Original Village People lead singer, Victor Willis, 74, has died after a "short but aggressive illness" in the words of his band. Willis was once married to actress Phylicia Rashad. Willis sang for Village People during the years when they had their greatest hits, the late 1970s.
Snip:
Texas-born Willis was a co-founder and the original lead singer for the band, whose hit singles included “Y.M.C.A.,” “Go West” and “In the Navy.”
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Willis left the group in 1979 in hope of embarking on a solo career before he re-formed the flamboyant disco band in 2017, leading to disputes with some of his former bandmates.
“Y.M.C.A.,” the catchy 1978 song for which Willis often dressed up as a cop, had a resurgence in popularity after Trump began dancing to it at the end of his campaign rallies in 2020.
Willis said he got thousands of complaints about the use of the song at Trump’s events and had decided to ask him “to stop using Y.M.C.A. because his use had become a nuisance to me.”
Thomas Bryant Ligon was born in New Orleans on Sept. 10, 1940. His father, Walter, was a U.S. Army colonel who later worked for the Defense Department.
Ligon attended St. Albans School in Washington and then Yale University, where he starred as Kilroy in Tennessee Williams’ Camino Realand reportedly got the attention of the playwright.
He graduated from college as an English major in 1962 and pursued acting in New York, where he shared a $25-a-month sublet in the Village with another young actor, Sam Waterston.
Byrne died June 20, according to The Guardian. A cause of death was not disclosed. USA TODAY has reached out to his representatives for comment.
Over a career that spanned six decades, London-born Byrne played supporting roles in a string of box office hits, including the James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies" and "Braveheart."
Yesterday, I made the trip up to the top of Lower Table Rock near Medford, Oregon. It was the first time in two years I made the hike. It was perfect weather, with temperatures in the lower 60s, unusual for this time of year.
The USSC upheld birthright citizenship, albeit by too narrow a margin, and that pissed off the Trump administration.
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This is a nice appreciation of the life and work of Ann Blyth, who passed away last week at the age of 98.
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There is no constitutional right for men to cheat in women's sports, as is far more often the case in these matters; instead, the USSC said it was a state matter.
Last week as part of an organized hike in the Mount Hood area, I visited beautiful Umbrella Falls, which is located on the east side of Mount Hood. The day was a rainy day, and some people went further than I did in the rain. The falls were worth it, however.
The gray jays were especially adept at eating food out of people's hands.
This was a picture of a chipmunk that happened to go into a Ziploc bag in search of food!
The USSC told Trump to go to hell with regard to his mail-in voting scheme.
It was nothing but an attempt at disenfranchisement despite state laws like Oregon's, which have nothing other than mail-in voting.
Snip:
The court on Monday ruled to upholda Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots to be counted up to five days after the election, so long as they were postmarked by Election Day. The decision effectively saves similar grace periods around the country, especially in big Democratic states. That was enough to set off Republicans.
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Another "Alpine divorce" murder suspect decided take the easy way out.
There were several deaths to note in the past few days and weeks. The most notable recently was the passing of actress Ann Blyth, 98, known for many appearances in dramas and musicals during the studio era, but her greatest role may have been the one she got when she was only 16 years old. She played Veda Pierce in the 1945 film noir classic, Mildred Pierce, opposite Joan Crawford. It was the role of a lifetime playing one of the screen's greatest villains, and Blyth made the most of it. As far as I am concerned, she should have won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, although she, along with co-star Eve Arden, were indeed nominated (neither won). Her performance was one of the greatest supporting role performances in movie history. She played a character who was so rotten, it begs the question whether Joan Crawford's daughter Christina decided to emulate Veda in many respects.
Some, especially younger people, point out that the 1945 film wasn't faithful to the book, as Veda ended up with Monty Beragon (played in the film by Zachary Scott) and Mildred was much less sympathetic, but as far as I am concerned, the movie made a huge improvement on the book. The studio system had to deal with Hays Office and other censorship groups and therefore the book had to be "adapted," which it clearly states in the credits, but the filmmakers knew how to do it. Instead of a soap opera-type of film, they turned the film into a brilliantly shot, wonderfully scored (by Max Steiner) mystery classic. As an aside, there was a miniseries or something a few years ago that was more faithful to the book, but nobody remembers it or ever will.
Ann Blyth went against type as Veda. She always played goody-goody, wholesome roles. Indeed, in her life, she never had even a hint of scandal. She was long married to an obstetrician who happened to be the brother of singer and Jack Benny sidekick Dennis Day. That is about as wholesome as it gets. She had five children in all, and several of those children if not all of them were featured with her in the popular Hostess Twinkies ads in the 1970s. She was also an excellent singer, put to good use in musicals opposite the likes of Mario Lanza.
My favorite part of Mildred Pierce, after Veda managed to get an annulment from a husband she married for the money:
Ann Blyth and Joan Crawford were lifelong friends, but that haymaker was real. I bet Ann was crying after knocking her friend off her feet!
Anne Marie Blythe was born on Aug. 16, 1927, in Mount Kisco, N.Y., the younger of two daughters of Harry Blythe, a butler born in Bath, England, and Annie (Lynch) Blythe, known as Nan, who was born in County Meath, Ireland.
Her parents divorced soon after she was born, and she grew up in a Manhattan tenement while her mother did odd jobs to scrape by during the Depression.
She made an early start in show business, acting in radio plays when she was about 6, singing with the San Carlo Opera Company and attending the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan. There she was spotted by Herman Shumlin, the theater producer and director, who cast her as Paul Lukas’s daughter in Hellman’s “Watch on the Rhine” in 1941. It was Anne’s first and last Broadway play.
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In another obit from past few days, David Clayton-Thomas, 84, a UK-born singer best known for his work in the band Blood, Sweat & Tears after band founder Al Kooper decided to quit the group to move on to other projects, died a few days ago.
Snip:
Born David Henry Thomsett in Surrey, England, on September 13, 1941, Clayton-Thomas joined Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1968, following the departure of the band's original frontman Al Kooper. He landed the gig after folk singer Judy Collins heard him performing and told Blood, Sweat & Tears drummer Bobby Colomby about him.
With Clayton-Thomas singing lead, Blood, Sweat & Tears’ 1968 self-titled sophomore album became a huge hit, spending seven weeks on top of the Billboard Albums chart and winning the Grammy for album of the year in 1970, beating The Beatles’ Abbey Road.
I completely missed this death from last month. Texas-based televangelist James Robison, 82, died in May. Early on, with the rise of the religious right, especially with he televangelists in national politics during the Reagan years, Robison was quite visible with his hellfire-style of preaching. However, he later toned down his act considerably because his wife, Betty, was upset he was not the man she married. Robison was still active in Republican politics and had been a friend of then-governor and later president George W. Bush, but he was way more low-key in his style and activities.
I missed this obituary of Lawrence Welk "family" member Jo Ann Castle, 86, who died on May 8 after being saddled with years of pain. The announcement was made on various social accounts by former members of Welk's television series.
Jo Ann specialized in the "honky tonk" piano or ragtime or whatever you want to call the genre of piano. She was so fast and made it look easy. My parents used to watch the Welk show back when I was a kid, and I liked her the best of all of the performers on that show. She was so good, she didn't have to look at the keys and would have that big smile on her face. She would have given Art Tatum, one of the greatest jazz pianists if not THE greatest, a run for his money. She was that fast and that good.
Jo Ann had a lot of personal turmoil in her life. Her final years were marred by poor health.
Here is a link from the Lennon Sisters Facebook account: link
Here is an example from the show of her work. She was a regular on the Welk show for about a decade starting in 1959:
Another obit: William Smithers, known for his role as Jeremy Wendell in the original Dallas television series, died years before his time at the age of 98.
He was also known for a lawsuit he filed against MGM.
Snip:
Smithers — who died on May 26, in Santa Barbara, at age 98, per the Santa Barbara Independent — appeared on the short-lived CBS series Executive Suite from 1976 to 1977.
It was in 1976, during his time on the show, that he sued MGM in a highly publicized case, in which he alleged the studio had violated a contract that stipulated that no other actors in the series (with three exceptions) could receive more money or better billing than he did.
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Not a specific obituary, but it is no surprise men make up the overwhelming majority of deaths in national parks.
Predictably, they engage in a lot of high-risk behavior.
Snip:
Overall, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, located near Las Vegas, recorded the most overall deaths in the NPS system. Lake Mead attracts anglers and boaters, and the park reports multiple drownings every year. Three of the top five parks—Blue Ridge Parkway, Natchez Trace Scenic Byway, and Great Smoky Mountains—are located within major highways and annually see a high number of vehicle deaths. NPS data from previous years show that motor vehicle accidents are overwhelmingly the highest cause of death, followed by drowning.
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