http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php UYD Obituaries en agent@uhhyeahdude.com Copyright 2012 2012-05-10T23:41:00+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/carroll_shelby_89/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/carroll_shelby_89/#When:22:41:00Z Carroll Shelby, the charismatic Texan who parlayed a short-lived racing career into a specialized business building high-performance, street-legal cars, died Thursday. He was 89. Shelby died at Baylor Hospital in Dallas, according to an announcement by his company, Carroll Shelby Licensing. A cause was not disclosed. While trying to fend off an anticipated heart attack, he drove in a 200-mile race in 1960 with nitroglycerin pills underneath his tongue, finishing third at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey. “If I hadn't slowed down each time I popped one of those pills, I might have won,” he said, then announced his retirement as a driver later that year after clinching the U.S. Road Racing championship series at Riverside International Raceway. Five years earlier he had replaced a plastic cast on his broken elbow with a fiberglass one and had his hand taped to the steering wheel so he could help Phil Hill drive a Ferrari to second place in a 12-hour race at Sebring, Fla. 2012-05-10T22:41:00+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/levon_helm_71/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/levon_helm_71/#When:17:04:12Z Levon Helm, the widely respected and influential singer and drummer with the Band, whose Arkansas drawl colored the group's signature hits, including "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," died Thursday in New York of throat cancer. He was 71. One of three lead singers of the group that first gained fame backing Bob Dylan when he "went electric" in 1965, Helm and the Band largely created the template for a genre now labeled "Americana music" for its blend of rock, country, folk, blues and gospel strains. "Levon is one of the most extraordinary, talented people I've ever known and very much like an older brother to me," the Band's guitarist Robbie Robertson said in a statement. "I am so grateful I got to see him one last time and will miss him and love him forever." 2012-04-19T17:04:12+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/larry_stevenson_81/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/larry_stevenson_81/#When:00:42:47Z Larry Stevenson, who had Parkinson's disease, died Sunday at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center, said his son, Curt. Ever the inventor, Stevenson devised a battery-operated armpit cooler to help nervous salespeople avoid sweating. When he noticed that saltwater naturally slicked down hair, he came up with a saltwater-based hair spray. Upset by rising home prices, Stevenson teamed with a structural engineer to develop an easy-to-assemble prefabricated house. Introduced in 1981, the Lifehouse was a 640-square-foot structure that was made to sell for less than $13,000. The house was used in disaster areas, according to Feigel. At Makaha, Stevenson remained active late in life, making modern high-performance skateboards and reproductions of vintage designs. 2012-03-26T00:42:47+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/angelo_dundee_90/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/angelo_dundee_90/#When:04:46:57Z Angelo Dundee, who trained the two most celebrated fighters of his era, Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, and 15 world champions in all in a Hall of Fame career that began in 1952, has died. He was 90. If Dundee hadn't taken over on two occasions with Ali, one of the greatest careers in boxing history might have ended almost before it began. At the end of the fourth round of a 1963 fight against Henry Cooper, Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, was surprised by a left-hand punch that floored him and left him dazed. Fortunately for Clay, it was the end of the round, allowing him to stagger back to his corner. It was there that Dundee, trying to buy time until his fighter's head cleared, stuck his finger in a slight split in the seams of one of Clay's gloves, causing a slightly bigger split. That allowed Dundee to ask the referee for another pair of gloves. None were available, but the incident added valuable seconds to Clay's rest time, allowing him to recover and go on to win on a fifth-round technical knockout. His next fight, against heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, might not have occurred if Clay had lost to Cooper. In the fourth round of Clay's 1964 fight against Liston, another crisis occurred. A substance of undetermined origin got in Clay's eyes, temporarily blinding him. In the corner prior to the fifth round, Clay ordered Dundee to cut off his gloves, ending the fight. The trainer would do no such thing. He wet Clay's eyes, alleviating some of the sting, and then literally shoved him back out into the ring when the bell rang. Clay, still unable to see, was told by Dundee to just run. Run he did until, midway through the round, Clay's vision cleared. At the end of the sixth round, Liston, claiming a shoulder injury, quit in his corner. Thanks to Dundee, Clay had his first title and a launching pad for the meteoric career that would follow. Dundee's most memorable moment in Leonard's corner came in 1981, in Leonard's first fight against Hearns. Momentum had slipped away from Leonard by the end of the 12th round of the 15-round match. "You're blowing it, son," Dundee told him in the corner. Leonard responded by rallying for a 14th-round TKO victory. As he had with Ali, Dundee had again possibly saved a Hall of Fame career, ensuring himself a spot among the pantheon of boxing trainers. 2012-02-02T04:46:57+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/eve_arnold_99/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/eve_arnold_99/#When:01:36:58Z Eve Arnold, one of the first woman photojournalists to join the prestigious Magnum Photography Agency in the 1950s and traveled the world for her work but was best known for her candid shots of Hollywood celebrities, has died. She was 99. Her photographs of Joan Crawford show the actress in her 50s, near the end of her reign as Hollywood royalty. None is flattering. There are close-ups of Crawford applying makeup to her wrinkled eyelids and evaluating her aged face in a hand mirror. "The first time I met Joan Crawford she took off all her clothes, stood in front of me nude and insisted I photograph her," Arnold wrote in "Film Journal." They met in a dressing room when Arnold was on assignment for Women's Home Companion magazine. "Sadly," she wrote of Crawford, "something happens to flesh after 50." After the photo session Crawford demanded that Arnold give her the film of the nudes and Arnold agreed. Images of Crawford are among the more brutal included in "Film Journal." The book was praised for its "poignant [images], all capturing an off-guard moment full of character" in a 2002 review in the Canadian Review of Books. 2012-01-05T01:36:58+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/bert_schneider_78/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/bert_schneider_78/#When:17:19:03Z The son of a Hollywood power broker — his father, Abraham, ran Columbia Pictures in the late 1960s — Schneider helped revitalize moviemaking in the "New Hollywood" movement in which directors, not studios, held the creative reins and made movies that embraced the sensibilities of the emerging counterculture. Schneider helped created the Monkees, the popular made-for-TV rock quartet modeled on the Beatles who starred in their own Emmy-winning sitcom from 1966 to 1968. The success of the Monkees — who consisted of Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork — provided the capital to finance "Easy Rider," the landmark 1969 film about two motorcyclists in search of a more authentic America that made Jack Nicholson a star. The producer created a stir during the 1975 Oscars broadcast when, in the course of accepting the best documentary award for "Hearts and Minds," he read a telegram offering "greetings of friendship" from the head of the North Vietnamese delegation to the Paris peace talks. Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra issued a protest statement and, according to Rafelson, nearly got into a fistfight with Schneider backstage. 2011-12-12T17:19:03+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/james_van_doren_72/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/james_van_doren_72/#When:22:59:52Z James Van Doren died Oct. 12 at his home in Fullerton after a long illness. He was 72. Van Doren and his older brother Paul had only sample sneakers to offer when they opened their first store, in Anaheim, in 1966. They took a dozen orders in the morning and delivered custom canvas deck shoes, made in their adjacent factory, in the afternoon. Operating as the Van Doren Rubber Co., the brothers and two other co-founders planned to succeed by cutting out the middleman and selling their distinctive thick rubber-soled shoes directly to the public. By the early 1970s, the company owed some of its success to Southern California's burgeoning skateboard culture. The shoes were especially valued for the sticky rubber soles that helped skaters grip their boards — an innovation devised by Van Doren. From the start, the casual shoes were known by a single name: Vans. 2011-10-12T22:59:52+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/peter_gent_69/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/peter_gent_69/#When:23:20:18Z Despite being drafted by the old Baltimore Bullets of the NBA, Gent chose football over basketball after college. Signed as a free agent by the Dallas Cowboys, he played flanker from 1964 through 1968. At age 27, his NFL career was over. But he wasn't done with football. In 1973 Gent published his first novel, "North Dallas Forty," which exposed a side of professional football few fans had seen before, as Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" had done for baseball three years earlier. Players experienced excruciating pain that endured long after the game's final whistle; they blew off steam afterward in raucous parties fueled by drugs, alcohol and sex; and management ruthlessly treated athletes as commodities, mere equipment to be used as long as possible and then discarded when they wore out. 2011-09-30T23:20:18+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/shel_hershorn_82/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/shel_hershorn_82/#When:23:14:55Z Shel Hershorn, a photojournalist who documented the tumult of the 1960s and then dropped out to live a rustic lifestyle in northern New Mexico, died Sept. 17 at a nursing home in Espanola, N.M. He was 82. He rode the campaign trail with John F. Kennedy and photographed Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, as he was loaded into an ambulance after being fatally shot by Jack Ruby. But his widow, Sonja Hershorn, said he had lost his taste for journalism after Kennedy's assassination. "It broke his heart and he just soured on the world," she said. "He just wanted to be a hippie. He just wanted to be totally out of American life. He had lost all faith." 2011-09-26T23:14:55+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/george_hendry_90/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/george_hendry_90/#When:17:08:53Z Hendry, under the expert tutelage of Northside YMCA instructor Bill Price, became a table-tennis prodigy (Price went on to train Jimmy Connors in tennis). He won the junior nationals in 1935 at age fourteen, and the next year, competing against men old enough to drink and drive, he became the youngest player to ever win the prestigious Western Open, a distinction that earned him the holy grail of commercial athletic recognition, World Series be damned. At the age of fifteen, Hendry had his grill emblazoned on a Wheaties box, inspiring a legion of would-be table-tennis champs to eat up but good every morning before school. A couple more years of teenage dominance ensued before Hendry shelved his paddles to serve his country in World War II. Providing an early boilerplate for Michael Jordan's "quit while you're on top but leave the door cracked" style of retirement, Hendry wouldn't play table tennis competitively for another 40 years or so -- before coming back to regain his throne atop the sport in relatively short order. Former St. Louis Table Tennis Club president Rich Doza has a favorite tourney yarn: the day then--72-year-old Hendry pulled off a shocking upset of twentysomething Peruvian champion Andr Wong (who'd just beaten then--U.S. champ Seemiller). This qualified him for the round of 32 at the U.S. Open in Midland, Texas. "We're out in the center area, and we're warming up," begins Doza. "This guy comes by -- he's on the Japanese team. He says we have to leave 'cause he has a match. I said, 'So do we.' "The guy couldn't believe he had to play this old man. He thought he'd be playing André Wong, and instead he's playing his grandfather. His English was a little shaky, so he just couldn't understand that George had beaten André Wong." USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame 2011-08-17T17:08:53+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/christopher_mayer_57/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/christopher_mayer_57/#When:18:18:20Z Best known for his 19 episode-long stint as Vance Duke in the 1982-83 season of Dukes of Hazzard, Christopher Mayer passed away on July 23 in Sherman Oaks at age 57. During his time on the popular sitcom, Mayer was joined onscreen by Byron Cherry, who played his brother, Coy Duke. The two men were brought onto the show when contract disputes with the show’s main leading men, John Schneider and Tom Wopat, forced CBS to scramble to keep Dukes on the air. The network cast the two men quickly and explained that Schneider and Wopat’s characters had joined the NASCAR circuit. Audiences didn’t take kindly to the new characters, and when ratings sagged and contract disputes were solved, Cherry and Mayer were quickly written off the program. According to Cherry, around two months ago, Mayer was diagnosed with two aneurisms in his brain, which were both “flushed out” while at the hospital. ”He died in his sleep,” Cherry contends. “I think he definitely died of natural causes. [After the brain aneurisms], the doctor said, ‘You’re going to live for one day,’ and Chris said, ‘Byron, I hope I wake up tomorrow!’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I do too!’” Cherry also says Mayer “had a bad shoulder, and he had hip surgery, and I think he got on steroids for a while, and it really didn’t help him.” The final cause of death is unknown at this time. 2011-08-04T18:18:20+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/sherwood_schwartz_93/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/sherwood_schwartz_93/#When:01:16:07Z Schwartz, who began his more than six-decade career by writing gags for Bob Hope's radio show in 1939, died of natural causes at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his son Lloyd. Schwartz once said he created "Gilligan's Island," which aired on CBS from 1964 to 1967, as an escape from his seven years on "The Red Skelton Show," for which he served as head writer and won an Emmy in 1961. Schwartz conceived the idea for the Brady series in 1965 after reading a brief news report that said nearly one-third of American households included at least one child from a previous marriage. "I realized there was a sociological change going on in this country, and it prompted me to sit down to write a script about it," he recalled in a 2000 interview with the Los Angeles Times. Critics of the time hated both. 2011-07-13T01:16:07+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/larry_wild_man_fischer_66/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/larry_wild_man_fischer_66/#When:16:49:47Z Despite his unconventional approach and a lifelong struggle with severe mental illness, Fischer, who died Thursday of heart failure at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center at age 66, went on to release several albums and became a cult figure — admired by some as an untamed practitioner of "outsider" art, but regarded less kindly by those who encountered the mercurial musician's sudden bursts of aggression. "When you're working with somebody like Wild Man Fischer, or people who are 'out there,' the problems that arise after the album is completed sometimes become too much to bear," Frank Zappa, Fischer's most prominent patron, said in a 1970 interview. Zappa had found something compelling in Fischer's musical outbursts. He produced a documentary-like double-album, "An Evening with Wild Man Fischer," and released it in 1968 on his Bizarre Records label. "One thing that you must remember about Wild Man Fischer is that he actually is a wild person. And Larry is dangerous." The relationship between Zappa and Fischer ended one day at Zappa's home, where Fischer — who suffered from manic depression and paranoid schizophrenia — became enraged and threw a bottle, barely missing Zappa's baby daughter, Moon Unit. 2011-06-18T16:49:47+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/leonard_kastle_82/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/leonard_kastle_82/#When:22:56:13Z French director Francois Truffaut called it his "favorite American film." Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni considered it "one of the purest movies I've ever seen." Kastle, whose first film was destined to be his last, died May 18 at his home in Westerlo, N.Y., after a brief illness, said Tina Sisson, a friend. He was 82. Kastle is considered one of America's most intriguing one-shot movie directors. Neither he nor producer Warren Steibel had any filmmaking experience when they set out to make "The Honeymoon Killers," which gained cult status in America and Europe. The film's original director was a young Martin Scorsese. But Scorsese's filmmaking pace was too slow and he was soon removed. Industrial filmmaker Donald Volkman then stepped in for a time before Kastle took over as the credited director. 2011-05-31T22:56:13+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/harmon_killebrew_74/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/harmon_killebrew_74/#When:00:26:29Z Harmon Killebrew, known for his towering drives, hit 573 homers in 22 seasons that included an American League pennant with the Minnesota Twins in 1965 and a most valuable player award in 1969. One manager said he could hit the ball out of any park, 'including Yellowstone.' Killebrew credited his power to growing up in Idaho. "When I was 14, and for the next four years, I was lifting and hauling 10-gallon milk cans full of milk," he told the Washington Post in 1984. "That will put muscles on you even if you're not trying." A soft-spoken man who was nicknamed "Killer," Killebrew had enjoyed playing in Washington and was apprehensive about the team's move to Minnesota. But "I quickly learned that Minnesota was my kind of place and the fans there were my kind of people and are my kind of people," he said in his Hall of Fame speech. "He's one of the great hitters of all time," Al Kaline, a Hall of Fame outfielder with the Detroit Tigers, told the Detroit Free Press in March. "He wasn't just a power hitter. Harmon was strong, but he had great hands and wrists and a great strike zone." Killebrew's survivors include his wife, Nita, and nine children from two marriages, according to the Twins' website. His first marriage ended in divorce. A complete list of survivors was not available. 2011-05-18T00:26:29+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/sathya_sai_baba_84/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/sathya_sai_baba_84/#When:17:21:16Z Sai Baba once predicted he would live into his mid-90s, claiming he could choose the date of his passing. "The god has left us physically," said the Sai Baba hospital where he died, built largely with donations from Isaac Burton Tigrett, a devotee and the founder of Hard Rock Cafe, and located near his main ashram in Puttaparthi. His legacy is not without controversy. There were several allegations that he sexually abused young male devotees. And in 1993 six followers were killed in his ashram, four of whom allegedly sought to assassinate him. The incident was never fully explained. "India remains a country of faith," said Ravinder Kaur, a sociology professor at New Delhi's Indian Institute of Technology. "Even those reports about pedophilia didn't really dent his image. In this country, if you develop followers, they are very loyal. Nothing seems to shake it." Over the years, several people alleged they were victims of sexual abuse during private audiences with Sai Baba. In the 2004 BBC documentary "Secret Swami," filmmaker Tanya Datta interviewed two American male followers who said the guru had fondled their genitals, claiming it was part of a healing ritual. Others from Sweden, Australia and Germany made similar allegations. A case against Sai Baba was reportedly filed in Munich but none was filed in India, which critics say reflects how well-connected he was here and supporters say is evidence that the allegations were baseless. "He leaves behind values of peace, nonviolence and love," said Kunal Ganjawala, a Bollywood director and follower of 35 years. "Whether in the physical body, or after he leaves it, we should continue those teachings." 2011-04-25T17:21:16+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/charles_laufer_87/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/charles_laufer_87/#When:01:41:50Z Charles Laufer, who built a publishing career with youth-oriented fan magazines such as Tiger Beat, has died. He was 87. He changed the name of Coaster to Teen, and that magazine led Laufer to launch his signature publication, Tiger Beat, in 1965. Laufer started several other magazines before selling the company in 1978. He built his success on stars such as teen heartthrobs Bobby Sherman and David Cassidy as well as the Beatles and the Monkees. His other magazines included such monthly publications as Rona Barrett's Hollywood and Gossip. "The first [magazine] was for love," Laufer told The Times in 1980. "Tiger Beat was for money." 2011-04-14T01:41:50+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/owsley_stanley_76/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/owsley_stanley_76/#When:23:47:04Z Among a legion of youthful seekers, his name was synonymous with the ultimate high as a copious producer of what Rolling Stone once called "the best LSD in the world … the genuine Owsley." He reputedly made more than a million doses of the drug, much of which fueled Ken Kesey's notorious Acid Tests — rollicking parties featuring all manner of psychedelic substances, strobe lights and music. The music that rocked Kesey's events was made by the Grateful Dead, the iconic rock band of the era that also bears Stanley's imprint. His chief effect on the band stemmed not merely from supplying its musicians with top-grade LSD but from his technical genius: As the Dead's early sound engineer, Stanley, nicknamed "Bear," developed a radical system he called the "wall of sound," essentially a massive public address system that reduced distortion and enabled the musicians to mix from the stage and monitor their playing. Stanley relocated to Australia more than 30 years ago because he believed it was the safest place to avoid a new ice age. He was a fanatical carnivore who once said that eating broccoli may have contributed to a heart attack several years ago. He was driving his car in a storm near the town of Mareeba in Queensland when he lost control and crashed, said Sam Cutler, a longtime friend and former Grateful Dead tour manager. He died at the scene. In addition to his wife, he is survived by sons Pete and Starfinder; daughters Nina and Redbird; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. 2011-03-15T23:47:04+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/suze_rotolo_67/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/suze_rotolo_67/#When:12:41:48Z She was a 17-year-old art- and poetry-loving civil rights activist from Queens when she met the 20-year-old folk singer from Minnesota at an all-day folk concert at Riverside Church in Manhattan in the summer of 1961. So began a four-year relationship with Bob Dylan that was immortalized on a wintery day in 1963 when photographer Don Hunstein captured the young couple walking down a snowy Greenwich Village street, Dylan's hands thrust in his pockets and Rotolo's hands wrapped snuggly around his arm. Rotolo, who moved into a tiny apartment on West Fourth Street in the Village with Dylan when she was 18, is credited with introducing him to modern art and poetry, avant-garde theater and civil rights politics. "You could see the influence she had on him," Sylvia Tyson, of Ian & Sylvia, recalled in a 2008 interview with the Los Angeles Times. "This is a girl who was marching to integrate local schools when she was 15." Some rock historians, The Times' story noted, believe Rotolo inspired numerous Dylan songs, including "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and "Tomorrow Is a Long Time." 2011-02-25T12:41:48+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/jesse_valadez_64/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/jesse_valadez_64/#When:16:45:55Z Legendary godfather of lowriding and president of the Imperials Car Club, Jesse Valadez, died of colon cancer Jan. 29 at his home in East L.A. at age 64. An impressively long line of classic lowriders from throughout Southern California and beyond joined the funeral procession that began at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in East Los Angeles and ended at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier. On a flatbed truck behind the hearse at the head of the parade Feb. 5 was one of the icons of the lowriding world: "Gypsy Rose," a fuchsia-colored 1964 Chevy Impala whose body is adorned with hand-painted, multihued roses and whose hot-pink interior includes swivel seats in the front and a cocktail bar and two small light fixtures in the back. 2011-02-12T16:45:55+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/jack_lalanne_96/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/jack_lalanne_96/#When:14:49:28Z Jack LaLanne, the seemingly eternal master of health and fitness who first popularized the idea that Americans should work out and eat right to retain youthfulness and vigor, has died. He was 96. LaLanne opened what is commonly believed to be the nation's first health club, in Oakland in 1936. In the 1950s, he launched an early-morning televised exercise program keyed to housewives. He designed many now-familiar exercise machines, including leg extension machines and cable-pulley weights Using principles taught by Jack LaLanne—including deep, thrusting military squats—Seth has torn his meniscus and must require surgery. 2011-01-23T14:49:28+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/don_kirshner_76/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/don_kirshner_76/#When:18:09:49Z The man responsible for the Monkees died Tuesday at his home in Boca Raton, FLA. The group members' desire to incorporate their own musical sensibilities as songwriters and instrumentalists into the show led to a famous battle over creative control with Kirshner, who ran Colgems Records, the label that put out the Monkees' recordings. Guitarist and songwriter Michael Nesmith famously put his fist through the wall of Kirshner's bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel during one of the more heated sessions. In 1963 he sold his publishing catalog for $3 million, a sizable sum at the time for a trove of material estimated decades later to be worth $1 billion. Oops. 2011-01-18T18:09:49+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/geraldine_doyle_86/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/geraldine_doyle_86/#When:17:51:38Z Geraldine Doyle, aka Rosie the Riveter, who as a 17-year-old factory worker became the inspiration for a popular World War II recruitment poster that evoked female power and independence under the slogan "We Can Do It!," died Dec. 26 at a hospice in Lansing, Mich. The woman in the patriotic poster was never named Rosie, nor was she a riveter. All along it was Mrs. Doyle, who after graduating from high school in Ann Arbor, Mich., took a job at a metal factory around 1941, her family said. One day, a photographer representing United Press International came to her factory and captured Mrs. Doyle leaning over a piece of machinery and wearing a red and white polka-dot bandanna over her hair. In early 1942, the Westinghouse Corp. commissioned artist J. Howard Miller to produce several morale-boosting posters to be displayed inside its buildings. The project was funded by the government as a way to motivate workers and perhaps recruit new ones for the war effort. A cellist, Mrs. Doyle was horrified to learn that a previous worker at the factory had badly injured her hands working at the machines. She found safer employment at a soda fountain and bookshop in Ann Arbor, where she wooed a young dental school student and later became his wife. She never knew she was "Rosie the Riveter" until 1984 when Mrs. Doyle and her family came across an article in Modern Maturity magazine, a former AARP publication, that connected her UPI photo with Miller's wartime poster. 2010-12-26T17:51:38+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/captain_beefheart_69/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/captain_beefheart_69/#When:21:25:10Z Don Van Vliet, a maverick musician who emerged from the Southern California desert with the name Captain Beefheart and a singular and influential form of avant-garde rock in the 1960s, died Friday. He was 69. Van Vliet, who retreated to a reclusive life as an abstract painter in the early 1980s, died from complications of multiple sclerosis at a hospital near his home in Trinidad in Northern California, said a spokeswoman for the Michael Werner Gallery, his New York-based art dealer. "Part of why I stopped doing music was because it was too hard to control the other people I needed to play the stuff, and I'd had enough animal training," he told The Times in 1990. 2010-12-17T21:25:10+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/john_du_pont_72/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/john_du_pont_72/#When:16:42:54Z John E. du Pont, an heir to the DuPont Co. chemical fortune who was known as a generous if eccentric patron of amateur wrestling before he inexplicably shot and killed Olympic gold medalist Dave Schultz in 1996, died Dec. 9. He was 72. He called the wrestlers he supported "Team Foxcatcher" and envisioned them filling the roster of the 1996 U.S. Olympic wrestling team. They lived and trained at the 14,000-square-foot facility he built on his property in Pennsylvania. On Jan. 26, 1996, Mr. du Pont drove to the guesthouse where Schultz was living with his wife and two children. The heir fired three shots from a .38-caliber handgun out the window of his Lincoln Town Car. Schultz lay in the driveway, dying in his wife's arms. Among other things: he drove 2 brand new Lincoln Town Cars into a pond back-to-back, believed he was the Dalai Lama of the United States, had razor wire installed in his walls, evicted all three black wrestlers from his property, blew up a family of foxes, and founded and ran the Villanova wrestling program in 1986 only to have it dismantled two years later on the grounds that he fired an assistant head coach for not wanting to be his gay lover. 2010-12-10T16:42:54+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/don_meredith_72/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/don_meredith_72/#When:20:33:15Z The original Tony Romo, Meredith was the original Dallas Cowboy signing a personal services contract on Nov. 28, 1959, two months before the franchise officially gained admittance into the NFL. He was a two-time All-American at SMU and played for the Cowboys from 1960 to 1968. He led the Cowboys to the 1966 and 1967 NFL title games, both defeats to the Green Bay Packers, but he abruptly retired from pro football at age 31. He was also on Monday Night Football for a decade and lived in an adobe in Santa Fe since 1982. Goodbye, Dandy Don. The party's over. 2010-12-06T20:33:15+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/alex_franco_91/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/alex_franco_91/#When:18:18:50Z The Rev. Alex Franco, who performed thousands of weddings at his Albertson Wedding Chapel in Los Angeles, has died. He was 91. "On a weekday you can walk in here and be married in 20 minutes," Franco told the Dallas Morning News in 1988. "On weekends, we are busier, we need a little notice." Our own Seth Romatelli once attended a wedding at Mr. Franco's chapel on April Fool's Day, 1999. As he and his friends poured liquor into styrofoam cups in the parking lot, they ribbed the Israeli groom who had no concept of April Fool's Day, despite living in America for years. To his recollection, the service was beautiful. The couple has since divorced. 2010-11-16T18:18:50+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/sparky_anderson_76/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/sparky_anderson_76/#When:22:19:19Z The Great Sparky Anderson has died at the age of 76. Sparky's Reds bested Seth's hometown nine for Baseball's World Series in 1975. As Seth recalls, "He was 41 at the time, but looked like he was 70." He went on to win 2 more World Series titles (1 each in Cincinnati and Detroit) and became the first manager in Major League Baseball to win the title in both the American and National Leagues. 2010-11-05T22:19:19+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/bob_guccione_79/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/bob_guccione_79/#When:12:24:08Z The poor man's Hugh Hefner died Wednesday, Oct. 20th, at a hospital in Plano, Texas. He was 79. Guccione lost much of his personal fortune on bad investments and risky ventures. Probably his best-known business failure was a $17.5-million investment in the 1979 production of the X-rated film "Caligula." Distributors shunned the film, with its graphic scenes of lesbianism and incest. However, it eventually became General Media's most popular DVD. His management style even sparked a rift with his own son, Bob Guccione Jr. In 1985, the publisher helped his son launch the music magazine Spin, with Bob Jr. serving as editor and publisher. After just two years, the two clashed over the direction of the magazine and the elder Guccione decided to shut it down, forcing his son to secure outside funding. According to Axl Rose, the younger Guccione was also pissed because his dad got more pussy than him. 2010-10-25T12:24:08+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/stephen_j._cannell_69/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/stephen_j._cannell_69/#When:18:51:27Z The creator of such iconic TV series as Hardcastle & McCormick, The A-Team and Baa Baa Black Sheep (featuring a budding, young actor named John Larroquette) has died at his Pasadena home of complications of melanoma. 2010-10-11T18:51:27+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/eddie_fisher_82/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/eddie_fisher_82/#When:02:59:46Z He ditched America's sweetheart for America's femme fatale, did lots of drugs and starred in his own TV show called, "Coke Time with Eddie Fisher". But in the end it was his hip that took him out. Complications from hip surgery ended the life of Eddie Fisher at his home in Berkeley on Thursday. He is survived by his four children: Princess Leia, Todd, Joely and Tricia Leigh as well as his six grandchildren. 2010-09-26T02:59:46+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/harold_gould_86/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/harold_gould_86/#When:22:29:51Z Harold Gould, a veteran character actor, died Saturday at the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement community in Woodland Hills of prostate cancer that had metastasized, said Leah Gould, his daughter-in-law. He appeared in such films as "Freaky Friday", "Patch Adams" and "Killer: A Journal of Murder" starring James Woods and Seth Romatelli 2010-09-15T22:29:51+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/rich_cronin_believed_to_be_36/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/rich_cronin_believed_to_be_36/#When:01:23:26Z Fan of the show and lead singer of LFO (Lyte Funkie Ones), Rich Cronin, died Wednesday in a Massachusetts hospital. He and his boy group shot to fame and superstardom with their smash hit 'Summer Girls' back in the '90's. 2010-09-10T01:23:26+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/frank_garland_60/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/frank_garland_60/#When:16:07:19Z Frank C. Garland, the UC San Diego epidemiologist who, with his brother Cedric, was the first to demonstrate that vitamin D in sunlight plays a role in preventing cancer and other diseases, died Aug. 17 at UCSD Thornton Hospital. He was 60 and had been suffering for nearly a year from cancer. "His favorite expression was, 'I like observation and inference.' " 2010-08-31T16:07:19+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/frank_ryan_50/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/frank_ryan_50/#When:17:03:18Z Dr. Frank Ryan, plastic surgeon to Heidi Montag and other celebrities, was sending a Twitter message about his border collie just before his fatal car accident. "He lived up in Malibu on a tiny street and he was texting while driving and he accidentally went over the cliff," Charmaine Blake says. Blake, a celebrity publicist, says Ryan's family was told by investigators that the Tweeting caused the wreck on Monday. The dog, whose name is Jill – Blake's middle name – was in the car at the time of the crash and survived injuries to the head, eye and paw. 2010-08-18T17:03:18+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/lorene_yarnell_66/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/lorene_yarnell_66/#When:17:36:50Z Half of the Shields and Yarnell comedy mime team that came to fame in the 1970s and briefly starred in their own TV variety series, has died. She was 66. Yarnell, who turned up in Mel Brooks' 1987 comedy "Spaceballs" — she was the robot Dot Matrix, whose voice was supplied by Joan Rivers — owned a dance studio in Sandefjord, Norway, where she taught jazz, tap and ballet. "She could tap dance like nobody's business." 2010-08-06T17:36:50+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/john_callahan_59/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/john_callahan_59/#When:19:00:27Z Callahan died Saturday at Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland, Ore., after undergoing surgery and treatment for a chronic bed sore, said Kevin Mullane, a longtime friend. He was drinking heavily when he moved to the Los Angeles area in 1972. That July, after a day of drinking, he and a man he met at a party went bar-hopping. With his new drinking buddy behind the wheel of Callahan's Volkswagen Beetle, it crashed into a utility pole while traveling at 90 mph. 2010-07-29T19:00:27+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/marc_abrams_58/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/marc_abrams_58/#When:21:58:57Z Marc Abrams, a physician whose epic (and shirtless) daily walks through Silver Lake inspired documentaries, murals and magazine profiles, died Wednesday. He was 58. His wife, Cindy, found him dead in their backyard hot tub. Police initially determined that it was a suicide, although the official cause of death is pending. Abrams traversed 20 to 30 miles of pavement each day and wore out four pairs of shoes each year. He walked swiftly — often hunched over a newspaper — slowing only to shout hellos to friends or give medical advice to those who asked for it. 2010-07-24T21:58:57+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/hank_cochran_74/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/hank_cochran_74/#When:18:36:07Z Garland Perry Cochran was born August 2, 1935 in Isola, Mississippi. After his parents divorced, when he was 9, his father placed him at St. Peter's Orphans Home in Memphis. At age 12 he hitchhiked with an uncle to Hobbs, New Mexico and spent 2 years laboring in the oil fields there. 2010-07-15T18:36:07+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/nicolas_hayek_82/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/nicolas_hayek_82/#When:17:58:22Z Inventor of the Swatch Watch. The self-styled Mr. Swatch became a national figure, respected as one of the economic leaders of Switzerland. Back in America, Seth popularized putting the Swatch Watch on his pants next to his zipper. Not related to Salma. 2010-06-30T17:58:22+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/jimmy_dean_81/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/jimmy_dean_81/#When:16:56:35Z The country music star and sausage king died at his home while eating in front of the television. Dean was born Aug. 10, 1928, in Olton, Texas, and grew up in Plainview. He and his brother Don were raised on a farm by their mother after their father left when Dean was still a child. They were so poor, he once said, he wore shirts that his mother made out of sugar sacks. 2010-06-15T16:56:35+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/chris_haney_59/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/chris_haney_59/#When:17:15:47Z The dropout was co-creator of Trivial Pursuit. In 1980, with an infant son to support and a second child on the way, Haney quit his job at the Gazette to work full time on the game. His personal finances became so shaky, however, that he was redeeming empty beer bottles for cash. He suffered a nervous breakdown. 2010-06-02T17:15:47+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/art_linkletter_97/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/art_linkletter_97/#When:16:58:00Z His youngest child, Diane, leaped to her death from her Hollywood apartment in 1969 at age 20, a suicide the family blamed on LSD use. He and his daughter won a Grammy for their spoken-word recording "We Love You, Call Collect," an emotional father-daughter conversation recorded not long before her death. 2010-05-26T16:58:00+00:00 http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/jack_herer_70/ http://uhhyeahdude.com/index.php/obits/jack_herer_70/#When:04:23:16Z Author and activist Jack Herer died Thursday in Eugene, Ore. The 70-year-old activist was in ill health following a heart attack he experienced after leaving the Hempstalk festival stage in Portland last fall. 2010-04-17T04:23:16+00:00