Famous Celebrity/Obscure Notable Deaths 2007 Edition

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

Meh, the old thread was getting long, and 90% of the college-aged people here will owe this guy some thanks. Wink

Japan's Cup Noodle guru dies at 96

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- The Japanese inventor of instant noodles, a snack that has sold billions of servings worldwide since its launch, died on Friday at the age of 96, according to an official at Nissin Food Products, the company he founded.

Born in Taiwan in 1910 while it was under Japanese occupation, Momofuku Ando ran clothing and other companies in Taipei and Osaka early in his career.

He was inspired to develop the world's first instant-noodle product after coming across a long line of people waiting to buy fresh "ramen" noodles from a black market stall during the food shortages after World War Two, Japanese media said.

After his Chicken Ramen product became hugely popular in 1958, despite a luxury price-tag of 35 yen, he went on to bring out the Cup Noodle in 1971.

Providing the instant noodles in a waterproof styrofoam container that could be used to cook them using just hot water proved a stroke of marketing genius that made the product a hit with time-pressed people around the world.

Ando remained in the public eye until recently -- appearing on television in 2005 to promote a version of the Cup Noodle adapted for astronauts to eat aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

Often seen devouring servings of the dish he invented, Ando opened a museum devoted to instant noodles in Osaka in 1999. Ando is survived by his wife, Masako.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

Scooby-Doo designer dies in L.A.
Tue Jan 9, 12:41 AM ET

Iwao Takamoto, the animator who designed the cartoon canine Scooby-Doo as well as characters on such shows as "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons," died on Monday after suffering a massive coronary, a spokesman said. He was 81.

Takamoto died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for respiratory problems, said Gary Miereanu, a spokesman for Warner Bros. Animation.

Takamoto designed Scooby-Doo, his equally famished and cowardly master Shaggy, and their pals Velma, Daphne and Fred in the late 1960s while working at the Hanna-Barbera animation studio. The Great Dane's name was inspired by an improvised line at the end of Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night."

He also designed the snickering dog Muttley, who was featured in a number of productions, and Astro, the family dog on "The Jetsons." For "The Flintstones," he created the Great Gazoo, a green alien.

Takamoto's death comes exactly three weeks after that of Hanna-Barbera co-founder Joseph Barbera.

Takamoto, who was born in Los Angeles in 1925, spent part of World War Two in an internment camp, where he received some informal illustration training from fellow Japanese-Americans.

After the war he got a job as an apprentice at Disney Studios, where he worked on such features as "Cinderella" and "Peter Pan." In 1961, he moved to Hanna-Barbera, now a unit of Time Warner Inc.

At the time of his death, Takamoto was a vice president at Warner Bros. Animation. He storyboarded the 2005 Tom and Jerry animation short "The Karateguard," and helped design many of the characters in the current series "Krypto the Superdog." He is survived by his wife, Barbara, and two children.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

Denny Doherty, whose alluring tenor was a cornerstone of the Mamas and the Papas' "sunshine pop" sound, died Friday in Mississauga, Ontario, just west of Toronto, after a short illness. He was 66.

Doherty, who carried on the legacy of the Mamas & the Papas after the deaths of Cass Elliot and John Phillips, was the conduit between the band's principal singing and songwriting forces.

Born Dennis Gerrard Stephen Doherty in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, he spent his teen years in a folk act, the Colonials, that became the Halifax Three. Moving to the U.S., he next joined the Big Three which featured Elliot. That band expanded to become the Mugwumps and included future members of the Lovin' Spoonful. The Mugwumps, in 1964, were working on an East Coast folk-based style of music played on electric instruments before splitting up.

Meanwhile, John and Michelle Phillips were working as a folk outfit, the New Journeymen, and needed a third singer. Doherty needed the money and switched groups while Elliott got work as a jazz singer. Rather than get together and make music, the quartet's first meeting was to drop acid and listen to a Beatles record.

The Phillipses and Doherty traveled to the Virgin Islands and Elliot followed, working as a waitress. Separately, all four of them moved to Los Angeles and while using Elliot's apartment to rehearse, they realized the band sounded better as a quartet. John Phillips had had reservations about her size, but the quartet impressed producer Lou Adler with their "California Dreamin'" at an audition and she was instantly a permanent member of the band, which was in its last days of being called the New Journeymen.

From 1966 to 1969, with 11 top 30 singles, the Mamas & the Papas became the premiere practitioners of a style dubbed sunshine pop. With ace studio musicians behind them, records by the Mamas & the Papas employed multiple voice overdubs -- as many as 16, an unheard of number in the mid-'60s. In 1998, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

After the group broke up, Doherty recorded two solo albums in the early 1970s, and then turned to acting. He starred in Andy Warhol and John Phillips' "Man on the Moon," which was panned and closed after five perfs in 1975. Three years later, he hosted "Denny's Sho" on Canadian television.

In 1982, Doherty worked with John Phillips in the New Mamas & the Papas with his actress/singer daughter Mackenzie and Spanky McFarlane.

He also did some television work for CBC, including a children's show called "Theodore Tugboat." His Canadian stage credits include "North Mountain Breakdown," "Needfire" and "The Secret Garden."
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

Satirist Art Buchwald, who made dying fun, is dead.

Buchwald’s son, Joel, who was with his father, disclosed his death at age 81. He said his father passed away quietly at his home late Wednesday with his family.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author chronicled the life of Washington with an infectious wit for four decades, then cheated death and laughed in its face in a richly lived final year that medical science said he wasn’t supposed to get.

Buchwald had refused dialysis treatments for his failing kidneys a year ago and was expected to die within weeks of moving to a hospice on Feb. 7, where he held court as a parade of luminaries and friends came by to say farewell. But he lived to return home and even write a book about his experiences.

“I’m having a swell time,” he said of his dying. “The best time of my life.”

“The last year he had the opportunity for a victory lap and I think he was really grateful for it,” said son Joel Buchwald. “He had an opportunity to write his book about his experience and he went out the way he wanted to go, on his own terms.”

Neither Buchwald nor his doctors could say how he survived in such grave condition, and he didn’t seem to mind. “Nobody’s been able to really explain what’s going on because I’m not taking dialysis,” Buchwald told The Associated Press in May. “I have to thank my kidneys.”

He described his earlier decision to forgo dialysis and let himself die as a liberating one. “The thing is, when you make your choice, then a lot of the stress is gone. Everything is great because you accept that you are the one who made the choice.”

But when death didn’t come nearly as quickly as expected, Buchwald wrote that he had to scrap his funeral plans, rewrite his living will, buy a new cell phone and get on with his improbable life. “I also had to start worrying about Bush again,” he deadpanned.

Buchwald was called the “Wit of Washington” during his years here and his name became synonymous with political satire. He was well known, too, for his wide smile and affinity for cigars.

Among his more famous witticisms: “If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it.”

Jack Valenti, former chairman and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, recalled Buchwald’s humor. The two had been friends since 1964.

“What Art had was the gift of laughter — that’s a rarity today,” Valenti told AP on Thursday. “He could take simple ordinary things and make you laugh. God knows all of us need that. I’ve been with him in all kinds of situations, good and bad, triumph and tragedy but Art always was able to see a little wisp of humor in everything.”

Ben Bradlee, former Washington Post executive editor and a friend of Buchwald for 60 years, said in an interview that Buchwald was “the humorist of his generation.” Buchwald was a Paris nightlife columnist in the 1950s when he met Bradlee, whose paper carried Buchwald’s columns in later years.

Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts said in a statement: “Art was the Mark Twain of our time.

“For decades there was no better way to start the day than to open the morning paper to Art’s column, laugh out loud and learn all over again to take the issues seriously in the world of politics, but not take yourself too seriously,” he said. “The special art of Art Buchwald was to make even the worst of times better.”

His syndicated column at one point appeared in more than 500 newspapers worldwide. It appeared twice a week in publications including The Washington Post and was distributed by Tribune Media Services.

In a 1995 memoir on his early years, “Leaving Home,” Buchwald wrote that humor was his salvation. In all, he wrote more than 30 books.

“People ask what I am really trying to do with humor,” he wrote. “The answer is, ’I’m getting even.’ ... For me, being funny is the best revenge.”

In 1982, he won the Pulitzer, journalism’s top honor, for outstanding commentary, and in 1986 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In January 2006, doctors amputated Buchwald’s right leg below the knee because of circulation problems. Losing it was “very traumatic” and he said it probably influenced his decision to reject the three-times-a-week, five-hours-a-day dialysis treatments. In 2000, he suffered a major stroke.

Buchwald first attracted notice in the late 1940s in Paris, where he became a correspondent for Variety after dropping out of college.

A year later, he took a trial column called “Paris After Dark” to the New York Herald Tribune. He filled it with scraps of offbeat information about Paris nightlife.

In 1951, he started another column, “Mostly About People,” featuring interviews with celebrities in Paris. The next year, the Herald Tribune introduced Buchwald to U.S. readers through yet another column, “Europe’s Lighter Side.”

“I’ll Always Have Paris!” is the title of a 1996 book. He celebrated his 80th birthday at a party at the French Embassy in Washington.

Among the many who visited Buchwald at the hospice was French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, who brought a medal honoring the 14 years Buchwald spent as a journalist in Paris.

Buchwald returned to the United States in 1962, at the height of the glamour of the Kennedy administration, and set himself up in an office just two blocks from the White House. From there, he began a long career lampooning the Washington power establishment.

Over the years, he discovered the allure of show business and in 1970 he wrote the Broadway play “Sheep on the Runway.”

But he was best known in that realm for the court battle over “Coming to America.” A judge ruled that Paramount Pictures had stolen Buchwald’s idea and in 1992 awarded $900,000 to him and a partner.

The case dated to a 1983 Paramount contract for rights to Buchwald’s story “King for a Day.” The studio had dropped its option to make such a movie in 1985, three years before releasing “Coming to America” without credit to Buchwald.

Both stories involved an African prince who comes to America in search of a bride.

Paramount argued that the two stories were not that similar. After the judge ruled in Buchwald’s favor, Paramount lawyers insisted in the trial’s next phase that the film failed to produce any net profits. The case became a celebrated example of “Hollywood accounting.”

The judge wound up awarding Buchwald and his partner far less than the millions they had sought, but the columnist said he was satisfied.

Born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., on Oct. 25, 1925, Buchwald had a difficult childhood. He and his three sisters were sent to foster homes when their mother was institutionalized for mental illness. Their father, a drapery salesman, suffered Depression-era financial troubles and couldn’t afford them.

At 17, Buchwald ran away to join the Marines and spent 3½ years in the Pacific during World War II, attaining the rank of sergeant and spending much of his time editing a Corps newspaper.

After the war, he enrolled at the University of Southern California, where he became managing editor of the campus humor magazine and a columnist for the student paper. But he dropped out in 1948 and headed for Paris on a one-way ticket.

He married Ann McGarry, of Warren, Pa., in London on Oct. 12, 1952. The writer and one-time fashion coordinator for Neiman-Marcus later wrote a book with her husband. They adopted three children.

She died in 1994. In 2000, Buchwald published his first novel, “Stella In Heaven: Almost a Novel,” about a widower who can communicate with his deceased wife.

Despite his successes, the perennial funny man said he battled depression in 1963 and 1987. “You do get over it, and you get over it a better person,” he once said of the illness.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Daikun · **Daikun**

Anna Nicole Smith, the small-town Texas girl turned Playboy Playmate who fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court over her billionaire husband's estate, died suddenly on Thursday at the age of 39.

Smith, a voluptuous platinum blonde who grew up idolizing the late screen legend Marilyn Monroe, was pronounced dead at a Hollywood, Florida, hospital.

A favorite subject of the tabloid media, Smith was rushed to the hospital after a private nurse who had apparently been alone with her in her room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino telephoned a hotel operator to ask for medical help.

"I can confirm that she is deceased. It's as shocking to me as to you guys," Smith's attorney, Ronald Rale, told Reuters.

Her lawyer and husband, Howard K. Stern, "obviously is speechless and grieving," Rale said.

An autopsy was scheduled for Friday to determine the cause of death, which was quickly linked by some commentators to reports of drug abuse and came at a time of grief and fresh legal wrangles for Smith.

Just five months ago, Smith's 20-year-old son from her first marriage, Daniel, died in a Bahamas hospital three days after she gave birth to her daughter, Dannielyn Hope Marshall Stern. She then quickly became embroiled in a paternity suit over the baby girl filed by an ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead.

Smith was ordered to have her infant daughter undergo a paternity test, and on Wedensday, the day before her death, a judge set a Feb. 21 deadline for completion of that test.

Smith had said Stern was the father.

WANTED TO BE LIKE MARILYN

Within hours of Smith's death, Birkhead's lawyer Debra Opri sought an emergency order for DNA tests on the body as part of the paternity battle. A hearing was scheduled for Friday morning in Los Angeles Superior Court in the matter.

The hotel told reporters Smith had checked in on Monday and was scheduled to leave on Friday. Her daughter was not with her and sources said the child was being cared for in the Bahamas.

Her sister, Donna Hogan, told CNN she had spoken little to Smith in the last decade and learned of her death through the news media.

"Its shocking," she said. "But at the same time I'm not really shocked because of her lifestyle. In the back of your mind you know that someday it might happen."

Born Vickie Lynn Hogan and raised in the small Texas town of Mexia, about 80 miles (130 km) south of Dallas, Smith grew up saying she wanted to be like Marilyn Monroe, who came from a troubled childhood to become one of Hollywood's biggest stars.

Monroe was found dead at the age of 36 by her housekeeper on Aug 5, 1962. The cause of death was listed as an overdose of sleeping pills.

Smith also had a difficult childhood and was dogged by talk of addiction to drugs, including prescription painkillers, that was fueled by her slurred words and unusual behavior at awards shows and other public events.

"I actually went into a coma, you know. I almost died," she told the "Entertainment Tonight" show in late 2004. "I had to rehabilitate myself. And then they took the nurse away, so there I was crawling -- crawling to the bathroom and stuff."

A high school dropout, she was working at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken restaurant when she married her first husband, Billy Wayne Smith, at 17. She separated from him two years later and moved to Houston.

It was while performing at a Houston topless club that Smith met elderly oil billionaire J. Howard Marshall, who asked her repeatedly to marry him before they wed in 1994. She was 26 and he was 89.

Marshall died 14 months later and Smith spent much of the following decade battling members of his family over his estate. In May 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Smith could pursue her case in federal court.

Smith, also known for modeling Guess? jeans, was named Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Year in 1993 and had film roles that year in "The Hudsucker Proxy" and "Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult."
_________________
Toonami visual schedule - UPDATED AUGUST 2, 2015

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

Can't believe we missed this one!

Pause to reflect: Co-inventor of TV remote dies

BOISE, Idaho - Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote has died.

Robert Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made couch potatoship possible, died February 22nd of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at age 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday.

In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Adler and co-inventor Polley, another Zenith engineer, an Emmy in 1997 for the landmark invention.

Adler joined Zenith’s research division in 1941 after earning a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna. He retired as research vice president in 1979, and served as a technical consultant until 1999, when Zenith merged with LG Electronics Inc.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch screen technology, on Feb. 1.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

JJc14 · **JJc14**

Boston lead singer Brad Delp dies at 55

Brad Delp, the lead singer for the band Boston, was found dead Friday in his home in southern New Hampshire. He was 55. Atkinson police responded to a call for help at 1:20 p.m. and found Delp dead. Police Lt. William Baldwin said in a statement the death was "untimely" and that there was no indication of foul play.

Delp apparently was alone at the time of his death, Baldwin said.

The cause of his death remained under investigation by the Atkinson police and the New Hampshire Medical Examiner's office. Police said an incident report would not be available until Monday.

Delp sang vocals on Boston's 1976 hits "More than a Feeling" and "Longtime." He also sang on Boston's most recent album, "Corporate America," released in 2002.

He joined the band in the early 1970s after meeting Tom Scholz, an MIT student interested in experimental methods of recording music, according to the group's official Web site. The band enjoyed its greatest success and influence during its first decade.

The band's last appearance was in November 2006 at Boston's Symphony Hall.

On Friday night, the Web site was taken down and replaced with the statement: "We just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll."
_________________
"Life's a journey, not a destination..." -Aerosmith ('Amazing')
Current RPG(s): (None)

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

‘Tonight Show’ regular dies of apparent suicide

LOS ANGELES - Richard Jeni committed suicide after being diagnosed earlier this year with clinical depression and suffering bouts of psychotic paranoia, the late comic’s family said Tuesday.

Jeni, 49, was found Saturday with a gunshot wound and later died at the hospital. An autopsy was performed Monday, although the coroner said an official cause of death would not be announced for several weeks.

“It was reported to us as a possible suicide,” coroner’s Capt. Ed Winter said Monday. He did not disclose what kind of weapon was used.

No suicide note was found, said Lt. Fred Corral of the coroner’s office’s investigative division.

Jeni died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Winter said. Los Angeles Police found Jeni alive but gravely injured after responding to a call that morning from a woman who said: “My boyfriend just shot himself in the face.”

Jeni’s agent, Jackie Miller-Knobbe of the APA Talent Agency, said workers there were “completely shocked.”

The agency released a statement Monday calling Jeni’s death “a true loss to the world of comedy.”

“He was one of the great stand-up comedians of our generation,” the statement said. “His kindness and joy will be missed.”

Besides his stand-up act, Jeni (real name Richard John Colangelo), was a regular on “The Tonight Show,” a guest of both Johnny Carson and Jay Leno.

“He had an everyman kind of appeal,” Leno told the TV show “Extra.” “He just made me laugh. ... When you were in a room with other comics he made them laugh.”

Jeni also wrote comic material for the 2005 Academy Awards, when Chris Rock was host, and appeared in an episode last year of Rock’s TV sitcom, “Everybody Hates Chris.”

“Richard Jeni was a friend, a mentor and one of the best comedians I’ve ever seen,” Rock said in a statement Sunday. “I’m really gonna miss him.”

Frazer Smith, a comic who had opened for Jeni, called him “one of the best stand-up comedians in the last 50 years.”

“He had tons and tons of material,” Smith said. “He was looked up to by all the young comedians — a total pro.”

“Richard brought us all a lifetime of laughter,” Jeni’s family said in a statement Monday. “Our hearts are broken.”

Jeni drew national attention in 1990 with his Showtime special “Richard Jeni: Boy From New York City.” His “Crazy From the Heat” Showtime special drew record ratings for the cable channel.

Jeni went on to craft comedy specials for HBO, including 1992’s “Platypus Man,” which won a Cable ACE award and served as the basis for Jeni’s short-lived UPN sitcom of the same name. His most recent special, “A Big Steaming Pile of Me,” ran during HBO’s 2005-06 season.

Jeni’s film credits include “The Mask,” “The Aristocrats,” “National Lampoon’s Dad’s Week Off” and “Burn, Hollywood, Burn.”

“What a loss and what a shame, as someone who gave so much laughter and joy, that he couldn’t find enough to give it to himself,” comedian David Brenner said Monday.

Jeni said he was drawn to comedy because of his father’s love of the genre.

“My interest in comedy began as an attempt to imitate his behavior in one of a string of futile attempts to bond with him,” Jeni said last year. “When he was at work I’d sneak out the comedy albums and sit there listening, enthralled. ... It was so naughty and raucous and, best of all, forbidden — very appetizing to a kid — kind of like an X-rated treehouse. I was hooked.”
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Chibi_Zero · **Chibi_Zero**

I was bummed to hear about Jeni. I saw the guy more then a few times on Comedy Central and he was great.
_________________
"I'm just very selective about the reality I choose to accept." - Calvin
Because blogs make you cool.

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

NEW YORK (AP) -- Calvert DeForest, the white-haired, bespectacled nebbish who gained cult status as the oddball Larry "Bud" Melman on David Letterman's late night television shows, has died after a long illness. The Brooklyn-born DeForest, who was 85, died Monday at a hospital on Long Island, Letterman's "Late Show" announced Wednesday.

He made dozens of appearances on Letterman's shows from 1982 through 2002, handling a variety of twisted duties: dueting with Sonny Bono on "I Got You, Babe," doing a Mary Tyler Moore impression during a visit to Minneapolis, handing out hot towels to arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

"Everyone always wondered if Calvert was an actor playing a character, but in reality he was just himself - a genuine, modest and nice man," Letterman said in a statement. "To our staff and to our viewers, he was a beloved and valued part of our show, and we will miss him."

The gnomish DeForest was working as a file clerk at a drug rehabilitation center when show producers, who had seen him in a New York University student's film, came calling.

He was the first face to greet viewers when Letterman's NBC show debuted on Feb. 1, 1982, offering a parody of the prologue to the Boris Karloff film "Frankenstein."

"It was the greatest thing that had happened in my life," he once said of his first Letterman appearance.

DeForest, given the nom de tube of Melman, became a program regular. The collaboration continued when the talk show host launched "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS in 1993, though DeForest had to use his real name because of a dispute with NBC over "intellectual property."

Cue cards were often DeForest's television kryptonite, and his character inevitably appeared in an ill-fitting black suit behind thick black-rimmed glasses.

DeForest often drew laughs by his bizarre juxtaposition as a "Late Show" correspondent at events such as the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway or the anniversary Woodstock concert that year.

His last appearance on "Late Show," celebrating his 81st birthday, came in 2002.

DeForest also appeared in an assortment of other television shows and films, including "Nothing Lasts Forever" with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

RUSTON, La. - Eddie Robinson, the longtime Grambling coach who transformed a small, black college into a football power that sent hundreds of players to the NFL, has died. He was 88. The soft-spoken coach spent nearly 60 years at Grambling State University, where he set a standard for victories with 408 and nearly every season relished seeing his top players drafted by NFL teams.

Doug Williams, a Super Bowl MVP quarterback was one of them. Williams said Robinson died shortly before midnight Tuesday. Robinson had been admitted to Lincoln General Hospital earlier in the day.

"For the Grambling family this is a very emotional time," Williams said Wednesday. "But I'm thinking about Eddie Robinson the man, not in today-time, but in the day and what he meant to me and to so many people."

Robinson's career spanned 11 presidents, several wars and the civil rights movement. His overall record of excellence is what will be remembered: In 57 years, Robinson compiled a 408-165-15 record. Until John Gagliardi of St. John's, Minn., topped the victory mark four years ago, Robinson was the winningest coach in all of college football.

"The real record I have set for over 50 years is the fact that I have had one job and one wife," Robinson said.

Robinson had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease, which was diagnosed shortly after he was forced to retire following the 1997 season. His health had been declining for years and he had been in and out of a nursing home during the past year.

Robinson said he tried to coach each player as if he wanted him to marry his daughter.

He began coaching at Grambling State in 1941, when it was still the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute, and single-handedly brought the school from obscurity to international popularity.

"Coach Robinson elevated a small town program to national prominence and tore down barriers to achieve an equal playing field for athletes of all races," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said in a statement. "Generations of Louisianans will forever benefit from coach Robinson's fight for equality."

Grambling first gained national attention in 1949 when running back Paul "Tank" Younger signed with the Los Angeles Rams and became the first player from an all-black college to enter the NFL. Suddenly, pro scouts learned how to find the little school 65 miles east of Shreveport near the Arkansas border.

Robinson sent over 200 players to the NFL, including seven first-round draft choices and Williams, who succeeded Robinson as Grambling's coach in 1998. Others went to the Canadian Football League and the now-defunct USFL.

Robinson's pro stars included Willie Davis, James Harris, Ernie Ladd, Buck Buchanan, Sammy White, Cliff McNeil, Willie Brown, Roosevelt Taylor, Charlie Joiner and Willie Williams.

Jerry Izenberg, the sports columnist emeritus at the Star-Ledger of Newark and a close friend of Robinson since 1963, said the coach was an inspiration in the deep South.

"People look at black pride in America and sports' impact on it," Izenberg said. "In the major cities it took off the first time Jackie Robinson stole home. In the deep South, it started with Eddie Robinson, who took a small college in northern Louisiana with little or no funds and sent the first black to the pros and made everyone look at him and Grambling."

Robinson said he was inspired to become a football coach when a high school team visited the elementary school he attended.

"The other kids wanted to be players, but I wanted to be like that coach," Robinson said. "I liked the way he talked to the team, the way he could make us laugh. I liked the way they all respected him."

Robinson was forced to retire after the 1997 season, after the program fell on tough times. His final three years on the sidelines brought consecutive losing seasons for the first time, an NCAA investigation of recruiting violations and four players charged with rape.

"I don't think coach lost touch with the players, I think the players lost touch with him," former NFL and Grambling cornerback Everson Walls said. "I think the young guys lost touch with coach Rob's vision. They didn't appreciate that they were living history with him."

As pressure mounted for him to step aside, even then-Gov. Mike Foster campaigned to give him one last season so he could try to go out a winner. But that final season produced only three wins for the second straight year.

Robinson's teams had only eight losing seasons and won 17 Southwestern Athletic Conference titles and nine national black college championships. He was inducted into every hall of fame for which he was eligible, and received honorary degrees from several universities, including Yale.

In 1968, refusing to be tied to a tiny home stadium on a hard-to-reach campus, Robinson put Grambling's football show on the road, playing at some very famous addresses, including Yankee Stadium.

That same year, Howard Cosell and Izenberg produced the documentary, "Grambling College: 100 Yards to Glory," Robinson became vice president of the NAIA and all three major television networks carried special programming on Grambling football.

A year later, Grambling played before 277,209 paying customers in 11 games, despite the home field that seated just 13,000.

When he began his career, Robinson had no paid assistants, no groundskeepers, no trainers and little in the way of equipment. He had to line the field himself and fix lunchmeat sandwiches for road trips because the players could not eat in the "white only" restaurants of the South.

He was not bitter, however. "The best way to enjoy life in America is to first be an American, and I don't think you have to be white to do so," Robinson said. "Blacks have had a hard time, but not many Americans haven't."
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

(as you'll be able to tell, this is from Variety)

Bob Clark, director of holiday perennial "A Christmas Story," died early Wednesday in a car crash that also claimed the life of his 22-year-old son, Ariel. He was 67 and actively developing several projects.

Assistant director Ken Goch said Clark had just gotten the go-ahead for "There Goes the Neighborhood," a comedy about feuding neighbors, the day before his death. He also was working on a remake of "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," his 1972 horror pic, and "Elves," assistant Lyne Leavy said.

The Pacific Palisades resident was driving his son, a musician and actor, along Pacific Coast Highway early Wednesday morning when their car was struck by another vehicle. The driver of that vehicle was hospitalized and booked for driving under the influence. He could face vehicular manslaughter charges.

Clark was American but made his name as a helmer of low-budget horror pics in Canada before turning out boffo teensploitation hit "Porky's" in 1982. He followed that with "A Christmas Story," based on Jean Shepherd's memoir, a year later. The pic wasn't a big hit initially -- earning only $19.3 million at the domestic box office -- but grew in popularity and is now shown in cable marathons over the holidays.

The movie, about a young boy's quest for a Red Ryder air rifle, starred Peter Billingsley as Ralphie and Darren McGavin as his gruff dad. "Porky's" was a far greater success, but "A Christmas Story" remained Clark's favorite over the years.

"I would definitely say 'A Christmas Story' was the highlight of his life," Goch said.

The longtime collaborator dug graves on Clark's first movie and later became assistant director. He met the director through his older brother, a classmate of Clark's at the U. of Miami, and credits the helmer's youthful approach to moviemaking for his success.

"He an eccentric son of a gun, but I loved him," Goch said.

"Porky's" spawned several sequels and is the top-grossing Canuck pic ever with $250 million global B.O. Howard Stern has been developing a remake of it.

Clark most recently helmed "SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2," a sequel to "Baby Geniuses," in 2004. He exec produced the Weinstein Co. remake of "Black Christmas" released last year.

Goch said he showed no interest in retiring. "He wasn't really interested in anything else, really," Goch said. "He wanted to make movies."
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

CHICAGO (AP) -- Darryl Stingley spent more than half his life in a wheelchair, a symbol of the violence of the NFL, where large bodies collide at high speeds on every play.

He was only 26 when he clashed head-on with the Raiders' Jack Tatum during an exhibition at the Oakland Coliseum as they leaped for a pass.

That play has haunted the NFL for nearly three decades.

On Thursday, the aftereffects of Stingley's grievous injury finally took his life at age 55.

He was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after he was found unresponsive in his Chicago home, according to Tony Brucci, an investigator with the Cook County medical examiner's office. An autopsy revealed contributing factors were bronchial pneumonia, quadriplegia, spinal cord injury and coronary atherosclerosis, the medical examiner's office said.

"I am deeply saddened by the death of Darryl Stingley," Tatum said in a statement released by the Raiders. "Darryl will be forever remembered for his strength and courage. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family."

Stingley was a star receiver with the New England Patriots when he collided with Tatum on Aug. 12, 1978. With one jolt, his life was forever changed. His neck was broken; he was left a quadriplegic. In time, he regained limited movement in his right arm and was able to operate his electric wheelchair on his own.

"I have relived that moment over and over again," he said in a 1988 interview with The Associated Press. "I was 26 years old at the time and I remember thinking, 'What's going to happen to me? If I live, what am I going to be like?' And then there were all those whys, whys, whys?

"It was only after I stopped asking why, that I was able to regroup and go on with my life," he said.

His death instantly rekindled the debate over the circumstances of the accident.

"I've thought about that throw over and over the years. Could I have changed anything or done anything differently?" Steve Grogan, the Patriots quarterback who threw the pass, said Thursday. "That hit probably was not necessary in a game with no meaning."

But Chuck Fairbanks, the Patriots' coach at the time, said he couldn't find anything illegal or dirty about it. Nor did the officials; no flag was thrown on Tatum.

"I saw replays many, many times, and many times Jack Tatum was criticized," Fairbanks said. "But there wasn't anything at the time that was illegal about that play. I do think probably that play was a forerunner for some of the changes in rules that exist today that are more protective of receivers, especially if there is head-to-head-type contact. I think that probably pre-empted some of the things that happened today."

Gene Upshaw, who played for the Raiders in that game, got to know Stingley well after the injury. Now executive director of the NFL Players Association, he helped push owners to provide benefits for disabled players: $48,000 in Stingley's time; $225,000 now.

Broadcaster John Madden, the Raiders' coach at the time, remained close to Stingley, visiting him in the hospital daily after the injury.

"After the game, when we found out that Darryl was paralyzed, John told him that from now on he was a Raider and we should treat him as one," Upshaw said.

During his induction last summer to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Madden's thoughts weren't far from Stingley when he said, "We all like to see hard, aggressive play, but you always want the guy to get up."

Stingley, who worked as a consultant for the Patriots, often visited paralyzed patients in hospitals and lived a full life despite his disability. He wrote a book about his experiences entitled "Happy to Be Alive," in 1983, and 10 years later started a nonprofit foundation to help inner-city youth in Chicago, where he grew up and attended Marshall High School.

Tatum and Stingley never reconciled. In 1996, they were supposed to meet for a TV appearance, but Stingley called it off after being told it was to publicize Tatum's book. But when he learned that Tatum needed to have part of a leg amputated because of diabetes, he empathized.

"You can't, as a human being, feel happy about something like that happening to another human being," Stingley told the Boston Globe in 2003. "Maybe the natural reaction is to think he got what was coming to him, but I don't accept human nature as our real nature. Human nature teaches us to hate. God teaches us to love."
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Sol LeWitt, an artist known for his dynamic wall paintings and as a founder of minimal and conceptual art styles, died Sunday in New York, according to published reports.

The 78-year-old artist, who was born in Hartford and lived for the last two decades in Chester, Conn., died from complications from cancer, The New York Times and The Hartford Courant reported Monday.

Much of his art was based on variations of spheres, triangles and other basic geometric shapes. His sculptures commonly were based on cubes using precise, measured formats and carefully developed variations.

LeWitt preferred to let his work speak for itself and frequently avoided media attention.

"He never felt that art has to do with the personality of the person who made it," Andrea Miller-Keller, a former Hartford curator and longtime friend, told The Courant. "It's not about the star power but about the art."

By the mid-1960s, LeWitt had begun to experiment with wall drawings. The idea was considered radical, in part because he knew they would eventually be painted over and destroyed.

LeWitt believed that the idea of his work superseded the art itself, Miller-Keller said. "The essence of LeWitt's work is the original idea as formulated in the artist's mind."

LeWitt's first wall drawing, part of a 1968 display in New York, was so striking that the gallery owner couldn't bear to paint over it. She insisted the LeWitt come and do it himself, which he did without hesitation.

LeWitt completed a traditional art program at Syracuse University in 1949, telling a reporter years later that he studied art because he "didn't know what else to do."

LeWitt, born in Hartford, was in the U.S. Army for two years during the Korean War, serving in non-combat positions in California, Japan and Korea.

In 1953 he moved to New York and held a variety of short-term jobs, including working as a night receptionist at the Museum of Modern Art. His first solo art show was at the John Daniels Gallery in New York in 1965 and he taught at several New York art schools.
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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Cartoonist Johnny Hart, whose award-winning "B.C." comic strip appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers worldwide, has died. He was 76.

Hart died Saturday while working at his home in Endicott.

"He had a stroke," his wife, Bobby, said Sunday. "He died at his storyboard."

"B.C.," populated by prehistoric cavemen and dinosaurs, was launched in 1958 and eventually appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers with an audience of 100 million, according to Creators Syndicate Inc., which distributes it.

"He was generally regarded as one of the best cartoonists we've ever had," Hart's friend Mell Lazarus, creator of the "Momma" and "Miss Peach" comic strips, said from his California home. "He was totally original. 'B.C' broke ground and led the way for a number of imitators, none of which ever came close."

After he graduated from Union-Endicott High School, Hart met Brant Parker, a young cartoonist who became a prime influence and co-creator with Hart of the "Wizard of Id" comic strip.

Hart enlisted in the Air Force and began producing cartoons for Pacific Stars and Stripes. He sold his first freelance cartoon to the Saturday Evening Post after his discharge from the military in 1954.

He won numerous awards for his work, including the National Cartoonist Society's prestigious Reuben Award twice for Cartoonist of the Year.

Later in his career, some of Hart's cartoons had religious themes, a reflection of his own Christian faith. That sometimes led to controversy.

A strip published on Easter in 2001 drew protests from Jewish groups and led several newspapers to drop the strip. The cartoon depicted a menorah transforming into a cross, with accompanying text quoting some of Jesus Christ's dying words. Critics said it implied that Christianity supersedes Judaism.

Hart said he intended the strip as a tribute to both faiths.

"He had such an emphasis on kindness, generosity, and patience," said Richard Newcombe, founder and president of Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles.

Newcombe said Hart was the first cartoonist to sign on when the syndicate was created 20 years ago. "Traditionally, comic strips were owned by syndicates," Newcombe said. "We were different because we allowed cartoonists to own their own work. It was because of Johnny's commitment to this idea that made us a success."

Newcombe said "B.C." and "Wizard of Id" would continue. Family members have been helping produce the strips for years, and they have an extensive computer archive of Hart's drawings to work with, he said.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP


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