2016 Obituaries of Note

[waltky]

Soul singer Sharon Jones dies at 60... Big-voiced Dap-Kings soul singer Sharon Jones dies at 60 November 19, 2016 -- Sharon Jones, the stout powerhouse who shepherded a soul revival despite not finding stardom until middle age, has died. She was 60.

Jones' representative, Judy Miller Silverman, said Jones died Friday at a Cooperstown, New York, hospital after battling pancreatic cancer. Loved ones and members of her retro-soul band, the Dap-Kings, were among those surrounding her, Silverman said. The story of Jones' battle with cancer, first diagnosed in 2013, was told in Barbara Kopple's documentary, "Miss Sharon Jones!" released earlier this year. Though she triumphantly returned to the stage in 2015 after the cancer went into remission, Jones late last year announced its return. Still, Jones mounted another comeback with the defiant single "I'm Still Here" and hit the road again this summer with the Dap-Kings even while undergoing chemotherapy. "You got to be brave," a debilitated Jones told the Associated Press in July , in between tour stops. "I want to use the time that I have. I don't want to spend it all laid up, wishing I had done that gig."

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings perform at the Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tenn. Jones, a big-voiced soul singer who performed with high energy onstage has died at age 60 in New York, after battling pancreatic cancer.

Jones' death was immediately noted on social media and throughout the music industry. The British producer Mark Ronson, who brought the Dap-Kings in to play backing band to Amy Winehouse on her breakthrough album, "Back to Black," said, "Sharon Jones had one of the most magnificent, gut-wrenching voices of anyone in recent time." The youngest of six children, Sharon Lafaye Jones was born on May 4, 1956, in Augusta, Georgia. Her family lived in nearby North Augusta, South Carolina, across the Savannah River from the birthplace of James Brown. Jones, who would grow into a dynamic, show-stopping performer, grew up idolizing the Godfather of Soul and would later be frequently tagged as "the female James Brown." But for decades, such a fate was unimaginable. On "I'm Still Here," she sings of being turned down by music executives for being "too short, too fat, too black and too old." After growing up in Brooklyn (her mother moved to escape an abusive husband), Jones regularly sang gospel at her church, performed for years in a wedding band and sang back-up for various session bands. To make ends meet, she worked as a corrections officer at the Rikers Island jail complex and was a bank security guard. But in one recording session, she caught the attention of Gabriel Roth and Philip Lehman. The two, blown away by Jones' fiery voice, made her the lead singer of their newly formed Dap-Kings and launched the Bushwick, Brooklyn-based label, Daptone Records, around her unlikely star power. They debuted with 2002's "Dap-Dippin' With Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings," released when Jones was 46. Three more albums followed in the ensuing decade, and two compilations. Standouts included a soulful rendition of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" and the single "100 Days, 100 Nights," in which she belts: "100 days, 100 nights to know a man's heart/ And a little more, before, he knows his own." MORE

[waltky]

Can anybody put up a youtube video of Drift Away?... Award-winning songwriter Mentor Williams dies at 70 Sun, Nov 20, 2016 - Mentor Williams, the award-winning songwriter behind the 1970s hit Drift Away, which became a soulful rock ’n’ roll anthem aired on radio stations for generations, has died in Taos, New Mexico, at age 70, his brother said on Friday.

Actor and songwriter Paul Williams, who is the president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, confirmed that his brother, Mentor Williams, died on Wednesday morning after battling lung cancer. Paul Williams, who is 76, said he was with his brother when he died at home in northern New Mexico. “It seemed the closer we got to his death the more absolute joy he claimed to feel,” the elder Williams said. “He was an amazingly kind, big-hearted cowboy.” Mentor Williams’ Drift Away was sung by pop artist Dobie Gray in 1973 and reached No. 5 on the Billboard charts that year. Gray, who died in 2011, had prior hits, including the 1964 pop song In-Crowd, but had been in desperate need of another break in the early 1970s after reaching a lull in his career. He teamed up with Williams. The songwriter had produced Drift Away for another artist, but it did not pan out. “He took a singer who the music industry had kind of considered yesterday’s news and he cut a classic album with him,” Paul Williams said. With Gray’s soulful delivery and the signature line in the chorus “Give me the beat, boys, free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock ’n’ roll, and drift away,” the song quickly became a hit. It not only became a radio mainstay for decades but a remake by Uncle Kracker in 2003 reintroduced the song to a new generation. A year after Gray’s version came out, Williams produced the album Feelings, which included the songs Sunday Driver and LA Cowboy. Williams also worked on movie soundtracks. For the 1979 Muppet Movie, he mixed and engineered the tune Rainbow Connection, which was written by his older brother. In the movie, Kermit the Frog sings the sentimental song by a swamp. “I asked him to come in and to mix the album for me,” Paul Williams said. “All of a sudden, it was this crisp wonderful recording with Kermit singing about rainbows.” Williams, who went to high school in Albuquerque, made his home in Taos, a picturesque mountain and ski town. He had been drawn to the area for its natural beauty, culture and cuisine, his brother said. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worl.../20/2003659659

[MMC]

Can anybody put up a youtube video of Drift Away?... Award-winning songwriter Mentor Williams dies at 70 Sun, Nov 20, 2016 - Mentor Williams, the award-winning songwriter behind the 1970s hit Drift Away, which became a soulful rock ’n’ roll anthem aired on radio stations for generations, has died in Taos, New Mexico, at age 70, his brother said on Friday.

Sure thing Walt. Here you go.....Dobie Gray with Lyrics. Drift Away.

[waltky]

Have dey told Marsha yet?...

Florence Henderson, ‘The Brady Bunch’ Mom, Dies
November 25, 2016 — Florence Henderson, the wholesome actress who went from Broadway star to television icon when she became Carol Brady, the ever-cheerful matriarch of "The Brady Bunch," has died, her manager and her publicist said. She was 82.

Henderson died Thursday night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after being hospitalized the day before, said her publicist, David Brokaw. Henderson had suffered heart failure, her manager Kayla Pressman said in a statement. Family and friends had surrounded Henderson's hospital bedside, Pressman said. On the surface, "The Brady Bunch" resembled just another innocuous TV sitcom about a family living in suburban America and getting into a different wacky situation each week.

Florence Henderson arrives at the 2014 amfAR Inspiration Gala at Milk Studios in Los Angeles. Henderson, the wholesome actress who went from Broadway star to television icon when she became Carol Brady, the ever-cheerful mom residing over "The Brady Bunch,"

But well after it ended its initial run, in 1974, the show resonated with audiences, and it returned to television in various forms again and again, including "The Brady Bunch Hour" in 1977, "The Brady Brides" in 1981 and "The Bradys" in 1990. It was also seen endlessly in reruns. "It represents what people always wanted: a loving family. It's such a gentle, innocent, sweet show, and I guess it proved there's always an audience for that," Henderson said in 1999.

Premiering in 1969, it also was among the first shows to introduce to television the blended family. As its theme song reminded viewers each week, Henderson's Carol was a single mother raising three daughters when she met her TV husband, Robert Reed's Mike Brady, a single father who was raising three boys. The eight of them became "The Brady Bunch," with a quirky housekeeper, played by Ann B. Davis, thrown into the mix.

Florence Henderson arrives at the 2014 amfAR Inspiration Gala at Milk Studios in Los Angeles. Henderson, the wholesome actress who went from Broadway star to television icon when she became Carol Brady, the ever-cheerful mom residing over "The Brady Bunch," has died at age 82. She died surrounded by family and friends, her manager, Kayla Pressman, said in a statement late Thursday

The blonde, ever-smiling Henderson was already a Broadway star when the show began, having originated the title role in the musical "Fanny." But after "The Brady Bunch," she would always be known to fans as Carol Brady. "We had to have security guards with us. Fans were hanging on our doors. We couldn't go out by ourselves. We were like the Beatles!" she said of the attention the show brought the cast. Like the Beatles, there was even a Saturday morning cartoon version called "Brady Kids," although Henderson was not in that show. She and Reed did return, however, for "The Brady Bunch Hour, "The Brady Brides" and "The Bradys." So did most of the original cast.

MORE

[waltky]

Fidel Castro passes at 90... Cuba's Fidel Castro, who defied US for 50 years, dies at 90 Nov 26,`16 -- Former President Fidel Castro, who led a rebel army to improbable victory in Cuba, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his half century rule, has died at age 90.

With a shaking voice, President Raul Castro said on state television that his older brother died at 10:29 p.m. Friday. He ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan: "Toward victory, always!" Castro's reign over the island-nation 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Florida was marked by the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The bearded revolutionary, who survived a crippling U.S. trade embargo as well as dozens, possibly hundreds, of assassination plots, died 10 years after ill health forced him to hand power over to Raul. Castro overcame imprisonment at the hands of dictator Fulgencio Batista, exile in Mexico and a disastrous start to his rebellion before triumphantly riding into Havana in January 1959 to become, at age 32, the youngest leader in Latin America. For decades, he served as an inspiration and source of support to revolutionaries from Latin America to Africa. His commitment to socialism was unwavering, though his power finally began to fade in mid-2006 when a gastrointestinal ailment forced him to hand over the presidency to Raul in 2008, provisionally at first and then permanently. His defiant image lingered long after he gave up his trademark Cohiba cigars for health reasons and his tall frame grew stooped. "Socialism or death" remained Castro's rallying cry even as Western-style democracy swept the globe and other communist regimes in China and Vietnam embraced capitalism, leaving this island of 11 million people an economically crippled Marxist curiosity.

Cuban President, Fidel Castro, points during his lengthy speech before the United Nations General Assembly, in New York. Cuban President Raul Castro has announced the death of his brother Fidel Castro at age 90 on Cuban state media on Friday, Nov. 25, 2016.

He survived long enough to see Raul Castro negotiate an opening with U.S. President Barack Obama on Dec. 17, 2014, when Washington and Havana announced they would move to restore diplomatic ties for the first time since they were severed in 1961. He cautiously blessed the historic deal with his lifelong enemy in a letter published after a month-long silence. Carlos Rodriguez, 15, was sitting in Havana's Miramar neighborhood when he heard that Fidel Castro had died. "Fidel? Fidel?" he said as he slapped his head with his hand in shock. "That's not what I was expecting. One always thought that he would last forever. It doesn't seem true." "It's a tragedy," said 22-year-old nurse Dayan Montalvo. "We all grew up with him. I feel really hurt by the news that we just heard." Fidel Castro Ruz was born Aug. 13, 1926, in eastern Cuba's sugar country, where his Spanish immigrant father worked first recruiting labor for U.S. sugar companies and later built up a prosperous plantation of his own. Castro attended Jesuit schools, then the University of Havana, where he received law and social science degrees. His life as a rebel began in 1953 with a reckless attack on the Moncada military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. Most of his comrades were killed and Fidel and his brother Raul went to prison. Fidel turned his trial defense into a manifesto that he smuggled out of jail, famously declaring, "History will absolve me." MORE

[waltky]

Det. Harris on Barney Miller passes away at 71...

'Barney Miller' star Ron Glass dies at 71
November 26, 2016. — Actor Ron Glass, who broke into theater while a student at the University of Evansville and later starred in the television series Barney Miller and Firefly, has died at age 71.

Glass died Friday of respiratory failure, his agent, Jeffrey Leavett, told The Associated Press on Saturday. “Ron was a private, gentle and caring man,” said Leavett, a longtime friend of the actor. “He was an absolute delight to watch on screen. Words cannot adequately express my sorrow.” Glass was a cast member on Barney Miller during the show’s entire run. On the show, which was set in a New York Police Department station in Greenwich Village, he played Ron Harris, an intellectual, fashionable detective who also dabbled as an author. In 1982, the role earned Glass an Emmy nomination in the Supporting Actor category.

The show aired from 1975-1982, winning two Golden Globes and two Emmy Awards for best comedy series. The ensemble cast included Hal Linden as precinct Capt. Barney Miller, Max Gail as Detective Stan ‘Wojo’ Wojciehowicz, and Abe Vigoda as Detective Phil Fish. On the 2002 science-fiction series Firefly and its sequel movie, Serenity, Glass played Derrial Book, a shepherd and the frequent giver or spiritual advice. Glass had numerous other acting credits, with his most recent appearances coming on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2014) and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2014), according to his IMBD.com profile. He appeared on two episodes of Friends in 1999. Before his breakout Barney Miller role, Glass had guest roles on Sanford & Son, All in the Family and Hawaii Five-O in the early 1970s.

Ron Glass received an supporting-actor Emmy nomination for his work as Det. Ron Harris on 'Barney Miller.'

The Evansville native graduated from the University of Evansville with a double major in drama and literature. He had served as a member of the university’s board of trustees since 2008. Long involved in philanthropy in Evansville, he was chairman of the Evansville African American Museum national capital campaign and was a recipient of a key to the city. Lu Porter, director of the Evansville African American Museum, said Glass took great interest in the museum and stopped by often when he was in town. Several artifacts from his acting career, including a police badge from Barney Miller, are on display there. “Loved him. He was an awesome man,” Porter said. “We had a fun, fun time. I’m going to miss that going forward.”

Glass told the Courier & Press in 2007 that when he started at Evansville, he aspired to be a teacher. But when he took a class in oral interpretation, a teacher named Dudley Thomas encouraged him to try out for a play, and his interest in acting blossomed. After graduation, he made his stage debut at Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis before moving to Los Angeles. Glass was active in community efforts in Los Angeles as well. He was chairman of the board of the Al Wooten, Jr. Heritage Center, a Los Angeles based organization dedicated to empowering the growth of young people in the community in crisis, according to his University of Evansville profile. Information on funeral services and survivors was not immediately available.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/t...s-71/94481300/

[waltky]

Couple of modern icons pass on... Grant Tinker, network boss behind iconic US TV shows, dies Thursday 1st December, 2016 - Grant Tinker, who brought new polish to the TV world and beloved shows including Hill Street Blues to the audience as both a producer and a network boss, has died.

Mr Tinker, 90, died on Monday at his Los Angeles home, his son, producer Mark Tinker, said. Though he had three tours of duty with NBC, the last as its chairman, Mr Tinker was perhaps best-known as the nurturing hand at MTM Enterprises, the production company he founded in 1970 and ran for a decade. Nothing less than a creative salon, MTM scored with some of TV's most respected and best-loved programmes, including Lou Grant, Rhoda, The Bob Newhart Show - and the series that starred his business partner and then-wife, actress Mary Tyler Moore. "I am deeply saddened to learn that my former husband and professional mentor Grant Tinker has passed away," Moore said in a statement. "Grant was a brilliant, driven executive who uniquely understood that the secret to great TV content was freedom for its creators and performing artists. This was manifest in his 'first be best and then be first' approach." Mr Tinker summed it up with typical self-effacement in a 1994 interview, saying: "I just had the good luck to be around people who did the kind of work that the audience appreciates. The success just rubbed off on me." In 1981 he flourished with that low-key approach in a last-ditch effort to save NBC, which was scraping bottom with its earnings, ratings, programmes and morale. Five years later, when Mr Tinker left to return to independent production, the network was flush thanks to hits such as The Cosby Show and Hill Street Blues. Mr Tinker, who had come to NBC as a management trainee in 1949 with legendary founder David Sarnoff still in charge, left the company for the last time at the end of an era, as NBC, along with its parent RCA, was about to be swallowed by General Electric.

Grant Tinker holds up his Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Hall of Fame award alongside ex-wife Mary Tyler Moore in 1997

In 2005, he won a prestigious Peabody Award honoring his overall career. In receiving his medallion, he called himself "a guy of no distinct or specific skills (who) always needed a lot of help". He also had received the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. "Grant Tinker was a great man who made an indelible mark on NBC and the history of television that continues to this day," said Steve Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal, sole owner of the network since 2013. "He loved creative people and protected them, while still expertly managing the business. Very few people have been able to achieve such a balance." "His level of class set him apart from everyone else in our business," said Bob Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment, "and all of us at this company owe him a debt of gratitude. In fact, TV watchers everywhere do." Bob Newhart said in a statement that MTM created "this magical place where creativity and individuality (were nurtured). I was one of the people who was lucky enough to enjoy that freedom for 14 years on television." He "set the bar high both as a television executive and as a father," said Mark Tinker. "I'm proud to be his son, and especially proud of the legacy he leaves behind in business and as a gentleman." MORE

See also: Big Mac inventor dies at age 98 1 Dec 2016: The man who invented the quintessential American fast-food burger, the Big Mac, and inadvertently set off a race to create ever more expansive fast-food menus, has died.

Michael "Jim" Delligatti passed away Monday (Nov 28) surrounded by family at his home in a Pittsburgh suburb, according to his family. He was 98 years old. Delligatti laid claim to one of the most indelible inventions in American cuisine since sliced bread -- a double hamburger with two beef patties, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, which is covered in a special sauce. As owner of a McDonald's restaurant in western Pennsylvania nearly half a century ago, Delligatti convinced the company to venture away from its brief menu of simple burgers, fries and drinks, according to a 1993 profile of the Big Mac in the Los Angeles Times. He got permission to try his new burger in 1967 and sales jumped 12 percent, the Times said. Within a few years, McDonald's was advertising the Big Mac nationwide. "This wasn't like discovering the light bulb," he said. "The bulb was already there. All I did was screw it in the socket." He said the idea came from rival burger restaurants in the mid-1960s. After the Big Mac's invention, the company expanded its menu further, creating an age of new menu items such as the Egg McMuffin and Filet-o-Fish. But, it was the Big Mac that became a cultural icon. In a statement, McDonald's said Delligatti was a "legendary franchisee" who made a "lasting impression" on the company. "We will remember Jim as an insightful franchisee, a knowledgeable businessman," the company said. McDonald's says it sells hundreds of millions of the oversized burgers globally, although sales have slowed in recent years as millennials reportedly show less interest in super-sized fast food. According to Delligatti's family he went on to own 48 McDonald's restaurants. He is survived by his wife Ellie, two children, and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/...8/3332670.html

[Standing Wolf]

'Fawlty Towers' Actor Andrew Sachs Dies at 86

Andrew Sachs, the German-born British actor known for playing the bumbling Spanish waiter Manuel on Fawlty Towers, died Nov. 23 after a four-year battle with dementia. He was 86.

Sachs starred opposite Fawlty Towers creators John Cleese and Connie Booth in the beloved BBC sitcom, which aired in 1975 and 1979 and chronicled the farcical goings-on at a hotel on the English Riviera, as Manuel, a devoted but dim-witted server hailing from Barcelona.

Responding to the news of Sachs' death on Twitter, Cleese remembered him as "a very sweet gentle and kind man and a truly great farceur." He added, "I could not have found a better Manuel."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/faw...D=ansmsnnews11

[MMC]

Margaret Whitton, ‘Major League’ Actress, Dies at 67.....





Margaret Whitton, an avid baseball fan who played the owner who concocts a plan to move the Cleveland Indians to Florida in the 1989 baseball movie comedy “Major League,” died on Sunday in Palm Beach, Fla. She was 67.

The cause was cancer, said her husband, Warren Spector.


Ms. Whitton, who shifted from acting to directing late in her career, was best known as Rachel Phelps, a newly widowed former showgirl who takes control of a moribund Indians team with a passion to make them worse.


Ms. Whitton also appeared in the sequel, “Major League II,” in 1994.


“Major League” played to her love of baseball. She was a Yankee fan who had season tickets to the old Yankee Stadium, her husband said, but did not renew them at the new stadium, which she found “soulless.”


Margaret Ann Whitton was born on Nov. 30, 1949, in Meade, Md., outside Baltimore. She spent several formative years in Japan with her father, an Army colonel, and her mother, a nurse, before the family moved, first to Haddonfield, N.J., and then to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where she started acting at Northeast High School.

Her first Off Broadway appearance was in “Baba Goya” in 1973 with Olympia Dukakis, and she was subsequently in many Public Theater productions in New York, including Wallace Shawn’s “Aunt Dan and Lemon,” and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. She also appeared on Broadway, in the plays “Steaming” and “The Apple Doesn’t Fall…” and the musical “Marlene.”


Besides Mr. Spector, her second husband, she is survived by her sisters, Suzy Liss and Mary Beth Whitton, and her brothers, James and John Whitton. Her first marriage ended in divorce......snip~


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/mo...t-67.html?_r=0





R.I.P. Margaret Whitton.

[Cletus]

Tony Reyna, survivor of the Bataan Death March, former two time Governor of Taos Pueblo, lifetime member of the Tribal Council and revered Elder died at age 100 Sunday morning. He would have been 101 on February 1st.
His funeral was yesterday.