Tag: passing

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News Round-Up: November 30, 2017

Some news items you might have missed:

• Andrew Serkin (above) handles the cold in Miami with a stylish vest sans shirt. I’m good with that 🙂

• Washington Blade reporter Chris Johnson was not extended an invitation to the White House’s annual Christmas party this year. Johnson attends the White House press briefings almost daily, and has attended the holiday fest at the White House the last seven years. Now, why do you think Team Trump would snub a gay reporter… Oh, got it. Nevermind.

• Jim Nabors, of Gomer Pyle, of The Andy Griffith Show, and the show’s spinoff, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., died at the age of 87. He married his partner Stan Cadwallader in 2013. They had been together 42 years. Thanks to his “Gomer Pyle” role, Nabors was one of the few ever to be named an Honorary Marine.

• Crediting the preventative drug PrEP, the Department of Health says 2016 had the lowest number of new HIV diagnoses in New York City history, an 8.6% decrease in new infections as opposed to the year before.

• Timothée Chalamet had a great night at the New York Film Critics Circle last night where he snagged the Best Actor award for his stunning work in the coming-of-age gay romance, Call Me By Your Name. Chalamet also saw another film he is appearing in, Lady Bird, win for Best Film.

• Check out this year’s holiday commercial from H&M titled “A Magical Holiday” starring Nicki Minaj, Grey Anatomy’s Jesse Williams, and John Turturro as the villain who stole Christmas presents from children across the globe. Three minutes of non-Trump, holiday cuteness – watch below.

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Former Teen Idol And “Partridge Family” Star David Cassidy Dead At 67

David Cassidy

David Cassidy, 1970s teen idol and star of “The Partridge Family,” has passed away at the age of 67 due to multiple organ failure.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

“On behalf of the entire Cassidy family, it is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our father, our uncle, and our dear brother, David Cassidy,” his rep, JoAnn Geffen, said in a statement given to The Hollywood Reporter. “David died surrounded by those he loved, with joy in his heart and free from the pain that had gripped him for so long. Thank you for the abundance and support you have shown him these many years.”

In February, the entertainer revealed that he had dementia and would no longer appear in concert in an effort to focus on his health and “enjoy life.” He had fallen on stage and forgotten lyrics during a show in Agoura Hills, Calif.

The adorably handsome New York native rose to fame playing singer-guitarist Keith Partridge on Screen Gems’ The Partridge Family, which aired for four seasons on ABC, from 1970-74.

The show centered on a suburban family that had a band comprised of a widowed mom — played by Shirley Jones, Cassidy’s real-life stepmother — and her five kids: Cassidy (the oldest), Susan Dey, Danny Bonaduce, Suzanne Crough and Jeremy Gelbwaks/Brian Forster.

Each episode had the family doing a song. Cassidy actually played guitar and sang and Jones provided backing vocals, but the rest of the “band” was faking it.

Cassidy and Jones performed on The Partridge Family‘s debut single, “I Think I Love You,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1970 just as his new show was catching on. The single sold more than 5 million copies, and The Partridge Family went on to release eight albums.

Cassidy also fronted five solo albums, and his vocals also powered such hits as “Cherish;” “Come On Get Happy,” his show’s signature tune;” “I Write the Songs;” “The Last Kiss;” and “Lyin’ to Myself.”

At the height of his fame, Cassidy was a huge concert draw selling out such huge venues like the Houston Astrodome, Madison Square Garden and Wembley Stadium.

Years later, in 1996, Cassidy performed to sold-out crowds on Broadway starring in Blood Brothers, and then headlined the $75 million EFX show at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.

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“Dame Of Dish” Liz Smith Passes Away At Age 94

Liz Smith, who became a modern-day Hedda Hopper of celebrity gossip in the 1980s and eventually came out as bisexual, has passed away at the age of 94.

From the New York Times:

Liz Smith, the longtime queen of New York’s tabloid gossip columns, who for more than three decades chronicled little triumphs and trespasses in the soap-opera lives of the rich, the famous and the merely beautiful, died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 94.

Her friend and literary agent, Joni Evans, confirmed her death.

From hardscrabble nights writing snippets for a Hearst newspaper in the 1950s to golden afternoons at Le Cirque with Sinatra or Hepburn and tête-à-tête dinners with Madonna to gather material for columns that ran six days a week, Ms. Smith captivated millions with her tattletale chitchat and, over time, ascended to fame and wealth that rivaled those of the celebrities she covered.

One of Smith’s biggest scoops was Donald Trump’s divorce from first wife, Ivana, in 1990.

Smith’s income often exceeded over $1 million a year.

LGBT activist and author Michelangelo Signorile, who tussled with Smith in the 90s when she helped wealthy/famous closet cases like Malcolm Forbes stay closeted, posted a classy farewell to Ms. Smith on Facebook:

The legendary celebrity & gossip columnist Liz Smith has died at the age of 94. For those who go way back with me you know I wrote angry columns giving her hell in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s for closeting so many, defending homophobes & for being closeted herself during the most terrible years of the AIDS plague. But she was tough, eventually rose to it, came out as bisexual, did good things. Glad to have seen all that and see her leading a full life and still writing, working, practically up to her death. RIP Liz.

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Tom Petty, Legendary Rocker, Dead At 66

Tom Petty (photo – Martyn Atkins)

From CBS News:

Tom Petty, the rocker best known as the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, is dead at 66, CBS News has confirmed.

The legendary musician suffered a full cardiac arrest and was found unconscious and not breathing in his Malibu home Sunday night. He was taken to UCLA Santa Monica Hospital and put on life support, reports TMZ.

Petty rose to fame in the 1970s with his band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The group put out several hits, including “American Girl,” “Free Fallin’,” “Breakdown,” “Listen to Her Heart” and more. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Though Petty and his band debuted their first self-titled record in 1976, they continued to perform over the past four decades. Petty played his last show last Monday, performing three sold-out shows at the Hollywood Bowl to conclude their 40th anniversary tour. The band wrote on their website that the tour included 53 shows in 24 states.

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President Obama On The Passing Of Edie Windsor: She Spoke Up For Equal, Not Special, Rights

(image via Facebook)

President Obama issued this statement via Facebook on the passing of LGBT civil rights hero Edie Windsor:

America’s long journey towards equality has been guided by countless small acts of persistence, and fueled by the stubborn willingness of quiet heroes to speak out for what’s right.

Few were as small in stature as Edie Windsor – and few made as big a difference to America.

I had the privilege to speak with Edie a few days ago, and to tell her one more time what a difference she made to this country we love. She was engaged to her partner, Thea, for forty years. After a wedding in Canada, they were married for less than two. But federal law didn’t recognize a marriage like theirs as valid – which meant that they were denied certain federal rights and benefits that other married couples enjoyed. And when Thea passed away, Edie spoke up – not for special treatment, but for equal treatment – so that other legally married same-sex couples could enjoy the same federal rights and benefits as anyone else.

In my second inaugural address, I said that if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. And because people like Edie stood up, my administration stopped defending the so-called Defense of Marriage Act in the courts. The day that the Supreme Court issued its 2013 ruling in United States v. Windsor was a great day for Edie, and a great day for America – a victory for human decency, equality, freedom, and justice. And I called Edie that day to congratulate her.

Two years later, to the day, we took another step forward on our journey as the Supreme Court recognized a Constitutional guarantee of marriage equality. It was a victory for families, and for the principle that all of us should be treated equally, regardless of who we are or who we love.

I thought about Edie that day. I thought about all the millions of quiet heroes across the decades whose countless small acts of courage slowly made an entire country realize that love is love – and who, in the process, made us all more free. They deserve our gratitude. And so does Edie.

Michelle and I offer our condolences to her wife, Judith, and to all who loved and looked up to Edie Windsor.

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Richard Anderson, ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ & ‘The Bionic Woman’ Actor, Passes Away At 91

Lee Majors (L), Richard Anderson (C), Lindsay Wagner (R)

Ah, man. I can’t tell you how much I loved both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman.

Richard Anderson, who brought to life “Oscar Goldman,” the head of the fictional Office of Scientific Intelligence and eventual boss of Six Million Dollar Man “Steve Austin” and The Bionic Woman “Jaime Sommers,” has passed away at the age of 91.

Via Hollywood Reporter:

In the highly rated, two-part episode that brought a thrilling end to the 1960s ABC series The Fugitive, Anderson portrayed the brother-in-law of Richard Kimble (David Janssen). He also was Police Lt. Steve Drumm on the final season of CBS’ Perry Mason and Santa Luisa Police Chief George Untermeyer on ABC’s Dan August, starring Burt Reynolds.

After three popular Six Million Dollar Man telefilms in 1973, the Universal TV property was given steady life as an ABC series in January 1974. On the show, Anderson played the chief of the fictional Office of Scientific Intelligence and the boss of Steve Austin (Lee Majors), a NASA astronaut who is injured in a crash and “rebuilt” (at a cost of about $29 million in today’s dollars), becoming a secret agent.

Anderson also is heard in the show’s action-packed introduction: “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, we have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man.”

The series then spawned The Bionic Woman — starring Lindsay Wagner as Jaime Sommers, a tennis player who’s infused with machinery and brought back to life after a parachuting accident, and Anderson played Goldman on that show (which went from ABC to NBC) as well.

He was the first actor to portray the same character on two TV series running concurrently on two networks.

Both shows ended in 1978, but Universal, prodded by Anderson, made three more bionic telefilms through 1994. As an executive producer, he was instrumental in the casting of Sandra Bullock as a supercharged woman in 1989’s Bionic Showdown.

In a statement, Majors said that he first met Anderson in 1966 when he guest-starred on one of Majors’ earlier shows, The Big Valley.

“Richard became a dear and loyal friend, and I have never met a man like him,” he recalled. “I called him ‘Old Money.’ His always stylish attire, his class, calmness and knowledge never faltered in his 91 years. He loved his daughters, tennis and his work as an actor. He was still the sweet, charming man when I spoke to him a few weeks ago.”

Added Wagner: “I can’t begin to say how much I have always admired and have been grateful for the elegance and loving friendship I was blessed to have with Richard Anderson.”

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Louise L. Hay Passes Away At 90

 In the late 1980s, I suffered a deeply personal hurt that sent me into a downward spiral that would affect me for years.

I never blamed the person who inflicted the injury on me. He was doing the best he could.

I knew I had somehow allowed myself to be injured, and I looked for ways to mend my heart.

I credit Louise L. Hay’s best seller, You Can Heal Your Heart, with helping me move through and past that hurt.

In the infinity of life where I am all is perfect, whole & complete.


 Back in the day, the approach was deemed “New Age” philosophy, which over time was labeled “fake.”

 Today, I would assert there are worse lessons to learn in life that loving yourself leads to everything else.

RIP Louise L. Hay

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Country Music Star Glen Campbell Passes Away at 81

Glen Campbell

Country music superstar Glen Campbell, whose career notched huge crossover hits like “Gentle on My Mind,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Rhinestone Cowboy,” died Tuesday. He was 81.

In 2011, Campbell announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and mounted a well-publicized farewell tour.

From his official website:

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather, and legendary singer and guitarist, Glen Travis Campbell, at the age of 81, following his long and courageous battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Glen is survived by his wife, Kim Campbell of Nashville, TN; their three children, Cal, Shannon and Ashley; his children from previous marriages, Debby, Kelli, Travis, Kane, and Dillon; ten grandchildren, great- and great-great-grandchildren; sisters Barbara, Sandra, and Jane; and brothers John Wallace “Shorty” and Gerald.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Glen Campbell Memorial Fund at BrightFocus Foundation through the CareLiving.org donation page.

Campbell was one of the very first true crossover artists, moving with equal ease between country and pop music.

Campbell’s career began as a studio musician for acts like The Beach Boys, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. But in 1967, he found his star on the rise.

Beginning with “Gentle on My Mind” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” Campbell launched an impressive streak of chart-topping country hits like, “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” and ” Dreams of the Everyday Housewife.”

Along the way, he racked up 7 Grammy Awards and countless other honors. His album, By The Time I Get To Phoenix, won a GRAMMY for Album Of The Year for 1968, making him the first country artist to win the award.

In 1969, he earned his own CBS variety show, “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour,” and made his acting debut in Paramount’s “True Grit,” alongside John Wayne. That turn yielded him a Golden Globe nomination for his performance.

He sold more than 45 million records in his career and topped the country singles chart 12 times.

My brother is a huge fan and played Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” over one million times (give or take) during our childhood.

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Broadway Icon Barbara Cook Passes Away At 89

Legendary Broadway and concert performer Barbara Cook has passed away at the age of 89 due to respiratory failure.

Cook, who began her career as a musical theatre ingénue (The Music Man, She Loves Me, Candide), found later career highs on concert and cabaret stages.

Via Playbill:

Equipped with a sweet disposition and heavenly voice, Ms. Cook was possibly the most all-American, apple-pie female lead the Broadway musical stage ever saw. She played most of her important roles while in her 20s and 30s. These included two landmark musicals, She Loves Me and The Music Man—she was the original Marian the Librarian—as well as the flawed masterpiece Candide, and the lesser-known shows Plain and Fancy, Flahooley, and The Gay Life. She introduced such standards as “Till There Was You,” “My White Knight,” “Ice Cream,” and “Glitter and Be Gay.”

Harold Prince, who directed She Loves Me, once said, “I’ve heard a hundred versions of ‘Ice Cream’ but none touches Barbara Cook’s. It must be that the music and lyrics are absorbed by her characters to such an extent they preempt their authorship.”

By the early ‘70s, however, the stage roles had dried up—so she forged a second act to her career as a premier interpreter of the songs of the theatrical stage she had left behind. In 1975, she made her debut as a song stylist at Carnegie Hall, and critics took new notice of her. She returned to the hall again in 1980. By the 1990s and 2000s, she was regularly headlining the country’s best cabaret spots and concert halls.

Ironically, she said this phase of her stage life was when she began performing the meaning of a lyric. “When I first started out,” she recalled. “I didn’t give much thought to acting a song. That evolved. Now I think of it as living inside a song and singing my way out—inhabiting it, feeling it, making it felt from my core to your core. That’s the only way I can explain it.”

Cook won a Tony Award for her performance in The Music Man.

My dear friend Vanessa Williams worked with Cook in 2010’s Broadway offering Sondheim on Sondheim. Cook was honored with a Tony Award nomination for her performance.

I remember seeing Vanessa after the concert and she mentioned over and over again how honored everyone in the cast felt sharing a stage with Cook.

Cook was also the recipient of the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors.

Here’s Cook performing at the 1987 Tony Awards honoring her Music Man costar Robert Preston.

It was Cook’s much-lauded return to musical theater in 1985 for Stephen Sondheim’s Follies In Concert at Lincoln Center in 1985 that helped propel her to the highest echelons of concert artists.

Watch her “Losing My Mind” from that concert below.

And then, of course, her rendition of “Vanilla Ice Cream” from She Loves Me, here from a PBS concert:

RIP Barbara Cook.

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Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright Sam Shepard Passes Away At 73

Sam Shepard

Sad to read of the passing of Pulitzer Prize-winning avant-garde playwright and actor, Sam Shepard, who passed away last Thursday at the age of 73 due to complications from ALS.

From the New York Times:

One of the most important and influential early writers in the Off Broadway movement, Mr. Shepard captured and chronicled the darker sides of American family life in plays like “Buried Child,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1979, and “Curse of the Starving Class” and “A Lie of the Mind.”

He was widely regarded as one of the most original voices of his generation, winning praise from critics for his searing portraits of spouses, siblings and lovers struggling with issues of identity, failure and the fleeting nature of the American dream. He was nominated for two other Pulitzers, for “True West” and “Fool for Love,” which both received Broadway productions.

Mr. Shepard was also an accomplished actor, nominated for an Academy Award for his supporting role in “The Right Stuff.” His most recent work was in the Netflix show “Bloodline,” where he appeared as the character of Robert Rayburn. He also appeared on New York stages, winning strong reviews for his performance in the Off Broadway production of Caryl Churchill’s “A Number” in 2004.

Working at Off Broadway landmarks like La MaMa and Caffe Cino, Mr. Shepard almost immediately received critical acclaim upon embarking on his career, winning Obie Awards for “Chicago” and “Icarus’s Mother” in 1965 and then “Red Cross” and “La Turista” in 1966. He would win seven more.

Over the course of his storied career, Shapard penned 44 plays and several books of short stories and essay.

New York magazine named him “the greatest American playwright of his generation.”

It was during my years at Syracuse University as a theater major that I was first exposed to Shepard’s innovative theatrical voice which could range from absurdism of his early off-off-Broadway plays to the stark realism of Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class.

For a kid raised on Oklahoma! and My Fair Lady, Shepard could be an eye-opening and thrilling experience.

RIP Sam Shepard.