Gone With or Without fanfare

[srowley75]

It depresses me that Lynn was never considered a performer on the same level as Vanessa, when the truth was that Lynn delivered a number of very fine performances, often playing characters that tended to stick with me longer than many of her sister's. I'm probably in the minority who believes she could have won an Oscar for Georgy Girl in 1966, and I think many felt she was shafted in 1998 when she lost for Gods and Monsters after being something of a critical favorite for most of that year. I also loved her in Shine, one of my favorite films of the 1990s. She did make some forgettable and embarrassing films (e.g., The Happy Hooker), but I'd grown to admire her courage in taking on oddball roles in projects that weren't exactly high-profile or mainstream.

In looking over Lynn's filmography, I happened to notice that English actress Googie Withers is still with us, at 93 years old.

-S.

[klondike]

In looking over Lynn's filmography, I happened to notice that English actress Googie Withers is still with us, at 93 years old.

-S.

All dependent on her health, of course, but wouldn't Ms. Withers make an especially fine guest speaker for an art house screening of the original Night and The City ?!

[feaito]

I have just learnt that wonderful, beautiful, ravishing Lena Horne passed away on Sunday 9th May. Rest in peace Lovely Lady.

[feaito]

I could not resist to post another image of the immensely talented and elegant Lena Horne, one of my favorite singers, women, beauties and people. She will be missed. I think that she was a mother of two and yesterday in Chile we celebrated Mother's Day.

[Professional Tourist]

She will be missed. I think that she was a mother of two and yesterday in Chile we celebrated Mother's Day.

Yes, Miss Horne was the mother of a son and daughter by her first husband. Her family lost her on Mothers Day. In the early 1970s Miss Horne lost her father, her son, and her second husband Lennie Hayton all within the space of a year, and went into a long seclusion. It was her friend the comedian Alan King who coaxed her into performing again. She was happily surprised to see how her audiences had changed, for the better, in that they were integrated, and I would say the audiences found her musical style also changed, having more emotional dimension. In her one-woman show on Broadway in the early 1980s she illustrated this change by singing "Stormy Weather" as she had during her Hollywood days and then as she began to sing it in her maturity. I was fortunate to attend a performance of "The Lady and her Music." I had no money back then, but my father took me for my birthday. He also bought me the album and a Lena t-shirt that night. What a birthday!

[Lzcutter]

I saw Ms. Horne perform her wonderful one-woman show Lena: A Woman and Her Music at the wonderfully small Pantages Theater in Hollywood in the early 1980s. She had such a rapport with the audience, held us in the palm of her hand as she retraced her life in song with that lovely husky voice of hers.

She was one of the entertainers who helped break the color line in Las Vegas.

RIP Ms. Horne, you will always be remembered and you will be missed.

[mrsl]

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I never saw his show, and I know nothing about him, but I thought I would just send out the word that little Gary Coleman has passed away. I caught a last minute mention of it on ET while I was channel surfing. I know he had a lot of fans and made a lot of people happy so I wish him Godspeed.
.

[mongoII]

Anne, little Gary Coleman was a cutie pie on the show "Different Strokes". He was an adorable child actor, one of the best. May he rest in peace.


Gary Coleman as Arnold

[klondike]

FOREVER GOLDEN

NEW YORK — Rue McClanahan, the Emmy-winning actress who brought the sexually liberated Southern belle Blanche Devereaux to life on the hit TV series "The Golden Girls," has died. She was 76.

“She passed away this morning at 1 a.m.,” her manager Barbara Lawrence told TODAYshow.com. “She had a stroke on Monday, and died with her son, sister and nephew at her side. It was peaceful, a blessing she went fast.”

McClanahan had undergone treatment for breast cancer in 1997 and later lectured to cancer support groups on "aging gracefully." In 2009, she had heart bypass surgery.

The actress had an active career in off-Broadway and regional stages in the 1960s before she was tapped for TV in the 1970s for the key best-friend character on the hit series "Maude," starring Beatrice Arthur. After that series ended in 1978, McClanahan landed the role as Aunt Fran on "Mama's Family" in 1983.

But her most loved role came in 1985 when she co-starred with Arthur, Betty White and Estelle Getty in "The Golden Girls," a runaway hit that broke the sitcom mold by focusing on the foibles of four aging — and frequently eccentric — women living together in Miami.

"Golden Girls" aimed to show "that when people mature, they add layers," she told The New York Times in 1985. "They don't turn into other creatures. The truth is we all still have our child, our adolescent, and your young woman living in us."

McClanahan snagged an Emmy for her work on the show in 1987. In an Associated Press interview that year, McClanahan said Blanche was unlike any other role she had ever played.

"Probably the closest I've ever done was Blanche DuBois in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' at the Pasadena Playhouse," she said. "I think, too, that's where the name came from, although my character is not a drinker and not crazy."

Her Blanche Devereaux, she said, "is in love with life and she loves men. I think she has an attitude toward women that's competitive. She is friends with Dorothy and Rose, but if she has enough provocation she becomes competitive with them. I think basically she's insecure. It's the other side of the Don Juan syndrome."

After "The Golden Girls" was canceled in 1992, McClanahan, White and Getty reprised their roles in a short-lived spinoff, "Golden Palace."

McClanahan continued working in television, on stage and in film, appearing in the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau vehicle "Out to Sea" and as the biology teacher in "Starship Troopers."

She stepped in to portray Madame Morrible, the crafty headmistress, for a time in "Wicked," Broadway's long-running "Wizard of Oz" prequel.

In 2008, McClanahan appeared in the Logo comedy "Sordid Lives: The Series," playing the slightly addled, elderly mother of an institutionalized drag queen.

During production, McClanahan was recovering from 2007 surgery on her knee. It didn't stop her from filming a sex scene in which the bed broke, forcing her to hang on to a windowsill to avoid tumbling off.

McClanahan was born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in Healdton, Okla., to building contractor William McClanahan and his wife, Dreda Rheua-Nell, a beautician. She graduated with honors from the University of Tulsa with a degree in German and theater arts.

McClanahan's acting career began on the stage. According to a 1985 Los Angeles Times profile, she appeared at the Pasadena (Calif.) Playhouse, studied in New York with Uta Hagen and Harold Clurman, and worked in soaps and on the stage.

She won an Obie — the off-Broadway version of the Tony — in 1970 for "Who's Happy Now," playing the "other woman" in a family drama written by Oliver Hailey. She reprised the role in a 1975 television version; in a review, The New York Times described her character as "an irrepressible belle given to frequent bouts of 'wooziness' and occasional bursts of shrewdness."

She had appeared only sporadically on television until producer Norman Lear tapped her for a guest role on "All in the Family" in 1971.

She went from there to a regular role in the "All in the Family" spinoff "Maude," playing Vivian, the neighbor and best friend to Arthur in the starring role.

When Arthur died in April 2009, McClanahan recalled that she had felt constrained by "Golden Girls" during the later years of its run. "Bea liked to be the star of the show. She didn't really like to do that ensemble playing," McClanahan said.

McClanahan was married six times: Tom Bish, with whom she had a son, Mark Bish; actor Norman Hartweg; Peter D'Maio; Gus Fisher; and Tom Keel. She married husband Morrow Wilson on Christmas Day in 1997.

She called her 2007 memoir "My First Five Husbands ... And the Ones Who Got Away."

[mrsl]

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I can never remember where this thread is so I put a short R.I.P. in the Candids thread where MongoII has a lovely photo of Ms. McClanahan. I wish it were a 'genre' all by itself.
.

[klondike]

AT THE END OF THIS LIFE LIES A Nice, Nice MAN!


Singer, sausage businessman Jimmy Dean dies at 81

June 13, 2010, 10:16 PM EST
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Jimmy Dean, a country music legend for his smash hit about a workingman hero, "Big Bad John," and an entrepreneur known for his sausage brand, died on Sunday. He was 81.

His wife, Donna Meade Dean, said her husband died at their Henrico County, Va., home.

She told The Associated Press that he had some health problems but was still functioning well, so his death came as a shock. She said he was eating in front of the television. She left the room for a time and came back and he was unresponsive. She said he was pronounced dead at 7:54 p.m.

"He was amazing," she said. "He had a lot of talents."

Born in 1928, Dean was raised in poverty in Plainview, Texas, and dropped out of high school after the ninth grade. He went on to a successful entertainment career in the 1950s and '60s that included the nationally televised "The Jimmy Dean Show." In 1969, Dean went into the sausage business, starting the Jimmy Dean Meat Co. in his hometown. He sold the company to Sara Lee Corp. in 1984.

Dean lived in semiretirement with his wife, who is a songwriter and recording artist, on their 200-acre estate just outside Richmond, where he enjoyed investing, boating and watching the sun set over the James River.

In 2009 a fire gutted their home, but his Grammy for "Big Bad John," a puppet made by Muppets creator Jim Henson, a clock that had belonged to Prince Charles and Princess Diana and other valuables were saved. Lost were a collection of celebrity-autographe d books, posters of Dean with Elvis Presley and other prized possessions.

Donna Meade Dean said the couple had just moved back into their reconstructed home.

With his drawled wisecracks and quick wit, Dean charmed many fans. But in both entertainment and business circles, he was also known for his tough hide. He fired bandmate Roy Clark, who went onto "Hee Haw" fame, for showing up late for gigs.

More recently, a scrap with Sara Lee led to national headlines.

The Chicago-based company let him go as spokesman in 2003, inciting Dean's wrath. He issued a statement titled "Somebody doesn't like Sara Lee," claiming he was dumped because he got old. "The company told me that they were trying to attract the younger housewife, and they didn't think I was the one to do that," Dean told The Associated Press in January 2004. "I think it's the dumbest thing. But you know, what do I know?"

Sara Lee has said that it chose not to renew Dean's contract because the "brand was going in a new direction" that demanded a shift in marketing.

Dean grew up in a musical household. His mother showed him how to play his first chord on the piano. His father, who left the family, was a songwriter and singer. Dean taught himself to play the accordion and the harmonica.

His start in the music business came as an accordionist at a tavern near Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., where he was stationed in the 1940s. After leaving the Air Force in 1948, he fronted his band, the Texas Wildcats, and drew a strong local following through appearances on Washington-area radio.

By the early 1950s, Dean's band had its first national hit in "Bummin' Around."

"Big Bad John," which is about a coal miner who saves fellow workers when a mine roof collapses, became a big hit in 1961 and won a Grammy. The star wrote it in less than two hours.

His fame led him to a string of television shows, including "The Jimmy Dean Show" on CBS. Dean's last big TV stint was ABC's version of "The Jimmy Dean Show" from 1963 to 1966.

Dean in February was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was to be inducted in October and his wife said she thinks he was looking forward to it.

Dean became a headliner at venues like Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl and became the first country star to play on the Las Vegas strip. He was the first guest host on "The Tonight Show," and also was an actor with parts in television and the movies, including the role of James Bond's ally Willard Whyte in the 1971 film "Diamonds Are Forever."

Besides his wife, Dean is survived by three children and two grandchildren, Donna Meade Dean said. Arrangements have not be made, but it will be a private service, she said.

In the late '60s, Dean entered the hog business — something he knew well. His family had butchered hogs, with the young Dean whacking them over the head with the blunt end of an ax. The Dean brothers — Jimmy and Don — ground the meat and their mother seasoned it.

The Jimmy Dean Meat Co. opened with a plant in Plainview. After six months, the company was profitable.

His fortune was estimated at $75 million in the early '90s.

Having watched other stars fritter away their fortunes, Dean said he learned to be careful with his money.

"I've seen so many people in this business that made a fortune," he told the AP. "They get old and broke and can't make any money. ... I tell you something, ... no one's going to play a benefit for Jimmy Dean."

Dean said then that he was at peace at his estate and that he had picked a spot near the river where he wanted to be buried.

"It's the sweetest piece of property in the world, we think," he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "It sure is peaceful here."

[mrsl]

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As you said, Farewell to a very nice man. There are so few of them around, it almost feels personal when someone like Jimmy Dean and Rue McClanahan pass away.

Rest in Peace Jimmy
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[Sue Sue Applegate]

Jimmy Dean was a wonderful man, and was a joy to watch on televison during one of his many appearances on talk shows, and his own programs.

And we still buy his products in our family. I had an aunt who would never buy any other sausage but Jimmy Dean's.
One reason is that is is a quality product, and another is that she loved Jimmy Dean.

He deserves to rest in peace. He was a truly nice man in a profession that doesn't always lend itself to sincerity, kindness,
and grace.

[MikeBSG]

I noticed that Himan Brown died last week.

He was the producer/director of "Inner Sanctum Mysteries" (1941-1952) and "CBS Radio Mystery Theater" (1974-1982).

I can't really get into "Inner Sanctum." Most of the episodes try to explain everything away at the end. My favorite episodes are "Tell Tale Heart" with Boris Karloff (1941), "The Shadow of Death" with Richard Widmark and "Corridor of Doom" with Karloff and Widmark (both 1945).

I remember listening to CBS RMT when I was a kid. A lot of times it would be preempted by baseball and basketball games. A lot of the episodes seemed like duds, but a few I really enjoyed at the time. "Berenice" (1975) was based on a Poe story about a husband obsessed with his dead wife's teeth. Really creepy.

I've listened to some CBS RMT in recent years. They did a good job with obscure Gothic stories like "The White Wolf" and "The Storm Breeder." Kevin McCarthy did a fine job as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" too.