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DEATHS ; Notable Passings; The Thread to Pay Last Respects

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Not a film career, but even more notable with respect to his role in the world, Shimon Peres, the Israeli statesman who earned a Nobel Prize for his tireless efforts to forge peace with Palestinians, died on Tuesday. He was 93.

Over a seven-decade career, Mr. Peres served as prime minister, president and Labor Party chief. He was the last surviving member of a group of leaders who witnessed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, including David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir and Ariel Sharon, among others.
 

LizzieMaine

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One of the last surviving major stars of 1930s radio died on September 19tth at the age of 87. Bobby Breen was the surprise hit of 1936 when he was introduced as a new singing star on Eddie Cantor's weekly program. Breen, a boy soprano with a voice like polished glass, performed both solo numbers and duets with fellow child star Deanna Durbin, appeared in comedy skits with Cantor in which he posed as Eddie's long-awaited "son," and within a few months was a leading-vote-getter in the annual Star of Stars poll conducted by Radio Guide magazine. Over the next three years he was one of the biggest stars in radio, and went on to a successful career in movies -- until, as it must to all boy sopranos, puberty arrived and his voice dropped to a pleasant but not world-shaking tenor. He drifted around the edges of show business for some years after that before making a new and successful career for himself as an agent.

His passing leaves only Rose Marie and Bea Wain as prominent surviving figures from 1930s American radio.

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The cast of Eddie Cantor's "Texaco Town" in the fall of 1936. From left, bandleader Jacques Reynard, Harry "Parkyakarkus" Einstein, Deanna Durbin, Eddie Cantor, Bobby Breen, and announcer Jimmy Wallington.
 

LizzieMaine

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Not is she only one of the last two significant surviving radio stars of the 1930s, she's the last surviving radio star of the *1920s.* She signed her first contract with NBC in the fall of 1929, when she was six years old. She also made her first movie around the same time.

 

LizzieMaine

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Donn Fendler, who for a couple of weeks in 1939 was the most famous boy in the United States, has died at the age of 90. Fendler was a twelve year old from upstate New York vacationing in Maine with his family that summer when he became separated from his trail-mates during a storm on rugged Mt. Katahdin, the highest peak in the state. For nine days he was missing as search parties combed the mountain by air and on foot, until the boy staggered, exhausted and starving, into a hunting camp nearly forty miles from the spot where he was last seen. He had survived by foraging for berries, drinking from streams, and following advice he remembered from a Boy Scout manual on what to do if lost in the woods.

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Fendler became a media hero in the wake of his adventure, receiving a medal from President Roosevelt, appearing in newsreels and on radio, and finally collaborating on a book that's become a classic of true-life adventure, "Lost On A Mountain In Maine." Despite a long and distinguished adult career in the U. S. Army that ended with his retirement as a Lieutentant Colonel, those nine days on Mt. Katahdin defined the rest of Fendler's life. He spent decades speaking to school groups, Scout troops, and other youth organizations about his adventure, and his book is still part of the curriculum in many Maine schools. His was one of the few media circuses of the Era that had a happy ending.
 

STEVIEBOY1

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Jean Alexander passed away this week so it's just been reported on the BBC, she was 90 and had starred in one of the longest running drama programmes in the UK, then after leaving that, appeared again on one of the longest running comedy shows, (Summer Wine), plus other well loved programmes, she also appeared in some films. She won several awards and but was a very private, unassuming person.
 

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