The RIP Thread

[amtronic]

Jerry Stiller, dead at 92

Gerald Isaac Stiller was an American comedian, actor, and author. He had spent many years in the comedy team Stiller and Meara with his wife, Anne Meara, later playing George Costanza's father Frank, on the sitcom Seinfeld and Arthur Spooner on the CBS comedy series The King of Queens.



SERENITY NOW!

Jerry with his wife Anne Meara, who passed in 2015. Together again.




~!

[Frothy Afterbirth]

Fred Willard, Actor Known for Comically Dimwitted Characters, Dies at 86
By Carmel Dagan
May 16, 2020 11:58 PT



Matt Sayles/AP/Shutterstock

Fred Willard, the comic actor known for his genial but dunderheaded characters, has died. He was 86.

Willard died Friday night at his home in Los Angeles of natural causes. Willard’s daughter, Hope Mulbarger, said the actor died “very peacefully.”

“He kept moving, working and making us happy until the very end. We loved him so very much,” Mulbarger said. Willard has a role in the upcoming Netflix comedy series “Space Force” opposite Steve Carell.

Willard was married for 50 years to Mary Willard, a playwright and collaborator with her husband. She died in 2018 at the age of 71.

After getting his start in improv comedy with Second City, Fred Willard was an astonishingly ubiquitous presence especially on TV but also in movies for decades, almost always in small but memorable roles.

The New York Times said in 2008: “He has become the king of the deadpan cameo, the guy who makes a one-shot appearance as an office manager or furniture salesman and ends up stealing the scene.”

Willard was nominated four times for Emmy Awards, three of them (in 2003, 2004 and 2005) for playing Hank on “Everybody Loves Raymond” and the fourth in 2010 for his recurring role as Frank Dunphy, the father of Ty Burrell’s Phil Dunphy, on “Modern Family.” Willard’s character received a loving sendoff during “Modern Family’s” final season with a January 2020 episode that revealed his death.

In 2015 Willard won a Daytime Emmy for a story arc as John Forrester on “The Bold and the Beautiful”; he had previously been nominated in 1986 for outstanding talk or service show host for “What’s Hot, What’s Not.”

The actor was long associated with improvisational comedy, going back to his days at Chicago’s Second City in the 1960s and continuing with his small role in Rob Reiner’s documentary-style “This Is Spinal Tap.” Willard was also a co-founder of the Ace Trucking Company improv troupe, which made numerous appearances on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” and “The Dick Cavett Show” in the 1960s and ’70s.

In 2015, “Spinal Tap” co-star Harry Shearer declared of Willard’s work on the film: “He’s from another galaxy; you just can’t fathom where this stuff comes from. His energy is overpowering” — and the Christopher Guest-directed comedic mockumentaries “Waiting for Guffman” (1996), “Best in Show” (2000), “A Mighty Wind” (2003), “For Your Consideration” (2006) and 2016’s “Mascots,” in which a great deal of improvisation was utilized. The Detroit Free Press opined in 2014: “ ‘Best in Show,’ with Willard playing a color commentator at a prestigious dog competition, is perhaps the best-loved” in this string of cult hits. The New York Times said that to play the “blissfully ill-informed dog show television announcer in ‘Best in Show,’” Willard “trotted out every inappropriate dog joke and announcing cliché he could muster, drawing rave reviews and reinvigorating his career.” The role “brought a cachet, buoyed by the YouTube and Nick at Night reruns of his old ‘Fernwood Tonight’ appearances, unlike anything Mr. Willard experienced in the first 30 years of his career. He suddenly became cool.”

(Willard’s improv-related activities also included hosting the TV series “Trust Us With Your Life” in 2012 and appearing at the Detroit Improv Festival in 2014.)

The actor’s notable film roles also included Shelby Forthright, the hugely optimistic CEO of the Buy n Large Corporation, in Pixar’s much-beloved “Wall-E” (2008), who is shown only in videos recorded at about the time of the Axiom ’​s initial launch; Ed Harken, the news director of KVWN, in 2004’s “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy”; Dr. Willoughby, the medical school dean who interviewed Kal Penn’s Kumar in “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” (2004); and the father of Alyson Hannigan’s Michelle Flaherty in 2003’s “American Wedding” (Roger Ebert said, “Rising to toast the union between his Irish family and the Jewish family of his new in-laws, he brings real warmth and sincerity to his hope that ‘we can sit many happy shivas together’ “).

It really all began for Willard when he played Jerry Hubbard, dimwitted sidekick to Martin Mull’s talk show host Barth Gimble on the wickedly satirical, Norman Lear-created TV series “Fernwood Tonight” and “America 2-night” in 1977 and 1978. These shows were spinoffs from the seminal, Norman Lear-produced soap opera spoof “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”

Willard and Mull reteamed on the 1985 HBO mockumentary “The History of White People in America,” then were reunited on a 1995 episode of “Roseanne” to play one of the first gay couples on television, and Willard recurred on the show after that.

He was the only human actor — the bartender — on Sid and Marty Krofft’s “D.C. Follies,” a political satire populated with puppets of presidents Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon and reporters Dan Rather and Ted Koppel, among others. The series ran on ABC from 1987-89.

Willard recurred on “Everybody Loves Raymond” from 2003-05 as Hank MacDougall, the father of Monica Horan’s Amy MacDougall-Barone, who eventually becomes the wife of Brad Garrett’s Robert Barone.

He appeared in Christopher Guest’s HBO series “Family Tree” — an attempt to adapt his documentary-style comedy for television — in 2013.

The comic actor made dozens of appearances in sketches on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and more recently was a frequent presence on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

In interviews Willard did not appear to be someone with lingering regrets, but he admitted that he wished he hadn’t turned down the lead role of Ted Striker (eventually played by Robert Hays) in the hit comedy “Airplane!”

Frederick Charles Willard was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and graduated from the Kentucky Military Institute and the Virginia Military Institute. After a brief tour in the Army in 1962, Willard and friend Vic Greco formed a comedy act that earned them a 1964 appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Willard auditioned successfully alongside Robert Klein for Chicago’s Second City, portraying a nightclub manager and his employee. In this period he also co-founded the Ace Trucking Company; the troupe appeared regularly on ABC variety series “This Is Tom Jones” in 1969.

Willard and Second City colleagues including Klein and David Steinberg appeared Off Broadway in “The Return of the Second City in ‘20,000 Frozen Grenadiers’ ” in 1966. Willard also appeared Off Broadway in 1969 in Jules Feiffer’s hit comedy “Little Murders” (which was adapted into a film) and “Arf/The Great Airplane Snatch,” in which he appeared with Lily Tomlin, among others.

Willard made his film debut in the 1967 exploitation film “Teenage Mother.”

The actor guested on “Get Smart” in 1968, “Love, American Style” in 1970 and “The Bob Newhart Show” in 1975, and he appeared in the feature comedies “Silver Streak,” starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, in 1976 and “Fun with Dick and Jane (1977), starring Jane Fonda and George Segal, but it was on “Fernwood Tonight” and “America 2-Night” that he created the genial, empty-headed and often inappropriate persona with which he remained associated throughout his professional life.

Willard told the New York Times in 2008: “I like to play the guy that has no self-awareness, kind of the likable buffoon who will stick his foot in his mouth and say the wrong thing.”

In 2015 he adapted this persona for use in a series of commercials also starring Jeffrey Tambor for DirecTV in which Willard played the witless head of a cable company that merges with Tambor’s.

Willard sold out the run of his nominally one-man show “Fred Willard: Alone at Last!” (which actually sported a number of other cast members) and led sketch comedy workshop the MoHo Group.

In 2006 Willard starred Off Broadway in “Elvis and Juliet,” an original comedy written by Mary Willard, about the first meeting of an engaged couple’s families, one of which is a clan of Vegas “tribute artists.”

In 2014 Willard appeared as Cap’n Andy in a semi-staged production of “Showboat” at Lincoln Center that also featured Vanessa Williams, Jane Alexander and the New York Philharmonic.

Willard’s survivors include Mulbarger, a son-in-law and grandson.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Michael Angelis Dies: Voice Of ‘Thomas The Tank Engine’ Was 76K
Bruce Haring
May 31, 2020 4:30PM PDT



British actor Michael Angelis, whose soothing voice graced more than two decades of the children’s series Thomas the Tank Engine, has died. He was 76 and passed at home with his wife present.

The Liverpool native took over the voicing duties from Ringo Starr as the narrator of the UK version of Thomas the Tank Engine And Friends in 1991. He narrated 13 series of the popular children’s TV show in Britain from 1991 to 2012. The program’s name was later shortened to Thomas and Friends.

Angelis also narrated two episodes of Season 6 and four episodes of Season 7 of the American version of the TV show. He also did voice duty on the films Hero of the Rails, Misty Island Rescue and Days of the Diesels.

In addition to his voice work, Angelis played “Arnie” in television drama September Song and appeared as “Martin Niarchos” in the mini-series GBH.

He was married to actress Helen Worth from 1991 to 2001 and later married Jennifer Khalastchi.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Anthony James, Actor in 'Unforgiven' and 'In the Heat of the Night,' Dies at 77
2:08 PM PDT 5/28/2020 by Mike Barnes


Photofest

He often played bad guys in a career bookended by those two appearances in Oscar-winning best pictures.
Anthony James, the lanky character actor who played sleazy, menacing types in such films as In the Heat of the Night, Unforgiven and High Plains Drifter, has died. He was 77.

James died Tuesday of cancer, according to an obituary announcement posted by a funeral home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Remarkably, James' career was bookended by appearances in two best picture Oscar winners: He made his big-screen debut as Ralph Henshaw, a racist manning a diner counter, in Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night (1967), then wrapped things up as Skinny Dubois, a hostile owner of a bordello, in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992).

In between, the 6-foot-6 James appeared in Vanishing Point (1971), Hearts of the West (1975), as a spooky chauffeur in Burnt Offerings (1976), Blue Thunder (1983) and The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991), in which he parodied his evil image in an over-the-top performance.

An only child, James Anthony was born to Greek immigrants on July 22, 1942, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. His father, George, built and owned a restaurant called The Mayflower but died when the boy was just 8.

When he was 18, he and his mother, Marika, took a train to Union Station in Los Angeles after selling all of the family possessions. He cleaned bathrooms to pay for acting lessons, then made his onscreen debut with a one-line role on a 1966 episode of NBC's T.H.E. Cat, starring Robert Loggia.

(He took the stage name Anthony James when he discovered there was another actor known as Jimmy Anthony.)

James appeared seven times on Gunsmoke — four as Elbert Moses — and also appeared on The Big Valley, Hawaii Five-O, Mod Squad, Police Story, Starsky and Hutch, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The A-Team, Simon & Simon, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Married … With Children.

After retiring from acting in the mid-'90s, James, who never married, moved to the Boston area to focus on a career as an artist, and his abstract paintings were shown across the U.S. (He gifted one to Eastwood.) A book of his artwork and poems, Language of the Heart, was published in 1994.

In 2014, James published his memoirs, Acting My Face, which he dedicated to his mom. "I never considered myself a celebrity, just a sometime recognizable face," he said.

Donations in his memory can be made to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Ian Holm, 'Lord of the Rings' star, dead at 88
By Jack Guy, CNN
Updated 10:18 AM ET, Fri June 19, 2020



London(CNN)British actor Ian Holm has died at the age of 88, according to a statement from his agent.

Holm had a long and varied acting career that saw him cast as a slew of characters, including Bilbo Baggins in the "Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy, Ash in Ridley Scott's "Alien" and athletics coach Sam Mussabini in the 1981 movie "Chariots of Fire," a performance for which he was nominated for an Oscar.

Born in Essex, southeast England, in 1931, Holm attended the RADA drama school in London.

After forging a successful career on the stage, he moved into television and later movie acting.

Holm also played Father Vito Cornelius in "The Fifth Element" (1997) and Professor Fitz in "The Aviator" (2004).

In 1989, he was named Commander of the British Empire (CBE) and in 1998 he was knighted for services to drama.

Holm died peacefully in hospital Friday morning after a Parkinson's-related illness, with his family and carer at his bedside, his agent, Alex Irwin, said.

"His portrayal of Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings trilogies ensured the magic of his craft could be shared by all generations," Irwin said in a statement.

"He was a genius of stage and screen, winning multiple awards, and loved by directors, audiences and his colleagues alike. His sparkling wit always accompanied a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"Charming, kind and ferociously talented, we will miss him hugely."
Holm's death sparked a wave of tributes online.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) tweeted its respects.

"We are very sorry to hear of the death of Ian Holm," read the tweet.

And writer and director Edgar Wright thanked Holm for his great performances.

"RIP Ian Holm, a genius actor who brought considerable presence to parts funny, heartbreaking & terrifying," Wright wrote on Twitter

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Joel Schumacher, director of ‘St. Elmo’s Fire,’ dies at 80
By JAKE COYLE yesterday


AP Photo/Peter Kramer

NEW YORK (AP) — Joel Schumacher, the eclectic and brazen filmmaker who dressed New York department store windows before shepherding the Brat Pack to the big screen in “St. Elmo’s Fire” and steering the Batman franchise into its most baroque territory in “Batman Forever” and “Batman & Robin,” has died. He was 80.

A representative for Schumacher said the filmmaker died Monday in New York after a yearlong battle with cancer.

A native New Yorker, Schumacher was first a sensation in the fashion world after attending Parsons School of Design and decorating Henri Bendel’s windows. His entry to film came first as a costume designer. Schumacher dressed a pair of Woody Allen movies in the 1970s: “Interiors” and “Sleeper.” He also penned the screenplays to a pair of musicals: “The Wiz” and “Sparkle.”

As a director, he established himself as a filmmaker of great flare, if not often good reviews, in a string of mainstream films in the ’80s and ’90s. To the frequent frustration of critics but the delight of audiences, Schumacher favored entertainment over tastefulness — including those infamous sensual Batman and Robin suits with visible nipples — and he did so proudly.

“A movie that’s in a movie theater that runs at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 and there’s no one in the audience when that movie runs — what’s the point?” Schumacher once told Charlie Rose.

The success of his first hit, “St. Elmo’s Fire,” with Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy not only helped make a name for the Brat Pack but made Schumacher in-demand in Hollywood. He followed it up with 1987′s “The Lost Boys,” with Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland and Corey Feldman. A vampire horror comedy, it gave a darker, contemporary view of the perpetual adolescence of “Peter Pan.”

Schumacher was sometimes regretful that he played a role in hoisting fame on his young stars and “the two Coreys.” Before dying in 2010, Haim struggled with drug addiction and said he was sexually assaulted in the film industry. Feldman on Monday recounted on Twitter trying cocaine during “The Lost Boys” as a 16-year-old. When Schumacher found out, Feldman said, Schumacher temporarily fired him.

“He tried to prevent my descent,” said Feldman, who continued to struggle with drugs.

Schumacher then made “Flatliners,” about morbidly obsessed medical students, and a pair of John Grisham adaptations in “The Client” and “A Time to Kill.” “Falling Down,” with Michael Douglas as a Los Angeles man whose anger from minute every-day interactions steadily builds in violence, was maybe his most critically acclaimed film, though its depictions of minorities — particularly a Korean grocer — were from the start hotly debated.

On its 25th anniversary, April Wolfe of LA Weekly wrote that it “remains one of Hollywood’s most overt yet morally complex depictions of the modern white-victimization narrative, one both adored and reviled by the extreme right.”

The slickness of those productions helped Schumacher inherit the DC universe from Tim Burton. In Schumacher’s hands, Batman received a garish overhaul that resulted in two of the the franchise’s most cartoonish movies in 1995′s “Batman Forever” and 1997′s “Batman & Robin.” The first was a box-office smash but the second fizzled and remains most often remembered for its infamous suits.

“It was like I had murdered a baby,” Schumacher told Vice of the response to ”Batman & Robin.” Yet it, too, has developed a small cult following for those who prefer the antithesis of Christopher Nolan’s more grim Batman movies.

“He saw deeper things in me than most and he lived a wonderfully creative and heroic life,” said Jim Carrey, who played the Riddler in “Batman Forever.” “I am grateful to have had him as a friend.”

Schumacher, born on Aug. 29, 1939, to Francis and Marian Schumacher, was raised in Queens by his mother after his father died when he was four-years-old. As a youngster, he quickly became enmeshed in the city’s nightlife.

“The street was my education,” Schumacher told Vulture earlier this year. “You could ride your bike over the 59th Street Bridge then. So I rode my bike everywhere. I was in Manhattan all the time and all over Queens. If you’re a kid on a bike, anything can happen, and predators come out of the woodwork, my God. I looked very innocent, but I wasn’t.”

Schumacher would often say he was fortunate to have survived the ’60s at all. He made habits of liquid Methadrine, acid and sex. Out long before many in Hollywood, Schumacher pegged his lovers in “the double-digit thousands.” He was a warm and gossipy raconteur though Schumacher said he “never kissed and told about anybody who gives me the favor of sharing a bed with me.”

“I don’t not like talking about it, I just don’t believe it matters,” Schumacher said of his sexuality in a 2000 interview with the Guardian. “I’ve lived my life very openly. I started drinking at nine. I started doing drugs in my early teens. I started smoking at 10 and I started sex at 11. So I’m not hiding anything. But I am totally and completely against labels.”

After “Batman and Robin,” Schumacher turned to lower-budget thrillers: “8mm,” with Nicolas Cage; “Flawless,” with Robert De Niro; “Phone Booth,” with Colin Farrell. Schumacher, behind the beginnings of so many careers, gave Farrell his first led role in 2000′s “Tigerland.” In 2004, he took on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera,” a late, gaudy flourish that combined Schumacher with perhaps his Broadway equivalent in the spectacle-making Webber. Most recently, he directed two episodes of Netflix’s “House of Cards” in 2013.

In his last interview, with Vulture, Schumacher reflected on a show at London’s National Gallery of the now highly regarded works of James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent.

“They did a brilliant thing. Right next to them on the wall, framed right next to the paintings, were all their horrible reviews,” said Schumacher. “Who remembers these reviews?”

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Carl Reiner, driving force in American comedy, dies at 98
June 30, 2020 / 1:15 PM / CBS/AP



Carl Reiner, the ingenious and versatile writer, actor and director who broke through as a "second banana" to Sid Caesar and rose to comedy's front ranks as creator of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and straight man to Mel Brooks' "2000 Year Old Man," has died. He was 98.

Reiner's assistant Judy Nagy told CBS News he died Monday night of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills, California.

He was one of show business' best liked men, the tall, bald Reiner was a welcome face on the small and silver screens, in Caesar's 1950s troupe, as the snarling, toupee-wearing Alan Brady of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and in such films as "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

In recent years, he was part of the roguish gang in the "Ocean's Eleven" movies starring George Clooney and appeared in documentaries including "Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age" and "If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast."


Carl Reiner, the ingenious and versatile writer, actor and director who broke through as a "second banana" to Sid Caesar and rose to comedy's front ranks as creator of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and straight man to Mel Brooks' "2000 Year Old Man," has died. He was 98.

Reiner's assistant Judy Nagy told CBS News he died Monday night of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills, California.

He was one of show business' best liked men, the tall, bald Reiner was a welcome face on the small and silver screens, in Caesar's 1950s troupe, as the snarling, toupee-wearing Alan Brady of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and in such films as "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

In recent years, he was part of the roguish gang in the "Ocean's Eleven" movies starring George Clooney and appeared in documentaries including "Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age" and "If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast."
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Tributes poured in online, including from actor Josh Gadd, who called Reiner "one of the greatest comedic minds of all time," and writer Bill Kristol, who said: "What a life!" Actor Alan Alda tweeted: "His talent will live on for a long time, but the loss of his kindness and decency leaves a hole in our hearts."

Films he directed included "Oh, God!" starring George Burns and John Denver; "All of Me," with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin; and the 1970 comedy "Where's Poppa?" He was especially proud of his books, including "Enter Laughing," an autobiographical novel later adapted into a film and Broadway show; and "My Anecdotal Life," a memoir published in 2003. He recounted his childhood and creative journey in the 2013 book, "I Remember Me."

But many remember Reiner for "The Dick Van Dyke Show," one of the most popular television series of all time and a model of ensemble playing, physical comedy and timeless, good-natured wit. It starred Van Dyke as a television comedy writer working for a demanding, eccentric boss (Reiner) and living with his wife (Mary Tyler Moore in her first major TV role) and young son in suburban New Rochelle, New York.

The show, which ran for five seasons on CBS, was a major hit. Reiner wound up playing the pompous boss, Alan Brady. But the rest of the show mirrored his life. In fact, Mary Tyler Moore's Laura Petrie was inspired by the real-life woman Reiner went home to every night.

As a young GI during World War II, he'd met Estelle Lebost, an artist eight years his senior. "He was just extremely handsome," Estelle told CBS News back in 2007.

"The Van Dyke show is probably the most thrilling of my accomplishments because that was very, very personal," Reiner once said. "It was about me and my wife, living in New Rochelle and working on the Sid Caesar show."

Reiner is the father of actor-director Rob Reiner. The younger Reiner starred as Archie Bunker's son-in-law on "All in the Family," and went on to direct such films as "When Harry Met Sally ..." and "The Princess Bride." Carl Reiner would praise Rob as his favorite director, and Rob would speak with open admiration, and some trepidation, about his famous dad.

"He was the nicest man, a decent man, an intelligent man, and talented, and everybody liked him," Rob Reiner told The Associated Press in 1992.

Rob Reiner said in a tweet Tuesday that his "heart is hurting. He was my guiding light."

Carl Reiner won multiple Emmys for his television work. In 2000, he received the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor. When the sound system failed at the start of the ceremonies, Reiner called from the balcony, "Does anybody have four double-A batteries?"

Besides "All of Me," Reiner directed Martin in "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," "The Man With Two Brains" and "The Jerk."

Carl Reiner was born in 1922, in New York City's borough of the Bronx, one of two sons of Jewish immigrants: Irving Reiner, a watchmaker, and his wife, Bessie. He grew up in a working-class neighborhood, where he learned to mimic voices and tell jokes. After high school, Reiner attended drama school, then joined a small theater group.

"It was a terrific experience, but I wasn't getting any money for it," he told the Akron Beacon Journal in 1963. "I got uppity one day - after all, the audience was paying from 22 to 88 cents for admission - and I demanded to be paid. They settled for $1 a performance and I ... became their highest-priced actor."

During World War II, Reiner joined the Army and toured South Pacific bases in GI variety shows for a year and a half. Back out of uniform, he landed several stage roles, breaking through on Broadway in "Call Me Mister."

He married his wife, Estelle, in 1943. Besides son Rob, the couple had another son, Lucas, a film director, and a daughter, Sylvia, a psychoanalyst and author. Estelle Reiner, who died in 2008, had a small but memorable role in Rob Reiner's "When Harry Met Sally..." - as the woman who overhears Meg Ryan's ersatz ecstasy in a restaurant and says, "I'll have what she's having."

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Hugh Downs, whose broadcasting career spanned a century, dies at 99
He was a host on ABC's "20/20" for 20 years.
By Anthony Rivas
July 2, 2020, 4:26 PM 8 min read




Hugh Downs, the omnipresent broadcaster whose career spanned more than half a century, including 20 years on ABC's "20/20," has died at age 99.

Downs died on Wednesday in his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, according to a statement from his family.

"I hope I'd be remembered as a guy who tried to do some good and who was, most importantly, honest," he said in 2002 during an interview with his former "20/20" co-host Barbara Walters. "I can't see any greatness that I would be remembered for, but if people think kindly of me, I'll be happy at that."

Downs became a friendly and familiar face during his thousands of hours on television between the 1950s and 1990s, during which he worked on NBC's "Today" and "Tonight" shows, the game show "Concentration," "20/20," PBS' "Over Easy" and "Live from Lincoln Center," as well as on dozens of commercials.

For years, Downs held the Guinness record for most total hours on commercial network television, until Regin Philbin broke his record in 2004, according to the Associated Press.

Downs had also written books and worked in radio. His first job was as an announcer for a small radio station in Ohio. He moved into TV shortly afterward and in 1954 joined NBC, where he eventually met Walters, who was working as a writer at the "Today Show" show at the time.

By that point, his reputation had grown to where he would approve any commercials he was assigned to read in an effort to avoid misinforming the public.

"My loyalty was with the person tuning in," he said, according to AP. "It was expedient. If I lost my credibility, what use would I be to a client?"

Downs began hosting "20/20" in 1978, and was joined six years later by Walters.

"For more than two decades, Hugh told the stories that he wanted to tell," Walters said in 2002. "Everything from visiting both the North and South Poles to conversing with a gorilla, to swimming with sharks to training for a mission in space."

Downs retired from "20/20" in 1999.

Following his retirement from the TV newsmagazine, Downs continued to author books, including his 2002 book "My America: What My Country Means to Me, by 150 Americans from All Walks of Life." The book featured descriptions from 150 people about what living in the U.S. meant to them after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"I had the thoughts that Americans reacted in a way that might be interesting to gather the thoughts of some people of some visibility and many walks of life," he told Walters in 2002.

He said he discovered that "we are not a country of despair… Some people wrote in rage, some in grief. But the common thing was nobody was despairing. Americans tend to be on the optimistic side and with justification, I think."

That same year, according to Walters, Downs had his first great-grandchild.

"I can imagine Hugh as the male Auntie Mame, taking his great-grandchild scuba diving, hang gliding -- all of the adventurous things Hugh himself did," she said.

Downs was married to Ruth Shaheen from 1944 until she died in 2017. He is survived by their two children, Hugh Raymond and Deirdre Downs, two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, according to The New York Times.

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[qcmalebox]

Carl Reiner his daughter and his best friend, Mel Brooks

[Frothy Afterbirth]

Country music star Charlie Daniels, best known for 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia,' has died at 83
By Scottie Andrew, CNN
Updated 3:28 PM ET, Mon July 6, 2020



(CNN) Country music scribe Charlie Daniels, best known for the hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," has died. He was 83.
The multi-instrumentalist had a hemorrhagic stroke in Hermitage, Tennessee, and was pronounced dead Monday, his publicists said in a statement.
Daniels, a Country Music Hall of Fame inductee and Grand Ole Opry alumnus, was born in North Carolina but quickly felt at home in Nashville. He moved there and played on records with music titans Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Ringo Starr.

With the eponymous Charlie Daniels Band, he and the instrument he's most closely associated with -- the fiddle -- spearheaded a new genre of Southern rock.

His best-known hit, 1979's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," is still a staple at classic rock stations.
Though mostly associated with country music, Daniels told CNN once that he doesn't like to wear any kind of label.
"I'll give you a little breakdown of our band," Daniels said in 2001. "We played with the Rolling Stones years ago in Memphis, in the afternoon and flew down to Austin, Texas, that night and worked the Willie Nelson picnic."

In 2008, he was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, nearly 40 years into his professional career. It took until 2016 for Daniels to earn entry into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Daniels regularly blogged about his political beliefs on his website and his Twitter page, including in the days preceding his death.
Many of his songs were rooted in patriotism and his deep admiration of the US, which he often called the "greatest country in the world" in his music.

In 1980, he released "In America" as a response to the Iranian hostage crisis.
More than 30 years later, his outspokenness prompted him to withdraw from the Country Freedom Concert in Nashville, which honored September 11 rescue workers.

Daniels planned to unveil a new single, "This Ain't No Rag, It's a Flag," but concert organizers balked at the song's lyrics, which included "This ain't no rag it's a flag, and we don't wear it on our head."

But the song he'll forever be known for is "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," a rompin', stompin' bluegrass hoedown between the devil and a young country boy named Johnny for the latter's soul.

The song spent weeks on the charts, eventually going platinum. A year after its release, it was featured in the film "Urban Cowboy," introducing it to an even broader audience. More recently, it was featured in a "Guitar Hero" video game.

In 2014, he co-founded the Journey Home Project, which connects veterans with nonprofits for health care, education and career resources.
Daniels' last musical project was in collaboration with the Beau Weevils on an album that added a contemporary twist to Daniels' retro Southern rock. He performed in a "quarantine edition" of a song off that album, "Geechi Geechi Ya Ya Blues," just last month.

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