Gone With or Without fanfare

[Ollie]

While I never cared much for GOLDEN GIRLS The Show, all of us had to realize this was a show that gave our aging country hope that we see entertainment NOT geared to 13-year-old boys.

We can still hope, right?

[moira finnie]

A world created on film in part thanks to Jack Cardiff, (the studio-made Himalayan outpost in Black Narcissus).

Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) has died at age 94. Celebrated for the shimmering life he brought to cinematography in black and white and color, my first consciousness of this film master was not his celebrated work with Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, being instrumental in making Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes transformative films for all who saw them at an impressionable age, but another movie, that Cardiff described with some humility in his beautifully written autobiography, Magic Hour. My favorite story from that book was Cardiff's description of his introduction to the Technicolor company in the '30s, where he interviewed after an apprenticeship doing all sorts of small jobs behind the scenes of a movie crew. Largely unfamiliar with the technical knowledge that his competition knew, Jack simply described what he had learned about dark, light, composition and framing from looking at masterpieces of art on canvas in The Tate and The National Gallery in London. Needless to say, they were impressed and he was hired.

Being a child at the time, I first fell for this man's gifts when viewing The Vikings (1958) (directed by Richard Fleischer) )on an old black and white tv set that you had to turn channels on with a butter knife. I've never forgotten the visceral, visual thrill of that movie, even after seeing it in color years later . I wish that I could give Mr. C. a proper Viking's Funeral, but this small picture will have to do, along with a link to the British Film Institute's wonderful salute to the long shadow he cast during his career.


The lad's at the Powell & Pressburger pages put it very well, in a nice nod to Jack's contributions to their films :

It is with great sadness that we record the death of
Jack Cardiff
Master of the Technicolor camera, genius cinematographer,
director and a throughly nice bloke

They WERE starved for Technicolor, up there
Not any longer

British Film Institute Tribute to Jack Cardiff

[Lzcutter]

Dom DeLuise Dead At 75: Report
Actor/ comedian reportedly passed away in his sleep Monday.

By Eric Ditzian

Comedian and actor Dom DeLuise has passed away at the age of 75, according to TMZ.com and Entertainment Tonight. He is reported to have died in his sleep around 6 P.M. on Monday at a Los Angeles hospital.

At press time, a representative for DeLuise could not immediately be reached for confirmation.

Throughout the 1960s, DeLuise appeared in various television programs, including a variety show with Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart, and spent many years on "The Dean Martin Show." In 1968, his own program, "The Dom DeLuise Show," debuted on CBS. For several years in the early '90s, DeLuise hosted "Candid Camera."

DeLuise's first notable film role was in Oscar-winning director Sidney Lumet's 1964 movie, "Fail Safe." But DeLuise's film career took off with the help of Mel Brooks, who cast him in "The Twelve Chairs," "Blazing Saddles" and "History of the World: Part I"; in the latter, which he had a memorable and hilarious turn as the lascivious, wine-guzzling Emperor Nero. He appeared with Gene Wilder in "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother" and "The World's Greatest Lover."

DeLuise was a frequent co-star of Burt Reynolds, appearing in films like "The End," "Smokey and the Bandit II" and "The Cannonball Run." He also supplied his vocal talents to animated films such as "An American Tail" and "All Dogs Go to Heaven." DeLuise made his directorial debut in 1973 with "Hot Stuff."

Reynolds released a statement to ET on Tuesday morning (May 5). "I was thinking the other day about this. As you get older you think about this more and more, I was dreading this moment. Dom always made everyone feel better when he was around. I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. I will miss him very much," Reynolds said in the statement.

Aside from film and TV, DeLuise is known for his work in the kitchen and has published several cookbooks, including "Eat This...It'll Make You Feel Better!" As an author, he's also published numerous children's books.

DeLouise was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933. He attended the School of Performing Arts in Manhattan and Tufts University.

He was married to the comedian and actress Carol Arthur. They have three sons, Peter, Michael and David.

[jdb1]

This news makes me so sad. I lived, from teenage on, in Bensonhurst, the same Brooklyn neighborhood that DeLuise came from. He was a Big Star as far as the neighborhood was concerned, and was, one year, the "King of Brooklyn" in the annual "Welcome Back to Brooklyn" festivities we have every June to honor Brooklyn-born celebrities. Although I never met him personally, I knew quite a few people who grew up with him. Everyone liked him, and he was in fact a much more educated man than his comic characters would indicate.

Who remembers how he first came to public notice, in a nightclub-to-TV act he did with Ruth Buzzi, where he was the inept magician with the Italian accent, "Dominick the Great," and she was his silent contortionist assistant, "Shekuntalah?" As Dominick the Great always said: "No applause-a, please, save-a for the end!" He surely gets my applause.

[Birdy]

How sad.
I have many memories of him making my family laugh when I was young,
and making my friends and I laugh in the cult-classic "History". He was a fabulous Nero.
Birdy

[movieman1957]

I liked him as Reynold's schizophrenic friend in "The End." Watching him have conversations with himself and trying too hard to help Burt kill himself were the best parts of that film.

[moira finnie]

Who remembers how he first came to public notice, in a nightclub-to-TV act he did with Ruth Buzzi, where he was the inept magician with the Italian accent, "Dominic the Great," and she was his silent contortionist assistant, "Shekuntalah?" As Dominic the Great always said: "No applause-a, please, save-a for the end!" He surely gets my applause.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! I'd forgotten all about that dim childhood memory, though I do remember thinking he was very funny when he appeared in Silent Movie (1976) for Mel Brooks, (wonder how DeLuise would have fared in the silent era?). Dom used to appear on Ed Sullivan, Dean Martin and the Tonight show (seen during summer vacation) doing that act, which always cracked me up when he did the "No applause-a, please, save-a for the end!" line. Thanks for reminding me, Judith.

A lovely performer with a genuine sweetness in much of his earlier work, and, as far as I've ever heard, he somehow managed to have a real Italian family, with only one wife, Carol Arthur, for 43 years. The couple had 3 handsome "boys", all of whom seem to have gone into the family biz.

This one's for you, Mr. DeLuise. You earned it.

[CineMaven]

"...the inept magician with the Italian accent, "Dominic the Great," and she was his silent contortionist assistant, "Shekuntalah?" As Dominic the Great always said: "No applause-a, please, save-a for the end!" "

Wow! I forgot about that. Sad news about Dom DeLuise. I really loved him and Burt Reynolds in "THE END." Hilarious!! Sad news!

[mrsl]

Dom played the same character in two or three Stargate.sg-l shows. I can't remember his name but he was an electrical memory in the heads of all four stars. As he did so well, he drove them all nuts with his out of turn remarks, and the audience into throws of laughter. One of his 'boy's' directed several episodes, of the series, and the other also had a recurring role. He never lost that sweet, lovable, pain-in-the-neck character he did so well.

Thanks Dom, for some wonderful times.

Anne

[srowley75]

I know I'm late to the Bea Arthur tribute, but I'm still depressed about her passing. I'd dreamed of hopefully one day getting to meet her in person. Now along with several other unique yet less glamorous talents I'd grown to love - Gilda Radner, Madeline Kahn, Sandy Dennis, Colleen Dewhurst - that can never come to pass. (I'm still hopeful about Barbara Harris and Elaine May.)

But Bea had a natural talent for comedy that I've seen in so few individuals. It wasn't just the voice that made her line delivery so funny - it was her sly side glances, her body language, her knack for being able to judge when to go crazy with a line and when to keep things low key. She was one of a kind.

-Stephen

[Lzcutter]

One of my favorite people and one of my favorite interviewees has passed away. Sam Butera was retired, living in Las Vegas and was 81 years. I'm teary-eyed but grateful that I had the chance to know him in his later years when he was still performing and still proving that even into his 70s, he could still wail on a sax like no one else.

He was best known as Louie Prima's sax player but Sam was in a category all by himself. He grew up in New Orleans and had bounced around the French Quarter enough to make a name for himself. He had joined up with Louie Prima more than once.

Sam got the call from Prima on Dec. 24th, 1954 to come and join him and Keely Smith in Las Vegas. They had a contract with to play the Casbah Lounge at the Sahara Hotel.

Sam told Prima that the contract would have to wait until 26th as it was Christmas Day and he couldn't leave his family and it would be hard to round up the band.

The next day, Sam Butera and the (hastily named) Witnesses were headed for Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Strip would never be the same.

Louie, Keely, Sam and the Witnesses held court in the Casbah Lounge for the next seven years, playing sets from midnight to dawn. "Everyone in town was there, Sinatra, Martin, Sammy Davis, Sophie Tucker, to hear us play because we were the hottest thing in the country, in the world" Sam told me in a long interview in 2004.

He loved Louie like an older brother and when Louie and Keely divorced in the early 1960s, Sam stayed with Louie and they continued their lounge act with Louie's new wife, Gia.

During our interview, Sam got teary talking of Louie's later years and the coma that befell him in the early 1970s and that he never recovered from.

"Jump, Jive and Wail" and "Just a Gigolo" are just two of the standards that Sam Butera helped make essential swing music listening.

Thanks to David Lee Roth and The Gap ads, Sam was rediscovered in the 1980s and again in the late 1990s.

He toured until he retired a few years back with his group, The Wildest. I saw them from the lounge at New York, New York to the stages of Fullerton, Hollywood and back to Las Vegas.

I had the opportunity to do an extensive biographical interview with him in 2003. We saw each other after that Claude Trenier's funeral where he cried on my shoulder and again at a supper club where he and the Wildest were preforming in Pasadena. He always took time out to talk with me and my husband after the show.

The Sax Man who loved Louie Prima like a brother and who called Las Vegas home will be missed by all of us who remember when the hottest music could be heard for a two drink minimum and the will to stay up till dawn.

I will miss him dearly as he was one of the pioneers of the Las Vegas Strip sound and one of the best.

I hope they dim the lights on the Strip in his honor.

From the Times-Picayune:

Sam Butera, the hard-driving, hard-swinging New Orleans saxophonist who was Louis Prima's longtime musical partner, died Wednesday in Las Vegas following a long illness. He was 81.

Mr. Butera joined Prima's band in 1954. With singer Keely Smith, they
built one of the most popular acts in the golden age of Las Vegas. Mr.
Butera cooked up the arrangements that gave the likes of "Just a
Gigolo," "I Ain't Got Nobody" and "Jump Jive An' Wail" maximum impact.

"Louis's ace-in-the-hole was Sam Butera," said Gia Prima, the fifth of
Louis's five wives and the singer in his band from 1962 to 1975. "That
animal attraction that they had, with Sam's honking sax and Louis's
jumping and jiving -- without Sam, Louis couldn't have pulled it off."

Mr. Butera grew up in the 7th Ward. His father owned Poor Boys Grocery
& Meat Market. One evening the elder Butera took his son to see a big
band, and asked the boy which horn he liked the best.

"The saxophones were closest, so I pointed to the saxophones," Mr.
Butera recalled in a 1996 interview. "The next day I had a horn."

A prodigy, he turned pro at 14, serving as the human jukebox for
strippers on Bourbon Street. "I worked at every joint on that street,"
he recounted. "You name it and I worked it. All those girls wanted to
do was mother me."

At 18, he was voted the "Outstanding Teenage Musician in America" by
Look Magazine at Carnegie Hall in New York. After graduating from Holy
Cross High School, he considered Notre Dame University scholarships
for music and track and a career in mechanical engineering. Instead he
hit the road with big bands led by Ray McKinley, Tommy Dorsey and Al
Hirt.

By late 1954, he'd cut several records under his own name. He often
performed at the 500 Club on Bourbon Street, which was owned by
Prima's brother Leon. Looking to staff his new band at the Sahara
Hotel in Las Vegas, Prima scouted Mr. Butera at the 500 Club and
offered him a job.

Mr. Butera had never been to Vegas, then a desert stopover with 30,000
inhabitants. He banked as much as $700 a week backing Lili Christine
the Cat Girl and other strippers on Bourbon Street; his first Sahara
paycheck was $250. His wife, Vera Marie, wanted to return to New
Orleans; Mr. Butera insisted they stay.

"I thought it would be a good move," he said.

It was. Mr. Butera started writing arrangements for Prima's band, the
Witnesses. "That's when it happened," he said. "The sound, you know?"

That sound was an explosive mixture of jump blues, jazz, top-notch
crooning and no-holds-barred entertainment. During a seven-year run at
the Sahara with the Witnesses, they defined Las Vegas cool. On-stage,
Mr. Butera and Prima cut up big-time, blazing away at each other
during trumpet and sax duels, thrashing around, stomping through the
crowd.

"His contributions to Louis are immeasurable," said Ron Cannatella, a
radio host and director of the Louis Prima archives. "They were a
team. They worked perfectly together."

Mr. Butera's enormous tone stood toe-to-toe with Prima's manic energy.
But for all the antics, Mr. Butera was also a serious musician who
insisted the music be correct.

"Every night before the shows, you could hear Sam in the dressing room
running scales and fussing over his reeds," Gia Prima recalled. "He
wanted everything to be perfect. I don't think there's another tenor
sax man that could touch him."

Their popularity extended far beyond Vegas. After scoring a national
hit with "That Old Black Magic" in 1959, they sold out as many as four
shows nightly at New York's Copacabana -- more than even Frank
Sinatra.

Through the mid-1970s, they made the rounds of the popular TV talk
shows of the day, chatting with the likes of Merv Griffin, Johnny
Carson, Dinah Shore and Dean Martin.

"We had fun, and we played good music, what the people wanted to
hear," Mr. Butera said in 1996. "And it was our own thing. Then
everybody started copying our style of music."

After Louis Prima fell into an irreversible coma in 1975, Mr. Butera
continued to record and tour with Frank Sinatra and others. In 1985,
former Van Halen singer David Lee Roth launched his solo career with a
copy of Mr. Butera's "Just a Gigolo" / "I Ain't Got Nobody"
arrangement. Ex-Stray Cats frontman Brian Setzer scored a Grammy for
his cover of the Prima/Butera classic "Jump Jive An' Wail."

During the swing revival of the 1990s, Mr. Butera was perceived as one
of the music's originators. He and his band, the Wildest, enjoyed
long, successful residencies in Nevada, Atlantic City and elsewhere,
perpetuating the swing and shtick of vintage Vegas.

"He carried the legacy on," Gia Prima said. "Sam could really
reproduce that sound. If you wanted to hear that music, you had to go
see Sam. It was amazing that he kept on as long as he did."

He made his New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival debut in 2002. In the
Economy Hall Tent, a tuxedoed Mr. Butera declared his intention to
play "music you can relate to. All old songs. None of that new s---."

He delivered his usual repertoire of lounge-worthy Viagra jokes and
airtight versions of "Jump Jive An' Wail," "Just a Gigolo" and "Down
On Bourbon Street." "That's happy music, folks," he said.

During occasional New Orleans visits, Mr. Butera often purchased
pastries for his mother at Angelo Brocato Ice Cream & Confectionery on
North Carrollton Avenue. The title of his 1996 CD proclaimed that "The
Whole World Loves Italians." He last came to town in 2003 to be
induced into the Italian-American Hall of Fame. Nancy Sinatra, Tony
Bennett and Jerry Lewis sent tributes; Pete Fountain presented the
award.

When failing health made travel difficult, Mr. Butera retired. He
entered a Las Vegas hospital in January, and never left.

Next year is the 100th anniversary of Louis Prima's birth. Gia Prima
is planning numerous commemorations. With news of Mr. Butera's
passing, "my heart is saddened," she said. "For me it's almost like
losing Louis again."

Survivors include his wife of 60 years, Vera, two sons and two
daughters. Funeral arrangements are incomplete.

[Ollie]

We'd tried to get Sam to stay in Austin for longer than his occasional visits, but Vegas pays too much money for his band to turn down. Sam's performances made a lot of great times for the dancers here, though. I'm glad he had a great long life.

[movieman1957]

I just saw where David Carradine has died. Reports show that he may have hanged himself while others show natural causes. He was 72.

[jdb1]

This is in today's online NY Times:


David Carradine, the star of the 1970s television series “Kung Fu” and the title villain of the “Kill Bill” movies, has died in Thailand, The Associated Press reported. The United States Embassy in Bangkok told The A.P. that Mr. Carradine had been found dead in his hotel suite in Bangkok, where he was working on a movie. He was 72.

Mr. Carradine was part of an acting family that included his father, John; his brother, Bruce, and half-brothers Keith and Robert; and his nieces Ever Carradine and Martha Plimpton.

After a short run as the title character in the 1966 television adaptation of the Western “Shane,” he found fame in the 1972 series “Kung Fu” as Kwai Chang Caine, a wanderer raised by Shaolin monks to be a martial arts master. He enjoyed a career resurgence in recent years when he was cast by Quentin Tarantino in the action movies “Kill Bill: Vol. 1″ and “Vol. 2.”

Updated | 10:58 a.m. Thai police have told BBC News that Mr. Carradine was found on Thursday morning by a hotel maid in a wardrobe with a rope around his neck.

[jdb1]

And it gets worse. Here's a Reuters report from an hour later:

BANGKOK (Reuters) - U.S. actor David Carradine was found dead, naked and hanging from a rope in the closet of his luxury Bangkok hotel room on Thursday, Thai police said.

Police said they were alerted to the death of the actor -- who starred as the wandering monk in the long-running Kung Fu U.S. television series -- on Thursday morning.

"He was found hanging by a rope in the room's closet," Lieutenant Colonel Pirom Jantrapirom of the Lumpini police station in Bangkok told Reuters.

He said Carradine's body was naked when it was found and there were no signs of any other people in the room. The body has been transferred to a hospital for an autopsy.

U.S. embassy official Michael Turner earlier confirmed Carradine's death and told Reuters that the body had been found at Bangkok's Nailert Hotel.

"I can confirm that David Carradine passed away in Bangkok. We extend our condolences to his family," Turner said.

Carradine had more recently starred in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films as Bill.