November 16th 2012

Bernard Lansky, 85

Bernard Lansky and his brother Guy started a retail business in Memphis in 1946, with help from a $125 loan from their father, Samuel. After World War II, the store started selling Army surplus goods on Beale Street. When the supply dried up, they opened a high-fashion men's store, where Bernard Lansky established his reputation as a natural salesman and storyteller.

By the early 1950s, Lansky's shop was known as a place where a man with a taste for flash could find the styles Lansky referred to as "real sharp."

At the time, Beale Street was a hot spot for blues, rhythm and blues and jazz, and drew a colorful parade of musicians, gamblers and hustlers from the Mississippi Delta.

One of Lansky's favorite Elvis stories was how he first met the future king of rock 'n' roll. Presley was a teenager working as an usher at a nearby theater and liked to window-shop at Lansky's.

"He said, 'When I get rich, I'm going to buy you out,' " Lansky said in a standard version of the story. "I said, 'Don't buy me out. Just buy from me.' And he never forgot me."

Lansky dressed the singer for the "Louisiana Hayride" and his first TV spots on the Tommy Dorsey and Ed Sullivan shows.

Even though his style of dress changed over the years — including sparkling jumpsuits — Presley shopped at Lansky Bros. the rest of his life. Presley died at his Memphis residence, Graceland, in 1977.

Lansky picked out the white suit and blue tie that Presley wore when he was buried.

"I put his first suit on him and his last suit on him," Lansky was fond of saying.

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Filed under: Obituaries

October 22nd 2012

Russell Means, 72

Russell Means, a former American Indian Movement activist who helped lead the 1973 uprising at Wounded Knee, reveled in stirring up attention and appeared in several Hollywood films, has died. He was 72.

Means died early Monday at his ranch in in Porcupine, S.D., Oglala Sioux Tribe spokeswoman Donna Solomon said.

Means was an early leader of AIM and led its armed occupation of the South Dakota town of Wounded Knee, a 71-day siege that included several gunbattles with federal officers. He was often embroiled in controversy, partly because of AIM's alleged involvement in the 1975 slaying of Annie Mae Aquash. But Means was also known for his role in the movie “The Last of the Mohicans” and had run unsuccessfully for the Libertarian nomination for president in 1988.

AIM was founded in the late 1960s to protest the U.S. government's treatment of Native Americans and demand the government honor its treaties with Indian tribes. Means told the AP in 2011 that before AIM, there had been no advocate on a national or international scale for American Indians, and that Native Americans were ashamed of their heritage.

“No one except Hollywood stars and very rich Texans wore Indian jewelry,” Means said. “And there was a plethora of dozens if not hundreds of athletic teams that in essence were insulting us, from grade schools to college. That's all changed.”

The movement eventually faded away, the result of Native Americans becoming self-aware and self-determined, Means said.

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Filed under: Obituaries