Natalie Cole Obit

Natalie Cole, legendary songstress, dead at 65

She was no on the list

Her optimism amid personal struggles was inspirational. Her voice? Unforgettable.

Natalie Cole has died at age 65.

"I think that I am a walking testimony that you can have scars," she told CBS’s Sunday Morning in 2006. "You can go through turbulent times and still have victory in your life."

Cole died Thursday evening at Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles due to complications from ongoing health issues, her family said in a statement.

"Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived ... with dignity, strength and honor. Our beloved Mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain UNFORGETTABLE in our hearts forever," read the statement from her son Robert Yancy and sisters Timolin and Casey Cole.

"We are very saddened to learn of the passing of one of music’s most celebrated and iconic women, Natalie Cole, " Recording Academy President Neil Portnow said in a statement. "...We’ve lost a wonderful, highly cherished artist and our heartfelt condolences go out to Natalie’s family, friends, her many collaborators, as well as to all who have been entertained by her exceptional talent."

Born Feb. 6, 1950, in Los Angeles, Cole had music in her genes. Her father was legendary crooner Nat King Cole, and her mother, Maria Cole, sang with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

At age 6, Cole recorded a duet with her father, I’m Good Will, You’re Christmas Spirit. By age 11, she was performing alongside him on his television show.

When Cole was 15 and attending boarding school across the country, her father died of lung cancer. As she grew up without her father’s guidance, Cole never abandoned music. She studied Psychology in college at the University of Massachusetts and sang in clubs on weekends, where she was billed as Nat King Cole’s daughter. Yet she was about to find her own voice.

While performing at a club called Mr. Kelley’s, she was discovered by R&B producers Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancy (whom she married in 1976 and with whom she had her son, Robbie, in 1977). In 1974, she had her first hit, This Will Be, from her debut album, Inseparable. The song won her the Best New Artist Grammy in 1975, the first of nine she would win throughout her career.

Hits and awards kept pouring in as Cole released two more platinum albums (Unpredictable and Thankful, both in 1977). On the outside, Cole was fulfilling her father’s legacy and drawing comparisons to Aretha Franklin. On the inside, she was battling drug addiction. In her 2000 autobiography, Angel on my Shoulder, she wrote that her addiction incapacitated her so severely that she was barely able to escape a fire in her Las Vegas hotel in 1981.

In 1983, she spent several months at the Hazelden Clinic in Minnesota and, with her health intact, released her come-back album, Dangerous, in 1985.

As her career progressed, Cole began to drift away from the pop and R&B styles that had defined her early music and gravitated toward a more jazz-oriented style that drew from the likes of Ella Fitzgerald — and her own father. Her best-known album to date, Unforgettable ... With Love, featured a technology-assisted duet for the song Unforgettable with her father’s original recording.

Years after reclaiming her life from drug addiction, Cole was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2008. Exhausted, she continued performing until her rapidly declining health was tied to kidney disease, likely a result of the medication she was using to treat her hepatitis C.

Cole continued to tour, receiving dialysis three times per week between performances. During a March 2009 appearance on Larry King Live, her fans’ love for her was apparent. The show received dozens of emails from fans offering her replacement kidneys.

While fighting her own battles, Cole was helping her sister, Cookie, battle cancer. Her sister died the morning Cole got a successful kidney transplant in May 2009.

Her own life saved, Cole was devastated at the loss of her sister, but grateful to the family of the woman whose kidney she received.

"To have your life saved by someone you don’t even know — oh, God. God bless them," Cole told AARP Magazine in 2009.

Just months later, she was itching to get back onstage.

"The volume of work that I’ve had before, I can’t do it," she told USA TODAY in 2009. "Instead of 90-minute shows, maybe I’ll only do 60. Instead of dancing around the stage, maybe I’ll just walk elegantly."

Cole released a second memoir in 2010 titled Love Brought Me Back, a chronicle of her quest for a kidney transplant.

In recent months Cole had cancelled many appearances citing a medical procedure and subsequent stay at the hospital.

Wayne Rogers - # 121

Wayne Rogers, Trapper John on 'M.A.S.H.,' dies at 82

He was number 121 on the list.

Wayne Rogers played Capt. "Trapper" John McIntyre for the show's first three seasons. Trapper John was depicted as every bit the prankster, womanizing surgeon that Hawkeye was. The character was abruptly written out of the show in 1975 when Rogers quit, complaining that Trapper John had become a sidekick to Hawkeye rather than an equal.

Wayne Rogers played Capt. "Trapper" John McIntyre for the show's first three seasons. Trapper John was depicted as every bit the prankster, womanizing surgeon that Hawkeye was. The character was abruptly written out of the show in 1975 when Rogers quit, complaining that Trapper John had become a sidekick to Hawkeye rather than an equal.

Wayne Rogers, the actor whose Trapper John McIntyre on "M*A*S*H" was among the most beloved characters on one of the most popular shows of all time, has died.

Rogers' publicist Rona Menashe says the actor died Thursday in Los Angeles of complications from pneumonia. He was 82.

As army surgeon Trapper John on "MASH," Rogers swapped wisecracks with partner in martinis-and-mischief Hawkeye Pierce, played by Alan Alda.

Rogers was on the show for just the first three of its 11 seasons, but his run, and his character, are especially revered by show devotees.

An Alabama native and Princeton graduate, Rogers had parts on many short-lived shows before "M.A.S.H.," specializing in westerns like "Law of the Plainsman" and "Stagecoach West." Rogers then guest-starred five times in a recurring role on CBS's Murder, She Wrote.

He spent his late life as a money manager and investor and was a regular panelist on the Fox News stock investment show "Cashin' In."

Filmography

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1959      Odds Against Tomorrow                Soldier in Bar    

1962      Alfred Hitchcock Presents...The Big Kick Season 7 Episode 37        Kenneth              

1964      Dr. Sex Raincoat Man    Uncredited

1965      The Glory Guys Lt. Mike Moran

1966      Chamber of Horrors        Police Sgt. Jim Albertson              

1967      Cool Hand Luke                 Gambler              

1967      The Invaders      Police Lt. Matteson        

1970      WUSA   Minter

1972      Pocket Money   Stretch Russell  

1972–1975          M*A*S*H            Trapper John McIntyre 72 episodes

1976      City of Angels     Jake Axminster 13 episodes

1978      Once in Paris... Michael Moore

1981      The Hot Touch   Danny Fairchild

1985      The Gig                 Marty Flynn       

1987      The Killing Time                Jake Winslow    

1990      Miracle Landing                Robert 'Bob' Schornstheimer     

1993      The Goodbye Bird            Ray Whitney      

1996      Ghosts of Mississippi      Morris Dees       

1999      Love Lies Bleeding            Inspector Abberline       

2000      Coo Coo Cafe                    

2001      Frozen with Fear               Charles Sullivan                

2002      Three Days of Rain           Business Man    

2003      Nobody Knows Anything!             Gun Schnook      (final film role)

Lucinda Dooling obit

Lucinda Schiff, Actress and Wife of Hollywood Exec David Schiff, Dies at 61

She starred in the 1981 cult film 'Lovely But Deadly' and played the wife of hockey star Mike Eruzione in 'Miracle on Ice.'

 

She was not on the list.

Lucinda Schiff, a former actress and the wife of David Schiff, the founder and a partner in the Hollywood management and production company MGMT. Entertainment, has died. She was 61.

She died Dec. 30 at home in the Pacific Palisades after a 15-year battle with recurring brain tumors, her husband told The Hollywood Reporter.

Working under her stage name Lucinda Dooling, she starred as a high school cheerleader who goes undercover to fight drug dealers and avenge the death of her brother in the 1981 cult film Lovely But Deadly.

In the 1981 ABC docudrama Miracle on Ice, the actress portrayed the wife of Mike Eruzione (played by Andrew Stevens), the captain of the upstart U.S. hockey team that stunned the Soviet Union and captured the gold medal at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.

She guest-starred as the visiting sister of Larry (Richard Kline) on a 1983 episode of Three’s Company and appeared on other TV series including Nero Wolfe and Hart to Hart and in the acclaimed 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds.

She made her onscreen debut in the 1979 Steven Spielberg film 1941.

Born and raised as Lucinda Valles in Puerto Rico, her father abandoned her, her three young sisters and their mother to fend for themselves. Her mother died when she was 15, and she was sent to live in New York.

After her acting career, she proved adept at interior design, and a story about her renovation of her family’s Palisades home, built in the mid-1920s, was featured in the Los Angeles Times.

In addition to her husband of 35 years, survivors include her daughter Kaylie (with a soon-to-be baby girl), sons Mickey and Henry and sisters Marisa, Aileen and Sheila.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in her name to Every Mother Counts, a nonprofit dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for mothers everywhere.

Actress (12 credits)

 1987 The Magical World of Disney (TV Series)

Customer

- Double Switch (1987) ... Customer

 1984 Surf II

Lindy Sue O'Finley

 1983 The Alchemist

Lenora Sinclair (as Lucinda Dooline)

 1983 The Thorn Birds (TV Mini Series)

Martha

- Part 4 (1983) ... Martha

 1983 Three's Company (TV Series)

Diane Dallas

- Larry's Sister (1983) ... Diane Dallas

 1982 The Rules of Marriage (TV Movie)

Rita Lombard

 1982 Hart to Hart (TV Series)

Ellen

- Hart of Diamonds (1982) ... Ellen

 1981 Lovely But Deadly

Mary Ann 'Lovely' Lovitt

 1981 Nero Wolfe (TV Series)

Ellen Miller

- The Murder in Question (1981) ... Ellen Miller

 1981 Miracle on Ice (TV Movie)

Donna

 1980 The Merry Wives of Windsor (TV Movie)

Robin

 1979 1941

Lucinda

Doug Atkins obit

Doug Atkins, Feared Pass-Rusher, Dies at 85

He was not on the list.

Doug Atkins, a towering Hall of Fame defensive end who manhandled offensive linemen and quarterbacks for 17 seasons in the National Football League, most famously with the Chicago Bears, died on Wednesday at his home in Knoxville, Tenn. He was 85.

His death was confirmed by his son Dalton, who said he had been ailing for some time.

Playing from the early 1950s to the late 1960s, Atkins was a giant for his time, at 6 feet 8 inches and 280 pounds or so.

Renowned for his strength and agility, Atkins was a fearsome pass rusher. He had not only been an all-American football player at the University of Tennessee but also played basketball there and won a Southeastern Conference high-jumping championship. So when he did not send a lineman careening back into his quarterback, Atkins could simply leap over the hapless guard or tackle to pummel the passer.

“Everyone knew that holding or tripping Doug was an absolute no-no, something akin to committing suicide,” the Bears said in a profile on the team’s website.

Atkins appeared in the Pro Bowl eight times while playing for the Bears — every season from 1957 to 1963 and again in 1965. He led the defensive charge for the 1963 Bears team that yielded an average of only 10 points a game and then defeated the Giants, 14-10, for the N.F.L. championship.

Atkins credited George Allen, the Bears’ defensive coordinator that year, with letting him concentrate on rushing the passer instead of also covering short passes, as he had in the team’s previous defensive alignments.

“I was doing what I did best, teeing off on the quarterback,” Atkins later told Football Digest.

Atkins never knew how many sacks he recorded in his two years with the Cleveland Browns, his 12 with the Bears and his three with the New Orleans Saints because the N.F.L. did not begin keeping that statistic until 1982.

“When I was with the Bears, there were a few years I might have had 25 or so,” he told The Times-Picayune of New Orleans in 1995. “I do know one thing: If I did all the dancing they do today, I would have been too tired to play.”

But George Halas, the Bears’ founder, owner and coach, was none too generous with Atkins’s salary requests.

“One time the coach and I were talking about contracts, and we were talking about a matter of $500, and we got into a pretty heated argument,” Atkins recalled in his Hall of Fame induction speech. “Coach Halas said, ‘If I give you that money, you would only spend it.’ I said, ‘Coach, that is what I want it for.’ ”

But Halas was filled with praise for Atkins.

“He was a truly great defensive end, one of the greatest in history,” the Pro Football Hall of Fame quoted Halas as saying.

Fran Tarkenton, who often faced Atkins while he was the Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback, once said: “When he rushes the passer with those oak-tree arms of his way up in the air, he’s 12 feet tall. And if he gets to you, the whole world starts spinning.”

Atkins told Lew Freedman in the 2006 book “Game of My Life”: “I wasn’t much of a weight man. I guess you’d call it natural strength.”

When Atkins retired, he had played in 205 N.F.L. games, the most at that time of any lineman. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1982 and to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1985.

Douglas Leon Atkins was born in Humboldt, Tenn., on May 8, 1930. He played for the longtime Tennessee coach Bob Neyland on the national championship team of 1951.

The Browns made him their No. 1 draft pick in 1953, but they traded him to the Bears before the 1955 season.

Atkins was a free spirit who inspired many a story.

He had a pit bull named Rebel who, according to a Saints team trainer, once accompanied Atkins to a New Orleans watering spot, where they sat side by side on bar stools, sharing drinks.

Bears defensive back Richie Petitbon told The Times-Picayune that he once saw Atkins eat 45 pieces of fried chicken in a single sitting.

“I really was never much of a big eater,” Atkins responded. “Now, drinking was something else. I think Richie might be confusing chicken with martinis.”

After retiring, Atkins held many jobs outside football, including work for a beer distributor and a coffin company. As a result of his numerous injuries, he had to rely on a wheelchair or a cane in his later years.

“Everything is broken down,” he told The Knoxville News-Sentinel in 2005.

In addition to his son Dalton, Atkins is survived by two other sons, Kent and Neil; his wife, Sylvia; a brother, Royce; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

In his years with the Bears, Atkins did not confine his quarrels with Halas to money issues. He bristled at Halas’s attempts to control him.

“There was a time when there was a question as to who was running the Chicago Bears, Doug Atkins or George Halas,” the Hall of Fame lineman Stan Jones told The Chicago Tribune in 1994. “It was a very hot day early in the season. We came into the locker room, and one of the customs was that we could have oranges and cold ice packs and things like that. But you couldn’t drink a Coke at halftime.”

When Atkins nonetheless grabbed a Coke, Halas demanded he turn it over. Atkins refused.

“Doug would take a swig of the Coke, and the old man would grab the Coke,” Jones recalled. “And here we have a wrestling match going on at halftime.”

Jones added: “We made the darnedest comeback and won the game. The next day in The Chicago Tribune, the writer wrote, ‘We don’t know what Coach Halas said to that team at halftime, but it worked!’