Happy New Year friends, relatives, readers and everyone.
Thursday, December 31, 2020
NEW YEAR'S EVE:
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919) was an American author and poet whose works include the lines "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone." Her poem The Year was published in 1910.
The Year
What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of the year.
The poem begins with the speaker asking if there is anything in the world that can be new. Even though it is a new year, that does not mean anything has changed. In fact, the speaker makes the case over the next five couplets that nothing changes at all. First, she speaks on the presence of dreams and the way they lead one through life, ideally, to eventual knowledge. She also presents laughter and weeping as opposite, but equally present parts of life. She goes on in the second half of the poem to list out additional parts of life in order to show their connection and simultaneous presence. The poem concludes with Wilcox’s speaker stating that everything she mentioned is a part of the “burden of life.” It exists in every year, throughout time.
In this age of COVID, US social upheaval with international implications and an unknown future, the above put me in mind of another famous comment on uncertain times . . .
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, opening paragraph
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
THOSE WE LOST IN 2020, Continued, Part 3 of 3
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A late addition. no pun intended (the problem in compiling a list starting with the most recent and working backwards:
PIERRE CARDIN
About:
Italian-born naturalised-French fashion designer known for his avant-garde style and Space Age designs. He preferred geometric shapes and motifs, often ignoring the female form. Cardin advanced into unisex fashions, sometimes experimental, and not always practical. He founded his fashion house in 1950 and introduced the "bubble dress" in 1954. He was designated a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 1991 and a United Nations FAO Goodwill Ambassador in 2009.
In a career spanning more than 60 years, Cardin drew scorn and admiration from fellow fashion designers for his brash business sense. He maintained that he built his business empire without ever asking a bank for a loan.
Cardin was the first designer to sell clothes collections in department stores in the late 1950s, and the first to enter the licensing business for perfumes, accessories and even food — now a major profit driver for many fashion houses. "It's all the same to me whether I am doing sleeves for dresses or table legs," he once said.
Hard as it may be to imagine decades later, Armani chocolates, Bulgari hotels and Gucci sunglasses are all based on Cardin's realisation that a fashion brand's glamour had endless merchandising potential. Over the years his name has been stamped on razor blades, household goods, and tacky accessories — even cheap boxer shorts. He once said it would not bother him to have his initials etched into rolls of toilet paper, and he was also the inspiration for a phallus-like perfume flask.
His detractors accused him of destroying the value of his brand and the notion of luxury in general. But he seemed largely unaffected by criticism.
"I had a sense for marketing my name," Cardin told Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in 2007. "Does money spoil one's ideas? I don't dream of money after all, but while I'm dreaming, I'm making money. "It's never been about the money."
Date of death: December 29, 2020
Age at death: 98
Cause of death: Not disclosed
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. . . and an inclusion:
Byter Tim B has drawn my attention to someone who passed away this year that I had not included in my list. Tim's email reads:
I'd like to share a link with youMorning Otto,If you remember, I mentioned Walter Williams recently in an email to you. This article came in this morning and maybe you will find it interesting.Happy New Year to you my friend…who I have never met.Tim B
Thanks Tim.
Here is the listing, a man not afraid to call it as he saw it, albeit out of step with modern PC views and standpoints . . .
WALTER WILLIAMS
About:
American economist, commentator, and academic who was the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author. Known for his classical liberal and libertarian views, Williams's writings frequently appeared in Townhall, WND, and Jewish World Review.
From Wikipedia:
As an economist, Williams was a proponent of free market economics and opposed socialist systems of government intervention. Williams believed laissez-faire capitalism to be the most moral, most productive system humans have ever devised.In the mid-to-late 1970s, Williams conducted research into the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 and on the impact of minimum wage laws on minority employment. His research led him to conclude the government's interventional programs are harmful. Williams was critical of state programs, including minimum wage and affirmative action laws, stating both practices inhibit liberty and are detrimental to the blacks they are intended to help. He published his results in his 1982 book The State Against Blacks, where he argued that laws regulating economic activity are far greater obstacles to economic progress for blacks than racial bigotry and discrimination. Subsequently, Williams spoke on the topic and penned a number of articles detailing his view that increases in the minimum wage price low skill workers out of the market, eliminating their opportunities for employment.Williams believed that racism and the legacy of slavery in the United States are overemphasized as problems faced by the black community today. He pointed to the crippling effects of a welfare state and the disintegration of the black family as more pressing concerns. "The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn't do, and that is to destroy the black family." Although in favor of equal access to government institutions such as court houses, city halls, and libraries, Williams opposed anti-discrimination laws directed at the private sector on the grounds that such laws infringe upon the people's right of freedom of association.Williams viewed gun control laws as a governmental infringement upon the rights of individuals, and argued that they end up endangering the innocent while failing to reduce crime. Williams also made the argument that the true proof of whether or not an individual owns something is whether or not they have the right to sell it. Taking this argument to its conclusion, he supported legalization of selling one's own bodily organs. He argued that government prohibiting the selling of one's bodily organs is an infringement upon one's property rights.Williams praised the views of Thomas DiLorenzo, and wrote a foreword to DiLorenzo's anti-Abraham Lincoln book, The Real Lincoln. Williams maintained that the American states are entitled to secede from the union if they wish, as the Confederate states attempted to do during the Civil War, and asserted that the Union's victory in the Civil War allowed the federal government "to run amok over states' rights, so much so that the protections of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments mean little or nothing today."In reaction to what he viewed as inappropriate racial sensitivity that he saw hurting blacks in higher education, Williams began in the 1970s to offer colleagues a "certificate of amnesty and pardon" to all white people for Western Civilization's sins against blacks – and "thus obliged them not to act like damn fools in their relationships with Americans of African ancestry." It is still offered to anyone. The certificate can be obtained at his website.Williams was opposed to the Federal Reserve System, arguing that central banks are dangerous.In his autobiography, Williams cited Frederick Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman as influences that led him to become a libertarian. Williams praised Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal as "one of the best defenses and explanations of capitalism one is likely to read."
Date of death: December 2, 2020
Age at death: 84
Cause of death: Williams died in his car shortly after teaching a class at George Mason University. His daughter said that he suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and hypertension.
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KELLY PRESTON
About:
American actress and model who appeared in more than 60 television and film productions, including Mischief (1985), Twins (1988), Jerry Maguire (1996) and For Love of the Game (1999). She was married to John Travolta, with whom she collaborated on comedy film The Experts (1989), and the biographical film Gotti (2018). She also starred in the films SpaceCamp (1986), The Cat in the Hat (2003), What a Girl Wants (2003), Sky High (2005) and Old Dogs (2009).
Date of death: July 12, 2020
Age at death: 57
Cause of death: breast cancer
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CARL REINER
Carl Reiner (right) with Dick van Dyke
About:
American actor, comedian, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned seven decades. During the early years of television comedy from 1950 to 1957, he acted on and contributed sketch material for Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, starring Sid Caesar writing alongside Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, and Woody Allen. Reiner teamed up with Brooks and together they released several iconic comedy albums beginning with the 2000 Years with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks (1960). Reiner was best known as the creator, producer, writer, and actor on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1965).
Date of death: June 29, 2020
Age at death: 98
Cause of death: natural causes.
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NOEL KELLY
About:
Australian professional rugby league footballer and coach, who played at club, state and national levels. He was named among the country's finest footballers of the 20th century. Kelly played as a hooker, prop forward or lock for much of his top-grade career with the Western Suburbs Magpies, whom he played for in three consecutive NSWRFL grand finals from 1961 to 1963. Kelly was named at hooker of the Western Suburbs Magpies, Queensland and Australian teams of the 20th century.
For the benefit of overseas readers:
Hooker is one of the positions in a rugby league football team. Usually wearing jersey number 9, the hooker is one of the team's forwards. During scrums the hooker plays in the front row, and the position's name comes from their role of 'hooking' or 'raking' the ball back with the foot. For this reason the hooker is sometimes referred to as the rake.
A Rugby League scrum
For the benefit of local readers:
I used to watch him play when I was young. He was known as "Ned" Kelly.
Date of death: June 14, 2020
Age at death: 84
Cause of death: heart attack-induced stroke
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MAGGIE FITZGIBBON
About:
Australian actress and singer. Coming from a show-business family, she was the older sister of musician Smacka Fitzgibbon.
Fitzgibbon took her talent as a singer from Australia to Britain to become a star of West End musicals and a popular guest on television light-entertainment shows of the 1960s – but she was also memorable for two acting roles on the small screen. Starting in October 1965, as the strong, independent-minded Vivienne Cooper she was the linchpin of The Newcomers, one of the BBC’s early attempts to take on ITV’s Coronation Street and Crossroads in the soap opera stakes; and in 1970 she landed a supporting role in Manhunt, a compelling ITV thriller series set in occupied France during the second world war.
Fitzgibbon moved back to Australia in 1978 and made her final acting appearance on screen as a shopkeeper in A Place to Call Home (1987).
In 2002, she was awarded an Order of Australia medal for her community work, which included setting up a refuge for boys from broken families on her farm in Wahgunyah, Victoria.
Date of death: June 8, 2020
Age at death: 91
Cause of death: not disclosed.
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JERRY STILLER
About:
American comedian, actor, and author who spent many years as part of the comedy duo Stiller and Meara with his wife, Anne Meara, to whom he was married for over 60 years until her death in 2015. Stiller saw a late-career resurgence starting in 1993, playing George Costanza's father Frank on the sitcom Seinfeld, a part which earned him an Emmy nomination. The year Seinfeld went off the air, Stiller began his role as the eccentric Arthur Spooner on the CBS comedy series The King of Queens, another role which garnered him widespread acclaim. Stiller is the father of actor Ben Stiller, and the father and son appeared together in films such as Zoolander, Heavyweights, Hot Pursuit, The Heartbreak Kid, and Zoolander 2.
He may be remembered, however, as the creator (in the character of Frank Costanza in Seinfeld) of Festivus, a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 as an
alternative to the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas season. The
Festivus holiday includes:
- a Festivus dinner;
- an unadorned aluminium Festivus pole;
- practices such as the "Airing of Grievances" and "Feats of Strength"; and
- the labelling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles.”
The holiday’s phrase is “Festivus for the rest of us.”
Festivus holiday includes:
- a Festivus dinner;
- an unadorned aluminium Festivus pole;
- practices such as the "Airing of Grievances" and "Feats of Strength"; and
- the labelling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles.”
The holiday’s phrase is “Festivus for the rest of us.”
Date of death: May 11, 2020
Age at death: 92
Cause of death: natural causes
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LITTLE RICHARD
About:
Richard Wayne Penniman, known as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Nicknamed "The Innovator, The Originator, and The Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding back beat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll. Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations.
"Tutti Frutti" (1955), one of Richard's signature songs, became an instant hit, crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and overseas in the United Kingdom. His next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), hit No. 1 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart, followed by a rapid succession of fifteen more in less than three years. His performances during this period resulted in integration between White Americans and African Americans in his audience. In 1962, during a five-year period in which Richard abandoned rock and roll music for born again Christianity, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded him to tour Europe. During this time, Arden had the Beatles open for Richard on some tour dates, capitalizing on his popularity. Richard advised the Beatles on how to perform his songs and taught the band's member Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations.
Richard is cited as one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races. His music and concerts broke the color line, drawing blacks and whites together despite attempts to sustain segregation. Many of his contemporaries, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, recorded covers of his works. Taken by his music and style, and personally covering four of Richard's songs on his own two breakthrough albums in 1956, Presley told Richard in 1969 that his music was an inspiration to him and that he was "the greatest".
Date of death: May 9, 2020
Age at death: 87
Cause of death: a cause related to bone cancer
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BRIAN DENNEHY
With Sylvester Stallone in Rambo: First Blood, in which he played Sheriff Will Teazle
About:
American actor of stage, television, and film. He won two Tony Awards, an Olivier Award, and a Golden Globe, and received six Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Dennehy had roles in over 180 films and in many television and stage productions. His film roles included First Blood (1982), Gorky Park (1983), Silverado (1985), Cocoon (1985), F/X (1986), Presumed Innocent (1990), Romeo + Juliet (1996), and Knight of Cups (2015). Dennehy won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Willy Loman in the television film Death of a Salesman (2000).
According to Variety, Dennehy was "perhaps the foremost living interpreter" of playwright Eugene O'Neill’s works on stage and screen. He had a decades long relationship with Chicago's Goodman Theatre where much of his O'Neill work originated. He also regularly played Canada's Stratford Festival, especially in works by William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett. He once gave credit for his award-winning performances to the play's authors: "When you walk with giants, you learn how to take bigger steps." Dennehy was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2010.
Date of death: April 15, 2020
Age at death: 81
Cause of death: cardiac arrest due to sepsis
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JAMES DRURY
About:
American actor best known for having played the title role in the 90-minute weekly Western television series The Virginian, which was broadcast on NBC from 1962 to 1971.
Date of death: April 6, 2020
Age at death: 85
Cause of death: natural causes
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KENNY ROGERS
With Dolly Parton.
About:
American singer, songwriter, musician, actor, record producer, and entrepreneur. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Rogers was particularly popular with country audiences but also charted more than 120 hit singles across various music genres, and topped the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone. He sold more than 100 million records worldwide during his lifetime, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. His fame and career spanned multiple genres: jazz, folk, pop, rock, and country. He remade his career, and was one of the most successful cross-over artists of all time.
Rogers had acting roles in movies and television shows, including the title roles in Kenny Rogers as The Gambler and the MacShayne series for The NBC Mystery Movie, and the 1982 feature film Six Pack. He was a co-founder of the restaurant chain Kenny Rogers Roasters in collaboration with former Kentucky Fried Chicken CEO John Y. Brown Jr. Although the stores closed in the United States, they are still a fixture in Asia.
Date of death: March 20, 2020
Age at death: 81
Cause of death: natural causes
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STUART WHITMAN
Whitman in The Longest Day (962)
About:
American actor, known for his lengthy career in film and television in a large variety of genres. Some of these credits include Highway Patrol (1955–1957) The Mark for which he was nominated for best actor at the Academy Awards, The Comancheros (1961), Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965), Night of the Lepus (1972), Cimarron Strip (1967), and Superboy (1988–1992).
Date of death: march 16, 2020
Age at death: 92
Cause of death: skin cancer
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MAX VON SYDOW
About:
Swedish actor who had a 70-year career in European and American cinema, television, and theatre, appearing in more than 150 films and several television series in multiple languages. He became a French citizen in 2002, and lived in France for the last decades of his life.
Von Sydow was best known for playing the 14th-century knight Antonius Block in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957), which features iconic scenes of his character challenging Death to a game of chess. He made his American film debut as Jesus Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and went on to star in films such as The Exorcist (1973), Flash Gordon (1980), Dune (1984), Minority Report (2002), Shutter Island (2010), Robin Hood (2010), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). He also had a supporting role in HBO's Game of Thrones as the Three-eyed Raven, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Date of death: March 8, 2020
Age at death: 90
Cause of death: no cause given.
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ROBERT CONRAD
About:
American film and television actor, singer, and stuntman. He is best known for his role in the 1965–1969 television series The Wild Wild West, playing the sophisticated Secret Service agent James T. West. He portrayed World War II ace Pappy Boyington in the television series Baa Baa Black Sheep (later syndicated as Black Sheep Squadron). In addition to acting, he was a singer and recorded several pop/rock songs in the late 1950s and early 1960s as Bob Conrad. He hosted a weekly two-hour national radio show (The PM Show with Robert Conrad) on CRN Digital Talk Radio beginning in 2008.
Date of death: February 8, 2020
Age at death: 84
Cause of death: heart failure
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KIRK DOUGLAS
About:
American actor, producer, director, philanthropist, and writer. After an impoverished childhood with immigrant parents and six sisters, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war films. During his career, he appeared in more than 90 films. Douglas was known for his explosive acting style, which he displayed as a criminal defense attorney in Town Without Pity (1961).
Douglas became an international star through positive reception for his leading role as an unscrupulous boxing hero in Champion (1949), which brought him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. His other early films include Young Man with a Horn (1950), playing opposite Lauren Bacall and Doris Day, Ace in the Hole opposite Jan Sterling (1951), and Detective Story (1951), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actor in a Drama. He received his second Oscar nomination for his dramatic role in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), opposite Lana Turner, and his third for portraying Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), which also landed him a second Golden Globe nomination.
In 1955, he established Bryna Productions, which began producing films as varied as Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960). In those two films, he collaborated with the then-relatively unknown director Stanley Kubrick, taking lead roles in both films. Douglas has been praised for helping to break the Hollywood blacklist by having Dalton Trumbo write Spartacus with an official on-screen credit.[2] He produced and starred in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), considered a classic, and Seven Days in May (1964), opposite Burt Lancaster, with whom he made seven films. In 1963, he starred in the Broadway play One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a story that he purchased and later gave to his son Michael Douglas, who turned it into an Oscar-winning film.
As an actor and philanthropist, Douglas received three Academy Award nominations, an Academy Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As an author, he wrote ten novels and memoirs. He is No. 17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male screen legends of classic Hollywood cinema, the highest-ranked living person on the list until his death. After barely surviving a helicopter crash in 1991 and then suffering a stroke in 1996, he focused on renewing his spiritual and religious life. He lived with his second wife (of 66 years), Anne Buydens, a producer, until his death on February 5, 2020, aged 103. A centenarian, he was one of the last surviving stars of the film industry's Golden Age.
Date of death: February 5, 2020
Age at death: 10
Cause of death: kept private
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KOBE BRYANT
About:
American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, and was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth on the league's all-time regular season scoring and all-time postseason scoring lists.
Bryant is the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. He was also the first guard in NBA history to play at least 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, while it is the record for most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for his 2017 film Dear Basketball.
Bryant died at age 41, along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star Game MVP Award in his honour.
Date of death: January 26, 2020
Age at death: 41
Cause of death: plane crash 6y5y25ertg4515
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TONY BILSON
About:
Celebrated chef and restaurateur often referred to as the "godfather of Australian cuisine". In 1972, he moved to Sydney with partner Gay Morris (later Gay Bilson) and the couple opened Tony's Bon Gout on Elizabeth Street. The restaurant introduced diners to the intricacies of French gastronomy. "Many food lovers maintain that modern Sydney dining was born in Tony's Bon Gout," said The Sydney Morning Herald chief restaurant critic Terry Durack. "When Gough Whitlam came to power, it became a sort of unofficial Labor Party clubhouse - they even left Chinatown for it." At the height of its popularity, Bon Gout was booked out six months in advance with a $9.50 fixed-price meal that might have included duck's neck "en brioche", live local lobster and lemon souffle.
In 1976 they turned the homely Berowra Waters Inn teahouse into a fine-dining temple. "Berowra Waters Inn will stay in my mind forever as the epitome of Australian dining," said Good Food columnist and former Good Food Guide editor Jill Dupleix. "Tony and Gay were determined to throw out the rule book and create a new Australian way of doing things. By commissioning Glenn Murcutt to do the building, they said, 'This is Australia, this is our nation. We are the bright young things; let's speak food in a new Australian vernacular.' "
Speaking to the Herald in 2009, Bilson said he regarded food and wine as essential elements of a nation's culture. "Cooking at the top level is not an art; it is art."
By the time Berowra Waters Inn was awarded three hats in the first Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide in 1984, Bilson had separated from Gay and left the Hawkesbury to focus on other venues. In partnership with property developer Leon Fink, Bilson transformed an old Taylor Square funeral parlour into Kinselas, a theatre, bar and brasserie that became the centre of Sydney's nightlife in 1982.
Date of death: January 23, 2020
Age at death: 76
Cause of death: complicated set of many illnesses
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TOM LONG
About:
Australian film and television actor. Long played court official and avid surfer Angus in the late 1990s TV series SeaChange and Brenden Abbott in the 2003 Australian TV movie The Postcard Bandit.
Date of death: January 4, 20202
Age at death: 51
Cause of death: Encephalitis
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
THOSE WE LOST IN 2020, continued, Part 2 of 3
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EDDIE VAN HALEN
About:
American musician and songwriter who was the main songwriter and guitarist of the American rock band Van Halen, which he co-founded in 1972 with his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, bassist Mark Stone, and singer David Lee Roth. He is regarded as one of the all-time greatest guitar players in rock history and was well known for popularising the tapping guitar solo technique, allowing rapid arpeggios to be played with two hands on the fretboard.
See an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo featuring the above styles:
Date of death: October 6, 2020
Age at death: 65
Cause of death: Cancer
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DEAN JONES
About:
Australian cricket player, coach and commentator who played Tests and One Day Internationals for Australia. Jones had an excellent record in Test cricket and is best remembered for revolutionising the One Day Internationals format. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was recognised as among the best ODI batsmen in the world, a view which has been validated in the retrospective ICC Player Rankings. His batting was often characterised by his agile footwork against both pace and spin, quick running between wickets, and willingness to take risks and intimidate bowlers.
After retiring in 1998, he continued to remain involved in cricket as a coach, commentator and writer for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
He was also a noted fundraiser for people with cancer. On 12 June 2006, in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, he was made a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia for "service to cricket as a player, coach and commentator, and to the community through fundraising activities for organisations assisting people with cancer".[15] In 2007, Jones was named in Australia's "greatest ever ODI team."
In 2019, Jones was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame.
Date of death: September 24.2020
Age at death: 59
Cause of death: stroke
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RUTH BADER GINSBERG
About:
Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death on September 18, 2020. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton, replacing retiring justice Byron White, and at the time was generally viewed as a moderate consensus-builder. She eventually became part of the liberal wing of the Court as the Court shifted to the right over time. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O'Connor.
She earned her bachelor's degree at Cornell University and married Martin D. Ginsburg, becoming a mother before starting law school at Harvard, where she was one of the few women in her class. Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School, where she graduated joint first in her class. During the early 1960s she worked with the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure, learned Swedish and co-authored a book with Swedish jurist Anders Bruzelius; her work in Sweden profoundly influenced her thinking on gender equality. She then became a professor at Rutgers Law School and Columbia Law School, teaching civil procedure as one of the few women in her field.
Ginsburg spent much of her legal career as an advocate for gender equality and women's rights, winning many arguments before the Supreme Court. She advocated as a volunteer attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and was a member of its board of directors and one of its general counsel in the 1970s. Ginsburg received attention in American popular culture for her passionate dissents in numerous cases, widely seen as reflecting paradigmatically liberal views of the law. She was dubbed "The Notorious R.B.G.", and she later embraced the nickname.
Given the proximity of her death on September 2020 to the 2020 election and Ginsburg's wish for her replacement not to be chosen "until a new president is installed", the decision for President Trump to appoint and all but one of the Republican Senators to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as her replacement proved controversial after the Senate Republican majority's prior refusal to hold a hearing or vote for Merrick Garland in early 2016 under Barack Obama after the death of Antonin Scalia.
Date of death: September 18, 2020
Age at death: 87
Cause of death: Complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer.
By the way, it is possible to buy Ruth Bader Ginsberg merchandise:
The Notorious R.B.G, a play on the stage name of US rapper The Notorious B.I.G
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HELEN REDDY
About:
Australian-American singer, songwriter, author, actress, and activist. Reddy won a contest on the television program Bandstand in 1966, her prize being a ticket to New York City and a record audition, which was unsuccessful. She pursued her international singing career by moving to Chicago, and subsequently, Los Angeles. During the 1970s, Reddy enjoyed international success, especially in the United States, where she placed 15 singles on the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Six made the top 10 and three reached number one, including her signature hit "I Am Woman". She retired from live performance in 2002, returned to university in Australia, earned a degree, and practised as a clinical hypnotherapist and motivational speaker.
Reddy's song "I Am Woman" played a significant role in popular culture, becoming an anthem for second-wave feminism. She came to be known as a "feminist poster girl" or a "feminist icon".
Date of death: September 29, 2020
Age at death: 78
Cause of death: Helen Reddy suffered from Addison’s disease and dementia in her later years but no cause of death given
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DIANA RIGG
About:
English stage and screen actress whose notable roles included Emma Peel in the TV series The Avengers (1965–1968); Countess Teresa di Vicenzo, wife of James Bond, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969); and Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones (2013–2017).
Date of death: September 10, 2020
Age at death: 82
Cause of death: Cancer
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CHADWICK BOSEMAN
About:
American actor who has portrayed Jackie Robinson, James Brown and Thurgood Marshall in biographical films. Boseman achieved international fame for playing superhero Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) from 2016 to 2019. As the first black actor to headline an MCU film, Boseman was also named to the 2018 Time 100. In 2020, he starred in Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods. His final film, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, was released posthumously, and won him widespread critical acclaim. In 2016, Boseman was diagnosed with colon cancer. Boseman kept his condition private, continuing to act while receiving treatment. He died in 2020 from complications related to the illness.
Date of death: 28 August 2020
Age at death: 43
Cause of death: Colon cancer
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BEN CROSS
About:
English stage and film actor, best known for his portrayal of the British Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire and as the fictional ambassador Sarek in the 2009 film Star Trek.
Date of death: August 18, 2020
Age at death: 72
Cause of death: Cancer
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ROBERT TRUMP
About:
American real estate developer and business executive, the younger brother of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States. In a written statement, Donald Trump said, "He was not just my brother, he was my best friend." A funeral service was held for Robert Trump in the East Room attended by 150 guests. This was the first time in almost a century that a president had held a funeral in the East Room. White House officials stated that all expenses would be privately paid by President Trump.
Date of death: August 15, 1971
Age at death: 71
Cause of death: Not disclosed.
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OLIVIA DE HAVILAND
About:
British-American actress whose major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her time. She was one of the last major surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood Cinema and the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner until her death in July 2020. Her younger sister was the actress Joan Fontaine.
De Havilland first came to prominence with Errol Flynn as a screen couple in adventure films such as Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). One of her best-known roles is that of Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939), for which she received her first of five Oscar nominations, the only one for Best Supporting Actress. She received Oscars as Best Actress for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She was also successful in work on stage and television.
In addition to her film career, de Havilland continued her work in the theatre, appearing three times on Broadway, and also worked in television.
She and her sister remain the only siblings to have won major acting Academy Awards and the only sisters to have won any Academy Awards.
Date of death: July 26, 2020
Age at death: 104
Cause of death: Natural causes.
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JOHN SAXON
About:
American actor who worked on more than 200 projects during a span of 60 years. He was known for his work in Westerns and horror films, often playing police officers and detectives. In addition to his roles in horror films, Saxon co-starred with Bruce Lee in the martial arts film Enter the Dragon (1973).
Date of death: July 25, 2020
Age at death: 83
Cause of death: Pneumonia.
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PETER GREEN
About:
English blues rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. As the founder of Fleetwood Mac, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Green's songs, such as "Albatross", "Black Magic Woman", "Oh Well", "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)" and "Man of the World", appeared on singles charts, and several have been adapted by a variety of musicians. Green was a major figure in the "second great epoch" of the British blues movement. Eric Clapton praised his guitar playing, and B.B. King commented, "He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats."
Date of death: July 25, 2020
Age at death: 73
Cause of death: Not disclosed
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REGIS PHILBIN
About:
American television presenter, talk show host, game show host, actor and singer. Once called "the hardest working man in show business", he holds the Guinness World Record for the most hours on U.S. television.
He got his first network TV exposure in 1967 as Joey Bishop's sidekick on The Joey Bishop Show. He is most widely known as the co-host of the New York City-based nationally syndicated talk show Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, starting in 1988, which became Live! with Regis and Kelly in 2001, and continued as Live! with Kelly after Philbin's departure in 2011. Philbin debuted and hosted the US version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Million Dollar Password, and the first season of America's Got Talent.
Date of death: July 24.2020
Age at death: 88
Cause of death: heart attack
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JOHN LEWIS
About:
American politician and civil rights activist and leader who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020.
Lewis was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. He fulfilled many key roles in the civil rights movement and its actions to end legalized racial segregation in the United States. In 1965, Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. In an incident which became known as Bloody Sunday, state troopers and police attacked the marchers, including John Lewis.
John Lewis received many honorary degrees and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Edmund Pettus Bridge is named after Edmund Winston Pettus, a lawyer, judge, Confederate brigadier general, state-level leader ("Grand Dragon") of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan, and U.S. senator. Because of Pettus' role in supporting slavery and racism in the United States, there have been efforts to rename the bridge, including one to name it after John Lewis, support for whioch increased after Lewis’s death. Lewis had voiced opposition to changing the name of the bridge before his death.
The casket containing the body of John Lewis, accompanied by
a military honour guard, crosses the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma where, in
1965, marchers seeking the right to vote were attacked by state troopers, dogs
and tear gas. Lewis was brutally
assaulted by Alabama state troopers, fracturing his skull.
John Lewis, third from left, walks with Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. as they begin the Selma to Montgomery march from Brown's Chapel Church
in Selma on March 21, 1965.
President Barack Obama listens to Rep. John Lewis as they
walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma for the 50th anniversary of the
landmark event on March 7, 2015.
Date of death: July 17, 2020
Age at death: 80
Cause of death: Pancreatic cancer
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GRANT IMAHARA
About:
American electrical engineer, roboticist, television host, and actor, best known for his work on the television series MythBusters, on which he designed and built numerous robots and specialized in operating computers and electronics to test myths. Imahara began his career at Lucasfilm, where he worked in the THX division as an engineer and in the Industrial Light & Magic division in visual effects. His work has been featured in films from franchises such as Star Wars, Jurassic Park, The Matrix, and Terminator. His first foray into television was on the robot combat series BattleBots, for which he designed and competed with his robot Deadblow and later returned as a judge. In 2005, Imahara joined the cast of Mythbusters as a member of the Build Team, appearing in over 200 episodes of the series until his departure in 2014.
Date of death: July 13, 2020
Age at death: 49
Cause of death: Ruptured intracranial aneurysm
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