Acerbic writer and social critic Christopher Hitchens, only 62, has died after a bout with esophageal cancer. The direct cause was pneumonia.
Sometimes insightful, oftentimes vile, Hitchens was never dull.
Politically speaking, Hitchens was all over the map. His worst moments were his criticisms of Bill Clinton which seemed to be personally motivated. I suspect Hitchens was covering up for his envy of the then-president because Hitchens simply didn't have the looks or the brains Clinton did.
Envy is a powerful emotion, but it took Hitchens a long way in his career.
He was married to American writer Carol Blue and had three children.
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Ad writer Edie Stevenson, responsible for the 1970s ads for Life cereal featuring "Mikey," was 81 when she died.
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Film producer Bert Schneider, 78, died a few days ago. He helped produce the sixties road flick Easy Rider.
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Singer-songwriter Dobie Gray, 71, of complications from cancer surgery.
Mr. Gray, who sang and wrote songs in a range of styles including rhythm-and-blues, country, disco and gospel, had his first Top 20 hit in 1965 with “The ‘In’ Crowd,” an upbeat hymn to hipness that captured the social restlessness of the time. Written by Billy Page and based on an idea suggested by Mr. Gray, the song struck a special chord in the music industry and was performed by many others, including the Ramsey Lewis Trio (whose 1965 instrumental version was an even bigger hit than Mr. Gray’s), Petula Clark, the Mamas and the Papas, Lawrence Welk and the Chipmunks._____
Actor Alan Sues of Laugh-In fame, 85, of a heart atack.
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Blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin, 80, no cause given.
He is best remembered for his partnership with blues great Howlin' Wolf.
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Deliverance villain Bill McKinney, one of the main reasons I will never watch the film again, passed away early this month. He was 80 years old and suffered from the same cancer as Christopher Hitchens.
An adaptation of a James Dickey novel that was nominated for three Academy Awards, “Deliverance” tells the harrowing story of a canoe trip by a group of suburbanites in the backwoods of Georgia. Mr. McKinney’s character, identified in the script only as “Mountain Man,” and a companion capture two of the canoers, played by Jon Voight and Ned Beatty, at gunpoint. The mountain man then makes Mr. Beatty strip to his briefs and repeatedly shouts at him to “squeal like a pig.” Letting out squeals of his own, he sodomizes him. Burt Reynolds, playing another man on the trip, happens upon the scene and shoots Mr. McKinney with an arrow before he and his accomplice can attack Mr. Voight’s character as well.
Sometimes when you are bumped off in films, you are better known than if you had played some heroic part.
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