No Vidal Signs

(Props to Monty)
Gore Vidal, the cranky old bastard who haughtily deigned to pass judgment over the end of the American Empire, nay, of American civilization itself, has died of pneumonia at the age of 86. In pointing out the inferiority of everyone and everything around him, he was Andy Rooney with a better vocabulary and greater control over his eyebrows. His condescension is particularly galling given his obsession with celebrity and his life as a public figure. By his own admission, the only two things he never passed up an opportunity for were sex and appearing on television. For most, he is best known for his TV appearances, including a verbal tussle with Norman Mailer on The Dick Cavett Show and a series of brouhahas with “crypto-Nazi” William F. Buckley, who could only muster “you queer” in his response. He hated contemporary writers who dared to try to capture the stage he claimed as his own. At a party, a few months after Vidal compared him to Charles Manson in an essay, Mailer head butted Vidal, prompting Vidal to reply, “At a loss for words again, Norman?” He called the death of fellow writer/fame whore Truman Capote “a good career move.” Despite his firmly held belief that there was no human problem that could not be solved if people did as he said, the voters of New York and California disagreed, denying him a Congressional seat in 1960 and a Senate seat in 1982, respectively. He finally held semi-elected office, playing a Democratic Pennsylvania Senator who got the Karl Rove treatment in Bob Roberts. The academic equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain, Vidal claimed to have had 1,000 sexual encounters with both men and women by the age of 25, but he said he never slept with Howard Austen, his live-in companion of 53 years, which may explain his dour outlook on everything. While convinced of his own infallibility, the causes and people he championed – Ralph Nader, Timothy McVeigh, Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists, Dennis Kucinich – suggest a man more in love with controversy and contrarianism than a crusader for the truth.

It's a Code Blue World

(Props to Monty)

Or

There’s No Tomorrow

Tony Martin, who your grandparents might vaguely remember and who shows that it may be possible to outlive celebrity, has died at the age of 98. The last of the big-name singer-actors from the golden age of Hollywood musicals, Martin was Sinatra without the staying power. Or the Mob ties. He was a featured vocalist on the Burns and Allen radio program, generally flirting with Gracie. He appeared in 30 films, mostly in the late 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s and primarily musicals. Two songs performed by Martin were nominated for Academy Awards - For Every Man There's a Woman from Casbah and It’s a Blue World, from Music in My Heart. His career was put on hold for World War II, where allegations that he had bribed his way into an officer’s commission in the Navy prompted him to give up boats for a band – joining Glenn Miller’s band in the United States Army Air Forces. His film career never really recovered, and after Hollywood lost interest, he continued performing on stage, in a cabaret act with his wife Cyd Charisse, and as a solo act well into his 90s. One of Martin’s other career highlights was the worst ad-lib in the history of the Friar’s Club. During the Friar’s Roast of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in November 1958, Harry Parke had just completed his routine and after returning to his seat, had collapsed into Milton Berle’s lap. Trying to distract the audience, Berle told Martin to sing something. So as Parke lay on the floor dying of a heart attack, Martin broke into “There’s No Tomorrow.”

Norman Abated

Norman Alden, who with 237 roles in a 50-year career may have elicited the phrase, “Hey, it’s that guy,” more than any actor in history, has died of natural causes at the age of 87. He asked about Marty McFly’s life jacket as the diner owner in Back to the Future, voiced Aquaman, gave Electra Woman and Dyna Girl their marching/awkward flying orders, was a color-blind cameraman in Ed Wood, and he was Lou the Mechanic in 7 years of AC Delco commercials. And of course he played Senator William Orloff, who had received a no-pay mortgage from the Ewings, but had to resign his seat when Cliff Barnes got J.R.’s secretary/mistress Julie Grey to spill company secrets after J.R. loved her and left her (with  a $100 bill on the pillow to buy herself something pretty).

When Dr. Baugh Breaks

Or

Ride, Boldly Ride

Robert Golden “R.G.” Armstrong, best remembered as rancher Kevin MacDonald, whose battle with Bart Jason over water rights set in motion the events in El Dorado, my favorite John Wayne movie, has died at the age of 95. The veteran character actor appeared in more than 180 movies and TV shows over the course of his 40-year career, including dozens of westerns, many directed by Sam Peckinpah. After drawing praise as Dr. Baugh, who cut through the crap and gave Big Daddy an honest diagnosis and a way out amidst the squabbling in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the broad-shouldered, gruff-drawling Armstrong found work in virtually every TV Western of the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, he met the up-and-coming Peckinpah, who cast him, generally as a deranged religious fanatic relying on the Bible and a shotgun in equal measure, in film such as Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Ride the High Country and Major Dundee. Later roles were more horror based, including the back-stabbing and back-stabbed Diehl in Children of the Corn, Uncle Lewis Vendredi in Friday the 13th: the Series, the head-spinning bugger-happy caretaker in Evilspeak, and the Old Man on Millennium and the Enter Sandman video by Metallica.

Kurtz, Don’t It?

Chad Everett, best remembered for stealing Elaine away from Ted Stryker in Airplane II: The Sequel before turning into a pile of Jell-O, has died of lung cancer at the age of 75. Everett also played Dr. Joe Gannon on Medical Center, kind of like Grey’s Anatomy, except with patients. Other roles included the voice of Ultraman Chuck and the voice of John Wayne in Disney Hollywood Studios Great Movie Ride, the most disappointing ride at the worst Disney park. He was also one of the few people who could get Lily Tomlin to shut up, chasing her off the set of The Dick Cavett Show after referring to his wife as his property during an argument.

Movin’ On Up

Or

Amen

Sherman Hemsley, inspiration for pimp strutting everywhere, has died at the age of 74. Best remembered as the voice of B.P. Richfield, Earl Sinclair’s terrifying triceratops boss on Dinosaurs, Hemsley got his start in several off-Broadway productions, then caught Norman Lear’s eye on Broadway in the musical Purlie. Introduced as Archie Bunker’s neighbor in Queens on All in the Family, Hemsley’s George Jefferson was a scrappy, combative nouveau riche dry cleaning magnate who managed to move on up to the big leagues, scoring a luxury apartment in Manhattan with his own spin-off, The Jeffersons, which at 11 seasons was one of the longest-running sitcoms with a predominantly black cast. So ingrained with his character, Hemsley played George again on The Fresh of Bel-Air, House of Payne, E/R, Jane Austen’s Mafia and several Old Navy, The Gap and Denny’s commercials with long-suffering Weezy (Isabel Sanford). He later played Deacon Frye, a slight variation on his lived-in George Jefferson image, on Amen. Hemsley’s death leaves only Florence Johnston (Marla Gibbs) and doorman Ralph Hart (Ned Wertimer) alive among the adult regular characters on The Jeffersons.

Ride into the Sunset

Sally Ride, the heroine astronaut with the porn queen name, has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 61. After answering a want ad in the late 1970s NASA had placed to recruit more astronauts with science training, Ride became the first American woman, and at 31, the youngest person,  in space when she served on board the Challenger. She reportedly spent the entire flight chattering about her hair and nails and asking the pilot if he should stop and ask for directions. Taking advantage of women’s penchant to point out every little flaw, she was the only person selected for the panels of inquiry into the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

Saturday Night Dead

Tom Davis, Al Franken’s shadow, has died of throat and neck cancer at the age of 59. Improv ace Davis and comedic structuralist Franken were high school friends who joined the newly formed Saturday Night Live as two of the first writers hired in 1975, the two sharing a weekly salary of $350 a week. Davis proved to be a bargain – helping to create the Coneheads, working with Dan Aykroyd on his Julia Child sketch where she cuts herself and bleeds to death, helping to create Irwin Mainway and the Bag o’Glass, developing Steve Martin’s bloodletting medieval barber-surgeon, writing the skit about Nixon’s drunken anti-Semitic rant to past president’s paintings, giving Bill Murray the structure for Nick the Lounge Singer, and writing The Continental for Christopher Walken. Davis and Franken headlined the writing team that won 4 Emmys for the show and related specials. The two were close – Al Franken’s daughter is named Thomasin Davis Franken – but by 1990, Davis’ drug abuse had gone from charming quirk (he went to the University of the Pacific because its foreign affairs program would let him go to India where he could smoke opium) to bottomless pit. Davis pulled no punches about his addictions in his autobiography Thirty-nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss, which he withheld until after Franken’s election to the Senate.

Habit 8 – Keep Breathing

Or

#1 Habit of a Highly Effective Person - Having a heartbeat!

(Props to Terry)
Stephen Richards Covey, who liked telling they were living their lives wrong, has died at the age of 79 from injuries sustained in a bike accident, bicycling not being a habit of the highly effective. Covey’s 7 Habits: 1. Be Proactive – course he also had 9 kids and 52 kids, so being procreative was just as important; Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind – so presumably his funeral arrangements were taken care of; Habit 3: Put First Things First – don’t procrastinate on the important things – like learning how to ride a bike; Habit 4: Think Win-Win – a habit fellow Mormon Mitt Romney employed to great success at Bain; Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood – whatever the hell that means; Habit 6: Synergize – in order to leverage collateralized encomiums while maximizing mission critical deliverables; Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw – lumberjacks are excellent models of efficacy.

Honky Tonk Angel

Or

Here Kitty, Kitty

Kitty Wells, the first lady of country music, has died of complications from a stroke at the age of 92. At the age of 33, Wells was ready to retire to her life as a wife and mother because it was 1952, and that was the presumed career path, when she recorded It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels. The song, a rebuttal to Hank Thompson’s Wild Side of Life, where he blamed a bar floozy for breaking up his marriage, was to become her signature hit, spending 15 weeks at No. 1 – the first No. 1 country hit by a woman. NBC Radio and the Grand Ole Opry banned the song as being too suggestive as the brazen gingham-wearing hussy cooed “Too many times married men think they're still single / That has caused many a good girl to go wrong.” The popularity of the song eventually forced the Opry to offer her membership. The song also served as a wake-up to record executives in Nashville who had been unaware to that point that women could even sing, and Wells became the first female artist to record an LP in 1956. Wells would hit the charts 83 more times in her career, totaling 38 Top 10 hits, as she became a model for other female country stars like Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. A 1976 inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame, in 1991, she joined Hank Williams and Roy Acuff as the only country performers to receive a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Holm’s Deep

Or

She’s Just a Girl Who Cain’t Say Anything

Celeste Holm, best remembered as Ted Danson’s mom in Three Men and a Baby, has died at the age of 95. She got her big break as the horny hick, the flirt of flyover country, the randy ruralite Ado Annie in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, the girl who just cain’t say no to the menfolk. She soon found the big screen, earning an Oscar for supporting actress as the puncturer of hypocrisy in Gentleman’s Agreement, Hollywood’s assault on anti-Semitism, and she followed up with two more nominations as a French nun in Come to the Stable and as Margo Channing’s well-meaning but dim friend who introduces her to Eve in All About Eve. And after 3 nominations in 4 years, she coasted for 50 years. Along the way she also lost Frank Sinatra to Grace Kelly in High Society, the musical version of The Philadelphia Story. She never really left the stage, taking rolls in The King and I, Mame and Anna Christie between movie rolls, and at the age of 73 tried to nail John Barrymore’s ghost in I Hate Hamlet.

Encyclopedia Down

(Props to Monty)

Or

Encyclopedia Brown and the Metastasis

Donald J. Sobol, who showed that dorky kids can solve their police chief father’s cases decades before Veronica Mars, has died at the age of 87 of gastric lymphoma. Born before Wikipedia made encyclopedias obsolete, Leroy Brown earned his distinct nickname for the vast array of facts at his fingertips, which he would use to solve his father’s cases in time to enjoy a lovely dinner. Brown’s steel trap mind time and again kept local bully Bugs Meany in detention, while his friend and bodyguard Sally Kimball kept the smug dork from getting his ass beat. Unlike those efficient bastards Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, Sobol made sure to pause in Brown’s summations to give his kiddie readers the chance to compare their own deductions to the master. Over nearly 60 years, Sobol wrote 28 Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, earning a special Edgar Award for contributions to tedious unsolved crimes. The series has never been out of print and has been translated into 12 languages, with book sales in the millions.

Not so McHale or McHearty

Or

Resuscitation is Futile

Ernest Borgnine, who had a thing for white cotton panties, has died of renal failure at the age of 95. After sending Frank Sinatra’s Maggio From Here to Eternity as Fatso Judson, Borgnine was the logical choice to play the painfully shy, gentle butcher with mommy issues in Marty. Borgnine won the Best Actor Oscar, ironically beating Sinatra (from The Man with the Golden Arm) again, and in the days before carelessly throwing your life away guaranteed you an Oscar, James Dean. He sent The Dirty Dozen to certain doom, escaped certain doom on the Poseidon, got strangled in Ice Station Zebra, got eaten by rats in Willard, got shot down with the rest of The Wild Bunch, got blown up in Escape from New York, fell victim to panic (and a far too form-fitting uniform) and crashed a spaceship in The Black Hole, and got mauled by something as the Celebrity Dad on the Junior Campers father-son rubber-rafting trip on The Simpsons. The former Navy man reached a new audience as Quinton McHale, commander of the PT-73, a lovable band of wacky misfits who happened to be very good at killing Nips, back before that was a racist term – so good that they took the incomprehensible reverse trip from the South Pacific to Italy for the unsuccessful last season of McHale’s Navy. He later rejoined Tim Conway as Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy on SpongeBob SquarePants. In 2009, he helped close out the last 2 episodes of ER as a husband saying goodbye to his dying wife, earning an Emmy nomination more than 50 years after his TV career began with him trying to kill Captain Video and his Video Rangers.

A Face in the Ground

Or

Mayberry, RIP

(An epitaphany shared with Ern and Monty)

Or

A Face in the Shroud

(Kudos to Ern)
Andy Griffith, best remembered for getting a blow job from Jerry Seinfeld’s TV mom in Play the Game, has died of a heart attack at the age of 86. The long-time screen heavy got his first major role in A Face in the Crowd as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a hayseed entertainer with a sociopathic desire for fame – the Dr. Phil of his day. In two 1970s TV movies, he played ruthless executives who accidentally caused the deaths of others and tried to get away with it in Pray for the Wildcats and Savages; in the ripped from the 30-year-old headlines-based Murder in Coweta County, Griffith starred as a wealthy landowner who was tried, convicted and executed for killing a black man, about as likely in 1950 Georgia as a Wall Street banker being held accountable for anything today. In Crime of Innocence, he played a hanging judge who hands down harsh sentences to young offenders for their own good. John Ritter goes looking for his long-lost father in Gramps and finds Griffith, and learns that some things are better left unfound as dad is a violent psycho. Griffith later tried to take over the world as General Rancor in Spy Hard, one of the sadder Leslie Nielsen parody attempts, before rounding out his career as a randy widowed grampa boning his way through an old-folks home in Play the Game. And of course he also played a charming small town southern sheriff in his eponymous TV show and a charming small town southern lawyer in Matlock, blah, blah, blah, like you didn’t hear that a million times this week. Despite his North Carolina roots and deeply held religious beliefs, Griffith was a life-long Democrat, filming a commercial advocating for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that was withdrawn after he received death threats. Threatening Andy f’ing Griffith. Yeah, the Tea Party is ready to lead.

Griffith is the 3rd Mayberrian to get Mayberried this year, joining George “Goober” Lindsey and Frank Cady, who played the town drunk in the episode of Make Room for Daddy that begat The Andy Griffith Show. His death leaves only Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle) and Betty Lynn (Barney Fife’s girlfriend Thelma Lou) alive among the adult cast members.