Post Mortem: September 19, 2010 - September 25, 2010

LaLanne: "Clean Thoughts and Dirty Girls"

Obit fan Alex Remington, who used to contribute to our page when he worked at The Post, brought this recent interview to our attention of 96-year-old Jack LaLanne and his musings on living a long and healthy life: Fitness guru Jack LaLanne, on the eve of his 96th birthday, shares...

By Adam Bernstein  | September 24, 2010; 11:15 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (0)
Categories:  Athletes  
Save & Share:                   

Singer Eddie Fisher Dies at 82

Eddie Fisher, 82, a heartthrob singer whose chart topping hits and scandalous love life made headlines during the 1950s, died Sept. 22. Between 1950 and 1956 Mr. Fisher had seventeen songs in the Top 10 music charts and thirty-five in the Top 40. His tunes made him so popular, that...

By T. Rees Shapiro  | September 24, 2010; 9:38 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (0)
Categories:  T. Rees Shapiro  | Tags:  Carrie Fisher, Eddie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Star Wars  
Save & Share:                   

The Local Life Feature

Good afternoon, obituary readers. Unlike many major newspapers (and most smaller ones), The Washington Post writes obituaries for major public figures as well as obituaries for people who led far-more private lives in the Washington area. On any given day, we have obituaries for military leaders, movie stars, Nobel laureates,...

By T. Rees Shapiro  | September 22, 2010; 12:17 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (4)
 
Save & Share:                   

Leonard Skinner, Namesake of "Lynyrd Skynyrd," Dies

Leonard Skinner, 77, a high school physical education teacher who was the improbable namesake of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, died yesterday. You can read his full obituary here. In the late 1960s, Mr. Skinner was the by-the-books gym teacher at Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville, where he...

By T. Rees Shapiro  | September 21, 2010; 10:06 AM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (14)
Categories:  T. Rees Shapiro  | Tags:  Leonard Skinner, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ronnie Van Zant, sweet home alabama  
Save & Share:                   

Can 'old age' be the cause of death?

We operate here on the Washington Post obits desk with certain ironclad rules.One of them is that we never write that a person died of "natural causes" or "old age" (or "heart failure," since in the end, everyone's heart fails). "We have to use a specific medical cause of death,"...

By Emma Brown  | September 19, 2010; 1:32 PM ET  |  Permalink  |  Comments (7)
Categories:  Emma Brown  | Tags:  cause of death, david brown washington post, world health organization cause of death  
Save & Share: