Who's Next To Croak?

[Ravi]

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-sills3-2008jun03,0,7755190.story

Paul Sills, 80; co-founder of Second City, Compass Players
The stage director nurtured improvisation and helped launch the careers of major stars.
By Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 3, 2008

Paul Sills, the legendary improvisational director and teacher who co-founded the Compass Players in Chicago and was the founding director of Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy cabaret, died Monday.

He was 80.

Sills died of complications of pneumonia at his home in Baileys Harbor, Wis., said documentary filmmaker Vince Waldron, a family friend.

"Paul was the founding father of American improvisational theater," said Waldron, who is in post-production on a feature-length documentary on Sills' life and work.

"The roots of Paul's theater came out of the same era that gave us bebop in jazz," Waldron said.

"Improvisation was in the air in the postwar era; I think Paul harnessed it for the stage."

A former University of Chicago student, Sills co-founded the Compass Players with playwright and producer David Shepherd in 1955.

The Compass became a launching pad for some of the top performers of their generation, including Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Shelley Berman and Barbara Harris, who was the second of Sills' three wives.

"It's hard to make a single comment about Paul Sills because he had so many areas of expertise, not the least of which he knew when the scene was over and he turned off the lights," Berman told The Times on Monday.

"If we wanted to run on and on, getting one meager laugh after another, POW! The lights were off and your scene was over.

"He wanted us to be only aware of each other on stage. If someone said something and it was ignored, you made a mistake. And Paul didn't run around crabbing and criticizing. He was just a guy who was never busy asserting his authority. He made a bunch of young people become important."

Citing one improvisation about a teenager that he did at the Compass that later became "an important piece of material" in his comedy act, Berman said Sills "helped create all kinds of material," including "marvelous things for Nichols and May."

"We all found treasures in working with him," he said.

After serving as one of the directors of the Compass through its early years, Sills co-founded Second City in 1959.

The legendary Chicago improv club provided a springboard for performers such as Alan Arkin, Avery Schreiber, Hamilton Camp, Paul Sand and Severn Darden.

Sills was the primary director through the mid-1960s.

He then launched the Story Theater, a groundbreaking technique for adapting folk tales and other literary material to the stage, in Chicago in 1968.

Sills adapted the classic folk tales of the Brothers Grimm and directed "Paul Sills' Story Theater," which was one of the earliest hits of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 1970.

The show then went to Broadway, where the cast included Peter Bonerz, Melinda Dillon, Mary Frann, Valerie Harper, Paul Sand and others. Sills won a Drama Desk Award for outstanding director.

Sills was born in Chicago Nov. 18, 1927.

He was the son of Viola Spolin, who was known as the grand dame of improvisational theater, Waldron said.

"Everything you see from 'Saturday Night Live' to 'The Simpsons' owes a debt to the improvisational work of Paul and his players, who really started with nothing more than the theater games that his mother had developed teaching neighborhood kids in settlement houses in Chicago in the 1930s," Waldron said.

Spolin later codified her theater games into the classic book, "Improvisation for the Theater" (1963).

Sills served in the Army from 1946 to 1948 and went to the University of Chicago on the GI Bill.

Before co-founding the Compass, he and Shepherd co-founded the Playwrights Theatre Club, whose company included Nichols, Harris and Ed Asner.

In 1988, Sills co-founded the New Actors Workshop in Manhattan with Mike Nichols and director George Morrison. Sills taught his mother's theater games and directed an annual Story Theater production there until 2003.

For the last dozen years, he would mount productions with local community actors in the barn on his farm.

He also taught summer master classes at his farm for teachers, actors, directors and writers.

In Los Angeles in April, Sills and his wife and longtime collaborator, Carol, completed teaching an eight-week workshop for actors and teachers in Sills' Story Theater techniques.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children, David, Rachel, Polly, Aretha Amelia and Neva; his brother, William; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

[Ravi]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06132008/news/nationalnews/tim_russert_dies_from_apparent_heart_att_115384.htm

TIM RUSSERT DIES FROM APPARENT HEART ATTACK
By CHARLES HURT
June 13, 2008

Tim Russert, NBC journalist and political heavyweight host of "Meet the Press," has died after collapsing at NBC's Washington news bureau. He was 58 years old.

Television sources said Russert was recording a voice-over when he collapsed in the studio today.

An ambulance rushed to the studio and a source at the network said Russert was briefly revived. But, the broadcasting lion apparently passed away either on the way or at a local Washington D.C. hospital.

Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw announced news of Russert's death at 3:39 p.m.

"The news division will not be the same without his strong, clear voice," a solemn Brokaw said.

Sources said the network allowed itself to be scooped by other media outlets as it tried to contact Russert's wife Maureen and son Luke, who just graduated from Boston College.

Russert had just returned from a family vacation in Italy last night.

Russert, who rose from the inside world of politics where he was former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's press secretary and one-time chief of staff to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was able to successfully cross over to political journalism and rise to become one of its leading lights.

In his role as host of the seminal Sunday morning political program "Meet the Press" - which he took over in 1991 - he became renowned for his hard-nosed interviews where he frequently cornered some of Washington's cagiest political figures with tough questions.

Russert joined NBC News in 1984. In April 1985, he supervised the live broadcasts of the Today program from Rome, negotiating and arranging an appearance by Pope John Paul II - a first for American television. In 1986 and 1987 Russert led NBC News weeklong broadcasts from South America, Australia and China.

In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential people.

[Gold Trumpet]

I'm drowned in the TV coverage about him. Sad day because he was young and invigorating to watch.

[modage]

Stan Winston died.  Goddamnit.

[Alexandro]

we own stan winston a lot of fun and scary moments. his work in jurassic park and terminator are pretty much the citizen kane of modern special effects. i enjoyed inmensely those thousand of penguins in batman returns when i was a kid. and i will be forever grateful for his contribution to make A.I. easily the best looking sci fi film of the decade, regarding sfx.

[matt35mm]

George Carlin Dead at 71

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian George Carlin, a counter-culture hero famed for his routines about drugs and dirty words, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday, a spokesman said. He was 71.

Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, died at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters.

Known for his edgy, provocative material, Carlin achieved status as an anti-Establishment icon in the 1970s with stand-up bits full of drug references and a routine about seven dirty words you could not say on television. A regulatory battle over a radio broadcast of his "Filthy Words" routine ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

[Kal]

Fuck. I just saw that on TV while almost falling asleep and had to turn on the PC to double check. FUCK.

[matt35mm]

Well jeez, I'm sorry you were woken up!

[hedwig]

fuck i'm crushed by this news.

he was the first comedian i ever loved. the first to ever make me cry tears of laughter.

really sad. RIP george. 

[Gold Trumpet]

Very weird for me. Just two days ago I watched an old interview with him on youtube about his feelings on death. Was from over 10 years ago. Not only does this sting because this year he played my hometown and still seemed robust and active, but I was privvy to his feelings on the biggest subject in life. Dennis Miller was right though. If there is a Mount Rushmore for comedians, George Carlin is the first head on it.

[matt35mm]

Another thing I found out is that, just two weeks ago, he was announced as the recipient of this year's Mark Twain Award for Humor, which was to be given during a ceremony this September.

[Reinhold]

George Carlin is one of my biggest heroes and he's also responsible for my filthy mouth as a kid. in my canon he's right up there with mr. rogers and the dalai lama, and i was exposed to him before either of the other two. my parents used to play tapes of his stand-up while i was a toddler (and later).  i'm glad to hear that he doesn't have to deal with this planet anymore but i'll miss his his presence very much.

[Pozer]

Very weird for me. Just two days weeks ago I watched an old interview with him him live on stage.

[Reinhold]

Former Bush press secretary Tony Snow dies 

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tony Snow, a conservative writer and commentator who cheerfully sparred with reporters in the White House briefing room during a stint as President Bush's press secretary, died Saturday of colon cancer. He was 53.

"America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character," President Bush said in a statement from Camp David, where he was spending the weekend. "It was a joy to watch Tony at the podium each day. He brought wit, grace, and a great love of country to his work."

Snow died at 2 a.m. at Georgetown University Hospital, according to former employer Fox News.
Snow, who served as the first host of the television news program "Fox News Sunday" from 1996 to 2003, would later say that in the Bush administration he was enjoying "the most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I'm ever going to have."

Snow was working for Fox News Channel and Fox News Radio when he replaced Scott McClellan as press secretary in May 2006 during a White House shake-up. Unlike McClellan, who came to define caution and bland delivery from the White House podium, Snow was never shy about playing to the cameras.

With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster's good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook — if not always a command of the facts — he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses.

He served just 17 months as press secretary, a tenure interrupted by his second bout with cancer. In 2005 doctors had removed his colon and he began six months of chemotherapy. In March 2007 a cancerous growth was removed from his abdominal area and he spent five weeks recuperating before returning to the White House.

"All of us here at the White House will miss Tony, as will the millions of Americans he inspired with his brave struggle against cancer," Bush said.

Snow resigned as Bush's chief spokesman last September, citing not his health but a need to earn more than the $168,000 a year he was paid in the government post. In April, he joined CNN as a commentator.

As press secretary, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president's policies. During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.

Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates.

Although a star in conservative politics, as a commentator he had not always been on the president's side. He once called Bush "something of an embarrassment" in conservative circles and criticized what he called Bush's "lackluster" domestic policy.

Most of Snow's career in journalism involved expressing his conservative views. After earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Davidson College in North Carolina in 1977 and studying economics and philosophy at the University of Chicago, he wrote editorials for The Greensboro (N.C.) Record, and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.

He was the editorial page editor of The Newport News (Va.) Daily Press and deputy editorial page editor of The Detroit News before moving to Washington in 1987 to become editorial page editor of The Washington Times.

Snow left journalism in 1991 to join the administration of the first President Bush as director of speechwriting and deputy assistant to the president for media affairs. He then rejoined the news media to write nationally syndicated columns for The Detroit News and USA Today during much of the Clinton administration.

Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News, called Snow a "renaissance man."

Robert Anthony Snow was born June 1, 1955, in Berea, Ky., and spent his childhood in the Cincinnati area. Survivors include his wife, Jill Ellen Walker, whom he married in 1987, and three children.

[Gold Trumpet]

He wasn't Jessie Helms. He was only a conservative mouth piece who really did die too young. I'll feel bad for his situation.