Brenda Joyce, Actress, Dead at 92...

Betty Graffina Leabo
(February 25, 1917[1] – July 4, 2009)


Brenda Joyce was an American film actress. She was born as Betty Graffina Leabo in Excelsior Springs, Missouri.

She was the only "Jane" to star opposite two different Tarzans in the talking era of the big screen.

After Maureen O'Sullivan exited the "Tarzan" series after six films, the strikingly blonde Joyce stepped in to star with Johnny Weissmuller in "Tarzan and the Amazons" (1945). She played the intrepid Jane Parker in four more movies, culminating with "Tarzan's Magic Fountain" (1949) opposite the new Tarzan, Lex Barker.

As a model and 21-year-old student at UCLA, Joyce was spotted by a Fox talent scout and named the studio's Discovery of the Year for 1939. That year, she was given the plum role of Fern Simon in "The Rains Came," an adaptation of the Louis Bromfield novel that starred Myrna Loy, Tyrone Power and George Brent.

In addition to the "Tarzan" films, Joyce appeared in such films as "Little Old New York" (1940), "Marry the Boss's Daughter" (1941), "The Postman Didn't Ring" (1942) and "The Spider Woman Strikes Back" (1947).

Joyce didn't make a movie after 1949. She worked for a decade in Washington for the Department of Immigration and appeared in two episodes of PBS kids show "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" in 1971.

She died July 4th at a nursing home in Santa Monica. A family friend said she died of pneumonia after suffering from dementia for a decade.

She is survived by a son, two daughters and three grandchildren.

RIP

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Bobby Robson, Football Icon, Dead at 76...

Sir Robert William Robson CBE
(18 February 1933 – 31 July 2009)

Sir Bobby Robson was a former international football player and former manager of several European clubs and the England national football team.

His professional playing career as an inside-forward spanned nearly 20 years, during which he played for just three clubs – Fulham, West Bromwich Albion and briefly for the defunct Vancouver Royals. He also made 20 appearances for England, scoring four goals.

After his playing career he found success as both a club and international manager, winning league championships in both the Netherlands and Portugal, earning trophies in England and Spain, and taking England to the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup. His last management role was as a special consultant to the Republic of Ireland during Steve Staunton’s tenure (2006).

Robson was created a Knight Bachelor in 2002, was inducted as a member of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003, and was the honorary president of Ipswich Town.

The former England manager, who had fought a long battle with cancer, passed away peacefully at his home in County Durham, England with his wife and family beside him.

RIP

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Jill Balcon, Actress, Dead at 84....

Jill Angela Henriette Balcon
(3 January 1925 – 18 July 2009)



Jill Balcon was an English actress of film and radio. She was known for her distinctive and beautifully-modulated voice and spent much of her career working in radio; but for most of her life her own fame was eclipsed by that of the famous men in whose shadow she lived: her father, the film producer Sir Michael Balcon, her husband Cecil Day-Lewis, the Poet Laureate, and her son, the actor Daniel Day-Lewis. She made her film debut in Nicholas Nickleby (1947). Over the years she appeared regularly, though not extensively, on screen.

In 1951, she married the Irish poet Cecil Day-Lewis. Day-Lewis was 21 years her senior and was married when they started their relationship. Day-Lewis broke with both his wife and his mistress to be with Balcon for the remainder of his life.

After her marriage to Day-Lewis, she made several more films in the late 1940s and 1950s before having her family. She continued to work mainly in radio, becoming, with her distinctive, honeyed voice, a supreme performer in plays and poetry readings. In 2003 the BBC commissioned Juliet Ace to write a play for her to mark her 60th anniversary on the airwaves, Deadheading the Roses, which featured her son Daniel Day-Lewis playing a friend of her character.

In later life she took cameo roles in two Derek Jarman films – Edward II (1991) and Wittgenstein (1993) – and was an imposing Lady Bracknell in Oliver Parker's 1999 adaptation of An Ideal Husband alongside Cate Blanchett, Minnie Driver and Rupert Everett.

RIP

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Walter Cronkite, Journalist, Deat at 92...

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009)

Walter Cronkite was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–81). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited in viewer opinion polls as "the most trusted man in America" because of his professional experience and kindly demeanor. Although he reported many events from 1937-1981, including bombing in World War II, the Nuremberg trials, combat in the Vietnam War, the death of JFK, Watergate, and the Iran Hostage Crisis, he was known for extensive TV coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings (with co-host Wally Shirra), to the Space Shuttle.

He was the only non-NASA recipient of a Moon-rock award. The Beatles' first American TV broadcast was with Walter Cronkite. Following one of his central tenets to "report the news, don't become it," the title "anchor" was invented as his role. In later years, he appeared as a host or guest-star in many TV broadcasts.

In late June, Cronkite was reported to be gravely ill. Despite denials of his illness, Cronkite died on July 17, 2009, at his home in New York City. He is believed to have died from cerebral vascular disease.

RIP

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Karl Malden, Actor, Dead at 97...

Karl Malden
(born Mladen George Sekulovich March 22, 1912 – July 1, 2009)

Karl Malden was an Academy Award winning American actor. In a career that spanned over seven decades, he was featured in classic Marlon Brando films such as "A Streetcar Named Desire", "On the Waterfront" and "One-Eyed Jacks". He won the best supporting actor Oscar for "Streetcar," and was nominated for his role as a priest crusading against crooked union bosses in "On the Waterfront." Among other notable film roles are Archie Lee Meighan in Baby Doll, Zebulon Prescott in How the West Was Won and General Omar Bradley in Patton.

His best-known role was on television as Lt. Mike Stone on the police crime drama, "The Streets of San Francisco", starring along side Michael Douglas from 1972-77. He was nominated four times for Emmys for the show.

Malden died at his home on July 1, 2009 from what it appears to be natural causes.

RIP

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