Archive: May 2009
Aboard the Titanic
Millvina Dean, the last living survivor of the Titanic tragedy, was too young to remember what happened that April night in 1912 -- she was only 9-weeks-old when the ship went down. Still, she's been a font of information in recent years about what is arguably the most famous sunken...
By Joe Holley | May 31, 2009; 5:40 PM ET | Comments (0)
'All in the Family' Writer
Michael "Mickey" Ross, a television writer and producer, who had a role in creating "All in the Family," "The Jeffersons" and "Three's Company," has died at the age of 89. He was a longtime associate of Norman Lear and won an Emmy for co-writing an episode in which Archie and...
By Matt Schudel | May 31, 2009; 4:57 AM ET | Comments (0)
Ethnic Studies Pioneer
Ronald Takaki, a professor who created the ethnic studies program at the University of California at Berkeley, has died at the age of 70. His name may not be well known, but the field of ethnic studies has emerged as an important and controversial component of higher educaiton. We'll be...
By Matt Schudel | May 29, 2009; 6:00 PM ET | Comments (0)
A Prolific Pen Silenced
Cy Shain, who has not yet received an obituary in his preferred newspaper, is not forgotten. David Margolick in The Nation writes about the man who was wildly successful at getting his letters to the editor published in the New York Times. Thirty-nine times over the past decade Shain, who...
By Patricia Sullivan | May 29, 2009; 4:00 PM ET | Comments (0)
Bad 'Association'
Why do we need news obituaries? The trouble with paid Death Notices is that families can claim pretty much anything, and who will be the wiser? Advertising staffs, like most of us in the news biz, are overwhelmed with requests for obits. Generally families are taken at their word when...
By Adam Bernstein | May 29, 2009; 1:12 PM ET | Comments (1)
Deaths on This Day in History
On May 29: 2004: Archibald Cox, Watergate prosecutor 2004: Sam Dash, Watergate committee chief counsel 1998: Barry Goldwater, GOP presidential candidate 1995: Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to serve in both the House and Senate 1979: Mary Pickford, actress 1951: Fanny Brice, Ziegfeld Follies star...
By Patricia Sullivan | May 29, 2009; 11:00 AM ET | Comments (0)
Champion of Haitian Refugees
A man who dedicated his life to helping the dirt-poor refugees from Haiti when no one else was paying attention has died in Miami. Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, who ran the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami and who laid down before trucks to insist on civil rights when the U.S. government...
By Patricia Sullivan | May 28, 2009; 11:55 AM ET | Comments (0)
A Knitting Giant
Witt Pratt, a local textile artist who died May 20 at age 48, was by all accounts a gentle and life-loving soul. He started playing around with knitting as a youngster growing up in McLean, even though everybody knew that knitting was for girls, and if he liked to knit...
By Joe Holley | May 28, 2009; 11:12 AM ET | Comments (1)
The 1970s FBI
From time to time, we get calls or e-mail from researchers and authors doing the legwork necessary for proper history. A writer I know who is working on a history of the FBI contacted me recently to ask for more detail about something I cited in this obituary of Guy...
By Patricia Sullivan | May 27, 2009; 6:09 PM ET | Comments (0)
Jane ("Cat People") Randolph Dies
Actress Jane Randolph, who died May 4 at 93, will be remembered for two of the scariest single scenes in any suspense film -- and they are the same film, "Cat People" (1942). She's stalked by a female/feline rival in the first scene as she walked by night to a...
By Adam Bernstein | May 27, 2009; 11:13 AM ET | Comments (0)
Death of 'The Tripper'
Vancouver writer Tom Hawthorn spies great obit stories. Here's one that caught his eye recently. Hawthorn writes: At his death May 17 aged 83, David Humphrey was praised for his brilliance as a defence lawyer, his thoroughness as a prosecutor, and his fair-mindedness as a judge. As a justice of...
By Adam Bernstein | May 26, 2009; 12:39 PM ET | Comments (1)
Amos Elon Dies
Washington Post staff writer Emily Langer writes: If you're interested in learning more about Amos Elon, the distinguished Israeli writer who died yesterday in Tuscany and whose obituary appears in today's Post, take the time to read this interview with Mr. Elon all the way to the end. The interview...
By Adam Bernstein | May 26, 2009; 11:04 AM ET | Comments (0)
Field of Dreams
On many a hot summer day in Central Texas years ago, I was my dad's helper on his potato chip route to small towns within driving distance of Waco. "See you got the boss with you today," storekeepers and beer-joint owners would say to him as we walked in. I'd...
By Joe Holley | May 25, 2009; 3:26 PM ET | Comments (0)
Reporting from Arlington National Cemetery
Mark Berman, who's on the staff of The Post's Virginia desk, covers burials at Arlington National Cemetery. He's been to more than 70 of these ceremonies in the last two years, he writes in Sunday's Outlook section. He's discovered what all of us who write obits have discovered: that to...
By Joe Holley | May 24, 2009; 5:38 PM ET | Comments (0)
Three Views of an Architect
I recently wrote the obituary of Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, who designed the Canadian embassy here in Washington. Philip Johnson, the oracular American architect, once said, "Arthur Erickson is by far the greatest architect in Canada, and may be the greatest on this continent." I chose to concentrate largely on...
By Matt Schudel | May 23, 2009; 2:12 PM ET | Comments (0)
Lincoln's Biographer
David Herbert Donald, the distinguished biographer of Abraham Lincoln and historian of the Civil War, has died at the age of 88. Donald was a remarkable scholar who worked up to the end, hard at work on a biography of John Quincy Adams. Donald was, in the overused and little-understood...
By Matt Schudel | May 21, 2009; 7:39 AM ET | Comments (0)
Fla. Rumors Kill Swayze
Washington Post staff writer Lauren Wiseman on the premature burial of actor Patrick Swayze by an overeager radio station and an army of Twitters, or are they just Twits?: Wiseman writes: It seems nobody is safe in the blogosphere. A Jacksonville, Fla., radio station announced early yesterday morning the death...
By Adam Bernstein | May 20, 2009; 3:27 PM ET | Comments (3)
Dick Button's Muscles
While I was writing the obituary for Aldus Chapin, a prominent figure on the D.C. arts scene for many years, Chapin's wife Dolly shared with me a letter she had received from her husband's Harvard roommate, the former Olympic skater Dick Button. Button, who'll be 80 this year, was not...
By Joe Holley | May 20, 2009; 12:25 PM ET | Comments (0)
Remembering Benedetti
Pablo Izmirlian, a reporter for the culture section of the weekly paper Búsqueda in Montevideo, Uruguay, offered this remembrance of one of his country's finest authors, Mario Benedetti, who died this week. Izmirlian writes: When I was in my senior year of high school I won a poetry competition in...
By Adam Bernstein | May 20, 2009; 11:23 AM ET | Comments (0)
Composer Maw Dies
Emily Langer, who works in The Post's Outlook section and is a classical music aficionado, kindly agreed to guest blog in Post Mortem after writing an obit on composer Nicholas Maw, who died today at 73. Her story on Maw appears here: Langer writes: If you're a casual listener of...
By Adam Bernstein | May 19, 2009; 4:20 PM ET | Comments (1)
The Prolific Mr. Benedetti
Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti, who died May 17 at age 88, is not as well known in the English-speaking world as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar, Carlos Fuentes or Mario Vargas Llosa, but he certainly played in their league. He was immensely prolific, publishing novels, poetry, short stories, plays, screenplays...
By Joe Holley | May 18, 2009; 5:45 PM ET | Comments (0)
Bishop's Trance
Right off Q Street near downtown Washington the other day, I noticed that psychic readings are going for $2 these days. My reportorial instincts temporarily lapsed, so I didn't investigate whether customers are getting what they pay for. The psychic sale was a reminder, though, that what we really need...
By Joe Holley | May 17, 2009; 4:44 PM ET | Comments (0)
Yo Yo King
And now a word from our occasional Vancouver correspondent Tom Hawthorn, whose recent obituary of Harvey Lowe caught our eye: The obituarist's working life is peopled by worthies and notables -- generals, statesmen, captains of industry. Their stories often follow a predictable path from good schooling to achievement to honors...
By Adam Bernstein | May 17, 2009; 7:15 AM ET | Comments (0)
Wayman Tisdale
Wayman Tisdale, whose obituary appears Sunday in the Post, was one of the finest college basketball players of all time. He was a three-time all-American at the University of Oklahoma and was named the Big Eight Conference's player of the year three years in a row. He was an unstoppable...
By Matt Schudel | May 17, 2009; 6:36 AM ET | Comments (0)
Thoroughbred Jockey
William J. Passmore, 77, a thoroughbred jockey who was a fixture on the Maryland and Delaware circuit for more than 30 years, died May 14. A story about his career, which included winning more than 3,500 races for earnings of nearly $23 million, will appear in the Washington Post tomorrow....
By Lauren Wiseman | May 15, 2009; 3:51 PM ET | Comments (0)
Ted Sampley, Rabble Rouser
Ted Sampley may not have been a household name, but he certainly made life uncomfortable for a lot of people who were. Check out the Post's obituary of Sampley, who was an activist for the POW/MIA cause and much more. the first obit outside his home state of North Carolina...
By Matt Schudel | May 15, 2009; 12:38 PM ET | Comments (14)
Artist Revisited
Honoré Sharrer, 88, an American realist painter who died April 17, achieved fame because of a painting she created in 1950 when she was 30 years old. But after her work, "Tribute to the American Working People," was revered for its meticulous, exacting detail, the young artist removed herself from...
By Lauren Wiseman | May 14, 2009; 3:29 PM ET | Comments (0)
Divisive Sampley Dies
Ted Sampley, 62, a former Green Beret in Vietnam who championed the cause of imprisoned and missing veterans from that war, died May 12 near his home in North Carolina from complications after heart surgery. As a fighter for veterans, Sampley was relentless for decades. But his legacy was...
By Adam Bernstein | May 14, 2009; 12:15 PM ET | Comments (2)
FDIC Chairman Dies
Bloomberg reports the death today of L. William Seidman, whom the news service said "led the U.S. out of the savings-and-loan crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s as head of the government agency that seized hundreds of thrifts and sold their assets. He was 88." The Post will...
By Adam Bernstein | May 13, 2009; 3:46 PM ET | Comments (0)
Cereal Killer
The Wash Post on Sunday and the NYT today had obits about Robert Choate Jr., a civil engineer-turned "citizen lobbyist" in the 1960s who played a key role attacking the "empty calories" of breakfast cereals. He died May 3 at age 84. The low nutritional value of cereal became Choate's...
By Adam Bernstein | May 13, 2009; 12:21 PM ET | Comments (1)
Michael Landon's Son Dead
Mark Landon, 60, the eldest adopted son of television actor Michael Landon, only lived to be six years older than his famous father, who died at 54 in 1991. In a tragic announcement today, Los Angeles investigators said Mark, who also was an actor, was found dead Monday at his...
By Lauren Wiseman | May 12, 2009; 2:10 PM ET | Comments (0)
Jada's Mink Coat
Writing the obit for Texas writer Bud Shrake brought back a lot of memories, not to mention tales about Shrake and his rowdy band of fellow Texas writers, among them Dan Jenkins of "Semi-Tough" fame, Pete Gent, the old Dallas Cowboys wide receiver who wrote "North Dallas Forty" and Larry...
By Joe Holley | May 10, 2009; 12:35 PM ET | Comments (1)
The Brothers DiMaggio
Dom DiMaggio, the younger brother of baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, was a very interesting man, and only in part because of his famous brother. He was a fine ballplayer in his own right, and there was a movement in the 1980s and '90s led by his former teammate, Ted Williams,...
By Matt Schudel | May 9, 2009; 11:35 AM ET | Comments (0)
Dom DiMaggio, Brother of Joe
Baseball player Dom DiMaggio, brother of the more famous Joe and teammate of Ted Williams, has died at 92. Though he was never quite the player that his brother was, he was a classy centerfielder with the Boston Red Sox in the 1940s and 1950s and was one of the...
By Matt Schudel | May 8, 2009; 10:48 AM ET | Comments (1)
Wikipedia, Obits and Faking
Wikipedia is often an easy place for journalists to get a fast overview of a life, but it carries it dangers. Consider the recent case of a Dubliner named Shane Fitzgerald, whose college experiment on globalization led many obituary writers astray when he placed fake quotation in a famous composer's...
By Adam Bernstein | May 7, 2009; 5:22 PM ET | Comments (2)
Farrah Off Treatment
The medical news has been grim for 62-year-old Farrah Fawcett, the 1970s poster icon and star of the "jiggle TV" show "Charlie's Angels." For the past month, news organizations have been chronicling her steady decline. And today, People.com reported the actress is no longer receiving treatment for the anal cancer...
By Lauren Wiseman | May 7, 2009; 2:36 PM ET | Comments (0)
Space Matters
For Eilene Marie Galloway, the day the earth stood still was always Oct. 4, 1957. If you have to ask, "Why Oct. 4, 1957?" you're probably not 102 years old, as was Mrs. Galloway at the time of her death May 2. Her obit is in today's paper. The red-letter...
By Joe Holley | May 6, 2009; 4:48 PM ET | Comments (0)
Dom DeLuise & Variety Shows
If you see me at my desk looking at videos on YouTube, you might think I'm goofing off. Well, I do plenty of that, I have to confess, but in the case of today's obituary of Dom DeLuise, I've been looking at clips from his many films and appearances...
By Matt Schudel | May 6, 2009; 12:02 PM ET | Comments (0)
Dom DeLuise Dies
Dom DeLuise, the bald, roly-poly sidekick in many Mel Brooks films and in Burt Reynolds's "Cannonball Run" movies, has reportedly died in Los Angeles, accd to the entertainment gossip site TMZ. Story is developing. DeLuise was a stage and TV performer early in his career, best known for his routine...
By Adam Bernstein | May 5, 2009; 11:59 AM ET | Comments (8)
Obits As Fairy Tales?
The growing popularity of obits comes under scrutiny in this little essay in the online magazine Smart Set. I'm not sure I agree with it all, and I object that her research was limited to a single financially challenged newspaper, but FWIW: [O]bituaries aren't interesting because of what they say...
By Patricia Sullivan | May 5, 2009; 6:04 AM ET | Comments (0)
Redstone v. Reaper
Sumner Redstone, the 85-year-old chairman of media properties CBS Corp. and Viacom, gave a recent interview in which he jabs at other media moguls, including Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch; boasts of his sexual predilictions, particularly his attraction to married women; and, most alarmingly, of his belief he is impervious...
By Adam Bernstein | May 4, 2009; 11:19 AM ET | Comments (0)
Kemp Fades, He Fires. . .
On a slow Sunday morning in the newsroom, the death of Jack Kemp reminded my Post colleague Paul Duggan of covering the old Buffalo Bills quarterback and former congressman in his futile bid for the vice-presidency in 1996, on the Republican ticket headed by Sen. Robert J. Dole (R-Kans). Duggan,...
By Joe Holley | May 3, 2009; 4:25 PM ET | Comments (3)
Fighting For His Life
The Washington Post was the first U.S. newspaper to report the death of Salamo Arouch, a Greek-born boxer who survived imprisonment in the Auschwitz concentration camp in World War II because he was so tough. Arouch was from the Jewish enclave in Salonika, Greece, and was a rising boxing star...
By Matt Schudel | May 2, 2009; 1:34 PM ET | Comments (0)
Danny Gans of Vegas
The AP reports the death of singer-dancer-mimic Danny Gans at 52 and called him "one of the most popular entertainers on the Las Vegas Strip for the last decade." No info yet on how he died, other than he was found by his wife at their home in Henderson, Nev....
By Adam Bernstein | May 1, 2009; 1:46 PM ET | Comments (1)
