Somewhere Out of Time

Bill Erwin, the human Waldorf, has died at the age of 96 from being really, really old. Among his more than 200 appearances over a career that spanned nearly 60 years, the professional codger is probably best remembered as Sid Fields, the cranky titular “Old Man” from a 1993 Seinfeld episode that earned him an Emmy nomination. Appearing with Seinfeld further established Erwin as the Forrest Gump of comedy, with his first screen role in the Phil Silvers movie In the Army Now, a cameo on I Love Lucy, and his start in the business as the original puppet wrangler as ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's stage manager. Even the character name Sid Fields comes from the name of the writer of The Abbott and Costello Show. Other roles included the bellman in Somewhere in Time, Jack Nicholson's father in Cry Baby Killer, Nicholson's first starring role in 1958, a World War II veteran protesting how the atomic bomb drop was handled by the Smithsonian Institute in an episode of The West Wing, the old guy on the plane in Planes, Trains & Automobiles, cameos on virtually every TV Western, including 14 different characters on episodes of Gunsmoke, the son of a 114-year-old murder victim on Monk, and both the TV series and movie Leave it to Beaver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC2CM7UVzPQ

Elementary, My Dead Watson

Albert Ghiorso, name-dropping, periodic table expanding nuclear physicist, has died of heart failure at the age of 95. Ghiorso specialized in identifying those elements that last for a fraction of a second and have no practical application other than to substantiate grant requests to fund efforts to find the next transient element. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1937, Ghiorso invented the world’s first commercial Geiger counter, which earned him a spot on the Manhattan Project, where he started his elemental Easter egg hunt with Americium (95) and Curium (96). After raining death on the Japanese, Ghiorso continued tampering in God’s domain, slamming particles together long enough to create Berkelium (97) and Californium (98), combing the mushroom cloud from the first thermonuclear explosion to find Einsteinium (99) and Fermium (100), then using a cyclotron to build Mendelevium (101) piece by piece. He led the group that used the first Ion Accelerator to create a few atoms each of Nobelium (102), Lawrencium (103), Rutherfordium (104), Dubnium (105) and Seaborgium (106), giving him 12 elements to his credit in less than 30 years, more than anyone in history. While moonlighting at Oscar Mayer laboratories, Ghiroso also isolated Bolognium, but to maintain his cover, was unable to add it to his curriculum vitae. Having shot his nuclear wad, he left it to others to continue using his techniques to find other made-up elements. He was briefly honored by having element 118 named Ghiorsium, but it turns out it was just dandruff.

We Can’t Do It

Geraldine Hoff Doyle, whose image was intended to inspire women who had taken men’s places during World War II, not to mention countless field hockey teams, but was really just another example of women being exploited, has died at the age of 86 of complications from arthritis, presumably developed as a result of her Rosie the Riveter impersonation. The iconic image of a glamorous woman in a bandana rolling up her sleeve was based on a picture of Doyle, who as a 17-year-old in 1942 was working as a metal presser outside Detroit. Ironically, Doyle only had the job for 2 weeks, quitting because she feared a hand injury that would keep her from playing the cello. The image was reappropriated by the feminist movement in the 1980s, when Doyle first saw the image when flipping through a magazine, so her royalties on the thousands of posters and a Time-Life Book cover wouldn’t have even bought the 33-cent stamp using the image issued in 1999.

Triumph of the Warm and Fuzzy

Bud Greenspan, whose inability to wear glasses properly was rivaled only by his capacity to take athletics out of his Olympics videos, has died of Parkinson’s disease at the age of 84. Half Leni Riefenstahl, half Nicholas Sparks, Greenspan, dark-rimmed glasses perched on his shaved head above his ridiculous safari jacket, combined soaring orchestrals, stentorian narration, overly produced opening and closing ceremonies, and profiles of Belgian wrestlers who overcame tone deafness and Cameroonian lugers whose great-uncle’s half-sister’s cousin’s handyman died just 2 and a half months before the Opening Ceremonies to produce Olympic documentaries with all the athleticism of an Ikea commercial.

"He's dead." "And before that?" "He was alive."

Or
Landesberg's End
Steve Landesberg, renowned for doing the best Gregory Peck impersonation this side of Crow T. Robot, has died of colon cancer at the age of 74. Landesberg was at his deadpan best as the 12th Precinct’s eccentrically esoterically erudite detective sergeant Arthur P. Dietrich on Barney Miller, who could speak at length on any topic to the consternation and amusement of the squad. After attending a Goethe Festival, he offered, “Take my soul, please.” When a pregnant woman who spoke only German appeared in the station, Dietrich conversed in fluent German. When Barmey asked, “You speak German?" Dietrich responded, "Don't you?" He had a similar approach to comedy on his own time, observing “"Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense." He applied his deadpan in a number of guest spots, as Ryan Reynolds’ father in Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place and as Jason Segel’s pediatrician in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Vine and Deadly

Phil Cavarretta, among the last living evidence that the Chicago Cubs have played in a World Series, has died of complications from a stroke at the age of 94. Cavaretta played for the last 3 pennant-winning Cubs teams: 1935, 1938 and 1945. Being the Cubs, they lost all 3, although Cavaretta hit .462 and .423 in the latter two series. For the final pennant-winning season, Cavaretta was named the NL MVP while most of the better ballplayers were still serving or had just returned. Like George Bailey, Cavarretta was 4F because of a hearing problem. His 20-year career with the Cubs, including 2-and-a-half years as player-manager, made Cavaretta one of the most popular and longest suffering players in team history. In spring training 1954, fresh off finishing 8th, 5th and 7th, Cavarretta told owner Phil Wrigley that the team needed help at first base, third base and center field. Wrigley decided what the team really needed was help at manager and fired Cavarretta, inspiring the team to rally to a 7th place finish.

Tune In, Turn On, Dropo Out

Walt Dropo, UConn ‘s best non-women’s-basketball-playing athlete, has died at the age of 87. Dropo won the 1950 AL Rookie of the Year award with the Red Sox, hitting .322, with 34 homers and 144 R.B.I. in 136 games – no player would average an RBI a game for a full season again until George Brett in 1980. A broken wrist the following spring cemented Dropo’s status as a one-year wonder, though he remained a productive major leaguer for 13 years and entered the record books in 1952 with the Tigers by recording hits in 12 consecutive at-bats. Dropo died just 3 weeks after 1951 AL Rookie of the Year Gil McDougald.

Is this Iowa? No, it's Heaven.

(Props to Don)

Or
Signing Off
(More whoop whoop for Don)
Prolific autographer Bob Feller has continued the exodus of Cleveland’s athletes, succumbing to leukemia and pneumonia at the age of 92. A high school star in Van Meter, Iowa, Feller joined the Indians essentially as a summer intern in 1936, but instead of getting coffee and filing paperwork, he struck out 15 batters in his major league debut, then 17 more 3 weeks later. After the season, he went back to high school for his senior year, where he was greeted by the governor of Iowa, although these days the governor of Iowa opens malls, so it’s not all that impressive. His graduation the following spring being broadcast on NBC Radio – and you thought they were desperate for programming with 5 hours of Jay Leno in primetime. Feller racked up his 100th win at age 22, en route to 266 wins in an 18-year, with 3 no-hitters and 12 one-hitters. He enlisted in the Navy two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, ignoring the deferment he could have requested as the supporter of his family and costing himself 4 years and possibly 100 wins, while earning 8 battle stars for combat in the Pacific and North Atlantic. Like many Cleveland athletes, he did his best to prevent a championship for the Mistake by the Lake, losing twice in the 1948 World Series, but the Indians overcame him and won their last title to date. Despite signing his first contract for $1 and a ball autographed by the 1936 Indians, he was one of the first players to earn $100,000 a year, adding bonuses for increases in attendance on days he pitched and supplementing his income with barnstorming tours against Negro Leaguers, and in 1950, he helped the players’ union develop its first pension plan. He and Jackie Robinson were inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, the first players inducted in their first year of eligibility since the inaugural class in 1939. In his retirement, he redefined himself as a cranky codger, denouncing players accused of taking steroids, relief pitching, greedy owners and players, Pete Rose for lying about betting on baseball, the decision to let Vietnam draft dodger Muhammad Ali throw out the first pitch at the 2004 All-Star Game, the United States for not using enough force in Iraq, and the media for preparing Stephen Strasburg’s Hall of Fame plaque before he’d made his 13th start, which at the current pace, might come in April 2012. Still, he could bring it, donning an Indians jersey last summer at the age of 90 and pitching to three batters in the inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame Classic.

Breakfast at Stiffany's

Or
A Death in the Dark
Blake Edwards, best remembered for showing off Mary Poppins’ rack, has died of complications of pneumonia at the age of 88. Edwards was a master of screwball raunch, making Peter Sellers a star in The Pink Panther in the role that just about ended Steve Martin’s career and giving Deep Blue Something’s star-crossed lovers the one thing they got with Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Other cinematic achievements included having his wife Julie Andrews play a woman pretending to be a man working as a female impersonator in Victor Victoria, based on Bea Arthur’s memoir, setting the cinematic template for unappealing dork scoring an uber-babe with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek in 10, adding The Days of Wine and Roses as a metaphor for self-destructive alcoholism to the lexicon, and showing the world what Andrews looked like topless in the film industry satire S.O.B.

An Actress to Try to Remember

Neva Patterson, who specialized in losing or almost losing men throughout her career, has died at the age of 90 of complications from a broken hip. She was the fiancée Cary Grant ditches for inept pedestrian Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember, she was the wife Tom Ewell considers leaving for his hot neighbor (Vanessa Brown) in the stage version of The Seven-Year Itch, and she screws over her son, which costs her her second husband, in V, only to later betray the alien she was canoodling with as a collaborator, leading him to shoot her in the back at the conclusion of V: The Final Battle.

Carolina on Her Mind, and Face, and Body, and…

Elizabeth Edwards, who failed to become First Lady in the 2008 Presidential Election in more ways than one, has died at the age of 61. Only a fellow attorney could have found sincerity in Jonathan Edwards’ real estate agent demeanor, weekend news anchor hair and smile and politician living in the largest private residence in North Carolina while trying for a populist message, and for her folly she was rewarded with cheap anniversary dinners at Wendy’s and by serving as the inspiration for Juliana Marguilles’ triumphant return to television in The Good Wife. Diagnosed with breast cancer the day after Election Day 2004, Edwards’ cancer afforded some perspective after John Kerry and Edwards inept campaign failed to unseat the least popular president since Nixon. She then got a great look at her husband’s megalomaniacal thirst for power as he ignored her battle with incurable cancer by continuing his futile bid for the White House, while admitting to having knocked up a campaign staffer for good measure. His defense: she was in remission. Although initially supportive, Edwards was a woman scorned, and she refuted his claims that the affair was a one-night stand and admitted she had asked him to end his campaign to spare their family. Edwards died 1 month before she could finalize divorcing the rat bastard phony.

Turn Out the Lights, The Party’s Over

Don Meredith, the crooning former Cowboy quarterback in the Monday Night Football broadcast booth, has died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 72. Meredith was a star at SMU, then got drafted by the dreadful expansion Cowboys team and led them from an 0-11-1 season in 1960 to title game losses in 1966 and 1967, the latter aka the Ice Bowl. Meredith’s easy humor even softened hardass coach Tom Landry. Before the 1966 title game, Meredith showed up in the locker room with a heavily stitched face and said he had tripped into a plate glass window and couldn’t play. Landry walked in. The locker room fell silent as he walked to his star quarterback. And erupted in laughter when Landry peeled off the mask applied by a make-up artist. Even better story if Meredith hadn’t sealed the loss with a late interception. A year after retiring, he provided humor to balance stolid block of wood Frank Gifford and a folksy counterpoint to blowhard Howard Cosell on Monday nights. He explained: “I’d just wait for Howard to make a mistake. Didn’t usually take too long.” With many tuning in for the broadcasters as much as for the games, Meredith gave a reason to stick around in blow-outs: when a camera found a solitary Oiler fan during a loss to the Raiders who promptly gave the finger, Meredith offered, “He thinks they’re No. 1;” in a game where the Cowboys were getting stomped and the crowd had started chanting “We want Meredith,” he assured viewers, “No way you’re getting me down there.” He later became the Lipton Tea shill and missed a throw on King of the Hill that cost Hank $100,000.

Oh No!

Or
Santo Closed
Ron Santo, the best diabetic Chicago Cubs third baseman not in the Hall of Fame, has died of bladder cancer at the age of 70. In his 15-year career, all but one with the Cubs, Santo hit 342 HRs, won 5 Gold Gloves and was named to 9 All-Star Games. A good career, and one that Cubs fans have been arguing was worthy of Cooperstown despite 19 rejections from sportswriters and baseball veterans. Santo provided some of the defining moments of the 1969 Cubs, jumping in the air to click his heels after Cubs wins, and for his hubris, he got to be the one standing in the on-deck circle at Shea Stadium as a black cat ran in front of the Cubs dugout, staring down the team that had once led the division by 8 ½ games and would finish 8 games back of the Mets. Not content with one choke job, Santo tried it again two years later by strangling manager Leo Durocher. After becoming the first player to exercise his rights as a player with 10 years in the majors and 5 with the same team to block a trade to the Angels, and opting for the White Sox instead, Santo returned to the Cubs organization, spending 20 years as the team’s radio analyst where he lived and died, mostly died, with the Cubs fortunes, endearing him to the Friendly Confines Faithful. As his diabetes claimed both legs and caused several heart attacks while he got closer to the Hall of Fame, the Cubs gave him the next best thing, retiring his number 10 in 2003.