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Lunacy R.I.P

Reiner assistant Judy Nagy told Variety he died of natural causes Monday night at his home in Beverly Hills. TMZ reports that he was surrounded by family. The Too Busy to Die author was survived by children director Rob Reiner, author and playwright Annie Reiner and artist Lucas Reiner. His wife, Estelle, died in 2008.

HOLLYWOOD, CA - APRIL 07: Carl Reiner and Rob Reiner are honored with Hand and Footprint Ceremony, part of the 2017 TCM Classic Film Festival at TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX on April 7, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

I just love Rob Reiner. Here’s Rob and his dad.
His son Rob Reiner wrote, “Last night my dad passed away. As I write this my heart is hurting. He was my guiding light.”
 
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/02/reports-longtime-broadcaster-hugh-downs-has-died-at-99/


Reports: Longtime broadcaster Hugh Downs has died at 99
Downs died Wednesday at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona

GettyImages-137240988.jpg

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
Former “TODAY” Show correspondent Hugh Downs attends the “TODAY” Show 60th anniversary celebration at The Edison Ballroom on January 12, 2012 in New York City.
By REUTERS |
PUBLISHED: July 2, 2020 at 11:28 a.m. | UPDATED: July 2, 2020 at 11:56 a.m.
By Lisa Richwine and Bill Trott | Reuters
Hugh Downs, whose congeniality and authoritative manner allowed him to move between the world of games shows and U.S. network news, has died at the age of 99, according to U.S. media reports.
Downs, who hosted the game show “Concentration” and the ABC News show “20/20” during a radio and television career of more than 60 years, died Wednesday at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, according to a statement from his family that was cited by several U.S. media outlets.
Downs’ television work ranged from “Today,” NBC’s morning news show, to “Tonight,” working with Jack Paar. In 1985 the “Guinness Book of World Records” said he had been on commercial television a record 15,188 hours – a mark that stood until Regis Philbin surpassed it in 2004.

“I thought TV was a gimmick like 3-D movies and it would just go away,” Downs, who had a friendly, low-key manner on the air, said in an interview with the Archive of American Television. “I had no idea that the tail would eventually wag the dog and treat me much kinder than radio did.”
Downs’ broadcasting career began at age 18 when he auditioned for a radio announcer job on a whim in his hometown of Lima, Ohio. After serving in the Army in World War Two, he joined the NBC radio network in Chicago and that led to television announcing jobs, including work on the “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” children’s show and a soap opera.
Bigger television assignments lay ahead in New York in the late 1950s – announcer on Sid Caesar’s “Caesar’s Hour” and announcer-sidekick to host Paar on “The Tonight Show” from 1957 until 1962.
Downs had a co-starring role in one of television’s most dramatic moments of the 1960s when the emotional Paar walked off the stage during taping in protest of NBC censoring one of his jokes. Downs, who had known that Paar was going to quit but did not expect a walkout, was called upon to fill in for the rest of the show.
In 1958, Downs became the host of “Concentration,” a new daytime NBC game show that tested contestants’ memory and ability to solve a picture puzzle. The show was a quick success and Downs was host for 10 years, continuing with the job even after he became an anchor on NBC’s “Today” morning show in 1962.

Downs spent 11 years on “Today,” many as co-anchor with Barbara Walters, and interviewed scores of celebrities, politicians and other newsmakers.
He joined ABC’s “20/20” show in its second week on the air in 1978 and was reunited with Walters, who became his co-anchor.
He also contributed special reports to the show, including one on his double knee replacement surgery and others on medicine and geriatrics, a field in which he had a long-running interest.
Each week he signed off the show by saying, “We’re in touch, so you be in touch,” before leaving the show and network television in 1999.
In his later years Downs was seen on television in an infomercial for a book promoting health secrets.
Downs won Emmys for his work on “Today” in 1970, for hosting PBS series on aging, “Over Easy,” in 1981 and “Live From Lincoln Center” in 1991.
Downs’ interests included music composition, aviation, astronomy and space exploration. He served as chairman of the National Space Society, a non-profit organization that promotes space exploration.
Among the several books that he wrote were an autobiography, “Yours Truly, Hugh Downs”; “A Shoal of Stars,” his account of sailing a 65-foot ketch across the Pacific; and “Thirty Dirty Lies About Old Age.”
Downs and his wife, Ruth, had two children.
 
Marijuana Legalization Legend Dr. Lester Grinspoon Passes Away

View attachment 19294

One day after celebrating his 92nd birthday, marijuana legalization pioneer Dr. Lester Grinspoonpassed away on June 25.

Grinspoon's breakthrough 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered, written while he worked at Harvard, opened the door to a discussion about the plant's benefits during a time when it had already been prohibited for 34 years.

Grinspoon called for legalization in the book:


Born on June 24, 1928 in Newtown, MA, Grinspoon attended Tufts University and Harvard Medical School. He eventually worked at Harvard Medical School in the psychiatry department and at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center.

When he started researching cannabis, Grinspoon considered it a harmful drug. But eventually his opinion changed.

Carl Sagan as Mr. X
Many years after the publication of Marihuana Reconsidered, Grinspoon revealed that the chapter written by "Mr. X" was actually famed astrophysicist Carl Sagan, who passed away in 1996.

Sagan concluded in the book:

"The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world."



Defending Lennon
At the 2011 NORML Conference, Grinspoon discussed his relationship with John Lennon:

"I met John Lennon after Attorney General John Mitchell, under Nixon, wanted to get Lennon out of the country because he was effectively protesting the Vietnam War. They started an exportation proceeeding on the basis of hash being found by a Scotland Yard policeman who was determined to get the Beatles. John said it was planted. He was convicted."

Grinspoon testified at Lennon's exportation trial in 1973 as a marijuana expert. Asked if hash and marijuana were the same thing, he said that was incorrect. "I wasn't going to do their work," Grinspoon noted. "They're going to have to fish for it." The government dropped the case when it couldn't prove hash was the same as marijuana.

View attachment 19295

Later in His Career
Grinspoon's marijuana activism stunted his career at Harvard where he was never given a full professor position despite his accomplishments. He believed "an undercurrent of unscientific prejudice against cannabis among [Harvard] faculty and school leaders doomed his chances."

In 1994, Grinspoon was tapped to head NORML's Board of Directors. The organization's founder Keith Stroup recently wrote that Grinspoon was "the intellectual leader of the marijuana legalization movement and a major player within NORML," adding: "He made it possible for us to have an informed public policy debate leading to the growing list of states legalizing the responsible use of marijuana."

Grinspoon is survived by his wife Betsy (they were married for 66 years) and three children. One of his sons Danny died of cancer. Please check out the website Marijuana Uses.

Bibliography
Grinspoon wrote (with his co-author James B. Bakalar) the following books:

Marihuana Reconsidered (1971)

Speed Culture: Amphetamine Use and Abuse in America (1975, written with Peter Hedblom)

Cocaine: A Drug and Its Social Evolution (1976)

Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered (1979)

Psychedelic Reflections (1983)

Drug Control in a Free Society (1985)

The Long Darkness: Psychological and Moral Perspectives on Nuclear Winter (1986, written with the American Psychiatric Association)

Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine (1997)

Wow, in that first picture he looks just like Howard Cosell!
 
Ennio Morricone, Oscar-winning Italian film composer, dies aged 91
Morricone’s work helped define the western but he went on to work across all film genres
Lorenzo TondoFirst published on Mon 6 Jul 2020 08.40 BST
Ennio Morricone: a look back at a creative career spanning 500 film scores



Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer whose symphonic scores backed everything from spaghetti westerns to romance, horror and sci-fi films, has died aged 91.

Morricone had broken his femur days ago and died during the night in a clinic in Rome. His death was confirmed by his lawyer, Giorgio Assumma. In a statement, Assumma said that the composer “died at dawn on 6 July in Rome with the comfort of faith. He preserved until the final moment full lucidity and great dignity.

“He said goodbye to his beloved wife Maria, who accompanied him with dedication in every moment of his human and professional life and was close to him until his final breath, and thanked his children and grandchildren for the love and care they have given him. He gave a touching remembrance to his audience, whose affectionate support always enabled him to draw strength for his creativity.”

Morricone wrote his own obituary, which was read out by Assumma. “I, Ennio Morricone am dead. Thus I announce it, to all my friends who have always been close to me and also to those who are a little far away, whom I greet with great affection,” it begins. He says it is “impossible to name everyone” but mentions members of his family and close friends, closing with words for his wife: “I renew to you the extraordinary love that has held us together, and I am sorry to abandon you. To you the most painful farewell.”

Film composer Hans Zimmer was among those paying tribute, saying he was “devastated … Ennio was an icon and icons just don’t go away, icons are forever … his music was always outstanding, and done with great emotional fortitude and great intellectual thought”.




Morricone worked across all film genres.
Born in Rome in 1928, Morricone took up the trumpet and wrote his first composition aged six. He studied classical music and after graduating began writing scores for theatre and radio. He was hired as an arranger by the label RCA in Italy and also began writing for pop artists; his songs became hits for Paul Anka, Françoise Hardy and Demis Roussos, and he later collaborated with Pet Shop Boys. He also made boundary-pushing avant garde work with Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, a collective of experimental, improvisational composers.

But it was his film scores that brought him the most fame. He began in the mid-1950s as a ghostwriter on films credited to others, and orchestrated other composers’ work for directors including Michelangelo Antonioni, Vittorio de Sica and Dino Risi. He graduated to composing his own scores, and his collaborations with Luciano Salce, beginning with Il Federale (The Fascist), established his name.

Morricone went on to work in almost all film genres, and some of his melodies are perhaps more famous than the films for which he wrote them. Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s 1971 film Maddalena is little remembered today, but Morricone’s two pieces for the film, Come Maddalena and Chi Mai, are among his most loved, the latter reaching No 2 in the UK Top 40 following its reuse in the BBC drama series The Life and Times of David Lloyd George.

His 1960s scores for Sergio Leone, backing a moody Clint Eastwood in the Dollars trilogy, were huge successes and came to define him: with their whistling melodies, and blend of symphonic elements with gunshots and guitars, they evoke the entire western genre. “The music is indispensable, because my films could practically be silent movies, the dialogue counts for relatively little, and so the music underlines actions and feelings more than the dialogue,” Leone has said. Morricone has said his own best work was for Leone’s 1984 film Once Upon a Time in America.

Those films, and Morricone’s scores, were a clear influence on Quentin Tarantino who hired him for his western The Hateful Eight. It earned Morricone his first Oscar outside of his lifetime achievement award. Tarantino also used his music in Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, with Morricone writing an original song for the latter.

Other films he scored include The Thing (directed by John Carpenter), Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore), The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo), Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick), The Untouchables (Brian de Palma) and the La Cage aux Folles trilogy (Édouard Molinaro).

He frequently toured highlights from his catalogue, and was still conducting his orchestra in 2019. He sold more than 70m albums, and as well as his two Academy awards, he won four Grammy awards and six Baftas.

Antonio Banderas, who starred in the 1990 Pedro Almodóvar film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! that Morricone scored, said on Twitter: “With great sadness, we say goodbye to a big master of cinema. His music will keep playing in our memories.”

Soundtrack composer AR Rahman said: “Only a composer like #EnnioMorricone could bring the beauty, culture and the lingering romance of Italy to your senses in the pre-virtual reality and pre-internet era... All we can do is celebrate the master’s work and learn!”

The British film director Edgar Wright also paid tribute, saying: “He could make an average movie into a must see, a good movie into art, and a great movie into legend. He hasn’t been off my stereo my entire life. What a legacy of work he leaves behind. RIP.”

The electronic music duo Orbital called him “a great influence. One of the best film composers of all time.” Video game designer Hideo Kojima, who used the 1971 Morricone and Joan Baez song Here’s to You in the Metal Gear Solid series, said he was shocked to hear of his death.
 
Ennio Morricone, Oscar-winning Italian film composer, dies aged 91
Morricone’s work helped define the western but he went on to work across all film genres
Lorenzo TondoFirst published on Mon 6 Jul 2020 08.40 BST
Ennio Morricone: a look back at a creative career spanning 500 film scores



Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer whose symphonic scores backed everything from spaghetti westerns to romance, horror and sci-fi films, has died aged 91.

Morricone had broken his femur days ago and died during the night in a clinic in Rome. His death was confirmed by his lawyer, Giorgio Assumma. In a statement, Assumma said that the composer “died at dawn on 6 July in Rome with the comfort of faith. He preserved until the final moment full lucidity and great dignity.

“He said goodbye to his beloved wife Maria, who accompanied him with dedication in every moment of his human and professional life and was close to him until his final breath, and thanked his children and grandchildren for the love and care they have given him. He gave a touching remembrance to his audience, whose affectionate support always enabled him to draw strength for his creativity.”

Morricone wrote his own obituary, which was read out by Assumma. “I, Ennio Morricone am dead. Thus I announce it, to all my friends who have always been close to me and also to those who are a little far away, whom I greet with great affection,” it begins. He says it is “impossible to name everyone” but mentions members of his family and close friends, closing with words for his wife: “I renew to you the extraordinary love that has held us together, and I am sorry to abandon you. To you the most painful farewell.”

Film composer Hans Zimmer was among those paying tribute, saying he was “devastated … Ennio was an icon and icons just don’t go away, icons are forever … his music was always outstanding, and done with great emotional fortitude and great intellectual thought”.




Morricone worked across all film genres.
Born in Rome in 1928, Morricone took up the trumpet and wrote his first composition aged six. He studied classical music and after graduating began writing scores for theatre and radio. He was hired as an arranger by the label RCA in Italy and also began writing for pop artists; his songs became hits for Paul Anka, Françoise Hardy and Demis Roussos, and he later collaborated with Pet Shop Boys. He also made boundary-pushing avant garde work with Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, a collective of experimental, improvisational composers.

But it was his film scores that brought him the most fame. He began in the mid-1950s as a ghostwriter on films credited to others, and orchestrated other composers’ work for directors including Michelangelo Antonioni, Vittorio de Sica and Dino Risi. He graduated to composing his own scores, and his collaborations with Luciano Salce, beginning with Il Federale (The Fascist), established his name.

Morricone went on to work in almost all film genres, and some of his melodies are perhaps more famous than the films for which he wrote them. Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s 1971 film Maddalena is little remembered today, but Morricone’s two pieces for the film, Come Maddalena and Chi Mai, are among his most loved, the latter reaching No 2 in the UK Top 40 following its reuse in the BBC drama series The Life and Times of David Lloyd George.

His 1960s scores for Sergio Leone, backing a moody Clint Eastwood in the Dollars trilogy, were huge successes and came to define him: with their whistling melodies, and blend of symphonic elements with gunshots and guitars, they evoke the entire western genre. “The music is indispensable, because my films could practically be silent movies, the dialogue counts for relatively little, and so the music underlines actions and feelings more than the dialogue,” Leone has said. Morricone has said his own best work was for Leone’s 1984 film Once Upon a Time in America.

Those films, and Morricone’s scores, were a clear influence on Quentin Tarantino who hired him for his western The Hateful Eight. It earned Morricone his first Oscar outside of his lifetime achievement award. Tarantino also used his music in Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, with Morricone writing an original song for the latter.

Other films he scored include The Thing (directed by John Carpenter), Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore), The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo), Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick), The Untouchables (Brian de Palma) and the La Cage aux Folles trilogy (Édouard Molinaro).

He frequently toured highlights from his catalogue, and was still conducting his orchestra in 2019. He sold more than 70m albums, and as well as his two Academy awards, he won four Grammy awards and six Baftas.

Antonio Banderas, who starred in the 1990 Pedro Almodóvar film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! that Morricone scored, said on Twitter: “With great sadness, we say goodbye to a big master of cinema. His music will keep playing in our memories.”

Soundtrack composer AR Rahman said: “Only a composer like #EnnioMorricone could bring the beauty, culture and the lingering romance of Italy to your senses in the pre-virtual reality and pre-internet era... All we can do is celebrate the master’s work and learn!”

The British film director Edgar Wright also paid tribute, saying: “He could make an average movie into a must see, a good movie into art, and a great movie into legend. He hasn’t been off my stereo my entire life. What a legacy of work he leaves behind. RIP.”

The electronic music duo Orbital called him “a great influence. One of the best film composers of all time.” Video game designer Hideo Kojima, who used the 1971 Morricone and Joan Baez song Here’s to You in the Metal Gear Solid series, said he was shocked to hear of his death.

Thank you
 
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/celebrities-react-to-charlie-daniels-death-at-83

Celebrities react to Charlie Daniels' death
Stars took to social media and shared their admiration for the late country performer


The world is mourning the loss of Charlie Daniels.
The renowned singer and fiddler behind the hit song “Devil Went Down to Georgia,” among others, died at age 83.
A statement from his publicist said the Country Music Hall of Famer died Monday at a hospital in Hermitage, Tenn., after doctors said he had a stroke.
The star had suffered what was described as a mild stroke in January 2010 and had a heart pacemaker implanted in 2013, but he continued to perform.
With such a prolific career in country music, it didn't take long before several of his fellow country music artists took to social media to share their thoughts and favorite memories of the late performer.
"I'm so sad he's gone," tweeted Brad Paisley. "We have so many memories together, and I am so blessed to have known him. Rest In Peace my friend. We love you."

"Man I am heartbroken to hear that Charlie Daniels passed away this morning," wrote Jason Aldean. "He was one of the nicest/kindest people I have ever met. Thanks for the musical legacy u left all of us. We will miss you Mr. Charlie!"

"Just learning of the passing of this great man," said Luke Bryan. "What a hero. A true patriot, Christian, and country music icon. Prayers to his family. Thank you for all of your contributions on and off the stage. God Bless you Charlie Daniels."

“This is devastating news,” The Oak Ridge Boys tweeted. “Our brother Charlie Daniels has hone home… hard to process this immeasurable loss… goodbye Charlie… until that glorious day… We KNOW where you are now.”
\

“There’s going to be lots more fiddlin’ in heaven from now on,” chimed Aaron Watson. “So sad to hear about the passing of Charlie Daniels. Keeping his fans, friends and family in our thoughts and prayers. I’m so thankful I got to spend some time with him.”

“My heart is crushed today after hearing that my dear friend Charlie Daniels has passed away,” Travis Tritt wrote on Instagram. “Charlie was the first legendary artist to take me under his wing and encourage me when I was first getting started in the business. He was always there for me when I needed him.”
“I have so many great memories of touring, performing, writing and recording with Charlie, but my favorite memories are of simply talking with the man when it was just the two of us alone,” he shared. “Farewell dear friend until we meet again. Thank you for being such a friend, mentor and inspiration to me. I will always be grateful.”
 
John Lewis passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 80. A man I really admired.
Retropolis
dated July 18, 2020, 1:25 a.m.
John Lewis, in the light-colored raincoat, with other protesters facing Alabama state troopers on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, in Selma, Ala.
John Lewis, in the light-colored raincoat, with other protesters facing Alabama state troopers on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, in Selma, Ala.© SPIDER MARTIN, COURTESY MAGNOLIA PICTURES
At the 1963 March on Washington, civil rights leaders asked John Lewis to tone his speech down
Before his death Friday, Rep, John Lewis was the last living speaker at the march where Martin Luther King Jr, delivered his famous ‘I Have a Dream Speech
Image1595084827655.pngPolitico
Rev. C.T. Vivian, key civil rights leader, dies
c t vivian from www.politico.com

22 hours ago · C.T. Vivian, an early and key adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who organized pivotal campaigns in the civil rights movement and spent decades advocating for justice and equality
 
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Regis Philbin, Legendary TV Host, Dies at 88

By Laura Haefner

Regis Philbin dead

AP Photo/Charles Sykes
Emmy-winning TV host Regis Philbin, best known for his long stint on syndicated morning talk show “Live” and on ABC’s primetime hit game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” died of natural causes on Friday night. He was 88.
“His family and friends are forever grateful for the time we got to spend with him — for his warmth, his legendary sense of humor, and his singular ability to make every day into something worth talking about. We thank his fans and admirers for their incredible support over his 60-year career and ask for privacy as we mourn his loss,” the Philbin family said in a statement obtained by Variety.
Always ready with a quip or observation, Philbin styled himself after Jack Paar, particularly Paar’s way of connecting with the camera. Philbin said he admired Paar’s “chatty style and personality” and infused his own on-air persona with similar intimacy.
Regis Philbin died at the age of 88.
 
R.I.P. Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac Co-Founder Dies at 73
Peter-Green-Fleetwood-Mac.jpg


Fleetwood Mac co-founder and guitarist Peter Green has died at the age of 73.
According to a statement from his family, Green passed away “peacefully in his sleep” on Saturday, July 25th.

Green co-founded Fleetwood Mac alongside drummer Mick Fleetwood, guitarist Jeremy Spencer, and bassist John McVie in 1967. A blues guitarist by trade, Green was instrumental in shaping the band’s early blues rock sound, and wrote early hits including “Albatross”, “Black Magic Woman”, “Oh Well”, “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)”, and “Man of the World”. He was also credited for giving Fleetwood Mac its name.

Born in London in 1946, Green began playing guitar at the age of 15. At the age of 19, he
was recruited by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers to fill in for Eric Clapton for four shows. When Clapton left the band a year later, Green became his permanent replacement.

In 1967, Green himself departed The Bluesbreakers to form his own band alongside former Bluesbreaker drummer Mick Fleetwood, guitarist Jeremy Spencer, and bassist John McVie. They initially called themselves “Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac featuring Jeremy Spencer” and found moderate success with a string of Top 10 hits including “Black Magic Woman”, “Albatross”, “Oh Well”, and “Man of the World”.

However, in 1970, amid struggles with drugs and mental health, Green abruptly left Fleetwood Mac. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent time in psychiatric hospitals undergoing electroconvulsive therapy throughout the 1970s.

Green mounted a professional comeback beginning in the late 1970s, doing session work for musicians including Mick Fleetwood and making an uncredited appearance on Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk. He later formed a new band called Peter Green Splinter Group and released nine albums between 1997 and 2004.

For his contributions, Green was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside the rest of Fleetwood Mac in 1998. Commenting on his guitar playing, B.B. King once said, “[Green] has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.”

Earlier this year, Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood hosted a star-studded tribute concert in Green’s honor, featuring appearances from David Gilmour, Steven Tyler, Pete Townshend, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Bill Wyman, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, Noel Gallagher, and more.

“The concert is a celebration of those early blues days where we all began, and it’s important to recognize the profound impact Peter and the early Fleetwood Mac had on the world of music,” Mick Fleewood said at the time. “Peter was my greatest mentor and it gives me such joy to pay tribute to his incredible talent. I am honored to be sharing the stage with some of the many artists Peter has inspired over the years and who share my great respect for this remarkable musician.”


 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/movies/olivia-de-havilland-dead.html


Olivia de Havilland, a Star of ‘Gone With the Wind,’ Dies at 104
Ms. de Havilland, a classic Hollywood beauty, built an illustrious film career punctuated by a successful fight to loosen studios’ grip on actors.

OIivia de Havilland in a promotional photograph for “Gone With the Wind” (1939), in which she played Melanie Hamilton.Credit...Amapa/Reuters
By Robert Berkvist


Olivia de Havilland, an actress who gained movie immortality in “Gone With the Wind,” then built an illustrious film career, punctuated by a successful fight to loosen the studios’ grip on contract actors, died on Sunday at her home in Paris. She was 104 and one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s fabled Golden Age.

Her death was confirmed by her publicist Lisa Goldberg.

Ms. de Havilland was both a classic Hollywood beauty and an honored screen actress whose very name and bearing suggested membership in a kind of aristocracy of moviedom. Though she was typecast early in her career as the demure ingénue, she went on to earn meatier roles that led to five Academy Award nominations, two of which brought her the Oscar, for “To Each His Own” (1946) and “The Heiress” (1949).


DeHavilland-adv-obit-slide-DHDX-articleLarge.jpg


Ms. de Havilland in “The Heiress” (1949), one of two movies for which she won Academy Awards, with Montgomery Clift, center, and Ralph Richardson.Credit...Paramount Pictures, via Everett Collection

Those roles came to her in no small part because of the resolve she showed when she stood up to the studios and won a battle that helped push Hollywood into the modern era, surprising the movie moguls, who may not have expected such steel in an actress so softly attractive and, at 5-foot-3, so unintimidatingly petite.


She had shown similar grit a decade earlier, in her breakthrough role, when she held her own against her formidable co-stars — Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard — in “Gone With the Wind.”

The 1939 Civil War epic was briefly pulled from the HBO Max streaming service last month and returned with an introduction saying that the film presents the Georgia plantation at its center as “a world of grace and beauty, without acknowledging the brutalities of the system of chattel slavery upon which this world is based.”

As Melanie Hamilton Wilkes, the fiancée and then wife of Mr. Howard’s Ashley Wilkes, she brought intelligence and grace to her portrait of a woman whose shy, forgiving, almost too kindly nature stood in sharp contrast to the often venomous jealousy of her high-spirited sister-in-law, Scarlett O’Hara (Ms. Leigh).

Ms. de Havilland’s performance led to an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress, though the award went to another member of the cast, Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, Scarlett’s housekeeper. (Ms. Leigh won in the best-actress category.)



DeHavilland-adv-obit-slide-XEW2-articleLarge.jpg


Ms. de Havilland, left, with Leslie Howard and Vivien Leigh in “Gone With the Wind.”Credit...MGM, via Everett Collection

Ms. de Havilland was under contract to Warner Bros. when the film’s original director, George Cukor, working for MGM, invited her to audition for the role of Melanie. (He was later replaced by Victor Fleming.) After getting the part, she had to plead with her studio boss, Jack Warner, to lend her to the MGM production, which was being overseen by David O. Selznick.


By then she had established herself at Warner as a familiar heroine in some 20 films and had begun a long collaboration with the prolific director Michael Curtiz, encompassing nine films. Most notable was a string of action features and costume dramas opposite the dashing Errol Flynn, among them “Captain Blood” (1935), “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1936) and “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938), in which she played Maid Marian.

Ms. de Havilland and Flynn were such a popular onscreen couple that rumors flew of an on-set romance, fueled in part by Flynn’s reputation for bedding his co-stars and reports that he was infatuated with her. By all accounts there was no truth to the whisperings of an affair, though some years later Ms. de Havilland admitted to having had “a great crush” on Flynn and suggested that “circumstances at the time” — he was married when they met — stood in the way of a romance.

“So naughty and so charming,” she said of him.


DeHavilland-adv-obit-slide-60HQ-articleLarge.jpg


Credit...Warner Bros. Pictures, via Photofest

Warner had signed Ms. de Havilland to a seven-year contract in 1935 on the strength of her performance that year as Hermia, the defiant daughter who resists an arranged marriage, in Max Reinhardt’s film adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” (The year before, she had made her professional stage acting debut in the same role in a Hollywood Bowl production by Reinhardt.)

After her success in “Gone With the Wind,” Ms. de Havilland returned to Warner with the expectation of more challenging roles. For the most part, they did not materialize.


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Charles Boyer and Ms. de Havilland in “Hold Back the Dawn” (1941).Credit...John Springer Collection/Corbis via Getty Images

One exception was “Hold Back the Dawn” (1941), in which she played an American schoolteacher who is seduced in Mexico by a wily European exile (Charles Boyer). Her performance earned her another Oscar nomination, but this time she lost to her sister, Joan Fontaine, who won for “Suspicion.” The two were rarely on speaking terms after that. (They are the only sisters to win best-actress Academy Awards, and their sibling rivalry was called the fiercest in Hollywood history.)

The formula roles kept coming. When Ms. de Havilland complained, she was told that she had been hired because she photographed well and that she wasn’t required to act.

The studio had misread her determination. She began to refuse roles she considered inferior. Warner retaliated by suspending her several times, for a total of six months, and, after her contract expired, insisting that because of the suspensions she was still the studio’s property for six more months.

Ms. de Havilland sued. The case dragged on for a year and a half but David finally beat Goliath when the California Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling in her favor in 1945. What became known as the de Havilland decision established that a studio could not arbitrarily extend the duration of an actor’s contract.

When she resumed her career, Ms. de Havilland appeared in four films in rapid succession, all released in 1946. In one, “The Dark Mirror,” she played twins, one good and one evil. In her Oscar-winning performance in “To Each His Own,” she was an unwed mother who must give up her infant son when his father, her lover, a World War I flying ace, is killed in action.


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Ms. de Havilland was nominated for an Oscar for “The Snake Pit” (1948), in which she played a young bride who becomes mentally ill and is sent to an institution, She said it was one of her favorite roles.Credit...20th Century Fox

Ms. de Havilland soon took on one of her most demanding roles, that of a young bride who becomes mentally ill and is sent to an institution, in “The Snake Pit” (1948). The film, directed by Anatol Litvak, was an unflinching study of mental illness and the treatments available then, from narcotics to electroshock. Ms. de Havilland was nominated for a best-actress Oscar but did not win.

She captured her second Oscar the next year with “The Heiress,” directed by William Wyler and adapted by Ruth and Augustus Goetz from their Broadway play based on Henry James’s “Washington Square.” Ms. de Havilland presented an affecting portrait of a repressed, spinsterish young woman dominated by her rigidly protective father (Ralph Richardson).

It was one of Ms. de Havilland’s favorite roles. “The films I loved,” she said in 1964, “the great loves, are ‘The Snake Pit,’ ‘The Heiress’ and, of course, ‘Gone With the Wind.’”
But she did not love Hollywood, and in the 1950s she startled the town when she abandoned it to live in Paris with a new husband, though she kept her American citizenship.

“For Olivia,” William Stadiem wrote in a profile of her in Vanity Fair magazine in 2016, “there was a whiff of decay and disappointment about Hollywood.”


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Ms de Havilland with her father, Walter de Havilland, in 1952.Credit...Associated Press

Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916, to British parents in Tokyo, where her father, Walter, a cousin of the aviation pioneer Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, ran a firm of patent lawyers, though he was not a lawyer himself. In 1919 her mother, the former Lillian Ruse, an elocution teacher, moved with Olivia and Joan, her younger sister by 15 months, to Saratoga, Calif., near San Francisco. The de Havillands divorced and Lillian married George M. Fontaine, a department store executive, whose surname Joan later took as her stage name.

Ms. de Havilland was married twice. Both marriages ended in divorce. The first, in 1946, was to Marcus Aurelius Goodrich, a Texas-born novelist, screenwriter and journalist; they had a son, Benjamin, and divorced in 1952. She married Pierre Galante, the author of military histories and at one point editor of the magazine Paris Match, in 1955 after the couple met in France. They moved to Paris, had a daughter, Gisele, and divorced in 1979. Ms. de Havilland’s son died of Hodgkin’s disease in 1991.

Before she was married, Ms. de Havilland had romantic relationships with James Stewart, Howard Hughes and the director John Huston, with whom she reunited for a time after her first divorce. By her account she also turned away a smitten young John F. Kennedy, who was visiting Hollywood after his PT-boat service in World War II.


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Ms. de Havilland, center, learning a Greek folk dance in 1955.Credit...Associated Press

She is survived by her daughter, Giselle Galante Chulack. Joan Fontaine died in 2013 at 96.

Though she had decamped to Paris, Ms. de Havilland remained a creature of Hollywood for most of her career. But she did try her hand at theater again, making her Broadway debut in 1951, to good reviews, as Juliet in a short-lived production of “Romeo and Juliet.”

She returned to Broadway in 1952 for another brief run in Shaw’s “Candida” and was last seen there in 1962, when she starred with Henry Fonda in “A Gift of Time,” adapted by Garson Kanin from Lael Tucker Wertenbaker’s book “Death of a Man,” about the last days of the author’s husband, Charles, who died of cancer.

The movies kept calling, however. In 1952 she starred in “My Cousin Rachel,” based on the best-selling novel by Daphne du Maurier. She played the bride of an older man, and Richard Burton, in his Hollywood debut, played the son who thinks his attractive new stepmother may be capable of murder.

By the time she traveled to Italy to film “The Light in the Piazza” (1962), in which she played the protective mother of a beautiful but mentally impaired young woman (Yvette Mimieux), Ms. de Havilland had appeared in some 40 movies and was living in semiretirement in Paris. She also published a book in 1962, a collection of lighthearted observations about life in France titled “Every Frenchman Has One.”

Ms. de Havilland made only a handful of films after that. She was in her mid-40s by then, receiving fewer acting offers and finding many scripts too prurient for her tastes.


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Ms. de Havilland at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003. She took part in a reunion of past Oscar winners.Credit...Kevork Djansezian/Associated Press
One she liked, however, was “Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte” (1964), which gave her the opportunity to co-star with Bette Davis, another Hollywood legend nearing the end of her career.

The film, a weaker echo of the similarly gothic Bette Davis-Joan Crawford melodrama, “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,” tells the tale of an increasingly demented woman (Ms. Davis) and a scheming relative who comes to live with her (Ms. de Havilland, who replaced Ms. Crawford after filming began).

From the mid-60s onward, Ms. de Havilland’s acting was largely confined to sporadic roles in television series like “The Love Boat”; television movies like “The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana” (1982), in which she played the Queen Mother; and mini-series like “Roots: The Next Generation” (1979). Her work in the 1986 NBC mini-series “Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna,” in which she played a Russian empress, brought her a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination.

In 1965 she became the first woman to head the jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

She returned to feature films only occasionally, among them the hugely successful 1977 disaster movie “Airport ’77,” in which she joined a ensemble cast of veteran actors. Her last Hollywood film was “The Fifth Musketeer” (1979), in which she played the mother of Louis XIV (Beau Bridges).


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Credit...Universal Pictures, via Photofest

But even when she was well into her 80s, she had not entirely given up the idea of returning to the spotlight. She was a presenter at the Academy Awards in 2003. She narrated “I Remember Better When I Paint,” a 2009 documentary about the positive impact of art therapy on people with Alzheimer’s disease.

In Paris, Ms. de Havilland had lived in a five-story townhouse, built around 1880, since 1958 (in recent years next door to the former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing), all the while never missing Hollywood, she said.

“I loved being around real buildings, real castles, real churches — not ones made of canvas,” she told Vanity Fair.

She maintained an active lifestyle there into her second century, defying her advancing years.

“Olivia doesn’t seem 99,” Mr. Stadiem wrote in his 2016 Vanity Fair profile. “Her face is unlined, her eyes sparkling, her fabled contralto soaring (only Orson Welles had an equally imposing instrument), her memory photographic. She could easily pass for someone decades younger.”


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Ms. de Havilland in 2018 at 101.Credit...Julien Mignot for The New York Times

She was in the news — and in court — once again in 2018, when she sued the FX network and Ryan Murphy Productions over her portrayal by Catherine Zeta-Jones in the mini-series “Feud: Bette and Joan,” about the rivalry between Davis and Crawford.

She maintained that her portrayal constituted unauthorized use of her name and likeness and showed her in “a false light” as a hypocrite “with a public image of being a lady and a private one as a vulgarity-using gossip.” A California appellate court dismissed the suit, ruling that the portrayal was “not highly offensive to a reasonable person as a matter of law.”

Ms. de Havilland’s readings of scripture on Christmas and Easter at the American Cathedral, on the Avenue George V, became annual events in Paris. In 2010, Nicolas Sarkozy, then the president of France, awarded her the Légion d’Honneur. And her association with a distant era of Hollywood glamour made her a living legend in her adopted city.


In 1999 she was honored with a party in Paris to celebrate the 60th anniversary of “Gone With the Wind.” At one point, one of the hosts recalled, with a glass in hand, she toasted the film and its leading actors, reminding the room that she was the last one still standing.

“Let us raise a mint julep to our stars,” she proclaimed, “on that great veranda in the sky!”
 
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/n...gon-nightmare-elm-street-actor-was-83-1095778


John Saxon, 'Enter the Dragon,' 'Nightmare on Elm Street' Actor, Dies at 83
4:41 PM PDT 7/25/2020 by Mike Barnes


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Courtesy of Photofest
John Saxon (left) with Jim Kelly in 'Enter the Dragon.'


The Brooklyn tough guy also starred in 'The Appaloosa,' 'The Unguarded Moment' and 'Black Christmas.'

John Saxon, the rugged actor who kicked around with Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon and appeared in three Nightmare on Elm Street movies for director Wes Craven, died Saturday. He was 83.

Saxon died of pneumonia in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, his wife, Gloria, told The Hollywood Reporter.

An Italian-American from Brooklyn, Saxon played characters of various ethnicities during his long career.

His portrayal of a brutal Mexican bandit opposite Marlon Brando in The Appaloosa (1966) earned him a Golden Globe, and he had a recurring role on ABC's Dynasty as Rashid Ahmed, a powerful Middle East tycoon who romanced Alexis Colby (Joan Collins). And on another 1980s primetime soap, CBS' Falcon Crest, he played the father of Lorenzo Lamas' character.

Years earlier, Saxon starred from 1969-72 as the surgeon Theodore Stuart on "The New Doctors" rotating segment of the NBC drama series The Bold Ones.

Discovered by the same agent who launched the careers of Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, Saxon first gained notice for his performance as a disturbed high school football star who taunts Esther Williams in The Unguarded Moment (1956). In the film's credits, he's billed as "the exciting new personality John Saxon."

He played a police chief who makes a fatal mistake in the Canadian cult classic Black Christmas (1974), featuring Margot Kidder and Keir Dullea, and his horror résumé also includes two films for Roger Corman: Queen of Blood (1966) and Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), playing a tyrannical warlord.

In Warner Bros.' Enter the Dragon (1973), Lee's first mainstream American movie and last before his death at age 32, Saxon portrayed Roper, a degenerate gambler who participates in a martial arts tournament. In real life, his fighting skills did not approach those possessed by Lee and another co-star, karate champion Jim Kelly.

Saxon, though, said that Lee "took me seriously. I would tell him I would rather do it this way, and he'd say, 'OK, try it that way,' " he told the Los Angeles Times in 2012.
Saxon played the cop Donald Thompson in the first and third films in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, where he's eventually killed by Freddy Krueger's skeleton. He then returned to play a version of himself in New Nightmare (1994).

He was born Carmine Orrico on Aug. 5, 1936, the eldest of three children of an Italian immigrant house painter. While in high school, he worked as a spieler at a Coney Island archery concession, becoming proficient with the bow and arrow.

"Brooklyn was a tough place to grow up in, but it taught you survival, and if you were ambitious, it taught you to want better things," he once said.

Walking out of a movie theater after skipping class at New Utrecht High School, he was spotted by a male modeling agent and then appeared in magazines like True Romances.

One photo shoot, which he said pictured him as a "Puerto Rican guy" leaning against a garbage can after he had been shot, caught the attention of Henry Willson, the legendary Hollywood agent who had discovered Hudson and Hunter.

Then just 17, Saxon signed with Willson, studied dramatics for six months with Betty Cashman at Carnegie Hall and flew to Hollywood, where he was quickly signed by Universal. He attended the studio's workshop for 18 months and then worked with Mamie Van Doren in Running Wild (1955).

After Unguarded Moment, Saxon appeared as young rock 'n' roll musicians in Rock, Pretty Baby (1956) and Summer Love (1958) and played opposite Sandra Dee in The Reluctant Debutante (1958), directed by Vincente Minnelli, and Debbie Reynolds in Blake Edwards' This Happy Feeling (1958).

In Cry Tough (1959), Saxon starred as a tough Puerto Rican kid from New York, and in War Hunt (1962), he was top-billed as a psychotic solider. (Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack also were in the cast, and the three would reunite in 1979 for The Electric Horseman.)

Never shy about showing off his machismo, Saxon also co-starred with Clint Eastwood in Joe Kidd (1972) and played a dirty union lawyer in Andrew McLaglen's Mitchell (1975).

His film résumé also included Mario Bava's Evil Eye (1963), Otto Preminger's The Cardinal (1963), Blood Beast From Outer Space (1965), The Swiss Conspiracy (1976), Wrong Is Right (1982), Richard Brooks' Fever Pitch (1985), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) and God's Ears (2008).

He was married three times, to screenwriter Mary Ann Murphy, airline attendant turned actress Elizabeth Saxon and, since 2008, cosmetician Gloria Martel. Survivors also include his son, Antonio, and his sister, Dolores.

Memorial contributions in his name may be made to the Motion Picture and Television Fund.
Duane Byrge contributed to this report.
 
Wilford Brimley, star of 'Cocoon' and 'The Natural,' dies at 85
The Associated Press

In this Monday, Dec. 14, 2009 file photo, Actor Wilford Brimley attends the premiere of 'Did You Hear About The Morgans' at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City.  Brimley, who worked his way up from stunt performer to star of film such as Cocoon and The Natural has died at the age of 85. Brimley’s manager Lynda Bensky said the actor died Saturday morning, Aug. 1, 2020 in a Utah hospital.


LOS ANGELES – Wilford Brimley, who worked his way up from stunt performer to star of film such as "Cocoon" and "The Natural," has died. He was 85.
Brimley's manager Lynda Bensky said the actor died Saturday morning in a Utah hospital. He was on dialysis and had several medical ailments, she said.
The mustached Brimley was a familiar face for a number of roles, often playing gruff characters like his grizzled baseball manager in "The Natural."
Brimley's best-known work was in "Cocoon," in which he was part of a group of seniors who discover an alien pod that rejuvenates them. The 1985 Ron Howard film won two Oscars, including a supporting actor honor for Don Ameche.
Brimley also starred in "Cocoon: The Return," a 1988 sequel.
Wilford Brimley and Maureen Stapleton starred in the 1985 movie Cocoon.


For years he was pitchman for Quaker Oats and in recent years appeared in a series of diabetes spots that turned him at one point into a social media sensation.
"Wilford Brimley was a man you could trust," Bensky said in a statement. "He said what he meant and he meant what he said. He had a tough exterior and a tender heart.
 
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/wwe-james-kamala-harris-dead-70
WWE star James 'Kamala' Harris dead at 70
The wrestler, known as 'Kamala the Ugandan Giant,' suffered from health complications for several years


Fox News Flash top entertainment headlines for August 10
Former WWE star James Harris has died at the age of 70.
The death of Harris, who was also known as "Kamala the Ugandan Giant," was confirmed by WWE in an online statement.
"Under the frightening face paint of Kamala, the 6-foot-7, 380-pound Harris battled the greatest Superstars in sports-entertainment history, including Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker and Andre the Giant," said the message. "He terrorized opponents and thrilled audiences in Mid-South, World Class Championship Wrestling, WCW and WWE until 2006."

The organization did not provide any further details about Harris' death. However, the pro wrestler's autobiography co-author, Kenny Casanova, said online that his death was due to coronavirus.
WWE star James 'Kamala' Harris (center) has died at the age of 70. (Courtesy of WWE)

WWE star James 'Kamala' Harris (center) has died at the age of 70. (Courtesy of WWE)
"To make matters worse, it was Corona that took him; he was one of the good ones," the author wrote online referring to COVID-19, which is caused by the new coronavirus. "Kamala was one of the most believable monsters in wrestling. He played the role perfectly, but was also one of the nicest guys you could meet. In helping him get his book out there, we became pretty close over the years and I am happy to have been his friend."

Many health issues plagued Harris' recent years, including diabetes, which resulted in the amputation of both legs. In fact, Casanova said in his post that his medical issues caused "financial problems," and offered information for fans to make a monetary contribution to the family.

Harris began his wrestling career under the name Sugar Bear Harris before running through a few other monikers but finding little success. It wasn't until a promoter suggested Harris loosely base his persona on Ugandan dictator Idi Amin that he began to find success.
Harris was known for walking into the ring with body and face paint and a spear.
James Harris was known as 'Kamala the Ugandan Giant.' (Courtesy of WWE)

James Harris was known as 'Kamala the Ugandan Giant.' (Courtesy of WWE)
Critics charged that the character of Kamala was based on racial stereotypes as wrestling announcers often used such terms as “savage” and “beast" to describe him.

Harris said in interviews, later in life, that he found the gimmick fun and was not intended to cause harm. But he did note that he was underpaid at the time compared to other wrestlers and treated poorly.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 
One of the great musicians of the 20th century. Heard him play his lute as a youth, forty years ago. Our loss is heaven's gain.

Julian Bream, Maestro of Guitar and Lute, Dies at 87

By Allan Kozinn
Aug. 14, 2020

Julian Bream, the English musician who pushed the guitar beyond its Spanish roots and expanded its range by commissioning dozens of works from major composers, and who also played a crucial role in reviving the lute as a modern concert instrument, died on Friday at his home in Wiltshire, England. He was 87.

His representatives at James Brown Management announced his death in a statement but did not give a cause.

Mr. Bream was the most eloquent guitarist of the generation that came of age soon after Andrés Segovia carved out a place for the guitar in the mainstream concert world.
It could be argued, in fact, that Mr. Bream, even more than Segovia, established the guitar’s credibility as a serious solo instrument. He updated the technical standard of classical guitar playing and replaced the Romantic, rubato-heavy phrasing that Segovia preferred with a more modern style. And he undertook a significant renovation of the repertory.

While Segovia, a Spaniard, devoted himself largely to music that naturally emphasized the guitar’s Spanish and Latin American roots, Mr. Bream showed that the instrument was equally suited to German, French and English works and to some of the thorny contemporary styles that the more conservative Segovia avoided.

While Mr. Bream did not ignore the Spanish and Latin repertory, he created an alternative and just as durable one through research, transcription and commissioning.
He was the first to revive major works by Fernando Sor of Spain and Mauro Giuliani of Italy, two important 19th-century guitarist-composers. His transcriptions included Bach suites and Scarlatti sonatas, as well as works by Purcell, Cimarosa, Diabelli and Schubert.

But his most enduring legacy is most likely to be the large collection of pieces he commissioned, many of which he also recorded. The scores written for him that are now staples of the guitar literature include Benjamin Britten’s “Nocturnal” (1963); William Walton’s Five Bagatelles (1971); and concertos by Malcolm Arnold (1959) and Richard Rodney Bennett (1970). Hans Werner Henze, Peter Maxwell Davies, Michael Tippett and Toru Takemitsu also wrote works for him.

Mr. Bream also had an antiquarian streak that made him an important figure in the modern revival of the lute. He took up the Renaissance lute in 1950 in order to play works that were written for it by Morley, Dowland and other Elizabethan composers.

He was not the first to do so, but his predecessors had sat on the scholarly edge of the early music world. Mr. Bream, by contrast, hoped to make the lute as popular as the guitar, and he set about searching libraries for little-known works that might illuminate the instrument’s expressive strengths.

In 1959, he formed the Julian Bream Consort, a string, wind and lute ensemble, to perform and record Elizabethan ensemble music. At recitals, he often played the lute before the intermission and the guitar in the second half of the program.

Mr. Bream’s success as a lutenist inspired a generation of young musicians, including Paul O’Dette, Stephen Stubbs and Hopkinson Smith, to set aside the modern guitar and concentrate on the lute and other early stringed instruments. In the early 1980s, Mr. Bream followed their lead in taking up early forms of the guitar — the Spanish vihuela and the Baroque guitar — while preparing his video series “Guitarra!,” which traces the guitar’s history.

And when research by younger lutenists suggested that Mr. Bream’s lute technique was inauthentic, he stopped playing the instrument publicly so that he could catch up with the latest scholarship. By the time he began giving lute performances again, he had not only revised his technique but had also taken up the larger Baroque lute.

Julian Alexander Bream was born in London on July 15, 1933, to Henry and Violet Jessie (Wright) Bream. His father was a commercial artist, his mother a homemaker. His parents divorced when he was 14.

Julian played the piano and the cello as a child but was inspired to take up the guitar after hearing the virtuoso jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. His father, an amateur jazz guitarist, gave him his first lessons, and when Julian heard some Segovia recordings in the mid-1940s, he decided to study classical guitar music.

“When my father saw that I was interested in following such a career,” Mr. Bream was quoted as saying in “Life on the Road,” a 1982 biography by Tony Palmer, “he had many reservations. His feeling was that there was no chance to earn a livelihood unless I played jazz or something similar. And to prove it he did say to me one day that if you take into account the whole population of the world, and given that there’s only one world famous classical guitarist so far, the chance of success for a second guitarist must be very slender. But that remark made me all the more doggedly persistent.”


The persistence was necessary. At his audition for admission to the Royal College of Music in London, Mr. Bream played the guitar first, even though the instrument was not taught there, and then the piano. The school admitted him as a pianist, cellist and composition student, and he was advised not to bring his guitar into the building.
But because he was giving late-night performances and playing for film soundtracks to earn money, he brought his guitar to the college anyway. When word got around that he could be heard playing Bach on it in one of the practice rooms, the school’s director asked him again to leave the guitar at home. Mr. Bream left the school instead.

After 3 ½ years in the army, Mr. Bream tried to establish his career in earnest. He continued playing for film soundtracks and in the pit bands for radio plays, as well as an accompanist for singers on BBC programs. He also began giving radio concerts on the lute.
He made his London debut at Wigmore Hall in 1951 and immediately toured England. His first continental concerts followed in Switzerland in 1954, and he made his American debut in 1958, at Town Hall in New York. Thereafter, he toured annually through the 1990s, mostly in Europe and the United States.
An automobile accident in 1984, in which he broke his right elbow, required reconstructive surgery that limited his bending the arm. He had his surgeon set it in the

His final formal recital was in Norwich, England, on May 6, 2002, but he continued to play privately, occasionally giving recitals at churches near his home until 2011, when injuries he sustained after a neighbor’s dog knocked him to the ground made playing impossible.

Mr. Bream’s honors included the Order of the British Empire in 1964, Commander of the British Empire in 1985 and the Villa-Lobos Gold Medal (he gave the world premiere of the Villa-Lobos Guitar Concerto) in 1976.

He married Margaret Williamson in 1968. After their divorce, he married Isabel Sanchez in 1980. That marriage also ended in divorce. Mr. Bream is survived by his sister, Janice, and his brother Anthony, an artist. Their youngest sibling, Paul, died in 2006.

Mr. Bream recorded for Westminster, Decca and EMI Classics in the 1990s, but was mainly with RCA Records. Starting in 1959, he recorded nearly 40 discs for the label, covering a vast array of the lute and guitar repertory. In 2013, to celebrate Mr. Bream’s 80th birthday, Sony Classical (which had acquired RCA Red Seal) issued a boxed set with all the RCA discs, as well as two DVDs offering a documentary film and television appearances.

Mr. Bream performing at Alice Tully Hall in New York in 1997. He made his American debut in 1958 at Town Hall in Manhattan.Credit...Rahav Segev for The New York Times

Mr. Bream was fussy about sound, preferring to record late at night in an empty chapel near his home. He said, however, that modern recording techniques could not match the sound he heard on the old shellac discs of his childhood, played on a windup gramophone with a large horn and thorn needles.

“What do I think of digital recording?’’ he once mused at a cocktail party in New York. “Well, it’s all right. But those old thorn needles, now, that was a sound.”

 
My stepfather died last night, RIP Tomi, he was alright, however last decade or so he had plenty of health related issues especially lung related so here we are, unfortunately due to the Rona no one can set up a funeral or go to the Nursing home he recently moved into. ( he was living in Croatia).
 
Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali has died at the age of 68.

In April 2019, he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer - information he'd share publicly several months later. Banali's treatments caused him to miss several shows, though he continued to keep fans up to date about his health on social media. As medical bills piled up, a GoFundMe page was created to assist Banali with his battle, raising more than $47,000.


In announcing the drummer's death, an official statement from his family noted that Banali "put up an inspiringly brave and courageous 16-month battle to the end and continued playing live as long as he could. Standard chemotherapy stopped working, and a series of strokes made the continuation on a clinical trial impossible. He ultimately lost the fight at 7:18PM on Aug. 20 in Los Angeles surrounded by his wife and daughter."

Born in Queens, N.Y., on Nov. 14, 1951, Banali moved to L.A. in the mid-'70s and spent about a year in New Steppenwolf, an offshoot of the hard-rock legends led by their former bassist Nick St. Nicholas. He left in 1979, and soon began working with singer Kevin DuBrow, whose band, Quiet Riot, had disbanded shortly after guitarist Randy Rhoads and bassist Rudy Sarzo left to play with Ozzy Osbourne.

Originally calling itself DuBrow, the band changed its name back to Quiet Riot after picking up bassist Chuck Wright and guitarist Carlos Cavazo in 1982. Sarzo returned after leaving Osbourne's group following Rhoads' death. The quartet signed a deal with Pasha Records, an indie label distributed by Columbia, and released Metal Health in early 1983. On the strength of their cover of Slade's "Cum On Feel the Noize" and their own "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)," the record became the first heavy metal album to top the Billboard albums chart and eventually sold more than 6 million copies.

But success at the top was short-lived, and subsequent releases failed to sell the same numbers. DuBrow was fired in 1987, and Quiet Riot released one more album with Paul Shortino on vocals before breaking up in 1989. Banali moved on to W.A.S.P., drumming on The Headless Children; he also played with Faster Pussycat and guitarist Gary Hoey in Heavy Bones.

A few years later, DuBrow and Cavazo re-formed Quiet Riot with Kenny Hillery on bass and drummer Pat Ashby, who was soon replaced by Bobby Rondinelli. But before sessions for 1993's Terrified were completed, Rondinelli left for Black Sabbath; Banali came back and also took on the role of Quiet Riot's manager. Sarzo also returned in 1997, reuniting the Metal Health-era lineup until 2003, when they broke up again.

Banali and DuBrow brought back the band in 2004, with guitarist Alex Grossi and the return of Wright, marking the bassist's third stint in the band. When DuBrow died in November 2007, Banali declared the end of Quiet Riot. But after speaking with the late frontman's family, Banali created a new Quiet Riot that included Grossi, Wright and singer Mark Huff. The group would go through several more singers, with James Durbin providing the vocals on 2019's Hollywood Cowboys, Banali's final Quiet Riot album. Most recently, Jizzy Pearl took over vocal duties for his second stint in the band.

The group's story was told in the 2015 documentary Quiet Riot: Well Now You're Here, There's No Way Back. It was directed by Regina Russell, who married Banali later that year.

In addition to being a spokesperson for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Banali was a passionate advocate for animal rescue. Donations in his name are encouraged for Fixnation.org, Aspca.org, Pancan.org or Children.org.





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