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

[jimsteel]

Claudine Auger: French actress known for James Bond role dies aged 78

French actress Claudine Auger, best known for her role alongside Sean Connery in the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball, has died at the age of 78.

She died on Wednesday in Paris following a long period of illness, her agency Time Art said.

Auger started out as a model, representing France and coming first runner-up in Miss World in 1958.

But she quickly developed a talent for acting, and landed roles including one in the 1962 film The Iron Mask.

A few years later in 1965, she shot to global stardom as Domino in Thunderball, the fourth film in the Bond franchise.

She was the first female co-star to the James Bond character, known as a "Bond girl", to be from France.

It was later revealed that the production team had rewritten the character for Auger. Domino was initially supposed to be Italian, but she became French.

"Bond girls" were rarely given recognition for their acting talents, with the focus at the time instead being on their physical appearance and swimsuits.

However, Auger approached the role as she would if she were "playing Molière" at a prestigious theatre, she told a TV interview in 1965.

It was "a game, the same thing", she said.

After Thunderball, Auger went on to have a fruitful career in French and Italian cinema throughout the late 1960s and 1970s.

Among her best known films are crime thrillers That Man George and Flic Story, and the romantic tragedy A Few Hours of Sunlight.

[jimsteel]

Anna Karina: French New Wave cinema legend dies aged 79


The Danish-French actress died in a hospital in Paris after living with cancer, her agent told AFP news agency.

French culture minister Franck Riester tweeted in tribute: "Today, French cinema has been orphaned. It has lost one of its legends."

Karina rose to prominence as the muse of her director ex-husband Jean-Luc Godard in the 1960s.

She got her big break as a teenager, soon after moving to Paris from her native Denmark, when she was spotted by Godard.

He wanted to cast her in his first and most famous film Breathless, Karina recalled years later, but she turned him down because the role required nudity.

After a few months he offered her another role, cementing their fruitful working relationship and her place in cinematic history.

In 1961, she and Godard got married - and just months later, Karina won best actress at the Berlin Film Festival for Godard's A Woman is a Woman.

Although they divorced just four years later, their relationship became almost as iconic as the films they made together.

In the early 1970s she worked behind the camera too, directing Vivre Ensemble, a film about a turbulent romance between a history teacher and a free-spirited young woman that ends in domestic violence and drug abuse.

[on_the_edge]

It seems the Grim Reaper is taking a vacation in Paris for the holidays.

[jimsteel]

Junior Johnson, moonshiner turned NASCAR legend, dies at 88

unior Johnson, a stock-car racing giant whose career spanned the sport’s history from its moonshining roots to its modern era as a fierce, hard-nosed driver and an innovative mechanic and team owner, has died. He was 88.

Johnson’s passing was confirmed by the NASCAR Hall of Fame. He had been in declining health and entered hospice care earlier this week.

Johnson was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in its inaugural Class of 2010. He won 50 races in NASCAR’s top division — the most of any driver without a championship — and added 132 victories and six championships as a successful team owner for many legends of the sport. Johnson won the second running of the Daytona 500 in 1960, then added two more triumphs in the Great American Race as a car owner in 1969 and ’77.

His all-out style — honed from years of hauling illegal liquor at breakneck speeds through the North Carolina foothills — took a toll on his competitors and his own equipment, earning him a reputation as the hardest of the hard chargers. Johnson was also known as the Wilkes County Wildman and heralded as “The Last American Hero,” after a brilliant 1965 essay in Esquire by author Tom Wolfe.

“Junior Johnson truly was the ‘Last American Hero,’ ” NASCAR Chairman and CEO Jim France said in a statement. “From his early days running moonshine through the end of his life, Junior wholly embodied the NASCAR spirit. He was an inaugural NASCAR Hall of Famer, a nod to an extraordinary career as both a driver and team owner. Between his on-track accomplishments and his introduction of Winston to the sport, few have contributed to the success of NASCAR as Junior has. The entire NASCAR family is saddened by the loss of a true giant of our sport, and we offer our deepest condolences to Junior’s family and friends during this difficult time.”

Born Robert Glenn Johnson Jr. in 1931, he became known simply as “Junior” as the fourth of seven children. His North Carolina home was the small community of Ronda, not far from Ingle Hollow, just a short drive from the North Wilkesboro Speedway, one of NASCAR’s charter tracks.

Farming was a staple of the Johnson household, but so was the manufacture and high-speed transport of untaxed whiskey. Junior Johnson quickly became involved in both family businesses, sharpening his skills as a driver with his fearlessness in distributing liquor in hopped-up cars.

“The good whiskey runners were kind of cocky about it, like good race drivers,” Johnson told the Associated Press in 1991. “I guess I was pretty cocky.”

Legend has it that Johnson was never caught on the road. He was convicted of moonshining in 1956 after authorities staked out the family still. President Ronald Reagan pardoned him on Dec. 26, 1986. “No maybe about it. Best Christmas gift I ever got,” Johnson told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2007. Johnson now sells moonshine legally under the Midnight Moon label.

[TTX]

A reminder of how NASCAR used to be. RIP.

[jimsteel]

Martin Peters, England World Cup winner, dies aged 76

Martin Peters, who scored England's second goal in the 1966 World Cup final against West Germany, has died aged 76 following a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Peters was part of the West Ham trio, which also included captain Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst - who scored a hat-trick in the 4-2 victory at Wembley - in Sir Alf Ramsey's side.

[jimsteel]

Tony Britton dead at age of 95

His daughter, TV presenter Fern Britton, announced the news on Twitter on Sunday.

She wrote: "Our father, Tony Britton, died early this morning. Great actor, director and charmer. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

Britton was best known for starring alongside Nigel Havers and Dinah Sheridan in the BBC sitcom Don't Wait Up between 1983 to 1990.

He also appeared in acclaimed British films such as Operation Amsterdam, Sunday Bloody Sunday and The Day Of The Jackal.

Actor and comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar paid tribute, writing: "Profound condolences Fern and gratitude for the joy and entertainment your Dad brought to me and millions of others. Sending love and strength."

Britton was born in Birmingham and attended Edgbaston Collegiate School, Birmingham, then Thornbury Grammar School, Gloucestershire.

In the Second World War he served in the Army and worked in an aircraft factory.

Later Britton joined an amateur dramatics group in Weston-super-Mare before turning professional, appearing on stage at the Old Vic and with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

In 2013 Britton appeared as the Earl of Gloucester in a production of Shakespeare's King Lear at the Old Vic in London, directed by Sir Jonathan Miller who died last month.

[jimsteel]

Patricia Alice Albrecht, Who Voiced Pizzazz In Jem And The Holograms, Has Died

Patricia Alice Albrecht, best known to the public as the voice of Pizzazz from Jem and The Holograms, has passed away. Samantha Newark, the show's voice of Jem, shared the news on Instagram with a photo of herself with Albrecht. "Patricia Alice Albrecht my beautiful friend and our beloved “Pizzazz” died this morning Christmas Day at her home in Nashville TN," Newark wrote. "Please keep her family in your prayers. In Lew of flowers it was Patricia’s wish for those that loved her to make a donation to freeforlifeintl.org/."

Albrecht was born in Detroit, Michigan. She is best known for voicing Phyllis "Pizzazz" Margaret on the animated Jem and The Holograms series but has several other credits to her name, continuing an acting career until 1996. Jem and The Holograms aired from 1985 through 1988.

According to Albrecht's resume on her IMDb profile, she has 18 acting credits to her name. She appeared in live action titles such as Remington Steele and Mama's Family and also contributed her voice to several titles such as Tom & Jerry: Kid's Series and Batman: The Animated Series.

[jimsteel]

Allee Willis, ‘September’ and ‘Friends’ Theme Songwriter, Dies at 72

Songwriter Allee Willis, famous for her work with Earth, Wind & Fire as well as the “Friends” theme and the “The Color Purple” Broadway song score, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. She was 72. The cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Prudence Fenton, the animator and producer who is described by a family friend as Willis’ “partner and soulmate,” was said to be “in total shock” over her best friend’s sudden death, which occurred just after 6 p.m.

Willis was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018 for a catalog that included hits like EWF’s “September” and “Boogie Wonderland,” the Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance,” the Pet Shop Boys’ and Dusty Springfield’s “What Have I Done to Deserve This?,” Maxine Nightingale’s “Lead Me On,” Patti LaBelle’s “Stir It Up” and the theme from “The Karate Kid,” “You’re the Best.”

“I, very thankfully, have a few songs that will not go away,” Willis told the New York Times, “but they’re schlepping along 900 others.”

Willis had been working with rapper Big Sean, at her home for the last few months. The intergenerational Detroit natives had met at Motown’s 60th anniversary celebration.

The Times profile tied to her Songwriters Hall of Fame induction called her “a queen of kitsch who made the whole world sing.”

Willis was legendary in L.A. for her outlandishly retro style sense, in her outfits but especially her home, the pink, legendarily kitchsy 1937 Streamline Moderne L.A. house known as “Willis Wonderland.” The home, which is itself a museum of pop culture history, was recently the setting of the photo shoot for Variety‘s Billie Eilish cover.

Among her many awards, Willis was a two-time Grammy winner — for “The Color Purple” as best musical theater album in 2016, and her contribution to the “Beverly Hills Cop” soundtrack three decades earlier — and was nominated for a Tony (for “The Color Purple”) and Emmy (for the “Friends” theme).

Her most fruitful collaboration, with Earth, Wind & Fire, began in 1978 after Patti LaBelle and Herbie Hancock recommended her to Verdine White, who, she said, called her up and said, “I want you to come write the next Earth, Wind & Fire album.” The next day, she said, she met up with him and co-wrote the enduring smash “September,” the first of several hits she co-wrote with or for the band, including “Boogie Wonderland.”

“I’m someone that absolutely loves writing very joyful music,” she told Songfacts in 2008. “And with everything else I’ve ever written, [“September” is] still that song that when people found out I’d written that, they just go, ‘Oh my God,’ and then tell me in some form how happy that song makes them every time they hear it. For me, that’s it. … I literally have never been to a wedding, a bar mitzvah, anything, where I have not heard that song play. So I know it’s carrying on and doing what it was meant to do.” As for the significance of the Sept. 21 date singled out in the song, she said there was none. “I would say the main lesson I learned from Earth, Wind & Fire, especially Maurice White, was never let a lyric get in the way of a groove.”

[TTX]

RIP to all who have died this holiday season.