Partain is such sweet sorrow

Paul Partain, portrayer of one of the most annoying characters in film history, has died of cancer at the age of 58. As wheelchair-bound Franklin Hardesty, he was stabbed by a hitchhiker, then ends up on the wrong end of a power tool in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but really, who wasn’t rooting for Leatherface to finish off this whiny inaction hero?

People Who Build Glass Houses Shouldn’t Forget Their Head Stones

Philip Johnson, an innovative and oft-changing architect, has graduated from glass boxes to a pine box at the age of 98. Among his works are the Chippendale-topped AT&T Building in New York City, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., an ecclesiastical greenhouse that is wider and higher than Notre Dame in Paris; the RepublicBank in Houston, a 56-story tower of pink granite stepped back in a series of Dutch gable roofs; the Cleveland Playhouse, a complex with the feel of an 11th century town; the IDS Center office building in Minneapolis, that city’s tallest building plus his own glass cube home in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Bier’s Johnny

Entertainment legend Johnny Carson became a late late night host, succumbing to complications from emphysema at the age of 79. Carson invented and spent 30 years perfecting and honing the late-night talk show template on The Tonight Show before Jay Leno turned the show into a parade of morons. The standard of topical monologue, desk comedy and skits and then interviews didn’t exist when Carson took the reins of The Tonight Show in 1962. He spent time at his desk with the movers and the mundane the stars and the starved for attention. From Newman to Redford to Hanks to that nutjob who collects potato chips that look like people, they all found a receptive audience on the couch with Carson always providing the flattering spotlight. With a sharp, quick wit, expressive face and impeccable comic timing, Carson could milk as many laughs out of jokes that bombed as he could from one that killed and there wasn’t a public figure or incident that escaped his barbs over the last three decades. Carson’s stage was a coming out party for generations of young comics. A wink and a thumbs up after a successful set could make a comedian’s night; an invitation to the couch could make a career. One of the most powerful men in the history of the medium, he kept old friends in the spotlight, kept a network afloat and afraid, and kept the 11:30 p.m. time slot to himself, leaving dozens of supposed competitors in his wake. Upon his retirement in 1992, the empty suits at NBC tapped Leno over David Letterman to inherit The Tonight Show. Although he never publicly commented on the decision, Carson’s impromptu appearance on The Late Show with Letterman in 1993 and the revelation shortly before Carson’s death that he had been supplying occasional jokes for Letterman’s monologues as a creative outlet show he never lost his eye for talent.

Is it Dead, or is it Mary Woods?

Rose Mary Woods, the devoted and allegedly fumble-fingered secretary to President Richard M. Nixon who accidentally deleted 18½ minutes of a crucial White House tape were erased, at the age of 87. Just before the missing segment, Nixon had been telling aide H.R. Haldeman to divert attention from the break-in at the Watergate. The convenient erasure did nothing to prop up Nixon’s flagging credibility with Washington and the nation, and when it came time to resign, Mr. Warmth asked Woods to tell his wife that he had decided to give up the Presidency. Following his resignation, Nixon and Woods toured the nation on a promotional tour for Dictaphone.

Bury Me Mucho

Consuelo Velazquez, composer of one of the most famous Spanish ballads of all time, has died of a respiratory ailment at the age of 88. Velazquez’ Besame Mucho was covered by artists as diverse as Beatles, Joao Gilberto, Placido Domingo, Frank Sinatra, Diana Krall, Celine Dion and Lt. Frank Drebin.

Got Lillies?

Jay Schulberg, the ad exec who slapped paste on celebrities’ upper lips to sell fattening udder secretions, has died at the age of 65. He also convinced America that Karl Malden never left home without his American Express card, that a dry baby (preferably wearing Huggies) was a happy baby, that aneurysms could be handled by Excedrin and that the synthetic dehydrated sugar crystals of Country Time Lemonade were just like good old fashioned lemonade.

Baby, I’m a Dead Man

Or

Head Bread Head Dead
(This with snaps to The Onion for its Jerry Garcia headline)

Jimmy Griffin, former Bread guitarist and Academy Award winner with "For All We Know" for the 1970 film "Lovers and Other Strangers,” has gone stale at 61.

Look What Happened to Rose's Baby

Rosemary Kennedy, the “lifelong jewel” of the Kennedy clan who was not publicly acknowledged for 40 years, and then spent the last half century in a home half a continent away from the family compound, has died at the age of 86. Family patriarch and former bootlegger Joe Kennedy, feared that mentally retarded Rosemary might besmirch the good family name, and ordered that she undergo a lobotomy, a then new procedure that had never been attempted in a patient with mental retardation. Seems like Teddy got off easy for his driving incident. Rosemary’s mood swings were replaced by long periods where she would stare into space, and she spent most of her life in a home in Wisconsin. To assuage familial guilt, in 1968 sister Eunice founded the Special Olympics for mentally retarded children.

Spirit in the Sky

The wrong Eisner died, as Monty observed, as comic pioneer Will Eisner fulfilled his contract with God, passing away at the age of 87. Best known for creating the Spirit, a comic book cousin of Batman as a hero without superpowers, he also released the first modern graphic novel, "A Contract With God." First appearing as syndicated comic in 1940, The Spirit was called "The Citizen Kane" of comics for its innovation, its seriousness and its influence.

Shirley Not

Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, has died at the age of 80. She was elected to represent New York's Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn in 1968, and in her next seven terms, she proved to be a riveting speaker while championing the rights of women and minorities. In 1972, she became the first black to seek a major party presidential nomination. She later acknowledged her Kucinichian-like bid was symbolic rather than an actual bid; still, she made George McGovern’s candidacy seem a little less futile. Still, since Democrats tend to not understand the electoral process, she claimed 152 delegates before leaving the race. While campaigning, she visited George Wallace in the hospital following the assassination attempt on his life. While criticized at the time for the betrayal, Wallace later secured votes that helped her pass legislation extending the minimum wage to domestic workers. Chisholm’s legacy as a pioneer and tireless challenger of the status quo lives on today. California Representative Barbara Lee, who was a campaign worker with “Chisholm for President,” was the lone House member to dissent when George W. Bush demanded virtually unchecked war powers in the days following the 2001 terrorist attacks.