R.I.P. CELEBRITY DEATHS 2020(NON WRESTLERS)

[jimsteel]

Longtime ABC7 reporter Bob Petty, passes away at 79

We are remembering a longtime member of the Eyewitness News family. Reporter and anchor Bob Petty passed away Tuesday from lung cancer. He was 79. Bob started reporting here back in 1971 and retired 32 years later in 2002. He was one of the first black reporters on Chicago television.

[jimsteel]

HAIR CLUB FOR MEN FOUNDER SY SPERLING DEAD AT 78

Sy Sperling -- the founder and president of Hair Club for Men known for his TV commercials in the '80s and '90s -- has died in Florida.

Sperling died in Boca Raton after a lengthy illness

So, he took $10k in credit card debt to open a Madison Avenue salon and used a hair weaving technique he learned from a stylist to implement a system where a nylon mesh cap was glued to a person's scalp ... allowing their hair to grow through it, then additional matching hair purchased from women was woven into the mesh.

Sounds pretty odd, but business took off ... just not to the point where Sperling wanted it to be. Enter, the TV commercials.

Sy began advertising his hair replacement system on TV and went national in 1982, with spots running 400 times daily on late-night TV. They reportedly cost $12 million a year but generated 10,000 calls a month.

The ads featured before-and-after photos of happy customers, but ended with Sperling himself proclaiming ... "I'm not only the Hair Club president, but I'm also a client." They became a cultural phenomenon almost instantly.

The company's now simply referred to as Hair Club and began offering services for women in 1995. Sy retired in 2000 after selling the company for $45 mil. It's helped more than 600,000 clients restore their hair over the years.

[jimsteel]

Man Who Invented Cut, Copy And Paste On Computers Dies, Aged 74


Computer scientist Larry Tesler, the man famed for inventing the Cut, Copy and Paste function on computers, has sadly died.

The former Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo! employee was 74.

While Tesler might not have been as famous as other revolutionaries in the technology industry, his creation has no doubt helped millions of people around the world.

Honestly, where would we be if we couldn't cut, copy and paste text, images, videos and everything else? Students trying to finish their assessments would be stuffed. Analysts copying data from one spreadsheet to another would have their workloads explode. Trying to make a fire meme would take so much longer.

And we all have Larry to thank.

Born in America, Mr Tesler went to Stanford University to study computer science, before joining Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973. It was here that he created the classic Crtl+C, Crtl+V (although it was probably way too early to be doing keyboard shortcuts).

According to Gizmodo, Larry, along with Tim Mott, helped develop a 'mouse-driven graphical user interface' called Gypsy, which was the first version of the computer layout that we know today.

Gypsy is described as a 'click and type interface in which the user could, at any time, enter text at the current insertion point, or click where the insertion point should be repositioned'. Sounds basic, but you have to remember this was decades ago.

After coming up with that groundbreaking technology, he went to Apple from 1980 until 1997, where he worked in various roles, including Vice President of AppleNet and Apple's Chief Scientist.

He then co-founded a company called Stagecast Software, which helped kids learn programming concepts, before joining Amazon in 2001. He eventually became Vice President of Shopping Experience and then jumped to Yahoo!, where he was in charge of the user experience and design group.

His final years were spent doing consulting work.

Mr Tesler was also responsible for developing the software which allows a user to start using the keyboard when opening an application. Before that, there were programs that could be opened, yet the keys might be typed on something else working in the background.

We take all this stuff for granted these days and just expect everything to work how it should. But there were geniuses like Larry Tesler who knew that we would need these things before we ever knew what a personal computer was.

[TTX]

Ahh, Sy, the commercials were great. RIP.

[on_the_edge]

Two icons of last few decades.

[TTX]

Lindsey Lagestee, the lead singer and a founding member of the Midwest country band Dixie Crush, has died. She was 25.

www.yahoo.com/entertainment/country-singer-lindsey-lagestee-of-dixie-crush-dead-at-25-182628621.html

[Texas Kid]

Just found out Cheryl Wheeler-Sanders was killed in a weird shoot out with her ex. Sanders was also a kickboxing world champion and suffered severe injury as a stunt woman on Back to the Future 2

[jimsteel]

Marty Sullivan, Cleveland's beloved 'Superhost,' passes away at age 87

Sullivan was featured as 'Superhost' on WUAB from 1969 to 1989.

One of Cleveland's most recognizable and beloved television icons has passed away.

Marty Sullivan, who was featured as 'Superhost' on WUAB from 1969 to 1989, died on Friday morning in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia at the age of 87. The news was confirmed by Sullivan's niece to writer and local media historian Mike Olszewski.

Donning a blue suit, cape and red nose, Sullivan transformed into 'Superhost,' every Saturday afternoon. The fun would kick off at noon with 'Supe's On,' which would feature Laurel and Hardy and Three Stooges shorts mixed in with skits, gags, and more from 'Superhost.' Then at one, it was time to watch the 'Mad Theater,' which usually featured old monster films, or Godzilla, or maybe Planet of the Apes.

In addition to being 'Superhost,' Marty Sullivan also served as a floor director and station announcer at WUAB. You would often see him fill in for John Lanigan as the host of 'The Prize Movie.'

[jimsteel]

Daredevil ‘Mad’ Mike Hughes Dies in Homemade Rocket Launch Filmed for TV

Hughes, 64, was known both for his homemade rockets and for his belief the earth is flat

A California man who said he wanted to fly to the edge of outer space to see if the world is round has died after his home-built rocket blasted off into the desert sky and plunged back to earth.

“Mad" Mike Hughes was killed on Saturday afternoon after his rocket crashed on private property near Barstow, California.

[jimsteel]

Model, author, restaurateur B. Smith dies of early onset Alzheimer's disease at 70

Her successful home products line was the first from a black woman to be sold at a nationwide retailer when it debuted in 2001 at Bed Bath & Beyond. In 1976, she became the second black model to be on the cover of Mademoiselle magazine, after Joli Jones in 1969.

She wrote three home and entertainment books: "B. Smith's Entertaining and Cooking for Friends," "B. Smith: Rituals and Celebration" and "B. Smith Cooks Southern-Style."

Her family says she ran three B. Smith restaurants - in NYC, Sag Harbor and in Washington, D.C. - until she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease at the age of 64 in 2013.

Smith began suffering from memory problems years before her diagnosis. She once froze for several seconds while being interviewed on the "Today Show," prompting a doctor's visit that led to her diagnosis. A few months later, she wandered away and was missing in New York City for a day

She and her husband Dan Gasby worked to raise awareness for the disease and its effects on the African American community.