Obit watch: January 15, 2024.

January 15th, 2024

Tom Shales, former TV critic of the Washington Post and Pulitzer prize winner. WP (archived).

I was a big fan of his TV criticism when he was with the WP. Especially (as I’ve noted before) his reviews of Kathy Lee Gifford’s Christmas specials. I also thought Live From New York was a pretty spiffy book. (I haven’t read the expanded edition, or the ESPN book.)

Joyce Randolph. IMDB. NYT.

Alec Musser, actor. IMDB.

Peter Crombie. Other credits include “Se7en”, “Spenser: For Hire”, and a spin-off of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.

Noted SF writer Howard Waldrop, who was also a personal acquaintance, apparently passed away yesterday. I am putting this at the bottom of the obit watch because, so far, the news is just circulating among the Austin SF community and my circle of friends. I don’t have anything to link to right now. Also, I want to spend some time and write a longer obit for him, possibly tomorrow.

Posted in Books, Media, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 12, 2024.

January 12th, 2024

Russell Hamler, the last surviving member of Merrill’s Marauders.

After Pearl Harbor, Japan’s armed forces overran Southeast Asia, capturing Hong Kong, Singapore and Indochina. An American general, Joseph Stilwell, was forced into a humiliating retreat from Burma (now Myanmar). Allied leaders agreed in 1943 to send a force back into Burma, into what Winston Churchill called the “most forbidding fighting country imaginable.” It would be a long-range penetration unit, challenging Japanese control of the northern half of the country. The men would have only the weapons and supplies they could carry on mules or on their backs, with additional supplies dropped occasionally by parachute from planes.

…

The dense bamboo, tangled vines and banyan trees of the jungle, where men marched single-file in stifling tropical heat and humidity, was as much an enemy as the Japanese. Dysentery and malaria were endemic and rendered many men unfit for combat.
Mr. Hamler trekked until he wore holes in his boots, then walked on bare feet before receiving new footwear in one of the parachute drops, he recalled in an interview published in 2022 with Carole Ortenzo, a retired Army colonel and a member of Mr. Hamler’s extended family. Leeches sucked blood from his limbs and bugs “bored into your arms,” he recalled.
The Army supplied mostly K-rations, providing just 2,830 calories a day to men who were burning far more energy. Famished soldiers, Mr. Hamler recounted, dropped grenades into rivers, skimmed the dead fish and cooked them in their helmets.
“There had to be absolute silence at night in the jungle because any noise invited shelling from the Japanese,” Mr. Hamler said. Pairs of men dug foxholes nearby so one could sleep while his buddy stood sentry. When it was time to switch roles, the sentry tugged a rope attached to the sleeping man to wake him without uttering a sound.

…

Early in the fighting at Nhpum Ga, Mr. Hamler was hit in the hip by a mortar fragment and lay immobilized in his foxhole for more than 10 days, until Americans from the Third Batallion broke through to the village — by that point christened “Maggot Hill” by the Americans — and the Japanese retreated. The Marauders counted 400 enemy corpses. The Marauders lost 57 men, with 302 wounded. General Merrill himself suffered a heart attack just before the siege and was evacuated.

…

In May 1944, three months after the Marauders entered Burma, the airstrip in the town of Myitkyina, the mission’s key objective, fell to the Americans and Chinese troops who had reinforced them. In August, the heavily fortified town itself was captured. The Marauders were disbanded one week later. All told, the unit suffered 93 combat fatalities in Burma and 30 deaths from disease. Another 293 men were wounded and eight were missing. Most startling, an additional 1,970 men at one point were hospitalized with sicknesses, including 72 with what was described as “psychoneurosis.”
Mr. Hamler had been evacuated after the battle of Nhpum Ga in April to northern India, where he spent five weeks recuperating in a hospital. He was transferred back home to Pennsylvania and served as a military policeman until he was discharged in December 1945. He was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.

He was 99.

It has been a bad few days for writers.

Lawrence sent over a report that David J. Skal died after a car accident on January 1st. I can’t find a trustworthy link for this, though it is confirmed by Wikipedia and the SF Encyclopedia.

Skal was a prominent cultural critic, who specialized in the horror genre. I was a pretty big fan of what I’ve read of his work: I particularly liked Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen and Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning, but I feel like just about anything he wrote is worth picking up. (I haven’t read his Claude Rains book yet. I actually didn’t know he’d written one.)

He also appears in a lot of DVD commentary tracks. His Wikipedia entry has a good list. And he was from Garfield Heights, so he counts as another good Cleveland boy.

Terry Bisson, prominent SF and fantasy writer, although that may be minimizing his work somewhat.

Three things I want to link to:

  1. “They’re Made Out Of Meat”, a Bisson story that I find absolutely hilarious.
  2. Michael Swanwick’s profile of Terry Bisson.
  3. I didn’t know that the New Yorker had profiled him, but they did back in October.

(This is another obit where reliable links have been hard to find, and a second one Lawrence tipped me off to.)

Edward Jay Epstein, writer who the NYT describes as a “professional skeptic”. His first book was Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth which started out as his master’s thesis:

His book raised doubts about the commission’s finding that Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin, basing them largely on what Mr. Epstein considered serious deficiencies in the panel’s investigation. “Inquest” was published a few months before “Rush to Judgment” by Mark Lane, another in a tsunami of books that suggested that the commission had been hampered by time constraints, by limited resources and access, and by Justice Warren’s demand for unanimity to make its conclusions more credible.
“It was the only master’s thesis I know of that sold 600,000 copies,” Professor Hacker, who now teaches at Queens College, said in a phone interview.

…

Mr. Epstein had an insatiable curiosity, writing about anything and everything, from the economics of Hollywood to the rape accusation against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, by a Manhattan hotel maid in 2011. (Mr. Epstein suggested that it had been a political setup staged to embarrass him. Mr. Strauss-Kahn and the maid ultimately settled her lawsuit against him.)

Bud Harrelson, shortstop for the Mets. (Hattip to pigpen51 on this.)

Harrelson played in the major leagues for 16 seasons, 13 with the Mets; he appeared in 1,322 games with the team, the fourth most in franchise history. (Ed Kranepool tops the list with 1,853 games played, followed by David Wright and Jose Reyes.)
Standing 5 feet 10 inches and weighing between 145 and 155 pounds at varying times, he wasn’t much of a threat at the plate. He had a .236 career batting average and hit only seven home runs. But he possessed outstanding range in the field and a strong arm. He won a National League Gold Glove Award in 1971 for his fielding, appeared in two All-Star Games and was inducted into the Mets’ Hall of Fame in 1986.

He played on the 1969 “Miracle Mets” team, and famously got into a brawl with Pete Rose in 1973.

Adan Canto. THR. IMDB.

Georgina Hale, British actress. Other credits include “The Bill”, “Doctor Who”, several “T.Bag” TV movies, and “Voyage of the Damned”.

Brian McConnachie, comedy writer and occasional actor.

Tracy Tormé. I usually don’t do obits for celebrity children just because they are celebrity children, but Mr. Tormé seems to have carved out a niche for himself as a TV and film writer.

Posted in Books, Heroism, History, Movies, Obits, Sports, TV | 1 Comment »

Firings watch.

January 11th, 2024

One sort-of firing, one not a firing but noteworthy.

Bill Belichick out as head coach in New England. Everyone was expecting this, but it seems more like a firingnation:

Belichick and Patriots owner Robert Kraft spent a good part of this week periodically meeting and discussing how each side wanted to proceed. From sources familiar with those conversations, there was said to be no conflict, no disagreement, and in the end, productive talks resulted in a mutual decision that left both sides comfortable and at ease.

…

Belichick, 71, leaves New England with 333 career victories (including playoffs), ranking second all time behind Don Shula and his 347. Belichick, George Halas and Curly Lambeau are the only NFL coaches with six championships since the league began postseason play in 1933.

As I’ve said before, the man has nothing left to prove. Does he try to go someplace else and pick up the 15 wins he needs to pass Shula? That’s the speculation, but I figure it will take two to three years at least to get 15 wins. It isn’t like he’s going to another team that’s as good as the Patriots were: I’d expect five win seasons at best to start with.

And Nick Saban out in Alabama in what seems like a genuine retirement.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

Milk for the Khorne flakes!

January 10th, 2024

More from the NFL firings front:

Contrary to reports the other day, “Wink” Martindale is officially not out as defensive coordinator for the New York Football Giants.

Yet.

Current reports are saying he’s furious with the organization, and (as noted above) “cursed out” head coach Brian Daboll after his people were fired. But he hasn’t officially resigned or been fired at this point.

The Giants could prevent Martindale from joining another team if he resigns. If that were the case, this could get even uglier.

He’s got one year left on his contract. If he’s fired, the Football Giants would owe him $3 million. If he resigns (and there’s apparently interest in his services from the Rams and Eagles) they don’t owe him anything. So I’m not sure why they would block him from joining another team, unless it is just pure spite.

Edited to add: “sources” are reporting that da Bears are firing offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, but keeping Matt Eberflus. Given the situation with the Winkster, I’m looking at “sources say” with a bit of skepticism.

Also “out” according to “sources”: quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko, wide receivers coach Tyke Tolbert, running backs coach Omar Young and assistant tight ends coach Tim Zetts.

Edited to add 2: both the NYPost and ESPN are reporting that the Winkster is officially out, by “mutual decision”. Which apparently translates to: they don’t have to pay him, and he’s free to sign with some other team.

Meanwhile, Pete Carroll is out as coach of the Teattle Teahawks…I mean, Seattle Seahawks. This sounds like one of those firingnations:

“After thoughtful meetings and careful consideration for the best interest of the franchise, we have amicably agreed with Pete Carroll that his role will evolve from Head Coach to remain with the organization as an advisor.”

He had been saying that he planned to coach in 2024 as late as Monday. ESPN. 137-89-1 overall, 10 playoff wins. But they were 9-8 and missed the playoffs this year.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 9, 2024.

January 9th, 2024

After the jump, this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback (which you won’t be able to read in its entirety unless you subscribe to “All Predictions Wrong”, which is the actual title of Gregg Easterbrook’s Substack)…

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Skulls for the skull throne!

January 9th, 2024

Continuing with the NFL firings theme: Mike Vrabel out as coach of the Tennessee Titans.

The Titans fired Vrabel after six seasons, ending a run that featured three playoff appearances, two AFC South titles, an AFC Championship Game appearance and the 2021 NFL Coach of the Year award. The Titans were 54-45 in the regular season under Vrabel, making him the third-winningest coach in franchise history, including the Houston Oilers era.

But they missed the playoffs in 2022 and 2023, and it is being reported that their was friction between Vrabel and team owner Amy Adams Strunk.

ESPN.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 8, 2024.

January 8th, 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”.

Posted in Geek, Law, Movies, Obits, TMQ watch, TV | Comments Closed

Blood! Blood in the streets!

January 8th, 2024

This is your Monday morning after the end of the NFL season firings thread.

From the “Damn! You didn’t even wait to get him in the house!” department: Arthur Smith was fired last night as head coach of the Falcons. 21-30 over three seasons, 7-10 this year. ESPN.

Ron Rivera out as coach of the Washington Commanders. 26-40-1 over four years, 4-13 this season. ESPN.

Scott Fitterer out as general manager of the Carolina Panthers, who already fired their head coach. 14-37 over three seasons, and Carolina finished 2-15 this year. ESPN.

Mote updates later if there are any.

Edited to add: the NYPost is reporting that special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey and offensive line coach Bobby Johnson have been fired from the NY Football Giants. Additionally, Don “Wink” Martindale has “resigned” as defensive coordinator.

Edited to add 1/9: late on Monday, Jacksonville fired defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell and a whole bunch of other folks:

In addition to Caldwell, [head coach Doug] Pederson also fired defensive line coach Brentson Buckner, passing game coordinator/cornerbacks coach Deshea Townsend, inside linebackers coach Tony Gilbert, safeties coach Cody Grimm, senior defensive assistant Bob Sutton and defensive quality control coaches Tee Mitchell and Sean Cullina.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 6, 2024.

January 6th, 2024

David Soul. THR.

Shoutout for his work in “Magnum Force”. Other credits include “Jerry Springer: The Opera” (the TV movie: he played Jerry Springer), “Murder, She Wrote”, “Jake and the Fatman”, “Unsub” (an interesting failed series from the late 1980s), “Casablanca” (the short-lived TV series: he played “Rick Blane”), “In the Line of Duty: The F.B.I. Murders” (he played “Michael Lee Platt”, one of the killers), and a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.

Christian Oliver. Other credits include “Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei”, “Ninja Apocalypse”, and “Christmas in Vienna”.

Joseph Lelyveld, former executive editor of the NYT.

Posted in 1970s, Media, Movies, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: January 5, 2024.

January 5th, 2024

Glynis Johns. IMDB.

Wow:

A year later [1963 – DB], she starred in her own short-lived CBS sitcom, Glynis, in which she played a mystery writer and amateur sleuth, and later, she was Lady Penelope Peasoup opposite Rudy Vallee as Lord Marmaduke Ffogg on the last season of ABC’s Batman.

Yes, she did do a guest spot on “Murder She Wrote“.

Wow^2: she was “Sister Anne” in “Nukie“.

Stephen Sondheim wrote “Send in the Clowns”, in “A Little Night Music”, with shorter phrasing to accommodate her. Although her voice, alternately described as smoky or silvery or wistful, was lovely, she was unable to sustain notes for long.

Be that as it may, I find her performance of that song incredibly haunting.

Maj. Mike Sadler has passed away at 103.

Mr. Sadler was one of the first recruits and the last surviving member of the S.A.S. from the year of its founding, 1941. Like a navigator at sea, he used stars, sun and instruments to cross expanses of the Libyan Desert, a wasteland almost the size of India, whose shifting, windblown dunes can be as changing and featureless as an ocean.
Compared with the commandos he guided on truck and jeep convoys — volunteer daredevils who crept onto Nazi airfields; attached time bombs to Messerschmitt fighters, Stuka dive bombers, fuel dumps and pilot quarters; then sped away as explosions roared behind — Mr. Sadler was no hero in the usual sense. Comrades said he might not have fired a single shot at the enemy in North Africa.
But he got his men to the targets — and out again. Without him, they said, the commandos could not have crossed hundreds of miles of desert, found enemy bases on the Mediterranean Coast, destroyed more than 325 aircraft, blown up ammunition and supply dumps, killed hundreds of German and Italian soldiers and pilots, or found their way back to hidden bases.

…

Mr. Sadler was intrigued by desert navigation. “What amazed me,” he told Mr. Rayment, “was that even with the vast, featureless expanses of the desert, a good navigator could pinpoint his exact location by using a theodolite, an air almanac and air navigational tables, and having a good knowledge of the stars.”
He spent weeks studying navigation techniques, including use of a theodolite — a telescopic device, with two perpendicular axes, used mainly by surveyors, for measuring angles in the horizontal and vertical planes. It was not unlike the sextant used by mariners to fix positions at sea.

…

In one of the epic stories of the North Africa campaign, Mr. Sadler and two sergeants escaped from the Germans and, with only a goatskin carrying brackish water, crossed 110 miles of desert on foot in five days. Hostile Bedouins stoned them, bloodying their heads, and stole their warm clothing, leaving them to shiver through freezing nights.
Starving except for a few dates, they were exposed to windblown sands that scraped them like sandpaper, a relentless sun that burned and blistered their faces, and swarms of flies that enveloped and tormented them. On the hot sands, their feet were masses of blisters after a few days. When they finally reached Free French lines, they looked like half-dead castaways in rags.
“We had long hair and beards and were looking very bedraggled,” Mr. Sadler recalled. “Our feet were in tatters — I don’t think we looked very much like soldiers.”

…

After his North Africa adventures as a desert navigator, Mr. Sadler returned to England and in 1944 parachuted into France after the Allied invasion of Normandy. He participated in sabotage operations against German occupation forces and won the Military Cross for bravery in action behind enemy lines.

Anthony Dias Blue, noted wine guy.

Mr. Blue was no populist. But he believed that good wine needn’t be expensive or difficult to appreciate; all that people needed, he said, was a guide, like him, to show them what was worth buying.

Posted in Heroism, History, Mixology, Movies, Nazis, Obits, Theatre | Comments Closed

Entertainment trivia.

January 4th, 2024

My beloved and indulgent family gave me a copy of Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! for Christmas. I think part of the motivation for this (other than it being on my wish list) is that everyone in my family wants to borrow it when I’m done. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Fun fact I’ve learned from the book, which I did not know previously. Remember “Gunderson”?

Whatever happened to that guy? Would you believe he went on to bigger things?

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Bagatelle, Books, Movies, TV | 2 Comments »

Quick flaming hyenas update.

January 4th, 2024

Mike the Musicologist sent me a text the other day mentioning that there’s a superseding indictment against Democratic Senator Robert “Buffalo Bob” Menendez.

This seems like reason enough to link the NYT: “What We Know About the Menendez Bribery Case”.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

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