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Notable Deaths of 2008
Source:
Michael Ricci
Actor Paul Newman died this year. So did Larry Harmon, who was better known as Bozo the Clown; W. Mark Felt, who was the mysterious Deep Throat; and William Stulla, who as Engineer Bill delighted a generation of children with a glass of milk.
William F. Buckley, the father of the modern conservative movement, also left the scene, as did singer and self-proclaimed “sex kitten" Eartha Kitt and the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter.
Millionaire Steve Fossett's adventurer's life came ...
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John Costelloe 'Sopranos' Johnny Cakes Dead in Suicide
Source:
All About Jazz
Police: 'Sopranos' actor who played gay cook 'Johnny Cakes' dead in apparent suicide in NYC
Police say the actor who portrayed the gay lover of a closeted mobster on The Sopranos has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in New York. Police spokesman Lt. John Grimpel says John Costelloe was found dead in an apparent suicide at his Brooklyn home on Dec. 18. Police were called to his residence after family members were unable to reach him. The ...
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Joza Karas Musician Revived Compositions by Jews in Concentration Camp
Source:
Michael Ricci
Joza Karas, a Czechoslovakian-born violin teacher who spent decades tracking down and reviving musical compositions written by Jews in the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt, died Nov. 28 at his home in Bloomfield, Conn. He was 82 and had congestive heart failure.
Karas spent more than 50 years teaching violin at the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music and performing with the Hartford Symphony.
His second career of discovering lost music began in the summer of 1970 after reading an ...
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Harold Pinter Influential Playwright and Nobel Winner Dies
Source:
Michael Ricci
Harold Pinter: master of menace. The English dramatist's original style changed the face of 20th century theater. As he wrote about oppression and censorship for the stage, he also lobbied for justice as a political activist.
Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning British playwright who addressed the isolation, fear and brutality of life in an original style that changed the face of 20th century theater, has died. He was 78. Pinter, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005, ...
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Eartha Kit Seductive Singer Crooned "Santa Baby" Dies on Christmas
Source:
Michael Ricci
Eartha Kitt, who purred and pounced her way across Broadway stages, recordings and movie and television screens in a show-business career that lasted more than six decades, died on Thursday. She was 81 and lived in Connecticut. Ms. Kitt, who began performing as a dancer in New York in the late 40s, went on to achieve success and acclaim on Broadway, recordings, film and television, long before other entertainment multitaskers like Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler. With her ...
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Page Cavanaugh Pianist-Singer Led Southland Jazz Trio Dies
Source:
Michael Ricci
Page Cavanaugh, a veteran pianist-singer whose trio was a popular nightclub and recording group in the late 1940s and '50s and who became one of Southern California's most enduring lounge jazz artists, has died. He was 86.
Cavanaugh, who also was a composer and arranger during his more than 60-year career, died Friday morning of kidney failure at a skilled nursing facility in Granada Hills, said Phil Mallory, Cavanaugh's bass player for 18 years. During the early days with his ...
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Elmer Valentine, CO-Founder of Whisky a Go Go, Dies at 85
Source:
Michael Ricci
Elmer Valentine, co-founder of the Whisky a Go Go, the legendary live rock showcase on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood that gave birth to the go-go dancer phenomenon of the 1960s, has died. He was 85.
Valentine, who also co-founded the Roxy Theatre in the early '70s, died at his home in Studio City after suffering from various ailments the last four years, said music mogul Lou Adler, his longtime friend and business partner.
The Beatles Played the Whiskey ...
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Robert Mulligan Directed 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Dies
Source:
Michael Ricci
Robert Mulligan, who was nominated for an Academy Award for directing the 1962 film classic To Kill a Mockingbird, died Saturday at his home in Lyme, Conn. He was 83. Mulligan had heart disease, his nephew Robert Rosenthal said.
The director began working in live television in New York in the early 1950s and won an Emmy Award for the TV movie The Moon and Sixpence in 1960. His first film, Fear Strikes Out, was released in 1957 and told ...
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