Martin West obit

Martin West, 'Lord Love a Duck' and 'General Hospital' Actor, Dies at 82

 He was not on the list.

His credits also included 'Family Plot,' 'Assault on Precinct 13' and 'Dallas.'

Martin West, who starred in Lord Love a Duck and other 1960s teen comedies before appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot and John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, died on New Year's Eve, his family announced. He was 82.

West also is known to veteran General Hospital fans for playing Dr. Phil Brewer on the ABC soap from 1966 to 1975. He was the fourth and last actor to play the role that originated with the daytime serial's debut in 1963.

In United Artists' wacky Lord Love a Duck (1966), directed by George Axelrod, West portrayed the love interest of dreamer Tuesday Weld. He's also the son of Ruth Gordon and the target of Roddy McDowall in the cult classic.

He starred in The Sergeant Was a Lady (1961), A Swingin' Summer (1965) and The Girls on the Beach (1965) — that one featured performances by the Beach Boys and Lesley Gore — and appeared in other films including The Man From Galveston (1963), Paul Newman's Harper (1966), Sweet November (1968) and Listen to Me (1989).

West played Phil McKenna on Dallas and Dan Hughes on As the World Turns and showed up on episodes of 77 Sunset Strip, The Virginian, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Ironside, Matlock and L.A. Law during his career.

Born Martin Weixelbaum on Aug. 28, 1937, in Westhampton, N.Y., West played a Union soldier on Broadway in 1959-60 in The Andersonville Trial, starring George C. Scott and directed by José Ferrer. He then made his film debut by portraying a one-armed man who battles timber thieves in Andrew V. McLaglen's Freckles (1960).

West most recently was a member of the Theatre Artists Workshop of Norwalk, Conn. A memorial service for him will be held there Saturday.

Survivors include his life partner Ann Chernow, children Jason, Allie and Gabriel, stepson Paul and sister Gail.

Elizabeth Sellars obit

Elizabeth Sellars, Actress in 'The Barefoot Contessa,' Dies at 98

She was not on the list.


The Scottish star also appeared in 'Désirée,' '55 Days in Peking' and 'The Mummy's Shroud.'

Elizabeth Sellars, the Scottish actress who starred with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa, with Marlon Brando in Désirée and with Peter O'Toole in The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, has died. She was 98.

Sellars died Monday at her home in France, her family reported.

Sellars co-starred as the wife of a pilot (Jack Hawkins) in Decision Against Time (1957), one of the last films made by famed Ealing Studios, and worked with Gardner again in the historical drama 55 Days at Peking (1963).

She also appeared in the Hammer films Cloudburst (1951) and The Mummy's Shroud (1967), with Richard Burton in Prince of Players (1955) and Peter Finch in The Shiralee (1957) and in such British crime dramas as Guilt Is My Shadow (1950), Dirk Bogarde's Hunted (1952) and, with John Mills, The Long Memory (1953).

In 1954, Sellars portrayed Jerry, the wife of a Hollywood writer-director (Bogart), in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Barefoot Contessa, and she played Julie Clary, the real-life queen consort of Spain who falls for Joseph Bonaparte (Cameron Mitchell), in Désirée. (Brando played her brother-in-law, Napoleon.)

Sellars was the lead actress in John Guillermin's The Day They Robbed the Bank of England (1960), starring with O'Toole, then a 28-year-old stage actor with two minor film credits. He would next star in Lawrence of Arabia.

Born on May 6, 1921, in Glasgow, Scotland, Sellars studied law before being persuaded to attend a stage audition with housemate Jean Hardwicke, niece of legendary British actor Cedric Hardwicke. She enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, then made her London stage debut opposite Alec Guinness in The Brothers Karamazov.

In the early 1950s, Hunted director Charles Crichton described Sellars' personality as "a cross between the early allure of Ingrid Bergman and the power of Bette Davis," and London journalist L.R. Swainson wrote that she had "lashings of glamour of a breathless, brooding type usually reserved for sultry Hollywood."

On the stage, Sellars also starred in Noël Coward's South Sea Bubble and in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

She was married to surgeon Frank Henley from 1960 until his death in 2009. Survivors include a stepson, Raymond.

Syd Mead obit

Syd Mead: 'Pivotal' Blade Runner designer dies

He was not on the list.



Artist Syd Mead, who was best known for his designs on the sci-fi film Blade Runner, has died in California at the age of 86.

The dystopian 1982 classic, directed by Ridley Scott, was loosely based on a Philip K Dick novel.

Mead worked as a concept designer on the film, as well as on others including Star Trek, Aliens and Tron.

He died on Monday of complications from lymphoma. His death was confirmed to the press by his husband Roger Servick.



Mead - who began his career as an industrial designer for the Ford Motor Company - was due to receive the Art Directors Guild's William Cameron Menzies Award at the organisation's annual ceremony in February.

Last month, ADG president Nelson Coates said Mead had played "a pivotal role in shaping cinema", noting his "singular ability to visualise the future".

He added: "As one of the most influential conceptual artists of our time, his visions and illustrations of future technological worlds will remain as a testament to his vast imagination.


In an interview in 2015, Mead explained where he got the inspiration for his futuristic city landscapes in Blade Runner, which was set in Los Angeles in the distant 2019.

"For a city in 2019, which isn't that far from now, I used the model of Western cities like New York or Chicago that were laid out after the invention of mass transit and automobiles, with grids and linear transport," he told Curbed.


"I thought, we're at 2,500 feet now, let's boost it to 3,000 feet, and then pretend the city has an upper city and lower city. The street level becomes the basement, and decent people just don't want to go there."

He added: "In my mind, all the tall buildings have a sky lobby, and nobody goes below the 30th floor, and that's the way life would be organised."


Engineer and technology entrepreneur Elon Musk was among those paying tribute on Twitter.


Mead also designed the much-loved Johnny 5 robot for the 1986 comedy science film Short Circuit, about a military robot that gains humanlike intelligence after being struck by lightning.


In 2013, Mead was reminded by Autoline journalist John McElroy that he had predicted the emergence of the self-driving car, or "electric herd", back in 1980, comparing it to a horse being able to carry a drunk cowboy home from the saloon.

In an NPR interview in 2011, Mead declared: "To me, science fiction is reality ahead of schedule".

In 1959, Mead was recruited to Ford Motor Company's Advanced Styling Studio by Elwood Engel. From 1960 to 1961, Mead worked in Ford Motor Company Styling in Detroit, Michigan. Mead left Ford after two years to illustrate books and catalogues for companies including United States Steel, Celanese, Allis-Chalmers and Atlas Cement. In 1970, he launched Syd Mead, Inc. in Detroit with clients including Philips Electronics.


With his own company in the 1970s, Mead spent about a third of his time in Europe, primarily to provide designs and illustrations for Philips, and he continued to work for international clients.Through the 1970s and 1980s, Mead and his company provided architectural renderings, both interior and exterior, for clients including Intercontinental Hotels, 3D International, Harwood Taylor & Associates, Don Ghia, Gresham & Smith and Philip Koether Architects.


Beginning in 1983, Mead developed working relationships with Sony, Minolta, Dentsu, Dyflex, Tiger Corporation, Seibu, Mitsukoshi, Bandai, NHK and Honda.

Mead's one-man shows began in 1973 with an exhibit at documenta 6 in Kassel, West Germany. His work was later exhibited in Japan, Italy, California and Spain. In 1983, Mead was invited by Chrysler Corporation to be a guest speaker to its design staff. He created a series of slides to provide visuals to the lecture, and the resulting presentation was a success. It was later expanded and enhanced with computer-generated images specifically created at the requests of several clients, including Disney, Carnegie Mellon University, Purdue University, Pratt Institute and the Society of Illustrators. In March 2010, Mead completed a four-city tour of Australia.


In 1993, a digital gallery consisting of 50 examples of his art with interface screens designed by him became one of the first CD-ROMs released in Japan. In 2004, Mead co-operated with Gnomon School of Visual Effects to produce a four-volume "how-to" DVD series titled Techniques of Syd Mead.


Regarding his work, Mead said, "the idea supersedes technique," and that "I've called science fiction 'reality ahead of schedule.'" In 2018, Mead published his autobiography, titled A Future Remembered.

Mead is best known for his work on films such as Blade Runner. Some of Mead's concept art is visible in the background of the second image.

Mead worked with major studios on the feature films Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner, Tron, 2010, Short Circuit, Alien, Aliens, Timecop, Johnny Mnemonic, Mission: Impossible III, and Blade Runner 2049. George Lucas created the AT-AT for his Star Wars saga based on art by Mead. Mead also contributed to the Japanese film Solar Crisis. In the 1990s, Mead supplied designs for two Japanese anime series, Turn A Gundam and the unfinished Yamato 2520.


In May 2007, he completed work on a documentary of his career with the director Joaquin Montalvan entitled Visual Futurist:The Art and Life of Syd Mead. The short 2008 documentary film 2019: A Future Imagined, also explored his works. Mead also appears in movie documentaries such as Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner and Mark Kermode's On the Edge of Blade Runner, and promotional materials such as the DVD extra for Aliens and a promotional short film about the making of 2010.

 

Don Imus obit

Don Imus, Legendary 'Imus in the Morning' Host, Dies at 79

He was not on the list.

The controversial radio personality passed away on Friday morning at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station, Texas.

Don Imus, the radio personality whose insult humor and savage comedy catapulted him to a long-lasting and controversial career, has died at 79. His three-hour radio program, Imus in the Morning, was widely popular, especially with the over 25-male demographic.

Imus died Friday morning at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station, Texas, after being hospitalized on Christmas Eve, a representative said. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Mike and the Mad Dog host Mike Francesca tweeted Friday, "Shocking news on the passing of my friend, Don Imus. He will long be remembered as one of the true giants in the history of radio."

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough added, "Morning Joe obviously owes its format to Don Imus. No one else could have gotten away with that much talk on cable news. Thanks for everything, Don." Morning Joe started as a fill-in for Imus in the Morning after Imus was fired from MSNBC in 2007.

Imus in the Morning, which debuted on WNBC-AM in New York in 1971, most recently reached radio listeners via Citadel Media and was simulcast on the Fox Business Network.

Imus was loved or hated for his caustic loudmouth. Outspoken in an age of political correctness, his often coarse satire offended sensibilities. Yet his listeners included those whom he often ridiculed. His call-in guests included President Clinton, Dan Rather, Tim Russert, Bill Bradley, David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani and political analyst Jeff Greenfield, who once remarked, “He's out there talking the way most of us talk when we're not in public.”

He sparked national outcry in 2007 when he made derogatory, racist remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team. CBS Radio and MSNBC then dropped his show.

He rebounded by signing a multiyear contract with the Fox Business Network in 2009 to simulcast Imus in the Morning from 6-9 a.m., with Fox anchors appearing during the program.

Imus battled a lifelong addiction to drugs and alcohol. In 2009, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Imus was often compared to syndicated shock jock Howard Stern, who also had a stint on WNBC radio early in his career, and they frequently appeared on each other's shows. Although Imus could not match Stern's audience in terms of numbers, advertisers were well aware of Imus' better-educated and richer demographic, often preferring him. 

Imus in the Morning sandwiched music around his in-your-face commentary in which he mocked authority figures and ridiculed social and political problems. His no-holds-barred humor, including gags and pranks, spurred the onset of “shock jocks” like Stern. A mix of rock ’n’ roll, raunchy humor, call-ins and hard barbs, Imus in the Morning was a huge hit. 

He also performed stand-up for a time, garnering favorable reviews from such unlikely reviewers as The New York Times.

An active philanthropist, Imus and his wife, Deirdre, founded the Imus Ranch in 1999, where each summer children with cancer could enjoy the outdoors.

John Donald Imus Jr., was born on July 23, 1940, in Riverside, California. He was raised in Prescott, Arizona, where his family owned a large ranch. He dropped out of high school to join the U.S. Marines and after basic training won a chair in the band.

Following discharge, he worked at an array of odd jobs: window dresser (he was fired for staging mannequin striptease shows), uranium miner and railroad brakeman, where he suffered a serious neck injury and won a large cash settlement.

While recovering, he set his sights on becoming a disc jockey, ostensibly to play his own music on the airwaves. He moved to Los Angeles, enrolled in a Hollywood broadcasting school and landed his first deejay job at KUTY, a station in Palmdale, California.

During an eight-month stint there, he developed a skill for comic patter and moved to KJOY in Stockton, California, where he staged satirical social and political gags, including an Eldridge Cleaver look-alike contest when the Black Panther was on the lam. His station manager did not see the humor, and he was fired.

He moved to KXOA in Sacramento, where his satirical hijinks were appreciated by the station manager who counseled him that his humor would be more lethal and less likely to attract legal action. Intent on becoming more lethal, Imus created a slew of satirical characters, including the huckster Rev. Billy Sol Hargus. 

His on-air antics infuriated authorities, including the FCC, which was not amused when he phoned a fast-food outlet and ordered 1,200 hamburgers and requested a bizarre array of toppings. The gag resulted in a ruling that deejays must identify themselves when making on-air calls. The clash with government authority, not surprisingly, boosted his ratings, and KXOA was No. 1 in Sacramento while he was there.

Imus is survived by his wife, Deirdre; sons Wyatt and Lt. Zachary Don Cates; and daughters Nadine, Ashley, Elizabeth and Toni.

"Don loved and adored Deirdre, who unconditionally loved him back, loved spending his time watching Wyatt become a highly skilled, champion rodeo rider and calf roper and loved and supported Zachary, who first met the Imus family at age 10 when he participated in the Imus Ranch program for kids with cancer, having battled and overcome leukemia, eventually becoming a member of the Imus family and Don and Deirdre’s second son," his family said in a statement.

The family will hold a private service in the coming days and asks for donations to be made to the Imus Ranch Foundation.

Jack Sheldon obit

Jack Sheldon, ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ Singer and ‘Merv Griffin’ Trumpeter, Dies at 88

He was not on the list.



Jack Sheldon, known to children as one of the voices of “Schoolhouse Rocks” and adults as a master trumpeter who served as music director on “The Merv Griffin Show,” has died at age 88.

Sheldon was the sidekick as well as MD on Griffin’s talk show for 18 years. But his own discography as a band leader added up to more than 20 albums, starting in the late ’50s, when he was part of the west coast bebop movement, continuing through his last release in 2007.

“To all Jack Sheldon fans,” Cynthia Jimenez wrote on the musician’s Facebook page, “on behalf of my sister Dianne Jimenez [his longtime manager], sadly, Jack passed away on December 27. May he rest in peace with all the Jazz Cats in heaven!” No cause of death was given.

Sheldon’s film work included one of the renditions of “The Long Goodbye” heard in the Robert Altman movie of that name, and trumpet playing on Tom Waits’ music for Francis Coppola’s “One from the Heart.” He is the trumpet player heard on Johnny Mandel’s “The Shadow of Your Smile” from the 1965 film “The Sandpiper.”


Sheldon put together a big band for the 1991 feature “For the Boys,” a crew he largely maintained after that for his own shows and recordings.

As a sideman and session player, he worked with everyone from Stan Kenton and Art Pepper to the Monkees.

With Griffin, he told Jazz Times, “It was great in a lot of ways. But mostly because I got to sing, too, which was another whole money thing. Working the show was good money, already. But it got even better when I’d appear on camera on the show and sing and talk, and make more money.”

Decades after his run with Griffin ended in 1986, he was perhaps most recognizable to a mass audience in the 21st century as the voice of the “Schoolhouse Rock” perennials “I’m Just a Bill” and “Conjunction Junction,” to the point that he parodied them as a guest vocalist on episodes of “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy,” respectively. (In the latter instance, he sang “Vagina Junction” as a sex-ed spoof, something that fit with his well known sense of humor.)



Sheldon also appeared in live action TV shows and films as an actor, including “Petticoat Junction,” “Dragnet” and, much later, “The Radioland Murders.” He was the star of his own sitcom, “Run, Buddy, Run,” in 1966-67.

A documentary, “Trying to Get Good: the Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon,” was released in 2008.

A 2011 profile in Jazz Times said that “his trumpet playing is as trim and appealing as it was when he was a boon companion of such West Coast icons as Art Pepper, Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan.”

Jerry Herman obit

Jerry Herman, Revered Broadway Composer and Lyricist, Dies at 88

He was not on the list.

The four-time Tony Award recipient wrote what he called "simple, hummable tunes" for 'Hello, Dolly!,' 'Mame' and 'La Cage Aux Folles.'

Jerry Herman, the Tony-winning composer and lyricist whose musical anthems for Hello, Dolly! and Mame created and shaped a new golden age of Broadway, has died. He was 88.

Herman died Thursday in Miami of pulmonary complications, his goddaughter Jane Dorian told The Hollywood Reporter. "He was an extraordinary man and musical genius and will be missed dearly," she said.

Herman received Tonys in 1964 and 1984, respectively, for his scores to Hello, Dolly! and La Cage Aux Folles, and he was the first composer-lyricist to have had as many as three musicals (Dolly, La Cage and Mame) run for more than 1,500 performances each on Broadway.

His songs, including "Hello, Dolly!" — a No. 1 hit for Louis Armstrong that bumped The Beatles out of the top spot — "The Best of Times Is Now," "Before the Parade Passes By" and "We Need a Little Christmas," are American songbook standards.

"He cares tremendously about matters of the heart and humanity and the warmth of relationships and people looking out for people," Angela Lansbury told The Washington Post in 2010 on the occasion of Herman being honored by the Kennedy Center. Lansbury originated the title role in Mame in 1966, which helped launch her theatrical career.

"Jerry's [music] is immediate and has an emotional tug and has a more universally acceptable and receivable message," she said.

Herman's work served as star-making vehicles for many theatrical icons, including Bernadette Peters, who starred in Mack & Mabel in 1974, and Carol Channing, who originated the title role in Hello, Dolly!

"The moment I met Jerry, I believed in him. I knew he knew that character," Channing said. "He appreciated the person he's working with. That gives you the power to do anything." 

Born Gerald Herman on July 10, 1931, he grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey, and spent his childhood coming into the city to see Broadway shows with his parents. One of the first he saw was Annie Get Your Gun starring Ethel Merman, and her show-stopping tune "There's No Business Like Show Business" would inspire his own melodies for years to come. (Merman would also go on to star as Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!)

Herman learned how to play the piano at a young age. His mother and father, both teachers, worked in New York's Dutchess County at Stissing Lake Camp, where he spent his summers for more than a decade. It was at camp that he first became involved in the theater, directing shows like Oklahoma! and Finian's Rainbow.

He met Frank Loesser when he was 17 (his mother's friend from bridge club knew the songwriter and helped set up the meeting), and Loesser encouraged Herman to continue working toward a career in theater. Loesser served as a valuable mentor.

"That wonderful man is responsible for my life in the theater," Herman told the New York Post in 2010. "I met him at that crucial point in your life when you don't know where you're going but you have secret hopes about where it's going to be."

Herman started off his studies in architecture at New York's Parsons School of Design, and he continued his love of design throughout his life, renovating and decorating more than three dozen houses. But he dropped out of Parsons after a year and continued his studies, now in theater, at the University of Miami.

At Miami, he produced, wrote and directed a musical called Sketchbook, which ran for 17 performances longer than scheduled thanks to audience demand. (One of the school's theaters is named the Jerry Herman Ring Theatre.)

Herman's work in college would go on to be the basis for his early professional career in New York after graduation. He made his off-Broadway debut with I Feel Wonderful, a revue of music he'd written at Miami. He continued to write revues, including Nightcap, which ran at a downtown jazz club for two years; Parade, which opened at the same jazz club before moving to The Players Theatre in 1960; and From A to Z, which marked his Broadway debut.

Parade put Herman on the map, and producer Gerard Oestreicher saw the show and asked him to write his full Broadway musical, Milk and Honey, in 1961. Three years later, he would join forces with producer David Merrick, writer Michael Stewart and Channing to create Hello, Dolly!.

The original production ran for 2,844 performances, making it the longest-running show at the time, and it reeled in 10 Tonys, including the one for best musical, making it the most celebrated musical until The Producers bettered its record with 12 wins. The show has been revived on Broadway three times, most recently in 2016 with Bette Midler in the role.

Two years later, Herman wrote Mame with Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. Starring Lansbury, the musical was based on the 1955 novel and followed a woman whose life is upended during the Depression when her brother's son comes to live with her. Lansbury won a Tony for her performance, and the musical ran for four years.

His career and life were not without its flops and hard times. The shows he wrote after Mame — Dear World, Mack & Mabel and The Grand Tour — didn't receive anywhere near the success of Dolly or Mame, though they have generated cult status among musical theater fans.

Herman was discouraged and didn't write another musical until he watched the French film La Cage Aux Folles, based on the play of the same name, and he knew he'd found his next project. He collaborated with the young writer Harvey Fierstein, who penned the book, and the musical opened on Broadway in 1983. Its story about love and acceptance proved an important message during the AIDS epidemic, which took the lives of many of the musical's castmembers, and the song "I Am What I Am" became a resounding anthem for a generation.

Herman was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1985, but he lived to see experimental treatments, even though his partner, Marty, died from the disease. La Cage won the Tony for best musical and has been revived twice, winning for best revival each time, making it the only musical to receive this honor every time it's been staged.

''I never dreamed that kind of success would happen again,'' he told The New York Times in 1985. ''I'm certainly aware of how different popular music is today from when I started in this business, and I realize that my kind of songwriting is not generally in fashion. But La Cage has made me feel secure about going on and just being what I am and writing simple, hummable tunes.''

When asked about his creative process for the TAMS newsletter Musical Show, Herman said that he wrote music and lyrics at the same time, not one before the other. He also said he was never interested in writing the book of a musical.

"I find the most successful way of working is to treat the whole thing like a jigsaw puzzle, letting a lyric inspire a few bars of music, and then letting those few bars of music lead me to a further lyric development," he said.

Although he hadn't penned a musical since La Cage, he witnessed several revivals of his work and put together revues including Jerry's Girls and An Evening With Jerry Herman. He received an Emmy nomination in 1997 for his work on the TV special Mrs. Santa Claus, starring Lansbury, who presented him with a Tony for lifetime achievement in 2009.

"I write for a mass audience," Herman said in his Post interview. "I write for people, for a smiling public. … I don't think there's anything more gratifying in my business than to know the work will go on after I'm not here anymore. Because I don't write for 1964, or for 1997. I write songs that I hope will still be hummed years from now."