Rotting Rowdy Piper

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In the Next Piper's Pit

‪

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They Don't

(Props to Peter)

 

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Piper Down

(Kudos to Don)

 

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They Die

(Can I Get a Whoop Whoop for JQ?)

Rowdy Roddy Piper is all out of bubble gum, dying of a pulmonary embolism at the age of 61. The Canadian turned fake Scottish wrestler was one of the most interesting personalities to inhabit the wobbly squared circle. He held 34 belts in his career, which given the legitimacy of the WWF/WCW and WWE is about as impressive as doing the same thing at a Target. Outside the ring, the kilted menace badgered other wrestlers on his show-within-the show Piper’s Pit, once hitting Jimmy Superfly Snuka with a coconut, and on another occasion insulting Bruno Sammartino, leading to a steel cage match that Piper lost despite Bruno being 20 years older. Such antics helped Piper earn the title of Worst Villain in WWE history. Away from wrestling, he dabbled in acting, starring in the cult classic They Live, and playing Sam Hell in Hell Comes to Frogtown, one of the lone fertile men left in a post-apocalyptic world where mutant amphibians have captured women to use as sex slaves, with Hell out to rescue the girls and then set to repopulating the planet. But it’s not porn.

Doctorow, Heal Thyself

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Is there a Doctorow in the Grave?

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Welcome to Hard Times

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What a Dragtime

(Props to Bill)

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Tagtime

(Merit for Mark)

El Doctorow, noted Spanish folk hero who defeated the Moors… oops, I have just been informed… E. L. Doctorow, author of historical fiction, has died at the age of 84. Among his best known works are Ragtime, which was turned into James Cagney’s final film, and Billy Bathgate, which should have been Loren Dean’s, as well as The Book of Daniel, a fictionalized account of Uncle Julius and Aunt Ethel’s trumped up charges, trial and execution for giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. 

If I Were a Live Man

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It's Time to Pay the Fiddler?

 

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So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Good Night...

 

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The Hills Will be Filled with the Sound of Silence for Captain Gone Trapp

(Props to Don)

 

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Sunrise, Some Set

(Kudos to beloved observer Bill)

Ted Bikel found a way off the roof, dying of natural causes at the age of 91. He started playing Tevye in The Fiddler on the Roof in his teens in Tel Aviv, and spent most of the next 7 decades schlepping through the shtetl, becoming the most prolific milkman in Broadway history. Showing a penchant for insufferable musicals, he also created the role of Captain von Trapp in the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music. He earned an Academy Award nomination in The Defiant Ones as the Sheriff pursuing Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier. Other roles included Worf’s adoptive father on Star Trek: The Next Generation, German officers in The African Queen and The Enemy Below, and the holier than thou Oliver Crangle, brought down, literally, by his pursuit of evil. In addition to his acting, he was a well-regarded folksinger, co-founding the Newport Folk Festival.

Coe Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Good Bye

George Coe, who I had no idea voiced Wodehouse on Archer, has died at the age of 86. Coe holds the distinction of being the first person fired from Saturday Night Live, getting a call out in the first episode and making a few more appearances before joining Chuck Cunningham, Cousin Oliver and Judy Winslow in the TV Penalty Box. Coe earned an Oscar nomination for his 1968 short film, a Bergman parody called The Dove. He played General Watson in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, who didn’t care, but surprisingly could tell, that Kate Mulgrew was a woman. He ran Network 23 on Max Headroom and played the patriarch of the Huntzberger clan on Gilmore Girls. He made two appearances on The West Wing as Senator Howard Stackhouse, whose titular filibuster held up healthcare legislation for the benefit of his autistic grandson, and who later considered a left-wing challenge to President Bartlet’s second-term nomination. Most recently, he voiced the heroin-addicted, much put upon valet of Sterling Archer.

Rocco’s Modern Death

Alex Rocco, best remembered as Jo Polniaczek’s neer-do-well father, has died of cancer at the age of 79. His gravelly voice and roughhewn features ensured a career of roles as the heavy, most notably Moe Greene, who made the mistake of slapping around Fredo and telling Michael Corleone to get the hell out of Las Vegas, earning himself a spot in the Montage of Murder in The Godfather. Rocco came by his mobster roles honestly, having been a wannabe member of Whitey Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang in Boston as a kid. He used his connections to set up a meeting between Robert Mitchum and Boston’s Irish underworld to help him research his role in The Friends of Eddie Coyle. After an arrest, he moved to LA and started taking acting lessons from Leonard Nimoy. Other roles included Roger Meyers, Jr., head of Itchy and Scratchy Studios, on The Simpsons, Sol Siler, founder of Playtone Records, in That Thing You Do!, Al Floss, The Famous Teddy Z’s agent, for which he won an Emmy, after the show had been cancelled. 

One Heart, Vulnerable, Down Six

(Props to observer Erik)

Or

No Sharif in Town

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Bridge to Nowhere

Omar Sharif, best remembered for his inability to differentiate real and fake dog poop, has died of a heart attack at the age of 83. Among his more prominent roles were Sherif Ali, who had one of the coolest entrances in movie history in Lawrence of Arabia, scoring an Oscar nomination in his Western film debut, and the title role in Dr. Zhivago, a film only slightly shorter and less painful than a Russian winter. He had to act as though he liked Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl and went way against type as ill-fated Agent Cedric in Top Secret!, the unheralded Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker follow-up to Airplane! One of the top contract bridge players in the world, he would force films to schedule around major tournaments so he could play, and his long-running column on bridge, usually taking up space on the funny pages with the crossword puzzle, was many kid’s first exposure to the two-time Golden Globe winner. 

No Rees-on to Live

Roger Rees, best remembered as the solicitor in Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, has died of brain cancer at the age of 71. Rees had a distinguished career on the stage, earning an Olivier Award and a Tony Award in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. He then like quintupled his earnings from his stage career in 17 appearances on Cheers as Robin Colcord, the executive in charge of the bar after Sam sells it, and whose insider trading Sam reports, allowing him to buy the bar back for 85 cents. He also made several appearances as Lord John Marbury, ambassador from the Court of St James’s on The West Wing. Following George Coe, this was the second West Wing-related death this summer. 

House of One Corpse

Irwin Keyes, Richard Kiel’s mini-me, has died of complications of acromegaly at the age of 63. Keyes put his acromegalic appearance to good use as a character actor playing the heavy in a range of low-budget horror and sci-fi movies, such as The House of 1,000 Corpses, Evil Bong 3-D and The Exterminator, as well as played the archetype for laughs in films and TV shows like The Naked Gun and The Flintstones. He had a recurring role as George’s bodyguard Hugo Mojelewski on The Jeffersons, and his repeated line "Hi! Remember Me?" became a bit of a national catchphrase, back before catchphrases were more tightly regulated.

Rolled Snake Eyes

Ken Stabler, who preferred Birmingham to Oakland, has died of colon cancer at the age of 69. Recruited by Bear Bryant, Stabler had a unique career at the University of Alabama, watching from the bench as Joe Namath and Steve Sloan led the Crimson Tide to consecutive national championships in 1964 and 1965. Given his chance, he led the Tide to another undefeated season, capped by a blowout in the Sugar Bowl, but voters apparently had Tide fatigue and Alabama finished 3^rd. Senior year saw a disappointing 8-2-1 finish, with Stabler briefly kicked off the team, but highlighted by his 53-yard TD scamper in the rain to beat Auburn, a play known in Iron Bowl lore as the “Run in the Mud.” Drafted by the Oakland Raiders, Stabler was again a late bloomer, doing little for 3 seasons, until a late TD run in the 1972 AFC Divisional Playoff would have made him a hero, but he who lives by the fancy named play dies by the fancy named play, and Franco Harris’ Immaculate Reception ended the Raiders season. With Hall of Famers Fred Biletnikoff and Dave Casper and Hall of Fame finalist Cliff Branch catching passes, Stabler was AFC player of the year in 1974 and 1976 and led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl title in 1977. The Raiders traded the franchise leader in passing yards and TD passes after the 1979 season, as the Houston Oilers thought that adding past their prime stars like Stabler and Casper to a still ambulatory Earl Campbell was the ticket to the Super Bowl. It was not. Stabler moved on to bring the Saints within a game of their first playoff appearance in 1983, then retired in the middle of the 1984 season. Stabler set the record for fewest games to reach 100 wins as a starting quarterback (150) and still remains the 4^th fastest. In 1974, Stabler was one of several NFL stars who signed contracts to join the World Football League after their current contracts expired in 1976, and he proudly declared his intent to bring pro football to the South as a member of the Birmingham Americans. The WFL folded in 1975, and Stabler stayed a Raider. Stabler was as celebrated for his prowess off the field as on, and there has been some speculation that his hard-partying may have kept him out of that bastion of decorum in Canton. Stabler decorated his hotel suite in training camp with the underwear of his conquests, and bragged that he studied his playbook by the light of a jukebox. In-huddle belches that carried the distinct aroma of the remnants of amber liquid from the previous evening, which had invariably stretched into game day morning, were not uncommon.