Gerry Rafferty: Singer/Songwriter, Dead at 63...

Gerry Rafferty
(April 16, 1947 - January 4, 2010)



Gerry Rafferty was a singer and songwriter, who had a smash hit in 1978 with Baker Street, a world-weary classic based on his experiences busking in the London Underground as a struggling young musician. The song reached number 3 in the UK charts and number 2 in the US.

The song was recognized by musicians rights organization the BMI at an awards ceremony in London (October, 2010) for having been played over 5 million times worldwide.

Rafferty was born on into a working-class family at Paisley near Glasgow, Scotland and grew up in a council house. He was educated at St Mirin’s Academy.

His Irish-born father was a heavy-drinking miner who died when Gerry was 16. Inspired by his Scottish mother, who had taught him Irish and Scottish folk songs as a boy, and heavily influenced by the music of The Beatles and Bob Dylan, the young Gerry started to write his own material.

He began his career busking and formed a band with Billy Connolly, the comedian.

Rafferty’s first chart success had come in 1973, as a member of a folk-rock band called Stealer’s Wheel. A commercially appealing single from their first album, Stuck In The Middle With You, received widespread radio airplay on account of its shuffling catchiness and went to No 8 in the British charts.

Rolling Stone magazine judged it “the best Dylan record since 1966”, and the song was later revived in a blood-curdling scene in the Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs (1992).

But it was the haunting Baker Street — with its searing saxophone riff — that propelled Rafferty into the pantheon of British rock legends.

After years of touring, Rafferty gave it up in 1983, declaring that he wanted to “watch my family grow”. In the same year he provided a vocal to the soundtrack of the film Local Hero (1983), and from time to time he released new material, including the albums North and South (1988) and, five years later, On A Wing And A Prayer, which featured backing vocals by his brother Jim, who also co-wrote some of the songs. The album also reunited Rafferty with his old partner from Stealer’s Wheel, Joe Egan.

Further albums were Over My Head in 1994 and Another World in 2000.

After the death of his younger brother, Joe, in 1995, a feud developed with his surviving sibling Jim over an insult he claimed his rock star brother applied to him and his friends.

Rafferty’s last original album, Another World, was followed by a collection of his old hits Days Gone Down (2006).

In London in July 2008, Rafferty was treated in hospital for liver problems. Rafferty, who battled alcoholism for many years, was admitted to hospital in Bournemouth in November with suspected liver failure.

Rafferty married, in 1970, Carla Ventilla. The marriage was dissolved. He is survived by daughter Martha, granddaughter Celia, and his brother Jim.

RIP

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Pete Postlethwaite: Actor, Dead at 64...

Peter William "Pete" Postlethwaite, OBE
(7 February 1946 – 2 January 2011)




Pete Postlethwaite was an English stage, film and television actor.

After minor television appearances including in The Professionals, Postlethwaite's first success came with the film Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He played a mysterious lawyer, "Kobayashi", in The Usual Suspects, and he appeared in Alien 3, In the Name of the Father, Amistad, Brassed Off, The Shipping News, The Constant Gardener, Inception, and in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.

Postlethwaite was born in Warrington, England in 1946. He trained as a teacher and taught drama before training as an actor. Steven Spielberg called Postlethwaite "the best actor in the world" after working with him on the The Lost World: Jurassic Park. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in In the Name of the Father in 1993, and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 New Year's Honours List.

Postlethwaite married his wife Jacqueline (Jackie) Morrish, a former BBC producer, in 2003. They have two children, both of whom were born in Shropshire: son William John, a drama student at LAMDA, and daughter Lily Kathleen.

Postlethwaite died after a long battle with cancer. The British actor died at a hospital in Shropshire, England.

RIP

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Blake Edwards: Film Director, Dead at 88...

Blake Edwards
(July 26, 1922 – December 15, 2010)




Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.

Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures. He used his writing skills to begin producing and directing, with some of his best films including: Experiment in Terror, The Great Race, and the hugely successful Pink Panther film series with the British comedian Peter Sellers. Often thought of as primarily a director of comedies, he was also renowned for his dramatic work, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Days of Wine and Roses. His greatest successes, however, were his comedies, and most of his films were either musicals, melodramas, slapstick comedies, and thrillers.

In 2004, he received an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of his writing, directing and producing an extraordinary body of work for the screen.

Edwards married his first wife actress Patricia Walker in 1953 and they divorced in 1967. Edwards' second marriage from 1969 until his death was to actress Julie Andrews.

Edwards died of complications of pneumonia at the Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. His wife and children were at his side.

RIP

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Leslie Nielsen: Actor, Dead at 84...

Leslie William Nielsen,OC
(11 February 1926 – 28 November 2010)





Leslie Nielsen was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in over one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying over 220 characters. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Nielsen enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and worked as a disc jockey before receiving a scholarship to Neighborhood Playhouse. Making his television debut in 1948, he quickly expanded to over 50 television appearances two years later. Nielsen made his film debut in 1956, and began collecting roles in dramas, westerns, and romance films. Nielsen's lead roles in the films Forbidden Planet (1956) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972) received positive reviews as a serious actor, though he is primarily known for his comedic roles.

Although Nielsen's acting career crossed a variety of genres in both television and films, his deadpan delivery in Airplane! (1980) marked a turning point in his career. Nielsen enjoyed further success with The Naked Gun film series (1988 – 1994), based on a short-lived television series Police Squad! in which he starred earlier. His portrayal of serious characters seemingly oblivious to (and complicit in) their absurd surroundings gave him a reputation as a comedian. In the final two decades of his career, Nielsen appeared in multiple spoof and parody films, many of which were met poorly by critics, but performed well in box office and home media releases. Nielsen married four times and had two daughters from his second marriage. He was recognized with a variety of awards throughout his career, and was inducted into both the Canada and Hollywood Walk of Fame.


Nielsen married four times: Monica Boyer (1950–1956), Alisande Ullman (1958–1973), Brooks Oliver (1981–1983) and Barbaree Earl (2001–2010; his death). Nielsen had two daughters from his second marriage, Maura and Thea Nielsen.

In November 2010, Nielsen was admitted to a Fort Lauderdale, Florida hospital for pneumonia. On 28 November, Nielsen had died in his sleep, due to complications from pneumonia, surrounded by family and friends.

RIP

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Barbara Billingsley: Actress, Dead at 94...

Barbara Billingsley
(December 22, 1915 – October 16, 2010)




Barbara Billingsley was an American film, television, voice and stage actress. She gained prominence in the 1950s movie The Careless Years, acting opposite Natalie Trundy, followed by her best–known role, that of June Cleaver on the television series Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963) and its sequel Still the Beaver (1985–1988, retitled in season two as The New Leave It to Beaver).

Billingsley was married three times. Her first husband was Glenn Billingsley, Sr., a restaurateur who was a nephew of Sherman Billingsley, the owner of the Stork Club. They had two sons, Drew and Glenn, Jr., who now own and operate Billingsley's Steak House in West Los Angeles, California. Her second marriage was to Roy Kellino, a British-born movie director who had previously been married to British actress Pamela Mason. He and Billingsley were married from 1953 until his death. Her third husband was Dr. William S. Mortensen (1907–1981), whom she married in 1959. By this marriage, she had stepchildren.

Billingsley died of polymyalgia at her home in Santa Monica, California. She is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.

RIP

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