Death List Members in the News
May 2007
Charles Nelson Reilly
January 2007
Bobby Hamilton
December 2006
Gerald Ford
November 2006
Jack Palance
August 2006
Fidel Castro, Kirk Douglas, John Madden
July 2006
Keith Richards, Ozzy Osbourne, Gerald Ford, Tony Stewart, Phyllis Diller,
B.B. King, Dale Jarrett, Arnold Palmer
May 2006
Keith Richards, David Blaine
April 2006
Tony Stewart, Gerald Ford, B.B. King, Queen Elizabeth, Mickey Rooney, Bob
Barker, Harry Morgan, Charlton Heston, David Blaine, Vin Scully, Muhammad
Ali, Hugh Hefner, Arnold Palmer, Jerry Lewis
March 2006
Courtney Love, Dale Jarrett, Sterling Marlin, Jerry Lewis, Osama Bin Laden,
Queen Elizabeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Gerald Ford
February 2006
Walter Cronkite, Brian Dennehy, Don Knotts, Willie Mays, Vin Scully, Tony
Bennett, Courtney Love, Bob Barker
January 2006
Gerald Ford, Tony Stewart, B.B. King, Walter Cronkite, William Shatner, Courtney
Love, Nick Nolte
December 2005
Richard Pryor, Ozzy Osbourne & Queen Elizabeth, Nick Nolte, Hugh Hefner,
Tony Bennett, Tony Stewart, David Blaine
November 2005
George Michael, Courtney Love, William Shatner, Muhammad Ali
October 2005
Rosa Parks, William Shatner, Joe Namath, B.B. King, Jerry Lewis, Tony Stewart,
Arnold Palmer, Richard Pryor, Jack Klugman, Michael Waltrip, Hugh Hefner,
Dale Jarrett
September 2005
Courtney Love, Ozzy Osbourne, B.B. King, Michael Waltrip, Willie Nelson, Courtney
Love, Jerry Lewis, Arnold Palmer
August 2005
William Shatner, Vin Scully, Ron Popeil, Hugh Hefner, Dale Jarrett, Keith
Richards, Ozzy Osbourne, John Madden, Courtney Love, Richard Pryor, Sterling
Marlin, Tony Stewart, Tony Bennett, Don Knotts, Jerry Lewis
July 2005
Muhammad Ali, Courtney Love, Kirk Douglas, Bob Barker, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony
Stewart, Dale Jarrett, Phyllis Diller, Michael Waltrip, Gerald Ford, Mickey
Rooney, Jack Klugman, Keith Richards, Nick Nolte, Rosa Parks,
Luther Vandross
June 2005
Jim Otto, Vin Scully, Tony Bennett, Gerald Ford, Tony Stewart, Queen Elizabeth,
Muhammad Ali, Ozzy Osbourne, Jack Klugman, John Madden
May 2005
Michael Waltrip, Queen Elizabeth, Fidel Castro, Tony Stewart, Walter Cronkite,
Arnold Palmer, B.B. King, George Michael, Vin Scully, Keith Richards, Don
Knotts, Brian Dennehy, Michael Waltrip, Wilford Brimley, Ozzy Osbourne, Willie
Mays, Bob Barker, Nick Nolte, Jim Otto
April 2005
Larry Hagman, Richard Pryor, Willie Mays, Phyllis Diller, David Blaine, Tony
Stewart, Queen Elizabeth, Muhammad Ali, Nick Nolte and William Shatner, B.B.
King, Ozzy Osbourne, Rosa Parks, Luther Vandross, Pope John Paul II
March 2005
Ozzy Osbourne, Pope John Paul II, Courtney Love, Phyllis Diller, Vin Scully,
Fidel Castro, Ed Asner, Bob Barker, B.B. King, Arnold Palmer, Keith Richards,
Muhammad Ali, Jack Palance, Jack Klugman, Sterling Marlin, Joe Namath, Charlton
Heston, Jerry Lewis, Horatio Sanz
February 2005
Pope John Paul II, Wilford Brimley, Tony Stewart, Queen Elizabeth, Willie
Nelson, B.B. King, Ozzy Osbourne, Dale Jarrett, Fidel Castro, Phyllis Diller,
Courtney Love, Gerald Ford, Larry Hagman, Rosa Parks, Mickey Rooney, Hugh
Hefner
January 2005
Willie Mays, Ozzy Osbourne, Arnold Palmer, B.B. King, Vin Scully, John Madden,
Johnny Carson, Brian Dennehy, Kirk Douglas, William Shatner, Rosa Parks, Jerry
Lewis, Courtney Love, Pope John Paul II, Willie Nelson, Mickey Rooney, Gerald
Ford, Bob Barker
December 2004
Richard Pryor, Queen Elizabeth, Ozzy Osbourne, Keith Richards, Rosa Parks,
Nick Nolte, Don Knotts
November 2004
Kirk Douglas, Ozzy Osbourne, Arnold Palmer, Jerry Lewis, Larry Hagman, Johnny
Carson, Queen Elizabeth, B.B. King, Muhammad Ali
October 2004
Courtney Love, Keith Richards, Tony Bennett, Fidel Castro, Ernest Borgnine,
Mickey Rooney, Willie Nelson, Jack Klugman, Jack Palance, Pope John Paul II,
Hugh Hefner, Rodney Dangerfield
September 2004
Courtney Love, Arnold Palmer, Rosa Parks, Rodney Dangerfield, Bob Barker,
Nick Nolte, Tony Bennett
August 2004
August 29 - Arnold Palmer
August 26 - Rodney Dangerfield
August 24 - Rodney Dangerfield
August 24 - Bob Barker
August 24 - Brian Dennehy
August 22 - Ernest Borgnine
August 20 - Rosa Parks
August 19 - Walter Cronkite
August 15 - Willie Mays
August 15 - Pope John Paul II
August 13 - Fidel Castro
August 13 - Julia Child, Dead at age 91
August 11 - Julia Child Death Watch Intensifies
August 11 - Jerry Lewis
August 10 - Mickey Rooney
August 9 - Joe Namath
August 4 - Arnold Palmer
August 2 - B.B. King
July 2004
Rosa Parks, Courtney Love, Fidel Castro, Nick Nolte, Don Knotts, Larry Hagman,
Kirk Douglas, William Shatner
August 29, 2004: Arnold Palmer
is back playing on the Peninsula
Excerpts from story by Ed Vyeda, Herald Staff Writer
...Palmer,
approaching his 75th birthday next week, is still reverently called, "The
King," and will be a major attraction at The First Tee Open, which begins
Friday on the Peninsula.
"Playing in 'the Crosby' of the old days was one of the real fun events of my career," Palmer said of his 24 starts in the star-studded event that has made the name transition to the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. "People intermixed with the stars and the celebrities, and they had what we (pros) considered a major tournament. It was just a wonder."
Another wonder: Palmer, one of the greatest players in the history of golf, who has won 83 times around the world, never won on the Peninsula in 27 events. That includes being the only player to play in the Pro-Am over five decades (1958 through 1996), plus the U.S. Open in 1972 and 1982, and the PGA Championship in 1977.
So, he bought the place. In 1999 Palmer joined Clint Eastwood, Peter Ueberroth and Richard Ferris as the principal partners who purchased the Pebble Beach Co. for a reported $820 million.
These days, Palmer lends his input to the refinements on the company's four golf courses, including recent alterations at the Pebble Beach Golf Links. Having designed 250 golf courses throughout the world, Palmer can look at projects with an experienced eye. ...
The First Tee Open is to be Palmer's first competitive appearance on the Peninsula since the 1996 Pro-Am. ...
The heyday of the 'Army'
Winning
the 1954 U.S. Amateur was Palmer's competitive coming-out party. By the next
year he got his first win as a tour pro at the Canadian Open, setting in motion
a magnificent career that would attract a variety of fans from throughout
American culture. Palmer's appeal crossed over from blue collar to while collar
and had no gender barrier. People would follow him anywhere, which led to
his legion of fans being called "Arnie's Army." ...
Palmer first noticed the "Army" at the Masters in 1958. A group of soldiers from Fort Gordon, Ga., were on leave to volunteer running the scoreboards at Augusta National. They held up signs saying they were from "Arnie's Army." ...
Palmer won the Masters that year. "Arnie's Army" was born.
It was that group of soldiers that created a special bond between Palmer and the fans at Augusta, where this spring Palmer played the Masters for the last time.
It was a tearful farewell, on both sides of the ropes.
"The fans who have been so supportive over the last 50 years have been the reason that I have played as long as I have," Palmer said.
The first athlete/corporation
Before anyone heard of Air Jordans, more than a decade before Eldrick Woods was born, the business of being a professional athlete changed forever when Palmer teamed up with an agent named Mark McCormack. Their relationship developed into International Management Group, one of the most successful sports-agent companies in the world.
Palmer was the first major sports figure to become a "brand name" and remains one of the most sought-after names in sports.
This year, Palmer is going to make an estimated $20 million in endorsements which ranks 19th in sports by Forbes magazine, No. 2 among all professional golfers, behind Tiger Woods (No. 1 in golf and overall, at $80.3 million). ...
Palmer's corporate ownership deals have included virtually everything from automobile and aviation service firms to The Golf Channel, which he started. He also is an owner in the Palmer Course Design Company, Arnold Palmer Enterprises, Arnold Palmer Golf Company, Arnold Palmer Golf Management Company and the Arnold Palmer Golf Academy. He also has golf course ownerships in Latrobe Country Club -- where his father worked as club pro and superintendent -- Bay Hill Club & Lodge, Laurel Valley Golf Club and the Pebble Beach Co.
Palmer did all the things pro golfers are doing now -- but before anybody else did it. Like having his own private jet and flying it himself, virtually around the world.
"He made the game what it is today," said tour veteran Hal Sutton, the current U.S. Ryder Cup captain. "There have been people who came after him that added to that, but he was the beginning. I made a statement a long time ago that we (tour pros) ought to give him a dime for every dollar we make. We owe him a great deal of thanks."
Acting his age, a little
These days, Palmer marvels at how his grandson Sam can carry drives 300 yards. But while Palmer can still break his age -- "5- 6- or 7-under my age," he said -- he nonetheless knows that he is losing his game, yard by yard.
"The demoralizing part is I remember where I was hitting it when I was hitting it good," said Palmer, who averages 228.4 yards off the tee these days. "From day to day, some days I am encouraged, then it slips away."
That happens when you're 74, even when you are Arnold Palmer.
"I think I am 35," he says with a laugh. "But my body is telling me I am not quite that."
This week Palmer is entered in only his eighth tournament of the year, sixth on the Champions Tour. He played 11 events (including both tours) in each of the past three years, and the man who has played in more than 1,000 tour events has no plans for his schedule to expand in 2005.
"I get tired sometimes," Palmer said, "both physically and mentally."
Palmer said his health is fine. He underwent surgery after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1977, but has been cancer-free since.
Because Palmer still enjoys the game so much, it's impossible to walk away entirely. He particularly enjoys Champions Tour events because he is reunited with so many of the players from his era.
"Walking around (the golf course), even if I'm tired and I'm not getting the club through the ball the way I want, it's still fun for me," he said. "It excites me, even though I don't play the way I want to." ...
Flying solo
In 1999, Palmer's wife, Winnie, died at age 65 after a yearlong struggle with cancer. They met in 1954 -- at a golf tournament, naturally -- just as Palmer was starting his pro career. They were married that year. They were together 45 years.
"I miss having Winnie around," said Palmer, who has two daughters and seven grandchildren. "There's no question she helped make it all worthwhile." ...
Palmer is starting over. Last fall he became engaged to Kathleen "Kit" Gawthrop, who he first met at Pebble Beach during the 1972 U.S. Open. ...
A bad back keeps her from playing much golf, but the couple hook up in some serious domino games. "She usually beats me," Palmer said.
They have kept their wedding plans a secret, but nobody would be surprised if they got married at Pebble Beach.
Another try at Pebble Beach
Playing with junior amateurs has a special appeal to Palmer, because of what golf meant to him at that age.
"Winning the U.S. Amateur was certainly one of the most important wins that I ever had in golf," he said. "As the years go by, that becomes more and more important to me."...
"I'll always cherish a lot of those memories," Palmer said. "It was really fun for me, having all the associations I made through those events."
Sure, Palmer would like to have won one of those events, but he wouldn't trade in the past 50 years for anything.
"I have had such a great life and enjoyed it so much," Palmer said.
"You know," he said, smiling, "I'm not going to roll over and die -- unless I can't help it."
from the Monterey Herald
August 26, 2004: Rodney Dangerfield resting after surgery
LOS
ANGELES (AP) — Comedian Rodney Dangerfield underwent a seven-hour operation
Wednesday to replace a heart valve, his spokesman told The Associated Press.
"I'm pleased to announce that Rodney Dangerfield made it through his surgery and is currently resting comfortably in intensive care over at UCLA," said the spokesman, Kevin Sasaki.
Dangerfield is expected to be hospitalized about a week and should be able to return to work in about two months, Sasaki said.
Dangerfield, 82, underwent brain surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center, last year to reduce his chances of having a stroke during Wednesday's procedure.
The comic, best known for the self-mocking line, "I don't get no respect," recently released his autobiography, It's Not Easy Being Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs.
Before the surgery he was busy promoting his book, taping a forthcoming appearance for the TV sitcom Still Standing and working on the animated comedy Family Guy.
"He's had a pretty busy schedule up until this last week," Sasaki said.
from the Associated Press
August 24, 2004: Rodney Dangerfield to undergo heart surgery
LOS
ANGELES - Comedian Rodney Dangerfield was hospitalized Tuesday for scheduled
heart valve replacement surgery but his sense of humor remained healthy.
Asked how long he'd remain in the hospital after Wednesday's operation, he said: "If things go right, I'll be there about a week, and if things don't go right, I'll be there about an hour and a half."
Last year, Dangerfield, 82, underwent brain surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center, to reduce his chances of having a stroke during the heart operation.
His heart surgery at the Medical Center will be performed by Dr. Hillel Laks, a spokesman for Dangerfield said.
The comic and actor, who's best known for his self-mocking line, "I don't get no respect," recently released his autobiography, "It's Not Easy Being Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs."
Dangerfield's films include "Back to School" and "Caddyshack." He's set to guest star on the sitcom "Still Standing" this fall and will be heard as himself in the animated comedy "The Family Guy."
A TV movie based on his autobiography is planned.
from the Associated Press
August 24, 2004: Bob Barker sued by former Miss R.I.
 |
Jordan is the one spooning Barker
from behind. |
Former Miss Rhode Island Claudia Jordan, until recently one of "Barker's
Beauties" on The Price Is Right, has filed a lawsuit against the show and host Bob Barker. According to Entertainment Weekly, Jordan and Sylvia Clement-Henry, a production assistant, claim wrongful termination and racial discrimination.
An attorney for Barker said the lawsuit "has no basis in fact."
Jordan is an East Providence native who became Miss Rhode Island in 1996.
This is not the first time the 80-year-old Barker has been sued. In 1993, another Barker Beauty, Dian Parkinson, alleged sexual harassment. The case was dropped in 1995.
from The Providence Journal
August 24, 2004: Dennehy,
Chicago reunited
By Scott Morgan, Daily Herald Staff Writer
Expect
another towering performance from award-winning actor Brian Dennehy when he
returns to Chicago's Goodman Theatre to perform Eugene O'Neill's "Hughie"
in the theater's intimate Owen space from Oct. 21 to Nov. 21.
Goodman artistic director Robert Falls is set to helm O'Neill's drama about a drunken, small-time gambler named Erie Smith who reminisces about his late friend while in a sleazy New York hotel.
Falls has directed Dennehy's two Tony Award-winning Broadway turns -- Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" in 1999 and O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" in 2003, both of which originated at the Goodman.
Dennehy also has tackled O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" and "A Touch of the Poet" at the Goodman.
Dennehy starred in "Hughie" earlier this year at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, R.I., under the direction of Catherine Baker Steindler.
Actor Joe Grifasi appeared opposite Dennehy in the Trinity Repertory production and will be in the Goodman production.
from The Chicago Daily Herald
August 22, 2004: Ernest Borgnine at the Kenai Peninsula State Fair
Ninilchik,
Alaska - Hollywood film star Ernest Borgnine, here on vacation, poked into
the fair Friday and was amazed with what he saw.
"This is my first time at this fair, but I'm glad I came. It's really a lovely fair. Where else can you find fireweed jelly like this," he said, holding up a pint of the pink preserves.
from Kenai Peninsula Online
August 20, 2004: Rosa Parks Releases
Medical Records In OutKast Suit
By Chuck 'Jigsaw' Creekmur, BET.com Staff Writer
Civil
Rights icon Rosa Parks has allowed for her doctor to release medical records
showing why she cannot testify against OutKast in a publicity and trademark
suit.
OutKast’s lawyers requested to interview Parks in an effort to probe her mentality, but the 91-year-old said poor health won’t allow her to testify in court. Last month, a judge ruled that she must have a medical reason for not coming to court and must show proof.
Only last week did Parks agree to release her medical history.
Last December, the Supreme Court allowed Parks to go forward with a lawsuit stemming from the OutKast song named for the legendary civil rights activist. The group sought to stop Parks' lawsuit, but the court made no move to halt the case.
Since the song emerged as a hit in 1998, Parks has maintained that the multi-platinum rap group profited on her name and even defamed her in the song. While it is named after Parks, it doesn't mention her by name. The hook of the song says, "Ah-ha, hush that fuss. Everybody move to the back of the bus."
OutKast has claimed that the song "Rosa Parks" is protected by the First Amendment and that it does not falsely advertise the woman's name.
Initially, Parks lost a federal appeal, but a three-judge panel in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, partially reversed the earlier decision. Now, the case returns to a lower court.
Parks is requesting that her name be removed from all future recordings of the tune.
Parks made history in December 1955 when she was arrested for refusing to give her seat to a White man on a Montgomery, Ala. bus. Her arrest partially led to a successful boycott of the bus company and played a pivotal role in the eventual desegregation of public transportation.
from BET.com
August 19, 2004: Walter Cronkite Signs Off
The
journalist once described as the most trusted figure in American public life,
Walter Cronkite, is retiring from regular work.
Mr Cronkite is 87.
Between 1962 and 1981, he was the presenter of the CBS network's evening news program, which he made the most-watched bulletin in the US.
In what he says is his final regular newspaper column, Mr Cronkite laments the lack of depth and analysis of television news.
"Our evening news broadcasts are just a half hour and there are commercials in that half hour, so that the news period is really about 17 minutes," he said.
"I have a great complaint, that with the complicated nation that we have and with a complicated world which we play a role, that is not nearly enough time to handle just the basic news of the day."
from ABC News Online
August 15, 2004: Maryland town rallies around Willie Mays to apologize for racial epithets in 1950
Hall
of Famer Willie Mays had not known what to expect when he came back to Hagerstown,
Md. Whenever he had received overtures to come back in previous years, the
very idea only conjured up hard feelings. He had come to Hagerstown with the
Trenton Giants for his pro debut, and found himself the target of unrelenting
racial epithets.
Someone yelled, "Hey, crapshooter!" He ignored it.
Someone else yelled, "Hey, watermelon man!" He ignored that.
He had told himself that he had to turn the other cheek.
And yet for years Hagerstown left him with a certain uneasiness, even when townspeople again approached him this year and told him: We want to apologize. The civic leaders of Hagerstown wanted to show him that the place he visited in 1950 no longer existed. Mays accepted, if only - as he said - "to see for myself."
Hundreds of people jammed into a hotel ballroom in his honor Monday. When he entered the room, the crowd stood and applauded. Mayor William Breichner told him, "There is no excuse for what happened to you here 54 years ago" and proclaimed that Memorial Boulevard would henceforth be called Willie Mays Way. A Hagerstown Suns spokesman told Mays that no player in that organization would ever again wear his legendary No. 24. Mays appeared deeply moved.
"This is just a wonderful, wonderful feeling," Mays said. "To come here again and for people to greet me with hugs is just so special. What happened here so long ago was a sad moment, but I can say now that I am proud to be back."
from the Kansas City Star
August 15, 2004: Frail Pope Struggles Through
Lourdes Mass
By Philip Pullella and Tom Heneghan
 |
|
| The Pope with Harlem Globetrotter
Manny Jackson |
LOURDES, France - Pope John Paul, a sick man among the sick, wound up a emotional visit to this miracle shrine Sunday and struggled with iron determination to finish a sermon in order to encourage others suffering around him.
The devout crowd of about 200,000 listened to his words from a field on the banks of the Gave River in the shadow of the basilica built over the grotto where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.
They cheered him like coaches for a struggling athlete when his words faltered and when he gasped for breath.
At one point he was heard to mutter softly in Polish: "Help me," and later said "I have to finish." An aide brought him some water in a white plastic cup and he finished his sermon.
The 84-year-old Pope's illness and frailty has been very evident on this trip, the 104th of his pontificate, made even more poignant because he has been surrounded by fellow sufferers, many of them in wheelchairs and on stretchers.
Although the man once called the "great communicator" could barely get his words out, that did not diminish the meaning for the many sick people in the crowd. They saw him as an example of the triumph of the spirit over the failures of the flesh.
The Pope, once also known as "God's Athlete," is wracked by Parkinson's and severe arthritis but says he is determined to do his job to the end.
"This is the greatest day of my life," said 66-year-old Christopher Weeratunde, a Briton of Sri Lankan origin who was being wheeled to the Mass by Martin Casey, a 34-year-old Irish volunteer.
"I'm not here looking for a miracle. I'm here to share my faith and my suffering with the Pope. My whole purpose today is to be near him," Weeratunde told Reuters.
Some 6 million people visit Lourdes each year and many of them pray for miracle cures as they drink holy waters that flow out of the grotto.
The Roman Catholic Church has recognized 66 cases of what it calls miraculous healings among the thousands of pilgrims who have said they left Lourdes free of their ailments.
The Pope has been a lifelong devotee of the Virgin Mary and credits her with saving his life when he was shot in a 1981 assassination attempt.
WOMEN'S ROLE
In his homily he said women had a mission to put more meaning back into a world blighted by materialism.
"This grotto also issues a special call to women. Appearing here, Mary entrusted her message to a young girl, as if to emphasize the special mission of women in our own time, tempted as it is by materialism and secularism," he said.
He said their mission was "to be in today's society a witness of those essential values which are seen only with the eyes of the heart."
Last month the Vatican issued a document defending women's rights in the workplace but saying modern feminism's fight for power and gender equality was undermining the traditional concept of family.
The Pope drew cheers from the crowd, which had gathered under a sweltering sun, when he condemned abortion and euthanasia.
Saturday night he slept at a residence which is usually used by sick pilgrims and is fully equipped for medical emergencies.
About 3,200 police were on hand for the visit, backed up by surveillance helicopters and anti-aircraft missiles.
from Reuters
August 13, 2004: Fidel Castro turns 78
HAVANA (AFP) - Fidel Castro, who was born in 1926 as a tropical storm thrashed Cuba, will celebrate his 78th birthday today after Hurricane Charley has passed across the island he has led for 45 years.
Castro is expected to spend his birthday in regions affected by the hurricane, which tore through the Caribbean yesterday. Since Hurricane Flora in 1962, the communist leader has travelled to areas hit by tropical storms to lead operations amid rain and violent winds.
Castro has braved many political storms since his guerrilla overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
He survived the US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the Cuba missile crisis that brought the Soviet Union and the United States to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Castro has also lived through 10 US presidents and an economic embargo imposed by the United States for more than 40 years. US President George W Bush has introduced new restrictions against Cuba in an effort to hasten Castro's demise.
Dissidents have held a hunger strike since August 1 to demand the release of political prisoners. The protest ends Friday.
"We are fighting for democracy and for human rights in this country, which they are violating, and for our imprisoned brothers," said political dissident Carlos Miguel Lopez.
Castro's supporters are preparing festivities that include music and cultural shows.
"The month of August brings a cultural blooming for children, young people and adults," the weekly Tribuna de La Habana said. "The most beautiful of these proposals is the singing programme, especially on August 13, to celebrate the birthday of the commander in chief."
from The Jamaica Observer
August 13, 2004: Julia Child Dead at age 91
NEW
YORK -- Julia Child, whose warbling, encouraging voice and able hands brought
the intricacies of French cuisine to American home cooks through her television
series and books, died in her sleep three days before what would have been
her 92nd birthday.
"America has lost a true national treasure," Nicholas Latimer, director of publicity for Alfred A. Knopf publishing, said in a statement today. "She will be missed terribly."
The statement said she died Thursday at her home in Santa Barbara, Calif. The cause of death was not given.
A 6-foot-2 American folk hero, "The French Chef" was known to her public as Julia, and preached a delight not only in good food but in sharing it, ending her landmark public television lessons at a set table and with the wish, "Bon appetit."
"Dining with one's friends and beloved family is certainly one of life's primal and most innocent delights, one that is both soul-satisfying and eternal," she said in the introduction to her seventh book, The Way to Cook. "In spite of food fads, fitness programs, and health concerns, we must never lose sight of a beautifully conceived meal."
Chipper and unpretentious, she beckoned everyone to give good food a try. She wasn't always tidy in the kitchen, and just like the rest of us, she sometimes dropped things or had trouble getting a cake out of its mold.
In an A-line skirt and blouse, and an apron with a dish towel tucked into the waist, Julia Child grew familiar enough to be parodied by Dan Aykroyd on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and the subject of Jean Stapleton's musical revue, "Bon Appetit." She was on the cover of Time magazine in 1966.
Active and a frequent traveler in her 80s, Child credited good genes and a habit begun in her 40s of eating everything in moderation.
Susy Davidson, a consultant who worked with Child on "Good Morning America," called Child's friendship a great gift.
"She's helped me redefine age, No. 1," Davidson once said. "She is the standard by which I judge all professionals. She's always eager to learn something, to try something new. She just has this generosity of spirit."
She was foremost a teacher and never lost sight of the goal set out in volume one of Mastering the Art of French Cooking: "Anyone can cook in the French manner anywhere, with the right instruction. Our hope is that this book will be helpful in giving that instruction."
Like her friend James Beard, Child was influenced but not battered by the popularity of fast food, low-fat food, health food.
She aimed The Way to Cook at a new generation and while it offered plenty of recipes using butter and cream, it left room for experimentation and variation in its blend of classic French and free-style American techniques. It was a hit, with nearly 400,000 copies in print just four months after publication.
She worried, however, that the health craze was overdone.
"What's dangerous and discouraging about this era is that people really are afraid of their food," she told The Associated Press in 1989. "Sitting down to dinner is a trap, not something to enjoy. People should take their food more seriously. Learn what you can eat and enjoy it thoroughly."
Child did not take a cooking lesson until she was in her 30s. And she was in her 50s when her first television series began in 1963.
Born in Pasadena, Calif., Child once said she was raised on so-so cooking by hired cooks.
She graduated from Smith College in 1934 with a history degree and aspirations to be a novelist or a writer for the New Yorker magazine. Instead, she ended up in the publicity department of a New York City furniture and rug chain.
When World War II began, she joined the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA. She was sent off to do clerical chores in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where she met Paul Child, a career diplomat who later became a photographer and painter, on the porch of a tea planter's bungalow in 1943.
They married in 1946 and two years later were sent to Paris.
Child enrolled in the famed Cordon Bleu cooking school, motivated at least in part by a desire to cook for her epicure husband. She was considered a bit odd by her friends, who all had hired help in the kitchen.
"I'd been looking for my life's work all along," she told the AP. "And when I got into cooking I found it. I was inspired by the tremendous seriousness with which they took it."
In France, she also met Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, with whom she collaborated on Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which was nine years in the making and became mandatory for anyone who took cooking seriously.
It was published in 1961 and was followed by The French Chef Cookbook; Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. II, with Beck; From Julia Child's Kitchen; Julia Child & Company; Julia Child & More Company; and The Way to Cook, in October 1989.
She was 51 when she made her television debut as The French Chef. The series began in 1963 and continued for 206 episodes. Child won a Peabody award in 1965 and an Emmy in 1966, and went on to star in several more series for Boston's WGBH-TV.
Russell Morash, Child's director from the beginning, recalled her as "spontaneous from the outset, a natural television talent - very relaxed but very professional."
"I happened to be the right woman at the right time," she said, noting that John F. Kennedy had a French chef at the White House and more Americans were traveling abroad.
Since the 1980s, she devoted attention to promoting the serious study of food and cooking. She co-founded the American Institute of Wine and Food in San Francisco in 1981 and co-founded the James Beard Foundation in New York City in 1986.
More recently, she teamed with fellow television chef Jacques Pepin for the 1994 PBS special, Julia Child & Jacques Pepin: Cooking in Concert and a 1996 sequel, More Cooking in Concert.
Paul Child died in 1994, and in late 2001, Julia Child, a longtime resident of Cambridge, Mass., moved to Santa Barbara. The couple had no children.
from the Associated Press
August 11, 2004: Julia Child Death Watch Intensifies
August
11 marks the first of 81 BMTG predicted deaths to take place. The Diesel predicted
that today would be Child's final day, saying "91 is old enough."
Turning 92 on August 15th, the 6 foot 2 Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California. According to the Northwest Illinois Journal Standard, Child once said, "It's hard to imagine civilization without onions." There are no indications, other than her advanced age, that she is nearing death. Julia Child has a BMTG Death Probability Rating of 75%.
August 11, 2004: Comedian Jerry
Lewis tells of 37 years battling chronic pain
By Tina Hesman of the Post-Dispatch
Funny
man Jerry Lewis toured St. Louis on Wednesday to talk about his chronic pain,
and the way he's found relief.
Lewis entertained doctors, nurses, firefighters and other people at a seminar at St. John's Mercy Medical Center. Between jokes and video clips, Lewis told of the agony his estimated 1,900 career pratfalls caused him. One physical gag in 1965 - a flip off a piano - landed him spine-first on a steel cable. The accident left him paralyzed overnight and then caused overwhelming pain for the next 37 years, Lewis, now 78, said.
Four failed back surgeries, steroids and narcotic pain pills did nothing to relieve the pain, Lewis said. He became a workaholic to try to take his mind off the agony he felt. But the pain never went away. He was minutes away from shooting himself when his daughter, now 12, caught him holding a handgun, he said.
The entertainer now uses "a pain pacemaker" - an implanted device called a spinal cord stimulator. The device, made by Medtronic Inc. of Minneapolis, consists of a palm-size battery encased in plastic, which is placed under the skin in the abdomen or buttocks. Coated wires run from the stimulator to the spine. Tiny electrodes at the end of the wires lay on top of the spinal cord and produce an electric current. Patients experience the current as a tingling. The tingling blocks pain signals to the brain. Patients control the intensity and duration of the current with a remote control.
For Lewis, the pain relief was instantaneous and complete. But his "Jewish guilt" doesn't allow him to fully enjoy his pain relief knowing that others are in similar boats, he said.
"We have 75 million people suffering with chronic pain in this country. It is an epidemic," Lewis said.
For 2 1/2 years, Lewis has toured as Medtronic's spokesman, touting the benefits of spinal cord stimulation for people with chronic pain.
Lewis intends to start a Chronic Pain Association similar to the Muscular Dystrophy Association he began nearly half a century ago. His telethons have raised nearly $2 billion for muscular dystrophy over the past 48 years, and children with the disease often are referred to as "Jerry's kids."
The most common reason for getting a spinal stimulator is chronic pain after back surgery, said Dr. Gregory H. Smith, an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist at Pain Management Services in Des Peres. About 400,000 people in the United States undergo back surgeries each year. Up to 15 percent of them may develop chronic pain, Smith said.
Doctors are not sure how the stimulator blocks pain. Some researchers think the electrical currents may stimulate the body to release endorphins, a natural type of painkiller akin to morphine. Another theory is that it swamps out pain signals to the brain by overwhelming those messages with more pleasurable tingling sensations.
"It's like having a phone line that's busy. Now these pain fibers can't call in the pain message to the spinal cord and the brain," Smith said.
The device is usually a last resort, said Dr. Robert Swarm, an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist at the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Washington University Pain Center.
Only about two dozen of the 1,500 new patients Swarm sees each year get the stimulators, he said.
Medtronic and several other manufacturers make the devices. The stimulator may cost $15,000 to $35,000, depending on the size of the battery and the number of electrodes. But the device is not necessarily more expensive than pain pills, Swarm said.
Even though the stimulators don't work for all patients and may only partially relieve pain for others, patients often report functioning better in daily life, pain doctors say.
"It may make the difference between having normal relations with the family and being a recluse moaning in their room all the time," Swarm said.
from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
August 10, 2004: Mickey Rooney Performs Let's Put On a Show!
Mickey
Rooney has got his act together and is taking it to Off-Broadway, starting
Aug. 10.
The Tony Award nominee, best known for his puckish film performances in the many "Andy Hardy" movies and such pictures as "Babes in Arms" and "Babes on Broadway," Rooney will perform Let's Put on a Show!, about his life in showbiz, at the Irish Repertory Theatre through Sept. 12. Opening night is Aug. 12.
His wife, singer Jan Rooney, co-stars in the entertainment, which includes songs and stories about the actor's M-G-M days, work and friendship with Judy Garland, his sundry ex-wives and more. Film clips are to be part of the experience, which was previously seen June 9- 12 at the Cinegrill in Los Angeles.
from Playbill.com
August 9, 2004: Namath makes cover of Sports Illustrated
Where Have You Gone, Joe Namath?
From star quarterback and world-class bachelor to hard-drinking pitchman
and devoted father, the life of Broadway Joe has taken unlikely turns that
even he couldn't have predicted. An excerpt from a revealing new biography...
"What
about Joe Namath?"
He repeats the words, announcing himself again and again, reciting the line as both declaration and question, as if he were hearing his name for the first time. He varies the cadence, the accent, the timbre. He says it slow and sly and with an extra dollop of that southern syrup. He tries different styles: first, an anchorman; next, a color commentator; then, with the enthusiastic baritone of a game show host. What about Jo-o-o-o-e Namath?
Now he eyes the sportswriter suspiciously. This rehearsal, preparation for a voice-over, will not be part of the story. The sportswriter will gladly agree to these terms. They always do. The sportswriter belongs to the generation that adores him most. Even as a president once listed him as an enemy of the republic, kids rushed to buy popcorn makers and chocolate milk on his say-so. This sportswriter had been one of those kids. With each passing year, they love him more, but know him less.
The interview is to take place here, in a vacant locker room at the Orange Bowl. He had always been great in January in the Orange Bowl. In 1963, as a sophomore, with John F. Kennedy in attendance, he began by throwing a touchdown pass in a shutout of Oklahoma. In '65, he made his debut in living color, becoming MVP of the first prime-time bowl game. The night served as a pilot for a new kind of action series. He was cast as its leading man, Broadway Joe, a role that culminated in its greatest glory on Jan. 12, 1969, in Super Bowl III. They called him an antihero. But really, there's no such thing. Antiheroes morph into heroes. It's the American way.
Still, little in Namath's current appearance suggests such heroism. As standing can be painful, even on artificial knees of metal and plastic, he sits on a folding chair. The famous stoop in his shoulders seems more pronounced. He slouches, shirtless, a tuft of gray protruding from his chest. He is tan and thin. There is less of him than the sportswriter imagined. He doesn't look like Broadway Joe. Rather, he looks not unlike the sportswriter. He looks like somebody's father.
So what about Joe Namath?
At the height of his fame, he made -- or rather, had made for him -- a cult of his bachelorhood. Broadway Joe was a high priest of lush life, his affections sought by a sugar-frosted society of starlets and stews, all of whom sought to worship at an altar adorned with llama-skin rugs.
But now, the star seems a bit unsure at the sound of his own name. He's still practicing his voice-over. For what, the sportswriter does not know, doesn't care. Namath is selling something. Of course he is. This is the Super Bowl, the game he made, that highest sabbath in the American religion, the annual consecration of corporate culture, an event that celebrates 30-second spots as sagas and bookmakers as theologians. The Super Bowl evokes a star-spangled yin and yang, all those equal but opposing forces that create a prime-time culture: Coke and Pepsi, Miller and Bud, McDonald's and Burger King, Disney and Fox, Bloods and Crips, AFC and NFC. Only two things you can do here at the Super Bowl: you're buying, or you're selling.
The sportswriter understands his end of the transaction. He's purchasing another piece of the Guarantee. Thirty years have passed since the New York Jets were 18-point underdogs to the Baltimore Colts. Namath was high on scotch when he promised a Jets victory. I guarantee it.
For a generation raised on canned laughter, the Guarantee qualifies as a kind of performance art. He was bigger news than the astronauts returning from the moon. At least that's how they make it sound today. In fact, the Guarantee didn't even make the New York City papers. Not until after the game. But, hey, what do you want from sportswriters? Now they come around like pilgrims. Each year they become more devout.
They all want to know about the Good Old Days. They must have been good, a time before clogged arteries and enlarged prostates, before secondhand smoke, before pills to keep you happy and hard.
Broadway Joe was the coolest kid in America, an object of affection for girls and gangsters, a source of bafflement for bookmakers everywhere. He made a debonair comedy of most likelihoods. He walked off with Jagger's girls. He spilled drinks on Sinatra. He grinned his way through it all. The Raiders broke his face, and he caught a flight to Vegas, came back the next week, and set a single-season passing record. Namath had a concussion when he hit Don Maynard in the AFL Championship Game. He was still drunk the day he threw three touchdown passes against the Patriots in '66.
But that's not the stuff for a family newspaper. It's better to play along with these writers and their need for nostalgia. "I get a special feeling when I'm here," he says, quite unconvincingly. His tone is glum, but it's the best he can do.
The sportswriter leaves feeling deceived. But this regret won't last long. He'll give his editor what he wants, what the readers want, what everybody wants: the Guarantee and the Good Old Days. It's Super Bowl week. It's all good, and it's all on the house.
But what about Joe Namath?
He was advertised as a man who told it like it was. In fact, Namath didn't tell much at all. He didn't surrender intimacies. Sure, he'd be happy to rehash the Guarantee, especially for a fee. But his emotional life -- family life -- was never part of the deal. He'd show the famous scars on his knees. He'd even let you touch that grapefruit-sized ball of mangled tissue on his hamstring. But he'd give not a glimpse of the internal scar tissue. He'd talk about concussions and broken bones. But never the broken heart, his original wound. Years later, at the beginning of a new millennium, this is as much as he would allow: "I can remember as a three- or four-year-old, to this day, hearing [my mother and father] downstairs, talking or arguing about something. I was upstairs and I came to the top of the steps and I was crying because it got me scared."
Perhaps the fear was in his bones, something from his own father's boyhood lodged in the marrow, the knowledge that separation is inevitable. Families fracture. You can get left behind. "His daddy left him when he was in the seventh grade," says Jack (Hoot Owl) Hicks, for many years a devoted friend of Namath's. "He told me that was the saddest day of his life."
He survived, just as he would survive fame and drink and orthopedic ruin. He became a husband and a father. The standard-bearer for booze and broads had become an apostle of family values, even as the first baby boomer president was hustling an intern down the hall from the Oval Office.
Salvation through fatherhood, that's what Joe Namath had come to believe in. That's all he believed in. Try explaining that to a sportswriter.
There was, it turned out, life after football. A decade after Super Bowl III, the edgier aspects of his image had all but worn away. He was softer, cornier, unobjectionable, ubiquitous. He was often seen in the vast wasteland of television: selling corn poppers and fryers, appearing as a guest star on such fare as The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast and The Love Boat. He also undertook intensive vocal training to forge a stage career, becoming a regular on the dinner-theater circuit....
...In another year's time, Namath's daughters would return to live with him in Tequesta. But by then he couldn't seem to stay sober for long. Old friends would hear things through the grapevine. He drank too much wine at Michael's in Santa Monica. He was pounding vodka tonics at Clarke's in Manhattan. Early one morning at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., he was seen wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, nursing a beer at the bar.
An appearance for College Sports Network -- a new venture from the creators of Classic Sports -- was cut short after too many vodka tonics. Producers of a promotional interview featuring Namath complained that their footage was useless, as he wasn't making much sense. "He was definitely pretty soused," says Christian Red, a New York Daily News sportswriter who attended the event. During the taping, a bloodshot Namath even asked Red's girlfriend to fetch him a drink. "More vodka than tonic," he said.
Twelve days later, on Dec. 20, 2003, Namath attended a game as a member of the Jets' Four Decades Team. It was a night game, and he had been drinking steadily since that afternoon. Before the first half ended, ESPN sideline reporter Suzy Kolber asked him for a few words about the struggling Jets. "I want to kiss you," slurred Namath. "I couldn't care less about the team struggling."
Within a month Namath was an outpatient at Hanley-Hazelden, a West Palm Beach rehabilitation facility specializing in the treatment of older adults. "I've embarrassed my family," he told Jeremy Schaap, his biographer's son, now a reporter for ESPN. "Every time in my life that something has gone askew, alcohol has been involved. ... I'm convinced that I need help."
Namath's request for a smooch quickly became fodder for late-night monologues and drive-time rants. Just as inevitable were references to the sideline incident as a "wake-up call." Perhaps, it was a curious bit of good fortune for Sonny Werblin's creation to be seen drunk on national television. Maybe that was the only place for him to hit rock bottom, there in the vast wasteland.
So what about Joe Namath? What becomes of him?
The clues, the signs of his ever-potent magic, are there on the morning of June 25, 2003, some six months before the incident on ESPN. The Jets are hosting a press conference at the Renaissance Hotel in Times Square. Its ostensible purpose is to announce that Joe Namath has been named the team's "ambassador-at-large." As such, he would shill for a new stadium in Manhattan. "Four decades of Jets football, absolutely wonderful," says Namath. "I get goose bumps thinking about it."
He speaks from a lectern. Behind him, beyond the wraparound window: Broadway. "I was standing right outside, there," he says, referring to the famous nighttime shot on the cover of Sports Illustrated. From there to here, night to day, then to now, Broadway is transformed. It is not unlike the Super Bowl: well-lit, huge, homogeneous, a corporate theme park. The Olive Garden chain of restaurants, one of them situated directly below Namath, now provides the universally accepted standard for Italian cuisine. Broadway's small-time hustlers have been replaced with big-time ones, their signs like the banners of nation-states: Morgan Stanley, McDonald's, Budweiser and, of course, Disney.
The sportswriters remain obediently enthralled for the better part of two hours. Some of them were there way back when; others were just kids. But Joe appears to have aged better than them all: tanned, energized, healthy. He's wearing a green tie with a gray double-breasted suit. His teeth are as white as his shirt.
"We're gonna bring them a stadium somehow," he says. Now, at the age of 60, he is finally leading a pep rally. So what if he's hustling? It's his hustle, in furtherance of a higher purpose. It has become part of his patrimony.
"The Jets are a family," he says.
He knows better. Family is blood, the ones you would die for. His daughters are in the audience. Olivia is 12. She has big, bright eyes, and braces on her teeth. Jessica is slim, 17. Joe doesn't always approve of her taste in music -- the lyrics these days. "I can hear that kind of stuff in the locker room," says Joe. The sportswriters laugh.
"Daddy," says Jessica. "Daddy." She is attentive, practiced at reading her father's body language. She hands him a soft drink. He's been talking for so long. He's still twinkling, though. Joe Namath is happy. He now spends more days with his daughters than away from them. Soon, they will come back to Florida for good.
It has rained steadily for almost a month. But today sunlight washes over everything. One imagines the father and his daughters strolling down Broadway, the distant fabled land now cleansed of all shadow, every trace of nocturnal life.
from Sports Illustrated, excerpts taken from "Namath" by Mark Kriegel
August 4, 2004: Palmer to play in Sydney
GOLF
legend Arnold Palmer, 74, has accepted an invitation to attend the centenary
Australian Open championship in Sydney.
Palmer, a former Australian Open champion, will not play in the championship, to be held at The Australian in Sydney from November 25-28, but he will play an exhibition round at the Australian Golf Club before the event.
He'll also join other centenary celebrations including a gala dinner on November 23.
The Australian Golf Union has invited all living Australian Open champions to attend the centenary event.
Palmer won seven Majors and 62 titles times on the US PGA Tour.
His finest moment in Australia came in 1966 when he won the Australian Open at Royal Queensland Golf Club by five shots from Kel Nagle.
Palmer said he is looking forward to the trip.
"It will be very nice to be on hand for this year's Australian Open, one of the important international titles on my record that I've always prized. It's been quite a while since I was in Australia, so I'm expecting to renew some old acquaintances when I am there," he said in a statement.
from The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia)
August 2, 2004: B.B. King is older and
ailing, but the thrill isn't gone
By Patrick MacDonald, Seattle Times music critic
Blues
in the night is the norm, but blues in the day attracted two big crowds to
Summer Nights at the Pier over the weekend. The main draw was blues-guitar
great B.B. King. He brought along some talented friends, including N'Awlinz
piano legend Dr. John and talented young blues shouter Shemekia Copeland.
The perfect summer weather also was an enticement. The nearly five-hour concert
was a great way to enjoy the sunny and warm late afternoon and early evening,
thanks to the backdrop of sailboats, ferries and container ships on Puget
Sound, a pink-and-gold sunset over the Olympics, and refreshing, salty breezes.
At the Saturday show I attended, a near-capacity crowd cooled off under a mister, crowded into the beer and wine garden, danced to the mostly upbeat music, and gave the musicians lots of love.
King's set had a feeling of finality to it, as if he were on a farewell tour. He kept telling the fans how good it felt to hear their cheers and applause. "You've been with me through the years and I thank you," he said. During "Key to the Highway," which he turned into a song about his own touring life, he whispered a spoken aside: "I'll do this until I die, folks."
King, 78, had to perform sitting down because of, he explained, his bad knees and back. He complained of bad hearing, bad eyesight and bad memory, and mentioned several times that he's diabetic. He said he was touring against doctors' orders, and that he'll enter the hospital in October; he didn't say what for.
But his playing showed no signs of frailty or weariness. His guitar Lucille sounded sweet as ever and his singing voice was gruff but strong. He and his top-notch, seven-piece band played familiar tunes, including "Why I Sing the Blues" and "The Thrill Is Gone" but showcased cuts from King's latest album, "Reflections," released in June, including "I Need You So," a slow blues tune that featured a dramatic, pleading vocal.
He transformed Willie Nelson's "Nightlife" into a horn-based blues, turned "When Loves Comes to Town," which he recorded with U2, into more of a rocker than the original, and played a warm, bluesy, acoustic version of "Summertime." Guitarist J. Geils and harmonica player Magic Dick joined him for a jam on "Nine Below Zero."
The drawlin' Dr. John, in bright red blazer and battered hat, featured songs from his outstanding new "N'Awlinz: Dis, Dat or D'Udda" CD. He also did some of his classics, including a rousing "Right Place Wrong Time." He was joined on some songs by Geils and Dick.
The young Copeland, one of the blues' great hopes, preceded Dr. John. The show was opened by blues rocker Elvin Bishop.
from the Seattle Times