The 2013 Off Topic Celebrity Dead Pool

[Tuberski]

Well, I score with Deacon Jones.

ACK!

[Wezil]

Not without a link.

[-Jrabbit]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...at-74/2387285/

[Krill]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2013/06/04/hall-of-fame-de-deacon-jones-dead-at-74/2387285/

[Krill]

Well, at least I got +2 from the spam.

[Uncle Sparky]

Mario Bernardi is dead.

TORONTO - Mario Bernardi, the founding conductor of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, has died. He was 82.

The National Arts Centre says it's lowered its flag to half-mast in tribute to the revered conductor and pianist, who died Sunday in Toronto.

"Mario Bernardi was a national figure who played a seminal role in the life of classical music in Canada," Peter Herrndorf, president and CEO of the National Arts Centre, said in a statement.

The Kirkland Lake, Ont., native moved to Italy at age six with his mother and studied at the Venice Conservatory.

He started his career with the Royal Conservatory Opera School in Toronto and conducted at the Canadian Opera Company in his mid-20s.

In 1963, he moved to London and served as musical director of the Sadler's Wells Opera Company (now the English National Opera).

Five years later he joined the NAC and recruited young musicians to build the 45-member orchestra.

"He shaped them into a wonderful orchestra, drawing from them a unique sound which was praised by music critics for its transparency and precision of ensemble," said Herrndorf.

Bernardi also led the orchestra on tours of Canada and Europe, and created the summer opera festival at the NAC.

After he left the centre, he led the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and was the principal conductor of the CBC Radio Orchestra.

Bernardi's career honours included the Order of Canada and the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement.

The NAC plans to unveil a bust of Bernardi it commissioned from Canadian sculptor Ruth Abernethy on July 1 at the entrance of Southam Hall, where he led the orchestra in hundreds of concerts during his tenure.

The NAC says it will also create a fund in Bernardi's name to commission new Canadian compositions for the orchestra.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/enter...#ixzz2VGwungvt

[Wezil]

David "Deacon" Jones was 74 and a Unique Pick for Tuberski (15).

= (171 - 15) + (100 - 74) + 25

= 207 points.

With the obvious exception of Ming, all players have scored at least one hit this season.

[embalmer42]

David "Deacon" Jones was 74 and a Unique Pick for Tuberski (15).

= (171 - 15) + (100 - 74) + 25

= 207 points.

With the obvious exception of Ming, all players have scored at least one hit this season.

He's like a pool shark....he's just biding his time. Waiting for us to fall victim to overconfidence.

[Ming]

He's like a pool shark....he's just biding his time. Waiting for us to fall victim to overconfidence.

[ColdWizard]

He's like a pool shark....he's just biding his time. Waiting for us to fall victim to overconfidence.

...in 2028.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Tom Sharpe has Wilted.

The British author Tom Sharpe, who wrote the 1974 novel Porterhouse Blue, has died aged 85.

Sharpe, who was born in London in 1928, died in the coastal town of Llafranc in north-eastern Spain on Thursday.

He wrote 16 novels, including Blott on the Landscape in 1975, which was adapted into a six-part BBC television series, starring David Suchet.

He also wrote the Wilt series of comedy books, the last of which - The Wilt Inheritance - he penned in 2010.

"Tom Sharpe was one of our greatest satirists and a brilliant writer: witty, often outrageous, always acutely funny about the absurdities of life," said Susan Sandon, Sharpe's editor at Random House.

"The private Tom was warm, supportive and wholly engaging."

Porterhouse Blue, published in 1974 told the story of Skullion, the head porter of a fictional Cambridge college Porterhouse.

The story, a satirical look at Cambridge life, was later made into a television series on Channel 4 in 1987.

The four-part TV series starred Sir David Jason in the lead role of the head porter, Skullion, alongside Ian Richardson as Sir Godber Evans and Barbara Jefford as his wife Lady Mary.

His wife, Nancy Looper Sharpe, said she would remember her late husband's sense of humour, his sense of morality and his love of travel.

She said Sharpe, who died from complications arising from diabetes, recently suffered a stroke.

"He lost the use of his legs and he could not accept that he couldn't walk. He was very physically strong but his breathing became weaker and weaker," she added.

The 76-year-old, who married Sharpe in 1969, said his ashes would be scattered in Llafranc, Cambridge, and a church in Thockrington, Northumberland, where his father and grandfather came from and where he spent summers as a child.

The son of a Unitarian minister who was a Nazi supporter in the 1930s, Sharpe was educated at Lancing and Cambridge.

He spent time in the Royal Marines, serving overseas on ships during the 1940s.

In an interview on Desert Island Discs in 1984, Sharpe told Roy Plomley he was initially influenced by his father's ideas.

He subsequently came to the realisation "that Hitler was not the man I was led to believe he was".

"My mind was blown by the horror of what had been happening."

Sharpe moved to South Africa in 1951, working as a social worker, teacher and photographer, and writing anti-apartheid plays during the 1950s. However, he was deported to Britain in 1961.

His experiences in South Africa inspired him to write his debut novel, Riotous Assembly, in three weeks in 1971, and his second novel, Indecent Exposure, in which he mocks the apartheid regime.

In 1975, he wrote Blott on the Landscape, centred on the proposed construction of a motorway in a fictional rural county in England.

The book was adapted into a six-part series by Malcolm Bradbury for the BBC in 1985.

"Books and films are totally different things," Sharpe said during his interview on Desert Island Discs.

"I say throw the book out the window and use the characters."

His next book, Wilt, published in 1976, was inspired by his experiences working a lecturer in History at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology.

The first in a series of five comedic novels, Wilt was based around the lead character, Henry Wilt, a demoralised assistant lecturer who teaches literature to uninterested construction apprentices at a community college in the south of England.

"He has the same uncertainties about the world that I have, but he carries them on into the enactment of fantasy and he tends to run into trouble," Sharpe said.

The novel was adapted into the film Wilt in 1989, with Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith in the lead roles.

Sharpe, who had been living in northern Spain for two decades, was married with three children.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22795507

[snoopy369]

Ming's just saving up so he can go on a 20 celebrity spree in December and win it all.

[-Jrabbit]

Well, if he's been spending the past 5 years lulling us all into overconfident complacency, I can only say, "Well done!"

[Wezil]

A hit for ricketyclik: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment...ies_at_91.html

LOS ANGELES, CALIF.—Esther Williams, the swimming champion turned actress who starred in glittering and aquatic Technicolor musicals of the 1940s and 1950s, has died. She was 91.


Williams died early Thursday in her sleep, according to her longtime publicist Harlan Boll.


Following in the footsteps of Sonja Henie, who went from skating champion to movie star, Williams became one of Hollywood’s biggest moneymakers, appearing in spectacular swimsuit numbers that capitalized on her wholesome beauty and perfect figure.


Such films as “Easy to Wed,” “Neptune’s Daughter” and “Dangerous When Wet” followed the same formula: romance, music, a bit of comedy and a flimsy plot that provided excuses to get Esther into the water.

[Wezil]

Esther was 91 and a Unique Pick for ricketyclik (6):

= (171 - 6) + (100 - 91) + 25

= 199 points.