Rolling Obituary Thread: 2015

:(

60s pop singer Lynn 'Twinkle' Ripley
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3093638/Sixties-pop-starlet-said-no-Mick-Jagger.html

:(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYSM-Ts_2V0

http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2015/05/famed_a_beautiful_mind_mathematician_wife_killed_in_taxi_crash_police_say.html

:(

A Beautiful Mind is such a good book, so much better than the movie: none of that imaginary friend & enemy bullshit, and a multi-D social map of Nash's life and times. Also his wife's!

If one had survived the other, prob not for long: that kind of marriage. Hope their son, who has had his own recurring problems with schizophrenia, is adequately cared for, though I'm sure they made provisions. Maybe he's gotten better as he's gotten older, as happened with his father, although of course it's not just a matter of outgrowing it.

https://twitter.com/AP/status/602559040326086656

Actress, comedian Anne Meara, mom of Ben Stiller, dies at 85

:(

A sign of my age (37), perhaps, but my first association with her will always be Alf.

RIP

Stiller & Meara were ubiquitous on TV variety shows when I was a kid. In the '80s I saw her play the Nurse in Romeo & Juliet at the Public Theatre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H--kLKTGzaQ

Ben directed a web series of Stiller & Meara a few years ago, it was so good. They would talk about Fashion Week or the Royal Wedding, still as hilarious together as ever. It's still on hulu I think?

xpost i love that clip Morbs. so effortless

Tanith Lee

http://scifibulletin.com/2015/05/26/rip-tanith-lee/

Jesus fucking Christ! I read one Tanith Lee story a couple of years ago and it made me so happy I stocked up several of her books that I've been itching to read for a while.

I read a couple of her novels: Dark Dance and the one that came after that. Though, tbf, that was only cos I borrowed them off the goth-y girl that I was going out with in the mid-90s

Photographer Mary Ellen Mark
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/arts/design/mary-ellen-mark-photographer-who-documented-difficult-subjects-dies-at-75.html

U2's Road manager Dennis Sheehan, while on the road with the band:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-32912761

note: Is it really necessary to add below the "other bad things that have happened to U2" section? The edge fell over, Bono's hospital stay, their album being given free as a download....

http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2015/05/mel_waiters_southern_soul_blue.html

Mel Waiters, the flashy rhythm and blues singer known for soulful party songs like "Hole In The Wall" and "The Smaller The Club," died early Thursday (May 28) after a short battle with cancer, his booking agent's office confirmed. He was 58.

Great voice and talented songwriter. Glad I saw him in concert once.

Betsy Palmer

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/31/betsy-palmer-dead_n_7480870.html

Folk singer Jean Ritchie: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/arts/music/jean-ritchie-who-revived-appalachian-folk-songs-dies-at-92.html

Listening to her album with Doc Watson now.

Jake D'Arcy, who played Phil Menzies in Gregory's Girl and Pete the Jakey in Still Game:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-jake-d-arcy-actor-1-3791931

Belated RIP to ABBA bass player Rutger Gunnarsson: http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2015/05/09/in-memoriam-rutger-gunnarsson/

Tariq Aziz (don't know how much of a bad guy he was)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33021771

Friends reporting the death of Nick Marsh, ex-Flesh For Lulu singer, from cancer.

Richard Johnson, whose credits include Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters, and who was once married to Kim Novak:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33036755

Ronnie Gilbert of The Weavers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/worldfolkandjazz/11657628/Ronnie-Gilbert-singer-with-the-Weavers-dies-aged-88.html

Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted Charles Manson and family, of cancer at 80. He also wrotethe book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Vincent-Bugliosi-Dies-at-80-306583811.html

Hermann Zapf

Jean Gruault, screenwriter of Jules et Jim and many others by Rossellini, Resnais, Godard, Akerman, Rivette

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-jean-gruault-1924-2015

rip Bugliosi

Helter Skelter still a great, terrifying read.

Arturo Vega, the artistic director and historian for the Ramones (he created the famous Ramones seal)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/arturo-vega-ramones-logo-designer-dead-at-65-20130610

RIP Arturo... as we said 2 years ago when he passed.

I thought that sounded familiar. Sorry, popped up on my Twitter feed today.

i randomly picked up bugliosi's book on the oj simpson trial a few months ago and sped through it in a day or two. it's an amazing read -- it's barely about the trial at all; it's more bugliosi using the subject as an excuse to rail against everything under the sun and go into (fascinating) detail about how to build a successful prosecution. should probably finally get around to helter skelter, i think i'm the last person left in america who hasn't read it.

Second to last; I bought a copy years ago but never got around to reading it. I was 12 when the murders happened, and one of the things I remember about the trial is that Manson referred to Bugliosi as "bug." (Plus the swastikas, uncharged Manson girls gathering around the courthouse, LIFE magazine cover).

i read it first when i was 13 - i was such a goob, i told everyone it wasnt even the "real" story and that the lawyer was just in the pocket of The Man, maaan

u_u

then i read "charlie: in his own words" and was like oh fuck yeah right he's BANANAS

:( at Jean Gruault

James Last
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g503fR3BvVk

i've never read Skelter because nearly all 'true crime' I've tried is too decadent and ultimately numbing in its ugliness for me to stick with. Manson is not compelling to me, just his warped followers, somewhat.

it's pretty good, Manson comes off more pathetic than interesting (which feels accurate to me)

I've always been intrigued by how someone like him could gather so many followers. He never seemed that charismatic in any interview, but I guess he knew who to target and how to get to them.

He was a pimp, no more no less.

Exactly.

The Jeff Guinn Manson biog is especially good on Manson's feral ability to exploit the vulnerable and gullible, his technique a freakish admixture of Dale Carnegie, Scientology and general hippy bullshit.

Similarly, Bugliosi's OJ book is best read in conjunction with the Lawrence Schiller book.

i remember an interview Bugliosi gave around the time of the book's release, and what i remember was his mixture of disbelief and anger, both primarily aimed at the prosecution iirc. i realize their collective incompetence was received wisdom but i remember him breaking down in these really devastating ways just how bad they were. i don't know if the book was the same, i should read it.

morbs, helter is in the upper level of true crime because of how un-fascinated bugliosi is with manson. there's a lot of detail & examination but there's a crucial long view that tempers the normal voyeuristic true crime

even if you skip the whole first section & just read the trial story, it's p worthwhile. the trial alone was bananas

the Chicago 7 or 11 is more my speed