The Night Chicago Died

Studs Terkel, who fostered the delusion that everyone had a story to tell, so that I can’t get in a taxi, take a flight or get a haircut without being regaled with tales of stacking trays, reckoning the actuarial tables and developing the perfect recipe for Caesar salad dressing, has died at the age of 96. The author and radio host had been helping Chicagoans tell their stories on the radio, on television and in books for more than 40 years, all the while keeping the royalties for himself. A nonpracticing lawyer during the Depression, Terkel found a writer’s project with the Works Progress Administration and began writing and performing his own plays and radio dramas. After casting about in the 1950s, he stumbled upon the oral history concept, producing Division Street: America in 1967, where he “borrowed” the stories of residents of Chicago’s Divisions to tell the story of America. He continued ripping off ordinary folks in a number of other works, including “The Good War,” remembrances of World War II that won him the 1985 Pulitzer Prize.

She's Having Embalming Fluid

(Props to Monty)
In a related story, Estelle Reiner, who had the best one-line cameo in the history of cinema, has died at the age of 94. Wife of Carl Reiner and mother to Meathead, Estelle’s claim to fame came in Rob Reiner’s 1989 film When Harry Met Sally. After Meg Ryan fakes a very loud, extended, compelling orgasm at a delicatessen, the film cuts to Estelle, who tells the waitress, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Reiner later said that directing an actress to fake an orgasm in front of his mother is something he would recommend to all aspiring directors.

Six Feet Deep Throat

Deep Throat auteur Gerald Damiano will put his experience at filling holes to use one last time after his death at the age of 80. The titillating film will go down as one of the most bankable adult films of all time, grossing more than $600 million to date with more to come, and thrust pornography into the public eye. Deep Throat was widely condemned by religious groups and feminists, a stroke of good fortune that amounted to scads of free publicity helping the film get over the hump of the initial tawdry reputation. In the film, Linda Lovelace plays a woman who, through “an eccentricity of her anatomy finds oral sex more gratifying than conventional intercourse.” Damiano got cocky following the success of Deep Throat, but this film represented the climax of his career, and his later films such as The Devil in Miss Jones and Memories Within Miss Aggie failed to rise to the same stature. He hung around the industry for another two decades, but for a director used to riding on top, directing lesser films like Young Girls in Tight Jeans, was another turn of the screw. A hairdresser before becoming a director, Damiano said this experience enabled him to bone up on how to work with women, a skill that served him well in his later career.

Caught Dead in That Outfit

(Props to Joe)
Mr. Blackwell, the biggest bitch in LA, has died of an infection at the age of 86. A miserable childhood forced him to a life of crime and prostitution, and he took his revenge out on fashion transgressers. A little known designer when he issued his first list of the 10 worst dressed celebs of 1960, at his high point, he held a full media event to unveil the list each year. Among his targets: Madonna: “The Bare-Bottomed Bore of Babylon.” Barbra Streisand: “She looks like a masculine Bride of Frankenstein.” Meryl Streep: “She looks like a gypsy abandoned by a caravan.” Lindsay Lohan: “From adorable to deplorable.” Camilla Parker-Bowles: “The Duchess of Dowdy.” Bjork: “She dances in the dark — and dresses there, too.” Britney Spears: “Her bra-topped collection of Madonna rejects are pure fashion overkill.” While he was entitled to witty bitchery, his sense of humor did not extend far, and in 1992 he sued Johnny Carson for a joke that Mr. Blackwell had said of Mother Teresa: “Miss Nerdy Nun is a fashion no-no.”

Off the Dolemite

Rudy Ray Moore, stand-up comedian turned blaxploitation sex machine, has died at the age of 81. Most of Moore’s best material didn’t reach a mass market because it made Redd Foxx look like Rita Rudner and came in album sleeves feature naked pictures of him and multiple ladies, and was generally hidden behind record store counters in plain brown wrappers. His biggest hit was Dolemite, about a framed man re-entering his life after doing time, which the New York Times called the “Citizen kane of kung fu pimping movies.” Moore lives on in the music of Dr. Dre, Big Daddy Kane and 2 Live Crew and many others who sampled his songs and routines. Snoop Dogg wrote in the liner notes of the 2006 release of the soundtrack to Dolemite that “Without Rudy Ray Moore, there would be no Snoop Dogg, and that’s for real.”

He Can’t Help Himself

Or
You Can Reach Out, But He Won’t Be There

Or
Stubbed Out
Levi Stubbs, lead singer for the Four Tops, has died of any one of the number of things that have plagued him for the last several years. Unique among the pop groups of the 1950s and 1960s, the Tops actually stuck together, with the original four staying together for more than 40 years. They produced more than 40 Billboard hits, including “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” “Bernadette,” and “I Can’t Help Myself.” In an incredible departure from his day job, Stubbs also provided the voice for Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors.

Taking out the Tresh

Tom Tresh, 1962 Rookie of the Year at the end of the New York Yankees’ half century of dominance, has died at the age of 70. Tresh .286 with 20 homers and 93 runs batted in, then starred in the World Series, hitting an 8th inning game winning homer in Game 5, then saving the 1-0 Game 7 win with a great running catch in the left field corner off Willie Mays.

Don’t Bet on It

Lefty Rosenthal, whose rise and fall as the first bookie to operate within a Las Vegas casino was chronicled in Casino, Martin Scorsese’s attempt to out-Goodfella Goodfellas, has died of a heart attack at the age of 79. Vegas had little interest in sports gambling when he arrived, but at his peak, he was handicapping at four casinos, all illegally as he was blacklisted from obtaining a casino license because of his mob ties, including Tony “The Ant” Spilotro.

Bringing Down the House

Or
Cleaned Out
House Peters, Jr., the original gay pirate of a cleaning product mascot, has died at the age of 92. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Peters was the face of Procter & Gamble’s Mr. Clean, pioneering the bald hoop earring wearing muscleman before the company realized that it wouldn’t have to pay cartoons, which were easier to show coming out of a bottle, anyway.