Saturday, December 28, 2019

THOSE WE LOST IN 2019, PART 1


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 JUICE WRLD

Date of death:
December 8, 2019
Age at death:
21
Cause of death:
Died after reportedly having a seizure at Chicago’s Midway Airport.  Autopsy yet to be performed, cause of death not yet known
Comments:
American rapper, singer, and songwriter. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he was known for his singles "All Girls Are the Same" and "Lucid Dreams".
Some more:
Members of the defunct pop-punk band Yellowcard suedJuice Wrld prior to his for $15 million, claiming that Juice WRLD’s 2018 breakthrough hit “Lucid Dreams” copied “melodic elements” from their own 2006 album track “Holly Wood Dies.” The band is asking for $15 million in damages, as well as a “running royalty and/or ownership share” in all future use of the song. They also wanted money from all future Juice WRLD tours and public appearances, which will not now be happening.mn Yellowcard have announced that they are still pursuing their lawsuit.

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 CARROLL SPINNEY
Date of death:
December 8, 2019
Age at death:
85
Cause of death:
Died at his home in Connecticut after years of battling dystonia, a movement disorder.
Comments:
American puppeteer, cartoonist, author and speaker most famous for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street from its inception in 1969 until 2018.
Some more:
According to Sesame Workshop. Big Bird's influence in the educational world was so vast that Spinney (plus Big Bird) was considered for a spaceflight on the space shuttle Challenger.  The Big Bird puppet, however, is 8 feet 2 inches (248 centimeters) tall — which is a very tight fit aboard a spaceship. Current NASA astronaut requirements don't allow astronauts to exceed 75 inches, or 6 feet 3 inches (190 cm), in height.
Spinney spoke about the spaceflight offer in "I Am Big Bird," a 2015 documentary about the character and Spinney's life. "I once got a letter from NASA, asking if I would be willing to join a mission to orbit the Earth as Big Bird, to encourage kids to get interested in space," Spinney said in an essay in The Guardian that same year. "There wasn't enough room for the puppet in the end, and I was replaced by a teacher."

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 ANDREW “GREEDY” SMITH

Date of death:
December 2, 2019
Age at death:
62
Cause of death:
Heart attack.
Comments:
Australian vocalist, keyboardist, harmonicist and songwriter with Australian pop/new wave band Mental As Anything. Smith wrote many of their hit songs including "Live it Up" which peaked at No. 2 on the Australian singles chart. Smith had a solo music career, had worked with other bands and was also an artist and television personality.
Some more:
Born Andrew McArthur Smith in Sydney, Australia, he later attended North Sydney Boys High. Showing an interest in art he moved on to the East Sydney Technical College (now known as the National Art School) in Darlinghurst in the mid-1970s while also holding down a part-time job as a bottle shop attendant. At college he met fellow students, Martin Murphy, Chris O'Doherty, David Twohill and Steve Coburn, whose band, Mental As Anything, had been playing art school parties and dances since May 1976.  While playing harmonica in another band at the time, Smith started appearing on stage with Mental As Anything from around December. He was eventually cajoled by fellow Mental As Anything members to learn keyboards on an old wedding reception organ to fill in their sound and he quit his other band.
The promoter at the Sydney rock group's first performance took one look at their on-stage antics and labelled them Mental As Anything. The trio, lead guitarist Reg Mombassa, guitarist Martin Plaza and drummer Wayne Delisle, liked the name, and adopted it.  The trio became a quintet with the addition of keyboard player Greedy Smith (who earned his nickname by eating 15 pieces of chicken on stage one night) and Reg's brother, bass man Peter O'Doherty.

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 CLIVE JAMES





Date of death:
November 20, 2019
Age at death:
80
Cause of death:
James was diagnosed with leukaemia and emphysema in 2010.
Comments:
Australian critic, broadcaster and writer who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1961 until his death in 2019. He began his career specialising in literary criticism before becoming television critic for The Observer in 1972, where he made his name for his wry, deadpan humour. During this period, he earned an independent reputation as a poet and satirist. He achieved mainstream success in the UK first as a writer for television, and eventually as the lead in his own programs, including ...on Television.
Some more:
Rather than fade away, his illness seemed to inspire within him an urgency to capture every idea and thought.  Since 2010, he published eight books, including a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy and Sentenced to Life, a collection of poems described by the New York Times as "harrowing" and "gravid with meaning".  Until mid 2017, he was penning a weekly column for The Guardian called Reports of My Death in which he wrote about "life, death and everything in between" in an amusing deadpan style. Writing almost to the end, an autobiographical anthology called The Fire of Joy was finished a month ago and will be published in 2020, according to his website.

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ELIJAH CUMMINGS

Date of death:
October 17, 2019
Age at death:
68
Cause of death:
According to his spokesman, Cummings died from  "complications concerning longstanding health challenges".
Comments:
American politician and civil rights advocate who served in the United States House of Representatives for Maryland's 7th congressional district from 1996 until his death in 2019.  He was a member of the Democratic Party from 1996 and served in the Maryland House from 1983 through 1996. That year, he was elected to the U.S. House. Most recently he served as the Chair of the House Oversight Committee, helping to oversee the impeachment enquiry into President Trump.
Some more:
In 1962, when he was 11 years old, Cummings and some friends worked to integrate a segregated swimming pool in South Baltimore.

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GINGER BAKER

Date of death:
October 6, 2019
Age at death:
80
Cause of death:
Not disclosed, although in his final years he suffered from osteoarthritis, emphysema, a degenerative spine condition and heart problems.
Comments:
English drummer and a co-founder of the rock band Cream. His work in the 1960s and 1970s earned him the reputation of "rock's first superstar drummer," for a style that melded jazz and African rhythms and pioneered both jazz fusion and world music.
Baker began playing drums at age 15, and later took lessons from English jazz drummer Phil Seamen. In the 1960s he joined Blues Incorporated, where he met bassist Jack Bruce. The two clashed often, but would be rhythm section partners again in the Graham Bond Organisation and Cream, the latter of which Baker co-founded with Eric Clapton in 1966. Cream achieved worldwide success but lasted only until 1968, in part due to Baker's and Bruce's volatile relationship. After briefly working with Clapton in Blind Faith and leading Ginger Baker's Air Force, Baker spent several years in the 1970s living and recording in Africa, often with Fela Kuti, in pursuit of his long-time interest in African music.
Some more:
Baker was infamous for his violent temper and for confrontations with musicians and fans. Rolling Stone reporter David Fricke wrote in 2012 that even in old age, "you get close to Baker at your peril." His relationship with Jack Bruce was so volatile that during a Graham Bond Organization concert he once attacked him with a knife.

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 DIAHANN CARROL

Date of death:
October 4, 2019
Age at death:
84
Cause of death:
Carroll died at her home in Los Angeles after a long bout with cancer.
Comments:
American actress, singer, model, and activist. She rose to prominence in some of the earliest major studio films to feature black casts, including Carmen Jones (1954) and Porgy and Bess (1959). In 1962, Carroll won a Tony Award for best actress, a first for an African American woman, for her role in the Broadway musical No Strings.  Her 1968 debut in Julia, the first series on American television to star a Black woman in a non-stereotypical role, was a milestone both in her career and the medium. In the 1980s, she played the role of Dominique Deveraux, a mixed-race diva, in the prime time soap opera Dynasty.
Some more:
Though she sometimes stated publicly that her middle name was originally spelled “Diahann,” she confirmed through her publicist in 2017 that she had adopted that spelling as a teenager, when she began entering TV talent competitions.

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 PAUL CRONIN






Date of death:
September 13, 2019
Age at death:
81
Cause of death:
Unknown
oz
Comments:
Australian actor who played roles in the Australian television series Matlock Police and The Sullivans. He won the Silver Logie five times, including three years consecutively from 1978, the most awarded actor in Australia, alongside Martin Sacks.
He was born to a farming family in Wistow, South Australia in 1938. As a young man Cronin moved to Melbourne where he worked in a variety of jobs. After actively seeking an acting career, he performed in various Crawford Productions including Division 4 and Homicide. Cronin appeared as motorcycle policeman Gary Hogan in the Crawford Productions drama Matlock Police (1971–1976), followed by its spin-off Solo One (1976). He played the central character of Dave Sullivan in the popular soap opera The Sullivans from 1976 to 1983.
Some more:
In 1986 Cronin led a consortium with Christopher Skase which was awarded the inaugural licence for the Brisbane Bears (now the Brisbane Lions) in the then-Victorian Football League. He was president of the club from 1987-1989.

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 VALERIE HARPER

Date of death:
80
Age at death:
August 30, 2019, aged 80
Cause of death:
Harper died of lung cancer.
Comments:
American actress. She began her career as a dancer on Broadway, making her debut in the musical Take Me Along in 1959. Harper is best remembered for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977) and its spin-off Rhoda (1974–1978). For her work on Mary Tyler Moore, she thrice received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and later received the award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Rhoda.
Some more:
Apart from regularly popping in as Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, she starred in another sitcom called Valerie, playing the mother of three teenage boys whose husband, an airline pilot, is away most of the time. However, following a salary dispute, she was fired after the second series in 1987. Harper sued NBC and Lorimar for breach of contract and unfair dismissal, and was awarded $1.4m plus 12.5 % of the show’s profits. The series continued, renamed Valerie’s Family and then The Hogan Family, without her, with the explanation that her character had died, only to be replaced by Sandy Duncan, who had played her sister-in-law.

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PETER FONDA
Date of death
79
Age at death:
August 16, 2019
Cause of death:
Fonda died from respiratory failure caused by lung cancer at his home in Los Angeles
Comments:
American actor, director, and screenwriter, the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda. He was a part of the counterculture of the 1960s.
Fonda was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Easy Rider (1969), and the Academy Award for Best Actor for Ulee's Gold (1997). For the latter, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Fonda also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999).
Some more:
In June 2018, Fonda went on Twitter to criticize President Donald Trump's administration's method of enforcement of U.S. immigration policy by Jeff Sessions, specifically regarding the separation of children from their parents at the Mexican border, writing that "We should rip Barron Trump from the arms of First Lady Melania Trump and put him in a cage with pedophiles." He also suggested that Americans should seek out names of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in order to protest outside of their homes and the schools of their children. The Secret Service opened an investigation based on a report from the Trump family. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, whose daughter, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was also the object of Fonda's tweets, believes that Fonda's statement about Barron Trump is a violation of federal criminal law.Fonda had also suggested "Maybe we should take her (Sanders) children away..."
In another later deleted tweet, Fonda targeted United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen by calling her a "vulgar" name and calling for Nielsen to be "put in a cage and poked at by passersby ..."
Fonda stated that he deleted his tweet regarding Barron Trump, saying that he "immediately regretted it and sincerely apologize to the family for what I said and any hurt my words have caused." Backlash to Fonda's tweets resulted in a call for a boycott of his newest film at the time, Boundaries, and other Sony projects. Sony Pictures released Boundaries as planned on June 22, 2018, but released a statement stating that Fonda's comments "are abhorrent, reckless and dangerous, and we condemn them completely."

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HAL PRINCE

Date of death:
July 31, 2019
Age at death:
91
Cause of death:
Prince died on July 31, 2019, in Reykjavík, Iceland, at the age of 91 following a brief illness.
Comments:
American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the 20th century.  Over the span of his career, he garnered 21 Tony Awards, more than any other individual, including eight for directing, eight for producing the year's Best Musical, two as Best Producer of a Musical, and three special awards.
Some more:
Much of his productivity, Prince admitted later in his career, arose from fits of depression he suffered between projects, a condition that began in childhood with a nervous breakdown. He recalled being immobilised and unable to sleep for months. “Out of that, you create the person you want to be,” he said in 1988.

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Margaret Fulton

Date of death:
July 24, 2019
Age at death:
94
Cause of death:
No cause given
OZ
Comments:
Scottish-born Australian food and cooking writer, journalist, author and commentator. She was the first of this genre of writers in Australia.  Fulton's early recipes encouraged Australians to alter their traditional staple of "meat and three vegetables" and to be creative with food. She encouraged international cuisine from places such as Spain, Italy, India and China. As the cookery editor of the Woman's Day magazine, she "brought these into Australian homes through her articles."  Although she did some television work, Fulton mainly concentrated on writing, because she felt it was her higher talent.
Some more:
Emcee Mike Carlton at a tribute to Margaret Fulton upon her death:
Emcee Mike Carlton told those gathered at the Art Gallery of New South Wales that Ms Fulton had "blazed a trail", introducing Australian families to better food.
"We cook better, we eat better and I think we probably have more fun because of her," he said.
Mr Carlton recounted growing up in a time when Australian food was "pretty bloody ordinary", when chicken was a luxury served only on Christmas Day.
Mr Carlton told the crowd that when Ms Fulton wrote "pineapple can bring a delightful Hawaiian touch to your meals" his own mother had taken the advice to heart.
"Seizing on this daring innovation, my mother went mad and we went through a stage of adding pineapple to everything — pineapple sausages I recall at one stage."

           

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