obituary-related stories
Posted Oct 23rd 2009 11:35AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Video, Music and Variety, Celebrities, Obituaries, Children, Reality-Free
When I was a kid, I remember watching Soupy Sales. He had a children's show,
The Soupy Sales Show, on channel five in the New York area and he was a wacky, funny guy. He had bizarre creatures around him, puppets named Pookie and White Fang and Black Tooth. Soupy did outrageous things and often ended up with a pie in the face. In a lot of ways, there might have been no PeeWee Herman if there hadn't been a Soupy Sales. In my memory, I always liked Soup and liked his show. On Thursday,
Soupy Sales died at the age of 83.
In addition to
The Soupy Sales Show, Soupy was a comedian. He played clubs and did shtick, and all through the 1960s and 1970s he was a regular on game shows, including
What's My Line, To Tell the Truth, Match Game and
Hollywood Squares.
Continue reading Comic Soupy Sales passes away at 83
Posted Sep 12th 2009 8:42AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: TV Royalty, Obituaries, Reality-Free
Yesterday brought sad news for anyone who's a comedy writer, aspired to be a comedy writer, or just appreciated a well-turned and funny phrase.
Larry Gelbart passed away; he had been diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. He died at his Los Angeles home yesterday morning at the age of 81.
Gelbart is probably best known for his writing on
M*A*S*H during its early years. The almost lyrical comedic dialogue he gave Hawkeye, Trapper, and the rest of the gang is what drew me to the show, and he influenced almost everyone who worked on the show afterwards, including FOS (Friend of Squad) Ken Levine, who was just "too devestated" to write
a tribute on his blog (expect one on Monday, though).
Continue reading Larry Gelbart dead at 81
Posted Jun 29th 2009 3:06PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Late Night, Video, Celebrities, Obituaries, Game Show, Talk Show, Reality-Free
The sad news just keeps on coming: comedian and impressionist
Fred Travalena passed away yesterday, losing a battle with cancer at the age of 66. For those of you who have no idea who I'm talking about (and, believe me, those numbers are legion),
Travalena was big on the talk show and game show circuit in the '70s, doing impressions of everyone from Robert De Niro to George Burns to Jimmy Carter.
As a nerdly kid who rarely left the house after school, however, Travalena is best known to me as a panelist during the latter years of my favorite game show,
Match Game. After the jump is the only
MG-related clip I could find with Travalena, where he does an impression of De Niro on the short-lived
Match Game Hollywood Squares Hour in the early '80s. (Warning: you need to turn the volume up to hear it).
Continue reading A Match Game fan remembers Fred Travalena
Posted Aug 9th 2008 10:20AM by Kona Gallagher
Filed under: Celebrities, Obituaries, Reality-Free
Sad news coming out of Chicago this morning;
Bernie Mac has died. Mac had been in the hospital for the past week battling pneumonia. The 50-year-old comedian and star of Fox's
The Bernie Mac Show had previously battled sarcoidosis, an immune system disorder that can affect the lungs, but that disease was said to have been in remission.
Rumors regarding the
severity of Mac's illness swirled around the internet last weekend when a family member reportedly said that his condition was "very, very critical." However, Mac's publicist came out on Thursday and said that her client's condition was "stable."
In addition to his TV work, Mac was probably best known for co-starring with George Clooney and Brad Pitt in
Ocean's 11 and its subsequent sequels.
The Bernie Mac show ran for five seasons on Fox before it ended in 2006. I always enjoyed his Cliff Huxtable-as-a-movie-star take on
The Bernie Mac Show as well as the different comedic sensibility he brought to the table in the
Ocean's movies. Mac had a lot of comedy left in him, and I'm sorry to see him go.
Posted Apr 6th 2008 2:44PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Celebrities, Obituaries, Reality-Free
He was Moses, Michaelangelo, Ben-Hur and a dozen other famous historical figures on the big screen, and on television he was as famous appearing as
Charlton Heston the movie star he was for the TV roles he played, but he was born John Charles Carter on October 4th 1924 in Evanston, Illinois. Today, "Chuck" Heston is dead. He was 84 years old; he had Alzheimer's disease.
Continue reading Movie and TV star Charlton Heston passes away
Posted Mar 14th 2006 8:03AM by Richard Keller
Filed under: Celebrities, Obituaries
We learned on Monday about the passing
of actress Maureen Stapleton from chronic pulmonary disease. She was 80.
While Ms. Stapleton was known foremost
for her award-winning career in both film (Reds) and theater (The Rose Tattoo, The Gingerbread Lady),
she also gained critical acclaim for a number of projects on the small-screen. During the 1950s and early 1960s, she
appeared in a number of television plays on such shows as Playhouse 90 and Studio One. In 1968, she
won an Emmy for her role in the drama Among the Paths to Eden, where she portrayed a spinster
who strikes up a conversation with a widower at a graveyard. She followed with another Emmy in 1975 for the television
movie Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, where she portrayed a middle-aged widow who learns how to live again at
the Stardust Ballroom.
Ms. Stapleton's last television role was in 1995 on the show, Road to
Avonlea.
More information on Ms. Stapleton's career in both television and film can be found at IMDb.
Posted Feb 10th 2006 8:24AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Talent
Franklin Cover, perhaps best known as Tom Willis, George
and Louise Jefferson's white neighbor on
The Jeffersons, has died. Cover was being treated for a heart
condition at the Lillian Booth Actor's Fund of America home in California. Besides a regular gig on
The
Jeffersons, Cover also appeared in
The Jackie Gleason Show,
All in the Family,
Who's the
Boss?,
Will & Grace,
Living Single,
Mad About You, and
ER. What an
awesome resume. He leaves behind a wife, Mary, a son and a daughter.
Posted Jan 25th 2006 6:46AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Celebrities
Chris Penn, the brother of Sean Penn, was found dead yesterday at an apartment in Santa Monica, CA. He's known for
dozens of movie roles, including
Reservoir Dogs, but also has had some work in television. In 2003, he played
Waylon Shaw, on the short-lived show
The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire. Most recently, he had guest
appearances on
Entourage,
Everwood,
The Contender, and
Law & Order: Criminal
Intent. He's also the voice of Ofc. Eddie Pulaski in the video game
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
The cause of Penn's death is not known, but police say there is no evidence of foul play. He was 43 years old.
Posted Jan 1st 2006 2:58PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Premium Cable, Talent
Richard de Angelis died of congestive heart failure on December 28th at his home in Silver Spring, Maryland.
He was also suffering from prostate cancer.
De Angelis played Baltimore police Col. Raymond Foerster on 13
episodes of HBO's
The Wire. He also had roles in
Homicide: The Movie, and the John Waters films
A
Dirty Shame, and
Cecil B. Demented. Before he was an actor, he was a comedian who went by the name of
Ricky Roach. Before that, he was an accountant who quit his job and went to acting school at the age of 38.
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