Celebrity Deaths

[West of the Rockies]

Dear God, it's been 75 years since The Wizard of Oz was filmed! And not one but two Munchkins yet survive? How can it be? Witchcraft? Mummification per the Egyptian Book Of The Dead? Time travel?

Especially, Sardondi, considering that "little people" tend to suffer lots more health problems than non-little people (or so I have been told).  Look at it this way:  The movie came in in 1939...  WWII ended just six years later.  There are still a substantial number of WWII vets on the planet.  If you were a teenager or in your early 20's on that film, you could still be respirating at something above room temperature.

[West of the Rockies]

It is curious how our concept of time is often pretty sketchy.  It strikes me as quite weird that Clint Eastwood is now 83.  How the hell did that happen?  Wasn't he just on our big screens striking fear in the hearts of old-west badmen a few years ago?  How is that Clint is now 83, yet Mickey Rooney -- who was acting in the 1930's! -- is still alive?

Well, of course, Mickey started acting as a child.  We met Clint onscreen when he was a 20-something (back in, what, 1960 or so?).

But it is very strange, life, culture, fame, etc.  (Could I be more vague?)  It is so odd to me that the gorgeous Jaclyn Smith is 65 or so.  Now there are so many 20-something's who are famous who I don't even recognize.  Ah, evidently, Cutie McHotpants is on the TV show that I've never heard of....

Oh, well... rant over.

[aldousburbank]

Next one to go?  I predict Fidel or Pee Wee Herman.

[b_dubb]

re: WWII vets who are still alive ... i just learned recently that an older gentleman that attends my church was a POW during WWII.  he was captured and spent several years here in America.  yeah.  that's right.  German regular army.  surprise. and for 90 he looks pretty good too.  still riding his motorcycle.  still hauling his gear around in truck. 

[Sardondi]

Next one to go?  I predict Fidel or Pee Wee Herman.

Well, let me check my Dead Pool here. George Jones, check. Amy Winehouse, check - although she did last about a year longer than I guessed. She was a gamer. Hmmm. Ah, it is going to be Mickey Rooney, who'd next project is Death Loves Andy Hardy.

Man, that's cold.

[Eddie Coyle]

       Fidel Castro still alive.

       But Ariel Castro isn't. Suicide(  ) in jail.

[eddie dean]

       Fidel Castro still alive.

       But Ariel Castro isn't. Suicide(  ) in jail.

What! you mean he didn't think the prison was harmonious?
scumbag got off easy.

[MV/Liberace!]

scumbag got off easy.

think about the years of public funds that have just been saved.  that's a plus.

i have no idea if hell exists... but guys like this make me hope it does.

[Nucky Nolan]

Tommy Morrison, former WBO heavyweight boxing champion and star of "Rocky V", succumbed to either Guillain-Barre Syndrome or complications from AIDS. His professional boxing record was 48-3-1 with 42 knockouts. Of course, the MSM geniuses show only scenes from his three losses in their highlight and tribute reels. Idiots.

[eddie dean]

think about the years of public funds that have just been saved.  that's a plus.

I agree. he did the tax payers a favor, but if there was anyone who deserved to be locked up, handcuffed,  and confined for 1000 years it was him. Oh and throw in some man rape and beat downs too.

[UnscreenedCaller]

think about the years of public funds that have just been saved.  that's a plus.

i have no idea if hell exists... but guys like this make me hope it does.

Those girls spent 11 years in captivity and this shithead could only take 4 months. Coward.

[HorrorRetro]

Cal Worthington has died.  I think he was mainly famous on the West Coast and Alaska.  I grew up with his commercials.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Cal-Worthington-car-dealer-famed-for-TV-ads-dies-223012231.html

[onan]

Cal Worthington has died.  I think he was mainly famous on the West Coast and Alaska.  I grew up with his commercials.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Cal-Worthington-car-dealer-famed-for-TV-ads-dies-223012231.html

What about Spot?

[aldousburbank]

Spot was the best. Hope he's still with us.

[HorrorRetro]

No word on Spot's whereabouts. 

[PB the Deplorable]

Ken Norton is dead.

That's back when boxing was fun - Norton, Frazier, Ali, Foreman, Angelo Dundee, Howard Cosell, so-called bums of the month like Jerry Quarry, Duane Bobick, Chuck Wepner, Joe Bugner.

The last fight I watched was Ali-Spinks

[b_dubb]

Ken Norton is dead.

That's back when boxing was fun - Norton, Frazier, Ali, Foreman, Angelo Dundee, Howard Cosell, so-called bums of the month like Jerry Quarry, Duane Bobick, Chuck Wepner, Joe Bugner.

The last fight I watched was Ali-Spinks

If I remember my boxing I believe Norton was the fellow who "shut Ali up"?

[Sardondi]

If I remember my boxing I believe Norton was the fellow who "shut Ali up"?

The technical term I think is "slobberknocked him". Norton fractured Ali's's mandible. Biblically, it was Samson who used one to slay 1,000 Philistines, but in the 1973 fight, Ken Norton didn't use one; he overcame "the jawbone of an ass."

I liked Ken Norton. I don't recall any scandal associated with him. He was a family man, a former Marine. (His son Ken Jr. played college fball for UCLA in the late 80's and then pro linebacker for more than a decade, mostly for Dallas and San Francisco.) Norton had a beautiful boxer's physique, an inverted pyramid, which was rare in the days before Steroids let athletes cheat their way to beautiful bodies in a matter of weeks.

Like so many fighters - and Norton was not really a highly skilled boxer, much more of a hitter - Norton hung around the fight game too long and took too much punishment.While he had enough skill to whip Ali decisively, most of his wins were last-man-standing contests. It sickened me to watch his last fight in 1981 when as an almost 38-year-old man he took on a 24-year-old Gerry Cooney, himself more a bar bouncer than a legitimate boxing contender. But Cooney caught the wave of excitement of those white fight fans who longed for the days of Rocky Marciano, and who desperately wanted Cooney to be the "Great White Hope" and return the heavyweight belt to a white boxer*. Norton had already defeated one GWH in Duane Bobick, whom he made mincemeat of in less than one minute in the first round in 1978. But boxing promoter Don King of the PT Barnum school of promoting, played 1981 Cooney-Norton up as the "Great White Hope" vs."The Mandingo" (Norton starred as the main character in that 1975 movie). The Norton Cooney faced was already about 3 years past his sell-by date. As it was Cooney came out mauling and happened to catch a sluggish Norton several times in the head and hurt him. Norton got backed into  a neutral corner and took several more shots. Finally, in one of those sickening scenes which turn people into lifelong opponents of the sport, Norton collapsed into a defenseless semi-sitting crouch, held up by his back pressing against the ring's corner post. With his hands down and unable to defend himself, Cooney teed off on Norton with several huge shots, one or two of which should have knocked him slap out. Somehow Norton stayed more or less upright, although crouched. Finally the referee caught on the fighter was defenseless and called the fight, but he did it about a dozen killing punches too late. Cooney won, Norton announced his retirement from fighting the next day as I recall. It took all of 58 seconds for the fight to end, which was about 20 seconds too long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fb0Qidm9Fg

Ken Norton was a decent man, which was unusual in those days.


*Not only did people actually think like this then, they spoke openly of it. Well, some people did.

[stevesh]

Personal computer pioneer (and C2C guest) Wayne Green, dead at 91. Nice obit here:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/pcs/22826/goodbye-wayne-green-and-thanks-memories

[stevesh]

Military thriller author Tom Clancy - dead at 66.

[b_dubb]

Military thriller author Tom Clancy - dead at 66.

"Hunt For Red October" was a helluva good book

[widespread1]

Cal Worthington has died.  I think he was mainly famous on the West Coast and Alaska.  I grew up with his commercials.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Cal-Worthington-car-dealer-famed-for-TV-ads-dies-223012231.html

I hope his dog spot is ok

[West of the Rockies]

Happily, I am not reporting a celebrity death but instead asking a question:  has anyone been surprised to hear that a certain celebrity is still alive?  I would have sworn that James Garner passed away a few years ago, but he is still alive and kicking at 85.  I'd have bet my vast fortune  that David Crosby had died 20 years ago, but he, too, remains vertical. 

How old is Mickey Rooney (Yeah, I know, I could Google it -- it's a rhetorical question really)?  Wasn't he making movies in the friggin' 1930's?  What, is he Lazarus Long?

[Sardondi]

All three alive: Rooney and Garner in their 90's and 80's respectively, and Crosby in his..ahem...early 70's. Mickey and Jim clearly have superior genes; but Crosby has a superior health plan, since he destroyed his first liver through massive, longterm alcohol poisoning and the toxic overload of metabolizing 10 lifetimes' of narcotics, and had his medical insurance company friend Phil Collins buy him a new one (as well as the expensive team necessary for installation and maintenance) from some kid who had a fatal motorcycle accident or something. Add on the fact is a diabetic who lived like he did and, yeah, I kinda resent the fact David Crosby is alive.

But I do not begrudge Mickey and Jim anything. Mickey worked, and worked hard, as a kid in vaudeville in the 20's, and then in the movies from the age of 12 or so, churning out a movie every few weeks in the heyday of the Andy Hardy series in the 40's. He's truly like a firehorse who hears the alarm bell when he hears an audience, and was making appearances in specials even up until the last few years.

As for Garner, for 20 years or more he has had a very difficult time getting around (as I suspect Mickey does), and is often in pain because of the many orthopedic injuries suffered in his movie career. A little six degrees info - Garner served in my late F-in-L's platoon (US Army 5th Regimental Combat Team) in Korea in, IIRC, 1951. Then he was known as "Baumgarner". My F-in-L said he was a "good enough" soldier of high intelligence but a little on the wild, smart-ass side. My F-in-L said (Baum)Garner was considered extremely lucky in the platoon since he was wounded in the legs by mortar fire and evacuated the day before the N Koreans overran their position and got in the trenches, where it turned into terrible hand-to-hand combat to the death. Until his dying day at the age of 78, 2-3 times a week my F-in-L would wake screaming and in terror from a nightmare about how a NK soldier jumped into his trench in front of him and bayoneted him in the arm as my F-in-L shot and killed him. At reunions of the 5th RCT in the 70's survivors of this night would comment wryly on how "Rockford", who was the kind of guy who always had an angle, wangled a way to escape The Night The Gooks Got In The Trenches. But they were actually kind of proud of him, although he never participated in any of the reunions and none of them saw him after 1951, AFAIK.

[stevesh]

Happily, I am not reporting a celebrity death but instead asking a question:  has anyone been surprised to hear that a certain celebrity is still alive?  I would have sworn that James Garner passed away a few years ago, but he is still alive and kicking at 85.  I'd have bet my vast fortune  that David Crosby had died 20 years ago, but he, too, remains vertical. 

Happens to me on a regular basis. I actually bet someone money not long ago that Melissa Leo had died. No idea where this kind of misbelief comes from.

[Falkie2013]

Happens to me on a regular basis. I actually bet someone money not long ago that Melissa Leo had died. No idea where this kind of misbelief comes from.

I watched the Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again and was boggled to find that Barbara Hale was still going strong at 90.
She looked great in the sequel long before she became Della Street on Perry Mason.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Falkie2013]

It is curious how our concept of time is often pretty sketchy.  It strikes me as quite weird that Clint Eastwood is now 83.  How the hell did that happen?  Wasn't he just on our big screens striking fear in the hearts of old-west badmen a few years ago?  How is that Clint is now 83, yet Mickey Rooney -- who was acting in the 1930's! -- is still alive?

Well, of course, Mickey started acting as a child.  We met Clint onscreen when he was a 20-something (back in, what, 1960 or so?).

But it is very strange, life, culture, fame, etc.  (Could I be more vague?)  It is so odd to me that the gorgeous Jaclyn Smith is 65 or so.  Now there are so many 20-something's who are famous who I don't even recognize.  Ah, evidently, Cutie McHotpants is on the TV show that I've never heard of....

Oh, well... rant over.

All the women on tv and the movies that I had horrible crushes on when I was growing up and discovering girls are now old.
* sigh *
Barbara Eden is now 82. Last I'd looked a few years ago she was 75. I had the worst crush on her, Stella Stevens and Yvonne Craig.
Now the only one I've seen on tv of this current generation who'd interest me at all were I 30 years younger is Christina Hendricks.
Most of the current crop of actors and actresses bore me to death, though I consider George Clooney to be this generations Cary Grant in some ways. I also like Hugh Grant as well when I've seen him on talk shows and the guy who plays Wolverine. Funny how the man make a greater impression than the twit actresses one sees.
As an example, while she's not an actress, no one would pay attention to Paris Hilton if she hadn't been rich.
I do like Pauly Perette on NCIS. And of course, David " Ducky " McCallum.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Falkie2013]

Ken Norton is dead.

That's back when boxing was fun - Norton, Frazier, Ali, Foreman, Angelo Dundee, Howard Cosell, so-called bums of the month like Jerry Quarry, Duane Bobick, Chuck Wepner, Joe Bugner.

The last fight I watched was Ali-Spinks

Long before those guys, most of whom are or were bums ( excluding Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton ) I watched Patterson, Johannsen, and others way back in the 1950's and still think of the Gillette Fight Song and the Gillette Parrot and Friday Night Fights which were sponsored by Gillette when I think of boxing.

[Sardondi]

Long before those guys, most of whom are or were bums ( excluding Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton ) I watched Patterson, Johannsen, and others way back in the 1950's and still think of the Gillette Fight Song and the Gillette Parrot and Friday Night Fights which were sponsored by Gillette when I think of boxing

The Friday night fights! I too can hear the Gillette song in my head. The days of Rocky Marciano - probably the greatest heavyweight of all time, almost certainly the hardest puncher. That was boxing: a black and white tv screen showing old, stinky men in old, stinky gyms, smoking old, stinky cigars as they watched true diversity in the ring: mostly Italian and Irish kids, when blacks and Puerto Ricans and Chicano kids were just starting to get a shot. Average folks knew who boxers were in those days, and not just the champs, and not just the heavyweights.

[UnscreenedCaller]

The Friday night fights! I too can hear the Gillette song in my head. The days of Rocky Marciano - probably the greatest heavyweight of all time, almost certainly the hardest puncher. That was boxing: a black and white tv screen showing old, stinky men in old, stinky gyms, smoking old, stinky cigars as they watched true diversity in the ring: mostly Italian and Irish kids, when blacks and Puerto Ricans and Chicano kids were just starting to get a shot. Average folks knew who boxers were in those days, and not just the champs, and not just the heavyweights.

A little nostalgia: http://www.televisiontunes.com/Gillette_Cavalcade_of_Sports_-_Boxing.html

You could find me on Friday nights when I was a wee UnscreenedCallerette, on the sofa flanked by my father and grandfather, eating pig knuckles, stealing sips of beer and watching the fights.