Bodies Of Lotus Drummer Chuck Morris & His Son Found Weeks After Going Missing
The bodies of Lotus drummer Chuck Morris and his son have been recovered from a lake in Arkansas after both were reported missing almost a month ago.
It was on March 16 when 47-year-old Morris and his 20-year-old son Charley went missing after going on a kayaking trip around the Lost Bridge Village of Beaver Lake area. The Benton County Sheriff’s Office issued a statement after a search and rescue team recovered the bodies.
“After 24 days of recovery efforts, the bodies of both Charles Morris IV (Chuck-Father) and Charles Morris V (Charley-son) have been recovered thanks to the technology and efforts by all personnel,” read a statement posted on Facebook. “Our heart goes out the family of Chuck and Charley Morris and we are thankful today that we can help bring closure.”
Michael Lerner, Oscar-nominated actor for Barton Fink, dead at 81
Michael Lerner, the Brooklyn-born character actor who played a myriad of imposing figures in his 60 years in the business, including movie mogul Jack Lipnick in Barton Fink, the crooked club owner Bugsy Calhoun in Harlem Nights and an angry publishing executive in Elf, has died. He was 81.
His nephew, actor Sam Lerner, announced his death in an Instagram post Sunday. Sam Lerner wrote that his uncle died Saturday but did not provide further details. Neither his nor Michael Lerner's representatives immediately responded to requests for further comment.
"He was the coolest, most confident, talented guy," Sam Lerner wrote. "Everyone that knows him knows how insane he was — in the best way ... we're all lucky we can continue to watch his work for the rest of time. RIP Michael, enjoy your unlimited Cuban cigars, comfy chairs and endless movie marathon."
Born in 1941 to Romanian-Jewish parents and raised in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighbourhood, Michael Lerner began acting locally as a teen and into his days at Brooklyn College, where he got the chance to play Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman. His ambitions to pursue acting professionally crystallized when he received a Fulbright Scholarship and chose to study theatre at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, where he lived in an apartment with Yoko Ono for a time, appearing in her short film Smile alongside Paul McCartney. His brother, Ken Lerner, also became an actor.
Lerner moved to Los Angeles in 1969, at the urging of an agent who saw his work at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. He started getting cast in television shows, including M*A*S*H, The Brady Bunch and The Rockford Files, making his film debut in Paul Mazursky's Alex in Wonderland, alongside Charlotte Rampling. But he considered his first significant role to be in the television movie Ruby and Oswald (he played Jack Ruby) with Brian Dennehy.
Lerner, who drew inspiration from Preston Sturges movies, said the Coens didn't give him much acting direction and "were a little nervous that I was talking so fast" but that they let him do what he wanted.
The role got him his first and only Oscar nomination, but in 1992, the Academy Award for supporting actor went to Jack Palance for City Slickers.
The Coens called him years later to do a cameo in A Serious Man.
Lerner also said he was frequently recognized for his turns in Eddie Murphy's Harlem Nights and Elf, as Fulton Greenway. He also played Cher's father in the television spinoff of Clueless.
In the late 90s, he was excited to get a chance to work with Woody Allen on the film Celebrity, but it turned into a terrible experience, he said in a 2016 interview.
"He is a schmuck," Lerner said. "And the movie's a piece of shit."
Lerner also appeared in several bigger blockbusters over the years, including Godzilla as Mayor Ebert, X-Men: Days of Future Past as Senator Brickman and Mirror Mirror as Baron.
"Those are good parts but not great acting roles," Lerner said.
And he never felt cheated by being known as a "character actor" rather than a leading man. In 1999, in an interview with Cigar Aficionado, he said, simply: "Every role is a character role."
Jung Chae-yul Dies: South Korean ‘Zombie Detective’ Star Was 26
The news of her death was confirmed by her agency Management S, without disclosing details of the circumstances.
“Actress Chae-yul has left our side on April 11, 2023,” the agency said in a statement. “We pray that Chae-yul, who has always been sincere about acting, is able to rest in peace in a warm place.”
The statement indicated that Jung’s family will have a private funeral. A cause of death, or the manner in which she was found, was not disclosed.
At the time of her death, Jung was filming a lead role in South Korean drama series Wedding Impossible.
Mark Sheehan Dies: Co-Founding Guitarist For Hitmaking Irish Group The Script Was 46
The Irish Record Music Association named The Script as the Official Irish Charts’ Artist of the Decade, and the band racked up more chart-topping singles and albums than any other homegrown Irish act between 2010-19. Six of its seven LPs, including last year’s hits compilation, hit No. 1 in the UK, with 2012’s #3 peaking at No. 2. It also racked up four Top 5 singles there and three No. 1s in Ireland.
The band is scheduled to support Pink for a series of European concerts in the summer.
Sheehan and singer-keyboardist Danny O’Donoghue were childhood friends in Dublin and were part of the boy band Mytown in the late ’90s. The pair relocated to the U.S. for a few years, landing a short-lived record deal with Universal and reaching the UK Top 25 with the single “Party All Night.” The pair later returned to the Irish capital, where they recruited drummer Glen Power and formed The Script in the early 2000s.
The band relocated to London and scored a huge hit with its 2008 self-titled debut album, which topped the UK and Irish charts.
The disc, which would spend nearly three years on the UK album chart including three weeks at No. 1, featured “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved,” the first of its many European hits. “Hall of Fame,” featuring will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas, hit No. 1 in the UK and Ireland in 2012, and “Superheroes” topped the Irish chart and hit No. 3 in the UK two years later.
The group won the International Award at the UK’s Silver Clef Awards in 2018.h
The Script also enjoyed some stateside success, with the 2008 single “Breakeven” and three of its albums reaching the Top 15, led by a No. 3 peak for 2010’s Science & Faith.
Sheehan was born on October 29, 1976, in Dublin. Also a singer, songwriter and producer, he married Rina Sheehan in 2005, and they have three children together, Cameron, Avery, and Lil.
Murray Melvin Dies: Veteran Actor In ‘Barry Lyndon’ And ‘Alfie’ Was 90
Actor Murray Melvin, whose extensive work in film and on stage was highly respected by his peers, has died from complications from a fall suffered in December. He was 90 and died on April 14, according to Kerry Kyriacos Michael MBE, creative director at Theatro Technis.
Melvin’s body of work included time with Michael Caine and directory Stanley Kubrick. After making his debut in 1957 at the Theatre Royal in Stratford in Macbeth, he went on to appear in such notable films as Alfie (1966), Barry Lyndon (1975) and The Phantom of the Opera (2004).
Born on August 10, 1932 in London, he was also seen on the TV sci-fi drama “Torchwood.”
He made his stage debut in 1957 at the Theatre Royal in Stratford for Macbeth. He then went on to star in films such as Alfie (1966) alongside Michael Caine, Barry Lyndon (1975) and The Phantom of the Opera (2004).
His film resume includes H.M.S Defiant (1962), Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963), Kaleidoscope (1966), Smashing Time (1967), The Devils (1971), Ghost Story (1974), Joseph Andrews (1977), Ghost in the Noonday Sun (1985) and The Lost City of Z (2017).
Along the way, he won the BAFTA film award for Most Promising Newcomer and Cannes Film Festival Best Actor award for his role in A Taste of Honey (1961).
“It’s with great sadness that I have to announce the death of Murray Melvin – actor, director and theatre archivist,” said Kyriacos in a Twitter message. “He had a fall in December, from which he never fully recovered. He died at St Thomas’ Hospital on Friday, 14th April, aged 90. He was one of my closest friends and will be missed by so many of us who had the privilege to know him.”
Ahmad Jamal, the pianist and band leader who helped pioneer the influential style that would come to be called cool jazz, died Sunday of prostate cancer at his home in Ashley Falls, Mass. He was 92.
Jamal often described his playing style by saying he honored the spaces between the notes, a less-is-more approach that in the 1950s was initially dismissed by critics as superficial cocktail lounge music.
The record-buying public disagreed, and Jamal’s 1958 album At the Pershing: But Not for Me spent an unprecedented two years on Billboard’s album chart. The freeform, relaxed but intensely rhythmic stuyle would be cited by later generations of jazz pianists like Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett as a major influence. Clint Eastwood included two tracks from the album for inclusion on the soundtrack of The Bridges of Madison County.
In all, Jamal released more than 60 albums throughout his career.
Jamal was a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. In 2017 he received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy alongside Charley Pride, the Velvet Underground and Sly Stone, among others, for contributions to music history.
Moonbin Dies: Singer With South Korean Boy Band Astro Was 25
A member of the South Korean boy band Astro, died by suicide today at his residence in the Gangnam district of Seoul.
The body of the singer-actor was found by his manager at approximately 8:10 p.m. KST on April 19. The manager immediately called the police, according to the Seoul Gangnam Police Station. “It appears that Moonbin took his own life,” police told South Korean news media. “We are currently discussing the possibility of an autopsy to determine the precise cause of death.”
Fantagio, the South Korean management agency that reps the group Astro, confirmed Moonbin’s death, saying in a statement that the singer “has now become a star in the sky.”
Born Moon Bin in Cheongju, Chungbuk Province, Moonbin began his career as a child model in 2004, and appeared in a 2006 “Balloons” music video by the band TVXQ. He made his acting debut in 2009 in the Korean drama series Boys Over Flowers. Other TV credits include the 2019 series At Eighteen.
Moon Bin debuted as part of the six-member boy group Astro in 2016, briefly taking a leave from the band in 2019 for health reasons. He returned in 2020, and he was among the group members hosting the Korean music series Show Champion.
Barry Humphries: Dame Edna Everage comedian dies at 89
The star had been in hospital in Sydney after suffering complications following hip surgery in March. He had a fall in February.
Humphries' most famous creation became a hit in the UK in the 1970s and landed her own TV chat show, the Dame Edna Everage Experience, in the late 1980s.
His other personas included the lecherous drunk Sir Les Patterson.
In a statement, his family remembered him as "completely himself until the very end, never losing his brilliant mind, his unique wit and generosity of spirit".
They said Humphries' fans were "precious to him", and said his characters, "which brought laughter to millions, will live on".
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute shortly after the news of Humphries' death broke.
"A great wit, satirist, writer and an absolute one-of-kind, he was both gifted and a gift." Mr Albanese said.
Melbourne-born Humphries moved to London in 1959, appearing in West End shows such as Maggie May and Oliver!
Inspired by the absurdist, avant-garde art movement Dada, he became a leading figure of the British comedy scene alongside contemporaries like Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore and Spike Milligan.
In 1955, Humphries introduced Mrs Norman Everage, the housewife from Moonee Ponds, a suburb in Melbourne, in a university production.
It was the first iteration of the irrepressible character that would define his career.
Humphries said his creation was supposed to last only a week.
Instead, it blossomed into Dame Edna, his gaudy, sharp-tongued comic alter ego who would leave audiences in stitches in Australia and beyond for decades. He said the character was based on his own mother.
Humphries even wrote an autobiography, My Gorgeous Life, as the character.
His other popular characters on stage and screen included the more grandfatherly Sandy Stone.
He said of Stone in 2016 that he could "finally feel myself turning into him".
Humphries also presented six series for BBC Radio 2, the latest being a three part series celebrating 100 years of the BBC.
The commissioning executive for Radio 2, Laura Busson, said his series "Barry Humphries Forgotten Musical Masterpieces" was hugely popular with audiences, and would be published on BBC Sounds today as a tribute to the comedian.
Emmerdale and The Hunt for Raoul Moat star Dale Meeks dies age 47
The popular actor played Simon Meredith on the long-running ITV soap between 2003 and 2006 after establishing his career on legendary teen drama Byker Grove alongside Declan Donnelly and Ant McPartlin.
His death, the cause of which is yet to be announced, was confirmed by a family member on Facebook, after which the presenting duo led a flood of tributes across social media.
An Obie Award-winning stage actor whose widest fame came from a brief but crucial scene in the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist, died March 26 of lung cancer.
His death was only recently announced. In a Facebook post, Faber’s longtime friend and colleague, the actor David Patrick Kelly, remembered him as a “great artist and gentleman with a wonderful voice and laugh.”
Faber had just won an Obie Award for his performance in the 1972 Off Broadway play And They Put Handcuffs on Flowers when he was spotted by director William Friedkin for the small role of Chuck in The Exorcist.
In the film, Faber’s Chuck is the assistant director of Crash Course, the movie-within-the-movie in which Ellen Burstyn’s actor character Chris MacNeil stars. In a pivotal scene, a stunned Chuck arrives at MacNeil’s Georgetown home to deliver the news that Crash Course director Burke Dennings (Jack MacGowran) has been found dead on the steps outside.
“I supposed you’ve heard,” he says, then realizing his mistake, adds, “You haven’t heard. Burke’s dead. He must have been drunk. He fell down from the top of the steps right outside. By the time he hit M Street he broke his neck.” At this point in the film, no one besides the possessed Regan (Linda Blair) knows that Burke was murdered in a very gruesome way by the demon.
The small role wasn’t the only contribution Faber would make to The Exorcist. Although actor Mercedes McCambridge provided the primary voice of the demon, Faber added some of the deeper, guttural vocal sounds that were layered into the soundtrack to suggest that the more than one demon was inside Regan.
“Friedkin told me that there were three people doing the voice of the demon for the film,” Faber recalled in a 2016 interview with the ComingSoon website. “He was determined to make sure that the devil did not sound like just one person, he wanted it to sound like a legion of voices. So he had Mercedes McCambridge do the core part of the voice of the demon, and myself and someone else, and I never got any credit for it. That was my shock when I saw the movie – Mercedes McCambridge got the sole credit on the end film, so that pissed me off.”
Faber said that despite McCambridge providing the primary demon voice, he did recognize some of his contributions in the final cut. “[T]here were things from that recording that I was certain made it into the final film, and these were mostly sounds that I made – deep guttural moaning and groaning. The sound design people on the film played with the voices, mine included, and did the overlapping and so forth. Mercedes was the person responsible for all the wheezing! She was a well known asthmatic!”
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Faber began his show business career in radio, and later earned a scholarship to the famed Lucille Lortel White Barn Theater in Westport, Connecticut. Subsequent Off Broadway credits include Lucky Stiff at Playwrights Horizons, Troilus and Cressida at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre, Woyzeck at the Public Theatre, and, at the Mercer Arts Center, And They Put Handcuffs on Flowers.
TV credits include Kojak, The Edge of Night, Law & Order, Third Watch and Hope & Faith.
Emmett Till Accuser Carolyn Bryant Donham Dies At 88
Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman whose claim that 14-year-old Emmett Till whistled at her during a grocery store visit led to the Black teenager’s brutal murder in August 1955, died of cancer Tuesday in Westlake, Louisiana. She was 88.
Donham’s death while under hospice care was confirmed today in a report filed by the Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, coroner’s office.
Donham, known as Carolyn Bryant at the time of Till’s lynching, was the 21-year-old owner-cashier of a small general store in Money, Mississippi, when she first encounter Till, a Chicago boy who was visiting relatives in town. After Donham told her then-husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam that Till had whistled at her in the store – a claim that has been much disputed and remains unfounded – the two men abducted, tortured and murdered the boy.
The crime went unpunished – an all-white jury acquitted the two men, who later confessed to the crime in an interview with Look magazine. Just last year, a grand jury, investigating evidence that an old arrest warrant had been issued against Carolyn Bryant but was never served, declined to indict the woman for lack of new evidence.
The murder of Emmett Till would become a seminal event in the history of American Civil Rights. Till’s mother Mamie Till Mobley insisted that her son’s casket be left open at his funeral in Chicago in order to “let the world see what they did to my boy.” A photograph of Emmett’s disfigured face was published in Jet magazine, igniting a firestorm of outrage.
Till historian Timothy B. Tyson said in 2017 that Donham admitted she had lied during her husband’s trial to make Till’s conduct at the grocery store seem “menacing” and “sexual.”
Before her death in 2003, Mamie Till Mobley said she had forgiven her son’s murderers.
The Till murder has been the subject of numerous documentaries and films, most recently last year’s Till, starring Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till, Jalyn Hall as Emmett Till, and Haley Bennett as Carolyn Bryant.
Eileen Saki Dies: ‘M*A*S*H’ Actor Who Played Rosie Was 79
Saki, whose real name was Minako Borgen, gave life to Rosie in the Korean War comedy-drama series. Rosie was the owner and proprietor of Rosie’s Bar, the local off-base watering hole for GIs, particularly the personnel assigned to the 4077th.
Co-star Jeff Maxwell shared a message on social media after learning about Saki’s loss.
“Our sweet Eileen. Our sassy Rosie. On behalf of her husband Bob, we extend sincere appreciation for the hundreds of M*A*S*H fans who filled Eileen’s final days with peace, encouragement, and love. She read every email and responded to as many as she could,” Maxwell shared on Facebook. “We will share more remembrances of Eileen Saki throughout the day. You are invited to do the same. Our sweet, sweet Eileen. How we love you. How we will miss you.”
Starring Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers, Loretta Swit and McLean Stevenson, the CBS dramedy based on Robert Altman’s 1970 feature was not an immediate hit, failing to make the top 25 among primetime programs that season. But its fortunes soon changed, and M*A*S*H would go on to be a top 10 program for each of its final 10 seasons.
Saki appeared in nine episodes of M*A*S*H as Rosie, the third actor to take on the role and the one to have played the character the longest.
Other film and TV credits for Saki throughout her career include Splash (1984), History of the World, Part I (1981), Meteor (1979), Policewoman (1974), Good Times (1979), CHiPs (1981), Gimme a Break! (1984), Without a Trace (2004) and Man Rots from the Head (2016), among many more.
Gordon Lightfoot Dies: ‘If You Could Read My Mind’ & ‘Sundown’ Singer-Songwriter Was 84
Gordon Lightfoot, the honey-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter who had giant U.S. hits with “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” died today at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. He was 84.
His longtime publicist Victoria Lord revealed the news to Canadian media outlets including the CBC but did not provide a cause of death. Revered in Canada, the four-time Grammy nominee had been scheduled to play Los Angeles-area clubs several times during the past two years but had postponed the dates at least twice.
Lightfoot received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Canada’s highest honor in the performing arts, in 1997 and was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada in 2003, one of fewer than 500 ever to be so honored. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1986. Along with the Grammy noms — including Song of the Year for “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (it lost to “I Write the Songs”) — he earned 13 career Juno Awards in Canada on 29 total nominations.
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement late Monday: “We have lost one of our greatest singer-songwriters. Gordon Lightfoot captured our country’s spirit in his music – and in doing so, he helped shape Canada’s soundscape. May his music continue to inspire future generations, and may his legacy live on forever.” Read his full remarks below.
A documentary about the singer, Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind, was scheduled hit theaters in May 2020 via Greenwich Entertainment, but those plans were was scuttled amid the early days of the Covid pandemic. In it, fellow Canadian music legend Geddy Lee of Rush says of Lightfoot, “He is one of greatest examples of timeless singer-songwriter.” Bad Religion;s Greg Graffin added, “He’s a Canadian national hero, but he also speaks to a voice for anyone.” Watch a trailer below.
Born on November 17, 1938, in Orillia, Ontario, Lightfoot went from rural choirboy to part of the Canadian folk scene for several years before he burst onto the international music charts amid the singer-songwriter craze. In late 1970, he scored with “If You Could Read My Mind,” a gorgeous, ethereal track featuring his acoustic guitar and supple but assured vocal. Inspired by his divorce, the song hit No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, drawn from his Reprise LP Sit Down Young Stranger, which later was retitled as If You Could Read My Mind. It reached No. 12 on the Billboard 200.
He released three more Reprise albums — Summer Side of Life (1971), Don Quixote (1972) and Old Dan’s Records (1972), all of which were huge hits in the Great White North — and singles to middling U.S. chart before roaring back with the 1974 LP Sundown. The album spent two weeks at No. 1 here, and its title track became Lightfoot’s lone Hot 100 chart-topper and went gold.
Lightfoot wrote the song about his tumultuous, extramarital and occasionally violent relationship with Cathy Smith, who years later admitted to injecting John Belushi with the heroin and cocaine “speedball” that led to his death at age 33. Its dark lyrics are masked by a lilting, bluesy melody: “Sundown you better take care/If I find you been creepin’ ’round my back stairs.” Lightfoot’s Sundown LP also hit No. 1 in the U.S. and Canada. Smith, who died in 2020, is credited as a backup singer on one track, “High and Dry.”
Sundown, his first of three platinum albums, also spawned the top 10 U.S. hit “Carefree Highway.”
Lightfoot’s 1975 LP Cold on the Shoulder made the U.S. Top 10, and its single “Rainy Day People” reached the Top 30. It would be the last of his four No. 1s on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary/Easy Listening chart., and his third in a row after “Sundown” and “Carefree Highway.”
But he had one more stateside smash to deliver.
That would come in the unlikely form of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” a six-minute story song/dirge adorned with mournful electric guitar and folksy melody that often crammed several extra syllables into a line. Based on the shipwreck of the titular American ship — “As the big freighters go, she was bigger than most” — on Lake Superior in 1975 that cost 29 sailors’ lives. Reprise trimmed about 30 seconds from the album version, but it still became one of the longest singles to reach the U.S. Top 5, peaking at No. 2 for two weeks behind Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night.”
It came from the album Summertime Dream, which peaked at No. 12 stateside and went platinum.
The album and singles success came after Reprise issued the compilation disc Gord’s Gold, which went double-platinum remains his best-selling set in the U.S.
Lightfoot wouldn’t reach those chart heights in America again, though his 1978 LP Endless Wire went gold. He continued to record and tour into the 2020s. His 2019 North American tour included a stop at the Grove in Anaheim where he played more than two dozen songs over two hours at age 80.
Other lauded Lightfoot songs include “Sit Down Young Stranger,” “The Watchman’s Gone,” “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” “For Lovin’ Me,” “Daylight Katy,” “Too Late for Prayin'” and “Did She Mention My Name?”
He also dabbled in acting, appearing in a 1988 episode of Hotel among a few other credits, and he was a guest on many talk shows and in documentaries. Lightfoot’s songs are heard in dozens of film and TV shows ranging from McCloud, James at 16 and 54 to Supernatural, The Blacklist, Mr. Robot, Knives Out and Licorice Pizza.
Elvis Presley recorded his song “Early Morning Rain” after the Aloha From Hawaii concert, and the track was included in the film’s 1998 CD reissue.
Bob Dylan once was quoted as saying of Lightfoot, “Every time I hear a song of his, I wish it would last forever.”
Here is Trudeau’s full statement on Lightfoot:
“I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing yesterday of Gordon Lightfoot, one of Canada’s greatest singer-songwriters.
“Mr. Lightfoot gave us so many special moments over the years. With a career that spanned over half a century, Mr. Lightfoot’s music told stories that captured the Canadian spirit, none more so than his iconic Canadian Railroad Trilogy, which will forever be a part of our country’s musical heritage.
“I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Lightfoot as a child – he spent the afternoon in the Gatineau Hills with my family, and it is a memory I will always cherish.
“Mr. Lightfoot received many Juno Awards and Grammy nominations, and was honoured as a member of Canada’s Walk of Fame, the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in 1997, and was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada in 2003.
“On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I express our deepest sympathies to Gordon’s family, friends, and his many, many fans. His legacy will live on in the dynamic Canadian soundscape he helped to shape.”
Tim Bachman Dies: Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s Co-Founding Guitarist Was 71
Born on August 1, 1951, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Bachman was 19 when his brother Randy left The Guess Who in 1970 and he formed a short-lived group called Brave Belt, with his Tim on guitar and their 18-year-old brother Robbie on drums.
Brave Belt, also featuring bassist-singer Fred Turner, would soon change its name, along with a musical style that grew from country-style rock to what would come to be defined as classic rock, to Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
BTO’s 1973 self-titled album included the song “Blue Collar” that would receive some FM radio airplay, but it was 1974’s Bachman-Turner Overdrive II that would explode with such hits as “Let It Ride” and “Takin’ Care of Business.” Tim Bachman left the group shortly after the album’s release, replaced by Blair Thornton, and went on to score its biggest LP with 1974’s Not Fragile, which spawned the band’s lone No. 1 single, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” along with “Roll On Down The Highway.”
The three-time Olympic sprint medalist's death was confirmed through a social media statement from her management company on Wednesday morning.
"We're devasted to share the very sad news that Tori Bowie has passed away," the company, Icon Management, tweeted. "We've lost a client, dear friend, daughter and sister. Tori was a champion…a beacon of light that shined so bright! We're truly heartbroken and our prayers are with the family and friends."
USA Track and Field also mourned Bowie's death in a post, sharing an image of the Mississippi native smiling and holding up an American flag.
"USATF is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Tori Bowie, a three-time Olympic medalist and two-time world champion," the organization tweeted. "Her impact on the sport is immeasurable, and she will be greatly missed."
Bowie helped the U.S. win gold in the 100-meter relay at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Meanwhile, she won silver in the 100-meter sprint and bronze in the 200-meter at the 2016 Games.
Bowie won gold in the 100-meter race at the IAAF World Championships the next year, while also helping the U.S. retain gold in the 100-meter relay.
Bowie was raised by her grandmother in the small town of Sandhill, Mississippi after she was left at a foster home, according to The Associated Press. She envisioned herself playing basketball before she was persuaded to try track, quickly excelling at the sport, winning state championships in the 100-meter, 200-meter and long jump events.
She later attended college at the University of Southern Mississippi, where she became a three-time All-American and won two long jump titles in both indoor and outdoor events in 2011.
After winning her three medals at the 2016 Games, Mississippi made November 25 "Tori Bowie Day," an honor she called "special" and "humbling."
Sara Lee Dies: Winner Of Reality Show ‘Tough Enough’ And WWE Wrestler Was 30
Texas medical examiners said Friday that 30-year-old Sara Lee’s death was a suicide. The 30-year-old ingested a fatal combination of alcohol and drugs.
Lee died last October in her San Antonio, Texas home. The medical examiners said she had a mixture of amphetamines, doxylamine and alcohol in her system, a spokesperson for the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
Lee won a one-year, $250,000 WWE contract in the “Tough Enough”competition’s sixth season.
Terrence Hardiman Dies: Star Of ‘The Demon Headmaster’ Was 86
He is probably best known for his role as the evil protagonist in CBBC’s The Demon Headmaster, which ran from 1996 to 1998 and was rebooted briefly in 2019. Hardiman terrified a generation of children with his portrayal of the Demon and he became widely recognized for the character’s trademark dark glasses.
Born on April 6, 1937, in London, Hardiman first got into acting at Cambridge University before he toured with the Royal Shakespeare Company, starring in the likes of Doctor Faustus.
He got his big break playing Stephen Harvesty in Granada Television’s Crown Court for a decade from 1972 and went on to appear in the likes of Doctor Who, Gandhi and Prime Suspect. In Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, he portrayed former Prime Minister Ramsay McDonald.
Jacklyn Zeman Dies: ‘General Hospital’ Actress Was 70
Born in New Jersey, Zeman studied ballet in her childhood — she accepted a scholarship to study dance at New York University at the age of 15 — but ultimately made the decision to act instead. Her first soap gig was on The Edge of Night before she moved to One Life to Live to play Lana McLain.
Even though she joined GH in 1977, Zeman made several other TV appearances on shows like The New Mike Hammer, Sledge Hammer! and Chicago Hope.
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