Gone With or Without fanfare

[Lzcutter]

Don Hewitt, long-time producer of 60 Minutes has passed away at 86.
From the AP:

NEW YORK — Don Hewitt, the CBS Newsman who invented "60 Minutes" and produced the popular newsmagazine for 36 years, died Wednesday. He was 86.

He died of pancreatic cancer at his Bridgehampton home, CBS said. His death came month after that of fellow CBS legend Walter Cronkite.

Hewitt joined CBS News in television's infancy in 1948, and produced the first televised presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960.

He made his mark in the late 1960s when CBS agreed to try his idea of a one-hour broadcast that mixed hard news and feature stories. The television newsmagazine was born on Sept. 24, 1968, when the "60 Minutes" stopwatch began ticking.

He dreamed of a television version of Life, the dominant magazine of the mid-20th century, where interviews with entertainers could coexist with investigations that exposed corporate malfeasance.

"The formula is simple," he wrote in a memoir in 2001, "and it's reduced to four words every kid in the world knows: Tell me a story. It's that easy."

Hard-driven reporter Mike Wallace, Hewitt's first hire, became the journalist those in power did not want on their doorsteps. Harry Reasoner, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer also reported for the show.

"60 Minutes" won 73 Emmy Awards, 13 DuPont/Columbia University Awards and nine Peabody Awards during Hewitt's stewardship, which ended in 2004.

After Cronkite's death at age 92 on July 17, Hewitt said, "How many news organizations get the chance to bask in the sunshine of a half-century of Edward R. Murrow followed by a half-century of Walter Cronkite?"

Hewitt often said the accepted wisdom for television news writers before "60 Minutes" was to put words to pictures. He believed that was backward.

A Sunday evening fixture, "60 Minutes" was television's top-rated show four times, most recently in 1992-93. While no longer a regular in the top 10 in Hewitt's later years, it was still TV's most popular newsmagazine.

Upon the launch of "60 Minutes," Hewitt recalled that news executive Bill Leonard told him to "make us proud."

"Which may well be the last time anyone ever said `make us proud' to anyone else in television," he wrote in his memoir. "Because Leonard said `make us proud' and not `make us money,' we were able to do both, which I think makes us unique in the annals of television."

As executive producer, Hewitt was responsible for deciding each week which stories would make it on the air. Correspondents and producers alike would wait nervously in screening rooms for his verdict on their work.

Among his other jobs, Hewitt directed the first network television newscast on May 3, 1948. He originated the use of cue cards for news readers, now done by electronic machines. He was the first to "superimpose" words on the TV screen for a news show.

Before the 1960 presidential debate, Hewitt asked Kennedy if he wanted makeup. Tanned and fit, Kennedy said no. Nixon followed his lead. Big mistake.

"As every student of politics knows, that debate – like a Miss America contest – turned on who made the better appearance, not with what he said but with how he looked," Hewitt recalled later. "Kennedy won hands down."

Hewitt did not retire completely. In 2007, he produced a televised version of the "Radio City Christmas Spectacular," bringing the venerable show to a national TV audience for the first time – on NBC.

Donald Shepard Hewitt was born in New York City on Dec. 14, 1922, and grew up in the suburb of New Rochelle. He dropped out of New York University to become a copy boy at the New York Herald Tribune. He joined the Merchant Marines during World War II and worked as a correspondent posted to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's London headquarters.

After the war and a few brief journalism jobs, he took a job as an associate director at CBS News in 1948.

During his tenure, "60 Minutes" was often a place where people came to make news. Presidential candidate Bill Clinton addressed questions of infidelity in 1992, and Al Gore used the show to announce he wouldn't run for president in 2004.

Hewitt often said he was proud of his show's ability to exonerate innocent people through investigations, such as when a Texas man sent to jail for life for robbery was freed after Safer discredited the evidence against him.

When "60 Minutes" showed a tape of Dr. Jack Kevorkian lethally injecting a patient in 1998, it ignited a debate on euthanasia and the proper role of a TV news show.

Hewitt was the subject of an unflattering portrait in the 1999 movie "The Insider," which depicted him caving to pressure from CBS lawyers and not airing a whistleblowing report from an ex-tobacco executive. The full report eventually aired.

Although bitter at the former "60 Minutes" producer who became a hero of "The Insider" for fighting to air the story, Hewitt later said he wasn't proud of his actions.

Hewitt had said he wanted to "die at my desk," creating a delicate situation for CBS. The show's ratings were declining and it had the oldest audience in television, as well as some of the oldest correspondents.

Hewitt, then 80, was persuaded to announce in January 2003 that he would step down at the conclusion of the 2003-2004 season, which he did. In return, CBS gave him a contract that would pay him through age 90.

Hewitt and his wife, Marilyn, had four children.

[moira finnie]

John Quade, an unfamiliar name to many of us, but a highly memorable face has died at 71. A fixture in many Clint Eastwood films and a kajillion tv shows, he was an intimidating physical presence, but I always thought that beneath the often clichéd roles the man was playing, he was kidding. He often seemed to have been born on the back of a motorcycle. His presence in movies added texture and zest to the mostly prosaic productions that were his bread and butter. Here's the obit from the LA Times:


John Quade, a veteran character actor who specialized in playing heavies and appeared in several Clint Eastwood movies, including "Every Which Way But Loose" and its sequel "Any Which Way You Can," has died. He was 71.

Quade died in his sleep of natural causes Sunday at his home in Rosamond, near Lancaster, said his wife, Gwen Saunders. In a more than two-decade career in films and television that began in the late 1960s, Quade played character roles in numerous TV series and in films such as "Papillon," "The Sting" and Eastwood's "High Plains Drifter" and "The Outlaw Josey Wales." He also played Sheriff Biggs in the 1977 TV miniseries "Roots."

"Everybody remembers him for 'Every Which Way But Loose' and 'Any Which Way You Can,' " Quade's wife said Wednesday. "He played Chola, the leader of the motorcycle gang. It was more of a comic relief of the movie; they were a bumbling motorcycle gang."

Although Quade's name might not be familiar to many moviegoers, his face was. In fact, he had a face made for playing heavies.

"He was one of the nicest men you'd ever want to know, but he looked mean and nasty," his wife said. "He looked like he could do murder and mayhem at any moment, but he was a big teddy bear -- the kind that he just loved little kids, but they were always afraid of him.

"His face definitely stands out in a crowd. He had to be careful he didn't overshadow scenes just by the way he looked. The first film he did with Clint Eastwood, Clint hired him for his face and told him afterward that he felt like he got a bonus because John could act."

Born John William Saunders III on April 1, 1938, in Kansas City, Kan., Quade arrived in California in 1964. "He got involved in missile and aerospace for awhile," said his wife. "He built parts that are still on the moon."

One day, she said, "He was sitting in a restaurant with a bunch of guys and this man noticed him and said, 'Have you thought about acting?'

"It had to be his face; it wasn't anything else."

Quade was appearing in a play in Hollywood in 1968 when a casting director saw him and cast him in his first TV show, an episode of "Bonanza."

In addition to his wife of 38 years, he is survived by six children, John Saunders IV, Joseph Saunders, Steven Saunders, Heather Clark, Katherine Adame and Rebecca Saunders; his mother, Norma; two brothers, Merlin and Robert; two sisters, Joyce Copeland and Norma Jean Anderson; and 10 grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at Joshua Memorial Park and Mortuary, 808 E. Lancaster Blvd., Lancaster.

[moira finnie]

Ruth Ford, one of the original members of the Mercury Theatre, has died at age 98. Ms. Ford also appeared as a fashion model being photographed by luminaries such as Man Ray and Cecil Beaton and dressed by Pierre Balmain (she can be seen below having her dress fitted by the designer) in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar in the '30s and '40s.

In her spare time, she also acted in several Broadway shows (including Jean-Paul Sartre's "No Exit" directed by John Huston in 1946) and made several Hollywood programmers for Warner Brothers. 1942's Lady Gangster, which starred Fay Emerson, was one of the more memorable flicks. Ford's comment on her own work in this period was “I made so many terrible movies in Hollywood.”

She also popped up in several better films, often uncredited and often at 20th Century Fox, as she did in Dragonwyck (1944), and the Keys of the Kingdom (1946). One of her best known film roles was in Wilson (1945) as the daughter of Alexander Knox's Woodrow, a sincere but notable turkey of a film from 20th Century Fox. Growing up, she became good friends with the Faulkner family, particularly William Faulkner. She was a muse to the likes of Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee and Truman Capote in her day. Stephen Sondheim suggested that she could have been a lady with a salon, if she'd lived in another, more civilized time.

Her first husband was everyone's favorite silver screen Nazi, Peter Van Eyck whom she'd met when Van Eyck began working the thankless if educational job as Orson Welles' assistant at the Mercury Theatre. Peter Van Eyck was a political refugee from the Nazi regime, and a trained musician, worked in bars playing piano, and as an arranger for Irving Berlin. He reportedly took the acting work because it allowed him to pursue his musical avocation.

She was later wed actor Zachary Scott from 1952 until his death in 1965. The couple were well known for their long and critically successful tours with plays around the country. They were also recalled for their ability to "party-hardy".
Mr. Scott's pet name for her was "Ruthless". Do you think perhaps someone should write a book about this woman's adventures?

Some choice comments attributed to her about her observations in Hollywood:

"Oh, Errol Flynn, I've never had the yen. Victor Mature? Don't know him well but believe Dorothy Parker, a good friend of mine, summed it up well when she said, "He acts as though his body has gone to his head!" My favorite actor of course is Orson Welles. He's wonderful, magnificent, a darling, and I adore him. I like Humphrey Bogart, too. He's just as nice as he can be and looks just the same all the time. Ingrid Bergman? She's just as beautiful and natural off the screen as she is on and is admired by everyone. But one of the nicest people in Hollywood is William Faulkner, who I had known in Mississippi when I was getting my Masters Degree in Philosophy at the University there."

You can see the LA Times obit here

[Lzcutter]

Teddy Kennedy has died. I was hoping to post the LATimes obit but it being the LATimes, they're behind the times. (I so miss my late, great version of the paper).

From the more on the spot NY Times:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died Tuesday night. He was 77 .

The death was announced Wednesday morning in a statement by the Kennedy family.

“Edward M. Kennedy – the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply – died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port,” the statement said. “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.”

Mr. Kennedy had been in precarious health since he suffered a seizure in May 2008 at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass. His doctors determined the cause had been a malignant glioma, a brain tumor that often carries a grim prognosis.

As he underwent cancer treatment, Mr. Kennedy was little seen in Washington, appearing most recently at the White House in April as Mr. Obama signed a national service bill that bears the Kennedy name.

While he had been physically absent from the capital, his presence had been deeply felt as Congress weighed the most sweeping revisions to America’s health care system in decades, an effort Mr. Kennedy called “the cause of my life.”

On July 15, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, which Mr. Kennedy heads, passed health care legislation that he had helped write and that may one day be regarded as the capstone to Mr. Kennedy’s government career.

Mr. Kennedy was the last surviving brother of a generation of Kennedys that dominated American politics in the 1960s and that came to embody glamour, political idealism and untimely death. The Kennedy mystique — some call it the Kennedy myth — has held the imagination of the world for decades and came to rest on the sometimes too-narrow shoulders of the brother known as Teddy.

Mr. Kennedy, who served 46 years as the most well-known Democrat in the Senate, longer than all but two other senators, was the only one of those brothers to die after reaching old age. President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy were felled by assassins’ bullets in their 40s. The eldest brother, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., died in 1944 at the age of 29 while on a risky World War II bombing mission.

Mr. Kennedy spent much of last year in treatment and recuperation, broken by occasional public appearances and a dramatic return to the Capitol last summer to cast a decisive vote on a Medicare bill.

He electrified the opening night of the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August with an unscheduled appearance and a speech that had delegates on their feet. Many were in tears.

His gait was halting, but his voice was strong. “My fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans, it is so wonderful to be here, and nothing is going to keep me away from this special gathering tonight,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I have come here tonight to stand with you to change America, to restore its future, to rise to our best ideals and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States.”

Senator Kennedy was at or near the center of much of American history in the latter part of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st. For much of his adult life, he veered from victory to catastrophe, winning every Senate election he entered but failing in his only try for the presidency; living through the sudden deaths of his brothers and three of his nephews; being responsible for the drowning death on Chappaquiddick Island of a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, a former aide to his brother Robert. One of the nephews, John F. Kennedy Jr., who the family hoped would one day seek political office and keep the Kennedy tradition alive, died in a plane crash in 1999 at age 38.

Mr. Kennedy himself was almost killed, in 1964, in a plane crash, which left him with permanent back and neck problems.

He was a Rabelaisian figure in the Senate and in life, instantly recognizable by his shock of white hair, his florid, oversize face, his booming Boston brogue, his powerful but pained stride. He was a celebrity, sometimes a self-parody, a hearty friend, an implacable foe, a man of large faith and large flaws, a melancholy character who persevered, drank deeply and sang loudly. He was a Kennedy.

Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, one of the institution’s most devoted students, said of his longtime colleague, “Ted Kennedy would have been a leader, an outstanding senator, at any period in the nation’s history.”

Mr. Byrd is one of only two senators to have served longer in the chamber than Mr. Kennedy; the other was Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. In May 2008, on learning of Mr. Kennedy’s diagnosis of a lethal brain tumor, Mr. Byrd wept openly on the floor of the Senate.

Born to one of the wealthiest American families, Mr. Kennedy spoke for the downtrodden in his public life while living the heedless private life of a playboy and a rake for many of his years. Dismissed early in his career as a lightweight and an unworthy successor to his revered brothers, he grew in stature over time by sheer longevity and by hewing to liberal principles while often crossing the partisan aisle to enact legislation. A man of unbridled appetites at times, he nevertheless brought a discipline to his public work that resulted in an impressive catalog of legislative achievement across a broad landscape of social policy.

It appears to go on for another six pages:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/us/po ... nnedy.html

[silentscreen]

And that would appear to be the end of that "Dynasty."

[klondike]

Guess again!

Joseph Patrick Kennedy II (born 24 September 1952, in Brighton, Massachusetts), named after his late uncle Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., is the eldest son of the late U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy.

Career
In November 1986, Kennedy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Massachusetts 8th Congressional District. The Democratic nomination was contested by a number of well-known Democrats with long records of public service, among them veterans of the Massachusetts legislature such as Thomas Gallagher, George Bachrach, and Mel King. However, Kennedy garnered endorsements from the Boston Globe and the retiring incumbent, Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, who held the seat from 1953 to 1987. (From 1947 to 1953, this seat had been held by Kennedy's uncle, President John F. Kennedy.)

Kennedy's legislative efforts in Congress included:

Expanding the availability of credit to working Americans to buy homes and open businesses.
Helping create hundreds of thousands of new affordable housing units nationwide by introducing tax credits to stimulate private investment in neighborhood housing developments.
Proposing a balanced budget amendment as a vehicle to end skyrocketing deficits, bring down interest rates, and free up investment capital for business growth rather than government bonds.
Overhauling federal public housing law for the first time in 60 years, giving local housing authorities the ability to raise standards while protecting those who depend on public housing for shelter.
Preserving and expanding federal research and development accounts that stimulate the creation of new technologies and build the foundation for new jobs and business growth.
Throughout his career in Congress, Kennedy served on the House Banking Committee, where he played an active role in the federal savings and loan bailout, credit reporting reform, Glass-Steagall overhaul, and financial modernization. Kennedy also served on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, passing legislation to strengthen the veterans health care system, investigate the causes of Gulf War Syndrome, and provide medical treatment for veterans of the first Persian Gulf War.In 1991 Kennedy boycotted Queen Elizabeth II's speech to Congress due to Northern Ireland being a member of the United Kingdom. He served in Congress for six terms, until January 1999.

He then returned to Citizens Energy Corporation, a non-profit organization he founded in 1979 to provide discounted heating oil to low-income families. (From 1986 until 1998, it had been run by his brother Michael.) Citizens Energy pursues commercial ventures aimed at generating revenues that in turn are used to generate funds that could assist those in need in the United States and abroad. Citizens Energy has grown to encompass seven separate companies, including one of the largest energy conservation firms in the U.S. Citizens became one of the nation's first energy firms to move large volumes of natural gas to more than 30 states. As a precursor to market changes under electricity deregulation in the late 1990s, Citizens was a pioneer in moving and marketing electrical power over the grid. Kennedy considered running for the Massachusetts governorship in 2002, but opted out citing family difficulties.

Controversy involving Citizens Energy and Venezuela
Citizens Energy Corporation has provided affordable heating oil to low income families in the Northeast since 1979. These charitable efforts were funded largely from profitable commercial ventures and donations. Beginning in 2005, CITGO, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company, PDVSA, has been the primary donor of heating oil to Citizens Energy. The Wall Street Journal and others criticized Citizens Energy for continuing its relationship with the Venezuelan government and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a harsh critic of then-U.S. President George W. Bush.[6] In response, Kennedy has argued that it is hypocritical to criticize a non-profit from accepting oil from Venezuela while numerous other American businesses are profiting from robust trade with Venezuela and at a time when the U.S. government has cut low-income fuel assistance.

During the winter of 2006-2007, CITGO donated 40 million gallons of home heating oil, which served an estimated 170,000 families in 16 states.
Kennedy received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Massachusetts, Boston in 1976. Kennedy married Sheila Brewster Rauch (b. 22 March 1949)[10] on 3 February 1979 in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, daughter of Rudolph Stewart Rauch and Frances Stuart Brewster. The couple divorced in 1991, and Kennedy married Anne Elizabeth "Beth" Kelly (b. 3 April 1957) on 23 October 1993 in Brighton, Massachusetts. His efforts to have the marriage to Rauch annulled led to a controversy: Rauch, who was not Catholic, published a book Shattered Faith asserting that she was opposed to the concept of annulment, because it meant in Roman Catholic theology that the marriage had never actually existed. After the book was published, it was revealed that the annulment was granted on the grounds of mental deficiency. Kennedy has twin sons from his marriage to Rauch: Matthew Rauch Kennedy and Joseph Patrick Kennedy III (b. 4 October 1980 in Boston, Massachusetts). The annulment, which was originally granted by the Boston Archdiocese in 1997, was overturned by the Vatican in 2005. On 19 June 2007, Time Magazine reported that the Roman Rota reversed the declaration of annulment made by the tribunal of the Boston Archdiocese. As the Rota was sitting for that case as a second-instance appellate court, Kennedy could appeal the decision to another Rotal panel.

Possible rise to Senate
With the death of his uncle Ted Kennedy due to a battle with a brain tumor, Joseph Kennedy's name has been mentioned as a possible candidate for his uncle's Senate seat in Massachusetts. State law dictates that a special election would have to take place no fewer than 145 days after a senator steps down or dies and no more than 160 days after.

Personal note: If not for the JOE-4-OIL citizen's aid program this past winter, my home would have gone without heat for most of January.

[moira finnie]

Thank you so much for posting about Teddy, Lynn and Klondike.

His efforts to make this country a decent place to live for all people, and his struggle to overcome his own failings make him a person well worth remembering, not just his place in a famous family.

[jdb1]

For all the elbow-nudging jokes and self-righteous screeds about the private behavior of the Kennedy family, their dedication to effective public service, and their inculcation of their children with the principles of public responsibility from the earliest age look pretty damn good when placed next to the Donald Trumps and Paris Hiltons of this world.

I have now lived through the loss of all three brothers, and I'm feeling pretty sad.

[klondike]

For all the elbow-nudging jokes and self-righteous screeds about the private behavior of the Kennedy family, their dedication to effective public service, and their inculcation of their children with the principles of public responsibility from the earliest age look pretty damn good when placed next to the Donald Trumps and Paris Hiltons of this world.

Hear, hear!
You have cut to the marrow of the subject, more powerfully than I could have, and to the relief of all reading, much more succinctly!

I have now lived through the loss of all three brothers, and I'm feeling pretty sad.

You & I both, Judith!
I am cognizant, and quite grateful, as a fellow New Englander, Democrat & American, for all Edward Kennedy's crusades & battles & goals & victories as a Congressman, and a genuine soldier of principle, for the betterment of the quality of Life here in these United States . . and yet, despite wishing him no further suffering, I do wish he could have been around longer with us, and for us . .

[jdb1]

Klonnny, it has become my firm belief, as I've gone through the turmoils of the latter half of the 20th Century, and now the struggles of the 21st, that we as a nation would now be in a much better place in this world, and with much better national memories, had RFK made it to the White House. As much as as Edward Kennedy grew and developed positively in his public service life, the growth and positive impact of his elder brother would probably have been even greater. I think he had not only the most intellectual and altruistic depth of the three, but was the best at the game of politics, and that's saying something when you are talking about the Kennedy family.

Ah, me.

[silentscreen]

the growth and positive impact of his elder brother would probably have been even greater. I think he had not only the most intellectual and altruistic depth of the three, but was the best at the game of politics, and that's saying something when you are talking about the Kennedy family.

I'm assuming that you're talking about Bobby Kennedy, and if so,I agree. He was the best.

[Lzcutter]

They say that deaths comes in threes. Number #2 has passed away

The esteemed and award winning author, Dominick Dunne has died after a battle with cancer.

From New York:

NEW YORK — Author Dominick Dunne, who told stories of shocking crimes among the rich and famous through his magazine articles and best-selling novels such as "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," died Wednesday in his home at age 83.

Dunne's son, actor-director Griffin Dunne, said in a statement released by Vanity Fair magazine that his father had been battling bladder cancer. But the cancer had not prevented Dunne from working and socializing, his twin passions.

In September 2008, against the orders of his doctor and the wishes of his family, Dunne flew to Las Vegas to attend the kidnap-robbery trial of O.J. Simpson, a postscript to his coverage of Simpson's 1995 murder trial, which spiked Dunne's considerable fame.

In the past year, Dunne had traveled to Germany and the Dominican Republic for experimental stem cell treatments to fight his cancer. He wrote that he and actress Farrah Fawcett were in the same cancer clinic in Bavaria but didn't see each other. Fawcett, a 1970s sex symbol and TV star of "Charlie's Angels," died in June at age 62.

Dunne discontinued his column at Vanity Fair to concentrate on finishing another novel, "Too Much Money," which is to come out in December. He also made a number of appearances to promote a documentary film about his life, "After the Party," which was being released on DVD.

Dunne, who lived in Manhattan, was beginning to write his memoirs and, until close to the end of his life, he posted messages on his Web site commenting on events in his life and thanking his fans for their support.

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter praised Dunne as a gifted reporter who proved as fascinating as the people he wrote about.

"Anyone who remembers the sight of O.J. Simpson trying on the famous glove probably remembers a bespectacled Dunne, resplendent in his trademark Turnbull & Asser monogrammed shirt, on the court bench behind him," Carter wrote in a statement released Wednesday. "It is fair to say that the halls of Vanity Fair will be lonelier without him and that, indeed, we will not see his like anytime soon, if ever again."

Earlier this summer, Dunne was well enough to attend a Manhattan party hosted by Tina Brown. Chatting with an Associated Press reporter, he spoke of Michael Jackson, who had recently died, and remembered lunching with the singer and Elizabeth Taylor. Jackson was so excited to see her, Dunne said, he presented her with a diamond necklace just for the occasion.

Dunne was part of a famous family that also included his brother, novelist and screenwriter John Gregory Dunne; his brother's wife, author Joan Didion; and his son.

A one-time movie producer, Dunne carved a new career starting in the 1980s as a chronicler of the problems of the wealthy and powerful.

Tragedy struck his life in 1982 when his actress daughter, Dominique, was slain – and that experience informed his fiction and his journalistic efforts from then on.

"If you go through what I went through, losing my daughter, you have strong, strong feelings of revenge," Dunne said in 1990 in discussing his novel "People Like Us," in which the protagonist shoots the man convicted of killing his daughter.

"As a novelist, I could create a situation in which I could do in the book what I couldn't do in real life. I intended for Gus (the character in the book) to kill the guy. But when I got to that part I couldn't write it. He wounds him and goes to prison himself for a couple of years."

He was as successful as a journalist as he was as a novelist and spent many of his later years in courtrooms covering high profile trials. Writing for Vanity Fair, he covered such cases as the William Kennedy Smith rape trial in 1991 and the trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez, accused of murdering their millionaire parents, in 1993.

"You're talking about kids who had everything – the cars, the tennis courts, swimming pools, credit cards. And yet this happened," he said at the time of the Menendez trial.

As much as those trials riveted the nation, they were far overshadowed in 1994 when football great O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. With a trial that stretched out over a year and cable TV outlets providing endless coverage, the bespectacled Dunne became a familiar face to millions.

"I especially like to watch the jurors," Dunne explained to Fox TV during the trial. "I always pick out about four jurors who become my favorites. I sort of try to anticipate what they are thinking and how they are reacting."

He called his book on the Simpson trial, "Another City, Not My Own," "a novel in the form of a memoir." It, too, reached the best-seller lists.

"Every word is true, but it's written in the style of a novel," he said.

From the gritty world of the courtroom during the day, he would move into the glamorous realm of high society at night, dining with the rich and famous, charming them with his inside stories of the Simpson trial.

He was a colorful raconteur and his stories mesmerized listeners. He was a much sought after dinner guest on both coasts and in the glamour capitals of Europe where he frequently traveled. He was a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, interviewing members of royalty and movie stars.

His assignments took him to London to cover the inquest into Princess Diana's death and to Monaco to look into the mysterious death of billionaire Edmond Safra.

He continued appearing regularly on television, and in 2002 debuted a weekly program on Court TV, "Power, Privilege and Justice."

"I am openly pro-prosecution and make no bones about it," he told the San Francisco Chronicle that year. "I don't think there are enough people out there sticking up for victims."

The show gave him an added dose of celebrity when it was distributed in foreign countries.

He had already been working on "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," a fictionalized retelling of a sensational 1950s society murder, when his 22-year-old daughter Dominique was strangled by her former boyfriend, John Sweeney, in 1982, shortly after she had completed her first movie, "Poltergeist."

Sweeney was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter, not murder, and was freed after serving less than four years of a six-year sentence. The verdict was seen as a major victory for the defense, and Dunne bitterly told the judge in court, "you withheld important information from this jury about this man's history of violent behavior." He later told the Los Angeles Times the sentence was "a tap on the wrist."

In a 1985 AP interview, Dunne said he nearly stopped writing when Dominique was slain.

"I was going to stop the book," Dunne said. "I didn't want to do a book that dealt with a murder. But my book editor wouldn't let me quit. She was incredibly sympathetic and lenient on time. I'm glad now that she didn't let me quit."

"People Like Us" and "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" were both turned into miniseries, and he stressed he had nothing to do with the changes the TV scriptwriters made.

"If I had wanted it that way, I would have written it that way," Dunne told TV Guide, referring to changes made in the key character in "People Like Us" to make him more sympathetic.

Among his other books were the 1993 "A Season in Purgatory," that helped revive interest in the 1975 slaying of teenager Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Conn. A Kennedy relative, Michael Skakel, was convicted in the killing in 2002.

He also wrote "An Inconvenient Woman" and "The Mansions of Limbo."

In 1999, Dunne published a memoir called, "The Way We Lived Then," a compilation of photographs of him and his family with famous people and his recollections of the glamour life he and his wife Lenny enjoyed for many years.

Dunne was born in 1925 in Hartford, Conn., to a wealthy Roman Catholic family and grew up in some of the same social circles as the Kennedys. In his memoir, he traced his fascination with Hollywood to a childhood trip he took "out West" with an aunt. They took one of those home of the stars bus tours and he vowed to come back and be part of the glamorous world he had glimpsed.

He served in the Army during World War II and graduated from Williams College in 1949.

While in the Army, he was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism in 1944 for carrying two wounded men to safety at the Battle of Merz in Feisberg, Germany.

He wrote that, "Winning a medal was the only thing I can ever remember doing that won any admiration from my father."

At Williams College in Massachusetts, he and a fellow student, Stephen Sondheim, appeared in plays together. After college, he went to New York where he landed a job in the fledgling TV industry as stage manager of the "Howdy Doody" children's show. NBC brought him to Hollywood to stage manage the famous TV version of "The Petrified Forest' with Humphrey Bogart.

Among his credits as a producer were the TV series "Adventures in Paradise" and "The Boys in the Band," a pioneering 1970 drama about gay life. Two of his films, "The Panic in Needle Park" and "Play It As It Lays," were written or co-written by his brother John and sister-in-law Didion.

He was invited to celebrity parties and said he decided then, "This is how I want to live."

But Dunne said his years living the high life in Hollywood left him divorced, broke and addicted, and he moved to a cabin in Oregon to dry out and to start over as a novelist. While his brother was the famous Dunne at that time, the Times said, "nowadays, (Dominick) Dunne is far better known."

John Gregory Dunne died in 2003.

Dunne and his wife, Ellen Griffin Dunne, known as Lenny, were married in 1954. They divorced in the 1960s but he wrote that afterward they remained close nonetheless. She died in 1997.

Beside Dominique, they had two sons, Alexander and Griffin. Griffin has acted in such films as "An American Werewolf in London" and "After Hours." He branched into directing and producing as well, with "Fierce People" and "Practical Magic" among his credits.

[silentscreen]

Now for a different perspective on Teddy Kennedy, and I'm not making this up, lest you think so because I'm somewhat more conservative than the majority of folks here, whose opinions I respect. I just got off the phone with my brother in England, and he said the same thing as this article.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwes ... f-britain/

[Lzcutter]

And here's #3,

Songwriter Ellie Greenwich has passed away. For those of us of a certain age her songs were the backdrop of our adolescence, teen years and even now in middle-age we still enjoy them. Songs like "Be My Baby", "Leader of the Pack" and "Chapel of Love" (which my friends serenaded me with on our way to my wedding).

From LAObserved and Rolling Stone:

Ellie Greenwich, a songwriter who along with producer Phil Spector and co-writer Jeff Barry crafted some of the biggest and greatest singles of the 1960s, passed away at the age of 68. The AP reports that Greenwich died of a heart attack in New York’s Roosevelt Hospital, where she was battling pneumonia. Among the most famous songs that list Greenwich as a songwriter are the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” and “Baby, I Love You,” the Shangri-La’s “Leader of the Pack,” the Dixie Cups’ “Chapel of Love,” Tina & Ike Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High” and the Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me” and “Da Doo Ron Ron.” Each of those landmark tracks were listed among Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Discovered by famed songwriters Leiber and Stoller, Greenwich’s other major hits include Manfred Mann’s “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy,” Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and Tommy James’ and the Shondells’ “Hanky Panky.” Greenwich and Barry also helped nurture the career of a fledgling singer-songwriter named Neil Diamond, and Greenwich and Barry produced and contributed background vocals to Diamond hits like “Kentucky Woman,” “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” “Cherry, Cherry,” “Red, Red Wine” and “I’m a Believer.”

Greenwich, along with Barry, was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 1991. A Broadway show dedicated to songs co-written by Greenwich and based on her life called Leader of the Pack debuted on Broadway, where it was nominated for a Best Musical Tony in 1985. Greenwich also recorded her own solo album, Ellie Greenwich Composes, Produces and Sings, in 1968, and often sang backup for artists like Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin and Dusty Springfield. The family asks that donations be made to the VH1 Save the Music Foundation.

[klondike]

Now for a different perspective on Teddy Kennedy, and I'm not making this up, lest you think so because I'm somewhat more conservative than the majority of folks here, whose opinions I respect. I just got off the phone with my brother in England, and he said the same thing as this article.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwes ... f-britain/

SS, everybody is entitled to their own opinion.
Here's mine: I find the viewpoint that Edward Kennedy's career accomplishments are dismissable, or should be reassessed, because of his opinion about a foreign situation, is at best wrongheaded, and at worst slanderously insulting and politically myopic.
What American would opt to judge an elected official's effectiveness or potential worth based on the depth of their charitable feelings towards another G8 nation, especially one as powerful & entrenched as England?
Many Americans feel that the English government is long overdue to vacate their dominion in the northeasternmost six of Ireland's 32 counties, especially those of us who are only 2 - 3 generations removed from Irish immigrants driven from their homeland by a devastating famine, which could have been handily relieved by intervention from the British Colonial Office, but never was. Certainly, our tactics toward aboriginal Americans are no more pleasant nor defensible, but let's keep the perspective on 20th/21st century reality: if 80% of our native landmass had been won back by a unified Amerind government 80+ years ago, and they had been demanding the political surrender of the final contiguous piece ever since, I doubt we descendent Euro-Americans could find any moral justification to keep political control of that remaining chunk of geography.
After all, by that perspective, how is Northern Ireland any different, colonially, than South Africa, or Hong Kong? If the Sun has indeed set on the British Empire, isn't it time on everybody's clock to fold up the Union Jacks and go home?
But all that's just fat to be chewed at bars and on back porches; here's the real grist in this mill - for the past thirty years, Edward Kennedy has worked tirelessly to champion the causes of education, ecology, tax relief, health care reform, alternative energy developement, political accountability and the wars against poverty & racism; the quality of life in this nation is markedly better for his achievements, and the memory of his hard work & devotion to principle is, or should be, a point of pride for all Americans.
As for that night in Chappaquiddick, whatever might really have happened, however sad & regrettable, I feel it's extremely hypocritical for subjects of a nation governed by the frequently scandalous House of Windsor , not to mention the checkered past of many of their Parliamentarians , to be looking down their long noses at anything transpiring on this side of the Atlantic!
At least when we launder our dirty linen, we do our best to run our lines out in plain view!