Obituaries 01 (Sep 08 - Jul 11)

[iam802]

I remembered him because of 'The Naked Gun' and the 'giant condom' in the show

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Remembering Leslie Nielsen, A Master Of The Art Of Not Being Funny
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010 ... eing-funny

When most people think of Leslie Nielsen, who died yesterday from complications of pneumonia, they think of Airplane! or the Naked Gun movies or, if they're really trying to outcool you, the spectacularly deranged and fundamentally doomed six-episode TV series Police Squad! Me, I think of Saturday Night Live.

When Nielsen hosted the show, way back in 1989, he was given a magnificent opening monologue where he explained exactly what he did and his bafflement therein. He didn't understand why he had been asked to host a comedy show, because he was neither a comedian nor a comic. A comedian, he explained, was someone who says funny things. A comic was someone who says things in a funny way.

Nielsen, on the other hand, was someone who said unfunny things in an unfunny way, and for some reason, people laughed. To demonstrate this, he delivered an innocuous line – something along the lines of "Mr. Jones, sit down, I'd like to talk to you about your son" – twice. The first time, he said it as though he were in a drama, and the response was muted.

Then he told us that he was going to say the exact same unfunny line as Lt. Frank Drebin, in an unfunny way, and he did exactly that, and the audience exploded. It wasn't just indulging him as prompted, either. Without actually tilting his delivery in that direction, Nielsen made it genuinely funny. To underscore his point, he then broke character with a look of happy exasperation and basically said, "See?"

It was one of my favorite SNL monologues ever, because it explicitly dissected the host's entire schtick in a way that invited appreciation, rather than making it instantly tired and formulaic. Instead of mocking his persona in one way or the other, in the manner of most monologues, it was a tiny little master class in how it's done.

And it's informed every single time I've come across Nielsen since, whether deliberately or by accident. When his later movies like Dracula: Dead And Loving It and Spy Hard didn't work, I theorized that it was because he had started mugging (or was told by his directors to mug), which actively subverted the very thing that worked for him.

And when I watch Airplane! or the Naked Gun movies or – seriously, you won't believe how dumb and brilliant it is – Police Squad!, I understand just a little bit more how he's doing what he's doing, and it makes me sit in awed appreciation a little bit. Look, "And don't call me Shirley" is, perhaps indisputably, the dumbest joke in the history of anything. Leslie Nielsen was able to turn it into comic gold. Saying unfunny things in an unfunny manner and magically having the result be funny is an incredibly hard trick. And nobody ever did it better.

[winston]

I used to like those songs by Boney M eg. By the rivers of Babylon, Daddy Cool,

Pop singer Bobby Farrell dies on tour in Russia

Singer Bobby Farrell of the 1970s European chart-topping group Boney M was found dead in his hotel bed Thursday while on tour in Russia, his agent said. He was 61.

Farrell performed as scheduled in St. Petersburg on Wednesday night, but complained of breathing problems before and after his show, said the agent, John Seine. He had been due to fly to Rome Thursday for a television show.

Farrell, who lived in Amsterdam, was more a dancer and showman than singer when he headlined Boney M in the 1970s. The group, based in Germany, broke into the charts with "Daddy Cool" in 1978. That year their version of "By the Rivers of Babylon" sold nearly 2 million records in Britain alone, keeping it No. 1 for five weeks.

Alphonso "Bobby" Farrell left his home on the Caribbean island of Aruba at 15 to work as a sailor, then drifted to Norway and Germany to pursue a career as a DJ, according to his official biography.

He was chosen in 1974 to front the Caribbean group Boney M, put together by German singer and songwriter Frank Farian, who did much of the recorded singing. Boney M had 38 top-10 hits, including 15 number ones in Germany. They included "Brown Girl in the Ring" and "Mary's Boychild."

In 1978 Boney M was the first Western music group invited by a Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, to perform in the Soviet Union. A Soviet military plane flew the performers from London to Moscow, where they sang for an audience of 2,700 Russians in Red Square.

The original group of Farrell and three women broke up in 1986 and Farrell continued on his own or with various female back-up singers, maintaining his flamboyant style and glittering costumes. In recent years he toured under the name Bobby Farrell's Boney M, melding disco and Calypso music.

Seine said the cause of death was not known, but Farrell had suffered health problems off-and-on for 10 years. He said he was found dead by hotel staff after he failed to respond to a wake-up call.

Source: AP News

[kennynah]

we r getting older......

[winston]

Jack Lalane dead at 96.

Some of the older forummers may have seen his B&W TV exercise shows

[kennynah]

i'm only 26... i duno who is jack lalane....

the only exercise program i watched on tv is ah loong doing his monkey act, outstretching his hands and parting his legs during mass propaganda exercise

[winston]

Fitness guru Jack LaLanne dies at 96 in California

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jack LaLanne, a one-time sugar-holic who became a television fitness guru preaching exercise and healthy diet to a generation of American housewives, died on Sunday at age 96, his daughter said.

LaLanne, who became U.S. television fixture in his close-fitting jumpsuit starting in 1959 and came to be regarded as the father of the modern fitness movement, succumbed to pneumonia following a brief illness at his home in Morro Bay, along the California's central coast.

"He was surrounded by his family and passed very peacefully and in no distress ... and with the football game on Sunday, so everything was normal," Yvonne LaLanne, 66, told Reuters.

She said her father had remained active until a few months ago, including the taping of a recent public TV special.

Well into his 90s, LaLanne exercised for two hours a day. A typical workout would be 90 minutes of weightlifting and 30 minutes of swimming, changing his routine every 30 days.

He preached the gospel of exercise, raw vegetables and clean living long after his contemporaries had traded in their bicycles for nursing home beds.

"I can't die," LaLanne would say. "It would ruin my image."

LaLanne was born Francois Henri LaLanne on September 26, 1914, in San Francisco, the son of French immigrants. He said he grew into a "sugar-holic" who suffered terrible headaches, mood swings and depression.

In desperation when he was 14, LaLanne's mother took him to hear health lecturer Paul Bragg, who urged followers to exercise and eat unprocessed foods.

The young LaLanne swore off white flour, most fat and sugar and began eating more fruits and vegetables. By age 15, he had built a backyard gym of climbing ropes, chin-up bars, sit-up machines and weights.

Soon, LaLanne, who was only 5 feet, 6 inches tall, was playing high school football. He added weight-lifting to recover from a football injury and was hooked.

LaLanne opened the nation's first modern health club in Oakland, California, in 1936. It had a gym, juice bar and health food store. Soon there were 100 gyms nationwide.

Without bothering with patents, LaLanne designed his own exercise equipment, which he had built by a blacksmith. In 1951, he started using television to get the first generation of couch potatoes to try jumping jacks, push-ups and sit-ups.

"The Jack LaLanne Show," which went national in 1959, showed housewives how to work out and eat right, becoming a staple of U.S. daytime television during a 34-year run.

He also was known for a series of promotional fitness stunts. At age 45, in 1959, he did 1,000 push-ups and 1,000 chin-ups in 86 minutes. In 1984 a 70-year-old LaLanne had himself shackled and handcuffed and towed 70 boats 1.5 miles in Long Beach Harbor.

LaLanne said in 2007 his focus was always to help people the way Paul Bragg had helped him, adding, "Billy Graham is for the hereafter, I'm for the here and now!"


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7 ... health1100

[LenaHuat]

OMG, I was astounded to read Biosensor's Danny's obituary in the ST today. Dead at 48
Wondered what had happened to him

[LenaHuat]

I had forgotten abt my post until I read helios post on Biosensors.
This guy drowned off the shore of Bintan Island.

[Aspellian]

I had forgotten abt my post until I read helios post on Biosensors.
This guy drowned off the shore of Bintan Island.

Probably a simple family holiday trip become a tradegy.

[LenaHuat]

Hi Aspellian
It seemed he was on a biz trip. He skipped the hotel swimming pool and drowned at sea.
Such a great misfortune.