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

[on_the_edge]

If not for injuries that lead to painkiller addiction he could have been a great one. Gone too soon.

[jimsteel]

Actor Jin Nakayama (from Ultraman 80) Passes Away at the Age 77 → 80's Actor Talks About Him

Actor Jin Nakayama who had played Kazuki Ooyama the Captain of UMG in Ultraman 80 had passed away on October 12 of last month at the age of 77. His Talent Agency had revealed this information just yesterday, after one month his death. He had died at his residence due to Lung adenocarcinoma.
His Talent Agency had commented that "According to the will of the deceased, there should be no funeral, no farewell party and no announcement to the public. But with the consultation of the family, we had decided to wait for one month and announce it today. We are grateful for supporting him for a long time".

Actor Hasunori Hasegawa who had played Takeshi Yamato / Ultraman 80 had commented "He was always cool, mischievous and reliable. He was our Captain of Earth Defense Force. He was a serious as an actor and he was figure who you can learn from and follow. I will pray for his peace from my heart".

[jimsteel]

Virginia Leith, Star of 'The Brain That Wouldn't Die,' Dies at 94

She also played the female lead in Kubrick's first feature and a woman threatened by fiance Robert Wagner in 'A Kiss Before Dying.'

Virginia Leith, who starred in Fear and Desire, the first feature directed by Stanley Kubrick, before turning in her most famous role — that of a disembodied head in a pan in the schlock classic The Brain That Wouldn't Die — has died. She was 94.

Leith died Nov. 4 at her home in Palm Springs, family spokesperson Jane Chalmers announced.

Leith also was a contract player at 20th Century Fox, where she appeared in Richard Fleischer's Violent Saturday (1955) opposite Victor Mature and Richard Egan and portrayed the sister of Joanne Woodward who falls for Robert Wagner's cunning Bud Corliss in Gerd Oswald's A Kiss Before Dying (1956).

Kubrick was a photographer for Look when he first met Leith, then a model, on a cover shoot. After a couple of documentaries, he quit his job with the magazine and cobbled together about $10,000 to make Fear and Desire (1953).

In the anti-war film, Leith appears a "strange half-animal" peasant girl who is captured, bound to a tree and eventually killed by a soldier played by Paul Mazursky. In retrospect, Kubrick was not proud of his inaugural effort, calling it a "bumbling amateur film exercise."

In The Brain That Wouldn't Die — shot in 1959 but not released by American International Pictures until 1962 — Leith stars as Jan Compton, the fiancée of Bill Cortner (Jason Evers), a demented scientist experimenting with human transplants.

After he crashes her car and Jan is killed, he retrieves her severed head and connects it to life-replenishing equipment. Now he needs a body to put the two together — and it must be shapely — so he visits a strip club, a swimsuit contest and a model's studio on his murderous quest.

[on_the_edge]

Some cool sci-fi characters there.

[TTX]

RIP Virginia.

[jimsteel]

Former Inquirer sports columnist Bill Lyon dies at 81

Bill Lyon, a literate, sensitive, and affable Midwesterner who endeared himself to this cynical Northeastern city during more than three decades as a must-read Inquirer sports columnist, died Sunday at the Marple Township facility where he’d resided since 2013.

He was 81 and for the last several years had been afflicted with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. He had been in hospice since his condition deteriorated several weeks ago.


Though he collected six Pulitzer Prize nominations and more awards than most of the athletes he wrote about in 33 years at The Inquirer, some of Mr. Lyon’s most poignant and powerful work came after his 2005 retirement.

Then, in a series of essays, this man who had covered more than 30 championship fights achingly chronicled one more: his own existential battle with Alzheimer’s, or “Al.”

[jimsteel]

Scarlet Spider, Spoiler Co-Creator, Artist Tom Lyle Dies at 66

Tom Lyle, longtime Marvel and DC comic book artist, passed away Tuesday at the age of 66. The artist, who suffered a brain aneurysm back in September, had surgery last month to repair a blood clot in his brain caused by the aneurysm. He had been in a coma and on a ventilator since September.

If you were a DC and Marvel comic book fan in the 1990s, you were bound to have come across a Tom Lyle comic book, as he was a major presence on some of the biggest books at both companies during the decade. He also helped to create and/or design a number of notable characters who are still popular today.

Lyle first burst on to the comics scene with his work for Eclipse in the mid-1980s. He became the regular artist on Airboy, written by Chuck Dixon, which also helped launch Dixon's mainstream comics career. Editor Robert Greenberger was impressed by Lyle's work on Airboy and hired him to launch the new series Starman with writer Roger Stern.

Their run on Starman was excellent and by the time Lyle left the series, he was one DC's hottest artists. When Tim Drake, the third Robin, got his own series, Lyle was reunited with his Airboy collaborator, Chuck Dixon, on a Robin miniseries.

[jimsteel]

James O'Keefe, Producer on 'Mork & Mindy,' 'Perfect Strangers' and 'Full House,' Dies at 76


The son of leading man Dennis O'Keefe, he worked on several shows from Garry Marshall and Miller-Boyett Productions.

James O'Keefe, the veteran sitcom producer and frequent Garry Marshall and Miller-Boyett collaborator who worked on Mork & Mindy, Perfect Strangers, Full House and Family Matters, has died. He was 76.

O'Keefe died Oct. 31 of heart disease at his home in Bel Air, his wife, former Sony Pictures Studios executive Jan Kelly, announced.

His father was Dennis O'Keefe, an actor in such movies as The Leopard Man (1943), Brewster's Millions (1945), Walk a Crooked Mile (1948) and Follow the Sun (1951), and his mother was Steffi Duna, an actress and dancer who appeared in Anthony Adverse (1936) and Waterloo Bridge (1940), among other films.

On Miller-Boyett Productions' Perfect Strangers, which starred Mark Linn-Baker and Bronson Pinchot as mismatched roommates and cousins, O'Keefe produced in various capacities from the start of the ABC sitcom in 1986 through its seventh season in 1992. He wrote and directed on the show as well.

[jimsteel]

Former Vikings kicker Fred Cox, who created the NERF football, dies at age 80

Fred Cox, the Vikings' all-time career scoring leader and the inventor of the highly popular NERF football, passed away Wednesday night at his Minnesota home. He was 80 years old.

A native of Monangahela, Pennsylvania, Cox played running back in high school and at the University of Pittsburgh before being taken by the Browns in the eighth round of the 1961 draft. Cox was drafted by Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown to serve as future Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown's blocking back. But a back injury forced Cox to change positions. He was traded from Cleveland to Minnesota in 1963 after failing to beat out future Hall of Fame kicker Lou Groza.

Cox flourished with the Vikings, as he led the NFL in field goal attempts and conversions in 1965. In 1969, he earned All-Pro honors after leading the league in made field goals and field goal accuracy while helping Minnesota capture the NFL title over the Browns. Playing against his former team, Cox made two field goals and three extra points in Minnesota's 27-7 victory.

After the 1970 season, Cox was approached by John Maddox, a local entrepreneur who had an idea about creating a backyard football game for kids that included a football and an adjustable field goal post. When asked by Cox while kind of a football he wanted to create, Maddox said that he wanted to make a hard football so that it would stay in the yard.

"You're gonna have a bunch of sore-legged kids running around," Cox recalled telling Maddox during an interview with NFL Films earlier this year. "You really should be thinking about something made out of foam rubber."

From there, Cox contacted a colleague in the injecting molding business, who created what would later be known as the first NERF football. After field testing their new invention with neighborhood kids, Cox and Maddox pitched their idea to Parker Brothers.

"When the man at Parker Brothers saw that football with the skin on it looking exactly like a regular football," Cox recalled, "I could just look at his eyes and knew he was sold."

[TTX]

RIP Fred Cox.