In Memory Of ...

[Lando Griffin]

Originally Posted by Rick Sanchez

Sid Eudy better known to professional wrestling fans as the legendary Sid Justice, Sid Vicious, and Sycho Sid died today at the age of 63 after battling cancer, his son confirmed on his social media accounts.

Sid was great. Definitely one of my favorites.

You Tube

You Tube

[ghost2509]

James Darren, actor in ‘Gidget’ and ‘TJ Hooker,’ dies at 88, Variety reports

CNN
By Taylor Romine,
September 3, 2024

James Darren, an actor, director and singer who had his breakout role of Moondoggie in the 1959 movie “Gidget,” died Monday at age 88, Variety reported.

The entertainer died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, according to Variety, citing his son Jim Moret, a chief correspondent for Inside Edition. CNN has sought comment from Darren’s and Moret’s agents.

In response to a post paying tribute to Darren on X from singer Nancy Sinatra, Moret responded: “Nancy My father loved you. Thank you so much for your kind and loving words.”

Darren had a lengthy resume spanning across film and television starting as early as 1956, according to IMDb. But his role in “Gidget” helped him reach heartthrob status in the eyes of teenage moviegoers. In a 2015 interview with Los Angeles magazine, he was asked when he first realized he was a Hollywood sensation.

“The defining moment was when I was at a studio in San Francisco and word got out that I was there,” Darren said in the interview. “Thousands of girls were screaming out front. When I had to leave the building, they tackled me to the ground and pulled pieces of my hair out. The police had to rescue me and took me to the roof until things settled down. It was total pandemonium.”

In “Gidget,” Darren played Moondoggie, a surfer who rescues the main character from a bed of kelp and eventually becomes her romantic interest. He also appeared in two later Gidget movies: 1961’s “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” and 1963’s “Gidget Goes to Rome.”

Darren also had supporting roles in the show “The Time Tunnel,” “TJ Hooker” alongside co-star William Shatner, and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” He also directed episodes of shows including “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Melrose Place.”

Born in Philadelphia, Darren studied acting in New York and eventually was signed to Columbia Pictures, Variety reported. He is survived by his wife Evy, his three children and five grandchildren, the outlet said.

[ghost2509]

James Earl Jones, Authoritative Actor and Voice of Darth Vader, Dies at 93

The Hollywood Reporter
Jacqueline Mansky and Mike Barnes
September 9, 2024

James Earl Jones, a commanding presence onscreen who nonetheless gained greater fame off-camera as the sonorous voice of Star Wars villain Darth Vader and Mufasa, the benevolent leader in The Lion King, died Monday. He was 93.

Jones, who burst into national prominence in 1970 with his powerful Oscar-nominated performance as America’s first Black heavyweight champion in The Great White Hope, died at his home in Dutchess County, New York, Independent Artist Group announced.

The distinguished star made his big-screen debut in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and was noteworthy in many other films, including Claudine (1974) opposite Diahann Carroll; Field of Dreams (1989), as the reclusive author Terence Mann; and The Sandlot (1993), as the intimidating neighborhood guy Mr. Mertle.

For his work on the stage, Jones earned two best actor Tony Awards: for originating the role of Jack Jefferson — who was based on real-life boxer Jack Johnson — in 1968 in Howard Sackler’s Great White Hope and for playing the patriarch who struggles to provide for his family in a 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winning production of August Wilson’s Fences.

Jones, the recipient of an honorary Oscar at the 2011 Governors Awards and a special Tony for lifetime achievement in 2017, was one of the handful of people to earn an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony and the first actor to win two Emmys in one year.

“You cannot be an actor like I am and not have been in some of the worst movies like I have,” the self-deprecating star said when he was given his Academy Award. “But I stand before you deeply honored, mighty grateful and just plain gobsmacked.”

Jones’ rise to become one of the most-admired American actors of all time was remarkable considering he suffered from a debilitating stutter as a child.

Born Todd Jones on Jan. 17, 1931, he grew up in Arkabutla, Mississippi, and was raised by his maternal grandparents. At age 5, the family moved to a farm in Dublin, Michigan.

“That move was traumatic somehow,” he once recalled. “My ability to communicate dropped out. I couldn’t speak to people without breaking up and stuttering,” and he pretended to be mute.

When an English teacher in high school encouraged Jones to read a poem to the class that he had written, he discovered that his stutter vanished whenever he spoke words that he had memorized. He won a public-speaking contest as a senior and earned a full scholarship to the University of Michigan, where he studied medicine and discovered acting.

He made his stage debut in a community theater production in Manistee, Michigan, before he left to serve in the Korean War.

After being discharged, Jones moved to New York to pursue theater and made his Broadway debut in 1958 in Sunrise at Campobello, the Tony winner for best play that was written by Dory Schary and starred Ralph Bellamy as polio-stricken President Franklin Roosevelt.

Jones told THR in 2011 that his career was guided by words that his father, Robert Earl Jones — an actor who had been blacklisted from the industry by the House Un-American Activities Committee but appeared in The Sting — told him when he was just starting out.

“If you want to do this business, you gotta do it because you love it, not because it’s gonna make you rich or famous. That was the best advice he could give me,” he said.

Kubrick cast Jones as Lt. Lothar Zogg, a member of the B-52 bomber crew, in Dr. Strangelove after spotting him in New York in a Shakespeare in the Park production.

“George C. Scott was playing Shylock when Kubrick came to look him over,” he recalled in a January 2014 interview. “I was also in the play, as the Prince of Morocco, and Kubrick said, ‘I’ll take the Black one, too.’ That’s not what he actually said, but that’s the way I like to put it.”

His performance opposite future National Endowment for the Arts chairman Jane Alexander in Great White Hope (she also earned a Tony) netted him the cover of Newsweek magazine in October 1968 (headline: “New Star on Broadway”), and for the film version, he would become only the second Black man (after Sidney Poitier) to score a best actor Oscar nom.

When director George Lucas was searching for a bass voice for Darth Vader as he was casting Star Wars (1977), he reportedly considered Orson Welles but felt his voice might be too recognizable. So he called Jones’ agent and asked if the actor would like a day’s work.

Jones got a flat fee of $7,000 for the job and did not acknowledge that he was the voice of Darth Vader until the third film in the franchise.

Once, while traveling cross-country, Jones broke out his Darth Vader voice on the CB radio scanner. “The truck drivers would really freak out — for them, it was Darth Vader. I had to stop doing that,” he told The New York Times magazine.

As for voicing his character in The Lion King, Jones said in a 2011 interview that he still got a kick out of meeting kids who were devoted to the 1994 Disney classic.

“Their parents will say, ‘There’s Mufasa!’ But I don’t look like a lion, and if they’re real little kids, they think they’re being shafted or having the wool pulled over their eyes,” he said. “And I can’t roar to prove it to them, but I can say [in Mufasa’s voice], ‘Simba. You have deliberately disobeyed me!’”

Jones, of course, also was known as the “voice” of CNN.

“I just emptied my mind, then filled it with the thought of all the hundreds of stories — tragic, violent, funny, touching — that could be following my introduction,” he said when asked about his motivation. “And then I said, ‘This is CNN.’”

Onscreen, Jones also was memorable as “Few Clothes” Johnson in John Sayles’ Matewan (1987), as Rev. Stephen Kumalo in the apartheid drama Cry, the Beloved Country (1995) and as Robert Duvall’s embittered half-brother in A Family Thing (1996).

He played Admiral Greer in three films based on Tom Clancy novels — The Hunt for Red October (1990), Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994) — and was King Jaffe Joffer in a pair of Coming 2 America movies, including a 2020 sequel.

Jones’ two Emmys came in 1991 for playing a private detective who was wrongly imprisoned on the short-lived ABC drama Gabriel’s Fire and as the owner of a shoe-repair business in the TNT telefilm Heat Wave, about the 1965 Los Angeles Watts riots.

Among the myriad of roles he played onstage included Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; President Arthur Hockstader in The Best Man; and chauffeur Hoke Colburn in Driving Miss Daisy, opposite Angela Lansbury.

In 2022, the 110-year-old Cort Theatre on Broadway was renamed The James Earl Jones Theatre in his honor.

He married actress Julienne Marie in 1968 after meeting her during a production of Othello, but they divorced four years later. He met his second wife, actress Cecilia Hart, while they were taping the CBS police drama Paris, in which he starred as a police captain and she played a young cop. They were married in 1982 and had a son, Flynn. Hart died in October 2016 of ovarian cancer at age 68.

[HoHoinc]

Mufusa, Vader, and now he is one with the Force. RIP to him.

[ellias]

If anyone here has seen JEJ's guest appearance on Big Bang Theory, it's what I'd like to imagine is Jones' real life personality. It's marvelous.

[SynchroDub]

I remember him also from the movie Coming To America and its sequel with Eddie Murphy, which was a fantastic kick-ass movie.

He was such a very talented actor and the work he did for Vader was definitely outstanding.
Giving a voice to a character without sounding "too artificial", back in the day, was a tough process.
But they managed to make him sound menacing and dark, thanks to the deep tone of his voice, and without tweaking the pitch dial in a DAW so much.

Kylo Ren masked voice, in comparison, sounds like a kid who just started to play with plugins.
Definitely uninspiring and just artificial.

Darth Maul with his only line in Phantom Menace was way more "menacing" than Kylo Ren, right after James Earl's Vader.

[HoHoinc]

Originally Posted by ellias

If anyone here has seen JEJ's guest appearance on Big Bang Theory, it's what I'd like to imagine is Jones' real life personality. It's marvelous.

Yeah the Scene where Sheldon and JEJ shows up at Carrie Fisher's Door had me on the floor for sure.

[Rick Sanchez]

I first knew James Earl Jones as Mufasa. Even though he lived to be 93 years old, I still felt like Simba. He was a legend of the screen and of the stage.

[ghost2509]

John Ashton, ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Actor, Dead at 76

Rolling Stone
yahoo.com
Daniel Kreps
September 29, 2024

John Ashton, the character actor who starred alongside Eddie Murphy in the Beverly Hills Cop series, has died at the age of 76.

The actor’s rep confirmed his death to TMZ, adding that Ashton died Thursday in Fort Collins, Colorado after a battle with cancer.

Ashton was best known for portraying Sgt. John Taggart alongside Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley and Judge Reinhold’s Det. Billy Rosewood in three of the four Beverly Hills Cop films: 1984’s original, the 1987 sequel Beverly Hills Cop II, and this year’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, where his Taggart was elevated the LAPD chief.

Ashton’s other notable roles include playing Eric Stoltz’s father in the John Hughes-penned teen rom-com Some Kind of Wonderful, bounty hunter Marvin Dorfler in the 1988 cult action comedy Midnight Run, a pitching coach in 1994’s Little Big League, and a Boston detective in Ben Affleck’s 2007 neo-noir Gone Baby Gone.

Over an acting career that began in the early Seventies, Ashton also appeared in episodes of M*A*S*H, Starsky & Hutch, Dallas, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and the Eighties revival of The Twilight Zone.

“John leaves behind a legacy of love, dedication, and service,” Ashton’s rep Alan Somers said in a statement. “His memory will forever be treasured by his wife, children, grandchildren, as well as his brother, sisters, his extended family and all who loved him. John’s impact on the world will be remembered and celebrated for generations to come.”

[ghost2509]

Kris Kristofferson, “A Star Is Born” Actor and Country Legend, Dies at 88

People
yahoo.com
Annie Blackman, Rachel DeSantis
September 29, 2024

Kris Kristofferson, the renowned actor and country singer-songwriter, has died. He was 88.

A representative for the star said he was surrounded by family when he died "peacefully" at his home in Maui on Saturday, Sept. 28.

“It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, September 28 at home. We’re all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all," his family said in a statement shared with PEOPLE.

Kristofferson was born on June 22, 1936, in Brownsville, Texas, to Mary Ann (née Ashbrook) and Lars Henry Kristofferson — a first-generation Swedish immigrant and U.S. Army Air Corps officer and Air Force general. His love for country music began at a young age, and, according to a 2013 interview with NPR, Kristofferson penned his first song, "I Hate Your Ugly Face," at only 11 years old. A military brat, he moved often throughout his childhood until his family landed in San Mateo, Calif., when he was a teenager.

Per his official website, Kristofferson had two short stories — "Gone Are the Days" and "The Rock" — published in Atlantic Monthly at the age of 18. In 1954, he attended Pomona College in California, where he played football, was crowned a Golden Gloves boxer and served as sports editor of the school paper. His athleticism and academic achievements landed him on the cover of Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd" issue during his senior year in 1958. After graduating with his bachelor's degree in creative writing from Pomona, Kristofferson earned a Rhodes Scholarship and his master's in English literature at Oxford University's Merton College in 1960.

As reported by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Kristofferson's parents urged him to enlist in the military after college. He joined the U.S. Army and, within five years, became a helicopter pilot and reached the rank of captain. While serving in West Germany in the early '60s, Kristofferson continued to explore songwriting and formed a band with other soldiers. Upon completion of his tour of duty in Germany, Kristofferson was offered a job teaching English at West Point military academy. He soon made his way to Nashville, Tenn., while on leave, which reinvigorated his passion for music and led to him resigning from the Army in 1965.

"I just fell in love with the music community that was going on there," he told Clash in 2010 of the country music scene in Nashville. "The way the old heroes helped out the new guys. It was a very soulful business at the time; I don't know if it's anything like that now. But it was definitely the best move I've ever made."

In Nashville, Kristofferson submitted songs he wrote while working as a night janitor at Columbia studios, including "For the Good Times" and "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down." Originally recorded by singer Bill Nash in 1968, "For the Good Times" didn't achieve mainstream success until Ray Price released his version in June 1970, shortly after the song appeared on Kristofferson's debut album in April of that year. The track earned a Grammy nod for best country song in 1972 and famously covered by soul music icon Al Green.

Penned by Kristofferson and also recorded for his first album, "Sunday Mornin' Coming' Down" captured the attention of Nashville crooner Ray Stevens and country music legend Johnny Cash. Cash's rendition for The Johnny Cash Show live album won song of the year at the CMA Awards in 1970 and reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country music chart.

Other covers would follow, including "Me and Bobby McGee" co-written with Fred Foster and released on Janis Joplin's 1971 posthumous album, Pearl. The song became one of Kristofferson and Joplin's biggest hits, reaching No. 1 on the pop charts and earning two Grammy nominations in 1972 for best country song and song of the year. That same year, Kristofferson took home his first-ever Grammy for best country song for Sammi Smith's version of "Help Me Make It Through the Night."

Throughout the '70s, Kristofferson continued to release albums and singles as a recording artist, among which were "Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)" and the two-time Grammy nominated song "Why Me." He also collaborated with country singer Rita Coolidge — his second wife —on several joint albums. The pair won two Grammys for 1973's "From the Bottle to the Bottom" and their 1975 rendition of Clyde McPhatter's 1962 hit "Lover Please."

"He is a poet rather than a musician, more concerned with interpretation than with quality of voice," The New York Times wrote in a 1970 profile. "He is at once blunt and mystical, above petty prejudices, strongly appealing to both the campus and to intellectual sets. He is an important link between country, pop and underground music."

Kristofferson's talents extended beyond music and songwriting. He was featured in films like Cisco Pike (1972), Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (1973) and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974).

In 1974, Kristofferson told Rolling Stone he felt confident about his foray into Hollywood despite a lack of formal training.

"I'd never even been in no school play, but I read the [Cisco Pike] script, and I could identify with this cat, this dope dealer," he explained. "People said, 'Don’t do it, take acting lessons first!' But it seemed to me that acting must be just understanding a character and then being just as honest as you can possibly be."

Then his big break came with his star-turning role as self-destructive rock star John Norman Howard in the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born. Costarring Barbra Streisand as Esther Hoffman — an unknown singer and John Norman's love interest — the film earned Kristofferson a Golden Globe for best actor in 1977. He also was known for his performances as Whistler in the Blade trilogy opposite Wesley Snipes.

Music was never far behind, though. Kristofferson formed a country supergroup with Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson called The Highwaymen. Their first album, Highwayman, and its titular single topped the country charts in 1985. The band released two more albums — 1990's Highwayman 2 and 1995's The Road Goes On Forever.

Kristofferson amassed numerous awards and honors over the course of his decades-long career, including three Grammy wins and a lifetime achievement honor from the Recording Academy in 2014. He also received an Oscar nomination in 1985 for Best Original Song for the movie Songwriter, where he starred alongside band member Nelson. In 2004, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In 2013, the actor-musician opened up about his experience with memory loss. Doctors originally misdiagnosed him with Alzheimer's disease, though it was actually Lyme disease, per CBS News. However, according to his wife, Lisa Kristofferson (née Meyers), he sought treatment and saw improvement within weeks.

"He was taking all these medications for things he doesn't have, and they all have side effects," Lisa told Rolling Stone in 2016.

She added, "All of a sudden, he was back. There are still bad days, but some days he's perfectly normal, and it's easy to forget that he is even battling anything."

Following the release of his final studio album, The Cedar Creek Sessions, in 2016, the country icon formally announced his retirement from music in 2021 and shared that Morris Higham Management was representing his estate.

"Kristofferson is the artist that every artist strives to be," MHM president and partner Clint Higham wrote in a statement. "He is an artist's artist. If Mount Rushmore had a place for songwriters, Kris would be on it."

When asked what he believed to be the secret of life, Kristofferson told Men's Journal in 2017, "I had a list of rules I made up one time. It says: Tell the truth, sing with passion, work with laughter, and love with heart. Those are good to start with anyway."

Kristofferson is survived by his wife Lisa, eight children and seven grandchildren.

He was previously married to Frances Beer, with whom he welcomed daughter Tracy in 1962 and son Kris in 1968. He and Coolidge had their daughter, Casey, in 1974. He is also the father of five children with Lisa, including Jesse (1983), Jody (1985), John (1988), Kelly Marie (1990) and Blake (1994).