Obituary News

Actress Natasha Richardson Dies After Skiing Accident

Source: Michael Ricci
March 19, 2009

The wife of actor Liam Neeson and member of the Redgrave theatrical family was 45.

Natasha Richardson, the luminous British actress from one of the world's great acting families, whose performances ranged from the highbrow drama “The Handmaid's Tale" to the lightweight comedy “The Parent Trap" and the Tony-winning Broadway production of “Cabaret," died Wednesday. She was 45.

The wife of “Schindler's List" actor Liam Neeson and the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and the late film director Tony Richardson ...

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Actress Natasha Richardson Dead at 45, After Ski Accident

Source: All About Jazz
March 18, 2009

One function of celebrity is to alert the rest of us to hard truths, to teach us the lessons of love and grief. Among these is the cruelest jest of fate: a child's death that precedes his or her parents.

That instructive obscenity slammed home today with the death of Natasha Richardson, a distinguished British actress who was a third-generation star of the noted Redgrave acting clan, and elder daughter of the great and controversial Vanessa Redgrave.

Richardson died two ...

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Anne Brown, Soprano Who Was Gershwin's Bess, is Dead at 96

Source: Michael Ricci
March 18, 2009

Anne Brown, a penetratingly pure soprano who literally put the Bess in “Porgy and Bess” by inspiring George Gershwin to expand the character’s part in a folk opera that was originally to be called “Porgy,” died Friday in Oslo. She was 96.

Her daughter Paula Schjelderup announced the death.

“Porgy and Bess” burst onto the American scene in 1935 as a sophisticated musical treatment of poor blacks. Critics could not make out whether it was a musical comedy, a jazz ...

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Journalist Harvey Geller Writer Penned Lyrics for Popular Folk Acts Dies

Source: All About Jazz
March 18, 2009

Harvey Geller, lyricist and music journalist who worked as a sales exec for Daily Variety and served as West Coast editor of Cash Box magazine, died March 12 in Tarzana, Calif., after a brief illness. He was 86.

Geller also worked as a columnist, feature writer and reviewer, and as a sales executive for Billboard magazine.

Geller's songs were recorded by groups such as the Kingston Trio, the Brothers Four and the River City Ramblers and included such compositions as ...

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Jack Lawrence Songwriter did Lyrics for 'Tenderly' and 'Beyond the Sea' Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
March 17, 2009

Jack Lawrence, a songwriter who wrote the lyrics for hits such as “All or Nothing at All," “Tenderly" and “Beyond the Sea," has died. He was 96.

Lawrence, who fractured his pelvic bone in a fall in his Redding, Conn., home Friday, died of complications Sunday at Danbury Hospital, said Richard D. Lawrence, Lawrence's longtime partner whom he adopted.

In a songwriting career that began in the early 1930s, Lawrence had his songs recorded by artists such as Bing Crosby, ...

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David Williams Guitarist on Jackson Hits Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
March 16, 2009

David Williams, 58, a session guitar player who performed and recorded with Michael Jackson, Madonna and the Temptations, among others, died of cardiac arrest March 6 at the Sentara CarePlex Hospital in Hampton, Va., after suffering a stroke March 2.

A native of Newport News, Va., Williams had moved to Hampton after years living in California and on the road.

Williams played guitar on many of Jackson's biggest hits, including those from the albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. ...

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Altovise Davis Dies Widow of Sammy Davis Jr.

Source: Michael Ricci
March 15, 2009

Altovise Davis, the widow of Rat Pack singer and dancer Sammy Davis Jr., died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of complications from a stroke, her business partner, Barrett LaRoda, said. She was 65.

Davis was surrounded at the Los Angeles hospital by friends and family, including her son, Manny Davis.

Trained as an actor and dancer, Altovise Davis met the legendary showman in the mid-1960s, when they were both appearing in Broadway musicals, he in the lead of “Golden Boy" ...

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Joseph Bloch, Guide to Juilliard Pianists, Dies at 91

Source: Michael Ricci
March 15, 2009

The pianist confronts an embarrassment of riches. To a performer embarking on a concert career, five centuries of keyboard music beckon, with every phrase of every prelude and fugue, every sonata and partita, mazurka and minuet, impromptu and intermezzo, rhapsody and fantasy and scherzo and concerto the hundreds of thousands of pieces the repertory comprises open to an array of possible interpretations.

Joseph Bloch, who toured as well as taught, in the 1980s. To this vast storehouse of ebony-and-ivory treasures, ...

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