RIP thread

[dlnhank]

Former first lady Betty Ford has passed away, age 93. Wife of President Gerald Ford.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/07/08/betty.ford.dies/

[themidlander]

Facundo Cabral

Was really shocked to read this in today's news. A huge loss to world music.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14093876

[Eu Mesmo]

Würzel (Michael Burston) from Motörhead died today.

http://www.nme.com/news/motorhead/57908

Rest In Peace Würzel.

[karloschaos]

"WÜRZEL", ex-Motorhead guitarist has died aged 61.

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guita...-age-61-476342

[keefriff]

Sherwood Schwartz American TV producer has died at the age of 94. Schwartz started as a writer for The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. He later created Gilligans Island and The Brady Bunch. These two shows went on to syndication where, despite their relatively limited initial success, became American television staples. Nearly every child in America born in the 1960's or beyond grew up on these two shows and although never the highest level of comedy they usually managed to make us laugh. He also deserves kudos for introducing the world to Dawn Wells. RIP Sherwood Schwartz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Schwartz

[Oswald]

Terence Longdon 1922 - 2011

Terence Longdon, who died on April 23 aged 88, was a character actor who specialised in seduction, lounge-lizardry and murder conspiracies; he made his name, however, as the airline adventurer, Garry Halliday.
Longdon played Halliday, in the series of the same name, for 50 episodes. Eventually, however, its Biggles-style stories began to look dated, and it was replaced by Dr Who.

As an actor Longdon, adept with the whisky decanter and soda siphon and elegant in his tailoring, could also appear to have emerged from a bygone era. In an earlier generation, for example, his stage manners and good looks might have taken him to the very top of his profession. But by the 1950s and 1960s public affection for the smoothness of performances like his, however skilled the technique, was dwindling.

None the less, his affable persona proved a reassuring presence on stage, for example as John Brownlow, the eligible (but "not unduly flash") lover in William Douglas Home's The Secretary Bird (l968-71).

In the play Brownlow is poised to steal away the wife of a writer until the potential-cuckold contrives for him to fall for a different woman instead; it proved Longdon's longest engagement, and he played the part over a thousand times during a run of 1,463 performances.

The son of Joseph Longdon and his wife Florence Violet (Tully), Terence Longdon was born at Newark-on-Trent on May 14 1922 and educated at Minster Grammar School, Southwell. He trained at Rada from l946-48 and first appeared on the professional stage aged 26, at the Lyceum, Sheffield, in The French for Love.

Parts in three West End productions soon followed: John Gielgud's revival of Euripides's Medea with Eileen Herlie in the title role; Terence Rattigan's play about Alexander the Great, Adventure Story, starring Paul Scofield; and Gielgud's production of a modern comedy, Treasure Hunt, by MJ Farrell and John Perry.

Longdon soon joined the Shakespeare Memorial Company at Stratford-on-Avon for three seasons under Anthony Quayle's direction. His roles there included Prince Hal – his favourite part of all – to Quayle's Falstaff in Henry IV part I; Oliver in As You Like It; and Cassio to Quayle's Othello. Having toured Australia with the company, he joined, in 1954, the Old Vic company for an American tour, making his New York debut that year as Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

His first West End crime play was William Fairchild's The Sound of Murder, in which he schemed with his mistress to dispose of her husband, a popular children's author (Peter Cushing). After the short-lived Golden Rivet by Laurence Dobie and Robert Sloman, and another short run as Mr Darcy in an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Longdon emerged strongly in 1967 as the tall, handsome Colin, lover of his crippled brother's wife, in Somerset Maugham's The Sacred Flame.

Later that year he played opposite Faith Brook and Felicity Kendall at the Savoy in Minor Murder, based on the true story of two schoolgirl friends who murder one of their mothers when she threatens to separate the pair. The same venue then became his home for several more years for The Secretary Bird. Its success shaped his next roles and in Francis Durbridge's Suddenly At Home Longdon played the conceited but likeable Sam Blaine, a detective story writer and the former lover of a wealthy woman whose husband plots her murder.

Other West End stage credits included Mr Davenport in Rattigan's Cause Célèbre, and the farces Charley's Aunt (with Griff Rhys Jones), When Did You Last See Your Trousers? and Paris Match.

He best film role was as Drusus in Ben Hur (1959); he also appeared in several Carry On films.

Between acting engagements Longdon proved himself an unusually accomplished golfer, buttonholing colleagues at leading clubs into betting on rounds and usually winning.

He married first, in 1953 (dissolved 1960), the actress Barbara Jefford. He married secondly, in 2004, Gillie Conyers, whom he had known since 1987 and who survives him.

[Oswald]

Actress Googie Withers, best known for starring in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes and TV series Within These Walls, has died in Australia aged 94.

She was born Georgette Lizette Withers in what was then British India. She died at her home on Friday.

She was the first non-Australian to be awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia and was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Her last role was in the 1996 Australian movie Shine.

Withers's family moved back to Britain from India and she began acting at age 12.

She had been given her nickname Googie by her Indian nanny.

She was working as a dancer in a West End production in London when she was offered work in 1935 as a film extra in The Girl in the Crowd.

Withers, who had three children, appeared in dozens of films in the 1930s and 40s.

She played Blanche in 1938's The Lady Vanishes, opposite Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave.

Later in her career she appeared in several television productions, including prison drama Within These Walls on ITV and the BBC's Hotel du Lac and Northanger Abbey.

In 1958, Withers moved to Australia with her husband, Australian actor John McCallum - he helped create the classic television series, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

The couple co-starred in 10 films, and they lived together in Sydney until McCallum died last year at the age of 91.

[themidlander]

US songwriter Jerry Ragovoy dies aged 80

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14198689

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7JVxE2SYxo
His most famous song

[themidlander]

Relaist painter Lucian Freud had died

The painter famous for his nudes has died aged 88

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13546134

[caboosier]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14262237

OMG

Just the other week, Tony Bennett was praising her as a great vocal talent,
having the closest thing to a jazz era sound of any modern singer.

It was easy to mock her on her hellish descent
but her talent cannot be dismissed.
Incredible that anyone can survive such instant, spectacular fame.

Dead at 27... like Brian, Jimi, Janis, Pigpen, Jim, Kurt...
Physically frail, now musically immortal.