Playing catch up once again:
Bobby Unser.
Unser conquered a fear of heights to capture the Pikes Peak climb a record 13 times, racing against the clock on a gravel road twisting through more than 150 turns with no guardrails overlooking drops of up to 1,000 feet. The previous Pikes Peak record of nine victories had been held by his uncle Louis.
He also won the Indianapolis 500 three times. Yes, three:
Unser bested Mario Andretti by 5.3 seconds in the 1981 race, but the next day officials gave the victory to Andretti after penalizing Unser one lap for illegally passing several cars under a caution. Had they imposed the penalty during the race, Unser might have made up the lap and won anyway, since he had the fastest car that season. An appeals panel reinstated Unser as the winner more than four months later but fined his team part of the winning purse.
Jason Matthews. This is a guy I’d never heard of, but am now intrigued by. He was a former CIA officer who wrote three spy novels (affiliate link) that are highly praised for their realism.
“I wake up every morning and I think, ‘Thank heavens for Vladimir Putin,’ ” Mr. Matthews told The Associated Press in 2017. “He’s a great character, and his national goals are the stuff for spy novels: weaken NATO, dissolve the Atlantic alliance, break up the European Union.”
Johnny Crawford. He was one of the original Mouseketeers, and later played Mark McCain, son of Lucas McCain, on “The Rifleman”.
Billie Hayes. Yes, “Witchiepoo”, but also “Mammy Yokum” in “Li’l Abner” (she replaced Charlotte Rae on Broadway, and played the role in the 1959 film version and the 1971 TV movie version).
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2021 at 8:15 am and is filed under 1970s, Books, Movies, Obits, Sports, Theatre, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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