The Rest In Peace & Remembrance Thread #2
- Thread starter sandersidle
- Start date
Dynamo1
Head of the Swing Shift
Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar dies at 92
Dec 12, 2:31 AM (ET)
By MUNEEZA NAQVI and RAVI NESSMAN
NEW DELHI (AP) - With an instrument perplexing to most Westerners, Ravi Shankar helped connect the world through music. The sitar virtuoso hobnobbed with the Beatles, became a hippie musical icon and spearheaded the first rock benefit concert as he introduced traditional Indian ragas to Western audiences over nearly a century.
From George Harrison to John Coltrane, from Yehudi Menuhin to David Crosby, his connections reflected music's universality, though a gap persisted between Shankar and many Western fans. Sometimes they mistook tuning for tunes, while he stood aghast at displays like Jimi Hendrix's burning guitar.
Shankar died Tuesday at age 92. A statement on his website said he died in San Diego, near his Southern California home with his wife and a daughter by his side. The musician's foundation issued a statement saying that he had suffered upper respiratory and heart problems and had undergone heart-valve replacement surgery last week.
Dec 12, 2:31 AM (ET)
By MUNEEZA NAQVI and RAVI NESSMAN
NEW DELHI (AP) - With an instrument perplexing to most Westerners, Ravi Shankar helped connect the world through music. The sitar virtuoso hobnobbed with the Beatles, became a hippie musical icon and spearheaded the first rock benefit concert as he introduced traditional Indian ragas to Western audiences over nearly a century.
From George Harrison to John Coltrane, from Yehudi Menuhin to David Crosby, his connections reflected music's universality, though a gap persisted between Shankar and many Western fans. Sometimes they mistook tuning for tunes, while he stood aghast at displays like Jimi Hendrix's burning guitar.
Shankar died Tuesday at age 92. A statement on his website said he died in San Diego, near his Southern California home with his wife and a daughter by his side. The musician's foundation issued a statement saying that he had suffered upper respiratory and heart problems and had undergone heart-valve replacement surgery last week.
Dynamo1
Head of the Swing Shift
Bar code's co-inventor N. Joseph Woodland dies, 91
Dec 13, 7:17 PM (ET)
By EMERY P. DALESIO
(AP) This undated family photo taken in the 1950s shows bar code co-inventor N. Joseph Woodland. ...
Full Image
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Norman Joseph Woodland, the co-inventor of the bar code that labels nearly every product in stores and has boosted productivity in nearly every sector of commerce worldwide, has died. He was 91.
Woodland died Sunday in Edgewater, N.J., from the effects of Alzheimer's disease and complications of his advanced age, his daughter, Susan Woodland of New York, said Thursday.
Woodland and Bernard Silver were students at what is now called Drexel University in Philadelphia when Silver overheard a grocery-store executive asking an engineering school dean to channel students into research on how product information could be captured at checkout, Susan Woodland said.
Full story at Iwon / AP News.
Dec 13, 7:17 PM (ET)
By EMERY P. DALESIO
(AP) This undated family photo taken in the 1950s shows bar code co-inventor N. Joseph Woodland. ...
Full Image
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Norman Joseph Woodland, the co-inventor of the bar code that labels nearly every product in stores and has boosted productivity in nearly every sector of commerce worldwide, has died. He was 91.
Woodland died Sunday in Edgewater, N.J., from the effects of Alzheimer's disease and complications of his advanced age, his daughter, Susan Woodland of New York, said Thursday.
Woodland and Bernard Silver were students at what is now called Drexel University in Philadelphia when Silver overheard a grocery-store executive asking an engineering school dean to channel students into research on how product information could be captured at checkout, Susan Woodland said.
Full story at Iwon / AP News.
Dynamo1
Head of the Swing Shift
Jack Klugman has died at the age of 90
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Jack Klugman, the prolific, craggy-faced character actor and regular guy who was loved by millions as the messy one in TV's "The Odd Couple" and the crime-fighting coroner in "Quincy, M.E.," died Monday, a son said. He was 90.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... 4-18-11-02
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Durning, king of character actors, dies in NYC
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charles Durning grew up in poverty, lost five of his nine siblings to disease, barely lived through D-Day and was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge.
His hard life and wartime trauma provided the basis for a prolific 50-year career as a consummate Oscar-nominated character actor, playing everyone from a Nazi colonel to the pope to Dustin Hoffman's would-be suitor in "Tootsie."
Durning, who died Monday at age 89 in New York, got his start as an usher at a burlesque theater in Buffalo, N.Y. When one of the comedians showed up too drunk to go on, Durning took his place. He would recall years later that he was hooked as soon as heard the audience laughing.
He told The Associated Press in 2008 that he had no plans to stop working. "They're going to carry me out, if I go," he said.
Durning's longtime agent and friend, Judith Moss, told The Associated Press that he died of natural causes in his home in the borough of Manhattan.
Full story at Yahoo news.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Jack Klugman, the prolific, craggy-faced character actor and regular guy who was loved by millions as the messy one in TV's "The Odd Couple" and the crime-fighting coroner in "Quincy, M.E.," died Monday, a son said. He was 90.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... 4-18-11-02
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Durning, king of character actors, dies in NYC
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charles Durning grew up in poverty, lost five of his nine siblings to disease, barely lived through D-Day and was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge.
His hard life and wartime trauma provided the basis for a prolific 50-year career as a consummate Oscar-nominated character actor, playing everyone from a Nazi colonel to the pope to Dustin Hoffman's would-be suitor in "Tootsie."
Durning, who died Monday at age 89 in New York, got his start as an usher at a burlesque theater in Buffalo, N.Y. When one of the comedians showed up too drunk to go on, Durning took his place. He would recall years later that he was hooked as soon as heard the audience laughing.
He told The Associated Press in 2008 that he had no plans to stop working. "They're going to carry me out, if I go," he said.
Durning's longtime agent and friend, Judith Moss, told The Associated Press that he died of natural causes in his home in the borough of Manhattan.
Full story at Yahoo news.
Dynamo1
Head of the Swing Shift
Ned Wertimer, doorman on 'Jeffersons,' dies at 89
Jan 8, 8:51 PM (ET)
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Ned Wertimer, who played Ralph the Doorman on all 11 seasons of the CBS sitcom "The Jeffersons," has died.
Wertimer's manager Brad Lemack said Tuesday that the 89-year-old actor died at a Los Angeles-area nursing home on Jan. 2, following a November fall at his home in Burbank.
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., and a Navy pilot during World War II, Wertimer had one-off roles on dozens of TV shows from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, including "Car 54 Where Are You?" and "Mary Tyler Moore."
But he was best known by far as Ralph Hart, the uniformed, mustachioed doorman at the luxury apartment building on "The Jeffersons," the "All In the Family" spinoff that ran from 1975 to 1985.
The show's star, Sherman Hemsley, died July 24.
Jan 8, 8:51 PM (ET)
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Ned Wertimer, who played Ralph the Doorman on all 11 seasons of the CBS sitcom "The Jeffersons," has died.
Wertimer's manager Brad Lemack said Tuesday that the 89-year-old actor died at a Los Angeles-area nursing home on Jan. 2, following a November fall at his home in Burbank.
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., and a Navy pilot during World War II, Wertimer had one-off roles on dozens of TV shows from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, including "Car 54 Where Are You?" and "Mary Tyler Moore."
But he was best known by far as Ralph Hart, the uniformed, mustachioed doorman at the luxury apartment building on "The Jeffersons," the "All In the Family" spinoff that ran from 1975 to 1985.
The show's star, Sherman Hemsley, died July 24.
Dynamo1
Head of the Swing Shift
'Dear Abby' advice columnist dies at age 94[
Jan 17, 4:28 PM (ET)
By STEVE KARNO WSKI
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Pauline Friedman Phillips, who as Dear Abby dispensed snappy, sometimes saucy advice on love, marriage and meddling mothers-in-law to millions of newspaper readers around the world and opened the way for the likes of Dr. Ruth, Dr. Phil and Oprah, has died. She was 94.
Phillips died Wednesday in Minneapolis after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, said Gene Willis, a publicist for the Universal Uclick syndicate.
"My mother leaves very big high heels to fill with a legacy of compassion, commitment and positive social change," her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who now writes the column, said in a statement.
Private funeral services were held Thursday, Willis said.
The long-running "Dear Abby" column first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1956. Mother and daughter started sharing the byline in 2000, and Jeanne Phillips took over in 2002, when the family announced Pauline Phillips had Alzheimer's disease. Pauline Phillips wrote under the name Abigail Van Buren. Her column competed for decades with the advice of Ann Landers, written by her twin sister, Esther Friedman Lederer, who died in 2002. Their relationship was stormy in their early adult years, but they later regained the closeness they had growing up in Sioux City, Iowa.
The two columns differed in style. Ann Landers responded to questioners with homey, detailed advice. Abby's replies were often flippant and occasionally risqué one-liners, like some of those collected for her 1981 book "The Best of Dear Abby."
Jan 17, 4:28 PM (ET)
By STEVE KARNO WSKI
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Pauline Friedman Phillips, who as Dear Abby dispensed snappy, sometimes saucy advice on love, marriage and meddling mothers-in-law to millions of newspaper readers around the world and opened the way for the likes of Dr. Ruth, Dr. Phil and Oprah, has died. She was 94.
Phillips died Wednesday in Minneapolis after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, said Gene Willis, a publicist for the Universal Uclick syndicate.
"My mother leaves very big high heels to fill with a legacy of compassion, commitment and positive social change," her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who now writes the column, said in a statement.
Private funeral services were held Thursday, Willis said.
The long-running "Dear Abby" column first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1956. Mother and daughter started sharing the byline in 2000, and Jeanne Phillips took over in 2002, when the family announced Pauline Phillips had Alzheimer's disease. Pauline Phillips wrote under the name Abigail Van Buren. Her column competed for decades with the advice of Ann Landers, written by her twin sister, Esther Friedman Lederer, who died in 2002. Their relationship was stormy in their early adult years, but they later regained the closeness they had growing up in Sioux City, Iowa.
The two columns differed in style. Ann Landers responded to questioners with homey, detailed advice. Abby's replies were often flippant and occasionally risqué one-liners, like some of those collected for her 1981 book "The Best of Dear Abby."
Dynamo1
Head of the Swing Shift
by David Paleg » Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:22 pm Stuart Freeborn, Yoda's maker, dies
Stuart Freeborn, the pioneering makeup artist behind 'Star Wars' creatures Yoda and Chewbacca, as well work on '2001: A Space Odyssey', 'The Omen', and 'Superman', died yesterday at the age of 98. Rest in peace.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/feb ... maker-dies
Dynamo1
Head of the Swing Shift
'Underdog' cartoon co-creator dies at 85
Feb 15, 10:21 AM (ET)
BOSTON (AP) - William Watts Biggers, the co-creator of the cartoon "Underdog," the mild-mannered canine shoeshine boy who turned into a caped superhero to rescue his girlfriend, Sweet Polly Purebred, has died. He was 85.
Family friend Derek Tague says Biggers, who went by "Buck," died unexpectedly at his Plymouth, Mass., home on Sunday.
The native of Avondale Estates, Ga., worked for the New York City advertising firm DFS when he accepted an assignment from the agency's largest client, General Mills, to create television cartoons to promote its breakfast cereals. The most famous was "Underdog," which debuted on NBC in 1964.
Full story at Iwon/AP News.
Feb 15, 10:21 AM (ET)
BOSTON (AP) - William Watts Biggers, the co-creator of the cartoon "Underdog," the mild-mannered canine shoeshine boy who turned into a caped superhero to rescue his girlfriend, Sweet Polly Purebred, has died. He was 85.
Family friend Derek Tague says Biggers, who went by "Buck," died unexpectedly at his Plymouth, Mass., home on Sunday.
The native of Avondale Estates, Ga., worked for the New York City advertising firm DFS when he accepted an assignment from the agency's largest client, General Mills, to create television cartoons to promote its breakfast cereals. The most famous was "Underdog," which debuted on NBC in 1964.
Full story at Iwon/AP News.
Dynamo1
Head of the Swing Shift
Van Cliburn, pianist and Cold War hero, dies at 78
Feb 27, 3:59 PM (ET)
By ANGELA K. BROWN
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - For a time in Cold War America, Van Cliburn had all the trappings of a rock star: sold-out concerts, adoring, out-of-control fans and a name recognized worldwide. He even got a ticker-tape parade in New York City.
And he did it all with only a piano and some Tchaikovsky concertos.
The celebrated pianist played for every American president since Harry Truman, plus royalty and heads of state around the world. But he is best remembered for winning a 1958 piano competition in Moscow that helped thaw the icy rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Cliburn, who died Wednesday at 78 after fighting bone cancer, was "a great humanitarian and a brilliant musician whose light will continue to shine through his extraordinary legacy," said his publicist and longtime friend Mary Lou Falcone. "He will be missed by all who knew and admired him, and by countless people he never met."
Full story at Iwon / AP News.
Feb 27, 3:59 PM (ET)
By ANGELA K. BROWN
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - For a time in Cold War America, Van Cliburn had all the trappings of a rock star: sold-out concerts, adoring, out-of-control fans and a name recognized worldwide. He even got a ticker-tape parade in New York City.
And he did it all with only a piano and some Tchaikovsky concertos.
The celebrated pianist played for every American president since Harry Truman, plus royalty and heads of state around the world. But he is best remembered for winning a 1958 piano competition in Moscow that helped thaw the icy rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Cliburn, who died Wednesday at 78 after fighting bone cancer, was "a great humanitarian and a brilliant musician whose light will continue to shine through his extraordinary legacy," said his publicist and longtime friend Mary Lou Falcone. "He will be missed by all who knew and admired him, and by countless people he never met."
Full story at Iwon / AP News.
mulder42
Corpse
We've lost one of the best movie reviewers...Roger Ebert, RIP. 
Roger Ebert dead: A film critic with the soul of a poet
By Rick Kogan
3:10 p.m. CDT, April 4, 2013
It was reviewing movies that made Roger Ebert as famous and wealthy as many of the stars who felt the sting or caress of his pen or were the recipients of his televised thumbs-up or thumbs-down judgments. But in his words and in his life he displayed the soul of a poet whose passions and interests extended far beyond the darkened theaters where he spent so much of his professional life.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than 45 years and for more than three decades the co-host of one of the most powerful programs in television history (initially with the late Gene Siskel, the movie critic for the Chicago Tribune, and, following Siskel’s death in 1999, with his Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper), Ebert died Thursday, according to a family friend.
He was 70 years old.
Even still, he kept writing and remained as active as he could be. He was planning to host the 15th annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival later this month in his hometown of Champaign-Urbana.
Prolific almost to the point of disbelief -- the Weekend section of the Sun-Times often featured as many as nine on some days -- Ebert was arguably the most powerful movie critic in the history of that art form. He was also the author of 15 books, a contributor to various magazines, author of the liveliest of blogs and an inspiring teacher and lecturer at the University of Chicago.
Roger Joseph Ebert was born in downstate Urbana on June 18, 1942, the only child of Walter, an electrician, and Annabel, a bookkeeper.
His passion for journalism sparked early. He published his own neighborhood paper while in grammar school and in high school was co-editor of the school paper, published a science fiction fanzine and wrote for The News-Gazette in Champaign. His desire to attend Harvard University was thwarted by his parents' inability to afford that Ivy League institution, he attended the nearby University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he majored in journalism and was editor of the campus paper, The Daily Illini.
He began selling freelance stories and book reviews to the Chicago Daily News and Chicago Sun-Times during this time and after coming to Chicago to pursue a PhD. in English at the University of Chicago. In 1966, he was hired as a writer for the Sun-Times' Midwest magazine. Six months later he became movie critic.
His reviews, from the start and ever since, were at once artful and accessible. In 1975 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, the first such criticism prize to be awarded for film criticism by the Pulitzers.
These were raucous newspapering days (and nights) and Ebert was part of the crowd that often congregated at such bygone saloons as Riccardo's and O'Rourke's on North Avenue. It was there that Ebert would entertain the crowd of colleagues and admirers with his sharp wit, boyish playfulness and charming erudition.
Competition between rival newspapers reporters and critics was savage in those days as Siskel, then the Tribune's movie critic, later recalled, "We intensely disliked each other. We perceived each other as a threat to our well-being."
But in 1975, Eliot Wald, a producer at the local PBS station, WTTW-Ch. 11, had the idea of pairing Siskel and Ebert on a television show about movies and persuaded them both to give it a shot. Thea Flaum was the executive producer of what was then called "Opening Soon at a Theater Near You."
The early shows now appear as crude and unpolished as some of the shows on cable access. But at the time it was refreshing. Here were two men who, in physical appearance and personality, were unlike anything else on the tube.
These were not the typically neatly coiffed and sun-brushed talking heads. And they were not prim and polite; they argued.
Their enthusiasm for and knowledge of movies was palpable, and by providing clips from current releases they were giving viewers a consumer-friendly, witty, intelligent and entertaining package.
Still, few could have predicted either the eventual success of the show or the natural fit of the two personalities; they were uncannily well-matched and early on showed the ability to turn debate into an art.
The show became more popular with each season, taking a new name, "Sneak Previews," and gaining a national audience when it was syndicated on PBS in 1978 and where it would become for a time the most highly rated show in PBS history. In 1982, the pair signed with Tribune Entertainment and renamed the program "At the Movies." In 1986 they were lured into the fold of Buena Vista Television, a division of the Walt Disney Co., and changed the show’s name to "Siskel & Ebert at the Movies."
By this time the TV show had made Siskel and Ebert rich and famous. It had also made them the most powerful critics in the world, according to many polls and industry experts, and American pop cultural icons, sometimes referred to as "Sisbert." They spawned imitators and were firmly embedded in the American celebrity fabric due to frequent appearances on the "Tonight" show, "Late Night With David Letterman" and "Oprah."
In 1999 Siskel died after a quiet battle against complications that arose after a growth was removed from his brain 10 months earlier. He was only 53-years-old.
"I remember after we first started out," Ebert recalled at the time, "and we were on a talk show and this old actor Buddy Rogers said to us, 'The trouble with you guys is that you have a sibling rivalry.' We did. He was like a brother, and I loved him that way."
Though their on-air chemistry was deemed by the public more contentious than it actually was, Ebert recently summarized the relationship thusly: "How meaningless was the hate, how deep was the love."
Ebert carried on with show, teaming with Roeper for "At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper," which began airing in 2000. Although his name remained in the title, Ebert did not appear on the show after mid-2006, when he suffered post-surgical complications for his thyroid cancer and was unable to speak. He ended his association with the show in July 2008. His last TV venture, "Ebert Presents: At the Movies," ran for a short time early in 2011, his reviews voiced by others, including Bill Kurtis and this reporter.
He continued to write, devoting a great deal of time to his popular blog (rogerebert.com), where he discussed movies, among many topics, and detailed personal stories about his struggles and joys, including his bout with booze, which ended in 1979 when he joined Alcoholics Anonymous.
Many of those memories formed the foundation for his easygoing, candid and altogether charming 2011 autobiography, or, as he titled it, "Life Itself: A Memoir."
"I didn't intend for (my blog) to drift into autobiography, but in blogging there is a tidal drift that pushes you that way," he wrote in the book. "Some of these words, since rewritten and expanded, first appeared in blog form. Most are here for the first time. They come pouring forth in a flood of relief."
And so, he writes about his boyhood dog Blackie and a great deal about Steak & Shake, the fast-food chain ("If I were on death row, my last meal would be from Steak & Shake"). He vividly reminds us that among his many writings was the screenplay for Russ Meyer's 1970 "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" and the story for one of his later films.
An enthusiastic and self-proclaimed aficionado of beautiful and accomplished women—he had a bit of a crush and a friendship with Oprah Winfrey for a short time—Ebert married trial attorney Charlie "Chaz" Hammel-Smith on July 18, 1993.
His affection for her and her extended family peppers the book, and his love for her is palpable: "My life as an independent adult began after I met Chaz."
So is his gratitude for her indefatigable devotion during his operations and rehabilitations, writing: "I was very sick. ... This woman never lost her love, and when it was necessary she forced me to want to live. ... Her love was like a wind pushing me from the grave."
The pair were terrific and energetic hosts for parties at their homes in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and in Harbert, Mich. Though Ebert's health did not allow them to travel as they once did, his memory could capture previous journeys. Here he is writing at his most elegant in "Life Itself": "Romance in the winter in Venice is intimate and private, almost hushed. One night we went to the Municipal Casino, carefully taking only as much money as we were ready to lose, and lost it. In a little restaurant we had enough left for spaghetti with two plates and afterward lacked even the fare for the canal bus. We walked the long way back through the night and cold, our arms around each other, figures appearing out of the fog, lights traced on the wet stones, pausing now and again to kiss and be solemn."
Most of his books understandably focus on film. But in "Life Itself" one gets to know and appreciate Ebert and in it he tells us that the first movie he ever saw was "A Day at the Races." That may have helped set his course but there would have been no way to have predicted how many of us—reading the newspapers or watching TV—would be along for the colorful, influential and meaningful ride.
He is survived by his wife, Chaz. Services are pending.
rkogan@tribune.com
http://www.rogerebert.com/
http://www.ebertpresents.com/
Roger Ebert dead: A film critic with the soul of a poet
By Rick Kogan
3:10 p.m. CDT, April 4, 2013
It was reviewing movies that made Roger Ebert as famous and wealthy as many of the stars who felt the sting or caress of his pen or were the recipients of his televised thumbs-up or thumbs-down judgments. But in his words and in his life he displayed the soul of a poet whose passions and interests extended far beyond the darkened theaters where he spent so much of his professional life.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than 45 years and for more than three decades the co-host of one of the most powerful programs in television history (initially with the late Gene Siskel, the movie critic for the Chicago Tribune, and, following Siskel’s death in 1999, with his Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper), Ebert died Thursday, according to a family friend.
He was 70 years old.
Even still, he kept writing and remained as active as he could be. He was planning to host the 15th annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival later this month in his hometown of Champaign-Urbana.
Prolific almost to the point of disbelief -- the Weekend section of the Sun-Times often featured as many as nine on some days -- Ebert was arguably the most powerful movie critic in the history of that art form. He was also the author of 15 books, a contributor to various magazines, author of the liveliest of blogs and an inspiring teacher and lecturer at the University of Chicago.
Roger Joseph Ebert was born in downstate Urbana on June 18, 1942, the only child of Walter, an electrician, and Annabel, a bookkeeper.
His passion for journalism sparked early. He published his own neighborhood paper while in grammar school and in high school was co-editor of the school paper, published a science fiction fanzine and wrote for The News-Gazette in Champaign. His desire to attend Harvard University was thwarted by his parents' inability to afford that Ivy League institution, he attended the nearby University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he majored in journalism and was editor of the campus paper, The Daily Illini.
He began selling freelance stories and book reviews to the Chicago Daily News and Chicago Sun-Times during this time and after coming to Chicago to pursue a PhD. in English at the University of Chicago. In 1966, he was hired as a writer for the Sun-Times' Midwest magazine. Six months later he became movie critic.
His reviews, from the start and ever since, were at once artful and accessible. In 1975 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, the first such criticism prize to be awarded for film criticism by the Pulitzers.
These were raucous newspapering days (and nights) and Ebert was part of the crowd that often congregated at such bygone saloons as Riccardo's and O'Rourke's on North Avenue. It was there that Ebert would entertain the crowd of colleagues and admirers with his sharp wit, boyish playfulness and charming erudition.
Competition between rival newspapers reporters and critics was savage in those days as Siskel, then the Tribune's movie critic, later recalled, "We intensely disliked each other. We perceived each other as a threat to our well-being."
But in 1975, Eliot Wald, a producer at the local PBS station, WTTW-Ch. 11, had the idea of pairing Siskel and Ebert on a television show about movies and persuaded them both to give it a shot. Thea Flaum was the executive producer of what was then called "Opening Soon at a Theater Near You."
The early shows now appear as crude and unpolished as some of the shows on cable access. But at the time it was refreshing. Here were two men who, in physical appearance and personality, were unlike anything else on the tube.
These were not the typically neatly coiffed and sun-brushed talking heads. And they were not prim and polite; they argued.
Their enthusiasm for and knowledge of movies was palpable, and by providing clips from current releases they were giving viewers a consumer-friendly, witty, intelligent and entertaining package.
Still, few could have predicted either the eventual success of the show or the natural fit of the two personalities; they were uncannily well-matched and early on showed the ability to turn debate into an art.
The show became more popular with each season, taking a new name, "Sneak Previews," and gaining a national audience when it was syndicated on PBS in 1978 and where it would become for a time the most highly rated show in PBS history. In 1982, the pair signed with Tribune Entertainment and renamed the program "At the Movies." In 1986 they were lured into the fold of Buena Vista Television, a division of the Walt Disney Co., and changed the show’s name to "Siskel & Ebert at the Movies."
By this time the TV show had made Siskel and Ebert rich and famous. It had also made them the most powerful critics in the world, according to many polls and industry experts, and American pop cultural icons, sometimes referred to as "Sisbert." They spawned imitators and were firmly embedded in the American celebrity fabric due to frequent appearances on the "Tonight" show, "Late Night With David Letterman" and "Oprah."
In 1999 Siskel died after a quiet battle against complications that arose after a growth was removed from his brain 10 months earlier. He was only 53-years-old.
"I remember after we first started out," Ebert recalled at the time, "and we were on a talk show and this old actor Buddy Rogers said to us, 'The trouble with you guys is that you have a sibling rivalry.' We did. He was like a brother, and I loved him that way."
Though their on-air chemistry was deemed by the public more contentious than it actually was, Ebert recently summarized the relationship thusly: "How meaningless was the hate, how deep was the love."
Ebert carried on with show, teaming with Roeper for "At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper," which began airing in 2000. Although his name remained in the title, Ebert did not appear on the show after mid-2006, when he suffered post-surgical complications for his thyroid cancer and was unable to speak. He ended his association with the show in July 2008. His last TV venture, "Ebert Presents: At the Movies," ran for a short time early in 2011, his reviews voiced by others, including Bill Kurtis and this reporter.
He continued to write, devoting a great deal of time to his popular blog (rogerebert.com), where he discussed movies, among many topics, and detailed personal stories about his struggles and joys, including his bout with booze, which ended in 1979 when he joined Alcoholics Anonymous.
Many of those memories formed the foundation for his easygoing, candid and altogether charming 2011 autobiography, or, as he titled it, "Life Itself: A Memoir."
"I didn't intend for (my blog) to drift into autobiography, but in blogging there is a tidal drift that pushes you that way," he wrote in the book. "Some of these words, since rewritten and expanded, first appeared in blog form. Most are here for the first time. They come pouring forth in a flood of relief."
And so, he writes about his boyhood dog Blackie and a great deal about Steak & Shake, the fast-food chain ("If I were on death row, my last meal would be from Steak & Shake"). He vividly reminds us that among his many writings was the screenplay for Russ Meyer's 1970 "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" and the story for one of his later films.
An enthusiastic and self-proclaimed aficionado of beautiful and accomplished women—he had a bit of a crush and a friendship with Oprah Winfrey for a short time—Ebert married trial attorney Charlie "Chaz" Hammel-Smith on July 18, 1993.
His affection for her and her extended family peppers the book, and his love for her is palpable: "My life as an independent adult began after I met Chaz."
So is his gratitude for her indefatigable devotion during his operations and rehabilitations, writing: "I was very sick. ... This woman never lost her love, and when it was necessary she forced me to want to live. ... Her love was like a wind pushing me from the grave."
The pair were terrific and energetic hosts for parties at their homes in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and in Harbert, Mich. Though Ebert's health did not allow them to travel as they once did, his memory could capture previous journeys. Here he is writing at his most elegant in "Life Itself": "Romance in the winter in Venice is intimate and private, almost hushed. One night we went to the Municipal Casino, carefully taking only as much money as we were ready to lose, and lost it. In a little restaurant we had enough left for spaghetti with two plates and afterward lacked even the fare for the canal bus. We walked the long way back through the night and cold, our arms around each other, figures appearing out of the fog, lights traced on the wet stones, pausing now and again to kiss and be solemn."
Most of his books understandably focus on film. But in "Life Itself" one gets to know and appreciate Ebert and in it he tells us that the first movie he ever saw was "A Day at the Races." That may have helped set his course but there would have been no way to have predicted how many of us—reading the newspapers or watching TV—would be along for the colorful, influential and meaningful ride.
He is survived by his wife, Chaz. Services are pending.
rkogan@tribune.com
http://www.rogerebert.com/
http://www.ebertpresents.com/
Guybrush Threepwood
CSI Level One
Richard Griffiths who played Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter movies (among other things) died March 28.
"Griffiths died aged 65 at the University Hospital Coventry on 28 March 2013 after complications following heart surgery."
RIP Vernon.
"Griffiths died aged 65 at the University Hospital Coventry on 28 March 2013 after complications following heart surgery."
RIP Vernon.