MetaFilter posts tagged with obitfilter

Oral Roberts is dead at 91

yhbc — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:36:25 -0800

God has called Oral Roberts home.

Goodbye, Teddy

ocherdraco — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:40:58 -0800

Edward M. Kennedy, Senator from Massachusetts, has died at age 77. After a rocky youth (including scandals of cheating and reckless driving), Kennedy followed his brothers into politics, making health care his cause, and eventually went on to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Anticipating his own death, he had been trying to create a quick transition for his replacement as a vote on health care reform rapidly approached.

"I'm not the best piano player in the world, but I've got damn good taste"

Ufez Jones — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:59:40 -0800

Memphis music legend Jim Dickinson has died. Dickinson's full credits are as impressive a resume as you'll find over the past 40 years: session player for many, including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Aretha Franklin. Producer for albums by Jason and the Scorchers, Big Star, the Replacements, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and Mudhoney. Among his survivors are sons Cody and Luther of the North Mississippi All-Stars. His death comes one week after a benefit show in his honor headlined by John Hiatt. R.I.P., Jim.

Eternal sunshine

WPW — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:43:37 -0800

RIP Julius Shulman, iconic photographer of modernist architecture.

I'm coming home via Chicago

Rangeboy — Mon, 25 May 2009 00:33:13 -0800

Ex-Wilco member Jay Bennett has died. The Chicago Sun-Times has reported that the 45-year-old Bennett died in his sleep in Urbana, Illinois, where he ran a recording studio. Bennett was best known for his work as a multi-instrumentalist with Wilco. He joined the band shortly after the release of its debut album, A.M., and served as bandleader Jeff Tweedy's creative foil during the recording of the band's next two albums, Being There and Summerteeth. During the recording of the band's fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the tension between Bennett and Tweedy reached a breaking point. Sam Jones' 2002 documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart depicted the worsening relationship between the two men and Bennett's eventual ejection from the band. Since leaving Wilco, Bennett released five solo albums. Just a few weeks ago, Bennett filed suit against Tweedy for breach of contract, claiming that he never signed a release for his appearance in the Jones documentary. Bennett was seeking $50,000 in what he claimed were unpaid royalties from the film in order to pay for hip surgery. According to Pitchfork, Bennett was working on a sixth album at the time of his death.

Bad News For Bad People

you just lost the game — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:57:43 -0800

Lux Interior, lead singer of The Cramps, dead at 52.

Vision Off

MrMustard — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 04:36:33 -0800

Tony Hart (wiki) has died. Clip.

I Am Not A Number, I Am A Man

briank — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:31:55 -0800

Patrick McGoohan has died. The BBC and other news agencies are reporting the death of actor Patrick McGoohan, following a brief illness. He was 80 years old. McGoohan is best known as the star and co-producer of the 1960s cult classic TV series "The Prisoner", which we have discussed here many times, most recently last week when AMC announced that it would stream all of the original episodes on its website. AMC has also been producing a remake of the series starring Jim Caviezel (as Number 6) and Ian McKellen (as Number 2) for broadcast this fall. In this 1977 interview, McGoohan discusses how he came up with the idea for the series and some other lesser-known bits of infotrivia about this show. Reclusive and with a reputation for being "difficult", his abruptness is evident, nevertheless it has been reported that he was pleased with the new production.

Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears

Rangeboy — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:48:52 -0800

William Zantzinger, who inspired the Bob Dylan song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," died January 3. He was 69 years old. Zantzinger was a tobacco farmer from a wealthy Maryland family. On February 8, 1963, he attended the white-tie Spinsters' Ball at the Emerson Hotel in Baltimore, where he got drunk and assaulted three hotel workers: a bellboy, a waitress, and a barmaid named Hattie Carroll. Hattie Carroll was 51 years old and the mother of eleven children (not ten, as the Dylan song claims). Zantzinger struck her with 25-cent toy cane when she didn't bring him his drink quickly enough. Carroll, who suffered from high blood pressure, fell ill shortly after the attack and died eight hours later. Zantzinger was arrested and charged with murder, although this was later reduced to manslaughter and assault. In August, he was found guilty of both charges and sentenced to six months in jail and a fine of $650. Dylan recorded his song by the end of the year, changing Zantzinger's name to Zanzinger but staying true to most of the details of the case. It quickly became a staple of the folk music scene, and led to a number of cover versions. Zantzinger returned to tobacco farming after his release from jail, but never escaped the infamy the song had brought him. In 1991, he was found guilty of collecting rent from rental properties he had lost in a dispute with the IRS. The properties themselves were run-down shacks with no running water or even outhouses. Almost all of the tenants were black. He even took some of them to court when they couldn't pay. After the Maryland Independent broke the story, it gained national attention. This time Zantzinger pleaded guilty to 50 misdemeanor counts of unfair and deceptive trade practices. He was sentenced to 19 months in prison and a $50,000 fine. Zantzinger always resented the attention the song had brought him, telling Dylan biographer Howard Sounes, "He's a no-account son of a bitch, he's just like a scum of a scumbag of the earth, I should have sued him and put him in jail."

I walk across High Holborn and think of you with nothing on

mippy — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 07:19:29 -0800

Eight years nearly to the day after I read about Adrian Henri's death on the Formica table of a service-station cafeteria, another of my favourite poets has left us. Adrian Mitchell, left-wing poet and romantic, 1932 - 2008. "Mitchell was in the habit of stipulating in his collections: "None of the work in this book is to be used in connection with any examination whatsoever". On one occasion, nonetheless, one of his poems somehow came to be used in a GCSE examination. Mitchell agreed, on reflection, to let it go—provided he himself was allowed to sit the exam in question anonymously. He failed."

"We did some Chuck Berry and took it from there. I suppose it worked."

The Card Cheat — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:43:05 -0800

Mitch Mitchell, best known as the drummer in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, dead at 61. The last member of the trio to pass away, Mitchell was found in his hotel room early Wednesday morning. Give the drummer some!

In a world...

evilcolonel — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:37:01 -0800

Said to be the busiest actor in Hollywood -- ever, Don LaFontaine was this generation's most prolific announcer, in the traditional sense of the word, lending his voice to all the major American television networks, and redefining the movie trailer. LaFontaine has died of complications from a collapsed lung at 68. A typical Fox promo featuring his distinctive voiceover. In the last decade or so, LaFontaine came to be recognized as the man and the name behind the voice, and was not above self-parody. Don tells his story. Previously. (via)

Hill races on.

1f2frfbf — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:43:38 -0800

Phil Hill, the only American ever to be winner of the Formula One Championship, a mulitple time winner of the 24 Hours of LeMans races in 1958, 1961 and 1962, and automotive journalist, has died at age 81.

Mahmoud Darwish dies

RogerB — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:36:11 -0800

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet, has died. Here's a good translated selection for English readers. More reading: articles, poems, bio, links

Dr. DeBakey, innovative heart surgeon, died last night.

dog food sugar — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:32:24 -0800

Dr. Michael E. DeBakey died last night a few months shy of 100 years old. The father of modern cardiovascular surgery, he extended the lives of thousands through multiple surgical innovations. He died of natural causes at Methodist Hospital, the hospital he worked at well into his 90's, part of the Texas Medical Center, which his work helped establish as a center of medical and scholastic excellence during his lifetime. Some of those innovations he created: the roller pump (while in med school in the 1930's) the central part of a heart-lung machine that made open heart surgery possible, the connection between smoking and lung cancer, Dacron grafts, MASH units, and techniques to repair a ruptured aorta (surgery he underwent himself at 97). Among the over 60,000 patients he operated on in his lifetime: Marlene Dietrich, LBJ, Nixon, Boris Yeltsin, Jerry Lewis. There's much love for him, but there was also some fear in those in the community who interacted with him. He was rumored to be a demanding professor as well as demanding to work with in the OR. His feud with Dr. Denton Cooley was dramatic and long - only recently reconciled late last year. His contributions to modern healthcare are undeniable.

RIP Sydney Pollack

Bora Horza Gobuchul — Mon, 26 May 2008 20:41:51 -0800

Sydney Pollack has died of cancer, at age 73. While best known as the director of Out of Africa and Tootsie, he also made documentaries (Sketches of Frank Gehry) and was an actor with notable roles in Eyes Wide Shut, Michael Clayton, and even an appearance in The Sopranos.

He's joined Lucy in the sky...

CitizenD — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:26:28 -0800

Albert Hofmann, the inventor/discoverer of LSD, has died at the age of 102. Wiki. The Albert Hofmann Foundation. Erowid entry on LSD. Hofmann's often-cited essay, "LSD, My Problem Child." Late in his life, he questioned his own invention. A conversation with Dr. Hoffman. "I believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjunction with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonderchild." -- Albert Hofmann (1906-2008)

Another 5th Beatle passes

Nick Verstayne — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:49:02 -0800

Former Beatles roadie Neil Aspinall has died of lung cancer. He was the head of the Beatles’ Apple Corporation until about a year ago, when he resigned after the settlement of a long running dispute with Apple Computer. Aspinall was a friend and schoolmate of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, and fathered a child by Pete Best’s mother. He took over management of Apple Corp after the death of Brian Epstein, and stayed loyal to the band thereafter - even after their split. He was one of the very few people close to the band to never write a tell-all memoir.

Neither technology nor magic was sufficiently advanced.

Skorgu — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:15:16 -0800

Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001, inventor of the telecommunications satellite and the only reason most geeks can find Sri Lanka on a map, has died shortly after celebrating his 90th birthday.

Next-to-last Titanic Survivor dead.

pjern — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 18:53:19 -0800

And then there was one.

RIP Robert Goulet

dw — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:20:18 -0800

But if I'd ever leave you,
It couldn't be in autumn.
How I'd leave in autumn I never will know....

Robert Goulet, who shot to fame playing Lancelot in Camelot (the musical, not the model) passed away today. He had been waiting for a lung transplant.

Dallas mourns

Navelgazer — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:00:03 -0800

The strange and sad case of Carter Albrecht, formerly of Sorta and the New Bohemians.

Anita Roddick dies of stroke

athenian — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:58:31 -0800

Obitfilter: Anita Roddick (1942-2007). Anita Roddick, who founded the Body Shop in Brighton's North Laine in 1976, has died of a stroke at St. Richard's hospital in Chichester. The shop, in Kensington Gardens, has long since closed - it's now an optician - but stories about it are still recounted. Although Body Shop is still based in nearby Littlehampton, the controlling interest was sold last year to L'Oreal for the tidy sum of $1.3bn, allowing Ms Roddick to concentrate on her campaigning work.

He's Pinin' For The Fjords

briank — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 05:59:19 -0800

Alex, the African Gray parrot who "spoke" over 100 words, has passed away. y2karl introduced MetaFilter to Alex a few years ago. Alex had been the subject of Dr. Irene Pepperberg's research for nearly 20 years. His ability to communicate with people using an extensive English vocabulary demonstrated a level of intelligence previously unthought of in birds, but critics include no less than Noam Chomsky himself. Here's a 1999 NYT article about Alex if you have never heard of this incredible bird, and a video of another gray parrot demonstrating its own talents.

A . In Time

dw — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:03:31 -0800

ObitFilter: Madeleine L'Engle, Newberry-winning and banned author, died Thursday aged 89.