Now This Is the Story About How His Life Got Flipped-Turned Upside Down

James Avery, butt of fat jokes before such things were offensive, has died of complications from heart surgery at the age of 65. Avery is best remembered as the surrogate father to Will Smith on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air because Mr. Huge Movie Star With the July 4 Openings never bothered to toss beloved Uncle Phil a bone with a cameo in one of his big-time movies. Probably revenge for one of those life lessons Uncle Phil was always dispensing. Avery also voiced Shredder on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, was Kelso’s commanding office at the police academy on That ‘70s Show, was the coffee-obsessed DMV examiner who passes Corey Haim on License to Drive. And of course was the presiding judge in the trial where Lisa Alden, the sister of Jeff Faraday, who fathered a child with Kristen Shepherd that he claimed was JR Ewing’s, leading Bobby to pay him off, challenged Bobby for custody of said child, Christopher, on Dallas.

Lock, Stock, and Cold Barrel

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Today was not a good day, he died, the man who made the AK

(Phil, waxing poetic)

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You Better Fear the Reaper, he's got an AK now!

(Another tip o’ the cap to Phil)

Mikhail Kalashnikov, who contributed to the deaths of more people than any man this side of Ray Kroc, has died at the age of 94. Kalashnikov developed his signature weapon, the AK-47, to win a Soviet gun design competition in 1947, with later revisions and rip-offs being known collectively as Kalashnikov rifles. Kalashnikov, the son of a “wealthy farmer” sent to Siberia, became a hero of the state in a rags to slightly nicer rags story. Kalashnikov’s automatic rifles had fewer moving parts than the cumbersome relics the Soviets had been using, and quickly earned a reputation for their durability, overcoming mud, sand and moisture without jamming. Except when the Libyans tried to shoot Marty McFly. Cheap, light, durable and so simple kids from 9 to 92 could fire off 650 rounds a minute, the AK-47 became the weapon of choice for armies, drug lords, street gangs, terrorists and pirates around the world. Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden modeled them in photos, Mozambique features a silhouette of the gun with its distinctive banana clip on its flag, and many former guerrillas in Africa named their children “Kalash.” The most produced type of weapon in history, by some estimates, there is 1 Kalashnikov for every 70 men, women and children on the planet. While Kalashnikov was ever so proud of his contribution to the Motherland, he did not like the unchecked dissemination that ultimately led to his invention being used against Russian soldiers in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

Corpse and Robbers

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The Grave Train Robber

(Props to Don)

 

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Last Escape

(Additional accolades for Don)

 

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Derailed

Ronnie Biggs, who found there were ways to escape 1960s London besides using the TARDIS, has died at the age of 84. A minor member of the gang that pulled off England’s Great Train Robbery – taking £2.6 million (the equivalent of almost $66 million in 2013 terms) from the Glasgow to London mail train on Aug 8, 1963. He and several co-conspirators were quickly captured, and public outcry over the severe head injury dealt to the train’s engineer netted Biggs a 30-year sentence. Biggs disagreed with the ruling and paroled himself after 15 months. He blew most of his earnings from the robbery on plastic surgery by a hack surgeon in Paris, then spent a few years working like a schnook in Australia before sneaking into Panama on his way to South America and Rio de Janiero. Along the way, Biggs was frequently tipped off to his impending arrest by watching the breathless coverage of his exploits on the evening news and managed to escape justice for 35 years. Not that he didn’t have close calls - he was arrested in 1974, but by that time had knocked up his Brazilian girlfriend, so Brazilian law meant he couldn’t be extradited. A team of inept bounty hunters tried to kidnap him for the reward money, but their oceanfaring getaway was thwarted when their boat broke down and was towed to shore by the Barbados Coast Guard. Lacking an extradition treaty with the UK, Barbados set him free again. The British tabloids kept fanning the flames of his notoriety, and he relished his celebrity status. Mugs and T-shirts with his likeness were for sale throughout Rio, and for a price, any tourist could get a private audience at his home, with barbecue and tales of his life on the lam for entertainment. He even performed on a record with The Sex Pistols, with his single No One Is Innocent reaching Number 7 on the UK Singles Chart in 1978. Expecting a cushy sentence given his age and health, he gave up life on a Brazilian beach and returned to England in 2001. However, three decades of reading about Biggs’ extended vacation hardened the resolve of British authorities, who dumped him in a dark hole for 8 years. He got a compassionate release in 2009, with his death expected within months. Continuing to piss off the Man, he hung on for 4 years, attending gala events, the funerals of his co-robbers, and giving countless interviews to the British media, though his strokes and other ailments meant many of those interviews were done via short scrawled responses on messageboards.

de Winter’s Bones

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Damsel in Distress

Joan Fontaine finishes first again, dying at the age of 96. Denied the use of even her own last name by her mother, who favored first-born Olivia de Haviland, Fontaine nonetheless was a two-time Oscar nominee for 1940’s Rebecca and 1941’s Suspicion, for which she won, the only actor to win an Academy Award while being directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She racked up a third nomination for 1943’s The Constant Nymph. Her film career petered out in the 1950s, but she received a plethora of good notices for her stage work, and she even scored an Emmy nomination for her work on the soap opera Ryan’s Hope in 1980. Fontaine and de Haviland’s relationship was strained from childhood, with de Haviland tearing up clothes earmarked as hand-me-downs for Fontaine. When Fontaine won her Oscar in 1942, one of the losers was de Haviland, whose efforts to congratulate her sister at the awards ceremony were rebuffed. Several years later at another event, the positions and the snubbery were reversed. Fontaine claimed that the last straw came the sisters disagreed on de Haviland’s decision for their 88-year-old mother to undergo surgery to treat her advanced cancer. When their mother died, de Haviland did not bother to find out where her sister was, sending a telegraph that arrived at Fontaine’s next stop with a touring play some 2 weeks later. The two reportedly hadn’t spoken since 1975. Fontaine once said, "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she’ll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it."

Lawrence of Arabia, British Necromania

(Props to Phil)

 

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Goodbye, Mr. Chips

 

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Lyin' in (Almost) Winter

(An epitaphany shared with Monty)

 

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The Lion Sleeps Tonight

(Merit for Mike M)

Peter O’Toole, who had to fake joy for other’s success more than any man in history, has died at the age of 81. Oscar’s bridesmaid, O’Toole lost for Lawrence of Arabia (1962 - Gregory Peck), Becket (1964 - Rex Harrison), The Lion in Winter (1968 - Cliff Robertson), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969 - John Wayne), The Ruling Class (1972 - Marlon Brando), The Stunt Man (1980 - Robert De Niro), My Favorite Year (1982 - Ben Kingsley) and Venus (2006 - Forest Whitaker). Among his lovely parting gifts, four Golden Globes, a BAFTA, an Emmy, and an Honorary Academy Award in 2003. After his first 5 Oscar losses, his passive aggressive approach was to appear in Club Paradise, Caligula, King Ralph and Supergirl. He was also renowned as a stage actor, prodigious drunk and as food critic turned restaurant patron Anton Ego in Ratatouille.

Trouble-Free

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Long Walk Toward the Light

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Deep 466ed

Nelson Mandela, whose successful life and lack of recividism after a 27-year prison sentence show the efficacy of harsh sentencing, has died at the age of 95, creating a job for a schizophrenic sign language interpreter and giving Rick Santorum a forum to rail against the Affordable Care Act. Forced to give up his tribal name – Rolihlahla, Xhosa for Troublemaker – as a schoolboy, Mandela nonetheless lived up to it for the ruling white class. Arrested in the middle of a successful career as an African National Congress militant even Amnesty International wanted no part of, after several parole hearings, Mandela was finally granted his freedom in 1990 after telling the parole board that rehabilitation was just a bullshit word, and that they should stop wasting his time. Once released, Mandela served to help the black majority of South Africa notice they outnumbered their oppressors 10 to 1, and Apartheid ended. Elected president in the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, Mandela eschewed vengeance in favor of winning a rugby match to erase the country’s 200 years of racial segregation. Mandela further confounded expectations of an African head of state by not plundering the country’s riches for himself, by voluntarily ceding power after a single term in office, by actively taking steps to limit the spread of HIV on the continent, and by calling the Spice Girls his heroes. In his statesman years after leaving office, Mandela continued uniting the country, campaigning for South Africa to host the 2010 World Cup and by embracing the Redeker Plan in the face of a zombie apocalypse.