Obituaries

[pbrower2a]

Buck Henry, actor/writer

Henry Zuckerman (December 9, 1930 – January 8, 2020), credited as Buck Henry, was an American actor, screenwriter, and director. He was twice nominated for an Academy Award, in 1968 for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Graduate and in 1979 for Best Director for Heaven Can Wait alongside Warren Beatty. His long career began on television with work on shows with Steve Allen in The New Steve Allen Show (1961). He went on to co-create Get Smart (1965-1970) with Mel Brooks, and hosted Saturday Night Live 10 times from 1976 to 1980. He later guest starred in shows such as Murphy Brown, Will & Grace, and 30 Rock.

Henry was born to a Jewish family[1] in New York City, the son of silent film actress and star of the original Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Ruth Taylor (January 13, 1905 – April 12, 1984) and Paul Steinberg Zuckerman (April 15, 1899 – 1965), a retired Air Force brigadier general and stockbroker.[2][3][4]
Henry attended The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) and Dartmouth College, where he met Bob Rafelson, and also worked on the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern humor magazine.[citation needed]
From 1959 to 1962, as part of an elaborate hoax by comedian Alan Abel, he made public appearances as G. Clifford Prout, the quietly outraged president of the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, who presented his point of view on talk shows.[5] The character of Prout, who wished to clothe all animals in order to prevent their 'indecency', was often presented as an eccentric but was otherwise taken seriously by the broadcasters who interviewed him. 'Prout' received many letters of support from TV viewers, and even some unsolicited monetary donations—all of which were invariably returned, as neither Henry nor Abel (who had no intention of following through on the Society's stated aims) wanted to be accused of raising money fraudulently.[citation needed]

Henry's dry humor attracted attention in the entertainment community. He became a cast member on TV programs such as The New Steve Allen Show (1961) and That Was The Week That Was (1964–65). He was a co-creator and writer for Get Smart (1965–70), with Mel Brooks. Two of his TV projects had short runs but are fondly remembered by fans: Captain Nice (1967) with William Daniels as a reluctant superhero, and Quark (1978), with Richard Benjamin in command of a garbage scow in outer space. He also appeared in the 1989 "My Dinner With Einstein" episode of Murphy Brown as Dr. Victor Rudman, a fractal scientist who dated Murphy.

He appeared on the television show Will and Grace in 2005. In 2007, he made two guest appearances on The Daily Show as a contributor, billed as the show's "Senior Senior Correspondent". He has also appeared as Liz Lemon's father, Dick Lemon, in the 30 Rock episodes "Ludachristmas" (December 13, 2007) and "Gentleman's Intermission" (November 4, 2010). In 2011, he appeared in a multi-episode arc of Hot in Cleveland as Elka's groom.

Henry hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live 10 times between 1976 and 1980, making him the show's most frequent host during its initial five-year run, thus setting a record that held for nearly a decade. This figure does not include the show's second-season Mardi Gras special, for which he was not in fact credited as host, but rather as one of several guest comedy and musical performers. Because he was featured more prominently than any of the other comedy performers who guested on the special episode (which was broadcast live from within the midst of Mardi Gras events in New Orleans), he is sometimes erroneously considered to have been the host of the program. (This role could be more accurately described as having been filled by musical performer Randy Newman).


It became a tradition during these years for Henry to host the final show of each season, beginning with the 1976-1977 season.
Henry's frequent host record would be broken when Steve Martin made his 11th appearance as host of the show on the finale episode of the 1988-1989 season.[6] During the October 30, 1976, episode, Buck Henry was injured in the forehead by John Belushi's katana in the samurai sketch. Henry's head began to bleed and he was forced to wear a large bandage on his forehead for the rest of the show. As a gag, the members of the SNL cast each wore a bandage on their foreheads as well.

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

[pbrower2a]

Talk about some aerial combat!

Russell William Bannock[1] OOnt DSO DFC* (born Bahnuk;[2] November 1, 1919 – January 4, 2020) was a Canadian fighter ace during the Second World War and a chief test pilot for de Havilland Canada.[3]

After entering the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), Bannock received his pilot's wings in 1940 and was appointed as an instructor at Trenton, Ontario. Later he was posted to Royal Air Force Ferry Command from June to August 1942. In September 1942, Bannock became chief instructor with the Flying Instructor School at Arnprior in Ontario. Bannock's request for overseas service was granted in 1944 and he joined 60 OTU based in RAF High Ercall, England.


In June 1944, Bannock was then transferred to No. 418 Squadron RCAF, flying intruder missions over Europe with the de Havilland Mosquito Mk. VI fighter-bomber. He quickly proved adept at this type of operation and achieved his first victories. In October 1944, he was promoted to Wing Commander and took command of the squadron. Bannock also flew 'Diver' operations against the German V-1 "flying bombs" launched against London and southern England. On one mission he shot down four V-1s in one hour. A bar to his Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) was added for his missions against the V-1s.[3]

Bannock was transferred to No. 406 Squadron RCAF in November 1944 as commanding officer, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). By April 1945, Bannock had destroyed 11 enemy aircraft (including 2 on the ground), 4 damaged in the air and 19 V-1's destroyed. Bannock became Director of Operations, RCAF Overseas Headquarters, in London in May 1945 until September 1945 when he attended the Royal Air Force Staff College.

[sbarrera]

A passing much lamented by my generation, which grew up on Rush mix tapes.

Neil Ellwood Peart, September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020) was a Canadian musician and writer best known as the drummer and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush. Peart received numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1983, making him the youngest person ever so honoured. His drumming was renowned for its technical proficiency, and his live performances for their exacting nature and stamina.

Peart was born in Hamilton, Ontario and grew up in Port Dalhousie, Ontario (now part of St. Catharines). During adolescence, he floated between regional bands in pursuit of a career as a full-time drummer. After a discouraging stint in England to concentrate on his music, Peart returned home, where he joined Rush, a Toronto band, in mid-1974.

Early in his career, Peart's performance style was deeply rooted in hard rock. He drew most of his inspiration from drummers such as Keith Moon and John Bonham, players who were at the forefront of the British hard rock scene. As time passed, he began to emulate jazz and big band musicians Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. In 1994, Peart became a friend and pupil of jazz instructor Freddie Gruber. It was during this time that Peart decided to revamp his playing style by incorporating jazz and swing components.

In addition to serving as Rush's primary lyricist, Peart also published several memoirs about his travels. His lyrics for Rush addressed universal themes and diverse subjects including science fiction, fantasy, and philosophy, as well as secular, humanitarian, and libertarian themes. Peart wrote a total of seven nonfiction books focused on his travels and personal stories.

On December 7, 2015, Peart announced his retirement from music in an interview with Drumhead Magazine, though bandmate Geddy Lee insisted Peart was quoted out of context, and suggested Peart was "simply taking a break". However, in January 2018, bandmate Alex Lifeson confirmed that Rush was retiring due to Peart's health issues. During his last years, Peart lived in Santa Monica, California, with his wife, photographer Carrie Nuttall, and daughter Olivia. After a three-year illness, Peart died of glioblastoma on January 7, 2020, at age 67.

More at Wikipedia..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Peart

[pbrower2a]

It's an obscure sport, but this fellow was really good:


Guido Messina (4 January 1931 – 10 January 2020) was an Italian road and track cyclist. On track he won five world titles in the individual 4000 m pursuit between 1948 and 1956, and a gold medal with the Italian team at the 1952 Olympics (individual pursuit became an Olympic event only in 1964, when Messina retired from cycling). Between 1954 and 1963 he rode professionally and won the first stage of the 1955 Giro d'Italia.[1][2]


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

[pbrower2a]

A conservative thinker with some brains:

Sir Roger Vernon Scruton FBA FRSL (/ˈskruːtən/; 27 February 1944 – 12 January 2020) was an English philosopher and writer who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views.[2][3]
Editor from 1982 to 2001 of The Salisbury Review, a conservative political journal, Scruton wrote over 50 books on philosophy, art, music, politics, literature, culture, sexuality, and religion; he also wrote novels and two operas. His most notable publications include The Meaning of Conservatism (1980), Sexual Desire (1986), The Aesthetics of Music (1997), and How to Be a Conservative (2014).[4] He was a regular contributor to the popular media, including The Times, The Spectator, and the New Statesman.

Scruton embraced conservatism after witnessing the May 1968 student protests in France. From 1971 to 1992 he was a lecturer and professor of aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London, after which he held several part-time academic positions, including in the United States.[5] In the 1980s he helped to establish underground academic networks in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe, for which he was awarded the Czech Republic's Medal of Merit (First Class) by President Václav Havel in 1998.[6] Scruton was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for "services to philosophy, teaching and public education".

From 1979 to 1989, Scruton was an active supporter of dissidents in Czechoslovakia under Communist Party rule, forging links between the country's dissident academics and their counterparts in Western universities. As part of the Jan Hus Educational Foundation,[50] he and other academics visited Prague and Brno, now in the Czech Republic, in support of an underground education network started by the Czech dissident Julius Tomin, smuggling in books, organizing lectures, and eventually arranging for students to study for a Cambridge external degree in theology (the only faculty that responded to the request for help). There were structured courses and samizdat translations, books were printed, and people sat exams in a cellar with papers smuggled out through the diplomatic bag.[51][52]


Scruton was detained in 1985 in Brno before being expelled from the country. The Czech dissident Bronislava Müllerová watched him walk across the border with Austria: "There was this broad empty space between the two border posts, absolutely empty, not a single human being in sight except for one soldier, and across that broad empty space trudged an English philosopher, Roger Scruton, with his little bag into Austria."[53] On 17 June that year, he was placed on the Index of Undesirable Persons. He wrote that he had also been followed during visits to Poland and Hungary.[54]

For his work in supporting dissidents, Scruton was awarded the First of June Prize in 1993 by the Czech city of Plzeň, and in 1998 he was awarded the Czech Republic's Medal of Merit (First Class) by President Václav Havel.[54] In 2019 the Polish government awarded him the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.[55] Scruton was strongly critical of figures in the West—in particular Eric Hobsbawm—who "chose to exonerate" the crimes and atrocities of former communist regimes.[56] His experience of dissident intellectual life in 1980s Communist Prague is recorded in fictional form in his novel Notes from Underground (2014).[57] He wrote in 2019 that "despite the appeal of the Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and many more, it is the shy, cynical Czechs to whom I lost my heart and from whom I have never retrieved it".

From 2001 to 2009 Scruton wrote a wine column for the New Statesman, and contributed to The World of Fine Wine and Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine (2007), with his essay "The Philosophy of Wine". His book I Drink Therefore I am: A Philosopher's Guide to Wine (2009) in part comprises material from his New Statesman column.[85][86] Scruton also wrote three libretti, two set to music. The first is a one-act chamber piece, The Minister (1994),[87] and the second a two-act opera, Violet (2005). The latter, based on the life of the British harpsichordist Violet Gordon-Woodhouse, was performed twice at the Guildhall School of Music in London in 2005.

Scruton specialised in aesthetics throughout his career. From 1971 to 1992 he taught aesthetics at Birkbeck College. His PhD thesis formed the basis of his first book, Art and Imagination (1974), in which he argued that "what demarcates aesthetic interest from other sorts is that it involves the appreciation of something for its own sake".[111] He subsequently published The Aesthetics of Architecture (1979), The Aesthetic Understanding (1983 and 1997), The Aesthetics of Music (1997), and Beauty (2010). In 2008 a two-day conference was held at Durham University to assess his impact in the field, and in 2012 a collection of essays, Scruton's Aesthetics, was published by Palgrave Macmillan.[112]

In an Intelligence Squared debate in March 2009, Scruton (seconding historian David Starkey) proposed the motion: "Britain has become indifferent to beauty", and held an image of Botticelli's The Birth of Venus next to one of the supermodel Kate Moss.[113] Later that year he wrote and presented a BBC Two documentary, Why Beauty Matters, in which he argued that beauty should be restored to its traditional position in art, architecture and music.[114] He wrote that he had received "more than 500 e-mails from viewers, all but one saying, 'Thank Heavens someone is saying what needs to be said.'"[115] In 2018 he argued that a belief in God makes for more beautiful architecture: "Who can doubt, on visiting Venice, that this abundant flower of aesthetic endeavor was rooted in faith and watered by penitential tears? Surely, if we want to build settlements today we should heed the lesson of Venice. We should begin always with an act of consecration, since we thereby put down the real roots of a community."[116][117]


Arguments for conservatism[



Scruton was best known for his writing in support of conservatism.[118] His intellectual heroes, according to Mark Dooley, are Edmund Burke, Coleridge, Dostoevsky, Hegel, Ruskin, and T. S. Eliot.[119] Scruton's second book, The Meaning of Conservatism (1980)—which he called "a somewhat Hegelian defence of Tory values in the face of their betrayal by the free marketeers"[120]—was responsible, he said, for blighting his academic career.[20][121] He supported Margaret Thatcher, while sceptical of her view of the market as a solution to everything, but after the Falklands War, he realized that she "recognised that the self-identity of the country was at stake, and that its revival was a political task".[122]


Scruton wrote in Gentle Regrets (2005) that he found several of Burke's arguments in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) persuasive. Although Burke was writing about revolution, not socialism, Scruton was persuaded that, as he put it, the utopian promises of socialism are accompanied by an abstract vision of the mind that bears little relation to the way most people think. Burke also convinced him that there is no direction to history, no moral or spiritual progress; that people think collectively toward a common goal only during crises such as war, and that trying to organize society this way requires a real or imagined enemy; hence, Scruton wrote, the strident tone of socialist literature.[123]


Scruton further argued, following Burke, that society is held together by authority and the rule of law, in the sense of the right to obedience, not by the imagined rights of citizens. Obedience, he wrote, is "the prime virtue of political beings, the disposition that makes it possible to govern them, and without which societies crumble into 'the dust and powder of individuality'". Real freedom, Scruton wrote, does not stand in conflict with obedience, but is its other side.[123] He was also persuaded by Burke's arguments about the social contract, including that most parties to the contract are either dead or not yet born. To forget this, he wrote—to throw away customs and institutions—is to "place the present members of society in a dictatorial dominance over those who went before, and those who came after them".[124]


Scruton argued that beliefs that appear to be examples of prejudice may be useful and important: "our most necessary beliefs may be both unjustified and unjustifiable, from our own perspective, and the attempt to justify them will merely lead to their loss." A prejudice in favour of modesty in women and chivalry in men, for example, may aid the stability of sexual relationships and the raising of children, although these are not offered as reasons in support of the prejudice. It may therefore be easy to show the prejudice as irrational, but there will be a loss nonetheless if it is discarded.[125] Scruton was critical of the contemporary feminist movement, while reserving praise for suffragists such as Mary Wollstonecraft.[20] However, he praised Germaine Greer in 2016, saying that she had "cast an awful lot of light on our literary tradition" by showing the male as the dominant figure, and defended her against criticism for having used the word "sex" to describe the difference between men and women, rather than "gender", which Scruton called "politically correct".[126]

[/url]

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nexus_Masterclass_Roger_Scruton,_November_2015.webm]
Scruton discussing the European Union and the nation state, November 2015

In Arguments for Conservatism (2006), Scruton marked out the areas in which philosophical thinking is required if conservatism is to be intellectually persuasive. He argued that human beings are creatures of limited and local affections. Territorial loyalty is at the root of all forms of government where law and liberty reign supreme; every expansion of jurisdiction beyond the frontiers of the nation state leads to a decline in accountability.[127]

He opposed elevating the "nation" above its people, which would threaten rather than facilitate citizenship and peace. "Conservatism and conservation" are two aspects of a single policy, that of husbanding resources, including the social capital embodied in laws, customs and institutions, and the material capital contained in the environment. He argued further that the law should not be used as a weapon to advance special interests. People impatient for reform—for example in the areas of euthanasia or abortion—are reluctant to accept what may be "glaringly obvious to others—that the law exists precisely to impede their ambitions".[128]

The book defines post-modernism as the claim that there are no grounds for truth, objectivity, and meaning, and that conflicts between views are therefore nothing more than contests of power. Scruton argued that, while the West is required to judge other cultures in their own terms, Western culture is adversely judged as ethnocentric and racist. He wrote: "The very reasoning which sets out to destroy the ideas of objective truth and absolute value imposes political correctness as absolutely binding, and cultural relativism as objectively true."[129]

Totalitarianism


Scruton defined totalitarianism as the absence of any constraint on central authority, with every aspect of life the concern of government. Advocates of totalitarianism feed on resentment, Scruton argues, and having seized power they proceed to abolish institutions—such as the law, property, and religion—that create authorities: "To the resentful it is these institutions that are the cause of inequality, and therefore the cause of their humiliations and failures." He argues that revolutions are not conducted from below by the people, but from above, in the name of the people, by an aspiring elite.[131] The importance of Newspeak in totalitarian societies, he writes, is that the power of language to describe reality is replaced by language whose purpose is to avoid encounters with realities. He agrees with Alain Besançon that the totalitarian society envisaged by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) can be only understood in theological terms, as a society founded on a transcendental negation. In accordance with T. S. Eliot, Scruton believes that true originality is only possible within a tradition, and that it is precisely in modern conditions—conditions of fragmentation, heresy, and unbelief—that the conservative project acquires its sense.[136]



Sex



The philosopher of religion Christopher Hamilton described Scruton's Sexual Desire (1986) as "the most interesting and insightful philosophical account of sexual desire" produced within analytic philosophy.[137] The book influenced subsequent discussions of sexual ethics.[138][139][140] Martha Nussbaum credited Scruton in 1997 with having provided "the most interesting philosophical attempt as yet to work through the moral issues involved in our treatment of persons as sex partners".[141]

According to Jonathan Dollimore, Scruton based a conservative sexual ethic on the Hegelian proposition that "the final end of every rational being is the building of the self", which involves recognizing the other as an end in itself. Scruton argues that the major feature of perversion is "sexual release that avoids or abolishes the other", which he sees as narcissistic and solipsistic.[142] Nussbaum countered that Scruton did not apply his principle of otherness equally—for example, to sexual relationships between adults and children or between Protestants and Catholics.[143] In an essay, "Sexual morality and the liberal consensus" (1990), Scruton wrote that homosexuality is a perversion because the body of the homosexual's lover belongs to the same category as his own.[144] He further argued that gay people have no children and consequently no interest in creating a socially stable future. He therefore considered it justified to "instil in our children feelings of revulsion" towards homosexuality,[133] and in 2007 he challenged the idea that gay people should have the right to adopt.[145] Scruton told The Guardian in 2010 that he would no longer defend the view that revulsion against homosexuality can be justified.[20]

[pbrower2a]

LONDON (AP) — Christopher Tolkien, who played a major role protecting the legacy of his father’s “The Lord of the Rings” series, has died. He was 95.

The Tolkien Society and HarperCollins UK confirmed his death but no details were provided.

Tolkien’s life work was closely identified with that of his father, J.R.R. Tolkien. He helped edit and publish much of his father’s writings after the science fiction and fantasy master died in 1973.

Among the books he worked on were “The Silmarillion,” “The Children Of Hurin,” and other texts that flesh out the complex world his father created.


He also drew the original maps that adorned the trilogy of books released in the 1950s.

Tolkien Society chairman Shaun Gunner said “millions of people around the world will be forever grateful to Christopher for bringing us” so many of his father’s literary works.

“Christopher’s commitment to his father’s works have seen dozens of publications released, and his own work as an academic in Oxford demonstrates his ability and skill as a scholar,” he said. “We have lost a titan and he will be sorely missed.”

https://apnews.com/c2af968ffba867d283cde9fa6c396671

[pbrower2a]

Barry Emmanuel Tuckwell AC, OBE (5 March 1931 – 16 January 2020) was an Australian horn player who spent most of his professional life in the United Kingdom and the United States. He is generally considered to have been one of the world's leading horn players.

Barry Tuckwell was born on 5 March 1931 in Melbourne, son of Charles Tuckwell, an organist,[2] and his wife Elizabeth. March 5 is known by many as the Horn Duumvirate Date, as it was the birth date of both Tuckwell and Philip Farkas, both highly regarded horn players. He had an older sister, Patricia, a violinist and fashion model widely known as Bambi. She married the photographer Athol Shmith and later George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.

After studying the piano, organ and violin as a chorister at St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, Tuckwell was introduced to the horn at age 13[3] and was playing professionally within six months. He studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music under Alan Mann, one of Australia's most influential brass players. Tuckwell has said, "The horn chose me. Right from the beginning, it was something I knew I could do."[citation needed]

Tuckwell related an anecdote regarding his choice of instrument: sitting in a cafe one day with his sister Patricia, Charles Mackerras and a horn player from the local symphony, Patricia speculated on what Tuckwell's future in music might be. The horn player suggested, "Why not try the horn?" Tuckwell did so and within two years was playing in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.[4] With characteristic humour, when recounting this at the British Horn Society's festival in 2005, he turned to the audience and said, "One note a time, piece of cake!" The horn is often reckoned to be one of the most difficult orchestral instruments to master.[5]



At 15, Tuckwell was appointed by Joseph Post as third horn with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. A year later, he joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Goossens, where he remained for three and a half years before leaving for England. His first appointment in 1951 was with the Hallé Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli.[6] After two years, he went to the Scottish National Orchestra under Karl Rankl and a year later to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Charles Groves. In 1955, he was appointed first horn with the London Symphony Orchestra.[6]

During his 13 years with the LSO, a co-operative orchestra run by the players, he was elected to the Board of Directors and was Chairman of the Board for six years. The chief conductors during this time were Josef Krips, Pierre Monteux, István Kertész and André Previn.



He resigned from the orchestra in 1968 to pursue a career as a soloist and conductor. For the next thirty years, he carved out a career exclusively as soloist — one of the few horn virtuosos to have done so[citation needed], rather than combining occasional concert performances with an orchestral position or a teaching post. At the age of 65, he decided to retire. His last concert was with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 1997, at the age of 65.[7]

He was one of the most recorded horn soloists,[8] having made over 50 recordings. He has received three Grammy Award nominations.



In 1962 he formed a trio with Brenton Langbein (violin) and Maureen Jones (piano) for a performance of the Horn Trio by Don Banks, which was commissioned by the Edinburgh Festival. The trio played together for many years, touring in Europe, Asia and Australia until the death of Brenton Langbein. They recorded the Banks Trio, the Brahms Trio, and Quatre Petites Pièces by Charles Koechlin for Tudor records.

He formed a wind quintet in 1968, which also toured internationally.



Tuckwell was also well known as a conductor, appearing with leading orchestras in Europe and the United States. For four seasons he was Chief Conductor of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and in 1982 founded the Maryland Symphony Orchestra. He enjoyed a long association with the Northern Sinfonia and was appointed their Guest Conductor following an acclaimed fourteen-concert tour of North America.

Recordings as a conductor include three CDs with the London Symphony Orchestra of music by Dvořák, Elgar and Wagner. More recently, he conducted the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in an ABC Classics recording of the Mozart horn concertos with soloist Lin Jiang and The Queensland Orchestra for Melba Recordings of horn concertos with Ben Jacks.

Works written for Tuckwell[edit]

Many composers wrote works for Barry Tuckwell. Oliver Knussen, Don Banks, Gunther Schuller, Robin Holloway, and Thea Musgrave wrote concertos; Richard Rodney Bennett wrote "Acteon" for horn and large orchestra at Tuckwell's request.[9]



Barry Tuckwell wrote three important books on the horn and horn playing. For the Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides, he wrote the book on the horn. His definitive manual Playing the Horn was published by Oxford University Press (now out of print) as was Fifty First Exercises.



Tuckwell was famous for his master classes. He was Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College and Pomona College in the USA, and was Professor of Horn at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1963 until 1974.[6] He served as Distinguished Visiting Faculty at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore in the 1980s and 1990s. He held the position of Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and for several years hosted the annual Barry Tuckwell Institute at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado.



Tuckwell was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1992.[10]

Among the many other awards he has received are an Honorary Doctor of Music from the University of Sydney, Fellow of the Royal College of Music, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Music in America, the Andrew White Medal from Loyola College, the Harriet Cohen Memorial Award, the J. C. Williamson Award, and most recently, the Sir Bernard Heinze Award for outstanding contribution to music in Australia.

He was also an honorary member of both the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

He was the first president of the International Horn Society and was honorary president of the British Horn Society and the patron of the Melbourne International Festival of Brass.

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.[11]


Tuckwell died, aged 88, on 16 January 2020.[12]

[beechnut79]

(01-17-2020, 11:28 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Barry Emmanuel Tuckwell AC, OBE (5 March 1931 – 16 January 2020) was an Australian horn player who spent most of his professional life in the United Kingdom and the United States. He is generally considered to have been one of the world's leading horn players.

Barry Tuckwell was born on 5 March 1931 in Melbourne, son of Charles Tuckwell, an organist,[2] and his wife Elizabeth. March 5 is known by many as the Horn Duumvirate Date, as it was the birth date of both Tuckwell and Philip Farkas, both highly regarded horn players. He had an older sister, Patricia, a violinist and fashion model widely known as Bambi. She married the photographer Athol Shmith and later George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.

After studying the piano, organ and violin as a chorister at St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, Tuckwell was introduced to the horn at age 13[3] and was playing professionally within six months. He studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music under Alan Mann, one of Australia's most influential brass players. Tuckwell has said, "The horn chose me. Right from the beginning, it was something I knew I could do."[citation needed]

Tuckwell related an anecdote regarding his choice of instrument: sitting in a cafe one day with his sister Patricia, Charles Mackerras and a horn player from the local symphony, Patricia speculated on what Tuckwell's future in music might be. The horn player suggested, "Why not try the horn?" Tuckwell did so and within two years was playing in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.[4] With characteristic humour, when recounting this at the British Horn Society's festival in 2005, he turned to the audience and said, "One note a time, piece of cake!" The horn is often reckoned to be one of the most difficult orchestral instruments to master.[5]



At 15, Tuckwell was appointed by Joseph Post as third horn with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. A year later, he joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Goossens, where he remained for three and a half years before leaving for England. His first appointment in 1951 was with the Hallé Orchestra under Sir John Barbirolli.[6] After two years, he went to the Scottish National Orchestra under Karl Rankl and a year later to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Charles Groves. In 1955, he was appointed first horn with the London Symphony Orchestra.[6]

During his 13 years with the LSO, a co-operative orchestra run by the players, he was elected to the Board of Directors and was Chairman of the Board for six years. The chief conductors during this time were Josef Krips, Pierre Monteux, István Kertész and André Previn.



He resigned from the orchestra in 1968 to pursue a career as a soloist and conductor. For the next thirty years, he carved out a career exclusively as soloist — one of the few horn virtuosos to have done so[citation needed], rather than combining occasional concert performances with an orchestral position or a teaching post. At the age of 65, he decided to retire. His last concert was with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 1997, at the age of 65.[7]

He was one of the most recorded horn soloists,[8] having made over 50 recordings. He has received three Grammy Award nominations.



In 1962 he formed a trio with Brenton Langbein (violin) and Maureen Jones (piano) for a performance of the Horn Trio by Don Banks, which was commissioned by the Edinburgh Festival. The trio played together for many years, touring in Europe, Asia and Australia until the death of Brenton Langbein. They recorded the Banks Trio, the Brahms Trio, and Quatre Petites Pièces by Charles Koechlin for Tudor records.

He formed a wind quintet in 1968, which also toured internationally.



Tuckwell was also well known as a conductor, appearing with leading orchestras in Europe and the United States. For four seasons he was Chief Conductor of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and in 1982 founded the Maryland Symphony Orchestra. He enjoyed a long association with the Northern Sinfonia and was appointed their Guest Conductor following an acclaimed fourteen-concert tour of North America.

Recordings as a conductor include three CDs with the London Symphony Orchestra of music by Dvořák, Elgar and Wagner. More recently, he conducted the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in an ABC Classics recording of the Mozart horn concertos with soloist Lin Jiang and The Queensland Orchestra for Melba Recordings of horn concertos with Ben Jacks.

Works written for Tuckwell[edit]

Many composers wrote works for Barry Tuckwell. Oliver Knussen, Don Banks, Gunther Schuller, Robin Holloway, and Thea Musgrave wrote concertos; Richard Rodney Bennett wrote "Acteon" for horn and large orchestra at Tuckwell's request.[9]



Barry Tuckwell wrote three important books on the horn and horn playing. For the Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides, he wrote the book on the horn. His definitive manual Playing the Horn was published by Oxford University Press (now out of print) as was Fifty First Exercises.



Tuckwell was famous for his master classes. He was Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College and Pomona College in the USA, and was Professor of Horn at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1963 until 1974.[6] He served as Distinguished Visiting Faculty at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore in the 1980s and 1990s. He held the position of Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and for several years hosted the annual Barry Tuckwell Institute at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado.



Tuckwell was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1992.[10]

Among the many other awards he has received are an Honorary Doctor of Music from the University of Sydney, Fellow of the Royal College of Music, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Music in America, the Andrew White Medal from Loyola College, the Harriet Cohen Memorial Award, the J. C. Williamson Award, and most recently, the Sir Bernard Heinze Award for outstanding contribution to music in Australia.

He was also an honorary member of both the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

He was the first president of the International Horn Society and was honorary president of the British Horn Society and the patron of the Melbourne International Festival of Brass.

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.[11]


Tuckwell died, aged 88, on 16 January 2020.[12]

David Olney, 71, songwriter who had songs recorded by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt and Steve Earle, while in attendance at a songwriter round table in Florida. He also had released many albums as a performer.

https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/legen...g-onstage/

[pbrower2a]

televangelist Jack Van Impe

Jack Leo Van Impe (February 9, 1931 – January 18, 2020) was an American televangelist known for his half-hour weekly television series Jack Van Impe Presents, an eschatological commentary on the news of the week through an interpretation of the Bible. The program airs around the world through both religious broadcasters and the purchase of paid programming time on commercial television stations. He was known as the "Walking Bible,” having memorized most of the King James Version of the Bible.[1] His wife, Rexella, shared his TV ministry as co-host.

Van Impe's parents, Oscar Alphonse Van Impe and Marie Louise, née Piot, immigrated from Belgium to the city of Troy, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, in the United States in 1929. Jack Leo Van Impe was born on February 9, 1931, in Freeport, Michigan.[2][3] He was the couple's only child. The reason why Van Impe had decided to become an evangelist was because his father was a missionary with very strong faith.

According to Van Impe, he and his father Oscar played the accordion at night clubs, and Oscar regularly swore and drank alcohol, and believed that religion was hogwash. At meals, Van Impe would drink alcoholic beverages along with his father which is a European tradition. Then when Van Impe was twelve years old, Oscar converted to evangelical Christianity, and Oscar and Jack Van Impe together smashed all of their bottles of alcoholic beverages. Since that event, Van Impe has not consumed any alcohol.

Jack Van Impe played accordion duets with his missionary father across Michigan and other states. In 1948, Van Impe graduated from high school and entered Detroit Bible Institute, where he earned his diploma in 1952. It was at that point that he began his career as a preacher and evangelist and extensive recording career.

While working with the Billy Graham crusades, he was at a Youth For Christ rally with Chuck Ohman (a friend of Jack's who was a trumpeter for Percy Crawford's "Youth on the March" television broadcasts[4]). Here, Jack Van Impe met his future wife, Rexella Mae Shelton, who was an organist with the crusades. Rexella was born in Missouri on November 29, 1932,[5] and was named after her father, Rex Shelton. The couple were married on August 21, 1954, and together started Jack Van Impe Ministries.

Jack Van Impe believed in one particular interpretation of the literal meaning of the Bible (King James version) that states, according to Revelation 13, that a single world political leader (The Beast) and a single world religious leader (the False Prophet) will emerge, but The Rapture will happen before either leader comes to power. He believed that the Bible teaches that the world will be organized into ten political subdivisions, based on the ten-district plan set up by the Club of Rome,[6] and that this ten-division world empire will be jointly ruled by the European Union and the Islamic world, which he believed are represented by the two iron legs of the prophetic dream statue in the Book of Daniel. Van Impe believed in the Prophecy of the Popes, and that according to said prophecy, Pope Francis is Peter the Roman, the predicted pope who will preside during Armageddon.

Van Impe preached a Pre-Tribulation Rapture of 'The Body of Christ' and also said a one-world religion will form, named "Chrislam"; the joining of the world's two largest religions (Christianity and Islam). He believed that the Bible states that the world political leader will "come in peaceably" (per Daniel 11:21) and create a seven-year peace deal involving Israel (per Daniel 9:27). Then, three and a half years into the peace, Russia (the interpreted meaning of 'Rosh' from Ezekiel 38:2 and 39:1; Van Impe also identified Meshech and Tubal from the same passages as Moscow and Tobolsk respectively), along with its Middle Eastern allies ('Persia, Cush, and Put', from Ezekiel 38:5), will break the peace by invading Israel, according to Ezekiel 38, and the military of Russia and its allies will be decimated by nuclear warfare and pushed back to Siberia. Then China (the interpreted meaning of 'kings from the east' from Revelation 16:12) will invade, and the military of China will likewise be decimated when Jesus returns.

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

[pbrower2a]

Arch-nemesis of America's "Deep State"... in his day:

Ivan Lavrentevich Ustinov (Russian: Иван Лаврентьевич Устинов; 1 January 1920 – 15 January 2020) was a Soviet intelligence officer who held a number of posts in Soviet military counterintelligence, reaching the rank of general-lieutenant.
Born in 1920, Ustinov joined the Red Army in 1939 and was assigned to serve in the state's security organs. He had begun his operational studies two weeks before the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, and was soon in service in the front lines. He saw action at the Battle of Smolensk and the fighting around Vyazma, having to escape encirclement before he could rejoin the Soviet forces. He served on several of the fronts during the Second World War, as part of the detachments of NKVD and SMERSH operatives assigned to army groupings. By the end of the war he was head of a SMERSH detachment with a regiment, and during the 1950s was part of military counterintelligence assigned to the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, as part of the Ministry of State Security (MGB), and its successors the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), and finally the Committee for State Security (KGB).

Ustinov then served in various positions with the KGB's Third Directorate in the 6th Guards Tank Army, and the Far Eastern Military District, eventually becoming deputy head and then head of the KGB's entire Third Directorate, effectively leading the Soviet Union's military counterintelligence. His final active posting was a return to the Soviet Forces in Germany as Head of the KGB's Special Directorate there. In the KGB's reserve after 1981, he served as advisor to the chairman of Gosplan on security issues until his retirement in 1991.

In retirement Ustinov published on the subject of the history of military counterintelligence, took part in anniversary events and was a consultant on documentary films. He had received a number of honours and awards over his career, and died in 2020, shortly after his 100th birthday.

From November 1945 Ustinov was deputy head of the SMERSH detachment for the 36th Guards Rifle Corps in the Baltic Military District.[2] Further postings in the 1950s were primarily with the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. In April 1951 he became Deputy Head of the 3rd Division of the Second Main Directorate [ru] of the Ministry of State Security (MGB) for the Soviet Forces in Germany, holding the post until November 1952, when he became Secretary of the Directorate's Party Committee, followed by the Secretary of the Party Committee for the Directorate of Special Divisions [ru] in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) for Soviet Forces in Germany from March 1953 until March 1954.[2] He continued to hold the post after the MVD was replaced by the Committee for State Security (KGB) that month, and in December 1954 became Head of the KGB's 3rd Department for the Soviet Forces in Germany.[1][2] Ustinov held this post until January 1957, when he returned to the Soviet Union as Deputy Head of the KGB's military counterintelligence section in the 69th Air Army.[2]

[/url]
Certification for a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMERSH]SMERSH agent. Ustinov's career was spent with the various military counterintelligence organs, including the NKVD, SMERSH, the MGB, MVD, and KGB.

Ustinov's next post was as head of the KGB's military counterintelligence section of the 6th Guards Tank Army between August 1958 and July 1963, after which he became Deputy Head of the KGB's Special Directorate for the Far Eastern Military District until 1966.[2] In August that year he became head of the directorate, holding the post until February 1968.[2] He was during this time promoted to the rank of major general on 20 December 1966.[2] In February 1968 Ustinov was appointed Deputy Head of the KGB's Third Directorate, holding the position until becoming head of the directorate on 4 September 1970, effectively leading the Soviet Union's military counterintelligence.[1][3][5] Promoted to general-lieutenant on 15 June 1971, Ustinov was next appointed Head of the KGB's Special Directorate for the Soviet Forces in Germany from November 1973 until July 1981.[1][2] He was then transferred to the KGB's reserve and served as advisor to the chairman of Gosplan on security issues until Ustinov's retirement in September 1991.[2][5]


More at Wikipedia.

[pbrower2a]

Dee Molenaar, centenarian outdoorsman

Dee Molenaar (June 21, 1918 – January 19, 2020) was an American mountaineer, author and artist. He is best known as the author of The Challenge of Rainier, first published in 1971 and considered the definitive work on the climbing history of Mount Rainier.[1]

Molenaar was born in Los Angeles, California to Dutch immigrant parents. During World War II, he served as a photographer in the U.S. Coast Guard in the Aleutian Islands and western Pacific. In 1950, he earned a BSc degree in geology at the University of Washington, and then served as civilian advisor in at Camp Hale.

Molenaar worked as a park ranger and mountain guide in Mount Rainier National Park, climbing the mountain over 50 times as a guide and on personal trips, via more than a dozen different routes including three first ascents.[2] He participated in the 1946 second ascent of Mount Saint Elias in Alaska. He was a member of the Third American Karakoram Expedition, a 1953 mountaineering expedition to K2 in which the party became trapped during a severe storm.[3] Along with "Big Jim" Jim Whittaker and Robert F. Kennedy, he was a member of the 1965 climb and first ascent of Mount Kennedy in the Yukon, named after John F. Kennedy.[4]
His career with the United States Geological Survey took him to Alaska, Colorado, Utah, and Washington, until his retirement in 1983. On April 7, 2012, the American Alpine Club inducted Molenaar into its Hall of Mountaineering Excellence at an award ceremony in Golden, Colorado.[5] He turned 100 in June 2018.[6]

Molenaar painted in watercolors and oils. He is known for his impressionism-style art with mountain and desert landscapes the dominant theme in his works. He painted the highest watercolor in history, spending 10 days in a tent painting K2 from memory at 25,000 feet during a severe storm that hit during the 1953 expedition. With precious fuel for melting snow running low, his teammates made him drink the remaining water colored with pigments.[3]


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

[pbrower2a]

Terry Jones of the Monty Python crew:

Terence Graham Parry Jones (1 February 1942 – 21 January 2020)[1][2][3] was a Welsh actor, writer, comedian, screenwriter, film director and historian. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy team.  


After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, Jones and writing partner Michael Palin (whom he met at Oxford) wrote and performed for several high-profile British comedy programmes, including Do Not Adjust Your Set and The Frost Report, before creating Monty Python's Flying Circus with Cambridge graduates Eric Idle, John Cleese, and Graham Chapman, and American animator/filmmaker Terry Gilliam. Jones was largely responsible for the programme's innovative, surreal structure, in which sketches flowed from one to the next without the use of punchlines. He made his directorial debut with the team's first film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which he co-directed with Gilliam, and also directed the subsequent Python films, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.
Jones co-created and co-wrote with Palin the anthology series Ripping Yarns. He also wrote an early draft of Jim Henson's 1986 film Labyrinth, though little of his work remained in the final cut. Jones was a well-respected medieval historian, having written several books and presented television documentaries about the period, as well as a prolific children's book author.

In 2016, Jones received a Lifetime Achievement award at the BAFTA Cymru Awards for his outstanding contribution to television and film. After living for several years with a degenerative aphasia, he gradually lost the ability to speak and died on 21 January 2020.[2]

Jones was born in the seaside town of Colwyn Bay, on the north coast of Wales, the son of Dilys Louisa (Newnes), a homemaker, and Alick George Parry Jones, a bank clerk.[2][4] The family home was named Bodchwil. His father was stationed with the RAF in India. When Jones was four-and-a-half, the family moved to Surrey, England.[5]

Jones attended Esher COE primary school, followed by the Royal Grammar School[6] in Guildford, where he was school captain in the 1960–61 academic year. He read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, but "strayed into history".[7][8] He became interested in the medieval period through reading Chaucer as part of his English degree.[9] He graduated with a 2:1.[10] While there, he performed comedy with future Monty Python castmate Michael Palin in the Oxford Revue. Jones was a year ahead of Palin at Oxford, and on first meeting him Palin states, "The first thing that struck me was what a nice bloke he was. He had no airs and graces. We had a similar idea of what humour could do and where it should go, mainly because we both liked characters; we both appreciated that comedy wasn't just jokes."[11]

[/url]
Jones performing “The Spanish Inquisition” sketch in 2014. He plays Cardinal Biggles (who resembles his namesake Biggles in wearing a leather aviator's helmet and goggles). The sketch was first broadcast 22 September 1970

Jones appeared in Twice a Fortnight with Michael Palin, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, as well as the television series The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969). He appeared in Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967–69) with Palin, Eric Idle and David Jason. He wrote for The Frost Report and several other David Frost programmes on British television.[12][13] Of Jones' contributions as a performer to Monty Python's Flying Circus, his depictions of middle-aged women (or "ratbag old women" as termed by the BBC, also known as "pepper-pots") are among the most memorable.[14]

Jones co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Gilliam, and was sole director on two further Monty Python movies, Life of Brian and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. As a film director, Jones finally gained fuller control of the projects and devised a visual style that complemented the humour. His later films include Erik the Viking (1989) and The Wind in the Willows (1996). In 2008, Jones wrote the libretto for and directed the opera Evil Machines.[15] In 2011, he was commissioned to direct and write the libretto for another opera, entitled The Doctor's Tale.[16]

Three of the films which Jones directed—The Meaning of Life, Monty Python's Life of Brian and Personal Services—were banned in Ireland.[17]

Jones directed the 2015 comedy film Absolutely Anything, about a disillusioned schoolteacher who is given the chance to do anything he wishes by a group of aliens watching from space.[18] The film features Simon Pegg, Kate Beckinsale, Robin Williams and the voices of the five remaining members of Monty Python. It was filmed in London during a six-week shoot.[19]

Jones reading in 2007

Jones wrote many books and screenplays, including comic works and more serious writing on medieval history.[20][21]

Jones co-wrote Ripping Yarns with Palin. They also wrote a play, Underwood's Finest Hour, about an obstetrician distracted during a birth by the radio broadcast of a Test match, which played at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in 1981.[22] Jones also wrote numerous works for children, including Fantastic Stories, The Beast with a Thousand Teeth, and a collection of comic verse called The Curse of the Vampire's Socks.[23][24]

Jones was the co-creator (with Gavin Scott) of the animated TV series Blazing Dragons (1996–1998), which parodied the Arthurian legends and Middle Ages periods. Reversing a common story convention, the series' protagonists are anthropomorphic dragons beset by evil humans.[23][24]

Jones wrote the screenplay for Labyrinth (1986), although his draft went through several rewrites and several other writers before being filmed; consequently, much of the finished film was not actually written by Jones.[25]

"[you] speak to him on subjects as diverse as fossil fuels, or Rupert Bear, or mercenaries in the Middle Ages or Modern China ... in a moment you will find yourself hopelessly out of your depth, floored by his knowledge."
—Python biographer George Perry on Jones.[26]

Jones wrote books and presented television documentaries on medieval and ancient history. His first book was Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (1980), which offers an alternative take on Geoffrey Chaucer's The Knight's Tale. Chaucer's knight is often interpreted as a paragon of Christian virtue, but Jones asserts that if one studies historical accounts of the battles the knight claims he was involved in, he can be interpreted as a typical mercenary and a potentially cold-blooded killer. He also co-wrote Who Murdered Chaucer? (2003) in which he argues that Chaucer was close to King Richard II, and that after Richard was deposed, Chaucer was persecuted to death by Thomas Arundel.[27]

Jones' TV series also frequently challenge popular views of history. For example, Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004; for which he received a 2004 Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming")[28] he argues that the Middle Ages was a more sophisticated period than is popularly thought,[29] and Terry Jones' Barbarians (2006) presents the cultural achievements of peoples conquered by the Roman Empire in a more positive light than Roman historians typically have, attributing the Sack of Rome in 410AD to propaganda.[30]

Jones wrote numerous columns for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer condemning the Iraq War. Many of these editorials were published in a paperback collection titled Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror.[21][31]
In November 2011, his book Evil Machines was launched by the online publishing house Unbound at the Adam Street Club in London. It was the first book to be published by a crowdfunding website dedicated solely to books.[32] Jones provided significant support to Unbound as they developed their publishing concept. In February 2018, Jones released The Tyrant and the Squire, also with Unbound.[33][34]

Jones was a member of the Poetry Society, and his poems have appeared in Poetry Review.[35]

Jones performed with the Carnival Band and appears on their 2007 CD Ringing the Changes.[36][37]
In January 2008, the Teatro São Luiz, in Lisbon, Portugal, premiered Evil Machines – a musical play, written by Jones (based on his book), with original music by Portuguese composer Luis Tinoco. Jones was invited by the Teatro São Luiz to write and direct the play, after a successful run of Contos Fantásticos, a short play based on Jones' Fantastic Stories, also with music by Tinoco.[38]
In January 2012, it was announced that Jones was working with songwriter/producer Jim Steinman on a heavy metal version of The Nutcracker.[39]

Jones (right) behind the counter during the “[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(Monty_Python)]Spam sketch” at Monty Python Live (Mostly) in 2014. He plays a waitress who recites a menu in which nearly every dish contains Spam

Apart from a cameo in Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky and a memorable minor role as a drunken vicar in the BBC sitcom The Young Ones, Jones rarely appeared in work outside his own projects. From 2009 to 2011, however, he provided narration for The Legend of Dick and Dom, a CBBC fantasy series set in the Middle Ages. He also appears in two French films by Albert Dupontel: Le Créateur (1999) and Enfermés dehors (2006).[40][41]

In 2009, Jones took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home about his Welsh family history. In July 2014, Jones reunited with the other four living Pythons to perform at ten dates (Monty Python Live (Mostly)) at the O2 Arena in London. This was Jones' last performance with the group prior to his aphasia diagnosis.[42][43]

In October 2016, Jones received a standing ovation at the BAFTA Cymru Awards when he received a Lifetime Achievement award for his outstanding contribution to television and film.[44][45]

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

[pbrower2a]

journalist Jim Lehrer


From Judy Woodruff: Longtime PBS NewsHour Anchor and Co-Founder Jim Lehrer Has Passed Away at 85

Washington, DC (January 23, 2020) — It is with great sadness that I share the news that co-founder and longtime anchor of the PBS NewsHour Jim Lehrer died today, Thursday, January 23, 2020, peacefully in his sleep at home. Lehrer, born May 19, 1934, served as anchor of the NewsHour for 36 years before retiring in 2011. Lehrer and Robert MacNeil founded the program in 1975, out of their 1973 coverage of the Senate Watergate Hearings on PBS.
“I’m heartbroken at the loss of someone who was central to my professional life, a mentor to me and someone whose friendship I’ve cherished for decades,” said Judy Woodruff, anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour. “I’ve looked up to him as the standard for fair, probing and thoughtful journalism and I know countless others who feel the same way.”
Sharon Percy Rockefeller, president and CEO of WETA, added, “We at WETA are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our longtime friend and colleague Jim Lehrer, one of America’s most distinguished journalists and a true champion of excellence in reporting. Jim set the gold standard for broadcast journalism in our nation and devoted his life to a vital public service ― keeping Americans informed and thereby strengthening our civil society. Through his extraordinary insight, integrity, balance and discipline, Jim earned the trust of the American people, and his important legacy lives on at PBS NewsHour.”
PBS President Paula Kerger also added, “On behalf of all of us at PBS, we are deeply saddened to learn of Jim Lehrer’s passing. From co-creating the groundbreaking MacNeil/Lehrer Report to skillfully moderating many presidential debates, Jim exemplified excellence in journalism throughout his extraordinary career. A true giant in news and public affairs, he leaves behind an incredible legacy that serves as an inspiration to us all. He will be missed.”
As anchor of PBS’s flagship news program, Lehrer interviewed numerous leading figures including Margaret Thatcher and Yasser Arafat in the 1980s, South Korean President Kim Daejung and Chinese leader Jiang Zemin in the 1990s, and Jordan’s King Abdullah and Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the 2000s.
Lehrer moderated a total of 12 president debates, more than any other person in U.S. history, including all of the presidential debates in 1996 and 2000.
He is the author of 20 novels, three memoirs, and several plays and earned dozens of journalism awards and honorary degrees. He received the National Humanities Medal from President Clinton, was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and alongside MacNeil, was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.
Prior to his long career at the NewsHour, Lehrer reported Dallas public television station KERA, the National Public Affairs Center for Television, the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times-Herald.
Lehrer attended Victoria College in Texas and later studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He served three years as an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.
He is survived by his wife Kate; three daughters Jamie, Lucy, and Amanda; and six grandchildren.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/press-relea...assed-away

[pbrower2a]

Kobe Bryant!!!!


Kobe Bryant dies with four others in helicopter crash in Calabasas


Lakers star Kobe Bryant.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

By RICHARD WINTON, 
DAN WOIKE
JAN. 26, 2020
 
12:41 PM
Kobe Bryant, 41, the legendary basketball star who spent 20 years with the Los Angeles Lakers, was killed when the helicopter he was traveling in crashed and burst into flames Sunday morning amid foggy conditions in the hills above Calabasas, sources told the Los Angeles Times.
Bryant’s death stunned Los Angeles and the sports world, which mourned one of basketball’s greatest players. Sources said the helicopter took off from Orange County, where Bryant lived.



The crash occurred shortly before 10 a.m. near Las Virgenes Road, south of Agoura Road, according to a watch commander for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Four others on board also died.
Jerry Kocharian was standing outside the Church in the Canyon drinking coffee when he heard a helicopter unusually low struggling overhead. “It [didn’t] sound right and it was real low. I saw it falling and spluttering. But it was hard to make out as It was so foggy,” Kocharian said. The helicopter vanished into a cloud of fog and then there was a boom.

“There was a big fireball,” he said. “No one could survive that.”
The helicopter, a Sikorsky S-76B built in 1991, departed John Wayne Airport at 9:06 a.m. Sunday, according to publicly available flight records. The helicopter passed over Boyle Heights, near Dodger Stadium, circled over Glendale during the flight.
The National Transportation Safety Board database does not show any prior incidents or accidents for this aircraft. The helicopter is registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story...-calabasas

[pbrower2a]

Script-writers don't get the credit that the screen actors get among movie-goers. This was a great one:



Harriet Frank Jr. (born Harriet Goldstein; March 2, 1923 – January 28, 2020) was an American film writer and producer. Working alongside her husband, Irving Ravetch, Frank received numerous awards during her lengthy career, including the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and the Writers Guild of America Award, and several nominations.

Frank began her writing career after World War II, under Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's young writer's training program, where she first met her future husband. She married Ravetch in 1946 but worked independently for ten years, finally collaborating with him in 1957, a relationship that continued for the remainder of her career. During 33 years of collaboration, they created the screenplays for a variety of films, mainly adaptations of the works of American authors.

Frank and Ravetch maintained a close working relationship with director Martin Ritt throughout their career, collaborating with him on eight occasions; after initially being suggested by Ravetch to direct The Long, Hot Summer (1958), Ritt would eventually draw the couple out of inactivity on three occasions, hiring them to write the screenplays for Norma Rae (1979), Murphy's Romance (1985) and Stanley & Iris (1990). The latter was both the last film directed by Ritt (who died later that year) and the last for which Frank and Ravetch wrote the screenplay.

Frank is one of the "leading characters" in the 2017 memoir The Mighty Franks: A Memoir,[1] written by her nephew Michael Frank, an essayist and short-story writer; the book was critically acclaimed by many international publications.[2]

 

Frank and Ravetch adapted many of the novels by William Faulkner (pictured) for film. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten
Harriet Frank Jr. was born and raised in Portland, Oregon.[3] While her mother, Harriet (Sr.), worked as a Hollywood story editor, Frank attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), at the same time as her future husband, Irving Ravetch.[3] Having graduated at different times from UCLA, the two met in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer young writer's training program after World War II.[4][5]
The couple married in 1946, but worked independently for over ten years, with Frank writing for projects such as A Really Important Person (1947), Whiplash (1948) and Run for Cover (1955).[4][5] The couple first collaborated on the script of an adaptation of William Faulkner's novel The Hamlet in 1957 (released as The Long, Hot Summer), although Frank later said, "...in the end, we created mostly new material, so it wasn't really a true adaptation".[5]
 
Martin Ritt, having directed The Long, Hot Summer on suggestion by Ravetch, then directed the couple's next collaboration, The Sound and the Fury (1959), once again an adaptation of a William Faulkner novel.[5] In 1960, Frank and Ravetch collaborated on two films, Home from the Hill, an adaptation of the novel of the same name, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, an adaptation of a Tony award-winning play.[4]

In 1963, Frank and Ravetch reunited with Martin Ritt to write the screenplay for Hud,[4] adapted from the novel Horseman, Pass By.[6][7] The film garnered critical acclaim, with the couple sharing a New York Film Critics Circle Award for "Best Screenplay" and a Writers Guild of America Award (WGA Award) for "Best Written American Drama".[8][9] They were also nominated for an Academy Award in the category of "Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium".[10]

In 1967, Frank worked alongside her husband and Ritt on Hombre, a Revisionist Western film based on the novel of the same name.[11] The next year, Frank and Ravetch wrote the screenplay for House of Cards, a mystery film directed by John Guillermin. For House of Cards, Frank was credited, together with her husband, under the pen name of "James P. Bonner".[12] In 1969, Frank and Ravetch returned to the works of William Faulkner, writing the screenplay for a film adaptation of his last novel The Reivers.[4]

1972 saw Frank and Ravetch write the screenplay for The Cowboys, based on the novel of the same name, and The Carey Treatment, based on the novel A Case of Need by Michael Crichton.[13] For the latter, the couple were credited under "James P. Bonner", the last time they would adopt the pen name. Two years later, the couple reunited once again with Martin Ritt to write the screenplay for Conrack, based on the autobiographical book The Water Is Wide, with Frank also working as producer. The film was commercially and critically well-received, winning a BAFTA award.[14] In the same year the couple wrote for an adaptation of the novel The Bank Robber, released as The Spikes Gang. Around this time, Frank also wrote two novels, Single: a novel (1977),[15] and Special Effects (1979).[16]

More at Wikipedia

[pbrower2a]

An illustration of how dangerous the Coronavirus is -- the well-connected mayor of a large Chinese city:



Yang Xiaobo (January 1963 – January 2020) was a Chinese structural engineer, politician, and business executive. He served as President of the Central South Architectural Design Institute (2003–2007), Mayor of Huangshi, Hubei (2009–2014), and President of Changjiang Property Insurance Company (2014–2020), and was a delegate to the 12th National People's Congress (2013–2018). He died of severe pneumonia during the 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. 


Yang was born in January 1963 in Tianmen, Hubei, China.[1][2] He entered Beijing Jiaotong University in 1981, majoring in structural engineering. After earning his bachelor's degree in September 1985, he pursued graduate studies at Tianjin University, earning his master's degree in structural engineering in June 1988. He joined the Communist Party of China in May 1988.[1][2]


In June 1988, Yang became an engineer at the Central South Architectural Design Institute, where he worked in structural design of industrial and residential buildings. He later earned an MBA degree from Ohio University in the United States. He was promoted to President of the Central South Architectural Design Institute in April 2003, serving until 2007.[1][2]

Yang entered politics in April 2007, when was transferred to the Hubei Provincial Government to serve as Director of the Department of Construction.[1][2] He subsequently studied at the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China from March 2008 to January 2009, and was appointed Acting Mayor and later Mayor of Huangshi, a prefecture-level city east of Wuhan, in February 2009. He also concurrently served as Deputy Party Secretary of Huangshi.[1][2] He was a member of the 10th Hubei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and a delegate to the 12th National People's Congress (2013–2018).[1][2][3]

In December 2014, Yang was appointed President of Changjiang Property Insurance Company Ltd., a joint venture established in 2011 by China Guodian Corporation together with several state-owned enterprises controlled by the Hubei provincial government. It was headquartered in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province. Under his leadership, the company signed strategic cooperation agreements with many local governments in Hubei,[2] but also received many citations from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission for violating industry regulations. It was fined 100,000 yuan in March 2019 for appointing people lacking professional qualifications to top executive positions.[1]

Yang made his last public appearance on 17 December 2019. On 1 January 2020, he sent a new year's greeting to all employees of Changjiang Property Insurance.[2] On 28 January 2020, Chinese media reported that Yang Xiaobo had died of severe pneumonia at age 57 during the 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.[1][4] He was one of the 100 people who had died during the outbreak in Hubei by that date.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Xiaob...olitician)

[pbrower2a]

Fred Silverman, TV producer

Fred Silverman (September 13, 1937 – January 30, 2020) was an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at all of the Big Three television networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as the series Scooby-Doo (1969–present), All in the Family (1971–1979), The Waltons (1972–1981), and Charlie's Angels (1976–1981), as well as the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), Roots (1977) and Shōgun (1980). For his success in programming wildly popular shows, Time magazine declared him "The Man with the Golden Gut" in 1977.

With CBS


In 1970, Silverman was promoted from vice-president of program planning and development to Vice President, Programs, heading the entire program department at CBS.[4] Silverman was promoted to bring a change in perspective for the network, as it had just forced out the previous executive in that position, Michael Dann; Dann's philosophy was to draw as many viewers as possible without regard to key demographics, which the network found to be unacceptable, as advertisers were becoming more specific about what kind of audience they were aiming for. To boost viewership in demographics that were believed to be more willing to respond to commercials, Silverman orchestrated the "rural purge" of 1971, which eventually eliminated many popular country-oriented shows, such as Green Acres, Mayberry R.F.D., Hee Haw and The Beverly Hillbillies from the CBS schedule. In their place, however, came a new wave of classics aimed at the upscale baby boomer generation, such as All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M*A*S*H, The Waltons, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, Kojak and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.


Silverman had an uncanny ability to spot burgeoning hit material, especially in the form of spin-offs, new television series developed with characters that appeared on an existing series. For example, he spun off Maude and The Jeffersons from All in the Family, and Rhoda from Mary Tyler Moore (as well as The Bob Newhart Show from MTM's writers). In early 1974, Silverman ordered a Maude spin-off titled Good Times; that series success led Silverman to schedule it against ABC's new hit, Happy Days, the following fall.


In other dayparts, Silverman also reintroduced game shows to the network's daytime lineups in 1972 after a four-year absence; among the shows Silverman introduced was an updated version of the 1950s game show The Price Is Right, which remains on the air over four decades later. After the success of The Price Is Right, Silverman established a working relationship with Mark Goodson and Bill Todman and most of their game shows appeared on CBS, including a revival of Match Game.


On Saturday mornings, Silverman commissioned Hanna-Barbera to produce the series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, and the character Fred Jones is named after Silverman. The success of Scooby-Doo led to several other Hanna-Barbera series airing on CBS in the early 1970s.

With ABC

Silverman was named president of ABC Entertainment in 1975,[5] putting him in the awkward position of saving Happy Days, the very show that Good Times had brought to the brink of cancellation. Silverman succeeded in bringing Happy Days to the top of the ratings and generating a hit spin-off from that show, Laverne & Shirley.

At ABC, Silverman also greenlit other popular series such as The Bionic Woman (a Six Million Dollar Man spin-off), Family, Charlie's Angels, Donny & Marie, Three's Company, Eight Is Enough, The Love Boat, Soap, Fantasy Island, Good Morning America, long form pioneer Rich Man, Poor Man and the award-winning miniseries, Roots. These moves brought ABC's long-dormant ratings from third place to first place. However, Silverman was criticized during this period for relying heavily on escapist fare (it was Silverman who conceived the infamous The Brady Bunch Hour with Sid and Marty Krofft in late 1976) and for bringing T&A or "jiggle TV" to the small screen with numerous ABC shows featuring buxom, attractive, and often scantily-clad young women (such as the popular Battle of the Network Stars).



ABC Daytime had mediocre ratings, so in order to increase them, Silverman hired Gloria Monty to produce the ailing General Hospital. He gave Monty thirteen weeks to increase the serial's ratings or it would be cancelled. He later expanded General Hospital and One Life to Live to a full hour, and created a 31⁄2 hour afternoon serial block. Among game shows, Silverman introduced Goodson and Todman's Family Feud to the network.


During Silverman's time at ABC, he overhauled the network's Saturday-morning cartoon output, 

dumping Filmation (which had produced the failed Uncle Croc's Block) and replacing it with content from Hanna-Barbera, including a continuation of Scooby-Doo. ABC abandoned the wiping of video-taped programs under Silverman's tenure in 1978, as CBS had done while he was at that network.

With NBC

Although Silverman's tenure at ABC was very successful, he left to become President and CEO of NBC in 1978. In stark contrast with his tenures at CBS and ABC, his three-year tenure at the network proved to be a difficult period, marked by several high-profile failures such as the sitcom Hello, Larry, the variety shows The Big Show and Pink Lady, the drama Supertrain (which also was, at the time, the most expensive TV series produced; its high production costs nearly bankrupted NBC), and the Jean Doumanian era of Saturday Night Live. (Silverman hired Doumanian after Al Franken, the planned successor for outgoing Lorne Michaels, castigated Silverman's failures on-air in a way that Silverman took very personally.[6])


Despite these failures, there were high points in Silverman's tenure at NBC, including the launch of the critically lauded Hill Street Blues (1981), the epic mini-series Shōgun, and The David Letterman Show (daytime, 1980), which would lead to Letterman's successful Late Night with David Letterman in 1982. Silverman had Letterman in a holding deal after the morning show which kept the unemployed Letterman from going to another network (NBC gave Letterman a $20,000 per week [$1,000,000 for a year] to sit out a year). However, Silverman nearly lost his then-current late night host, market leader Johnny Carson, after Carson sued NBC in a contract dispute; the case was settled out of court and Carson remained with NBC in exchange for the rights to his show and a reduction in time on air.[7]

Silverman also developed successful comedies such as Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life and Gimme a Break!, and made the series commitments that led to Cheers and St. Elsewhere. Silverman also pioneered entertainment reality programming with the 1979 launch of Real People. His contributions to the network's game show output included Goodson and Todman's Card Sharks and a revival of Password, both of which enjoyed great success in the morning schedule, although he also canceled several other relatively popular series, including The Hollywood Squares and High Rollers, to make way for The David Letterman Show (those cancellations also threatened Wheel of Fortune, whose host, Chuck Woolery, departed the show in a payment dispute during Silverman's tenure, although the show survived). Silverman also oversaw the hiring of Pat Sajak as the new host of Wheel of Fortune in 1981, a position Sajak holds to this day on the syndicated version that started in 1983, although Silverman himself objected to Sajak's hiring.[8] On Saturday mornings, in a time when most of the cartoon output of the three networks was similar, Silverman oversaw the development of an animated series based on The Smurfs; the animated series The Smurfs ran from 1981 to 1989, well after Silverman's departure, making it one of his longest-lasting contributions to the network. He also oversaw a revival of The Flintstones.

In other areas of NBC, Silverman revitalized the news division, which resulted in Today and NBC Nightly News achieving parity with their competition for the first time in years. He created a new FM Radio Division, with competitive full-service stations in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington. During his NBC tenure, Silverman also brought in an entirely new divisional and corporate management, a team that stayed in place long after Silverman's departure. (Among this group was a new Entertainment President, Brandon Tartikoff, who would help get NBC back on top by 1985.) Silverman also reintroduced the peacock as NBC's corporate logo in the form of the proud 'N' (which combined the peacock with the 1975 trapezoid 'N' logo) in 1979; the logo was used until 1986.

The Fred Silverman Company

In 1981, Silverman left NBC and formed The Fred Silverman Company (formerly Intermedia Entertainment) to produce shows to sell to television. The company would generate several hits including the Perry Mason TV movie series (1985–1994), Matlock (1986–1995), Jake and the Fatman (1987–1992), In the Heat of the Night (1988–1995), Father Dowling Mysteries (1987–1991) and Diagnosis: Murder (1993–2001). Most of these continue to run in syndication. Most of these series were co-produced with Dean Hargrove and Viacom Productions.


During the game-show revival that followed the success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Silverman resurrected the 1950s game show Twenty One for NBC in 2000. A few years later, he returned to ABC in an advisory capacity.
In 1995, he was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of excellence and innovation in creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television.[9] In 1999, Silverman was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.

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

[pbrower2a]

Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins Clark[1] (December 24, 1927 – January 31, 2020),[2] known professionally as Mary Higgins Clark, was an American author of suspense novels. Each of her 51 books was a bestseller in the United States and various European countries, and all of her novels remained in print as of 2015, with her debut suspense novel, Where Are the Children?, in its seventy-fifth printing.

Higgins Clark began writing at an early age. After several years working as a secretary and copy editor, she spent a year as a stewardess for Pan-American Airlines before leaving her job to marry and start a family. She supplemented the family's income by writing short stories. After her husband died in 1964, Higgins Clark worked for many years writing four-minute radio scripts until her agent persuaded her to try writing novels. Her debut novel, a fictionalized account of the life of George Washington, did not sell well, and she decided to exploit her love of mystery/suspense novels. Her suspense novels became very popular, and have sold more than 100 million copies in the United States alone.[3] Her daughter Carol Higgins Clark and former daughter-in-law Mary Jane Clark, are also writers.

Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins was born on Christmas Eve 1927, although some sources mistakenly cite 1929 as the year,[4] the second child and only daughter of Nora C. (Durkin) and Luke Joseph Higgins.[5] Her father was an Irish immigrant and her mother was American-born, also of Irish descent.[6] The United States census gives her age in April 1940 as 12, which indicates her year of birth is 1927, as that was her age at her last birthday, the question asked by census enumerators.[7]

She was born about a year and a half after the birth of her older brother, Joseph. Her younger brother John, followed three years later.[8] Even as a small child, she was interested in writing, composing her first poem at age seven and often crafting short plays for her friends to enact.[9] She began keeping a journal when she was seven years old, noting in her first entry, "Nothing much happened today."[10]

The family lived off the earnings from their Irish pub and were fairly well-off, owning a home in the Bronx and a summer cottage on Long Island Sound.[11][12] Although the Great Depression began when Higgins Clark was still a baby, her family was initially not affected, and even insisted on feeding the men who knocked on their door looking for work.[13] By the time Higgins Clark was ten, however, the family began to experience financial trouble, as many of their customers were unable to pay the bar tabs they had run up.[10] Higgins Clark's father was forced to lay off several employees and work longer hours, spending no more than a few hours at home each day. The family was thrown into further turmoil in 1939, when young Mary returned home from an early Mass to discover that her father had died in his sleep.[6]

Nora Higgins, now a widow with three young children to support, soon discovered that few employers were willing to hire a 52-year-old woman who had not held a job in over fourteen years.[14] To pay the bills, Higgins Clark was forced to move out of her bedroom so that her mother could rent it out to paying boarders.[15] Six months after their father's death, Higgins Clark's older brother cut his foot on a piece of metal and contracted severe osteomyelitis. Higgins Clark and her mother prayed constantly for him, and their neighbors came en masse to give blood for the many transfusions the young boy needed. Despite the dire predictions of the doctors, Joseph Higgins survived. Higgins Clark credits his recovery to the power of their prayers.[16]

When Higgins Clark graduated from Saint Francis Xavier Grammar School, she received a scholarship to continue her education at the Villa Maria Academy, a school run by the nuns of the Congregation de Notre Dame de Montreal.[17] There, the principal and other teachers encouraged Higgins Clark to develop her writing, although they were somewhat less than pleased when she began spending her class time writing stories instead of paying attention to the lesson.[9] At sixteen, Higgins Clark made her first attempt at publishing her work, sending an entry to True Confessions, which was rejected.[18]

To help pay the bills, she worked as a switchboard operator at the Shelton Hotel, where she often listened in to the residents' conversations. In her memoir she recalls spending much time eavesdropping on Tennessee Williams but complained that he never said anything interesting. On her days off, Higgins Clark would window shop, mentally choosing the clothes she would wear when she finally became a famous writer.[19]

Despite Higgins Clark's contribution to the family finances, the money her mother earned babysitting[20] was not enough, and the family lost their house and moved into a small three-room apartment. When Joseph graduated from high school in 1944, he immediately enlisted in the Navy, both to serve his country during war and to help his mother pay her bills. Six months after his enlistment he contracted spinal meningitis and died.[21] Although the family mourned Joseph's death deeply, as his dependent, Nora was guaranteed a life pension and no longer needed her daughter's help to pay the bills.[22]



Soon after Joseph died, Higgins Clark graduated from high school and attended Wood Secretarial School on a partial scholarship. After completing her coursework the following year, she accepted a job as the secretary to the head of the creative department in the internal advertising division at Remington Rand.[23] She soon enrolled in evening classes to learn more about advertising and promotion. Her growing skills, as well as her natural beauty, were noticed by her boss and others in the company, and her job was expanded to include writing catalog copy (alongside future novelist Joseph Heller) and to model for the company brochures with a then unknown Grace Kelly.[24]



Although she enjoyed her job, Higgins Clark's imagination was sparked by an acquaintance's casual comment, "God, it was beastly hot in Calcutta."[25] Inspired to become a flight attendant like her acquaintance, Higgins Clark underwent rigorous interviews to earn a position as a flight attendant (then known as stewardess) for Pan American Airlines, making five dollars fewer a week than her secretarial job.[26] Her supervisor at Remington Rand hosted a goodbye dinner for her, and Higgins Clark invited her neighbor, Warren Clark, whom she had admired for years, to be her date. By the end of the evening Warren Clark had informed her that he thought she should work as a stewardess for a year, and then they should be married the following Christmas. Higgins Clark accepted the somewhat unorthodox proposal.[27]



For most of 1949, she worked the Pan Am international flights, traveling through Europe, Africa, and Asia. One of her flights became the last flight allowed into Czechoslovakia before the Iron Curtain fell.[4] On another of her flights, Higgins Clark escorted a four-year-old orphan down the steps of the airplane into the waiting arms of her adoptive mother, a scene that was heavily televised.[28]



At the end of her year of flying, on December 26, 1949, Higgins Clark happily gave up her career to marry Warren Clark.[29] To occupy herself, she began taking writing courses at NYU[18] and, with some of her classmates, formed a writing workshop in which the members would critique each other's works-in-progress. The workshop, which persisted for almost forty years, met weekly. At each meeting two members would have twenty minutes each to present their latest work. The other members would then have three minutes each to offer constructive criticism.[30]

One of her professors at NYU told the class they should develop plot ideas by reading newspapers and asking themselves prompts such as, "Suppose...?" and "What if...?" She has said that she still gets many of her ideas by utilizing said prompts, along with "Why?".[31] For her first NYU writing assignment she used this method to expand her own experiences into a short story called "Stowaway" about a stewardess who finds a stowaway from Czechoslovakia on her plane.[32] Although her professor offered high praise for the story, Higgins Clark was continually frustrated in her attempts to find a publisher. Finally, in 1956, after six years and forty rejections, Extension Magazine agreed to purchase the story for $100.[4]



While those six years were devoid of professional milestones, on a personal level Higgins Clark and her husband were very busy. Their first child, Marilyn, was born nine months after their wedding, with Warren Jr. arriving thirteen months later. A third child, David was born two years after his brother. Two months after Higgins Clark's short story sold, the fourth baby made her appearance and was promptly named Carol, after the heroine in her mother's story.[33] After selling that first short story, Higgins Clark began regularly finding homes for her works. Through the writer's workshop she met an agent, Patricia Schartle Myrer, who represented Higgins Clark for twenty years until her retirement. They became such good friends that Higgins Clark named her fifth and last child for her.[34] While Warren worked and Higgins Clark wrote, they encouraged their children to find ways to earn money as well, with all five children eventually taking professional acting and modeling jobs. Young Patty served as a Gerber Baby, while David was featured in a national United Way ad. Higgins Clark herself filmed a television commercial for Fab laundry detergent. The commercial, which aired during the I Love Lucy show, earned her enough money that she and Warren were able to take a trip to Hawaii.[35]


In 1959, Warren Clark was diagnosed with severe angina, and, although he curtailed his activities on his doctor's order, he suffered three heart attacks within the next five years, each time returning from the hospital in poorer health. After the last heart attack in 1964, they felt that Warren would be unable to work again, so Higgins Clark called a friend who wrote scripts for radio shows to see if there were any job openings. The day that she accepted a job writing the radio segment "Portrait of a Patriot," Warren suffered a fatal heart attack. His mother, who was visiting at the time, collapsed at his bedside upon discovering that he was dead. In one night, Higgins Clark lost both her husband and her mother-in-law.

Higgins Clark has won numerous awards for her writing. In addition to those previously referenced, she has won the Horatio Alger Award (1997) and the Passionists' Ethics in Literature Award (2002), as well as the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University Spirit of Achievement Award (1994) and the National Arts Club's Gold Medal in Education (1994). She has been awarded eighteen honorary doctorates, including one from her alma mater, Fordham University. Her success has also been recognized by groups representing her heritage. The American Irish Historical Society granted her the Gold Medal of Honor in 1993, and in 2001 she won the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. She has also been named a Bronx Legend (1999).[52]


Mary Higgins Clark has served as the Chairman of the International Crime Congress in 1988 and was the 1987 president of the Mystery Writers of America. For many years she also served on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America. Simon & Schuster, which have published all of Higgins Clark's novels and in the late 1990s signed her to a $64-million, four-book contract,[30] have funded the Mary Higgins Clark Award, given by the Mystery Writers of America to authors of suspense fiction.[3][55] The announcement that an award would be given in her honor was made at the 55th Annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards, where Higgins Clark was inducted as a Grand Master.[55]



Higgins Clark was made a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, and has also been honored as a Dame of Malta and a Dame of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.[30] The Franciscan Friars have given her a Graymoor Award (1999) and she has been awarded a Christopher Life Achievement Award. She serves as a board member for the Catholic Communal Fund and as a member of the Board of Governors at Hackensack Hospital.[56]
Higgins Clark was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame in March 2011.[57]

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

[pbrower2a]

Janez Stanovnik (4 August 1922 – 31 January 2020[1]) was a Slovenian economist, politician, and Partisan. He served as the last President of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia between 1988 and 1990. From 2003 to 2013, he was the president of the Slovenian Partisan Veterans' Association.

He was born in Ljubljana, then part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, to a Slovene Roman Catholic family. His father Ivan Stanovnik was a prominent member of the left wing of the Slovene People's Party and served as deputy mayor of Ljubljana.[2] His mother was the niece of the Bishop of Ljubljana Anton Bonaventura Jeglič.[2]

He attended the classical gymnasium in Ljubljana. As a high school student, he became active in the Christian Socialist association Zarja (Dawn), where he became acquainted with the Christian left intellectuals like Edvard Kocbek and Bogo Grafenauer.[2] After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, he became active in the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People and was imprisoned by the Italian occupation regime between autumn 1941 and February 1942.[2] Soon after his release from jail, he joined the partisan resistance in the Province of Ljubljana. In February 1944, he joined the Communist Party. Between April 1944 and May 1945, he was among the organizers of the partisan resistance in the Slovenian Littoral and was member of the regional national liberation committee.[2]

In 1946, after the war, he became the personal secretary of the Slovene Yugoslav Communist leader Edvard Kardelj. He graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School. Between 1952 and 1956, he was member of the Yugoslav mission at the United Nations. In 1956, he returned to Yugoslavia and started studying economics. He was a professor at both the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade, and the University of Ljubljana.[3][4][5]



Between 1965 and 1966, he served as an advisor to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and between 1968 and 1983, he worked on the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. There he served as the executive secretary of the commission from 1968 to 1982.[6]



In 1988, he was appointed as President of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. Due to the political upheaval, he managed to use this largely ceremonial position in order to negotiate with the opposition groups, especially the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights during the Slovenian Spring. Because of his support for a peaceful transition to parliamentary democracy, he was called by the press, somewhat ironically, "father of the nation".[2]
In 2003, he was elected as Chairman of the Association of Slovenian Partisan Veterans, he stayed at this position until 2013, when he was named the honorary president of the Association.[7]

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

[pbrower2a]

Classical pianist Peter Serkin:


Peter Adolf Serkin (July 24, 1947 – February 1, 2020) was an American classical pianist. He taught at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Bard College. He won two Grammy awards, Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist in 1966 and Best Chamber Music Performance (with Mstislav Rostropovich) in 1984, and he performed globally.

Peter Serkin was born on July 24, 1947 in New York City.[1] He was the son of Irene Busch Serkin and pianist Rudolf Serkin, grandson of the influential violinist Adolf Busch, and great-nephew of conductor Fritz Busch. Peter was given the middle name Adolf in honor of his grandfather.[2] His father's family was Bohemian Jewish and his mother's family was Swiss-German.

In 1958, at age 11, Serkin began studying at the Curtis Institute of Music,[3] where his teachers included the Polish pianist Mieczysław Horszowski, the American virtuoso Lee Luvisi, as well as his own father. He graduated in 1965. He also studied with Ernst Oster, flutist Marcel Moyse, and Karl Ulrich Schnabel.[4]

His concert career began in 1959, when he first performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, a seminal agent and incubator of chamber music performance in the U.S., established in 1951 by the elder Serkin, Hermann and Adolf Busch, along with Marcel, Blanche and Louis Moyse. Following that performance, Peter Serkin was invited to play with major orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell and the Philadelphia Orchestra with Eugene Ormandy.

In 1966, at age 19, Serkin was awarded the Grammy Award for Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist.[3] Three of his recordings garnered Grammy nominations (one of them features six Mozart concertos; the two others feature the music of Olivier Messiaen) and his recordings won other awards. Serkin was the first pianist to receive the Premio Internazionale Musicale Chigiana award in 1983[5] and he received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music in 2001.[6]

In 1968, shortly after marrying and becoming a father, Serkin decided to stop playing music altogether. In the winter of 1971, he, his wife, and baby daughter Karina moved to a small rural town in Mexico. About eight months later, on a Sunday morning, Serkin heard the music of Johann Sebastian Bach being broadcast over the radio from a neighbor's house. As he listened, he said, "It became clear to me that I should play." He returned to the U.S. and began his musical career anew.[7]

Henceforth, Serkin performed around the world with leading orchestras and such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Pierre Boulez, Simon Rattle, James Levine, and Christoph Eschenbach. He made numerous recordings, on such labels as RCA Victor, featuring music from Bach (including four recordings of the Goldberg Variations - the first made when he was 18, the fourth when he was 47), Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, and Dvořák as well as numerous more recent composers such as Reger, Berg, Webern, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Takemitsu, Oliver Knussen, Peter Lieberson, Stefan Wolpe and Charles Wuorinen.

Serkin was a committed performer of new and recent music, having premiered or been the dedicatee of many new works by such composers as Takemitsu, Lieberson, Knussen, Wuorinen and Elliott Carter. The American composer Ned Rorem writes of Serkin, "His uniqueness lies, as I hear it, in a friendly rather than over-awed approach to the classics, which nonetheless plays with the care and brio that is in the family blood, and he's not afraid to be ugly. He approaches contemporary music with the same depth as he does the classics, and he is unique among the superstars in that he approaches it at all."[8]

Among prominent virtuosi, Peter Serkin was one of the first to experiment with period fortepianos, and the first to record late Beethoven sonatas on pianos of both the modern as well as Beethoven's era.
Serkin collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, András Schiff, Alexander Schneider, Pamela Frank, Harold Wright, the Guarneri Quartet, the Budapest Quartet, and other prominent musicians and ensembles, such as principal wind players of major American orchestras. In addition, he was one of the founding members of TASHI and has recorded for a variety of labels. He taught at the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music and was on faculty at the Bard College Conservatory of Music as well as the Yale School of Music, among other institutions. Among those who studied piano with him are Orit Wolf, Simone Dinnerstein, and Cecile Licad.

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