february 2005 > final credits > last link on the left

Chris Curtis >permalink<

Drummer for The Searchers

Chris Curtis

Named after the 1956 John Ford movie western, the Liverpool-based band The Searchers was founded in 1957 by John McNally and were one of thousands of skiffle groups formed in the wake of Lonnie Donegan's success with "Rock Island Line." In the early 1960s, they sold millions of records with such hits as "Needles and Pins," "Sugar and Spice," "Love Potion Number 9," "Don't Throw Your Love Away" and their cover of The Drifters' "Sweets For My Sweet."

Curtis - real name Christopher Crummey - was part of the group's original line-up (which also included Mike Pender, Tony Jackson, Tony West and McNally) and contributed to the band's distinctive vocal harmonies. The Searchers briefly rivaled The Beatles for popularity, and the Fab Four's success made Liverpool acts a hot property. Beatles manager Brian Epstein had turned down the Searchers because Tony Jackson was drunk on stage at their audition. The Searchers were signed by Pye Records in 1963 and had their first number one the same year.

The first of numerous personnel changes occurred in 1964 when Tony Jackson quit the band, to be replaced by Frank Allen, a close friend of Curtis. Curtis stayed with the group until 1966 when he was replaced by John Blunt. Curtis had a 'partying-related' accident during a tour of Australia and there was a mutual parting of the ways. He was given a settlement of £5,000 in lieu of all future claims, something he bitterly resented in years to come.

Curtis was certain the Searchers would falter without him and that he would succeed as a songwriter, producer and performer. His first move, in order to annoy group manager Tito Burns, was to cover the Searchers' next single, "Have You Ever Been Lonely." The song suffered from split sales. While the group had further hits, the Searcher's fortunes declined after Curtis' departure.

In 1967, Curtis reached number four in the UK with "Let's Go To San Francisco," recorded under the alias of The Flowerpot Men. He then formed Roundabout - the band that went on to become Deep Purple - with his brother Dave, though both dropped out long before the group hit the big time.

Curtis produced records for other performers, but his career faltered and he eventually took a job in the civil service with Inland Revenue. His problems were exacerbated by "sick building syndrome" and he slept fitfully while listening to the radio non-stop. He was prone to calling his friends, often in the middle of the night, to draw their attention to what was being broadcast. He would board buses to give away items from his record collection and his Searchers memorabilia, often to complete strangers.

The Searchers continue to perform on the cabaret circuit, though the line-up has changed over the years. Mike Pender left the group in 1985 and set up an alternative Searchers, prompting his former bandmates to take legal action over the name. Tony Jackson died penniless in August, 2003 at the age of 63.

February 28, 2005 at age 63

EV1 >permalink<

Electric automobile

Zzzzzzzzz

The first modern electric automobile from a major carmaker - General Motors' EV1 battery-powered car - had its plug pulled this month as the last of its limited run of 1,100 vehicles were confiscated from their drivers. The cause of death, according to the automaker, was a lack of interest from the car-buying public, but EV1 enthusiasts suspect the vehicle was the victim of foul play on the part of the Detroit auto giant.

The cars were hailed for their whisper-soft performance, but worked best in warm climates. After 100 miles or so they had to be recharged for six to eight hours. The EV1's were available to the public only on a leasing basis, fetching between $300 and $500 a month. Most were consigned to California and Arizona.

Memorial services and a 24-hour-a-day vigil are being held outside General Motor's Burbank facility, where the remaining EV1s await the scrap pile, save for the ones destined for various museums. The 97-year-old carmaker is now concentrating on hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles.

February 28, 2005 at age 9. Failure to generate interest.

Pam Carter >permalink<

Actress

Best known as a stage actress in local productions in Nebraska, Carter had small roles in two films, Alexander Payne's "Election" and "Citizen Ruth." Through her own production company, Carter cast and directed several nationally syndicated cartoons, including "Archie's Weird Mysteries" for Warner Bros. and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" for Nickelodeon. Her "Liberty Kids" series, broadcast on PBS with Walter Cronkite as narrator, was nominated for an Emmy Award.

February 28, 2005 at age 50. Heart aneurysm.

Roland Anderson >permalink<

A-Bomb patent lawyer

Boom!

As can be imagined, when the Manhattan Project developed the atomic bomb, the effort represented the cutting edge of science. It was work never undertaken before, and many new processes, technologies and inventions were developed. Someone had to take stock of what was going on so that ... the proper patents could be applied for.

The task fell to Roland A. Anderson. He examined the technical reports of the entire project, detailed all devices and processes developed and made possible the assembly of records defining the U.S. government's basis for rights under all such inventions.

Anderson retired from the Navy 1946, served as chief of the Patent Branch of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and was assistant general counsel for patents from 1959 until his second retirement in 1973. He continued to serve as a private patent consultant for a number of years, contributed articles to professional periodicals and spoke before organisations on patent matters.

February 28, 2005 at age 97. Heart failure.

Russell Sprague >permalink<

Convicted of copying Oscar films

Sprague was accused of copying 134 "screener" movies sent to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 2004 Oscar consideration. The films were made available for download over the internet. Sprague was scheduled to be sentenced March 21, 2005 after pleading guilty last year to one count of copyright infringement. He had faced up to three years in prison. Sprague was found dead in his jail cell.

Prosecutors said Sprague received the films from Carmine Caridi, an actor and academy member who appeared in "The Godfather: Part II." Caridi admitted he sent Sprague copies of several movies, but denied knowing about Sprague's criminal activities. He believed Sprague was a film buff and merely wished to watch them. Caridi was never charged, but was ordered by a federal judge to pay Warner Bros. $300,000 for providing copies of "The Last Samurai" and "Mystic River" to Sprague. A similar suit filed by Columbia Pictures against Caridi is still pending.

February 28, 2005 at age 52. Heart attack

William Hines >permalink<

Pioneer in reporting on NASA

Hines, a former Washington Star and Chicago Sun-Times reporter, was considered the godfather of NASA space reporting. After World War II, he worked briefly in the Pentagon's information office before joining the Washington Star as a reporter. He had a keen interest in science and persuaded his boss to allow him to report on the America's early space program shortly after Russia launched Sputnik in 1957. Hines was legendary among journalists for his thorough reporting and quick writing speed. In news conferences he would sometimes leave NASA spokesmen speechless with his incisive questioning. After leaving the Star in 1968, he worked at the Chicago Daily News, later becoming its Washington bureau chief. He retired in 1989, but continued to do freelance writing as well as appearing on "Meet the Press" and other television news shows. Hines was proud when he learned years ago that he was on President Richard Nixon's "enemies list."

February 28, 2005 at age 88. Pneumonia.

J. William Littler >permalink<

Surgeon

During World War II, as a young surgeon in the Army, Littler operated on maimed soldiers at hospitals near Boston and in Pennsylvania. Though he had yet to complete his residency training, he worked on new ways to reconstruct missing thumbs, including replacing them with parts of forefingers, and transplanting healthy bundles of nerves and arteries to areas that had lost feeling, a procedure known as a sensory neurovascular island transfer. To revive arms and hands paralyzed by nerve damage, he transferred tendons from areas that were unharmed. Many of the techniques Littler pioneered are still used today.

February 27, 2005 at age 89. Head injury suffered in a fall.

Noll Scott >permalink<

Pioneer of online journalism

By all accounts, Noll Scott was an accomplished foreign correspondent, but his lasting legacy will be his work in bringing England's Guardian and Observer newspapers online and into the digital age. He guided doubters in the early days of moving the Guardian editorial into the computer era and also helped pioneer software to enable correspondents working abroad to use the emerging technology to file reports. With the advent of the internet, Noll went to what became Guardian Unlimited, ensuring that every word in the paper was also available for use online within minutes. Most recently, he was the inventor of the technology used to produce the Guardian and Observer digital editions.

February 27, 2005 at age 51. Automobile crash in Brazil.

Shelley Hull >permalink<

TV producer

In 1967, Hull began working with Aaron Spelling on "The Guns of Will Sonnett" and later "The Mod Squad." He went on to work on such hit television series as "Charlie's Angels" and "Starsky & Hutch." Most recently, Hull had worked as associate producer of "7th Heaven," which is in its ninth season. Hull also served as associate producer of the 1976 ABC television movie "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble," starring John Travolta.

February 27, 2005 at age 85. Pneumonia.

Howard St. Claire Jones Jr. >permalink<

Engineer

Sssshhhh

Jones held 31 patents as an inventor or co-inventor on research related to his work at a U.S. Army research lab, however their nature remains classified. His work centred on microwave antennas that were essential for the operation of missiles during the Cold War. His work also contributed to the development of U.S. space vehicles.

February 26, 2005 at age 83.

J. Donald M. Gass >permalink<

Ophthalmologist

We only have eyes for you

John Donald MacIntyre Gass was chosen by 33,000 ophthalmologists around the world as one of the 10 most influential ophthalmologists of the 20th century. He was born in Prince Edward Island and as a child moved with his family to Nashville, where he studied at Vanderbilt University. His keen observations led to diagnoses of previously undiscovered diseases of the retina, causing researchers to develop treatments that saved "tens of thousands" of people from blindness. Among Gass' discoveries was that a stretching of tissue, rather than loss of tissue, causes macular holes that disrupt the center of vision. That led to treatment innovations that can fix the condition in more than 90 percent of cases.

February 26, 2005 at age 76. Pancreatic cancer.

Jef Raskin >permalink<

Developer of Apple's Macintosh

Small enough for you?

Jef Raskin was employee #31 at Apple Computers. He forcefully advocated for the company to develop a computer that was easy for people to use. The result was the Macintosh computer, named after his favourite apple but with the spelling altered for copyright reasons.

Raskin joined Apple in 1978 as the director of publications and wrote the manual for the Apple II. He pioneered the use of the word "font" to refer to digital typefaces, and was among the creators of the "click and drag" method of manipulating icons on a computer screen. At the time, computers were primarily text-based and users had to remember a series of arcane commands to perform the simplest of tasks. Raskin believed that the person was important and the computer wasn't. Many of the Mac's innovations were adopted by other operating systems, including Microsoft Windows.

However, Raskin and Steve "Insanely Great" Jobs, Apple co-founder, had differing visions of what the Macintosh should be. Raskin had the idea of a focused machine while Jobs favoured a Swiss Army knife kind of computer which could perform any kind of task. Raskin left Apple in 1982 after his relationship with Jobs soured. Macintosh, the highly accessible and affordable computer, hit stores in 1984.

Raskin eventually went on to form his own company, Information Appliance, and created the Canon Cat, a computer that had little impact on the industry. It sold only 20,000 copies before Canon ended its support. At the time of his death, Mr. Raskin was working on Archy, a computer program that performed common tasks like word processing.

February 26, 2005 at age 61. Pancreatic cancer.

Leonard Thompson >permalink<

Fog calling champion

Booooooht Doooooooht!

Leonard Joseph Thompson's booming vocal imitation of the East Brother Light Station foghorn won him first place in the San Francisco Fair & Exposition "fog-calling" contest in 1983. He first heard about the competition and got a tape recording of the distinctive two-tone sound foghorn located just north of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. He went through various rounds and beat at least 15 people. In the second year of the contest, he placed second, but he coached the guy who won. The fair, which ended in 1994, included such other events as the "Herb Caen Write-Alike" contest, the "Impossible Parking Space Race" and the "Operatic Lip-Synching" contest.

February 26, 2005 at age 74.

Myron Blank >permalink<

Movie popcorn innovator

Blank, an Iowa philanthropist and University of Michigan graduate, has been credited for making popcorn a popular snack at movie theatres. Blank introduced popcorn at the movies in the 1930s when he worked for Central States Theater Corp., a chain of movie theaters owned by his father. Blank and his family have contributed to the city of Des Moines for several big projects, including a zoo, a golf course, and a hospital. He made other donations to art, education and health care.

February 26, 2005 at age 93.

Paul Sawyer >permalink<

NASCAR pioneer

Vroooooom-vroom-vroom-vroom-vroom

Starting with a small dirt track that he bought in 1955, Sawyer gradually turned the small "Atlantic Rural Fairground" short track in Virginia into the 110,000 seat Richmond International Raceway, and helped accelerate stock car racing's development from a regional sport to an international phenomenon. Twice he tore up the surface to create the unique oval that is among the most popular with NASCAR racers today. The track is host to two Nextel Cup races, two in the Busch Series, one in the Craftsman Truck Series, and one in the Indy Racing League, with all the races run at night.

In the late 1950s, NASCAR drivers were running several races a week, most of them 100 laps on one mile tracks. Sawyer sought to be different by hosting a 250-lap event at Richmond. "I wanted to build something no one else had, and evidently I did something right because I can't build seats fast enough," he said in a 1997 interview. The raceway continues to expand and so does the sport. NASCAR racing has now surpassed NFL Football and Major League Baseball in paid attendance.

February 26, 2005 at age 88.

R. Gregory Stevens >permalink<

U.S. Republican party media adviser

As a result of the O.J. Simpson trial, all deaths involving celebrites in Los Angeles County are treated with full autopsy treatment and investigative measure. Such was the case with Gregory Stevens. He was found dead in a guest room at the home of longtime friend and actress Carrie Fisher. The Los Angeles County coroner's office announced March 18th that Stevens died of an overdose of cocaine and the painkiller OxyContin. The autopsy also revealed that he suffered from hypertrophic heart disease but this was not a factor in his death.

Stevens served as co-chairman of the Bush/Cheney Entertainment Task Force and managed the campaign's relationships with entertainment industry leaders and film, television and music celebrities. Stevens specialised in campaign consulting and has advised candidates in 24 international elections according his firm's (Barber Griffith & Rogers) web site. He was scheduled to attend the Academy Awards on February 27, and was staying with Fisher at the time of his death. Carrie Fisher played Princess Leia in the "Star Wars" trilogy is the author of several books, including "Postcards From the Edge."

February 26, 2005 at age 42. Cause to be determined.

R. Gregory Stevens update

Here at the Last Link > Final Credits, we take factual issues pretty seriously. We rely on accredited sources to provide us with accurate information. Guess what? Sometimes they’re wrong. It appears there was a case of mistaken identity. The New York Times posted a story about the incident on April 26, 2005 (free registration required). In case the story is unavailable at the New York Times site, a copy can be found here.

Edward Patten >permalink<

Singer

Patten was a member of the band that backed up Gladys Knight for over thirty years. The Pips was formed by Knight, her brother Merald Knight and cousin William Guest in Atlanta in 1957. Patten joined the group in 1959. Gladys Knight & The Pips, whose hits included "Every Beat of My Heart," "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Midnight Train To Georgia," won four Grammys and were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. The group recorded for Motown from 1966-1973 and for Buddah Records from 1973-77. They later recorded for CBS until breaking up in 1989. Patten was one of the founders of Crew Records, based in Detroit and Atlanta, and sang backup for the label's recording artists.

February 25, 2005 at age 66. Stroke.

Peter Benenson >permalink<

Founder, Amnesty International

Peter Benenson

Benenson set up Amnesty International in 1961 after reading an article about the arrest and imprisonment of two students in a café in Lisbon, Portugal who had drunk a toast to liberty. He initially set up Amnesty International as a one-year campaign but it went on to become the world's largest independent human rights organisation working on behalf of people for whom Benenson coined the term "prisoners of conscience." Currently, it has more than 1.8 million members and supporters worldwide.

The group's current campaigns include a human rights disaster looming in Nepal, a call for an end to child executions in Iran, and demands for justice for ethnic rape and killings in Sudan's Darfur region. The group has also called for the release of all detainees at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, which it has described as "an icon of lawlessness."

Amnesty International has drawn its share of controversy, with critics including former Chilean ruler Augusto Pinochet, the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, Iraq's jailed former leader Saddam Hussein, and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Better light a candle than curse the darkness

In the 1980's, Benenson became chairman of Association of Christians Against Torture, and in the 1990's he organized aid for Romanian orphans. He also founded a group to aid victims of celiac disease - a faulty absorption of gluten in the intestines - which he had. Modest and unassuming, Benenson repeatedly rejected knighthoods, telling officials that if they wished to acknowledge his work for human rights, they should redress remaining abuses in Britain.

"Once the concentration camps and the hellholes of the world were in darkness," Benenson said. "Now they are lit by the light of the Amnesty candle; the candle in barbed wire. When I first lit the Amnesty candle, I had in mind the old Chinese proverb: Better light a candle than curse the darkness."

February 25, 2005 at age 83. Pneumonia.

Daniel Erskine McIvor >permalink<

Forest fire fighting innovator

Martin Mars

After being discharged from the R.C.A.F. at the end of World War II, McIvor settled on British Columbia's coast, becoming one of the area's legendary bush pilots. In the 1960's, he purchased four Martin Mars flying boats - the only ones of their kind in the world. After witnessing many devastating fires in his years of flying, McIvor believed that the safest and most effective way to fight forest fires was from the air. He converted the Martin Mars crafts into the first modern water bombers. Each airplane was able to carry 6000 imperial gallons (27,270 litres) of water, and with the addition of two probes designed by McIvor, the Mars could reload in twenty-two seconds while skimming a lake surface.

McIvor received the Lifetime Achievement in Aviation Award from the British Columbia Aviation Council; was named to the British Columbia Aviation Hall of Fame and Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame; and was awarded the Order of Canada. His story was told in a cover article in the Smithsonian Air Space Magazine.

February 24, 2005 at age 93.

George Crikelair >permalink<

Plastic surgeon

Crikelair became a leading advocate of fire-resistant coatings for children's sleepwear. As a plastic surgeon in the late 1950s, he noted that a number of patients, many of them children, had received severe injuries from burning clothing, often untreated cotton sleepwear. The burns often exceeded 50 percent of the body and were considered life-threatening. Crikelair was named to a national advisory committee that helped draft and promote the U.S. Flammable Fabrics Act, which was ratified in 1972 and set safety standards for certain fabrics.

February 24, 2005 at age 84. Stroke.

Goldie Hill >permalink<

Singer

Jimmie Logsdon interviewing Goldie Hill, circa 1957

Goldie Hill was known as "The Golden Hillbilly." In the 1940s Hill began singing with her brothers, Tommy and Ken Hill. In 1952, she and Tommy joined Webb Pierce's band, and when Pierce journeyed to Nashville to record, Hill went along with him. She auditioned for Pierce's label, Decca Records, and was signed immediately. Hill's second single was "I Let the Stars Get in My Eyes," an answer to Slim Willet's wildly popular "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," and it went No. 1 for three weeks. The song was written by her brother Tommy, who also wrote Pierce's big 1954 hit, "Slowly." Hill never duplicated the success of her first hit. In 1957, Hill married future Country Music Hall of Fame member Carl Smith, and retired from show business.

February 24, 2005 at age 72. Cancer.

Hans-Juergen Wischnewski >permalink<

Germany's international troubleshooter

Let's make a deal

When hijackers commandeered a Lufthansa airliner in 1977 to fly to Mogadishu, Somalia to force the release of three jailed Red Army Faction leaders, then West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt sent Hans-Juergen Wischnewski as his envoy. The hostage taking was part of a bloody climax to a nine-year campaign of urban terrorism in what was then West Germany. The campaign was forwarded by the Red Army Faction, a criminal gang better known as the Baader-Meinhof group (named after their founders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof).

The group had bombed department stores and banks, and raided town halls for blank ID cards and other official documents. They received tactical training in Libya and Lebanon, and found sanctuary in communist East Germany. The five leading figures were rounded up and jailed pending trial but the gang carried on, kidnapping and assassinating figureheads from politics, justice and the economy. In September 1977, they abducted the West German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer.

In October 1977, the group's Arab sympathisers hijacked a Lufthansa Boeing 737 flight bound for Frankfurt with 86 passengers and five crew aboard. They demanded the release of all Baader-Meinhof gang members from jail and diverted the aircraft, first to Rome, then to Larnaca (Cyprus), Bahrain and Dubai. The hijacked plane finally landed at Mogadishu after an abortive stop in Aden, Yemen, where the captain was shot dead by a terrorist.

Another Lufthansa aircraft left Frankfurt and followed the hijacked plane, carrying Wischnewski and 30 members of GSG9, a German anti-terrorist squad, and members of the British SAS squad. Wischnewski engaged in tense and feverish negotiations with the Somalis for permission to send in the GSG9. The squad successfully stormed the plane, killing three terrorists and freeing the hostages. The next day Schleyer was found dead in the trunk of a car, apparently killed by Red Army Faction members. Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Jan-Carl Raspe committed suicide in prison after the hijacking ended.

In 1986, Wischnewski mediated the freedom of eight West Germans seized by rebels in Nicaragua. In 1987, he sought the release of two German businessmen kidnapped in Lebanon. He also reportedly mediated the 1985 release of the daughter of then Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte, who was held by rebels for 44 days.

Even after Helmut Schmidt was ousted by the Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl, Wischnewski continued to carry out delicate foreign assignments for the German government. His last official mission took him to Libya in April, 2004, where he negotiated the resumption of economic ties between the two countries. His last foreign trip was to attend the funeral of Yasser Arafat in November, 2004.

February 24, 2005 at age 82. Complications from infection.

Joanne Brough >permalink<

TV producer

Brough began her career in 1960 at KTLA-TV Channel 5, Los Angeles. Three years later she moved to CBS. Rising through the ranks, she helped develop such series as "Kojak," "Hawaii Five-O," "All in the Family," "MASH" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." She moved to Lorimar Productions in 1978 as vice president of creative affairs and was executive producer of "Dallas" and "Falcon Crest." In 1990 Brough joined Lee Rich Productions, where she produced television movies and the documentary "America's Missing Children" in collaboration with actor Michael Landon. Recent years found her teaching courses in serialized television drama and production at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin.

February 24, 2005 at age 77. Cancer

Larry Kingston >permalink<

Songwriter

Country songwriter Larry Kingston was best known for songs the "Thank God & Greyhound," a hit for Roy Clark and "It's Not Over If I'm Not Over You," which was recorded by Reba McEntire. Among those who also recorded his song were Don Williams, Porter Wagoner, George Jones, Johnny Paycheck, Ringo Starr, Vern Gosdin, Mark Chesnutt and Jerry Lee Lewis. Kingston had a brief taste of chart success when he recorded his own song "Good Morning Loving" in the mid-1970s.

February 24, 2005 at age 60. Complications from a heart attack.

911 Victims Remain Unidentified >permalink<

9/11

New York authorities have ended efforts to identify victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leaving the remains of nearly half the 2,749 people killed in the World Trade Center unidentified. Some 9,720 unidentified bone and tissue fragments have been sealed and stored in case developments in technology allow for identification in the future, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office. Of those killed, 42 percent remain unidentified due to difficulties in getting DNA samples from the remains. "The remains have become deteriorated. Some have no DNA, and some have only partial DNA," Borakove said.

The medical examiner's office has identified 1,585 victims, but progress has slowed to a halt on 1,161 victims. Only eight remains have been identified since September, 2004. Three people injured in the attacks died later of their wounds. The unidentified remains will be placed in a memorial when the World Trade Center complex is rebuilt, Borakove said. Family members of all those killed in the World Trade Center attacks will be notified by New York officials about plans for the remains in the yet-to-be-built memorial.

February 23, 2005.

Tom Patterson >permalink<

Founder, Canada Stratford Festival

He’s the one on the right

After returning to Canada after the Second World War, Tom Patterson thought that his hometown - Stratford, Ontario - would be the perfect venue for a festival celebrating the work of William Shakespeare. He won the support of city council and eventually the entire town, and the Stratford Festival of Canada opened in July, 1953.

Many doubted the success of a plan to stage an acclaimed Shakespearean festival in a town of about 16,000, and Patterson initially sought out actor Laurence Olivier to lend credence to the event. However, after consulting with Canadian theatre maven Dora Mavor Moore, he was steered towards Tyrone Guthrie, whom Moore called "the greatest Shakespearean director in the world."

Guthrie was instantly charmed by Stratford's beautiful riverfront, its earnest people and the opportunity to fulfill his own dream of building an authentic Shakespearean theatre: one where the audience is seated almost completely surrounding a low-level stage, necessitating performances that returned to the old style of acting.

After agreeing to become the festival's first artistic director, Guthrie helped bring other prestigious names aboard, including actors Alec Guinness and Irene Worth - who starred in the opening productions of Richard III and All's Well That Ends Well - and theatre designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch, who designed the festival's thrust stage.

The festival brought a much-needed boost to the town, which was suffering from the withdrawal of the rail industry that had helped sustain it for almost 80 years. And as the Stratford Festival developed into the largest classical repertory theatre in North America, tourism replaced furniture-building as the town's main enterprise.

Patterson became a member of the Order of Canada in 1967 (promoted to officer in 1977). He was awarded honourary law degrees from the University of Toronto in 1981 and the University of Western Ontario in 1988. He was also a recipient of the Canadian Centennial Medal, the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Medal and the Order of Ontario.

"Without Tom Patterson, there would be no Stratford Festival of Canada," current Stratford artistic director Richard Monette said in a statement. "His was an extraordinary vision at an extraordinary time."

February 23, 2005 at age 84.

Harry Simeone >permalink<

Conductor

After spending a career working for and with headliners like Fred Waring and Bing Crosby, Simeone became best known in the late 1950's with his work with the Harry Simeone Chorale. Simeone had arranged scores for several films, most notably 1944's "Here Come the Waves" and 1945's "The Affairs of Susan." He also worked on two of the "Road" movies that Crosby made with Bob Hope and the television series "Bonnie Lassie." However, it was his group's recordings of Christmas songs that sold in the hundreds of thousands for which he will be best remembered.

Simeone's most successful recording was his group's rendition of "The Little Drummer Boy." The song became an instant holiday classic in 1958, and made the Top 40 charts in the United States. "The Little Drummer Boy" has been recorded by artists from Bing Crosby, paired with the rocker David Bowie, to the Pipes and Drums and Military Band of the Royal Scots Guards, Chet Atkins, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Johnny Mathis and Roger Whittaker. Simeone and his singers had another Christmas hit in 1962 with "Do You Hear What I Hear?"

The origins of "The Little Drummer Boy" have not been resolved but the melody appears to be based on both Czech and Spanish compositions. The words were written by Katherine Davis in 1941 but the song was not recorded until 1957. The first recording under the title "Carol of the Drum" was made a cappella for an album, Christmas is a-Comin', by the Jack Halloran Singers. The arranger, Harry Onorati, added his name to the songwriting credits. Onorati told Simeone about the song and Simeone immediately recognised its potential. He decided to record his own version the following Christmas and he hired many of the same singers. He added finger cymbals but otherwise the arrangement was identical. The album, Sing We Now of Christmas, was recorded in an old church in Greenwich Village to enhance the sound. Simeone was listed as producer and he took a songwriting credit on "The Little Drummer Boy". The arrangement did not include a drum but the vocal percussion of "pa-rum-pa-pa-pum" fell into the lyric.

February 22, 2005 at age 94.

Heath Lamberts >permalink<

Actor

Canadian actor Heath Lamberts created the role of 'Cogsworth' in the original 1994 Broadway version of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." His film and TV credits include "Nothing Personal," "Ordinary Magic," "Tom and Huck," "Eerie Indiana," "Road to Avonlea" and "Law & Order." Born as James Lancaster, Lamberts began his career as a boy soprano with the Toronto Opera Company. He was a member of the first class at the newly opened National Theatre School in Montreal in 1960. He was best known in Canada for his work during 12 seasons at the Stratford Festival, and also at the Shaw Festival. He was named to the Order of Canada in 1987, and twice won the Tyrone Guthrie Award in addition to three Dora Awards.

February 22, 2005 at age 63. Metastasized prostate cancer.

Lee Eun-Joo >permalink<

Actress

Lee Eun-Joo

South Korean actress Lee Eun-Joo was one of the biggest box office draws in her country's cinema industry. She first gained critical notice in "The Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors." She also starred in the hit drama "Bungee Jumping of Their Own." Eun-joo's final screen appearance in "The Scarlet Letter" was as a woman who commits suicide. She is believed to have suffered a bout of depression after appearing nude in that film last year.

Lee Eun-Joo's suicide illustrates a trend in South Korea where more people than ever before are killing themselves. In traditional Korean culture, entertainers are looked down on and acting is considered a low profession. Fans have speculated that her death might have been linked to the "entertainment X-file", an incriminating document purported to be a list of the affairs, illegitimate children and drug use of the country's leading celebrities. The 113-page document, put together by a top advertising agency for the purpose of rating entertainers for contractual value, exposed South Korea's 99 most bankable stars, including Lee, to public ridicule and contempt.

Lee's suicide highlights the issue of depression in South Korea, where people tend to hide even the slightest psychiatric problems for fear of being treated as mentally ill and facing ostracism. About 25% of South Koreans suffer from depression of varying degrees of severity, compared with 10% in advanced countries. Of those suffering from depression in South Korea, 15% attempt suicide and one out of 10 succeed.

February 22, 2005 at age 25. Suicide.

Mary Gregory >permalink<

Actress

Mary Ethel Gregory had played small roles in a limited number of movies. She was a scretary in "Footloose," and in "The Executioner's Song," the 1982 miniseries about murderer Gary Gilmore's last days before facing a Utah firing squad, she played the wife of Gilmore's best friend. Gregory also played a rock star's plague-stricken mother in Stephen King's "The Stand," and in "The Deliberate Stranger," the Ted Bundy TV mini-series.

February 22, 2005 at age 79. Cancer.

Robert Koff >permalink<

Founder, Juilliard String Quartet

Violinist Koff, along with violinist Robert Mann, violist Raphael Hillyer and cellist Arthur Winograd, formed the Juilliard String Quartet in 1946 at the request of the composer William Schuman, who was president of the Juilliard School. Although none of the original players remain in the lineup (the last to leave was Mann in 1997), the group has maintained its affiliation with the Juilliard School and its original commitment to showcasing contemporary music for nearly six decades. Koff helped shape the Quartet's sound when they were first establishing itself as American's pre-eminent chamber ensemble, and he performed on many of the group's classic recordings. In addition to performing and teaching, Koff lectured on music in a 40-part series on WGBH television in Boston.

February 22, 2005 at age 86. Blood disease.

Simone Simon >permalink<

Actress

Meow

Two decades before Brigitte Bardot, the tag "sex kitten" could have been applied more appropriately to Simone Simon. Director Jean Renoir described the French actress as "A cat, a real cat, with a silky coat that begs to be caressed, a short little snout, a big, slightly beseeching mouth and eyes full of promises."

Her most famous role was in Jacques Tourneur's 1942 "Cat People," playing a fashion artist who is haunted by the fear that she descended from a race of cat-women who turn into panthers when sexually aroused. "Kiss me or claw me!" read the ads. One of the most influential horror movies ever filmed, "Cat People" was remade in 1982 by Paul Schrader with Nastassja Kinski reprising Simon's role.

Simon's career was first established with her appearance in Renoir's 1938 "La Bête humaine," playing Severine, a femme fatale who persuades her lover to murder her husband. Moving to America just prior to World War II, Simon became embroiled in scandal after accusing her secretary of stealing $5000 by forging cheques. The woman's defence was to blacken Simone Simon's character by publicising details of her private life. She was said to be in the habit of showering her men friends (among them the composer George Gershwin) with expensive gifts, including gold keys to her home engraved with their initials.

After a short stint in Hollywood, where her career stalled due to a reluctance to master English, Simon returned to France and appeared in Max Ophuls' 1950 film "La Ronde." Simon 'retired' after "The Extra Day," a 1956 British picture in which she played a French film star. Her last film was "La Femme en Bleu," made in 1973.

Details of her life, particularly her age, remain shrouded in mystery. The years given for her birth range from 1910 to 1917, placing her age at death from late eighties to early nineties. Some sources say she was born in Bethune, France, and raised in Marseille, Madagascar, Vienna, Budapest, Berlin or Brussels.

A few years ago, Simon was asked for an interview for a TV documentary on Jean Renoir. She refused, saying that she did not want to appear on camera as she was "a very old woman". Simon has left us with a vision of a lovely, young woman.

February 22, 2005 at age 94.

Trude Rittmann >permalink<

Broadway arranger

Leaving her native Germany after seeing the Nazis burning books in Berlin, Rittmann arrived in the United States and for four decades she arranged dance and choral music for more than 50 Broadway shows, including such hits as "The Sound of Music" and "My Fair Lady." Working with composers in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the golden years for Broadway musicals, Rittmann arranged for some of the biggest hits of the time: "The King and I," "South Pacific," "Carousel," and "Peter Pan." She arranged music for theatrical giants such as Agnes de Mille, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and Jerome Robbins. When Hollywood made a film of "The King and I," Rittmann went there to arrange the dance music. Rittmann served also as a concert accompanist and pianist for the New York City Ballet.

February 22, 2005 at age 96. Stroke.

Ara Berberian >permalink<

Opera singer

Berberian, a Detroit native, a bass, debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1979 as Zacharie in Meyerbeer's "The Prophet." It was the beginning of a two decade run at the Met, signing more than 100 roles for in performances. Berberian studied singing privately and never attended music school. He earned degrees in economics and law from the University of Michigan and practiced law for a year. He also tried out for baseball's minor leagues, and sang the national anthem at the 1984 World Series at Detroit's Tiger Stadium, which he called a bigger thrill than his Met debut.

February 21, 2005 ge 74. Heart failure.

Don Higgins >permalink<

Sound editor

Higgins won an Emmy Award for his work on 1977's made for TV movie "The Amazing Howard Hughes." He was also part of a group Emmy nominated for the 1986 TV mini-series "Dallas: The Early Years." Higgins was a sound effects editor on Irwin Allen's early 1960s TV series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," and his film credits also include Ken Russell's 1980 "Altered States." Higgens claimed that he was the first editor to bring a computer in the editing room (and was fired for doing so).

February 21, 2005 at age 80.

Gene Scott >permalink<

Television preacher

Gene Scott, human being

At the very least, Gene Scott was unconventional. His preaching style earned him a reputation as an eccentric, making him a frequent target for "Saturday Night Live" and Johnny Carson. He chomped on cigars, had beautiful young women (known as "Scott's Bunnies") dance on his broadcasts and wore hats ranging from sombreros to Stanford University caps. With his white mane and beard, half-frame reading glasses cocked on his forehead, Scott was a caricature of a modern-day prophet. He would alternately grin and berate his congregation, often staring down a live television audience to raise money for such causes as the Los Angeles Public Library and the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center in Pasadena.

He once excomminucated the entire congregation for not giving enough. "Get on the telephone!" he ordered his viewers. For those who didn't send money, Scott suggested: "Vomit on yourself with your head up in the air." He had a worldwide radio and television audience in 180 countries, with his ministry taking in more than $1 million a month. To qualify as a member of his church, the main requirement was a valid credit card, with Scott's aim apparently being to make it richer than the Vatican. "First-class salvation costs money," he once said. In 1980, Werner Herzog made Scott the subject of a documentary, "God's Angry Man," which showed the preacher raising several hundred thousand dollars during a television show lasting half an hour.

February 21, 2005 at age 75. Stroke.

Guillermo Cabrera Infante >permalink<

Writer

Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Cabrera Infante was a Cuban novelist who was an early supporter of Fidel Castro but became one of his harshest critics. He lived in exile in London for nearly 40 years. Though Cabrera Infante is best known for novels evoking pre-revolutionary Havana, such as "Three Trapped Tigers," he was also a screenwriter with credits for 1971's "Vanishing Point" and 1968's "Wonderwall" (which featured a soundtrack by Beatle George Harrison). Cabrera Infante had another film, "The Lost City" (starring Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray), in post-production. The film is set in Havana during the late 1950s and early 1960s and is directed by and stars Garcia as one of three brothers whose lives are torn apart by the revolution. Cabrera Infante's Spanish publishing house said that the author's ashes would "be stored and sent to Cuba when that country is free."

February 21, 2005 at age 75. Septicemia.

Isabelle Goldenson >permalink<

Founder, United Cerebral Palsy

Goldenson and her husband Leonard H. Goldenson, former head of ABC, reached out to other parents of children with cerebral palsy by placing an advertisement in The New York Herald Tribune. As a result, United Cerebral Palsy was founded in 1949. Goldenson and her husband lobbied for wheelchair access to sidewalks and restrooms and even recruited NASA to their cause. "If we can put a man on the moon," she asked at a dinner party in 1971, "why can't we develop a lightweight wheelchair for people with disabilities?" NASA engineers soon constructed such a wheelchair as well as medical monitoring equipment. Through its network of affiliates, United Cerebral Palsy provides daily services to more than 30,000 people.

February 21, 2005 at age 84.

Justin Howes >permalink<

Curator, Type Museum of London

ABCDEFG

Howes was a rarity. He appreciated the legacy of letters as physical metal objects, rather than as abstractions squeezed and manipulated on a computer screen. In 1995 he bought two iron printing presses and a ton of metal type, one of which was a Stanhope, which had been used at The London Times from 1804 to 1814. He stored the presses in a building that also served as his home, a 6500 square foot former shoe-factory. As a result of his interest in hot lead, he became curator of Britain's Type Museum in 1996.

An expert on typefaces, he was often called to speak on subjects as riveting as "Typographical Monstrosities: From Sanserifs to the Euro." He once wrote a book about the genesis of London Transport's Underground typeface. Howes' favourite letter form was Caslon Old Face as originally cut by William Caslon (1693-1766). Caslon was revived and recut in the 19th century, and again in the 20th for hot-metal setting and then for photosetting. It eventually became today's dominant letter form, Times New Roman.

Howes, who died at his desk, was just about to embark on a six-month visit to the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Amsterdam. It had been a dream for him to spend time there casting letters and working with 16th and 17th-century materials, creating faces with a craftsman who could cast them in sand -- the first time the process had been used for letters in 200 years. Howe was not married.

February 21, 2005 at age 41. Heart attack.

Hunter S. Thompson >permalink<

Gonzo journalist

Blam!

Outrageous, self-destructive, pioneering ... it would be difficult to describe Thompson's life in conventional terms. Not only did he push the envelope, he often left the planet. And he also defined "fictional journalism," where the writer placed himself inside the story he was covering, giving up any pretense of objectivity. It was a style suited to Thompson's worldview, and it was a style suited to the times he reported.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," Thompson once wrote. And it was that approach that caused Richard Nixon to characterise him as "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character." For more about the life and times of this counterculture icon, visit the Last Link Hunter S. Thompson tribute page.

February 20, 2005 at age 67. Self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

John Raitt >permalink<

Singer/actor

Raitt was a robust baritone who created the role of Billy Bigelow in the original New York production of "Carousel." He was also the father of singer Bonnie Raitt. Famed on Broadway, his success on Broadway never translated into a successful film career. He played opposite Doris Day in "The Pajama Game," his only starring film role.

Raitt appeared in small parts in several films during the late 1940s and early 1950s. He was a popular guest on a number of TV shows of the era, including Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town," "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" "Shirley Temple's Storybook," "General Electric Theater," "Death Valley Days," "Shower of Stars" and "The Bell Telephone Hour."

In later years, Raitt was overshadowed by the fame of his blues-singing daughter. "She used to be known as John Raitt's daughter; now I'm known as Bonnie Raitt's father," he once observed.

February 20, 2005 at age 88. Pneumonia.

Pam Bricker >permalink<

Singer, music professor

Pam Bricker was a mainstay of the New England music scene for over 25 years. She was the leader of The Bricker Band and was a member of the swing vocal group Mad Romance. She performed with many Washington area jazz greats, including the late Charlie Byrd and Emily Remler, and Buck Hill. She appeared at the Blue Note in New York City, the Barns at Wolftrap, the Smithsonian and on the Main Stage at the 1989 Monterey Jazz Festival. She won the Best Contemporary Jazz Vocalist Wammie (the Washington Area Music Association's annual award) in 1999, 2000, and 2001.

But Bricker was most widely heard on the Grammy award winning soundtrack for the movie "Garden State," performing as vocalist for the electronica band Thievery Corporation whose song "Lebanese Blonde" appears in the film. In addition to singing on the Thievery Corporation's first three recordings, Bricker was also a professor of music for George Washington University's jazz department, a post she held for the past five years.

February 20, 2005. Suicide.

Sandra Dee >permalink<

Actress/teen-movie star

Girls wanted to look like her and boys wanted to date her

Dee was the pert and pretty star of popular low-budget teen movies of the late 1950s and early 1960s and the archetypal blond bobby-soxer of the era. Girls wanted to look like her and boys wanted to date her. She was best known for her roles in "Gidget," as well as "Tammy Tell Me True" and "Tammy And The Doctor" -- sequels to Debbie Reynolds's hit "Tammy and the Bachelor." When the charming teens-meet-surf, sand and each other story was translated to television in 1965, it was Sally Field in the title role. Nevertheless, when members of a certain generation remember Gidget and her innocent beach bonfires, to this day, they think of Dee.

Occasionally Dee received roles that showed her range. She supported June Allyson in "A Stranger In My Arms," appeared in the Oscar nominated "Imitation of Life" against Lana Turner and Dan O'Herlihy, and co-starred with another young, blond heartthrob, Troy Donahue, in "A Summer Place," one of the earliest studio films to commodify youthful rebelliousness. Peter Ustinov cast her as Juliet in his Cold-War update of the Shakespeare play, which Ustinov called "Romanoff and Juliet." She was voted one of Hollywood's top 10 moneymakers in 1960 and again in 1961.

Dee married Bobby Darin and the couple appeared together in "Come September," "If A Man Answers" and "That Funny Feeling." After six years the marriage was over, and Universal Studios dropped her from her contract. Her career never recovered. She gained exposure to a new generation through the Broadway play and film "Grease" because of the self-mocking song "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee." Her most notable recent appearance was in the first film about the Apollo 13 disaster: "Houston We've Got a Problem" in 1974. She also appeared in the pilot for the TV series "Fantasy Island."

Dee was born Alexandra Cymboliak Zuck in Bayonne, New Jersey. She was abandoned by her father and decided on an acting career at age 5, and by 12 had become one of America's top models and cover girls. Her agency got her into TV commercials for Coca-Cola and Coppertone, and she was discovered by Universal producer Ross Hunter.

In a March, 1991 interview with People magazine, she said that she was sexually abused as a child by her stepfather and that she was pushed into stardom by her mother. Her lifelong obsession with thinness began at age 9, when her stepfather told her that she had eaten too many pancakes. By 11, she was so anorexic that fan magazines commented on the problem. By the time she arrived in Hollywood, the 5’ 5” Dee weighed 90 pounds. Dee lost all her savings in a property deal in the 1970s, and had to be supported by her mother. When her mother died in 1988, she was drinking more than a quart of scotch a day and her weight fell to 80 pounds.

Dee's marriage to Darin, who died at age 37 in 1973 of heart disease, has been in the spotlight most recently thanks to "Beyond the Sea," Kevin Spacey's homage to the singer and teen idol. In that movie, Dee was played by Kate Bosworth. Spacey said Dee, who was then living as a virtual recluse in Los Angeles, approved of the film.

February 20, 2005 at age [60, 62 or 63]. Kidney disease and pneumonia.

Henry C. Brinton >permalink<

Atmospheric physicist

Brinton had a 40-year career in space science and retired as director of research for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's unmanned space program. He began his career NASA in 1959 and worked as a research scientist for 21 years at Goddard Space Flight Center. In 1980, he began work at NASA headquarters in Washington, where he oversaw such programs as the Cassini mission, which sent the Huygens probe to Titan, Saturn's largest moon; the probe arrived in December 2004. In 1998, the year of his retirement, NASA presented him its Creative Management Award.

February 19, 2005 at age 70. Cancer.

Joe Martin >permalink<

Doo wop singer

Baritone singer Joseph Martin began singing with his Harlem neighbourhood pals, performing as the Dovers, in 1952. They later changed their name to the 5 Willows. One day while walking through Manhattan, the group ran into Sammy Davis Jr., who was out taking pictures. He referred them to a friend who owned a record label, and soon had New York area hits with "My Dear Dearest Darling" and "Dolores." A later recording on another label featured Neil Sedaka playing the chimes - a first for a rock and roll record. The song, "Church Bells Are Ringing," was "covered" by the white group the Diamonds. Although the group never achieved any measure of success, the Willows continued to perform, appearing as recently as 2004 at Westbury Music Fair on Long Island.

February 19, 2005 at age 71.

Kihachi Okamoto >permalink<

Film director

Best known for a number of World War II related-films such as "Nihon No Ichiban Nagai Hi (Japan's Longest Day)," which depicted Japan's surrender, and "Dokuritsu Gurentai (Desperado Outpost)," about Japanese soldiers revealing corruption in his corps in China during the war period. In the late 1970s, Okamoto made entertainment films such as "Jazz Daimyo," and "East Meets West," about the success of a samurai who went overseas at the end of Japan's Edo period. Okamoto won the Best Director and Best Screenplay Awards of the Japanese Academy for his 1991 crime/comedy "Rainbow Kids," and his crime noir film "The Big Boss" is generally considered his best work. His last film, the samurai-related "Sukedachiya Sukeroku," was produced in 2001.

February 19, 2005 at age 81. Throat/esophagal cancer.

Paul Burnett >permalink<

Journalism professor

Burnett already had an established newspaper career when he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He became a decorated B-17 navigator, and filmed combat footage for Oscar-winning director William Wyler's 1942 documentary "The Memphis Belle." That same year over France, Burnett's plane took repeated hits from German aircraft. Though seriously wounded, he guided the crippled bomber without charts or radio over the English Channel to a safe landing in England. Burnett joined Auburn University in 1948 and over the next 31 years grew the journalism program from one instructor and single classroom to a separate department.

February 19, 2005 at age 86.

Phil Balmer >permalink<

DEW line and Avro Arrow engineer

World War II and the fear of Communism cast a long shadow over Canada and the United States during the 1950s. Governments of the day sought to placate public fears (and further political agendas) with two highly visible projects. One was a line of defense known as the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, a radar installation across Canada's North. The other was the most advanced fighter jet of its day: the Canadian Avro Arrow. Phil Balmer worked on both projects.

Avro Arrow Balmer became aware of the importance of his expertise when Canadian government authorities asked him to take down his ham-radio aerial on the eve of the second world war. While only a teen, the Toronto native was puzzled by concerns over his ability to contact persons outside the country.

By the end of the war, Balmer had completed a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto. He found work with Canadian General Electric, developing electrical equipment needed for the DEW line. It was work he could not discuss with family or friends.

Balmer's next assignment was to develop electrical circuits for the Avro Arrow. The legendary craft out-performed all other planes of its type, but fell victim to polictical posturing by the newly-elected Diefenbaker government on February 20, 1959. All six existing Arrows were destroyed, and the technical expertise behind the project drifted south, finding work at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration in its efforts to land a man on the moon.

Balmer, however, remained in Canada, working for Canadian General Electric until his retirement. He filled his career designing radio equipment for the Toronto police force, and working as GE's patent authority. From files compiled by Colin Haskin of the Globe and Mail.

For more about the Avro Arrow, visit Histori.ca's sites here and here.

February 19, 2005 at age 81. Heart failure.

Ronald Goede >permalink<

Doctor

Goede, a respected Edmonton, Alberta area doctor, died during an emergency flight home after being mugged in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Goede was on holiday with his partner Jack Dyck when a man struck Goede on the head the night of Monday, February 14th. On the night of the mugging, Goede appeared to be fine. He went the next day to a local hospital where doctors tried unsuccessfully to treat him. He was brought by air ambulance back to Canada for treatment, but died from his injuries at Edmonton's University hospital. Puerto Vallarta police are investigating but don't hold out much hope of solving the case. All that witnesses remember of the attack is a bare-chested man in shorts running away. Goede, of Sherwood Park, was a general practitioner who worked at a clinic in Fort Saskatchewan.

February 19, 2005 at age 57. Murdered.

Clara 'Clibby' Verrian >permalink<

Talent agent

Verrian was a one-woman show in the Canadian film industry. In addition to founding the Toronto talent agency Faces and Places, she was also a casting director, located movie sites and supplied extras for movies, television series and commercials. Among her most well-known clients were Justin Louis, Sarah Polley and Cory Haim.

When her marriage ended in 1980, Verrian resolved to do something different. She loved the movies and Hollywood, and soon made a name for herself providing extras for the 1981 thriller "Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper," a television movie about the U.S.-Iranian hostage drama. In recent years, Verrian downsized her operations and specialised in acquiring extras for commercials. A recent project was a big-budget, blacks-only Nike commercial that featured NBA star Vince Carter. With just a few days' notice, Verrian filled an entire stadium to create period Harlem with 750 black extras. Faces and Places, with close to 300 clients, will continue under the management of her son.

February 18, 2005 at age 65. Heart attack.

John Ebstein >permalink<

Designer

... way ahead of its time ...

John Ebstein was the industrial designer who led a team that created the Studebaker Avanti sports car, and influenced the look of a wide range of products from Lucky Strike cigarettes to Greyhound buses. He was employed by Raymond Loewy, the legendary "father of streamlining." While Ebstein also contributed to the design of space capsules, Pennsylvania Railroad locomotives and the Air Force One used by the Kennedy administration, his most notable achievement was the Avanti, created in less than two weeks in a two-room bungalow in Palm Springs, California.

Intended to save Studebaker-Packard from financial collapse, the radically styled, powerful sports coupe did not fulfill its intended purpose. But it did become revered among automobile enthusiasts and design devotees as one of the world's most consummate sports cars. It was built in the 1963 and 1964 model years.

The Avanti, which means "forward" in Italian, had a Coke-bottle shape, with a narrowing in the middle that inspired European racing cars for a generation. It could hold four passengers and had two doors, a long hood, a host trunk, an asymmetrical power bulge on the hood, virtually no chrome trim and no fins. The interior was inspired by aircraft flight decks, with numerous toggle switches on the console.

For more about John Ebstein and Raymond Loewy, visit the Loewy Design and Raymond Loewy Foundation web sites.

February 18, 2005 at age 92. Heart attack

Uli Derickson >permalink<

Flight attendant

On June 14, 1985, a pair of Lebanese gunmen commandeered TWA Flight 847, travelling from Athens to Rome. Derickson, a flight attendant, was instrumental in protecting the lives of 152 passengers and crew members. The hijacking lasted 17 days and resulted in the loss of one life. For more about this dramatic event and Derickson's role in it, visit the Last Link Uli Derickson tribute page.

February 18, 2005 at age 60. Cancer.

Daniel O'Herlihy >permalink<

Actor

Irish-born actor O'Herlihy was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for the title role in Luis Bunuel's 1954 "The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," Bunuel's first English language film. Horror fans may remember him from "Halloween 3: Season of the Witch." O'Herlihy had over 150 film and TV credits, including such classics as Orson Welles 1948 version of "MacBeth," "The Virgin Queen," "Imitation of Life," and one of the best cold-war thrillers ever made, 1964's "Fail-Safe." O'Herlihy also appeared in "Robo Cop" and "Robo Cop 2," the TV mini-series "QBVII," "100 Rifles," "Twin Peaks," "MacArthur," "The Last Starfighter," John Huston's last complete film "The Dead," and "The Rat Pack," playing Joseph Kennedy in the 1998 TV movie. His late brother was film and television director Michael O'Herlihy ("Star Trek," "Maverick," "Gunsmoke," "M*A*S*H," "Hawaii 5-0," "The A-team" and "Miami Vice").

February 17, 2005 at age 85. Exact cause not disclosed at the request of family.

Jean Cayrol >permalink<

Scriptwriter

Jean Cayrol

Cayrol is perhaps best known for his contribution as scriptwriter to two of Alain Resnais's major films. The feature film they made together was 1963's "Muriel," one of the key works of the French Nouvelle Vague cinematic movement. The first film they devised, 1956's "Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard)," was an effective documentary made about the Nazi extermination camps. Cayrol was also the author of some 25 novels and more than a dozen volumes of essays and verse, and he wrote occasionally for radio and television.

February 17, 2005 at age 93.

Peter Foy >permalink<

Aerographer

Peter Foy

Foy was the master of stage flight or "aerography" and the theatre industry's foremost expert on 'flying' actors with wire rigs. He founded the company Flying by Foy in 1957, and he stopped counting the productions his company was involved in when the number reached 6,000.

Born in England, Foy was requested to stage the flying sequences of the 1950 Broadway production of the Peter Pan after the show's producers discovered that no theatrical flying had been performed in the United States for 20 years. The show starred Jean Arthur as Peter Pan and Boris Karloff as Captain Hook. Foy began to experiment with existing equipment and by the time he was required to help with the famous 1954 Peter Pan production that starred Mary Martin, he had developed the Inter-related Pendulum. It not only allowed dynamic movement back and forth over the stage but also launched actors higher, faster and more smoothly than before. He also developed the floating pulley, a device that enabled flying in theaters with ceilings lower than 40 feet.

Foy's devices were more reliable than their human operators. Once Liberace was dragged instead of flown offstage when an inept technician was at the controls. On another occasion, Foy's assistant was so mesmerized by the sight of Peter Pan in flight that he forgot what he was doing and sailed Mary Martin right into a brick wall (Martin wound up with a broken arm but returned to the set the same day).

Foy's harnesses and rigs have been used on such films and TV shows as "The Flying Nun" starring Sally Field, "Fantastic Voyage," "Superman" and "The Wiz." Foy flew Nadia Comaneci over Times Square for the 2004 Olympic torch relay in New York and created flying effects for the opening ceremonies at the Olympic Games in Athens. In 1990, the Health and Safety Codes Commission of the United States Institute of Theatre Technology presented Foy with an International Entertainment Safety Award. Asked by a director if he could haul two people in a sleigh through the air for a production of "Nutcracker," Foy replied, "Lady, I once flew Liberace and his piano."

February 17, 2005 at age 79.

Vernon Young >permalink<

Doo wop singer

Adrift

Young led Vernon Young & The Touchtones and sang with The Outlaws and Archie Bell & The Drells. Young was working with Bill Pinkney's edition of the Original Drifters when he died on tour in Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean. Vernon joined Bill Pinkney's Original Drifters in the early 1990s.

The name 'Bill Pinkney's Original Drifters' is the result of business disputes dating back to 1954 when Clyde McPhatter left the Drifters. With McPhatter's departure, the Drifters became a revolving door enterprise with singers assembled by Ahmet Ertegun (a one-time record collector who had started Atlantic Records in the late 1940s) and producer Jerry Wexler on an 'as need' basis. At the time of McPhatter's leaving, Bill Pinkney was singing bass.

McPhatter half-owned Drifters Incorporated with his manager George Treadwell (whose first wife was Sarah Vaughan). When McPhatter left, he sold his interest to Treadwell. Future Drifters singers became salaried employees, and when Pinkney disputed this arrangement he was fired in 1956. Between then and the early 1970s, the Drifters story became extremely involved. Lawsuits over name ownership proliferated when numerous Drifters, including Pinkney's, took advantage of the rock 'n roll revival that suddenly made the group's classic repertory profitable again.

Treadwell's death in 1967 resulted in Drifters ownership transferring to his wife Faye. Court decisions saw the different Drifters divide territory within the United States and England. In the 1990s, a new court ruling determined Treadwell owned the Drifters trademark, but she no longer had any singers performing under the name. This cleared the way for Pinkney, the last active original member from the early 1950s, to continue as Bill Pinkney's Original Drifters.

February 17, 2005 at age 56.

Bill Potts >permalink<

Jazz arranger and composer

Potts was a jazz pianist, composer and arranger who scored "The Jazz Soul of Porgy and Bess" (1959), a vibrant version of the Gershwin opera that brought him early acclaim. Largely self-taught, Potts developed an arranging style that was bold, brassy and swinging. Gershwin standards, such as "Summertime," had typically been recorded as slow ballads with a vocal interlude. In contrast, the 1959 "Jazz Soul" album became a large-scale and boisterous project featuring such jazz heavyweights as Harry Edison, Zoot Sims, Charlie Shavers and Bill Evans. Down Beat magazine gave the record five stars, its highest praise, and called it a "beautiful, beautiful album." But the release was largely overshadowed by the quieter, reflective Miles Davis-Gil Evans "Porgy and Bess" album that was issued the previous year. Potts continued with a productive but far more anonymous career, collaborating with Paul Anka, Ella Fitzgerald, Woody Herman, Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich and Bobby Vinton.

February 16, 2005 at age 76. Cardiac arrest.

National Hockey League 2004-2005 season >permalink<

Sport

NHL 0, Fans 0

After suffering failing health in recent years, the latest NHL season expired prematurely on February 16th, 2005. It previously survived a near fatal bout of flu in 1919. For more about circumstances surrounding the near certain death of the oldest of North American professional sports leagues, visit this Last Link Web Watch entry.

February 16, 2005 at age 87 years and/or 153 days. Unnatural causes.

Nicole DeHuff >permalink<

Actress

DeHuff made her feature film debut in "Meet The Parents," playing the sister whose wedding caused all the havoc. Her other film roles included the 2004 release of "Suspect Zero" with Ben Kingsley. On television, she appeared in "The Court," "The Practice," "C.S.I.," "C.S.I. Miami," "Monk","Dragnet" and "Without A Trace," and the TV movie "See Arnold Run." She had a starring role in the recently completed movie "Unbeatable Harold," which was directed by her husband, Ari Palitz.

DeHuff died after medics misdiagnosed her pneumonia twice. On February 12, DeHuff was rushed to hospital, but was sent home and told to take the painkiller Tylenol. The next day the actress again went to hospital, but this time medics prescribed antibiotics for bronchitis. Two days later, paramedics rushed to her home after she collapsed, gasping for breath. Only when her problems became inoperable did doctors realize what was wrong with her.

February 16, 2005 at age 30. Pneumonia.

Claude A. Smith >permalink<

Veterinarian

Smith, right, visiting giant panda Ling-Ling in 1972.

Smith's lifelong acquaintance with animals rivaled that of Dr. Dolittle. He regularly worked with chickens, turkeys, cows and horses but also was the U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarian charged with inspecting and quarantining the giant pandas Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing before they took up residence at the National Zoo. He told his children stories of being the target over the years of camel expectoration and elephant urination.

Smith, right, visiting giant panda Ling-Ling in 1972.

One of his more delicate duties involved a horse named Sardar, a gift in 1962 from the president of Pakistan, Muhammad Ayub Khan, to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. It was Dr. Smith's duty to keep the bay gelding in isolation until he could officially clear it of disease and release it. When he went out to the stables for his inspection, he found the first lady happily riding the animal. Although he took his duties seriously, he decided on the spot that the first lady outranked him.

From 1935 to 1942, he worked as a USDA field veterinarian. In 1942, he enlisted as a first lieutenant in the Army Air Force, inspecting meat and dairy products before they were shipped overseas for use by U.S. troops (an early version of homeland security, because food poisoning could be a potentially devastating method of undermining the war effort). In the Army, he developed a lifelong aversion to butter, because he was regularly required to scoop out and inspect core samples from huge butter barrels. In retirement, Smith was a tinkerer and inventor. He once created a body harness with wheels for the family's down-in-the-back dachshund.

The man responsible for the pandas arriving in the U.S. was Patrick Daly. He died March 2, 2005.

February 15, 2005 at age 92.

Jack Kenesky >permalink<

Hockey pads craftsman

By the time he was 10, Jack had dropped out of school and taken his place in his father's sports equipment business. While his three brothers worked as salesmen on the floor, Jack's job was to learn from his father the craft of turning leather and deer hair into world-class hockey pads. They pumped out as many as 300 pairs a year.

For years, every goalie in the National Hockey League wore the family's gear. Jack's handiwork protected the legs of Turk Broda, Tony Esposito, Ed Giacomin, Ken Dryden, Gerry Cheevers, Jacques Plante, Glenn Hall, Rogie Vachon, Terry Sawchuk, Gump Worsley (pictured), Harry Lumley, Johnny Bower and, until he retired in late 1999, even Ron Hextall.

Goalie pads were invented in 1927 by Pops Kenesky. He had been working as a harness maker in Hamilton, Ontario when a friend asked him to fix a bicycle. Eventually Pops a shop started repairing and making sports equipment until 1975, the year he died.

The pads had emerged in response to a request by Jake Forbes, a goaltender for the Hamilton Tigers in what was the NHL in 1924, who asked for something better than the cricket pads he had been using. The result was an interesting combination of California creamed horse-hide, cotton sheeting, kapok and deer hair, which possessed almost mythical qualities of shock absorption. Goalies believed in Kenesky pads, and preferred them over the newfangled foam.

Kenesky pads lasted longer, too -- at least three years of hard NHL use as opposed to one year for synthetic. Later, Kenesky pads often found extra years of life as hand-me-downs in local leagues.

Early one morning some time in the mid-1960s, Jack Kenesky nearly stepped on Terry Sawchuk, who was sitting on the steps of the store, pads in hand, waiting for him to sew up a tear. The Maple Leaf and future hall of famer had taken a cab from Toronto to get the kind of service he could only find from the guy who'd made the gear in the first place. Service wasn't always that quick, though. The pads were in such demand that it was impossible to build up stock. Each pair had to be ordered, sometimes as far as a year in advance.

At one time, the store made the pads for the entire NHL when it was composed of only six teams. Superstitious goalies often had special requests, such as wanting a rabbit's foot sewn inside. In 1989, a pair of custom-made, leather Kenesky pads took one person 10 days to make and cost about $1,200.

Sensing an opportunity to make some money, a number of competitors jumped into the market and grabbed a share. There was still business but it slowed, especially by the time Pops Kenesky died. On his own, Jack Kenesky produced only a couple of pairs a week. Times were changing and the one-room, one-man workshop wasn't able to keep up. The market for leather pads completely collapsed at the start of the 1990s. With lighter, more water-resistant materials available, goalies left the past behind. Jack and his pads were suddenly dinosaurs in the high-tech world.

February 15, 2005 at age 85. Cancer.

John D. Preston >permalink<

Child safety authority

As engineer with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, John D. Preston worked to develop safety standards for toys, nursery products and playground equipment. He wrote the bible for public playgrounds, the Handbook for Public Playground Safety, causing the replacement of the old steel tube jungle gyms on asphalt with equipment made of more flexible material on shock-absorbing surfaces.

Preston's work also extended to determining what constitutes hazardously small parts and sharp points and edges in children's products. With engineers, human factors specialists, epidemiologists and physiologists, Preston established safety specifications for pacifiers, rattles, cribs, bicycles and bunk beds. After graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering in Britain, Preston helped design landing gear for military and civilian aircraft and automobile brake systems. He once led a U.S. radio-controlled model aircraft team in a competition in the Soviet Union.

February 15, 2005 at age 68. Heart attack.

Manuela Gomez Ruiz >permalink<

Victim of justice?

According to allegations made by her family, Manuela Gomez Ruiz died as a result of hospital personnel moving her out of a trauma room to accommodate a flu-stricken Michael Jackson. Ruiz was moved from the primary trauma room and taken off the machine ventilator, with her breathing instead assisted manually by hand pump, until she was relocated to a smaller room nearby. Jury selection in Jackson's child molestation child was postponed Feb. 15 when the pop star was taken to Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, Calif., complaining of flu-like symptoms. Ruiz's heart was failing rapidly. She would have two more heart attacks before she died that day. The family has hired an attorney to sue both the hospital and Jackson.

There was no doubt Jackson was sick - as a doctor assured the judge presiding over his trial - but how sick? Ruiz's daughter-in-law says she watched as Jackson entered the emergency room. "He walked in," Anna Ruiz said. "When I saw him, he was walking unassisted."

February 15, 2005 at age 74. Heart attack.

Paul E. Lacy >permalink<

Pathologist

Lacy was known as the father of islet cell transplants, an experimental treatment for Type 1 diabetes. Lacy was among the first scientists to observe how beta cells, which reside in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas, make insulin. He also developed and refined techniques for isolating islet cells to prepare them for transplant. In 1972, he was credited with performing the first successful islet transplant in laboratory rats, and by the 1980s the same operation was ready to be performed on people. In 1970, Lacy helped create the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, now the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and helped with fund-raising on telethons.

February 15, 2005 at age 81. Pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease.

Pierre Bachelet >permalink<

Composer

Bachelet composed music for the films "Emmanuelle" and "The Story of O." His score for "Emmanuelle" was used in nine of the sequels. Bachelet was nominated for the French Cesar Award for his score for "Les Enfants du Marais."

February 15, 2005 at age 60.

Lee D. Gatling >permalink<

Saxophone player

Born in Battle Creek, Michigan, Gatling began his formal musical training with the clarinet when he was 10. He switched to alto saxophone in high school but ultimately learned to play all woodwind instruments by the time he graduated. B.B. King heard Gatling play with the Theodus Morgan Quintet at Chicago's Club De Lisa, King offered him a job playing tenor sax. Gatling toured with the B.B. King Band from 1963 to 1970. Gatling moved to Detroit, where he joined the Motown family in 1971, doing studio work with the Temptations, the Four Tops, Freda Payne and other R & B artists.

February 14, 2005 at age 63. Brain cancer.

Najai Turpin >permalink<

Boxer

Middleweight boxer Turpin, also known as Nitro, was one of the hopefuls on the TV boxing reality show "The Contender." At 5 feet 5 inches and 151 lbs., Turpin had a career record of 13 wins, 1 loss and 9 knockouts. He shot himself in his parked Chevrolet Lumina following an argument with his girlfriend, who was also in the car.

"The Contender" is a series that follows the personal and professional lives of 16 boxers vying for a $1 million prize. The series is hosted by actor Sylvester Stallone. Turpin's episodes will be aired and a fund for Turpin's orphaned 2-year-old daughter has been set up.

One of Turpin's given reasons for appearing on "The Contender" was to enable him to better support his family, and he may have frustrated by the repeated delays in the airing of show. Turpin did construction work in the mornings and toiled at a Philadelphia restaurant in the evenings. The show was also the subject of a heated bidding war between NBC and Fox last spring. Once scheduled to debut in November and end during February sweeps, "The Contender" was pushed back to a March, 2005 debut to create some "space" between it and Fox's copycat flop.

Turpin's death is not the first in the TV reality show business. In 1997, Sinisa Savija, a participant on the Swedish version of "Survivor," committed suicide after he was voted off the island. As a result of the incident, producer Mark Burnett began conducting extensive psychological tests on contestants. Burnett said that all of the boxers on "The Contender" had undergone such testing. Last summer, Jose Maria, the winner of the first Portugal edition of the show "Big Brother," threatened to kill himself by jumping off a bridge (two policemen eventually hoisted him to safety).

February 14, 2005 at age 23. Self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Otto Plaschkes >permalink<

Film producer

Plaschkes was a British producer of films featuring wry screenplays that explored identity and sized up society. His best known production was 1966's dark comedy "Georgy Girl." The film made a heroine of a plump, gawky young woman played by Lynn Redgrave. Among his other works were the spy thriller "Hopscotch" (1980) starring Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson, "The Homecoming" (1973) adapted from a Harold Pinter play "Butley" (1976), "Galileo" (1975) based on Charles Laughton's 1947 adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play, and "In Celebration" (1975). "The Holcroft Covenant" (1985), one of his last films, was an adaptation of the Robert Ludlum best seller.

Plaschkes, born in Vienna, was among the Jewish children who escaped Nazi-occupied countries through the Kindertransport, eventually settling in Liverpool. At Bishop Wordsworth school, his teachers included William Golding. Plaschkes and his contemporaries later claimed to recognise themselves in Golding's novel, "The Lord Of The Flies." All agreed that Otto was the original of Piggy. Golding never denied the claim. While studying history at Cambridge, Plaschkes joined the school's film Society, whose membership included Tom Pevsner, later producer of the James Bond series, and Lindsay Anderson, best known for directing the 1960s landmark films "If..." and "O Lucky Man!" Plaschkes became a production assistant at Ealing Studios, working on fellow-Viennese Otto Preminger's "Exodus" and on "Lawrence of Arabia" (both 1962). In the 1980's he was chief executive of the British Film and Television Producers Association.

Plaschkes was devoted to cinema up until the last minute of his life. He was an active voting member of the American Academy of Film and Television Arts, and he died while screening "As It Is In Heaven," the Swedish film nominated for the Oscar for best foreign language film.

February 14, 2005 at age 75. Heart failure.

Paul B. Clayton >permalink<

Googie architect

An architectural style known as Googie was a hallmark of post WWII prosperity and urban expansion. Its shapes and designs pointed to the future. One of the last remaining examples of that coffee shop/drive-in architecture in Los Angeles was Johnie's Broiler, a popular center of Southern California car culture in the 1950s and 1960s. Paul B. Clayton designed that structure, as well as about 280 other buildings in the southeastern Los Angeles area, and Johnie's is considered the most important commercial building of his long career.

Johnie's was seen in movies such as "What's Love Got to Do With It," "Heat," "Unstrung Heroes," "Reality Bites" and "Short Cuts." It was the subject of "The Hair Boys," a Tom Wolfe account of teenage car cruising and fashion contained in his 1965 book "The Pump House Gang." During the 1960s, Johnie's sometimes drew up to 5,000 customers a weekend. Teens gathered there to check out their cars and one another over hamburgers and sodas.

In 2002, the structure was declared eligible for a historic register, but it was not listed because the current owner objected. The building is now a car dealership with much of its interior altered. Bob's Big Boy on Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake, California is the last of its kind. The most-seen example of Googie architecture was Mel's Drive In, featured in George Lucas' 1973 film "American Graffiti."

February 14, 2005 at age 91. Leukemia.

Rafik al-Hariri >permalink<

Politician

al-Hariri was a self-made billionaire philanthropist and five times prime minister of Lebanon. He resigned as premier for the last time in October, 2004. He was widely credited with getting his country back on its feet after brokering a peace agreement between warring Lebanese factions. He became prime minister for the first time in 1992, using his financial muscle to revive the economy. In the process, he made some enemies, and was accused by some Lebanese of driving the country into debt with his ambitious rebuilding plans. al-Hariri always surrounded himself with bodyguards and lived in a heavily fortified compound, and was killed when a bomb hit his motorcade.

February 14, 2005 at age 60. Assassinated.

Dick Weber >permalink<

Bowler

Weber was possibly the greatest bowler ever. He had won 26 Professional Bowlers Association titles, six PBA Senior titles and four old National All-Star titles. His titles were spread over five decades, a sports record at that time. He was named National Bowler of the Year in 1961-63-65 and was voted one of the three all-time great bowlers at the end of the 20th century. He was inducted into the American Bowling Congress Hall of Fame in 1970 and the PBA Hall of Fame in 1975.

He had gotten much media attention world wide by bowling a match in a cargo plane from the New York area to Texas, and on the sand at Miami Beach. As a frequent guest on "Late Night with David Letterman", he knocked down lava lamps, champagne glasses, beer bottle pyramids and, once, a mannequin of Letterman holding a wedding cake. He would also drop bowling balls off of tall buildings into various items like watermelons or TVs.

February 13, 2005 at age 75.

Eleanor Gould Packard >permalink<

Grammarian

Packard proofread, edited, and probed the language of thousands of articles published in The New Yorker magazine. Though she did not have a particular title at the magazine, she was noted for her intricate attention to vocabulary, syntax, grammar, flow, and punctuation of many non-fiction writers who have contributed over the years. Packard joined The New Yorker in 1945 after sending a letter asking about job openings. In it she pointed out several errors she found in a recent issue. She remained at the magazine for 54 years before retiring in 1999 after a stroke. Many there believe she is responsible for the style of The New Yorker's prose. In an interview, she once told a New York Times reporter: "I'll have to stage a faked death and come back to correct my obit."

February 13, 2005 at age 87.

Harry Baird >permalink<

Actor

Black British actor Baird appeared in a number of films and TV shows from the 1950s through the 1970s, but was never offered roles beyond stereotype. His portrayal of a terrified black youth victimised by police in the 1959 film "Sapphire" helped launch him into a decade of regular acting work, including an appearance in the original version of "The Italian Job." Baird is clearly visible in J. Lee Thompson's 1959 "Tiger Bay," as the bridegroom in the first black wedding depicted in a British film.

Baird did have a starring role in the little seen 1968 French film "The Story of a Three-Day Pass." The film was directed by Melvin Van Peebles, who travelled to France in order to be treated as an equal among men. The film is generally regarded as the first feature made by a black director. Baird's other film credits include "The Mark," "Tarzan the Magnificent," "The Road to Hong Kong" and Hammer Films's "The Oblong Box." The actor also had several supporting roles on British television's "Danger Man," and the science-fiction classic "UFO." In the 1970s, Baird's film career ended in Italian westerns, such as "Four Gunmen of the Apocalypse."

February 13, 2005 at age 73.

Jason Byce >permalink<

Actor

Byce shared the stage with opera greats such as Richard Tucker and Robert Merrill, and sang and acted in Broadway musicals with Shirley Jones and Lainie Kazan. He had roles on "All My Children" and other TV soap operas and on series such as "In The Heat Of The Night." His biggest claim to fame is a 21-year-old commercial still seen on American television. In a spot for Polaner All Fruit, Byce plays a guy sitting at fancy dining table with a group of society snobs who makes the social faux paux of asking, "Would ya please pass the jelly?"

February 13, 2005 at age 60. Blood cancer (multiple myeloma).

Sister Lucia Marto >permalink<

Saw Virgin Mary at Fatima

In 1917, three shepherd children claimed to have seen repeated visions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Portugal. Beginning May 13, the appearances took place on the 13th day of each month in a town about 70 miles north of Lisbon, ending abruptly in October of that year. The final vision was witnessed by nearly 50,000 people. Lucia de Jesus dos Santos, and her two cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marta, claimed the Virgin Mary told them of the coming of world wars, the re-emergence of Christianity in Russia, and of the 1981 attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.

Lucia, who was just ten years old, was the only one of the three children who was able to hear what the Virgin said, and wrote two memoirs about the apparitions. Her cousins died during the worldwide flu epidemics of 1919 and 1920, and the Catholic Church beatified the two in 2000, the last step before Sainthood. Actress Susan Whitney portrayed Sister Lucia in the Oscar nominated film "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima." Actress Inis Orsini played her in the Spanish/Portuguese co-production "Our Lady of Fatima." The events were also the subject of the films "Aparicao" and "The Third Secret of Fatima."

The Catholic Church built a shrine in Fatima, which is visited each year by millions of people from around the world. More than 100,000 people routinely attend the annual commemorations of the sightings. The pope has visited three times since becoming pontiff in 1978, spending a few minutes with Sister Lucia during a 1991 trip to the site. He has contended that the Virgin of Fatima saved his life after he was shot in St. Peter's Square in 1981. The attack, on May 13, coincided with the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima.

February 13, 2005 at age 97.

Sixten Ehrling >permalink<

Conductor

Ehrling conducted at the Royal Opera in Stockholm during its golden age in the 1950s and then left for the United States, where he led the Detroit Symphony for a decade. Known for his vast knowledge of music, he equally equally known for his sharp temperament. In an interview, he said "At the Stockholm opera, they wanted me to apologize for the way I led the orchestra, which I refused. I moved to America instead." Once while conducting Bizet's "Carmen" in Goteborg in 1988, he had the orchestra play while concertgoers were still making their way to their seats. "I'll teach that damned audience that they should be in their seats on time when I conduct," he was quoted.

February 13, 2005 at age 86.

W. Brooks Fortune >permalink<

Chemist

On December 6, 1941, while stationed in Virginia serving the Army Signal Corps, Fortune was reviewing deciphered enemy codes and learned of a Japanese plan to attack the United States "in the next few days." Fortune reported the messages to his superiors, but no one took action on them. He was told to keep quiet about the communications until his release from the military, and he blamed "nonchalance" on the part of military brass for the inaction. After the war, Fortune helped ensure quality in the mass production of Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine that helped rid the epidemic in the 1950s. He also developed a method for testing for glucose in urine and blood that made the control of diabetes with insulin more precise.

February 13, 2005 at age 91.

Brian Kelly >permalink<

Actor

Kelly starred as Porter Ricks in the popular 1960s' NBC television series "Flipper." After a number of guest appearances on "The Beverly Hillbillies," "The Rifleman" and other shows, he was cast as the father of two boys in "Flipper," which also starred a dolphin as the title character. The series was filmed in Miami and in Nassau, the Bahamas. Kelly also appeared in the feature film "Flipper's New Adventures." In 1970, Kelly was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident that left his right arm and leg paralyzed. He later won a legal settlement and continued working in Hollywood, including serving as an executive producer on Ridley Scott's 1982 film, "Blade Runner."

February 12, 2005 at age 73. Pneumonia.

Kumba >permalink<

Gorilla

The first gorilla born at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo was euthanized after suffering severe kidney failure for several years. Zoo officials say Kumba experienced weight loss and rapid muscle wasting in recent months. Kumba was born in 1970, the first at the zoo, which has become famous for its gorilla program. Lincoln Park Zoo has witnessed 45 gorilla births. Native to central Africa, western lowland gorillas are extremely endangered in the wild due to habitat destruction, poaching and war.

February 12, 2005 at age 35. Kidney failure.

Maurice Trintignant >permalink<

Grand Prix driver

Born in 1917, Trintignant took part in 82 races and drove for Gordini, Ferrari, Vanwall, Cooper, Maserati, BRM, Lotus and Aston Martin, winning two races in Monaco in 1955 in a Ferrari and in 1958 in a Cooper. He was nicknamed the 'Gentleman Racer' and was a contemporary of Juan-Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Mike Hawthorn, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren and Phil Hill. He also won the Le Mans 24 Hour Race in 1954, after surviving a near-fatal spin. Trintignant spun his car and was flung out of it on to the track. Pursuing cars made heroic efforts to avoid his unconscious body. For the next eight days, Trintignant lay in a coma. On the operating table the surgeons actually pronounced him dead when his heart stopped. Each year, Trintignant promised his wife that it would be his last season, but he invariably went back on his word as he loved the sport so much. From 1963 onwards, however, he did not have a regular Formula One drive and gradually retired from the scene. His nephew was the acclaimed French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant.

February 12, 2005 at age 87.

Sammi Smith >permalink<

Singer/songwriter

Country singer Jewel Fay 'Sammi' Smith won a Grammy as best female country vocalist in 1971 for a recording of Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through the Night." Named Single of the Year by the Country Music Association, the song also helped propel Kristofferson into the spotlight.

Smith was born in Orange, California, and grew up in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and Colorado. After an early marriage at 15 and four children, she divorced and moved to Nashville. In 1967, she had her first hit, "So Long Charlie Brown." Six years later, she moved to Dallas, where she joined the "Outlaw Movement" with Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. Her recording of Merle Haggard's "Today I Started Loving You Again" was a country staple in 1975. Smith charted 14 more singles, but never again achieved the success of her earlier hits.

February 12, 2005 at age 61.

Lynne de Matties >permalink<

Airport shuttle bus passenger

Lynne de Matties of Phoenix, Arizona died instantly after she was ejected from the van she was riding in struck a guard rail on Interstate 280 and veered into a concrete support column in San Francisco. The driver of the bus, Melvin Leon Simpson, 58, may have fallen asleep at the wheel. Six other passengers were injured, including de Matties' husband and a tourist from New York who lost two fingers in the crash.

Simpson was near the end of his eight-hour shift and suffering flulike symptoms when the 21-seat van crashed. At first, Simpson told California Highway Patrol investigators the dead woman was a homeless person who had wandered onto the freeway. But later, when he realized the victim was a passenger, Simpson then said he had swerved to avoid a car that cut in front of him. "No one says they saw a car, so the likelihood of him dozing off is probably pretty good," said CHP Officer Shawn Chase. Melvin is O.J. Simpson's older brother.

February 11, 2005 at age 57. Injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident.

Pete Sayers >permalink<

British country singer

No English performer has ever become a star in American country music, but Pete Sayers got close. Sayers went to Nashville in 1966 and found employment as a warm-up act on the Grand Ole Opry radio show. He worked for the Opry for three years, and went on tour with Kitty Wells and the bluegrass duo Flatt and Scruggs. In 1972, Sayers returned to the UK and began Grand Ole Opry (England) in Newmarket. It was on the touring schedule for visiting Americans including Bill Monroe and Marvin Rainwater. He made several albums, including Watermelon Summer (1976) and Bogalusa Gumbo (1979), which was produced by Nashville songwriter John D. Loudermilk. For 30 years, Sayers was a member of the bluegrass group the Radio Cowboys, based in the Cambridge area. It was said he could yodel as well as anyone.

February 11, 2005 at age 62.

Samuel Alderson >permalink<

Crash test dummy inventor

We are family!

Alderson built the first automobile test dummy at his Alderson Research Labs in 1960. The idea using the models in crash testing caught only when Ralph Nader's consumer protection book "Unsafe at Any Speed" was published five years later. Reacting to consumer outrage caused by the book, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began buying Alderson's dummies to test seat belts, air bags and other devices designed to minimize deaths and injuries in car crashes.

When Alderson created Alderson Research Labs in 1952, his first customers were the military and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He made anthropomorphic dummies for use in testing jet ejection seats and parachutes, and later for the Apollo nose cone's planned water landing. Alderson also was under contract to develop "phantoms," or dummies that could measure radiation doses, originally during nuclear testing. During World War II, he helped develop an optical coating to enhance vision in submarine periscopes at dawn and dusk, and helped devise electronic equipment to aid planes in dropping depth charges on German submarines.

February 11, 2005 at age 90. Complications associated with myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disorder.

Stan Richards >permalink<

Actor

Richards played 'Seth Armstrong the Gamekeeper' on the long-running British TV series "Emmerdale Farm." He was a regular on the series for 25 years. Richards worked on six episodes of "Coronation Street" before he first appeared in Emmerdale on May 17 1978, initially being offered just a few weeks' work. Although he left the series in 2003, he made a final guest appearance in December, 2004. Richards also had recurring roles on other UK TV series such as "Coronation Street" and "All Creatures Great and Small," and "Last Of The Summer Wine." Richards was the longest serving soap actor outside of "Coronation Street." Richards was discovered by film director Ken Loach, who had seen him doing a solo act in working men's clubs and cast him as a miner in the BBC play "The Price Of Coal" in 1977.

February 11, 2005 at age 74. Emphysema.

Allan Bromley >permalink<

Physicist

A nuclear physicist, Bromley was a science and technology advisor for President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993. He pushed for government partnerships with high-tech industries in an effort to keep the United States ahead of Japan and Germany in the manufacturing rush of the late 1980s. He supported expansion of what he called the "data superhighway," the high-speed network that became the internet, and after questioning the science behind global warming for years, he was credited with persuading Bush to attend a summit on the issue.

Born in Ontario, Canada he became a U.S. citizen in 1970 under some unusual circumstances. He had been shown the deepest, darkest secret known in the United States out at Weapons Flats in Nevada. When his work there finished, someone said, "Oh my God, Bromley is not a citizen." A judge was dispatched and Bromley was hurriedly sworn in. To this day, no one, including his brother John, knows much about what Bromley laid his eyes on. Recently, Bromley criticised the current Bush administration for cutting funding for the sciences. "Congress must increase the federal investment in science," he wrote in a New York Times editorial in 2001. "No science, no surplus. It's that simple."

February 10, 2005 at age 79. Heart attack.

Arthur Miller >permalink<

Playwright

Arthur Miller is best known for award winning (New York Drama Critics Circle, Tony, Pulitzer Prize, Emmy, BAFTA and Oscar nominations) plays that are the staple of North American education, and for his unlikely marriage to a Hollywood bombshell. For more about the man known as America's greatest playwright, visit the Last Link Arthur Miller tribute page.

February 10, 2005 at age 89. Heart failure.

Daniel Wright >permalink<

Misfortunate

His friends initially said he was killed by gunfire outside a Gary, Indiana liquor store, but Wright actually died after he donned what he thought was a bulletproof vest and asked a cohort to shoot him with a .20-gauge shotgun. It turned out the vest Wright had put on was a flak jacket not designed to stop a bullet. Wright was mortally wounded in the shooting and died later at a hospital after two of his friends drove him there.

Three men charged in the shooting death said they concocted the story that Wright was murdered by a stranger in a panic after he unexpectedly died. Area police Lt. Leo Finnerty said that Wright was going to join the military and wanted some battlefield experience. He went to a field with his friends, donned what he thought was a bulletproof vest, and then told them: "Shoot me. I'm ready." After Wright was shot, a round was fired into the windshield of the car they were driving to make their story of the shooting outside the liquor store more believable.

February 10, 2005 at age 20. Friendly fire.

Dave Goodman >permalink<

Early Sex Pistols recordist

No future!

Goodman was the man behind a notorious Sex Pistols bootleg recording named 'Spunk.' Reviewed in the New Musical Express and Sounds publication, it appeared in record stores ahead of Never Mind The Bollocks, the punk group's official chart topping album of October 1977. Initially, the group had been dropped by EMI, and had been unable to play live or issue their "God Save the Queen" single on their distributed label A&M. The Pistols finally found a home at the French label Barclay and Richard Branson's Virgin Records. EMI had released them from their contract with a £75,000 pay-off in March 1977.

Goodman worked with the group beginning in March, 1976 mixing their live sound, recording demos and subsequently helping Pistols svengali Malcolm McLaren. Goodman was eventually edged out in favour of producer Chris Thomas - the noted Roxy Music producer - who notoriously commented that Goodman's Spunk tapes were "great -- release them, who needs me?"

Goodman's relationship with McLaren and the Pistols turned fractious when he did not get proper credit on the B-sides he produced, wrongly attributed to Chris Thomas. However, Goodman helped McLaren and original Pistol members Paul Cook and Steve Jones to cobble together the soundtrack for the 1979 movie "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle."

Admired for his production work by Pete Townshend of The Who and Lou Reed, Goodman worked with many second- and third-generation British punk groups such as the Vibrators, Chelsea, the Users, Front and UK Subs, as well as the reggae band Tribesman.

In 1996, when the Sex Pistols reformed for the Filthy Lucre tour, fans were finally able to purchase the original recording of 'Spunk' legally in a two-CD package, also containing Never Mind the Bollocks. With the release of a three-CD box set by Virgin Records containing previously 'unreleased' recordings in 2002, fans could verify that Goodman had also produced the various B-sides that he claimed.

Citing The Who as an early influence, Goodman developed an interest in rock music as a teen. In 1974, he and a friend assembled enough gear to record four-track demos and had hand-built a PA system which they rented out to rock bands around London. In March, 1976 the pair took their equipment to a gig by the 101'ers - a group featuring Joe Strummer, who went on to front the Clash - with the Sex Pistols supporting. Goodman recalled: "[Sex Pistol] Johnny Rotten was a mass of orange spikes. They were loud, manic and loose. When they performed "Substitute" by The Who, it was as if they played it as badly as they possibly could, just to annoy people. I went backstage and asked if they had other gigs and wanted to hire my PA." Something clicked and Goodman did virtually all their gigs from then on until their first American tour.

Goodman spent 25 years attempting to collect royalties from McLaren, Virgin and various Pistols-related companies. He felt justified releasing several Sex Pistols bootleg recordings over the years. In 2002 he moved to Malta, where he made ambient psychedelic music with his partner Kathy Manuell and wrote his memoirs.

February 10, 2005 at age 53.

Humbert Balsan >permalink<

Film producer

A former actor, Balsan produced over 60 films in his career. He carved out a niche by producing pictures by Arab filmmakers such as Egyptian director Youssef Chahine, shepherding titles such as "Adieu Bonaparte," "The Other," "The Destiny" and "Alexandria...New York." Balsan also co-produced a number of Merchant Ivory productions including "Surviving Picasso," "Jefferson in Paris," "Mr. & Mrs. Bridge" and "Quartet." His production company, Ognon Films, had three films in production at the time of his death: "Travaux" by helmer Brigitte Rouan, "The Man from London" directed by Bela Tarr, "Un Ami Parfait" by Francis Girod; and Sandrine Veysset's "Il Sera une Fois." Balsan served as V.P. of the board of the Cinematheque Francaise, the V.P. of Unifrance, and as the chairman of the European Film Academy.

February 10, 2005 at age 50. Suicide.

Jack Segal >permalink<

Lyricist

Segal wrote the standards "Scarlet Ribbons," "When Sunny Gets Blue" and "When Joanna Loved Me." The songwriter's hits sold an estimated 65 million records, and have been recorded by artists such as Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore and Perry Como.

Segal's greatest hit, "Scarlet Ribbons," was written in just 15 minutes in 1949. He was invited to the home of concert pianist Evelyn Danzig Levine to hear some of her formal compositions. In between songs she performed a piano exercise. Segal liked what he heard, and when the pianist left the room to attend to guests, he jotted down the lyrics with the memorable phrase "scarlet ribbons for her hair." The song languished until Segal presented it to Belafonte five years later. Belafonte's recording made the song a hit, and 30 artists subsequently recorded the tune including the Kingston Trio, Joan Baez, Sinead O'Connor, the Lennon Sisters, and Wayne Newton. Como called it "perhaps the most beautiful tune I ever sang."

Segal also wrote the Sinatra hit "Here's to the Losers," as well as "Bye Bye Barbara," "What Are You Afraid Of," "Hard to Get," "After Me," "More Love," "Strings," "Too Soon Old - Too Late Smart," "For Once in Your Life," and "Too Much-Too Soon."

February 10, 2005 at age 86.

Louis "Shorty" Levin >permalink<

Scrap metal dealer

Exodus

Levin operated the Potomac Shipwrecking Co. with his brother in the 1940s. They bought aging, out-of-service ships, dismantled them and sold the scrap metal. In the fall of 1946, Levin sold a rusting excursion boat called the President Warfield to a firm for use as a cargo transport in Asia.

Levin didn't see the President Warfield again until the following summer, when it appeared in the news under a different name: The Exodus. The firm Levin sold the boat to turned out to be a front for the Haganah, an underground Jewish paramilitary group fighting for the creation of Israel.

Originally designed to hold 400 passengers, the renamed Exodus carried 4,554 Jewish survivors of Nazi concentration camps toward what they hoped would be a new home in Palestine. Their plight was described in Leon Uris's novel "Exodus" and in a 1960 film directed by Otto Preminger.

February 10, 2005 at age 90. Intestinal disorder.

Louis Sutter >permalink<

Hockey dad

Louis Sutter was raised in a family of 13 in the Viking area of Alberta. He grew up to be a boxer and also had a liking for basketball. His greatest achievement was having six of his seven sons play in the National Hockey League.

Brian Sutter was the first to play in the NHL, debuting with the St. Louis Blues during the 1976-77 season. He was followed by Darryl, Duane, Brent and twins Rich and Ron. The oldest, Gary, was the only one not to play in the NHL. Ironically, he was considered the best player of the group, but quit before turning pro to help run the family farm.

For five seasons in the 1980s, all six Sutters played in the NHL. The 2000-2001 season marked the 25th consecutive year that a Sutter brother played in the NHL. Collectively, they played 4,994 regular-season games (plus 603 playoff games) and scored 1,320 goals, had 1,615 assists, served 7,224 minutes in penalties and won six Stanley Cups. Shaun Sutter, Brian's son, was drafted by the Calgary Flames in 1998. Five Sutter sons have at one time been invloved with the Blackhawks. In addition to current coach Brian, Darryl was a former Hawks captain, and Duane, Brent and Rich also played for the team. Only Ron had no connection with the Hawks.

All six Sutter brothers remain involved in hockey although their playing days are over. Brian is head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks (he also coached the Boston Bruins from 1992 to 1995). Darryl, as general manager and head coach, guided the Flames to the Stanley Cup final in the spring of 2004. Duane is director of player development for the Florida Panthers, the team he once coached. Brent is GM-coach of the Western Hockey League's Red Deer Rebels and coached Canada to the world junior title in January, 2005. Twins Rich and Ron are both pro scouts for the Minnesota Wild and Flames, respectively. As for Gary, the non-NHLer, he struck it rich in 2004 when he and several co-workers at a lumber company in Kelowna, B.C., won a $10-million lottery prize. Brian once explained the source the Sutter drive. "We had seven kids and one bathroom. Now that's competition."

February 10, 2005 at age 73. Complications from diabetes.

Sidney Waxman >permalink<

Innovator of dwarf pines

Sea Urchin Pine

As America oozed into the suburbs after World War II with such developments as Levittown, there was a demand for trees and shrubs that would fit into small yards and not grow very much. Over 40 years, Waxman came up with 40 cultivars (artificially cultivated plants) including such widely planted dwarf pines as Sea Urchin, Blue Shag and Sand Castle.

The horticulturist hunted tirelessly for the odd growths on pine trees called witches' brooms whose cones could be propagated into dwarf evergreens. Some of the clumps are caused by disease, but some are sports, or natural mutations, with desirable new genetic characteristics. Waxman was amused to note how many witches' brooms he found in cemeteries. He methodically stalked his prey, marking on a map of New England the witches' brooms he found particularly tantalizing. Each year, usually in October, he would visit them and use a .22-caliber rifle to shoot cones from high branches, assigning his wife to scramble through groundcover to find the cones. He was very selective, raising perhaps 200,000 seedlings to get 40 cultivars. Each propagation took up to five years to assess. He was in no hurry.

February 10, 2005 at age 81. Transitional cell carcinoma.

Katherine de Jersey >permalink<

Astrologist

From the 53rd floor of her John Hancock Center studio, de Jersey was close to the stars. However, despite her geographic proximity, she did not predict her own death. As a longtime astrologist, her client list once included Hollywood stars such as Phyllis Diller, Art Carney, Bob Crane, Grace Kelly, Liza Minelli, and Sonny and Cher. Whenever the world was mourning celebrity breakups of the day de Jersey, speculated on the couple's future in newspaper columns. She told women that if they were in love with a man born under one of the fire signs--Leo, Aries and Sagittarius--they would never be bored. Her book, "Destiny Times Six," was released in 1970. She went on a number of lecture tours and released another book, "Appointment with Destiny," in 1995.

February 9, 2005 at age 91. Pneumonia.

Marie-Antoinette's Oak >permalink<

Tree

Planted in 1681, the oak was named after the ill-fated wife of King Louis XVI who reputedly liked to enjoy its shade. It was the oldest tree on the grounds of the palace of Versailles. Measuring 35 metres (115 feet) high and 5.5 metres (18 feet) in circumference, the tree died in the heatwave of 2003 after being deprived of surrounding cover in the devastating storms of December 1999. It is to be replaced by another of the same species. Two tractors took less than two minutes to topple the giant to the ground.

Summer 2003, toppled February 9, 2005. Dehydration.

Merle Coffee >permalink<

Radio operator

Made of birch

After serving in World War II, Coffee went to work for Hughes Aircraft Co. and worked on the Hughes Flying Boat project, which was nicknamed the "Spruce Goose." Coffee was part of the crew when the flying boat made its one and only flight on November 2, 1947. Like his boss, Coffee hated it when people referred to the airplane as the Spruce Goose. "It's made of birch," he would correct them. "It's called the Hughes Flying Boat." Coffee sat directly behind Howard Hughes during the famed flying boat's 70-second flight.

The Spruce Goose was half airplane and half boat, and was made primarily of wood because the government mandated materials critical to the war efforts, such as steel and aluminum, not be used. When it was completed, the flying boat was billed as the largest aircraft ever built, eight stories high at the tail and spanning the length of a football field between the wing tips.

Coffee remained with Hughes Aircraft the rest of his career. Coffee appeared in the documentary "Dream to Fly: Howard Hughes and the Flying Boat" and information from interviews with him was used in the Academy Award-nominated movie "The Aviator."

February 9, 2005 at age 89. Cancer.

Robert Kearns >permalink<

Inventor

Kearns received the first of more than 30 patents in 1967 for his design for automobile windshield wipers that paused between swipes, making them useful in very light rain or mist. He shopped his invention around to various automakers but did not reach a licensing deal with any of them. He the spent four decades of his life suing for patent infringement, eventually settling two cases against Ford and Chrysler. For more about one man's battle against the big three automakers, visit the Last Link Robert Kearns tribute page.

February 9, 2005 at age 77. Cancer.

Roger Schutt >permalink<

Disc jockey

Born in 1931, Schutt held court as Captain Midnight at WKDA Nashville from midnight to 7 a.m. in the 1960s. He was known for announcing: "It's 3:30, America, and this is your Captain!" When he wasn't on the air, he was a fixture at some of Nashville's most important recording sessions. He wrote the liner notes for Waylon Jennings' ground-breaking Honky-Tonk Heroes album, and Schutt was among the "heroes" on the cover. Schutt was close to Waylon, Tompall Glaser, Kris Kristofferson, Shel Silverstein, Billy Swan, and proclaimed himself as "Music Row's best knife-thrower." He once dueled Jennings for the title, and the knife marks on the back wall of the Glaser compound are still visible today.

February 9, 2005 at age 73.

Tyrone Davis >permalink<

Blues singer

Born in Greenville, Mississippi, Davis moved to Chicago as a young man, toiling at a factory during the day and working as a chauffeur for blues guitarist Freddie King in the evenings. He soon befriended many of the blues stars of the day, among them Bobby (Blue) Bland and Little Milton, and began to sing in local clubs. His baritone voice and warm and romantic singing style made him popular in the 1970s. He was best known for the hits "Can I Change My Mind" and "Turn Back the Hands of Time." Davis moved to Columbia Records in 1976, where he recorded several hits, including "Give It Up (Turn It Loose)" and the ballad "In the Mood." As his popularity faded in the 1980s, he was released by Columbia, though he continued to record for independent R&B labels. In 1998, Davis received the Pioneer Award from the R&B Foundation. He was promoting his latest release, "Legendary Hall of Famer," when he suffered a stroke.

February 9, 2005 at age 66. Pneumonia, five month coma after a stroke.

George Herman >permalink<

Reporter

Herman was a longtime political reporter for CBS News and the longest serving moderator of the network's Sunday talk show, "Face the Nation." He made his first TV appearance analyzing caucus declarations at the 1948 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia, the first to be televised. He began his career in reporting from Washington as CBS' White House correspondent during President Eisenhower's first term and held that post during President John F. Kennedy's administration as well. Herman worked at the White House for 20 consecutive hours reporting on the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination, much of the time in a driving rain.

Herman hosted "Face The Nation" for nearly 15 years, 1969-1983, the longest tenure in the program's 50-year history. He delivered the first broadcast report of the break-in at Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate office building in 1972. He was later CBS's co-anchor of the Senate Watergate hearings. Herman was forced out in a CBS belt-tightening that cost 70 news positions in July 1986. He retired at the end of his contract in January 1987 after 43 years with the network.

February 8, 2005 at age 85. Heart failure.

Henry "Juggy" Murray >permalink<

Co-founder of Sue Records

Murray and Harlem entrepeneur Bobby Robinson co-founded Sue Records, one of the first and most successful African-American-owned labels in 1957. Their first regional hit was with the Matadors' "Vengeance," followed in 1958 by Bobby Hendricks' national Top 40 hit "Itchy Twitchy Feeling", with backing from the Coasters. In 1960, Sue recorded the first collaboration by Ike & Tina Turner with "A Fool Too Long," followed by a series of national hits including "I Idolize You," "It's Gonna Work Out Fine," "Poor Fool," "Tra La La La La," and "You Shoulda Treated Me Right." The labels' biggest hit was Inez Foxx's 1963 Top Ten smash "Mockingbird." Other Sue hits included Baby Washington's "That's How Heartaches Are Made," the Soul Sisters' "I Can't Stand It," and Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together."

February 8, 2005 at age 81. Parkinson's disease.

James F. Mitchel >permalink<

Hey Culligan Man

Hey, Culligan Man!

Throughout his more than 30-year career in advertising, James F. Mitchel had a knack for turning the mundane into marketing gold. Most notably, he created the "Hey, Culligan Man!" TV ads that Culligan still uses today.

In the ads, housewives who see the Culligan trucks delivering water softeners to other homes yell for him to bring them soft water, too. Mitchel had heard a neighbour once call out to a Culligan truck, and an ad campaign was born.

February 8, 2005 at age 74.

Jimmy Smith >permalink<

Jazz organist

James Oscar Smith is considered by many to be the father of the Jazz organ. Experimenting with the Hammond B-3 introduced in 1955, Smith's sound utilized the organ's first three drawbars and percussion feature of the new model. Jimmy cut the tremolo off and began playing horn lines with his right hand, having been inspired by players like Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas, and Arnett Cobb. Smith was in high demand for his sound, and worked with Tina Brooks, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, Stanley Turrentine, Lee Morgan, Lou Donaldson, Ike Quebec and Jackie McLean. The days of the old organ might be gone, but the authentic Hammond organ sound (with the infamous Leslie tone cabinet) lives on due in large part to the influence of Smith.

February 8, 2005 at age 76.

Keith Knudsen >permalink<

Doobie Brothers drummer

Knudsen was the longtime Doobie Brothers drummer who was part of the band during their string of hits that included "Taking It To The Streets" and "Black Water." Knudsen began drumming in eighth grade and joined the Doobie Brothers in 1974. The Doobies were known for incorporating gospel and jazz stylings into popular hit songs, personifying the hard-driving classic rock sound of the 1970s. Their other hits included "China Grove" and "Jesus Is Just Alright." Knudsen played with the Doobies until the band's 1982 farewell tour. During the band's hiatus, Knudsen and bandmate John McFee formed the country rock group Southern Pacific, which released four albums and had several hits. Knudsen rejoined the Doobies full time in 1993. The band was performing about 100 concerts a year and is scheduled to release an album this summer. Prior to playing with the Dobbie Brothers, Knudsen recorded with Lee Michaels ("Do Ya Know What I Mean").

February 8, 2005 at age 56. Pneumonia.

Nathalie Krassovska >permalink<

Ballet dancer

Russian-born Krassovska first achieved prominence in 1936 as a member of Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. The Monte Carlo troupe merged in 1938 with a new organization calling itself Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Krassovska became one of its principal dancers. The group made the United States its base when World War II broke out. She first performed the title role of "Giselle," her trademark work and perhaps the greatest of Romantic ballets, in Montreal in 1949. Krassovska also danced some unexpected parts. She had to learn tap dancing for her role as a debutante in "The New Yorker," Massine's 1940 comedy inspired by cartoons in the magazine of that name.

Krassovska left the Ballet Russe in 1950 to become a ballerina of London Festival Ballet, where she stayed through 1955. Of both Russian and Scottish ancestry, she danced in Great Britain under the name of Nathalie Leslie. She returned to the Ballet Russe as guest artist in the late 1950s. Krassovska was once offered a movie contract by David O. Selznick, but rejected it to remain with the ballet. A U.S. citizen since 1964, Krassovska settled in Dallas more than 40 years ago and founded the Ballet Jeunesse of Dallas to teach and choreograph ballet for youngsters.

February 8, 2005 at age 86. Complications from surgery.

Robert Leblanc >permalink<

Canadian Navy sailor

Leblanc was a Canadian sailor believed to have fallen overboard during a naval exercise in the Baltic Sea off Poland. The 24-year-old, described as an experienced sailor, was last seen smoking a cigarette in an enclosed deck on HMCS Montreal. The Canadian frigate was sailing with a NATO reaction force about 50 kilometres off Poland when Leblanc went missing. The crew conducted two searches of the ship after Leblanc failed to report to his regular work station. When they didn't find him, he was reported missing and presumed overboard. Officials don't know what happened to Leblanc, and crew members had been warned to stay off the ship's outside decks because of ice.

February 8, 2005 at age 24. Missing, presumed drowned.

Grantley Dee >permalink<

Disc jockey

At the age of 16, Dee (real name Grantley De Zoete) was one of the first DJs to play rock 'n' roll Top 40 hits on Melbourne, Australia radio. The decision to hire a blind teenager was originally considered a move to gain publicity for the station 3AK, but Dee and his guide dog, Penny, quickly become stars. By the following year, he was one of the station's top announcers, and had graduated to the prime drive-time shift as well as regular weekend shifts. Dee, whose real name was Grantley De Zoete, was also a successful performer and recording artist, and had a top 10 hit with a cover of Bobby Rydell's "Wild One."

February 7, 2005 at age 57.

Jeremy Swan >permalink<

Cardiologist

Swan-Ganz heart catheter

Jeremy Swan was a world-renowned cardiologist and the co-inventor in 1968 of the Swan-Ganz heart catheter. His invention, made with student Willie Ganz, revolutionised heart surgery. The catheter, still used today, enabled bedside monitoring of critically ill patients by measuring heart output and capillary pressure in the lungs. It improved the care of patients with heart attacks, serious burns, and acute respiratory failure and has been used on millions of patients.

Swan was born in Ireland. His studies at St. Vincent's College in Dublin were interrupted by meningitis and he lapsed into a coma, only to be saved by the timely intervention of his mother, a physician, who gave him sulfa drugs, the only antibiotic that existed in pre-penicillin days.

Swan joined the brain drain to America, taking a research fellowship in 1951 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. There he defined the problems of congenital heart disease, and developed techniques for measuring heart output and detecting shunts between the two sides of the heart. In 1965 Swan moved to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles where he assessed that not all heart attacks were caused by the same problem and should not receive a uniform treatment. At the time it was not known what to do after a patient had a heart attack except to treat the complications caused by it. Swan died in his own hospital, from complications following a heart attack.

February 7, 2007 at age 82. Heart attack.

John Patterson >permalink<

TV director

Patterson won a Directors Guild of America award and was nominated for two Emmys for his work on HBO's "The Sopranos." He directed 13 episodes of the show's 65 episodes, and each of the series season finales. Patterson directed three low budget features in addition to more than a dozen television movies. He worked primarily in television on shows such as "The Rockford Files," "Eight is Enough," "ChiPs," "Hart to Hart," "Knot's Landing," "Magnum P.I.," "Hill Street Blues," "MacGyver," "LA Law," "Profiler," "Early Edition," "C.S.I." and "Six Feet Under." He directed the pilot episode of "Law & Order."

At age 19, Patterson joined the Air Force, where he was a B-52 navigator bombardier, ferrying nuclear weapons to the edge of Soviet airspace. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963, he and fellow crew members flew repeated 24-hour missions, refueling in the air, looping between potential Soviet border Cuban targets. He claimed this experience helped him stay his calm demeanor on TV sound stages.

February 7, 2005 at age 64. Prostate cancer.

Lazar Berman >permalink<

Russian classical pianist

Berman was internationally acclaimed for his technical prowess and the energy of his performances. When a music critic of The New York Times heard Berman in Moscow in 1961, he wrote that the pianist had 20 fingers and breathed fire. He performed with some of the greatest conductors in recent history, from Herbert von Karajan to Leonard Bernstein. Born in Leningrad, now again St. Petersburg, Russia, Berman was performing with the Moscow Philharmonic by age 10. It was only in the 1970s, when the Soviet government allowed him to play abroad, that his international career started. However, in 1980 Soviet authorities refused to let him travel abroad after banned American literature was found in his luggage. He left Moscow in 1990 to teach in Norway and Italy. He won the 1956 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, and in 1977, his recording of Liszt's "Transcendental Studies" earned him the Franz Liszt Prize in the composer's native Hungary.

February 7, 2005 at age 74. Heart attack.

Sonny Day >permalink<

Accordionist

Day was an original member of Roy Acuff's Smokey Mountain Boys, and his accordion playing was credited with helping to create the Acuff sound in the 1940s. He's featured on original recordings of Acuff's signature hit "The Wabash Cannonball." He also starred with Acuff in the film "Night Train To Memphis." Besides Acuff, Day performed or recorded with Minnie Pearl, Patsy Cline, Tanya Tucker and Vince Gill, and he was a regular on the Grand Ole Opry. Day received a star on the "Walkway of the Stars" at the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1981.

February 7, 2005 at age 80. Bone cancer.

Steve Burgh >permalink<

Music producer

Burgh was a record producer and session musician who played with Billy Joel, Phoebe Snow, Steve Forbert, David Bromberg, John Prine, Judy Collins, Willie Nelson and Steve Goodman. A versatile sideman, he was a guitarist on Joel's 1976 album "The Stranger," including the Grammy-winning song "Just the Way You Are." He was the musical director for Phoebe Snow and played with Gladys Knight, Paul Anka and Richie Havens. In 1982 he started a recording studio, Baby Monster, in Lower Manhattan, recording sessions by the Ramones, Emmylou Harris, John Cage, Daniel Lanois, Luscious Jackson and Cypress Hill. A music fan recently approached Burgh with a photograph of Jimi Hendrix taken early in his career at a club in New York, and asked Burgh to identify the others players in the picture. One guitarist was Burgh.

February 7, 2005 at age 54. Heart attack.

Tim Lane >permalink<

Music industry executive

Lane's music industry career spanned from 1958 to 1987, and included label stints at Decca, Liberty, Atlantic, Prophesy, Capricorn, and Marsel. As assistant director of LP sales & marketing at Atlantic Records during the late 1960s, he helped usher in acts including Led Zeppelin, Cream, Iron Butterfly, and Crosby Stills & Nash. He was instrumental in promoting records to emerging FM stations and creating innovative marketing concepts. In 1972, he opened Capricorn Records' west coast office, where he worked with the Allman Bros. and The Marshall Tucker Band. For the last 18 years, Lane was a member of the Screen Actors Guild, and had bit parts in several television shows and feature films.

February 7, 2005 at age 67. Colon cancer.

William Tolhurst >permalink<

Search-and-rescue dog trainer

Tollhurst was recognised as one of America's leading experts on behaviourally engineered search dogs. Forensic Scent Research, pioneered by him, has solved countless cases and found the missing for more that 40 years. Tolhurst was recognized worldwide as one of the foremost authorities on mantrailing bloodhounds. His inventions to collect and preserve scent, his various training devices and techniques that he developed are in use by police agencies all over the world. He earned numerous awards of recognition and appreciation from agencies in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Awards have even been named after him and his dogs.

February 7, 2005. Cancer.

Hubert Curien >permalink<

Father of European space program

As president of France's National Center for Space Studies from 1976 to 1984, Curien was the 'father' of its Ariane rocket program. From 1981 to 1984, he headed the European Space Agency and was instrumental in persuading ESA members to fund the development of the Ariane rockets to give Europe access to space independent of the United States and the Soviet Union.

February 6, 2005 at age 80. Heart failure.

Armand Kaproff >permalink<

Cellist

Kaproff was principal cellist for many of Hollywood's top movie composers and record producers. He established himself as a prominent classical musician working with the NBC Orchestra under conductors Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowski, and under Bernard Hermann with the CBS Symphony. After moving to Los Angeles in 1949, Kaproff became principal cellist for Disney Studios and for Oscar-winning film composers such as Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein and John Barry. He also played first cello on recordings for diverse artists such as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones.

February 6, 2005 at age 85.

Joan Weidman >permalink<

President, International Film Guarantors

Weidman began her career as a cinematographer, working on "Goldy," "Goldy 2," and the documentaries "The Other Half of the Sky: a China Memoir," "That Our Children Will Not Die," "Broken Rainbow" and the making-of documentary "SPFX: The Empire Strikes Back." She also produced the films "Crack House" and "Natural Causes." However, Weidman made her name as president one of the leading completion bond corporations in the entertainment industry, overseeing all production and financial aspects for the company. Projects she oversaw included "Critical Care," "Suicide Kings," "Permanent Midnight," and "Wes Craven Presents Wishmaster." She was involved in bonding films including "The Aviator," "Ray" and "Downfall."

February 6, 2005. Cancer.

John Percival >permalink<

Television pioneer

The current trend of television reality shows all owe a debt of gratitude to Percival's groundbreaking 1978 BBC programme, "Living In The Past." The show followed a group of volunteers as they struggled to build, stock and successfully farm an authentic Iron Age village for one year. Cut off from the outside world, the villagers were expected to survive with nothing but the resources available to the average community of the day. The soap opera of conflicts and triumphs it provided made it the "water-cooler" television of its day, drawing an audience of around 18 million viewers a week. The series caused nationwide scandal for showing full frontal nudity (bath-time), and the slaughtering of a much-loved pig - neither of which would be tolerated by today's more squeamish prime-time broadcasters.

February 6, 2005 at age 67.

Karl Haas >permalink<

Classical radio personality

Haas shared his love of classical music with listeners around the world for more than half a century. His syndicated program "Adventures in Good Music" attracted the largest audience of any classical music radio program in the world, and was carried by hundreds of stations in the United States, Canada, Australia, Mexico and Panama and on Armed Forces Radio.

Haas fled Nazi Germany in 1936 and settled in Detroit, where he taught piano and commuted to New York to study with pianist Arthur Schnabel. His broadcast career began in 1950 at WWJ in Detroit, where he hosted a weekly program previewing concerts by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In 1959, station WJR, also in Detroit, debuted "Adventures in Good Music," an hour-long program in which Haas played the music he loved, and in a warm German-accented voice, talked about the music with his listeners. Listeners enjoyed not only Haas's vast knowledge of music but also his punning of program titles, including "The Joy of Sax," "No Stern Unturned" and "Baroque and in Debt."

Haas received two George Foster Peabody Awards for excellence in broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities Charles Frankel Award in 1991. He was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago in 1997.

February 6, 2005 at age 91.

Bob McAdorey >permalink<

Disc jockey

At Toronto's CHUM Radio, McAdorey helped usher in radio's rock 'n' roll era and set the musical agenda for a generation of teens. Starting in 1960, McAdorey was part of a decade that many people consider rock programming at its finest: brash, spontaneous and pretty wild -- and the DJs were the stars.

Few today realize the power that DJs like McAdorey exerted over Toronto popular culture 40 years ago when radio ruled. CHUM became the rock station to listen to and McAdorey was the man who told you if a song was going places. Eaton's and Simpson's would only stock those 45s that were on the CHUM list. Case in point: when a new record called "The Unicorn" came in, McAdorey liked it so much he immediately put it on the air. It sold 140,000 copies in Canada in two weeks and it made The Irish Rovers.

McAdorey grew up in Niagara Falls and attended Stamford Collegiate, which was also the alma mater of "Titanic" director James Cameron. He was in the same graduating class as Barbara Frum, the legendary CBC-TV interviewer.

February 5, 2005 at age 69.

Gerry Glaister >permalink<

BBC TV producer

Glaister was a television drama producer who devised and developed "Colditz," "The Brothers," "Secret Army" and "Howards' Way." Glaister had the knack of matching public mood to challenging programming, and each of his series drew record audiences. Phones weren't answered whenever his programs aired. After service in World War II, Glaister took over Chesterfield Repertory, giving David McCallum and Nigel Davenport their first acting roles. He joined the BBC in 1956, and before his six-month Director's Course was completed he had already directed a play, broadcast live on the BBC, and been offered a contract. His stay with the BBC continued into the 1990s, with his name attached to some 15 titles over a 30-year span.

February 5, 2005 at age 89.

Gnassingbe Eyadema >permalink<

President of Togo

Eyadema was Africa's longest serving ruler. His death means that Omar Bongo of Gabon, another former French colony, is now the longest-serving African leader, having been in power since 1967. Only Cuba's Fidel Castro has been in power longer than Eyadema was. Since 1967, Eyadema initially carved himself the role of a peacemaker, focusing on regional diplomacy and, most recently, helping to mediate in Ivory Coast's civil war. His authoritarian style and slow pace of political reform drew international criticism. Amnesty International accused his forces of killing hundreds in a presidential election in 1998, when he was declared the winner after the vote count was abruptly stopped.

Eyadema survived numerous assassination attempts, a plane crash and bloody pro-democracy protests during the 1990s. A former wrestling champion who loved to sport dark suits and rarely took his sunglasses off, he became the archetypal African "Big Man." Eyadema was long thought of as the last dinosaur among the dictators of Africa's post-independence era.

February 5, 2005 at age 69. Heart attack.

Merle Kilgore >permalink<

Songwriter

With June Carter, Kilgore wrote "Ring of Fire," which became a hit in 1963 for Johnny Cash. Carter later become Cash's wife. The song has been featured in a number of films including "U-Turn" and "Roadie." Kilgore also wrote "Wolverton Mountain," a hit in 1962 by Claude King, and "Johnny Reb," a hit in 1959 by Johnny Horton.

During his career, Kilgore was also a singer, disc jockey, radio program director, actor and manager. He was personal manager for Hank Williams Jr. and also worked with Hank Williams Sr. Kilgore also did some acting, appearing in "Coal Miner's Daughter," "Nashville," "Nevada Smith" and "Five Card Stud." As a singer, he had a Top 10 country hit in 1960 with "Love Has Made You Beautiful," and he and Elvis Presley performed together in the South just as Presley was launching his career in the mid 1950s.

February 5, 2005 at age 70. Congestive heart failure related to treatment for cancer.

Richard Babiracki >permalink<

Nightclub owner

Babiracki owned the fabled Golden Bear nightclub in Huntington Beach, California from 1974 to 1986. He presented hundreds of performances by a wide swath of entertainers, including Jimmy Buffett, Jerry Garcia, B.B. King, Steve Martin, Dave Mason, Linda Ronstadt, Tom Waits, Robin Williams, Neil Young and Van Halen. The club was nearly half a century old when Babiracki took it over, and it had played host to Southern California's booming folk and rock music scene in the 1960s, booking such acts as the Doors, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and dozens of others.

As trends in music shifted, Babirackis tried to shift with them, booking such new wave and alternative music acts as Men at Work, the Motels, Oingo Boingo, the Plimsouls and the Ramones. The Golden Bear was bulldozed in 1986 by city officials who said it did not meet earthquake safety standards.

February 5, 2005 at age 56. Respiratory failure.

Robert J. "Sunny" Spencer >permalink<

Member of the Sons of the Pioneers

Spencer joined the Sons of the Pioneers in 1984 and played every instrument in the band. While playing at the Hidden Valley Inn in Tuscon, Arizona on January 27, 2005 he blew one last laboured breath into his saxophone, then stopped. turned to his Sons of the Pioneers bandmates and said "Well, it's over." Spencer learned to play music as a child and spent his adult life performing everything from Western to Dixieland jazz. He mastered several instruments from winds to strings.

Roy Rogers was still known as Leonard Slye when he, Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer (no relation to "Sunny" Spencer) formed a western specialty act called the Pioneer Trio in 1933 in Los Angeles. A year later, after adding another member and being told by a KFWB radio announcer that they were too young to be "pioneers," they became the Sons of the Pioneers. Rogers left the group when he signed with Republic Studios in 1937.

Over the years, the Sons of the Pioneers have had 26 members. Spencer joined the band that plays winters in Tucson and summers in Branson, Missouri - in 1984, 40 years into his music career. The Pioneers had a number of hits, including "Cool Waters" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds." They aslo performed in a number of movies.

February 5, 2005 at age 75. Respiratory illness related to "valley fever."

Ed Kelly >permalink<

Pianist

Jazz pianist Kelly worked with Bobby McFerrin, Bobby Hutcherson, John Handy, Ray Drummond and Pharoah Sanders, and he once played at the Monterey Jazz Festival. He turned away from a career in New York to raise his family in Oakland, California and taught music at Laney College for more than 25 years. Kelly was inducted into the Northern California Blues Hall of Fame in 1991, and in 2002 was honoured by the San Francisco Jazz Festival.

February 4, 2005 at age 69.

Jimmy Oliver >permalink<

Jazz tenor saxophone palyer

When Oliver was 15, he took up the sax and dropped out of high school after the 11th grade. He bought what he thought was an alto saxophone, but when the store delivered the horn, it turned out to be a tenor sax almost as big as he was. When World War II started, most of the musicians in a band he was playing with were drafted. Oliver was classed 4-F and never served. When he was 18, Oliver started playing the clubs and found himself working with Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Pearl Bailey and drummer Max Roach.

In the late 1940s, Oliver encountered a Philadelphia saxophonist named John Coltrane, who many said was strongly influenced by Oliver's playing. "Early on I was branded with having the Philadelphia sound," Oliver said in a 1996 interview. "I came along before Trane, and so I had a step or two on him." His love for his family and his fear of getting heavily into drugs, as many of his fellow musicians had done, kept him in Philadelphia. He turned his back on chances to hit the road and seek a national reputation. "I didn't want New York to give me an early grave," Oliver said.

February 4, 2005 at age 80. Heart failure.

Stockwell Day Sr. >permalink<

Executive, father of Stockwell Day Jr.

After serving the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve in World War II as a sub-lieutenant, Stockwell Day Sr. was as a political science student at Bishop's University at Lennoxville, Quebec. In 1949, Day married fellow student Gwendolyn Gilbert. Day joined the Zellers chain of retail discount stores, frequently moving his young family around Eastern Canada. His second child and first son, named Stockwell Burt Day was born in 1950 in Barrie, Ontario. Day Jr. is now the Opposition foreign-affairs critic in the Canadian federal government.

In 1968, Day Sr. decided to abandon Quebec for the West Coast, and in 1972 he was acclaimed as the Social Credit candidate in the federal riding of Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands. Day finished a distant fourth behind the winner, former national NDP leader Tommy Douglas.

Stockwell Day Jr.'s rising political career brought attention to letters Day Sr. wrote to the Western Separatist Papers in which he described homosexuals as sodomites and referred to Doug Christie, an outspoken lawyer and Western Canada Concept party leader, as his captain.

In a letter published in 1996, Day Sr. admitted to having illegally hired an immigrant woman. Speaking to an immigration officer in Edmonton at the time, Day Sr. said "She is a New Zealander with no criminal record; she looks like us; she speaks like us; she prays like us. Yet when we came through the waiting room, it gave me the impression that we were at a family reunion for the Harlem Globe Trotters [sic]. What the hell is going on?"

Asked in 1999 about his father's writings, Stockwell Day Jr. responded: "I don't read most of what he writes. He's got whatever right to say whatever he likes. As with any father and son, there are many things on which we disagree."

Whooshhhh

In July, 2000 Stockwell Day Jr. defeated Preston Manning for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance Party, formed from the ashes of the Reform Party of Canada. Stockwell Day Jr. jet-skied his way into federal politics, and became official leader of the Opposition. However, the Alliance's unsuccessful bid to become the governing party after a federal election that fall, coupled with a libel suit launched against Day Jr. that cost the Alberta government nearly $800,000 to defend, proved to be Day's undoing.

In the summer of 2001, as the Alliance caucus split in a dispute over leadership, the embattled son left Ottawa to tend to his ailing father. When Alliance MP Jason Kenney learned that a reporter had called the elder Day to ascertain his condition, he confronted Anne Dawson of Sun Media, calling her a "scumbag." Kenney soon after said he regretted using the vulgarity.

The senior Day had moved to Ladysmith on Vancouver Island in the fall of 2002, where he later died.

February 5, 2005 at age 79. Complications from emphysema and heart trouble.

Gunnie Foerster >permalink<

Oldest living person in Washington state

Foerster was recently certified as one of the oldest living people in the world. Her name was added to the Worldwide Table for Living Supercentenarians, an exclusive list of those at least 110 years old. At the time of her death, she was 38th on the supercentenarian list, which included 54 women and six men. Foerster never could stand to be idle. In her early 80s, she walked to the grocery store and carried the bags several blocks home. In her early 90s, she played pinochle and grew impatient when younger opponents couldn't keep up. After she turned 100, she rolled around her nursing home in a wheelchair, traveling so far and wide that staffers made her wear a beeper.

Foerster was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1893, one of four children in a very poor family. As a 20-year-old with a seventh-grade education, Foerster moved to the United States to join a sister in Spokane. For fun, Foerster loved to play cards, work crossword puzzles and cook. Healthy eating wasn't a goal. She loved meat, mashed potatoes and lots of salt, fat and sugar with gravy over everything. She never smoked, rarely drank and walked everywhere. When the president of the United States sent a congratulatory letter for her 100th birthday, Mrs. Foerster didn't give a hoot. By her way of thinking, that was just frivolous.

February 4, 2005 at age 111.

Ossie Davis >permalink<

Actor

Davis' life was distinguished for roles dealing with racial injustice on stage, screen and in real life. He wrote, acted, directed and produced for the theater and Hollywood and was a central figure among black performers for the last five decades. Davis was the husband and partner of actress Ruby Dee, and they worked together on stage and in film. Davis' first film, "No Way Out" in 1950, was Dee's fifth. It was also Sidney Poitier's first film. Both had key roles in the television series "Roots: The Next Generation" (1978), "Martin Luther King: The Dream and the Drum" (1986) and "The Stand" (1994). Davis appeared in three Spike Lee films, including "School Daze," "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever." Davis directed several films, most notably "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970).

When not on stage or on camera, Davis and Dee were deeply involved in civil rights issues and efforts to promote the cause of blacks in the entertainment industry. They nearly ran afoul of the anti-Communist witch-hunts of the early 1950s, but were never openly accused of any wrongdoing. "We've never been, to our knowledge, guilty of anything other than being black that might upset anybody," Davis once wrote.

They were friends with baseball star Jackie Robinson — Dee played his wife, opposite Robinson himself, in the 1950 movie "The Jackie Robinson Story" — and with Malcolm X. In his book "In This Life Together," Davis told how a prior commitment caused them to miss the Harlem rally where Malcolm was assassinated in 1965. Davis delivered the eulogy at Malcolm's funeral, calling him "our own black shining prince who didn't hesitate to die, because he loved us so." He reprised it in a voice-over for the 1992 Spike Lee film "Malcolm X."

In 2004, Davis and Dee were among artists selected to receive the Kennedy Center Honors. Davis was found dead in his hotel room in Miami, where he had just begun making a film called "Retirement," also starring Peter Falk and Rip Torn. It would have been Davis' 81st movie as an actor.

February 4, 2005 at age 87.

Warren Vache Sr. >permalink<

Bass player

Vache Sr. worked with Pee Wee Russell, Bobby Hackett, Doc Cheatham, Vic Dickenson, Wild Bill Davison, Pee Wee Erwin, Gene Krupa, and Teddy Wilson. He also authoured five books on jazz and jazz musicians: "This Horn for Hire," the biography of trumpet player Pee Wee Erwin; "Crazy Fingers," a biography of pianist, bandleader and composer Claude Hopkins; "Back Beats and Rim Shots," the life story of drummer Johnny Blowers; "Jazz Gentry," his twenty-year compilation of magazine articles; and "Unsung Songwriters," a comprehensive volume devoted to the great American popular songs and those who wrote them. Warren Vaché, Sr. is the father of cornet player Warren Vaché, Jr. and the clarinetist, Allan Vaché, both respected artists.

February 4, 2005 at age 90. Heart failure.

Edward Palattella >permalink<

Doo wop singer

Palattella was a founding member of The Chancellors, a five-member Long Island, New York doo-wop group. The Chancellors had three white and two black members. On February 20, 1957, they became the first racially mixed group to perform at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem, according to the theater's sources. In May, 1957 the group released the up-tempo single "There Goes My Girl." Palattella's group -- not to be confused with the Chancellors of Boise, Nebraska's Chancellors, the Philadelphia Chancellors, or the Chancellors Quartet who sing Southern Gospel -- later changed the band's name to The Five Chancellors. The group disbanded in 1958, and Palattella set his sights on law.

February 3, 2005 at age 64. Heart attack.

Ernst Mayr >permalink<

Biologist

Mayr was widely considered the foremost evolutionary biologist of the 20th century. He helped produce a fuller, broader explanation of biological change by expanding on the work of Charles Darwin. Mayr created the first working definition of what a species is and showed how genetics and population movement combined to create new species. He also made a name for himself in ornithology, discovering 26 bird species and 410 subspecies.

February 3, 2005 at age 100.

Frank Rio >permalink<

Vaudevillian, talent agent

Rio was part of the specialty act The Rio Brothers, performing with his father Eddie and Uncle Larry. The trio appeared in a number of shorts and feature films during the 1930s and 1940s, including "Paramount Headliner: The Star Reporter," "New Faces of 1937," "Casa Manana" and "Hollywood Varieties." Rio became a talent agent with Associated Booking Corporation representing Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Barbara Streisand. After working for IFA (International Famous Agency), which became ICM (International Creative Management), Rio formed Regency Artists. They represented Bob Hope, Johnny Mathis, Sarah Vaughan, Henry Mancini, Rich Little, Whitney Houston, Dionne Warwick and The Pointer Sisters, among others. Regency Artists then merged and became Triad Artists and was eventually purchased and merged with the William Morris Agency.

February 3, 2005 at age 80.

Malou Hallstrom >permalink<

TV producer

Hallstrom was a producer for Swedish television, and was the ex-wife of film director Lasse Hallstrom. Halstrom edited her ex-husband's concert documentary "ABBA: The Movie," which followed the Swedish super-group during their 1977 tour of Australia.

February 3, 2005 at age 63. Drowned in a bathtub.

Yuri Zotov >permalink<

Pilot

Before moving to Canada five years ago, Zotov had been a commercial pilot in Russia for 23 years. When he couldn't find local work as a pilot, he landed a job with Afghanistan's Kam Air in October, 2004. Zotov was co-pilot on a Kam Air Boeing 737-200 airliner when it struck the Chaperi mountain peak, about 30 kilometres east of Kabul, while trying to land in a snowstorm. NATO troops who reached the wreckage found human remains, but no signs that any of the 8 crew or 96 passengers on board survived the crash. Kam Air was Afghanistan's first post-Taliban private airline.

February 3, 2005 at age 46.

Big Joe Burrell >permalink<

Blues singer, saxophonist

One of seven children, Burrell spent his early years in Port Huron, Michigan. At 10, the boy's mother borrowed $5 from her boss in order to buy him a saxophone. He dropped out of high school and was working at local clubs when World War II called him into the U.S. Army where he played in the military's show band. After the war, Burrell moved to Toledo, Ohio, and formed the Red Tops Organ Trio. At a dance, the band opened for blues guitarist B.B. King who loved Burrell's big sax sound, and immediately invited him to join his band. Burrell spent the next two years touring the U.S. When Count Basie heard him play, he also invited Burrell to join with his orchestra in New York City. Through Basie, Burrell landed a job backing The Miller Sisters.

Burrell spent a decade living in Toronto and was en route to New York in 1976 when he stumbled upon the burgeoning music scene in Burlington, Vermont. For the next 30 years, Burrell became a fixture in the area, and even received a key to the city from the mayor. He formed the Unknown Blues Band, a group that performed in clubs and jazz festivals all over New England and released the albums "Live at Hunt's" and "Every Time I Hear That Mellow Saxophone." One person who heard the saxophonist perform was Trey Anastasio, a student and guitarist who later formed the rock band Phish. Once he became a successful musician in his own right, Anastasio invited Burrell to open for Phish and play in a solo project he formed. Burrel's autobiography, "We Call Him 'Big' Joe! Big Horn, Big Soul, Big Man: A Musician's Odyssey," was published in 2002.

February 2, 2005 at age 80. Complications following abdominal surgery.

Birgitte Federspiel >permalink<

Actress

Danish actress Federspiel won the first of her two Bodil awards (the Danish equivalent of the Oscar) as Best Actress for her work in Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1955 film "The Word." She won again four years later for "A Stranger Knocks." She appeared in over 50 films during her 60-year career and was also known as an accomplished stage actress. Federspiel also starred in the Oscar winning Best Foreign Film "Babette's Feast."

February 2, 2005 at age 79.

Goffredo Lombardo >permalink<

Italian film producer

Lombardo produced a number of important Italian films of the postwar era and is credited with discovering actress Sophia Loren. He won three David de Donatello Awards for Best Production (the Italian equivalent of a Best Picture Oscar). Lombardo's most successful film was Luchino Visconti's 1963 "Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)," starring Burt Lancaster. In addition to the Donatello Award, the film won the Palm d'Or at Cannes. Among Lombardo's other credits are "The Naked Maja," "Sodom and Gomorrah," "The Angel Wore Red" and "The Four Days of Naples."

February 2, 2005 at age 84.

Jeffrey Kane >permalink<

Actor/artist

Artist and former actor Jeffrey Robbins Kane, sometimes credited as Parker Kane, appeared in ads for Calvin Klein, and had a recurring role on the television soap opera "Another World." He also appeared in the "Tales From The Crypt" TV series and several independent films, including "The Big Bowling Ball" opposite James Remar. As a painter, he sold works to Sharon Stone, Sherry Lansing and Alan Ball.

February 2, 2005 at age 40. Complications from AIDS.

Jimmie Crawford >permalink<

Steel guitarist

Crawford worked with Johnny Paycheck, Dolly Parton, Kitty Wells, Loretta Lynn, Radney Foster and George Jones, and was co-founder of The JCH Steel Guitar Co.

February 2, 2005 at age 69. Heart attack.

John F. Norris >permalink<

Inventor

Sharp!

As a spectator at his five sons' ice hockey games, Norris spent lots of time at rinks. After many hourlong trips to a facility that sharpened blades, he figured there had to be a better way. So in 1972, he founded Custom Radius Corp. which provided a system for ice rinks and sports teams that allowed players to get an identical cut on each blade, and to have the cut tailored to their team position. Custom Radius was the official skate sharpener for the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, and at the time it was used by teams in the National Hockey League.

February 2, 2005 at age 78. Stroke.

Max Schmeling >permalink<

Boxer

Famed German boxer Max Schmeling was best known as the man who knocked out Joe Louis in a 1936 fight. He was the only German to be world heavyweight champion. Two years later, Louis returned the favor during the first round of a rematch. The fights set off a propaganda war between the Nazi regime and the United States on the eve of World War II.

Though Hitler tried to use Schmeling as a propaganda tool, Schmeling disavowed the Nazis and risked his life hiding Jews from capture. He angered the Nazi bosses in 1935 by refusing to join the Nazi party, or to fire his Jewish-American manager Joe Jacobs. Schmeling appeared in several films usually playing himself and he used his fight money to buy a Coca-Cola franchise in Germany. He remained a lifelong friend with Joe Louis and even paid for Louis's funeral in 1981.

February 2, 2005 at age 99.

Yvon DesRochers >permalink<

Aquatic games organiser

DesRochers had been heavily criticized after the world ruling body on aquatic sports took the International Swimming Federation games away from Montreal last month because of financial problems. DesRochers faced the prospect of being called by opposition MPs before the House of Commons public accounts committee to explain how his organizers had spent $16-million in federal subsidies, in addition to the city of Montreal's $9-million. DesRochers had been under attack when it became evident that sponsors were not buying into the championships and that advance ticket sales for the July, 2005 event were minimal. In addition to working as an aide to Francis Fox when he was a Canadian federal communications minister, DesRochers was executive director of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa from 1988 to 1994.

February 2, 2005 at age 59. Self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Anderl Heckmair >permalink<

Mountain guide

Heckmair was a German mountain guide. In 1938, he led the first team to conquer the notorious north face of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps. The face, a sheer 5,905-foot wall of crumbling limestone, has been dubbed "The Ogre" by climbers, and has been described by others as "an obsession for the mentally deranged". With a summit at 13,025 feet above sea level, it is considered one of Europe's greatest challenges to mountaineers.

Heckmair's four-man rope team's achievement was held up by the Nazi regime as "proof of German superiority." A photograph of the four standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Führer has become one of the most disconcerting images in mountaineering. Heckmair once said "The same thing could have happened to a dancing bear." Even though Heckmair took a job as a mountain guide at a Nazi elite school, he was classed as politically unreliable by the regime and sent to the eastern front.

February 1, 2005 at age 98.

Debra Sue Genovese >permalink<

Booking agent, producer

Genovese was a one-time assistant to "Billy Jack" actor/director/writer Tom Laughlin. She also worked for Burt Sugerman for whom she booked acts and produced the concert TV series "The Midnight Special." She also booked talent for the TV series "Solid Gold" and for Don Cornelius's "Soul Awards."

February 1, 2005. Age not disclosed.

E. D. Freis >permalink<

Hypertension expert

Freis was an award-winning medical researcher whose early studies of high blood pressure in patients reversed prevailing wisdom and helped definitively establish the health risks of hypertension. In the 1960s, his study found that drug treatment cut deaths from moderate hypertension by half, and reduced strokes and other complications by about 67 percent. Before his work, it had been widely believed that high blood pressure was actually helpful in circulating blood to the brain and other body extremities and should not be treated. In 1971, Freis received the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Research, and in 2001, Freis received an award of meritorious accomplishment from the American Heart Association.

February 1, 2005 at age 92. Multiple organ failure.

Ebi Kimanani >permalink<

Malaria researcher

The Montreal, Canada malaria researcher Kimanani succumbed to the disease she was trying to eradicate. The biostatistican didn't know she had the illness until it was too late. She fell ill with what looked like the flu, and was diagnosed as such by a doctor at a walk-in clinic. She finally had to go to hospital by ambulance. Doctors there identified malaria right away, but it was too late. She died hours later. Kimanani was born in Kenya and spent a lot of time in Africa setting up research protocols for new drugs, including her latest project, involving anti-malaria drugs. She viewed the project as both a chance to fight malaria and as a way of transferring scientific knowledge to Africa.

February 1?, 2005 [date uncertain].

Franco Mannino >permalink<

Composer

Sicilian composer Mannino was a frequent collaborator with his brother-in-law, film director Luchino Visconti. Mannino published over 600 musical compositions in addition to writing over 100 film scores for directors such as John Huston ("Beat the Devil"), and Ricardo Freda ("I, Vampiri"). "I, Vampiri" is regarded as the first of the modern cycle of vampire films, coming out one year before Hammer's better known "The Horror of Dracula." Mannino's work with Visconti include the films "Death in Venice," "Ludwig," "Bellissima" and "Conversation Piece." Mannino was the Principle Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada for much of the 1980s.

February 1, 2005 at age 80. Complications following surgery.

John Vernon >permalink<

Actor

The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me.

While Vernon may be best remembered as Dean Wormer in 1978's "Animal House" (he put Delta House on double secret probation), it was as coroner Steve Wojeck on the groundbreaking 1960s Canadian TV series "Wojeck" that he first made his name. He became known for playing villains, sinister officials and unsympathetic authority figures in over 200 TV and film roles such, as "The Outlaw Josey Wales," "Dirty Harry," "Point Blank," "Airplane II" and "Topaz," one of the last movies made by Alfred Hitchcock. Vernon returned to voice work, primarily for video games, in the last 10 years. Vernon underwent heart surgery on January 16 and complications arose. For more about his life and career, visit the Last Link John Vernon tribute page.

February 1, 2005 at age 72. "Died peacefully".

Melanie Morse MacQuarrie >permalink<

Actress, daughter of actor Barry Morse

MacQuarrie made headlines as one of the largest babies born in the United Kingdom, at 11 pounds, 9 ounces. After her family emigrated from England to Canada in 1951, she began acting in numerous productions on stage and television alongside her father, mother, and brother, Hayward Morse. Her film work included 1980's "Prom Night" with Jamie Lee Curtis and 1982's "Murder by Phone" with Richard Chamberlain. On-stage she performed at the Stratford Festival in productions such as "Peter Pan" and "Much Ado About Nothing". Her TV appearances included the Canadian series "Street Legal." In the early 1970s she joined the Ryerson University Drama department in Toronto where she worked for 30 years prior to her retirement in 1991.

February 1, 2005 at age 59. Heart attack.

Richard Wolfson >permalink<

Musician

Kaddish live!

As a member of the music duo, Towering Inferno, Wolfson recorded one of the most provocative albums of the 1990s. The group's sole album "Kaddish" was self-described as "a dream history of Europe in the wake of the Holocaust". Brian Eno termed the effort "the most frightening record I have ever heard," and placed the work " on the cusp of art and commerce, a cusp we did not know previously to exist". Performances of the album became multimedia spectaculars, complete with an 18-piece ensemble. Concertgoers were stunned by the powerful sounds and striking visual imagery projected on to three large screens. "Kaddish" was performed live at major opera houses and concert halls around the world. The final performance was in 1999 at the Melbourne Festival where they sold out the State Opera House for three nights.

Richard Jonathan Wolfson was a decadent student, contemptuous of authority and he stubbornly set his own educational agenda. His school reports said "he is far too interested in Eastern Religions", and referred disapprovingly to his declared interest in "Rock, folk, blues and unmusic". At 17 he met his future Towering Inferno partner Andy Saunders. In 1982, they formed Art Hammer Duo and toured Europe in a Ford Transit, with four slide projectors and 50 super 8 projectors, filming as they went. In 1986 they met the Hungarian poet Endre Szkarosi, whose work examined central European identity, prompted them to explore the origins of the melancholia in their own work, ultimately resulting in "Kaddish." Towering Inferno's second album, "The Other Side," had been five years in the making and is only months away from completion.

In addition to his musical career, Wolfson established himself as a well-regarded journalist, writing regular music and film reviews and features for The Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times. He frequently interviewed the artists who had inspired him, including Robert Wyatt, John Cale and Philip Glass.

February 1, 2005 at age 49. Ruptured aortic aneurysm.

Ron Basford >permalink<

Federal cabinet minister

Basford was one of British Columbia's longest-serving federal Liberal cabinet ministers. As justice minister, the MP was a key figure in Ottawa during the Trudeau era. Basford held a number of cabinet posts, starting with consumer and corporate affairs (1968 to 1972), urban affairs (1972 to 1974), national revenue (1974 to 1975), justice and attorney-general (1975 to 1978) and acting solicitor general in 1978.

Basford oversaw a number of landmark legislative acts, including the introduction of the metric system and the abolishment of capital punishment. He sponsored legislation to place more nutritional information on food packages and worked to get equal pay for equal work. Basford shepherded through legislation that had a dramatic effect on reducing drug prices, leaving Canada with the lowest drug prices in the industrialized world. He also brought into being the Hazardous Products Act, part of which was aimed at outlawing flammable children's clothing, and cribs whose widely spaced spindles made them unsafe.

In 1976, Basford worked out a clemency arrangement that kept Henry Morgentaler out of jail. In January of that year, he had Dr. Morgentaler's conviction on abortion charges set aside and saw to it that a new trial was ordered. Dr. Morgentaler was released from prison after serving 10 months; within a year, he had won an acquittal. In 1977, Basford appointed Bertha Wilson as the first woman to sit on the Ontario Court of Appeal. Wilson went on to become the first female justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Basford was last known as Mr. Granville Island, for being the prime instigator of the project to turn the Vancouver industrial site into an island for arts and culture. In 2004, it was named North America's best neighbourhood by a New York-based community development organization.

February 1, 2005 at age 72. Heart attack.

final credits - february 2005

Chris Curtis >permalink<

EV1 >permalink<

Pam Carter >permalink<

Roland Anderson >permalink<

Russell Sprague >permalink<

William Hines >permalink<

J. William Littler >permalink<

Noll Scott >permalink<

Shelley Hull >permalink<

Howard St. Claire Jones Jr. >permalink<

J. Donald M. Gass >permalink<

Jef Raskin >permalink<

Leonard Thompson >permalink<

Myron Blank >permalink<

Paul Sawyer >permalink<

R. Gregory Stevens >permalink<

Edward Patten >permalink<

Peter Benenson >permalink<

Daniel Erskine McIvor >permalink<

George Crikelair >permalink<

Goldie Hill >permalink<

Hans-Juergen Wischnewski >permalink<

Joanne Brough >permalink<

Larry Kingston >permalink<

911 Victims Remain Unidentified >permalink<

Tom Patterson >permalink<

Harry Simeone >permalink<

Heath Lamberts >permalink<

Lee Eun-Joo >permalink<

Mary Gregory >permalink<

Robert Koff >permalink<

Simone Simon >permalink<

Trude Rittmann >permalink<

Ara Berberian >permalink<

Don Higgins >permalink<

Gene Scott >permalink<

Guillermo Cabrera Infante >permalink<

Isabelle Goldenson >permalink<

Justin Howes >permalink<

Hunter S. Thompson >permalink<

John Raitt >permalink<

Pam Bricker >permalink<

Sandra Dee >permalink<

Henry C. Brinton >permalink<

Joe Martin >permalink<

Kihachi Okamoto >permalink<

Paul Burnett >permalink<

Phil Balmer >permalink<

Ronald Goede >permalink<

Clara 'Clibby' Verrian >permalink<

John Ebstein >permalink<

Uli Derickson >permalink<

Daniel O'Herlihy >permalink<

Jean Cayrol >permalink<

Peter Foy >permalink<

Vernon Young >permalink<

Bill Potts >permalink<

National Hockey League 2004-2005 season >permalink<

Nicole DeHuff >permalink<

Claude A. Smith >permalink<

Jack Kenesky >permalink<

John D. Preston >permalink<

Manuela Gomez Ruiz >permalink<

Paul E. Lacy >permalink<

Pierre Bachelet >permalink<

Lee D. Gatling >permalink<

Najai Turpin >permalink<

Otto Plaschkes >permalink<

Paul B. Clayton >permalink<

Rafik al-Hariri >permalink<

Dick Weber >permalink<

Eleanor Gould Packard >permalink<

Harry Baird >permalink<

Jason Byce >permalink<

Sister Lucia Marto >permalink<

Sixten Ehrling >permalink<

W. Brooks Fortune >permalink<

Brian Kelly >permalink<

Kumba >permalink<