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Post by Kapitan on Nov 30, 2023 13:20:06 GMT
Henry Kissinger, 100, died yesterday at his home. He was a Jewish immigrant to the United States at the age of 15; he joined the Army and became a naturalized citizen; he was in the infantry and then reassigned to intelligence, and volunteered for dangerous duty in the Battle of the Bulge; he got a master's and doctorate from Harvard; he was National Security Advisor and Secretary of State for two presidents in the '70s.
He won a Nobel Peace Prize and gained detente with China, but also was hugely controversial for his embrace of realpolitik and disregard for human rights.
He was also a tabloid favorite, having dated numerous actresses, models, and such.
Even now, the responses to his death vary dramatically: Politico says "Henry Kissinger, diplomat who helped reshape the world, dies at 100;" Rolling Stone says "Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies." (Whatever one thinks of him, I think Rolling Stone's headline is crass and offensive.)
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Nov 30, 2023 13:23:57 GMT
While watching the tributes last night I heard that Henry, right before his death, was still "as sharp as a tack" and people were literally standing in line to get his opinions and views on world events.
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Post by B.E. on Nov 30, 2023 14:16:00 GMT
That’s a shameful (not to mention unprofessional) headline from Rolling Stone.
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Post by kds on Nov 30, 2023 14:45:47 GMT
If Rolling Stone had any ounce of integrity, its gone now.
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 1, 2023 16:48:22 GMT
Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, died today at 93. The Supreme Court made the announcement of her death, saying that it was caused by complications of Alzheimer's. She had backed out of public life in 2018, citing early stages of dementia that she suspected were Alzheimer's. O'Connor graduated high school and enrolled at Stanford at age 16. She was among the top students in her class of '52 at Stanford Law School, yet was only offered secretarial positions by major law firms to which she applied at the time. She took a job as a deputy county attorney in San Matteo County, California, after offering to work for no salary and without an office from which to work. She moved up in her career, becoming Arizona's Assistant Attorney General and then a senator, including Senate Majority Leader. Stepping away from her career as a politician, she moved into the Arizona court system, working her way up to the Court of Appeals. She was also active in Republican politics. In his 1980 campaign, Ronald Reagan promised to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court, should the opportunity arise. (This predated by 40 years candidate Joe Biden's similar promise to nominate a black woman in 2020--a promise much derided by conservatives, Republicans, and moderate Democrats.) O'Connor was that woman. Despite significant controversy on the nomination, the senate confirmed her 99-0 in a vote that reminds us how times have changed. She served on the Supreme Court for 24 years, becoming the swing vote as the Court moved to the right during that time. (Increasingly, she was seen as liberal as the world and Court moved past her.) She expressed regret that subequent decisions reversed those majority opinions she had championed in her time on the Court, and decried the increasing political nature of the Court--both in reality and in perception based on politicians' and the public's uncorrected discussions of it. R.I.P. to a trailblazer.
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 6, 2023 14:15:57 GMT
Norman Lear, groundbreaking television writer and producer, died yesterday at the age of 101. Mr. Lear introduced a whole new genre of sitcoms: funny, sometimes even offensive, scenarios that involved actual problems and timely issues. The families weren't all middle class, two-parent, two-or-three-kid households in the suburbs with a professional father and stay-at-home mother baking cookies; you might have a single parent, an unemployed father, a dropout kid. Even--gasp!--black protagonists! Poverty, child abuse, interracial relationships, racial stereotypes ... this became the stuff of comedy. And sometimes it worked! "All in the Family" was his classic, but Mr. Lear also produced the hits "The Jeffersons," "Sanford and Son," "Maude," "One Day At A Time," and "Diff'rent Strokes." (There were, of course, also misses.) Mr. Lear began his career writing for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in the early '50s. He continued writing for television, theater, and film throughout the subsequent decades. Eventually he saw a BBC series called "Til Death Do Us Part," which he refashioned into an American sitcom: "All in the Family" debuted in 1971 on CBS (after ABC turned it down). Critics hated it. The public loved it. According to a NYT obituary, "In March 1972, The Times reported that at 8 p.m. every Saturday, 60 percent of all television sets in America were turned to it, and between 50 million and 60 million viewers were watching — among them Sammy Davis Jr., who rearranged his performing schedule so he could watch in his dressing room." In today's climate, there is no way "All in the Family" could be aired. But, again from that NYT obit, "Mr. Davis expressed amazement that anyone would be insulted by “All in the Family,” but over the years many groups said they were — and not just ethnic groups. ... The debates never really stopped, but the show continued to garner high ratings into the late 1970s." The show won 22 Emmys. RIP to Norman Lear. He contributed a lot, and lived to a good, old age.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Dec 7, 2023 12:50:22 GMT
Even if All In The Family was the only show that Norman Lear wrote/produced, he would still be a legend. I was borderline too young to fully understand the humor and the impact of All In The Family when it originally aired. I just enjoyed the basic comedy element of the characters.
I'm glad Norman was able to live such a long, fruitful life. R.I.P. Norman Lear.
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Post by jk on Dec 7, 2023 18:09:54 GMT
Mr. Lear began his career writing for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in the early '50s. He continued writing for television, theater, and film throughout the subsequent decades. Eventually he saw a BBC series called "Til Death Do Us Part," which he refashioned into an American sitcom: "All in the Family" debuted in 1971 on CBS (after ABC turned it down). No disrespect to Mr Lear, but from what I remember of it, Till Death Us Do Part's foul-mouthed Alf Garnett made Archie Bunker look like a teacher's pet.
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 7, 2023 18:13:10 GMT
Mr. Lear began his career writing for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in the early '50s. He continued writing for television, theater, and film throughout the subsequent decades. Eventually he saw a BBC series called "Til Death Do Us Part," which he refashioned into an American sitcom: "All in the Family" debuted in 1971 on CBS (after ABC turned it down). No disrespect to Mr Lear, but from what I remember of it, Till Death Us Do Part's foul-mouthed Alf Garnett made Archie Bunker look like a teacher's pet. I'd like to look up that show: I hope it's available online. And that wouldn't be surprising: American TV seems often to have toned down remakes of BBC. Profanity and nudity in particular have generally been entirely off-limits in American network TV through the years, while I know there was more leeway in the UK in such things.
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 27, 2023 17:39:52 GMT
It isn't fair to post this in the non-music RIP section, but it's a matter of whether the great Tom Smothers was first and foremost a musician or a comic. Tom Smothers, who died yesterday at age 86 after a brief bout with cancer, was among the greatest self-styled fools of the 20th century. One half of the brilliant comedy-music duo The Smothers Brothers, he played the guitar-playing, stammering bumbler to the bass-playing straight man of his brother Dick Smothers. Their brief-lived but wildly successful variety show "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" featured a writers room that reads like a who's who of the next generation of comedy: Rob Reiner, Steve Martin, Bob Einstein (Super Dave), Don Novello, Mason Williams, and Pat Paulsen. They brought cynical, insubordinate comedy to primetime America with their inside jokes, drug references, and antiwar stance. The show featured the likes of George Harrison, Simon & Garfunkel, Buffalo Springfield, and the Doors as guests. It was abruptly canceled in 1969 after spending most of its existence battling network executives and censors. I was raised knowing the Smothers Brothers thanks to my parents' LP of Live at the Purple Onion. It remains one of my favorite comedy albums/specials. "Sing along with bitch." RIP.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Dec 27, 2023 17:52:22 GMT
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Dec 27, 2023 20:29:20 GMT
Tommy did a great impression of Johnny Carson:
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 2, 2024 20:21:54 GMT
Carl Weathers, who I first saw as Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies when I was a kid, died yesterday in his sleep. He was 76. While he was an action hero for much of my youth, in the '00s I found out he had a knack for comedy, with a role in Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore and then playing himself in the cult classic sitcom Arrested Development (where he was a miser to an absurd degree, as well as an acting coach/mentor to one of the show's main characters, comic David Cross's character Tobias Funke, the bumbling husband who abandoned his successful psychiatry practice to pursue an impossible acting career).
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 2, 2024 18:39:08 GMT
The great comic actor Joe Flaherty died yesterday at the age of 82 after what is only disclosed as "a brief illness." Flaherty was part of the Chicago-based Second City Theater and a founding member of its touring group along with Harold Ramis and Brian Doyle-Murray before co-founding the Toronto troupe for the group. He was then one of the original cast members of the fantastic Canadian sketch comedy show "SCTV," a spin-off from that troupe (i.e., "Second City Television") before becoming a decorated comic actor and writer. Personally I loved him as the cranky dad, Harold Weir, in the short-lived but much-loved "Freaks and Geeks." He lived a long and successful life. John Candy and Joe Flaherty as hockey players filming a breakfast cereal commercial: Flaherty as Harold Weir.
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Post by kds on Apr 3, 2024 14:01:30 GMT
Great comedic actor. I think I first saw him in One Crazy Summer.
I think I need to go back and give Freaks and Geeks a watch. I missed it in real time, but caught most of the episodes on some channel like 15 years ago. It might be a good one to do once I complete my watch of The Wonder Years.
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