RIP thread

[blueballsdc]

Originally Posted by tygrkhat40

Art Modell, former owner of the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens has died at the age of 87.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/83...-owner-dies-87

Modell was a very influential owner in the 60's and 70's, helping negotiate the TV contracts that made the NFL a lot of money. But his relationship with the city of Cleveland will forever mar his reputation. Regardless of what Cleveland and Cuyahoga County did, Art broke his promise and took the Browns away from Cleveland.

And if Art Modell hadn't moved his team from Cleveland to Baltimore, then Baltimore still wouldn't have an NFL team. The league was not going to give a team back to Baltimore. By moving his team, Modell gave Baltimore a team and forced the NFL to give Cleveland a team.

[Greenman]

Television presenter and horsey chap Lord John Oaksey has died-full story here.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rac...ksey-dies.html

[baldie]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/terry-nutki...122945376.html

[tygrkhat40]

Originally Posted by blueballsdc

And if Art Modell hadn't moved his team from Cleveland to Baltimore, then Baltimore still wouldn't have an NFL team. The league was not going to give a team back to Baltimore. By moving his team, Modell gave Baltimore a team and forced the NFL to give Cleveland a team.

This may be true, but it wasn't right for Baltimore to do to Cleveland what Indianapolis did to Baltimore. If moving the Browns to Baltimore keeps Modell out of the Hall of Fame, then Paul Tagliabue should be kept out for not giving an expansion team to Baltimore, which lead to the whole sordid business.

[Greenman]

Originally Posted by baldie

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/terry-nutki...122945376.html

Truly shocked to hear this, he hadn't been seen on television since his heady days on the BBC with Animal Magic and The Really Wild Show programmes for children. A lasting memory of him is with a seal called Gemini, with the late great Johnny Morris singing to it "Geminee, Gemini" He was almost balding and wasn't exactly what the children's presenter was once like but he had a real passion for his subject and made it interesting for kids to watch. He will be sadly missed-too young 66.

[blueballsdc]

Originally Posted by tygrkhat40

This may be true, but it wasn't right for Baltimore to do to Cleveland what Indianapolis did to Baltimore. If moving the Browns to Baltimore keeps Modell out of the Hall of Fame, then Paul Tagliabue should be kept out for not giving an expansion team to Baltimore, which lead to the whole sordid business.

I spoke with many people in Baltimore after the move and they all had much the same attitude of they were glad they had a team but they were sorry for the way it happened and they were very sorry that it happened to a "real" city. The implication being that if it had been a team from Tampa, Jacksonville, Phoenix, etc.. that had moved then they wouldn't have felt so bad.

What made Irsay's move worse was the way he went about it. Treating the people of Baltimore like dirt, lying to them, and then sneaking the team out of the state in the middle of the night. Personally I think both Paul Tagliabue and Pete Rozell have a lot to answer for with regards to Baltimore.

I will be up in Baltimore Monday night for the Ravens opener of the season and I will be lifting a few pints to Art Modell along with a few thousand Ravens fans.

[vo1v0d]

Originally Posted by snowy25

Michael Clarke Duncan, the hulking, prolific character actor whose dozens of films included an Oscar-nominated performance as a death row inmate in "The Green Mile" and such other box office hits as "Armageddon," "Planet of the Apes" and "Kung Fu Panda," is dead at age 54.

Clarke died Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for a heart attack, said his fiancee, Reverend Omarosa Manigault, in a statement released by publicist Joy Fehily.

I saw interviews about him shortly after and the strangest was from a female friend. Most of the people who approached him in the street did not ask for an autograph, they asked for a hug

[gtos4ever]

Originally Posted by Leg10n

I saw interviews about him shortly after and the strangest was from a female friend. Most of the people who approached him in the street did not ask for an autograph, they asked for a hug

Probably not well known but before leaving Chicago for Hollywood Mr. Duncan was a bouncer at one of the larger strip clubs there.

Christy Canyon tweeted upon hearing of his death... "Yes and I'm so saddened by the news. I knew him as a bouncer @ admiral theatre and adored him. He was too good!! Never hit on me and as a bouncer , never let anybody else hit on me, cop a feel etc... Damn rules!"

[jerquer]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-0...r-dies/4251372

Australian marine conservation pioneer and renowned shark expert Ron Taylor has died at the age of 78.

Mr Taylor suffered myeloid leukaemia for two years and died peacefully on Sunday morning at a private hospital near his Sydney home.

Mr Taylor and his wife Valerie are regarded worldwide for their marine conservation work and their groundbreaking marine documentaries.

A Member of the Order of Australia, Mr Taylor first became fascinated with marine life in the 1950s as a spear fisherman, but later decided to "hunt with a camera" instead of a spear.

He was the first photographer to capture images of a great white shark underwater without the protection of a diving cage.

The Taylors are regarded as pioneers in underwater cinematography, and produced some of the very earliest underwater footage of great white sharks.

Crowned Australia's spearfishing champion several times, Mr Taylor turned his attention to conservation after a life-changing revelation during a spearfishing competition.

Mr Taylor told the ABC's Talking Heads program in 2005 that giving up the sport was the best thing that he had ever done.

"I just thought, 'What am I doing down here killing these poor, defenceless marine creatures?' he said.

"So I just packed up, went home - didn't even weigh my fish in - and never went back to another spearfishing competition.

"At the same time I was doing my photography. I was trying to get close to the fish to capture beautiful images with a still camera and a movie camera. And then on the weekend I'd go out and start killing them and that just didn't - that was wrong.

"Now I hunt with my movie camera or video camera and it's the same sense of achievement to get close to a marine creature and capture some behaviour, or perhaps a shark - a dangerous looking shark."

Such was the Taylors' expertise that they were called on to share their craft with Hollywood producers, most notably on the blockbuster shark film Jaws.

Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg asked the couple to help with the live-shark sequences in the film.

The movie terrified swimmers and elevated the great white above all others sharks as the most feared ocean predator, something Mr Taylor credited with doing "a lot of damage to sharks."

"People went out with a vendetta to kill sharks because they believed that sharks were really like that," he said.

"But in fact Jaws was just a fictional film. Valerie and I got a lot of flack because we were involved in a film which stopped a lot of people learning to dive."

Despite being bitten by sharks on several occasions, Mr Taylor said he never entered the water with apprehension.

In the late 1970s he had a chainmail suit made that was designed to withstand shark attacks.

The suit was too small for Ron, so Valerie wore it instead. The suit proved effective, but the difficult part came in trying to prompt sharks into biting the chainmail.

The couple played a part in the production of scores of underwater documentaries over the years.

Mr Taylor told Talking Heads that he had been a fan of photography for as long as he could remember.

"I think maybe because my father was a photographer," he said.

"When I went to work and became an apprentice, a friend had a 16mm movie camera. I built an underwater housing for that because at that time I'd taken up spear fishing and snorkelling and I became fascinated in the underwater world."

Ron and Valerie met in the late 1950s and bonded over their love of the ocean.

Valerie said when she first started going out with Ron she still had another boyfriend and that she had to choose between the two.

"I knew I wouldn't have much of a life with the other guy. He was a musician - he was brilliant. He was a wonderful man but I'm not musical at all," Valerie said.

"I was a pretty good diver and one day I said to Ron, 'I think you should marry me'. And he did."

The couple married in 1963 and have no children.

[dasduffer]

Derek Jameson ex fleet street editor and TV presenter dies aged 82

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19577465