Kaplan Eternal Rest Prep

Marvin Kaplan, a real-life Droopy Dog, has died at the age of 89. Best remembered for his thick glasses, thick eyebrows and thick Brooklyn accent as Arizona phone lineman Henry Beesmeyer, who stomached a lot of food at Mel’s Diner on Alice, Kaplan’s career spanned 7 decades. His nasal whine made him a go-to voice actor in radio comedies, and helped attract enough attention for him to steal his scenes as the court stenographer in Adam’s Rib. He also did a number of cartoon voiceovers, most notably Choo Choo on Top Cat, and he had minor but memorable roles as the gas station attendant in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and as a carpet cleaner in Freaky Friday. Other roles included various voices on Garfield and Friends, Aah Real Monsters, Francis, Angels in the Outfield, The Nutty Professor and more time at an unappetizing lunch counter on Becker. 

All Down Hill

Steven Hill, patron saint of the plea bargain, has died at the age of 94. He is best remembered as District Attorney Adam Schiff and from 1992 to 2000 every episode of Law & Order was a wry Jerry Orbach observation over a newly discovered dead body, a world-weary Steven Hill summation, and some other stuff in between, usually including Schiff imploring the assistant DA to ignore his principles and take whatever deal he can score from the defense. In the 1940s and ‘50s, Hill was a force of nature on the New York stage, joining Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and Julie Harris in the inaugural class of the Actor’s Studio. Martin Landau said, “When I first became an actor, there were two young actors in New York: Marlon Brando and Steven Hill. A lot of people said that Steven would have been the one, not Marlon. He was legendary. Nuts, volatile, mad, and his work was exciting.” Hill gave that up for Orthodox Judaism, honoring the Sabbath by not working from sunset on Friday to sunset Saturday, which proved to be a problem on Broadway. He spent a year leading the Mission Impossible team as Dan Briggs until producers decided to test how serious he was about that whole religion thing, leading to him leaving the set in mid-filming. After a decade off, he returned as authority figures in films such as Yentl, Raw Deal and Billy Bathgate, where he frustratingly sends the annoying Loren Dean away from Dutch Shultz’s headquarters before he would have been killed.

Entered Injury Time

Or

Soccer Tomb-y

João Havelange, who took soccer from a boring local sport and built it into a boring, corrupt international sport, has died at the age of 100. But it's soccer - how can you even tell? He may have taken a dive to draw a foul. Or avoid a subpoena. The Brazilian businessman and former Olympic swimmer (in 1936) and water polo player (in 1952) was elected as the first non-European head of FIFA, soccer’s world organizing body, in 1974. At the time, it was a modest operation, primarily existing just to run the World Cup every 4 years. When he left after his 6th 4-year term in 1998, FIFA had $4 billion in the bank and was a $250 billion a year industry, with some of that income not even related to bribes and kickbacks. Years after his departure, he and his son-in-law were accused of pocketing $41 million and were forced to make restitution to end a Swiss criminal investigation. The revelation also led to his resignation from the International Olympic Committee, where he had served for 48 years, for “health reasons.” During his tenure, the World Cup doubled in participation to include 32 nations in 1994, with vast increases in marketing, broadcasting, and merchandising, but sadly, not scoring. Havelange was powerful enough to bar Pele, Brazil’s, if not the world’s, most famous and popular soccer player, from the draw during the US-hosted World Cup in 1994, after the soccer great had the gall to accuse Havelange and son of corruption. Havelange even was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the Swiss football federation during the fierce bidding to host the 1998 World Cup between Switzerland and France, because anyone can bribe with money – bribing with one of the world’s most prestigious international awards is going the extra mile. Havalange was succeeded by his hand-picked successor Sepp Blatter, who drew an 8-year suspension for paying a potential rival to withdraw his challenge for FIFA president, ensuring Havelange’s legacy was secure. 

Bye Bye

(Additional accolades for Monty)

 

Issue #1, my funeral. RIP John McLaughlin.

(Kudos to Peter)

John McLaughlin, for decades the angriest man on PBS, has died of prostate cancer at the age of 89, long past the point where anyone was aware he was still alive, let alone still on the air. Ordained as a Jesuit priest, he ran for a Rhode Island Senate seat and lost, then served as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, the kind of spotty career you’d expected from a Boston College education. Those who can’t do, teach, and those who can’t teach, talk, so McLaughlin set his sights on the media. He started writing for The National Review, then created The McLaughlin Group, a panel discussion usually comprising 2 conservatives and 2 liberals driven by McLaughlin’s loud, aggressive barking, which was brilliantly parodied by Dana Carvey on Saturday Night Live. He appeared as himself in ALF, Murphy Brown, Dave, Mission Impossible and Independence Day and hosted the Celebration of Cheers’ 200th episode.

Dead Picket Fences Actors Make Good Neighbors

Or

Picket Tombstones

(Props to Monty)

Fyvush Finkel, who simultaneously kept Yiddish theater alive and set it back 30 years, has died at the age of 93 of heart problems. With his giant nose and mushy features, Finkel had the visage of a snow sculpture left in the sun too long, which he used to great comedic effect. He started early on the Yiddish theater circuit, which consisted largely of Old World language adaptations of English classics, giving us Schlomo and Juliet, schmaltzy family melodramas with lots of yelling, and vaudeville standards, like the waiter who rebukes a customer for griping about a filthy napkin: “Eleven people used that napkin. You’re the only one who complained.” As Yiddish speaking audiences and Borscht Belt venues died out, Finkel needed a new outlet, and he found it in Anatevka, as the original Mordcha the innkeeper in Fiddler on the Roof, then in other roles in the revivals and traveling companies as he worked his way up to Tevye. Finkel was eventually inflicted upon the American public as cranky lawyer Douglas Wambaugh, tormenting the preternaturally quirky residents of Rome, Wisconsin on Picket Fences, for which he won an Emmy in 1994 as best supporting actor in a dramatic series. Finkel reprised his schtick as addled racist history teacher Harvey Lipschultz in David E. Kelley’s next series Boston Public.

R2-DOA2

(An epitaphany shared with Patrick)

Or

The butcher, the Baker, the town undertaker

Or

This is the corpse you are looking for

(Kudos to Peter)

Kenny Baker, whose range as an actor matched the range of his wingspan, has died at the age of 81 following a long illness. Baker was a performer in circuses, ice shows and a comedy troupe with fellow midget Jack Purvis when he was hired to sit in a trash can for a little known space opera called Star Wars. Although Baker was originally loath to rock back and forth in the R2D2 costume, the flickering lights, random beeps and stutter step allowed the hyperactive hydrant to capture the hearts of fans through the first 6 movies in the franchise. Baker was slated to appear in The Force Awakens until someone realized it would be cruel to stick an 80-year-old dwarf with a heart condition in a barrel. He did serve as a consultant, apparently advising on how to hold in a fart until the lid gets opened. Baker branched out as a speeder bike-stealing Ewok in Return of the Jedi. Other films included The Elephant Man, Willow, Flash Gordon, Amadeus, Labyrinth and Time Bandits, the Ocean’s 11 of British midget actors.