by WebWarlock » Fri Jul 02, 2004 10:55 am
-----
Web Warlock
Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches
Me: I think I'll have a mid-life crisis and bring home a little red convertible Vette.
My wife: Fine, as long as you don't bring home some little red-head.
by Gatito Grande » Fri Jul 02, 2004 2:03 pm
Out by Warduke » Mon Jul 12, 2004 12:07 pm
Quote:
Isabel Sanford of 'The Jeffersons' Dies
By RYAN PEARSON, Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES - Actress Isabel Sanford, best known as "Weezie," Louise Jefferson on the television sitcom "The Jeffersons," died of natural causes, her publicist said Monday. She was 86.
Sanford died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized since July 4, said Brad Lemack. Her daughter, Pamela Ruff, was at her side, he said.
Her health had waned after undergoing preventive surgery on a neck artery 10 months ago, Lemack said. He did not give a cause of death.
Sanford co-starred with Sherman Hemsley from 1975 to 1985 on CBS' "The Jeffersons," a spin-off of the popular series "All in the Family," in which she also appeared.
In 1981, Sanford became the first black woman to receive an Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on "The Jeffersons."
Sanford, a native New Yorker, was joined by "Jeffersons" creator Norman Lear and others in January when she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
"Here with stars in my eyes — something that I dreamed about when I was 9 years old," she said at the time. "There are others that deserve it, but let everybody get their own."
She enjoyed getting fan mail from people who saw "The Jeffersons" for the first time in reruns, Lemack said.
"She was just amazed and so pleased that the show had that kind of lasting power and entertainment because she loved to make people laugh," he said.
Sanford made her feature film debut in the 1967 classic, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."
Recently, Sanford lent her voice to "The Simpsons" and appeared in commercial campaigns for Denny's restaurants and retailer Old Navy.
Besides her daughter, Sanford is survived by two sons, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
by dekalog » Mon Jul 12, 2004 12:15 pm
by Gatito Grande » Thu Jul 22, 2004 3:48 pm
Quote:
Film composer Jerry Goldsmith dies at 75
By AP
Academy Award-winning composer Jerry Goldsmith, who created the memorable music for scores of classic movies and television shows ranging from "Patton" and "Planet of the Apes" to "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," has died. He was 75.
Goldsmith died in his sleep Wednesday night at his Beverly Hills home after a long battle with cancer, said Lois Carruth, his personal assistant.
A classically trained composer and conductor who began musical studies at the age of 6, Goldsmith's Hollywood career spanned nearly half a century.
It included an astonishing number of TV and movie scores that have become virtual classics. From the clarions of "Patton" to the syrupy theme for TV's "The Waltons," Goldsmith sometimes seemed virtually synonymous with soundtracks.
His hundreds of works included scores for "The Blue Max," "L.A. Confidential," "Basic Instinct" and "Chinatown."
He took on action hits such as "Total Recall," which he considered one of his best scores, as well as the "Star Trek" movies and more lightweight fare such as "Dennis the Menace."
His last film score was for last year's "Looney Tunes: Back in Action."
He also wrote the themes for television shows, including "Dr. Kildare" and "Barnaby Jones," and a 45-second fanfare that is used in Academy Awards telecasts.
"He could write anything. He did Westerns, comedies," Carruth said. "He preferred writing for more character-driven, quiet films but somehow they kept coming back to him for the action films."
Born Feb. 10, 1929 in Los Angeles, Goldsmith studied with famed pianist Jacob Gimpel and pianist, composer and film musician Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He fell in love with movie composing when he saw the 1945 Ingrid Bergman movie "Spellbound," Carruth said, and while attending the University of California took classes with Miklos Rozsa, who wrote the Oscar-winning score for that film.
In 1950, he got a job as a clerk typist at CBS and eventually got assignments for live radio shows, writing as much as one score a week. He later turned to television.
In the late 1950s he began composing for movies. His career took off in the 1960s with such major films as "Lonely Are the Brave" and "The Blue Max." He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on 1962's "Freud" -- the first of nearly 20 nominations he would receive over the years though he won only once, for best original score for 1976's "The Omen." He also earned five Emmy Awards.
Goldsmith was know for his versatility and his experimentation. He added electronics to the woodwinds and brasses of his scores. For 1968's "Planet of the Apes," he got a blaring effect by having his musicians blow horns without mouthpieces. With a puckish sense of humor, he reportedly wore an ape mask while conducting the score.
"He experimented a lot and that's what made him so popular with his fans," Carruth said. "When he wrote, he got inside of the characters and he wrote what he felt they were thinking and feeling."
"He was very emotional when it came to his writing," she said. "He was very disciplined. He wrote every single day even if he had a cold or a flu."
Some of his motion picture scores were adapted for ballets. Goldsmith also wrote composed orchestral pieces and taught occasional music classes at local universities. Days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Goldsmith's two-minute musical tribute to the victims was performed at the Hollywood Bowl.
He also conducted orchestras around the world, and particularly enjoyed working with the London Symphony Orchestra, Carruth said.
Goldsmith is survived by his wife, Carol; children Aaron, Joel, Carrie, Ellen Edson and Jennifer Grossman, six grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
There are few composers who have been as consistent as Goldsmith was, for so long---he will be missed.
While Goldsmith never composed for the show---it is the work of the great Joe Lo Duca---there is still a connection. Mentioned above is Goldsmith's score for the movie "Patton," w/ its famous trumpet fanfare. Well, one historic quirk of General Patton (so I've heard---I won't swear to this), is that he believed in reincarnation, claiming himself to be a reincarnation of Julius Caesar. If you know "XWP," you know that Xena and J.C. were briefly lovers, and later arch-enemies. So for Julius Caesar's musical theme on the show, Joe Lo Duca "borrowed" Goldsmith's Patton fanfare! 
Outby FlyingPoppy » Fri Jul 23, 2004 1:26 am
For yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision; but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
It's never too late to be who you might have been.
by Warduke » Fri Aug 06, 2004 2:07 pm
Quote:
Funk Singer Rick James Dies in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES - Funk legend Rick James, best known for the 1981 hit "Super Freak," died Friday, apparently of natural causes, police said.
James died at 9:45 a.m. at a residence near Universal City, said Police Department spokeswoman Esther Reyes.
"We learned of his death after responding to a radio call," Reyes said.
After his big hit, James' fame began to fade as he became embroiled in drugs, legal problems and health issues.
James was convicted in 1993 of assaulting two women. The first attack occurred in 1991 when he restrained and burned a young woman with a hot pipe during a cocaine binge at his house in West Hollywood. He was free on bail when the second assault occurred in 1992 in James' hotel room.
James was sentenced to more than two years in state prison.
In 1997, he released a new album, but a year later he suffered a stroke while performing at Denver's Mammoth Events Center, derailing a comeback tour.
In 1998 he also underwent hip replacement surgery.
With his trademark Jheri curl, James was one of the biggest R&B stars of the 1980s, using danceable rhythms and passionate ballads to gain a wide following. Aside from "Super Freak" — which MC Hammer used a decade later as the backing track for his monster hit "U Can't Touch This" — James' hits included "Mary Jane," "Ebony Eyes" and "Fire and Desire," a stirring duet with Teena Marie.
by WebWarlock » Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:22 pm
Quote:
'Funk' Musician Rick James Dies
By Geoff Boucher and Amelia Neufeld
Times Staff Writers
Published August 6, 2004, 4:06 PM CDT
Funk pioneer Rick James, famous for the raunchy 1981 hit "Super Freak (Part 1)," but also for drug and sex crimes that outsized the debauchery of his music, was found dead this morning at his home near Universal City in Los Angeles. He was 56.
Police arrived at the singer's home on the 3600 block of Barham Boulevard about 9:50 a.m. after a live-in caretaker reported finding the body of the singer. The preliminary finding was that James died of natural causes, according to Los Angeles police and the star's attending physician, who signed the death certificate. In addition to years of drug abuse, James had endured a battery of health problems, including a stroke and a major hip injury.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, James first cut his image as a sly, urban Lothario with a penchant for drugs in hits such as "Give It to Me" and "Mary Jane," but by the close of the 1980s he was immersed in a life that would see him do prison time for drug charges as well as a lurid case resulting in charges of assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment and kidnapping.
In his heyday, James used a blend of bass-heavy rhythms combined with salacious lyrics to revitalize Motown Records. He also wrote and produced hits for the Temptations, Teena Marie and others.
James, along with Alonzo Miller and MC Hammer, won a Grammy award in 1990 for "best rhythm and blues song" for the song "U Can't Touch This," performed by Hammer. In more recent years, James' music has been sampled and used by more contemporary artists such as Mary J. Blige, LL Cool J and Ja Rule.
James was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, a performing rights group, during its 17th annual Rhythm & Soul Awards at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel in June.
In the early 1990s, James served prison time for charges stemming from cocaine use and two sexual assaults on women, one of whom he restrained and burned with a hot pipe during a weeklong cocaine binge at his house in West Hollywood.
In his 1991 trial, James denied that his life had imitated his art. Instead, while describing his long career in music, James said his 1981 hit song "Super Freak" changed his life, drawing to him many women similar to the woman described in the song as "a very kinky girl . . . the type you don't bring home to mother."
The tune began as just a "silly song," not an autobiographical account, he said.
"I don't even know what 'super freak' means," said James. "I could take any girl home to my mother."
The most recent charges against James came two years ago when he publicly denied allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman at his home, claiming the charges were motivated by greed. No criminal charges were filed.
In a 2002 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Jones said in some ways he was older and wiser for his travails.
"I have a desire and a purpose now," he said. "Before, I was really on drugs [when] I went on stage. Now I can remember the cities I'm in and the songs I'm singing."
James is survived by three children and two grandchildren.
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Web Warlock
Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches
Me: I think I'll have a mid-life crisis and bring home a little red convertible Vette.
My wife: Fine, as long as you don't bring home some little red-head.
by Gatito Grande » Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:41 pm
Out by seurat » Fri Aug 06, 2004 5:22 pm
"Life's complications and frustrations/they disappear when the music starts playing/I found a place where it feels alright/I hear a record and it opened my eyes/do you remember what the music meant?" - Speakers Push Air, Pretty Girls Make Graves
by jixer » Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:41 pm
by WebWarlock » Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:51 pm
Quote:
Fay Wray, King Kong's Darling, Dead at 96
By Claudia Luther
Times Staff Writer
Published August 9, 2004, 2:52 PM CDT
Fay Wray, who screamed her way into movie history as the apple of King Kong's eye, has died. She was 96.
Wray died Sunday night at her home in New York City, according to Rick McKay, a close friend. No cause of death was reported.
"She was fairly active up until the end," said McKay, who directed the documentary "Broadway: The Golden Age," which included a interview with Wray. Her last public appearance was at the New York premiere of the film in June.
Wray was already a silent screen and talkie star when at age 25 she was cast by director Merian C. Cooper as Ann Darrow — a.k.a., "the girl" — in the 1933 film, "King Kong."
Although she made about 80 movies, her fame as a co-star to an ape -she referred to him simply as "Kong" — far outlasted the notice she got from movies she made with the pantheon of Hollywood's leading men, including Gary Cooper, Ronald Coleman, Cary Grant, William Powell and Spencer Tracy.
For many years, Wray resisted the attention that came to her for donning a blond wig to play the role opposite her "tallest, darkest leading man."
But Wray eventually embraced "King Kong" with good humor. "I'm liking it better now than I did in the beginning, when it seemed to me that it was not Shakespeare," she told an interviewer in 1994. She called the movie "my greeting card" and said that everyone — even Shakespearean actor Laurence Olivier — grilled her about how one of the greatest special-effects movies was made.
Well into her later years, Wray continued to travel to film events here and abroad where she was feted as the "scream queen," although she remained surprised by the public accolades she got for the performance that she hardly considered acting. "I yelled every time they said, 'Yell,'" she explained about the role for which she was paid $10,000 for 10 weeks work-good pay for Hollywood in the Depression.
RKO got more than its money worth — the movie grossed nearly $90,000 in its first four days, a fortune at a time when movie tickets were 15 cents. What's more, Wray recorded some of her sensuous moans and shrieks for the studio, which were later used in other horror films.
After "King Kong" found a new generation of fans when it became regular fare on black-and-white TV in the 1950s, Wray cheerily succumbed to her fate and even made a tribute to the lovesick gorilla in her 1989 biography, "On the One Hand" — the title is a playful tribute to the film in which Kong clenches her in his paw. In an open letter to King Kong, she said, "To speak of me is to think of you. To speak to me is often a prelude to questions about you."
The book party for her autobiography was held at the Empire State Building, the skyscraper that the hairy beast scaled to rescue his writhing beauty from the flash-bulb popping crowd of journalists who were chasing him. His great power weakened by love, unable to swat away the pesky airplanes that were attacking him, King Kong finally falls to his death.
"The final scene is really moving, where Kong is shot as he stands on the Empire State Building, and clutches his breast, but then stretches out his hand to where I am," she told an interviewer 1998. "A great piece of acting from that little fellow."
And Wray did mean little — although King Kong was several stories high in the film, he was in reality 18 inches of cloth, metal and rubber brought to life by special effects genius Willis O'Brien. The only part of the monster that was life-size was the 6-foot-long arm and paw. (The limb was on display for a time at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles.) "I'd jump on board and be towed up and pretend to be screaming at this 40-foot monster," Wray told an interviewer.
One of the last remaining of the screen stars from Hollywood's golden era, the beautiful, blue-eyed Wray began in films as an extra in the silents as a young teenager, playing in "two-reeler" westerns, which ran 20 or 25 minutes and were shown with a feature film. Soon she was doing five-reelers. She was distinguished from the pack of young starlets when she was named a "baby star" by the Western Assn. of Motion Picture Advertisers, a list that included her friend, Janet Gaynor, as well as Joan Crawford and Delores Del Rio.
Wray made her mark during the studio era. "Every fourth Monday we started a new picture," she once told Associated Press. In 1933 alone, the year "King Kong" was released, Wray has to her credit 10 other movies, including "Shanghai Madness" with Spencer Tracy and "The Bowery" with George Raft and Wallace Beery.
"I was known as the queen of the Bs," she said in 1990. "If only I'd been a little more selective."
Her first big role, in the monumental silent film by Erich von Stroheim, "The Wedding March," launched Wray into stardom. The 1928 melodrama starred von Stroheim as a Viennese prince unable to choose the woman he loved — Wray in the role of Mitzi — over a rich woman who could secure his future.
"I never did get another director as great as Stroheim," she told the Guardian of London in 1998. "His genius was an infinite capacity for taking care of detail. In the beer-garden scene, which was the first I shot with him, he had had thousands of blossoms made by hand, some in wax and some in paper, so that they would flutter down on where we sat. And even though it was a silent film, he insisted that the actors should speak precise lines."
She met von Stroheim when she was just 19, so she tried to look as grown-up as possible, "piling my hair high on my head, wearing my best blue-chiffon dress and my high-heeled patent-leather slippers."
But she had dark hair-von Stroheim wanted a blond-and was too tall-von Stroheim was shorter and didn't want a co-star he had to look up to. It took some convincing and a few tears, but finally von Stroheim chose Wray for Mitzi.
Although the shoot was difficult and long, it was this role of which Wray was the most proud and which would make her famous among more artsy film buffs around the world.
Vina Fay Wray, always known as Fay, was born in Sept. 15, 1907, in Alberta, Canada. When her father, a rancher, hit hard times, the family moved to Arizona and then to Utah. Her parents later divorced, and her mother, worried about her daughter's health after another daughter had died of influenza, allowed a family friend, a photographer, to escort the 14-year-old Fay to Los Angeles. Her mother soon followed.
Wray attended Hollywood High School, where she got interested in drama. Her first motion picture role was in "Gasoline Love" (1923) at the old Century Pictures studio at Sunset and Gower.
Wray's 1928 marriage to John Monk Saunders, who wrote the first film to win an Academy Award, the silent "Wings," ended shortly before he committed suicide. In 1942, she left acting to embark on an idyllic marriage to another writer, Robert Riskin, the Academy Award-winning writer of Frank Capra comedies, including "It Happened One Night" and "Mr Deeds Goes to Town."
Riskin died in 1955 after a long illness, years that finally pressed Wray, by then the mother of three children, out of retirement for several years. Her third husband, physician Sanford Rothenberg, died in 1991.
She is survived by three children: Susan Riskin, her daughter by Saunders, of New York; Robert Riskin, a longtime owner of McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica; and Victoria Riskin Rintels, former president of Writers Guild of America-West; and two grandchildren.
While Wray came to terms with and finally greatly enjoyed her fame as the woman who put the light of love into King Kong's dark eyes, she did draw the line at playing a small role in the 1976 remake, which starred Jessica Lange in her role.
The original "King Kong" "was so extraordinary, so full of imagination and special effects that it will never be equaled," she told columnist Roderick Mann in 1987. "They shouldn't have tried."
She later told another interviewer, "Every time I'm in New York I say a little prayer when passing the Empire State Building. A good friend of mine died up there."
Copyright © 2004, The Los Angeles Times
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Web Warlock
Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches
Me: I think I'll have a mid-life crisis and bring home a little red convertible Vette.
My wife: Fine, as long as you don't bring home some little red-head.
by Gatito Grande » Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:45 pm
]
<--- (I bet you get the relevance of that emoticon! ) Outby WebWarlock » Fri Aug 13, 2004 9:35 am
Quote:
Master chef Julia Child dead at 91
The Associated Press
Published August 13, 2004, 10:07 AM CDT
NEW YORK -- Julia Child, whose warbling, encouraging voice and able hands brought the intricacies of French cuisine to American home cooks through her television series and books, died in her sleep three days before what would have been her 92nd birthday.
"America has lost a true national treasure," Nicholas Latimer, director of publicity for Alfred A. Knopf publishing, said in a statement today. "She will be missed terribly."
The statement said she died Thursday at her home in Santa Barbara, Calif. The cause of death was not given.
A 6-foot-2 American folk hero, "The French Chef" was known to her public as Julia, and preached a delight not only in good food but in sharing it, ending her landmark public television lessons at a set table and with the wish, "Bon appetit."
"Dining with one's friends and beloved family is certainly one of life's primal and most innocent delights, one that is both soul-satisfying and eternal," she said in the introduction to her seventh book, "The Way to Cook." "In spite of food fads, fitness programs, and health concerns, we must never lose sight of a beautifully conceived meal."
Chipper and unpretentious, she beckoned everyone to give good food a try. She wasn't always tidy in the kitchen, and just like the rest of us, she sometimes dropped things or had trouble getting a cake out of its mold.
In an A-line skirt and blouse, and an apron with a dish towel tucked into the waist, Julia Child grew familiar enough to be parodied by Dan Aykroyd on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and the subject of Jean Stapleton's musical revue, "Bon Appetit." She was on the cover of Time magazine in 1966.
Active and a frequent traveler in her 80s, Child credited good genes and a habit begun in her 40s of eating everything in moderation.
Susy Davidson, a consultant who worked with Child on "Good Morning America," called Child's friendship a great gift.
"She's helped me redefine age, No. 1," Davidson once said. "She is the standard by which I judge all professionals. She's always eager to learn something, to try something new. She just has this generosity of spirit."
She was foremost a teacher and never lost sight of the goal set out in volume one of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking": "Anyone can cook in the French manner anywhere, with the right instruction. Our hope is that this book will be helpful in giving that instruction."
Like her friend James Beard, Child was influenced but not battered by the popularity of fast food, low-fat food, health food.
She aimed "The Way to Cook" at a new generation and while it offered plenty of recipes using butter and cream, it left room for experimentation and variation in its blend of classic French and free-style American techniques. It was a hit, with nearly 400,000 copies in print just four months after publication.
She worried, however, that the health craze was overdone.
"What's dangerous and discouraging about this era is that people really are afraid of their food," she told The Associated Press in 1989. "Sitting down to dinner is a trap, not something to enjoy. People should take their food more seriously. Learn what you can eat and enjoy it thoroughly."
Child did not take a cooking lesson until she was in her 30s. And she was in her 50s when her first television series began in 1963.
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
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Web Warlock
Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches
Me: I think I'll have a mid-life crisis and bring home a little red convertible Vette.
My wife: Fine, as long as you don't bring home some little red-head.
by jixer » Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:20 pm
by good2cats » Fri Aug 13, 2004 8:19 pm
by oneyedchicklet » Sun Aug 29, 2004 12:08 am
Now serving Bitter, party of one. Your table is ready.
by maudmac » Sun Aug 29, 2004 6:33 am
i wasn't sniffing your spicy brains
by urnofosiris » Sun Aug 29, 2004 11:26 am
by Gatito Grande » Sun Aug 29, 2004 1:25 pm
).
) Hey, everybody, don't let a two-week headache go unchecked, 'kay? I swear I'm not making this up, and I know it was a Laura Branigan song, but I can't remember which one. 
Out by WebWarlock » Sun Aug 29, 2004 7:50 pm
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Web Warlock
Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches
Talent on loan from Cthulhu
by xita » Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:45 pm
- - - - - - - - - - -
"Trust is a risk masquerading as a promise."
by littlecrazy80 » Mon Aug 30, 2004 12:37 am
I liked her music. "I am S-E-X-Y" Amber at the FedCon
Sweet Amber ~~~ Amber Board ~~~ Danielle Benson ~~~ Danielle Benson France ~~~ Danielle Board
by Gatito Grande » Mon Aug 30, 2004 8:33 pm
Out
by 4WiccanLuv » Thu Sep 16, 2004 12:36 am
Damn, I fricken love this band always will. I was lucky enough to see them several times throughout the 80’s and into the 90’s. Quote:
Johnny Ramone Dead at 55
By Paul Cashmere
16 September 2004
Johnny Ramone has lost his battle with cancer. The 55 year old guitarist for the legendary punk band has died in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles after battling prostate cancer for the last five years.
Johnny (born John Cummings) is the third member of the band to die since 2001. Joey Ramone (Jeff Hyman) died of cancer in 2001 and Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Colvin) died of a drug overdose in 2002.
In June this year, serious reports started to surface as to the health of Johnny Ramone after he was admitted to Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. His wife Linda issued a statement shortly after to say the visit was just a routine check-up and that Johnny was okay.
The Ramones formed in New York City in 1974. They were a punk band before the term even existed. They predated the Sex Pistols and led the way for New York's new wave with bands like Blondie, Television and Talking Heads.
They were going to split in 1995 but stayed together for their final performances as part of Lollapalooza. By 1996, it was all over for The Ramones.
The death of Johnny Ramone now leaves just one founding member of the band. Drummer Tommy Ramone (Tom Erdelyi) is now the only surviving founding member although he left The Ramones in 1977.
"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others." - Groucho Marx
by mollyig » Thu Sep 16, 2004 7:18 am
by WebWarlock » Thu Sep 16, 2004 7:48 am
Quote:
Punk guitarist Johnny Ramone dies at 55
By Geoff Boucher
Los Angeles Times staff writer
Published September 16, 2004, 8:06 AM CDT
Johnny Ramone, the guitarist whose bursts of primitive punk energy helped the Ramones go from an obscure New York band to a reshaping force in rock 'n' roll, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 55.
Ramone, born John Cummings but known by the surname adopted by each of the punk group's members, died in his sleep surrounded by friends, according to his family. The guitarist had been battling prostate cancer for five years and took a turn for the worse in June, when he was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with an infection.
The Ramones were a potent and beloved force in punk rock, although their influence and acclaim came late in the game. The band, known for songs that were simple, short and frenetic, formed in 1974 in Forest Hills, N.Y., and their influence was immediate in the late 1970s underground music revolution of punk. But the band could only watch as other acts garnered the largest spotlight.
Inducted last year into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — ahead of the more celebrated Sex Pistols and celebrated in a new documentary film, "End of the Century," now in theaters, the Ramones had to wait until most of their membership had died to be hailed by mainstream pop culture as a pioneering force. With Johnny's death, only one member of the original quartet, drummer Tommy Ramone, is still alive.
With songs such as "I Wanna Be Sedated," "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker," "Blitzkrieg Bop," "Judy Is a Punk" and "Beat on the Brat," the Ramones created an underground sensation in the summer of 1974 with their residency at CBGB, a scruffy club in lower Manhattan. Their fashion was bowl haircuts and ripped jeans, and their musical pedigree was equally tattered.
The band's self-titled 1976 album, recorded for less than $7,000, was a definitive work with 14 almost cartoonish songs that they raced through in less than 30 minutes. It drew on 1950s rock and the 1960s garage bands that seemed to have missed flower power. The band would tour incessantly and their 1976 foray through Europe influenced the U.K. rock scene.
The band had started, famously, as a group of glue-sniffing delinquents who saw in music their only chance to escape a dead-end life. Dee Dee, Joey, Tommy and Johnny somehow exuded both urban fatalism and pure rock optimism. The band got its name from an alias that Paul McCartney had used to reserve hotel rooms during the Beatles years.
Punk rock surged in popularity and the band continued to tour, but the headlines went more often to acts such as the Clash, who added complexity to the searing energy of the genre. The Ramones were a popular concert act, but their albums would come and go with little commercial impact.
By the 1990s, the hipness of the band and the success of the newer generations of artists who revered them led to a widening appreciation of the band. In 1992, Spin magazine cited the band as one of the top seven rock acts of all time, showing just how loud the Ramones' quiet success story had become. A year later, the band was featured in fittingly cartoon form on "The Simpsons," indicating a certain pop culture ubiquity. Last year, an album of Ramones song covers was released featuring some of the top bands in rock, including U2 and Metallica.
Johnny Ramone essentially hung up his guitar in 1996 after the Ramones farewell tour and said often that he thought the band would be a footnote in rock. "Six years later the Ramones are bigger than ever, have more friends and better friends, and everyone's nice to me wherever I go," he told The Times in 2003 . "It's weird; it's nice. Better late than never…. I'm very competitive and I want people to see us as one of the best bands, and when most people you talk to don't even know who the hell you are, yeah, it never feels good."
The Long Island-born Johnny Ramone was often described as a core force in the band's run but also as a difficult personality. He told people his personality came across in the music — that the rough and fast edge would not be there if his world view was a soft one.
A former construction worker, he was a rebel in a rebel's world — an outspoken Republican and supporter of the National Rifle Assn., he used the mike at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to say, "God bless President Bush and God bless America."
In his personal life he was an avid fan of film and baseball and his outlook was shaped by the blue-collar ethos of his Italian family in Queens, N.Y.
A tribute concert and cancer research fund-raiser was held Sunday in Los Angeles to celebrate the band's 30th anniversary. It featured X, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Henry Rollins and other acts that found in the Ramones a template for rock as rebellion.
Along with his wife, Linda Cummings, Johnny Ramone was surrounded at his death by friends Eddie and Jill Vedder, Rob and Sherrie Zombie and others. Other friends who gathered at his Los Angeles home included Lisa Marie Presley, Pete Yorn, Vincent Gallo and Talia Shire.
He is survived by his wife and his mother, Estelle Cummings. He will be cremated during a private ceremony.
Copyright © 2004, The Los Angeles Times
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Web Warlock
Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches
Talent on loan from Cthulhu
by oneyedchicklet » Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:36 am
Now serving Bitter, party of one. Your table is ready.
by WebWarlock » Mon Oct 04, 2004 8:21 am
Quote:
Actress Janet Leigh Dies at 77
By JOHN ROGERS
Associated Press Writer
Published October 4, 2004, 6:58 AM CDT
LOS ANGELES -- Janet Leigh, the wholesome beauty whose shocking murder in the classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller "Psycho" was credited with making generations of film fans think twice about stepping into a motel room shower, has died at her Beverly Hills home, her daughter's publicist confirmed Monday. She was 77.
The actress' husband, Robert Brandt, and her daughters, actresses Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis, were at their mother's side when she died Sunday, said Heidi Schaeffer, a spokeswoman for Jamie Lee Curtis.
"She died peacefully at home," Schaeffer told The Associated Press.
Lee had suffered from vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels, for the past year.
The stunning blonde beauty enjoyed a long and distinguished career, appearing in such films as the 1962 political thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" and in Orson Welles' 1958 film noir classic "Touch of Evil."
But she gained her most lasting fame in "Psycho" as the embezzling office worker who is stabbed to death in the shower by cross-dressing madman Anthony Perkins. The role earned her an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress.
Hitchcock compiled the shower sequence in 70-odd takes of two and three seconds each, for which Leigh spent seven days in the shower. Rumors circulated that she was nude, but she wore a flesh-colored moleskin.
Although tame by today's standards, the scene was shocking for the time for its brutality.
Leigh wrote in her 1995 book "Psycho: Behind the Scenes in the Classic Thriller" that the filming was easy until the last 20 seconds when she had to express total horror as her character was being slashed to death.
She often said she hadn't been able to take a shower since the movie. "It's not a hype, not something I thought would be good for publicity," she insisted. "Honest to gosh, it's true."
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
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Web Warlock
Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches
"Joel: Hi, I'm Satan, enjoy the film!" - MST3k "Jungle Goddess", Season 2, Episode 3
by skittles » Tue Oct 05, 2004 6:49 pm
Quote:
Rodney Dangerfield dead at 82
Tuesday, October 5, 2004 Posted: 8:55 PM EDT (0055 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Rodney Dangerfield, the bug-eyed comic whose self-deprecating one-liners brought him stardom in clubs, television and movies and made his lament "I don't get no respect" a catchphrase, died Tuesday. He was 82.
Dangerfield, who fell into a coma after undergoing heart surgery, died at 1:20 p.m., said publicist Kevin Sasaki. Dangerfield had a heart valve replaced August 25 at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center.
Sasaki said in a statement that Dangerfield suffered a small stroke after the operation and developed infectious and abdominal complications. But in the past week he had emerged from the coma, the publicist said.
"When Rodney emerged, he kissed me, squeezed my hand and smiled for his doctors," Dangerfield's wife, Joan, said in the statement. The comic is also survived by two children from a previous marriage.
As a comic, Dangerfield -- clad in a black suit, red tie and white shirt with collar that seemed too tight -- convulsed audiences with lines such as: "When I was born, I was so ugly that the doctor slapped my mother"; "When I started in show business, I played one club that was so far out my act was reviewed in Field and Stream"; and "Every time I get in an elevator, the operator says the same thing to me: `Basement?"'
In a 1986 interview, he explained the origin of his "respect" trademark:
"I had this joke: 'I played hide and seek; they wouldn't even look for me.' To make it work better, you look for something to put in front of it: I was so poor, I was so dumb, so this, so that. I thought, 'Now what fits that joke?' Well, 'No one liked me' was all right. But then I thought, a more profound thing would be, 'I get no respect."'
He tried it at a New York club, and the joke drew a bigger response than ever. He kept the phrase in the act, and it seemed to establish a bond with his audience. After hearing him perform years later, Jack Benny remarked: "Me, I get laughs because I'm cheap and 39. Your image goes into the soul of everyone."
Dangerfield had a strange career in show business. At 19 he started as a standup comedian. He made only a fair living, traveling a great deal and appearing in rundown joints. Married at 27, he decided he couldn't support a family on his meager earnings.
He returned to comedy at 42 and began to attract notice. He appeared on the Ed Sullivan show seven times and on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson more than 70 times.
After his standout film role in "Caddyshack," he began starring in his own movies.
He was born Jacob Cohen on November 22, 1921, in Babylon on New York's Long Island. Growing up in the borough of Queens, his mother was uncaring and his father was absent. As Philip Roy, the father and his brother toured in vaudeville as a pantomime comedy-juggling act, Roy and Arthur. Young Jacob's parents divorced, and the mother struggled to support her daughter and son.
The boy helped bring in money by selling ice cream at the beach and working for a grocery store. "I found myself going to school with kids and then in the afternoon I'd be delivering groceries to their back door," he recalled. "I ended up feeling inferior to everybody."
He ingratiated himself to his schoolmates by being funny; at 15 he was writing down jokes and storing them in a duffel bag. When he was 19, he adopted the name Jack Roy and tried out the jokes at a resort in the Catskills, training ground for Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, Red Button, Sid Caesar and other comedians. The job paid $12 a week plus room and meals.
In New York, he drove a laundry and fish truck, taking time off to hunt for work as a comedian. The jobs came slowly, but in time he was averaging $300 a week.
He married Joyce Indig, a singer he met at a New York club. Both had wearied of the uncertainty of a performer's life.
"We wanted to lead a normal life," he remarked in a 1986 interview. "I wanted a house and a picket fence and kids, and the heck with show business. Love is more important, you see. When the show is over, you're alone."
The couple settled in Englewood, New Jersey, had two children, Brian and Melanie, and he worked selling paint and siding. But the idyllic suburban life soured as the pair battled. The couple divorced in 1962, remarried a year later and again divorced.
In 1993, Dangerfield married Joan Child, a flower importer.
At age 42, he returned to show business. He remembered in 1986:
"It was like a need. I had to work. I had to tell jokes. I had to write them and tell them. It was like a fix. I had the habit."
Even during his domestic years, he continued filling the duffel bag with jokes. He didn't want to break in his new act with any notice, so he asked the owner of New York's Inwood Lounge, George McFadden, not to bill him as Jack Roy. McFadden came up with the absurd name Rodney Dangerfield. It stuck.
Dangerfield's bookings improved, and he landed television gigs. After his ex-wife died, he took over the responsibility of raising his two children. He decided to quit touring and open a New York nightclub, Dangerfield's, so he could stay close to home. A beer commercial and the Carson shows brought him national attention.
His film debut came in 1971 with "The Projectionist," which he described as "the kind of a movie that you went to the location on the subway." He did better in 1980 with "Caddyshack," in which he held his own with such comics as Chevy Chase, Ted Knight and Bill Murray.
Despite his good reviews, Dangerfield claimed he didn't like movies or TV series: "Too much waiting around, too much memorizing; I need that immediate feedback of people laughing."
Still, he continued starring in and sometimes writing films such as "Easy Money," "Back to School," "Moving," "The Scout," "Ladybugs" and "Meet Wally Sparks." He turned dramatic as a sadistic father in Oliver Stone's 1994 "Natural Born Killers."
In 1995, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rejected Dangerfield's application for membership. A letter from Roddy McDowall of the actors branch explained that the comedian had failed to execute "enough of the kinds of roles that allow a performer to demonstrate the mastery of his craft."
The ultimate rejection, and Dangerfield played it to the hilt. He had established his own Web site ("I went out and bought an Apple Computer; it had a worm in it"
"They don't even apologize or nothing," he said. "They give no respect at all -- pardon the pun -- to comedy."
skittles
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