General "RIP" announcements that might be of interest

[ethanedwards]

RIP Tony

[Hondo Duke Lane]

I just found today and wanted to share this to you. It is a little old since July 16, but I think it is very important for you country fans out there.



Kitty Wells passed away at the age of 92. She really made her mark in the country music industry for women and will be missed by all her fans.

VIP ~ Kitty.

Cheers Hondo

[Hawkswill]

Here's to you Kitty and all your fans! Keith

[ethanedwards]

I just found today and wanted to share this to you. It is a little old since July 16, but I think it is very important for you country fans out there.


VIP ~ Kitty.

Cheers Hondo

Kitty Wells, American country music pioneer dead at 92. Her song "It wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" set the stage for female solo artists in country music.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/ar...ies-at-92.html

This was indeed posted on July 17th.

[may2]

Composer Marvin Hamlisch has died at 68. He won three Oscars in 1974.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...FAULT&CTIME=20

[ethanedwards]

RIP Marvin

[may2]

Film critic Judith Crist died.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/mo...pagewanted=all

[ethanedwards]

RIP Judith

[may2]

Italian special effects master Carlo Rambaldi, father of “E.T.”, dead at 86


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...d06_story.html

Carlo Rambaldi, a special effects master and three-time Oscar winner known as the father of “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” died Friday in southern Italy after a long illness, Italian news media reported. He was 86.

Rambaldi won visual effects Oscars for Steven Spielberg’s 1982 blockbuster, Ridley Scott’s film “Alien” in 1979, and John Guillermin’s “King Kong” in 1976.

“Carlo Rambaldi was E.T.’s Geppetto,” said Spielberg, referring to the fictional character who created Pinocchio. “ All of us who marveled and wondered at his craft and artistry are deeply saddened by the news of his passing.”

Rambaldi worked on more than 30 films, but was best known for his work on E.T., for which he created three robots, two costumes worn by actors in the scenes when E.T. walked, and gloves for the hands.

Rambaldi, a wizard of a discipline known as mechatronics — which combines disciplines including mechanical, electronic and system design engineering — did not hide a disdain for computerized effects.

“Digital costs around eight times as much as mechatronics,” Rambaldi was quoted by the Rome daily La Repubblica as having once said. “E.T. cost a million dollars and we created it in three months. If we wanted to do the same thing with computers, it would take at least 200 people a minimum of five months.”

Rambaldi was born in 1925 in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna in 1951. While he dreamed of becoming an artist, he was drawn into the world of cinema when he was asked to create a dragon for a low-budget science fiction movie in 1956.

He moved to Rome and found work in television before his first big success, the 1975 Italian horror film “Deep Red.” He drew the attention of Dino De Laurentiis, who brought him to Hollywood to work on “King Kong.”

Italian director Pupi Avati described Rambaldi as “a child who loved to play and make his toys. A child who dreams of making a theme park of all his characters,” the news agency ANSA reported. The pair worked together on a 1975 film.

“In those years, Rambaldi was the only craftsman capable of creating, as he did, a fig tree 12 meters high that he carried to the center of Ferrara with a huge truck, a fig tree that was to change color with the seasons, and also shed its leaves.”

Rambaldi had been living for about a decade in the Calabrian city of Lamezia Terme, where he died.

[ethanedwards]

Great man, and a sad loss to the industry

[Hawkswill]

Well, Carlo, I suppose you are noted for a great many fantastic things, but I can't thank you enough for creating ET. After I saw that movie by myself, I greatly enjoyed taking many different people to it just to see the reactions on their faces as in the closet scene. Why I am laughing just thinking about it. What a super great movie. Last ones I showed it to was my parents, and my father even loved it. AlMOST got the tears instead of the shaky little laugh. ET was and IS real in my mind today!

[may2]

African American actor Al Freeman Jr. dies, aged 78

Actor Al Freeman Jr., perhaps best known for his portrayal of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad in Spike Lee's 1992 film "Malcolm X," has died, Howard University said on Friday.

"It is with tremendous sadness that the passing of our beloved Professor Al Freeman, Jr. is confirmed," Kim James Bey, chair of the university's theater department said in a statement. Freeman was a faculty member at the university.

She gave no details about the death of Freeman, who was 78 and taught acting at the Washington-based university, but said a statement would be issued later.

Freeman's long career in film, television and theater included an enduring role playing police Captain Ed Hall on the TV soap opera "One Life to Live" from 1972 through 1987.

He was credited with being the first African American to win a Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding lead actor for his work on the soap opera, a prize he was awarded in 1979.

Freeman's theater credits included a starring role on Broadway in James Baldwin's "Blues for Mister Charlie" in 1964.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/0...87A01U20120811

[ethanedwards]

RIP Al

[may2]

Editor Helen Gurley Brown died,


http://todayentertainment.today.msnb...-helen-gurley-

[ethanedwards]

RIP Helen