How Macabre

Pauly Fuemana, candidate for an I Love the ‘90s VH1 special on one-hit wonders, has died a week shy of 41. As lead singer of the New Zealand musical duo OMC, or Otara Millionaires Club, Fuemana hit the big time with 1996’s How Bizarre, the Single of the Year at the New Zealand Music Awards.

Will Brook No Further Discussion

Tom Brookshier, an all-pro defensive back on the last Philadelphia Eagles championship team, has died of cancer at the age of 78. Renowned as one of the best tacklers in the NFL, following his playing career, he turned to broadcasting, and preceded John Madden as CBS’ top announcer and partner of Pat Summerall, a former rival with the New York Giants that Brookshier once tackled hard enough to break his helmet. So great is the affection for the 1960 Eagles team that locals are willing to forget he also hired Angelo Cataldi to launch the all-sports talk format on 610 WIP that to this day ensures every ill-tempered, ill-informed, unemployed Philadelphia sports fan has a forum for his inane rantings.

Walk to the Light, Zelda

Zelda Rubinstein, who was added to the cast of Picket Fences to make Ray Walston and Tom Skerritt look lively and Fyvush Finkel look semi-lucid, has died at the age of 76. The 4-foot-3 phlebotomist (as an aside – who wouldn’t have walked out if a midget with a high-pitched voice and a face like an elbow was coming at them with a needle, but I digress…) decided to change career paths in her late 40s, with Hollywood the obvious destination. After her debut as Chevy Chase’s love interest in Under the Rainbow, she scored her breakout role as Tangina, the clairvoyant who tries to clear the Freeling house of spirits in Poltergeist, proclaiming: “This house is clean!” Then returning in two sequels to battle the evil that couldn’t leave Carol Ann alone.

If a Dead Body Meet a Dead Body Coming Through the Rye...

(Props to Terry Walsh)

Or
If You Really Want to Hear About it, the First Thing You'll Probably Want to Know Is Where I Died
(Merit for Monty)

Or
More Reclusive Than Ever
(Kudos to Kirsti)

Or
No, Seriously, He Does Not Have Another Book In Him
(Additional Accolades for Kirsti)

Or
Jerome Called Home
(Further fanfare for Kirsti)

Or
Just Don't call me Holden
(Flourishes for Joe)
Not that it makes any difference, but JD Salinger, the Kajagoogoo of the publishing world, has died at the age of 91, making his obituary the first published material he has contributed to since 1965. Before writing his incredibly confusing biography of Johnny Bench, taking up with young sycophants and being reclusive, Salinger was a cruise ship entertainer, which may explain why he’s hidden from humanity in New Hampshire for more than 50 years. After a few well-received short stories, in 1951 Salinger wrote the most important novel in the history of the universe: The Catcher in the Rye, a rather slight coming of age tale of a disaffected youth – kind of a darker version of Sixteen Candles. Rather than continue as the voice of an alienated generation desperate for direction in the post-war era, he mostly hung up his typewriter, producing an acclaimed short story collection, two compilations and a New Yorker article. Still, the lunatic fringe cast their lonely eyes to him, and The Catcher in the Rye became a talisman for the deranged, making Salinger an unindicted co-conspirator in the deaths of John Lennon, Rebecca Schaefer and attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. I know, you probably want to know where he was born, what his childhood was like, how he influenced a generation of writers, and all that Biography kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Zinn's History
(Fist bump for Monty)
Or
The Right Breathes a Collective Sigh of Relief
(More Monty Missives)
Or
Silber triumphant!
(Greg curries favor with the one-armed bandit)

Or
CitiZinn Howard
(Joe M. joins the party)
Howard Zinn, historian and activist who opposed dictatorships established in Vietnam by the United States and at Boston University by John Silber, has died of a heart attack at the age of 87. Zinn’s best-known book, "A People's History of the United States," name checked by his neighbor Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, espoused the positions that Christopher Columbus was a genocidal madman, Theodore Roosevelt was a warmonger, Abraham Lincoln was racist and the Founding Fathers were slaveholders with no real interest in freedom. Instead, Zinn championed feminists, the farmers of Shays' Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s. His antiestablishment leanings put him at odds with BU president Silber, and Zinn twice helped lead faculty votes to oust the BU president, who in turn accused Zinn of arson and cited him as a prime example of teachers "who poison the well of academe."

Trapper John, M.E.

(Can I get a whoop whoop for Monty)

Or
The Cartwright Boys, Together Again
(And yet another tip o’ the cap for Monty)
Pernell Roberts, the third most entertaining actor to play John McIntyre, MD, has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 81. Best known as Adam, the bon vivant of the prairie, the wit of the wilderness, the heady eldest Cartwright boy on Bonanza, Roberts was the last surviving member of the show’s original family, but left the show at the peak of its popularity after battling producers about the lack of nonwhite cast and crew and the scripts he referred to as “Junk TV.” He was less concerned about the quality of content when he assumed the McIntyre mantle in the needless spin-off Trapper John, MD, where decades after Korea the womanizing troublemaker had turned chief of surgery at a San Francisco hospital. Ironically, Roberts replaced MASH’s Wayne Rogers, who had also left a hit show at its peak. Karmically speaking, this suggests that Rogers, not Jimmy Smits, should have been Sipowicz’s partner on NYPD Blue. Or taken up as a barmaid at Cheers.

The KISS Army Mourns - Oh, Wait

(Props to Monty)

Or
Cheer Up, Sleepy Jean
(Additional accolades for Monty)

Or
Lady Luck Craps Out
(Fanfare for Peter)

Or
Something Rotting in the State of Denmark
(More merit for Peter)

Or
No, Not Him, the Actress
(Clarifications from Peter)
Jean Simmons, a mid-century screen star who has been largely forgotten, has died of lung cancer at the age of 80. The English actress graced the covers of Time and Life before she was 20 and was cast alongside such leading men as Laurence Oliver, Richard Burton and Marlon Brando. She may be best remembered as the revival preacher who lusts after Burt Lancaster’s titular con man in Elmer Gantry, and her impure thoughts earn her a fiery death in a tent show conflagration. Also in 1960, she played the slave girl who fell in love with Spartacus. According to legend, a young Chaim Witz was so entranced with the actress, he honored her with his stage name, Gene Simmons. Early stage appearances of KISS as 4 men in ballgowns were not well-received, and they adopted their more familiar post-apocalyptic kabuki appearance soon thereafter.

Parker for Mire

(More merit for Monty)

Or
Death in Paradise
Robert Brown Parker was found slumped at his desk, a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray, a glass of 25-year-old Scotch left criminally abandoned, a blonde with legs that didn’t stop, but a heart that had looming nearby, the slightest hint of a smile dancing across her lips, as though she’d just watched Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Some of that may have been writer’s embellishment. Best remembered for his tough, witty Boston detective Spenser, “with an ‘S’ like the English poet,” the former Boston University undergrad, PhD and professor also found success with Paradise, Mass.-based police chief Jesse Stone and trendy, lovelorn PI Sunny Randall, intended to create an action franchise for Helen Hunt.

What Can You Say About a 72-Year Old Hack That Died?

Or
Death Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
(More from Monty)
Erich Segal, the author of the novel that launched a thousand TV-movies, has died of a heart attack related to Parkinson’s disease at the age of 72. Segal, a Yale classics professor, wrote the sentimental and clichéd Love Story, about a foul-mouthed working class girl and the upper class twit she falls in love with at Harvard before contracting rickets or something and dying. The novel, boasting lines like “That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.” and “Jenny, for Christ’s sake, how can I read John Stuart Mill when every single second I’m dying to make love to you?,” spent more than a year on The New York Times best-seller list, then was one of the first modern-day blockbusters, grossing nearly $200 million. Keep in mind, this was a nation that was about to re-elect Richard Nixon, so this period was not one of the high points in American critical thinking. The novel was nominated for consideration for a National Book Award, but was withdrawn when the fiction jury threatened to resign en masse in protest. Oliver, the upper class twit, was loosely based on Tommy Lee Jones with the addition of his roommate Al Gore’s fractious relationship with his father. Much like JD Salinger, Segal later wrote a bunch of other stuff that was even worse and you’ve never heard of it.

Head for the Undertaker

(Kudos to Monty)

Or
Taco Hell
(Props to Monty)

Or
Ask Not for Whom the Bell Tolls, It Tolls for Glen
(Additional accolades for Monty)
Glen W. Bell, Jr., who brought Mexican food to white folks who enjoy quickly cooling food and diarrhea, has died at the age of 86. Thinking outside the bun from the start of the fast food craze, Bell ran a series of restaurants before partnering with Jack Taco to found the Taco Bell chain in 1962, starting in California and spreading east. When he hit Florida, locals were so unfamiliar with tacos, advertising explained the menu items, including ingredients and pronunciation guides. Explaining the chalupa was another matter altogether.

This is a particular burrito in the saddle for Mark, who dropped Glen after the 2008 GHI.

Teddy Under Grass

(Props to Monty)

Or
If You Don't Know Death By Now
(Kudos to Monty)
R&B legend Teddy Pendergrass has died of colon cancer at the age of 59. One of the most electric performers of the 1970s, first with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes and their hits “Wake Up Everybody” and “If You Don't Know Me by Now”, then as a solo performer with “Only You,” “It Don't Hurt Now,” “Love T.K.O.,” he was paralyzed from the waist down in a 1982 car accident while riding around with his transsexual friend.

Peg Penned

Judith Carr, aka Juliet Anderson, aka Aunt Peg, “the Joan Blondell of porn,” has died at the age of 72. Giving hope to middle-aged women seeking to join the porn business at an advanced age, the first taste of Carr-nal knowledge came in Pretty Peaches at the age of 39. She earned her nickname in a scene in which she was having sex with a niece, who cried out, “Oh Aunt Peg,” and the rest is porn history. After a 10-year sabbatical, she returned to porn at the age of 58. Before throwing up, you should also know that she was a member of the Erotic Legends, Adult Video News and X-rated Critics Organization Halls of Fame and received a Lifetime Achievement Actress Award from the Free Speech Coalition.

Idle Gies

Miep Gies, the Helen Roper of the Holocaust, has died at the age of 100 after a fall. Gies, the former secretary of Otto Frank hid the Frank family from the Nazis in Amsterdam in the unused apartments and attic upstairs, and later found and saved Anne’s diary, thus ruining countless summer vacations as schoolchildren around the world read the book and fell in love with the doomed little girl. Gies, her husband and three others hid Anne, her father, mother and older sister and four other Dutch Jews for 25 months in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam before the Gestapo found their hiding place Aug. 4, 1944 and sent them to Auschwitz. Gies held onto the girl’s writings, never reading them, until the conclusion of World War II and gave them to her father, the lone survivor of the family, who published them in the Netherlands in 1947. Gies’ role was largely untold until she was persuaded to tell her story in the memoir “Anne Frank Remembered,” after which she traveled widely as a living link to Frank and a champion of tolerance. She later received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Yad Vashem medal, and was knighted by Queen Beatrix.

Last Call

Jan C. Gabriel, a Chicago-area motorsport announcer known for his much-copied means for hyping events at Santa Fe Speedway in Hinsdale, Illinois, as well as other Midwestern venues, died at the age of 69 on Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, January 10. It was not reported if he used the whole casket, or if he only needed the edge.

I’m Dead, Dammit

Art Clokey once was a 6-foot man of clay. But now Art Clokey has started to decay. Art Clo-key! The man who gave us the pliant, book-hopping, robot-murdering Gumby, his sturdy and wiser friend Pokey, the evil Blockheads and the flying, shape-shifting, ball-spitting mermaid Goo, who may have been Gumby’s drug-induced hallucination, has died in his sleep at the age of 88. Not content to be entertaining, Clokey also felt a need to proselytize, through the addled Davey and his genius talking dog Goliath.

Out of Thin Heir

Casey Johnson, Johnson & Johnson heiress and tabloid fodder, has died; despite her history of drug problems, her death may be related to not taking drugs, specifically her diabetes medication. Among the highlights of her useless celebutante life as detailed by the New York Post’s Page 6: losing a boyfriend 12 years her senior to an aunt 30 years her senior, her bad ass texts that prompted Nicole Richie to cut a bitch and Bijou Phillips to slap a former Playmate, having her hair set on fire by her then-girlfriend, stealing clothing, jewelry and shoes from the then-ex-girlfriend’s new lover, while leaving a used vibrator as a calling card, and finally her engagement to Tila Tequila, with Johnson’s appearance in the 2002 documentary The It Girls fulfilling the reality show prerequisite to Tequila’s heart.