Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

I posted the same clip Morbs did on my FB this morning. I also discovered the whole ep is up on YT. 8th Greatest Sitcom episode ever according to TV Guide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHStKXuBzlM

I only saw it in full earlier this year, and it truly is funny as burning hell.

Ida Haendel, British classical violinist, 91. RIP.

saw Olivia de Havilland trending and thought oh no but haha it's her birthday she's 104 :)

Sir Everton Weekes, last of the Three W's, 95.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jul/01/our-hero-west-indies-legend-sir-everton-weekes-dies-aged-95-cricket

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/54930cd0e4b006aa21ffee77/1551126695441-QJ8IJAYTK3BXWXQQ488V/weekes.jpg

re Johnny Mandel, I guess if your two best-known songs are "The Shadow of Your Smile" and "Suicide Is Painless," you came out ahead.

https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2020-06-30/johnny-mandel-composer-mash-dead

Don't sleep on "Emily"! (From "The Americanization of") RIP

I couldn't recall Mandel's music to Point Blank off the top of my head, but playing a clip of the opening titles brings it back, it's kinda modernistic and appropriate for the film

I seem to recall Calexico did a good cover of The Shadow of Your Smile. Or maybe something that just featured them as a rhythm section?

Oh man, I had no idea Everton Weekes was still around. (I'm older than his grandson :/ )

I went to high school with his son. Only knew about the Deliverance theme, had no idea about any of his other work.

xxp: Friends of Dean Martinez

Hugh Downs, 99


https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/hugh-downs-omnipresent-television-broadcaster-dies-at-99/2020/07/02/434557f0-bc8b-11ea-8cf5-9c1b8d7f84c6_story.html

watched a lotta Concentration when i was six. RIP big man i didn't know wasn't dead yet.

Let us honor the man by...his music:

https://img.discogs.com/PaIcPhUGVLV6VhnRy8_a6HfaVXo=/fit-in/500x500/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3655660-1434614936-9698.jpeg.jpg

Enjoy a song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pJtiR9lCH4

The Boeing 747
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-02/boeing-quietly-pulls-plug-on-the-747-closing-era-of-jumbo-jets

Boeing Co. hasn’t told employees, but the company is pulling the plug on its hulking 747 jumbo jet, ending a half-century run for the twin-aisle pioneer.

The last 747-8 will roll out of a Seattle-area factory in about two years, a decision that hasn’t been reported but can be teased out from subtle wording changes in financial statements, people familiar with the matter said.

It’s a moment that aviation enthusiasts long have dreaded, signaling the end of the double-decker, four-engine leviathans that shrank the world. Airbus SE is already preparing to build the last A380 jumbo, after the final convoy of fuselage segments rumbled to its Toulouse, France, plant last month.

Yet for all their popularity with travelers, the final version of the 747 and Europe’s superjumbo never caught on commercially as airlines turned to twin-engine aircraft for long-range flights. While Boeing’s hump-nosed freighters will live on, the fast-disappearing A380 risks going down as an epic dud.

The grand jetliners also face another indignity: The Covid-19 pandemic threatens to leave their manufacturers scrounging to find buyers for the last jumbos built.

when i was ~10 we had a six-hour layover at JFK on the way to visit my grandmother in florida. so my dad and i walked around the concourse and he showed me the (slight) difference between, e.g., the DC-10 and L-1011, and the telltale features of other jets which i can no longer remember. the 747 was of course the easiest to recognize, and the last one still out there. rip

Breaking News: Acting legend Earl Cameron dies aged 102 https://t.co/4ovWBpr1zn pic.twitter.com/dLdT5pWhJz

— The Royal Gazette (@TheRoyalGazette) July 3, 2020

Morricone!

Poor guy fell and broke his thigh. RIP.

What a musical legacy. RIP, maestro.

rip xxxx xx

Since Johnny Mandel died I’ve kept hearing coincidental Emily references in reading and music - I’m working my way through the BBC Desert Island Disc archive and today was Bruce Forsyth from 1996. He picks the Bill Evans Trio - Emily as his first track and they play it at 45 rather than 33! Oh dear..

Bill Evans did a lot of Mandel songs. His version of 'Suicide is Painless' is remarkable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spHZjZV4i3c

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ennio-morricone-dead-prolific-italian-composer-was-91-858358

Rudolfo Anaya

https://www.abqjournal.com/1471290/beloved-nm-author-rudolfo-anaya-passes-away.html

Charlie Daniels
https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/07/06/charlie-daniels-country-music-dies/5384087002/

kevin rafferty, director of 'the atomic cafe'

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-kevin-raffery-obit-20200703-b2ibkeinxvg5pbeoczca5upwbm-story.html

Joe Porcaro, patriarch of the Toto brethren, as well as having his own notable career as a drummer.

Just heard that Mary Kay Letourneau died (colon cancer, age 58).

She was famous for having sex with her 13 yr old student, getting pregnant, getting sent to jail, and later marrying him and having another kid.

Read up on her background on wiki. Her dad had some extra-marital kids with a mistress/student while he was in office. And one of her brothers works for the Trump administration. Great family!

In 1978, her father was re-elected as a Republican to the California State Senate. He intended to run for the U.S. Senate in 1982, but his political career was permanently damaged that year when it was revealed that he had fathered two children out of wedlock during an affair with a mistress, a former student at Santa Ana College, where he had taught political science.[13]

Letourneau's brother John Schmitz was the deputy counsel to President George H. W. Bush.[11] Her other brother, Joseph E. Schmitz, was Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense under President George W. Bush,[15] was a senior executive with Academi, and is a foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump.[16]

She was famous for having sex with her 13 year old student

you misspelled "raping" there

Oof I’m remembering now a terrible article in the 90s in Spin magazine about how maybe,maybe, hers was a pure love that should be celebrated by society. She “fell in love with him” when he was 8.

I’ll be damned if I can link to google books, but just google “spin magazine Letourneau” and it’s right there. Spin Magazine was shit in a lot of ways, but goddamn do I give them a lot of credit for putting every single issue out there for everyone to see.

Not sure I can get past the headline, wtf

https://books.google.com/books?id=ij4Wc-5krxYC&lpg=PA122&ots=0BZFPJhBWI&dq=spin%20magazine%20Letourneau&pg=PA114#v=onepage&q&f=false

yeesh

i remember that article! i had that issue of spin. i remember finding the article gross and disturbing when i was 15, not sure i can bring myself to reread it now.

The writer's wiki page has a strong "he wrote this" vibe to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Stadler

He might have.

I will say, though I've never met the guy and haven't read the Letourneau article, his work as an editor and publisher is really indispensable-- so many of the best non-commercial books of the past three decades have come from Clear Cut Press or Publication Studio.

Now You Don't See Him

Johnny Beattie, Scottish entertainer of yore

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53354314

... people you thought were...

Stanley Baxter the last one standing now

I hadn't realized Johnny Beattie was in River City for over a decade because obviously Ive never watched River City, am no daft

Now you come to mention it it wasn't that long ago he was in River City.

Una McLean is not only still going at 90 but she was in River City too up till last year.

Is Mary Lee (Jack Milroy's wife) still alive?

Don't know, tried googling, five years ago she was described as being 'in her early 90s', with the suspicion that she was lying about her age.