Obituaries

[Eric the Green]

What a cool dude he was. I'm sorry that he got old But he was a long-lived guy who did good work.

[beechnut79]

Jimmy Piersall, 87, died Saturday in Wheaton, IL. He played for five different major league baseball teams, beginning with the Boston Red Sox during the 1950s. He was probably the first notable to come clean regarding the bipolar mental disorder which he suffered from. His battles with this condition were the inspiration for the autobiography and later movie titled "Fear Strikes Out". He was a very controversial player in his time, another not to resurface until Richie Allen in the late 1960s who mellowed considerably by the time he became Dick Allen during his days with the Chicago White Sox. And, speaking of the White Sox, Mr. Piersall again stirred up controversy as a commentator for that time when being paired with Harry Caray prior to the latter's tenure with the team on the other side of town. He was not afraid to call a spade a spade, something that wouldn't be tolerated for a minute in today's sports world. With that in mind I am enclosing a link which pretty much says it all.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2017/06/05/n...all-death/

[pbrower2a]

Adnan Khashoggi (Arabic: عدنان خاشقجي‎‎, Turkish: Adnan Kaşıkçı; 25 July 1935 – 6 June 2017) was a Saudi Arabian billionaire international businessman, best known for his involvement in arms dealing. He is estimated to have had a peak net worth of around US$4 billion in the early 1980s.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Khashoggi

[pbrower2a]

My favorite Batman (Adam West):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_West

The case: he wasn't as full of himself as the later versions.

[Galen]

(06-11-2017, 11:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: My favorite Batman (Adam West):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_West

The case: he wasn't as full of himself as the later versions.

He was a Batman for a different era even so I rather enjoyed the over the top campiness of the show.  Hard to believe that he was offered the role of James Bond and then turned it down.

[pbrower2a]

(06-11-2017, 11:21 PM)Galen Wrote:

(06-11-2017, 11:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: My favorite Batman (Adam West):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_West

The case: he wasn't as full of himself as the later versions.

He was a Batman for a different era even so I rather enjoyed the over the top campiness of the show.  Hard to believe that he was offered the role of James Bond and then turned it down.

Adam West played the role for camp, which is not how James Bond was intended to be. For that there was Casino Royale, one of the few bombs in the James Bond series. Woody Allen, which had to be a huge mistake in casting, was in that one James Bond disaster. Woody Allen can do camp, too.

But now that I think of it I can see some similarities between James Bond movies and the 'Sixties Batman. Both James Bond and Batman had their fancy cars and gadgets... and unrealistic villains. The crime did not have to make sense. Of course, the 'Sixties Batman was made for more of a child audience because it was on the air in early evening and the James Bond flicks had more allusions to sex.

[pbrower2a]

Helmut Kohl, chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany as it became the government of all parts of Germany since 1945 in a peaceful merger of the German Federal Republic and the former German Democratic Republic (the latter actually becoming democratic in its last few months of existence):


Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (German: [ˈhɛlmuːt ˈjoːzɛf 'mɪçaʔeːl ˈkoːl]; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German statesman who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany 1982–90 and of the reunited Germany 1990–98) and as the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. From 1969 to 1976, Kohl was Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Kohl's 16-year tenure was the longest of any German Chancellor since Otto von Bismarck. Kohl oversaw the end of the Cold War and is widely regarded as the mastermind of German reunification. Together with French President François Mitterrand, Kohl is considered to be the architect of the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union (EU) and the euro currency.[2] His life after the Chancellorship was overshadowed by a donations scandal and his estrangement from his former protégée Angela Merkel.
Kohl was described as "the greatest European leader of the second half of the 20th century" by U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush[3] and Bill Clinton.[4] Kohl received the Charlemagne Prize in 1988 with François Mitterrand; in 1998 Kohl became the second person to be named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government.

(Much more at the link associated with his name in Wikipedia)

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Für das deutsche Vaterland!
Danach lasst uns alle streben
Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand!
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Sind des Glückes Unterpfand;
 |: Blüh' im Glanze dieses Glückes,
  Blühe, deutsches Vaterland! :|

[pbrower2a]

William Szathmary (October 5, 1924 – June 15, 2017), known professionally by his stage name Bill Dana, was an American comedian, actor, and screenwriter.[1] He often appeared on television shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show, frequently in the guise of a heavily accented Bolivian character named José Jiménez. Dana often portrayed the Jiménez character as an astronaut.

Dana was born as William Szathmary in Quincy, Massachusetts. He was of Hungarian-Jewish descent.[2] He took his stage name "Dana" after his mother's first name "Dena" as he felt "Szathmary" was unpronounceable.[3]

The youngest of six children born to Joseph and Dena Szathmary, Dana benefited from the expertise of an older brother, Arthur, who was fluent in several languages and gave his sibling his second entry into foreign languages. The first was growing up in a polyglot neighborhood where Spanish and Italian were among the languages spoken and having a Hungarian immigrant for a father. His older brother was Irving Szathmary, composer of the Get Smart theme.[4]

During World War II he served in the United States Army with the 263rd Infantry Regiment, 66th Infantry Division as a 60mm mortarman and machine gunner, as well as an unofficial interpreter.[4]


Dana began his career as a page at NBC's famous Studio 6B while performing comedy in nightclubs around New York with partner Gene Wood. In the 1950s, he performed on The Imogene Coca Show, The Danny Thomas Show and The Martha Raye Show, as well as writing for and producing The Spike Jones Show.[2]

Dana's career took a major turn when he began writing stand-up routines for the young comedian Don Adams, including the now well-known "Would you believe?" jokes popularized by Get Smart. From there, he was brought in as a writer for The Steve Allen Show, where he created the José Jiménez character for the show's "Man in the Street" segments.[2]

On an Ed Sullivan Show appearance, Dana related a story of how a woman recognized him on the street, but knew him only as José Jiménez, and asked what his real name was. Instead of his stage name, "Bill Dana", he gave her his real name, "William Szathmary". The woman rejoined: "Wow, no wonder you changed it to Jiménez!"[citation needed]

Dana had several comedy albums but only one that strictly featured the Jose Jimenez character. One of the cuts; "The Astronaut (Part 1 & 2)"...an interview from news reporter, writer and producer Don Hinkley...made it to the Billboard Top 40 charts at #19 in September 1961. Hinkley and Dana met as writers for the Allen show.



Dana as José Jiménez on The Danny Thomas Show.

In 1961, Dana made the first of eight appearances on The Danny Thomas Show, playing Jimenez as a bumbling but endearing bellhop. The character was so well-received that it was spun off into his own NBC sitcom, The Bill Dana Show (1963–1965). Jiménez was still a bellhop, but now at a posh New York hotel. His snooty, irritable boss was played by Jonathan Harris. The cast also included Don Adams as a hopelessly inept house detective named Byron Glick; when the show was cancelled, Adams quickly used the Glick characterization as the basis for Maxwell Smart, and Get Smart premiered on NBC that fall.

Before appearing in front of a television camera for the first time on The Steve Allen Show in 1959, Dana had been a prolific comedy writer, an activity he continued into the 1980s, producing material for other actors on stage and screen. Dana co-wrote the script for the Get Smart theatrical film The Nude Bomb.[5] His brother, Irving Szathmary, wrote the famous theme for the Get Smart television series.[6]



With Catarina Valente on The Hollywood Palace, 1965.

In 1966, Dana wrote the animated TV-movie Alice in Wonderland (or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?), in which he also supplied the voice of The White Knight (using his José Jiménez voice).[7] That same year, the Jiménez character was animated for the Paramount cartoon I Want My Mummy, written by Dana in collaboration with Howard Post.
In 1966, Dana appeared uncredited in episode 48 of Batman playing Jose Jimenez, opening the window in the wall Batman was climbing and talking with him.

 


In May 1967, Dana hosted his own late-night talk show, The Las Vegas Show, on the new United Network.[8] Originated live from the Hotel Hacienda in Las Vegas, Nevada, the program was cancelled by the end of May when the United Network folded.[9]
Joey Forman's 1968 parody album about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, called The Mashuganishi Yogi ("mashugana" meaning crazy or bizarre in Yiddish), was produced by Dana, and includes a cameo of Dana as Jiménez, as well as a cover appearance. The album is a mock news conference, an extended question-and-answer session. The ersatz Bolivian–accented Jiménez asks the ersatz Indian-accented Yogi: "Why do you talk so funny?"

In 1970, responding to changing times and sensitivities, Dana stopped portraying the José Jiménez character; however, he played the character again on the 1988 revival of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Dana wrote the script for possibly the best known episode of the hit situation comedy All in the Family, entitled "Sammy's Visit", which featured Sammy Davis Jr.[10] In 1976, he appeared in the "A Doctor's Doctor" episode of the NBC situation comedy The Practice as the hospital roommate of Danny Thomas's character Dr. Jules Bedford.

The José Jiménez character was part of several scenes in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. The government officials watch The Ed Sullivan Show before recruiting the Navy pilots. Sullivan is talking to Jiménez. ("Is that your crash helmet?" "Oh, I hope not!") Later during medical testing, a large, Hispanic worker (played by NFL offensive tackle Anthony Muñoz) takes offense to Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn) mimicking the Jiménez character. The hospital worker gets a measure of revenge later on when it comes time for Shepard to receive an enema.
Although his film appearances were few, Dana had roles in a few movies including The Busy Body (1967), Harrad Summer (1974), I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now? (1975), and the aforementioned The Nude Bomb (1980). Dana would also have a recurring role on The Golden Girls as Sophia Petrillo's brother Angelo. He also played her father in a flashback. In addition, he played Wendell Balaban on Too Close for Comfort, as well as Howie Mandel's father on the series St. Elsewhere.[11]

Dana reprised the role of Bernardo the servant on the CBS TV series Zorro and Son, but his performance was different from Gene Sheldon's silence on the 1950s live-action show. Both series were produced by Walt Disney Productions.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Dana

[pbrower2a]

Did you forget Bill Dana? He was really, really good -- even if "José Jiménez" is now politically-incorrect.

I guess a male Hungarian accent isn't so funny. Of course there was Eva Gabor...

[pbrower2a]

Another of the Greatest Generation:


Ola Mildred Rexroat (August 28, 1917 – June 28, 2017) was the only Native American woman to serve in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).[1][2]

She joined after high school and had the dangerous job of towing targets for aerial gunnery students.[3] After that she joined the Air Force, where she served for ten years as an air traffic controller.[2][3][4]

In 2007 she was inducted into the South Dakota Aviation Hall of Fame.[5]

She was an Oglala Sioux from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.[6] She earned a bachelor's degree in art from the University of New Mexico in 1939.[7][8]
 
Rexroat died in June 2017 at the age of 99.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ola_Mildred_Rexroat

[pbrower2a]

Any mathematicians reading this?

Maryam Mirzakhani (Persian: مریم میرزاخانی‎‎‎; 3 May 1977 – 14 July 2017) was an Iranian[7][1] mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University.[8][9][10] Her research topics include Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry.[1]

On 13 August 2014, Mirzakhani became both the first woman and the first Iranian honored with the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics.[11][12] The award committee cited her work in "the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces".[13]

.....



Mirzakhani made several contributions to the theory of moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces. In her early work, Mirzakhani discovered a formula expressing the volume of a moduli space with a given genus as a polynomial in the number of boundary components. This led her to obtain a new proof for the formula discovered by Edward Witten and Maxim Kontsevich on the intersection numbers of tautological classes on moduli space,[8] as well as an asymptotic formula for the growth of the number of simple closed geodesics on a compact hyperbolic surface, generalizing the theorem of the three geodesics for spherical surfaces.[20] Her subsequent work focused on Teichmüller dynamics of moduli space. In particular, she was able to prove the long-standing conjecture that William Thurston's earthquake flow on Teichmüller space is ergodic.[21]

Most recently as of 2014, with Alex Eskin and with input from Amir Mohammadi, Mirzakhani proved that complex geodesics and their closures in moduli space are surprisingly regular, rather than irregular or fractal.[22][23] The closures of complex geodesics are algebraic objects defined in terms of polynomials and therefore they have certain rigidity properties, which is analogous to a celebrated result that Marina Ratner arrived at during the 1990s.[23] The International Mathematical Union said in its press release that, "It is astounding to find that the rigidity in homogeneous spaces has an echo in the inhomogeneous world of moduli space."[23]

Mirzakhani was awarded the Fields Medal in 2014 for "her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces".[24] The award was made in Seoul at the International Congress of Mathematicians on 13 August.[25]

At the time of the award, Jordan Ellenberg explained her research to a popular audience:

Quote:... [Her] work expertly blends dynamics with geometry. Among other things, she studies billiards. But now, in a move very characteristic of modern mathematics, it gets kind of meta: She considers not just one billiard table, but the universe of all possible billiard tables. And the kind of dynamics she studies doesn't directly concern the motion of the billiards on the table, but instead a transformation of the billiard table itself, which is changing its shape in a rule-governed way; if you like, the table itself moves like a strange planet around the universe of all possible tables ... This isn't the kind of thing you do to win at pool, but it's the kind of thing you do to win a Fields Medal. And it's what you need to do in order to expose the dynamics at the heart of geometry; for there's no question that they're there.[26]

In 2014, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran congratulated her for winning the topmost world mathematics prize.[27]
Mirzakhani has an Erdős number of 3.[28]

.................

Mirzakhani was married to Jan Vondrák, a Czech theoretical computer scientist and applied mathematician who is an associate professor at Stanford University;[29] their daughter is named Anahita.[30]
Mirzakhani described herself as a "slow" mathematician, saying that

Quote:You have to spend some energy and effort to see the beauty of math.

To solve problems, Mirzakhani would draw doodles on sheets of paper, and write mathematical formulas around the drawings. Her daughter described her mother's work as "painting".

Quote:I don’t have any particular recipe [for developing new proofs]... It is like being lost in a jungle and trying to use all the knowledge that you can gather to come up with some new tricks, and with some luck you might find a way out.
— Maryam Mirzakhani, [31]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryam_Mirzakhani

[pbrower2a]

A great actor, Martin Landau:



Martin Landau /ˈlænˌdaʊ/ (June 20, 1928 – July 15, 2017) was an American film and television actor. His career began in the 1950s, with early film appearances including a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). He played regular roles in the television series Mission: Impossible (for which he received several Emmy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award) and Space: 1999.

Landau received the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, as well as his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988); he received his second Oscar nomination for his appearance in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). His performance in the supporting role of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood (1994) earned him an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award. He continued to perform in film and TV, and headed the Hollywood branch of the Actors Studio until his death in 2017.

Landau was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 20, 1928, the son of Selma (née Buchman) and Morris Landau.[1] His family was Jewish; his father, an Austrian-born machinist, scrambled to rescue relatives from the Nazis.[2]
He attended James Madison High School and the Pratt Institute.[3] At the age of seventeen he found work at the New York Daily News, where he spent the next five years as an editorial cartoonist and worked alongside Gus Edson to produce the comic strip, The Gumps.[4][5][6] He quit the Daily News when he was 22 to concentrate on theater acting.

After auditioning for the Actors Studio in 1955, he and Steve McQueen were the only applicants admitted out of 500 that applied.[7] While there, he trained under Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan and Harold Clurman, and eventually became an executive director with the Studio, along with Mark Rydell and Sydney Pollack.[4]

Influenced by Charlie Chaplin and the escapism of the cinema, Landau pursued an acting career.[8] He attended the Actors Studio, becoming good friends with James Dean. He recalled, "James Dean was my best friend. We were two young would-be and still-yet-to-work unemployed actors, dreaming out loud and enjoying every moment... We'd spend lots of time talking about the future, our craft and our chances of success in this newly different, ever-changing modern world we were living in."[9] He was also in the same class as Steve McQueen.[8]

In 1957, he made his Broadway debut in Middle of the Night. Landau made his first major film appearance in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) as Leonard, the right-hand man of a criminal played by James Mason.[10] He had featured roles in two 1960s epics, Cleopatra (1963) and The Greatest Story Ever Told, and played a ruthless killer in the western Nevada Smith (both 1965), which starred Steve McQueen.[8]

Landau played the role of master of disguise Rollin Hand in the US television series Mission: Impossible, becoming one of its better-known stars.[11] Landau at first declined to be contracted by the show because he did not want it to interfere with his film career; instead, he was credited for "special guest appearances" during the first season.[12] He became a full-time cast member in the second season, although the studio agreed (at Landau's request) to contract him only on a year-by-year basis rather than the then-standard five years.[13] The role of Hand required Landau to perform a wide range of accents and characters, from dictators to thugs, and several episodes had him playing dual roles—not only Hand's impersonation, but also the person whom Hand is impersonating.[14] Landau co-starred in the series with his then-wife Barbara Bain.[13]

In the mid-1970s, Landau and Bain returned to TV in the British science-fiction series Space: 1999 (first produced by Gerry Anderson in partnership with Sylvia Anderson, and later by Fred Freiberger).[15] Critical response to Space: 1999 was unenthusiastic during its original run, and it was cancelled after two seasons.[16] Landau himself was critical of the scripts and storylines, especially during the series' second season, but praised the cast and crew.[15] He later wrote forewords to Space: 1999 co-star Barry Morse's theatrical memoir Remember With Advantages (2006) and Jim Smith's critical biography of Tim Burton.[17] Following Space: 1999, Landau appeared in supporting roles in a number of films and TV series, including the TV film The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981), which again co-starred Bain (and marked the final time they appeared together on screen).[18]


In the late 1980s, Landau made a career comeback, earning an Academy Award nomination for his role in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988).[16] He said he was grateful to its director, Francis Ford Coppola, for the opportunity to play a role he enjoyed: "I've spent a lot of time playing roles that didn't really challenge me," he said, "You want roles that have dimension. The role of Abe Karatz gave me that."[4] He won the Golden Globe Award for his part in the film.[4]
This was followed by a second nomination, for Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), in a role director Woody Allen had a hard time filling. Allen remembers:

Quote:I just couldn't find anybody good for the part of Judah... He read it, and he was completely natural. It's an interesting thing. Of all the actors I've ever worked with, he gives expression to my dialogue exactly as I hear it. His colloquialisms, his idiom, his inflection is exactly correct. So of all the people who've ever read my lines, he makes them correct every time... One of the reasons for this must be that Martin Landau came from my neighborhood in Brooklyn, right near where I lived, only a few blocks away.[19]

He won an Oscar for Ed Wood (1994), a biopic in which he plays actor Bela Lugosi. Landau researched the role of Lugosi by watching about 25 old Lugosi movies and studying the Hungarian accent, which contributed to Lugosi's decline in acting. "I began to respect this guy and pity him," said Landau. "I saw the humor in him. This, for me, became a love letter to him, because he never got a chance to get out of that. I got a chance to make a comeback in my career. And I'm giving him one. I'm giving him the last role he never got."[20]

Landau also received a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Saturn Award for the role, as well as accolades from a number of critics groups.[16] Gregory Walcott, who was in the film, watched the screening of it at the Motion Picture Academy and said that the Academy members "gave Landau a hearty, spontaneous applause over the end credits."[20]

Landau's film roles in the 1990s included a down-on-his-luck Hollywood producer in the comedy Mistress (1992) with Robert De Niro and as a judge in the dramas City Hall (1995) with Al Pacino and Rounders (1998) with Matt Damon.[14]

In the 1994 Spider-Man TV series, Martin Landau provided the voice of Scorpion for the first two seasons where the later seasons have the role recast to Richard Moll.

He played a supporting role in The Majestic (2001), starring Jim Carrey. The film received mostly negative reviews, although one reviewer wrote that "the lone outpost of authenticity is manned by Martin Landau, who gives a heartfelt performance," as an aging father who believes that his missing son has returned from World War II.[21]

In the early seasons of Without a Trace (2002–09), Landau was nominated for an Emmy Award for his portrayal of the Alzheimer's-afflicted father of FBI Special Agent in Charge Jack Malone, the series' lead character.[16] In 2006, he made a guest appearance in the series Entourage as a washed-up but determined and sympathetic Hollywood producer attempting to relive his glory days, a portrayal that earned him a second Emmy nomination.[16]
Landau appeared in the television film Have a Little Faith (2011) based on Mitch Albom's book of the same name, in which he plays Rabbi Albert Lewis.[22]

In recognition of his services to the motion picture industry, Martin Landau has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6841 Hollywood Boulevard.[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Landau


[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Landau#cite_note-21][/url]

[pbrower2a]

In my attempted allusion to a great movie in which Martin Landau had an impressive role (North by Northwest) and its director Alfred Hitchcock, I shall offer my attempt to emulate the morbid humor so characteristic of the great director:

I hope to soon see the demise of the posts and threads of spammer George Harnon, or whatever. I shall offer no obituary for those posts or the posting-privileges of that cheat.

[pbrower2a]

Japan had its own Greatest Generation. It's unfortunate for Japan and the Japanese that their country ended up on the wrong side of history, but here's a physician who did some things right in some of the worst conditions in which to do medicine:  


Shigeaki Hinohara (日野原 重明) (Shigeaki Hinohara; 4 October 1911 – 18 July 2017) was a Japanese physician. In 1941 he began his long working association with St. Luke's International Hospital in central Tokyo and worked as a medical doctor throughout the wartime firebombing of the city. From 1990 he served as the hospital's honorary director. He was also Sophia University's Grief Care Institute director emeritus. He was honorary chairman of the Foundation Sasakawa Memorial Health Cooperation. Hinohara is credited with establishing and popularizing Japan's practice of annual medical checkups.

[/url]
Hinohara became an honorary member of the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Japanese_Cardiovascular_Society&action=edit&redlink=1]Japanese Cardiovascular Society and received the Second Prize and the Order of Culture. He was honored by Kyoto Imperial University, Thomas Jefferson University and by McMaster University by receiving an honorary doctorate.

Hinohara died on 18 July 2017 in Tokyo at the age of 105.[3][4]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeaki_Hinohara

Comment: The Japanese have one of the world's highest life expectancies.

[pbrower2a]

Lonnie Alfred "Bo" Pilgrim (May 8, 1928-July 21, 2017) was the founder of Pilgrim's Pride, which at one time was the largest chicken producer in the United States. Pilgrim founded Pilgrim's Pride when he opened a feed store in 1946 in Pittsburg, Texas, with his older brother, Aubrey.

In 1989, when the Texas Senate had a debate on a bill to gut state workers' compensation laws, Pilgrim handed out $10,000 US checks on the Senate floor. Pilgrim was a supporter of the bill, and also overwhelmingly contributed to the gubernatorial and presidential campaigns of George W. Bush.

In addition to his holdings in Pilgrim's Pride, he is also principal shareholder of NETEX Bancorporation, a bank holding company which operates Pilgrim Bank, a bank with branches in Pittsburg and nearby Mount Pleasant.

Pilgrim gave the maximum amount allowed by law to Jeb Bush's 2016 Presidential Campaign.[1] He was a frequent contributor to conservative politicians. For several consecutive years he would donate $25,000 to the NRCC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_%22Bo%22_Pilgrim

Comment: an underrated 'player' in the foundation of the anti-worker ideology behind Movement Conservatism. He helped ensure that Texas went far to the Right of America on the whole, essentially making Texas a single-Party state.

[pbrower2a]

Barbara Sinatra, a former model and showgirl who was the fourth and last wife of singer Frank Sinatra, died Tuesday, July 25, 2017, according to multiple news sources. She was 90.

Frank Sinatra preceded her in death nearly 20 years ago. The couple married July 11, 1976. They remained married until his death May 14, 1998. It was the singer’s longest-lasting marriage.

The former Barbara Marx Blakeley was born March 10, 1927, in Bosworth, Missouri.

In 1986, the couple founded the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center in Rancho Mirage, California, a nonprofit organization that provides individual and group therapy for young victims of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

She wrote a book about her life with the entertainer titled “Lady Blue Eyes: My Life With Frank.” In the book, she recalled one of her visits to Frank Sinatra’s home in Palm Springs, California. At the time, she was married to Zeppo Marx, one of the Marx Brothers and a neighbor of the singer. During a game of charades, she was the timekeeper. When Sinatra’s time was up, he grew angry, grabbed the clock from her hands, and threw it against a door.

In a 2011 interview with Andrew Goldman for The New York Times Magazine, Sinatra was asked whether the clock incident gave her pause in getting involved with the star.

“I never felt danger around him. He was always very much a gentleman, and he really cared about treating me well,” she told the writer.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thedail...=186188863

[pbrower2a]

Snooty (July 21, 1948 – July 23, 2017) was a male Florida manatee that resided at the South Florida Museum's Parker Manatee Aquarium in Bradenton, Florida. He was one of the first recorded captive manatee births, and at age 69, he was the oldest manatee in captivity,[1] and possibly the oldest manatee in the world. Due to his hand rearing from birth, Snooty was never released to the wild and was the only manatee at the museum's aquarium that had regular human interaction.[2]

During 1948, Samuel J. Stout, owner of the Miami Aquarium and Tackle Company, acquired a permit from the State of Florida to own a single manatee, a female he had named Lady. On July 21, 1948, Lady gave birth to a male calf Stout named "Baby". Due to his permit allowing him to keep only a single manatee, he had to find a new home for the calf. Around the same time, the city of Bradenton in Manatee County wished to acquire a manatee for their 1949 De Soto Heritage Festival, and learned of the birth of Baby at the Miami Aquarium and Tackle Company.

After De Soto Celebration Association member Walter Hardin acquired a permit for a manatee exhibition, the city built a tank on the municipal pier and arranged for Stout to bring Baby from Miami to Bradenton for the festival. Afterwards, Stout returned with the manatee to Miami, but Stout was still only legally allowed to keep a single manatee.

In April 1949, arrangements were made to allow Baby to become a permanent resident of Bradenton's South Florida Museum, where a new 3,000-U.S.-gallon (11,000 L) round tank was completed in May for Baby. Baby began living in the tank on June 20, 1949. According to the book The Legacy: South Florida Museum, Stout arrived in Bradenton late at night and was unable to locate the museum's curator, Dr. Lester Leigh, to unlock the door, and received help from the sheriff and a group of prisoners to move Baby into his new home.[3] The manatee remained named Baby through November 1949, after which he became known as Baby Snoots, possibly by Stout, or popularly believed to have been inspired by Fanny Brice's The Baby Snooks Show. As the manatee aged, he became known simply as Snooty.[3]

In 1966, the South Florida Aquarium moved from the Bradenton Municipal Pier to its current location, where a new, larger 9,000-U.S.-gallon (34,000 L) pool was built for Snooty. He was also granted official mascot status for Manatee County, Florida. In 1993, the museum underwent renovations, and Snooty was moved to a 60,000-U.S.-gallon (230,000 L) pool. The pool was renovated in 1998 to allow for better care for Snooty and now two more companion manatees for rehabilitation (in accordance with the Manatee Rehabilitation Network, the Sea to Shore Alliance, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission). Since 1998, starting with Newton, the Parker Manatee Aquarium has helped in rehabilitation for 25 manatees.[2]

On July 23, 2017, two days after his 69th birthday, Snooty died as the result of drowning.[4] A hatch door that accesses a plumbing area had been accidentally opened, allowing the manatees access to an area. The younger and smaller manatees were able to go in an out of the area, but due to Snooty's size, he could not return through the hatch to access air. An investigation has been opened to determine how a hatch that was normally bolted shut became open allowing access to a restricted area.[5]

It had been discovered that Snooty was able to remember the voices of former keepers and remember training behaviors he learned when only one year old.[6]

Snooty had also been used in research with the Mote Marine Laboratory. In a 2006 study, it was shown that manatees such as Snooty were capable of experimental tasks much like dolphins, disproving the preconception that manatees are unintelligent.[7]

Snooty's birthday was a popular event at the South Florida Museum, the highlight of which was the presentation of a cake made of vegetables and fruits for Snooty while the visitors all sang Happy Birthday for him. Due to his known date of birth, Snooty is evidence for how long manatees are able to live.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snooty

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June Foray, actress best known for her cartoon voices

June Lucille Forer (September 18, 1917 – July 26, 2017), better known as June Foray, was an American voice actress who was best known as the voice of such animated characters as Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Lucifer from Disney's Cinderella, Cindy Lou Who, Jokey Smurf, Granny from the Warner Bros. cartoons directed by Friz Freleng, Grammi Gummi from Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears series, and Magica De Spell, among many others.

Her career encompassed radio, theatrical shorts, feature films, television, record albums (particularly with Stan Freberg), video games, talking toys, and other media. Foray was also one of the early members of ASIFA-Hollywood, the society devoted to promoting and encouraging animation, and is credited with the establishment of the Annie Awards, as well as instrumental to the creation of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2001. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame honoring her voice work in television.[1]

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In the 1940s, Foray also began film work, including a few roles in live action movies, but mostly doing voice overs for animated cartoons and radio programs and occasionally dubbing films and television.[7] On radio, Foray did the voices of Midnight the Cat and Old Grandie the Piano on The Buster Brown Program, which starred Smilin' Ed McConnell, from 1944 to 1952. She later did voices on the Mutual Network program Smile Time for Steve Allen.[5] Her work in radio ultimately led her to recording for a number of children's albums for Capitol Records.[5]

For Walt Disney, Foray voiced Lucifer the Cat in the feature film Cinderella, Lambert's mother in Lambert the Sheepish Lion, a mermaid in Peter Pan and Witch Hazel in the Donald Duck short Trick or Treat. Decades later, Foray would be the voice of Grandmother Fa in the 1998 animated Disney film Mulan. She also did a variety of voices in Walter Lantz's Woody Woodpecker cartoons, including Woody's nephew and niece, Knothead and Splinter. Impressed by her performance as Witch Hazel, in 1954 Chuck Jones invited her over to Warner Brothers Cartoons.[5] For Warner Brothers, she was Granny (whom she has played on vinyl records starting in 1950, before officially voicing her in Red Riding Hoodwinked, released in 1955, taking over for Bea Benaderet), owner of Tweety and Sylvester, and a series of witches, including Looney Tunes' own Witch Hazel, with Jones as director. Like most of Warner Brothers' voice actors at the time (with the exception of Mel Blanc), Foray was not credited for her roles in these cartoons.[5]

Chuck Jones is reported to have said, "June Foray is not the female Mel Blanc, Mel Blanc was the male June Foray."[8]
She played Bubbles on The Super 6 and Cindy Lou Who, asking "Santa" why he's taking their tree, in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. In 1960, she provided the speech for Mattel's original "Chatty Cathy" doll; [1] capitalizing on this, Foray also voiced the malevolent "Talky Tina" doll in the Twilight Zone episode "Living Doll", first aired on November 1, 1963.


Foray worked for Hanna-Barbera, including on Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, The Jetsons, The Flintstones and many other shows. In 1959, she auditioned for the part of Betty Rubble on The Flintstones, but the part went to Bea Benaderet; Foray described herself as "terribly disappointed" at not getting to play Betty.


She did extensive voice acting for Stan Freberg's commercials, albums, and 1957 radio series, memorably as secretary to the werewolf advertising executive. She also appeared in several Rankin/Bass TV specials in the 1960s and 1970s, voicing the young Karen and the teacher in the TV special Frosty the Snowman (although only her Karen singing parts remained in later airings, after Rankin-Bass re-edited the special a few years after it debuted, with Foray's dialogue re-dubbed by an actress who was uncredited).[citation needed] She also voiced all the female roles in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1975), including the villainous cobra Nagaina.[citation needed] She played multiple characters on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, including Natasha Fatale and Nell Fenwick, as well as male lead character Rocket J. Squirrel (a.k.a. Rocky Squirrel) for Jay Ward,[9] and played Ursula on George of the Jungle; and also starred on Fractured Flickers.[citation needed]
In the mid-1960s, she became devoted to the preservation and promotion of animation and wrote numerous magazine articles about animation.[5] She and a number of other animation artists had informal meetings around Hollywood in the 1960s, and later decided to formalize this as ASIFA-Hollywood, a chapter of the Association Internationale du Film d'Animation (the International Animated Film Association).[10] She is credited with coming up with the idea of the Annie Awards in 1972, awarded by ASIFA-Hollywood, having noted that there had been no awards to celebrate the field of animation.[10] In 1988, she was awarded the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award.[11] In 1995, ASIFA-Hollywood established the June Foray Award,[12] which is awarded to "individuals who have made a significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation." Foray was the first recipient of the award. In 2007, Foray became a contributor to ASIFA-Hollywood's Animation Archive Project.[citation needed] She also had sat on the Governors' board for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and lobbied for two decades for the Academy to establish an Academy Award for animation; the Academy created the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2001 from her petitioning.[10]

In 2007, Britt Irvin became the first person ever to voice a character in a cartoon remake that had been previously played by Foray in the original series when she voiced Ursula in the new George of the Jungle series on Cartoon Network. In 2011, Roz Ryan voiced Witch Lezah (Hazel spelled backwards) in The Looney Tunes Show, opposite June Foray as Granny.


Foray also voiced May Parker in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends from 1981-1983, as well as Raggedy Ann on several TV movies, Grandma Howard on Teen Wolf, Jokey Smurf and Mother Nature on The Smurfs, and Magica De Spell and Ma Beagle in DuckTales. At the same time, she also had a leading role voicing Grammi Gummi on Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, working with her Rocky and Bullwinkle co-star Bill Scott until his death in 1985.

Foray guest starred only once on The Simpsons, in the season one episode "Some Enchanted Evening", as the receptionist for the Rubber Baby Buggy Bumper Babysitting Service. This was a play on a Rocky & Bullwinkle gag years earlier in which none of the cartoon's characters, including narrator William Conrad, was able to pronounce "rubber baby buggy bumpers" unerringly. Foray was later homaged by The Simpsons, in the season eight episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", in which the character June Bellamy is introduced as the voice behind both Itchy and Scratchy.[citation needed] Foray appeared on camera in a major role only once, in Sabaka, as the high priestess of a fire cult. She also appeared on camera in an episode of Green Acres as a Mexican telephone operator. In 1991, she provided her voice as the sock-puppet talk-show host Scary Mary on an episode of Married... with Children. She played cameos in both 1992's Boris & Natasha and 2000's The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Another on-camera appearance was as herself on an episode of the 1984 TV sitcom The Duck Factory, which starred Jim Carrey and Don Messick.


She was often called for ADR voice work for television and feature films. This work included dubbing the voice of Mary Badham in The Twilight Zone episode "The Bewitchin' Pool" and the voices for Sean and Michael Brody in some scenes of the film Jaws. She dubbed several people in Bells Are Ringing, Diana Rigg in some scenes of The Hospital, Robert Blake in drag in an episode of Baretta and a little boy in The Comic.[13]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Foray

[gabrielle]

Jeanne Moreau (1928-2017)

Quote:Actress Jeanne Moreau, one of French cinema's biggest stars of the last 60 years, has died at the age of 89.

Moreau is probably best known for her role in Francois Truffaut's 1962 new wave film Jules et Jim.

She won a number of awards including the best actress prize at Cannes for Moderato Cantabile in 1960.

She also worked with Orson Welles on several films and won the Bafta Award for best foreign actress for Viva Maria! in 1967.

Paying tribute, French President Emmanuel Macron said Moreau had "embodied cinema" and was a free spirit who "always rebelled against the established order".

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Analysis - Nick James, editor of Sight & Sound magazine
Of the three most iconic French actresses of her generation - herself, Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot - Moreau was the one with the most on-screen authority. Post-war French cinema is unthinkable without her.

So many key directors owe important, often breakthrough successes to her - Louis Malle's Lift to the Scaffold and The Lovers, Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim and Jacques Demy's Bay of Angels, for instance.

Her famous sensual presence was backed up with formidable timing and technique, so much so that every major director wanted to work with her - Orson Welles, Michelangelo Antonioni, Joseph Losey and Luis Bunuel among them.

She was, perhaps, the female equivalent of what Welles called a "king" actor - someone who cannot help but be the centre of attention. Certainly, over time, she became almost everyone's idea of the ultimate magnetic French movie star.

Moreau was born in 1928, the daughter of a French restaurateur and a Tiller Girl dancer from Oldham.
She pursued an acting career, despite her father's disapproval, and got her break in the 1957 films Lift to the Scaffold, which had a jazz score by Miles Davis, and The Lovers.

Known for her husky tones, her other films included 1961's La Notte, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni; Luis Bunuel's Diary of a Chambermaid (1964); and Tony Richardson's Mademoiselle (1966).

Welles, who worked with her on films including Chimes at Midnight and his adaptation of Kafka's The Trial, once described her as the greatest actress in the world.

She famously turned down Mike Nichols' invitation to play Mrs Robinson in The Graduate, and instead reunited with Truffaut for 1968's The Bride Wore Black, an homage to Alfred Hitchcock.
She was also known for her singing voice and performed the refrain Le Tourbillon de la Vie in Jules et Jim.
Moreau had a prolific career and continued acting into her 80s.
I
In an interview with the New York Times in 1989, she said: "I work more now because at this time of my life I am not disturbed from my aim by outside pressures such as family, passionate relationships, dealing with who am I - those complications when one is searching for one's self. I have no doubt who I am."

Her theatre career included a role in 1989 as a matchmaker in La Celestine, a 15th Century Spanish play by De Fernando de Rojas.
Moreau won one of France's highest acting honours, a Cesar for best actress, for The Old Lady Who Walked in the Sea in 1992.
A feminist icon for many, the actress once declared: "Physical beauty is a disgrace."

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Ara Parseghian, who died Wednesday at 94, restored Notre Dame football to glory from the mid-1960s to the mid-'70s. Parseghian went 95-17-4 in 11 years in South Bend and led the Fighting Irish to national titles in 1966 and 1973.

He coached in the most infamous tie in college football history, the 1966 "Game of the Century" against Michigan State. It was the biggest AP No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in 20 years and served as the de facto national title game (MSU didn't play a bowl game and Notre Dame didn't participate in bowls at the time). The game ended in a 10-10 deadlock after Parseghian chose to run out the final 1:10 rather than try to move the ball 40 yards into field-goal range. The (un)gamble paid off -- Notre Dame finished first in the AP and UPI polls over Michigan State and undefeated, untied Alabama.

Below is an overview of the rapid transformation Parseghian engineered in South Bend, and how dominant the Irish remained throughout his 11 seasons.


Instant impact

Notre Dame hired Parseghian from Northwestern after his Wildcats not only beat the Irish four times, but reached No. 1 in 1962. Parseghian delivered in his first season beyond anyone's dreams. He took over a team that had gone 2-7 in 1963 and privately hoped for a 6-4 record. Instead, the Irish started 9-0, climbed to No. 1 and came within 1:34 of defeating archrival USC in the season finale to win the national championship. Despite the disappointment, it remains the biggest year-to-year improvement in school history.

The Irish ascended to the top of the AP poll a staggering eight times in Parseghian's 11-year tenure. They had achieved that feat just twice in the 10 years prior to his arrival.

All-Americans

Parseghian coached 21 consensus first-team All-Americans during his time in South Bend, highlighted by his lone Heisman winner, quarterback John Huarte ('64). Parseghian ranks second in that category among Notre Dame's 23 total coaches.

(Frank Leahy 22)
Parseghian 21
(Lou Holtz 14)
(Knute Rockne 11)

Records vs. rivals

The Notre Dame-USC rivalry regained its position among the sport's top rivalries during Parseghian's tenure, but the Trojans and their head coach John McKay proved to be one of the few riddles Parseghian could rarely solve. Notre Dame went just 3-6-2 vs. USC in his 11 years, bookended by the USC's 1964 upset and the Trojans' 55-24 rout of the Irish in 1974, Parseghian's last regular-season game. USC spotted the Irish a 24-0 lead, then scored 55 points in 17 minutes. Parseghian's records against teams he faced at least five times:

(USC 3-6
Michigan State 7-2
Pittsburgh 11-0
Navy 11-0
Northwestern 9-0
Purdue 4-4
Army 6-0
Georgia Tech, Miami, Air Force 5-0)

Key numbers

Parseghian's winning percentage (95-17-4). Since 1964, only two major college football coaches have a higher percentage with at least 10 years at one school: Alabama's Nick Saban is .857 in his 10 seasons from 2007 through 2016, and Oklahoma's Barry Switzer was .8368 from 1973 through 1988.

The number of times Parseghian's teams lost consecutive regular-season games during his 11-year tenure. He's the only Irish coach to avoid that fate since Knute Rockne's hiring in 1918.

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The number of wins Notre Dame improved by in Parseghian's first season -- the best margin in school history.

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The number of NFL first-round picks to play for Parseghian, the most in Notre Dame history.

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Yards yielded per season by the Notre Dame defense under Parseghian. During his tenure, the Irish defense never finished below 15th nationally.

Yards rushing per game averaged by the 1973 national championship team -- a school record.

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Points per game averaged by Parseghian's 1968 team -- a school record. The second-highest total was Lou Holtz's 1992 team (37.2).

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The number of wins Parseghian had against Notre Dame as the coach of Northwestern. Parseghian and University of Chicago's Amos Alonzo Stagg each went 4-0 against the Irish.

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Number of consecutive games No. 1 Texas had won before losing to Parseghian and Notre Dame in the 1971 Cotton Bowl.

http://www.espn.com/college-football/sto...notre-dame

....my comment: the great football coaches are great at recruiting good players capable of fitting into their systems, discipline of young men who may have rarely been away from home for more than a family vacation, and on-field strategy. The reputation of Notre Dame University is that the athletes graduate, a genuine attraction for parents -- never mind that South Bend, Indiana is a dump with few attractions. If you are in South Bend and you don't have a car, then you aren't going to Chicago, Grand Rapids, or even South Haven.

Notre Dame is to South Bend as Yale is to New Haven. If you have ever been to both cities you will understand the analogy very well.