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News and Entertainment
HAPPY HALLOWEEN Halloween,
which directly stems from Irish, Scottish, Welsh and British folk customs,
was originally celebrated as an autumn festival, celebrating, honoring nature
and the life of those that have died. And even more reason to use this time
to celebrate those that have passed on, and this website aspires to do just
that.
Jack Besser (89): Cofounder of Monogram Models
Inc., a model hobby firm that became one of the largest in the United States,
died of lymphoma on October 19 in Lake Forest, Ill.
T.J. Binyon(68) Russian scholar who won the
Samuel Johnson prize for his biography of the Russian poet Pushkin in 2003,
a work that became the subject of a TV film and was considered one of the
great biographies of recent times, who worked as a crime fiction reviewer
for several newspapers, including the London's Daily Telegraph and himself
wrote two crime thrillers, "Swan Song" and "Greek Gifts", died on October
7 in Witney, Oxfordshire, England.
Julius Harris (81): Stage and screen actor
who appeared in more than 70 films and television productions during a 40-year
acting career, including appearances in the Civil War miniseries "The Blue & the
Gray," "Superfly," and most notably as the villainous Tee Hee in the James
Bond film "Live & Let
Die," died of heart failure on October 17 in Woodland Hills, CA.
Robert Merrill (85): Acclaimed opera singer
known equally for his 31 consecutive seasons with New York's Metropolitan Opera
and for his performance of the Star Spangled Banner on opening day at Yankee
Stadium (a tradition since 1969), died om October 23 in New York City.
Julia Scott Reed (87): Journalist who was the
first African American hired full time by a newspaper and one of the first to
work in the newsroom of a major daily newspaper in the South, died from complications
after surgery on October 19 in Dallas.
Charles Wesley Roache (30): Man convicted in
one of the worst killing sprees in North Carolina history who was serving time
for 1999 murders of six people, five of whom were members of the same Western
North Carolina family killed during a robbery attempt, was executed by lethal
injection on October 22 in Raleigh, NC.
Mary Von Saltza (94): Screenwriter, actress
and, producer who wrote four novels and co-wrote 20 films with her husband
Richard Sale, including the award winning western "A Ticket to Tomahawk," and
who was the niece of novelist Anita Loos, died of complications from a stroke
on October 11 in Monterey, CA.
Greg Shaw (55): Independent record producer
who helped pioneer the "garage rock" sound by recording such bands as the Stooges,
the Germs, and the Flamin' Groovies , who spent his career championing the works
of artists considered too unruly for mainstream labels, and represented groups
whose musical styles ranged from rockabilly to surf to psychedelia to power pop,
who had a record collection of more than 1 million records and started the "Mojo-Navigator
Rock & Roll News", an early predecessor to Rolling Stone magazine, died of
heart failure on October 19.
George Silk (87): Photojournalist who spent
30 years with Life magazine and earned fame for coverage of World War II, where
he shot the first pictures of the atom-bombed city of Nagasaki and Japanese
war criminals awaiting trial in postwar Tokyo, and who later pioneered the
use of a special camera (called a strip camera) for depicting athletes in motion,
which helped him to become a leading sports photographer, died of congestive
heart failure on October 23 in Norwalk, CT.
Stuart Taylor (91): Newsman who was the former
publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press and was named the publisher of the
year in 1969 for leading his paper's coverage of the Santa Barbara Channel oil
spill, died on October 24 in Montecito, CA.
Sports
Joseph Dorsey Jr. (69): Boxer who won a 1957
legal battle against a Louisiana law that banned interracial boxing bouts, a
law that the courts ultimately ruled violated the equal protection clause of
the Constitution's 14th amendment, died of cancer on October 20 in New Orleans.
Bill Nicholson (85): Legendary soccer coach who led Britain's fabled Tottenham Hotspur (nickname Spurs) team in its glory days, when it became the first British team to win two different European competitions, and who later became the club's president, died on October 23 in Hertfordshire, England.
Art and Literature
Anthony Hecht (81): Poet who won the Pulitzer Prize winning poet in 1968 for his work "The Hard Hours," and who was the Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets, died from lymphoma on October 20 in Washington, DC.
Lynda Lee-Potter:-British columnist for the Daily Mail newspaper, who was known for her angry attacks on public figures and was the scourge of the rich, the royal and the rebellious for more than three decades, who was named columnist of the year in 2001 in the British Press Award and was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1997,died of a brain tumor on October 20.
Politics and Military
Frank Chapple LORD Chapple of Hoxton,
the former head of the electricians’ union who for 18 years was the scourge
of the Left in both the trades unions and the Labour party, died yesterday.
The son of a shoemaker in London’s East End. He became quickly politicised
and after training as an electrician joined the Communist Party in 1939.
Bill Eyden (74): Noted drummer and a
leading pioneer of modern jazz in Britain, who was a member of the group Georgie
Fame & the Blue Flames, traveling and playing with Count Basie and his orchestra,
and who played with Charlie Watts Big Band, a 30 piece group that toured Britain
and American and was led by the Rolling Stones' drummer, died on October 15
in England.
Vice Adm. Samuel Lee Gravely Jr. (82): First African American naval officer to become an admiral and to command a warship and a fleet, who enjoyed a 38 year career in the U.S. Navy and later became the director of the Defense Communications Agency in Washington, DC, died after a stroke on October 22 in Bethesda, MD.
Carol Pitchersky (57): Former associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who helped it to overcome a potentially bankrupting deficit, who revitalized the organization's fundraising programs after it had fallen almost $500,000 in debt (contributions went from less than $300,000 to over $3 million in 11 years), died of breast cancer on October 19 in Washington, DC.
Lord Conrad Russell (67):
Liberal historian and politician who was the son of philosopher Bertrand Russell
and gained a reputation as a defender of the disenfranchised during his time
in the House of Lords, died after a long illness on October 14 in London, England.
Social and Religion
Bob Castleberry (75): Winner of $10 million in
the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes then quit his sales job and ran for
mayor of Denton, TX (he previously had not run because of lack of finances),
who was elected in 1990 and held that position for six years, died on October
21 in Denton, TX.
Cardinal James Aloysius Hickey (84): Former Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Washington, DC for two decades, who ministered to this city's powerful and testified before Congress while also creating an extensive network of church social services designed to help the area's homeless, aged, mentally ill and refugee populations, who gained respect as, among other things, first church leader to publicly acknowledge a priest's death from AIDS and one of the first to publicly recognize the problem of clergy members who sexually abuse children, died on October 24 in Washington, DC.
Dorothy Comstock Riley (79): Former chief justice of Michigan's supreme
court and the first woman justice on the Michigan Court of Appeals, who received
the Distinguished Public Servant Award from the State Bar of Michigan and was
a member of the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame, died of complications from Parkinson's
disease on October 23 in Grosse Pointe Farms, MI.
Rosa Elena Simeon (61): A ranking member of
Cuba's political elite as that country's Minister of Science, Technology, and
Environment, who served on the Communist Party's ruling central committee and
on the government's executive body, died of cancer on October 22 in Havana, Cuba.
Dennis Nicholas Skiotis (67): Harvard University professor and noted Middle
East expert who was the former president of Athens College in Greece and provided
commentary through the years on military affairs for the BBC, CNN, PBS, and NPR,
died of complications from pneumonia on October 19 in Boston.
Business and Science
Neil Campbell Professor of biology for 30 years
at various colleges and universities around the country who was best known
for his biology textbooks that have been translated into five languages and
used by almost 4 million students, including "Biology," the most widely used
undergraduate introductory biology text in the country, died of heart failure
on October 21 in Redlands, CA.
Michael Grant (89): Classical scholar and author of more than 50 books on
the histories of the ancient world for the general reader, who wrote on such
figures as Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Jesus, and who performed groundbreaking
research on the coinage of Rome, died on October 4 in London.
Betty Hill (85): "The Grandmother of UFOlogy" who gained international notoriety with her husband after they claimed to have been abducted by aliens from New Hampshire's White Mountain in 1961, whose story became the focus of a best selling book and movie called "Incredible Journey," and
who subsequently traveled around the country making appearances and giving
lectures on UFOs, died of lung cancer on October 17 in Portsmouth, NH.
Lewis Urry (77): Inventor of the long-lasting alkaline battery, which powers
millions of electronic portable device, who came up with the idea while working
for Union Carbide's National Carbon Company, which was succeeded by the Energizer
company from which he retired in May, died after a short illness on October
19 in Middleburg Heights, Ohio.