Bye there Georgy Girl

Actress Lynn Redgrave died today at age 67. The youngest daughter of famed actor/director Michael Redgrave, she rose to fame in the mid 60's for the title role 'Georgy Girl.' Personally I love that movie, which was one of Redgrave's two Oscar nominated roles. She lost the 1966 Best actress Oscar(Her sister Vanessa was also nominated the same year) to Elizabeth Taylor who won for 'Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'

Redgrave had a successful career after that but was overshadowed by her sister, the memory of her father, and later on her niece Natasha Richardson. She was part of the cast of two American television shows, 'House Calls' and 'Chicken Soup', something the below obituary fails to mention. Thanks for memories Ms. Redgrave and RIP.

NEW YORK – Lynn Redgrave, an introspective and independent player in her family's acting dynasty who became a 1960s sensation as the unconventional title character of "Georgy Girl" and later dramatized her troubled past in such one-woman stage performances as "Shakespeare for My Father" and "Nightingale," has died. She was 67.

Her publicist Rick Miramontez, speaking on behalf of her children, said Redgrave died peacefully Sunday night at her home in Kent, Conn. Children Ben, Pema and Annabel were with her, as were close friends.

"Our beloved mother Lynn Rachel passed away peacefully after a seven year journey with breast cancer," Redgrave's children said in a statement Monday. "She lived, loved and worked harder than ever before. The endless memories she created as a mother, grandmother, writer, actor and friend will sustain us for the rest of our lives. Our entire family asks for privacy through this difficult time."

Redgrave was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2002, had a mastectomy in January 2003 and underwent chemotherapy.

Her death comes a year after her niece Natasha Richardson died from head injuries sustained in a skiing accident and just a month after the death of her older brother, Corin Redgrave.

The youngest child of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, Lynn Redgrave never quite managed the acclaim — or notoriety — of elder sibling Vanessa Redgrave, but received Oscar nominations for "Georgy Girl" and "Gods and Monsters," and Tony nominations for "Mrs. Warren's Profession," "Shakespeare for My Father" and "The Constant Wife." In recent years, she also made appearances on TV in "Ugly Betty," "Law & Order" and "Desperate Housewives."

"Vanessa was the one expected to be the great actress," Lynn Redgrave told The Associated Press in 1999. "It was always, 'Corin's the brain, Vanessa the shining star, oh, and then there's Lynn.'"

In theater, the ruby-haired Redgrave often displayed a sunny, sweet and open personality, much like her ebullient offstage personality. It worked well in such shows as "Black Comedy" — her Broadway debut in 1972 — and again two years later in "My Fat Friend," a comedy about an overweight young woman who sheds pounds to find romance.

Redgrave's play "Nightingale" at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2009 was the last time she appeared on stage in New York.

"She was adored by audiences, and although she embarked on a medical treatment as previews began, she never missed a show and gave magnificent performances eight times a week," said Lynne Meadow, artistic director of MTC.

"We admired her strength, her talent, her courage and her enormous good heart. There wasn't a stage hand, a press rep, a box office person who didn't worship Lynn. She was true theatre royalty."

Tall and blue-eyed like her sister, she was as open about her personal life as Vanessa has been about politics. In plays and in interviews, Lynn Redgrave confided about her family, her marriage and her health. She acknowledged that she suffered from bulimia and served as a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers. With daughter Annabel Clark, she released a 2004 book about her fight with cancer, "Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery From Breast Cancer."

Redgrave was born in London in 1943 and despite self-doubts pursued the family trade. She studied at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, and was not yet 20 when she debuted professionally on stage in a London production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream." Like her siblings, she appeared in plays and in films, working under Noel Coward and Laurence Olivier as a member of the National Theater and under director/brother-in-law Tony Richardson in the 1963 screen hit "Tom Jones."

"Before I was born, my father was a movie star and a stage star," the actress told the AP in 1993. "I was raised in a household where we didn't see our parents in the morning. We lived in the nursery. Our nanny made our breakfast, and I was dressed up to go downstairs to have tea with my parents, if they were there."

True fame caught her with "Georgy Girl," billed as "the wildest thing to hit the world since the miniskirt." The 1966 film starred Redgrave as the plain, childlike Londoner pursued by her father's middle-aged boss, played by James Mason.

Dismissed by critic Pauline Kael as a false testament to free thinking, the movie was branded "cool" by moviegoers on both side of the Atlantic and received several Academy Award nominations, including one for Redgrave and one for the popular title song performed by the Australian group The Seekers.

"All the films I've been in — and I haven't been in that many attention-getting films — no one expected anything of, least of all me," Redgrave said in an AP interview in 1999.

"Georgy Girl" didn't lead to lasting commercial success, but did anticipate a long-running theme: Redgrave's weight. She weighed 180 pounds while making the film, leading New York Times critic Michael Stern to complain that Redgrave "cannot be quite as homely as she makes herself in this film.

"Slimmed down, cosseted in a couture salon, and given more of the brittle, sophisticated lines she tosses off with such abandon here, she could become a comedienne every bit as good as the late Kay Kendall," he wrote.

Films such as "The Happy Hooker" and "Every Little Crook and Nanny" were remembered less than Redgrave's decision to advocate for Weight Watchers. She even referenced "Georgy Girl" in one commercial, showing a clip and saying, "This was me when I made the movie, because this is the way I used to eat."

At age 50, Redgrave was ready to tell her story in full. As she wrote in the foreword to "Shakespeare for My Father," she was out of work and set off on a "journey that began almost as an act of desperation," writing a play out of her "passionately emotional desire" to better understand her father, who had died in 1985.

In the 1993 AP interview, Redgrave remembered her father as a fearless stage performer yet a shy, tormented man who had great difficulty talking to his youngest daughter.

"I didn't really know him," Redgrave said. "I lived in his house. I was in awe of him and I adored him, and I was terrified of him and I hated him and I loved him, all in one go."

Redgrave credited the play, which interspersed readings from Shakespeare with family memories, with bringing her closer to her relatives and reviving her film career. She played the supportive wife of pianist David Helfgott in "Shine" and received an Oscar nomination as the loyal housekeeper for filmmaker James Whale in "Gods and Monsters." She also appeared in "Peter Pan," "Kinsey" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic."

*****

Lynn Redgrave is survived by six grandchildren, her sister Vanessa, and four nieces and nephews.

Madeline 'Maddy' Loftus RIP

She was one of those killed in the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407. From the Buffalo News-

Madeline Loftus, 24, a former Buffalo State College student who lives in New Jersey. She was on her way to reunite with 14 other alumni of Buffalo State's women's ice hockey team for a game Saturday. Loftus played for the school team from 2002 to 2004.

Neither my wife Leonita or I know or met Maddy, but she was the cousin of one of our church choir members. Leonita, who works at our church and is active in the choir right now, spoke to her family. They are very distraught right at this moment. Please say a prayer for Maddy's family. God bless them and all who died in the crash and their families.

Actor James Whimore dead at 87

He was twice nominated for Oscars. First for his role in the war movie classic, 'Battleground'. Then for playing former President Harry Truman in the one man show made into the movie 'Give em Hell Harry. I liked him in both but loved the later. Not mentioned in the AP obituary is Whitmore's role in the Sci-Fi classic, 'Them!'. Whitmore played college football with former President Gerald Ford and served in the Marines during World War II. His son James Whitmore Jr. was also a television actor. RIP.

LOS ANGELES – James Whitmore, the many-faceted character actor who delivered strong performances in movies, television and especially the theater with his popular one-man shows about Harry Truman, Will Rogers and Theodore Roosevelt, died Friday, his son said. He was 87.

The Emmy- and Tony-winning actor was diagnosed with lung cancer the week before Thanksgiving and died Friday afternoon at his Malibu home, Steve Whitmore said.

"My father believed that family came before everything, that work was just a vehicle in which to provide for your family," said Whitmore, who works as spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "At the end, and in the last two and a half months of his life, he was surrounded by his family."

His long-running "Give 'em Hell, Harry," tracing the life of the 33rd president, was released as a theatrical movie in 1975. Whitmore was nominated for an Academy Award as best actor, marking the only time in Oscar history that an actor has been nominated for a film in which he was the only cast member. His Teddy Roosevelt portrait, "Bully," was also converted into a movie.

He later became the TV pitchman for Miracle-Gro plant food, and used the product in his large vegetable garden at his Malibu home.

While not known for his politics, Whitmore was an early supporter of President Barack Obama. He stumped for Obama during a 2007 rally at the Gibson Theatre at Universal Studios, telling the crowd that Obama had the wisdom "to deal with a very, very confused and complex country, and the world." Whitmore also appeared in TV commercials in 2008 for the "First Freedom First" campaign, which advocates religious liberty and preserving the separation of church and state.

Whitmore had regularly attended an Oscar night bash, Night of 100 Stars, and had sent in his RSVP for this year, said Edward Lozzi, a spokesman for agent Norby Walters' gala.

Whitmore started both his Broadway and Hollywood careers with acclaimed performances, both as tough-talking sergeants. In 1947, discharged a year from Marine duty, he made his Broadway debut in a taut Air Force drama, "Command Decision." He was awarded a Tony for outstanding performance by a newcomer.

Two years later, Whitmore was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe as supporting actor in the war movie "Battleground."

He followed with memorable performances in scores of films, refusing to be typed. Besides war movies, he appeared in Westerns ("The Last Frontier," "Chato's Land"), musicals ("Kiss Me Kate," "Oklahoma!"), science fiction ("Planet of the Apes," "Them"), dramas ("The Asphalt Jungle," "The Shawshank Redemption") and comedies ("Mr. O'Malley and Mrs. Malone," "The Great Diamond Robbery.")

Shirley Jones, a teenager when she starred in "Oklahoma," said she came to know Whitmore during months of filming in Nogales, Ariz., and recalled being impressed by her good-humored and highly disciplined colleague.

"He told me, `If you're going to be in this business, you better learn your craft,'" Jones recalled. "And he never stopped learning."

His favorite film was "Black Like Me" (1964), a true story about a white reporter who used medication to blacken his skin to experience life as an African-American in the South.

Another of his rare starring roles was "The Next Voice You Hear" (1950), in which a family hears the voice of God via the radio. He played opposite Nancy Davis, the future Mrs. Ronald Reagan.

Whitmore often appeared on television, starring in the series "The Law and Mr. Jones" (1960-1962), "My Friend Tony" (1969) and "Temperatures Rising" (1972-1973). He received an Emmy in 1999 as guest actor in a series for "The Practice."

Jones recalled seeing him in a 2007 episode of the TV drama "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and marveling at his still-sharp talent. "I was absolutely blown away by that. He had a huge role, playing a lawyer, and it was phenomenal," she said.

A student of history, Whitmore delighted in portraying famous American personages. He toured in the play "The Magnificent Yankee," about Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. He played Ulysses S. Grant in a 1960 TV movie, Adm. William F. "Bull" Halsey in the Pearl Harbor attack spectacle "Tora! Tora! Tora!", and Walt Whitman in a dramatic reading, "A Whitman Portrait."

The monologues of Harry Truman, Will Rogers and Teddy Roosevelt brought Whitmore his greatest success. In 2000, he appeared in "Will Rogers, U.S.A." at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., his eighth engagement in the show at Ford's over a 30-year period.

President Ford attended a performance of "Give 'em Hell, Harry" at Ford's Theater after Richard Nixon resigned. Whitmore worried about Ford's reaction to Truman's crusty words about Nixon.

The actor recalled: "I was three feet from Gerry Ford when I said to the press as Truman: `Nixon is a no-good lying (expletive); if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd tell a lie just to keep his hand in.' After the show, (Ford) came up on stage and put his arm around me and said, `That was a pretty good blocking back.'" Ford had been line coach when Whitmore played football at Yale.

His movie and television careers continued into the 21st century, but he admitted that he preferred the stage.

"I find the process of making movies absolutely boring," he told a reporter in 1994. "It's so fragmented. You wait and wait and wait and then, look, as Jack Lemmon says, `It's magic time.' In the theater, once the curtain goes up, the actor is in charge."

Born in 1921 in White Plains, N.Y., Whitmore was active in school sports and acted in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, though his strict Methodist family disapproved of the profession. After a year at an Ivy League prep school, Whitmore in 1939 enrolled in prelaw at Yale University, where he had won a football scholarship. Two knee injuries ended his football career, and he devoted himself to dramatics.

After graduating from Yale, he enlisted in the Marines and served in the South Pacific. "I had a lot of time to think in the Marine Corps," he recalled, "and so I decided it wasn't the law I wanted but the theater."

In New York he studied at the American Theater Wing under the G.I. Bill, living on $20 a week and rooming with another hopeful actor, Jack Warden. After a season in summer stock in New Hampshire, he returned to New York and won the role of Sergeant Harold Evans in "Command Decision." Rave reviews started his career in motion.

He married Nancy Mygatt in 1947, and the couple had three sons, James, Steven and Daniel. They later divorced, and in 1971 he married an actress, Audra Lindley. They often appeared in plays together, even after their 1979 divorce. He remarried his first wife in the 1980s, but another divorce ensued. Nearing 80 in 2001, Whitmore married actress-writer Noreen Nash.

Former Heavyweight champ Ingemar Johansson dead at 76

He won the title from Floyd Patterson in 1959 but lost the title in a re-match a year later. He was AP athlete of the year in 1959.

I got to meet Ingemar Johansson in the late 70's thanks to my father's involvement with harness racing.(There were many pro athletes who liked the ponies then) By then Johansson had put on quite a bit of weight and was asked to be Santa Claus for the Broward County(Florida) Christmas boat parade.

Unfortunately I don't remember anything else from our meeting. His boxing career ended when I was still a toddler. RIP Ingemar.


Ingemar Johansson, the Swede who stunned the boxing world by knocking out Floyd Patterson to win the heavyweight title in 1959, has died, a longtime friend said Saturday. Johansson was 76.

Johansson died at a nursing home in Kungsbacka on the Swedish west coast, said Stig Caldeborn, a close friend who sparred with Johansson when they were in their teens.

Caldeborn said he didn't know the cause of death but told The Associated Press that Johansson had recently returned to the nursing home after being hospitalized with pneumonia.

Johansson's daughter, Maria Gregner, told Swedish news agency TT that the former champion died just before midnight Friday.

Johansson was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia more than 10 years ago, when he lived in Stockholm. He spent the rest of his life in Kungsbacka, only a few miles from the house where he grew up.

Johansson knocked out Patterson in the third round at Yankee Stadium on June 26, 1959, to win the heavyweight title. He floored the American seven times in the third round before referee Ruby Goldstein stopped the fight 2:03 into it.

Back home, hundreds of thousands of Swedes listened to the live radio broadcast at 3 a.m. as Johansson became only the fifth heavyweight champion born outside the United States. His feat earned him The Associated Press' Male Athlete of the Year in 1959, only the second Swede to win the award.

Patterson avenged the upset loss a year later in the rematch in New York, knocking Johansson out in the fifth round. In March 1961, the Swede floored Patterson twice in Miami before being knocked out in the sixth round of the rubber match.

Johansson had four more fights -- all wins, one of them a knockout of England's Dick Richardson for the European title in 1962 -- before retiring the following year.

Johansson was married and divorced twice, and is also survived by five children. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.

Book em Danno

Might be Steve McGarret's first order after reading the Honolulu Advertiser obituary on Hawaii Five-0 supporting actor Harry Endo.

"Hawaii 5-0" actor Harry Endo, who portrayed a cerebral medical examiner who belied a real-life, dry wit, has died of a stroke in New York at the age of 87.

It takes great skill for a newspaper and one of its writers to blow the first paragraph of a story but Dan Nakaso and the Advertiser do just that. Harry Endo's character, Che Fong, was not a medical examiner. He was a forensics expert, crime scene analyst. The Medical Examiner most often seen in the twelve-year run of Hawaii Five-0, was Doc Bergman played by actor Al Eban.

We're not talking an editorial written thousands of miles away about an obscure show but the local newspaper reporting on the television show that portrayed Hawaii to people around the world for 12 seasons and was popular in syndication for many years afterwards. For chrissakes Five-0 repeats are still broadcast weekdays by a Honolulu television station. Someone at the Advertiser should have caught Nakaso's goof.

I'd give Dan Nakaso and the Honolulu Advertiser the Knucklehead, but someone might say it was in bad taste. The mistake in the Endo editorial is just another sign of how newspaper journalism is slipping. Five-0 is a legend in the Hawaiian Islands, and Che Fong was a popular character on the show, the Advertiser couldn't even do an article correctly about them.

Back to Endo and Five-0. The catch phrase 'Book em Danno' is one of the things most remembered about the television show. I'd wager fifty dollars, that if you tallied how many times those words were said and count how many times the words 'What do you have for me Che' were also spoken by Steve McGarret, that the Che line would come out on top. Since Five-0 is only available on DVD and only up to season five at present, I'll have to wait a few years before being able to do that vital research.

RIP Harry Endo.

Endo had made a commercial for Territorial Savings Bank and HonFed Bank when he was selected to play the character of Che Fong as one of the original cast members of "Hawaii 5-0," which ran from 1968 to 1980 — making it one of the longest-running police dramas in television history.

"He was such a nice guy," remembered Doug Mossman, 75, of Mililani, who played several bit parts on the show before evolving into the character of "5-0" detective Frank Kamana midway through its television run.

"One of the things about Harry is that he was very studious looking," Mossman said yesterday. "He looked like a business guy. He worked for Territorial Savings and had that look — glasses, very studious. But he was humorous and funny, a quiet kind of humor."

Endo's daughter, Leslie Baker, told The Associated Press that her father was born in Colorado but spent much of his life in Hawai'i. He served in the Army in Europe as a radio operator, the AP reported, and was married for more than 60 years.

"Hawaii 5-0" featured its star, Jack Lord, playing the role of Steve McGarrett, the head of a fictional, elite unit that reported directly to the governor. The show cemented the image of Hawai'i as a gorgeous and exotic, multiethnic destination to millions of television viewers who still remember Lord's catchphrase to his fictional second-in-command, Danny Williams: "Book 'em, Danno."

On the show, Endo portrayed "the all-encompassing forensic genius, who was supposed to know everything about everything," Mossman said. "The rest of us actors were very happy we didn't have to have his dialogue with all of those $12 words. I'd look at the script and say, 'I'm glad I'm not saying that.'

"There were times he'd be a little nervous about the line coming up and anybody else would be shaky, too. Because Jack (Lord) was a perfectionist who wanted you to get everything right, that was a double whammy pressure to get the line right — not just for the line's sake but for Jack's sake."

Endo's death on Friday at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital follows the passing of Lord, Kam (Chin Ho Kelly) Fong, Richard (the governor) Denning, Herman (Duke) Wedemeyer and Gilbert (Zulu) Kauhi, among other actors on the show.

Endo is survived by his wife, Myrtle; daughter Leslie Baker of Brooklyn; and Scott Endo of San Diego,

Author Michael Crichton dead at 66

He died of cancer yesterday. What was your favorite Crichton book? I admit not to reading all of them, The Andromeda Strain(Which BTW the 1971 version is on television as I type this post.) might be my choice. Disclosure would be at the other end. The AP article makes a goof and calls Crichton's 2004 novel State of Fear, State of Favor. Maybe Hillel Italie became unhinged due to the book's presentation of Global Warming. I doubt the error about how long a tsunami in the novel would take to reach the shore was caught by many people(besides me). The AP article did tell me Crichton was 6'9, something I didn't know.

Thank you for all the great books Michael Crichton and RIP.

Mildred Loving dead at age 68

41 years ago next month, Mildred and her husband Richard, won a landmark Supreme Court decision. The USSC in Loving vs. Virginia overturned the anti-miscegenation that made it illegal for the Lovings to be married in Virginia. See Mildred was black, and her husband Richard white.

Laws like that the one overturned in Virginia, weren't just confined to the South. California had a law banning Japanese from marrying non-Japanese. After World War II, the US military authorities through as many obstacles in the way of soldiers who married Japanese nationals. The movie and book 'Sayonara' wasn't fiction to some couples who had done nothing wrong, except for them falling in love with each other.

Times have changed. Back in the 1970's you'd see Phil Donahue regularly do a show on interracial couples and their children. Today people from different races are marrying in increasing numbers. True love is color blind.

My marriage is interracial. I'm white, my wife Leonita is Asian/Filipino. We met 20 years ago last March. Other than in the brief time Leonita was married to me and I was still serving in the Navy, we've never run into hostility or problems.(I was stationed at Subic Bay Philippines. Sailors who had Filipina wifes were sometimes assumed to have met while she was working as a bargirl in Olangapo. Leonita and I met at the base bowling alley. Her cousin Leni was married to a CPO, and she was the one to introduce us) The legal victory the Mildred and her husband won, not just made it legal for people like me and Leonita to marry, but helped change the way society viewed couples like us. Thank you Mildred and RIP.

One last note- This May 30th marks 19 years since Leonita and I got married. Speaking for myself, I fell in love with my wife not because of her skin color, but because Leonita was the most wonderful woman I have ever met. I wouldn't say her race is unimportant, Leonita's Filipino heritage which includes her strong faith in God, attracted me to her.

The Washington Post obituary for Mildred Loving is below the fold. It is mostly about the court decision. From what I read in the past, the Lovings were a private couple who didn't seek out the press very often. Richard Loving died in a 1975 auto accident.

Mildred Jeter Loving, 68, a black woman whose refusal to accept Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1967 that struck down similar laws across the country, died of pneumonia Friday at her home in Milford, Va.

The Loving v. Virginia decision overturned long-standing legal and social prohibitions against miscegenation in the United States. Celebrated at the time, the landmark case sunk to obscurity until a 1996 made-for-television movie and a 2004 book revived interest in how the young, small-town black and white couple changed history.

A modest homemaker, Loving never thought she had done anything extraordinary. "It wasn't my doing," Loving told the Associated Press in a rare interview a year ago. "It was God's work."

Today, according to the Census Bureau, there are 4.3 million interracial couples in the nation.

That wasn't true in 1958, when then-17-year-old Mildred Jeter and her childhood sweetheart, Richard Loving, a 23-year-old white construction worker, drove 90 miles north to marry in the District. Pretty and slender, she was known by her nickname, "Bean," and she was already pregnant with the first of their three children.

Loving later said she didn't realize that it was illegal for a black woman and a white man to wed, although her husband might have. "I think he thought [if] we were married, they couldn't bother us," she said.

Nevertheless, when they returned to Central Point, Va., between Richmond and Spotsylvania, to set up their home, someone called the law.

Caroline County Sheriff R. Garnett Brooks rousted them from their bed at 2 a.m. in July 1958 and told them the District's marriage certificate was no good in Virginia. He took them to jail and charged them with unlawful cohabitation. They pleaded guilty, and Caroline County Circuit Court Judge Leon M. Bazile sentenced them to a year's imprisonment, to be suspended if they left the state for the next 25 years.

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix," Bazile ruled.

The Lovings moved to Washington in 1959 and lived with one of her cousins on Neale Street NE. They didn't like urban life and yearned to return to their rural roots.

Five years later, while visiting her mother, they were arrested again for traveling together. Loving, who had been following the 1964 civil rights legislation, wrote a letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to find out if the new law would allow the couple to travel freely. The couple was referred to the American Civil Liberties Union and assigned an attorney, Bernard S. Cohen. "It was a terrible time in America," said Cohen, who was at Loving's home when she died. "Racism was ripe and this was the last de jure vestige of racism -- there was a lot of de facto racism, but this law was . . . the last on-the-books manifestation of slavery in America."

With fellow attorney Philip J. Hirschkop, Cohen took the case to the high court. Cohen said the couple didn't understand the importance of the case to anyone other than themselves. "When I told them I thought the case was going all the way to the Supreme Court, [Richard Loving's] jaw dropped. He didn't understand why I didn't go to Judge Bazile and tell him they loved each other and they should be allowed to live where they wished," said Cohen, now a retired state delegate from Alexandria.

On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared: "There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. . . . There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause."

At a news conference at their attorneys' offices, the Lovings seemed stunned.

"I feel free now. . . . It was a great burden," Mildred Loving quietly said, according to news articles.

She and her husband returned to Caroline County, where they both were born. He built their house, and the couple settled there. Richard Loving was killed in 1975 when a drunk driver struck their car. Mildred Loving, who was also in the car, lost her right eye in the collision.

A 1996 Showtime movie about the case, "Mr. and Mrs. Loving," told their story. "None of it was very true," she said in 2007. "The only part of it right was I had three children."

Phyl Newbeck, a Vermont lawyer, saw the movie and wanted to read more about it. No one had written a book, so she sought out Loving for interviews but ran into the same shyness others had encountered. "She was very quiet. She really didn't like to talk about herself," Newbeck said yesterday. Newbeck's book, "Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers," was published in 2004. "To her death, she never felt she had done anything noteworthy. She never considered herself a pioneer."

Others did. Loving's church, St. Stephens Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Va., gave her a certificate recognizing the trailblazing lawsuit.

"The preacher at my church classified me with Rosa Parks," she told The Washington Post in 1992. "I don't feel like that. Not at all. What happened, we really didn't intend for it to happen. What we wanted, we wanted to come home."

A son, Donald Loving, died in 2000.

Survivors include two children, Peggy Fortune of Central Point and Sidney Loving of Tappahannock, Va.; eight grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.

New York Met 'Sign Man', Karl Ehrhardt, dead at 83

Any knowledgeable NY Met fan from the 60's and 70's who who Karl was. I was to 10-12 Met games with my father between 1967-1975 before moving to Florida and Karl was a fixture at Shea then. Thanks Karl for cheering along with me and all the others who attended games at Shea. RIP.

The Queens man who became famous for holding up signs in the stands at Shea Stadium - praising or tweaking the Mets and their opponents - died last week.

Karl Ehrhardt, 83, who was better known as "the Sign Man," was found in his Queens home on Monday, said his daughter, Bonnie Troester. He had recently undergone surgery.

Ehrhardt, a former commercial artist, was a fixture at games between 1964 and 1981. After notable plays, he would hold up one of 60 signs he carted with him.

"Jose, Can You See?" was a favorite, held up from Ehrhardt's seat behind the third-base dugout whenever Jose Cardenal struck out.

Another regular was "It's Alive," announcing a breakthrough for a player who was in a slump.

His sign spoke volumes after the Mets' 1969 World Series victory: "There Are No Words."

"I just called them the way I saw them," he said in one interview.

Ehrhardt tossed out his cue cards and turned his back on the Mets in the early 1980s after a blowup with management, suddenly touchy in the midst of a prolonged spree of losing seasons.

However, he returned to the stadium in 2002 to help the Mets mark their 40th anniversary.

Former Congressman Henry Hyde dead at 83

Hyde will most likely be remembered for his abortion stance and his work on Bill Clinton's impreachment. Controversial stands, but Hyde was called by the Almanac of American Politics 'one of the most intellectually honest members of Congress.' You could agree or disagree with Hyde, but either way he was worthy of respect. RIP.

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WASHINGTON - Longtime Congressman Henry Hyde has died at the age of 83. The office of House Republican Leader John Boehner confirmed his death today.

The Illinois Republican steered the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton and championed government restrictions on the funding of abortions during a decades-long House career.

Hyde had represented his suburban Chicago district for 32 years before retiring last year.

He'd been recovering in a Wheaton hospital after heart surgery and couldn't make the trip to Washington, D.C. earlier this month when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Washington Redskin safety Sean Taylor dead at 24

He died from wounds suffered early Monday morning. No doubt, Taylor was a talented football player who had off the field problems. Lets try to remember him for the former rather than the later. RIP Sean. I hope police catch your killer.

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MIAMI - Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor died early Tuesday, a day after the Pro Bowl player was shot at home by what police say was an intruder. He was 24.

Family friend Richard Sharpstein said Taylor's father told him the news around 5:30 a.m.

"His father called and said he was with Christ and he cried and thanked me," said Sharpstein, Taylor's former lawyer. "It's a tremendously sad and unnecessary event. He was a wonderful, humble, talented young man, and had a huge life in front of him. Obviously God had other plans."

Taylor died at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he had been airlifted after the shooting early Monday, Sharpstein said.

Two carloads of mourners, including Taylor's father, arrived at the house Tuesday morning. They remained inside and did not speak to reporters. A single bouquet of flowers was left by a palm tree just outside a front gate. Beside the mailbox, an untouched newspaper lay with news of Taylor's shooting.

Doctors had been encouraged late Monday when Taylor squeezed a nurse's hand, according to Vinny Cerrato, the Redskins' vice president of football operations. But Sharpstein said he was told Taylor never regained consciousness after being transported to the hospital and that he wasn't sure how he had squeezed the nurse's hand.

"Maybe he was trying to say goodbye or something," Sharpstein said.

Taylor, the fifth overall pick in the 2004 NFL draft following an All-American season at the University of Miami, was shot early Monday in the upper leg, damaging an artery and causing significant blood loss.

"According to a preliminary investigation, it appears that the victim was shot inside the home by an intruder," Miami-Dade County police said in a statement.

But police were still investigating the attack, which came just eight days after an intruder was reported at Taylor's home. Officers were sent to the home about 1:45 a.m. Monday after Taylor's girlfriend called 911.

Sharpstein said Taylor's girlfriend told him the couple was awakened by loud noises, and Taylor grabbed a machete he keeps in the bedroom for protection. Someone then broke through the bedroom door and fired two shots, one missing and one hitting Taylor, Sharpstein said. Taylor's 1-year-old daughter, Jackie, was also in the house, but neither she nor Taylor's girlfriend were injured.

Police found signs of forced entry, but have not determined if they were caused Monday, or the previous burglary.

The shooting happened in the pale yellow house he bought two years ago. Eight days before the attack someone pried open a front window, rifled through drawers and left a kitchen knife on a bed at Taylor's home, according to police.

"They're really sifting through that incident and today's incident," Miami-Dade Detective Mario Rachid said, "to see if there's any correlation."

Born April 1, 1983, Taylor starred as a running back and defensive back at Gulliver Prep in Miami. His father, Pedro Taylor, is police chief of Florida City.

A private man with a small inner circle, Taylor rarely granted interviews. But, behind the scenes, Taylor was described as personable and smart — an emerging locker room leader.

"From the first day I met him, from then to now, it's just like night and day," Redskins receiver James Thrash said Monday. "He's really got his head on his shoulders and has been doing really well as far as just being a man. It's been awesome to see that growth."

After Taylor was drafted, problems soon began. Taylor fired his agent, then skipped part of the NFL's mandatory rookie symposium, drawing a $25,000 fine. Driving home late from a party during the season, he was pulled over and charged with drunken driving. The case was dismissed in court, but by then it had become a months-long distraction for the Redskins.

Taylor also was fined at least seven times for late hits, uniform violations and other infractions over his first three seasons, including a $17,000 penalty for spitting in the face of Tampa Bay running back Michael Pittman during a 2006 playoff game.

Meanwhile, Taylor endured a yearlong legal battle after he was accused in 2005 of brandishing a gun at a man during a fight over allegedly stolen all-terrain vehicles near Taylor's home. He eventually pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to 18 months' probation.

Taylor said the end of the assault case was like "a gray cloud" being lifted. It was also around the time that his daughter was born, and teammates noticed a change.

"It's hard to expect a man to grow up overnight," said teammate and close friend Clinton Portis, who played with Taylor at Miami. "But ever since he had his child, it was like a new Sean, and everybody around here knew it. He was always smiling, always happy, always talking about his child."

On the field, Taylor's play was often erratic. Assistant coach Gregg Williams frequently called Taylor the best athlete he'd ever coached, but nearly every big play was mitigated by a blown assignment. Taylor led the NFL in missed tackles in 2006 yet made the Pro Bowl because of his reputation as one of the hardest hitters in the league.

This year, however, Taylor was allowed to play a true free safety position, using his speed and power to chase down passes and crush would-be receivers. His five interceptions tie for the league lead in the NFC, even though he missed the last two games because of a sprained knee.

"I just take this job very seriously," Taylor said in a rare group interview during training camp. "It's almost like, you play a kid's game for a king's ransom. And if you don't take it serious enough, eventually one day you're going to say, 'Oh, I could have done this, I could have done that.'

"So I just say, 'I'm healthy right now, I'm going into my fourth year, and why not do the best that I can?' And that's whatever it is, whether it's eating right or training myself right, whether it's studying harder, whatever I can do to better myself."

Harness racing driver Joe Hennessey dead at 82

I can not recall ever seeing Joe race, but his son Walter drove many races I attended at Pompano Park here in Florida. Wally is in the Hall of Fame, and I'm sure his father Joe is a great part of why he made it. RIP.

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Joe Hennessey, the father of Hall of Fame driver Wally Hennessey, died Monday in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island at the age of 82. Mr. Hennessey was the patriarch of one of the province’s most well-known harness racing families.

Mr. Hennessey drove his first winner in 1943 at Summerside Raceway, directing his father Wal’s horse Dale H to a 4-2-1 summary finish, with the 2:11 victory being the fastest on the race card that day. He went on to drive 923 winners over his career.

Included among Mr. Hennessey’s more well-known horses were Royal At Law, Cheeky Chief, Dominion Byrd, My Darling, John Willie Bob and Callie Hal. Along the way he also helped many young horsemen get their starts in the business, including Ralph (Bo) Shepherd, Jack Pound, Joe Arsenault, Bert McWade, Lorne Hennessey, Maurice Hennessey and Lloyd Duffy.

Mr. Hennnessey was also instrumental in the careers of his sons, which included Danny, Jody and Gordie, besides Wally.

Mr. Hennessey is survived by his wife, Shirley, and 10 children.

Former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Boyd dead at 90

Boyd retired in 1986 and served most of his time on the bench when I was either 1- Not a resident of Florida or 2- too young to vote. So all I know of the late Chief Justice comes from the article below. From what I read he had an interesting career, which included his having a mental exam to avoid impeachment. I could say the seven current members of the State Supreme Court have proven more than once their need of a mental exam. LOL. Former Justice Boyd died yesterday in Tallahassee. RIP.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Retired Florida Chief Justice Joseph A. Boyd Jr., who wanted to be remembered for his dissents that later became the law of the land but avoided impeachment by passing a mental exam, died Friday. He was 90.

The state Supreme Court confirmed Boyd died at his Tallahassee home. Gov. Charlie Crist ordered that state and local government agency flags be flown at half staff in his memory through sunset Monday.

Boyd served 18 years on the Supreme Court through 1987. He was chief justice from mid-1984 through mid-1986. Before he was elected to the high court, he served as a Miami-Dade County commissioner and as the county's vice mayor.

Arthur England, another retired chief justice who served with Boyd, recalled him as being an affable colleague who liked to tell stories, sometimes quoted the Bible in opinions and was concerned about how the high court's rulings would affect "real people."

"Joe was not an easy person to forget," England said from his Miami law office. "He always cared about people and thought about them."

Boyd was reprimanded by his fellow justices in the mid-1970s for accepting a secret draft opinion from utility company lawyers. Boyd asserted that he tore up the draft and flushed it down a toilet.

The Florida House also investigated but declined to impeach Boyd in 1975 after he agreed to take a psychiatric exam.

"He turned that into humor," England recalled. "He used to say he was the only one certified sane on the Supreme Court."

While Boyd remained on the bench, two other justices, Hal Dekle and David McCain, resigned the same year after also being accused of ethical violations. Dekle, too, had been accused of receiving the secret draft and allegedly used it in the opinion he wrote.

Boyd, though, was passed over for chief justice at least once because of the scandal. The office is rotated every other year to the most senior justice who has not yet held the position.

When Boyd retired, he said he would like most to be remembered for his dissents to opinions that later were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In one case he disagreed with the majority justices who had ordered The Miami Herald to give equal access on its editorial pages to a political candidate. The federal justices, though, agreed with Boyd and ruled that would violate the First Amendment's free press guarantees.

Boyd, a former Bible salesman, once used biblical logic in dissenting from a ruling that upheld Florida's vagrancy law. He later said he figured that if Jerusalem had such a law, all the prophets, New and Old Testament, would have been jailed. The U.S. Supreme Court again agreed with him and struck down the vagrancy law.

Reared on a farm in Hoschton, Ga., Boyd served in the Marine Corps during World War II and worked his way through the University of Miami law school as a Fuller brush salesman.

Boyd is survived by his wife, Ann, and four adult children. Funeral services are set for Monday at the First Baptist Church in Tallahassee.

Actress Deborah Kerr dead at age 86

Her most famous role may have been in "From Here to Eternity". My personal favorites were "The King and I"(Yes her singing role was dubbed but that doesn't mean you can't like Kerr's portrayal) and "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison". Deborah Kerr's acting brought much enjoyment to movie fans. She died Tuesday in England. RIP.

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LONDON (Oct. 18) - Deborah Kerr , who shared one of Hollywood's most famous kisses and made her mark with such roles as the correct widow in "The King and I" and the unhappy officer's wife in "From Here to Eternity," has died. She was 86.

Kerr, who suffered from Parkinson's disease, died Tuesday in Suffolk in eastern England, her agent, Anne Hutton, said Thursday.

For many she will be remembered best for her kiss with Burt Lancaster as waves crashed over them on a Hawaiian beach in the wartime drama "From Here to Eternity."

Kerr's roles as forceful, sometimes frustrated women pushed the limits of Hollywood's treatment of sex on the screen during the censor-bound 1950s.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated Kerr a six times for best actress, but never gave her an Academy Award until it presented an honorary Oscar in 1994 for her distinguished career as an "artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance."

She had the reputation of a "no problem" actress.

"I have never had a fight with any director, good or bad," she said toward the end of her career. "There is a way around everything if you are smart enough."

Kerr (pronounced CARR) was the only daughter of Arthur Kerr-Trimmer, a civil engineer and architect who died when she was 14.

Born in Helensburgh, Scotland, she moved with her parents to England when she was 5, and she started to study dance in the Bristol school of her aunt, Phyllis Smale.

Kerr won a scholarship to continue studying at the Sadler's Wells Ballet School in London. A 17 she made her stage debut as a member of the corps de ballet in "Prometheus."

She soon switched to drama, however, and began playing small parts in repertory theater in London until it was shut down by the 1939 outbreak of World War II.

After reading children's stories on British Broadcasting Corp. radio, she was given the part of a hatcheck girl with two lines in the film "Contraband," but her speaking role ended on the cutting-room floor.

After more repertory acting she had another crack at films, reprising her stage role of Jenny, a Salvation Army worker, in a 1940 adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara," and receiving favorable reviews both in Britain and the United States.

She continued making films in Britain during the war, including one - "Colonel Blimp" - in which she played three different women over a span of decades.

"It is astonishing how she manages to make the three parts distinctly separate as characterizations," said New Movies magazine at the time.

Kerr was well-reviewed as an Irish spy in "The Adventuress" and as the tragic girlfriend of a Welsh miner in "Love on the Dole."

She was invited to Hollywood in 1946 to play in "The Hucksters" opposite Clark Gable . She went on to work with virtually all the other top American actors and with many top directors, including John Huston, Otto Preminger and Elia Kazan .

Tired of being typecast in serene, ladylike roles, she rebelled to win a release from her MGM contract and get the role of Karen Holmes in "From Here to Eternity."

Playing the Army officer's alcoholic, sex-starved wife in a fling with Lancaster as a sergeant opened up new possibilities for Kerr.

She played virtually every part imaginable from murderer to princess to a Roman Christian slave to a nun.

In "The King and I," with her singing voice dubbed by Marni Nixon, she was Anna Leonowens, who takes her son to Siam so that she can teach the children of the king, played by Yul Brynner .

Her best-actress nominations were for "Edward, My Son" (1949), "From Here to Eternity" (1953), "The King and I" (1956), "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" (1957), "Separate Tables" (1958), and "The Sundowners" (1960).

Among her other movies is "An Affair to Remember" with Cary Grant .

Other notable roles were in "The Sundowners," "Beloved Infidel," "The Innocents" (an adaptation of the Henry James novella "Turn of the Screw"), "The Night of the Iguana" with Richard Burton and "The Arrangement" with Kirk Douglas .

After "The Arrangement" in 1968, she took what she called a "leave of absence" from acting, saying she felt she was "either too young or too old" for any role she was offered.

Kerr told The Associated Press that she turned down a number of scripts, either for being too explicit or because of excessive violence.

She refused to play a nude scene in "The Gypsy Moths," released in 1968. "It was when they started that `Now everybody has got to take their clothes off,"' she said. "My argument was that it was completely gratuitous. Had it been necessary for the dramatic content, I would have done it."

In fact she undressed for "The Arrangement," even though the scene was later cut. "There the nude scene was necessary, husband and wife in bed together," Kerr said. "That was real."

She returned to the stage, acting in Edward Albee's "Seascape" on Broadway and "Long Day's Journey Into Night" in Los Angeles.

Her Broadway debut was in 1953, when she was acclaimed as Laura Reynolds, a teacher's wife who treats a sensitive student compassionately in "Tea and Sympathy."

After a full season in New York, she took it on a national tour and recreated the role in a movie in 1956.

Kerr was active until the mid-1980s, with "The Assam Garden," "Hold the Dream" and "Reunion at Fairborough" all in 1985.

Actress Lois Maxwell dead at Age 80

She played Miss Moneypenny in 14 James Bond films up to 1985. I was and still am a big James Bond fan. Right now I am at a loss for my favorite Moneypenny quote. Instead maybe it was this exchange from Diamonds are Forever.

James Bond: What can I bring you back from Holland?
Miss Moneypenny: A diamond? In a ring?
James Bond: Would you settle for a tulip?
>Miss Moneypenny: Mm, yes.

Poor Miss Moneypenny never getting signs of affection like the other women in the films. Born in Canada, Ms. Maxwell died in an Australian hospital Saturday. RIP.

LONDON (AP) — Lois Maxwell, who starred as Miss Moneypenny in 14 James Bond movies, has died, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Sunday. She was 80.

The Canadian-born actress starred alongside Sean Connery in the first James Bond movie, "Dr. No," in 1962 as the secretary to M, the head of the secret service.

She died Saturday night at Fremantle Hospital near her home in Perth, Australia, the BBC cited a hospital official as saying.

Bond star Roger Moore said she was suffering from cancer.

"It's rather a shock," Moore, who had known her since they were students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1944, told BBC radio.

"She was always fun and she was wonderful to be with," he said.

Born Lois Hooker in Ontario, Canada, in 1927, she began her acting on radio before moving to Britain with the Entertainment Corps of the Canadian army at the age of 15, the BBC said.

In the late 1940s, she moved to Hollywood and won a Golden Globe for her part in the Shirley Temple comedy "That Hagen Girl."

After working in Italy, she returned to Britain in the mid-1950s.

In addition to her 14 appearances as Miss Moneypenny, she also acted in Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" and worked on TV shows including "The Saint," "The Baron, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)," and "The Persuaders!," the BBC said.

She was 58 when she appeared in her final Bond film, 1985's "A View To A Kill." She was replaced by 26-year-old Caroline Bliss for "The Living Daylights."

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Florida the rules are different here Chapter CXLIX

From Sports Illustrated-

LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) -- Bill Henry, who pitched in the majors for more than 15 seasons, has died. He was 83.

Henry died Aug. 27 at Lakeland Regional Medical Center, two days after he suffered a heart attack, his stepdaughter Debbie Lee said.

Born William Rodman Henry in Alice, Texas, the left-hander made his major-league debut in 1952 with the Boston Red Sox. Henry later pitched for the Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants before ending his career in 1969 with the Houston Astros.

Henry had a career record of 46-50 and pitched in two 1961 World Series games with the Reds.

Since I was born in 1961, my memories of Henry come from playing past seasons with the baseball games made by Strat-O-Matic. Bill Henry, a left-handed relief pitcher, wasn't really one of those one out lefty relief specialists we see today. In Henry's most productive years, from 59-62 he averaged over an inning per relief appearance. Even two innings per game in 1959. For 1961, he was the Reds number two man coming out of the bullpen when they went to the World Series. Henry and Jim Brosnan saving the same amount of the games(16), but with Brosnan having the heavier inning work load of the two.

What did Mark Twain once say, the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. That applies to Bill Henry. From today's Miami Herald.

They lived 961 miles apart and never met.

One was a retired salesman living in Central Florida. The other, a big-league ballplayer who pitched in the 1961 World Series before settling down outside Houston.

All they shared was a common name, a square jawline and an affection for baseball.

But for 20 years, Bill C. Henry the salesman purported to be Bill R. Henry the baseball player. His wife and friends believed him -- they had no reason not to -- and the guy he pretended to be was none the wiser.

Until last week, when the 83-year-old former salesman died of a heart attack in Lakeland. Newspapers across the country ran obituaries announcing the death of the left-handed pitcher, recounting highlights of his 16-season career.

But that Bill Henry is still very much alive.

''I've been right here this whole time,'' Henry, 79, said Thursday night from his home in Deer Park, Texas. ``It was kind of a shock to hear people say they thought I was dead.''

A baseball historian read an obituary for the Lakeland man and noticed the birth dates and hometowns listed were different than what was on his Bill Henry memorabilia. The historian called Henry in Texas, who confirmed he was still living.

I'm glad you're still alive Bill. People impersonating former major league relief pitchers. Isn't this a great state or what?

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Reverend James Kennedy dead at 76

While I've known his name and face for years, I only caught brief glimpses of Rev. Kennedy on television. He always appeared to be an honorable man to me who preached the word of God. The Pastor died this morning after retiring just last month. RIP.

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FORT LAUDERDALE -- - Conservative leader the Rev. D. James Kennedy died Wednesday morning, sources at his Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church reported today.

The pastor died "peacefully, in his sleep, at home" around 3 a.m., according to the Rev. Ronald Siegenthaler, executive minister at the 10,000-member church. By his side was Anne, his wife of five decades.

Kennedy, who also founded a broadcast ministry, a seminary and an annual series of conservative conferences, suffered multiple complications ever since Dec. 28, when he suffered arrhythmia and cardiac arrest. He never fully recovered, despite a rigorous regimen of physical therapy in Florida and Michigan.

His retirement was announced Aug. 26 by his daughter, Jennifer, who spoke at a joint gathering of all three Sunday services. The church also announced plans for a tribute to Kennedy's life and career, set for 11 a.m. on Sept. 23.

Former Masters Champ Gay Brewer dead at 75

I remember watching Brewer play when the Seniors Tour was first beginning. His swing wasn't pretty(I think Dave Hill said it looked like Gay was trying to kill snakes. Or was it my father who said that?) but it got the job done. Eleven tour titles and one major ranks as a successful PGA career in my book. RIP.

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LEXINGTON, Ky. - Gay Brewer, the 1967 Masters champion who won 11 times on the PGA Tour, died Friday at his home after a fight with lung cancer. He was 75.

Brewer, who also won once on the Champions Tour before retiring in 2000, had been battling cancer since October, fiancee Alma Jo McGuire said.

"It was incurable," she said. "It was easier on him and the family that it didn't go any longer than it did."

Brewer won the 1967 Masters for his lone major title a year after he lost an 18-hole playoff to Jack Nicklaus after three-putting the 72nd hole.

"Personally, I could not have been happier for a fellow player when Gay won the Masters in 1967," Nicklaus said. "A year earlier, Gay was playing arguably the most solid golf of anyone at Augusta, and I was fortunate to get into a Monday playoff with him and Tommy Jacobs. Gay had a tough day in the playoff, and although I was delighted to win, I felt badly for him. For Gay to come back the next year and win a green jacket was fitting for such a tremendous person and a darn good player. Around that time, Gay was as good as there was."

Nicklaus first met Brewer during their amateur days.

"What I remember most about Gay is his sense of humor and the kidding he always enjoyed doing," Nicklaus said. "He always had a joke. Gay was just a fun-loving guy and you always looked forward to being around him. One thing you had to do around Gay was to protect your clubs. Gay would walk up to you, look inside your bag, and say, 'Hey, that's a great-looking club. Can I try it?' If he did, there was a good chance he would never return it. Gay must have had the largest collection of borrowed clubs anyone's ever seen. Gay was just a great guy who was great fun to be around."

Brewer made his last appearance in the Masters in 2001.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of Gay Brewer," said Billy Payne, chairman of the Masters and Augusta National Golf Club. "Gay was a wonderful champion and individual and will be dearly missed in April. We express our heartfelt sympathy to his family."

In June, Picadome Golf Course in Lexington, where Brewer learned to play, changed its name to honor him. Brewer played college golf at the University of Kentucky.

"He was just really personable," McGuire said. "I don't know anybody who didn't like him."

Brewer is survived by daughters Kelly Allen and Erin Provence and four grandchildren. McGuire said services would be Wednesday at Kerr Brothers Funeral Home in Lexington.

"Gay was great," Tiger Woods said at the Deutsche Bank Championship. "Man, he told more stories and was just incredible to be around."

Jim Thorpe and other Champions Tour players remembered Brewer's unique swing.

"He was a great player in his day," he Thorpe said at the Champions Tour event at Pebble Beach. "Some people just can't be replaced and he was one of those guys. He was like the Sam Sneads and the (Ben) Hogans of the world. He was one of those guys who had a little bit of an unorthodox swing and that sort of stuff, but it worked for him."

Baseball Hall of Famer Phil Rizzuto dead at 89

He played shortstop entirely for the New York Yankees from 1941-1956. During that time Rizzuto won an MVP award, played in five All-Star games and was a vital part of nine World Series teams. In between all of this, Phil Rizzuto spent three years(43-45) serving in the military during WWII.

After his playing career was over, Phil was an announcer for the Yankees for many years. Having grown up in New York, I remember Rizutto very well even if I was and still am a New York Met fan. I'd sometimes watch Yankee games on WPIX Channel 11 till my family moved to Florida in 1976. Rizzuto died today in New Jersey. RIP.

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NEW YORK - Phil Rizzuto, the Hall of Fame shortstop during the Yankees' dynasty years and beloved by a generation of fans for exclaiming "Holy cow!" as a broadcaster, died Tuesday. He was 89.

His death was confirmed by the Yankees. Rizzuto had been in declining health for several years and was living at a nursing home in West Orange, N.J.

Rizzuto, known as "The Scooter," was the oldest living Hall of Famer. He played for the Yankees throughout the 1940s and '50s, won seven World Series titles and played in five All-star games.

Rizzuto was a flashy, diminutive player who could always be counted on for a perfect bunt, a nice slide or a diving catch in a lineup better known for its cornerstone sluggers. He played for 13 seasons alongside the likes of Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.

He stood just 5-foot-6 but was equipped with a productive bat, sure hands and quick feet that earned him his nickname. A leadoff man, Rizzuto was a superb bunter, used to good advantage by the Yankee teams that won 11 pennants and nine World Series between 1941 and 1956.

Rizzuto tried out with the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants when he was 16, but because of his size was dismissed by Dodgers manager Casey Stengel, who told him to "Go get a shoeshine box." He went on to become one of Stengel's most dependable players.

A Rizzuto bunt, a steal and a DiMaggio hit made up the scoring trademark of the Yankees' golden era, and he played errorless ball in 21 consecutive World Series games. DiMaggio said the shortstop "held the team together."

Rizzuto came to the Yankees in 1941 and batted .307 as a rookie, and his career was interrupted by a stint in the Navy during World War II. He returned in 1946 and four years later became the American League MVP. He batted .324 that season with a slugging percentage of .439 and 200 hits, second most in the league. He also went 58 games without an error, making 288 straight plays.

He led all AL shortstops in double plays three times and had a career batting average of .273 with at least a .930 fielding percentage. He played in five All-Star games.

After the Yankees released him in 1956, Rizzuto began a second career as a broadcaster, one for which he became at least equally well known.

In his decades on the radio and TV, Rizzuto's favorite phrase was "Holy cow!" It became so common, the team presented him with a cow wearing a halo when they held a day in his honor in 1985. The cow knocked Rizzuto over and, of course, he shouted, "Holy cow!"

"That thing really hurt," he said. "That big thing stepped right on my shoe and pushed me backwards, like a karate move."

Yankee fans also loved his unusual commentary. In an age of broadcasters who spout statistics and repeat the obvious, Rizzuto delighted in talking about things like his fear of lightning, the style of an umpire's shoes or even the prospect of outfielder Dave Winfield as a candidate for president.

He liked to acknowledge birthdays and anniversaries, read notes from fans, praised the baked delicacies at his favorite restaurant and send messages to old cronies. And if he missed a play, he would scribble "ww" in his scorecard box score. That, he said, meant "wasn't watching."

Despite his qualifications, Rizzuto was passed over for the Hall of Fame 15 times by the writers and 11 times by the old-timers committee. Finally, a persuasive speech by Ted Williams pushed Rizzuto into Cooperstown in 1994.

Williams, a member of the committee, argued that Rizzuto was the man who made the difference between the Yankees and his Red Sox. He was fond of saying, "If we'd had Rizzuto in Boston, we'd have won all those pennants instead of New York."

As in his playing days, Rizzuto was overshadowed by the headliners, teammates like DiMaggio, Mantle, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra. All of them reached the Hall of Fame before he did.

"I never thought I deserved to be in the Hall of Fame," Rizzuto would say. "The Hall of Fame is for the big guys, pitchers with 100 mph fastballs and hitters who sock homers and drive in a lot of runs. That's the way it always has been and the way it should be."

Old-timers still talk about his suicide squeeze in the ninth inning during the 1951 pennant race to score DiMaggio, beating Cleveland 2-1 and putting the Yankees in first place for the rest of the season.

Rizzuto remembers Aug. 25, 1956, as a day he thought was the "end of the world," the day Stengel released him to make room for clutch-hitting Enos Slaughter in the pennant drive.

"It was Old-Timers Day, and I was out taking pictures, as I did every year," Rizzuto remembered. "The bat boy came over and told me that Casey Stengel and George Weiss wanted to see me in Stengel's office. It was the last day to add a player to the roster and have him eligible for the World Series. We were trading for Enos Slaughter because Stengel said we needed another outfielder, so we had to send someone down to make room on the roster.

"They asked me to read through the list of players and to check each player's eligibility, to see who we could let go," he said. "I sat there thinking that I was a veteran and they wanted my opinion. As we read through the list I pointed out a few players who I thought could be sent down, a pitcher we had hardly used and a catcher who had been in only nine games. But each time they said, 'No, we might need him.' We started to go through the list a second time, and then half way through it dawned on me."

"The Scooter" was done.

Rizzuto is survived by his wife, the former Cora Anne Esselborn, whom he married in 1943; daughters Cindy Rizzuto, Patricia Rizzuto and Penny Rizzuto Yetto; son Phil Rizzuto Jr.; and two granddaughters.

Former French Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger dead at age 80

Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger's personal story was fascinating. He was a convert from Judaism, whose mother died in the German concentration camp Auschwitz. Having visited Auschwitz myself in 2000, I agree with the Cardinal's assessment of the place. Sixty years later death still hangs in the air at the concentration camp. The former Cardinal died of cancer on Sunday. RIP.

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Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, who was the son of a Holocaust victim and converted from Judaism to become France's most influential Catholic of recent decades, has died, church officials said today.

The 80-year-old bishop, whose Polish immigrant mother was killed at Auschwitz, died yesterday at a hospice in Paris, the archbishop of Paris's office said in a statement. He had been gravely ill for some months.

Born Aaron Lustiger in Paris in 1926, the cardinal converted to Catholicism at the age of 14 after being sent with his sister to the city of Orléans, south of Paris, to escape the occupying Nazis.

After ordination, in 1954, he rose to become archbishop of Paris, a post he held for 24 years before stepping down in 2005. In this role, he was the public face of the church in predominantly Catholic France, as well as a leading figure in interfaith relations.

A confidant of the late Pope John Paul II, whom he was at one point mooted to succeed, Cardinal Lustiger represented the pontiff at ceremonies in January 2005 marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

His mother's death was a subject the cardinal preferred to avoid. "I don't want to return, because it is a place of death and destruction," he told reporters at Auschwitz. "If I am going, it is because the Pope asked me."

Another rare public acknowledgement of his family history came in 1989, on France's national day of remembrance, when the cardinal took part in a reading of the names of French Jews killed during the war. When he came to that of Gisele Lustiger, he said, "my mother", and continued with the list.

He was also private about his conversion to Catholicism, but he did say in one collection of writings that this was never a source of anguish to him.

"Christianity is the fruit of Judaism," he said in The Choice of God, a book of conversations published in 1987. "For me, it was never for an instant a question of denying my Jewish identity. On the contrary."

Cardinal Lustiger announced in April 2007 that he was being treated for a "grave illness" at a Paris hospice.

A funeral mass will be said for him this Friday at the city's Notre Dame cathedral.

Former NFL Coach Bill Walsh dead at 75

He was an NFL coaching legend.

SAN FRANCISCO - Bill Walsh, the groundbreaking football coach who won three Super Bowls and perfected the ingenious schemes that became known as the West Coast offense during a Hall of Fame career with the San Francisco 49ers, has died. He was 75.

Walsh died at his Bay Area home early Monday following a long battle with leukemia, according to Stanford University, where he served as coach and athletic director.

Walsh didn't become an NFL head coach until 47, and he spent just 10 seasons on the San Francisco sideline. But he left an indelible mark on the United States' most popular sport, building the once-woebegone 49ers into the most successful team of the 1980s with his innovative offensive strategies and teaching techniques.

The soft-spoken native Californian also produced a legion of coaching disciples that's still growing today. Many of his former assistants went on to lead their own teams, handing down Walsh's methods and schemes to dozens more coaches in a tree with innumerable branches.

Walsh went 102-63-1 with the 49ers, winning 10 of his 14 postseason games along with six division titles. He was named the NFL's coach of the year in 1981 and 1984.

I got to see the first of Walsh's three Super Bowl wins in person. My father knowing Cincinnati Browns owner Paul Brown's brother-in-law(Ironically Walsh was an assistant under Brown once), who when not able to go to the game, gave the tickets to Dad instead. The game, a 26-20 49er win, was a pretty good one so far as the Super Bowl is concerned.

Walsh also coached at Stanford in addition to supplying the NFL with a large number of head and assistant coaches. Many of whom are still working today. Bill Walsh will still leave his mark on Pro football even after his passing. RIP.

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