Who's Next To Croak?

[polkablues]

Doohan became a father again at the age of 80, when his wife Wende gave birth to daughter Sarah.

Octogenarians fathering kids is so punk rock.  Way to go, Scotty.

[Ravi]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1015438

Peter Jennings Dies at 67
'World News Tonight' Anchor Since 1983

Aug. 7, 2005 - ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings died today at his home in New York City. He was 67. On April 5, Jennings announced he had been diagnosed with lung cancer.

He is survived by his wife, Kayce Freed, his two children, Elizabeth, 25, and Christopher, 23, and his sister, Sarah Jennings.

In announcing Jennings' death to his ABC colleagues, News President David Westin wrote:

"For four decades, Peter has been our colleague, our friend, and our leader in so many ways. None of us will be the same without him.

"As you all know, Peter learned only this spring that the health problem he'd been struggling with was lung cancer. With Kayce, he moved straight into an aggressive chemotherapy treatment. He knew that it was an uphill struggle. But he faced it with realism, courage, and a firm hope that he would be one of the fortunate ones. In the end, he was not.

"We will have many opportunities in the coming hours and days to remember Peter for all that he meant to us all. It cannot be overstated or captured in words alone. But for the moment, the finest tribute we can give is to continue to do the work he loved so much and inspired us to do."

Reported World-Shaping Events

As one of America's most distinguished journalists, Jennings reported many of the pivotal events that have shaped our world. He was in Berlin in the 1960s when the Berlin Wall was going up, and there in the '90s when it came down. He covered the civil rights movement in the southern United States during the 1960s, and the struggle for equality in South Africa during the 1970s and '80s. He was there when the Voting Rights Act was signed in 1965, and on the other side of the world when South Africans voted for the first time. He has worked in every European nation that once was behind the Iron Curtain. He was there when the independent political movement Solidarity was born in a Polish shipyard, and again when Poland's communist leaders were forced from power. And he was in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania and throughout the Soviet Union to record first the repression of communism and then its demise. He was one of the first reporters to go to Vietnam in the 1960s, and went back to the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1980s to remind Americans that, unless they did something, the terror would return.

On Dec. 31, 1999, Jennings anchored ABC's Peabody-award winning coverage of Millennium Eve, "ABC 2000." Some 175 million Americans watched the telecast, making it the biggest live global television event ever. "The day belonged to ABC News," wrote The Washington Post, "&with Peter Jennings doing a nearly superhuman job of anchoring." Jennings was the only anchor to appear live for 25 consecutive hours.

Jennings also led ABC's coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks and America's subsequent war on terrorism. He anchored more than 60 hours that week during the network's longest continuous period of news coverage, and was widely praised for providing a reassuring voice during the time of crisis. TV Guide called him "the center of gravity," while the Washington Post wrote, "Jennings, in his shirt sleeves, did a Herculean job of coverage." The coverage earned ABC News Peabody and duPont awards.

Overseas, and at Home

Jennings joined ABC News on Aug. 3, 1964. He served as the anchor of "Peter Jennings with the News" from 1965 to 1967.

He established the first American television news bureau in the Arab world in 1968 when he served as ABC News' bureau chief for Beirut, Lebanon, a position he held for seven years. He helped put ABC News on the map in 1972 with his coverage of the Summer Olympics in Munich, when Arab terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage.

In 1975, Jennings moved to Washington to become the news anchor of ABC's morning program "A.M. America". After a short stint in the mornings, Jennings returned overseas to Rome where he stayed before moving to London to become ABC's Chief Foreign Correspondent. In 1978 he was named the foreign desk anchor for "World News Tonight." He co-anchored the program with Frank Reynolds in Washington, D.C., and Max Robinson in Chicago until 1983.

Jennings was named anchor and senior editor of "World News Tonight" in 1983. In his more than 20 years in the position he was honored with almost every major award given to television journalists.

His extensive domestic and overseas reporting experience was evident in "World News Tonight's" coverage of major crises. He reported from all 50 states and locations around the globe. During the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 War in Iraq, his knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs brought invaluable perspective to ABC News war in Iraq and the drug trade in Central and South America. The series also tackled important domestic issues such as gun control policy, the politics of abortion, the crisis in funding for the arts and a highly praised chronicle of the accused bombers of Oklahoma City. "Peter Jennings Reporting" earned numerous awards, including the 2004 Edward R. Morrow award for best documentary for "The Kennedy Assassination -- Beyond Conspiracy."

Jennings also had a particular interest in broadcasting for the next generation. He did numerous live news specials for children on subjects ranging from growing up in the age of AIDS, to prejudice and its effects on our society. After the events of September 11, and again on the anniversary, he anchored a town hall meeting for children and parents entitled, "Answering Children's Questions."

Jennings was honored with many awards for news reporting, including 16 Emmys, two George Foster Peabody Awards, several Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards and several Overseas Press Club Awards. Most recently, "World News Tonight" was recognized with two consecutive Edward R. Murrow awards for best newscast, based on field reporting done by Jennings on the California wildfires and the transfer of power in Iraq.

Jennings was the author, with Todd Brewster, of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller, "The Century." It featured first-person accounts of the great events of the century. In 1999, he anchored the 12-hour ABC series, "The Century," and ABC's series for The History Channel, "America's Time." He and Brewster also published "In Search of America," a companion book for the 6-part ABC News series.

Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures

[Myxo]

^^

God damn that is sad.

Peter Jennings (in my opinion) was the greatest. Whenever a major news event was breaking, I would always tune into ABC NEWS first. I'm really sad to here about this. Fucking cigarettes.

[polkablues]

Peter Jennings (in my opinion) was the greatest.

My opinion, too.  The quality of American newscasting just dropped immeasurably.

   

[Brazoliange]

America had quality newscasting?

[pete]

he was from canada.
I'm pretty saddened by this kinda sudden death too, but lets not kid ourselves, Peter Jennings was not that great of a journalist, maybe he was before my time--maybe he was like Jay Leno and I just caught him when he stopped trying, but for the last five or six years, he was not much of a journalist as he was actor; raising eyebrows on cue and looking glum when needed.  he never dug too deep and never asked that much.  at least ted koppel had sincerity in his empty newscasts.
Charlie Rose is the greatest TV journalist out there today.

[polkablues]

America had quality newscasting?

Note that I separate the distinct concepts of "newscasting" and "journalism".  One is not the other, and in the unfortunate absence of the latter, at least in Peter Jennings we had a fine purveyor of the former.

[Myxo]

Jennings didn't need to be a great journalist. He did that for over twenty years. People like Ted Koppel at ABC NEWS have always been far better suited for field work. No, Peter Jennings was meant to be in front of the camera, inspiring Americans through anchoring an absolutely wonderful newscast.

..and I agree that Charlie Rose kicks ass by the way. However, for events like 9/11 and so forth, I'd take Jennings for my evening news in a second over anyone.

We're slowly losing the "great generation" of anchormen and women. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that baby boomers will be taking over for the next twenty years or so.

[Reinhold]

sorry. searched "death" and  "jennings".

thanks for the redirect.

i like him a lot.

[Ravi]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4133644.stm


Singer Ferrer buried in Havana
By Stephen Gibbs
BBC News, Havana


A funeral has been held in Havana for the Cuban musician Ibrahim Ferrer.

Ferrer, who died on Saturday at the age of 78, was a lead singer with the Grammy award winning group the Buena Vista Social Club.

The band found international fame in the late 1990s, after being promoted by the US guitarist Ry Cooder, and featuring in a film by Wim Wenders.

Ibrahim Ferrer is the third elderly member of the band to die in the last two years.

A recording of the voice of Ibrahim Ferrer was heard at his own funeral for around 200 of his friends and family who had come to say a final goodbye.

It was a simple ceremony for the man who was described as having a voice like an angel.

His body was carried in a plain black coffin and placed in a large stone grave.

The unpretentious farewell was perhaps as he would have liked it.

Juan De Marcos, the Cuban musician who persuaded all the elderly members of the Buena Vista Social Club to get together and record an album, remembered the singer as the reluctant star.

"Ibrahim was always a shy guy," he said.

"He never wanted to be in front of the band. He thought that the proper place for him was in the back of the band because he never was in the front of any band in his life."

His death follows that in 2003 of Compay Segundo and Ruben Gonzalez, the two other key members of the group.

Together they all had an extraordinary second career in the final decade of their lives.

Their music, all but forgotten just 10 years ago, does now look set to live on.

[Pubrick]

sorry. searched "death" and  "jennings".

thanks for the redirect.

jennings and death would've given u this thread, specifically Ravi's initial report and Pete's reply.

please spend time here: http://xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=7892 , together we can make it through this.

[MacGuffin]

Film, Stage Star Barbara Bel Geddes Dies

Barbara Bel Geddes, the winsome actress who rose to stage and movie stardom but reached her greatest fame as Miss Ellie Ewing in the long-running TV series "Dallas," has died. She was 82.

The San Francisco Chronicle said Bel Geddes, a longtime smoker, died Monday of lung cancer at her home in Northeast Harbor, Maine. Jordan-Fernald Funeral Home in Mount Desert, Maine, confirmed the death Wednesday, but owner Bill Fernald said the family asked that no further information be given out.

Bel Geddes was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress for the 1948 drama "I Remember Mama" and was the original Maggie the Cat on Broadway in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

But she was best known as the matriarch of the rambunctious Ewing oil family on "Dallas," which hurtled to the top of the ratings despite negative reviews. Bel Geddes won an Emmy in 1980 as best lead actress in a drama series and remains the only nighttime soap star to be so honored.

"She was the rock of 'Dallas,'" Larry Hagman, who played J.R. Ewing, told The Associated Press. "She was just a really nice woman and a wonderful actress. She was kind of the glue that held the whole thing together."

Bel Geddes called "Dallas "real fun," but it was also marked by tragedy. In 1981, Jim Davis, who played Miss Ellie's husband, Jock Ewing, died.

"It was like losing her own husband again," said "Dallas" producer Leonard Katzman. "It was a terribly difficult and emotional time for Barbara."

In March 1984, Bel Geddes was stricken with a major heart attack. Miss Ellie was played by Donna Reed for six months, then Bel Geddes returned to "Dallas," remaining until 1990, a year before CBS canceled the show.

Hagman said he had encouraged Bel Geddes to give up the smoking habit, but it was doctors who got her to quit after the heart attack, he said. He recalled the makeup room on the "Dallas" set as being so filled with her cigarette smoke that he would ask to be made up in his dressing room.

Of the lung cancer deaths of Peter Jennings and Bel Geddes, Hagman said: "I hope it's a wake-up call to a lot of people."

"Dallas" came late in her career. She had retired to take care of her husband, Windsor Lewis, after he fell ill with cancer in 1966. He died in 1972.

Her earnings depleted by his long illness, she found work scarce for a middle-aged actress and said she was "flat broke" in 1978 when she accepted the role as Miss Ellie.

In 1945, Bel Geddes made a splash on Broadway at 23 with her first important role in "Deep Are the Roots," winning the New York Drama Critics Award as best actress.

She announced to a reporter: "My ambition is to be a good screen actress. I think it would be much more exciting to work for Frank Capra, George Cukor, Alfred Hitchcock or Elia Kazan than to stay on Broadway."

Hollywood was quick to notice. In 1946 she signed a contract with RKO that granted her unusual request to be committed to only one picture a year. In her first movie she costarred with Henry Fonda in "The Long Night," a disappointing remake of a French film.

Her second film was a hit playing a budding writer in George Stevens' "I Remember Mama," the touching story of an immigrant family in San Francisco starring Irene Dunne as Mama. With her delicate features and patrician manner, Bel Geddes became a popular leading lady in films.

"I went out to California awfully young," she remarked. "I remember Lillian Hellman and Elia Kazan telling me, 'Don't go, learn your craft.' But I loved films." After four movies, Howard Hughes, who had bought control of RKO in 1948, dropped her contract because "she wasn't sexy enough."

Bel Geddes was devastated. But it turned out to be a good happenstance. She had time to return to the stage, and she scored a triumph in 1955 as Maggie the Cat in Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

Yet her biggest Broadway success was "Mary, Mary," a frothy marital comedy by Jean Kerr, which opened in 1961 and ran for more than 1,500 performances.

In her film career, Bel Geddes was able to work with great filmmakers such as Kazan ("Panic in the Streets") and Alfred Hitchcock ("Vertigo"). She also costarred with Danny Kaye in "The Five Pennies" and with Jeanne Moreau in "Five Branded Women."

"By Love Possessed" in 1961 was her last film for 10 years. She made her final films in 1971 "Summertree" and "The Todd Killings"

Among Bel Geddes' other major theater credits were roles in Terence Rattigan's "The Sleeping Prince" (1956); Robert Anderson's "Silent Night, Holy Night" (1959), which co-starred Henry Fonda; and Edward Albee's "Everything in the Garden" (1967). She was born in New York City on Oct. 31, 1922, the daughter of renowned industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes.

"I didn't see much of my father," she said, "but I absolutely adored him." After her education in private schools, he found her a job at a summer theater and used his connections with stage people to help her get work.

Early in her stage career Bel Geddes married Carl Schreuer, an electrical engineer, and they had a daughter, Susan. The marriage ended after seven years in 1951, and that year she married director Lewis. They had a daughter, Betsy.


'Big Fish' 7-footer Matthew McGrory dies

Matthew McGrory, the deep-voiced 7-foot-plus actor who moved from appearances on Howard Stern's radio show to a high-profile role as a gentle giant in "Big Fish," has died. He was 32.

McGrory died Tuesday at his home in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, said director Drew Sky, who was working with him on his current movie, a biopic of wrestler-turned-actor Andre the Giant.

Paramedics determined he died of apparent natural causes, police said in a statement.

McGrory had size 29 1/2 shoes and for years held a world record for biggest feet not caused by elephantiasis. The title led to his appearances on Stern's show in the 1990s and other attention from the national media even before he became an actor. He attended law school and showed up in music videos before starting his career in Hollywood B-movies.

He played a human Sasquatch in 2001's "Bubble Boy," an alien in "Men In Black II" (2002) and Tiny in the Rob Zombie horror movies "House of 1000 Corpses" (2003) and its sequel released this year, "The Devil's Rejects."

His big break in Hollywood came in 2003 with Tim Burton-directed "Big Fish." Ewan McGregor's character refuses to be intimidated by the size of McGrory's Karl character, walking up to shake his hand.

McGrory's family and girlfriend declined immediate comment.

Sky said he first met McGrory at a bar in 2000 and had been filming "Andre: Heart of the Giant" on and off for six months. He said that McGrory, who was from West Chester, Pa., felt a connection with the man he was playing, wrestler and "The Princess Bride" actor Andre Rousimmoff, who died in 1993.

"He felt the same way, that he would do anything just to be a person of regular size one day a week, where people don't have to stare at him, where he could go see a regular movie and walk down the street," Sky said.

[grand theft sparrow]

This is pretty sad.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/people/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001017139

Joe Ranft, Pixar Animation's head of story, 45

By Sheigh Crabtree and Cynthia Littleton

Joe Ranft, Pixar Animation Studios' head of story and a founding member of the animation company's creative team, died Tuesday afternoon in a car accident in Mendocino County, Calif. He was 45.

"Joe was an important and beloved member of the Pixar family, and his loss is of great sorrow to all of us and to the animation industry as a whole," Pixar said in a statement Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for the Mendocino County Sheriff-Coroner's Office confirmed Ranft was one of two people who died when their car veered off the road while traveling northbound on Highway 1.

According to the California Highway Patrol, the accident occurred at about 3 p.m. Tuesday as the driver of the 2004 Honda Element tried to regain control of the car after swerving when he headed into a tight left curve. The car plunged 130 feet over the side into the ocean, the CHP said.

The driver, identified by the coroner's office as Elegba Earl, 32, of Los Angeles, was also killed in the crash. The third person in the car, identified by the CHP as Eric Frierson, 39, of Los Angeles, survived by climbing through the car's sun roof. He was hospitalized with moderate injuries at Mendocino Coast Hospital, according to Officer Robert Simas of the CHP office in Ukiah, Calif.

Ranft worked in both story development and as a storyboard artist at Pixar for the past decade. He was a co-writer on 1995's "Toy Story," for which he earned an Oscar nomination, and 1998's "A Bug's Life." Before Pixar, Ranft was a leading member of the story department at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he was a writer on 1991's "Beauty and the Beast" and 1994's "The Lion King."

Ranft also voiced key Pixar characters such as Heimlich in "Bug's" and Wheezy the Penguin in "Toy Story 2."

Born in Southern California in 1960, Ranft was a classmate of director John Lasseter's at the California Institute of the Arts in the 1970s. After two years at CalArts, he joined Disney in 1980. He joined Pixar in 1992.

"Joe was a big part of Pixar's soul," a Pixar spokesperson said.

[MacGuffin]

Synthesizer innovator Robert Moog dies at 71

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Robert Moog, whose self-named synthesizers turned electric currents into sound, revolutionizing music in the 1960s and opening the wave that became electronica, has died. He was 71.

Moog died Sunday at his home in Asheville, according to his company's Web site. He had suffered from an inoperable brain tumor, detected in April.

A childhood interest in the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments, would lead Moog to a create a career and business that tied the name Moog as tightly to synthesizers as the name Les Paul is to electric guitars.

Despite traveling in circles that included jet-setting rockers, he always considered himself a technician.

"I'm an engineer. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my customers," he said in 2000. "They use the tools."

As a Ph.D. student in engineering physics at Cornell University, Moog -- rhymes with vogue -- in 1964 developed his first voltage-controlled synthesizer modules with composer Herb Deutsch. By the end of that year, R.A. Moog Co. marketed the first commercial modular synthesizer.

The instrument allowed musicians, first in a studio and later on stage, to generate a range of sounds that could mimic nature or seem otherworldly by flipping a switch, twisting a dial, or sliding a knob. Other synthesizers were already on the market in 1964, but Moog's stood out for being small, light and versatile.

The arrival of the synthesizer came as just as the Beatles and other musicians started seeking ways to fuse psychedelic-drug experiences with their art. The Beatles used a Moog synthesizer on their 1969 album, "Abbey Road"; a Moog was used to create an eerie sound on the soundtrack to the 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange."

Keyboardist Walter (later Wendy) Carlos demonstrated the range of Moog's synthesizer by recording the hit album "Switched-On Bach" in 1968 using only the new instrument instead of an orchestra.

Among the other classics using a Moog: the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," and Stevie Wonder's urban epic, "Livin' for the City."

"Suddenly, there was a whole group of people in the world looking for a new sound in music, and it picked up very quickly," said Deutsch, the Hofstra University emeritus music professor who helped develop the Moog prototype.

"The Moog came at the right time," he said Monday.

The popularity of the synthesizer and the success of the company named for Moog took off in rock as extended keyboard solos in songs by Manfred Mann, Yes and Pink Floyd became part of the progressive sound of the 1970s.

"The sound defined progressive music as we know it," said Keith Emerson, keyboardist for the rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

Along with rock, synthesizers developed since Moog's breakthrough helped inspire elements of 1970s funk, hip-hop, and techno.

Charles Carlini, a New York City concert promoter, staged Moogfest in May 2004 to mark a half-century since Moog founded his first company while still in college. Emerson, Rick Wakefield of Yes, and Bernie Worrell of Parliament/Funkadelic were among those who played, and a second Moogfest was held a year later.

Moog had "this absent-minded professorial way about him," Carlini said.

"He's like an Einstein of music," Carlini said. "He sees it like, there's a thought, an idea in the air, and it passes through him. Passing through him, he's able to build these instruments."

"A lot of people today don't realize what this man brought to the masses," Carlini said. "He brought electronic music to the masses and changed the way we hear music."

But the now-pervasive synthesizer's ability to mimic strings, horns, and percussion has also threatened some musicians.

In 2004, musicians extracted a promise from the Opera Company of Brooklyn to never again use an advanced kind of synthesizer, called a virtual orchestra machine, in future productions.

Born in 1934 in New York City, Moog paid for his studies at Queens College and Columbia University by building and marketing theremins, which are played by passing the hand through and around vibrating radio tubes. Theremins were used create the spooky "eww-woo-woo" sounds on the soundtracks of science fiction films such as "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

He went on to attach his name to a long list of synthesizers developed over the years -- among them Micromoog, Minitmoog, Multimoog and Memorymoog.

Moog, who had set up shop in suburban Buffalo, N.Y., sold R.A. Moog in 1973 and moved five years later to a remote plot outside Asheville, a scenic Appalachian Mountain city and center for new-age pursuits that Rolling Stone magazine once dubbed "America's new freak capital."

A deliberate man with brushed-back white hair and a breast pocket packed with pens, Moog drove an aging Toyota painted with a snail, vines and a fish blowing bubbles.

"When I drive that thing around, people smile at me," he said. "I really feel I'm enhancing the environment."

He spent the early 1990s as a research professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Asheville before turning full-time to running his new instrument business, which was renamed Moog Music in 2002. The roster of customers includes Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Beck, Phish, Sonic Youth and Widespread Panic.

Moog is survived by his wife, Ileana; his children, Laura Moog Lanier, Matthew Moog, Michelle Moog-Koussa and Renee Moog; a stepdaughter, Miranda Richmond; and his former wife, Shireleigh Moog.

A public memorial is scheduled for Wednesday in Asheville.

[polkablues]

Wild... I always assumed "Moog" was an acronym for something.  I had no idea it was some guy's fucking name.