Who Knows What Coronary Disease Lurks in the Hearts of Men...

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White Shadow Falls

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Jefferson Did not Live

(Props to Phil)

Ken Howard, best remembered as being thisclose to being Supreme Court Justice Peyton Cabot Harrison III on The West Wing, has died at the age of 71. An accomplished Broadway star, Reeves appeared in Promises, Promises with Jerry Orbach, played Thomas Jefferson in 1776 – a role he reprised in the movie, and won the 1970 Tony Award for Best Supporting or Featured Actor for Child's Play, a dramatic departure from the original text about a killer doll. Looking like a stuffy old white guy even in his 30s also led to other presidential parts on stage including the musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the role of Warren G. Harding in Camping with Henry and Tom and Tip O’Neill in the one-man show According to Tip. He parlayed this into the role of Ken Reeves, a former Chicago Bull in the days when there were white players in the NBA, who takes over as head basketball coach in South Central LA’s Carver High School in The White Shadow, a show ahead of its time in its primarily minority cast, discussion of drug use, STDs, sexual orientation, prostitution, gambling and inner city violence, and frequent failure to come up with pat solutions after 42 minutes. Somehow all of that didn’t strike a chord with viewers and the show lasted only 3 seasons, but it set the stage for realistic dramas like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere. Other roles included Jill Hennessey’s ex-cop dad on Crossing Jordan, his Emmy-winning turn as Little Edie's father on Grey Gardens, cuckolded QB Dave Walecki on the MST3Ked TV-movie Superdome, Michael Scott’s possibly decapitated predecessor Ed Truck on The Office, and Kabletown CEO Hank Hooper on 30 Rock.

7 UP, 6 Feet Down

Geoffrey Holder, best remembered for extolling the virtues of 7-UP as the un-cola, is now an un-spokesperson, succumbing to pneumonia at the age of 84. The Trinidadian-born dancer was a ballet and Broadway fixture before serving as Baron Samedi, one of Dr. Kananga’s crew in Live and Let Die. He won Tony Awards for Direction and Costume design for The Wiz, the first black man to ever even be nominated in either category. He also choreographed the Season 5 opening credits for The Cosby Show. With Richard Kiel, Holder is the 2nd Bond henchman to die in the last month. 

Stritch Marks

(Props to Monty)
Elaine Stritch, professional brassy dame who spent nearly 70 years dropping withering one-liners on stage and screen, has died at the age of 89. On the stage, she was nominated for 5 Tonys, winning for her 2001 one-woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty. She also won Emmys for a guest spot on Law & Order in 1993, for the documentary about her one-woman show and for her recurring role as Jack Donaghy’s caustic mother on 30 Rock. Stritch originated the role of Trixie Norton in a Honeymooners sketch with Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and Pert Kelton before the role, originally a burlesque dancer (who often marry sewer workers), was recast after just one episode, with the more wholesome looking Joyce Randolph playing the character as an ordinary housewife. Other roles included a bitter, grammatically correct mother who lost a son in Vietnam and objected to the IHP’s production of Hair on Head of the Class, a stern schoolteacher of Rudy’s class on The Cosby Show and a widow who put the moves on Jack Gilford in Cocoon: The Return. She was reportedly considered for the role of Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls but blew her audition and the role was cast with Bea Arthur.

Griffiths Parked

Looks like the producers of the remake of Lyman's Boys were right to go with Matt LeBlanc after all, as Richard Griffiths has died of complications of heart surgery at the age of 65. Griffiths career as a pudgy Brit character actor spanned 4 decades, but he should best be remembered for reading an erotic novel about a quivering mound of love pudding, then having his pants pulled down and a birthmark forcibly removed from his ass by Lt. Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun 2 ½. As an indication of his range, he also won a Tony as an idealistic but lonely teacher at a prep school in The History Boys, a role he reprised in the film based on the play and parodied in the first episode of Episodes. Lesser minds will remember him as Harry Potter’s mean Uncle Vernon, while other roles have included King George II in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the former First Lady’s chef in Guarding Tess, a terrorist in Superman II, and part of King Ralph’s staff.

The Way He Was

(Props to Monty)

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Stung

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Nobody Does it Better, but Plenty Have Done it Longer

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One, Who Is Feeling No Sensation

Marvin Hamlisch, godfather of sampling, has died after a brief illness at the age of 1968. At the age of 7, he was the youngest ever admitted to the Julliard School and to the end he had the appearance of the band room geek who never outgrew it. Unlike the band room geeks left dangling from atomic wedgies, Hamlisch hit his stride, winning three Oscars, four Emmys, four Grammys and a Pulitzer (one of only 2 to claim PEGOTs), while emerging as an engaging personality who could visit Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin and not send viewers to the bathroom. In addition to ripping off Scott Joplin to Fareed Zakaria his way to an Oscar for the score to The Sting, he filled countless elevators with misty water-colored memories after writing Barbra Streisand’s signature song The Way We Were (another Oscar winner), gave James Bond one of his best theme songs with Nobody Does it Better, and composed Theme Song for Peaboy for Late Night with David Letterman.

Withering Sight

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Enough is Enough, Arthur. Bury the Bitch!
(Props to Monty for both)

Geraldine Fitzgerald, whose starring film career was thwarted by her temper in the 1940s has died at 91. Fitzgerald held her own with Bette Davis in "Dark Victory," then won an Oscar nomination for playing Isabella in "Wuthering Heights," but her frequent rebellions at Warner Bros. earned her a number of suspensions and derailed her career. She had originally come to the U.S. to act with Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater, and returned to the stage after her film career turned to character roles, winning a Tony nomination in 1982. Fitzgerald also played Arthur’s mother Martha in "Arthur" and is the third "Arthur" co-star to become caught between the moon and New York City this year, following Barney Martin and Stephen Elliott.

Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson

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God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
(Monty with the variation on the theme)

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Are you trying to depress me, Mrs. Robinson?

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Anne Bancroft: Tomb Raider
(In a shameless rip-off of myself)

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To Not Be
Anne Bancroft, who told us 25 years ago that love is the cure for obesity in her solo directorial effort Fatso, which she also wrote, has died at the age of 73. Bancroft is best remembered for her iconic portrayal of the original MILF, Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, as well as her stage and screen portrayals of Annie Robinson in The Miracle Worker, for which she won the 1960 Tony Award and the 1963 Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won the Tony in 1958 for Two for the Seesaw and won a 1999 Emmy for a Deep in My Heart, one of only 15 performers to complete the hat trick. Other roles included Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel in Golda, winning another Tony nomination, Nick Cage’s mother in Honeymoon in Vegas, the loony Miss Havisham-wannabe in the updated Great Expectations. Her early career was noted by roles in such dreck as Gorilla at Large, of which she said “I played the title role,” showing a sense of humor to match Mel Brooks, her husband of 40 years. Bancroft and Brooks co-starred in the comic farce in To Be Or Not to Be. Brooks also found work for her as an uncredited extra in Blazing Saddles, as herself in Silent Movie and as Madame Ouspenskaya in Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

Death of a Playwright

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Exit Stage Left

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It's Miller Time
(Props to Monty for the previous two)

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After the Fall(Kudos to Craig)

And of course everyone had the same thought for the main headline

Arthur Miller, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman, challenged Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare in The Crucible and spent 5 years nailing Marilyn Monroe, has died at the age of 89. Miller overcame his University of Michigan education to become one of the leading lights of the American theater with his stories about family, responsibility and morality. Death of a Salesman made him an overnight success and earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1949. He got a taste of the seedier side of fame during his doomed marriage to the blonde bombshell. While the marriage to a woman whose knees should have been captured in the cement outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater surprised many, Marilyn took it as validation: “Arthur Miller wouldn't have married me if I had been nothing but a dumb blonde." He also won the Tony in 1953 for The Crucible, a parable of the Communist hunt set during the Salem witch trials, and the New York Drama Critics’ award for best play for All My Sons, which was later adapted for television as My Three Sons.

He Got it in the End

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He has the right to remain silent(Props for Monty)

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Nobody takes Baby’s daddy to the coroner
(Props to Don)
Jerry Orbach, whose sardonic witty one-liners over the body of a newly discovered murder victim led into the title sequence for Law & Order for 12 years, died of prostate cancer yesterday at the age of 69. Jaded Det. Lenny Briscoe, was the longest-serving primary cast member in the revolving door of the Law & Order franchise, and even after announcing his cancer diagnosis, had started filming for another spin-off that was to debut next year. Prior to his time as Orbach had taken a shot at series TV in The Law and Harry McGraw as sad-sack detective friend of Jessica Fletcher, and had notable film roles as protective papa Jake Houseman in Dirty Dancing and caroling candelabra Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast. With a world-weary face and street-smart tough guy demeanor, Orbach spent most of his career either as a cop or a crimelord, with notable turns in Toy Soldiers, F/X and Out for Justice. However Orbach started his career as a song-and-dance man on Broadway, turning in starring performances in "Carnival," "42nd Street" and as part of the original off-off-Broadway cast of the Fantasticks. He won Tony nominations as the original Billy Flynn in “Chicago” and for “Guys and Dolls,” while scoring his lone win for “Promises, Promises.”

Some selected Lenny one-liners:
After discovering a new pack of cigarettes on a body: "That’s one way to quit."

After finding a receipt for dinner on a body: "Dinner for two? Hope he enjoyed it."

About an inept, but innocent suspect: "I believe on a good day he couldn't hit his ass with both hands."

After a suspect asked if he was kidding: “If I was kiddin' you, I'd be wearin' a fez and no pants.”

Helping a witness with a statement: “You mean how you only killed him because he wouldn't give you his watch? Yeah, put that in there, the D.A. would really like that.”

After a suspect kills himself: “I specifically asked for him to be put on suicide watch. Apparently here at Riker's that mean that they watch you commit suicide.”

Shade in Woolf's Clothing

Uta Hagen, who won a Tony playing Martha in the original stage version of Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?, died at age 84. One of Broadway's greatest stars, she won another Tony in 1950 for The Country Girl, and won a lifetime achievement Tony in 1999. That same year, she reprised her role as Martha in a benefit appearance dubbed one of the year's stage highlights. Any film career she may have aspired to was dashed by her appearance in Othello, co-starring Paul Robeson, whose left-leaning tendencies cast a doubt on his co-stars with the McCarthyites.

The Sun Will Not Necessarily Come out Tomorrow

Dorothy Loudon, long-time Broadway actress, and Tony winner as Miss Hannigan, evil orphanage matron, died Saturday of cancer at the age of 70. She lost Tonys in 1969 and 1979, both times to Angela Lansbury, one of many eerie connections with Lansbury in her career. Loudon replaced Lansbury in the Broadway version of Sweeney Todd and she was a guest star during the 1986 sweeps inspired Murder, She Wrote - Magnum, P.I. crossover. Mrs. Fletcher comes out of the closet?