Denny Laine - 79 (October 29, 1944 - December 5, 2023) Founder of the Moody Blues and co-founder of Wings.
“Ryan O’Neal, Star of ‘Love Story,’ ‘What’s Up, Doc?’ and ‘Paper Moon,’ Dies at 82” (The Hollywood Reporter - Friday, 12/8/23)
Much that I did not know or had forgotten, in the obit … Where do I begin? “His relationship with Fawcett began after they were introduced by her then-husband, actor Lee Majors, in 1979. (Majors was headed to a film shoot in Canada and wanted O’Neal to take her to dinner one night because he was worried Fawcett would get lonely.)”
Andre Keith Braugher - 61 (July 1, 1962 - December 12, 2023) https://deadline.com/2023/12/andre-...e-street-brooklyn-nine-nine-actor-1235665513/ Just hearing a brief illness, nothing else.
It was lung cancer. When I read "brief illness" I was thinking an aggressive cancer, like maybe brain cancer. The way he delivers the line "you know better than that" at :49 or so is one of my favorite tiny pieces of acting I've ever seen. The whole scene is incredible. Even Nicolas Cage is understated and convincing! City of Angels - Seth's "was it worth it?" speech (youtube.com)
AC/DC’s Original Drummer, Colin Burgess, Dies at 77 https://t.co/Qs1copiWLc— BirdieBittern (@BirdieBittern) December 16, 2023
My lasting memory of him is the first round game vs Liberty in the 94 tournament. Montross gets knocked to the ground, raises his head while he's on his back, and kicks Jason Dixon in the junk as hard as he possibly can. No foul was called and the arena immediately turned on UNC at that moment. He epitomized, to me, the move away from the traditional C in the NBA as his skillset in previous generations likely would have led to a much more substantial pro career.
The night that made Ryan Minor (College World Series champ and Big 8 basketball player of the year at Oklahoma) famous:
https://news.yahoo.com/comedian-tom-smothers-one-half-171553399.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews Tom Smothers of the Smothers Brothers, 86. I seem to remember them on Nick at Nite back in the 80's.
I could not think of the name of who was singing a particular Xmas song, so not only did I find out who it was - but that he had actually passed away September: Roger Henry Brough Whittaker - 87 (March 22, 1936 – September 13, 2023) Not the song I was looking for, but this was his first (only?) hit in the US.
NASCAR legend Cale Yarborough dead at 84 https://t.co/IziGtxqx1K— BirdieBittern (@BirdieBittern) December 31, 2023
Yarbrough was part of the first, and still best, broadcast of a Nascar race with the final lap brawl with the Allison brothers being the thing that caused the sport to skyrocket into the top 5 in the US for a while. Coming into this race, he was the 3 time defending Cup series champion. He won Daytona 4 times, was 2nd in the Cup series 3 times, and still holds the record for most starts on the pole in a season at 14.
Shecky Greene, the legendary standup comedian known for his long tenure as a Las Vegas headliner and for working with Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, died Dec. 31 at his home in the city. He was 97.
As usual, the year-end memorial retrospectives put out by TCM and CBS Sunday Morning were very nice. The one on Turner Classic Movies on YouTube (TCM Remembers 2023) is just under 5 minutes long and features a cover of the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers song, "Learning To Fly". The CBS Tribute was much longer (18 minutes) and was narrated by Lee Cowan. Both remembrances may have omitted some of the prominent people who passed away in 2023, but overall, both efforts are usually very well presented, and in a strange way, I look forward to watching them each December.