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
February 28 - Walter Cronkite
February 26 - Brian Dennehy
February 25 - Don Knotts, Dead at 81
February 24 - Willie Mays
February 23 - Vin Scully
February 20 - Tony Bennett
February 12 - Courtney Love
February 11 - Bob Barker
February 3 - Courtney Love
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
Arnold Palmer, Richard Pryor, Courtney Love, Jerry Lewis, Muhammad
Ali, 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
Arnold Palmer, Rodney Dangerfield, Bob Barker, Brian Dennehy, Ernest Borgnine,
Rosa Parks, Walter Cronkite, Willie Mays, Pope John Paul II, Fidel Castro,
Julia Child, Jerry Lewis, Mickey Rooney, Joe Namath, B.B. King
July 2004
Rosa Parks, Courtney Love, Fidel Castro, Nick Nolte, Don Knotts, Larry Hagman,
Kirk Douglas, William Shatner
February 28, 2006: Walter Cronkite
gets his moon rock
NASA honors veteran TV anchor who followed space program
AUSTIN,
Texas - Veteran newsman Walter Cronkite was honored Tuesday with a moon rock
from NASA in recognition of his decades covering the space program.
Cronkite, who anchored "The CBS Evening News" from 1962 until his retirement in 1981, is the first non-astronaut and only non-NASA individual to receive the Ambassador of Exploration Award.
Cronkite covered the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, including Apollo 11 and subsequent moon landings. His marathon, live coverage on July 20, 1969, of the first moon landing brought the event into the homes of millions of Americans and observers around the world.
In addition to Cronkite, 38 others around the nation were being presented the award.
The moon rock is part of 842 pounds (383 kilograms) of samples brought back to Earth during the six Apollo lunar expeditions from 1969 to 1972.
Cronkite will present his lunar sample to William Powers Jr., president of the University of Texas at Austin. Powers will accept on behalf of the Center for American History, which houses the Walter Cronkite papers. The sample will be displayed in the center’s exhibit gallery.
From the Associated Press
February 26, 2006: Dennehy wins Best Actor Laurence Olivier Award
Brian
Dennehy has won the 2006 Best Actor Laurence Olivier Award for his portrayal
of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman. This completes
an impressive treble for Dennehy, who also won a Tony Award (Broadway’s
equivalent of the Laurence Olivier Awards) and a Golden Globe for exactly
the same role when the production was originally staged on Broadway and subsequently
filmed.
Dennehy was top dog of a Best Actor category overflowing with talent. Last year’s recipient Richard Griffiths (Heroes), Sir Derek Jacobi (Don Carlos), Con O’Neill (Telstar) and David Threlfall (Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me) were all nominated alongside Dennehy.
Dennehy collected his award from actress Jodhi May, who is currently appearing alongside Roger Allam in Blackbird at the Albery.
It is a first Laurence Olivier award for the American Dennehy. "And I’m sure it will be my last," he told us. "I’ve done it [the play] a lot. It was always interesting to come back to it, and doing it in London with a new cast and group of people was energising and of course the play has so many possibilities, it's never boring. The last time I did it, November 5th last year, I felt just as enthusiastic about it as I did the first time, and probably knew a lot more about it too."
Dennehy, a dramatic arts graduate of Yale, utilised his imposing frame to great effect in Death Of A Salesman as aging salesman Willy Loman. The broad shoulders and barrel chest of the American Dream’s greatest follower were transformed during the performance into the most fragile of shells, as Dennehy played out the life of a travelling salesman whose entire working life may have been a feat of imagination.
Dennehy was making his West End debut in Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. He is probably best known for his film roles which include Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo And Juliet, Presumed Innocent, F/X, Legal Eagles, Cocoon, Gorky Park and First Blood. His Broadway stage work includes Long Day’s Journey Into Night, for which he won a second Tony Award for Best Actor in 2003, and Peter Brook’s production of The Cherry Orchard.
From the London Theatre Guide
February 25, 2006: Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife, Dies at 81
LOS
ANGELES - Don Knotts, who kept generations of TV audiences laughing as bumbling
Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show" and would-be swinger
landlord Ralph Furley on "Three's Company," has died. He was 81.
Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at a Los Angeles hospital, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs his two signature shows.
Griffith, who remained close friends with Knotts, said he had a brilliant comedic mind and wrote some of the show's best scenes.
"Don was a small man ... but everything else about him was large: his mind, his expressions," Griffith told The Associated Press on Saturday. "Don was special. There's nobody like him.
"I loved him very much," Griffith added. "We had a long and wonderful life together."
Unspecified health problems had forced Knotts to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown in August.
The West Virginia-born actor's half-century career included seven TV series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him TV immortality and five Emmys.
The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld." The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.
As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.
Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character and doesn't mind being remembered that way.
His favorite episodes, he said, were "The Pickle Story," where Aunt Bea makes pickles no one can eat, and "Barney and the Choir," where no one can stop him from singing.
"I can't sing. It makes me sad that I can't sing or dance well enough to be in a musical, but I'm just not talented in that way," he lamented. "It's one of my weaknesses."
Knotts appeared on several other television shows. In 1979, he replaced Norman Fell on "Three's Company," also starring John Ritter, Suzanne Somers and Joyce DeWitt.
Early in his TV career, he was one of the original cast members of "The Steve Allen Show," the comedy-variety show that ran from 1956-61. He was one of a group of memorable comics backing Allen that included Louis Nye, Tom Poston and Bill "Jose Jimenez" Dana.
Knotts' G-rated films were family fun, not box-office blockbusters. In most, he ends up the hero and gets the girl — a girl who can see through his nervousness to the heart of gold.
In the part-animated 1964 film "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," Knotts played a meek clerk who turns into a fish after he is rejected by the Navy.
When it was announced in 1998 that Jim Carrey would star in a "Limpet" remake, Knotts responded: "I'm just flattered that someone of Carrey's caliber is remaking something I did. Now, if someone else did Barney Fife, THAT would be different."
In the 1967 film "The Reluctant Astronaut," co-starring Leslie Nielsen, Knotts' father enrolls his wimpy son — operator of a Kiddieland rocket ride — in NASA's space program. Knotts poses as a famous astronaut to the joy of his parents and hometown but is eventually exposed for what he really is, a janitor so terrified of heights he refuses to ride an airplane.
In the 1969 film "The Love God?," he was a geeky bird-watcher who is duped into becoming publisher of a naughty men's magazine and then becomes a national sex symbol. Eventually, he comes to his senses, leaves the big city and marries the sweet girl next door.
He was among an army of comedians from Buster Keaton to Jonathan Winters to liven up the 1963 megacomedy "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Other films include "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" (1966); "The Shakiest Gun in the West" (1968); and a few Disney films such as "The Apple Dumpling Gang" (1974); "Gus" (1976); and "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo" (1977).
In 1998, he had a key role in the back-to-the-past movie "Pleasantville," playing a folksy television repairman whose supercharged remote control sends a teen boy and his sister into a TV sitcom past.
Knotts began his show biz career even before he graduated from high school, performing as a ventriloquist at local clubs and churches. He majored in speech at West Virginia University, then took off for the big city.
"I went to New York cold. On a $100 bill. Bummed a ride," he recalled in a visit to his hometown of Morgantown, where city officials renamed a street for him in 1998.
Within six months, Knotts had taken a job on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders," playing a wisecracking, know-it-all handyman. He stayed with it for five years, then came his series TV debut on "The Steve Allen Show."
He married Kay Metz in 1948, the year he graduated from college. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1969. Knotts later married, then divorced Lara Lee Szuchna.
In recent years, he said he had no plans to retire, traveling with theater productions and appearing in print and TV ads for Kodiak pressure treated wood.
The world laughed at Knotts, but it also laughed with him.
He treasured his comedic roles and could point to only one role that wasn't funny, a brief stint on the daytime drama "Search for Tomorrow."
"That's the only serious thing I've done. I don't miss that," Knotts said.
From the Associated Press, Jeremiah Marquez and Vicki Smith (Morgantown, W.Va.)
February 24, 2006: Say Hey! It's Willie Mays, teens talkin' baseball
Hundreds
of teenage baseball players in Davie on Thursday heard Willie Mays share a
few stories about what it was like to be the `Say Hey Kid.'
Willie Mays ambled toward the podium Thursday to face his audience at Western High in Davie. One of the greatest baseball players ever touched the brim of his San Francisco Giants baseball cap.
Struggling with glaucoma, the 74-year-old squinted to see the 600 teenage ballplayers, who are only a few years younger than the ''Say Hey Kid'' was when he broke in just 15 days after he turned 20 in 1951.
''They told me I didn't have to get up and stand,'' said the one-time speedster, who stole 338 bases in his storied career. ``You know, the body don't move too quickly now.''
Willie Mays, the power-hitting Hall of Famer who also was a flashy fielder, hung up his #24 jersey and left the game for good in 1973.
He had come up as a phenom, playing a key role in the '51 World Series as a rookie with the Giants when they still played in New York City, and retired as an aging warrior, playing in the World Series for the New York Mets in 1973.
INVITED BY GOVERNOR
His Florida trip came at the behest of Gov. Jeb Bush, who asked him to speak
in Tallahassee earlier this week at a Black History Month event. When Mays
told of his concern for South Florida victims of Hurricane Wilma, he was asked
to accompany Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings to Western. Together, they presented the
school with a $50,000 check from The Home Depot to rebuild its baseball field,
ravaged by Hurricane Wilma.
But standing on stage just ''isn't my thing,'' said the perennial All-Star, who twice was voted the National League's Most Valuable Player. ``I could tell you a lot of stories, but I go too far back. But you're so young, you're not going to understand.''
Here's how far back he goes: The fourth-greatest home run hitter in history got $5,000 from the San Francisco Giants that first year he made it to the big leagues from the Birmingham Black Barons. He called his Major League teammates ''Say Hey,'' so he wouldn't have to remember their names, and Willie Mays was quickly dubbed the ``Say Hey Kid.''
The teens from across Broward on Thursday understood him very well.
''He's a pretty funny guy,'' said Tabari Smotherman, 15, who plays second base and shortstop for Fort Lauderdale High.
The teen knew a few facts about Mays -- that he played in four World Series and hit 660 career homers, behind only Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and his godson, Barry Bonds, who now plays for the San Francisco Giants.
''You just don't expect . . . him to be entertaining . . . because he's old,'' Tabari said.
One teenager asked Mays if he ever played with the legendary Satchel Paige, who was born a quarter-century before Mays.
''How old does he think I am?'' Mays replied to laughter.
(A trivia footnote: Their careers actually overlapped, since Paige, perhaps the most famous Negro League ballplayer, didn't join the Major Leagues until he was 41, and served stints in the majors practically into his dotage. But Mays played in the National League and Paige in the American. Paige pitched in the 1953 All-Star game. Mays' streak of All-Star appearances began in 1954.)
For the young ballplayers in Davie on Thursday, Mays stressed the importance of getting a higher education, though he never got past high school.
Born in rural Alabama, Mays said he began playing professional baseball as a teenager in the Negro Leagues against guys in their early 20s. He wanted to play basketball and football -- he was good at both -- but a school administrator made him focus on baseball.
Mays was in high school when he got the call to report to Trenton, N.J., for a spot on a minor league team.
He had to get there in a hurry -- so he couldn't keep his date for the prom. He managed to appease his girlfriend by buying her the dress, anyway.
TO THE BIG LEAGUES
The Giants promoted him to the majors in 1951. He was voted Rookie of the
Year and played in the World Series, which the Giants lost to the New York
Yankees.
Mays' signature play, known simply as ''The Catch,'' came three years later in the 1954 World Series. With his back to home plate, Mays scrambled to deep centerfield of New York's Polo Grounds to catch over his shoulder a mighty clout from the Cleveland Indians' Vic Wertz. That moment is regarded as one of the greatest in the sport, and was the turning point in the Giants sweeping the Indians in the World Series, the only time his team won the fall classic.
''I'm running to catch that ball, and I got it, I know I got it,'' Mays said.
When Barry Bonds hit his 661st home run in 2004, he passed his godfather in the all-time homer list.
While Bonds was pursuing the milestone, Mays attended the games, ready to offer his congratulations.
''I was mad,'' Mays joked. 'Because he didn't break it hard enough. I'm cussing and all -- [telling Bonds], `Go ahead and hit it so I can go home.' ''
'He didn't want to break it, but I said, `Hey man, I broke somebody's record -- I broke quite a few of them.' ''
From the Miami Herald, Ashley Fantz
February 23, 2006: You Can Put This One in Vin Column
When
it came time Wednesday to announce Vin Scully would remain the voice of the
Dodgers through 2008, getting a two-year contract extension with no raise,
Jamie McCourt stepped to the podium first.
She began by saying, "Vin Scully brings out the best in all of us," and knowing the Dodgers went 71-91 a year ago, just imagine how awful they might have been had Scully not brought out the best in them.
Then she talked about the (dark) day the McCourts took control of the Dodgers, and how nervous she had been, but sitting next to Scully that all changed when he held her hand.
Then the Boston Parking Lot Attendant took his turn behind the podium, talking about the great impression Scully had made on his wife when he had taken her hand, and I couldn't help but think Charley Steiner was sitting somewhere in the audience making a note to himself to start holding Jamie's hand.
FINALLY, AND mercifully when the McCourts stepped aside, Scully took the microphone, and the magic began with that comforting voice filling the room.
It's a voice that never lets you down, the stories a little richer, the comments a little more poignant because of who is delivering them.
He will tell you he is not the face of the Dodgers, going so far as to joke, "When I'm looking in the mirror in the morning, I'm not thinking to myself, 'I'm shaving the face of the franchise.' I don't think that way; I'm just an ordinary guy who got an extraordinary opportunity."
He might be the most humble man in the room, but standing there in a blue sports coat, blue hankie in his pocket, light blue shirt and blue on blue tie, if you think Dodgers, you think Vin Scully.
And yet, somewhat amazingly, he said he had never had a news conference before in his 57 years with the franchise, the announcement he had been hired in Brooklyn being overshadowed by a news conference for Pee Wee Reese — Pee Wee Reese's name rolling off his tongue like poetry.
But now Scully is working for the McCourts, who have hired a number of specialists to beef up the family's image, obviously taking the advice to use one of the city's most admired figures and pose arm-in-arm with him any time they can.
There had been some speculation Scully wouldn't agree to such an event unless he was going to announce his retirement soon, but he said that decision had not been made.
He said there was no talk of a raise when he met with the McCourts and, while I wasn't surprised, we joked that he now knows what it's like to work for a newspaper. "I'm just thankful to come to the ballpark and get a free seat," he said. (I sure hope McCourt doesn't get the idea to start charging him.)
In the past, he has talked about sitting in hotel rooms on the road, hearing his life ticking away, but Scully, who is expecting grandchild No. 14 in June, said he talked to his wife, asked her to share more in his baseball life and she agreed.
"If she didn't," he said, "I would have packed it in after this year."
He said there are days when he'd rather not come to the ballpark, "and just sit under a tree and have a cold beer." But then he gets in his car, puts on Broadway show music, "peppy music," he said, and he's ready, ending the night back in the car listening "to strings, and music that is very soft."
"I really love the game," he said, "and then something wonderful or outrageous will happen, and I'll get these goose bumps. And then I know I am where I belong."
SCULLY SPOKE glowingly about the McCourts' enthusiasm, and thanked them for keeping him on the job. Later, when I asked him if he would tell me the truth if he thought the McCourts didn't have what it took to get the job done, he said, "No."
And we laughed, and I'm not sure I can remember spending time with Scully and at some point not laughing. He knew I was on my way to a poker tournament, and he had a story about Leo Durocher playing cards ready, the conversation always somehow shifting away from him.
He's a humble icon, all right, like John Wooden drawing almost reverential treatment from everyone blessed with meeting him. Like Wooden, though, he's open to being teased and poking fun at himself.
I wanted to know if he colors that red hair, thinking about Dwyre and what little gray hair he has left, and Scully said his mother had great red hair late in life before finally going to the bottle.
"Not that bottle," he grinned. "She dyed it, and it turned orange," and so he won't be hitting the bottle, he said.
HE FINALLY came clean and admitted he didn't like the names taken off the back of the Dodger jerseys, and so McCourt seized the opportunity to announce the names will be back on the jerseys in 2007 because that's what Scully wants. (I wish Scully would make his feelings known about acquiring a power-hitting outfielder.)
For his part right now, Scully said he has no idea if the Dodgers will be a better team because "I don't even know who the players are," he said.
Someone else wanted to know about a broadcasting decision he made long ago not to be perceived as a "homer," and he told a story about coming to L.A. and Walter O'Malley suggesting it might be time for him to start rooting for the Dodgers.
But he told O'Malley he spent eight years trying to go down the middle, so fans could trust what he had to say.
"It's all based on trust," he said.
Off to the side, I noticed Jaime Jarrin, the Spanish voice of the Dodgers and a Hall of Fame broadcaster in his own right, hanging on Scully's every word — a tribute of the highest order.
From the L.A. Times, T.J. Simers
February 20, 2006: Stars line up for Tony Bennett duet
Crooner
Tony Bennett is to duet with Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John and Bono on
a new album to mark his 80th birthday.
George Michael, Sting and Mary J Blige will also appear on the record, along with Barbra Streisand and John Legend.
The world's biggest recording artists are queuing up to duet with the US singer, best known for his hit I Left My Heart In San Francisco. Bennett turns 80 in August and the album will be released the following month.
Hollywood star Clint Eastwood has directed a forthcoming documentary about
the star's career.
The crooner has been a chart fixture since the 1950s.
Bennett has signed a lucrative deal with record giant Sony BMG, which described the singer as "one of the most legendary performers of all time".
His most recent recording, The Art Of Romance, won a Grammy last month for best traditional pop vocal album.
From Scotsman.com
February 12, 2006: Courtney Love’s intimate journals spark legal feud with father
THE
troubled family history of Courtney Love is set to catch up with her as the
rock star-cum-actress prepares to publish a series of “intimate”
journals.
Love’s father, a former rock manager called Hank Harrison, is preparing to sue her and Faber & Faber, publisher of her book Dirty Blonde, if she alleges that he put her on the road to drug addiction by giving her LSD as a toddler.
Harrison has already warned his ex-wife Linda Carroll that he may take legal action against her for airing the allegations in the book Her Mother’s Daughter.
Last month Love was released from a court-ordered drug rehabilitation clinic and regained custody of Frances Bean, her daughter with the rock star Kurt Cobain, who died of gunshot wounds in 1994.
At 41, the flamboyant and seemingly self-destructive star has promised a Los Angeles judge that she will “clean up my act”. She is writing the book in part because, although she has the lucrative rights to songs written by Cobain, frontman of grunge pioneers Nirvana, she faces tough financial decisions. It has been reported that she is considering selling the rights to Cobain’s songs for £60m.
A woodland bungalow near Seattle that she bought for Cobain’s sister Kim in 1997 was put up for public auction last December after she fell behind on mortgage payments. She is also being sued by her former lawyers over unpaid bills.
Love is unlikely to get much financial aid from her parents. Last week her 64-year-old father, who runs an equestrian centre in central California, said he had mixed feelings about his daughter.
“Courtney is a brilliant artist with a photographic memory and a mass of talent, but she can also be a mean bitch, although I put a lot of that down to her mother,” Harrison said.
“I have been told she was given a $1m (£570,000) advance for her book, and for that it will have to be pretty detailed. I know she has told other people that I gave her drugs when she was three years old, which she cannot possibly remember and is absolutely untrue as I was an anti-drugs counsellor in the 1960s. But I do fear what she might write now to make the book sell.”
Dirty Blonde, due to be published in November, is based on her journals of life with Cobain, as a rock star with her own band Hole and her acting career, which peaked with her role in the 1996 film The People vs Larry Flynt.
From Times Online, UK, John Harlow
February 11, 2006: Bob Barker pleads for elephants' release
LOS
ANGELES — Bob Barker pleaded with city officials to close the Los Angeles
Zoo's pachyderm exhibit and allow its three elephants to retire to a sanctuary.
Appearing jovial when he arrived at Friday's City Council meeting, the veteran game show host and longtime animal rights activist turned serious when he began to talk about the zoo's elephants, Gita, Ruby and Billy.
"I came here today to ask, to beg you ... to vote to release those elephants from that zoo," Barker said. "They have lived in misery."
Gita and Ruby are ill, leaving only Billy on display. A fourth elephant, Tara, died in 2004.
Several zoos nationwide, including San Francisco's, have closed their elephant exhibits.
Barker denounced plans to build a 2-acre, $19 million exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo that supporters say would provide a spacious and more natural environment for the elephants. The 82-year-old host of "The Price is Right" said it was too costly and would likely be obsolete by the time it is completed.
The exhibit was not an issue on the council's agenda and no vote was taken.
"There's only one solution to the tragic, the embarrassing elephant problem going on at (the zoo), and it's to release those elephants from captivity and place them in a sanctuary," Barker said.
From the Associated Press
February 3, 2006: Judge ends home monitoring for Courtney Love
LOS
ANGELES - Singer-actress Courtney Love won a release from home detention monitoring
on Friday from a Los Angeles judge who praised her progress in recovering
from drug addiction.
Love, 41, appeared before Superior Court Judge Rand Rubin for a routine progress hearing on three criminal cases that landed her in a drug treatment facility in November.
Love thanked the judge "for not being as punitive as you could have been" and told him, "I feel like I'm getting my creativity back...and that I've put a very gnarly drug problem behind me."
Rubin ordered the former "Hole" lead singer to return to court on May 12 for another progress report, and said she must continue twice-weekly random drug and alcohol testing and avoid places where alcohol is the main item for sale.
Her probation has been extended to March 2007 and she must attend counseling.
In September, the judge sentenced Love to 180 days in custody for violating her probation in misdemeanor cases against her.
At a hearing last February, Love pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor assault charge stemming from an attack on a woman at her ex-boyfriend's home, and guilty in a case involving a forged prescription. In May 2004, she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of being under the influence of cocaine.
From Reuters
return to top | return to fun with death