Reliapundit of THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS has an excellent post, with text and videos, on the passing of Fess Parker.
As I commented at THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS:
I was one of those caught up in the Davy Crockett craze back in my early childhood. I had the Bill Hayes recording (on 78 rpm for my Victrola) and the coonskin cap. In fact, I may still have that 78 rpm; the flip side was "Farewell," or something like that title.
In fact, just the other day, during our study of tall tales about Paul Bunyan, I was telling my middle school literature students about all the tall tales about Davy Crockett. I even sang them part of the song!
Later, as a pre-teen and teenager, I became a fan of the TV show Daniel Boone -- and a fan of Ed Ames's vocal work as well. Not to mention that hilarious tomahawk appearance by Ames on Johnny Carson's show. LOL!
Very sad that Fess Parker, who will always "be" Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone for me, passed away on his wife's birthday. That coincidence will add more sorrow for the family.
Like many of my generation, I grew up listening to the unique vocal tones of Walter Cronkite. He undoubtedly had one of the best voices in all of broadcasting.
I best recall him from watching that often-blurry image on my parents' black-and-white television set. The following is permanently etched into my memory, perhaps for you as well:
Of course, today's newpapers are filled with stories about the passing of Walter Cronkite, particulary as a witness to history. No doubt, we'll be seeing lots of television specials on the topic of this man, particulary on CBS. Most of what we will see will be a rehashing for those of us who grew up hearing the voice of Walter Cronkite as news anchor. We'll experience nostalgia which the present generation cannot possibly feel about this man.
In today's Washington Post, I noticed this interesting portion:
In later years, as he watched from the sideline, Cronkite became a critic of the evening news. "Nobody's asked me, which is strange, but I think the networks ought to be doing the headlines -- compressed as they must be -- and no features," he told me in 2002. "Drop that 'Your Pocketbook and Mine,' 'Your Beauty and Mine,' 'Your Garbage Can and Mine.' "
He also decried the staffing cutbacks as the networks shrank their evening news staffs, saying: "It's a dollars-and-cents issue with the ownership. There's not the sense of responsibility of the old-timers who were taught this was their duty."
Walter Cronkite's views and mine did not always agree. And I recognize that, even as an anchor, he had an agenda. On this topic of the deterioration of broadcast news, however, I believe that he was spot on. Viewers today want flash, not substance. Furthermore, the anchor's voices sound pretty much the same and not unique.
"And that's the way it is" with the media today, some twenty-eight years after Walter Cronkite retired.
A lot of people probably don't even recall the name of this performer, who passed away from pancreatic cancer on June 30 at the age of seventy-five. He did both Broadway and film work. In fact, he was once a leading man.
Perhaps, however, you'll recall hearing this singer's rich baritone in the following YouTube version of the song "They Call the Wind Maria," which he performed in the film version of Paint Your Wagon:
Below is another video, in which Harve Presnell sings a duet with Julie Andrews:
Harve Presnell, a tall, strapping baritone who was the leading man in the 1964 Broadway musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," spent 10 years touring the country as Daddy Warbucks in "Annie" and flourished as a Hollywood character actor, notably in "Fargo" as an outrageously bullying father-in-law, died of pancreatic cancer June 30 at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 75.
Mr. Presnell, a 6-foot-4 former rodeo rider, made several well-received folk and opera recordings in the 1950s and early 1960s and performed at Carnegie Hall and on other leading stages.
His full-throated voice and virile good looks inspired Broadway composer Meredith Willson to write for him the romantic lead of Johnny "Leadville" Brown in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (1960).
The show ran two years, with Tammy Grimes in the title role of a self-made society matron who survives the Titanic disaster. Mr. Presnell sang "Colorado, My Home" and "I'll Never Say No" and repeated the performance in the 1964 film version, with Debbie Reynolds replacing Grimes.
Mr. Presnell hoped to make a career as a star of Hollywood musicals, but the genre had long passed its prime. He was reduced to the teen musical "When the Boys Meet the Girls" (1965), with Connie Francis, Liberace and Herman's Hermits, and the risible film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe horse opera "Paint Your Wagon" (1969) starring Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg.
In "Paint Your Wagon," Mr. Presnell was singled out for critical praise as a bordello manager who sings "They Call the Wind Maria."
Afterward, Mr. Presnell began an active career with touring stage productions, including "Annie Get Your Gun" as sharpshooter Frank Butler and "Carousel." He also played a singing and dancing Rhett Butler in a 1972 musical version of "Gone With the Wind," staged in London. Critics did not give a damn.
Then came "Annie," in which he replaced another actor on Broadway in 1980 as the baldheaded tycoon Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks and then toured in the show for a decade. He told USA Today, "From 1979 to '89, I shaved my head every day."
Older but still intimidating, Mr. Presnell began working regularly in films and on television in the 1990s, often in menacing roles. The work that most impressed audiences and critics was his supporting part in the Coen brothers' film hit "Fargo" (1996) as a rich and miserly businessman whose daughter is kidnapped.
"Mr. Presnell has just the gruff, booming manner to explain why Mr. Macy, as his son-in-law, looks scared to death," New York Times film critic Janet Maslin wrote. George Harvey Presnell was born in 1933 on a ranch in Modesto, Calif., and participated in rodeos as a young man. He briefly attended the University of Southern California on a sports scholarship until a music teacher, impressed by Mr. Presnell's voice, urged him to focus on a career in opera. He later said he "ended up going into music because it was easier than being a jock."
He left school to train in Europe and then sang with the Roger Wagner Chorale on albums including "Joy to the World" and "Folk Songs of the New World."
He sang with the San Francisco Opera in an acclaimed 1957 staging of Francis Poulenc's "The Carmelites" and on the 1960 Columbia recording of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana," with Eugene Ormandy conducting. Willson, the Broadway composer best known for "The Music Man," heard him sing "Carmina Burana" in Berlin.
Survivors include his wife, Veeva, and several children. His agent was unavailable to provide a complete list of survivors.
After the success of "Fargo," Mr. Presnell saw his career revitalized. He appeared in films including Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) as Gen. George C. Marshall and Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" (2006) as an Iwo Jima survivor whose voiceover about war starts the film.
In a comic twist on such authority figures, he played a university administrator in "Old School" (2003) starring Will Farrell and a congressman in the Steve Carell comedy "Evan Almighty" (2007).
On television, he had recurring roles on "Andy Barker, P.I.," "The Pretender" and "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," among other shows.
"I started as a star, and now I have to climb the ladder again," he told USA Today in 1996.
A recently-taken photo to the right shows what Mr. Presnell looked like in his later years.
Her long-time lover Ryan O'Neal made the arrangements. Her son Redmond will be released from prison and will attend, in handcuffs.
According to Find A Grave, her mother Pauline and her sister Diane preceded her in death. Diane also died of cancer.
Find A Grave has an excellent biographical sketch of Farrah Fawcett's life and accomplishments. Not mentioned is Ms. Fawcett's final work of film, Farrah's Story:
Most of all, it takes inner strength to fight cancer, which “Farrah’s Story” emphasizes. At the end of the movie, Fawcett aims a camera at the audience. “How are you? What are you fighting for?” she asks.
Without speaking the words, the suggestion seems to be that all anyone can ask is to fight as hard as she has.
Read the entire article and watch some excerpts from Farrah's StoryHERE.
Ms. Fawcett thought of Farrah's Story as her mission and her message. Watch and listen to the above portion of her final work of film as a tribute to her. She deserves that ten minutes of your time as a final tribute to her.
I also recommend watching the full version of Farrah's Story, which has been recently re-run on NBC-TV and MSNBC. In fact, I wasn't going to post about the passing of Farrah Fawcett until I watched the film:
Note to viewers: The film itself tends to run more smoothly than the commercials.
In case the above embed doesn't work, HERE is the Hulu the Hulu link for the full-length version of the film.
For decades, I liked and continue to like much of Michael Jackson's music. In fact, I wore out two cassette tapes of Thriller and finally got the CD, to which I still listen from time to time.
Michael Jackson was indeed a great musical artist and an amazing dancer (although Sammy Davis, Jr., could dance just as well and so proved in a live concert I attended). Certainly Michael Jackson enjoyed a lot more than fifteen minutes of fame. He was indeed a talented performer.
And, yes, it is a shame that Michael Jackson has died at such a young age. Of course, once the autopsy is completed, we may learn something scandalous as to his cause of death, and his image may be tarnished yet again. Furthermore, if one is honest, one has to admit that he was downright weird: dangling a baby from a window, uttering that "share your bed" line in a nationally televised interview some years ago, and undergoing plastic surgeries until his face no longer resembled himself but rather a decomposing cadaver.
Hat tip to Bloviating Zeppelin for the following video:
And let's face it. As Mustang points out in "Commensurate Honorarium," Michael Jackson was not a hero in the same category as Major Ed Freeman or Major Bruce Crandall, both of which are names which few Americans recognize.
Michael Jackson may deserve the title "The King of Pop." But unlike "The King," Elvis Presley, I don't recall this latest fallen superstar's singing one single patriotic song. Correct me if I'm wrong about Michael Jackson's lack of patriotism. (continued below) ------- I will enjoy listening to and watching the tributes to Michael Jackson over the next several days. I'll probably even put Thriller on the stereo for another listen, sing along, and dance around the room. I may even get the film Thriller from NetFlix — after a long wait, of course.
It is also interesting to note that, once news of Michael Jackson's death became public, Twitter's ratings of most-frequent Tweets changed: information about what's been happening in Iran, the world's only Islamic theocracy being challenged, dropped way down on the list of "Trending Topics."
In my view, however, Michael Jackson was no American hero. Also in my view, the way America today chooses heroes speaks to the superficiality of our nation and of our culture.
More and more of the Holocaust survivors have died and are dying natural deaths. Often their stories have a sameness: lives interrupted, changed, then resumed, with survivors attempting to sequester their memories of atrocities. In spite of that sameness, however, each survivor's story is a unique one. Still, some stories are more remarkable than others.
The following uplifting story of concert pianist Natalia Karp, a Holocaust survivor who continued to perform on the piano keyboard even in her nineties, comes from the Sydney Morning Herald (emphases mine):
Saved by a moving performance of Chopin
July 23, 2007
Natalia Karp, 1911-2007
Natalia Karp survived the Holocaust because the commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp in Poland wanted musical entertainment for his birthday.
Summoned, expecting to be shot, Natalia, then a beautiful 32-year-old, played Chopin's haunting and melancholic Nocturne in C sharp minor. Amon Goeth, the commandant, declared: "Sie soll leben." ("She shall live.")
Natalia told Goeth, chillingly depicted by Ralph Fiennes in the film Schindler's List, that her sister, Helena, should also be spared. Natalia was ordered to play for the Nazis on several occasions but her ordeal was not over.
After 10 months she was sent to Auschwitz, where she expected to die. "My sister and I clung to each other," she recalled. "Every day we thought could be our last."
Natalia was released the day after VE Day, and returned to Krakow with Helena, a ballerina. When she gave her first postwar performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1, with its triumphant opening chords, her thought was "to show the Nazis that I was not beaten".
Karp, who has died at 96, was born Natalia Weissman in Krakow, the second of four children. Her father was a wealthy businessman; her mother sang opera arias at home. Karp played by ear before beginning lessons with Arthur Rubenstein's brother-in-law. In 1920 she played in Berlin, where Boris Pasternak's mother kissed her. At 15, she returned to Berlin for lessons with Artur Schnabel.
Later she developed her technique with Georg Bertram, and at 18 played Chopin's E minor concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic. But when her mother died, Natalia returned to Krakow to care for her family.
In 1933 she married Julius Hubler, a lawyer, pianist and music critic who was killed on the first day of the war. She was captured with Helena and two friends as they tried to flee the ghetto on false papers; they were to be sent to Plaszow.
After the war she met and married Josef Karpf, who was posted to the Polish embassy in London, where they claimed asylum in 1950. She dropped the "f" from her name for professional purposes.
Although she frequently played Beethoven and Schubert, Karp had a special affection for Chopin, whose music she played around Europe. Critics admired her "mellow tone and intuitively musical phrasing". In 1967 she played for Oskar Schindler.
Karp never truly retired. In 2005 she played the life-saving Chopin Nocturne for David Cohen, an interviewer. "The room is awash with notes, gentle and sad beyond words," he wrote. "In Natalia's half-shut eyes I can see that she is far away."
Natalia Karp's husband died in 1993. She is survived by her two daughters.
The story of Natalia Karp's survival and determination reminds us of the power of music as healer and as unspoken message. More importantly, her story reminds us that the human spirit can remain resilient and unbroken even in the face of evil.
Rest in peace, Natalia. You have earned your rest.
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