Comedy legend Soupy Sales, the man who took thousands of pies to the face in his 5,000+ live television appearances, has died at the age of 83. His legend spans all the way back to the ’50s and ’60s, thanks to ‘The Soupy Sales Show’ and ‘What’s My Line?’
Sales died Thursday night at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York, his former manager and longtime friend, Dave Usher, said. Sales had many health problems and entered the hospice last week, Usher said.
Sales began his TV career in Cincinnati and Cleveland, then moved to Detroit, where he drew a large audience on WXYZ-TV. He moved to Los Angeles in 1961.
The comic’s pie-throwing schtick became his trademark, and celebrities lined up to take one on the chin alongside Sales. During the early 1960s, stars such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine received their just desserts side-by-side with the comedian on his television show.
source: Soupy Sales dies at 83; slapstick comic had hit TV show in 1960s [los angeles times]
Henry Gibson, the quintessential character actor who played Nazis, priests, drunks and nosy neighbors during a 45-year career that included a stint as an original cast member on ‘Laugh-In,’ died Monday at his home in Malibu. His son, James, said Gibson died after a brief battle with cancer. He was 73.
Beginning with a role in ‘The Nutty Professor’ in 1963, Gibson worked steadily until just last year. His big break arrived in 1968 when he began a 3-year stint on ‘Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,’ where each week he would hold a flower and read a poem.
The rest of the 1960s and 1970s were spent working on acclaimed TV shows, including ‘Love, American Style,’ and more meaty film projects like Robert Altman’s 1975 country music opus, ‘Nashville,’ for which Gibson earned a Golden Globes nomination.
In 1980, he played an Illinois Nazi going after a pair of soul-singing louts in ‘The Blues Brothers’ and later in the decade played the villainous neighbor in Tom Hanks’ hit ‘The Burbs.’
Other memorable films include a ‘Gremlins’ sequel, Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Magnolia,’ and most recently a turn as a clergyman who gets an earful from Vince Vaughn in ‘Wedding Crashers.’
Until last year, he carried on a recurring role on ‘Boston Legal.’
Born James Bateman in Germantown, Pa., Gibson began acting professionally at age 8. He is survived by his wife and three sons.
Laugh-In was one of my favorite shows, yes… that dates me. I loved Goldie Hawn the most on the show.
RIP funny man.
source: ‘Laugh-In,’ Film Actor Henry Gibson Dies [popeater]
Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy brother who was left to head the family’s political dynasty after his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, has died at age 77.
Known as the “liberal lion of the Senate,” Kennedy championed health care reform, working wages and equal rights in his storied career. In August, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor — by President Obama. His daughter, Kara Kennedy, accepted the award on his behalf.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, known as Ted or Teddy, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in May 2008 and underwent a successful brain surgery soon after that. But his health continued to deteriorate, and Kennedy suffered a seizure while attending the luncheon following President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
For Kennedy, the ascension of Obama was an important step toward realizing his goal of health care reform.
At the Democratic National Convention in August 2008, the Massachusetts Democrat promised, “I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate when we begin the great test.”
Sen. Kennedy made good on that pledge, but ultimately lost his battle with cancer.
source: Ted Kennedy Dies of Brain Cancer at Age 77 [abc news]
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the sister of President John F. Kennedy and a champion of the disabled who founded the Special Olympics, died Tuesday, the Special Olympics said. She was 88.
Born on July 10, 1921, in Brookline, Massachusetts, Shriver was the fifth of nine children to Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. She emerged from the long shadow of siblings John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy as the founder of the Special Olympics, which started as a summer day camp in her backyard in 1962.
Today, 3.1 million people with mental disabilities participate in 228 programs in 170 nations, according to the Special Olympics.
No final decision has been made on funeral arrangements, a source close to the family said.
It’s hard for us to believe: the amazing Eunice Kennedy Shriver went home to God this morning at 2 a.m.
She was the light of our lives, a mother, wife, grandmother, sister and aunt who taught us by example and with passion what it means to live a faith-driven life of love and service to others. For each of us, she often seemed to stop time itself – to run another Special Olympics games, to visit us in our homes, to attend to her own mother, her sisters and brothers, and to sail, tell stories, and laugh and serve her friends. How did she do it all?
Inspired by her love of God, her devotion to her family, and her relentless belief in the dignity and worth of every human life, she worked without ceasing – searching, pushing, demanding, hoping for change. She was a living prayer, a living advocate, a living center of power. She set out to change the world and to change us, and she did that and more. She founded the movement that became Special Olympics, the largest movement for acceptance and inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities in the history of the world. Her work transformed the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the globe, and they in turn are her living legacy.
We have always been honored to share our mother with people of good will the world over who believe, as she did, that there is no limit to the human spirit. At this time of loss, we feel overwhelmed by the gifts of prayer and support poured out to us from so many who loved her. We are together in our belief that she is now in heaven, rejoicing with her family, enjoying the fruits of her faith, and still urging us onward to the challenges ahead. Her love will inspire us to faith and service always.
She was forever devoted to the Blessed Mother. May she be welcomed now by Mary to the joy and love of life everlasting, in the certain truth that her love and spirit will live forever.
As everyone not living in a cave knows by now, pop icon Michael Jackson died yesterday at the age of 50. Below is a roundup of some of the more prominent obituaries, including the headlines, the introductory paragraphs, and the most prominent photo.
Michael Jackson’s life was infused with fantasy and tragedy – LA Times
Michael Jackson was fascinated by celebrity tragedy. He had a statue of Marilyn Monroe in his home and studied the sad Hollywood exile of Charlie Chaplin. He married the daughter of Elvis Presley.
Jackson met his own untimely death Thursday at age 50, and more than any of those past icons, he left a complicated legacy. As a child star, he was so talented he seemed lit from within; as a middle-aged man, he was viewed as something akin to a visiting alien who, like Tinkerbell, would cease to exist if the applause ever stopped.
It was impossible in the early 1980s to imagine the surreal final chapters of Jackson’s life. In that decade, he became the world’s most popular entertainer thanks to a series of hit records — “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” “Thriller” — and dazzling music videos. Perhaps the best dancer of his generation, he created his own iconography: the single shiny glove, the Moonwalk, the signature red jacket and the Neverland Ranch.
In recent years, he inspired fascination for reasons that had nothing to do with music. Years of plastic surgery had made his face a bizarre landscape. He was deeply in debt and had lost his way as a musician. He had not toured since 1997 or released new songs since 2001. Instead of music videos, the images of Jackson beamed around the world were tabloid reports about his strange personal behavior, including allegations of child molestation, or the latest failed relaunch of his career.
For his legions of fans, he was the Peter Pan of pop music: the little boy who refused to grow up. But on the verge of another attempted comeback, he is suddenly gone, this time for good.
Michael Jackson, whose quintessentially American tale of celebrity and excess took him from musical boy wonder to global pop superstar to sad figure haunted by lawsuits, paparazzi and failed plastic surgery, was pronounced dead on Thursday afternoon at U.C.L.A. Medical Center after arriving in a coma, a city official said. Mr. Jackson was 50, having spent 40 of those years in the public eye he loved.
[...]
As with Elvis Presley or the Beatles, it is impossible to calculate the full effect Mr. Jackson had on the world of music. At the height of his career, he was indisputably the biggest star in the world; he has sold more than 750 million albums. Radio stations across the country reacted to his death with marathon sessions of his songs. MTV, which grew successful in part as a result of Mr. Jackson’s groundbreaking videos, reprised its early days as a music channel by showing his biggest hits.
From his days as the youngest brother in the Jackson 5 to his solo career in the 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. Jackson was responsible for a string of hits like “I Want You Back,” “I’ll Be There” “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” “Billie Jean” and “Black or White” that exploited his high voice, infectious energy and ear for irresistible hooks.
As a solo performer, Mr. Jackson ushered in the age of pop as a global product — not to mention an age of spectacle and pop culture celebrity. He became more character than singer: his sequined glove, his whitened face, his moonwalk dance move became embedded in the cultural firmament. His entertainment career hit high-water marks with the release of “Thriller,” from 1982, which has been certified 28 times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, and with the “Victory” world tour that reunited him with his brothers in 1984.
But soon afterward, his career started a bizarre disintegration. His darkest moment undoubtedly came in 2003, when he was indicted on child molesting charges. A young cancer patient claimed the singer had befriended him and then groped him at his Neverland estate near Santa Barbara, Calif., but Mr. Jackson was acquitted on all charges.
Singer Michael Jackson, the man known as the King of Pop to legions of fans around the globe, who lived most of his extraordinary life in the public eye, died Thursday in Los Angeles after going into cardiac arrest. He was 50 years old.
[...]
It used to be that Jackson’s talent was the most compelling thing about him, says music critic Jody Rosen. “I think ‘I Want You Back’ is one of the greatest pop singles I’ve ever heard,” Rosen says.
“I Want You Back” was the hit single that famously thrust a young Michael Jackson and four of his brothers from the Gary, Ind., talent show circuit to world fame. Their grimly focused father put Michael on stage at age 5. The child, says Rosen, somehow channeled the gifts of vastly more seasoned performers. “He had a very gritty voice at that time, which is strange, given that as he grew older, he started to sing more and more like a pre-pubescent little boy,” Rosen says. “And when he was a pre-pubescent little boy, he was singing like a soul elder statesman.”
Object of Acclaim, Curiosity, The ‘King of Pop’ Dies in L.A. – WaPo
Michael Jackson, 50, died yesterday in Los Angeles as sensationally as he lived, as famous as a human being can get. He was a child Motown phenomenon who grew into a moonwalking megastar, the self-anointed King of Pop who sold 750 million records over his career and enjoyed worldwide adoration.
But with that came the world’s relentless curiosity, and Mr. Jackson was eventually regarded as one of show business’s legendary oddities, hopping from one public relations crisis to another.
In the end there were two sides to the record: The tabloid caricature and the provocative, genre-changing musical genius that his fans will always treasure. There were those whose devotion knew no bounds, who visited the gates of his private ranch north of Santa Barbara, Calif., arriving at Neverland on pilgrimages from Europe and Asia, and who were among the first to flock to UCLA Medical Center as news of his death spread yesterday afternoon. Those were the same kind of fans who camped out at the Santa Barbara Superior Courthouse, to show their support during his 2005 trial. They released doves and wept when he was acquitted.
Then there was the other kind of fan, who preferred to keep memories of the singer locked firmly in his 1980s prime: Today’s young adults all have memories of being toddlers and grade-schoolers who moonwalked across their mother’s just mopped kitchen floors. Even the hardest rockers will easily confess to the first album they ever bought: “Thriller.”
These are fair accounts, I think, balancing Jackson’s undeniable status as a music icon as well as the bizarre spectacle of his life offstage.
Farrah Fawcett died at 9:28 AM today. Ryan O’Neal and Alana Stewart were at her bedside.
She was 62.
Farrah Fawcett had taken a serious turn for the worse and her loved ones reportedly gathered at her bedside Wednesday night.
A priest also was summoned to the Los Angeles hospital where the 62-year-old “Charlie’s Angels” icon – a devout Catholic – is being treated for anal cancer, the television show “Extra” reported.
Her publicist, Arnold Robinson, would not comment on the reports, saying only that “she is still being treated for her condition.”
Those keeping vigil in the intensive care unit included longtime love Ryan O’Neal, who has been with the one-time sex symbol constantly since she was hospitalized two weeks ago.
Ryan O’Neal had recently proposed to Farrah — I wish she could have made it to the wedding, this makes me really sad.
source: Farrah Fawcett health worsening; priest summoned to deliver last rites [daily news]
UPDATE (James):
CNN (Farrah Fawcett, sex symbol and actress, dies):
Farrah Fawcett, the blonde-maned actress whose best-selling poster and “Charlie’s Angels” stardom made her one of the most famous faces in the world, has died. She was 62.
Farrah Fawcett, who skyrocketed to fame as one of a trio of impossibly glamorous private eyes on TV’s Charlie’s Angels, has died after a long battle with cancer. She was 62.
Fawcett died at 9:28 a.m. PST at St. John’s Heath Center in Santa Monica, Calif. She was with longtime partner Ryan O’Neal, friend Alana Stewart and her doctor Lawrence Piro. She had recently returned to St. John’s for treatment of complications from anal cancer, first diagnosed three years ago.
“She’s gone. She now belongs to the ages,” O’Neal tells PEOPLE. “She’s now with he mother and sister and her God. I loved her with all my heart. I will miss her so very, very much. She was in and out of consciousness. I talked to her all through the night. I told her how very much I loved her. She’s in a better place now.”
Like so much about Fawcett’s life – including her bumpy relationship with O’Neal – her heroic struggle to beat the disease was closely followed by her legion of fans.
“I’ve watched her this past year fight with such courage and so valiantly, but with such humor,” Fawcett’s Charlie’s Angels costar Kate Jackson told PEOPLE in November 2007.
[...]
In 1973, Fawcett married actor Lee Majors, forever known as Col. Steve Austin on TV’s The Six Million Dollar Man. Three years later, she appeared in the cult sci-fi film Logan’s Run and began her stint with costars Jackson and Jaclyn Smith on Charlie’s Angels. Well-coiffed and scantily-clad, the threesome created an instant sensation, with a weekly following of 23 million fans.
Fawcett moved on after just one season. By then, she was already a phenomenon, having donned a one-piece red bathing suit and a perfect smile for her legendary pin-up poster, which sold a still-record 12 million copies.
“I became famous almost before I had a craft,” Fawcett told The New York Times in 1986, four years after her divorce from Majors. (By then, she was already involved with Ryan O’Neal.) “I didn’t study drama at school. I was an art major. Suddenly, when I was doing Charlie’s Angels, I was getting all this fan mail, and I didn’t really know why. I don’t think anybody else did, either.
Though she left TV for what was assumed to be greener pastures – feature films – Fawcett’s initial three big-screen vehicles all crash-landed. Her first, 1978’s Somebody Killed Her Husband, was lampooned in MAD magazine under the title, Somebody Killed Her Career.
It took some serious dramatic TV roles, including that of a battered wife in 1984’s The Burning Bed (which earned her an Emmy nomination), as well as starring in small-screen biopics about pioneering photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White and ill-fated Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, for Fawcett to bounce back.
Fawcett is only slightly younger than my parents but she was the first iconic sex symbol I was ever aware of. She and Majors were the Hollywood “it” couple of the day and “Charlie’s Angels,” while not a show that has stood up well to the test of time, nonetheless remains a pop culture icon.
Even though she remained a celebrity through the end, she’ll always be remembered for that poster. It’s amazing how tame it was compared to the images of today’s sex symbols.
Jett Travolta, the 16-year-old son of actor John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston, died Friday while on vacation with his family in the Bahamas.
Jett had suffered a seizure at his family’s vacation home at the Old Bahama Bay Hotel on Grand Bahama Island, said Michael Ossi, a lawyer for the family, in a statement through Travolta’s rep.
The teen hit his head in a bathtub Friday morning and was declared dead at Rand Memorial Hospital, police spokeswoman Loretta Mackey told the Associated Press.
According to police, a caretaker had found Jett unconscious in the bathroom around 10 a.m. An autopsy is being pursued to determine the exact cause of death.
Jett, who is the only son of Travolta, 54, and Preston, 46, had a history of seizures, according to Ossi. The couple also have a daughter, Ella Bleu, 8.
In 2003 Preston told Montel Williams that when Jett was 2 he became “very, very ill, but it seemed like flu symptoms” before being diagnosed with Kawasaki disease. The condition, which usually affects children from ages 2 to 5, can cause inflammation of the arteries. Usually treatable, it can lead to lasting heart damage in rare cases.
Preston, who also said Jett suffered from asthma, blamed household cleaners, fertilizers and pesticides for sparking the condition and lobbied for more detailed labeling on chemical products. She credited a detoxification program based on the writings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard with helping to improve Jett’s health.
John Travolta and Kelly Preston with their daughter Ella Bleu at the Wild Hogs premiere.
In November Jett joined his dad in Paris, where Travolta has been shooting From Paris with Love. In 1994 the actor said how much he loved fatherhood.
“I can’t imagine what life would be like without Jett. After he was born and cleaned up, I held him for hours while Kelly slept. When they came to take him away for various tests, I said, ‘No, you can’t see him today. You’ll have to do it another day.’ I went a little nutsy.”
Truly a sad situation and something I wouldn’t wish on anybody. Our hearts go out to the Travolta family.
‘Sopranos‘ fans probably don’t know the name John Costelloe, but the character he played had a huge impact.
The 47-year-old actor gained fame in 2006 during the show’s sixth season when he was cast as short-order cook Jim “Johnny Cakes” Witowski opposite Joseph Gannascoli, who played gay mobster Vito Spatafore.
Police spokesman Lt. John Grimpel says Costelloe was found dead in an apparent suicide at his Brooklyn home on Dec. 18.
Police were called to his residence after family members were unable to reach him.
Costelloe’s character was a short order cook at a diner in New Hampshire who gets involved in a brief romance with Vito, on the run from the mob after he was caught in a gay nightclub. After their affair, Vito heads back home where he is murdered in a hotel room.
The nickname ‘Johnny Cakes’ came from Vito’s daily order at the diner.
Bettie Page, a 1950s pinup model who helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, has died. She was 85.
Her agentMark Roesler says Page died Thursday night at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering a heart attack nine days ago. He says she never regained consciousness.
“She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality. She is the embodiment of beauty.”
[Click thumbnails for a larger view]
Page attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls across the country. Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.
Roesler says Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia and was about to be released when she suffered the heart attack Dec. 2.
The day before election, Barack Obama’s beloved grandmother, Madelyn Dunhamhas died. She was 86-years old.
Obama with his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, in Hawaii in 1979 during his high school graduation.
Barack and his sister released the following statement about the passing:
“It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility.”
The Kansan helped raise Barack from the age of 10 while his mother was working in Indonesia.
We’re so glad that the Presidential hopeful took some time off the campaign trail recently to spend time with her.
So sad that she couldn’t hold on for one more day.
The collapse of the marriage between actor Danny Huston and his ex-wife Katie Jane Evans has ended in tragedy, as the 35-year-old model threw herself to her death from a California rooftop this month.
The Daily Mail reports that Evans, who launched a divorce case last year, was allegedly addicted to drugs and alcohol, which led to the collapse of the couple’s marriage. They tied the knot in 2002, and had daughter Stella a year later.
Huston is the illegitimate son of John Huston and London-based actress Zoe Sallis, and the half-brother of Anjelica Huston.
“Everyone is devastated,” a Daily Mail source said. “No one, including Danny, can come to terms with what has happened. When Anjelica was told she just collapsed in tears.’
The source said that Evans “couldn’t get over the fact the marriage had failed,” and that Evans felt they “married too soon, they barely knew each other, and Katie didn’t take to life with an actor as well as she thought she would.”
The source goes on to claim that Evans “was on anti-depressants and she had been in and out of rehab clinics for months. She was very up and down with her moods. On the night she killed herself, she called the police to tell them she had taken an overdose but she jumped before they could save her.”
Huston is currently starring in the movie ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.’
Sad news to report, Jennifer Hudson’s mother and brother, Jason have been found dead in a home in Chicago.
According to CBS, two adults were found fatally shot at a home at 70th Street and Yale Avenue at 3 p.m. Friday, authorities said. A representative of the family’s church, Pleasant Gift Missionary Baptist, confirms that 57-year-old Darnell Hudson was one of the victims
TMZ reports that a cousin of the family found the bodies at around 2:44 PM, hen the fire department arrived and discovered the bodies, police were brought in and the home was declared a crime scene.
Mr. Blackwell passed away yesterday afternoon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from an intestinal infection. He was 86.
Some of his choices for worst dressed seemed meant to shock — notably, in 1973, Jacqueline Onassis, whose name regularly appeared on best dressed lists.
Blackwell’s goal was not to be insightful so much as controversial, Sheppard, the former Women’s Wear Daily fashion editor, said. As a result, she said, hardly anyone took his list seriously.
His personal style would make anyone wonder where he might rank on a best dressed list. In his early years he wore tight pants and silk shirts unbuttoned halfway down his chest. In middle-age he often wore a turtleneck sweater topped by a heavy gold chain. He spiced a dark conservative suit with bright red socks and wore a huge diamond earring.
In a 2000 interview with the Ottawa Citizen of Canada, he said he had had four face-lifts, starting with an ear-tuck and nose job at 17.
Born Richard Sylvan Selzer on Aug. 29, 1922, in Bensonhurst, a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., Blackwell was the younger of two sons of impoverished parents who were evicted from their apartment several times. More than once, Blackwell and his brother, Benson, lived in homes for troubled boys. Their father abandoned the family when Blackwell was a young teenager.
He got his start as an actor with small roles in several Broadway shows and was in the cast of “Dead End,” which starred the Dead End Kids.
When the show closed in 1937, Blackwell moved to Los Angeles with his mother and brother and found work in movies, starting with “Little Tough Guy” (1938), a spinoff of the Broadway show he left behind. He got another small role that year in “Juvenile Court,” starring Rita Hayworth.
In his 20s, he landed a small part in a Broadway show, “Catherine Was Great,” starring Mae West, in 1944.
He also worked as a model for “True Detective” magazine, posing as “a mad scientist, a crazed rapist, a killer priest and a blind fortune teller,” he wrote in his autobiography, to illustrate crime stories.
He credited aviation entrepreneur and movie producer Howard Hughes with changing his name to Richard Blackwell. Hughes cast him in “Vendetta” and chose the new name to sound “theatrical, polished, memorable,” Blackwell wrote in his autobiography. But his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.
While “Vendetta” was in production in 1949, Blackwell met Robert Spencer, a hairdresser. They soon became business and life partners, forming a talent agency that specialized in female torch singers. To help one young client get started, Blackwell designed nightclub dresses for her. Encouraged by the positive reaction, he and Spencer closed their talent management business and launched the fashion company Mr. Blackwell.
In the early 1960s, the growing success of Blackwell’s worst-dressed lists pumped up sales of his own designs. The business survived the fashion upheaval of the 1960s, when miniskirts and minimal underwear put the Old Hollywood look Blackwell preferred out of date. As women’s dress styles continued to change in the 1970s, he wasn’t keeping up. First he said he was against jeans for women, then he came out with his own brand of them.
“It seemed he was desperately trying to hold on,” fashion expert Fox said. His fashion commentaries were also wearing thin by the ’70s and, Fox said, he became a caricature who was “no longer relevant.”
Blackwell closed his fashion business in the mid-1970s. He revived his acting career in the 1980s, appearing in several films and television series, usually playing “Mr. Blackwell” in cameo roles.
“No longer would I be Mr. Blackwell,” he wrote of the end of his fashion career. “I created him, and he had performed well. Audiences applauded. The world listened — and I did what I had to do.”
He is survived by Spencer, his partner of more almost 60 years. Private memorial services are being scheduled.
BREAKING: Legendary actor Paul Newman has died of cancer at the age of 83. His philanthropic foundation has issued a statement:
Paul Newman’s craft was acting. His passion was racing. His love was his family and friends. And his heart and soul were dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all.
Paul had an abiding belief in the role that luck plays in one’s life, and its randomness. He was quick to acknowledge the good fortune he had in his own life, beginning with being born in America, and was acutely aware of how unlucky so many others were. True to his character, he quietly devoted himself to helping offset this imbalance.
An exceptional example is the legacy of Newman’s Own. What started as something of a joke in the basement of his home, turned into a highly-respected, multi-million dollar a year food company. And true to form, he shared this good fortune by donating all the profits and royalties he earned to thousands of charities around the world, a total which now exceeds $250 million.
A spokeswoman for screen legend Paul Newman says the actor has died at age 83. Spokeswoman Marni Tomljanovic says Newman died Friday of cancer. No other details were immediately available.
Newman was nominated for Academy Awards 10 times, winning a regular Oscar in 1987 for “The Color of Money” and two honorary ones. He was equally at home in comedies such as “The Sting” and dramas such as “Hud.” He sometimes teamed with his wife, Joanne Woodward, also an Oscar winner for the 1957 film “Three Faces of Eve.”
Newman initially tried to play down concerns about his health after reports that he was undergoing cancer treatment in New York. But AE Hotchner, who helped create the successful Newman’s Own food company in 1982, confirmed in June that the actor had been ill for 18 months. “It’s a form of cancer, and he’s dealing with it. Paul is a fighter,” Hotchner told the Associated Press.
All proceeds from Newman’s Own salad dressings and snacks go to charity, and the actor has become a leading advocate for corporate philanthropy. Fox news reported this week that Newman gave away $120m during 2005 and 2006.
Newman is best known for his leading roles in The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in which he played opposite longtime friend Robert Redford.
Comedy legend Soupy Sales, the man who took thousands of pies to the face in his 5,000+ live television appearances, has died at the age of 83. His legend spans all the way back to the ’50s and ’60s, thanks to ‘The Soupy Sales Show’ and ‘What’s My Line?’
