Recent Deaths

[caltrek]

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has Died
by Erin Doherty
March 23, 2022

https://www.axios.com/former-secretary- ... 3ca2d.html

Introduction:

(Axios) Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright died Wednesday at the age of 84, her family said in a statement.

Driving the news: Albright, who served as the first female secretary of state, died of cancer, her family said.

• "She was surrounded by family and friends. We have lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend," her family said.

The big picture: Albright served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and secretary of state under former President Bill Clinton. As secretary, she promoted the expansion of NATO and military intervention in Kosovo.

Albright received the Medal of Freedom in 2012 from former President Barack Obama.

caltrek: An individual who was ahead of her time, or a cold warrior that helped bring us the mess we are in?

You decide.

[weatheriscool]

Gilbert Gottfried, Comedian and 'Aladdin' Star, Dies at 67
Source: Variety

By Jordan Moreau

Gilbert Gottfried, the comedian, “Aladdin” star and owner of one of the most iconic voices in Hollywood, has died after battling a long illness, his family announced Tuesday. He was 67.

“We are heartbroken to announce the passing of our beloved Gilbert Gottfried after a long illness. In addition to being the most iconic voice in comedy, Gilbert was a wonderful husband, brother, friend and father to his two young children. Although today is a sad day for all of us, please keep laughing as loud as possible in Gilbert’s honor,” his family wrote on Twitter.

Gottfried was known for his crude humor and shrill voice, which helped give life to a number of animated characters, such as Iago the parrot in Disney’s “Aladdin,” the robotic bird Digit in PBS Kids’ “Cyberchase” and the Aflac duck in commercials for the insurance company.

Read more: https://variety.com/2022/film/news/gilb ... 235231387/

[wjfox]

Kane Tanaka has died at the age of 119 years, 107 days, just nine days after becoming the 2nd oldest person in recorded history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_Tanaka

[weatheriscool]

Robert 'Bud' McFarlane, Reagan national security adviser, dies at 84
Source: Washington Post

Robert C. “Bud” McFarlane, a former national security adviser for President Ronald Reagan who was the only official in the Reagan White House to voluntarily accept legal blame in the Iran-contra scandal, died May 12 at a hospital in Lansing, Mich. He was 84. The cause was an exacerbation of a previous lung condition, said his son, Scott McFarlane. Mr. McFarlane lived in Washington and was hospitalized while visiting with family in Michigan.

A taciturn retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, Mr. McFarlane worked in the 1970s and 1980s at the nexus of the military and political establishment. He was a congressman’s son, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War. In the early 1970s, he was a military assistant to Henry A. Kissinger, who was both secretary of state and national security adviser to President Richard M. Nixon. Mr. McFarlane’s later efforts in Iran were often perceived as a misguided effort to emulate Kissinger’s groundbreaking inroads at restoring relations with communist China.

After his military resignation in 1979, Mr. McFarlane served on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee and then became counselor to Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. during the early years of the Reagan White House. Mr. McFarlane was Haig’s point man for difficult assignments in the Middle East and with Congress, and he won plaudits for persuading Congress to restore money for the MX missile program and to advance nuclear arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union.

He became deputy national security adviser and, in 1982, he pushed for the deployment of U.S. Marines to Lebanon for a peacekeeping mission. It was a risky move that ended in catastrophe when terrorists bombed the Marine barracks, killing 241 U.S. service members in October 1983 — just two weeks into Mr. McFarlane’s new job as Reagan’s top security adviser.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituari ... ium=social

[wjfox]

Goodfellas star Ray Liotta dies aged 67

Published
6 minutes ago

Goodfellas actor Ray Liotta has died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic at the age of 67.

The US star had been on location filming the movie Dangerous Waters, his publicist Jennifer Allen said.

He was most well-known for playing mobster Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese's 1990 gangster film Goodfellas and also appeared in Field of Dreams.

Liotta got his big break playing ex-convict Ray Sinclair in 1986 black comedy Something Wild.

He got a Golden Globe nomination for that role and went on to star in the 1988 film Dominick and Eugene, about the strained relationship between twins with very different characters.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61600212

[weatheriscool]

Jim Seals, Half of a Popular 1970s Soft-Rock Duo, Dies at 79
Source: NY Times

Teamed with Dash Crofts, he hit it big with “Summer Breeze” in 1972. The two went on to have chart success with “Diamond Girl” and other songs.

By Neil Genzlinger

Jim Seals, half of Seals & Crofts, a soft-rock duo who had a string of hits in the 1970s, including the Top 10 singles “Summer Breeze” and “Diamond Girl,” died on Monday at his home in Nashville. He was 79.

His wife, Ruby Jean Seals, said the cause was an unspecified “chronic ongoing illness.”

Mr. Seals and his musical partner, Dash Crofts, were still teenagers when they were asked to join an instrumental group, the Champs, which had a No. 1 hit in 1958 with “Tequila.” By the mid-1960s they had tired of the band and of the loud, sometimes angry strains that were infusing the hard rock of the time.

Adherents of the Baha’i faith, they sought to make a calmer brand of music, mixing folk, bluegrass, country and jazz influences and delivering their lyrics in close harmony.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/arts ... -dead.html

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

William Hart, Delfonics Lead Singer and Songwriter, Dies at 77
Source: Billboard

William “Poogie” Hart, lead singer of Philly soul greats The Delfonics, has died. Hart’s son Hadi tells TMZ that the singer-songwriter was taken to Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia due to breathing difficulties, and that he passed on Thursday (July 14) due to complications stemming from surgery. He was 77.

The Delfonics were one of the leading lights of Philadelphia’s surging soul scene of the late ’60s and early ’70s, scoring classic hits like the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 smashes “La – La – Means I Love You” (No. 5, 1968) and “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” (No. 10, 1970). Working with legendary local writer-producer Thom Bell, the group’s lush, dreamy harmonies matched Bell’s symphonic mini-soundscapes to create a smoother, more blissed-out soul sound than usually heard in the poppier, snappier hits from the Motown assembly line in Detroit, or the grittier, funkier singles emerging from Stax/Volt in Memphis.

Hart co-founded the Delfonics (then known as the Orphonics) in Philadelphia with his brother Wilbert, eventually fleshing out the group’s classic lineup with Randy Cain and Major Harris. They signed with famed local label Cameo-Parkway, where they first linked up with Bell, though they were shuffled over to Philly Groove Records shortly after Cameo-Parkway folded in 1967. Debut album La La Means I Love You was released in 1968, spawning a trio of hits in the title track, “I’m Sorry” (No. 42) and “Break Your Promise” (No. 35).

As the group’s lead singer, Hart’s falsetto-heavy vocals were an immediate difference maker, both entrancing and powerful — and the way he leaned into certain words (“Many guys have come to you with a line that wasn’t true”) with his signature sharpness made them unforgettable on first listen. Somewhat unusually for the time, Hart also co-wrote most of his group’s biggest hits with Bell — crafting songs that were clever, but which always knew when to get out of the way of a huge hook, and melodies that were swoon-worthy while still maintaining a modern edge.

Read more: https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip- ... 235114788/

[Time_Traveller]

Former first minister of Northern Ireland Lord Trimble has died

Tuesday 26 July 2022 06:10, UK



Lord Trimble, the original first minister of Northern Ireland and co-architect of the Good Friday Agreement, has died, aged 77.

"It is with great sadness that the family of Lord Trimble announce that he passed away peacefully earlier today following a short illness," a statement read.

A planned recall of the Stormont Assembly will not proceed on Tuesday following his the death.

Outgoing speaker Alex Maskey said party whips were in agreement that continuing with the sitting would be "inappropriate".

Lord Trimble's tough stance on disputed Orange Order parades in the 1990s won him the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party.

https://news.sky.com/story/former-first ... d-12643789

[wjfox]

James Lovelock: Influential green thinker dies aged 103

Published
1 hour ago

British scientist James Lovelock, who devoted his life to the global green movement, has died on his 103rd birthday, his family has said.

His 1960s Gaia theory Earth, from rocks to air, was one huge interconnected and self-regulating system formed the basis of much of climate science.

And he had warned climate change could be a tipping point for the planet.

But his support for nuclear energy and for fracking attracted criticism from other environmentalists.

Working for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) in 1960s, Lovelock had what he called a Eureka moment when he realised living things had a profound impact on the environment around them.

This led to the radical idea everything on Earth, from oceans to every living organism, was a living, connected system.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62322575

[Time_Traveller]

Bernard Cribbins obituary

Thu 28 Jul 2022 12.04 BST



During a full and varied career spanning more than 75 years as a much-loved, and very funny, character actor, Bernard Cribbins, who has died aged 93, was honoured by Bafta in 2009 with a special award for his work in children’s television. This encompassed story-telling in more than 100 episodes of the BBC’s Jackanory between 1966 and 1995; narrating and voicing all the furry creatures on all 60 episodes of The Wombles (1973-75); and gracing CBeebies as a retired fisherman spinning his yarns on Old Jack’s Boat (2013-15).

He explained his connection to young audiences by saying that his job was to look straight down the lens and imagine one child sitting there, transfixed. This attention, and affection, was visibly reciprocated in The Railway Children (1970), widely regarded as the best children’s movie made in Britain, when he played Albert Perks, the kindly old station porter on the platform where Bobbie (Jenny Agutter) and her siblings hope to be reunited with their father one day.

Bernard Cribbins as Perks the station porter, second from right, with, from left, Sally Thomsett, Gary Warren and Jenny Agutter in The Railway Children, 1970.

He also had a special relationship with Doctor Who fans, who relished his appearance in the second feature film, Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 (1966), with Peter Cushing landing the Tardis in a London laid waste by the deadly robots – and then his reincarnation as the wide-eyed amateur astronomer Wilfred Mott, grandfather to Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble, in the David Tennant Doctor Who years, 2007-10.

His range was such that it included vaudevillian appearances on the BBC’s long-running music hall showcase, The Good Old Days; knockabout comedy in two gangland capers with Peter Sellers, Two Way Stretch (1960) and The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963); West End farce – he played leading roles opposite Donald Sinden, then Richard Briers, in two of Ray Cooney’s signature smash hits, Not Now, Darling (1968) and Run For Your Wife (1983); and revues and musicals.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... s-obituary

[Time_Traveller]

Actress Nichelle Nichols, 'Star Trek's' trail-blazing Uhura, dies at 89

1h ago

(Reuters) -Nichelle Nichols, whose portrayal of starship communications officer Lieutenant Uhura on the 1960s sci-fi TV series "Star Trek" and subsequent movies broke color barriers and helped redefine roles for Black actors, has died at age 89, her family said.

Nichols, whose fans included Martin Luther King Jr. and a young Barack Obama, "succumbed to natural causes and passed away" on Saturday night, her son, Kyle Johnson, wrote on Facebook.

"Her light however, like the ancient galaxies now being seen for the first time, will remain for us and future generations to enjoy, learn from and draw inspiration," Johnson wrote.

The series, which became a pop culture phenomenon, shattered stereotypes common on U.S. television at the time by casting Black and minority actors in high-profile roles on the show.

In 1968 she and "Star Trek" star William Shatner broke a cultural barrier when they engaged in U.S. television's first interracial kiss.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/actres ... 022-07-31/

RIP Lt. Uhura may you meet Spock in the afterlife.

[weatheriscool]

Boston Celtics great Bill Russell, 11-time NBA champion, dies at 88
Source: ESPN

Bill Russell, the cornerstone of the Boston Celtics' dynasty that won eight straight titles and 11 overall during his career, died Sunday. The Hall of Famer was 88.

Russell died "peacefully" with his wife, Jeannine, at his side, a statement posted on social media said. Arrangements for his memorial service will be announced soon, the statement said.

"But for all the winning, Bill's understanding of the struggle is what illuminated his life. From boycotting a 1961 exhibition game to unmask too-long-tolerated discrimination, to leading Mississippi's first integrated basketball camp in the combustible wake of Medgar Evans' assassination, to decades of activism ultimately recognized by his receipt of the Presidential Medal of Freedom ... Bill called out injustice with an unforgiving candor that he intended would disrupt the status quo, and with a powerful example that, though never his humble intention, will forever inspire teamwork, selflessness and thoughtful change," the statement read.

"Bill's wife, Jeannine, and his many friends and family thank you for keeping Bill in your prayers. Perhaps you'll relive one or two of the golden moments he gave us, or recall his trademark laugh as he delighted in explaining the real story behind how those moments unfolded. And we hope each of us can find a new way to act or speak up with Bill's uncompromising, dignified and always constructive commitment to principle. That would be one last, and lasting, win for our beloved #6."

Read more: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/343 ... on-dies-88

[funkervogt]

James Lovelock: Influential green thinker dies aged 103

Published
1 hour ago

British scientist James Lovelock, who devoted his life to the global green movement, has died on his 103rd birthday, his family has said.

His 1960s Gaia theory Earth, from rocks to air, was one huge interconnected and self-regulating system formed the basis of much of climate science.

And he had warned climate change could be a tipping point for the planet.

But his support for nuclear energy and for fracking attracted criticism from other environmentalists.

Working for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) in 1960s, Lovelock had what he called a Eureka moment when he realised living things had a profound impact on the environment around them.

This led to the radical idea everything on Earth, from oceans to every living organism, was a living, connected system.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62322575

In recent years, Lovelock came to believe that intelligent machines were destined to take over Earth.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/cy ... cna1041616

[wjfox]

'Man of the Hole': Last of his tribe dies in Brazil

By Vanessa Buschschlüter
BBC News

3 hours ago

The last remaining member of an uncontacted indigenous group in Brazil has died, officials say.

The man, whose name was not known, had lived in total isolation for the past 26 years.

He was known as Man of the Hole because he dug deep holes, some of which he used to trap animals while others appear to be hiding spaces.

His body was found on 23 August in a hammock outside his straw hut. There were no signs of violence.

The man was the last of an indigenous group whose other remaining six members were killed in 1995. The group lived in the Tanaru indigenous area in the state of Rondônia, which borders Bolivia.

The majority of his tribe were thought to have been killed as early as the 1970s by ranchers wanting to expand their land.

The Man of the Hole is thought to have been about 60 years old and to have died of natural causes.

There were no signs of any incursions in his territory and nothing in his hut had been disturbed, officials said, but police will still carry out a post-mortem investigation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-62712318

[weatheriscool]

Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet president who took down the Iron Curtain, dies
Source: CNN

CNN)Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union before its dissolution, has died in Moscow at the age of 92, according to official statements.

Gorbachev, whose tumultuous rule was associated with the terms perestroika and glasnost (reform and openness) died after a long illness, Russian state news agencies reported.

"Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev died this evening after a severe and prolonged illness," the Central Clinical Hospital said, according to RIA / Novosti Tuesday.

This is a developing story... more to come.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/30/europe/m ... index.html

[wjfox]

[funkervogt]

Peter Eckersley, tech activist and founder of Let's Encrypt, dies at 43
The Australian computer scientist fought for privacy, net neutrality and ethics for artificial intelligence
https://www.techspot.com/news/95870-pet ... es-43.html

[wjfox]

[Yuli Ban]