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R.I.P - Celebrities Who have Passed Away 2016-2025
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Amber
(last edited Aug 06, 2018 12:04PM)
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Aug 06, 2018 12:03PM
Charlotte Ray who played Mr. Drummond's housekeeper in Diff'rent Strokes. My friend David Lutz told me via text this morning.
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Amber wrote: "Charlotte Ray who played Mr. Drummond's housekeeper in Diff'rent Strokes. My friend David Lutz told me via text this morning."Then she went on and played the same character in The Facts of Life.
Mod
Franklin was suffering from pancreatic cancer, and had earlier undergone surgery in December 2010. Her longtime publicist Gwendolyn Quinn reported Franklin died Thursday morning at her home in Detroit.
“In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart,” Quinn said in a statement. “We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family. The love she had for her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins knew no bounds.”
She was the most lionized and lauded female R&B vocalist of her era. Winner of 18 Grammy Awards, and a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement honoree in
Author of The Wrong Sister, The Fix, Hush Money, etc. passed away yesterday of cancer. RIPTeresa (Teri) E. Woods, Ph.D.
Well, it wasn’t a toothache. Turned out it was Stage IV Head and Neck Cancer and despite the extraordinary efforts of my oncology team (Thanks to Drs. Bruce, Wittig, and Hartig, as well as the Carbone Cancer Center for the world’s most incredible nursing and support staff.), I now find myself rid of this mortal coil. Be assured I had a great life. It got off to a shaky start, but I found my footing. Then came happiness, loving relationships, a rewarding career, and the great gifts of gratitude and mindfulness.
There will be no service. That is, if anyone’s been listening to what I’ve been requesting. If your memories of me are fond, I’m grateful. If they’re not, please accept my regrets for anything I did to make them so. Should you feel compelled to mark my transition in some way, how about doing three kind things for someone else this week? Do them on purpose. Do them because you mean it. Live long and healthy. Stay in this moment because in this moment you are well. Look around you. Pay attention to the Glory. Pretty cool, huh?
I have loved and been loved. I have experienced joy and tears. I have known the warm, curious bulk of a puppy squirming in my lap as well as the methodic heave of that same dog inhaling his last while his eyes signaled his thanks for a life well-shared.
I won’t start enumerating people who’ve made my life wonderful. The list is long, and I’ll say only I’m overwhelmed with the magnitude. Should you have even a trace amount of love in your life that I’ve had in mine, well, you know it was worth the trip.
And now I’m dead. It’s been great. Catch you on the next adventure.
Paula wrote: "Author of The Wrong Sister, The Fix, Hush Money, etc. passed away yesterday of cancer. RIPTeresa (Teri) E. Woods, Ph.D.
Well, it wasn’t a toothache. Turned out it was Stage IV Head and Neck Canc..."
Beautiful!
Paula wrote: "Author of The Wrong Sister, The Fix, Hush Money, etc. passed away yesterday of cancer. RIPTeresa (Teri) E. Woods, Ph.D.
Well, it wasn’t a toothache. Turned out it was Stage IV Head and Neck Canc..."
This is why you should go to the dentist REGULARLY. Too bad they don't consider dental care as part of your health. No, really!! You get health insurance: it doesn't cover vision, mental health, or dental. Those are separate!
My dad stopped seeing a dentist for several years. (Not because he didn't have dental insurance. That's my PET PEEVE!) When my mom finally talked him back, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. We lost him on August 31, 2013.
Kirsten wrote: "Paula wrote: "Author of The Wrong Sister, The Fix, Hush Money, etc. passed away yesterday of cancer. RIPTeresa (Teri) E. Woods, Ph.D.
Well, it wasn’t a toothache. Turned out it was Stage IV Head..."
I'm so sorry Kirsten.
I should go, I haven't gone in several years. It just hurts my back so much those chairs. I had no idea getting a cleaning they could find cancer. I do go to a gastro and they do a scope a few times a year as I have problems with my esophagus.
Kirsten wrote: "Paula wrote: "Author of The Wrong Sister, The Fix, Hush Money, etc. passed away yesterday of cancer. RIPTeresa (Teri) E. Woods, Ph.D.
Well, it wasn’t a toothache. Turned out it was Stage IV Head..."
I won't pay for ANY dental insurance that would force me to uproot my business relationship with my current dentist who is only 6 blocks from my apartment for a dentist 3/4 of the way to St. Louis simply because that's the dentist they cover, Kirsten. That said, I can't afford to pay out of pocket anymore, but I can't afford not to, either. F*ed if I do go to a dentist, f*ed if I don't.
Yep, Paula, more cases of oral, throat and gum cancer are initially found by your dentist than by your normal physician.
Paula - The dentists have a spray that will fluoresce in the presence of cancer.Amber - Totally. Dental insurance is such a crock. It's not like health insurance where it pays a certain percent or there's a copay. They act like your teeth aren't part of your overall health.
Robin Leach, host of Lifestyles of thd Rich and Famous, has died at age 76.
Oh, God.... does that take me back. To a much simpler time.
Gary wrote: "Robin Leach, host of Lifestyles of thd Rich and Famous, has died at age 76."And they said he ended up being a millionaire. I used to watch his show all the time. RIP
Kirsten wrote: "Paula - The dentists have a spray that will fluoresce in the presence of cancer.Amber - Totally. Dental insurance is such a crock. It's not like health insurance where it pays a certain percent o..."
Exactly, Kirsten, because they forget that the health of your teeth and gums can be a useful indicator for the rest of your body. As for dentists detecting cancer...sometimes they see something, it makes their instincts wig out and they investigate...then they find cancer.
Playwrite, screenwriter Neil Simon has passed away at the age of 91.
I just saw that, Gary. One of the greats!! Here's what the NY Times had to say:Neil Simon, the playwright whose name was synonymous with Broadway comedy and commercial success in the theater for decades, and who helped redefine popular American humor with an emphasis on the frictions of urban living and the agonizing conflicts of family intimacy, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 91.
His death was announced by his publicist, Bill Evans.
Early in his career, Mr. Simon wrote for television greats, including Phil Silvers and Sid Caesar. Later he wrote for the movies, too. But it was as a playwright that he earned his lasting fame, with a long series of expertly tooled laugh machines that kept his name on Broadway marquees virtually nonstop throughout the late 1960s and ’70s.
Beginning with the breakthrough hits “Barefoot in the Park” (1963) and “The Odd Couple” (1965) and continuing with popular successes like “Plaza Suite” (1968), “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” (1971) and “The Sunshine Boys” (1974), Mr. Simon ruled Broadway when Broadway was still worth ruling.
From 1965 to 1980, plays and musicals written by Mr. Simon racked up more than 9,000 performances, a record not even remotely touched by any other playwright of the era. In 1966 alone, he had four Broadway shows running simultaneously.
He also owned a Broadway theater for a spell in the 1960s, the Eugene O’Neill, and in 1983 had a different Broadway theater named after him, a rare accolade for a living playwright.
For all their popularity with audiences, Mr. Simon’s great successes in the first years of his fame rarely earned wide critical acclaim, and Broadway revivals of “The Odd Couple” in 2005 and “Barefoot in the Park” in 2006 did little to change the general view that his early work was most notable for its surefire conceits and snappy punch lines. In the introduction to one of his play collections, Mr. Simon quoted the critic Clive Barnes as once writing, “Neil Simon is destined to remain rich, successful and underrated.”
But he gained a firmer purchase on critical respect in the 1980s with his darker-hued semi-autobiographical trilogy, “Brighton Beach Memoirs” (1983), “Biloxi Blues” (1985) and “Broadway Bound” (1986), comedy-dramas that were admired for the way they explored the tangle of love, anger and desperation that bound together — and drove apart — a Jewish working-class family, as viewed from the perspective of the youngest son, a restless wisecracker with an eye on showbiz fame.
“The writer at last begins to examine himself honestly, without compromises,” Frank Rich wrote of “Biloxi Blues” in The New York Times, “and the result is his most persuasively serious effort to date — not to mention his funniest play since the golden age” of his first decade.
In 1991, Mr. Simon won a Tony Award as well as the ultimate American playwriting award, the Pulitzer Prize, for “Lost in Yonkers,” another autobiographical comedy, this one about a fiercely withholding mother and her emotionally and intellectually underdeveloped daughter. It was also his last major success on Broadway.
Mr. Simon and Woody Allen, who both worked in the 1950s writing for Mr. Caesar (along with Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart and Carl Reiner, among others), were probably equally significant in shaping the currents of American comedy in the 1960s and ’70s, although their styles, their favored mediums and the critical reception of their work diverged mightily.
Mr. Simon was the populist whose accessible, joke-packed plays about the anxieties of everyday characters could tickle funny bones in theaters across the country as well as in 1,200-seat Broadway houses. Mr. Allen was the darling of the urban art-house cinema and the critical classes who created comedy from the minutiae of his own angst.
But together they helped make the comedy of urban neurosis — distinctly Jewish-inflected — as American as the homespun humor of “Leave It to Beaver.” Mr. Simon’s early plays, often centered on an antagonistic couple of one kind or another wielding cutting one-liners in a New York apartment, helped set the template for the explosion of sitcoms on network television in the 1970s. (The long-running television show based on his “Odd Couple” was one of the best, although a bum business deal meant that Mr. Simon earned little money from it.)
A line can be drawn between the taut plot threads of Mr. Simon’s early comedies — a slob and a neatnik form an irascible all-male marriage in “The Odd Couple,” newlyweds bicker in a new apartment in “Barefoot in the Park,” a laid-off fellow has a meltdown in “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” — and the “nothing”-inspired, kvetching-character-based comedy of the seminal 1990s sitcom “Seinfeld.”
Mr. Allen and Mr. Simon, who shared roots in the urban Jewish lower middle classes, were also united by the classic funnyman’s ability to inspire belly laughs by the millions in other people while managing to find the dark clouds hovering insistently over their own fates, however apparently successful they might seem.
Mr. Simon once wrote of approaching Mr. Allen in a restaurant when both men were at the height of their success, to offer congratulations on Mr. Allen’s “Manhattan.” How was he feeling? “Oh, all right,” Mr. Allen answered. Mr. Simon wrote, “When I saw his dour expression, I saw my own reflected agony.” This, when Mr. Simon himself had two hit shows on Broadway, another play ready for rehearsals and two movies set for production. (Plus an ulcer, of course.)
Agony is at the root of comedy, and for Mr. Simon it was the agony of an unhappy Depression childhood that inspired much of his finest work. And it was the agony of living in Los Angeles that drove his determination to break free from the grind of cranking out jokes for Jerry Lewis on television and make his own name. As he wrote in his 1996 autobiography, “Rewrites” (the first of two volumes), the plush comforts of Hollywood living might extend your life span, but “the catch was when you eventually did die, it surely wouldn’t be from laughing.”
Family Tension
Born on July 4, 1927, in the Bronx, Marvin Neil Simon was the son of a garment industry salesman, Irving Simon, who abandoned the family more than once during his childhood, leaving Mr. Simon’s mother, May, to take care of Mr. Simon and his older brother, Danny. When the family was intact, the mood was darkened by constant battles between the parents.
The tensions of the family, which moved to Washington Heights when Mr. Simon was 5, would find their way into many of his plays, notably the late trilogy but also the early comedies, including his first play, “Come Blow Your Horn” (1961), about a young man leaving home to join his older brother, a bachelor and ladies’ man. And when the family finally broke up for good, the young Mr. Simon went to live with cousins while his brother was sent to live with an aunt, circumstances reflected in “Lost in Yonkers.”
“When an audience laughed, I felt fulfilled,” Mr. Simon wrote in “Rewrites.” “It was a sign of approval, of being accepted. Coming as I did from a childhood where laughter in the house meant security, but was seldom heard as often as a door slamming every time my father took another year’s absence from us, the laughter that came my way in the theater was nourishment.”
Danny Simon, older by eight years, was the signal influence on Neil’s career. “The fact is, I probably never would have been a writer if it were not for Danny,” Mr. Simon wrote. “Once, when I was 15 years old, he said to me, ‘You’re going to be the funniest comedy writer in America.’ Why? Based on what? How funny could I be at 15?”
Mr. Simon graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx and attended New York University as an enlistee in the Army Air Forces Air Reserve training program. He continued his studies at the University of Denver while assigned to a base nearby. (His military experience inspired the second play in his late trilogy, “Biloxi Blues.”)
At that time, Danny had begun working in publicity at Warner Bros. in New York. Neil joined him there as a clerk after his discharge from the Air Force. Together they began writing television and radio scripts, eventually making $1,600 a week providing gags and sketches for Mr. Silvers, Jerry Lester, Jackie Gleason and Mr. Caesar on “Your Show of Shows” and later “Caesar’s Hour.”
“It was a real learning process,” Mr. Simon said of his days among the Caesarians, a group that has become a television legend and inspired Mr. Simon’s 1993 comedy “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” starring Nathan Lane. “We were exhausted,” he said, adding, “On Monday, you would come in knowing you had six new skits to do.”
The Simon brothers also wrote weekly revues for Camp Tamiment, the summer resort in the Poconos. It was there that Neil Simon fell in love with Joan Baim, a dancer and counselor. By the end of the summer, they were married.
A Broadway Name
“Come Blow Your Horn,” the play Mr. Simon wrote to escape the slavery of gag writing for television comics, ran for 677 performances and gained him connections and notice. But it was with “Barefoot in the Park,” a comedy inspired by his and his young wife’s experiences living in a fifth-floor walk-up in Greenwich Village, that Mr. Simon became a Broadway name.
It was the first Broadway show directed by Mike Nichols, then best known for his comedy work with Elaine May.
Mr. Nichols would go on to become one of Mr. Simon’s most frequent collaborators, credited by Mr. Simon with helping to shape his early plays through the tryouts and rehearsals. Mr. Nichols won his first Tony Award for directing “The Odd Couple.” He also directed “Plaza Suite,” with George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton, and “The Prisoner of Second Avenue,” with Peter Falk and Lee Grant. Mr. Nichols died in 2014.
“Barefoot in the Park” made a star of Robert Redford, who was cast alongside Elizabeth Ashley. It played for close to four years and made a hot commodity of Mr. Simon in Hollywood. His agent, Irving Lazar, better known as Swifty, sold the movie rights for $400,000. (Mr. Lazar asked Mr. Simon whether he’d be willing to sell the play for $300,000. Mr. Simon jumped at the offer, and Mr. Lazar kept the rest.)
The movie, with a screenplay by Mr. Simon, and with Mr. Redford and Jane Fonda in the starring roles, became a hit when it was released in 1967 at Radio City Music Hall, breaking the box-office record. That record would be smashed by the movie version of “The Odd Couple.” Both movies were directed by Gene Saks, who would direct many of Simon’s later plays, including the “Brighton Beach” trilogy and “Lost in Yonkers.” (Mr. Saks died in 2015.)
Mr. Simon’s screenwriting career included dozens of titles, among them many adaptations of his plays. In addition to “Barefoot in the Park” and “The Odd Couple” (with the original stage star, Walter Matthau, and Jack Lemmon replacing Art Carney), he wrote the screenplays for “The Prisoner of Second Avenue,” with Mr. Lemmon and Anne Bancroft, and “The Sunshine Boys,” with Mr. Matthau and George Burns, as well as “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” “Biloxi Blues” and “Lost in Yonkers,” among others.
He also wrote original movies, including, “The Out-of-Towners,” the period spoof “Murder by Death,” “The Goodbye Girl,” “The Cheap Detective,” “Max Dugan Returns,” “The Slugger’s Wife” and “Only When I Laugh,” based on his play “The Gingerbread Lady,” and most notably “The Heartbreak Kid,” a black comedy, based on a story by Bruce Jay Friedman, directed by Elaine May and starring Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd.
Richard Dreyfuss won an Oscar for his performance in “The Goodbye Girl” as an impish, irritating actor with whom an unemployed dancer played by Marsha Mason moves in. The movie received a total of nine Academy Award nominations, including one for Mr. Simon’s screenplay. (He received four Oscar screenplay nominations in his career, although he never won.)
(cont'd)
Continued from above:Ms. Mason was Mr. Simon’s wife at the time. His first wife, Joan, died of cancer in 1973. He met Ms. Mason at an audition, and they were married four months later. He wrote about their relationship in the play “Chapter Two,” which was made into a movie starring Ms. Mason and James Caan.
“It’s my favorite play for many reasons,” Mr. Simon once said of “Chapter Two.” “It was cathartic for me. In the two years Marsha and I were married, I gave her a rough time — still trying to hold on to my relationship with Joan. Marsha is beautiful and talented, and I found ways to find fault with her. One night in California, everything erupted into a terrible fight. I realized then what I was doing. That’s how I wrote the play.”
Mr. Simon was married five times. After his divorce from Ms. Mason, he married the actress Diane Lander in 1987. They divorced a year later but remarried in 1990, then divorced again. Mr. Simon married the actress Elaine Joyce in 1999. She survives him, along with his daughters Ellen Simon and Nancy Simon from his first marriage and his daughter Bryn Lander Simon from his marriage to Ms. Lander. He is also survived by three grandchildren and one great-grandson. Danny Simon died in 2005.
Mr. Simon wrote the book for three successful Broadway musicals in the 1960s. “Little Me” (1962), with music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, was directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse and featured Mr. Simon’s old boss Sid Caesar playing the multiple loves of an adventuress named Belle Poitrine. “Sweet Charity” (1966) reunited Mr. Simon with Mr. Fosse for a musical based on Federico Fellini’s “Nights of Cabiria,” with music by Mr. Coleman and lyrics by Dorothy Fields. “Promises, Promises,” based on the movie “The Apartment,” featured music by Burt Bacharach and lyrics by Hal David.
“Promises, Promises” was Mr. Simon’s biggest musical success, running 1,281 performances. It was revived on Broadway in 2010.
Mr. Simon returned to musicals in 1981 with “They’re Playing Our Song,” featuring music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager. His last musical book was for an unsuccessful stage adaptation of “The Goodbye Girl” in 1993.
In his most productive period, Mr. Simon wrote plays at the rate of almost one a year and produced almost 30 over his career. Many of the later works, from the 1990s and beyond, were tepidly received and had brief Broadway runs. “Proposals” (1997), a quasi-Chekhovian comedy, and “45 Seconds From Broadway” (2001), his last new play on Broadway, a tribute to a fabled Rialto coffee shop, were quick flops. But “The Dinner Party” (2000) ran for almost a year.
Mr. Simon made headlines in 2003 when Mary Tyler Moore abruptly left his play “Rose’s Dilemma” (2003) at Manhattan Theater Club. That turned out to be his last produced play. He also made news with the announcement of his kidney transplant in 2004. The donor was his longtime press agent and friend, Bill Evans.
Fighting for Respect
Most recently, in the fall of 2009, Mr. Simon expressed surprise and dismay at the quick closing of a much-anticipated Broadway revival of his “Brighton Beach Memoirs.” It was intended to run in repertory with “Broadway Bound” but closed in a week when it received mixed reviews. “I’m dumbfounded,” he said. “After all these years, I still don’t get how Broadway works or what to make of our culture.”
It was a poignant comment from the man who more or less defined Broadway achievement for a couple of decades. But while quick flops were relatively rare in his career, Mr. Simon always fought to gain critical respect. Although he was nominated for 17 Tony Awards, he won just three: for playwright of “The Odd Couple” (best play went to Jason Miller’s “That Championship Season”; there were separate awards for play and playwright) and twice for best play, for “Biloxi Blues” and “Lost in Yonkers.”
“I know how the public sees me, because people are always coming up to me and saying, ‘Thanks for the good times,’” Mr. Simon told The Times in 1991. “But all the success has demeaned me in a way. Critically, the thinking seems to be that if you write too many hits, they can’t be that good.”
Looking back, Mr. Simon wrote with a still starry-eyed joy of his decision to embark on a playwriting career: “For a man who wants to be his own master, to depend on no one else, to make life conform to his own visions rather than to follow the blueprints of others, playwriting is the perfect occupation. To sit in a room alone for six or seven or 10 hours, sharing the time with characters that you created, is sheer heaven.
“And if not heaven,” the master craftsman of the well-timed joke added, “it’s at least an escape from hell.”
And let's not forget Sen. John McCain, who passed away Saturday from brain cancer.
Quillracer wrote: "And let's not forget Sen. John McCain, who passed away Saturday from brain cancer."Yes, a true American hero.
And the last of the TRUE statesmen who put COUNTRY OVER PARTY!
Mod
According to the South Pasadenan, the actress was shot by police in her California home during a routine welfare check. In a press conference on Thursday, Lt. Joe Mendoza of the L.A. Sheriff's homicide bureau said authorities were alerted by a landlord who called about a woman in trouble. Officers said she was suffering from medical issues including seizures and that she was "gravely disabled."
"At the time [of the shooting] there was an LA County mental health clinician here with the officers," he explained during the presser. "They began to communicate with her, she became very uncooperative and during that contact she armed herself with a handgun, she pointed it at the officers and an officer-involved shooting occurred." Marquez was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Police later recovered a BB gun that Mendoza said "resembled a semi-automatic handgun."
Marquez starred as nurse Wendy Goldman on ER from 1994-1997. Her other credits include Malcolm & Eddie, Seinfeld, Melrose Place and the film Stand And Deliver. She appeared in a 2005 episode of A&E's Intervention for depression, OCD and an addiction to shopping. In October 2017, Marquez accused her former ER co-star George Clooney of stalling her career after she reported harassment on the set of the NBC series which ran for 15 seasons.
Sean wrote: "Vanessa Marquez, who starred on the medical drama ER, has died. She was 49 years old.According to the South Pasadenan, the actress was shot by police in her California home during a routine welfa..."
I saw this on the news this morning and couldn't believe it. I don't know why police officers can't just wound people instead of killing them. Like get them in the arm/shoulder that the supposed gun is in. Better safe than sorry.
Because that's NOT how they're trained, Paula. They're trained to treat EVERYTHING as a potential threat to their lives and by extension the lives of bystanders.
Yes, and so many are veterans. Our police force is militarized. We need to totally retrain the police so they go back to what they used to be. The head of the Washington State Patrol's training has talked at length of this. Paula, we had a case in Pasco, WA, where a mentally ill man was throwing rocks at cars. He was shot over 20 times. It horrified me. All they had to do was stay out of range until he ran out of rocks.
The video I'm gonna link to has a lot to say about the militarization of the police.ABOLISH THE POLICE!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwUCY...
The first two comments are under my real name.
George Walker, Trailblazing American Composer, Dies At 96. Details: https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptiv...
BBC just announced that Burt Reynolds has died!!
Mod
The Londoner had a recurring role as the beautiful yet dizzy blonde in the renowned comedy franchise.
Liz Fraser, the British comic actress best known for her role in several of the bawdy Carry On series of films in the 1960s, has died. She was 88.
The actress passed away on Thursday in a hospital London, with the British Comedy Society tweeting that it was "very sad to learn that the wonderful Liz Fraser has died. She was a delight."
Born in the central London district of Southwark in 1933, Fraser's first film appearance was in 1955's Touch and Go, followed by The Smallest Show on Earth in 1957, which saw her work with Peter Sellers for the first time. In 1959, she earned a BAFTA nomination for most promising newcomer for I'm All Right, Jack. Around the same time Fraser appeared in Benny Hill's comedy TV shows.
But her best known appearances were as the perennially "dizzy blonde" in some of the early Carry On titles, including Carry On Regardless (1961), Carry On Cruising (1962) and Carry on Cabby (1963). After being sacked by producer Peter Rogers after suggesting the series could be better marketing, only to return for 1975's Carry on Behind.
Other film work included Two-Way Stretch (1960), The Bulldog Breed (1960), Double Bunk (1961), The Painted Smile (1962), The Americanization of Emily (1964), The Family Way (1966), Dad's Army (1971) and the sex comedies Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976), Confessions of a Driving Instructor (1976), Adventures of a Private Eye (1977) and Rosie Dixon - Night Nurse (1978).
Bill Daily, best known as I Dream of Jeannie's Roger Healey and The Bob Newhart Show's Howard Borden has died at the age of 91.
Gary wrote: "Bill Daily, best known as I Dream of Jeannie's Roger Healey and The Bob Newhart Show's Howard Borden has died at the age of 91."Oh, no!! I loved him!!
Wildlife television presenter Johnny Kingdom has been killed in an accident involving a digger on his land.The film-maker, photographer and author, who specialised in his local area of Exmoor and north Devon, died on Thursday night.
Police confirmed emergency services were called to a field near Wadham Cross in Knowstone, Devon, to reports that a digger had rolled over.
The 79-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency services.
His family requested privacy, but issued a short statement which said: "Unfortunately a legend has been lost.
"Johnny would want you all to continue with his love for Exmoor as you all meant so much to him.
"As the loving man himself would have said 'Farewell to all you lovely people'."
Mr Kingdom was born and bred on the edge of Exmoor and worked as a gravedigger, a quarryman and a lumberjack until an accident whilst out logging.
He then began making wildlife films and in 2006 his first series on BBC 2, A Year On Exmoor, was watched by more than three million people.
BBC Countryfile presenter, Richard Taylor-Jones has paid tribute to his "wonderful, magical" friend on social media.
Tributes have been paid by fellow TV wildlife presenter, Nick Baker, who said Johnny was a "gravedigger" when he met him.
He said: "Every country boy likes nature, that's our playground.
"We bonded over that side of things but he was just an amazing character.
"He really was part of Devon and it's going to be a much quieter and less interesting place without him."
Heartbeat actor Peter Benson, who played Bernie Scripps in the popular ITV series for 18 years, has died, his manager said.Benson died aged 75 on Thursday after a short illness.
In the police drama set in the 1960s, he played a funeral director who got into disastrous money-making schemes. He appeared in all 18 series from 1992.
Benson also played Henry VII in BBC comedy Blackadder, and appeared more recently in hospital drama, Casualty.
As well as his TV work, he was also a skilled singer, dancer and theatre actor who portrayed the title role in Shakespeare's Henry VI in a BBC television adaption of the play in 1983.
Former Heartbeat co-star Steven Blakeley, who played PC Geoff Younger in the show, was among those to pay tribute.
There would "never be another like you - talented, kind and gentle in equal measure", said Blakeley.
So sad to hear that Zienia Merton has died aged 72. One of my favorite sci-fi shows of all time was Space:1999 and she played Sandra Benes in that show.
https://scifibulletin.com/2018/09/14/...
Actor Dudley Sutton, who played Tinker Dill in Lovejoy, dies aged 85Sutton’s agent confirms that actor, who also had roles in EastEnders and Holby City, has died
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...
Mod
Donat passed away on Monday at his California home of complications from diabetes, according to The New York Times. He made his X-Files debut as Bill Mulder in Season 2’s “Colony,” and reprised the role in five subsequent episodes, concluding with Season 6’s “One Son.” (Bill Mulder was dramatically killed off in the Season 2 finale, but continued to appear via flashback.)
Enjoying a screen career that spanned six decades, Donat also made appearances on Dallas
Mod
Has just finished three films, made lots of films. Died 85 years old.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0840303/?...
TV host and comedy writer Denis Norden has died aged 96, his family has said.The It'll Be Alright on the Night host died on Wednesday after spending "many weeks" at the Royal Free Hospital in London, a statement said.
Norden wrote his first script for the BBC - Let's Go to the Holborn - at the age of 19.
He teamed up with comic Frank Muir between 1947 and the early 1960s, writing comedies including BBC radio's Take It From Here.
In 1977, Norden became the host of the ITV show It'll Be Alright On The Night, and he presented it until his retirement aged 84 in 2006.
Norden's children Nick and Maggie said they wanted to thank "all the dedicated staff and doctors who have looked after him - with much devotion".
The statement added: "A wonderful dad, a loving grandfather and great great-grandfather - he gave his laughter-mongering to so many."
"He will be in our hearts forever."
Piers Morgan was among those to pay tribute to the presenter, calling him "wonderfully amusing", while comedian Rory Bremner said he was "one of the finest (and tallest) writers of a great generation".
Comedian Dave Gorman recalled his favourite excerpt from It'll Be Alright on the Night, while BBC Breakfast presenter Dan Walker called Norden the "Lord of the Clipboard".
Mod
A statement shared their Twitter page read: "It is with tremendous sadness that we announce the passing of our very own Chas Hodges.
"Despite receiving successful treatment for oesophageal cancer recently, Chas suffered organ failure and passed away peacefully in his sleep in the early hours of this morning."
Mod
I'm a "Colonial Heathen" as Warden Chandler from Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series puts it, Sean, so that explains why I'd never heard of them before Saturday.
The creator of children's TV show Postman Pat has died. Tributes have poured in for 85-year-old John Cunliffe, who was also the writer and star of Rosie and Jim.
The author was born in Colne, Lancashire and lived in Kendal, Cumbria. He took inspiration from the Lake District when creating the show's fictional village of Greendale.
The first episode was broadcast on 16 September 1981 and the animated series has appeared in more than 50 countries.
The family said Mr Cunliffe died at home after a short illness.
The notice of his death was published in the Ilkley Gazette and read: "John Cunliffe left his Ilkley home in a deluge of rain on 20 September, never to return.
Ernest Maxin, one of the great talents behind the success on BBC television of Morecambe and Wise, has died at the age of 95Maxin choreographed most of the comic duo's best loved musical moments and later took over as their producer.
His lasting claim to fame will be as the man who staged most of Morecambe and Wise's popular TV dance scenes.
He staged Shirley Bassey singing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, with Eric and Ernie as two hapless stagehands beside her.
Cliff Richard's dance number with Morecambe and Wise as white-clad US sailors revealed Maxin's love of old Hollywood musicals.
And when Maxin took over from John Ammonds as overall producer of Morecambe and Wise, the BBC were prevailed upon to throw resources at the dance numbers as never before.
He choreographed the tribute to Singin' in the Rain, which no TV company could probably afford now. He was also in charge of the much-repeated classic in which Morecambe and Wise prepare breakfast to a soundtrack of David Rose's The Stripper.
Maxin's version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's There's Nothing Like a Dame featured some of the biggest TV names of the 1970s. For the time it was a superb act of tape-editing and it remains a classic. When the duo moved to Thames TV, Maxin stayed at the BBC to produce Les Dawson before finally retiring. He'd been at the top of showbusiness for decades - in an extraordinary variety of roles.
In fact, well before he produced Eric and Ernie, he was already a top BBC TV light entertainment figure.
Stanley O'Connor is posting the same self promotion in several threads...
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