Hollywood legend Patty Duke — who won an Oscar for playing Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker” — has died.
She was 69.
Duke passed away at 1:20 AM Tuesday morning. She died from sepsis due to a ruptured intestine.
Duke’s son, Sean Astin, said the family is “relieved” because Duke was in a lot of pain and the process took a long time to play out.
Duke’s family issued a statement, saying, “This morning, our beloved wife, mother, matriarch and the exquisite artist, humanitarian, and champion for mental health, Anna Patty Duke Pearce, closed her eyes, quieted her pain and ascended to a beautiful place.”
“We celebrate the infinite love and compassion she shared through her work and throughout her life.”
Duke was a child star — winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress at 16 years old in 1963.
She was married 4 times … most recently to Michael Pearce.
Duke is survived by her 3 kids … including “Lord of the Rings” star Sean Astin.
Nancy Reagan, the widow of President Ronald Reagan and passionately devoted keeper of his flame, died Sunday morning of congestive heart failure at 94, according to her spokesperson.
Reagan died at her home in Los Angeles. She’s set to be buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, next to her husband. Prior to the funeral, there will be an opportunity for members of the public to pay their respects at the Library, the spokesperson said. Details had not yet been announced Sunday afternoon.
She was the First Lady that every woman should inspire to be. Rest in peace, dear sweet Lady.
I think this more than fits here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHY4RHlmVyY?rel=0
Update #3: Nancy Reagan’s Life story:
The incredible life of Nancy Reagan changed America and the world. http://fxn.ws/1TBuRRw
David Bowie, the infinitely changeable, fiercely forward-looking songwriter who taught generations of musicians about the power of drama, images and personas, died on Sunday, two days after his 69th birthday.
Mr. Bowie’s death was confirmed by his publicist, Steve Martin, on Monday morning.
He died after having cancer for 18 months, according to a statement on Mr. Bowie’s social-media accounts.
“David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family,” a post on his Facebook page read.
His last album, “Blackstar,” a collaboration with a jazz quartet that was typically enigmatic and exploratory, was released on Friday — his birthday. He was to be honored with a concert at Carnegie Hall on March 31 featuring the Roots, Cyndi Lauper and the Mountain Goats.
He had also collaborated on an Off Broadway musical, “Lazarus,” that was a surreal sequel to his definitive 1976 film role, “The Man Who Fell to Earth.”
Mr. Bowie wrote songs, above all, about being an outsider: an alien, a misfit, a sexual adventurer, a faraway astronaut. His music was always a mutable blend: rock, cabaret, jazz and what he called “plastic soul,” but it was suffused with genuine soul. He also captured the drama and longing of everyday life, enough to give him No. 1 pop hits like “Let’s Dance.”
You know there is a time for politics and then, there is a time for real life. Joe Biden and his family are real people, with real families and this here, is really big loss.
The story:
WASHINGTON — Joseph R. Biden III, the former attorney general of Delaware and the eldest son of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., has died of brain cancer, his father announced on Saturday. The younger Mr. Biden was 46.Mr. Biden had spent more than a week receiving treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington.
Source: Beau Biden, Vice President Joe Biden’s Son, Dies at 46 – NYTimes.com
My heart goes out to Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill, as well as his Children.
The Biden family has suffered some losses that I could never fathom ever happening to me. So, I feel for them all. Again, there is a time for Political criticism, and I have done that a bit here. But, this is not one of those times. My prayers for the family this Sunday morning.
LOS ANGELES – Actor James Garner, whose whimsical style in the 1950s TV Western “Maverick” led to a stellar career in TV and films such as “The Rockford Files” and his Oscar-nominated “Murphy’s Romance,” has died, police said. He was 86.
He was found dead of natural causes at his home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles Saturday evening, Los Angeles police officer Alonzo Iniquez said early Sunday.
Police responded to a call around 8 p.m. PDT and confirmed Garner’s identity from family members, Iniquez told The Associated Press.
There was no immediate word on a more specific cause of death. Garner had suffered a stroke in May 2008, just weeks after his 80th birthday
Some of you might be shocked that I would remember this man. However, as you know, I was not always a Conservative. Furthermore, Pete Seeger stood up to, and won out against the McCarthyism of the 1950’s. Something that I, as someone who believes in freedom of thought; believe was wrong-headed.
“I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this,” said Pete Seeger, in 1955, subpoenaed to testify before a thing we used to have called the House Un-American Activities Committee. They thought he was a Communist, and he was a communist. “With a small ‘c,'” he liked to say. He’d been a Communist with a capital C too, but he’d quit, and he said he should have quit earlier.
[…] Much more in the long NYT article at the link, including his education at Harvard; his encounter with the folklorist Alan Lomax, and, through Lomax, Lead Belly; his alliance with Woody Guthrie, traveling around playing for migrant workers in 1940; his WWII-era group the Almanac Singers, who played anti-war and then antifascist songs; campaigning for presidential candidate Henry Wallace in 1948; his central place in the great folk music revival circa 1960; playing “We Shall Overcome” at Civil Rights Movement rallies; and getting betrayed by Bob Dylan.
Imagine experiencing nearly a century of American history from such a central place. What a lucky man. Pete Seeger lived to be 94.
No Christmas tree was ever again allowed in Mary Krainatz’s Upper Peninsula home.
The sight of a decorated fir tree, resplendent with colorful ornaments, yuletide cheers and the gaiety of children, reminded her of a Christmas Eve she longed to forget.
Seventy-three people, the majority of them children younger than 10, died in a stampede after someone supposedly yelled “fire” during a holiday get-together for striking miners in Calumet on Dec. 24, 1913. Krainatz’s 11-year-old daughter, also named, Mary, was among those killed when people rushed for the staircase down to the first floor.
Today is the 100th anniversary of the tragedy, a time of remembrance in a small Copper Country community where no survivors remain to share their firsthand accounts.
A ceremony, including a reading of the names of the deceased, will be held at 3:30 p.m. at the site of where the Italian Hall once stood at Seventh and Elm. Now, a park is punctuated by the sandstone block archway that once served as the building’s entrance. A white, silk lily for each victim pays silent testament in Calumet’s Village Hall.
The pre-holiday horror was immortalized in the Woody Guthrie song “1913 Massacre,” a 2001 opera, a book by Birmingham lawyer Steve Lehto and the documentary “Red Metal: The Copper Country Strike of 1913” that debuted on PBS earlier this month. — Source
This posting is dedicated to the 73 people who lost their lives on December 24, 1913 in Calumet, Michigan. May they rest in peace.
May this be a reminder to all my Conservative and Tea Party friends that dishonest, crony capitalism hurts people; this being a perfect example.
TODAY lost a member of its family this weekend. One of the victims of the tragic train derailment in the Bronx was Jim Lovell, 58, an audio technician who frequently worked on TODAY and other NBC programs. Lovell was on his way to work to do a setup for the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting special when the train derailed.
This is stunning. Also too, consider this an exception to the new rule.
What I know him for…:
Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May.
However, there are many things that have come up since then, which I simply cannot defend.
They are:
The IRS targeting Jewish groups. – I mean, honestly, what the hell were the IRS and Obama’s people thinking when they let this one happen?
IRS targeting Conservative groups in Washington and Elsewhere. — Did they not know that this would be exposed?
DOJ going after the AP – This is borderline Watergate, so says a watergate player. — Again, what the hell were these people thinking?
My friends, the “Giving the benefit of the doubt” of the President and his Administration by this writer and blogger are over. There is no doubt in my mind that the Obama administration; much like the Administration of George W. Bush, became consumed with a lust for power and abused and exploited the office of President of the United States and the instruments of Governmental office for political purposes.
The Democrats have screwed themselves out of ever winning an election; for like oh, maybe the next 2 major election cycles. This is the sad part, Obama and his Administration promised Americans that he would be a clean break from the policies and practices of President George W. Bush and his Administration and sadly, it turns out that Obama and his Administration are just as bad; if not even worse. As I wrote before, it is sad ending to a Presidency that offered so much to give; but ended up delivering little or nothing at all, in the realm of change.
It is going to be a long, hot, nasty, political summer for America, Americans, Black Liberal Americans and for Washington D.C.. I just hope that cool heads prevail. But, I really do fear the worst in yet to come.