february 2005 > final credits > last link on the left

Chris Curtis >permalink<

Drummer for The Searchers

Chris Curtis

Named after the 1956 John Ford movie western, the Liverpool-based band The Searchers was founded in 1957 by John McNally and were one of thousands of skiffle groups formed in the wake of Lonnie Donegan's success with "Rock Island Line." In the early 1960s, they sold millions of records with such hits as "Needles and Pins," "Sugar and Spice," "Love Potion Number 9," "Don't Throw Your Love Away" and their cover of The Drifters' "Sweets For My Sweet."

Curtis - real name Christopher Crummey - was part of the group's original line-up (which also included Mike Pender, Tony Jackson, Tony West and McNally) and contributed to the band's distinctive vocal harmonies. The Searchers briefly rivaled The Beatles for popularity, and the Fab Four's success made Liverpool acts a hot property. Beatles manager Brian Epstein had turned down the Searchers because Tony Jackson was drunk on stage at their audition. The Searchers were signed by Pye Records in 1963 and had their first number one the same year.

The first of numerous personnel changes occurred in 1964 when Tony Jackson quit the band, to be replaced by Frank Allen, a close friend of Curtis. Curtis stayed with the group until 1966 when he was replaced by John Blunt. Curtis had a 'partying-related' accident during a tour of Australia and there was a mutual parting of the ways. He was given a settlement of £5,000 in lieu of all future claims, something he bitterly resented in years to come.

Curtis was certain the Searchers would falter without him and that he would succeed as a songwriter, producer and performer. His first move, in order to annoy group manager Tito Burns, was to cover the Searchers' next single, "Have You Ever Been Lonely." The song suffered from split sales. While the group had further hits, the Searcher's fortunes declined after Curtis' departure.

In 1967, Curtis reached number four in the UK with "Let's Go To San Francisco," recorded under the alias of The Flowerpot Men. He then formed Roundabout - the band that went on to become Deep Purple - with his brother Dave, though both dropped out long before the group hit the big time.

Curtis produced records for other performers, but his career faltered and he eventually took a job in the civil service with Inland Revenue. His problems were exacerbated by "sick building syndrome" and he slept fitfully while listening to the radio non-stop. He was prone to calling his friends, often in the middle of the night, to draw their attention to what was being broadcast. He would board buses to give away items from his record collection and his Searchers memorabilia, often to complete strangers.

The Searchers continue to perform on the cabaret circuit, though the line-up has changed over the years. Mike Pender left the group in 1985 and set up an alternative Searchers, prompting his former bandmates to take legal action over the name. Tony Jackson died penniless in August, 2003 at the age of 63.

February 28, 2005 at age 63

EV1 >permalink<

Electric automobile

Zzzzzzzzz

The first modern electric automobile from a major carmaker - General Motors' EV1 battery-powered car - had its plug pulled this month as the last of its limited run of 1,100 vehicles were confiscated from their drivers. The cause of death, according to the automaker, was a lack of interest from the car-buying public, but EV1 enthusiasts suspect the vehicle was the victim of foul play on the part of the Detroit auto giant.

The cars were hailed for their whisper-soft performance, but worked best in warm climates. After 100 miles or so they had to be recharged for six to eight hours. The EV1's were available to the public only on a leasing basis, fetching between $300 and $500 a month. Most were consigned to California and Arizona.

Memorial services and a 24-hour-a-day vigil are being held outside General Motor's Burbank facility, where the remaining EV1s await the scrap pile, save for the ones destined for various museums. The 97-year-old carmaker is now concentrating on hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles.

February 28, 2005 at age 9. Failure to generate interest.

Pam Carter >permalink<

Actress

Best known as a stage actress in local productions in Nebraska, Carter had small roles in two films, Alexander Payne's "Election" and "Citizen Ruth." Through her own production company, Carter cast and directed several nationally syndicated cartoons, including "Archie's Weird Mysteries" for Warner Bros. and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" for Nickelodeon. Her "Liberty Kids" series, broadcast on PBS with Walter Cronkite as narrator, was nominated for an Emmy Award.

February 28, 2005 at age 50. Heart aneurysm.

Roland Anderson >permalink<

A-Bomb patent lawyer

Boom!

As can be imagined, when the Manhattan Project developed the atomic bomb, the effort represented the cutting edge of science. It was work never undertaken before, and many new processes, technologies and inventions were developed. Someone had to take stock of what was going on so that ... the proper patents could be applied for.

The task fell to Roland A. Anderson. He examined the technical reports of the entire project, detailed all devices and processes developed and made possible the assembly of records defining the U.S. government's basis for rights under all such inventions.

Anderson retired from the Navy 1946, served as chief of the Patent Branch of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and was assistant general counsel for patents from 1959 until his second retirement in 1973. He continued to serve as a private patent consultant for a number of years, contributed articles to professional periodicals and spoke before organisations on patent matters.

February 28, 2005 at age 97. Heart failure.

Russell Sprague >permalink<

Convicted of copying Oscar films

Sprague was accused of copying 134 "screener" movies sent to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 2004 Oscar consideration. The films were made available for download over the internet. Sprague was scheduled to be sentenced March 21, 2005 after pleading guilty last year to one count of copyright infringement. He had faced up to three years in prison. Sprague was found dead in his jail cell.

Prosecutors said Sprague received the films from Carmine Caridi, an actor and academy member who appeared in "The Godfather: Part II." Caridi admitted he sent Sprague copies of several movies, but denied knowing about Sprague's criminal activities. He believed Sprague was a film buff and merely wished to watch them. Caridi was never charged, but was ordered by a federal judge to pay Warner Bros. $300,000 for providing copies of "The Last Samurai" and "Mystic River" to Sprague. A similar suit filed by Columbia Pictures against Caridi is still pending.

February 28, 2005 at age 52. Heart attack

William Hines >permalink<

Pioneer in reporting on NASA

Hines, a former Washington Star and Chicago Sun-Times reporter, was considered the godfather of NASA space reporting. After World War II, he worked briefly in the Pentagon's information office before joining the Washington Star as a reporter. He had a keen interest in science and persuaded his boss to allow him to report on the America's early space program shortly after Russia launched Sputnik in 1957. Hines was legendary among journalists for his thorough reporting and quick writing speed. In news conferences he would sometimes leave NASA spokesmen speechless with his incisive questioning. After leaving the Star in 1968, he worked at the Chicago Daily News, later becoming its Washington bureau chief. He retired in 1989, but continued to do freelance writing as well as appearing on "Meet the Press" and other television news shows. Hines was proud when he learned years ago that he was on President Richard Nixon's "enemies list."

February 28, 2005 at age 88. Pneumonia.

J. William Littler >permalink<

Surgeon

During World War II, as a young surgeon in the Army, Littler operated on maimed soldiers at hospitals near Boston and in Pennsylvania. Though he had yet to complete his residency training, he worked on new ways to reconstruct missing thumbs, including replacing them with parts of forefingers, and transplanting healthy bundles of nerves and arteries to areas that had lost feeling, a procedure known as a sensory neurovascular island transfer. To revive arms and hands paralyzed by nerve damage, he transferred tendons from areas that were unharmed. Many of the techniques Littler pioneered are still used today.

February 27, 2005 at age 89. Head injury suffered in a fall.

Noll Scott >permalink<

Pioneer of online journalism

By all accounts, Noll Scott was an accomplished foreign correspondent, but his lasting legacy will be his work in bringing England's Guardian and Observer newspapers online and into the digital age. He guided doubters in the early days of moving the Guardian editorial into the computer era and also helped pioneer software to enable correspondents working abroad to use the emerging technology to file reports. With the advent of the internet, Noll went to what became Guardian Unlimited, ensuring that every word in the paper was also available for use online within minutes. Most recently, he was the inventor of the technology used to produce the Guardian and Observer digital editions.

February 27, 2005 at age 51. Automobile crash in Brazil.

Shelley Hull >permalink<

TV producer

In 1967, Hull began working with Aaron Spelling on "The Guns of Will Sonnett" and later "The Mod Squad." He went on to work on such hit television series as "Charlie's Angels" and "Starsky & Hutch." Most recently, Hull had worked as associate producer of "7th Heaven," which is in its ninth season. Hull also served as associate producer of the 1976 ABC television movie "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble," starring John Travolta.

February 27, 2005 at age 85. Pneumonia.

Howard St. Claire Jones Jr. >permalink<

Engineer

Sssshhhh

Jones held 31 patents as an inventor or co-inventor on research related to his work at a U.S. Army research lab, however their nature remains classified. His work centred on microwave antennas that were essential for the operation of missiles during the Cold War. His work also contributed to the development of U.S. space vehicles.

February 26, 2005 at age 83.

J. Donald M. Gass >permalink<

Ophthalmologist

We only have eyes for you

John Donald MacIntyre Gass was chosen by 33,000 ophthalmologists around the world as one of the 10 most influential ophthalmologists of the 20th century. He was born in Prince Edward Island and as a child moved with his family to Nashville, where he studied at Vanderbilt University. His keen observations led to diagnoses of previously undiscovered diseases of the retina, causing researchers to develop treatments that saved "tens of thousands" of people from blindness. Among Gass' discoveries was that a stretching of tissue, rather than loss of tissue, causes macular holes that disrupt the center of vision. That led to treatment innovations that can fix the condition in more than 90 percent of cases.

February 26, 2005 at age 76. Pancreatic cancer.

Jef Raskin >permalink<

Developer of Apple's Macintosh

Small enough for you?

Jef Raskin was employee #31 at Apple Computers. He forcefully advocated for the company to develop a computer that was easy for people to use. The result was the Macintosh computer, named after his favourite apple but with the spelling altered for copyright reasons.

Raskin joined Apple in 1978 as the director of publications and wrote the manual for the Apple II. He pioneered the use of the word "font" to refer to digital typefaces, and was among the creators of the "click and drag" method of manipulating icons on a computer screen. At the time, computers were primarily text-based and users had to remember a series of arcane commands to perform the simplest of tasks. Raskin believed that the person was important and the computer wasn't. Many of the Mac's innovations were adopted by other operating systems, including Microsoft Windows.

However, Raskin and Steve "Insanely Great" Jobs, Apple co-founder, had differing visions of what the Macintosh should be. Raskin had the idea of a focused machine while Jobs favoured a Swiss Army knife kind of computer which could perform any kind of task. Raskin left Apple in 1982 after his relationship with Jobs soured. Macintosh, the highly accessible and affordable computer, hit stores in 1984.

Raskin eventually went on to form his own company, Information Appliance, and created the Canon Cat, a computer that had little impact on the industry. It sold only 20,000 copies before Canon ended its support. At the time of his death, Mr. Raskin was working on Archy, a computer program that performed common tasks like word processing.

February 26, 2005 at age 61. Pancreatic cancer.

Leonard Thompson >permalink<

Fog calling champion

Booooooht Doooooooht!

Leonard Joseph Thompson's booming vocal imitation of the East Brother Light Station foghorn won him first place in the San Francisco Fair & Exposition "fog-calling" contest in 1983. He first heard about the competition and got a tape recording of the distinctive two-tone sound foghorn located just north of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. He went through various rounds and beat at least 15 people. In the second year of the contest, he placed second, but he coached the guy who won. The fair, which ended in 1994, included such other events as the "Herb Caen Write-Alike" contest, the "Impossible Parking Space Race" and the "Operatic Lip-Synching" contest.

February 26, 2005 at age 74.

Myron Blank >permalink<

Movie popcorn innovator

Blank, an Iowa philanthropist and University of Michigan graduate, has been credited for making popcorn a popular snack at movie theatres. Blank introduced popcorn at the movies in the 1930s when he worked for Central States Theater Corp., a chain of movie theaters owned by his father. Blank and his family have contributed to the city of Des Moines for several big projects, including a zoo, a golf course, and a hospital. He made other donations to art, education and health care.

February 26, 2005 at age 93.

Paul Sawyer >permalink<

NASCAR pioneer

Vroooooom-vroom-vroom-vroom-vroom

Starting with a small dirt track that he bought in 1955, Sawyer gradually turned the small "Atlantic Rural Fairground" short track in Virginia into the 110,000 seat Richmond International Raceway, and helped accelerate stock car racing's development from a regional sport to an international phenomenon. Twice he tore up the surface to create the unique oval that is among the most popular with NASCAR racers today. The track is host to two Nextel Cup races, two in the Busch Series, one in the Craftsman Truck Series, and one in the Indy Racing League, with all the races run at night.

In the late 1950s, NASCAR drivers were running several races a week, most of them 100 laps on one mile tracks. Sawyer sought to be different by hosting a 250-lap event at Richmond. "I wanted to build something no one else had, and evidently I did something right because I can't build seats fast enough," he said in a 1997 interview. The raceway continues to expand and so does the sport. NASCAR racing has now surpassed NFL Football and Major League Baseball in paid attendance.

February 26, 2005 at age 88.

R. Gregory Stevens >permalink<

U.S. Republican party media adviser

As a result of the O.J. Simpson trial, all deaths involving celebrites in Los Angeles County are treated with full autopsy treatment and investigative measure. Such was the case with Gregory Stevens. He was found dead in a guest room at the home of longtime friend and actress Carrie Fisher. The Los Angeles County coroner's office announced March 18th that Stevens died of an overdose of cocaine and the painkiller OxyContin. The autopsy also revealed that he suffered from hypertrophic heart disease but this was not a factor in his death.

Stevens served as co-chairman of the Bush/Cheney Entertainment Task Force and managed the campaign's relationships with entertainment industry leaders and film, television and music celebrities. Stevens specialised in campaign consulting and has advised candidates in 24 international elections according his firm's (Barber Griffith & Rogers) web site. He was scheduled to attend the Academy Awards on February 27, and was staying with Fisher at the time of his death. Carrie Fisher played Princess Leia in the "Star Wars" trilogy is the author of several books, including "Postcards From the Edge."

February 26, 2005 at age 42. Cause to be determined.

R. Gregory Stevens update

Here at the Last Link > Final Credits, we take factual issues pretty seriously. We rely on accredited sources to provide us with accurate information. Guess what? Sometimes they’re wrong. It appears there was a case of mistaken identity. The New York Times posted a story about the incident on April 26, 2005 (free registration required). In case the story is unavailable at the New York Times site, a copy can be found here.

Edward Patten >permalink<

Singer

Patten was a member of the band that backed up Gladys Knight for over thirty years. The Pips was formed by Knight, her brother Merald Knight and cousin William Guest in Atlanta in 1957. Patten joined the group in 1959. Gladys Knight & The Pips, whose hits included "Every Beat of My Heart," "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Midnight Train To Georgia," won four Grammys and were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. The group recorded for Motown from 1966-1973 and for Buddah Records from 1973-77. They later recorded for CBS until breaking up in 1989. Patten was one of the founders of Crew Records, based in Detroit and Atlanta, and sang backup for the label's recording artists.

February 25, 2005 at age 66. Stroke.

Peter Benenson >permalink<

Founder, Amnesty International

Peter Benenson

Benenson set up Amnesty International in 1961 after reading an article about the arrest and imprisonment of two students in a café in Lisbon, Portugal who had drunk a toast to liberty. He initially set up Amnesty International as a one-year campaign but it went on to become the world's largest independent human rights organisation working on behalf of people for whom Benenson coined the term "prisoners of conscience." Currently, it has more than 1.8 million members and supporters worldwide.

The group's current campaigns include a human rights disaster looming in Nepal, a call for an end to child executions in Iran, and demands for justice for ethnic rape and killings in Sudan's Darfur region. The group has also called for the release of all detainees at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, which it has described as "an icon of lawlessness."

Amnesty International has drawn its share of controversy, with critics including former Chilean ruler Augusto Pinochet, the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, Iraq's jailed former leader Saddam Hussein, and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Better light a candle than curse the darkness

In the 1980's, Benenson became chairman of Association of Christians Against Torture, and in the 1990's he organized aid for Romanian orphans. He also founded a group to aid victims of celiac disease - a faulty absorption of gluten in the intestines - which he had. Modest and unassuming, Benenson repeatedly rejected knighthoods, telling officials that if they wished to acknowledge his work for human rights, they should redress remaining abuses in Britain.

"Once the concentration camps and the hellholes of the world were in darkness," Benenson said. "Now they are lit by the light of the Amnesty candle; the candle in barbed wire. When I first lit the Amnesty candle, I had in mind the old Chinese proverb: Better light a candle than curse the darkness."

February 25, 2005 at age 83. Pneumonia.

Daniel Erskine McIvor >permalink<

Forest fire fighting innovator

Martin Mars

After being discharged from the R.C.A.F. at the end of World War II, McIvor settled on British Columbia's coast, becoming one of the area's legendary bush pilots. In the 1960's, he purchased four Martin Mars flying boats - the only ones of their kind in the world. After witnessing many devastating fires in his years of flying, McIvor believed that the safest and most effective way to fight forest fires was from the air. He converted the Martin Mars crafts into the first modern water bombers. Each airplane was able to carry 6000 imperial gallons (27,270 litres) of water, and with the addition of two probes designed by McIvor, the Mars could reload in twenty-two seconds while skimming a lake surface.

McIvor received the Lifetime Achievement in Aviation Award from the British Columbia Aviation Council; was named to the British Columbia Aviation Hall of Fame and Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame; and was awarded the Order of Canada. His story was told in a cover article in the Smithsonian Air Space Magazine.

February 24, 2005 at age 93.

George Crikelair >permalink<

Plastic surgeon

Crikelair became a leading advocate of fire-resistant coatings for children's sleepwear. As a plastic surgeon in the late 1950s, he noted that a number of patients, many of them children, had received severe injuries from burning clothing, often untreated cotton sleepwear. The burns often exceeded 50 percent of the body and were considered life-threatening. Crikelair was named to a national advisory committee that helped draft and promote the U.S. Flammable Fabrics Act, which was ratified in 1972 and set safety standards for certain fabrics.

February 24, 2005 at age 84. Stroke.

Goldie Hill >permalink<

Singer

Jimmie Logsdon interviewing Goldie Hill, circa 1957

Goldie Hill was known as "The Golden Hillbilly." In the 1940s Hill began singing with her brothers, Tommy and Ken Hill. In 1952, she and Tommy joined Webb Pierce's band, and when Pierce journeyed to Nashville to record, Hill went along with him. She auditioned for Pierce's label, Decca Records, and was signed immediately. Hill's second single was "I Let the Stars Get in My Eyes," an answer to Slim Willet's wildly popular "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," and it went No. 1 for three weeks. The song was written by her brother Tommy, who also wrote Pierce's big 1954 hit, "Slowly." Hill never duplicated the success of her first hit. In 1957, Hill married future Country Music Hall of Fame member Carl Smith, and retired from show business.

February 24, 2005 at age 72. Cancer.

Hans-Juergen Wischnewski >permalink<

Germany's international troubleshooter

Let's make a deal

When hijackers commandeered a Lufthansa airliner in 1977 to fly to Mogadishu, Somalia to force the release of three jailed Red Army Faction leaders, then West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt sent Hans-Juergen Wischnewski as his envoy. The hostage taking was part of a bloody climax to a nine-year campaign of urban terrorism in what was then West Germany. The campaign was forwarded by the Red Army Faction, a criminal gang better known as the Baader-Meinhof group (named after their founders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof).

The group had bombed department stores and banks, and raided town halls for blank ID cards and other official documents. They received tactical training in Libya and Lebanon, and found sanctuary in communist East Germany. The five leading figures were rounded up and jailed pending trial but the gang carried on, kidnapping and assassinating figureheads from politics, justice and the economy. In September 1977, they abducted the West German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer.

In October 1977, the group's Arab sympathisers hijacked a Lufthansa Boeing 737 flight bound for Frankfurt with 86 passengers and five crew aboard. They demanded the release of all Baader-Meinhof gang members from jail and diverted the aircraft, first to Rome, then to Larnaca (Cyprus), Bahrain and Dubai. The hijacked plane finally landed at Mogadishu after an abortive stop in Aden, Yemen, where the captain was shot dead by a terrorist.

Another Lufthansa aircraft left Frankfurt and followed the hijacked plane, carrying Wischnewski and 30 members of GSG9, a German anti-terrorist squad, and members of the British SAS squad. Wischnewski engaged in tense and feverish negotiations with the Somalis for permission to send in the GSG9. The squad successfully stormed the plane, killing three terrorists and freeing the hostages. The next day Schleyer was found dead in the trunk of a car, apparently killed by Red Army Faction members. Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Jan-Carl Raspe committed suicide in prison after the hijacking ended.

In 1986, Wischnewski mediated the freedom of eight West Germans seized by rebels in Nicaragua. In 1987, he sought the release of two German businessmen kidnapped in Lebanon. He also reportedly mediated the 1985 release of the daughter of then Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte, who was held by rebels for 44 days.

Even after Helmut Schmidt was ousted by the Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl, Wischnewski continued to carry out delicate foreign assignments for the German government. His last official mission took him to Libya in April, 2004, where he negotiated the resumption of economic ties between the two countries. His last foreign trip was to attend the funeral of Yasser Arafat in November, 2004.

February 24, 2005 at age 82. Complications from infection.

Joanne Brough >permalink<

TV producer

Brough began her career in 1960 at KTLA-TV Channel 5, Los Angeles. Three years later she moved to CBS. Rising through the ranks, she helped develop such series as "Kojak," "Hawaii Five-O," "All in the Family," "MASH" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." She moved to Lorimar Productions in 1978 as vice president of creative affairs and was executive producer of "Dallas" and "Falcon Crest." In 1990 Brough joined Lee Rich Productions, where she produced television movies and the documentary "America's Missing Children" in collaboration with actor Michael Landon. Recent years found her teaching courses in serialized television drama and production at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin.

February 24, 2005 at age 77. Cancer

Larry Kingston >permalink<

Songwriter

Country songwriter Larry Kingston was best known for songs the "Thank God & Greyhound," a hit for Roy Clark and "It's Not Over If I'm Not Over You," which was recorded by Reba McEntire. Among those who also recorded his song were Don Williams, Porter Wagoner, George Jones, Johnny Paycheck, Ringo Starr, Vern Gosdin, Mark Chesnutt and Jerry Lee Lewis. Kingston had a brief taste of chart success when he recorded his own song "Good Morning Loving" in the mid-1970s.

February 24, 2005 at age 60. Complications from a heart attack.

911 Victims Remain Unidentified >permalink<

9/11

New York authorities have ended efforts to identify victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leaving the remains of nearly half the 2,749 people killed in the World Trade Center unidentified. Some 9,720 unidentified bone and tissue fragments have been sealed and stored in case developments in technology allow for identification in the future, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office. Of those killed, 42 percent remain unidentified due to difficulties in getting DNA samples from the remains. "The remains have become deteriorated. Some have no DNA, and some have only partial DNA," Borakove said.

The medical examiner's office has identified 1,585 victims, but progress has slowed to a halt on 1,161 victims. Only eight remains have been identified since September, 2004. Three people injured in the attacks died later of their wounds. The unidentified remains will be placed in a memorial when the World Trade Center complex is rebuilt, Borakove said. Family members of all those killed in the World Trade Center attacks will be notified by New York officials about plans for the remains in the yet-to-be-built memorial.

February 23, 2005.

Tom Patterson >permalink<

Founder, Canada Stratford Festival

He’s the one on the right

After returning to Canada after the Second World War, Tom Patterson thought that his hometown - Stratford, Ontario - would be the perfect venue for a festival celebrating the work of William Shakespeare. He won the support of city council and eventually the entire town, and the Stratford Festival of Canada opened in July, 1953.

Many doubted the success of a plan to stage an acclaimed Shakespearean festival in a town of about 16,000, and Patterson initially sought out actor Laurence Olivier to lend credence to the event. However, after consulting with Canadian theatre maven Dora Mavor Moore, he was steered towards Tyrone Guthrie, whom Moore called "the greatest Shakespearean director in the world."

Guthrie was instantly charmed by Stratford's beautiful riverfront, its earnest people and the opportunity to fulfill his own dream of building an authentic Shakespearean theatre: one where the audience is seated almost completely surrounding a low-level stage, necessitating performances that returned to the old style of acting.

After agreeing to become the festival's first artistic director, Guthrie helped bring other prestigious names aboard, including actors Alec Guinness and Irene Worth - who starred in the opening productions of Richard III and All's Well That Ends Well - and theatre designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch, who designed the festival's thrust stage.

The festival brought a much-needed boost to the town, which was suffering from the withdrawal of the rail industry that had helped sustain it for almost 80 years. And as the Stratford Festival developed into the largest classical repertory theatre in North America, tourism replaced furniture-building as the town's main enterprise.

Patterson became a member of the Order of Canada in 1967 (promoted to officer in 1977). He was awarded honourary law degrees from the University of Toronto in 1981 and the University of Western Ontario in 1988. He was also a recipient of the Canadian Centennial Medal, the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Medal and the Order of Ontario.

"Without Tom Patterson, there would be no Stratford Festival of Canada," current Stratford artistic director Richard Monette said in a statement. "His was an extraordinary vision at an extraordinary time."

February 23, 2005 at age 84.

Harry Simeone >permalink<

Conductor

After spending a career working for and with headliners like Fred Waring and Bing Crosby, Simeone became best known in the late 1950's with his work with the Harry Simeone Chorale. Simeone had arranged scores for several films, most notably 1944's "Here Come the Waves" and 1945's "The Affairs of Susan." He also worked on two of the "Road" movies that Crosby made with Bob Hope and the television series "Bonnie Lassie." However, it was his group's recordings of Christmas songs that sold in the hundreds of thousands for which he will be best remembered.

Simeone's most successful recording was his group's rendition of "The Little Drummer Boy." The song became an instant holiday classic in 1958, and made the Top 40 charts in the United States. "The Little Drummer Boy" has been recorded by artists from Bing Crosby, paired with the rocker David Bowie, to the Pipes and Drums and Military Band of the Royal Scots Guards, Chet Atkins, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Johnny Mathis and Roger Whittaker. Simeone and his singers had another Christmas hit in 1962 with "Do You Hear What I Hear?"

The origins of "The Little Drummer Boy" have not been resolved but the melody appears to be based on both Czech and Spanish compositions. The words were written by Katherine Davis in 1941 but the song was not recorded until 1957. The first recording under the title "Carol of the Drum" was made a cappella for an album, Christmas is a-Comin', by the Jack Halloran Singers. The arranger, Harry Onorati, added his name to the songwriting credits. Onorati told Simeone about the song and Simeone immediately recognised its potential. He decided to record his own version the following Christmas and he hired many of the same singers. He added finger cymbals but otherwise the arrangement was identical. The album, Sing We Now of Christmas, was recorded in an old church in Greenwich Village to enhance the sound. Simeone was listed as producer and he took a songwriting credit on "The Little Drummer Boy". The arrangement did not include a drum but the vocal percussion of "pa-rum-pa-pa-pum" fell into the lyric.

February 22, 2005 at age 94.

Heath Lamberts >permalink<

Actor

Canadian actor Heath Lamberts created the role of 'Cogsworth' in the original 1994 Broadway version of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." His film and TV credits include "Nothing Personal," "Ordinary Magic," "Tom and Huck," "Eerie Indiana," "Road to Avonlea" and "Law & Order." Born as James Lancaster, Lamberts began his career as a boy soprano with the Toronto Opera Company. He was a member of the first class at the newly opened National Theatre School in Montreal in 1960. He was best known in Canada for his work during 12 seasons at the Stratford Festival, and also at the Shaw Festival. He was named to the Order of Canada in 1987, and twice won the Tyrone Guthrie Award in addition to three Dora Awards.

February 22, 2005 at age 63. Metastasized prostate cancer.

Lee Eun-Joo >permalink<

Actress

Lee Eun-Joo

South Korean actress Lee Eun-Joo was one of the biggest box office draws in her country's cinema industry. She first gained critical notice in "The Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors." She also starred in the hit drama "Bungee Jumping of Their Own." Eun-joo's final screen appearance in "The Scarlet Letter" was as a woman who commits suicide. She is believed to have suffered a bout of depression after appearing nude in that film last year.

Lee Eun-Joo's suicide illustrates a trend in South Korea where more people than ever before are killing themselves. In traditional Korean culture, entertainers are looked down on and acting is considered a low profession. Fans have speculated that her death might have been linked to the "entertainment X-file", an incriminating document purported to be a list of the affairs, illegitimate children and drug use of the country's leading celebrities. The 113-page document, put together by a top advertising agency for the purpose of rating entertainers for contractual value, exposed South Korea's 99 most bankable stars, including Lee, to public ridicule and contempt.

Lee's suicide highlights the issue of depression in South Korea, where people tend to hide even the slightest psychiatric problems for fear of being treated as mentally ill and facing ostracism. About 25% of South Koreans suffer from depression of varying degrees of severity, compared with 10% in advanced countries. Of those suffering from depression in South Korea, 15% attempt suicide and one out of 10 succeed.

February 22, 2005 at age 25. Suicide.

Mary Gregory >permalink<

Actress

Mary Ethel Gregory had played small roles in a limited number of movies. She was a scretary in "Footloose," and in "The Executioner's Song," the 1982 miniseries about murderer Gary Gilmore's last days before facing a Utah firing squad, she played the wife of Gilmore's best friend. Gregory also played a rock star's plague-stricken mother in Stephen King's "The Stand," and in "The Deliberate Stranger," the Ted Bundy TV mini-series.

February 22, 2005 at age 79. Cancer.

Robert Koff >permalink<

Founder, Juilliard String Quartet

Violinist Koff, along with violinist Robert Mann, violist Raphael Hillyer and cellist Arthur Winograd, formed the Juilliard String Quartet in 1946 at the request of the composer William Schuman, who was president of the Juilliard School. Although none of the original players remain in the lineup (the last to leave was Mann in 1997), the group has maintained its affiliation with the Juilliard School and its original commitment to showcasing contemporary music for nearly six decades. Koff helped shape the Quartet's sound when they were first establishing itself as American's pre-eminent chamber ensemble, and he performed on many of the group's classic recordings. In addition to performing and teaching, Koff lectured on music in a 40-part series on WGBH television in Boston.

February 22, 2005 at age 86. Blood disease.

Simone Simon >permalink<

Actress

Meow

Two decades before Brigitte Bardot, the tag "sex kitten" could have been applied more appropriately to Simone Simon. Director Jean Renoir described the French actress as "A cat, a real cat, with a silky coat that begs to be caressed, a short little snout, a big, slightly beseeching mouth and eyes full of promises."

Her most famous role was in Jacques Tourneur's 1942 "Cat People," playing a fashion artist who is haunted by the fear that she descended from a race of cat-women who turn into panthers when sexually aroused. "Kiss me or claw me!" read the ads. One of the most influential horror movies ever filmed, "Cat People" was remade in 1982 by Paul Schrader with Nastassja Kinski reprising Simon's role.

Simon's career was first established with her appearance in Renoir's 1938 "La Bête humaine," playing Severine, a femme fatale who persuades her lover to murder her husband. Moving to America just prior to World War II, Simon became embroiled in scandal after accusing her secretary of stealing $5000 by forging cheques. The woman's defence was to blacken Simone Simon's character by publicising details of her private life. She was said to be in the habit of showering her men friends (among them the composer George Gershwin) with expensive gifts, including gold keys to her home engraved with their initials.

After a short stint in Hollywood, where her career stalled due to a reluctance to master English, Simon returned to France and appeared in Max Ophuls' 1950 film "La Ronde." Simon 'retired' after "The Extra Day," a 1956 British picture in which she played a French film star. Her last film was "La Femme en Bleu," made in 1973.

Details of her life, particularly her age, remain shrouded in mystery. The years given for her birth range from 1910 to 1917, placing her age at death from late eighties to early nineties. Some sources say she was born in Bethune, France, and raised in Marseille, Madagascar, Vienna, Budapest, Berlin or Brussels.

A few years ago, Simon was asked for an interview for a TV documentary on Jean Renoir. She refused, saying that she did not want to appear on camera as she was "a very old woman". Simon has left us with a vision of a lovely, young woman.

February 22, 2005 at age 94.

Trude Rittmann >permalink<

Broadway arranger

Leaving her native Germany after seeing the Nazis burning books in Berlin, Rittmann arrived in the United States and for four decades she arranged dance and choral music for more than 50 Broadway shows, including such hits as "The Sound of Music" and "My Fair Lady." Working with composers in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the golden years for Broadway musicals, Rittmann arranged for some of the biggest hits of the time: "The King and I," "South Pacific," "Carousel," and "Peter Pan." She arranged music for theatrical giants such as Agnes de Mille, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and Jerome Robbins. When Hollywood made a film of "The King and I," Rittmann went there to arrange the dance music. Rittmann served also as a concert accompanist and pianist for the New York City Ballet.

February 22, 2005 at age 96. Stroke.

Ara Berberian >permalink<

Opera singer

Berberian, a Detroit native, a bass, debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1979 as Zacharie in Meyerbeer's "The Prophet." It was the beginning of a two decade run at the Met, signing more than 100 roles for in performances. Berberian studied singing privately and never attended music school. He earned degrees in economics and law from the University of Michigan and practiced law for a year. He also tried out for baseball's minor leagues, and sang the national anthem at the 1984 World Series at Detroit's Tiger Stadium, which he called a bigger thrill than his Met debut.

February 21, 2005 ge 74. Heart failure.

Don Higgins >permalink<

Sound editor

Higgins won an Emmy Award for his work on 1977's made for TV movie "The Amazing Howard Hughes." He was also part of a group Emmy nominated for the 1986 TV mini-series "Dallas: The Early Years." Higgins was a sound effects editor on Irwin Allen's early 1960s TV series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," and his film credits also include Ken Russell's 1980 "Altered States." Higgens claimed that he was the first editor to bring a computer in the editing room (and was fired for doing so).

February 21, 2005 at age 80.

Gene Scott >permalink<

Television preacher

Gene Scott, human being

At the very least, Gene Scott was unconventional. His preaching style earned him a reputation as an eccentric, making him a frequent target for "Saturday Night Live" and Johnny Carson. He chomped on cigars, had beautiful young women (known as "Scott's Bunnies") dance on his broadcasts and wore hats ranging from sombreros to Stanford University caps. With his white mane and beard, half-frame reading glasses cocked on his forehead, Scott was a caricature of a modern-day prophet. He would alternately grin and berate his congregation, often staring down a live television audience to raise money for such causes as the Los Angeles Public Library and the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center in Pasadena.

He once excomminucated the entire congregation for not giving enough. "Get on the telephone!" he ordered his viewers. For those who didn't send money, Scott suggested: "Vomit on yourself with your head up in the air." He had a worldwide radio and television audience in 180 countries, with his ministry taking in more than $1 million a month. To qualify as a member of his church, the main requirement was a valid credit card, with Scott's aim apparently being to make it richer than the Vatican. "First-class salvation costs money," he once said. In 1980, Werner Herzog made Scott the subject of a documentary, "God's Angry Man," which showed the preacher raising several hundred thousand dollars during a television show lasting half an hour.

February 21, 2005 at age 75. Stroke.

Guillermo Cabrera Infante >permalink<

Writer

Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Cabrera Infante was a Cuban novelist who was an early supporter of Fidel Castro but became one of his harshest critics. He lived in exile in London for nearly 40 years. Though Cabrera Infante is best known for novels evoking pre-revolutionary Havana, such as "Three Trapped Tigers," he was also a screenwriter with credits for 1971's "Vanishing Point" and 1968's "Wonderwall" (which featured a soundtrack by Beatle George Harrison). Cabrera Infante had another film, "The Lost City" (starring Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray), in post-production. The film is set in Havana during the late 1950s and early 1960s and is directed by and stars Garcia as one of three brothers whose lives are torn apart by the revolution. Cabrera Infante's Spanish publishing house said that the author's ashes would "be stored and sent to Cuba when that country is free."

February 21, 2005 at age 75. Septicemia.

Isabelle Goldenson >permalink<

Founder, United Cerebral Palsy

Goldenson and her husband Leonard H. Goldenson, former head of ABC, reached out to other parents of children with cerebral palsy by placing an advertisement in The New York Herald Tribune. As a result, United Cerebral Palsy was founded in 1949. Goldenson and her husband lobbied for wheelchair access to sidewalks and restrooms and even recruited NASA to their cause. "If we can put a man on the moon," she asked at a dinner party in 1971, "why can't we develop a lightweight wheelchair for people with disabilities?" NASA engineers soon constructed such a wheelchair as well as medical monitoring equipment. Through its network of affiliates, United Cerebral Palsy provides daily services to more than 30,000 people.

February 21, 2005 at age 84.

Justin Howes >permalink<

Curator, Type Museum of London

ABCDEFG

Howes was a rarity. He appreciated the legacy of letters as physical metal objects, rather than as abstractions squeezed and manipulated on a computer screen. In 1995 he bought two iron printing presses and a ton of metal type, one of which was a Stanhope, which had been used at The London Times from 1804 to 1814. He stored the presses in a building that also served as his home, a 6500 square foot former shoe-factory. As a result of his interest in hot lead, he became curator of Britain's Type Museum in 1996.

An expert on typefaces, he was often called to speak on subjects as riveting as "Typographical Monstrosities: From Sanserifs to the Euro." He once wrote a book about the genesis of London Transport's Underground typeface. Howes' favourite letter form was Caslon Old Face as originally cut by William Caslon (1693-1766). Caslon was revived and recut in the 19th century, and again in the 20th for hot-metal setting and then for photosetting. It eventually became today's dominant letter form, Times New Roman.

Howes, who died at his desk, was just about to embark on a six-month visit to the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Amsterdam. It had been a dream for him to spend time there casting letters and working with 16th and 17th-century materials, creating faces with a craftsman who could cast them in sand -- the first time the process had been used for letters in 200 years. Howe was not married.

February 21, 2005 at age 41. Heart attack.

Hunter S. Thompson >permalink<

Gonzo journalist

Blam!

Outrageous, self-destructive, pioneering ... it would be difficult to describe Thompson's life in conventional terms. Not only did he push the envelope, he often left the planet. And he also defined "fictional journalism," where the writer placed himself inside the story he was covering, giving up any pretense of objectivity. It was a style suited to Thompson's worldview, and it was a style suited to the times he reported.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," Thompson once wrote. And it was that approach that caused Richard Nixon to characterise him as "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character." For more about the life and times of this counterculture icon, visit the Last Link Hunter S. Thompson tribute page.

February 20, 2005 at age 67. Self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

John Raitt >permalink<

Singer/actor

Raitt was a robust baritone who created the role of Billy Bigelow in the original New York production of "Carousel." He was also the father of singer Bonnie Raitt. Famed on Broadway, his success on Broadway never translated into a successful film career. He played opposite Doris Day in "The Pajama Game," his only starring film role.

Raitt appeared in small parts in several films during the late 1940s and early 1950s. He was a popular guest on a number of TV shows of the era, including Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town," "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" "Shirley Temple's Storybook," "General Electric Theater," "Death Valley Days," "Shower of Stars" and "The Bell Telephone Hour."

In later years, Raitt was overshadowed by the fame of his blues-singing daughter. "She used to be known as John Raitt's daughter; now I'm known as Bonnie Raitt's father," he once observed.

February 20, 2005 at age 88. Pneumonia.

Pam Bricker >permalink<

Singer, music professor

Pam Bricker was a mainstay of the New England music scene for over 25 years. She was the leader of The Bricker Band and was a member of the swing vocal group Mad Romance. She performed with many Washington area jazz greats, including the late Charlie Byrd and Emily Remler, and Buck Hill. She appeared at the Blue Note in New York City, the Barns at Wolftrap, the Smithsonian and on the Main Stage at the 1989 Monterey Jazz Festival. She won the Best Contemporary Jazz Vocalist Wammie (the Washington Area Music Association's annual award) in 1999, 2000, and 2001.

But Bricker was most widely heard on the Grammy award winning soundtrack for the movie "Garden State," performing as vocalist for the electronica band Thievery Corporation whose song "Lebanese Blonde" appears in the film. In addition to singing on the Thievery Corporation's first three recordings, Bricker was also a professor of music for George Washington University's jazz department, a post she held for the past five years.

February 20, 2005. Suicide.

Sandra Dee >permalink<

Actress/teen-movie star

Girls wanted to look like her and boys wanted to date her

Dee was the pert and pretty star of popular low-budget teen movies of the late 1950s and early 1960s and the archetypal blond bobby-soxer of the era. Girls wanted to look like her and boys wanted to date her. She was best known for her roles in "Gidget," as well as "Tammy Tell Me True" and "Tammy And The Doctor" -- sequels to Debbie Reynolds's hit "Tammy and the Bachelor." When the charming teens-meet-surf, sand and each other story was translated to television in 1965, it was Sally Field in the title role. Nevertheless, when members of a certain generation remember Gidget and her innocent beach bonfires, to this day, they think of Dee.

Occasionally Dee received roles that showed her range. She supported June Allyson in "A Stranger In My Arms," appeared in the Oscar nominated "Imitation of Life" against Lana Turner and Dan O'Herlihy, and co-starred with another young, blond heartthrob, Troy Donahue, in "A Summer Place," one of the earliest studio films to commodify youthful rebelliousness. Peter Ustinov cast her as Juliet in his Cold-War update of the Shakespeare play, which Ustinov called "Romanoff and Juliet." She was voted one of Hollywood's top 10 moneymakers in 1960 and again in 1961.

Dee married Bobby Darin and the couple appeared together in "Come September," "If A Man Answers" and "That Funny Feeling." After six years the marriage was over, and Universal Studios dropped her from her contract. Her career never recovered. She gained exposure to a new generation through the Broadway play and film "Grease" because of the self-mocking song "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee." Her most notable recent appearance was in the first film about the Apollo 13 disaster: "Houston We've Got a Problem" in 1974. She also appeared in the pilot for the TV series "Fantasy Island."

Dee was born Alexandra Cymboliak Zuck in Bayonne, New Jersey. She was abandoned by her father and decided on an acting career at age 5, and by 12 had become one of America's top models and cover girls. Her agency got her into TV commercials for Coca-Cola and Coppertone, and she was discovered by Universal producer Ross Hunter.

In a March, 1991 interview with People magazine, she said that she was sexually abused as a child by her stepfather and that she was pushed into stardom by her mother. Her lifelong obsession with thinness began at age 9, when her stepfather told her that she had eaten too many pancakes. By 11, she was so anorexic that fan magazines commented on the problem. By the time she arrived in Hollywood, the 5’ 5” Dee weighed 90 pounds. Dee lost all her savings in a property deal in the 1970s, and had to be supported by her mother. When her mother died in 1988, she was drinking more than a quart of scotch a day and her weight fell to 80 pounds.

Dee's marriage to Darin, who died at age 37 in 1973 of heart disease, has been in the spotlight most recently thanks to "Beyond the Sea," Kevin Spacey's homage to the singer and teen idol. In that movie, Dee was played by Kate Bosworth. Spacey said Dee, who was then living as a virtual recluse in Los Angeles, approved of the film.

February 20, 2005 at age [60, 62 or 63]. Kidney disease and pneumonia.

Henry C. Brinton >permalink<

Atmospheric physicist

Brinton had a 40-year career in space science and retired as director of research for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's unmanned space program. He began his career NASA in 1959 and worked as a research scientist for 21 years at Goddard Space Flight Center. In 1980, he began work at NASA headquarters in Washington, where he oversaw such programs as the Cassini mission, which sent the Huygens probe to Titan, Saturn's largest moon; the probe arrived in December 2004. In 1998, the year of his retirement, NASA presented him its Creative Management Award.

February 19, 2005 at age 70. Cancer.

Joe Martin >permalink<

Doo wop singer

Baritone singer Joseph Martin began singing with his Harlem neighbourhood pals, performing as the Dovers, in 1952. They later changed their name to the 5 Willows. One day while walking through Manhattan, the group ran into Sammy Davis Jr., who was out taking pictures. He referred them to a friend who owned a record label, and soon had New York area hits with "My Dear Dearest Darling" and "Dolores." A later recording on another label featured Neil Sedaka playing the chimes - a first for a rock and roll record. The song, "Church Bells Are Ringing," was "covered" by the white group the Diamonds. Although the group never achieved any measure of success, the Willows continued to perform, appearing as recently as 2004 at Westbury Music Fair on Long Island.

February 19, 2005 at age 71.

Kihachi Okamoto >permalink<

Film director

Best known for a number of World War II related-films such as "Nihon No Ichiban Nagai Hi (Japan's Longest Day)," which depicted Japan's surrender, and "Dokuritsu Gurentai (Desperado Outpost)," about Japanese soldiers revealing corruption in his corps in China during the war period. In the late 1970s, Okamoto made entertainment films such as "Jazz Daimyo," and "East Meets West," about the success of a samurai who went overseas at the end of Japan's Edo period. Okamoto won the Best Director and Best Screenplay Awards of the Japanese Academy for his 1991 crime/comedy "Rainbow Kids," and his crime noir film "The Big Boss" is generally considered his best work. His last film, the samurai-related "Sukedachiya Sukeroku," was produced in 2001.

February 19, 2005 at age 81. Throat/esophagal cancer.

Paul Burnett >permalink<

Journalism professor

Burnett already had an established newspaper career when he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He became a decorated B-17 navigator, and filmed combat footage for Oscar-winning director William Wyler's 1942 documentary "The Memphis Belle." That same year over France, Burnett's plane took repeated hits from German aircraft. Though seriously wounded, he guided the crippled bomber without charts or radio over the English Channel to a safe landing in England. Burnett joined Auburn University in 1948 and over the next 31 years grew the journalism program from one instructor and single classroom to a separate department.

February 19, 2005 at age 86.

Phil Balmer >permalink<

DEW line and Avro Arrow engineer

World War II and the fear of Communism cast a long shadow over Canada and the United States during the 1950s. Governments of the day sought to placate public fears (and further political agendas) with two highly visible projects. One was a line of defense known as the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, a radar installation across Canada's North. The other was the most advanced fighter jet of its day: the Canadian Avro Arrow. Phil Balmer worked on both projects.

Avro Arrow Balmer became aware of the importance of his expertise when Canadian government authorities asked him to take down his ham-radio aerial on the eve of the second world war. While only a teen, the Toronto native was puzzled by concerns over his ability to contact persons outside the country.

By the end of the war, Balmer had completed a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto. He found work with Canadian General Electric, developing electrical equipment needed for the DEW line. It was work he could not discuss with family or friends.

Balmer's next assignment was to develop electrical circuits for the Avro Arrow. The legendary craft out-performed all other planes of its type, but fell victim to polictical posturing by the newly-elected Diefenbaker government on February 20, 1959. All six existing Arrows were destroyed, and the technical expertise behind the project drifted south, finding work at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration in its efforts to land a man on the moon.

Balmer, however, remained in Canada, working for Canadian General Electric until his retirement. He filled his career designing radio equipment for the Toronto police force, and working as GE's patent authority. From files compiled by Colin Haskin of the Globe and Mail.

For more about the Avro Arrow, visit Histori.ca's sites here and here.

February 19, 2005 at age 81. Heart failure.

Ronald Goede >permalink<

Doctor

Goede, a respected Edmonton, Alberta area doctor, died during an emergency flight home after being mugged in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Goede was on holiday with his partner Jack Dyck when a man struck Goede on the head the night of Monday, February 14th. On the night of the mugging, Goede appeared to be fine. He went the next day to a local hospital where doctors tried unsuccessfully to treat him. He was brought by air ambulance back to Canada for treatment, but died from his injuries at Edmonton's University hospital. Puerto Vallarta police are investigating but don't hold out much hope of solving the case. All that witnesses remember of the attack is a bare-chested man in shorts running away. Goede, of Sherwood Park, was a general practitioner who worked at a clinic in Fort Saskatchewan.

February 19, 2005 at age 57. Murdered.

Clara 'Clibby' Verrian >permalink<

Talent agent

Verrian was a one-woman show in the Canadian film industry. In addition to founding the Toronto talent agency Faces and Places, she was also a casting director, located movie sites and supplied extras for movies, television series and commercials. Among her most well-known clients were Justin Louis, Sarah Polley and Cory Haim.

When her marriage ended in 1980, Verrian resolved to do something different. She loved the movies and Hollywood, and soon made a name for herself providing extras for the 1981 thriller "Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper," a television movie about the U.S.-Iranian hostage drama. In recent years, Verrian downsized her operations and specialised in acquiring extras for commercials. A recent project was a big-budget, blacks-only Nike commercial that featured NBA star Vince Carter. With just a few days' notice, Verrian filled an entire stadium to create period Harlem with 750 black extras. Faces and Places, with close to 300 clients, will continue under the management of her son.

February 18, 2005 at age 65. Heart attack.

John Ebstein >permalink<

Designer

... way ahead of its time ...

John Ebstein was the industrial designer who led a team that created the Studebaker Avanti sports car, and influenced the look of a wide range of products from Lucky Strike cigarettes to Greyhound buses. He was employed by Raymond Loewy, the legendary "father of streamlining." While Ebstein also contributed to the design of space capsules, Pennsylvania Railroad locomotives and the Air Force One used by the Kennedy administration, his most notable achievement was the Avanti, created in less than two weeks in a two-room bungalow in Palm Springs, California.

Intended to save Studebaker-Packard from financial collapse, the radically styled, powerful sports coupe did not fulfill its intended purpose. But it did become revered among automobile enthusiasts and design devotees as one of the world's most consummate sports cars. It was built in the 1963 and 1964 model years.

The Avanti, which means "forward" in Italian, had a Coke-bottle shape, with a narrowing in the middle that inspired European racing cars for a generation. It could hold four passengers and had two doors, a long hood, a host trunk, an asymmetrical power bulge on the hood, virtually no chrome trim and no fins. The interior was inspired by aircraft flight decks, with numerous toggle switches on the console.

For more about John Ebstein and Raymond Loewy, visit the Loewy Design and Raymond Loewy Foundation web sites.

February 18, 2005 at age 92. Heart attack

Uli Derickson >permalink<

Flight attendant

On June 14, 1985, a pair of Lebanese gunmen commandeered TWA Flight 847, travelling from Athens to Rome. Derickson, a flight attendant, was instrumental in protecting the lives of 152 passengers and crew members. The hijacking lasted 17 days and resulted in the loss of one life. For more about this dramatic event and Derickson's role in it, visit the Last Link Uli Derickson tribute page.

February 18, 2005 at age 60. Cancer.

Daniel O'Herlihy >permalink<

Actor

Irish-born actor O'Herlihy was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for the title role in Luis Bunuel's 1954 "The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," Bunuel's first English language film. Horror fans may remember him from "Halloween 3: Season of the Witch." O'Herlihy had over 150 film and TV credits, including such classics as Orson Welles 1948 version of "MacBeth," "The Virgin Queen," "Imitation of Life," and one of the best cold-war thrillers ever made, 1964's "Fail-Safe." O'Herlihy also appeared in "Robo Cop" and "Robo Cop 2," the TV mini-series "QBVII," "100 Rifles," "Twin Peaks," "MacArthur," "The Last Starfighter," John Huston's last complete film "The Dead," and "The Rat Pack," playing Joseph Kennedy in the 1998 TV movie. His late brother was film and television director Michael O'Herlihy ("Star Trek," "Maverick," "Gunsmoke," "M*A*S*H," "Hawaii 5-0," "The A-team" and "Miami Vice").

February 17, 2005 at age 85. Exact cause not disclosed at the request of family.

Jean Cayrol >permalink<

Scriptwriter

Jean Cayrol

Cayrol is perhaps best known for his contribution as scriptwriter to two of Alain Resnais's major films. The feature film they made together was 1963's "Muriel," one of the key works of the French Nouvelle Vague cinematic movement. The first film they devised, 1956's "Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard)," was an effective documentary made about the Nazi extermination camps. Cayrol was also the author of some 25 novels and more than a dozen volumes of essays and verse, and he wrote occasionally for radio and television.

February 17, 2005 at age 93.

Peter Foy >permalink<

Aerographer

Peter Foy

Foy was the master of stage flight or "aerography" and the theatre industry's foremost expert on 'flying' actors with wire rigs. He founded the company Flying by Foy in 1957, and he stopped counting the productions his company was involved in when the number reached 6,000.

Born in England, Foy was requested to stage the flying sequences of the 1950 Broadway production of the Peter Pan after the show's producers discovered that no theatrical flying had been performed in the United States for 20 years. The show starred Jean Arthur as Peter Pan and Boris Karloff as Captain Hook. Foy began to experiment with existing equipment and by the time he was required to help with the famous 1954 Peter Pan production that starred Mary Martin, he had developed the Inter-related Pendulum. It not only allowed dynamic movement back and forth over the stage but also launched actors higher, faster and more smoothly than before. He also developed the floating pulley, a device that enabled flying in theaters with ceilings lower than 40 feet.

Foy's devices were more reliable than their human operators. Once Liberace was dragged instead of flown offstage when an inept technician was at the controls. On another occasion, Foy's assistant was so mesmerized by the sight of Peter Pan in flight that he forgot what he was doing and sailed Mary Martin right into a brick wall (Martin wound up with a broken arm but returned to the set the same day).

Foy's harnesses and rigs have been used on such films and TV shows as "The Flying Nun" starring Sally Field, "Fantastic Voyage," "Superman" and "The Wiz." Foy flew Nadia Comaneci over Times Square for the 2004 Olympic torch relay in New York and created flying effects for the opening ceremonies at the Olympic Games in Athens. In 1990, the Health and Safety Codes Commission of the United States Institute of Theatre Technology presented Foy with an International Entertainment Safety Award. Asked by a director if he could haul two people in a sleigh through the air for a production of "Nutcracker," Foy replied, "Lady, I once flew Liberace and his piano."

February 17, 2005 at age 79.

Vernon Young >permalink<

Doo wop singer

Adrift

Young led Vernon Young & The Touchtones and sang with The Outlaws and Archie Bell & The Drells. Young was working with Bill Pinkney's edition of the Original Drifters when he died on tour in Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean. Vernon joined Bill Pinkney's Original Drifters in the early 1990s.

The name 'Bill Pinkney's Original Drifters' is the result of business disputes dating back to 1954 when Clyde McPhatter left the Drifters. With McPhatter's departure, the Drifters became a revolving door enterprise with singers assembled by Ahmet Ertegun (a one-time record collector who had started Atlantic Records in the late 1940s) and producer Jerry Wexler on an 'as need' basis. At the time of McPhatter's leaving, Bill Pinkney was singing bass.

McPhatter half-owned Drifters Incorporated with his manager George Treadwell (whose first wife was Sarah Vaughan). When McPhatter left, he sold his interest to Treadwell. Future Drifters singers became salaried employees, and when Pinkney disputed this arrangement he was fired in 1956. Between then and the early 1970s, the Drifters story became extremely involved. Lawsuits over name ownership proliferated when numerous Drifters, including Pinkney's, took advantage of the rock 'n roll revival that suddenly made the group's classic repertory profitable again.

Treadwell's death in 1967 resulted in Drifters ownership transferring to his wife Faye. Court decisions saw the different Drifters divide territory within the United States and England. In the 1990s, a new court ruling determined Treadwell owned the Drifters trademark, but she no longer had any singers performing under the name. This cleared the way for Pinkney, the last active original member from the early 1950s, to continue as Bill Pinkney's Original Drifters.

February 17, 2005 at age 56.

Bill Potts >permalink<

Jazz arranger and composer

Potts was a jazz pianist, composer and arranger who scored "The Jazz Soul of Porgy and Bess" (1959), a vibrant version of the Gershwin opera that brought him early acclaim. Largely self-taught, Potts developed an arranging style that was bold, brassy and swinging. Gershwin standards, such as "Summertime," had typically been recorded as slow ballads with a vocal interlude. In contrast, the 1959 "Jazz Soul" album became a large-scale and boisterous project featuring such jazz heavyweights as Harry Edison, Zoot Sims, Charlie Shavers and Bill Evans. Down Beat magazine gave the record five stars, its highest praise, and called it a "beautiful, beautiful album." But the release was largely overshadowed by the quieter, reflective Miles Davis-Gil Evans "Porgy and Bess" album that was issued the previous year. Potts continued with a productive but far more anonymous career, collaborating with Paul Anka, Ella Fitzgerald, Woody Herman, Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich and Bobby Vinton.

February 16, 2005 at age 76. Cardiac arrest.

National Hockey League 2004-2005 season >permalink<

Sport

NHL 0, Fans 0

After suffering failing health in recent years, the latest NHL season expired prematurely on February 16th, 2005. It previously survived a near fatal bout of flu in 1919. For more about circumstances surrounding the near certain death of the oldest of North American professional sports leagues, visit this Last Link Web Watch entry.

February 16, 2005 at age 87 years and/or 153 days. Unnatural causes.

Nicole DeHuff >permalink<

Actress

DeHuff made her feature film debut in "Meet The Parents," playing the sister whose wedding caused all the havoc. Her other film roles included the 2004 release of "Suspect Zero" with Ben Kingsley. On television, she appeared in "The Court," "The Practice," "C.S.I.," "C.S.I. Miami," "Monk","Dragnet" and "Without A Trace," and the TV movie "See Arnold Run." She had a starring role in the recently completed movie "Unbeatable Harold," which was directed by her husband, Ari Palitz.

DeHuff died after medics misdiagnosed her pneumonia twice. On February 12, DeHuff was rushed to hospital, but was sent home and told to take the painkiller Tylenol. The next day the actress again went to hospital, but this time medics prescribed antibiotics for bronchitis. Two days later, paramedics rushed to her home after she collapsed, gasping for breath. Only when her problems became inoperable did doctors realize what was wrong with her.

February 16, 2005 at age 30. Pneumonia.

Claude A. Smith >permalink<

Veterinarian

Smith, right, visiting giant panda Ling-Ling in 1972.

Smith's lifelong acquaintance with animals rivaled that of Dr. Dolittle. He regularly worked with chickens, turkeys, cows and horses but also was the U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarian charged with inspecting and quarantining the giant pandas Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing before they took up residence at the National Zoo. He told his children stories of being the target over the years of camel expectoration and elephant urination.

Smith, right, visiting giant panda Ling-Ling in 1972.

One of his more delicate duties involved a horse named Sardar, a gift in 1962 from the president of Pakistan, Muhammad Ayub Khan, to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. It was Dr. Smith's duty to keep the bay gelding in isolation until he could officially clear it of disease and release it. When he went out to the stables for his inspection, he found the first lady happily riding the animal. Although he took his duties seriously, he decided on the spot that the first lady outranked him.

From 1935 to 1942, he worked as a USDA field veterinarian. In 1942, he enlisted as a first lieutenant in the Army Air Force, inspecting meat and dairy products before they were shipped overseas for use by U.S. troops (an early version of homeland security, because food poisoning could be a potentially devastating method of undermining the war effort). In the Army, he developed a lifelong aversion to butter, because he was regularly required to scoop out and inspect core samples from huge butter barrels. In retirement, Smith was a tinkerer and inventor. He once created a body harness with wheels for the family's down-in-the-back dachshund.

The man responsible for the pandas arriving in the U.S. was Patrick Daly. He died March 2, 2005.

February 15, 2005 at age 92.

Jack Kenesky >permalink<

Hockey pads craftsman

By the time he was 10, Jack had dropped out of school and taken his place in his father's sports equipment business. While his three brothers worked as salesmen on the floor, Jack's job was to learn from his father the craft of turning leather and deer hair into world-class hockey pads. They pumped out as many as 300 pairs a year.

For years, every goalie in the National Hockey League wore the family's gear. Jack's handiwork protected the legs of Turk Broda, Tony Esposito, Ed Giacomin, Ken Dryden, Gerry Cheevers, Jacques Plante, Glenn Hall, Rogie Vachon, Terry Sawchuk, Gump Worsley (pictured), Harry Lumley, Johnny Bower and, until he retired in late 1999, even Ron Hextall.

Goalie pads were invented in 1927 by Pops Kenesky. He had been working as a harness maker in Hamilton, Ontario when a friend asked him to fix a bicycle. Eventually Pops a shop started repairing and making sports equipment until 1975, the year he died.

The pads had emerged in response to a request by Jake Forbes, a goaltender for the Hamilton Tigers in what was the NHL in 1924, who asked for something better than the cricket pads he had been using. The result was an interesting combination of California creamed horse-hide, cotton sheeting, kapok and deer hair, which possessed almost mythical qualities of shock absorption. Goalies believed in Kenesky pads, and preferred them over the newfangled foam.

Kenesky pads lasted longer, too -- at least three years of hard NHL use as opposed to one year for synthetic. Later, Kenesky pads often found extra years of life as hand-me-downs in local leagues.

Early one morning some time in the mid-1960s, Jack Kenesky nearly stepped on Terry Sawchuk, who was sitting on the steps of the store, pads in hand, waiting for him to sew up a tear. The Maple Leaf and future hall of famer had taken a cab from Toronto to get the kind of service he could only find from the guy who'd made the gear in the first place. Service wasn't always that quick, though. The pads were in such demand that it was impossible to build up stock. Each pair had to be ordered, sometimes as far as a year in advance.

At one time, the store made the pads for the entire NHL when it was composed of only six teams. Superstitious goalies often had special requests, such as wanting a rabbit's foot sewn inside. In 1989, a pair of custom-made, leather Kenesky pads took one person 10 days to make and cost about $1,200.

Sensing an opportunity to make some money, a number of competitors jumped into the market and grabbed a share. There was still business but it slowed, especially by the time Pops Kenesky died. On his own, Jack Kenesky produced only a couple of pairs a week. Times were changing and the one-room, one-man workshop wasn't able to keep up. The market for leather pads completely collapsed at the start of the 1990s. With lighter, more water-resistant materials available, goalies left the past behind. Jack and his pads were suddenly dinosaurs in the high-tech world.

February 15, 2005 at age 85. Cancer.

John D. Preston >permalink<

Child safety authority

As engineer with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, John D. Preston worked to develop safety standards for toys, nursery products and playground equipment. He wrote the bible for public playgrounds, the Handbook for Public Playground Safety, causing the replacement of the old steel tube jungle gyms on asphalt with equipment made of more flexible material on shock-absorbing surfaces.

Preston's work also extended to determining what constitutes hazardously small parts and sharp points and edges in children's products. With engineers, human factors specialists, epidemiologists and physiologists, Preston established safety specifications for pacifiers, rattles, cribs, bicycles and bunk beds. After graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering in Britain, Preston helped design landing gear for military and civilian aircraft and automobile brake systems. He once led a U.S. radio-controlled model aircraft team in a competition in the Soviet Union.

February 15, 2005 at age 68. Heart attack.

Manuela Gomez Ruiz >permalink<

Victim of justice?

According to allegations made by her family, Manuela Gomez Ruiz died as a result of hospital personnel moving her out of a trauma room to accommodate a flu-stricken Michael Jackson. Ruiz was moved from the primary trauma room and taken off the machine ventilator, with her breathing instead assisted manually by hand pump, until she was relocated to a smaller room nearby. Jury selection in Jackson's child molestation child was postponed Feb. 15 when the pop star was taken to Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, Calif., complaining of flu-like symptoms. Ruiz's heart was failing rapidly. She would have two more heart attacks before she died that day. The family has hired an attorney to sue both the hospital and Jackson.

There was no doubt Jackson was sick - as a doctor assured the judge presiding over his trial - but how sick? Ruiz's daughter-in-law says she watched as Jackson entered the emergency room. "He walked in," Anna Ruiz said. "When I saw him, he was walking unassisted."

February 15, 2005 at age 74. Heart attack.

Paul E. Lacy >permalink<

Pathologist

Lacy was known as the father of islet cell transplants, an experimental treatment for Type 1 diabetes. Lacy was among the first scientists to observe how beta cells, which reside in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas, make insulin. He also developed and refined techniques for isolating islet cells to prepare them for transplant. In 1972, he was credited with performing the first successful islet transplant in laboratory rats, and by the 1980s the same operation was ready to be performed on people. In 1970, Lacy helped create the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, now the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and helped with fund-raising on telethons.

February 15, 2005 at age 81. Pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease.

Pierre Bachelet >permalink<

Composer

Bachelet composed music for the films "Emmanuelle" and "The Story of O." His score for "Emmanuelle" was used in nine of the sequels. Bachelet was nominated for the French Cesar Award for his score for "Les Enfants du Marais."

February 15, 2005 at age 60.

Lee D. Gatling >permalink<

Saxophone player

Born in Battle Creek, Michigan, Gatling began his formal musical training with the clarinet when he was 10. He switched to alto saxophone in high school but ultimately learned to play all woodwind instruments by the time he graduated. B.B. King heard Gatling play with the Theodus Morgan Quintet at Chicago's Club De Lisa, King offered him a job playing tenor sax. Gatling toured with the B.B. King Band from 1963 to 1970. Gatling moved to Detroit, where he joined the Motown family in 1971, doing studio work with the Temptations, the Four Tops, Freda Payne and other R & B artists.

February 14, 2005 at age 63. Brain cancer.

Najai Turpin >permalink<

Boxer

Middleweight boxer Turpin, also known as Nitro, was one of the hopefuls on the TV boxing reality show "The Contender." At 5 feet 5 inches and 151 lbs., Turpin had a career record of 13 wins, 1 loss and 9 knockouts. He shot himself in his parked Chevrolet Lumina following an argument with his girlfriend, who was also in the car.

"The Contender" is a series that follows the personal and professional lives of 16 boxers vying for a $1 million prize. The series is hosted by actor Sylvester Stallone. Turpin's episodes will be aired and a fund for Turpin's orphaned 2-year-old daughter has been set up.

One of Turpin's given reasons for appearing on "The Contender" was to enable him to better support his family, and he may have frustrated by the repeated delays in the airing of show. Turpin did construction work in the mornings and toiled at a Philadelphia restaurant in the evenings. The show was also the subject of a heated bidding war between NBC and Fox last spring. Once scheduled to debut in November and end during February sweeps, "The Contender" was pushed back to a March, 2005 debut to create some "space" between it and Fox's copycat flop.

Turpin's death is not the first in the TV reality show business. In 1997, Sinisa Savija, a participant on the Swedish version of "Survivor," committed suicide after he was voted off the island. As a result of the incident, producer Mark Burnett began conducting extensive psychological tests on contestants. Burnett said that all of the boxers on "The Contender" had undergone such testing. Last summer, Jose Maria, the winner of the first Portugal edition of the show "Big Brother," threatened to kill himself by jumping off a bridge (two policemen eventually hoisted him to safety).

February 14, 2005 at age 23. Self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Otto Plaschkes >permalink<

Film producer

Plaschkes was a British producer of films featuring wry screenplays that explored identity and sized up society. His best known production was 1966's dark comedy "Georgy Girl." The film made a heroine of a plump, gawky young woman played by Lynn Redgrave. Among his other works were the spy thriller "Hopscotch" (1980) starring Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson, "The Homecoming" (1973) adapted from a Harold Pinter play "Butley" (1976), "Galileo" (1975) based on Charles Laughton's 1947 adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play, and "In Celebration" (1975). "The Holcroft Covenant" (1985), one of his last films, was an adaptation of the Robert Ludlum best seller.

Plaschkes, born in Vienna, was among the Jewish children who escaped Nazi-occupied countries through the Kindertransport, eventually settling in Liverpool. At Bishop Wordsworth school, his teachers included William Golding. Plaschkes and his contemporaries later claimed to recognise themselves in Golding's novel, "The Lord Of The Flies." All agreed that Otto was the original of Piggy. Golding never denied the claim. While studying history at Cambridge, Plaschkes joined the school's film Society, whose membership included Tom Pevsner, later producer of the James Bond series, and Lindsay Anderson, best known for directing the 1960s landmark films "If..." and "O Lucky Man!" Plaschkes became a production assistant at Ealing Studios, working on fellow-Viennese Otto Preminger's "Exodus" and on "Lawrence of Arabia" (both 1962). In the 1980's he was chief executive of the British Film and Television Producers Association.

Plaschkes was devoted to cinema up until the last minute of his life. He was an active voting member of the American Academy of Film and Television Arts, and he died while screening "As It Is In Heaven," the Swedish film nominated for the Oscar for best foreign language film.

February 14, 2005 at age 75. Heart failure.

Paul B. Clayton >permalink<

Googie architect

An architectural style known as Googie was a hallmark of post WWII prosperity and urban expansion. Its shapes and designs pointed to the future. One of the last remaining examples of that coffee shop/drive-in architecture in Los Angeles was Johnie's Broiler, a popular center of Southern California car culture in the 1950s and 1960s. Paul B. Clayton designed that structure, as well as about 280 other buildings in the southeastern Los Angeles area, and Johnie's is considered the most important commercial building of his long career.

Johnie's was seen in movies such as "What's Love Got to Do With It," "Heat," "Unstrung Heroes," "Reality Bites" and "Short Cuts." It was the subject of "The Hair Boys," a Tom Wolfe account of teenage car cruising and fashion contained in his 1965 book "The Pump House Gang." During the 1960s, Johnie's sometimes drew up to 5,000 customers a weekend. Teens gathered there to check out their cars and one another over hamburgers and sodas.

In 2002, the structure was declared eligible for a historic register, but it was not listed because the current owner objected. The building is now a car dealership with much of its interior altered. Bob's Big Boy on Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake, California is the last of its kind. The most-seen example of Googie architecture was Mel's Drive In, featured in George Lucas' 1973 film "American Graffiti."

February 14, 2005 at age 91. Leukemia.

Rafik al-Hariri >permalink<

Politician

al-Hariri was a self-made billionaire philanthropist and five times prime minister of Lebanon. He resigned as premier for the last time in October, 2004. He was widely credited with getting his country back on its feet after brokering a peace agreement between warring Lebanese factions. He became prime minister for the first time in 1992, using his financial muscle to revive the economy. In the process, he made some enemies, and was accused by some Lebanese of driving the country into debt with his ambitious rebuilding plans. al-Hariri always surrounded himself with bodyguards and lived in a heavily fortified compound, and was killed when a bomb hit his motorcade.

February 14, 2005 at age 60. Assassinated.

Dick Weber >permalink<

Bowler

Weber was possibly the greatest bowler ever. He had won 26 Professional Bowlers Association titles, six PBA Senior titles and four old National All-Star titles. His titles were spread over five decades, a sports record at that time. He was named National Bowler of the Year in 1961-63-65 and was voted one of the three all-time great bowlers at the end of the 20th century. He was inducted into the American Bowling Congress Hall of Fame in 1970 and the PBA Hall of Fame in 1975.

He had gotten much media attention world wide by bowling a match in a cargo plane from the New York area to Texas, and on the sand at Miami Beach. As a frequent guest on "Late Night with David Letterman", he knocked down lava lamps, champagne glasses, beer bottle pyramids and, once, a mannequin of Letterman holding a wedding cake. He would also drop bowling balls off of tall buildings into various items like watermelons or TVs.

February 13, 2005 at age 75.

Eleanor Gould Packard >permalink<

Grammarian

Packard proofread, edited, and probed the language of thousands of articles published in The New Yorker magazine. Though she did not have a particular title at the magazine, she was noted for her intricate attention to vocabulary, syntax, grammar, flow, and punctuation of many non-fiction writers who have contributed over the years. Packard joined The New Yorker in 1945 after sending a letter asking about job openings. In it she pointed out several errors she found in a recent issue. She remained at the magazine for 54 years before retiring in 1999 after a stroke. Many there believe she is responsible for the style of The New Yorker's prose. In an interview, she once told a New York Times reporter: "I'll have to stage a faked death and come back to correct my obit."

February 13, 2005 at age 87.

Harry Baird >permalink<

Actor

Black British actor Baird appeared in a number of films and TV shows from the 1950s through the 1970s, but was never offered roles beyond stereotype. His portrayal of a terrified black youth victimised by police in the 1959 film "Sapphire" helped launch him into a decade of regular acting work, including an appearance in the original version of "The Italian Job." Baird is clearly visible in J. Lee Thompson's 1959 "Tiger Bay," as the bridegroom in the first black wedding depicted in a British film.

Baird did have a starring role in the little seen 1968 French film "The Story of a Three-Day Pass." The film was directed by Melvin Van Peebles, who travelled to France in order to be treated as an equal among men. The film is generally regarded as the first feature made by a black director. Baird's other film credits include "The Mark," "Tarzan the Magnificent," "The Road to Hong Kong" and Hammer Films's "The Oblong Box." The actor also had several supporting roles on British television's "Danger Man," and the science-fiction classic "UFO." In the 1970s, Baird's film career ended in Italian westerns, such as "Four Gunmen of the Apocalypse."

February 13, 2005 at age 73.

Jason Byce >permalink<

Actor

Byce shared the stage with opera greats such as Richard Tucker and Robert Merrill, and sang and acted in Broadway musicals with Shirley Jones and Lainie Kazan. He had roles on "All My Children" and other TV soap operas and on series such as "In The Heat Of The Night." His biggest claim to fame is a 21-year-old commercial still seen on American television. In a spot for Polaner All Fruit, Byce plays a guy sitting at fancy dining table with a group of society snobs who makes the social faux paux of asking, "Would ya please pass the jelly?"

February 13, 2005 at age 60. Blood cancer (multiple myeloma).

Sister Lucia Marto >permalink<

Saw Virgin Mary at Fatima

In 1917, three shepherd children claimed to have seen repeated visions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Portugal. Beginning May 13, the appearances took place on the 13th day of each month in a town about 70 miles north of Lisbon, ending abruptly in October of that year. The final vision was witnessed by nearly 50,000 people. Lucia de Jesus dos Santos, and her two cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marta, claimed the Virgin Mary told them of the coming of world wars, the re-emergence of Christianity in Russia, and of the 1981 attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.

Lucia, who was just ten years old, was the only one of the three children who was able to hear what the Virgin said, and wrote two memoirs about the apparitions. Her cousins died during the worldwide flu epidemics of 1919 and 1920, and the Catholic Church beatified the two in 2000, the last step before Sainthood. Actress Susan Whitney portrayed Sister Lucia in the Oscar nominated film "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima." Actress Inis Orsini played her in the Spanish/Portuguese co-production "Our Lady of Fatima." The events were also the subject of the films "Aparicao" and "The Third Secret of Fatima."

The Catholic Church built a shrine in Fatima, which is visited each year by millions of people from around the world. More than 100,000 people routinely attend the annual commemorations of the sightings. The pope has visited three times since becoming pontiff in 1978, spending a few minutes with Sister Lucia during a 1991 trip to the site. He has contended that the Virgin of Fatima saved his life after he was shot in St. Peter's Square in 1981. The attack, on May 13, coincided with the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima.

February 13, 2005 at age 97.

Sixten Ehrling >permalink<

Conductor

Ehrling conducted at the Royal Opera in Stockholm during its golden age in the 1950s and then left for the United States, where he led the Detroit Symphony for a decade. Known for his vast knowledge of music, he equally equally known for his sharp temperament. In an interview, he said "At the Stockholm opera, they wanted me to apologize for the way I led the orchestra, which I refused. I moved to America instead." Once while conducting Bizet's "Carmen" in Goteborg in 1988, he had the orchestra play while concertgoers were still making their way to their seats. "I'll teach that damned audience that they should be in their seats on time when I conduct," he was quoted.

February 13, 2005 at age 86.

W. Brooks Fortune >permalink<

Chemist

On December 6, 1941, while stationed in Virginia serving the Army Signal Corps, Fortune was reviewing deciphered enemy codes and learned of a Japanese plan to attack the United States "in the next few days." Fortune reported the messages to his superiors, but no one took action on them. He was told to keep quiet about the communications until his release from the military, and he blamed "nonchalance" on the part of military brass for the inaction. After the war, Fortune helped ensure quality in the mass production of Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine that helped rid the epidemic in the 1950s. He also developed a method for testing for glucose in urine and blood that made the control of diabetes with insulin more precise.

February 13, 2005 at age 91.

Brian Kelly >permalink<

Actor

Kelly starred as Porter Ricks in the popular 1960s' NBC television series "Flipper." After a number of guest appearances on "The Beverly Hillbillies," "The Rifleman" and other shows, he was cast as the father of two boys in "Flipper," which also starred a dolphin as the title character. The series was filmed in Miami and in Nassau, the Bahamas. Kelly also appeared in the feature film "Flipper's New Adventures." In 1970, Kelly was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident that left his right arm and leg paralyzed. He later won a legal settlement and continued working in Hollywood, including serving as an executive producer on Ridley Scott's 1982 film, "Blade Runner."

February 12, 2005 at age 73. Pneumonia.

Kumba >permalink<

Gorilla

The first gorilla born at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo was euthanized after suffering severe kidney failure for several years. Zoo officials say Kumba experienced weight loss and rapid muscle wasting in recent months. Kumba was born in 1970, the first at the zoo, which has become famous for its gorilla program. Lincoln Park Zoo has witnessed 45 gorilla births. Native to central Africa, western lowland gorillas are extremely endangered in the wild due to habitat destruction, poaching and war.

February 12, 2005 at age 35. Kidney failure.

Maurice Trintignant >permalink<

Grand Prix driver

Born in 1917, Trintignant took part in 82 races and drove for Gordini, Ferrari, Vanwall, Cooper, Maserati, BRM, Lotus and Aston Martin, winning two races in Monaco in 1955 in a Ferrari and in 1958 in a Cooper. He was nicknamed the 'Gentleman Racer' and was a contemporary of Juan-Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss, Mike Hawthorn, Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren and Phil Hill. He also won the Le Mans 24 Hour Race in 1954, after surviving a near-fatal spin. Trintignant spun his car and was flung out of it on to the track. Pursuing cars made heroic efforts to avoid his unconscious body. For the next eight days, Trintignant lay in a coma. On the operating table the surgeons actually pronounced him dead when his heart stopped. Each year, Trintignant promised his wife that it would be his last season, but he invariably went back on his word as he loved the sport so much. From 1963 onwards, however, he did not have a regular Formula One drive and gradually retired from the scene. His nephew was the acclaimed French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant.

February 12, 2005 at age 87.

Sammi Smith >permalink<

Singer/songwriter

Country singer Jewel Fay 'Sammi' Smith won a Grammy as best female country vocalist in 1971 for a recording of Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through the Night." Named Single of the Year by the Country Music Association, the song also helped propel Kristofferson into the spotlight.

Smith was born in Orange, California, and grew up in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and Colorado. After an early marriage at 15 and four children, she divorced and moved to Nashville. In 1967, she had her first hit, "So Long Charlie Brown." Six years later, she moved to Dallas, where she joined the "Outlaw Movement" with Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. Her recording of Merle Haggard's "Today I Started Loving You Again" was a country staple in 1975. Smith charted 14 more singles, but never again achieved the success of her earlier hits.

February 12, 2005 at age 61.

Lynne de Matties >permalink<

Airport shuttle bus passenger

Lynne de Matties of Phoenix, Arizona died instantly after she was ejected from the van she was riding in struck a guard rail on Interstate 280 and veered into a concrete support column in San Francisco. The driver of the bus, Melvin Leon Simpson, 58, may have fallen asleep at the wheel. Six other passengers were injured, including de Matties' husband and a tourist from New York who lost two fingers in the crash.

Simpson was near the end of his eight-hour shift and suffering flulike symptoms when the 21-seat van crashed. At first, Simpson told California Highway Patrol investigators the dead woman was a homeless person who had wandered onto the freeway. But later, when he realized the victim was a passenger, Simpson then said he had swerved to avoid a car that cut in front of him. "No one says they saw a car, so the likelihood of him dozing off is probably pretty good," said CHP Officer Shawn Chase. Melvin is O.J. Simpson's older brother.

February 11, 2005 at age 57. Injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident.

Pete Sayers >permalink<

British country singer

No English performer has ever become a star in American country music, but Pete Sayers got close. Sayers went to Nashville in 1966 and found employment as a warm-up act on the Grand Ole Opry radio show. He worked for the Opry for three years, and went on tour with Kitty Wells and the bluegrass duo Flatt and Scruggs. In 1972, Sayers returned to the UK and began Grand Ole Opry (England) in Newmarket. It was on the touring schedule for visiting Americans including Bill Monroe and Marvin Rainwater. He made several albums, including Watermelon Summer (1976) and Bogalusa Gumbo (1979), which was produced by Nashville songwriter John D. Loudermilk. For 30 years, Sayers was a member of the bluegrass group the Radio Cowboys, based in the Cambridge area. It was said he could yodel as well as anyone.

February 11, 2005 at age 62.

Samuel Alderson >permalink<

Crash test dummy inventor

We are family!

Alderson built the first automobile test dummy at his Alderson Research Labs in 1960. The idea using the models in crash testing caught only when Ralph Nader's consumer protection book "Unsafe at Any Speed" was published five years later. Reacting to consumer outrage caused by the book, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began buying Alderson's dummies to test seat belts, air bags and other devices designed to minimize deaths and injuries in car crashes.

When Alderson created Alderson Research Labs in 1952, his first customers were the military and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He made anthropomorphic dummies for use in testing jet ejection seats and parachutes, and later for the Apollo nose cone's planned water landing. Alderson also was under contract to develop "phantoms," or dummies that could measure radiation doses, originally during nuclear testing. During World War II, he helped develop an optical coating to enhance vision in submarine periscopes at dawn and dusk, and helped devise electronic equipment to aid planes in dropping depth charges on German submarines.

February 11, 2005 at age 90. Complications associated with myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disorder.

Stan Richards >permalink<

Actor

Richards played 'Seth Armstrong the Gamekeeper' on the long-running British TV series "Emmerdale Farm." He was a regular on the series for 25 years. Richards worked on six episodes of "Coronation Street" before he first appeared in Emmerdale on May 17 1978, initially being offered just a few weeks' work. Although he left the series in 2003, he made a final guest appearance in December, 2004. Richards also had recurring roles on other UK TV series such as "Coronation Street" and "All Creatures Great and Small," and "Last Of The Summer Wine." Richards was the longest serving soap actor outside of "Coronation Street." Richards was discovered by film director Ken Loach, who had seen him doing a solo act in working men's clubs and cast him as a miner in the BBC play "The Price

final credits - february 2005

Chris Curtis >permalink<

EV1 >permalink<

Pam Carter >permalink<

Roland Anderson >permalink<

Russell Sprague >permalink<

William Hines >permalink<

J. William Littler >permalink<

Noll Scott >permalink<

Shelley Hull >permalink<

Howard St. Claire Jones Jr. >permalink<

J. Donald M. Gass >permalink<

Jef Raskin >permalink<

Leonard Thompson >permalink<

Myron Blank >permalink<

Paul Sawyer >permalink<

R. Gregory Stevens >permalink<

Edward Patten >permalink<

Peter Benenson >permalink<

Daniel Erskine McIvor >permalink<

George Crikelair >permalink<

Goldie Hill >permalink<

Hans-Juergen Wischnewski >permalink<

Joanne Brough >permalink<

Larry Kingston >permalink<

911 Victims Remain Unidentified >permalink<

Tom Patterson >permalink<

Harry Simeone >permalink<

Heath Lamberts >permalink<

Lee Eun-Joo >permalink<

Mary Gregory >permalink<

Robert Koff >permalink<

Simone Simon >permalink<

Trude Rittmann >permalink<

Ara Berberian >permalink<

Don Higgins >permalink<

Gene Scott >permalink<

Guillermo Cabrera Infante >permalink<

Isabelle Goldenson >permalink<

Justin Howes >permalink<

Hunter S. Thompson >permalink<

John Raitt >permalink<

Pam Bricker >permalink<

Sandra Dee >permalink<

Henry C. Brinton >permalink<

Joe Martin >permalink<

Kihachi Okamoto >permalink<

Paul Burnett >permalink<

Phil Balmer >permalink<

Ronald Goede >permalink<

Clara 'Clibby' Verrian >permalink<

John Ebstein >permalink<

Uli Derickson >permalink<

Daniel O'Herlihy >permalink<

Jean Cayrol >permalink<

Peter Foy >permalink<

Vernon Young >permalink<

Bill Potts >permalink<

National Hockey League 2004-2005 season >permalink<

Nicole DeHuff >permalink<

Claude A. Smith >permalink<

Jack Kenesky >permalink<

John D. Preston >permalink<

Manuela Gomez Ruiz >permalink<

Paul E. Lacy >permalink<

Pierre Bachelet >permalink<

Lee D. Gatling >permalink<

Najai Turpin >permalink<

Otto Plaschkes >permalink<

Paul B. Clayton >permalink<

Rafik al-Hariri >permalink<

Dick Weber >permalink<

Eleanor Gould Packard >permalink<

Harry Baird >permalink<

Jason Byce >permalink<

Sister Lucia Marto >permalink<

Sixten Ehrling >permalink<

W. Brooks Fortune >permalink<

Brian Kelly >permalink<

Kumba >permalink<