Rolling Obituary Thread: 2019

Designer Emanuel Ungaro, age 86

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50886433

Ram Dass, 88

That’s a shame. He had been speaking a lot about preparing for death.

I really like some of his radio phone-in audios from the early 70s. They show his best side: empathetic, sensitive, gentle, providing helpful advice and accepting of people.

I sometimes heretically think that if you ignored some of his guru and “gee-wizz” miracle stuff (which wasn’t to my personal taste), he was a great therapist of any kind - religious or non-religious.

Junior Johnson, NASCAR driver played in a pretty good movie by Jeff Bridges

RIP Richard Alpert

xp I don't think that's heretical at all, he always renounced any idea that he was a guru or even remotely close to "finished." He readily copped to having a schtick—that really he was just a Newton, MA jew who was lucky enough to be lit up by psilocybin and then to find a guru of his own.

He was also smart enough, where Leary wasn't, to grok that acid was a cul de sac. Instead he parlayed the experience into a spiritual mission, which he also knew (and warned adherents) could act as a trap. He spent the last decades of his life woking with dying people, and now he's joined them.

Dave of Big Black

midnight funk association membership now officially lapsed :(

what? Oh no!

Riley worked as an assistant audio engineer for George Clinton's stable of Parliament-Funkadelic bands. He is credited on albums Trombipulation and The Electric Spanking of War Babies. He also occasionally served as a session musician for his friends

never knew this or that he'd had a major stroke in '93.

Songwriter Allee Willis, 72.

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/allee-willis-dead-dies-songwriter-1203451705/?fbclid=IwAR0b9myuD207TaVXhuG2hT90DLqzOShgpeHBaaGO0vkTwZvBVp0KbLM9RKo

Wrote so many good songs. And the Friends theme.

Had no idea she co-wrote What Have I Done To Deserve This? I'm guessing it was the Dusty part.

Yep. Tennant wrote the verses, Lowe the chorus.

lyricist behind the Howard the Duck soundtrack with Thomas Dolby.

https://youtube.com/YLMUTqlGNZ4

https://youtu.be/YLMUTqlGNZ4

Claude Régy, French theatre director. He was 96. RIP.

Peter Schreier, German tenor and conductor. He was 84. RIP.

Sleepy LaBeef

Jerry Herman

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2019/12/27/535371796/broadway-legend-jerrry-herman-is-dead-at-88

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jerry-herman-dead-broadway-composer-lyricist-hello-dolly-was-88-1141052

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEyYx7mTEsU

George Michael’s sister. :-(

muckraking journalist Bill Greider

https://www.rollingstone.com/author/william-greider/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2019/12/27/william-greider-political-writer-dead-83/2755289001/

Peanuts TV producer Lee Mendelson

https://padailypost.com/2019/12/27/lee-mendelson-executive-producer-of-peanuts-tv-specials-dies/

This one is strictly for US ILXors: racist radio talk show host Don Imus.

loooong overdue

Whoa

Can't wait to hear what Howard has to say

Good riddance.

Classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5J7OeY8lx4

*George Costanza voice* That's a shame.

Sue Lyon

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/movies/sue-lyon-dead.html

Fuck Don Imus, good riddance

hell yea shakey
rip sue Lyon tho

RIP. She’s in the classic Night of the Iguana

also John Ford's last film

Don Imus was king until Howard Stern blew him out of the water. Imus scrambled ever after, courting favor with NY/DC insiders who felt that Imus gave them street cred. They tolerated his racism until it became too much. Lesson? Keep your racism on low. Don't be obvious. pic.twitter.com/zp8xMGu4Xy

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) December 27, 2019

Alasdair Gray: https://canongate.co.uk/news/alasdair-gray-author-and-artist-has-died-aged-85/
Sad news.

Ah, shame, RIP Alasdair.

i saw him read once, a very long time ago. seemed like a good guy.

RIP fat Glaswegian pedestrian

Shame about his response to the queasy Hillhead Station mural.

bloody hell, that was a bit of rum business.

Oh bloody hell I am reading Lanark again at the moment, prompted, I have to say, by the thought that he couldn't be long for this world. Massive RIP

Very sorry to learn about the mural. I didn't know about that.

Oh no, now Vaughan Oliver

Desperately sad to announce that Vaughan Oliver died peacefully today, with his partner Lee by his side. Great loss of friend and design hero. Vaughan Oliver (1957—2019.

— Adrian Shaughnessy (@AJWShaughnessy) December 29, 2019

Oh fuck no, he was my friend.

I'm very sorry, suzy x

Wow, pretty young ... rip.

The first time I met him, the Guardian sent me to interview him at 4AD the morning after the Jarvis moons Jacko Brits, both of us had stinking hangovers and had to drink about a gallon of tea each to get through the task at hand. Still delightful and intelligent in an inclusive way, had zero side. Latterly he’d been head of the design department at UCA Epsom (and was posting absolutely as normal on FB on Thursday, so this must be sudden, which makes it worse).

Yeah just running through the classic covers in my head he did — what an achievement.

Alasdair Gray was maybe my first favourite author and a very important formative influence on my tastes and sense of humour. Was so good to visit Glasgow, my ancestral town, with my dad this summer and to see his murals
RIP