In Memorium

[Natalka]

Oh, RIP Toller - I was a HUGE fan!



https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/cp-...6542--oly.html

Some of his art is just FAB!



http://artevolution.com/shop/toller-cranston

[Darth Penguin]

Greek singer Demis Roussos dies aged 68

Greek singer Demis Roussos, who sold more than 60 million albums worldwide, has died aged 68, the Hygeia Hospital in Athens has confirmed to the BBC.
He was best known for his solo hits in the 1970s and 80s, including Forever and Ever, Goodbye and Quand je t'aime.
He was also a member of progressive rock group Aphrodite's Child.
Roussos was renowned for his off-screen role in Mike Leigh's 1977 TV play Abigail's Party, having provided the party's soundtrack.
He had been in the private hospital with an undisclosed illness for some time.
His Aphrodite's Child bandmate Vangelis paid tribute in a statement that begins: "Demis my friend.
"I have just arrived in London and I've been told that you decide to take the long voyage, I'm shocked because I can't believe that this happened so soon.
"Nature gave you this magic voice of yours which made millions of people around the world very happy."
Roussos was as famous for his outfits as his music
He added: "As for me, I keep those special memories that we share together those early days and I wish you to be happy wherever you are."
He signed off with the words: "Goodbye my friend goodbye. Love Vangelis."

[Darth Penguin]

Underwater photographer Lotte Hass dies aged 86

Lotte Hass, who has died aged 86, was an underwater photographer and model who, with her husband Hans, produced pioneering films of the sea depths during the 1950s.

Shot on early watertight cameras, the Hasses’ footage offered viewers a glimpse of an underwater world unparalleled in its intimacy – at considerable personal risk to Lotte, who dived using a lightweight rebreather and a fashionable swimsuit that afforded her little protection from aquatic predators. The bulky filming equipment posed a separate danger, and on one occasion she almost drowned when her oxygen supply ran out and the heavy lens required for colour shots dragged her down.

In the male-dominated divers’ community, Lotte was a striking exception, and her good looks, combined with a fearless approach to sharks, manta rays and other perils, contributed in large part to the audience appeal. Diving To Adventure, the couple’s 1956 BBC series, was the first of its kind for British television, proving a great hit with critics and viewers alike

[Natalka]

There will undoubtedly be a massive lawsuit against that clinic that killed her.

Melissa Rivers filed a malpractice lawsuit Monday against doctors and the clinic where her mother, Joan Rivers, suffered a medical emergency that led to her death last year.

Melissa Rivers strongly attacked the Yorkville Endoscopy clinic where her mother went in last year for a procedure to check on a raspy throat, fell unconscious and never woke up.

"The level of medical mismanagement, incompetency, disrespect and outrageous behavior is shocking and frankly, almost incomprehensible, " Melissa said in a statement.

Among other things, the clinic doctors and Joan's own doctor are accused of allowing a cellphone selfie to be snapped of Rivers while she was unconscious on the operating table.

Melissa said filing the suit was one of the most difficult decisions she had to make.
"What ultimately guided me was my unwavering belief that no family should ever have to go through what my mother, Cooper and I have been through," she said, referring to her son.
Not only did her mother deserve better, every patient deserves better, she said.
"It is my goal to make sure that this kind of horrific medical treatment never happens to anyone again."

The lawsuit said doctors mishandled what should have been a routine endoscopy and performed another medical procedure called a laryngoscopy on her vocal cords without consent. The suit also charged the doctor left the operating room to avoid being caught.


A federal investigation, ordered by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, found the Yorkville Endoscopy clinic made several errors, including failing to keep proper medication records and snapping cellphone photos of Rivers while she was unconscious.

It also found the Manhattan clinic failed to get informed consent for every procedure performed and failed to record Rivers' weight before the administration of sedation medication.

The clinic submitted a lengthy plan for fixes, but the changes weren't good enough and the federal agency said it would revoke accreditation unless it was in better compliance by March 2.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/p...eath/22372129/

[Natalka]

RIP Colleen McCullough

Australian writer Colleen McCullough died Thursday; she was 77 years old. McCullough was best known for her novel The Thorn Birds, a huge hugely popular romance which has sold 30 million copies around the world, and has never gone out of print.

[Natalka]

Songwriter, Poet Rod McKuen Dies At 81



Rod McKuen died on Thursday in Beverly Hills, Calif., after a lengthy illness.
McKuen is credited with more than 200 albums and more than 30 collections of poetry.

Love this song!

[Patty Smyth]

RIP Colleen McCullough

Australian writer Colleen McCullough died Thursday; she was 77 years old. McCullough was best known for her novel The Thorn Birds, a huge hugely popular romance which has sold 30 million copies around the world, and has never gone out of print.

and then there's this people are just gross

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fa...cklash-n297291

[Darth Penguin]

barf!...

[walkonby]

just heard this news....after all the things he survived in his career, a car accident causes his early death, very sad. R.I.P. Bob Simon.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news...mon-1941-2015/

NEW YORK -- Bob Simon, the longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent and legendary CBS News foreign reporter died suddenly tonight in a car accident in New York City.
The award-winning newsman was 73.
"It's a terrible loss for all of us at CBS News," 60 Minutes Executive Producer Jeff Fager said in a statement. "It is such a tragedy made worse because we lost him in a car accident, a man who has escaped more difficult situations than almost any journalist in modern times.
Bob Simon, correspondent for 60 Minutes and CBS News.
John Paul Filo/CBS
"Bob was a reporter's reporter. He was driven by a natural curiosity that took him all over the world covering every kind of story imaginable," Fager said. "There is no one else like Bob Simon. All of us at CBS News and particularly at 60 Minutes will miss him very much."
Simon was riding in the backseat of a livery cab around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday on New York City's West Side Highway when the car rear-ended another vehicle and crashed into barriers separating north- and southbound traffic, the New York Police Department said in a statement. Unconscious with head and torso injuries, Simon was transported to St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital where he died. The livery cab driver was taken to another hospital with injuries to his arms and legs.
Simon's five-decade career took him through most major overseas conflicts spanning from the late 1960s to the present. He joined CBS News in 1967 as a New York-based reporter and assignment editor, covering campus unrest and inner city riots. Simon also worked in CBS News' Tel Aviv bureau from 1977-81, and worked in Washington D.C. as the network's State Department correspondent.
Play Video
Life and times of a foreign correspondent


But Simon's career in war reporting was extensive, beginning in Vietnam. While based in Saigon from 1971-72, his reports on the war -- and particularly the Hanoi 1972 spring offensive -- won an Overseas Press Club award award for the Best Radio Spot News for coverage of the end of the conflict. Simon was there for the end of the conflict and was aboard one of the last helicopters out of Saigon in 1975.
He also reported on the violence in Northern Ireland in from 1969-71 and also from war zones in Portugal, Cyprus, the Falkland Islands, the Persian Gulf, Yugoslavia and American military actions in Grenada, Somalia and Haiti.
Simon was named CBS News' chief Middle East correspondent in 1987, and became the leading broadcast journalist in the region, working in Tel Aviv for more than 20 years. In 1991, he won another OPC Award for reporting of the Gulf War. In 1996 he won one more OPC Award, a Peabody Award and two Emmy Awards for coverage of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. CBS News recieved an RTNDA Overall Excellence in Television Award in 1996 largely because of Simon's reporting from war-torn Sarajevo.


Play Video
Bob Simon recalls first moment he saw freed Nelson Mandela


Moving into the 21st century, he was able to get two major interviews for 60 Minutes, including the first Western interview with extremist Iraqi cleric Muqtada al Sadr, and another with his Shiite Muslim rival, the Ayatollah al-Hakim, who was killed shortly after the interview.
Another Peabody Award came in 2000 for "a body of work by an outstanding international journalist on a diverse set of critical global issues." And a Lifetime Achievement Emmy was also awarded to him in 2003.
Simon also lent his skills to CBS's Olympics coverage. For the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, he reported on the failed attempt of Israel's secret intelligence organization, the Mossad, to avenge the attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, for which he won an Emmy.
For the coverage of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, he gave a 30-minute report on Louis Zamperini, an American Olympian who survived as a prisoner of war, held by the Japanese during World War II. The story won him a Sports Emmy.
Simon's most-recent piece for 60 Minutes aired this past weekend, his conversation with Ava DuVernay, the director of the Academy Award-nominated film "Selma."

Simon was born on May 29, 1941, in the Bronx, N.Y., and was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis University in 1962 with a degree in history. He served as an American Foreign Service officer (1964-67). He was a Fulbright scholar in France and a Woodrow Wilson scholar.
He is survived by his wife, Françoise, and their daughter, Tanya, who is a producer for 60 Minutes.

[Natalka]

RIP Gary Owens, aged 80



Owens was probably best known as the announcer on NBC’s “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” (1968-73), with his trademark hand-over-the-ear announcing style. On the show, John Wayne once imitated Owens announcing. The phrase Gary created on his KMPC radio show, “Beautiful downtown Burbank,” later became a nightly catchphrase on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.”

Owens also lent his voice to more than 3,000 cartoons, providing the voice of “Space Ghost” as well as Blue Falcon, Roger Ramjet, Powdered Toast Man and even Batman. He was animated as himself in “Garfield and Friends,” “The Fantastic Four,” “Eek the Cat” and “Bobby’s World.”

He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Arleta, and sons Scott Owens, a producer, and Chris Dane Owens, a musician and producer.

http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/gary...80-1201433731/

[Patty Smyth]

The limo driver in the Simon death has a long bad history and was previously fired from that job then re-hired when new management took over. I see a huge lawsuit to come in this case.

[Natalka]

RIP Leslie Gore, 68





Singer-songwriter Lesley Gore, who topped the charts in 1963 at age 16 with her epic song of teenage angst, "It's My Party," and followed it up with the hits "Judy's Turn to Cry," and the feminist anthem "You Don't Own Me," died Monday. She was 68.

Gore died of lung cancer at New York University Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, according to her partner of 33 years, Lois Sasson.

Brooklyn-born and New Jersey-raised, Gore was discovered by Quincy Jones as a teenager and signed to Mercury Records. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a degree in English/American literature.

Gore's other hits include "She's A Fool," ''Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows," ''That's the Way Boys Are" and "Maybe I Know." She co-wrote with her brother, Michael, the Academy Award-nominated "Out Here On My Own" from the film "Fame."

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/...es-68-29004127

[Natalka]

I was born in 1961, but my older sisters played her music all the time.

[Natalka]

[Shwa Girl]

Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.

His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed his death, saying the cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Mr. Nimoy announced last year that he had the disease, which he attributed to years of smoking, a habit he had given up three decades earlier. He had been hospitalized earlier in the week.