Subject: (exotica) [obits]Charles Lowe,Marguerite Chapman,Peter Gilman, Allen Funt,Barry Shipp
Date: 07 Sep 1999 09:55:07 -0400
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Charles Lowe, who guided the career of actress Carol Channing during their four-decade marriage, died Thursday. He was 87.
Lowe and Miss Channing, 78, separated last year after she accused him of mismanagement. The two were estranged at the time of Lowe's death, publicist Alan Eichler said.
A native of Steel City, Neb., Lowe served in the Army during World War II. After the war, he went from advertising executive to producer of the 1950-58 ``The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show'' on CBS.
He and Miss Channing married in 1956 and Lowe focused his attention on her stage career. He also produced five network TV specials with his wife, including ``An Evening with Carol Channing.''
In May 1998, Ms. Channing filed for divorce.
Saturday, September 4, 1999; 7:59 p.m. EDT
Marguerite Chapman
BURBANK , Calif. (AP) -- Marguerite Chapman, who starred in a series of World War II movies and later as a secretary in Marilyn Monroe's film the ``The Seven Year Itch,'' died Tuesday. She was 81.
From 1940 to 1943, Ms. Chapman appeared in 18 movies, ranging from Charlie Chan comedies to armed services booster films as a member of Warner Bros.' singing and dancing Navy Blues Sextet.
Ms. Chapman was eventually cast as a leading lady in ``Destroyer'' with Edward G. Robinson and Glenn Ford and in ``Appointment in Berlin'' opposite George Sanders.
After the war, she continued to win leading roles in such films as ``Relentless'' opposite Robert Young and ``The Green Promise'' with Walter Brennan. But by the 1950s, Ms. Chapman had slipped into supporting roles, notably as a secretary in ``The Seven Year Itch'' in 1955.
Ms. Chapman had top billing again in her final film, ``The Amazing Transparent Man'' in 1960, but the film was critically panned.
As Ms. Chapman's film career waned, she made guest appearances in television series including ``Richard Diamond, Private Detective,'' ``Rawhide,'' ``Perry Mason,'' ``Hawaii Five-0'' and ``Marcus Welby, M.D.''
Peter Gilman
HILO, Hawaii (AP) -- Peter Gilman, whose best-selling novel was turned into the movie ``Diamond Head,'' died Wednesday. He was 73.
Gilman was a reporter for The Honolulu Star-Bulletin in the 1950s when he wrote ``Such Sweet Thunder,'' which topped The New York Times Best Seller List.
Columbia Pictures paid $100,000 for the book in 1959.
The novel was turned into the 1960 movie ``Diamond Head,'' starring Charlton Heston.
Following his success, Gilman moved to Paris, where he joined a group of fellow-expatriate writers that included James Jones, James Baldwin and William Styron.
Gilman later trained polo ponies in Argentina, and became an artist and commercial fisherman in Mexico.
Born in New York, Gilman graduated from UCLA, and went on to work for the Monterey Peninsula Herald in California, The Associated Press and The Los Angeles Times.
Survivors include three sons.
Monday, September 6, 1999; 8:58 p.m. EDT
Allen Funt
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Allen Funt, the TV prankster behind ``Candid Camera,'' which thrived on America's willingness to laugh at itself and created a trademark phrase, died Sunday. He was 84.
Funt died of complications from the 1993 stroke that forced him into retirement.
``Candid Camera,'' which aired off and on from 1948 to 1990 with Funt as host, secretly filmed people confronted with talking mailboxes or trick coffee cups. ``Smile! You're on `Candid Camera!' '' was the victim's tipoff.
The show was a precursor of reality-genre television shows such as ``Cops'' and ``World's Most Dangerous Animals.''
``People toss around the word `pioneer' all the time, but Allen Funt was really one of those rare people who was a pioneer,'' said Michael Naidus, a CBS spokesman.
CBS now airs ``Candid Camera,'' with Funt's son Peter Funt and Suzanne Somers as hosts, on Friday evenings.
The TV program was born of Funt's ``Candid Microphone,'' a radio show the New York native originated after his Army service in World War II.
The show had its TV premiere, still called ``Candid Microphone,'' on ABC in 1948. It bounced from one network to another in its early years, eventually getting picked up by CBS in 1960 for a seven-year run. In 1960-61, it was the seventh-best rated show in the nation.
CHICAGO (AP) -- Barry Shipp, who took an oil he found in a drug paraphernalia shop and used it to create the popular fragrance called Jovan Musk, died Monday of a heart attack. He was 62.
After spending time as Revlon sales trainee and rising to become the company's Midwest sales representative, Shipp joined entrepreneur Bernard Mitchell in creating Jovan in the late 1960s.
As Shipp told the story, he was on a sales trip in New York when he stepped into a ``head shop'' where drug paraphernalia was sold along with other counterculture items, including something called musk oil.
``It was the hottest thing in underground perfumery,'' Shipp, a prominent thoroughbred horse owner, said in a recent interview with Illinois Racing News. ``It was said to be a sexual attractant.''
Shipp took the oil back to Chicago and helped create Jovan Musk.
``And the thing just took off,'' he said. ``We went from a $1 million company in 1971 to an $85 million company in 1979.''
Shipp is survived by his wife, Mary Ellen; two sons, Gregg and Drew Shipp, and his daughter, Lara.
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LEAGUE CITY, Texas (AP) -- Katie Webster, the blues singer known as ``The Swamp Boogie Queen'' for her frenetic, two-fisted piano style, died Sunday of a heart attack. She was 63.
Born Kathryn Jewel Thorne, Ms. Webster first learned to play gospel and classical music.
Her parents, wary of secular influences, kept the piano locked up so she couldn't play unsupervised.
As a teen, she moved in with more agreeable relatives in south Louisiana and by age 15 became one of the most requested studio musicians in the region. Her music appears on more than 500 singles cut in the 1950s and 1960s.
A young Otis Redding discovered her in 1964. She toured with him until his death in a 1967 plane crash that might have killed her. She couldn't fly because she was pregnant.
Devastated, Ms. Webster essentially stopped performing until the early 1980s, when she took Europe by storm. She became a favorite in the U.S. blues festival circuit and recorded on the Chicago-based Alligator Records label with the likes of Robert Cray and Bonnie Raitt.
A 1993 stroke severely damaged her eyesight and use of her left hand, but she continued to appear at select festivals.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Lenon Hoyte, an art teacher who shared her dream of a doll museum with Harlem children and collectors from around the world, died Aug. 1. She was 94.
Better known as Aunt Len, Ms. Hoyte officially opened her collection of dolls in 1974. Housed in a three-story brownstone she bought with her husband in 1938, the collection of Aunt Len's Doll and Toy Museum once numbered 6,000 dolls.
Among them were a dozen versions of Shirley Temple, Barbie, Betsy Wetsy, presidents and their wives and black dolls, which are now highly sought by collectors because so few were made before the 20th century.
After paying a modest entrance fee that never exceeded $2, visitors would encounter mannequins ranging from thumb-size to two or three feet tall. The museum remained open until the early 1990s when Ms. Hoyte was no longer able to care for it.
In 1994, 700 of the finest antique dolls were auctioned at Sotheby's. Thousands more had been sold previously to dealers around the world.
Ms. Hoyte taught art at a Bronx public high school for 41 years.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Award-winning designer Tony Duquette, an interior decorator to the wealthy whose 18-karat gold jewelry currently is featured at Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, died Thursday. He was 85.
Duquette, who died at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, won a Tony Award for the costumes in the original Broadway production of ``Camelot''.
His long career has ranged from designing sets and costumes for Fred Astaire musicals to creating rooms for clients such as the late J. Paul Getty, the Duchess of Windsor, cosmetics maker Elizabeth Arden and ``Gone With The Wind'' producer David O. Selznick.
Duquette was inducted into Interior Design magazine's Hall of Fame in 1997, and was listed on the 59th annual International Best-Dressed Poll this year.
Saturday, September 11, 1999; 11:39 p.m. EDT
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Alfredo ``El Guero'' Gil, the last surviving member of the original romantic trio Los Panchos, died Friday in Mexico City. He was 84 and had been suffering from pulmonary emphysema.
Gil was born in the central state of Puebla and became a professional musician at age 15. In 1944, he was in New York when he linked up with two other musicians -- Chucho Navarro and Hernando Aviles of Puerto Rico -- to form Los Panchos, in which Gil played the ``requinto,'' a small guitar.
The trio was known for its soft harmonics, particularly in the romantic bolero. Its emotional interpretations of ``Besame Mucho'' (Kiss Me), ``Quizas, Quizas, Quizas'' (Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps) and ``Sin Ti'' (Without You) propelled them to international fame. The band appeared in more than 50 films during Mexico's ``Golden Era'' of cinema.
With Gil's death Friday night, Mexico City radio stations devoted much of their programming to Los Panchos' songs.
Gil is survived by his wife, Guadalupe Bedoy, and five children. Funeral services were held Saturday.
KINDER, La. (AP) -- Beau Jocque, an accordian player who helped revitalize Louisiana's zydeco music, is dead of an apparent heart attack. He was 45.
Jocque, whose given name was Andrus Espre, performed Thursday night in New Orleans, then drove 177 miles home to Kinder. His wife found him collapsed in the shower Friday morning.
Jocque worked as a welder before picking up his father's piano-key accordion. In his version of zydeco, he combined rhythm-and-blues, hip-hop beats, funk and Texas blues-rock.
He was credited with bringing zydeco, a mix of old-time cajun music and rhythm-and-blues, to contemporary audiences, filling halls in Lafayette, Lawtell, New Orleans and other cities where he often played with his band, the Zydeco Hi-Rollers. He also played overseas, and on the David Letterman and Conan O'Brien shows.
When the 6-foot-6 Jocque played one of his big hits, ``Give Him Cornbread,'' audiences would pelt him with pieces of cornbread.
Jocque is survived by his wife, Shelly Espre, and two sons.
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- John Molloy, an Irish actor and novelist, died Sept. 2 after a long illness. He was 70.
Born in Dublin, Molloy ran away from home at 14 to join a troupe of actors that roamed the country performing in small towns, and later worked with Marcel Marceau in Paris and with the Gate and Abbey theatres in Dublin. At the Abbey, he specialized in the works of Samuel Beckett.
Molloy appeared in some 60 movies and played Broadway in his own two-man show, ``Double Dublin,'' in 1963-64. He wrote 39 revues, two musicals, many TV and radio plays and a best-selling novel, ``Alive, Alive-O.''
He is best known in the San Francisco Bay area for his one-man show, ``Molloy,'' a hit of the San Francisco International Theatre Festival in 1981, but worked through the 1980s with a series of local solo shows.
Molloy is survived by his nine children: five sons and four daughters.
LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Ruth Roman, who starred opposite Gary Cooper and Errol Flynn and survived the Andrea Doria wreck at sea, died in her sleep Thursday. She was 75.
In 1956, she and her 3-year-old son were returning from Italy aboard the luxury passenger liner Andrea Doria when it was struck by another ship. More than fifty people died and 760 survived after the ship went down.
The Boston-born actress got her start in community plays at age 9. She attended drama school and later moved to Hollywood.
Roman appeared in some minor films before her big break in Stanley Kramer's 1949 ``Champion,'' which featured Kirk Douglas as an unscrupulous boxer. Following the film, Warner Bros. offered Roman a contract and she starred in nine films in less than two years opposite Cooper, Flynn and James Stewart.
Roman also appeared in ``Beyond the Forest'' with Bette Davis, ``Three Secrets'' with Patricia Neal and ``Mara Maru'' with Flynn. Roman appeared in more than 30 movies, most of them in the 1950s, and a number of television shows in the 1960s and 1970s.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Eugene ``Frenchy'' Schwartz, a fixture at racetracks as a clocker of thoroughbreds for nearly 50 years died Wednesday following a long illness. He was 97.
Schwartz began his career at Omaha in 1933 and went on to time horses during workouts at tracks in New Orleans, Ohio and at Hollywood Park in California before working at New York tracks in 1949. He retired his clocker's watch in January 1982, but remained a familiar sight at racetracks.
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>That's the good news. Now the bad news: Manhattan Research,
>the double album of Scott's electronic music, has been
>postponed til february 2000.
Nit-picky point #1: Yes, it's true the official Basta release/hype is
now set for Feb., 2000 -- BUT if we're lucky, we'll finish sooner... (G-J
Blom & myself are the producers, & after 2 years of work, we're FINALLY in the very last stages...)
Nit-picky point #2: The name is of this release is MANHATTAN RESEARCH INCORPORATED. The title comes from Raymond Scott's electronic music & devices company (which he officially established in 1946).
Nit-picky point #3: Just to be totally clear -- this is NOT a reissue
of previously released vinyl records. MANHATTAN RESEARCH INC. features 1950s-60s RS recordings that have never been issued before (except as soundtracks to films, etc.).
By the way, these recordings are COMPLETELY electronic (no bands nor traditional instruments). In addition to the 2 CDs of music, MANHATTAN RESEARCH INC. also includes a beautiful 125-page full-color hardcover book! This is the main reason for the delays, but I promise it will be worth the wait!! (Anyone's comments or questions are welcome.)
Thanks,
-Jeff Winner, The Raymond Scott Archives
E-MAIL: info@RaymondScott.com
SITE: http://RaymondScott.com
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Subject: (exotica) [obits] David Karp,Stanley M. Simmons,Tony Duquette
Date: 14 Sep 1999 09:43:35 -0400
PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) -- David Karp, a novelist, screen and television writer, died Saturday of bladder cancer. He was 77.
He was one of a group of writers such as Paddy Chayesky, Horton Foote, Rod Serling and others, whose careers flourished during the 1950's ``golden age'' of television writing.
Until the 1970s, Karp was a frequent contributor to such dramatic series as ``The Untouchables.'' He was also the author of several television series and movies.
He was an accomplished novelist who published more than a half-dozen books. His most successful novel, ``One,'' was a political science fiction story.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Stanley M. Simmons, who designed sets and costumes for Broadway shows and ballets, died Sept. 4 of heart failure. He was 71.
The designer created costumes for the original production of Tennessee Williams' ``Garden District'' and ``Bar of a Tokyo Hotel'' and for such musicals as ``Show Boat,'' ``The King and I,'' ``Brigadoon'' and ``Lena: The Lady and Her Music.''
He also designed costumes and sets for ``Coppelia'' and costumed major American ballet companies, including the Joffrey Ballet. He also collaborated with the choreographers Agnes de Mille and Jerome Robbins and worked on sets for ballet and opera productions at the Vienna State Opera and Spoleto Festival.
Simmons was known for creating dance costumes that embodied the essence of ballet, such as the free-flowing dress in Eliot Feld's ``Meadowlark.''
His television credits include the Emmy Award-winning Shirley MacLaine special ``Gypsy in My Soul.''
September 14, 1999
Tony Duquette, 85, a Decorator of Fantasy
By JULIE V. IOVINE, NYTimes
Tony Duquette, the designer whose lavish, whimsically baroque sets and costumes, interiors and jewelry made him a Hollywood favorite for more than five decades, died on Sept. 9. He was 85.
The cause of his death, at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center, was complications from a heart attack, said Hutton Wilkinson, his business partner of 30 years.
Exotic excess was the signature of the Tony Duquette style. "He was the only man who could spend $999 in a 99-cent store," Wilkinson said.
Part sly conjurer, part satin-robed aesthete, Duquette was concerned with the dazzling effect of his designs, often using unabashedly cheap materials.
At his Hollywood Hills studio, a roomful of 18th-century French antiques sat amid gilded trees beneath a ceiling studded with glued-on gold plastic serving trays. His talent for overdoing it was appreciated by clients who had acquired their own sense of the grandiose, among them Vincente Minnelli, Doris Duke, Mary Pickford, J. Paul Getty, David O. Selznick and the duchess of Windsor.
"He was doing fantasy from the moment he began, and remained committed to his vision no matter what the fashion of the day dictated," said Liz O'Brien, a New York dealer in 20th-century decorative arts.
Anthony Michael Duquette (the name is pronounced due-KETT) was born in Los Angeles on June 11, 1914. The oldest of four children, Duquette "always just was what he was -- artistic, driven," said his sister, Jeanne Newman. When he was 12, he entertained his siblings with a puppet show of "Scheherazade," making all the costumes himself. The toy houses he built were romantically lighted with birthday candles.
After high school, he attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles on a scholarship. His first job was as a designer at Bullock's department store. As a freelancer, he also worked for the Hollywood designers Billy Haines and James Pendleton.
During World War II, he served as a private in the U.S. Army. In 1949, he married Elizabeth Johnstone, an artist and eager contributor to the Duquette vision. He called her Beegle, and the nickname stuck.
Duquette liked to say that he was discovered by Lady Mendl (who had become famous as an interior decorator as Elsie de Wolfe) when, in her 80s, she decamped from her villa in France to a villa in Los Angeles to avoid the war.
"I want you to make me a meuble," Lady Mendl commanded, putting the word "furniture" into French, after admiring a jewel-bedecked plaster and glass centerpiece that Duquette had designed for a dinner party.
Impressed with the result, a black-lacquered secretary with Moors set against a mirrored background festooned with Venetian glass flowers, she began to promote her new discovery to clients, friends and influential editors.
Their collaboration lasted until her death, in 1951. Duquette became president of the Elsie de Wolfe Foundation and at the time of his death he was organizing an auction of the foundation's Elsie de Wolfe collections, to be held at Christie's in Los Angeles next week.
It did not take long for Duquette to become established as a celebrity decorator, furniture and jewelry maker, and set designer. He furnished a castle for Elizabeth Arden, designed his first piece of jewelry for the duchess of Windsor and built sets for Vincente Minnelli's lavish movies "Ziegfeld Follies of 1944" and "Yolanda and the Thief," with Fred Astaire (1945).
He won a Tony award for best costumes for the original 1961 Broadway production of "Camelot." In the late 1940s, he was given a one-man show at the Pavillon de Marsan in the Louvre.
But his own lavishly theatrical homes were perhaps his most astonishing creations. The house on his 175-acre Malibu ranch, named Sortilegium, was an architectural collage of Oriental and Georgian motifs interlarded with bits of unexpected exotica: a window from Greta Garbo and John Gilbert's love nest, a Venetian gondola, and a set of 18th-century doors presented to him and his wife by Mary Pickford and Buddy Rogers as a wedding present. It was destroyed by fire in 1993.
Another home, Dawnridge, was a villagelike compound with Balinese pavilions and grand Venetian salons, the whole spiced with 18th-century Chinese window carvings.
Duquette also enjoyed creating what he called celebrational environments. His most famous installation, dedicated in the 1980s, was in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of San Francisco, where Duquette had gained a large following with his opera sets and decorations for debutante balls.
The Duquette Pavilion of St. Francis consisted of a room crowded with monumental 28-foot metal sculptures of archangels and giant jewel-studded tapestries. It, too, was destroyed by fire, in 1989.
His wife died in 1995. In addition to his sister, Ms. Newman of La Canada, Calif., Duquette is survived by a brother, Frank Duquette of Palm Springs, Calif.
Projects he was working on at the time of his death included rooms in the Palazzo Brandolini in Venice, Italy, and a jewelry collection for Gucci.
"Decorating is not a surface performance," Duquette once said, "It's a spiritual impulse, inborn and primordial."
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Subject: (exotica) [obits] Harry Crane,Cleveland ``Big Cat'' Williams,Charles Crichton
Date: 15 Sep 1999 09:26:40 -0400
Tuesday, September 14, 1999; 9:08 p.m. EDT
Harrry Crane
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- Harry Crane, co-creator of Jackie Gleason's classic 1950s sitcom ``The Honeymooners'' and comedy writer for Red Skelton, the Marx Brothers, Bing Crosby and others, died Tuesday of cancer. He was 85.
The writer, who worked on movies as well as TV, had another link to Hollywood: He was the grandfather of actresses Melissa Gilbert (``Little House on the Prairie'') and Sara Gilbert (``Roseanne'').
The native of New York City was 19 when he started performing stand-up comedy. He was recruited by MGM as a screenwriter, earning his first credit on ``Air Raid Wardens'' (1943), starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
He and Joe Bigelow were staff writers for ``Cavalcade of Stars'' when Gleason, the variety show's new host, asked for help in developing a sketch.
Gleason told the writers he wanted to play an ``everyday working stiff'' who lived with his long-suffering wife in a little Brooklyn flat, according to the book ``Classic Sitcoms.''
The two created a scene involving squabbling Ralph and Alice Kramden, and the couple became a variety show mainstay for Gleason and then in 1955 the basis for the 39-episode sitcom ``The Honeymooners.''
HOUSTON (AP) -- Cleveland ``Big Cat'' Williams, whose career highlight was a 1966 bout against heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, died Friday after being struck by a car while crossing the street on Sept. 3. He was 66.
Williams overcame tremendous odds to face Ali in the Astrodome on Nov. 14, 1966. A year and a half before stepping into the ring against Ali, the fighter quarreled with a Texas state trooper during a traffic stop. The officer shot Williams in the midsection, leaving the boxer with lifelong kidney problems.
He eventually lost to Ali in a three-round knockout. He was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in Commerce, Calif., in 1997.
LONDON (AP) -- Charles Crichton, a director of comedy films in the 1940s and 1950s who made a resurgence with ``A Fish Called Wanda,'' died Tuesday at his home in the London neighborhood of South Kensington after a short illness, said his son, David Crichton. He was 89.
Crichton directed 1946's ``Hue and Cry,'' the first so-called Ealing comedy, named after the west London film studio.
One of his best-loved Ealing productions was 1951's ``The Lavender Hill Mob,'' a classic about a timid bank clerk played by Alec Guinness who schemes to get even with his employer by masterminding a foolproof robbery. It featured a young Audrey Hepburn in one of its opening scenes.
Crichton directed a steady stream of films throughout the '50s, but his career hit a setback in 1962 when an argument with producer-star Burt Lancaster during the making of ``Birdman of Alcatraz'' caused him to quit in mid-production.
``He Who Rides a Tiger,'' directed in 1965, wound up being his last feature film for 23 years, until John Cleese enticed him out of television work to direct ``A Fish Called Wanda.''
In 1989, at the age of 78, Crichton was nominated for an Academy Award as best director for ``Wanda,'' a comedy starring Cleese, Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis that rollicked along in the best Ealing tradition.
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September 15 1999 OBITUARIES (The Times of London)
MOONDOG
Moondog (Louis T. Hardin), composer, Beat poet and street musician, died in Mⁿnster, Germany, on September 8 aged 83. He was born in Marysville, Kansas, on May 26, 1916.
FOR the best part of 30 years, the gaunt, bearded figure of a blind man in a Viking helmet, home-made robe and sandals, distributing his printed poems, music and diatribes while clutching a fearsome-looking spear, was a familiar sight around the junction of 6th Avenue and 54th Street in New York.
Using the name Moondog, in honour of a pet which used to howl at night, Louis T. Hardin was one of the more extraordinary characters of the city's streets.
Not only was Hardin an accomplished poet and songwriter, but he was a composer and percussionist, a friend of musicians from Toscanini to Charlie Parker, and an icon of the Beat movement. Janis Joplin had a hit with one of his songs, and others were used in film soundtracks or as advertising jingles.
It was assumed by many Americans that he had disappeared or died after leaving his familiar territory in 1974, and the 1994 Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music concluded its article on Moondog with "nothing has been heard of this remarkable and enigmatic poet for several years".
In fact, he had been invited to Germany to perform his music, and when he got there he simply stayed. He found an amanuensis, Mrs Ilona Sommer, who transcribed his work and published his compositions, although she did not deter him from venturing back out on the streets to perform. In due course she persuaded him to discard his Viking garb, but not before it had prevented him from being admitted to a New York Philharmonic rehearsal of one of his pieces.
In old age Hardin liked to direct performances of his music from the bass drum, on which he pounded out a beat while loudly declaiming his poems. On a rare return visit to the United States in 1989 to conduct a programme of his music by the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, he spurned the rostrum in order to direct from the percussion section.
It was the same story when he came to the BBC studios in Maida Vale in 1995 to record several of his pieces with the French pianist Dominique Ponty for Radio 3's Impressions. Against a backdrop of his jazz-inflected rhythmic pieces such as Art of the Canon No 13 or Oo Debut, he forcefully laid down bass drum rhythms and passionately declaimed his words.
Hardin, the son of a church minister, lost his sight in an accident in 1932, and completed his education at the Iowa School for the Blind. He became an accomplished musician, and after arriving in New York, befriended the conductor Artur Rodzinski. Playing a variety of percussion instruments, Hardin earned his living as a street entertainer, and his stage-door acquaintances included famous jazz musicians in the clubs on 52nd Street as well as symphonic musicians and conductors a few blocks away at Carnegie Hall.
Both these types of music were incorporated into his own compositions, which he began to record on an ad hoc basis in the 1950s. In particular, the Prestige label, which had Miles Davis and Charlie Parker on its roster, recorded pieces such as Broadway and 52nd Street: the Jazz Corner of The World, as well as distinctly more eccentric works such as a duet for bamboo flute and the whistle of the liner Queen Elizabeth.
The first of Hardin's many "discoveries" came when the disc jockey Alan Freed adopted his Moondog Symphony as a theme tune. Hardin deterred him with legal action, but continued to make occasional discs, including arranging an album of Mother Goose songs for Julie Andrews and recording his influential 1969 LP Moondog.
This was an immediate success among the Beat movement, and its repetitive rhythms and simple counterpoint made it a forerunner of the work of Minimalists such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Hardin maintained that he adopted his regular, cyclic rhythmic style from attending native North American dances as a child, and he recalled performing with a Blackfoot troupe in Idaho in the 1940s. In due course, he integrated his rhymes and chants into his pieces as an additional contrapuntal texture, alongside increasingly dense and complex melodic lines. From the 1950s he composed by writing instrumental parts in braille, but tended never to produce full scores as he felt this involved too much work. He recorded more than a dozen albums of his music.
He was twice married and is survived by two daughters.
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Subject: (exotica) [obits] Henri Storck, Frankie Vaughan,Willi Millowitsch ,Taheya Carioca
Date: 21 Sep 1999 09:30:18 -0400
Henri Storck
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) û Henri Storck, a Belgian film pioneer who broke new ground in documentary movie making with a 1933 account of a coal miners' strike, died Thursday. He was 92.
Storck, regarded as one of Belgium's greatest filmmakers, achieved international acclaim with "Misery in the Borinage" which he co-wrote and directed with Dutchman Joris Ivens. Their short, stark account focused on the grim conditions of mine workers in the Borinage region around the southern Belgian city of Mons during a strike to protest pay cuts.
Storck worked as an actor, cinematographer, art director producer and director in a career that spanned 70 movies. He was best known for his documentaries, which also included "The Unknown Soldier," "Rubens" and "The Peasant's Symphony."
Frankie Vaughan
LONDON (AP) û Frankie Vaughan, a crooner who appealed to audiences in Las Vegas and New York as well as his native England, died Friday. He was 71.
Vaughan, who made hits of "Green Door" and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," had undergone surgery for a heart problem earlier this year.
He also had a moderately successful movie career, appearing in 1960's "Let's Make Love" and performing a musical number with Marilyn Monroe.
Vaughan, born Frank Abelson in his Russian grandmother's house in Liverpool, turned to show business after studying at Leeds College of Art.
He auditioned as a singer, landed a week's work at a music hall, and then started his career on the British variety circuit. He starred at all the major British theaters and had hit cabaret shows in Las Vegas and at New York's Copacabana.
In later years, he continued to perform on the theatrical circuit and made frequent appearances on TV specials.
Willi Millowitsch
COLOGNE, Germany (AP) û Willi Millowitsch, one of Germany's best-known comic actors and a fixture at the famed Cologne carnival, died Monday. He was 90.
Born into a Cologne family of actors, Millowitsch made his first stage appearance at age five. During World War II, he toured Nazi-occupied France with a theater group that entertained German soldiers.
His career took off in the 1950s, leading to numerous stage, film and TV roles. He also had pop music hits. Millowitsch's own theater in Cologne, which he directed until 1996, became one of Germany's most popular comedy stages.
CAIRO, Sept 20 (AFP) - Taheya Carioca, the Egyptian beauty who
became the Arab world's most famous belly dancer, died Monday in a
Cairo hospital at the age of 79, hospital officials said.
Carioca, whose stardom lasted decades after her debut in the
1930s, was born Abla Mohammed Karim but took her stage name from the Brazilian sambas she went on to perform.
The cause of death was listed as a heart attack.
Carioca danced in most Arab countries and starred in several
Egyptian films with some of the Arab world's top actors.
She had refused to play down her colourful past, as many other
performers did, during the rise of Islamic extremism in the 1980s
although she took to wearing the Islamic silk scarf before retiring
completely from public life 13 years ago.
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CAIRO, Egypt Actress Tahiya Karioka, the Arab world's most famous belly dancer, died of a heart attack Monday. She was 78.
Karioka, born as Badawiya Mohammed Karim, had been in al-Safa Hospital for two weeks, where she was suffering from heart, digestive and breathing problems, according to hospital officials.
Karioka, dubbed the "Queen of Oriental Dancing," studied dancing as a young girl at Ivanova Belly Dancing School before moving to Mohammed Ali Street, Cairo's 1930s and '40s equivalent of Broadway.
Karioka's first film was "Doctor Farahat" in 1935, directed by Togo Mizrahi. Altogether, she performed in some 300 films, plays and television soap operas.
Considered the Arab world's Marilyn Monroe, Karioka attracted the attention of key figures in Egypt and won the admiration of the late King Farouq.
The outspoken Karioka ( who criticized the military rule of Egypt after the 1952 army coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser) temporarily stopped performing when the new regime accused her of conspiracy.
Before her death, Palestinian-born writer Edward Said wrote that Karioka was not only a belly dancer but an artist who played a role in shaping Egypt's modern culture.
One of her most popular movies was "Youth of a Woman," in which she played a landlady who seduces a young, naive peasant student. The film was shown at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival and won the international directing prize in 1958.
Karioka married 14 times. Among her former husbands were an American army officer whom she married during World War II, the late actor Rushdi Abaza and famous playwright Fayez Halawa.
She is survived by an adopted daughter, Atiyat Allah.
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Subject: Re: (exotica) Hal Willner (was Yma and Disney)
Date: 22 Sep 1999 10:20:52 -0400
Andrew Grant <stoic@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>The album was put together by Hal Willner, who put together other BRILLIANT tribute albums of Nino Rota, Kurt Weill and Mingus. Don't know what he's been up to of late.....
Try going to http://www.robotwisdom.com/jorn/willner.html for a nice little HW carreer summary. Willner has an annual Halloween show at the Arts At St. Ann's series in downtown Brooklyn. Once they get their schedule page up and running, you can check them out at:
And seek out Willner's CD Whoops, I'm An Indian. (The title comes from an old Fanny Brice tune, and means "that's something that I never was before," in HW's case, a dance/club music performer.)
-Lou
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Subject: (exotica) [obits] Benny Kalama, George C. Scott,Joel Beck
Date: 23 Sep 1999 10:00:05 -0400
Benny Kalama
HONOLULU (AP) û Hawaiian music legend Benny Kalama, former musical director for the "Hawaii Calls" radio show, died Tuesday at his Lanikai home. He was 83.
Kalama, a falsetto singer and ukulele and bass player, performed with some of Hawaii's most famous musicians and was a member of the Royal Hawaiian Serenaders from 1948-1952.
His recording career started in 1938. His lone solo album, "He is Hawaiian Music," came out in the early 1980s. In 1993, Kalama received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- George C. Scott, whose eagle-like profile and commanding, gravel-voiced demeanor brought life to Gen. George S.
Patton and earned him an Oscar he refused to accept, has died. He
was 71.
Scott died Wednesday, Pat Mahoney, wife of Scott's publicist, Jim Mahoney, said Thursday.
Scott died at his home in Westlake Village in Ventura County, about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
She said she didn't know the cause of death. ``They just found him and are trying to find out what happened,'' she said. ``He was
on again, off again for a while. He just expired.''
The answering service for the Ventura County Coroner's office confirmed Scott had died but had no other information. The coroner
planned to release a statement this morning, County Sheriff's Sgt.
Paul Higgason said.
Scott captivated audiences in roles ranging from the dangerously explosive, yet sympathetic Patton in 1970 to the fatuous blowhard Gen. Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film ``Dr.
Strangelove.''
The two were opposite ends of a spectrum of his memorable film characters: the shark on the sidelines who tries to devour Paul
Newman in ``The Hustler''; the high-powered ringer brought in to
steamroller small-town lawyer James Stewart in ``Anatomy of a Murder''; the dedicated doctor ground down by red tape and
institutional incompetence in ``The Hospital.''
On television, he etched a gritty portrait of a social worker fighting a tide of urban misery in the television series ``East
Side/West Side.''
On stage, when at age 68 Scott rose from a sickbed to star in the 1996 Broadway revival of ``Inherit the Wind,'' one critic said
it was like watching a horse buggy powered by a Ferrari engine.
In private life, he was for years a bellicose drinker whose
profile was marked by a nose broken five times, in four barroom
brawls and one mugging. He was married five times -- twice to the
same woman, actress Colleen Dewhurst.
When Scott played in ``Plaza Suite'' in 1968, co-star Maureen Stapleton and director Mike Nichols had this reported exchange at
rehearsal:
Stapleton: ``I'm so frightened of George, I don't know what to
do.''
Nichols: ``My dear, the whole world is frightened of George.''
With his highly publicized rejection of the Academy Award more than a decade in the future, Scott mopped up nearly every prize in
sight for eye-catching performances when he hit the New York stage
in 1957 and 1958.
He had spent seven years in the sticks, playing stock and living on menial jobs, preparing for the breakthrough that came when he was 30 years old and caught the eye of Joseph Papp, impresario of
the New York Shakespeare Festival.
In rapid succession, the unknown Scott played the title role in ``Richard III'' in November 1957, Jacques in ``As You Like It'' in
January 1958 and a poisoning peer in the off-Broadway ``Children of
Darkness'' in March 1958.
For his work in all three productions he received the
off-Broadway best actor Obie and a Theatre World award as a
``promising personality.'' For the Shakespeare performances, he won
a Clarence Derwent Award as most promising actor and a Vernon Rice
Award for contribution to off-Broadway theater.
Later the same year, his Broadway debut in ``Comes a Day'' was recognized with the first of what would be four Tony Award
nominations. The others were for ``The Andersonville Trial'' in
1959, ``Uncle Vanya'' in 1974 and ``Death of a Salesman,'' which he
also directed, in 1975.
Over his career he also won a second Obie, two television Emmys out of five nominations and was nominated for Oscars four times.
The movie roles that established his fame and provided the money to continue doing theater began in 1959 with the role of a
charismatic loony who stirs up a lynch mob against Gary Cooper in
``The Hanging Tree.''
The same year, ``Anatomy of a Murder'' brought his first Academy Award nomination. He said nothing about it.
But when he was nominated again in 1962, for ``The Hustler,'' he wired the academy ``no thanks.'' The academy did not withdraw his
name, but he didn't win either.
Scott said later that he did not think he'd ever again be
nominated and regretted only that ``I wasn't able to shock the
academy into doing something constructive'' about what he viewed as
a meaningless popularity contest.
The academy ignored his withdrawal again in 1970 and gave Scott the best-actor Oscar, to go along with Golden Globe and New York Film Critics honors, for ``Patton.'' The movie, a favorite of
President Nixon, received seven Academy Awards. Scott said he spent
the evening watching hockey.
His last nomination was for ``The Hospital'' in 1971. A score of movies would follow, including ``The Savage Is Loose,'' which Scott produced, directed and starred in with his fourth wife, Trish Van Devere, in 1974. It flopped and Scott lost his shirt.
His first Emmy nomination was for a Ben Casey episode called ``I Remember a Lemon Tree'' in 1961.
The others came during the years between his two short-lived TV series, the critically acclaimed ``East Side/West Side'' in 1963-64 and a sitcom, ``Mr. President,'' in 1987-88.
He won Emmys for directing ``The Andersonville Trial'' on PBS in 1970 and acting in ``The Price'' on the Hallmark Hall of Fame in
1971. He also was a nominee for acting in Hallmark's 1976 ``Beauty
and the Beast.''
Although he commissioned ``The Last Days of Patton,'' which
aired in 1986, because he didn't think he had given the general ``a
fair shake the first time around,'' Scott maintained that
moviemaking was tedious and he did it only for the money.
``I have to work in the theater to stay sane,'' he said. ``You can attack the stage fresh every night.''
He disdained ``method'' acting and said he learned his craft
from watching movie greats.
``Cagney and Bogart taught me how to act. During the depressing periods of most actors' lives, they sleep a lot. I went to the movies,'' he once told an interviewer.
Scott was born in Wise, Va., a coal town, on Oct. 18, 1927, but grew up in Detroit. He joined the Marines in 1945, too late for
action in World War II and spent his four years in service burying
the dead at Arlington by day and boozing at night.
``You can't look at that many widows in veils and hear that many `Taps' without taking to drink,'' he said.
He left the Missouri School of Journalism in 1950 without a
degree and threw himself into acting, performing in more than 100
roles with stock companies in Toledo, Ohio; Washington and Ontario,
Canada.
During this time, his marriages to Carolyn Hughes and Patricia Reed produced two daughters, Victoria and Devon, and a son,
Matthew.
He met Dewhurst when they appeared together in ``Children of
Darkness'' and they were married in 1960, divorced in 1965,
remarried in 1967 and divorced in 1972. They had two sons,
Alexander and Campbell.
Scott also acknowledged a sixth child, born out of wedlock
during his school years. He and Van Devere married in 1972.
JOEL BECK GOES UNDERGROUND! SAN FRANCISCO CARTOONIST DEAD AT 56!
September 22: Pioneering underground cartoonist, Joel Beck, had died in
San Francisco at the age of 56.
The San Francisco Examiner described Beck as a "legendary underground
comic artist of the 1960s who chronicled the hippie era and the Vietnam War years in the UC-Berkeley humor magazine Pelican, the Berkeley Barb and in his own comic books. A frail youngster, Mr. Beck spent two years of his childhood in El Sobrante bedridden with a near-fatal combination of tuberculosis and spinal meningitis, during which time he said he drew cartoons and read Mark Twain and Walt Disney. As a teenager he began leaving his cartoons at the office of the Pelican, slipping them under the door after hours. Although he never attended college, he was voted the nation's top college cartoonist by humor magazine editors in 1965."
The EXAMINER also said, "Living in a converted closet in a rather
notorious building known as Haste House on Haste Street in Berkeley, Mr. Beck worked by night and slept most of the day. He began contributing a full page comic each week to the Berkeley Barb, the underground newspaper of the time. He also created elaborate drawings, and sometimes paintings, of a fantasy world of dinosaur-like creatures, sailing ships, fanciful castles and winged fairies. Some were made into posters. In 1965, his first full-length comic book, "Lenny of Laredo," was published. It was a satire loosely based on the career of embattled comedian Lenny Bruce. Mr. Beck's protagonist, a child named Lenny, achieves fame and fortune by uttering "obscenities" such as "pee-pee thing," only to find his career in the dumps when the public becomes satiated with his naughtiness. Two other books, "Marching Marvin" and "The Profit," followed. All are collectors items today."
The EXAMINER described Beck's career as ebbing in the 1970s, "possibly
as a result of the methamphetamines he was fond of taking during
marathon bouts of drawing. In recent years he lived in obscurity in
Point Richmond, scraping out a living with an occasional advertising
commission and being looked after by friends. He was seriously injured
in a mugging a few years ago and suffered a recurrence of tuberculosis. And he continued to drink heavily. Services will be at Point Richmond Methodist Church, corner of Martina Street and West Richmond Avenue, at 1 p.m. Thursday. Samples of his art works and comics and stories about his life are posted in the windows of the Santa Fe Market, West Richmond Avenue and Washington Street."
Here's a link to the obituary that appered in the
Wednesday, September 22, 1999 San Francisco Chronicle:
I recall all the comments here back when Burt Bacharach/Elvis Costello's Painted From Memory was released. Has anyone heard "The Sweetest Punch"? That's the instrumental version of the CD arranged by Bill Frisell, and released on Decca? I try to pick up anything with Frisell's name on it (such as his recent Good Dog, Happy Man) but I'd still like to know what folks think of this 'un before I seek it out.
-Lou
aka lousmith@pipeline.com
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Subject: (exotica) [obits] Ivan Goff, Herbert Leupin,Dr. William Eckert,Mars Probe
Date: 24 Sep 1999 09:42:47 -0400
Ivan Goff
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) Ivan Goff, co-creator of the TV series "Charlie's Angels" and co-writer of the films "White Heat," "Captain Horatio Hornblower" and "Man of a Thousand Faces," died Thursday. He was 89.
With his writing partner for 39 years, the late Ben Roberts, Goff wrote 25 feature films that starred James Cagney, Gregory Peck, Clark Gable, Doris Day, Joan Crawford and others. Among their credits: "Midnight Lace," "Shake Hands with the Devil," "Band of Angels," "Green Fire," "King of the Khyber Rifles," "Come Fill the Cup" and "Goodbye, My Fancy."
Goff and Roberts were Oscar-nominated for their screenplay of "Man of a Thousand Faces," which starred Cagney as Lon Chaney. In 1954-55, Goff served as president of the screen writers council of the Screen Writers Guild, predecessor of the Writers Guild of America.
In the 1960s, the pair turned to television, writing "The Rogues" for Dick Powell, David Niven and Charles Boyer. They also produced "Mannix" (1967-75) and created "Charlie's Angels" (1976-87).
Born in Perth, Goff worked as a newspaperman in Australia, freelanced in London in the early 1930s and became Hollywood correspondent for the London Daily Mirror in 1936. He wrote a novel, "No Longer Innocent," and a play "Portrait in Black" before turning to films. He met Roberts while both served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II.
Herbert Leupin
BASEL, Switzerland (AP) Swiss graphic artist Herbert Leupin, who gained international recognition for his colorful product posters, died Tuesday. He was 82.
The creator of the purple cow that advertised Suchard's Milka chocolate, Leupin also designed posters for Coca Cola.
Leupin also exhibited in New York and in 1960 received the Art Directors Club's Medal Award.
William Eckert
NEW ORLEANS (AP) Dr. William Eckert, a forensic pathologist who was a consultant on major cases including the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and the Jonestown massacre, died Sept. 17. He was 73.
Eckert founded the International Organization of Forensic Medicine and the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology.
He was president of the International Association of Forensic Sciences and the National Association of Medical Examiners, wrote several books and held academic appointments at a number of universities, including Tulane Medical School.
Eckert was consulted on such famous cases as the Charles Manson murders, the John Wayne Gacy serial killings, the exhumation of Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele's body and the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
In the late 1980s, Eckert put together an investigative team that re-examined the 100-year-old Jack the Ripper prostitute murders. He also served as a consultant for the television series "Quincy."
Upon hearing that Robert Kennedy had been assassinated in his jurisdiction, former Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi wrote in one of his books that he immediately called in Eckert because he wanted to make sure there were no mistakes.
-----------------
NASA is now saying that the Mars Probe may have been destroyed, having approached the Martian atmosphere too close, breaking up in orbit. Either that, or the Martians zapped it.
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Anyone familiar with the needledrop LPs put out by Major Records (TJ Valentino, Inc. of NYC)? I just found a stack of 100 of 'em at a local store. I picked up 2 'cause they had Roger Roger cuts, but I didn't recognize the names of any of the other composers/arrangers and so left the other 98 records behind. Someone please tell me if there's something great on MR, and I'll head back ASAP.
Toodles,
Lou
lousmith@pipeline.com
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LOS ANGELES Stanley Fleishman, who championed the rights of disabled people and won a ruling in which the state Supreme Court found that Henry Miller's book "Tropic of Cancer" was not obscene, died Thursday of pneumonia and complications from surgery. He was 79.
Fleishman, who was disabled by polio when he was 1, was a familiar site in court with his crutches when he stood to argue his cases on such divergent subjects as public access rights for the disabled and free-speech rights for the makers of adult films.
Facing deteriorating health, he used a wheelchair for the first time two months ago when he took his last case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said Barry Fisher, his partner in the Fleishman & Fisher public interest law firm.
The more controversial free-speech cases he took on included Miller's once-banned book "Tropic of Cancer"; the adult movie "Deep Throat"; and the rights of the Pussycat adult theater chain.
It was during his work on behalf of "Deep Throat," that he observed people in wheelchairs were being excluded from juries for not being "in possession of their faculties."
He argued successfully to have them included in juries, along with blind and deaf people, and followed that up with lawsuits seeking access for the disabled to jobs, airlines, public buildings, restaurants and hotels.
His work brought him honors from everyone from Playboy Magazine's Hugh Hefner to advocates for the disabled.
Mignon Garland
SAN PABLO, Calif. (AP) Mignon Garland, a dancer who carried on the legacy of Isadora Duncan in the United States, died Sept. 15 at the age of 91.
Duncan helped pioneer modern dance by turning away from ballet and looking to ancient Greece for inspiration. She died in 1927.
Ms. Garland, born in Brooklyn, N.Y., decided to devote her life to dance that year after attending a performance by Duncan's disciples.
In the 1930s and 40s, Ms. Garland toured with the Minneapolis Symphony, danced in Moscow and New York, founded several dance companies and was dance editor of New Theater magazine.
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DUARTE, Calif. Judith Campbell Exner, a reputed mistress of John F. Kennedy who claimed to have ferried messages between the president and Mafia boss Sam Giancana, died of breast cancer Friday. She was 65.
Exner made waves in 1977 with her autobiography, "My Story," which included a description of her alleged affair with Kennedy.
In a 1996 issue of Vanity Fair, Ms. Exner said she ended a two-year affair because she hated being "the other woman," and also claimed that she aborted Kennedy's child 10 months before he was assassinated.
She also claimed that during Kennedy's presidency she was Giancana's lover and carried messages between the president and the Chicago mob boss, including details of a plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Some have doubted that story, including Giancana's daughter, Antoinette, who has said her father had "utter contempt" for Kennedy and never mentioned any contact with the president during his time in the White House.
In a 1975 appearance before the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, Exner said she had an 18-month affair with Kennedy before and after he entered the White House, and that she later had an affair with Giancana.
But she said she knew of no ties between the two. Her lawyer, James Lesar, said in a statement that Exner lied to the Senate committee because she feared she would be killed, as Giancana had been months earlier.
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Subject: (exotica) #14 Issue of COOL AND STRANGE MUSIC! MAGAZINE
Date: 27 Sep 1999 09:43:15 -0400
In case y'all didn't know, the latest C&SM! is out. Here's Dana Countryman's blast of PR blurbitute.
-Lou
#14 Issue of COOL AND STRANGE MUSIC MAGAZINE is HERE!!!
OUR NEWEST ISSUE OF 64 PAGES OF MUSICAL MADNESS AND MAYHEM IS OUT!
WITH 8 PAGES OF BLAZING COLOR, THIS ONE IS OUR BEST EVER!!
Our newest issue is packed with new, informative articles on the coolest and strangest music you never thought you'd hear about, and features a cool 4-color cover, lots of high-quality photos, tons of new wacky and weird CD reviews and it's more fun than ever!
Also, have a look at our updated Web Page at www.coolandstrange.com for some tres cool goodies and fun stuff!
The new issue features:
MRS. MILLER
Our cover story features the one and only MRS. MILLER - a singer SO bad, that she became a HIT! Miller's career came at a time when the public wanted something new, and an older lady with an operatic vibrato was just what it needed. Especially when she sang songs like "A Hard Day's Night" and "The Shadow of your Smile"! The joke was on her, and she loved it. Scant little information has ever been unearthed on Mrs. Miller. Even Capitol Records and Salon Magazine pumped us for the information that writer Skip Heller dug up on her. And what a goldmine of info he came up with!! Did you know that she played Vegas? Hobnobbed with TV and recording stars? It's all
here - more than you've ever known, and one of our proudest moments since we've been publishing our periodical!
BOB THOMPSON
Our exclusive interview with Mr. Thompson is the first of his 40-year career! Long considered a cult artist, due to Space Age Bachelor albums like "Mmm...Nice!" and "On The Rocks", scant little has been known about this gentleman's background and history either. He chats with writer Brad Bigelow, and we present some rare photos of Thompson recording with Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, among others.
CAR HORN MUSIC
Don't think there are that many records made using Car (and bicycle) Horns?? Think again! Ted Hering enlightens us with a delightful article on the lowliest of percussion instruments, and you'll be surprised where it has turned up. This is the kind of article that I guarantee you'll never find in ANY other magazine! We proudly present it you, our discerning reader!
BOSTON RECORD STORE REPORT
Take a tour though some of the coolest and strangest record stores in BOSTON, in Rob Bourque's BOSTON RECORD STORE REPORT. Find the coolest, strangest and cheapest records in one of our nations' oldest and history-filled states!
ELVIS PARODY RECORDS
Writer Rich Wilhelm discusses some of the strangest and most scathingly-funny records ever made about the King. Funny thing is, that several of these were actually MADE by Elvis himself! From Mojo Nixon to Frank Zappa, Elvis has been a common theme for some cool and very strange records!
THE ED KAZ KOLUMN
Ed's column this issue digs into some of the historical relics of the bygone "Race for Space" era - records about astronauts, spaceships and space travel! Coming from both fly-by-night record labels to established giants like the National Geographic, records like these were churned out to satisfy the nations interest in our NASA space program. Ed's tongue is once again firmly in cheek, as he leads us on a tour of some of these gems from his own collection.
JAMES BOND (Cash-In) LP COVERS CENTERFOLD
Our Color Centerfold is a collection of some of the many, many albums recorded in the '60s, to cash in on the James Bond-craze. From Count Basie to Billy Strange, just about everybody got into the act. Most of the music from these albums are pretty pedestrian, but the incredibly sexy covers remain, almost always featuring scantily-clad women! We present 17 of these great cover in brilliant color!
THE POLKAHOLICS
With each issue, we like to present an up-and-coming NEW artist that we feel continue on in the Cool And Strange vein, and this time it's Chicago's POLKAHOLICS!! Probably the ONLY punk-rock polka band EVER, these guys are hilarious! The new CD is a clever collection of polka classics like "The Happy Wanderer" and "Who Stole The Kishka", all done up with fuzzed-out guitars and subtle references to The Ramones and the Sex Pistols! Read all about them in this issue! We highly recommend their CD, too!
ORION
Contributor Jeff Vorzimmer fills us in on one of the strangest Elvis
impersonators ever! ORION was blessed (or was it cursed) with a voice that sounded uncannily like Elvis' own voice. Producer Shelby Singleton not only thought so, but signed ORION up to a contract with his newly-acquired legendary Sun Records, purchased from Elvis' discoverer and original producer Sam Phillips. To cash in on the recent death of Elvis, Orion was fitted with a "Lone Ranger"-type face mask, to add mystery to his real identity. Amazingly, a lot of the Elvis-grieving public went for it hook, line and sinker. Jeff tells the whole story in our latest issue!
WALTER WANDERLY
One of the smoothest, suavest musicians to come out of the '60s bossa nova period, Wanderly played organ in a light-handed, rhythmic fashion that is non-paralleled from the entire era. His music is just now really becoming discovered, and has been featured in several films. Writer Jeff Vorzimmer delivers the details on Wanderly's career.
HIDDEN TREASURES
One of our favorite kinds of articles, this one unearths many overlooked and undiscovered Stereo long-players. Ken Saari does the honors, pointing out many from his own collection that he considers real gems. Did you know that John Williams got in on the "Stereo Action" craze with a percussion album before he was well-known as George Lucas' and Stephen Speilberg's favorite film composer? That's just a small sample of the hidden treasures awaiting you in this rewarding article by Ken Saari.
COOL AND STRANGE MUSIC! MAGAZINE is available at most Borders Books, Tower Records and Tower Books stores, and we are also in hundreds of newsstands and independent bookstores around the U.S., so take a look!
If you have trouble locating COOL AND STRANGE MUSIC! MAGAZINE locally, you can order issues by mail:
MOST OF OUR BACK ISSUES ARE SOLD OUT, except Issues #7-#13. Even those are only available in limited quantities, so hurry! Our earlier issues won't be reprinted, either, sorry to say.
Residents of the USA, Mexico and Canada can purchase current SINGLE issues of Issue #14 for $3.95 + $1 postage. Residents of other countries can purchase current SINGLE issues of Issue #14 for $3.95 + $3 postage.
Back issues are $5 + $1 postage in the continental United States, and $5 + $2 postage for overseas orders. (Only U. S. funds are accepted.)
To subscribe (4 quarterly issues), USA residents please send $14 for
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All other countries are $25 a year. (U.S. funds only.)
Sorry, no credit card payments are accepted at this time.
I doubt that it's the same situation in a larger city but up here in the boonies of WA I still find decent old turntables now and again at thrift stores and garage sales for between $free to say, $20. It's sort of the same situation as with Vinyl records, a lot of times you can't give away at a garage sale what you can get 50 bucks for on eBay. Just a question of finding the right audience.
I have been ultra happy with the Dual 1219 I got as a freebie. I had to buy a new needle and a needle for 78s but still... It will track absolutely ANYTHING! You can put vinyl so warped that the tone arm of most turntables just bounce off and it'll play it like it was flat as a pancake. I've had a couple Duals and would highly recommend most any of their models and they seem to turn up with some regularity.
Good hunting!
Kevin King
isellrecords@webvinyl.com
http://webvinyl.com
> Hi all -
>
> I'm in the market for an older model turntable (late 60's, early 70's). One
> that plays 16, 33, 45 and 78 speeds.
>
> These generate a lot of interest on ebay, going for around 150 bucks, more for
> the ELAC MIRACORD. Dual, and Garrard also pop up every now and then.
> Anybody own one of these? How do you like it? Recommendations?
>
> Suggestions on where to find them other than ebay? Newspaper want ads are
> coming up dry. Thrift stores? In the San Francisco Bay Area? LMAO
> (laughing my ass off)
>
> thanks for any help
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Harold F. Kress, Academy Award-winning film editor for both the 1962 Cinerama epic "How the West Was Won" and the 1974 disaster movie "The Towering Inferno," has died at age 86. Kress died Sept. 18 in Palm Desert.
Although he directed a few documentaries and B movies, Kress made his real mark as an editor, becoming one of the most respected in the industry. He spent 40 years with MGM Studios and Columbia
Pictures and edited more than 50 major motion pictures.
His colleagues elected him to the board of the American Cinema Editors and to the presidency of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.
When Kress received the American Cinema Editors' Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992, he reminded his counterparts of his early battle with studios for recognition.
"We wanted to get our names from the bottom of the crawl to the
top, with the director, cinematographer and costume designer," he said. And he achieved that.
The ACE also gave him its editing achievement award three
decades earlier for "How the West Was Won," starring Henry Fonda
and John Wayne.
The handful of films directed by Kress included the westerns
"The Painted Hills" in 1951, starring Lassie the collie, and "Apache
War Smoke" in 1952, starring Gilbert Roland.
The Pittsburgh-born and UCLA-educated Kress had started
editing far earlier, and that remained his strongest skill. His first
credits appeared in 1939 with "These Glamour Girls," starring Lana
Turner and Anita Louise, and "It's a Wonderful World," with Claudette Colbert and James Stewart.
Among the films shaped by Kress' editing were "Andy Hardy
Meets Debutante," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "Mrs. Miniver,"
"Madame Curie," "The Dragon Seed," "The Yearling" and "East Side, West Side" in the 1940s, and "Rose Marie," "Valley of the Kings," "I'll Cry Tomorrow," "Teahouse of the August Moon," "The Rack," "Silk Stockings" and "Imitation General" in the 1950s.
In the 1960s, Kress' output included "Home From the Hill," "King
of Kings," his Oscar-winning "How the West Was Won" and "The
Greatest Story Ever Told." In the 1970s, he handled such films as
"The Poseidon Adventure," "The Iceman Cometh," the Oscar-winner
"The Towering Inferno," "Viva Knievel!" and "The Swarm."
Kress is survived by his wife of 64 years, Zelda; a son, Carl; a
sister, Hilda Hirsch; and two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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Harold F. Kress, Academy Award-winning film editor for both the 1962 Cinerama epic "How the West Was Won" and the 1974 disaster movie "The Towering Inferno," has died at age 86. Kress died Sept. 18 in Palm Desert.
Although he directed a few documentaries and B movies, Kress made his real mark as an editor, becoming one of the most respected in the industry. He spent 40 years with MGM Studios and Columbia
Pictures and edited more than 50 major motion pictures.
His colleagues elected him to the board of the American Cinema Editors and to the presidency of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.
When Kress received the American Cinema Editors' Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992, he reminded his counterparts of his early battle with studios for recognition.
"We wanted to get our names from the bottom of the crawl to the
top, with the director, cinematographer and costume designer," he said. And he achieved that.
The ACE also gave him its editing achievement award three
decades earlier for "How the West Was Won," starring Henry Fonda
and John Wayne.
The handful of films directed by Kress included the westerns
"The Painted Hills" in 1951, starring Lassie the collie, and "Apache
War Smoke" in 1952, starring Gilbert Roland.
The Pittsburgh-born and UCLA-educated Kress had started
editing far earlier, and that remained his strongest skill. His first
credits appeared in 1939 with "These Glamour Girls," starring Lana
Turner and Anita Louise, and "It's a Wonderful World," with Claudette Colbert and James Stewart.
Among the films shaped by Kress' editing were "Andy Hardy
Meets Debutante," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," "Mrs. Miniver,"
"Madame Curie," "The Dragon Seed," "The Yearling" and "East Side, West Side" in the 1940s, and "Rose Marie," "Valley of the Kings," "I'll Cry Tomorrow," "Teahouse of the August Moon," "The Rack," "Silk Stockings" and "Imitation General" in the 1950s.
In the 1960s, Kress' output included "Home From the Hill," "King
of Kings," his Oscar-winning "How the West Was Won" and "The
Greatest Story Ever Told." In the 1970s, he handled such films as
"The Poseidon Adventure," "The Iceman Cometh," the Oscar-winner
"The Towering Inferno," "Viva Knievel!" and "The Swarm."
Kress is survived by his wife of 64 years, Zelda; a son, Carl; a
sister, Hilda Hirsch; and two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) Science fiction author Marion Zimmer Bradley, whose "The Mists of Avalon" was a national bestseller, died Saturday after suffering a heart attack. She was 69.
Ms. Bradley, born in Albany, N.Y., in 1930, began writing science fiction for pulp magazines in the 1950s.
"The Mists of Avalon," published in 1982, was a retelling of the King Arthur legend from a woman's viewpoint. Her "Darkover" series of novels, about a planet colonized by Earth, also was a top science-fiction seller.
September 29, 1999 NYTimes
Marion Zimmer Bradley, 69, Writer of Darkover Fantasies
Marion Zimmer Bradley, a science fiction writer and the creator of the Darkover series of fantasies, died on Saturday at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley, Calif. She was 69 and lived in Berkeley.
The cause was a heart attack, said Elisabeth Waters, her cousin and secretary.
Ms. Bradley rose to fame in 1958 with the publication of "The Planet Savers," the first of her top-selling Darkover novels. The series eventually comprised 21 books, written almost exclusively by Ms. Bradley, which told the story of a planet discovered at the end of the 21st century and colonized by Earth.
She later worked primarily in the fantasy genre, often adding a feminist spin to well-known myths. In 1983, she published her most famous work, "The Mists of Avalon," a retelling of the legend of King Arthur from the vantage point of its principal women -- Viviane, Gwynyfar, Morgaine and Igraine. Hailed by Maureen Quilligan in The New York Times as "a massive narrative that is rich in events placed in landscapes no less real for often being magical," the novel remained on the Times best-seller list for four months. In her 1987 work "The Firebrand," she retold the story of the Trojan War from the perspective of the goddess Cassandra, whom she renamed Kassandra.
Born in Albany, N.Y., Ms. Bradley began to write as a teen-ager and by the age of 17 had created a magazine for science-fiction fans. Two years later she began writing for pulp magazines. In 1964 she graduated from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, and then did graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley from 1965 to 1967.
Though she continued to write until her death, Ms. Bradley's poor health in the early 1990s limited her activities. She devoted much of her time to editing magazines, including her own, Mary Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, which she started in 1988. She also edited an annual anthology called "Sword and Sorceress" from Daw Books in New York.
Ms. Bradley's marriage to Robert Alden Bradley ended in divorce in 1964. She is survived by three children, David Bradley of Oakland, Calif.; Patrick Breen of Denver, and Moira Stern of Sparks, Nev.; a brother, Leslie Zimmer of East Greenbush, N.Y., and two grandchildren.
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Maid Marian in the television series The Adventures of Robin Hood
BERNADETTE O'FARRELL, the actress who has died aged 75, was often seen in the cinema in parts written by her husband, Frank Launder, who with Sidney Gilliat created the St Trinian's films; but she was best known for a television role, as Maid Marian in the long-running 1950s series The Adventures of Robin Hood.
The programme, which was shown from 1955 until 1959, was created for Lew Grade's television company and proved immensely popular with younger viewers. Essentially a traditional version of the legend, the merry men included Paul Eddington as Will Scarlet, while Donald Pleasence and Richard O'Sullivan were Princes John and Arthur respectively. Robin himself was played by Richard Greene.
Much of the success of the series was attributed to its catchy theme (Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen, Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his merrie men) which, sung by Dick James, became a big hit in 1956. But its other virtues included a high standard of scriptwriting, some of it by Ring Lardner Jr, who had been blacklisted in Hollywood for his suspected Communist sympathies.
The programme was made at Nettlefold Studios, Walton-on-Thames, where the art director, Peter Proud, mounted on wheels props such as baronial fireplaces. This facilitated the quick set changes necessary for a shooting schedule of an episode every four days. Some of the series was directed by Lindsay Anderson.
As Maid Marian, the Irish-born Bernadette O'Farrell was among the most popular characters with viewers, and in 1956 she and Greene toured America to promote the series there.
The Adventures of Robin Hood became one of the first British television programmes to enjoy success on the other side of the Atlantic, and at the height of its popularity more than 30 million viewers in Britain and North America watched its weekly episodes.
But, after two years and 78 episodes of the programme, Bernadette O'Farrell feared that she was becoming typecast, and in 1957 left the series, despite receiving thousands of letters begging her not to abandon Robin. The turning point had come, she said, when the shopkeepers in Chelsea, where she lived, began to greet her with "Good Morning, Maid Marian".
Bernadette Mary O'Farrell was born on January 30 1924 at Birr, Co Offaly.
Her father was a bank manager and her mother a keen amateur actress. Nevertheless, Bernadette initially showed no interest in the stage and, after being educated at a local convent, was working as a solicitor's secretary when she was asked to an audition by Carol Reed, who knew her father.
There she met the director and scriptwriter Frank Launder, 17 years her senior, who gave her a small part in Captain Boycott (1947), with Stewart Granger. In 1949 she appeared as the glamorous sportsmistress in Launder and Gilliat's The Happiest Days of Your Life, with Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford, and the following year married Frank Launder.
In the early 1950s, Bernadette O'Farrell combined repertory stage work with small parts in such films as Life in Her Hands (1951), Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951), for Launder and Gilliat, and Lady in the Fog (1952), a Hammer production starring Cesar Romero.
In 1953 she was in her husband's The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan, The Genie, with Douglas Fairbanks Jr, and The Square Ring, a boxing tale in which she divorced her husband (Robert Beatty) as she could not bear to see him battered any more. Joan Collins also appeared, as a cheap hussy.
After laying down her Lincoln green as Maid Marian, Bernadette O'Farrell was seen in Launder and Gilliat's The Bridal Path (1959), about a Western Islander (Bill Travers) scouring splendidly vivid Highland scenery for a mate. Then in 1960 she largely retired from acting to spend more time with her young family on their farm at Radnage, Buckinghamshire.
Later, she and Launder moved to Monaco, where they were active in local stage productions and charities. Her husband suffered a severe stroke in 1990, and she nursed him until his death in 1997.
She is survived by their two daughters.
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I just stumbled on a strange little feature at allmusic.com -- you can see a rank ordered list showing how often info was accessed on artists within a musical style. Of course, it doesn't say what the time period is - today, this month, since the begining of allmusic.com?? Anyway, here's the current list:
-Lou
lousmith@pipeline.com
EASY LISTENING:
List of Most Frequently Accessed Artistsá
Herb Alpert ( 497)áá
Henry Mancini ( 486)á
Sergio Mendes ( 402)á
Esquivel ( 243)á
Ray Conniff ( 232)áá
James Last ( 156)á
Les Baxter ( 134)á
Percy Faith ( 120)á
Nelson Riddle ( 114)á
Xavier Cugat ( 112)áá
Lawrence Welk ( 97)áá
Mantovani ( 96)áá
Bert Kaempfert ( 95)áá
Meco ( 88)áá
Liberace ( 85)áá
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass ( 84)á
Paul Mauriat ( 83)á
Billy Vaughn ( 82)á
Jackie Gleason ( 82)á
Martin Denny ( 80)áá
John Williams ( 76)áá
Richard Clayderman ( 73)á
Hugo Montenegro ( 71)á
Enoch Light ( 71)
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