I Write About Him Not Because It Is Easy, But Because He is Dead

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Ask Not What the Dead Pool Can Do for You; Ask What You Can Do for the Dead Pool.
(Props to Monty)

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Written Out
(Kudos for Monty)
Theodore C. Sorensen, the Cyrano de Bergerac of Camelot, has died of complications of a stroke at the age of 82. A brilliant strategist on matters from election tactics to foreign policy, Sorenson played a major role in crafting John F. Kennedy’s public image, starting by authoring Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage. Sorenson had an ear for soaring imagery and played Kennedy’s oratorical flair like a violin with such memorable phrases as the 1961 inaugural address proclaiming that “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans” and challenging citizens: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” In 1962, with Soviet missiles newly discovered in Cuba, Sorenson wrote the letter from Kennedy to the USSR’s Nikita Khrushchev that pressed for a peaceful resolution, saving the free world and enabling Americans to stop ducking and covering. Sorenson continued in politics after Kennedy’s assassination, after authoring the first definitive account of the Kennedy White House, the 783-page best seller cunningly titled “Kennedy.” In 1976, Jimmy Carter nominated him for CIA Director. Slight problem – in 1945 he had registered with his draft board as a conscientious objector to combat. Apparently the Director of the CIA may be required to kill people, and the nomination was withdrawn. His winning streak continued in 1984 when he served as the national co-chairman for Gary Hart’s presidential campaign.

Bury ‘Em, Danno

(An epitaphany shared with Peter and Lori Ann)

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Hawaii D-O….A
(Lauditations for Lori Ann)
James MacArthur, the flounder-faced second fiddle of the one true Steve McGarrett, has died at the age of 72. MacArthur played Hawaii 5-0’s Detective Danny Williams in 11 of the 12 seasons of the unfathomably long-running cop show/video brochure for the Pineapple State. MacArthur was the adopted son of Helen Hayes, the First Lady of the American Theater, and Charles MacArthur, co-author of “The Front Page.” Other roles included the eldest son of the stranded Swiss Family Robinson, a banana peel-smoking San Francisco hippie in The Love-Ins, the inept Ensign Ralston that accidentally nukes a Russian sub, starting World War III in The Bedford Incident and the preacher in Hang ‘Em High. He returned as Danny Williams in a 1997 Hawaii 5-0 TV movie, having been elected governor, and was in negotiations to cameo on the new version of Hawaii 5-0, an appearance that now seems unlikely, barring a Police Squad!-esque special guest star stint as a murder victim during the opening credits.

Hey Rocky, Watch me Pull a Dead Cartoonist Out of My Hat

(Kudos to Jon)
Alex Anderson, the artist who spent 30 years getting screwed by Jay Ward, has died at the age of 90 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. A boyhood friend of Ward, Anderson had worked on Ward’s first cartoon, Crusader Rabbit, then was the first to draw Rocket J. Squirrel, Bullwinkle J. Moose and Dudley Do-Right. A 1991 documentary about the enduring affection for the old cartoon didn’t mention Anderson, prompting him to sue Jay Ward Productions to force acknowledgment that he was “the creator of the first version of the characters,” plus a cozy retirement package. Ward had similarly boned Ted Key, creator of Mr. Peabody and Sherman.

I Never Thought This Could Happen to Me…

Bob Guccione, who loved the naked ladies, but lacked Hugh Hefner’s fashion sense and Larry Flynt’s passion for the Constitution, has died of cancer at the age of 79. Once upon a time boys and girls, you needed $2.95 and a cashier willing to look the other way in order to see boobies; now you need Google. In that climate, Guccione founded Penthouse and made a fortune, keeping himself in the finest gold chains and unbuttoned silk shirts. Even if you can’t buy class, you can buy art, and Guccione amassed an art collection replete with Degas, Renoir, Picasso, El Greco, Dalí, Matisse, Van Gogh and Chagall appraised at more than $50 million. Guccione made Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America, a household name with a photo spread that cost her her crown in 1984 and yielded the publication’s best-selling issue. When his ideas ventured outside the sock drawer, he was generally less successful. He sank $200 million into a failed Atlantic City casino, lost another $17 million trying to develop a nuclear reactor, and overestimated the market for a pornographic, blood-soaked history lesson with the John Gielgud rompCaligula. As pro bono porn proliferated on the Internet, Penthouse’s performance plateaued, then plummeted. Bankruptcy, resignation, foreclosure, death.

When Your Lungs Go Bad, Get Glad

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Howard, Your Fez is Limp
(Kudos to Monty)

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Sunday, Monday, Happy Days, Tuesday... Maybe Not

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Father Knows Death

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Still on the search for Chuck Cunningham
(Props to Terry Walsh)
A rough week for classic TV families continues as Tom Bosley has died of lung cancer at the age of 83. Howard Cunningham goes down as TV’s most inattentive father until Cliff Huxtable, blithely overlooking the disappearance of his oldest, but least telegenic child, Chuck, much as Cliff spent his first season in denial of Sondra’s existence. Bosley’s death comes 5 weeks after the death of the man who originated the role of Howard Cunningham on Love, American Style, Harold Gould. Bosley’s other roles included a clergyman who solved crimes and a cop who couldn’t on the Father Dowling Mysteries and Murder, She Wrote, respectively. Bosley also won a Tony in the title role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Fiorello! and originated the role of Maurice in the Broadway version of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Bosley paid the bills shilling Shasta Cola, Glad Trash Bags, D-Con, the IQ Computer and Sonic Drive-Ins, and until recently had hosted a series of infomercials for crap no one needs.

Waiting No More

Graham Crowden, best known as Tom Ballard the vaguely daft retiree who served as a foil to crotchety Diana Trent on the BBC sitcom Waiting for God, has died at the age of 87. Crowden was offered the role of the Doctor on the BBC series Dr. Who after Jon Pertwee retired, but the stage vet declined to commit to a single role for an extended period, and producers went with the much younger and more comical Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor. He showed up as an antagonist to Baker’s Doctor in one series and had a cameo as a British naval officer in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Oh Stewardess, I Used to be Alive

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June Swoon
Barbara Billingsley, best remembered for admonishing Hugh Beaumont for being too hard on the Beaver last night, has died of rheumatoid disease at the age of 94. Rumor has it she did something else, but basically, she was June Cleaver, Theodore and Wally’s vacuuming-in-pearls-and-high-heels mother on Leave it to Beaver (with reprisals on Amazing Stories, Baby Boom, Hi Honey, I’m Home, The Love Boat and Roseanne). Sure she was on Still the Beaver, but the less said about that the better. Yes, she was in Airplane!, but wasn’t that really just June on vacation putting to use the Jive class she took at the community center while Ward was out golfing? And OK, she was the voice of Nanny in Muppet Babies, but wasn’t that really just June’s experience with early-onset dementia talking to her furry friends? Although considered a classic today, Leave it to Beaver debuted to mediocre ratings in 1957 on CBS, which even then only wanted shows about the aged and infirmed, and was cancelled. ABC picked it up the next year, rode it for 5 seasons until the cast wanted to move on, and let the residuals roll in as it eventually was aired in more than 100 countries. Most of the rest of Billingsley’s career consisted of guest shots and cameos either playing along with her image or against it, and in the awful and needless 1997 film remake of Leave It to Beaver, with June played by the tedious Janine Turner, Billingsley kept her time to a minimum as Aunt Martha.

You Do the Math

Benoît B. Mandelbrot, mathematical cherry picker, has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 85. Known as the father of fractal geometry because he coined the term for a branch of mathematics with roots dating to the 17th century, Mandelbrot described a fractal as an object whose Hausdorff–Besicovitch dimension is greater than its topological dimension. Pretty fancy talk for mathematical patterns that are basically used to decorate the dorm room walls of freshmen at MIT and CalTech, as well as populate forwards from my mother. Essentially, fractals are pieces of an object or shape that, when removed from the whole, form a reduced size copy of the whole. Like Mini-Me and Dr. Evil. Or Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen. Mandelbrot used his fractals to explain cotton pricing, the “dark night sky” riddle and the Los Angeles Clippers, and argued that natural fractals in the shapes of mountains and the structures of lungs were more accurate than the artificially smooth objects of traditional Euclidean geometry. Dr. Almond Bread wrote informally, rather than mathematically, including the aforementioned pretty pictures, making The Fractal Geometry of Nature accessible to non-specialists, sparking widespread popular interest in fractals and contributing to chaos theory and other fields of science and mathematics, such as the dull parts of Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park.

Death on the Bile Duct

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Casualty

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Simon Says Nothing
(Cap tip to Greg)

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Turning into a Passenger Pigeon Wasn't the Best Idea
(Can I get a whoop whoop for Greg?)

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Ailing Simon, Thou Art Dead – Doot Doot, Doot Doot Doot Doot

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Animorphs Triumphant!
(Huzzah for Greg)
TV’s Manimal has been put down at the age of 58 following a bout with cancer. After stage work and some UK TV productions, such as I Claudius and Jesus of Nazareth, the English actor brought an air of sophistication to his Manimal role of Professor Jonathan Chase, who helped the police solve crime with his ability to transform into animals, including a python, falcon and shark, suggesting that Aaron Sorkin was not the first NBC writer to delve into the psilocybin mushrooms. Canceled after just 8 episodes, the Gary A. Larson series left the air the same week his other 1983 acid trip, Automan, about a hologram that takes corporeal form to help Desi Arnaz, Jr. solve crimes, debuted. MacCorkindale also appeared as Phillip FitzRoyce, the foppish shark hunter in Jaws 3D that ends up getting eaten by a comically ridiculously animated shark, two seasons of Falcon Crest as Angela’s law-talking guy, a clinical lead consultant (known over here as a doctor) in Casualty, a BBC medical drama, and faux British cousin Gaylord Duke on the Dukes of Hazzard.