Book of Condolence Thread

Yuji Kon-no (1943 - 2010)

An influencial Japanese film and music critic found dead in his flat in Tokyo.
Brian Ferry wrote a song Tokyo Joe which is referring Mr Kon-no.
When he reviewed Talking Heads' Remain in Light on late night TV show in 1980, next day the copies were sold out from record shops in Tokyo.

RIP.
 
Bobby Hebb, singer of '66 hit 'Sunny,' dies at 72
Musician was once so famous he toured with the Beatles


NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Bobby Hebb, whose 1966 pop music classic "Sunny" described a sincere smile from a woman that lifted the singer's burdens, died Tuesday. He was 72.

Family members and a funeral home spokeswoman said Hebb died at Centennial Medical Center. Friends said he had lung cancer.

"Sunny" also was recorded by many other singers, including Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett and Jose Feliciano.

The song's key lines:

"Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain.

"Sunny, you smiled at me and really eased the pain.

"The dark days are gone and the bright days are here.

"My sunny one shines so sincere.

"Sunny one so true, I love you."

Hebb had said in several interviews that he wrote "Sunny" in response to the slaying of his brother outside a Nashville nightclub and to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy a few days before.
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On his 69th birthday in 2007, he recalled that he was living and performing in New York City at the time he wrote the song.

"I was intoxicated," Hebb told The Associated Press. "I came home and started playing the guitar. I looked up and saw what looked like a purple sky. I started writing because I'd never seen that before."

He included the song in his act at a bar called Brandy's and the audience liked it.

After a Japanese artist had a hit with the song in Asia and vibraphone player Dave Pike recorded it in the United States, Hebb recorded the vocal at Bell Sound in New York.

At the height of "Sunny" popularity, Hebb toured with the Beatles.

In a 2004 interview with The Tennessean newspaper, Hebb recalled that all four Beatles were nice.

"John (Lennon) and George (Harrison) were very quiet," he said. "But Ringo (Starr) and Paul (McCartney) were more active and easier to get to know. It was just something to be with those cats."

In 1971, Lou Rawls won a Grammy award for "A Natural Man," written by Hebb and Sandy Baron. In 2004, Broadcast Music Incorporated honored Hebb for 6 million airings of "Sunny."

As recently as 2007, Hebb was still writing songs and had his own publishing company and record label, Hebb Cats.

Hebb was born to blind parents and raised in Nashville. He joined the Navy in 1955 where he played the trumpet in a jazz band.

In the 1950s Hebb also played and danced with Roy Acuff's country band, the Smoky Mountain Boys, and became one of the first black musicians to perform on the Grand Ole Opry show in Nashville.

Funeral services were pending. Survivors include a daughter and four sisters.
 
Patricia Neal, the Oscar-winning actress whose life off-screen contained as much drama, tragedy, and inspiration as any of her film or theater roles, died Sunday at her home in Martha's Vineyard of lung cancer; she was 84.
She was best known for her roles as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and middle-aged housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud (1963), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
she was married to author roald dahl.

An Oscar, Tony and Golden Globe winner, Neal was just as well-known for the trials, tribulations and triumphs she lived through, including a nervous breakdown, the death of one of her children, and a series of strokes that left her in a three-week coma while pregnant at the age of 39. Her subsequent rehabilitation, with the help of her then-husband, author Roald Dahl, led to yet another chapter of her acting career, as well as her pioneering for the cause of stroke rehabilitation.

Born Patsy Louise Neal in Packard, Kentucky in 1926, Neal grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, and studied acting at Northwestern University before heading to New York, where she began her long and illustrious stage career, winning a Tony Award in 1946 for Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest, which attracted the attention of Hollywood. Though she filmed the comedy John Loves Mary first in 1949 -- a film in which she played the Mary to future President Ronald Reagan's John -- it was the second film she made that year which introduced her to audiences with a huge splash: the highly-anticipated adaptation of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, where she played conflicted, imperious heroine Dominique Francon opposite Gary Cooper's stalwart architect Howard Roark, already a famed character thanks to the success of Rand's novel. Though actress Barbara Stanwyck championed the project to Warner Bros., the studio ultimately cast the unknown 22-year-old Neal opposite the 47-year-old Cooper.

While the final results were neither a commercial nor critical success, the King Vidor film remains a campy and compelling curiosity in adapting Rand's philosophy to the screen; for its stars, it was the beginning of a notorious and turbulent affair. The married Cooper initially separated from his wife -- who upon discovery of the affair sent a telegram to Neal demanding the dissolution of the relationship -- but the resulting stress of the relationship and Neal's flailing Hollywood career led to a nervous breakdown for the actress. Though she had appeared in the now-classic The Day the Earth Stood Still and the John Wayne wartime drama Operation Pacific, Neal's position in Hollywood felt less than secure, and she returned to New York following the break-up with Cooper, appearing in among other productions a revival of The Children's Hour, whose author, Lillian Hellman, introduced Neal to author Roald Dahl. The two married in 1953, and the actress relocated to Dahl's home country of England.

In the late 1950s Neal appeared mostly on Broadway -- including her role as Helen Keller's mother in the original production of The Miracle Worker in 1959 -- and occasionally in television; her only film during that time was the acclaimed Elia Kazan drama A Face in the Crowd , where she played the woman who discovers and then ultimately betrays famed man-of-the-people Andy Griffith. After appearing as the wealthy benefactor and lover of George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Neal suffered two family tragedies in rapid succession: her four-month old son Theo was hit by a taxi in 1961, from which he ultimately recovered, and then her first-born child, Olivia, died suddenly of measles at the age of 7. After two years of only television work and practical abandonment by Hollywood, Neal returned to the screen in 1963 in Martin Ritt's Texas-set drama Hud, portraying the world-weary housekeeper to Paul Newman's amoral title character, who tries to rape her in the course of the film. It was a surprise career comeback for Neal, who received an Oscar nomination along with Newman and co-star Melvyn Douglas. Pregnant with her fourth child, Neal was unable to attend the ceremony but won the Best Actress Oscar (Douglas also won Best Supporting Actor). After giving birth, Neal made two more films -- the London-set Psyche 59 and Otto Preminger's In Harm's Way, opposite previous co-star John Wayne -- before becoming pregnant for a fifth time.

It was during this pregnancy in 1965 that Neal suffered a series of debilitating strokes, which left her in a coma for three weeks and required emergency brain surgery. When she awoke, she needed to be confined to a wheelchair due to partial paralysis, and found her speech severely impaired; still, she gave birth to a daughter, Lucy, without complications. As Dahl coordinated her speech and physical therapy, Neal learned to walk and speak again, and her rehabilitation was so successful that within two years was offered the part of Mrs. Robinson in 1967's The Graduate, a role she turned down, feeling that it came too soon after her stroke. A year later, though, she was ready to work, and took the lead role in the film adaptation of Frank Gilroy's play The Subject Was Roses opposite Jack Albertson and Martin Sheen. Her comeback was certified with an Academy Award nomination (though she lost in the year that Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand tied for Best Actress), with Albertson winning Best Supporting Actor.

Though The Subject Was Roses was her last major film role, Neal continued to work in television despite fears regarding her health. She was the first actress to play the role of Olivia Walton in The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, for which she received an Emmy nomination and Golden Globe award; when the telefilm was turned into the series The Waltons, she was recast with Michael Learned. A two-episode guest spot on Little House on the Prairie in 1975 garnered acclaim, and she received two more Emmy nominations in the 1970s; Oscar-winning actress Glenda Jackson also received an Emmy nomination in 1981 for portraying Neal in the telefilm The Patricia Neal Story, which chronicled her stroke, recovery, and advocacy for stroke rehabilitation. Neal also appeared as the wife of Fred Astaire in the thriller Ghost Story, as an imperious schoolmistress in the TV film Caroline?, and as the titular "Cookie" in the Robert Altman film Cookie's Fortune. A final note of drama in Neal's life came in 1983, when she and Dahl separated after it was discovered he was having an affair with one of Neal's friends.

In her later years, Neal retired to New York, and maintained a second home in Martha's Vineyard. She is survived by four children, and seven grandchildren, including model/actress Sophie Dahl.
 
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Ou Est Le Swimming Pool singer Charles Haddon commits suicide

Frontman takes his own life after the group performed at Belgium's Pukkelpop festival

* August 20, 2010 |

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool singer Charles Haddon has committed suicide, according to reports.

The frontman took his life earlier day (August 20) after the group performed at Belgium's Pukkelpop festival, reports the ANP via Dutch news website Parool.nl.

According to accounts, the singer jumped from a mast backstage at the event.

Pukkelpop organisers confirmed the death, leaving a tribute to Haddon on the event's official website, which explained their "thoughts go out to his friends and family".

The London three-piece were in Europe playing a number of festivals and were due to perform as part of Australia's touring Parklife festival next month. They were also set to embark on a headline tour of the UK in October.

After issuing their third single, 'Jackson's Last Stand', in July, the group had announced that they would release their debut album, 'Christ Died For Our Synths' in October.




The Call frontman Michael Been dies

Bassist and singer also worked as soundman for his son's band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

* August 21, 2010 |

The Call frontman Michael Been has died aged 60.

The bassist, singer and songwriter passed away after suffering a heart attack on August 19 – he was at Belgium's Pukkelpop festival working as soundman for his son Robert Levon Been's band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

Been, born in Oklahoma, formed The Call in California in 1980. The group went on to have a number of hits, including 'When The Walls Came Down', 'Everywhere I Go', 'I Still Believe (Great Design)' and 'Let The Day Begin' – the latter was used by Al Gore during his 2000 US presidential campaign.

His solo album, 'On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown', was released in 1994. The band appeared to go on hiatus around the turn of the millennium, and Been concentrated on working with his son's group.

He also appeared in a number of films, including Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation Of Christ, where he played the Apostle John.

A statement on The Call's website read: "We have his son and family in our prayers. The Call's music will always live on."
 
Christoph Maria Schlingensief (born October 24, 1960 in Oberhausen, died August 21, 2010[1]) was a German film and theatre director, actor and author. Because of his often controversial work he has often been called a "scandal-maker".
Gelsenkirchen, Germany - Christoph Schlingensief, the quirky German operatic and theatre director, died on Saturday, his wife Aino told the German Press Agency dpa.

Schlingensief, 49, who gained international attention with his intellectual productions for the Wagner opera festival in Bayreuth, had been suffering from lung cancer.

A relapse at the start of July prompted him to cancel plans to stage at the Ruhr arts festival, a show combining actors, music and videos and reflecting on his efforts to create a "village of opera" in the West African nation Burkina Faso.

Schlingensief was one of the stars of Germany's state-funded theatre world, where directors ignore mass taste and focus on highbrow audiences who expect their theatre to shock and disturb.

Germany's arts writers had hailed his Burkina Faso opera village as a landmark in German aid to Africa.

The German director's long battle with lung cancer has been major news in Germany.

Ha had also worked with Tilda Swinton on a film in 1986, with whom he once , many years ago,were a couple.
http://www.schlingensief.com/projekt.php?id=f029




Career

As a young man he organized art "events" in the cellar of his parents house and artists such as Helge Schneider or Theo Jörgensmann performed in his early films.

Schlingensief considered himself a "provocatively thoughtful" artist. He created numerous controversial and provocative theatre pieces as well as films, his former mentor being filmmaker and media artist Werner Nekes. One of his main works, the so-called Germany-Trilogy, which deals with three turning points in 20th century German history: the first movie Hundert Jahre Adolf Hitler (Adolf Hitler - A Hundred Years) covers the last hours of Adolf Hitler, the second Das deutsche Kettensägenmassaker (The German Chainsaw-Massacre), depicts the German reunification of 1989 and shows a group of East-Germans who cross the border to visit West-Germany and get slaughtered by a psychopathic family with chainsaws, and the third Terror 2000 uses the theme of the 1970s Red Army Faction terror. His films have been compared to Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's film, Hitler, A Film from Germany.

In 2004, at the invitation of the Wagner family, he directed Parsifal at the Wagner-Festspiele in Bayreuth, creating highly original images for the opera. This came as a surprise as Schlingensief has targeted the legacy of the Third Reich in German and Austrian identity.

One of Schlingensief's central tactics was to call politicians bluff in an attempt to reveal the inanities of their "responsible" discourse, a tactic he called "playing something through to its end". This strategy was most notable in his work Please Love Austria at the time of the FPO and OVP coalition in Austria, a work which attracted international support, a media frenzy and countless debates about art practice.
His container installation in 2000 there are to be resembeled /making references to the then new big brother show. so it to the disguised deporting of foreigners who no longer have asyl which pass the population attention without notice are to be noticed.

Schlingensief also directed a version of Hamlet, subtitled, This is your Family, Nazi-line, which premiered in Switzerland, the so-called neutral territory equated with the Denmark of the opening line in Shakespeare's play where there is something foul afoot. Events around the piece questioned and attacked Switzerland's "neutrality" in the face of growing racism and extreme right wing movements. It also involved former members of Neo Nazi groups, allowing them to play out their own weaknesses in the terms of the characters in the drama, and led to him founding a centre for former members to "de-brief".

Schlingensief's work covered a variety of media, including installation and the ubiquitous "talk show" and has in many cases led to audience members leaving the theatre space with Schlingensief and his colleagues to take part in events such as "Passion Impossible, Wake Up Call for Germany" 1997 or "Chance 2000, Vote for Yourself" in which he formed his own party where anyone could become a candidate themselves in the run up to the federal election of 1998 in Germany. With his demands for people to "prove they exist"(i..e the poorer people, disabled people) in an age of total TV coverage and "act, act, act" in the sense of becoming active not "actors", his work could be considered a direct legacy of Bertolt Brecht, as it demands involvement as opposed to passivity and merely looking on as is the case in traditional text-based theatre. In an age of extreme media fatigue, his was a fresh voice albeit and undisputedly containing echoes of the past, often humorous and subversive yet never cynical. His influences included Joseph Beuys and his idea of social sculpture, and artists Allan Kaprow and Dieter Roth.
Projects
1990s

* 1990-1993 he directed a series of films known as the Germany-trilogy.
* 1993 he directed his first stage piece "100 Years of CDU " at the Volksbuehne Berlin
* 1994 Kuhnen "94, Bring Me the Head of Adolf Hitler! at the Volksbuehne Berlin
* 1996 Director of the movie United Trash
* 1996 Rocky Dutschke at the Volksbuehne Berlin
* 1997 My Felt, My Fat, My Hare, 48 Hours Survival for Germany ( Dokumenta X, Kassel)
* 1997 Passion Impossible, Wake Up Call For Germany, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg and Station Mission for the Homeless
* 1998 Chance 2000, an Election Circus, Prater Garden, Berlin and other locations nationwide
* 1999 Freakstars 3000 at the Volksbuehne Berlin

2000s

* 2000 Foreigners out! Schlingensiefs Container (Opera Square, Vienna in association with the Burgtheater)
* 2001 Hamlet, This is Your Family—Nazi Line in Zürich, Switzerland, and at the Volksbühne in Berlin
* 2002 Atta Atta—Art Has Broken Out! at Volksbühne in Berlin
* 2003 founded the "Church of Fear" at the Venice Biennale
* 2003 directed Bambiland by Elfriede Jelinek at the Burgtheater in Vienna
* 2004 directed Richard Wagners Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus
* 2004 created Kunst und Gemuese at Volksbühne in Berlin
* 2005 premiered The Animatograph in Reykjavík, Iceland which continues in various manifestations up to the present
* 2006 directed Area 7, a St Matthews Expedition at the Burgtheater in Vienna
* 2006 premiered Kaprow City a performative installation at the Volksbühne in Berlin
* 2007 directed The Flying Dutchman at the Amazon Theatre, Manaus
* 2007 created a new talk show series for Arte television, The Pilots

edit: patti smith was a friend of his , too.
 
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Bernard Giraudeau (1947 - 2010)

One of my favourite French actor, I didn't know he passed away in July.
RIP.
 
Claude Chabrol (1930 - 2010)

A veteran French director passed away.
His films are mixed bag, but collaborations with Isabelle Huppert are really great.

RIP.
 
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Lynyrd Skynyrd namesake Leonard Skinner dies

PE teacher who sent group to principal's office for having long hair inspired band's name

6a00e5536294b788330133f479e9ff970b-pi


Leonard Skinner, the PE teacher who inspired the name of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, has died in Florida. He was 77. Skinner, who had Alzheimer's disease, died in his sleep at the St Catherine Laboure Manor in Jacksonville, where he had been living for about a year, his daughter Susie Moore said.
He was working at Robert E Lee high school in Jacksonville in the 1960s when he sent a group of students to the principal's office because their hair was too long. They later formed a band, using a variation of Skinner's name.
The band, whose hits included Sweet Home Alabama, became popular in the mid-1970s. Three of the band members, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, were killed in a 1977 plane crash. The band regrouped and continues to perform today.
Click here to read the full story on Guardian


from http://991.typepad.com/991sleevenotes/2010/09/lynyrd-skynyrd-namesake-leonard-skinner-dies.html
 
Kewpie said:
Sally Menke (1953 -2010)

Really shocked that one of the best film editors passed away unexpectedly.

I cannot imagine watching next Tarantino film without her contribution.


RIP.





http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/motion-...tor-of-pulp-fiction-dies-in-los-angeles-at-56
Click to expand...

Damn, that's tragic :(
I saw 'Pulp Fiction' again, for the first time in a long time, just recently on a big kick-ass cinema screen, and I'd forgotten what a thing of genius it was. And the editing in particular was flawless.
Watching 'Inglorious Basterds' last year was a joy also. Within the first five minutes I knew I was going to adore it (unlike some of Tarantino's previous couple of efforts), and a large part of that was the combination of the camera compositions with Menke's immaculate cutting.
A true loss.
 

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