Obit watch: January 8, 2024.

Norby Walters, famous sports and entertainment agent. I wanted to note this for a few reasons:

Is it just me, or did he look an awful lot like Paul Shaffer?

Mr. Walters and Mr. [Lloyd] Bloom were convicted of mail fraud and racketeering in 1989. Mr. Walters was sentenced to five years in prison and Mr. Bloom to three, but neither served a day.
An appeals court reversed the racketeering convictions in 1990, ruling that the trial judge had not instructed the jury that the two men’s actions had been guided by their lawyers’ advice that the signings were legal.

Also:

In 1993, the mail fraud convictions were also overturned.
“Walters is by all accounts a nasty and untrustworthy fellow,” Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote in the 1993 ruling, “but the prosecutor did not prove that his efforts to circumvent the N.C.A.A.’s rules amounted to mail fraud.”

That’s Judge Frank Easterbrook, TMQ’s brother.

Mr. Bloom was shot to death at his home in Malibu, Calif., later that year.

From 1990 to 2017, he organized an annual Oscar viewing party, which he called Night of 100 Stars, in hotel ballrooms in Beverly Hills. It drew stars like Jon Voight, Shirley Jones, Charles Bronson, Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau. He was also the host of a regular poker party at his condos in Southern California, where the regulars included Milton Berle, Bryan Cranston, Richard Lewis, Jason Alexander, James Woods, Charles Durning, Mimi Rogers and Alex Trebek.
“It was $2 a hand,” Robert Wuhl, the actor and comedian, said by phone. “So the most anybody lost was $250 and the most anybody won was $300 to $400. It was all about the kibitzing. Buddy Hackett would come to kibitz.”

You know, I’d probably put out $250 to sit at that table.

Joe D sent over a link to The Register’s obit for legendary computer scientist Niklaus Wirth, and Borepatch also ran an obit. I’ve had this in my back pocket for a few days, as I was hoping that a more mainstream source than El Reg would run an item.

Fred Chappell, author and former poet laureate of North Carolina. (Dagon, More Shapes than One) (Hattip: Lawrence.)

Cindy Morgan, actress. Other credits include “Beverly Hills Buntz”, “Mancuso, FBI”, and “She’s The Sheriff”.

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