Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Bring out your dead: rounding up (and prioritizing) the deceased of 2014

By BRAD WEISMANN

Here’s the thing. The end of the calendar year has come. As a culture, we want to encapsulate and evaluate the experiences of the year, summarizing them in neat lists that give us a sense of closure.

This is a ticklish procedure when it comes to deaths of the well-known, however. We want to memorialize those who meant something to us, who made contributions to the world. The entire premise of my ongoing Obit Patrol is to highlight a broad spectrum of worthies, many obscure, from across the world. This year, I managed to post about 2,500 entries. Hopefully, this work has broadened people’s knowledge of and appreciation for some unique representatives of the human race.

Part of my mission is to serve as a corrective to the routine commemoration of the merely celebrated, the notorious, and those who will automatically be lauded due to their status as politician, warrior, athlete, businessperson, and other such mainstream success stories. So, when all the “those we lost” lists come out at the end of the year, it’s interesting to leaf through them and wonder about the criteria of selection.

Who we choose to remember forms an index of our values. Why else would the Oscar broadcast obit reel unleash an annual mudslide of rancor and ill feeling? Because to be omitted from remembrance is to be erased. Choosing a list of the departed can be based on the sheer metrics of popularity, or more nuanced. Here are some examples. This survey is not comprehensive; if you know of other worthy lists please share them!














HistoryOrb.com

Horacio Ferrer

Ralph "Riff" West Jr.

Musician -- via legacy.com.

Charles Thompson II

Journalist -- via the Washington Post.

Peter Underwood

Maximo Munzi

Cinematographer -- via Variety.

Luise Rainer

Actress; longest-lived Oscar winner (1936, 1937) -- via Claudia Luther at the L.A. Times. A renowned actress, she was the first to win back-to-back Oscars, for her roles in "The Great Ziegfeld" and "The Good Earth." Ironically, she never could fit in to the Hollywood ethos, and soon abandoned filmmaking.





Monday, December 29, 2014

K. Balachander

Filmmaker -- via The Hindu.

Chip Young

Session guitarist and music producer -- via the Nashville Scene. AKA Jerry Stembridge. A real genius at crafting sweet licks, he can be heard on numerous hits such as Dolly Parton's "Jolene," Elvis's "Guitar Man," and Billy Swan's "I Can Help."





Vera Gebuhr

Walter De Buck

Sculptor, singer, and songwriter -- via Flanders Today.

Laszlo Varga

Cellist -- via the New York Times.

DEATHCETERA: A week's worth of world news on mortality


TOP STORIES




DEATH


“Can we talk about death?” – from Joanna Weiss in the Boston Globe



MOURNING

Rites of mourning detailed for slain officers – via Al Bake and J. David Goodman at the New York Times.


Mourning Moms a support for bereaved parents – from Rowena Coetsee at Contra Costa Times


FUNERALS

Funeral process is a “waiting game” – from Imari Williams at Homicide Watch

Want to preserve your DNA? Funeral home will do that for a fee – from JD Malone at the Columbus Dispatch


END-OF-LIFE ISSUES



Udo Jurgens

Singer and songwriter -- via the New York Times. His big hit: "Come Share the Wine."







Sitor Situmorang

Poet, essayist, and short story writer -- via the Jakarta Post.

Morteza Ahmadi

Actor -- via Press TV.

Alberto Valdiri

Actor -- via El Tiempo.

Carleton Mabee

Pulitzer-winning historian and biographer -- via the New York Times.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Larry Smith

Oleh Lysheha

Poet -- via kyiv.osp-ua.info.

Taitetsu Unno

Giorgio "George" Ardisson

Actor -- via westernsallitaliana.blogspot.com. A regular in sword-and-sandal, adventure, Western, horror, and spy films.



Ingvar Kjellson

Actor -- via svd.se.

David Ryall

Actor on stage, screen, and TV -- via the Telegraph. A highly recognizable face, Ryall usually played unsympathetic if nor downright villainous characters, most notably Elphias Doge in the Harry Potter films, Sextus Parker in "The Pallisers," Billy Buzzle in "Bless Me, Father,"  and the fussy Mr. Hall in "The Singing Detective." I got to meet him during the run of the production of Peter Hall's "Tantalus" in Denver; a very sweet guy!

Alberta Adams

Detroit's Queen of the Blues -- via the Detroit Free Press. AKA Roberta Louise Osborn.

Buddy DeFranco

Jazz clarinetist -- via the New York Times. AKA Boniface Ferdinand Leonardo DeFranco. He started in swing but became the first true bebop clarinetist.



Rosella Towne

Actress -- via Dial M for Movies. She died on August 29 but her death was not revealed publicly until last week. Kudos again to Eve Golden for pointing this out four days ago!


Anthony "Tony" Munafo

Actor -- via New Jersey Patch.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Rock Scully

The Grateful Dead's first manager -- via the New York Times. AKA Robert Scully.

Fritz Rudolf Fries

Writer and translator -- via LVZ Online.

John Fry

Music producer; founder of Ardent Records; mentor to cult power-pop pioneers Big Star -- via Consequence of Sound. About 20 percent of Stax's output was recorded at Ardent. A key architect of how American music sounded 

Abdulmari Asia Imao

Artist -- via GMA News Online.

Anoushirvan Arjmand

Actor -- via insideofiran.org.