R.I.P. CELEBRITY DEATHS 2019(NON WRESTLERS)

[jimsteel]

It's been a sad month for fans of famous felines. A couple of weeks ago, the Internet's collective heart was broken when news arrived that the ever-popular Grumpy Cat had passed away. Things only got worse on Thursday morning when it was announced that Leo the Cat, recent star of the Pet Sematary remake, had also died. This sad news arrives just a month or two after Leo graced the big screen as Church in the Stephen King adaptation.

While there were four different cats who were used to portray Church in the new Pet Sematary, Leo is the one fans will remember most. It was Leo who mainly played the undead version of the cat, and it was Leo who was featured in the film's official posters and marketing materials.

Pet Sematary is Leo's only big screen movie credit, and he appeared in the film alongside actors Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, and John Lithgow. The film was released on April 5th to mostly positive reviews and earned more than $24.5 million in its opening weekend.

[jimsteel]

Former Arsenal and Sevilla forward Jose Antonio Reyes dies in car accident

Jose Antonio Reyes has died at the age of 35

Former Arsenal, Sevilla and Spain forward Jose Antonio Reyes has died following a car accident.

The news was confirmed on Twitter by his boyhood club Sevilla, for whom Reyes played nearly 250 games.

The 35-year-old was with Extremadura in Spain's second division, and played his most recent match just two weeks ago.

[jimsteel]

Drug Kingpin Frank Lucas Dead at 88 ... Played by Denzel in 'American Gangster'


Frank Lucas, one of America's most infamous drug kingpins, died Thursday night ... TMZ has confirmed.

Frank, famously played by Denzel Washington in the 2007 movie "American Gangster," died in New Jersey, according to his brother. We're told Frank was being transported to a hospital for an unknown health issue and died on the way.

Lucas rose to power dealing heroin in Harlem in the 1960s and '70s, and he boasted of cutting out middlemen by buying his product directly from Southeast Asia ... then smuggling the drugs back to America using the coffins of dead U.S. servicemen.

Frank was born and raised in North Carolina before moving to New York City ... where he eventually got into the drug trade, cutting into the Italian mafia's business and carving a name for himself.

Lucas bragged his heroin was among the purest on the street, and he infamously dubbed his product, "Blue Magic." While he was at the top of the NYC drug trade, Frank rubbed elbows with elites from Hollywood, politics and the business world.

Frank was finally busted in the mid-1970s and all of his enormous assets and wealth were seized. Lucas owned property across the country in Chicago, Miami, Detroit, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina -- and even Puerto Rico.

When the DEA raided Frank's Jersey home in 1975, agents found more than $584,000 in cash.

Frank was convicted of federal and state drug violations ... and sentenced to 70 years in prison. Lucas ratted out others in the drug biz, and he and his family entered a witness protection program.

After 5 years in custody, Frank had his sentence reduced to time served plus lifetime parole ... but he was later busted for drug dealing again, and spent another 7 years behind bars before being released in 1991.

[TTX]

RIP Jose.

[jimsteel]

Paul Darrow Dead: Blake's 7 Star Dies, Aged 78


Blake’s 7 star Paul Darrow has died at the age of 78 following a short illness, a spokeswoman has said.

The actorwas best known for playing Avon in the ’70s and ’80s BBC sci-fi series, but also appeared in more than 200 other shows including Doctor Who, The Saint, Z Cars, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks and Little Britain.

Paul also appeared on the stage, treading the boards for four seasons at the Bristol Old Vic and London’s West End, and was the voice of JACKfm and Union JACK radio.

Ian Walker, CEO of the JACK brand, said: “Paul Darrow has been JACK’s shining star.

“Over the past 12 years I have had the pleasure of spending countless hours with Paul listening to his life stories and have shared many bottles of his favourite Bordeaux, whilst enjoying his quirky jokes and sense of humour.

“When we first launched JACK in the UK, we cast over 85 voices for the role and we could not have asked for anyone more unique. Paul’s rich tones and flippant delivery style always brought a smile to everyone who knew him and of course heard him on JACKfm and Union JACK radio.

[TTX]

RIP Paul.

[TTX]

www.yahoo.com/news/grammy-winning-jazz-drummer-lawrence-015547322.html

[jimsteel]

Dr. John, Legend of New Orleans, Dead At 77

The music legend, guitarist, piano man, jive talker and psychedelic godfather Malcolm John Rebennack – better known as Dr. John – died "towards the break of day" on Thursday, of a heart attack, a statement has confirmed. He was 77.

That last bit of information was something only discovered, or at least disseminated, late last year, in fact: in his fantastical 1994 autobiography "Under the Hoodoo Moon," Dr. John had declared his birth date as "just before Thanksgiving 1940." But in a column for the Times-Picayune published in November 2018, author John Wirt unearthed a birth announcement from the same paper 77 years earlier: Mac, as he was colloquially known, was actually born November 21, 1941. The factual fluidity was, in its way, appropriate to an artist who lived and worked in the shifting, hip space of the trickster, and also to one who was as iconic of New Orleans as Louis Armstrong, to whom his final album, 2014's Ske-Dat-De-Dat... (The Spirit of Satch) was a tribute. (Armstrong's real birthday was misrecorded for decades, too.)

Mac Rebennack started out in New Orleans as a teenage guitar slinger in the '50s, hanging around the Dew Drop Inn, a historic black nightclub (where he received hassle more than once from police enforcing the Jim Crow laws that regulated interracial gathering), and doing session work at engineer Cosimo Matassa's J&M Recording Studios in the French Quarter. He was a denizen of a strange and distinctive old New Orleans, associating with the white-clad priestesses of the storefront spiritualist churches in the Ninth Ward — which, he recalled during a live interview at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2013, smelled overwhelmingly of roses — as well as with petty criminals, dopers and practitioners of witchcraft. The Dr. John character, hoodoo mystery and cool, was originally developed for his bandmate and old Jesuit High School classmate Ronnie Barron, with whom he played in the R&B group Ronnie & The Delinquents. But Barron had a record contract that stopped him from taking on the role, so Mac absorbed it; as the story goes, it was during a fight that broke out after a dance he played with Barron that Mac was shot in the finger, prompting his switch from guitar to piano.

[TTX]

RIP Dr. John.

[topdollar]

"Right Place, Wrong Time" is an all-time classic and one of my all-time favorite songs. RIP Dr. John.