THE OBIT PATROL: 2019-01-20

Friday, January 25, 2019

Lolo Rico

Writer, journalist, and broadcaster. AKA Maria Dolores Rico Oliver. Via El Pais.

Roman Kolakowski

Composer, singer, poet, and director. Via Wroclaw News.

Marie Kyselkova

Actress best known for "Princess with a Golden Star" (1959). Via Navva.

Adewale Olarenwaju

Actor. AKA Ishow Larry. Via Premium Times.

Dusan Makavejev

Revolutionary film director and screenwriter; leader of Yugoslavia's 'Black Wave' cinema movement. Via Blic.

Marcelee Gralapp

Librarian who did much to improve and expand the system's mission, helping to preserve a vital community resource. Founded the Boulder Arts Commission. Via the Boulder Daily Camera.

Edwin Birdsong

Keyboard great whose work has been extensively sampled. Via Pitchfork.

Tara Simmons

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Via The Music Network.

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Mario Bertoncini

Composer and pianist. Via Italian Insider.

Oliver 'Tuku' Mtukudzi

Legendary and prolific musician, performer, and activist. Via NPR.

Diana Athill

Editor, writer, and memoirist. Via the Guardian.

Jim McKean

Umpire. One of the few major-league umpires in history to eject a mascot. Via USA Today.

James Frawley

Emmy-winning, prolific director, primarily for TV ('The Monkees,' 'The Muppet Movie'). Via the Desert Sun.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

The godfather of American avant-garde cinema. As a legendary filmmaker, a curator, a writer, an editor, as a visual artist, a teacher, a poet, he evangelized for new and radical art. He was the gatekeeper who opened the door for so many of us! He was the first film critic for the Village Voice. He introduced Lou Reed to Andy Warhol. He co-founded the Anthology Film Archives, helped to start the magazine Film Culture in 1954, long before many were hip to film as an art form. He fought the censors to show films by Jack Smith and Jean Genet; he showed films and sowed films wherever he could.

As a filmmaker, he influenced everyone with his casual, intimate, warm, non-narrative approach, getting a huge amount of beauty out of a very lo-tech approach. He demystified the process and made young filmmakers understand that they could do it, too. Via the Guardian.

Jonas Mekas - Walden (Excerpt) from Re:Voir Video on Vimeo.

Ahmed Hussein-Suale

Murdered journalist. Via CNN.

May Menassa

Journalist and writer. Via The National.

Kevin Barnett

Comedian, writer, and producer ('Rel'). Via CNN.

Del Henney

Actor best known as the villain of the original 'Straw Dogs.' Via the Herald of Scotland.

Padraic Fiacc

Controversial, hard-hitting poet. Via the Belfast Gazette.

Russell Baker

Pulitzer-winning columnist, humorist, memoirist, biographer, editor, and journalist. Via the New York Times.

Mike Ledbetter

Bluesman. Via the Chicago Sun-Times.

Mounira Mosly

Artist. Via The National.

Joseph ‘Turkey Joe’ Trabert

Bar owner, colorful character, and film commissioner. Via the Baltimore Sun.

David Paul Francis 'Mac' McDermott

Co-creator of Randyland, a house turned art piece, with his partner Randy Gilson. Via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Kaye Ballard

Exemplary comic actress and singer ('The Mothers-in-Law,' 'Cinderella'). AKA Catherine Gloria Belotta. She was a great talent, with a big voice and animated features that put her in the category of female clown a la Martha Raye. She got her start with the iconic music/comedy act Spike Jones, went on to perform in postwar New York cabaret, and hit Broadway in 1952, starring in 'The Golden Apple' two years later, in which she introduced the standard 'Lazy Afternoon.' She was the first to record 'Fly Me to the Moon,' in 1954. Kander and Ebb reportedly wrote 'Maybe This Time' for her. She was one of the two original stepsisters in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Cinderella' in 1957. She co-starred with Eve Arden in 'The Mothers-in-Law' on television. A real pro. Via Variety.