mirror, and there was this elegant gentleman," Barry recalled in 1999. "I said, 'Hey, that's Bat! That's me!'"

Barry, who also played other well-dressed men of action in the television series "Burke's Law" and "The Name of the Game," died of undetermined causes Wednesday, his son Frederic James Barry said. He died at age 90 at a rest home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Woodland Hills, the son said Thursday.

Barry essentially played the same character in all three series, which spanned the 1950s to the 1970s. Always fashionably dressed, the tall, handsome actor with the commanding voice dominated his scenes as he bested the bad guys in each show.

In the first of the three, he was Masterson, a frontier dandy who rarely resorted to gunplay, choosing instead to beat his rivals senseless with a gold-handled cane.

He landed the part in 1958, but had been reluctant to take the TV role because his movie career appeared to be on the rise. He had starred in the science-fiction classic "War of the Worlds" in 1953 and opposite Clark Gable in "Soldier of Fortune" in 1955.

After two decades as a TV star, Barry found himself typecast as a television actor and never returned to prominence in films. Instead, he stayed active with stage appearances and dozens of TV guest appearances.

He sang in such musicals as "Kismet" and "Destry Rides Again," and created the Broadway role of Georges, the gay night club owner in Jerry Herman's hit musical "La Cage aux Folles." That role brought him a Tony nomination in 1984.

Before landing the Masterson role, Barry appeared in the final season of Eve Arden's hit sitcom "Our Miss Brooks" - as a P.E. teacher who pines for Miss Brooks.

After "Bat Masterson" ended its run on NBC in 1961, Barry moved to ABC to star as an LA detective in "Burke's Law," which lasted until 1966. The show was revived on CBS nearly 30 years later with Barry again in the lead. It lasted only one season.

"The Name of the Game" (1968-1972) offered an innovation: three suave actors - Barry, Robert Stack and Anthony Franciosa - alternating weekly in their own self-contained adventures. The only connective element: All were part of an investigative magazine of which Barry was the flamboyant owner.

When the series ended, Barry filmed a syndicated show, "The Adventurer," in England.

He was born Eugene Klass in New York City in 1919, and he met his wife, Betty Claire Kalb, when both were performing in the city. They were married 58 years, until her death in 2003.

In addition to Frederic, survivors include another son, Michael, and daughter Elizabeth.

[That 70's Employee]

KDKA's Fred Honsberger died this morning in his Monroeville home. 58 years old. Very Sad