The 2012 Off Topic Celebrity Dead Pool

[Uncle Sparky]

GTFI.

http://www.gtfi.us/overview.html
The Genetic Task Force of Illinois? Do you think Ming's failure in the dead pool is genetic? Has rah ever played?

[Wezil]

Nora Ephron was 71 and a unique pick for Death's Litterbox (15).

= (171 - 15) + (100 - 71) + 25

= 210 points

[Wezil]

Yitzhak Shamir was 96 and a choice of 7 players:

OzzyKP (6) = (171 - 6) + (100 - 96) = 169 pts
Robert Plomp (8) = 167 pts
DaShi (9) = 166 pts
Hauldren Collider (10) = 165 pts
Krill (15) = 160 pts
Guynemer (18) = 157 pts
SlowwHand (20) = 155 pts ---> A new low point record

Shamir was only the second of our pool favourites to pay off...

[Wezil]

MANTEO, N.C. (WAVY) - UNC President Bill Friday says beloved television star Andy Griffith has died in North Carolina Tuesday.

Emergency medical crews responded to Griffith's home Tuesday morning, Dare County Sheriff J.D. "Doug" Doughtie told WAVY.com .

Griffith's home is located along Highway 64 in Roanoke Island.

Photos: Remembering Andy Griffith

Friday, a close friend of Griffith's confirmed his death to WITN. He said Griffith's secretary called him Tuesday morning and said Griffith passed away at 7 a.m.

Several WAVY News 10 viewers in the Dare County area said the call went out shortly after 7 a.m. Officials have not released the nature of that call.

Andy Griffith, 86, was well known for his starring role on the television hit named after him, "The Andy Griffith Show", which first aired in 1960. Griffith portrayed a small-town sheriff and the show was one of the most popular series in television history.

http://www.wavy.com/dpps/entertainme...6631?hpt=hp_t2

[Wezil]

Andy Griffith was 86 and a unique pick for PLATO (14)

= (171 - 14) + (100 - 86) + 25

= 196 points.

[PLATO]

We'll miss ya Andy.

[Uncle Sparky]

http://www.televisiontunes.com/Andy_Griffith_Show.html

[Wezil]

Ernest Borgnine, the beefy screen star known for blustery, often villainous roles, but who won the best-actor Oscar for playing against type as a lovesick butcher in “Marty” in 1955, died Sunday. He was 95.

His longtime spokesman, Harry Flynn, told The Associated Press that Borgnine died of renal failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with his wife and children at his side.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/...rticle4398519/

Ernest was 95 and a choice of 6 players:

SlowwHand (3) = (171 - 3) + (100 - 95) = 173 points
Hauldren Collider (7) = 169 pts
stonesfan (8) = 168 pts
ColdWizard (10) = 166 pts
OFITG (15) = 161 pts
Guynemer (17) = 159 pts

[Uncle Sparky]

We're a little over half way through the year, we have 13 dead and ColdWizard has over 1000 points. I think we're in for some new records.

[SlowwHand]

I had electric football.

Norman Sas, inventor of Electric Football, dies at 87

A few decades ago, before we wrote entire posts dedicated to Robert Griffin III's likeness in a video game, Electric Football ruled the world. The man who invented the sublimely popular game, Norman Sas, died last week at the age of 87.

Electric Football was simple. One metal playing field and 11 plastic figures on a rectangular stand on each side. The human players would carefully put their figures in position, flick a switch, and the metal would vibrate them into action. The "players" would rumble all over, caring not for field position or their coach's gameplan. Every so often, the figure holding the tiny football would find one of the end zones. This could be for a safety or a touchdown.

I remember my dad taking his dusty Electric Football game out of the attic one day and showing me how it worked. (That it was still operational is a testament to my father's famous fastidiousness). I was hopped up on Nintendo's "Tecmo Bowl" at the time -- and also, being 11 or so, a little jerk -- so Electric Football looked to me like a relic left behind by cavemen.

But for people of a certain age, Electric Football was "Tecmo Bowl." It was "Madden."

According to the Hackensack Record (via PFT), Sas invented Electric Football in 1948 and introduced it a year later. But the game didn't take off for nearly two more decades, when Sas signed a deal with NFL Properties in 1967. It wasn't long after that Electric Football was under Christmas trees across the country.

The emergence of video games in the early '80s quickly turned Electric Football into a dinosaur staring down the fiery meteor. But by then, the game -- and the man who invented it -- had already left an indelible mark.

[Ming]

We're a little over half way through the year, we have 13 dead and ColdWizard has over 1000 points. I think we're in for some new records.

And I'm still at ZERO

[Wezil]

I haven't compiled those stats Ming (longest dry spell for a player) but a quick check shows you would win hands down.

The embalmer would appear to be a distant second.

[embalmer42]

I haven't compiled those stats Ming (longest dry spell for a player) but a quick check shows you would win hands down.

The embalmer would appear to be a distant second.

So....apparently even when it comes to losing I can't be #1.


Great.

[DaShi]

There's always a bigger fish.

[Robert Plomp]

ming's list is that long the same that all his people are already reincarnated and are now youngster again. It's not for no reason they don't die.

[SlowwHand]

Age has really nothing to do with it. One would think it would to a degree, but not really. Amy Winehouse wasn't very old, but the Gabor skank is as old as the hills.
Go figure.

[Krill]

I swear Zsa Zsa will be cryopreserved just to **** with us.

[Uncle Sparky]

I swear Zsa Zsa will be cryopreserved just to **** with us.

This just in -
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/art...162118195.html

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband will serve as her temporary conservator under an agreement reached with the ailing actress' daughter and approved by a judge Wednesday.

Attorneys announced a settlement between Frederic von Anhalt, Gabor's husband of 25 years, and her daughter Constance Francesca Hilton during a hearing. Superior Court Judge Reva Goetz approved the provisions, which call for financial oversight by several attorneys and allow Hilton to visit with her mother weekly.

Von Anhalt will continue to make medical decision about his wife's care. He smiled after his appointment and outside the courthouse declared "Victory!" and said he was happy with the outcome.

Hilton said she came to court, "to protect my mother and me."

Gabor's husband and daughter have argued for years as each has accused the other of financial mismanagement related to Gabor's wealth. Hilton asked to be named her mother's conservator in March and said she was concerned the actress wasn't being properly treated.

A doctor who evaluated the star a few weeks later determined that Gabor's well-being is closely tied to her remaining in a familiar environment.

Goetz said that a conservatorship was necessary for Gabor and set a January 9 hearing for an update on the how the agreement was working.

Hilton's attorney Kenneth Kossoff said he is cautiously optimistic the arrangement will work, and he will now receive monthly statements on Gabor's finances and will be able to review her medical files.

Gabor, a Hungarian-born sexpot of the 1950s and 1960s, has been in declining health and didn't make an appearance at a February birthday party hosted at her mansion.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

[SlowwHand]

DIE! Would you please just die!

It's not me being rude, it's her.

[Uncle Sparky]

Marvin Traub died -

Marvin Traub, the man responsible for turning Bloomingdale’s into a must-shop destination, passed away yesterday at the age of 87 from bladder cancer, the New York Times is reporting.

Traub, a war veteran and Harvard grad, began his tenure at Bloomingdale’s in 1950, working his way up from the bottom of the chain (manning the bargain basement) all the way to CEO.

As CEO of the department store, Traub was known for his innovative and creative methods: Staging lavish celebrity-filled events, and introducing some of the leading designers of the time (he gave Ralph Lauren his first big break). It was also during his time as CEO, that Bloomingdale’s introduced their iconic shopping bags. He retired as CEO from the company in 1991, going on to found Marvin Traub Associates, a consulting firm which counts Ralph Lauren, American Express and the Jones Apparel Group as clients.

And while the retail giant has passed away, the legacy of Traub’s life and work will continue to shape Bloomingdale’s, and retail as we know it, for years to come.

http://fashionista.com/2012/07/marvi...es-dies-at-87/

[Uncle Sparky]

Marion Cunningham died yesterday -

Reuters
.
US food writer Marion Cunningham dies, age 90

LOS ANGELES – Award-winning cookbook writer Marion Cunningham, an advocate of home cooking who also hosted a US television series, has died in California after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. She was 90.

Cunningham died on Wednesday morning at the John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, California, outside of San Francisco. She suffered from the debilitating effects of Alzheimer’s and had been living at an assisted-care facility.

Her friend and restaurant consultant Clark Wolf confirmed her death. “She’s the one who made cooking at home honorable,”Wolf told Reuters. “She was also this kind of extra mother to a lot of people who have become top chefs and food experts.”

Cunningham was born Marion Enwright on February 1922 in Los Angeles and married Robert Cunningham, an attorney in Walnut Creek. For much of her life, she struggled with agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder dealing with the fear of open spaces and public places.

But later in life she began attending cooking classes given by renowned chef and food writer James Beard, who died in 1985. In cooking, she found a hobby that would become her hallmark.

Cunningham began writing cookbooks at age 57 when asked to revise a version of “Boston Cooking-School Cookbook” that was first published in 1896 by Fannie Merritt Farmer. The result was Cunningham’s 1979 edition of “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook,” which was reissued again in 1990.

She went on to author more books with titles such as “The Breakfast Book,” and “Cooking with Children,” that highlighted her specialty in creating meals at home.

Cunningham also penned articles in magazines such as Bon Appetit and Food & Wine and for a time hosted her own TV series,”Cunningham & Company,” on the Food Network.

In 1993, she received the Grand Dame award from Les Dames d’Escoffier and one year later was named Scholar-in-Residence by the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

[Uncle Sparky]

Oscar winner Celeste Holm died.

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Celeste Holm, a versatile, bright-eyed blonde who soared to Broadway fame in "Oklahoma!" and won an Oscar in "Gentleman's Agreement" but whose last years were filled with financial difficulty and estrangement from her sons, died Sunday, a relative said. She was 95.

Holm had been hospitalized about two weeks ago with dehydration. She asked her husband on Friday to bring her home and spent her final days with her husband, Frank Basile, and other relatives and close friends by her side, said Amy Phillips, a great-niece of Holm's who answered the phone at Holm's apartment on Sunday.

Holm died around 3:30 a.m. at her longtime apartment on Central Park West, located in the same building where Robert De Niro lives and where a fire broke out last month, Phillips said.

"I think she wanted to be here, in her home, among her things, with people who loved her," she said.

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Holm played everyone from Ado Annie — the girl who just can't say no in "Oklahoma!"— to a worldly theatrical agent in the 1991 comedy "I Hate Hamlet" to guest star turns on TV shows such as "Fantasy Island" and "Love Boat II" to Bette Davis' best friend in "All About Eve."

She won the Academy Award in 1947 for best supporting actress for her performance in "Gentlemen's Agreement" and received Oscar nominations for "Come to the Stable" (1949) and "All About Eve" (1950).

[Sparrowhawk]

My first thought on reading the name Marion Cunningham was the Mom from Happy Days, but I think I am thinking of the stage name not the actress

/me

[Uncle Sparky]

Marion Ross played Marion Cunningham on 'Happy Days'. She is still alive and acting. (I admit the name caused me to read the entire obit - I knew it from somewhere...)

[OneFootInTheGrave]

edit: nevermind... I am slow and I can see that I just broke into all time top 10

[SlowwHand]

Kitty Wells, country music star, dies at 92 - 18 hours ago
NASHVILLE (Reuters) - Kitty Wells, the "Queen of Country Music," died this morning at her home in Nashville surrounded by family members, of complications from a stroke. She was 92.

http://news.yahoo.com/kitty-wells-co...001441562.html

Deep Purple keyboard player Jon Lord, dies aged 71
LONDON (Reuters) - Jon Lord, keyboardist and co-founder of British rock group Deep Purple, has died in a London hospital aged 71, his official website said on Monday. "It is with deep sadness we announce the passing of Jon Lord, who suffered a fatal pulmonary embolism today, Monday 16 July at the London Clinic, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

http://news.yahoo.com/deep-purple-ke...191744109.html

[-Jrabbit]

Tom Davis, Comedian and ‘SNL’ Sketch Writer, Dies at 59

In 2004, contestants on “Jeopardy!” were stumped by the clue “He was the comedy partner of Al Franken.”

Tom Davis, that comedy partner, sighed as he watched. He was so inured to playing second fiddle to Mr. Franken, now a Democratic senator from Minnesota, that he called himself Sonny to Mr. Franken’s Cher.

But the fact is that Mr. Davis helped shape Mr. Franken’s comedy, and vice versa, from the time they entertained students with rebellious, razor-edged humor at high school assemblies in Minnesota.

In 1975, Mr. Davis, brilliant at improvisational comedy, and Mr. Franken, a whiz at plotting funny sequences, became two of the first writers on a new show called “Saturday Night Live,” which has lasted 37 years. (The two should actually be called one of the show’s first writers: they accepted a single salary of $350 a week. Each, singly, was called “the guys.”)

Mr. Davis never lost the quirky, original tone that helped shape the show, and in his last months he referred to death as “deanimation.” He deanimated on Thursday at his home in Hudson, N.Y., at age 59. The cause was throat and neck cancer, his wife, Mimi Raleigh, said.

With Mr. Franken and others, Mr. Davis helped create the clan of extraterrestrials known as the Coneheads, who attributed their peculiarities to having come from France. He and Dan Aykroyd collaborated on Mr. Aykroyd’s impersonation of Julia Child, in which the television chef cuts herself and bleeds to death after grabbing a phone to dial 911, only to find it’s a prop. As she collapses she bids her audience “Bon appétit!”

...

Thomas James Davis was born in Minneapolis on Aug. 13, 1952, and attended the private Blake School, where he and Mr. Franken bonded over comedians like Jack Benny and Bob and Ray. Their announcements of school events at the morning assembly were peppered with sarcasm, and soon they were performing at a local comedy club.

After graduating, Mr. Franken headed for Harvard, while Mr. Davis chose the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., because, he said, he had heard that it had a foreign study program in India, where he hoped to smoke opium. (They did, and he did.)

After a year of college, Mr. Davis returned to Minneapolis to work in improvisational comedy. And after Mr. Franken graduated, the two convened in Los Angeles to do stand-up and caught the attention of Lorne Michaels, the creator of “Saturday Night Live.” Mr. Michaels summoned them to New York, where he negotiated with the writers’ union to offer the two a single apprentice job.

...

He and Mr. Franken were so close that Mr. Franken named his daughter Thomasin Davis Franken. But the two broke up as a team in 1990 when Mr. Franken tired of his friend’s drug abuse. They reconciled a decade later, and Mr. Davis obliged his friend by publishing his all-too-candid autobiography only after Senator Franken was elected. In his book, Mr. Davis wrote, “I love Al as I do my brother, whom I also don’t see very much.”

In addition to his wife and his brother, Robert, Mr. Davis is survived by his mother, Jean Davis.

In his last two years, Mr. Davis helped a friend write a book about Owsley Stanley, famed for handling sound for the Grateful Dead and supplying the group with LSD. He searched out objects like old barn doors and stones with which to make large sculptures. And he worked with Mr. Aykroyd on a script for a possible “Ghostbusters III” film.

As in his comedy, Mr. Davis said, “I’m improvising.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/ar...it_th_20120720

See, if you're just patient, baby boomers will die all on their own.

RIP, Mr. Davis.

[SlowwHand]

Sally Ride, first American woman in space, dead at 61

WFAA

Posted on July 23, 2012 at 4:19 PM

Updated today at 5:01 PM


ABC News reports that Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, has died at age 61.

Ride had been battling pancreatic cancer.

She rocketed into space on June 18, 1983 aboard the space shuttle Challenger, opening the door to 30 other American women who followed her in orbit.

She was also aboard Challenger when it flew an eight-day orbital mission in October, 1984.

President Barack Obama called her a national hero.

"She inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars and later fought tirelessly to help them get there by advocating for a greater focus on science and math in our schools," the president said in a written statement. "Sally’s life showed us that there are no limits to what we can achieve and I have no doubt that her legacy will endure for years to come."

"Sally Ride broke barriers with grace and professionalism — and literally changed the face of America's space program," said NASA administrator in a written statement. "The Nation has lost one of its finest leaders, teachers and explorers."

According to her official NASA biography, Ride joined the astronaut class of 1978.

Following her career at NASA, she went on to an academic career at the University of California at San Diego.

She was also a member of the investigative panel called to review the Columbia and Challenger disasters.

Dr. Ride was inducted into the National Women's Hall of fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. and has received the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the von Braun Award, the Lindbergh Eagle, and the NCAA’s Theodore Roosevelt Award. She has also twice been awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal, according to NASA's biography.

"She will be missed, but her star will always shine brightly," Bolden said.

R.I.P.

[Wezil]

I saw that.

Made me feel old.

[Guynemer]

****.