DEATHS ; Notable Passings; The Thread to Pay Last Respects

[Fading Fast]

Former Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega has died, aged 83.

No word yet on what music will be played at his funeral...

Now that ⇧ sarcasm I got.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Somewhere, the CIA is observing a moment of silence.

 

[PADDY]

For those in the UK whose childhood involved watching John Noakes and Shep on Blue Peter & Go with Noakes.

RIP John.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Former Major League outfielder, broadcaster, and outrageous sports personality Jimmy Piersall has died at the age of 87.

One of the most colorful, controversial figures in mid-twentieth-century professional sports, Piersall came up to the Boston Red Sox in 1950 as a promising rookie, but his career was sidetracked in 1952 when he suffered an on-field mental breakdown after a series of bizarre incidents including a fistfight with Yankee infielder Billy Martin, heckling Browns relief pitcher Satchel Paige by mimicking his movements on the mound while making sounds like a pig and a chicken, running out on the field to spray home plate with a squirt gun, and finally climbing onto the grandstand roof to shout incoherent abuse at an umpire who had ejected him. Piersall was finally taken in a straitjacket to a mental hospital outside Boston, where he was held for nearly two months and given electroshock therapy.

Piersall was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder, triggered by his poor relationship with Red Sox manager Lou Boudreau, who had tried against all recommendations to convert Piersall into a shortstop. When Piersall returned to the team, Boudreau was gone -- and Piersall became one of the best center fielders in the game during the 1950s, ably filling the shoes of Dominic DiMaggio, who had quit the club because he, too, couldn't deal with Boudreau. Piersall was absolutely fearless as a defensive player, in the style of Pete Reiser -- running into walls with abandon, making impossible dives, and generally playing without the slightest regard for personal safety.

The Red Sox traded him to Cleveland in 1959, and his mental issues began again to work to the surface. In a 1960 game against the Yankees he responded to bughouse-motif heckling from the fans by turning around and heckling them back, triggering a riot that had bottles, trash, and pieces of broken seats showering onto the field as Piersall danced and pranced and goaded the raging fans on. The Indians passed him along to the Washington Senators, where he played without incident, but when he landed on the New York Mets in 1963, he resumed his manic behavior -- on the occasion of his 100th major league home run in a game at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia, Piersall jogged around the bases backwards, to derisve applause from the Phillies fans. Manager Casey Stengel was less fond of Piersall, however, and palmed him off on the Los Angeles Angels, while declaring "there's only room for one clown on this club."

Piersall drifted for a few years after retiring from the Angels in 1967, ending up as a low-level office flunky in the employ of Athletics owner Charlie Finley. But when he decided to try broadcasting, he found his perfect niche with the White Sox, joining Harry Caray in the booth for four out-of-control seasons. Piersall would gleefully ridicule the players, the management, the ownership, the TV and radio executives, the sponsors, and the fans, with Caray shamelessly egging him on, leading eventually to his dismissal. A stint as a minor league instructor in the Cubs system ended badly as well. Despite his fame, he never again held a significant position in either baseball or broadcasting.

Non-baseball fans know Piersall best for the 1957 film "Fear Strikes Out," based on the book he wrote about his mental breakdown. Piersall disliked the movie, but he was nonetheless considered a courageous figure at the time for publicly acknowledging his illness at a time when mental illness was considered a shameful thing to be hidden in the eyes of most of society. And as those who saw him in the field will be the first to say, he was one hell of a ballplayer.

 

[MisterCairo]

A good long life, but sad to hear nonetheless.

Peter Sallis, of Last of the Summer Wine and Wallace and Gromit fame, has died, aged 96:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/obit-sallis-peter-wallace-1.4146425

 

[2jakes]

June 6, 2005

 

[MisterCairo]

Actor Glenne Headley (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Mr. Holland's Opus, Dick Tracy) has died, aged only 62:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/glenne-headly-obit-1.4153731

 

[Harris HTM]

Batman dies...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_West

 

[Frunobulax]

Batman dies...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_West

Oh, man...

 

[MisterCairo]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/batman-adam-west-obituary-1.4155154

In 1989 with Burt Ward:

 

[MisterCairo]

Credited with inventing the Hawaiian pizza, restaurateur Sotirios "Sam" Panopoulos has died, aged 83, in London, Ontario:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/hawaiian-pizza-sam-panopoulos-1.4155044

 

[GHT]

How remiss of me not to remember last Wednesday, the 7th of June 2017. It was the 100th birthday of Dino Paul Crocetti, an all round entertainer, who became a worldwide star after changing his stage name from Dino Martino to Dean Martin. How I love dancing to his dulcet tones. If you like dance, Dean Martin or tango, enjoy this.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Best piece I've seen yet about Adam West:

http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/adam-west-batman-legacy.html

 

[Stearmen]

I will always remember Adam's appearance on The Big Bang Theory, when he summed up who was the best Batman!

 

[Zombie_61]

Batman dies...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_West

 

[Benzadmiral]

Best piece I've seen yet about Adam West:

http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/adam-west-batman-legacy.html

Very good story. As much as I disliked the campy approach of the TV series (I grew up with the comics' Batman as a detective, a Sherlock Holmes in cape and mask), I've always thought West did a great job with the role.

In British author Jon Abbott's Cool TV of the 1960s: Three Shows That Changed the World, Abbott suggests that West nailed the characterization of Batman/Bruce Wayne perfectly for the camp aesthetic the producers were going for. In Abbott's view, West played Batman not as an adult man, but as a 10-year-old boy's idea of how an adult man would act. A subtle distinction, but the moment I read that, I knew it was true.

Also I've heard that, despite being typecast for a long while, West made a very good living in recent years doing voice-over work and commercials. He always had a superb voice, didn't he?

 

[Doctor Strange]

For anyone who's never seen it, do yourself a favor and seek out the amazing Batman: The Animated Series episode "Beware the Gray Ghost"!

In it, Adam West gives a tremendous voice performance... as a former TV superhero actor whose life was ruined by his being typecast and unable to find other work. It's brilliantly "meta", and the real pain that informs West's moving performance is palpable. Most of West's voiceover work was comic - like "Mayor Adam West" on Family Guy - but he reveals unexpected subtlety in this episode.

As ever, I recommend B:TAS as being by far the best Batman adaptation yet made, vastly outstripping all the live-action films in intelligence and understanding of the characters. You gotta love that "dark deco" stylization too...

 

[Fading Fast]

In an example of one of those things you knew, but forgot, the obit reminded me that West could have been Bond.

It seems so odd in two ways. One, he's an American. Two, how did he say "no" (as was reported anyway) when his career was at such a horrible low?

And despite not loving the Roger Moore Bond films (probably more because of the '70s than Moore), hard to even image West in the role.

 

[GHT]

In an example of one of those things you knew, but forgot, the obit reminded me that West could have been Bond.

It seems so odd in two ways. One, he's an American. Two, how did he say "no" (as was reported anyway) when his career was at such a horrible low?

Somehow, being an American might not have excluded him from the role, after all Robert Vaughn became so Anglicised that he too could made a good job of Bond. As for turning the role down, that's exactly what George Lazenby did, and he, like West, was at an all time low.
And don't forget, Lazenby is an Aussie, not a Brit.

 

[Stearmen]

Let us never forget, the first time we saw James Bond, he was played by an American Barry Nelson. He often gets a lot of criticism for his acting, but he was doing what director William H. Brown Jr wanted! Peter Debruge of Variety, praised the portrayal of the villain by Peter Lorre. He did however, much later praised Nelson by saying, "Bond suggests a realistically human vulnerability that wouldn't resurface until Eon finally remade Casino Royale more than half a century later."