An amazing and colorful MLB pitcher -- via ESPN.
Interesting, overlooked, and significant obituaries from around the world, as they happen, emphasizing the positive achievements of those who have died. Member, Society of Professional Obituary Writers.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Gerald J. Christian
Emmy-winning sound editor -- via the Hollywood Reporter. He did the sound for "Psycho" and "Duel," among many others. An ever-so-gifted pro!
Monday, June 11, 2012
Ann Rutherford
Actress -- via the L.A. Times. She played Polly Benedict 12 times in the Andy Hardy film series. She also appeared in "Gone with the Wind," and played the ingenue for Red Skelton in his "Whistling" series.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Frank Cady
Great comic character actor in film and television -- via the L.A. Times. Cady will be best remembered as the inimitable Sam Drucker on the trifecta of rural TV comedy on CBS, "Petticoat Junction," "Green Acres," and "The Beverly Hillbillies."
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Dick Beals
Voiceover actor -- via the New York Times. He started off in 1949, doing kids' and small-animal voices in the great trilogy of WXYZ-Detroit children's action shows: "The Lone Ranger," "The Green Hornet," and "The Challenge of the Yukon." He was the voice of the Speedy Alka-Seltzer character in early TV commericals; he was the original voice of Davey in the religious claymation series "Davey and Goliath"; he even subbed as the voice of Gumby. A great talent!
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Henry John "Hank" Dire
Scion of the fabulous Bonnie Brae Tavern -- via the Denver Post. He was always there. Always. Never didn't see him there.
His parents started the place in 1934, and if you go in and look over the bar you will see a photo of it, sitting at University and Exposition. It is a lone building out in the middle of nowhere. Now of course it's in central Denver, and it has been a wonderful oasis of good pizza, nice folks, friendly service down through the years -- a great place to watch a Bronco game!
Hank Dire built on his parents' efforts and kept the place alive and well. I hope that his kids will continue the tradition for decades to come. Thank you, Hank!
His parents started the place in 1934, and if you go in and look over the bar you will see a photo of it, sitting at University and Exposition. It is a lone building out in the middle of nowhere. Now of course it's in central Denver, and it has been a wonderful oasis of good pizza, nice folks, friendly service down through the years -- a great place to watch a Bronco game!
Hank Dire built on his parents' efforts and kept the place alive and well. I hope that his kids will continue the tradition for decades to come. Thank you, Hank!
Matthew Yuricich
Ray Bradbury
Writer -- via the L.A. Times.
To call Ray Bradbury a writer is insufficient. He was an imaginative river. He composed more than 30 books and 600 short stories. He wrote for the page, the stage, for radio and television and film – his screen adaptation of “Moby Dick” for John Huston is masterful.
To call Ray Bradbury a writer is insufficient. He was an imaginative river. He composed more than 30 books and 600 short stories. He wrote for the page, the stage, for radio and television and film – his screen adaptation of “Moby Dick” for John Huston is masterful.
He began in the age of the pulps, when sci-fi and fantasy
was still despised kid stuff, and he has passed on now, in our Flash-Gordonish
present times, many of his visions fulfilled. For better and for worse, he was
my number one creative influence. Period.
I ran across him for the first time during one of my first
trips to my elementary-school library. Like the little egotist I was (and am),
I saw my name imbedded within his, and grabbed “S is for Space” for that
reason. I can still see the cover – an inverted, harlequinade space-helmeted
figure plummeting into a whirling galaxy beneath it. Every story in it: “Chrysalis,”
“Pillar of Fire,” “The Pedestrian” – horrified me, captivated me, gave me
nightmares, took me out of myself, inspired me. No writing had ever done that
to me before.
I devoured his work, plowing through it all, pushed to
fantastic realms through the power of his imagination. Every creature and work
he referenced, I read up on, discovering the hair-raising pleasures of
Frankenstein, Dracula, the Phantom of the Opera, Poe, Lovecraft, Welles, Verne,
Burroughs, the Chaneys, Karloff, Lugosi . . . He wrote for radio? I started
finding and listening to old-time radio. I sought his TV and film work, and
began to explore around, under and past him to other sci-fi and fantasy
writers, and from there to the larger world of literature, poetry, film,
theater and all the rest. Ray Bradbury made me a writer.
Of course, I have had my imaginary falling-outs with him
over time. A chronic overwriter, at times his prolixity was stupefying, his
flights of rhetoric ridiculous. He would wax poetic at the drop of an eyelash.
But time and again I would return to him, reading of Guy Montag, of Cooger and
Dark’s Carnival, of the delicate, abandoned glassine palaces of Mars.
For me, his greatest achievements will always be the three
early novels “The Martian Chronicles,” “Fahrenheit 451,” and “Something Wicked
This Way Comes.” They spoke directly to me, building their universes within me.
There is something wonderful in his ability to delineate the movements of
history, the significant moments of human lives, the relation of society to the
individual, and his architectural ability to construct a story, a musical sense
of proportion and pace that is unrivalled.
(The virtues of his short stories are, at times, even stronger -- among the dozens of unforgettable ones are "There Will Come Soft Rains," and the the classic "Mars is Heaven," when it turns out that, for the first astronaut visitors, all their loved ones are on Mars . . . just waiting for them to go to sleep in their childhood homes so they can change back into monsters and eat them all up!)
I hope that enough of my worshipful study of him has rubbed off on my own work, rendering it readable. It’s good to know that he insisted on producing his 1,000 words a day, good or bad, for 70-some years. It’s an excellent goal for which to aim.
I hope that enough of my worshipful study of him has rubbed off on my own work, rendering it readable. It’s good to know that he insisted on producing his 1,000 words a day, good or bad, for 70-some years. It’s an excellent goal for which to aim.
And, in the meantime and despite that, he has my profound
thanks. In a largely isolated and unlovely childhood, Bradbury was my friend,
one who could tell me the most amazing stories, one who gave me visions that
told me of an entire world beyond the mundane. He inspired me to go and do
likewise, to know that a life spent in the world of the imagination was a
worthwhile ambition.
I will start re-reading my stack of battered paperbacks of
his, the ones bearing the grandiose slogan “The World’s Greatest Living Science
Fiction Writer” on many of them, all over again. He is so much more than that
hopelessly hyperbolic title. He means the world to me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)