James Joseph Gandolfini, Jr. (September 18, 1961-June 19, 2013)

James Joseph Gandolfini, Jr. was an American actor best known for his role in The Sopranos as Tony Soprano, a troubled crime boss.

Early life
Gandolfini was born in Westwood, New Jersey. His mother, Santa, a high school lunch lady, was born in the USA of Italian ancestry and raised in Naples, Italy. His father, James Joseph Gandolfini, Sr., a native of Borgotaro, Italy, was a bricklayer and cement mason and was later the head custodian at Paramus Catholic High School in New Jersey. James, Sr. earned a Purple Heart in World War II. Gandolfini's parents were devout Roman Catholics and spoke Italian at home. Due to the influence of his parents, he developed a strong sense of being Italian and visited Italy regularly.

He grew up in Park Ridge, New Jersey and graduated from Park Ridge High School in 1979, where he played basketball, acted in school plays, and was awarded the title "Class Flirt" in his senior yearbook. He attained a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication studies from Rutgers University. He was introduced to acting as a young man living in New York City when he accompanied friend Roger Bart to a Meisner technique acting class.

CAREER

The Sopranos
Gandolfini's most acclaimed role was that of Tony Soprano, a New Jersey Mafia boss and family man who was the lead character in the HBO drama The Sopranos, which debuted in 1999 and ran through 2007. He won three Emmys for "Best Actor in a Drama" for his depiction of Soprano, who constantly questions his identity and purpose. Entertainment Weekly listed him as the 42nd Greatest TV Icon of All Time.

Film and stage work
Gandolfini performed in a 1992 Broadway production of On the Waterfront for six weeks. One of his best-known film roles was that of Virgil, a brutal woman-beating mob enforcer, in the 1993 romantic thriller True Romance. Gandolfini said that one of his major inspirations for the role of Virgil, in True Romance, was an old friend of his who was a hitman. In the 1994 film Terminal Velocity, Gandolfini played Ben Pinkwater, a seemingly mild-mannered insurance man who turns out to be a violent Russian mobster. In Get Shorty (1995), he appeared as a bearded ex-stuntman with a Southern accent, and in The Juror (1996), he played a mob enforcer with a conscience. He played the Mayor of New York in the 2009 remake of The Taking of Pelham 123. Gandolfini returned to HBO in 2007 as the executive producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary special, Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq, his first project after The Sopranos and the first production for his company Attaboy Films, which was opened in 2006 with producing partner Alexandra Ryan. He returned to the stage in 2009, appearing in Broadway's God of Carnage with Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels. He was executive producer of the 2012 HBO film about Ernest Hemingway and his relationship with Martha Gellhorn, titled Hemingway & Gellhorn, starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman. Gandolfini reunited with Sopranos creator David Chase for Not Fade Away (2012), a music-driven production set in 1960s New Jersey.

Alive Day: Home from Iraq
Gandolfini and Tony Sirico visit with a member of the U.S. Air Force during a USO visit to Southwest Asia, March 31, 2010. In 2007, Gandolfini produced a documentary with HBO focused on injured Iraq War veterans and their devotion to America, while surveying the physical and emotional costs of war. Ten surviving soldiers were interviewed by Gandolfini, who revealed their thoughts on the challenges they face integrating back into society and family life. They also reflected on the memories of the day when they narrowly escaped death, and what life may have been like in other circumstances.

Wartorn: 1861–2010
In 2010, Gandolfini produced another documentary with HBO, which analyzed the effects of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) throughout American history, from 1861 to 2010. It featured interviews with American military officials on their views of PTSD and how they are trying to help soldiers affected by it. Letters from soldiers of the American Civil War and World War I who were affected by PTSD are examined, along with interviews with soldiers affected by PTSD and their families.

Death and reaction
Gandolfini died on June 19, 2013, during a brief vacation in Rome, Italy. He was expected to travel to Sicily on June 22 to receive an award at the Taormina Film Fest. Following a day of sightseeing in Rome in sweltering heat, Gandolfini's 13-year-old son Michael discovered him around 10 pm local time on the bathroom floor at the Boscolo Exedra Hotel in Rome's Piazza della Repubblica. Michael called hotel reception, who in turn called emergency paramedics. Ambulance staff arrived around 10:40 pm and attempted to resuscitate Gandolfini, who was reportedly still alive at the hotel but subsequently died en route to the hospital. An autopsy on Gandolfini confirmed that he had died of a heart attack.

Word of his death spread among Gandolfini's friends, former co-stars, and fans. Politicans such as John McCain and Chris Christie took to the Internet to respond to his death. Christie ordered all New Jersey State buildings to fly flags at half staff on June 24, to honor Gandolfini when his remains return to the United States. The day following his death, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which features Gandolfini's Sopranos co-star Steven Van Zandt on guitar, gave a full album performance of their 1975 classic Born to Run and dedicated it to Gandolfini.

Gandolfini's body was returned to the United States on June 23. His family spokesman, Michael Kobold, thanked Italian authorities for expediting the repatriation process, which normally takes 7 full days. His funeral service will be held on Thursday, June 27, at the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in Morningside Heights, New York City.

Ernest Borgnine, born Ermes Effron Borgnino (January 24, 1917 – July 8, 2012)

(CNN) -- Film and television actor Ernest Borgnine, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a lovelorn butcher in 1955's "Marty," has died at age 95, his manager said Sunday.

The thick-set, gap-toothed Borgnine built a reputation for playing heavies in early films like "From Here to Eternity" and "Bad Day at Black Rock." But he turned that reputation on its head as the shy, homely title character in "Marty," taking home the Oscar for best actor -- one of four awards the film claimed.

His manager, Lynda Bensky, said Borgnine died of kidney failure Sunday afternoon. His wife, Tova, and children were at his side at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, she said. "It's a very sad day," Bensky said. "The industry has lost someone great, the caliber of which we will never see again. A true icon. But more importantly, the world has lost a sage and loving man who taught us all how to 'grow young.' His infectious smile and chuckle made the world a happier place."

Born in Connecticut to Italian immigrants, Borgnine -- originally Ermes Effron Borgnino -- began taking theater classes after serving in the Navy during World War II. He had joined the service after graduating from high school during the Great Depression and had been discharged in 1941, but re-enlisted after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor launched the United States into World War II.

He made the move to films and then television in 1951, racking up more than 200 credits in projects ranging from the era of live television drama to the children's cartoon "SpongeBob SquarePants." He starred in the 1962-66 sitcom "McHale's Navy," was one of the original celebrities on the game show "The Hollywood Squares" and played William Holden's right-hand-man in Sam Peckinpah's revisionist Western "The Wild Bunch." He also was a regular on the 1980s television drama "Airwolf" and a frequent guest star on a variety of shows. In addition to his Oscar for "Marty," Borgnine was nominated for three Emmys -- the most recent in 2009, for a guest spot on the hospital drama "ER" -- and won a life achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2010.

Tova Borgnine, whom the actor married in 1973, was his fifth wife. His previous marriages included a brief 1964 union with Broadway legend Ethel Merman that lasted barely a month before the couple separated.

Nora Ephron (May 19, 1941-June 26, 2012)

(CNN) -- Novelist, filmmaker and screenwriter Nora Ephron has died after a battle with leukemia, her publisher said Tuesday. She was 71.

"She brought an awful lot of people a tremendous amount of joy. She will be sorely missed," said the statement from Alfred A. Knopf. Ephron's romantic comedies included the box office hits "When Harry Met Sally," and "Sleepless in Seattle," both of which earned her screenwriting Oscar nominations. She was also nominated for an Oscar for writing "Silkwood," the story of anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood.

She was one of the first women to write and direct her own films, including "Sleepless in Seattle." Ephron, known for creating strong female characters in her stories, wrote and directed "Julie & Julia," which earned Meryl Streep a best actress Oscar nomination in 2010.

Ephron's parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, were also screenwriters, with "Carousel," "Desk Set" and "There's No Business Like Show Business" on their resumes. "They were funny and they believed that everything was copy," Ephron said in a CNN interview in 2009. "They believed that anything in life could be turned into a story, which is really the first rule of humor."

Ephron's life was particularly central to her father's memoir, "We Thought We Could Do Anything." Humor was important for surviving her childhood, she said. "I don't think you can get through almost anything without humor," she said.

She married screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi in 1987, eight years after she divorced investigative reporter Carl Bernstein. The destruction of her marriage to Bernstein was the basis of her book and movie "Heartburn." "And I feel bad for the people who don't at some point understand that there's something funny in even the worst things that can happen to you," Ephron said.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the stories Ephron set in his city are classics. "The loss of Nora Ephron is a devastating one for New York City's arts and cultural community," Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement. "From her earliest days at New York City's newspapers to her biggest Hollywood successes, Nora always loved a good New York story, and she could tell them like no one else."

LaDonna (Donna Summer) Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012)

Queen of Disco

LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012) known by the stage name Donna Summer was an American singer/songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s. She had a mezzo-soprano vocal range, and was a five-time Grammy Award winner. Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the US Billboard chart, and she also charted four number-one singles in the United States within a 13-month period. Summer died on May 17, 2012. The Associated Press reports that she died in the morning at her home in Key West, Florida at age 63 following a battle with cancer

Richard Wagstaff "Dick" Clark (November 30, 1929 – April 18, 2012)

(CNN) -- Venerated TV producer and host of "New Year's Rockin' Eve" Dick Clark has passed away, CNN has confirmed via his publicist. He was 82.


According to Clark's publicist, the icon passed away Wednesday morning following a massive heart attack. "Clark, 82, had entered St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica last night for an outpatient procedure," a statement says. "Attempts to resuscitate were unsuccessful. He is survived by his wife Kari and his three children, RAC, Duane and Cindy."


In 2004, Clark suffered a stroke, causing him to step back from his duties as host of "New Year's Rockin' Eve," which he also produced.


Known as "America's teenager" because of his longtime hosting duties with the dance show "American Bandstand," Clark also hosted numerous other television favorites including "$25,000 Pyramid" and "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes."

Earl Eugene Scruggs (January 6, 1924-March 28, 2012)

Earl Eugene Scruggs was an American musician noted for perfecting and popularizing a three-finger banjo-picking style (now called Scruggs style) that is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. Although other musicians had played in three-finger style before him, Scruggs shot to prominence when he was hired by Bill Monroe to fill the banjo slot in his group, the Blue Grass Boys.

He died of natural causes at a Nashville hospital at the age of 88. 

                                                                            ~~~~

Earl Scruggs was iconic.  His music will live on...esp. when my musical soul needs lifting!  I'm sure there'll be quite a tribute at the Country Music Awards on Sunday!

                                                              WHITNEY HOUSTON

August 1963-February 2012

Harry Morgan (April 10, 1915 – December 7, 2011)

Harry Morgan (born Harry Bratsberg, sometimes written as Harry Bratsburg) was an American actor. He was widely known for his roles as Pete Porter in both December Bride (1954–1959) and Pete and Gladys (1960–1962), Detective Bill Gannon on Dragnet (1967–1970), Amos Coogan on Hec Ramsey (1972–1974), and Colonel Sherman T. Potter in M*A*S*H (1975–1983). Additionally, Morgan appeared in more than 100 films.


Early life and career
Morgan was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Anna (sometimes written as Hannah) and Henry, who were of Swedish and Norwegian heritage. He was raised in Muskegon, Michigan, and graduated from Muskegon High School in 1933 where he achieved distinction as a statewide debating champion. He originally aspired to a law degree, but began acting while a junior at the University of Chicago in 1935.


Morgan joined The Group Theatre in New York City in 1937, and appeared in the original production of the Clifford Odets play Golden Boy, followed by a host of successful Broadway roles alongside such other Group members as Lee J. Cobb, Elia Kazan, Sanford Meisner, and Karl Malden.


Morgan did summer stock at the Pine Brook Country Club located in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut with The Group Theatre which was formed by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg in the 1930s and early 1940s.


Film work
Morgan made his screen debut (originally using the name "Henry Morgan") in the 1942 movie To the Shores of Tripoli. His screen name later would become "Henry 'Harry' Morgan" and eventually Harry Morgan to avoid confusion with the popular humorist of the same name.


In the same year, Morgan appeared in the movie Orchestra Wives as a young man pushing his way to the front of a ballroom crowd with his date to hear Glenn Miller's band play. A few years later, still credited as Henry Morgan, he was cast in the role of pianist Chummy MacGregor in the 1954 biopic The Glenn Miller Story.


Morgan continued to play a number of significant roles on the big screen.


1950s TV roles
Morgan hosted the NBC radio series Mystery in the Air starring Peter Lorre in 1947. On CBS, he played Pete Porter in Pete and Gladys (1960–1962) with Cara Williams as wife Gladys. Pete and Gladys was a spinoff of December Bride (1954–1959).


1960s: Dragnet and other roles
In the 1964–1965 season, Morgan co-starred as Seldom Jackson in the 26-week NBC comedy/drama Kentucky Jones, starring Dennis Weaver.


Morgan was more widely recognized as Officer Bill Gannon, Joe Friday's partner in the revived version of Dragnet (1967–1970).


Morgan had also appeared with Dragnet star Jack Webb in two film noir movies, Dark City (1950) and Appointment with Danger (1951), and was an early regular member of Jack Webb's stock company of actors on the original Dragnet radio show. Morgan later worked on two other shows for Webb, 1971's The D.A. and the 1972–1974 western Hec Ramsey. He also appeared in at least one episode of Gunsmoke.


M*A*S*H (1975–1983)
Morgan's first appearance on M*A*S*H was in the show's third season (1974–1975), when he played spaced-out Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele ("That's three e's, not all in a row!") in "The General Flipped at Dawn", which originally aired on September 10, 1974. Steele is convinced that the 4077th needs to move closer to the front line, to be near the action. Morgan's memorable Emmy-nominated performance impressed the producers of the show.


The following season, Morgan joined the cast of M*A*S*H as Colonel Sherman T. Potter. Morgan replaced McLean Stevenson, who had left the show at the end of the previous season. Col. Potter is a career army officer who is tough, yet good-humored and caring -- a father figure to the people under his command.


In 1980, Morgan won an Emmy award for his performance on M*A*S*H. After the end of the series, Morgan reprised the Potter role in a short-lived spinoff series, After MASH.


Later years
In 1986, he costarred with Hal Linden in Blacke's Magic, a show about a magician who doubled as a detective solving unusual crimes. The series lasted only one season.


In 1987, Morgan played Mr. DePinna on a TV version of Kaufman and Hart's Pulitzer prize-winning play You Can't Take It With You. He also played the lead role of Martin Vanderhodff in a short lived series based on the same play.


In 1987, Morgan reprised his Bill Gannon character, now a captain, for a supporting role in another film version of Dragnet; a parody of the original series written by and starring Dan Aykroyd and co-starring Tom Hanks and Christopher Plummer.


In the 1990s, Morgan played the role of Judge Stoddard Bell in a series of TV
movies with Walter Mathau in The Incident; Against Her Will: An Incident in Baltimore, and Incident in a Small Town. He was on an episode of The Simpsons as Officer Bill Gannon from Dragnet in the 7th season ("Mother Simpson") and had a recurring role on 3rd Rock from the Sun as Professor Suter. Morgan directed episodes for several TV series, including two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and eight episodes of M*A*S*H. Morgan had a guest role on The Jeff Foxworthy Show as Raymond and a guest role on Grace Under Fire as Jean's pot-smoking boyfriend.


In 2006, Morgan was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.


Personal life and death
Morgan was married twice, had two siblings Margeurite and Arnold (both deceased), and four sons with his first wife: Christopher, Charles, Paul, and Daniel (who died in 1989).


He married Barbara Bushman Quine (granddaughter of silent film star Francis X. Bushman) from December 17, 1986 until his death. He died on December 7, 2011 at the age of 96 due to pneumonia.

Elizabeth Anne (Betty) Ford (April 8, 1918-July 8, 2011)

Betty Ford Biography

Elizabeth Anne (Betty) Bloomer was born in Chicago on April 8, 1918 and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is the third child and only daughter of Hortense Neahr and William Stephenson Bloomer. Mr. Bloomer, a factory parts salesman, passed away in 1934, when Betty was sixteen years old. Mrs. Bloomer, remembered by her daughter as “strong and kind and principled,” survived him until 1948.

At an early age, Betty Bloomer developed a passion for dance. Upon graduation from Central High School in 1936, she attended the Bennington School of Dance, in Vermont, for two summers. While studying there she met and began her long association with choreographer Martha Graham. She continued her studies with Ms. Graham in New York City, becoming a member of her Auxiliary Performance Troupe and performing at Carnegie Hall.


Close family ties took Betty Bloomer back to Grand Rapids In 1941. She became fashion coordinator for Herpolsheimer’s, a locally prominent department store, and continued her interest in dance, forming her own performance group. She also worked with handicapped children, helping them experience the joy of rhythm and movement in dance. In 1942 she married salesman William Warren. The union did not last, and they divorced amicably several years later.

In 1947, a friend introduced her to Gerald R. Ford, Jr., a young lawyer who had served as Navy lieutenant during World War II. By February 1948 the couple was engaged to be married. Their wedding took place on October 15, 1948, two weeks before Mr. Ford was elected to his first term in Congress. They moved to Washington D.C. where he served as member of the House of Representatives for 25 years.

Mrs. Ford quickly assumed the tasks of a congressional spouse of the era, spending much of her time in volunteer work with the Congressional Wives Club, the 81st Congress Club, and the National Federation of Republican Women. She also provided tours of the Capitol to visiting constituents from Michigan.

The Fords became the parents of four children: Michael Gerald, born March 14, 1950; John Gardner, born March 16, 1952; Steven Meigs, born May 19, 1956; and Susan Elizabeth, born July 6, 1957. Clara Powell, hired in 1949 to assist in housekeeping, became an extended family member over the next twenty years.

While in Congress, the Fords lived in Alexandria, Virginia. There, in addition to her congressional spouse activities, Mrs. Ford supervised the home, did the cooking, undertook volunteer work, and taught Sunday school at Emmanual-on-the-Hill Episcopal Church. She was active in PTA and devoted much time to supporting her children’s pursuits in Scouting, baseball, and football and the many other activities of a young growing family.

By 1973, the Fords were planning retirement from Congress when a turn of political events shook the nation and reshaped their own future. After the 1972 break-in of Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel, the Nixon administration gradually became mired in an unfolding scandal and consumed by legal investigations. Then, when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned amidst a scandal of his own, President Nixon nominated Congressman Ford to replace Agnew. After President Nixon himself resigned on August 9, 1974, Gerald Ford took the oath of office as 38th President of the United States. Instead of retiring, the Fords moved to the White House.

As the new First Lady, Betty Ford immediately revealed the openness and good-natured candor that became her trademark. She held her first press conference on September 4, 1974. Expressing herself with humor and forthrightness on controversial issues of the day, she answered questions about women in politics, abortion rights, and a proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer later that month, she broke with social conventions by fostering public discussion of her diagnosis and treatment. In doing this, she purposefully raised public awareness of screening and treatment options and reassured the many women already suffering from similar ordeals. As soon as possible, she resumed her public duties at the Executive Mansion.

During her tenure as First Lady, Betty Ford addressed public issues that were important to her. She was an outspoken advocate of women’s rights and aspirations in an era when there was much debate on the matter, encouraged the appointment of more women to senior government posts, supported the U.N. International Women’s Year in 1975, and supported passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. On the CBS show 60 Minutes, Mrs. Ford candidly shared her opinions on such provocative issues as abortion rights, pre-marital sex, and marijuana use. Her statements drew the ire of many conservatives at a time when former California governor Ronald Reagan was already challenging her husband for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 1976. At the White House, public opinion initially ran two to one in criticism of her remarks, but within months her public approval rating had climbed to 75%.

She continued to promote programs for handicapped children and brought public attention to the importance of the performing arts. While in the White House, Mrs. Ford encouraged her husband’s decision to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to her mentor Martha Graham, the first dancer so honored.

Mrs. Ford did not shirk the extensive social duties of a First Lady, as she and her husband hosted numerous State dinners and other events, bringing an informality and warmth that guests and the nation welcomed. In 1975, she accompanied the President in journeys to fourteen countries, from China to the Vatican.

Betty Ford was an enthusiastic supporter of her husband during the 1976 Presidential election campaign. She made several speaking tours throughout the east and mid-west. Her popularity was reflected on lapel buttons that proclaimed “Betty’s Husband For President!” When Gerald Ford was defeated by former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, the couple left Washington and moved to Rancho Mirage, California.

In 1978, her prescription drug and alcohol use led to a family intervention and her self-admittance to Long Beach Naval Hospital for treatment.

In facing her personal problems, Betty Ford again dealt openly and honestly with the public. Her 1978 autobiography, THE TIMES OF MY LIFE, chronicled her life through the White House years and concluded with a candid, unplanned chapter on her admittance to Long Beach. Her second book, BETTY: A GLAD AWAKENING, published in 1987, recounted her experience of recovery from chemical dependency. She became an active and outspoken champion of improved awareness, education, and treatment for alcohol and other drug dependencies.

In 1982, her good friend, Ambassador Leonard Firestone, joined Mrs. Ford in co-founding the non-profit Betty Ford Center at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California. Mrs. Ford worked tirelessly to raise funds and to help research and design treatments to assist men, women and families in recovery from alcoholism and other drug dependency. Today, The Betty Ford Center is regarded as one of the most outstanding treatment facilities in the world.

Mrs. Ford has been the recipient of many honors and awards. In 1991 she was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush for providing “selfless, strong, and refreshing leadership on a number of issues.” In 1999 President and Mrs. Ford were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for "dedicated public service and outstanding humanitarian contributions."

Mrs. Ford has passed the leadership of the Betty Ford Center to her daughter, Susan Ford Bales, but she remains active and interested in the work that is done there. She continues to reside in Rancho Mirage, California.

After her husband's death on December 26, 2006, Mrs. Ford led her family and the nation with grace and strength through several days of national memorial observances. The world has come to expect such strength and guidance from the woman whose Grand Rapids upbringing helped her become an outstanding and well loved First Lady. She died on July 8, 2011 in Rancho Mirage, California due to complications of a stroke.

**Source, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum

Jackie Cooper (September 15, 1922-May 3, 2011)

Jackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. He is also the youngest performer to have been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, an honor that he received for the film Skippy (1931).

He died in Beverly Hills, California at the age of 88.

Leslie Nielsen (February 11, 1926-November 28, 2010)

Please pause playlist at bottom of page to hear/watch video.

(CNN) -- Leslie Nielsen, whose longtime career as a square-jawed dramatic actor took a sudden turn into comedy with gut-busting spoofs like "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun," has died at age 84, his family said Sunday.

The Canadian-born Nielsen's career reached back into the early days of television, when he made frequent appearances on live drama series like "Goodyear Playhouse."

He played the earnest starship captain in the 1956 science-fiction classic "Forbidden Planet" and made regular appearances on a wide range of TV dramas into the 1970s, including "Hawaii Five-O."

He also played the captain of an overturned ocean liner in the 1972 disaster movie, "The Poseidon Adventure."

Much of that changed in 1980, when he was cast as a doctor aboard an endangered jetliner in the gag-a-minute disaster-movie parody "Airplane!"

Remembering Leslie Nielsen Nielsen's deadpan response to the question "Surely, you can't be serious?" with "I am serious -- and don't call me Shirley" helped launch a second career.

The film's producers went on to cast him in their short-lived television series "Police Squad!"

He reprised that show's bumbling lead character, Lt. Frank Drebin, a decade later in three "Naked Gun" movies, in which he shared the screen with O.J. Simpson and Priscilla Presley.

Nielsen appeared in several similar but less-acclaimed spoofs following those films.

Nielsen was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2003. The medal is awarded to "Canadian citizens for outstanding achievement and service to the country or to humanity at large."

Nielsen died of complications of pneumonia in a hospital near his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, surrounded by family and friends, a family statement said.

Doug Nielsen called his uncle's death a "great loss."

"He was extremely funny," the younger Nielsen said in an interview with CNN affiliate Global Network News in Vancouver.

"At all of our family get-togethers, he was always the life of the party and a great-natured guy," Nielsen said. He was a very good friend to me."

From Wikipedia:

Leslie William Nielsen, OC (February 11, 1926 – November 28, 2010) was a Canadian-American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in over 100 films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying over 220 characters.

Born in Saskatchewan, Canada, Nielsen enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and worked as a disc jockey before receiving a scholarship to Neighborhood Playhouse. Beginning with a television role in 1948, he quickly expanded to over 50 television appearances two years later. Nielsen appeared in his first films in 1956 and began collecting roles in dramas, westerns, and romance films. Nielsen's lead roles in the science fiction film Forbidden Planet (1956) and disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure (1972) for which he received positive reviews as a serious actor.

Although his acting career crossed a variety of genres in both television and films, Nielsen's deadpan delivery as a doctor in 1980's Airplane! marked a turning point in his career, one that would make him, in the words of film critic Roger Ebert, "the Olivier of spoofs." Nielsen enjoyed further success with The Naked Gun and its sequels, based on a brief television series he starred in. His portrayal of serious characters seemingly oblivious to (and complicit in) their absurd surroundings gave him a reputation as a comedian.

In the last decades of his career, Nielsen appeared in multiple spoof and parody films, many of which were met poorly by critics but performed well in box office and home media releases. Nielsen was recognized with a variety of awards throughout his career and was inducted into both the Canada and Hollywood Walk of Fame. He married four times and had two daughters from his second marriage. On November 28, 2010, Nielsen died in his sleep of complications from pneumonia.

Tony (Bernard Schwartz) Curtis -- June 3, 1925 to September 29, 2010

Tony Curtis was an American film actor. He played a variety of roles from light comedy, such as the musician on the run from gangsters in Some Like It Hot, to serious dramatic roles, such as an escaped convict in The Defiant Ones which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Since 1949, he appeared in more than 100 films and made frequent television appearances.

Born Bernard Schwartz in the Bronx, New York, to Emanuel Schwartz and his wife Helen Klein who were Jewish Hungarian immigrants.

During World War II, Curtis joined the United States Navy, heavily inspired by Cary Grant in Destination Tokyo and Tyrone Power in Crash Dive (1943). He served aboard USS Proteus (AS-19), a submarine tender and on September 2, 1945, he witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay from about a mile away. Following his discharge, Curtis studied acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the influential German stage director Erwin Piscator, along with Elaine Stritch, Walter Matthau, and Rod Steiger. He was discovered by a talent agent and casting director Joyce Selznick. Curtis claims it was because he "was the handsomest of the boys." Arriving in Hollywood in 1948 at age 23, he was placed under contract at Universal Pictures and changed his name to Tony Curtis, taking his first name from the novel Anthony Adverse and his last name from "Kurtz", a surname from his mother's family.

Throughout his life, he enjoyed painting, and since the early 1980s, painted as a second career. His work commands more than $25,000 a canvas now. In the last years of his life, he concentrated on painting rather than movies. A surrealist, Curtis claimed "Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Magritte" as influences. "I still make movies but I'm not that interested in them any more. But I paint all the time." In 2007, his painting The Red Table was on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. His paintings can also be seen at the Tony Vanderploeg Gallery in Carmel, California.

Curtis was married six times. His first wife was actress Janet Leigh to whom he was married from 1951–1962, and with whom he fathered actresses Jamie Lee and Kelly Curtis.

Suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, he was hospitalized in Las Vegas after an asthma attack during a book signing engagement in Henderson, Nevada at Costco.

Tony Curtis died in bed at his Henderson home on September 29, 2010 at 9:25 PM of cardiac arrest.

Filmography

Criss Cross (1949)
City Across the River (1949)
The Lady Gambles (1949)
Take One False Step (1949) (scenes deleted)
Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949)
How to Smuggle a Hernia Across the Border (1949) (short subject)
Woman in Hiding (1950)
Francis (1950)
I Was a Shoplifter (1950)
Sierra (1950)
Winchester '73 (1950) (Credited as Anthony Curtis)
Kansas Raiders (1950)
The Prince Who Was a Thief (1951)
Meet Danny Wilson (1952) (cameo)
Flesh and Fury (1952)
No Room for the Groom (1952)
Son of Ali Baba (1952)
Houdini (1953)
The All-American (1953)
Forbidden (1953)
Beachhead (film) (1954)
Johnny Dark (1954)
The Black Shield of Falworth (1954)
Six Bridges to Cross (1955)
So This Is Paris (1955)
The Purple Mask (1955)
The Rawhide Years (1955)
The Square Jungle (1955)
Trapeze (1956)
Mister Cory (1957)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
The Midnight Story (1957)
The Vikings (1958)
Kings Go Forth (1958)
The Defiant Ones (1958)
The Perfect Furlough (1958)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Operation Petticoat (1959)
Who Was That Lady? (1960)
The Rat Race (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
Pepe (1960) (cameo)
The Great Impostor (1961)
The Outsider (1961), as Ira Hayes
Taras Bulba (1962)
40 Pounds of Trouble (1962)
The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) (cameo)
Captain Newman, M.D. (1963)
Paris, When It Sizzles (1964) (cameo)
Wild and Wonderful (1964)
Goodbye Charlie (1964)
Sex and the Single Girl (1964)
The Great Race (1965)
Boeing Boeing (1965)
The Flinstones (1965) (voice)
Chamber of Horrors (1966) (cameo)
Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966)
Arrivederci, Baby! (1966)
Don't Make Waves (1967)
On My Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who... (1968)
Rosemary's Baby (1968) (voice)
The Boston Strangler (1968)
Monte Carlo or Bust (1969)
You Can't Win 'Em All (1970)
Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? (1970)
The Persuaders! (1971–1972)
Mission: Monte Carlo (1974)
Lepke (1975)
The Count of Monte Cristo (1975)
London Conspiracy (1976)
The Last Tycoon (1976)
Casanova & Co. (1977)
Sextette (1978)
The Manitou (1978)
The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)
The Users (1978)
Double Take (1979)
Title Shot (1979)
Little Miss Marker (1980)
It Rained All Night the Day I Left (1980)
The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980)
Othello, the Black Commando (1982)
Where Is Parsifal? (1983)
BrainWaves (1983)
The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal (1985) (documentary)
Club Life (1985)
Insignificance (1985)
The Last of Philip Banter (1986)
Balboa (1986)
The Passenger - Welcome to Germany (1988)
Lobster Man From Mars (1989)
Midnight (1989)
Tarzan in Manhattan (1989)
Walter & Carlo In America (1989)
Prime Target (1991)
Center of the Web (1992)
Hugh Hefner: Once Upon a Time (1992) (documentary)
Naked in New York (1993)
The Mummy Lives (1993)
A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
The Immortals (1995)
The Celluloid Closet (1995) (documentary)
Roseanne - TV Series (1996) (role as Hal, ballroom dance studio instructor)
Hardball (1997)
Brittle Glory (1997)
Alien X Factor (1997)
Stargames (1998)
Louis & Frank (1998)
Play It to the Bone (1999) (cameo)
Reflections of Evil (2002) (narrator)
Where's Marty? (2006)
The Blacksmith and the Carpenter (2007) (voice)
David & Fatima (2008)
The Jill & Tony Curtis Story (2008) (documentary feature)

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Jimmy Ray Dean (August 10, 1928-June 13, 2010)

(CNN) -- Country music artist and sausage entrepreneur Jimmy Dean died at his home in Varina, Virginia, Sunday evening, police said. He was 81.

Dean, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, was with his wife, Donna, at the time of his death, which appears to be from natural causes, said R.J. Clark of the Henrico County Police department.

Musically, Dean is best known for his song "Big Bad John," which made it to No. 1 on both the country and pop charts in 1961 and was honored with a Grammy. His narrative style of song also produced hits like "Little Black Book" and "P.T. 109" -- a song about John F. Kennedy's command in the South Pacific during World War II.

Starting in 1963, he hosted a successful variety show on ABC called "The Jimmy Dean Show," which ran for three years. Regulars on the program included Roger Miller and puppeteer Jim Henson, making Rowlf -- a piano-playing dog -- an early Muppet favorite.

In the late 1960s Dean also appeared regularly on the NBC series "Daniel Boone." He played Boone's friend Josh Clements.

At about the same time, Dean started the Jimmy Dean Meat Company. Dean eventually sold his meat company to Sara Lee Foods in 1984, but remained its chairman and TV spokesman, which kept him in the public eye until recent years.

Dean was born Seth Ward in Olton, Texas, on August 10, 1928. His mom taught him piano starting at age 10, but he also learned how to play the guitar, harmonica, and accordion.

After his discharge from the Air Force in 1948 he put together a band called the Texas Wildcats and played in the Washington, D.C., area

"We played every dive in Washington at one time or another," Dean said in his biography on the Country Music Hall of Fame website. "And dives is what they were."

Dean was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame this year.

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Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917-May 9, 2010)

Lena Horne was an American singer, actress and dancer.

She was born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Reported to have descended from the John C. Calhoun family, both sides of her family were a mixture of African, European, and Native American descent. She was raised by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne at 189 Chauncey Street in Brooklyn. Her uncle, Frank S. Horne, was an adviser to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Dean of Students at the Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute in Fort Valley, GA. She attended Washington High School in Atlanta where her grandmother convinced her to join the NAACP. Horne also attended Girls High School, an all-girls public high school in Brooklyn which has since become Boys and Girls High School on Fulton Street. She dropped out without earning a diploma.

Horne joined the mike chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the films Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather. Due to the Red Scare and her progressive political views, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood.

She returned to work as a performer, both in nightclubs as well as television, and released well-received albums. Horne announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music which ran for more than three hundred performances on Broadway, and earned her numerous awards and accolades. Horne recorded sporadically following the show, but no longer made public appearances.

Lena Horne died on May 9, 2010, at the age of 92, at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

Dixie Virginia Carter - May 25, 1939-April 10, 2010

Dixie Virginia Carter (May 25, 1939 – April 10, 2010) was an American film, television and stage actress, best-known for her role in the sitcom Designing Women (1986–1993). She was nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for Desperate Housewives in 2007.

Dixie Carter died on April 10, 2010. Her death in Houston, Texas was announced by her husband and actor, Hal Holbrook, who stated the cause as complications from endometrial cancer. In addition to Mr. Holbrook, she is survived by her daughters, Ginna Carter of Los Angeles and Mary Dixie Carter of Brooklyn; a sister Melba Helen Heath of San Anselmo, California; and several nieces and nephews. The Dixie Carter Performing Arts and Academic Enrichment Center (informally called "The Dixie") in Huntingdon, Tennessee is named in honor of Carter.

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Jerome David Salinger (January 1, 1919-January 27, 2010)

Jerome David "J. D." Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980.

Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948 he published the critically acclaimed story A Perfect Day for Bananafish in The New Yorker magazine which became home to much of his subsequent work. In 1951 Salinger released his novel The Catcher in the Rye, an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read and controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year.

The success of The Catcher in the Rye led to public attention and scrutiny; Salinger becoming reclusive and publishing new work less frequently. He followed Catcher with a short story collection, Nine Stories (1953), a collection of a novella and a short story, Franny and Zooey (1961), and a collection of two novellas, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). His last published work, a novella entitled Hapworth 16, 1924 appeared in The New Yorker on June 19, 1965.

Afterward, Salinger struggled with unwanted attention, including a legal battle in the 1980s with biographer Ian Hamilton and the release in the late 1990s of memoirs written by two people close to him: Joyce Maynard, an ex-lover; and Margaret Salinger, his daughter. In 1996, a small publisher announced a deal with Salinger to publish Hapworth 16, 1924 in book form, but amid the ensuing publicity, the release was indefinitely delayed. He made headlines around the globe in June 2009 after filing a lawsuit against another writer for copyright infringement for the writer's use of one of Salinger's characters from Catcher in the Rye.

Salinger died of natural causes on January 27, 2010 at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire.

Milton (Soupy Sales) Supman (January 8, 1926-October 22, 2009)

Soupy Sales was an American comedian, actor, and radio/tv personality and host. He was best known for his local and network children's show, Lunch with Soupy Sales, a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Soupy receiving a pie in his face which became his trademark.

Milton (Soupy Sales) Supman was born in Franklinton, North Carolina, and died of complications related to a recent fall backstage at a local Emmy awards show in New York.

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Mary Allin Travers (11/9/1935-9/16/2009)

Mary Allin Travers was an American singer-songwriter and member of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, along with Peter Yarrow and Noel "Paul" Stookey. Peter, Paul and Mary was one of the most successful folk-singing groups in the 1960's.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Travers moved with her parents in 1938 to Greenwich Village in New York City. She attended the Little Red School House in New York City but left in the 11th grade to pursue her singing career.

While in high school, she joined The Song Swappers which sang backup for Pete Seeger when Folkways Records reissued a union song collection, Talking Union, in 1955. The Song Swappers recorded a total of four albums for Folkways in 1955, all with Seeger. Travers had regarded her singing as a hobby and was shy about it but was encouraged by fellow musicians. Travers also was in the cast of the Broadway-theatre show, The Next President.

The group Peter, Paul and Mary was formed in 1961. It was popular and known for its renditions of anthems such as "Blowin' in the Wind", "If I Had a Hammer" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?". The group broke up in 1970, and Travers subsequently pursued a solo career and recorded five albums. The group re-formed in 1978, toured extensively and issued many new albums. The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.

Mary Travers died of complications related to leukemia.

Henry Gibson (9/21/1935-9/14/2009)

Henry Gibson was an American actor and songwriter, well known as a cast member of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and for his recurring role as Judge Clark Brown on Boston Legal.

Gibson's performing career began at the age of seven. He appeared in many stage and theater productions. His career took off when he performed in the 1963 Jerry Lewis film The Nutty Professor. Gibson also appeared on The Dick Van Dyke Show, reading the poem "Keep A Goin'", which he turned into a song in the movie Nashville. Gibson appeared in four films by Robert Altman: The Long Goodbye, Nashville, as well as A Perfect Couple and Health. He also appeared in The Incredible Shrinking Woman. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Nashville and won the National Society of Film Critics award for his role of country music singer Haven Hamilton.

He spent three years as part of the Laugh-In television show's cast. He often played "The Poet," reciting poems with "sharp satirical or political themes". Gibson would emerge from behind a stage flat, wearing a Nehru jacket and "hippie" beads and holding an outlandishly large artificial flower. He would state the "[Title of poem] — by Henry Gibson", bow stiffly from the waist, recite his poem, and return behind the flat. Gibson's routine was so memorable that John Wayne actually performed it once in his own inimitable style: "The Sky — by John Wayne. The Sky is blue/The Grass is green/Get off your butt/And join the Marines!", whereupon Wayne left the scene by smashing through the flat. Gibson also regularly appeared in the "Cocktail Party" segments as a Catholic priest, sipping tea. He would put the cup on the saucer, recite his one-liner in a grave and somber tone, then go back to sipping tea. He also made recurring appearances in the 1969-1974 anthology Love, American Style.

In the 1989 Tom Hanks/Joe Dante comedy, The 'Burbs', Gibson played the villain. In 1980 he played the leader of the "Illinois Nazis" in the John Landis film The Blues Brothers. Most younger audiences associate him with this film in particular due to its popularity. He made a brief appearance in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia as an eccentric barfly. He also worked frequently as a voice actor in animation, most notably portraying Wilbur the pig in the popular children's movie Charlotte's Web (1973). He also worked on the cartoon The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy as Lord Pain.
Gibson re-teamed with director Dante a few years later when Gremlins 2 was released in 1990. He performed a cameo as the office worker who is caught taking a smoking break on camera and fired by the sadistic boss. He later had a leading role in a Season 5 episode of Stargate SG-1 entitled "The Sentinel", as the character Marul.

Gibson's most recent roles were alongside Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn in the 2005 comedy hit Wedding Crashers, and as supporting character Judge Clark Brown on the TV show Boston Legal.

Patrick Wayne Swayze (August 18, 1952-September 14, 2009)

Patrick Wayne Swayze was an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He was best-known for his roles as romantic leading men in the films Dirty Dancing and Ghost and as Orry Main in the North and South television miniseries. He was listed by People magazine as its "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1991. He died of pancreatic cancer.