2014 Off Topic Celebrity Dead Pool - Now under New Management

[-Jrabbit]

RIP to actress Rue McClanahan, 76.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/rue-mcclanahan-one-of-the-golden-girls-stars-dies-at-76/

[Uncle Sparky]

RIP Rik Mayall

http://metro.co.uk/2014/06/09/rik-ma...tures-4755497/

Roger Davidson, of Brunskill Management, said: "It is a terrible shock. All we know at this stage is that Rik died at home.

"We are all deeply saddened by this news, from the enormous number of fans Rik had to those who worked with him and knew him as a man as well as a fine actor.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said officers were called by London Ambulance Service to a house in Barnes, south-west London, at 1.20pm where "a man, aged in his 50s, was pronounced dead at the scene". The death is not believed to be suspicious, he added.

The comedian appeared as Rick in The Young Ones, Lord Flashheart in Blackadder, Alan B'Stard in The New Statesman and Richie in Bottom, and had a long-running partnership with Ade Edmondson. He was part of the Comic Strip Presents team, which also included Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Alexei Sayle...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/c...s-aged-56.html

[Uncle Sparky]

Ruby Dee Dead at 91

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/06/12/ruby-dee-dies/

Ruby Dee once said, “The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within — strength, courage, dignity.” The groundbreaking actress, who died Wednesday in New Rochelle, N.Y. at the age of 91, achieved that goal time and again throughout her career, which spanned over 60 years. Dee’s daughter, Nora Davis Day, confirmed Dee’s death to the Associated Press Thursday afternoon.

A pioneer of the civil rights movement, Dee (who was born in Cleveland, but grew up in Harlem) studied at the American Negro Theater in New York City, where she met her husband of 56 years, the actor Ossie Davis (who died in 2005). After working steadily on Broadway throughout the 1940s, she rose to acclaim on the silver screen with 1950′s The Jackie Robinson Story, in which she played the baseball legend’s mother. In 1965, she became the first black woman to land lead roles at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut.

Over the next half century, Dee appeared in countless stage, television, and movie productions, including the 1961 film A Raisin in the Sun, her third of five collaborations with Sidney Poitier; Spike Lee’s seminal 1989 race drama Do the Right Thing; and the 1991 Hallmark miniseries Decoration Day, which won her an Emmy. She worked frequently with Davis, often in projects that promoted black heritage, and in 2000, they co-authored a memoir that celebrated their extraordinary journey together, With Ossie and Ruby: In this Life Together.

One of her most notable late-career performances came in 2007′s American Gangster, opposite Denzel Washington, whom she’d met almost 20 years earlier in the 1988 Broadway play Checkmates. Her feisty performance as the mother of Washington’s violent drug lord character earned Dee her first Oscar nomination. The Academy recognition was long overdue, but nevertheless a glorious accomplishment in the actress’s outstanding career. More recently, Dee narrated the 2013 TV movie Betty and Coretta, which starred Angela Bassett as Coretta Scott King and Mary J. Blige as Dr. Betty Shabazz, the wife of Malcolm X. Dee’s final film is King Dog, a still-in-production crime drama featuring Ice-T.

A great actress - R.I.P.

[Uncle Sparky]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...s-niece-711822

Carla Laemmle dead at 104

One of the last links to Hollywood's silent-film era, she appeared in "The Phantom of the Opera" and spoke the first line in Bela Lugosi’s “Dracula.”

Carla Laemmle, a dancer and actress whose uncle, Carl Laemmle, co-founded Universal Studios, died Thursday night at her home in Los Angeles. She was 104.

Her caretaker, Josephine Delavega, confirmed the news of her death to The Hollywood Reporter.

Laemmle, one of the few surviving actors of the silent-film era, appeared as the prima ballerina in the 1925 Universal production of The Phantom of the Opera and played a secretary who delivers the first line of dialogue in another Universal classic: Dracula (1931). She told her fellow coach passengers: "Among the rugged peaks that frown down upon the Borgo Pass are found crumbling castles of a bygone age…"

Born Oct. 20, 1909, in Chicago, she came to Los Angeles in January 1921 after her father, Joseph, received a letter from his brother Carl, inviting him and his family to relocate to Southern California. (The studio was founded in 1912.)

They took up residence in a bungalow in Universal City near New York Street, where they remained until 1936, and she witnessed the making of many movies on the backlot, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), which starred Phantom actor Lon Chaney as the hunchback. Back then, the studio had its own hospital, school and police and fire departments.

Carla's birthday fell right around Halloween, so she would always have "a combination Halloween/birthday party," she told THR's Scott Feinberg in a 2012 interview. One year, she decided to put on a "fright show" at the studio, famous for Dracula and other movie monsters such as Frankenstein and the Wolf Man.

"I called the property department, and they came up, and they rigged everything up for Halloween, you know? All kinds of spooky stuff. … They did a beautiful job with lighting effects and everything — very spooky," she recalled.

"As we were going down the pathway, this skeleton jumped out at one of my guests, and she fainted."

In a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Times, she remembered the family being visited by a camel that wandered over from the lot.

"They had a wonderful zoo," she said. "A camel would get loose, and somehow he would trek up from the backlot and start grazing on our lawn. I would take out a little bowl of oatmeal and lead it to one of the garages and call [the zoo workers] and say, 'Your animal is here.' "

In financial trouble, the Laemmle family was forced to sell Universal in 1936.

Laemmle also appeared in such films as Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927), The Broadway Melody (1929), Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935), His Last Fling (1935), The Adventures of Frank Merriwell (1936) and as a ballet dancer in On Your Toes (1939).

Her next movie credit came more than 70 years later in Pooltime (2010), and she has a role in Mansion of Blood, a horror film starring Gary Busey that is in postproduction, according to IMDb. In between, she worked at dance clubs.

Laemmle never married but had a long relationship with writer-actor Ray Cannon. Survivors include her great niece, Rosemary Hilb.

A documentary short about her life, Among the Rugged Peaks: The Carla Laemmle Story, was made in 2011. Narrated by actress Sally Kirkland, the film took Laemmle back to the original Phantom of the Opera stage — meant to serve as a replica of the Paris opera — at Universal.

[Uncle Sparky]

Jim Keegstra, notorious Canadian Holocaust denier, dead at 80

James ‘Jim’ Keegstra, a prominent Canadian holocaust denier and former high school teacher in Eckville, Alta., is dead at the age of 80, CBC News learned late Thursday night.

Keegstra made international headlines in 1983 when he was accused of teaching students that the history of the Holocaust was fraudulent, and that a Jewish conspiracy was responsible for many of the world’s problems.

It was alleged that Keegstra had been teaching his anti-Semitic views to his social studies class for 14 years before a parent complained to the local school board about his lessons.

In January 1984, Keegstra was stripped of his teaching certificate and charged with “wilfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group” under the Criminal Code of Canada.

At the time, no one had been successfully convicted under Canada’s hate propaganda laws enacted in 1970.

Keegstra was represented at trial by attorney Doug Christie, a political activist originally from B.C., who would go on to defend some of Canada’s most high-profile Holocaust deniers.

Keegstra was convicted at his original trial and fined $5,000. His lawyers appealed the decision, arguing that the law was unconstitutional and that it violated provisions on freedom of expression in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

After multiple trials and appeals the case eventually reached the Supreme Court of Canada, who in 1990 and again in 1996 upheld Keegstra’s conviction in a landmark ruling that found that the Criminal Code section on public incitement of hatred did infringe on Charter rights, but that infringement was justified.

Keegstra received a one-year suspended sentence, one year of probation, and community service.

He died on June 2, according to a report in the Red Deer Advocate. CBC News confirmed with his son that his father was in fact dead.

According to the same report, Keegstra spent the latter part of his life as a custodian at an apartment complex in the city.

[-Jrabbit]

Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Chuck Noll has passed away at age 82.
RIP.

[-Jrabbit]

Iconic "America's Top 40" radio host Casey Kasem is dead at 82.
RIP.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Iconic "America's Top 40" radio host Casey Kasem is dead at 82.
RIP.

Lewy body disease. That's what killed my mother. I'm kind of hoping that having a celebrity die of it might raise awareness/research on it because it's not a disease that attracts much interest.

[Uncle Sparky]

Iconic "America's Top 40" radio host Casey Kasem is dead at 82.
RIP.

He's also the original Shaggy on Scooby Doo.

[-Jrabbit]

Lewy body disease. That's what killed my mother. I'm kind of hoping that having a celebrity die of it might raise awareness/research on it because it's not a disease that attracts much interest.

Wow, never heard of it. Do tell.
And sorry about your mother.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Lewy body disease tends to get misdiagnosed as Parkinson's disease, particularly in the early stages as it does cause similar symptoms. However it's a different condition and some of the medications used to treat Parkinson's are no good at all for LBD. Then you get the onset of dementia symptoms getting treated as side-effects of the Parkinson's medication, and typically the patient ends up going through a whole cocktail of drug regimens that are either useless or harmful.

It took a post mortem to establish what my mother actually had, and too many other sufferers of Lewy body disease end up that way. Granted, it's still an incurable and degenerative condition even when diagnosed correctly, but it's missing the chance to improve quality of life for those suffering from it.

[-Jrabbit]

Thanks, man. Sorry you had to experience that, and thanks for the quick education.

Now, back to dying celebrities. Today's is a bit of a surprise:

Tony Gwynn Dead: Hall Of Fame Padres Star Dies At 54

June 16, 2014 at 11:35 AM

The San Diego Padres announced that Hall of Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn died on Monday at age 54. The eight-time National League batting champion affectionally known as "Mr. Padre" after spending his entire 20-year career in San Diego had been battling salivary gland cancer since 2009, according to MLB.com.

Man, it really sucks when the deaths are natural causes and the victim is younger than you.

I saw Gwynn play for the Padres in Wrigley Field many times. Best pure contact hitter I ever saw, with the possible exception of Ichiro.
RIP, Tony.

[Edit/addendum: Pete Rose was pretty damn good, too.]

[SlowwHand]

R.I.P. Ernest Borgnine.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

He's died again, has he?

[Uncle Sparky]

Gerry Goffin is dead.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/wor...263879771.html

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Gerry Goffin, a prolific and multi-dimensional lyricist who with his then-wife and songwriting partner Carole King wrote such hits as "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," ''(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," ''Up on the Roof" and "The Loco-Motion," died early Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 75.

His wife, Michelle Goffin, confirmed his death.

Goffin, who married King in 1959, penned more than 50 top 40 hits, including "Pleasant Valley Sunday" for the Monkees, "Some Kind of Wonderful" for the Drifters and "Take Good Care of My Baby" by Bobby Vee. Goffin was able to pen jokey lyrics or achingly sad ones, and he did it for solo artists and multiple voices.

Louise Goffin, one of his daughters, said her dad "wore his heart on his sleeve, and I am deeply blessed to have had a father who could so easily make the world laugh and cry with just a spiral notebook and a pen."
...

My favourite version, featuring Goffen & King's babysitter...