The Rest In Peace & Remembrance Thread #2

Very sad to hear about Phyllis Frelich's passing. She was perfect as Grissom's mother, and I loved her final scene with Sara. I had hoped to see her again.
Sincere condolences to her family.

RIP Ms. Frelich, and Betty Grissom.
 
Last edited:
Garcia Marquez, Nobel laureate, dies at 87
Apr 17, 5:12 PM (ET)
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO and FRANK BAJAK

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez crafted intoxicating fiction from the fatalism, fantasy, cruelty and heroics of the world that set his mind churning as a child growing up on Colombia's Caribbean coast.

One of the most revered and influential writers of his generation, he brought Latin America's charm and maddening contradictions to life in the minds of millions and became the best-known practitioner of "magical realism," a blending of fantastic elements into portrayals of daily life that made the extraordinary seem almost routine.

In his works, clouds of yellow butterflies precede a forbidden lover's arrival. A heroic liberator of nations dies alone, destitute and far from home. "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," as one of his short stories is called, is spotted in a muddy courtyard.

Garcia Marquez's own epic story ended Thursday, at age 87, with his death at his home in southern Mexico City, according to two people close to the family who spoke on condition of anonymity out of respect for the family's privacy.

Full story at Iwon/AP News.
 
Country music singer Kevin Sharp dies at age 43
Apr 20, 7:28 PM (ET)

FAIR OAKS, Calif. (AP) - Kevin Sharp, a country music singer who recorded multiple chart-topping songs and survived a well-publicized battle with cancer, has died. He was 43.

His sister Mary Huston said Sharp died at his mother's Fair Oaks, Calif., home, at 10:49 p.m. Saturday of complications from past stomach surgeries and digestive issues.

"He had a strong heart, that's what kept him alive, (but) I'm so happy for him, that there's no more suffering," Huston said through tears and exhaustion. She had cared for her brother since his return home to Northern California last Friday after 10 weeks in the hospital.

Sharp gained fame with the release of "Nobody Knows," a single on his 1996 debut album, "Measure of a Man." He released two other albums, "Love Is" in 1998 and "Make A Wish" in 2005.

Born in 1970 in Redding, Calif., Sharp was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, as a high school senior. He overcame it after two years of chemotherapy and radiation.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation granted Sharp's wish to meet Grammy Award-winning music producer David Foster, who gave him tips to help jump-start his career.

Sharp also became a motivational speaker, a spokesman for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and wrote "Tragedy's Gift," a 2004 book about fighting cancer.

For the last several years, Sharp had struggled from past stomach surgery and residual issues from his aggressive cancer treatment.

"His dream came true through music, and he touched thousands of lives, and he helped heal the soul of people dealing with cancer," Huston said.

Sharp is survived by five brothers, two sisters and his mother.
 
Earl Morrall, QB, dead at 89

Earl Morrall is widely viewed as the most successful backup quarterback in NFL history. (AP)

Earl Morrall, who helped quarterback the NFL's only undefeated team and won three Super Bowls in a 21-year career in which he was mostly famous for being a backup, has died at 79.

The death of the longtime signal caller, who was known for his crew cut and heroics off the bench was reported by naplesnews.com, in Morrall's hometown of Naples, Fla. Morrall played from 1956-76, and was perhaps best known for his time with the Miami Dolphins. In 1972, when starting quarterback Bob Griese was injured, Morrall took over and kept the team undefeated. Griese returned in the AFC Championship Game and went on to win the Super Bowl, but it was Morrall who won AFC Player of the Year honors.

After his playing days ended, Morrall remained in South Florida, even serving as mayor of Davie.
 
Bob Hoskins dies aged 71


Actor Bob Hoskins, best known for roles in Mona Lisa, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Long Good Friday, has died of pneumonia at the age of 71.


His agent confirmed to the BBC that he died on Tuesday (April 29) in hospital, surrounded by family. The British actor had announced he was retiring from acting in 2012 after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Hoskins was nominated for an Oscar in 1987 for his leading role in Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa, for which he won Best Actor at the BAFTAs and the Cannes Film Festival.

He had previously received BAFTA nominations for his roles in Dennis Potter’s Pennies From Heaven (1978), classic gangster drama The Long Good Friday (1980) and his supporting performance opposite Michael Caine and Richard Gere in The Honorary Consul (1983).

Hoskins also attracted awards attention from the Golden Globes, with nominations for his role in live action-animation hybrid Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Stephen Frears’ Mr Henderson Presents (2005).

With more than 100 credits across film and television, his final two roles in 2012 spoke to a career that straddled big budget features and smaller, independent fare: action adventure Snow White and the Huntsmen and British comedy Outside Bet.

“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Bob,” the actor’s wife Linda and children Alex, Sarah, Rosa and Jack said in a statement.

“Bob died peacefully at hospital last night surrounded by family, following a bout of pneumonia. We ask that you respect our privacy during this time and thank you for your messages of love and support.”
Click to expand...
 
Al Feldstein, who headed Mad magazine, dies
Apr 30, 3:17 PM (ET)

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Al Feldstein, whose 28 years at the helm of Mad transformed the satirical magazine into a pop culture institution, has died. He was 88.
The Franzen-Davis Funeral Home and Crematory says Feldstein died Tuesday at his home in Livingston, Mont. No cause of death was released.
Feldstein and publisher William M. Gaines assembled a pool of artists and writers who turned out such enduring features as "Spy vs. Spy," "The Lighter Side of..." and "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions." Feldstein retired from Mad magazine at the end of 1984.
The funeral home says Feldstein began working in comics while still a student at the High School of Music and Art in New York.
His survivors include his wife, Michelle, a stepdaughter, her husband, and two grandsons.
 
Efrem Zimbalist Jr., star of 'The FBI,' dead at 95

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Handsome, debonair and blessed with a distinguished voice that reflected his real-life prep school upbringing, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. seemed born to play the television roles that made him famous, that of hip Hollywood detective and brilliant G-man.

A prolific actor who also appeared in numerous films and stage productions, Zimbalist became a household name in 1958 as Stu Bailey, the wisecracking private investigator who was a co-partner in a swinging Hollywood detective agency located at the exclusive address of "77 Sunset Strip."

When the show of the same name ended in 1964, Zimbalist became an even bigger star playing the empathetic, methodical G-man Lewis Erskine in "The F.B.I."

The actor, who in recent years had retired to his ranch in Southern California's bucolic horse country, died there Friday at age 95.

"We are heartbroken to announce the passing into peace of our beloved father, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., today at his Solvang ranch," the actor's daughter Stephanie Zimbalist and son Efrem Zimbalist III said in a statement. "He actively enjoyed his life to the last day, showering love on his extended family, playing golf and visiting with close friends."

Zimbalist's stunning good looks and cool, deductive manner made him an instant star when "77 Sunset Strip" began its six-season run in 1958.

He and his partner Jeff Spencer (played by Roger Smith) operated from an office in the center of Hollywood where, aided by their sometime helper, Kookie, a jive-talking beatnik type who doubled as a parking lot attendant, they tracked down miscreants.

Kookie's character, played by Edd Byrnes, helped draw young viewers to the show, and his constant hair combing created the national catchphrase, "Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb."

When the program's run ended in 1964, Zimbalist segued seamlessly into "The F.B.I." the following year and that program aired until 1974.

At the end of each episode, after Zimbalist and his fellow G-men had captured that week's mobsters, subversives, bank robbers or spies, the series would post real photos from the FBI's most-wanted list. Some of them led to arrests, which helped give the show the complete seal of approval of the agency's real-life director, J. Edgar Hoover.

"He never came on the set, but I knew him. A charming man, extremely Virginia formal and an extraordinary command of the language," Zimbalist said of Hoover, who opened the bureau's files to the show's producers and even allowed background shots to be filmed at real FBI offices.

In 2009 the FBI honored Zimbalist with his own special agent's badge, making him an honorary G-man in recognition of the contributions his show and his character made to the agency's reputation.

"We could not have asked for a better character, or a better man, to play his role," FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said at the time.

The son of violin virtuoso Efrem Zimbalist and acclaimed opera singer Alma Gluck, young Efrem initially appeared headed for a musical career himself. He studied violin for seven years under the tutelage of Jascha Heifetz's father, but eventually developed more interest in theater.

After serving in World War II, he made his stage debut in "The Rugged Path," starring Spencer Tracy, and appeared in other plays and a soap opera before being called to Hollywood. Warner Bros. signed him to a contract and cast him in minor film roles.

He also had a recurring role in the hit Western series "Maverick," playing con man Dandy Jim Buckley.

Then "77 Sunset Strip" debuted, starring Zimbalist as a cultured former O.S.S. officer and language expert whose partner was an Ivy League Ph.D.

The program brought Zimbalist an Emmy nomination in 1959, but after a few seasons he tired of the long hours and what he believed were the bad scripts.

"A job like this should pay off in one of two ways: satisfaction or money. The money is not great, and there is no satisfaction," he said.

When the show faltered in 1963, Jack Webb of "Dragnet" fame was hired for an overhaul. He fired the cast except for Zimbalist, whom he made a world-traveling investigator. The repair work failed, and the series ended the following year.

Zimbalist had better luck with "The F.B.I.," which endured for a decade as one of TV's most popular shows.

His daughter Stephanie also took up acting — and small-screen detective work, in the hit 1980s TV series "Remington Steele." Her father had a recurring role in that show, again playing a con man.

During summer breaks between his two hit series, Warner Bros. cast Zimbalist in several feature films, including "Too Much Too Soon," ''Home Before Dark," ''The Crowded Sky," ''The Chapman Report" and "Wait Until Dark." In the latter, he played the husband of Audrey Hepburn, a blind woman terrorized by thugs in a truly frightening film.

Zimbalist also appeared in "By Love Possessed," ''Airport 1975," ''Terror Out of the Sky" and "Hot Shots."

But he would always be best known as a TV star, ironic for an actor who told The Associated Press in 1993 that when Warner Bros. hired him he had no interest in doing television.

"They showed me in my contract where it said I had to," he recalled.

"I ended up with my life slanted toward television and I just accept that," he said. "I think you play the hand the way it's dealt, that's all."

In the 1990s, Zimbalist returned to television, recording the voice of Alfred the butler in the cartoon version of the "Batman" TV series. That role, he said, "has made me an idol in my little grandchildren's eyes."

Efrem Zimbalist Jr. was born in New York City on Nov. 30, 1918.

His mother, reasoning that living amid the musical elite was not the best upbringing for a boy, sent him to boarding schools where he could be toughened by others his age. But young Efrem was bashful and withdrawn in school. His only outlet was acting in campus plays.

"I walked onstage in a play at prep school, and with childish naiveté, told myself, 'Wow, I'm an actor!'" he once recalled.

He was kicked out of Yale after two years over dismal grades, which he blamed on a playboy attitude.

Afraid to go home, he stayed with a friend in New York City for three months, working as a page at NBC headquarters, where he was dazzled by the famous radio stars. Unable to break into radio as an actor, he studied at the famed Neighborhood Playhouse.

During World War II he served in the infantry, receiving a Purple Heart for a shrapnel wound in his leg.

In 1945, Zimbalist married Emily McNair and they had a daughter, Nancy, and son, Efrem III.

After his wife died in 1950 he gave up acting for a time to teach at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where his father was an artist in residence. He returned to Hollywood five years later, marrying Loranda Stephanie Spalding in 1956, and she gave birth to their daughter Stephanie.

Zimbalist was preceded in death by his second wife and by his daughter Nancy.

In addition to his son and other daughter, Stephanie, he is survived by four grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.
Click to expand...
 
Little Rascals Actress Jackie Lynn Taylor Dies at 88

Jackie Lynn Taylor, who played one of The Little Rascals in five Our Gang comedy shorts released in 1934, died Monday in the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, Calif. She was 88.

Jack Fries, a former CBS journalist and TV anchor/producer, said his wife had Alzheimer’s disease, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Taylor debuted as Jane, the “girlfriend” of gang leader Wally (Wally Albright), in Hi-Neighbor, an episode in which the youngsters decide to build their own fire engine. When she grew too tall, she was replaced by Darla Hood.

“We didn’t have scripts,” she told The Bee in 2000. “We played together. We were kids who worked together, who played together and who went to school together. We weren’t great actors, but we got along.”

She wrote a 1970 book about the Rascals, The Turned-on Hollywood 7, and co-hosted along with Fries The Little Rascals Family Theatre , which aired on TV in the 1970s and was a big hit.

A native of Compton, Calif., Taylor also appeared in Our Gang producer Hal Roach's Laurel & Hardy films The Devil's Brother (1933) and Babes in Toyland (1934).

Later, she worked at KTTV in Los Angeles as one of the first female TV co-hosts in Southern California. She went on to host shows or work as a reporter in such California cities as Bakersfield, Tulare, Stockton, Salinas and Sacramento.

Her first husband was actor and drama teacher Ben Bard.
Click to expand...
 
tanacreegan--if you only joined Talk CSI to post spam, you came to the wrong messageboard. Take it somewhere else. :(
 
'Godfather' Cinematographer Gordon Willis Dies at 82

Gordon Willis, the acclaimed cinematographer behind the Godfather trilogy and such Woody Allen films as Annie Hall, Manhattan, Broadway Danny Rose and Zelig, has died. He was 82.

Richard Crudo, the president of the American Society of Cinematographers, confirmed the news Sunday night. No other details were immediately available.

Willis’ credits also include Klute (1971), The Paper Chase (1973), The Parallax View (1974), The Drowning Pool (1975), All the President’s Men (1976), Comes a Horseman (1978), Allen’sInteriors (1978), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and Stardust Memories (1980)

Willis received Oscar nominations for Zelig and The Godfather: Part III and earned the ASC’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. In 2010, he was awarded an Honorary Oscar “for unsurpassed mastery of light, shadow, color and motion.”

He was given the nickname “The Prince of Darkness” by fellow cinematographer Conrad Hall for his daring use of using as little light as possible.

Willis was on the leading edge of a new wave of cinematographers in the 1970s who were changing film in radical ways. In The Godfather, he masked Marlon Brando’s eyes to conceal his thoughts from the audience.

"I still can’t believe the reactions," he said in an interview with the ASC before he received their highest honor. “People said, ‘You can’t see his eyes (Brando’s).’ Well, you didn’t see his eyes in 10 percent of the movie, and there was a reason why. I remember asking, ‘Why do you have to see his eyes in that scene? Based on what?’ Do you know what the answer was? ‘That’s the way it was done in Hollywood.’ That’s not a good enough reason. There were times when we didn’t want the audience to see what was going on in there (Brando’s eyes), and then suddenly (snaps his fingers), you let them see into his soul for a while.”

Later in his career, Willis worked on The Money Pit (1986), The Pick-Up Artist (1987), Bright Lights, Big City (1988), Presumed Innocent (1990), Malice (1993) and The Devil’s Own (1997).

"No one showed more with less," screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie said on Twitter.

Willis’ father was a make-up man for Warner Bros. in Brooklyn during the 1930s. He wanted to be an actor but soon became interested in stage lighting and set design, and he began shooting still pictures for a stock company.

Willis was assigned to a U.S. Air Force motion picture unit for four years during the Korean War, when he did documentaries and training films. In 1956, he returned to New York, where he worked as a freelance assistant cameraman in television.

Willis’ first feature was End of the Road (1969), starring Stacey Keach. Loving and The Landlord followed the next year; The Godfather would be his seventh film in a busy three-year span.

In the ASC interview, Willis was asked why so many of the films that he and Allen made together were produced in black-and-white.

"It was a natural decision for Manhattan,” he said. “I’ve always perceived New York as a black-and-white town. Zelig was appropriate as a black-and-white period piece. Stardust Memories was a retrospective story, and Woody felt it would be nice in black and white. I think he just liked material which went with black-and-white film.”
Click to expand...
 
Matthew Cowles, the Soap Opera Actor Husband of Christine Baranski, Dies at Age 69

Soap opera star Matthew Cowles died at age 69 on Thursday, May 22. Cowles was married to Good Wife actress Christine Baranski for more than 30 years.

A two-time Daytime Emmy nominee, Cowles was best known for his role as Billy Clyde Tuggle on the soap opera All My Children.

His manager Tsu Tsu Stanton tweeted about the loss on May 23, writing, "#Matthew Cowles passed away on 5/22.I had the pleasure of being his manager. He was a very gifted and kind man who loved life and everyone."

Cowles had roles in 2000's Nurse Betty and 2010's Shutter Island, and in addition to his time on All My Children, he spent time on Oz, Lonesome Dove, and The Bold and the Beautiful.

The son of Broadway producer Chandler Cowles also worked as a playwright in New York and starred on Broadway in Malcolm, The Time of Your Life, and Sweet Bird of Youth.
Click to expand...
 
Pin-up photographer Bunny Yeager dies at 85

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Bunny Yeager, a model turned pin-up photographer who helped jump-start the career of then-unknown Bettie Page, died Sunday, her agent said. She was 85 years old.

Yeager died at a North Miami hospice where she had been for about a week, her agent, Ed Christin said.

Yeager's legacy is her cultural impact, from pin-up photography and fashion, helping to popularize the bikini, and influencing other artists such as Cindy Sherman, who read Yeager's guides on photographing nudes and making self-portraits, Christin said.

"Anyone in Miami in the 1950s who wanted a bikini would come to her, and she'd make one," he said.

Yeager became famous for making everyday women, from stay-at-home mothers to airline attendants, feel comfortable enough to bare it all. Her photos of Page in a leopard-print bathing suit standing next to a real cheetah are still well-known today.

"They all wanted to model for me because they knew that I wouldn't take advantage of them," Yeager told The Associated Press during a 2013 interview. "And I wouldn't push them to do nude if they didn't want to do nudes. It wasn't a day when nude photography was prevalent."

Linnea Eleanor Yeager was born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, on March 13, 1929, and in the 1940s became one of the most photographed models in Miami during her early career. She later turned the camera on herself, posing in bathing suits she handmade for her 5-foot-9 frame. Her self-portraits were turned into a book, "How I Photograph Myself," in 1964.

She began taking photos of Page in 1954 as she began her career behind the camera.

She published about a dozen books and her work has been displayed in art galleries across the world. Besides the iconic Page photo, Yeager also shot stills of the Swedish actress Ursula Andress, who starred in the 1962 James Bond film "Dr. No" in a white bikini, a knife sheathed at her side.

Yeager said she had few requests when several magazines began to struggle or went out of business over the last decade, but her career returned to the spotlight in 2010 when the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh held an exhibition of her work. There was also an exhibition in Miami in 2013.

"And I still get that little tingle when I see the photos on the wall," she said of the latter-day attention.

In her studio, Yeager kept a stash of photos no one had seen in cabinets. They will be included in a new book Yeager was finishing, scheduled for publication in September, celebrating the 60th anniversary of Yeager's first photo shoots with Page, Christin said.

"I'm still feeling like a little child and excited over everything new that comes along in my life," Yeager said in 2013. "I don't know where it will lead to yet, but it sounds good to me."
Click to expand...
 
Author Maya Angelou dies at 86 in North Carolina

NEW YORK (AP) — Maya Angelou was gratified, but not surprised by her extraordinary fortune.

I'm not modest," she told The Associated Press in 2013. "I have no modesty. Modesty is a learned behavior. But I do pray for humility, because humility comes from the inside out."

Her story awed millions. The young single mother who worked at strip clubs to earn a living later danced and sang on stages around the world. A black woman born poor wrote and recited the most popular presidential inaugural poem in history. A childhood victim of rape, shamed into silence, eventually told her story through one of the most widely read memoirs of the past few decades.

Angelou, a Renaissance woman and cultural pioneer, died Wednesday morning at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, her son, Guy B. Johnson, said in a statement. The 86-year-old had been a professor of American studies at Wake Forest University since 1982.

"She lived a life as a teacher, activist, artist and human being. She was a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace," Johnson said.

Angelou had been set to appear this week at the Major League Baseball Beacon Awards Luncheon, but canceled in recent days citing an unspecified illness.

Tall and regal, with a deep, majestic voice, she was unforgettable whether encountered through sight, sound or the printed word. She was an actress, singer and dancer in the 1950s and 1960s and broke through as an author in 1970 with "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," which became standard (and occasionally censored) reading and made Angelou one of the first black women to enjoy mainstream success. "Caged Bird" was the start of a multipart autobiography that continued through the decades and captured a life of hopeless obscurity and triumphant, kaleidoscopic fame.

The world was watching in 1993 when she read her cautiously hopeful "On the Pulse of the Morning" at President Bill Clinton's first inauguration. Her confident performance openly delighted Clinton and made publishing history by making a poem a best-seller, if not a critical favorite. For President George W. Bush, she read another poem, "Amazing Peace," at the 2005 Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the White House. Presidents honored her in return with a National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor. In 2013, she received an honorary National Book Award.

She called herself a poet, in love with the "sound of language," ''the music in language," as she explained to The Associated Press in 2013. But she lived so many lives. She was a wonder to Toni Morrison, who marveled at Angelou's freedom from inhibition, her willingness to celebrate her own achievements. She was a mentor to Oprah Winfrey, whom she befriended when Winfrey was still a local television reporter, and often appeared on her friend's talk show program. She mastered several languages and published not just poetry, but advice books, cookbooks and children's stories. She wrote music, plays and screenplays, received an Emmy nomination for her acting in "Roots," and never lost her passion for dance, the art she considered closest to poetry.

The line of the dancer: If you watch (Mikhail) Baryshnikov and you see that line, that's what the poet tries for. The poet tries for the line, the balance," she told The Associated Press in 2008, shortly before her 80th birthday.

Her very name as an adult was a reinvention. Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis and raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and San Francisco, moving back and forth between her parents and her grandmother. She was smart and fresh to the point of danger, packed off by her family to California after sassing a white store clerk in Arkansas. Other times, she didn't speak at all: At age 7, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend and didn't talk for years. She learned by reading, and listening.

"I loved the poetry that was sung in the black church: 'Go down Moses, way down in Egypt's land,'" she told the AP. "It just seemed to me the most wonderful way of talking. And 'Deep River.' Ooh! Even now it can catch me. And then I started reading, really reading, at about 7 1/2, because a woman in my town took me to the library, a black school library. ... And I read every book, even if I didn't understand it."

At age 9, she was writing poetry. By 17, she was a single mother. In her early 20s, she danced at a strip joint, ran a brothel, was married, and then divorced. But by her mid-20s, she was performing at the Purple Onion in San Francisco, where she shared billing with another future star, Phyllis Diller. She also spent a few days with Billie Holiday, who was kind enough to sing a lullaby to Angelou's son, Guy, surly enough to heckle her off the stage and astute enough to tell her: "You're going to be famous. But it won't be for singing."

After renaming herself Maya Angelou for the stage ("Maya" was a childhood nickname, "Angelou" a variation of her husband's name), she toured in "Porgy and Bess" and Jean Genet's "The Blacks" and danced with Alvin Ailey. She worked as a coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and lived for years in Egypt and Ghana, where she met Nelson Mandela, a longtime friend; and Malcolm X, to whom she remained close until his assassination, in 1965. Three years later, she was helping King organize the Poor People's March in Memphis, Tenn., where the civil rights leader was slain on Angelou's 40th birthday.

"Every year, on that day, Coretta and I would send each other flowers," Angelou said of King's widow, Coretta Scott King, who died in 2006.

Angelou was little known outside the theatrical community until "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," which might not have happened if James Baldwin hadn't persuaded Angelou, still grieving over King's death, to attend a party at Jules Feiffer's house. Feiffer was so taken by Angelou that he mentioned her to Random House editor Bob Loomis, who persuaded her to write a book by daring her into it, saying that it was "nearly impossible to write autobiography as literature."

Well, maybe I will try it," Angelou responded. "I don't know how it will turn out. But I can try."

Angelou's musical style was clear in a passage about boxing great Joe Louis's defeat in 1936 against German fighter Max Schmeling:

"My race groaned," she wrote. "It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trail of a man running through slimy swamps. ... If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help."

Angelou's memoir was occasionally attacked, for seemingly opposite reasons. In a 1999 essay in Harper's, author Francine Prose criticized "Caged Bird" as "manipulative" melodrama. Meanwhile, Angelou's passages about her rape and teen pregnancy have made it a perennial on the American Library Association's list of works that draw complaints from parents and educators.

"'I thought that it was a mild book. There's no profanity," Angelou told the AP. "It speaks about surviving, and it really doesn't make ogres of many people. I was shocked to find there were people who really wanted it banned, and I still believe people who are against the book have never read the book."

Angelou appeared on several TV programs, notably the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries "Roots." She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1973 for her appearance in the play "Look Away." She directed the film "Down in the Delta," about a drug-wrecked woman who returns to the home of her ancestors in the Mississippi Delta. She won three Grammys for her spoken-word albums and in 2013 received an honorary National Book Award for her contributions to the literary community.

Back in the 1960s, Malcolm X had written to Angelou and praised her for her ability to communicate so directly, with her "feet firmly rooted on the ground." In 2002, Angelou communicated in an unexpected way when she launched a line of greeting cards with industry giant Hallmark. Angelou admitted she was cool to the idea at first. Then she went to Loomis, her editor at Random House.

I said, 'I'm thinking about doing something with Hallmark,'" she recalled. "And he said, 'You're the people's poet. You don't want to trivialize yourself.' So I said 'OK' and I hung up. And then I thought about it. And I thought, if I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in the people's hands — and I hope in their hearts. So I thought, 'Hmm, I'll do it.'"

In North Carolina, she lived in an 18-room house and taught American Studies at Wake Forest University. She was also a member of the board of trustees for Bennett College, a private school for black women in Greensboro. Angelou hosted a weekly satellite radio show for XM's "Oprah & Friends" channel.

She remained close enough to the Clintons that in 2008 she supported Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy over the ultimately successful run of the country's first black president, Barack Obama. But a few days before Obama's inauguration, she was clearly overjoyed. She told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette she would be watching it on television "somewhere between crying and praying and being grateful and laughing when I see faces I know."

Active on the lecture circuit, she gave commencement speeches and addressed academic and corporate events across the country. Angelou received dozens of honorary degrees, and several elementary schools were named for her. As she approached her 80th birthday, she decided to study at the Missouri-based Unity Church, which advocates healing through prayer.

"I was in Miami and my son (Guy Johnson, her only child) was having his 10th operation on his spine. I felt really done in by the work I was doing, people who had expected things of me," said Angelou, who then recalled a Unity church service she attended in Miami.

"The preacher came out — a young black man, mostly a white church — and he came out and said, 'I have only one question to ask, and that is, "Why have you decided to limit God?'" And I thought, 'That's exactly what I've been doing.' So then he asked me to speak, and I got up and said, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.' And I said it about 50 times, until the audience began saying it with me, 'Thank you, THANK YOU!'"
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top