Tammy Grimes obit

 

Tammy Grimes, the Original ‘Unsinkable Molly Brown,’ Dies at 82

 She was not on the list.

Tammy Grimes, Broadway's original "Unsinkable Molly Brown" and ever a critical darling who won a Tony for that role at 26, as well as the mother of actress Amanda Plummer, has died.

According to the New York Times and Variety, Crimes was 82.

Tammy Grimes had a long and storied stage career, starred in more than a dozen award-winning Broadway plays, her own short-lived sitcom with her name in the title and numerous movie credits where she usually played a mysterious woman she smoked. Who knows if Grimes did in real life -- her throaty and deep voice made her a natural for those kinds of roles.

When it came time for Hollywood to cast "Molly Brown" the movie, they went with the more conventional Hollywood film choice, popular and perky Debbie Reynolds.

The Times said Grimes died on Sunday in Englewood, New Jersey  The death was confirmed by Duncan MacArthur, her nephew. A cause of death was not disclosed.

Her second Tony came in a 1969 of Noel Coward's "Private Lives" where she played Amanda. While born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Grimes played Brits so well and so often, most of her fans thought she was British. She enjoyed the role so much, when it came time to name her daughter, Amanda seemed like a natural.

Grimes remained one of playwright Noel Coward's favorites. The feeling was mutual. She became the vice-president of his society about 10 years ago.

While never a starlet or the go-to star in movies or TV of her day, her singing and acting talent always distanced herself from the pack.

"I never looked like an ingénue," Grimes said matter-of-fact in a New York Times Magazine interview in 1960. In a business often obsessed with looks, the fact she had to work harder to get cast in Hollywood never got under her skin. "I don't want to be America's Sweetheart; I'd rather be something they don't quite understand."

Rumor had it she was offered the lead role in the TV series that would become "Bewitched" but turned it down for "The Tammy Grimes Show," a 1966 show that was yanked quickly.

In the mid 60s, Grimes also made headlines when she said she was beaten and injured (twice in a four -day period) by white racists who were audibly uncomfortable with her many associations with black performers like Sammy Davis Jr.

Her film credits include "The Last Unicorn," "Slaves of New York," "Somebody Killed Her Husband," and "Can't Stop the Music."

She was married three times. first to "Sound of Music" star Christopher Plummer, Amanda's father. Grimes was married to Plummer from 1956-1960. He fathered her only child.

Her second husband was actor Jeremy Slate. He was best known for playing a variety or recurring roles on TV Westerns like "Gunsmoke" and  "Bonanza" and Chuck Wilson on the soap "One Life to Live." They were married from 1966 to 1967.

She married Canadian composer Richard Bell in 1971 and remained married to him until his death in 2005.

 

Actress (59 credits)

 2005 Breathe (Short)

Narrator (voice)

 1999 The Portrait (Short)

Dora Gold

 1998 High Art

Vera

 1997 Trouble on the Corner

Mrs. K

 1995 A Modern Affair

Dr. Gresham

 1995 Loving (TV Series)

Mrs. Haversham

- Episode #1.2974 (1995) ... Mrs. Haversham

 1994 Backstreet Justice

Mrs. Finnegan

 1990 Mathnet (TV Series)

Lauren Bacchanal

- The Case of the Unkidnapping (1990) ... Lauren Bacchanal

 1990 The Young Riders (TV Series)

Margaret Herrick

- The Play's the Thing (1990) ... Margaret Herrick

 1990 Square One Television (TV Series)

Lauren Bacchanal

- Episode #3.36 (1990) ... Lauren Bacchanal

- Episode #3.20 (1990) ... Lauren Bacchanal

- Episode #3.19 (1990) ... Lauren Bacchanal

 1989 Slaves of New York

Georgette

 1989 Long Ago and Far Away (TV Series)

Narrator

- The Happy Circus (1989) ... Narrator

 1988 Mr. North

Sarah Baily-Lewis

 1986 America

Joy Hackley

 1986 The Equalizer (TV Series)

Julia Jacobs

- A Community of Civilized Men (1986) ... Julia Jacobs

 1985 Royal Match (TV Movie)

Queen Mother Estelle

 1985 The Stuff

Special Guest Star in Stuff Commercial

 1985 My Little Pony: Escape from Catrina (TV Short)

Catrina (voice)

 1984 St. Elsewhere (TV Series)

Fairy Godmother

- Playing God: Part 2 (1984) ... Fairy Godmother

 1983 A Matter of Cunning (TV Movie)

Sylvia Markham

 1983 No Big Deal (TV Movie)

Mrs. Norberry

 1983 An Invasion of Privacy (TV Movie)

Paula

 1982 The Last Unicorn

Molly Grue (voice)

 1980 The Practical Princess (Short)

Princess (voice)

 1980 Can't Stop the Music

Sydne Channing

 1980 CBS Library (TV Series)

Princess

- The Incredible Book Escape (1980) ... Princess (voice)

 1979 You Can't Go Home Again (TV Movie)

Amy Carlton

 1979 The Runner Stumbles

Erna Webber

 1979 The Love Boat (TV Series)

Christine

- Second Chance/Don't Push Me/Like Father, Like Son (1979) ... Christine

 1978 Tartuffe (TV Movie)

Elmire

 1978 Somebody Killed Her Husband

Audrey Van Santen

 1974 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (TV Short)

Albert (voice)

 1974 The Snoop Sisters (TV Series)

Amanda Bastion

- A Black Day for Bluebeard (1974) ... Amanda Bastion

 1974 The Wide World of Mystery (TV Series)

Cynthia

- The Spy Who Returned from the Dead (1974) ... Cynthia

 1973 The Borrowers (TV Movie)

Homily Clock

 1973 The Horror at 37, 000 Feet (TV Movie)

Mrs. Pinder

 1972 Play It As It Lays

Helene

 1971 Love, American Style (TV Series) (segment "Love and the Love Potion")

- Love and the Heist/Love and the Love Potion/Love and the Teddy Bear (1971) ... (segment "Love and the Love Potion")

 1970 The Other Man (TV Movie)

Denise Gray

 1969 Arthur? Arthur!

Lady Joan Mellon

 1969 The Outcasts (TV Series)

Polly

- Hung for a Lamb (1969) ... Polly

 1967 Tarzan (TV Series)

Polly Larkin

- Man Killer (1967) ... Polly Larkin

 1967 Three Bites of the Apple

Angela Sparrow

 1966 The Tammy Grimes Show (TV Series)

Tammy Ward

- George Washington Didn't Sleep Here (1966) ... Tammy Ward

- A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Studio (1966) ... Tammy Ward

- Positively Made in Paris (1966) ... Tammy Ward

- Tammy Takes Las Vegas, or Vice Versa (1966) ... Tammy Ward

- How to Steal a Girl Even If It's Only Me (1966) ... Tammy Ward

1965 The Trials of O'Brien (TV Series)

Mother Superior

- A Gaggle of Girls (1965) ... Mother Superior

 1964 Mr. Broadway (TV Series)

Nella

- The He-She Chemistry (1964) ... Nella

 1964 Destry (TV Series)

Patience Dailey

- The Solid Gold Girl (1964) ... Patience Dailey

 1964 Burke's Law (TV Series)

Jill Marsh

- Who Killed Jason Shaw? (1964) ... Jill Marsh

 1963 Route 66 (TV Series)

Greta Inger Gruenschaffen / Celli Brahms

- Come Home Greta Inger Gruenschaffen (1963) ... Greta Inger Gruenschaffen

- Where Are the Sounds of Celli Brahms? (1963) ... Celli Brahms

 1963 The Virginian (TV Series)

Angie Clark

- The Exiles (1963) ... Angie Clark

 1960 Dow Hour of Great Mysteries (TV Series)

Daisy Strong

- The Datchet Diamonds (1960) ... Daisy Strong

 1960 Play of the Week (TV Series)

Mehitabel

- Archy and Mehitabel (1960) ... Mehitabel

 1960 Sunday Showcase (TV Series)

- Hollywood Sings (1960)

 1959 Omnibus (TV Series)

Mary Jane Jenkins

- Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway (1959) ... Mary Jane Jenkins

 1958 The Gift of the Magi (TV Movie)

 1957 Kraft Theatre (TV Series)

- Sextuplets (1957)

 1957 Studio One (TV Series)

Gloria Loman

- Babe in the Woods (1957) ... Gloria Loman

 1956 Max Liebman Spectaculars (TV Series)

Cafe Singer

- Holiday (1956) ... Cafe Singer

 1955 The United States Steel Hour (TV Series)

Hazel Corey

- The Bride Cried (1955) ... Hazel Corey

Kevin Curran obit

Kevin Curran, Writer and Producer on ‘The Simpsons,’ Dies at 59

He also wrote for 'Late Night With David Letterman' and 'Married … With Children' and won six Emmys. 

He was not on the list.

Kevin Curran, a six-time Emmy-winning writer and producer who worked on Late Night With David Letterman and The Simpsons, died Tuesday, Fox confirmed. He was 59.

Curran started with The Simpsons in 1998 as a consulting producer and stayed with the show through 2015, sharing three Emmys for outstanding animated program in 2003, 2006 and 2008.

Curran received his first three Emmys (1985 through 1987) for his writing on NBC’s Letterman show, where in 1985 he suggested and wrote the very first Top Ten list, “Top Ten Words That Almost Rhyme With Peas.” (The No. 1 word on the list was “Meats.”)

He received 20 Emmy nominations in all.

Said Simpsons executive producer and showrunner Al Jean in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: “Kevin Curran was a sweet, brilliant man who said many hilarious things, some unprintable, others which will live forever in a children’s cartoon.”

A native of Hartford, Conn., Curran attended Harvard and also wrote and produced for Married … With Children and a takeoff of that fabled Fox sitcom, Unhappily Ever After.

He was in a previous relationship with English novelist and screenwriter Helen Fielding, creator of the Bridget Jones character. Survivors include their children Dashiell and Romy.

 

Producer

Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, and Yeardley Smith in The Simpsons (1989)

The Simpsons

8.7

TV Series

co-executive producer

supervising producer

consulting producer

1998–2015

309 episodes

 

The Simpsons Take the Bowl (2014)

The Simpsons Take the Bowl

7.3

Video

co-executive producer

2014

 

Unhappily Ever After (1995)

Unhappily Ever After

6.9

TV Series

executive producer

co-executive producer

consulting producer

1997–1999

43 episodes

 

Alexandra Wentworth, Chris Browning, Dann Florek, Bruce Greenwood, Adam Hendershott, Steve Hytner, Phill Lewis, Rose Marie, Joe Rogan, Mike Starr, and Sholom Gelt in Hardball (1994)

Hardball

5.9

TV Series

executive producer

1994

3 episodes

 

The Good Life (1994)

The Good Life

7.3

TV Series

executive producer

1994

13 episodes

 

Christina Applegate, David Faustino, Katey Sagal, and Ed O'Neill in Married... with Children (1987)

Married... with Children

8.1

TV Series

supervising producer

producer

1990–1993

76 episodes

 

Writer

Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, and Yeardley Smith in The Simpsons (1989)

The Simpsons

8.7

TV Series

written by

2002–2018

12 episodes

 

The Pub of Heaven (2000)

The Pub of Heaven

TV Series

created by

2000

5 episodes

 

Unhappily Ever After (1995)

Unhappily Ever After

6.9

TV Series

writer

1998–1999

2 episodes

 

Alexandra Wentworth, Chris Browning, Dann Florek, Bruce Greenwood, Adam Hendershott, Steve Hytner, Phill Lewis, Rose Marie, Joe Rogan, Mike Starr, and Sholom Gelt in Hardball (1994)

Hardball

5.9

TV Series

created by

written by (creator)

1994

9 episodes

 

The Good Life (1994)

The Good Life

7.3

TV Series

created by

written by (creator)

1994

13 episodes

 

Christina Applegate, David Faustino, Katey Sagal, and Ed O'Neill in Married... with Children (1987)

Married... with Children

8.1

TV Series

written by

story editor

1989–1993

30 episodes

 

Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams in The Earth Day Special (1990)

The Earth Day Special

5.8

TV Special

Writer (segment Married with Children)

1990

 

David Letterman in Late Night with David Letterman (1982)

Late Night with David Letterman

7.5

TV Series

writer

1984–1989

168 episodes

 

Late Night with David Letterman: 7th Anniversary Special (1989)

Late Night with David Letterman: 7th Anniversary Special

6.4

TV Special

Writer

1989

 

Late Night with David Letterman: 6th Anniversary Special

7.5

TV Special

Writer

1988

 

David Letterman's 2nd Annual Holiday Film Festival (1986)

David Letterman's 2nd Annual Holiday Film Festival

7.4

TV Movie

Writer

1986

 

David Letterman's Holiday Film Festival (1985)

David Letterman's Holiday Film Festival

8.1

TV Movie

writer

1985

 

Actor

Christina Applegate, David Faustino, Katey Sagal, and Ed O'Neill in Married... with Children (1987)

Married... with Children

8.1

TV Series

Lucky

Buck

Buck the Dog ...

1990–1996

54 episodes

 

David Letterman in Late Night with David Letterman (1982)

Late Night with David Letterman

7.5

TV Series

Larry (uncredited)

1986

1 episode

Jack Chick obit

Jack Chick, religious cartoonist and publisher, dies at 92

He was not on the list.

Jack T. Chick’s most popular tract, published in 1964, is titled “This Was Your Life!” Riffing on the then-popular reality-TV series, it tells the story of a high-living atheist who drops dead of a heart attack and is whisked to the gates of heaven, forced to review his life’s lowlights and, too late, plead for forgiveness.

Chick, who died Sunday at age 92 at home in San Dimas, would expect a better reception, the one given to the protagonist in the tract’s second ending, in which the man has repented.

Chick Publications’ Facebook page illustrated its announcement of its founder’s death with the final panel of that alternate ending, in which a faceless man on a throne surrounded by light says: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant — enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!”

“He wanted one thing, to go in his sleep,” employee David Daniels said Monday. “And God granted it.”

Based in a low-profile office in Rancho Cucamonga since 1970, Chick Publications has sent out nearly 900 million tracts in 102 languages. The pocket-sized tracts, stapled on the side, with white-on-black titles and simple art, are instantly recognizable and much parodied.

He’s said to be the world’s most published living author, his books displayed at the Smithsonian Institution and praised by underground comic artists such as Robert Crumb. Some comics fans and creators, including “Ghost World” artist and scenarist Daniel Clowes, have been fascinated by his work even while finding it repellent.

Rocker Jack White cited him in a 2014 song, “Black Bat Licorice”: “She writes letters like a Jack Chick comic/Just a bunch of propaganda to make my fingers histrionic.”

Monday, “Daily Show” senior writer Daniel Radosh tweeted: “Jack Chick has died. Setting aside, well, everything else about him & his message, he did amazingly weird, influential outsider art.”

“The reclusive king of the scaremongers, Chick railed against everything from gay rights and Dungeons & Dragons to Freemasonry and the Catholic church — which he believed instigated the Holocaust, the Russian Revolution and the Civil War …” wrote the A.V. Club pop-culture website about his death.

His books have been banned in Canada, denounced by Christianity Today and the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and ejected from Christian bookstores.

Daniels, the company’s author and researcher since 2000 who said he was Chick’s chosen successor, said Chick is misunderstood as hateful when really he was a humble, hard-working man who produced “love literature,” not hate literature.

 

 “He was a plain, ordinary guy who liked to draw. He was just a guy who wanted to please the Lord, use his drawings for God and help other people not go to hell. And that was it.”

He is survived by his second wife, Susy. Services will be private.

Chick was born in Boyle Heights in 1924, attended Alhambra High, won a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse School of Theater and served in World War II. He married in 1948 and converted to Christianity while visiting his in-laws in Canada, where he heard a radio broadcast from the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium by Charles E. Fuller.

Chick worked as a technical illustrator for an aerospace company in El Monte and would draw at home at night, according to a 2003 profile by Robert Ito in Los Angeles magazine.

A shy man, he chose comics over the pulpit after hearing a radio missionary explain how the Chinese used comics as propaganda. His first tract was published in 1960.

The reclusive Chick did not speak to Ito, who wrote that Chick had last given an interview in 1975. He did, however, speak in 1997 to former Daily Bulletin reporter Mike Cicchese, who interviewed him for 10 minutes in Chick’s driveway.

He was tending to his ailing wife and daughter, both of whom have since died.

“Most of my time is spent caring for them, picking up prescriptions and doing the tracts,” Chick said. “I don’t even know what’s going on in the Christian world today. They’re all playing footsie with the Vatican. It’s all about money.”

During the conversation, two Jehovah’s Witnesses walked up the driveway and handed Chick a copy of The Watchtower, not realizing the recipient had published a tract, “The Crisis,” calling their religion false.

Tom Hayden obit

Tom Hayden, preeminent 1960s political radical and antiwar protester, dies at 76

 

 He was not on the list.

Tom Hayden, the preeminent U.S. countercultural radical of the 1960s, has died at the age of 76.

Hayden was a leader of the student protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam. He was one of the country's most visible radicals, a founder of the anti-war Students for a Democratic Society and accused, but eventually cleared of charges that he was a ringleader of the violent protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

After the war ended, Hayden turned to traditional American political pursuits, serving 18 years in the California state legislature while sponsoring progressive measures on the environment, civil rights, education and public safety. He lost campaigns to be the California governor, the Los Angeles mayor and for a Los Angeles city council seat.

Before his death Sunday, Hayden had been suffering from heart problems and fell ill while attending the Democratic National Convention in July.

Hayden's 1960s were a decade of dissent, marked by the growing protests against the Vietnam war, civil rights sit-ins and marches and the tear-gassing of student protesters on American campuses and in the streets of major cities.

In his memoir "Reunion," Hayden wrote, "Rarely, if ever, in American history has a generation begun with higher ideals and experienced greater trauma than those who lived fully the short time from 1960 to 1968."

It was during that time that Hayden drafted the Port Huron statement that led to the creation of Students for a Democratic Society. It was seen as a Utopian manifesto that extolled "participatory democracy" as an antidote the complacency and conformity of 1950s America.

In the oft-quoted first lines of the statement, Hayden wrote, "We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit."

Hayden met film star Jane Fonda at a peace rally and married her in 1973, a marriage that ended in divorce in 1990. In 1974, the two made a trip to North Vietnam in protest of the U.S. involvement in the war against Hanoi, to the derision of Americans who supported U.S. troops, and made a documentary film that critics labeled as Communist propaganda.

On one of several trips Hayden made to North Vietnam, he escorted home three U.S. prisoners of war Hanoi agreed to release as a gesture of "solidarity" with the American peace movement.

He was married to actress and social activist Jane Fonda for 17 years, and was the father of actor Troy Garity. Hayden lived in Los Angeles beginning in 1971 and was married to his third wife, Barbara Williams, at the time of his death. He and Williams adopted a son, Liam (born 2000). His first wife was Sandra Cason "Casey" Hayden. He had a small role in the film Death Wish with Charles Bronson.

Hayden died at a hospital in Santa Monica, California on October 23, 2016, aged 76. Williams told The New York Times that Hayden had a history of heart problems and his health had declined in the preceding months. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica, where he was the first interment in "Eternal Meadow," an eco-friendly section. Former US President Bill Clinton memorialized him, saying, "Hillary and I knew him for more than thirty years and valued both his words of support and his criticism.