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Tag: Obituaries

  • Gloria Dea, 1st magician on Las Vegas Strip, dies at age 100

    Gloria Dea, 1st magician on Las Vegas Strip, dies at age 100

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    LAS VEGAS (AP) — Gloria Dea, touted as the first magician to perform on what would become the Las Vegas Strip in the early 1940s, has died. She was 100.

    Dea died Saturday at her Las Vegas residence, said LaNae Jenkins, the director of clinical services for Valley Hospice, who was one of Dea’s caretakers. A memorial is being planned.

    Dea also appeared in several movies in the 1940s and ’50s, including “King of the Congo,” starring Buster Crabbe, in 1952.

    Dea moved from California to Las Vegas in 1980. Famed magician David Copperfield befriended her in her later years, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

    “Gloria was amazing. She was charming funny and engaging,” Copperfield told the newspaper. “And in Vegas, as a young magician, she started it all. It was an honor to know her.”

    Dea was 19 when she performed at El Rancho Vegas on May 14, 1941.

    Her show at the Roundup Room is the first recorded appearance by a magician in Las Vegas, the Review-Journal reported Sunday.

    “There was no Strip, really, in those days,” Dea told the newspaper last August when she turned 100. “We had the Last Frontier and the El Rancho Vegas. They had just started building the Flamingo.”

    Dea performed magic that night and more.

    “I also danced. I did the rumba because it was difficult to keep setting up all my magic stuff,” Dea said.

    After relocating to California, Dea appeared in several movies including “Mexicana” in 1945 and “Plan 9 From Outer Space” in 1957.

    “I was in the Saturday matinees, for the kids,” she said. “‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’ was the worst movie of all time. … I had fun making it though.”

    But that marked the end of Dea’s entertainment career. She sold insurance and then new and used cars for a dealership in the San Fernando Valley, becoming a top sales rep.

    According to the Review-Journal, Dea was an only child and did not have any immediate family. Her husband Sam Anzalone, a former California car sales executive, died in January 2022.

    Dea was scheduled to be inducted into the UNLV College of Fine Arts Hall of Fame on Tuesday night.

    Those plans will go forward as planned; Dea will be inducted by Copperfield in a presentation before the full program.

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  • Ann Summers lingerie chain boss Jacqueline Gold dies at 62

    Ann Summers lingerie chain boss Jacqueline Gold dies at 62

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    LONDON (AP) — Jacqueline Gold, who helped make lingerie and sex toys a female-friendly mainstream business as head of Britain’s Ann Summers chain, has died, her family said Friday.

    She was 62 and had been diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago. Gold’s family said she died on Thursday with close family by her side.

    Gold’s father, David Gold, bought the four struggling Ann Summers sex shops in the early 1970s. Jacqueline joined as an intern several years later, rising to become director, then chief executive and finally executive chairwoman.

    She ditched the firm’s forbidding men-only atmosphere and made them more appealing to women, with female-friendly products sold both in shops and through women-only, at-home gatherings inspired by Tupperware parties.

    Under her, Ann Summers became a familiar feature of the British high street, with more than 80 stores nationwide.

    She told the BBC radio show “Desert Island Discs” in 2018 that it was “a real culture change” for the business.

    “Female empowerment has always been at the heart of everything we do,” she said.

    The family statement said Gold’s “vision and creativity” turned Ann Summers “from an unknown brand to a British household name.”

    “Jacqueline is best-known for founding Ann Summers and leading a business run by women, for women. She was also an activist for women in business, and championed female entrepreneurs with the ambition to better the working environment for women,” the family said.

    Gold was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 2016 for services to entrepreneurship, women in business and social enterprise.

    Sister Vanessa Gold, who is now chief executive of Ann Summers, said “Jacqueline courageously battled stage four breast cancer for seven years and was an absolute warrior throughout her cancer journey.”

    “In life she was a trailblazer, a visionary, and the most incredible woman, all of which makes this news that much harder to bear. As a family, we are utterly heartbroken at the loss of our wife, mum, sister, and best friend.”

    Gold died two months after her father, who was co-chairman of Premier League soccer team West Ham United.

    She is survived by her husband Dan Cunningham and daughter Scarlett, as well as her sister.

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  • Lance Reddick, Star of The Wire and John Wick, Dies at 60

    Lance Reddick, Star of The Wire and John Wick, Dies at 60

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    Lance Reddick, the actor known for his work on The Wire and in the John Wick film franchise, died Friday morning. He was 60. 

    “Acclaimed actor Lance Reddick passed away suddenly this morning from natural causes,” his publicist confirmed to Vanity Fair. 

    Reddick was a prolific actor who worked across both film and television, with roles on HBO’s Oz, Amazon’s Bosch, and Netflix’s Resident Evil. But he was perhaps best known for his role as the ambitious and tough Lieutenant Cedric Daniels on The Wire. David Simon’s police drama introduced him to many television viewers. “It really became a worldwide phenomenon through people sharing the DVDs all over the world,” Reddick told GQ in 2019, adding, “It’s an iconic piece of history and I feel very fortunate and proud of the work we did with that.” 

    More recently, Reddick appeared in the John Wick movies as Charon, a concierge at the Continental Hotel in New York. The fourth movie in the franchise, John Wick: Chapter 4, premieres March 24, and Reddick had recently been doing promotional work for the film. He was also expected to reprise his role in Ballerina, the John Wick spin-off starring Ana de Armas. 

    Reddick was born in Baltimore and developed a passion for music at a young age. He played piano and studied classical music composition at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. But after suffering an injury while working as a struggling musician in Boston, he turned his attention to acting. He studied at Yale School of Drama and began booking television roles in the mid-1990s. Over the years, he appeared in projects as varied as Lost, Fringe, and Comedy Central’s Corporate. 

    Throughout his career, Reddick remained devoted to music, even releasing an album, Contemplations & Remembrances, in 2007. He also lent his talents to video games such as Destiny and Horizon Zero Dawn. In addition to his work in the upcoming John Wick: Chapter 4 and Ballerina, Reddick is expected to appear posthumously in the White Men Can’t Jump remake out in May and in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series for Disney+. 

    Reddick is survived by his wife, Stephanie Reddick, and children, Yvonne Nicole Reddick and Christopher Reddick. 

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    Natalie Jarvey

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  • Chaim Topol, Israeli actor known for Fiddler’s Tevye, dies

    Chaim Topol, Israeli actor known for Fiddler’s Tevye, dies

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    JERUSALEM (AP) — Chaim Topol, a leading Israeli actor who charmed generations of theatergoers and movie-watchers with his portrayal of Tevye, the long-suffering and charismatic milkman in “Fiddler on the Roof,” has died in Tel Aviv, Israeli leaders said Thursday. He was 87.

    The cause was not immediately released.

    Israeli leaders on Thursday tweeted their memories and condolences to Topol’s family.

    Israel’s ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, hailed Topol as “one of the most outstanding Israeli actors,” who “filled the movie screens with his presence and above all entered deep into our hearts.”

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Topol’s “contribution to Israeli culture will continue to exist for generations.”

    Benny Gantz, Israel’s former minister of defense, praised Topol for helping Israelis connect to their roots.

    “We laughed and cried at the same time over the deepest wounds of Israeli society,” he wrote of Topol’s performance.

    Yair Lapid, head of Israel’s opposition, said Topol taught Israelis “love of culture and love of the land.”

    Topol’s charity, Jordan River Village, also announced his death, paying tribute to him as an “inspiration” whose “legacy will continue for generations to come.”

    A recipient of two Golden Globe awards and nominee for both an Academy Award and a Tony Award, Topol long has ranked among Israel’s most decorated actors. More recently in 2015, he was celebrated for his contributions to film and culture with the Israel Prize for lifetime achievement, his country’s most prestigious honor. Up until a few years ago, he remained involved in theater and said he still fielded requests to play Tevye.

    Topol got his start in acting in a theatrical troupe in the Israeli army in the 1950s, where he met his future wife Galia. His first major breakthrough was the lead role in the 1964 hit Israeli film Sallah Shabati, about the hardships of Middle Eastern immigrants to Israel. The film made history as the first Israeli film to earn an Academy Award nomination and also gave Topol his first Golden Globe Award.

    Two years later, he made his English-language film debut alongside Kirk Douglas in “Cast a Giant Shadow.” But the role of his life arrived in the long-running musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” in which he played the dairyman protagonist, Tevye, a Jewish father trying to maintain his family’s cultural traditions despite the turmoil gripping their Russian shtetl.

    With his rich voice, folkish witticisms and commanding stage presence, Topol’s Tevye, driving his horse-drawn buggy and delivering milk, butter and eggs to the rich, became a popular hero in Israel and around the world.

    After years of playing Tevye on stage in London and on Broadway, he scored the lead role in the 1971 Norman Jewison-directed film version, winning the Golden Globe award for lead actor and being nominated for a best actor Academy Award. He lost out to Gene Hackman in “The French Connection.”

    Topol played the part more than 3,500 times on stage, most recently in 2009. With the help of heavy makeup and costume work, he first portrayed the much older, burlier dairyman in his 30s and quite literally aged into the role.

    Topol faced tough competition securing the role in Jewison’s hit film — scores of talents have played Tevye in over a dozen languages since “Fiddler on the Roof” first appeared. Topol has said his personal experience as the descendant of Russian Jews helped him relate to Tevye and deepen his performance.

    In an interview with The Associated Press from his Tel Aviv home in 2015, on the occasion of accepting the Israel prize for lifetime achievement, Topol traced his meteoric rise from modest beginnings to worldwide fame.

    “I wasn’t brought up in Hollywood. I was brought up in a kibbutz,” he said. “Sometimes I am surprised when I come to China or when I come to Tokyo or when I come to France or when I come wherever and the clerk at the immigration says ’Topol, Topol, are you Topol?”

    Topol also starred in more than 30 other movies, including as the lead in “Galileo,” Dr. Hans Zarkov in “Flash Gordon” and James Bond’s foil-turned-ally Milos Columbo in “For Your Eyes Only” alongside Roger Moore.

    But he became synonymous with just one role — Tevye. Pouring his heart out about his impoverished Jewish community over the years, Topol made audiences laugh and cry from Broadway and West End stages.

    “How many people are known for one part? How many people in my profession are known worldwide?” he told the AP. “I’m not complaining.”

    Yet Topol said he sometimes needed to look outside of acting to find meaning in his life. He devoted much of his later years to charity as chairman of the board of Jordan River Village, a camp serving Middle Eastern children with life-threatening diseases.

    “I am interested in charities and find it more fulfilling than running from one (acting) part to another,” he said. ”When you are successful in a film and the money flows, yes, obviously, it is very nice. But to tell you that is the most important thing, I am not sure.”

    Topol is survived by his wife and three children.

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  • Robert Blake, actor acquitted in wife’s killing, dies at 89

    Robert Blake, actor acquitted in wife’s killing, dies at 89

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Blake, the Emmy award-winning performer who went from acclaim for his acting to notoriety when he was tried and acquitted in the killing of his wife, died Thursday at age 89.

    A statement released on behalf of his niece, Noreen Austin, said Blake died from heart disease, surrounded by family at home in Los Angeles.

    Blake, star of the 1970s TV show, “Baretta,” had once hoped for a comeback, but he never recovered from the long ordeal which began with the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, outside a Studio City restaurant on May 4, 2001. The story of their strange marriage, the child it produced and its violent end was a Hollywood tragedy played out in court.

    Once hailed as among the finest actors of his generation, Blake became better known as the center of a real-life murder trial. Many remembered him not as the rugged, dark-haired star of “Baretta,” but as a spectral, white-haired murder defendant.

    In a 2002 interview with The Associated Press while he was jailed awaiting trial, he bemoaned the change in his status with his fans nationwide: “It hurt because America is the only family I had.”

    He was adamant that he had not killed his wife, who was shot once in head outside a Los Angeles restaurant where the couple had just dined in May 2001, and a jury ultimately acquitted him. But a civil jury would find him liable for her death and order him to pay Bakley’s family $30 million, a judgment which sent him into bankruptcy.

    After Bakley’s death, it was revealed that she used many aliases to run a mail-order business soliciting money from lonely men and selling pornographic pictures of herself.

    The daughter he and Bakley had together, Rose Lenore, was raised by other relatives and went for years without seeing Blake, until they spoke in 2019. She would tell People magazine that she called him “Robert,” not “Dad.”

    It was an ignominious finale for a life lived in the spotlight from childhood. As a youngster, he starred in the “Our Gang” comedies and acted in a movie classic, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” As an adult, he was praised for his portrayal of real-life murderer Perry Smith in the movie of Truman Capote’s true crime best seller “In Cold Blood.”

    His career peaked with the 1975-78 TV cop series, “Baretta.” He starred as a detective who carried a pet cockatoo on his shoulder and was fond of disguises. It was typical of his specialty, portraying tough guys with soft hearts, and its signature line: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,” was often quoted.

    Blake won a 1975 Emmy for his portrayal of Tony Baretta, although behind the scenes the show was wracked by disputes involving the temperamental star. He gained a reputation as one of Hollywood’s finest actors, but one of the most difficult to work with. He later admitted to struggles with alcohol and drug addiction in his early life.

    In 1993, Blake won another Emmy as the title character in, “Judgment Day: the John List Story,” portraying a soft-spoken, churchgoing man who murdered his wife and three children.

    Blake’s career had slowed down well before the trial. He made only a handful of screen appearances after the mid-1980s; his last project was in David Lynch’s “Lost Highway,” released in 1997. According to his niece, Blake had spent his recent years “enjoying jazz music, playing his guitar, reading poetry, and watching many Hollywood Classic films.”

    He was born Michael James Gubitosi on Sept. 18, 1933, in Nutley, New Jersey. His father, an Italian immigrant and his mother, an Italian American, wanted their three children to succeed in show business. At age 2, Blake was performing with a brother and sister in a family vaudeville act called, “The Three Little Hillbillies.”

    When his parents moved the family to Los Angeles, his mother found work for the kids as movie extras and little Mickey Gubitosi was plucked from the crowd by producers who cast him in the “Our Gang” comedies. He appeared in the series for five years and changed his name to Bobby Blake.

    He went on to work with Hollywood legends, playing the young John Garfield in “Humoresque” in 1946 and the little boy who sells Humphrey Bogart a crucial lottery ticket in the Oscar-winning “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”

    In adulthood, he landed serious movie roles. The biggest breakthrough was in 1967 with “In Cold Blood.” Later there were films including, “Tell Them Willie Boy is Here” and “Electra Glide in Blue.”

    In 1961, Blake and actress Sondra Kerr married and had two children, Noah and Delinah. They divorced in 1983.

    His fateful meeting with Bakley came in 1999 at a jazz club where he went to escape loneliness.

    “Here I was, 67 or 68 years old. My life was on hold. My career was stalled out,” he said in the AP interview. “I’d been alone for a long time.”

    He said he had no reason to dislike Bakley: “She took me out of the stands and put me back in the arena. I had something to live for.”

    When Bakley gave birth to a baby girl, she named Christian Brando — son of Marlon — as the father. But DNA tests pointed to Blake.

    Blake first saw the little girl, named Rosie, when she was two months old and she became the focus of his life. He married Bakley because of the child.

    “Rosie is my blood. Rosie is calling to me,” he said. “I have no doubt that Rosie and I are going to walk off into the sunset together.”

    Prosecutors would claim that he planned to kill Bakley to get sole custody of the baby and tried to hire hitmen for the job. But evidence was muddled and a jury rejected that theory.

    On her last night alive, Blake and his 44-year-old wife dined at a neighborhood restaurant, Vitello’s. He claimed she was shot when he left her in the car and returned to the restaurant to retrieve a handgun he had inadvertently left behind. Police were initially baffled and Blake was not arrested until a year after the crime occurred.

    Once a wealthy man, he spent millions on his defense and wound up living on Social Security and a Screen Actor’s Guild pension.

    In a 2006 interview with the AP a year after his acquittal, Blake said he hoped to restart his career.

    “I’d like to give my best performance,” he said. “I’d like to leave a legacy for Rosie about who I am. I’m not ready for a dog and fishing pole yet. I’d like to go to bed each night desperate to wake up each morning and create some magic.”

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    Deutsch, the primary writer of this obituary, retired from The Associated Press in 2014.

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  • Founder of Love’s Travel Stops dies in Oklahoma at age 85

    Founder of Love’s Travel Stops dies in Oklahoma at age 85

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    OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores says the founder of the truck stop chain known for its red and yellow heart logo, “Clean Places, Friendly Faces” motto and in-store showers has died.

    The company announced on its website that Tom Love died Tuesday in Oklahoma City. He was 85. A cause of death was not given.

    “We are deeply saddened by the passing of our beloved husband, father and grandfather,” family members said in the statement. “While the grief we feel is unmeasurable, we celebrate his life and will continue his legacy of living a life filled with integrity, honesty and faith.”

    Love and his wife, Judy, founded what became Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores as Musket Corporation in 1964, according to the statement. They leased a closed service station for $5,000 in Watonga, about 50 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.

    “In many respects, he was an ordinary person who built an extraordinary business alongside his wife Judy and his family, who he loved deeply,” Love’s President Shane Wharton said in the company statement.

    Love’s, worth $9.7 billion in 2022 according to Forbes, remains family owned. It now operates about 600 travel stops in 42 states with more than 39,000 employees, mostly along interstate highways.

    Love established a concept that combined grocery and convenience stores with fuel stops, opening what the company said was the first combination grocery-convenience store with a self-service gasoline station in 1972 in Guymon, Oklahoma, in the Oklahoma Panhandle.

    Love’s opened its first travel stop on Interstate 40 in Amarillo, Texas, in 1981, catering to professional truck drivers and other motorists seeking convenience and efficiency when traveling across the country.

    Love’s has expanded those services to include truck maintenance and roadside assistance for tractor-trailer rigs, and showers in the stores.

    The company logo, a multi-colored, multi-layered heart with a red heart seemingly moving toward the viewer is featured atop the store’s signs along interstates, on the jersey’s of the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and on NASCAR Cup Series cars.

    Love is survived by his wife, four children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

    Funeral services were not announced.

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  • Gordon Pinsent, award-winning Canadian actor, dies at 92

    Gordon Pinsent, award-winning Canadian actor, dies at 92

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    Gordon Pinsent, an award-winning Canadian actor acclaimed for his performance as a heartbroken husband in the film “Away From Her,” has died at 92.

    His family said in a statement that Pinsent died in his sleep Saturday.

    “Gordon Pinsent was one of Canada’s most iconic actors,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sunday on Twitter. “He was passionate, captivating and endlessly talented.”

    Pinsent worked for decades in radio, television and movies. In 2008, he received the Academy of Canadian Television and Cinema’s Genie Award for best actor in a leading role for “Away From Her.” He played a husband losing his wife not only to Alzheimer’s but also to another man.

    Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley directed “Away From Her,” starring Pinsent and Julie Christie, which premiered at film festivals in 2006 before its theatrical release in 2007.

    “Gordon had an enormous capacity for joy in absolutely everything he did,” Polley said Sunday on Twitter. “It was infectious and educational. There wasn’t a moment without a twinkle of mischief and a determination to enjoy the moment.”

    Pinsent was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, in 1930, and began acting in his late teens. With his deep baritone voice, Pinsent played in radio drama on the CBC before working in movies and television.

    Pinsent spent about four years in the Canadian Army in the early 1950s. After returning to acting, he appeared on children’s shows in the early 1960s, including CBC’s “The Forest Rangers.” He later appeared in dozens of Canada’s top television shows, including “The Red Green Show,” and was the voice of the animated elephant King Babar on TV and in a movie.

    He played a role in the 1968 Steve McQueen movie, “The Thomas Crown Affair,” and portrayed the U.S. president in director Joseph Sargent’s 1970 film, “Colossus: The Forbin Project.” In the 2001 movie “The Shipping News,” Pinsent played newspaperman Billy Pretty, and during filming, he helped other cast members perfect the Newfoundland accent.

    Pinsent starred in “Away From Her” when he was 76. Polley said as she read the Alice Munro short story, “The Bear Came Over The Mountain,” she envisioned a film starring Pinsent.

    Pinsent’s own wife of 45 years, actress Charmion King, died of emphysema some months before the mainstream release of “Away From Her,” forcing Pinsent to re-examine the film’s themes of quiet despair.

    “It was something I wasn’t necessarily drawing on except in the general sense of how anyone must feel at a certain time of life after spending so many years with a partner,” Pinsent said during a 2007 interview, a few weeks after King’s death.

    “It’s almost impossible to grasp … how do you prepare?” he said. “Where does love go? Where do you go, the leftover?”

    King and Pinsent had one child together, actress Leah Pinsent. He also had two children, Barry and Beverly, from an earlier marriage.

    In 2013, Pinsent starred in Don McKellar’s acclaimed Newfoundland-set comedy “The Grand Seduction,” earning a Canadian Screen Award for best supporting actor. In 2018, he released a short film he wrote, “Martin’s Hagge,” about a middle-aged writer with anxiety and depression.

    “I really love writing … writing is good, it’s even better than good when you hit those peaks, and it’s the same feeling oddly enough in acting,” Pinsent said. “It’s that lovely thing where you get that zone, that peak of joy, and it reminds you of why you started it all.”

    __

    The story has been corrected to show that Joseph Sargent, not Milos Forman, was director of “Colossus: The Forbin Project.”

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  • Tim McCarver, big league catcher and broadcaster, dies at 81

    Tim McCarver, big league catcher and broadcaster, dies at 81

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Tim McCarver, the All-Star catcher and Hall of Fame broadcaster who during 60 years in baseball won two World Series titles with the St. Louis Cardinals and had a long run as one of the country’s most recognized, incisive and talkative television commentators, died Thursday. He was 81.

    McCarver’s death was announced by baseball’s Hall of Fame, which said he died Thursday morning due to heart failure in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was with his family.

    Among the few players to appear in major league games during four decades, McCarver was a two-time All Star who worked closely with two future Hall of Fame pitchers: The tempestuous Bob Gibson, whom McCarver caught for St. Louis in the 1960s, and the introverted Steve Carlton, McCarver’s fellow Cardinal in the ’60s and a Philadelphia Phillies teammate in the 1970s.

    He switched to television soon after retiring in 1980 and called 24 World Series for ABC, CBS and Fox, a record for a baseball analyst on television.

    “I think there is a natural bridge from being a catcher to talking about the view of the game and the view of the other players,” McCarver told the Hall in 2012, the year he was given the Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting. “It is translating that for the viewers. One of the hard things about television is staying contemporary and keeping it simple for the viewers.”

    McCarver became best known to national audiences for his 18-year partnership on Fox with play-by-play man Joe Buck. McCarver moved to Fox in 1996 when it began televising baseball and called his final World Series in 2013.

    “I learned really fast that if you were in his inner circle, he would be a fierce defender of you and for you,” Buck said Thursday. “He taught me how to deal with criticism because he had been criticized, his whole broadcast career. And sometimes it was because he was a teacher of the game. If some player or manager didn’t manage or play the way he thought the game should be played, he let a national audience know it. He was always the first one in the clubhouse the next day. If that person had something to say back to him, he would engage and stood his ground, but it was fair.

    “He taught me a lot about the game, but he taught me as much or more about how to broadcast on a on a national level.”

    Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement that McCarver was “a respected teammate and one of the most influential voices our game has known.” McCarver, who in the 1960s was an early and prominent union activist, was praised Thursday by Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Tony Clark for his “lead role” in the union’s formation.

    Six feet tall and solidly built, McCarver was a policeman’s son from Memphis, who got into more than a few fights while growing up but was otherwise playing baseball and football and imitating popular broadcasters, notably the Cardinals’ Harry Caray. He was signed while still in high school by the Cardinals for $75,000, a generous offer for that time; just 17 when he debuted for them in 1959 and in his early 20s when he became the starting catcher.

    McCarver attended segregated schools in Memphis and often spoke of the education he received as a newcomer in St. Louis. His teammates included Gibson and outfielder Curt Flood, Black players who did not hesitate to confront or tease McCarver. When McCarver used racist language against a Black child trying to jump a fence during spring training, Gibson would remember “getting right up in McCarver’s face.” McCarver liked to tell the story about drinking an orange soda during a hot day in spring training and Gibson asking him for some, then laughing when McCarver flinched.

    “It was probably Gibby more than any other Black man who helped me to overcome whatever latent prejudices I may have had,” McCarver wrote in his 1987 memoir “Oh, Baby, I Love It!”

    Few catchers were strong hitters during the ’60s, but McCarver batted .270 or higher for five consecutive seasons and was fast enough to become the first in his position to lead the league in triples. He had his best year in 1967 when he hit .295 with 14 home runs, finishing second for NL Most Valuable Player behind teammate Orlando Cepeda as the Cardinals won their second World Series in four years.

    McCarver met Carlton when the left-hander was a rookie in 1965 “with an independent streak wider than the Grand Canyon,” McCarver later wrote. The two initially clashed, even arguing on the mound during games, but became close and were reunited in the 1970s after both were traded to Philadelphia. McCarver became Carlton’s designated catcher even though he admittedly had a below average throwing arm and overall didn’t compare defensively to the Phillies’ regular catcher, Gold Glover Bob Boone.

    “Behind every successful pitcher, there has to be a very smart catcher, and Tim McCarver is that man,” Carlton said during his Hall of Fame induction speech in 1994. “Timmy forced me pitch inside. Early in my career I was reluctant to pitch inside. Timmy had a way to remedy this. He used to set up behind the hitter. There was just the umpire there; I couldn’t see him (McCarver), so I was forced to pitch inside.”

    McCarver liked to joke that he and Carlton were so in synch in the field that when both were dead they would be buried 60 feet, 6 inches apart, the distance between the rubber on the pitching mound and home plate.

    During a 21-year career, when he also played briefly for the Montreal Expos and Boston Red Sox, McCarver batted .271 and only twice struck out more than 40 times in a season. In the postseason, he averaged .273 and had his best outing in the 1964 World Series, when the Cardinals defeated the New York Yankees in seven games. McCarver finished 11 for 23, with five walks, and his 3-run homer at Yankee Stadium in the 10th inning of Game 5 gave his team a 5-2 victory.

    Younger baseball fans first knew him from his work in the broadcast booth, whether local games for the New York Mets, Yankees, Philadelphia and San Francisco, as Jack Buck’s partner on CBS (1990-91) or with son Joe Buck for Fox from 1996-2013. McCarver won six Emmys and became enough of a brand name to be a punchline on “Family Guy”; write a handful of books, make cameos in “Naked Gun,” “Love Hurts” and other movies and even record an album, “Tim McCarver Sings Songs from the Great American Songbook.”

    “To a generation of fans, Tim will forever be remembered as the champion whose game-winning home run during the 1964 World Series echoes throughout time,” Fox Sports CEO and executive producer Eric Shanks said. “To another, his voice will forever be the soundtrack to some of the most memorable moments in the game’s history. To us, he will forever be in our hearts.”

    Knowledge was his trademark. In his spare time, he visited art museums, read books and could recite poetry from memory. At work, he was like a one-man scouting team, versed in the most granular details, and spent hours preparing before each game. At times, he seemed to have psychic powers. In Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, the score was tied at 2 between the Yankees and Arizona, and New York drew in its infield with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the ninth. Mariano Rivera was facing Luis Gonzalez.

    “Rivera throws inside to left-handers,” McCarver observed. “Left-handers get a lot of broken-bat hits into shallow outfield, the shallow part of the outfield. That’s the danger of bringing the infield in with a guy like Rivera on the mound.”

    Moments later, Gonzalez’s bloop to short center field drove in the winning run.

    “When you the consider the pressure of the moment,” ESPN’s Keith Olbermann told The New York Times in 2002, “the time he had to say it and the accuracy, his call was the sports-announcing equivalent of Bill Mazeroski’s home run in the ninth inning to defeat the Yankees in 1960.”

    Many found McCarver informative and entertaining. Others thought him infuriating. McCarver did not cut himself short whether explaining baseball strategy or taking on someone’s performance on the field. “When you ask him the time, (he) will tell you how a watch works,” Sports Illustrated’s Norm Chad wrote of him in 1992. The same year his criticism of Deion Sanders for playing two sports on the same day led to Atlanta outfielder/Falcons defensive back’s dumping a bucket of water on his head. In 1999, McCarver was fired by the Mets after 16 seasons on the air.

    The Mets said in a statement that McCarver gave Mets an insightful, humorous and knowledgeable behind the scenes look into the game.

    “Some broadcasters think that their responsibility is to the team and the team only,” McCarver told the Times soon after the Mets let him go. “I have never thought that. My No. 1 obligation is to the people who are watching the game. And I’ve always felt that praise without objective criticism ceases to be praise. To me, any intelligent person can figure that out.”

    After retiring from Fox’s national broadcasts, McCarver announced part-time for Fox Sports Midwest and worked the occasional Cardinals game before sitting out the 2020 season because of concerns about COVID-19. Besides the Frick award, he was inducted into the Cardinals Hall of Fame, in 2017.

    “By the time I was 26 I had played in three World Series and I thought, ’Man this is great, almost a World Series every year,” he said during his acceptance speech. “Uh-uh. The game has a way of keeping you honest. I never played in another World Series.”

    McCarver is survived by his daughters Kathy and Kelley, and grandchildren Leigh and Beau.

    ___

    AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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  • Lloyd Morrisett, who helped launch ‘Sesame Street,’ dies

    Lloyd Morrisett, who helped launch ‘Sesame Street,’ dies

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Lloyd Morrisett, the co-creator of the beloved children’s education TV series “Sesame Street,” which uses empathy and fuzzy monsters like Abby Cadabby, Elmo and Cookie Monster to charm and teach generations around the world, has died. He was 93.

    Morrisett’s death was announced Monday by Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit he helped establish under the name the Children’s Television Workshop. No cause of death was given.

    In a statement, Sesame Workshop hailed Morrisett as a “wise, thoughtful, and above all kind leader” who was “constantly thinking about new ways” to educate.

    Morrisett and Joan Ganz Cooney worked with Harvard University developmental psychologist Gerald Lesser to build the show’s unique approach to teaching that now reaches 120 million children. Legendary puppeteer Jim Henson supplied the critters.

    “Without Lloyd Morrisett, there would be no ‘Sesame Street.’ It was he who first came up with the notion of using television to teach preschoolers basic skills, such as letters and numbers,” Cooney said in a statement. “He was a trusted partner and loyal friend to me for over 50 years, and he will be sorely missed.”

    “Sesame Street” is shown in more than 150 countries, has won 216 Emmys, 11 Grammys and in 2019 received the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement, the first time a television program got the award (Big Bird strolled down the aisle and basically sat in Tom Hanks’ lap).

    Born in 1929 in Oklahoma City, Morrisett initially trained to be a teacher with a background in psychology. He became an experimental educator, looking for new ways to educate children from less advantaged backgrounds. Morrisett received his bachelor’s at Oberlin College, did graduate work in psychology at UCLA, and earned his doctorate in experimental psychology at Yale University. He was an Oberlin trustee for many years and was chair of the board from 1975 to 1981.

    The germ of “Sesame Street” was sown over a dinner party in 1966, where he met Cooney.

    “I said, ‘Joan, do you think television could be used to teach young children?’ Her answer was, ‘I don’t know, but I’d like to talk about it,’” he recalled to The Guardian in 2004.

    The first episode of “Sesame Street” — sponsored by the letters W, S and E and the numbers 2 and 3 — aired in the fall of 1969. It was a turbulent time in America, rocked by the Vietnam War and raw from the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. the year before.

    Children’s programming at the time was made up of shows like “Captain Kangaroo,” “Romper Room” and the often violent cartoon skirmishes between “Tom & Jerry.” “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” was mostly teaching social skills.

    “Sesame Street” was designed by education professionals and child psychologists with one goal: to help low-income and minority students aged 2-5 overcome some of the deficiencies they had when entering school. Social scientists had long noted kids who were white and from higher-income families were often better prepared.

    The show was set on an urban street with a multicultural cast. Diversity and inclusion were baked into the show. Monsters, humans and animals all lived together peacefully.

    It became the first children’s program to feature someone with Down syndrome. It’s had puppets with HIV and in foster care, invited children in wheelchairs, dealt with topics like jailed parents, homelessness, women’s rights, military families and even girls singing about loving their hair.

    It introduced the bilingual Rosita — the first Latina Muppet — in 1991. Julia, a 4-year-old Muppet with autism, came in 2017 and the show has since offered help for kids whose parents are dealing with addiction and recovery, and children suffering as a result of the Syrian civil war. To help kids after 9/11, Elmo was left traumatized by a fire at Hooper’s store but was soothingly told that firefighters were there to help.

    The company said upon the news of his death that Lloyd left “an outsized and indelible legacy among generations of children the world over, with ‘Sesame Street’ only the most visible tribute to a lifetime of good work and lasting impact.”

    He is survived by his wife, Mary; daughters Julie and Sarah; and granddaughters Frances and Clara.

    ___

    Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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  • Lisa Marie Presley dies at 54 after suspected cardiac arrest

    Lisa Marie Presley dies at 54 after suspected cardiac arrest

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    Mother confirms death of musician and only daughter of rock ‘n’ roll legend Elvis Presley after she was rushed to hospital.

    Lisa Marie Presley, a musician and the only child of rock ‘n’ roll legend Elvis Presley, has died at the age of 54.

    “It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” her mother, Priscilla Presley, said in a statement Thursday evening. “She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known.”

    The announcement came just hours after Priscilla Presley had confirmed that Lisa Marie Presley had been rushed to hospital in Los Angeles, United States.

    News of Presley’s admission to hospital was first reported by TMZ and later confirmed by People magazine.

    Los Angeles County paramedics were dispatched to a Calabasas home at 10:37am (18:37 GMT) following a report of a woman in full cardiac arrest, according to Craig Little, a spokesperson for the county’s fire department. Property records indicate Presley was a resident at the address.

    Presley attended the Golden Globes on Tuesday, where Austin Butler was named best actor for his portrayal of her father in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. She called his performance “mind-blowing” during a red-carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight.

    “I really didn’t know what to do with myself after I saw it,” she said of the film.

    “I had to take, like, five days to process it because it was so incredible and so spot on and just so authentic that, yeah, I can’t even describe what it meant.”

    Lisa Marie Presley poses for her first picture with her mother, Priscilla, and father, Elvis [File: Perry Aycock/AP Photo]

    Just days before that, she had been in Memphis, Tennessee, at Graceland – the mansion where Elvis lived – to celebrate the anniversary of her father’s birth on January 8.

    Lisa Marie Presley was born in 1968 – the only child of Priscilla and Elvis – and was nine years old when her father died in 1977.

    She shared her father’s brooding charisma and low, sultry voice and eventually followed him into the music industry, making her debut in 2003 with the album To Whom It May Concern, which made the top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart. She followed it two years later with Now What, which also made the top 10.

    A third album, Storm and Grace, was released in 2012 and she even formed direct musical ties with her father, adding her voice to such Elvis recordings as In the Ghetto and Don’t Cry Daddy, a mournful ballad that reminded him of the early death of his mother, and Lisa Marie’s grandmother, Gladys Presley.

    “It’s been all my life,” she told the Associated Press news agency in 2012 of her father’s influence. “It’s not something that I now listen to and it’s different. Although I might listen closer. I remain consistent on the fact that I’ve always been an admirer. He’s always influenced me.”

    She was married four times including to actor Nicolas Cage and singer Michael Jackson. She had four children and was devastated when her son Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020.

    Lisa Marie became the sole heir of the Elvis Presley Trust when her father died.

    Along with Elvis Presley Enterprises, the trust managed Graceland and other assets until she sold her majority interest in 2005.

    She retained ownership of Graceland Mansion and the land around it. Her son is buried there, along with her father and other members of the Presley family.

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  • Jeff Beck, guitar god who influenced generations, dies at 78

    Jeff Beck, guitar god who influenced generations, dies at 78

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Jeff Beck, a guitar virtuoso who pushed the boundaries of blues, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll, influencing generations of shredders along the way and becoming known as the guitar player’s guitar player, has died. He was 78.

    Beck died Tuesday after “suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis,” his representatives said in a statement released Wednesday. The location was not immediately known.

    “Jeff was such a nice person and an outstanding iconic, genius guitar player — there will never be another Jeff Beck,” Tony Iommi, guitarist for Black Sabbath wrote on Twitter among the many tributes.

    Beck first came to prominence as a member of the Yardbirds and then went out on his own in a solo career that incorporated hard rock, jazz, funky blues and even opera. He was known for his improvising, love of harmonics and the whammy bar on his preferred guitar, the Fender Stratocaster.

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    The Yardbirds, performing “Heart Full of Soul”

    “Jeff Beck is the best guitar player on the planet,” Joe Perry, the lead guitarist of Aerosmith, told The New York Times in 2010. “He is head, hands and feet above all the rest of us, with the kind of talent that appears only once every generation or two.”

    In his own words

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    Beck backstage at the 2011 Grammys

    Beck was among the rock-guitarist pantheon from the late ’60s that included Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. Beck won eight Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice — once with the Yardbirds in 1992 and again as a solo artist in 2009. He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”

    “Jeff could channel music from the ethereal,” Page tweeted Wednesday.

    Beck played guitar with vocalists as varied as Luciano Pavarotti, Macy Gray, Chrissie Hynde, Joss Stone, Imelda May, Cyndi Lauper, Wynonna Judd, Buddy Guy and Johnny Depp. He made two records with Rod Stewart — 1968′s “Truth” and 1969′s “Beck-Ola” — and one with a 64-piece orchestra, “Emotion & Commotion.”

    “I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever, as long as you don’t have too much of it. It’s got to be in balance. I just saw Cirque du Soleil, and it struck me as complete organized chaos,” he told Guitar World in 2014. “If I could turn that into music, it’s not far away from what my ultimate goal would be, which is to delight people with chaos and beauty at the same time.”

    In his own words

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    Beck at his 2009 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

    Beck career highlights include joining with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice to create the power trio that released “Beck, Bogert and Appice” in 1973, tours with Brian Wilson and Buddy Guy and a tribute album to the late guitarist Les Paul, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Party (Honoring Les Paul).”

    Beck’s album credits include “Talking Book,” Stevie Wonder’s landmark 1972 album. His tenderly rendered guitar solo on the ballad, “Lookin’ For Another Pure Love” won him a warm “Do it Jeff” callout from Wonder that was included on the album cut.

    Geoffrey Arnold Beck was born in Surrey, England, and attended Wimbledon Art College. His father was an accountant, and his mother worked in a chocolate factory. As a boy, he built his first instrument, using a cigar box, a picture frame for the neck and string from a radio-controlled toy airplane.

    He was in a few bands — including Nightshift and The Tridents — before joining the Yardbirds in 1965, replacing Clapton but only a year later giving way to Page. During his tenure, the band created the memorable singles “Heart Full of Soul,” “I’m a Man” and “Shapes of Things.”

    Hear him play

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    Beck and Rod Stewart, performing “People Get Ready”

    Beck’s first hit single was 1967’s instrumental “Beck’s Bolero,” which featured future Led Zeppelin members Page and John Paul Jones, and The Who drummer Keith Moon. The Jeff Beck Group — with Stewart singing — was later booked to play the 1969 Woodstock music festival but their appearance was canceled. Beck later said there was unrest in the band.

    “I could see the end of the tunnel,” he told Rolling Stone in 2010.

    Beck was friends with Hendrix and they performed together. Before Hendrix, most rock guitar players concentrated on a similar style and technical vocabulary. Hendrix blew that apart.

    “He came along and reset all of the rules in one evening,” Beck told Guitar World.

    Beck teamed up with legendary producer George Martin — a.k.a. “the fifth Beatle” — to help him fashion the genre-melding, jazz-fusion classic “Blow by Blow” (1975) and “Wired” (1976). He teamed up with Seal on the Hendrix tribute “Stone Free,” created a jazz-fusion group led by synthesizer player Jan Hammer and honored rockabilly guitarist Cliff Gallup with the album “Crazy Legs.” He put out “Loud Hailer” in 2016.

    Beck’s guitar work can be heard on the soundtracks of such films as “Stomp the Yard,” “Shallow Hal,” “Casino,” “Honeymoon in Vegas,” “Twins,” “Observe and Report” and “Little Big League.” Beck recently completed a tour supporting his album with Depp, “18” and was heard on Ozzy Osbourne’s “Patient Number 9” album.

    Beck’s career never hit the commercial highs of Clapton. A perfectionist, he preferred to make critically well-received instrumental records and left the limelight for long stretches, enjoying his time restoring vintage automobiles. He and Clapton had a tense relationship early on but became friends in later life and toured together.

    Why did the two wait some four decades to tour together?

    “Because we were all trying to be big bananas,” Beck told Rolling Stone in 2010. “Except I didn’t have the luxury of the hit songs Eric’s got.”

    Beck is survived by his wife, Sandra.

    ___

    AP reporter Scott Stroud in Nashville contributed to this report.

    ___

    Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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  • Australian Cardinal George Pell dies at the age of 81

    Australian Cardinal George Pell dies at the age of 81

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    Pell’s 2018 conviction on sexual assault charges shocked the Catholic Church, but was later overturned.

    Australian Cardinal George Pell, a former treasurer of the Vatican who was the most senior member of the Catholic clergy to be convicted of child sex abuse before his convictions were overturned, has died at the age of 81.

    Pell died in Rome on Tuesday night, his private secretary said.

    He was once the third-highest-ranked Catholic in the Vatican after earlier serving as the archbishop of Melbourne and archbishop of Sydney.

    Archbishop Peter Comensoli, the current archbishop of Melbourne, said Pell had died from heart complications following hip surgery.

    “Cardinal Pell was a very significant and influential Church leader, both in Australia and internationally, deeply committed to Christian discipleship,” he said in a statement on Facebook.

    Pell spent 13 months in prison before Australia’s highest court in 2020 quashed his conviction for sexually assaulting two choir boys in the 1990s.

    The decision allowed the then-78-year-old Pell to walk free. He was the most senior member of the church to be accused of historical sexual abuse in a scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church worldwide.

    Pell was the Vatican’s economy minister from 2014 until he took leave of absence in 2017 to return to Australia to face the assault charges.

    He had been living in Rome since his acquittal and had several meetings with Pope Francis. He attended the funeral last week of Pope Benedict XVI.

    Even before the sexual assault allegations, Pell was a polarising figure in Australia, revered by conservative Catholics but scorned by liberals for his staunch opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion and women’s ordination.

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  • Benedict XVI, the Pope Who Resigned, Dies at 95

    Benedict XVI, the Pope Who Resigned, Dies at 95

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    Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Ratzinger, died on December 31 at the age of 95, according to the Vatican. No cause of death was released.

    Ratzinger’s life was remarkable not just because he was elevated to the highest position in the Catholic Church, but also because he chose to leave it behind. After eight years as pope, from 2005 to 2013, Benedict XVI became the first to step down from the papacy in nearly 600 years. On Feb. 11, 2013, he renounced “the ministry of bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter.” In Latin, he explained, “After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to advanced age, are no longer suited to adequately exercise the Petrine ministry.” The news stunned the world. “We could call him a revolutionary pope,” Vaticanist Fabio Marchese Ragona said, “because he made this choice with great humility, realizing that he no longer had the strength to carry on the pontificate. Now there is more easy talk of resignation: Benedict XVI has set out on a path that his successors can also take.”

    A handful of other popes have relinquished their roles over the centuries, with varying results. In 1294, Celestine V, said that he longed to return to a more modest way of life—and was imprisoned until his death two years later, so that he wouldn’t pose a threat to his successor. As if that wasn’t severe enough, Dante, in The Inferno, consigned Celestine V’s soul to the entrance of hell, explaining that he had “due to cowardice made the great refusal.” 

    As for Benedict XVI, he made clear that his faith remained strong, saying of his departure: “The Lord is calling me to ‘go up the mountain,’ to devote myself even more to prayer and meditation, but this does not mean abandoning the Church; on the contrary, if God is asking me to do this it is precisely so that I can continue to serve her with the same dedication and love with which I have tried to do so until now, but in a way more suited to my age and strength.” After his resignation, he lived in the Vatican at Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, which has also been home to his personal secretary, Georg Gänswein, and four women from the lay association Memores Domini who have aided the pontiff emeritus in recent years.

    If the world was shocked by Benedict’s decision, his biographers say that he himself was shocked that he’d ascended to the papacy at all. 

    Ratzinger was elected the 265th pope of the Catholic Church on April 19, 2005. His ministry followed John Paul II’s, with whom he had long collaborated while Ratzinger was a cardinal. The Polish pope and his German successor could not have seemed more different: John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla, was a sportsman who traveled the world during his papacy. Benedict was a scholar with an affinity for cats and music—Mozart in particular, whose work he once said “contains all the tragedy of human existence.” 

    When installed as pope, he explained the significance of the name he had chosen: “I wanted to call myself Benedict XVI to ideally reconnect with the revered pontiff Benedict XV, who led the Church in a troubled period [during] the First World War. He was a courageous and authentic prophet of peace and worked with strenuous courage first to avoid the drama of war and then to limit its harmful consequences. In his footsteps, I wish to place my ministry at the service of reconciliation and harmony among men and peoples, deeply convinced that the great good of peace is first and foremost a gift from God.”

    Benedict XVI was the son of a gendarmerie commissioner and a cook. He was born in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria in Germany on April 16, 1927. He had an older sister, Maria, and an older brother, Georg, who also became a priest. He spent his adolescence in Traunstein, and joined a preparatory seminary for priesthood in 1939. In 1941, he was required to enroll in the Hitler Youth. In 1943, along with his seminary classmates, he was drafted into the Nazi auxiliary anti-aircraft corps, then into the military proper. In 1945, he deserted his comrades and was captured by US troops and held as a prisoner of war in an internment camp in Germany for several months.  

    The future Benedict XVI was ordained a priest on June 29, 1951 and specialized in theology. He wrote his thesis on St. Augustine, and lectured widely. He participated in the Second Vatican Council and was appointed by Pope Paul VI as archbishop of Munich in 1977. On June 27 of the same year he became a cardinal. His episcopal motto was “Collaborator of truth.”

    In 1978, Ratzinger participated in the conclaves for the election of Pope Luciani, who died after just 33 days as pope, then the election of Pope John Paul II the same year. Three years later, John Paul II appointed him prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the body of the Holy See responsible for overseeing the correctness of Catholic doctrine. He was chairman of the commission for the preparation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, deputy dean, and then later dean of the College of Cardinals.

    Benedict XVI was an admired public speaker and a prolific writer. He wrote encyclicals on Christ as the embodiment of love and hope, as well as on the renewal of the Church’s social doctrine. Among his books is Jesus of Nazareth, which demonstrated his view that faith is not a list of prohibitions but rather a friendship with God. As pope, Benedict XVI supported the recovery of the liturgical tradition, including the Latin Mass. He was also the first pontiff to explicitly apologize to victims of sexual abuse by clerics and to meet with them several times. 

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    Chiara Pizzimenti

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  • Barbara Walters, TV News Trailblazer and Icon, Dies at 93

    Barbara Walters, TV News Trailblazer and Icon, Dies at 93

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    Each December, for more than two decades, Barbara Walters hosted Barbara Walters’ Ten Most Fascinating People of the Year, a breezy album of interviews with newsmakers as defined, of course, by Barbara Walters. Take 1999, for example. Who else but Walters would think King Abdullah II of Jordan, Joe Torre of the Yankees, soap-opera empress Susan Lucci, and a circus ringmaster named Jonhathan Lee Iverson belonged together? Jesse Ventura, another honoree that year, must have represented the ideal guest in Barbara’s Ultimate Green Room: pro-wrestler-turned-governor.

    If TV adhered to truth-in-packaging rules, the show would have been called Barbara Walters and the Ten Other Most Fascinating People of the Year. By the time Barbara Walters died today, at the age of 93, no TV journalist had so consistently and over such a long period of time been part of the story. From her beginning as the “Today Girl” on NBC’s Today in 1962, Walters credited her longevity partly to working in an era when TV network news dominated, allowing her in 1977, for example, to nudge Middle East diplomacy forward and score a joint interview with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat in Jerusalem. As Walters wrote in her memoir, Audition, “In this time of instant Internet news, cell phones that take videos, and a profusion of blogs where everyone is a reporter, there will be little chance for any single person to have had the kind of career that I’ve had.”

    Note that Walters did not write “no chance,” since she undoubtedly—and justifiably—believed that even today a young version of herself could still prevail against the forces of Twitter and Snapchat. As long as, of course, that person was raised by a depressive, debt-prone nightclub owner like Lou Walters, who for 20 years ran The Latin Quarter in New York and taught his daughter to be comfortable around celebrities, and by a doting mother who also took care of Barbara’s autistic sister and by example showed her the power of empathy.

    Redux Pictures.

    Knowing how to be solicitous around famous people explained a large part of Walters’ success, but what toughened her was competing in network news, “a boys’ club that didn’t welcome newcomers.” No matter what the slight—being told by a young Don Hewitt, who later created 60 Minutes, that she didn’t have “the right looks” for TV, earning much less than her co-hosts during her 15-year Today show stint, being condescended to by Harry Reasoner on-air when she left Today to serve as his co-host on ABC’s Evening News—Walters persevered.

    She did not invent the celebrity TV interview, but her ability to snag guests (a skill learned in her early days as a booker at Today) and grill them in a way that warmed rather than singed saved her career after the Reasoner debacle. Movie stars, presidents, convicted killers, dictators—they all subjected themselves to Walters’ style of empathetic nosiness. She could be easily parodied, as Gilda Radner did so memorably as Baba Wawa on Saturday Night Live, an impersonation that deeply upset her. Decades later, Walters was still setting the record straight in Audition: “By the way, I never had trouble with my l’s, only my r’s, but it made it funnier.” So twue.

    Walters could be unfairly mocked; her infamous question to Katharine Hepburn about what kind of tree she would prefer to be followed Hepburn’s statement that she had become “like a tree.” (Answer: a white oak.) And Walters herself regretted her admonition to President-elect Jimmy Carter in 1976 to “Be wise with us, Governor. Be good to us.” But an equally derided moment in that same interview—asking Carter and his wife if they slept in a double bed or twin beds—now seems as tame as inquiring if they take their coffee black or with milk.

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  • Fashion Legend Vivienne Westwood Dies at 81

    Fashion Legend Vivienne Westwood Dies at 81

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    Designer Vivienne Westwood, who galvanized British fashion and brought elements of punk and new wave style to the mainstream with her designs beginning in the 1970s, died in Clapham, South London on Thursday, according to a tweet from her eponymous fashion label’s official account. She was 81. A cause of death was not disclosed, though the statement said she died “peacefully and surrounded by family.” 

    “The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better,” the tweet continues. 

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    Her husband and creative partner, Andreas Kronthaler, released a statement, saying, “I will continue with Vivienne in my heart.” 

    “We have been working until the end and she has given me plenty of things to get on with. Thank you darling,” he added.

    Born Vivienne Isabel Swire in Cheshire, England on April 8, 1941, Westwood moved with her family to Harrow, Greater London, in 1954. She took a metalsmithing course, but soon dropped out and began working in a factory, and then as a schoolteacher. She also made jewelry that she sold in a stall on London’s Portobello Road. After a brief marriage to factory apprentice Derek Westwood, and the birth of their son, Benjamin, the chapter of Westwood’s life that made her a provocative public figure in the decades to follow began: She met Malcolm McLaren, manager of the punk band The Sex Pistols. She began designing clothes with McLaren, which the band wore, and the two ran a boutique called SEX on London’s King’s Road. It closed in 1976, but the shop was a meeting place for prominent punks, and its wares were attention-grabbing fashion statements unlike anything street fashion had seen. 

    Viv Albertine, guitarist for the punk band The Slits, once wrote that “Vivienne and Malcolm use clothes to shock, irritate, and provoke a reaction but also to inspire change.” Sweaters knit so loosely that they were see-through, seams and labels visible on ripped-up, defaced t-shirts, an insouciant attitude, translated sartorially. Punk, as demonstrated through pants. “These attitudes are reflected in the music we make,” Albertine wrote. “It’s OK to not be perfect, to show the workings of your life and your mind in your songs and your clothes.”

    Vivienne Westwood in February, 2018 in London.by Ki Price/Getty Images.

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    Kase Wickman

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  • Soccer Legend Pelé Dead at 82

    Soccer Legend Pelé Dead at 82

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    Pelé, agreed upon by all who would decide such things to be among the finest athletes who ever lived, died at 82 in São Paulo according to his manager, Joe Fraga. Born into poverty in 1940 in Três Corações, Brazil, Pelé followed in his father’s footsteps to become a professional soccer player, but it was clear from a young age that he was a rising star and remarkable player. He left home at 15 to play professionally for Santos FC, and at 17 scored two goals in the 1958 World Cup finals in Sweden. He led his nation to two more wins (and one controversial loss) on the world stage, then came out of retirement to play for the New York Cosmos in 1975. He frequently appeared on television and was a UNESCO goodwill ambassador. His overstocked shelf of awards and prizes extended well beyond the world of sports, to include, among other things, an honorary knighthood by the British Empire. He was 82 years old. 

    Andy Warhol, who once immortalized the soccer legend in a series of portraits, once said that Pelé would have “15 centuries” of fame, a play on his well-known quote about everyone having their 15 minutes. 

    Pelé was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, named for the inventor Thomas Edison. He earned his nickname as a child when he mispronounced the name of a local soccer player named Bilé. What began as teasing stuck, and though the word Pelé has no meaning in Portuguese, some have noted over the years that it means “miracle” in Hebrew.

    That’s apt for the athlete whose stats make him the clear greatest of all time in his chosen field. Pelé holds the Guinness World Record for the highest number of goals at an astonishing 1,279. There are understandable asterisks about whether “friendly” matches should count (and you can go down that rabbit hole if you like), but there was more to Pelé’s greatness than just his numbers. His style of play made him dangerous with either foot, and he worked the field with alacrity and flair. While he did not invent the so-called “bicycle kick,” it became his signature move, recognizable even to non-soccer fans, and deployed in some of his most memorable plays.

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    Pelé’s first trip to the FIFA World Cup in 1958 ended with a victory for Brazil against host nation Sweden. This was the Brazilian team’s first win, eight years after an upset loss to Uruguay in 1950 when Brazil hosted the tournament. (That game, the Maracanazo, the most highly attended sporting event in history with close to 175,000 people, is still spoken about in hushed tones by Brazilians.)

    Four years later, Pelé and the Brazilian national team repeated their win, this time against Czechoslovakia in Chile. He led the team to victory in the early rounds against Mexico (in what is one of his most fondly remembered games) but ended up getting injured midway through the tournament, and sitting out the final. 

    Brazilian footballer Pele playing for Brazil, circa 1958.By Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images.

    By 1966, Pelé was recognized as the best player in the world. As such, he was a magnet for fouls. Though the team won their first match during the 1966 World Cup against Bulgaria in England (and Pelé scored one of the game’s two goals), he was kicked so many times by opponents that he had to sit the next game (against Hungary) out. Though still recovering, he returned to face Portugal, and was brutally fouled, while the ref did not make a call against the offender. There were no substitutions allowed at that point in the game, so he hobbled his way to defeat in a match that is still considered a low point for FIFA. Pelé called the tournament “a revelation to me in…unsportsmanlike conduct and weak refereeing,” and said his World Cup career was over.

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  • Franco Harris, Hall of Fame running back, dies aged 72

    Franco Harris, Hall of Fame running back, dies aged 72

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    PITTSBURGH (AP) — Franco Harris, the Hall of Fame running back whose heads-up thinking authored “The Immaculate Reception,” considered the most iconic play in NFL history, has died. He was 72.

    Harris’ son Dok told The Associated Press his father passed away overnight. No cause of death was given.

    His death comes two days before the 50th anniversary of the play that provided the jolt that helped transform the Steelers from also-rans into the NFL’s elite and three days before Pittsburgh is scheduled to retire his No. 32 during a ceremony at halftime of its game against the Las Vegas Raiders.

    Harris ran for 12,120 yards and won four Super Bowl rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s, a dynasty that began in earnest when Harris decided to keep running during a last-second heave by Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw in a playoff game against Oakland in 1972.

    With Pittsburgh trailing 7-6 and facing fourth-and-10 from their own 40 yard line and 22 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, Bradshaw drifted back and threw deep to running back French Fuqua. Fuqua and Oakland defensive back Jack Tatum collided, sending the ball careening back toward midfield in the direction of Harris.

    While nearly everyone else on the field stopped, Harris kept his legs churning, snatching the ball just inches above the Three Rivers Stadium turf near the Oakland 45 then outracing several stunned Raider defenders to give the Steelers their first playoff victory in the franchise’s four-decade history.

    “That play really represents our teams of the ’70s,” Harris said after the ”Immaculate Reception” was voted the greatest play in NFL history during the league’s 100th anniversary season in 2020.

    While the Steelers fell the next week to Miami in the AFC Championship, Pittsburgh was on its way to becoming the dominant team of the 1970s, twice winning back-to-back Super Bowls, first after the 1974 and 1975 seasons and again after the 1978 and 1979 seasons.

    Harris, the 6-foot-2, 230-pound workhorse from Penn State, found himself in the center of it all. He churned for a then-record 158 yards rushing and a touchdown in Pittsburgh’s 16-6 victory over Minnesota in Super Bowl IX on his way to winning the game’s Most Valuable Player award. He scored at least once in three of the four Super Bowls he played in, and his 354 career yards rushing on the NFL’s biggest stage remains a record nearly four decades after his retirement.

    Born in Fort Dix, New Jersey, on March 7, 1950, Harris played collegiately at Penn State, where his primary job was to open holes for backfield mate Lydell Mitchell. The Steelers, in the final stages of a rebuild led by Hall of Fame coach Chuck Noll, saw enough in Harris to make him the 13th overall pick in the 1972 draft.

    “When (Noll) drafted Franco Harris, he gave the offense heart, he gave it discipline, he gave it desire, he gave it the ability to win a championship in Pittsburgh,” Steelers Hall of Fame wide receiver Lynn Swann said of his frequent roommate on team road trips.

    Harris’ impact was immediate. He won the NFL’s Rookie to the Year award in 1972 after rushing for a then-team-rookie record 1,055 yards and 10 touchdowns as the Steelers reached the postseason for just the second time in franchise history.

    The city’s large Italian-American population embraced Harris immediately, led by two local businessmen who founded what became known as “Franco’s Italian Army,” a nod to Harris’ roots as the son of an African-American father and an Italian mother.

    The “Immaculate Reception” made Harris a star, though he typically preferred to let his play and not his mouth do the talking. On a team that featured big personalities in Bradshaw, defensive tackle Joe Greene, linebacker Jack Lambert among others, the intensely quiet Harris spent 12 seasons as the engine that helped Pittsburgh’s offense go.

    Eight times he topped 1,000 yards rushing in a season, including five times while playing a 14-game schedule. He piled up another 1,556 yards rushing and 16 rushing touchdowns in the playoffs, both second all-time behind Smith.

    Despite his gaudy numbers, Harris stressed he was just one cog in an extraordinary machine that redefined greatness.

    “You see, during that era, each player brought their own little piece with them to make that wonderful decade happen,” Harris said during his Hall of Fame speech in 1990. “Each player had their strengths and weaknesses, each their own thinking, each their own method, just each, each had their own. But then it was amazing, it all came together, and it stayed together to forge the greatest team of all times.”

    Harris also made it a habit to stick up for his teammates. When Bradshaw took what Harris felt was an illegal late hit from Dallas linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson in the second half of their meeting in the 1978 Super Bowl, Harris basically demanded Bradshaw give him the ball on the next play. All Harris did was sprint up the middle 22 yards — right by Henderson — for a touchdown that gave the Steelers an 11-point lead they would not relinquish on their way to their third championship in six years.

    Despite all of his success, his time in Pittsburgh ended acrimoniously when the Steelers cut him after he held out during training camp before the 1984 season. Noll, who leaned on Harris so heavily for so long, famously answered “Franco who?” when asked about Harris’ absence from the team’s camp at Saint Vincent College.

    Harris signed with Seattle, running for just 170 yards in eight games before being released in midseason. He retired as the NFL’s third all-time leading rusher behind Walter Payton and Jim Brown.

    “I don’t even think about that (anymore),” Harris said in 2006. “I’m still black and gold.”

    Harris remained in Pittsburgh following his retirement, opening a bakery and becoming heavily involved in several charities, including serving as the chairman of “Pittsburgh Promise,” which provides college scholarship opportunities for Pittsburgh Public School students.

    Harris is survived by his wife Dana Dokmanovich and his son, Dok.

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  • American Black feminist, activist Dorothy Pitman Hughes dies, 84

    American Black feminist, activist Dorothy Pitman Hughes dies, 84

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    Pioneering Black-American feminist Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a community activist who toured the United States speaking with Gloria Steinem in the 1970s and who appears with her in one of the most iconic photos of the second-wave feminist movement, has died. She was 84.

    Hughes, also a child welfare advocate, died on December 1 in Tampa, Florida, at the home of her daughter, Delethia Ridley Malmsten, who said the cause was old age.

    Hughes and Steinem, a journalist and political activist, forged a powerful speaking partnership in the early 1970s, touring the country at a time when feminism was seen as predominantly white and middle class. Steinem credited Hughes with helping her become comfortable speaking in public.

    In one of the most famous images of the era, taken in October 1971, the two raised their right arms in the Black Power salute. The photo is now on display in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

    Born Dorothy Jean Ridley on October 2, 1938, in Lumpkin, Georgia, Hughes became an activist at an early age, according to a family obituary.

    She organised the first shelter for battered women in New York City and co-founded the New York City Agency for Child Development to broaden childcare services in the city. She also established a community centre on Manhattan’s West Side, offering daycare, job training, advocacy training and more to many families.

    By the 1960s she had become involved in the civil rights movement and other causes, working with Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X and others.

    In the late 1960s, she set up the West 80th Street Childcare Center, providing daycare and also support for parents. It was there that she met Steinem, who was writing a story about the centre. They went on to become friends and speaking partners, addressing gender and race issues at college campuses, community centres and other venues across the country.

    In the early 1970s, Hughes also helped found, with Steinem, the Women’s Action Alliance, a broad network of feminist activists aiming to coordinate resources and push for equality on a national level.

    By the 1980s, Hughes had moved to Harlem and opened Harlem Office Supply, the rare stationery store at the time that was run by a Black woman. But she was forced to sell the store when a Staples opened nearby, part of President Bill Clinton’s Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone programme.

    She would remember some of her experiences in her 2000 book, Wake Up and Smell the Dollars! Whose Inner City Is This Anyway!: One Woman’s Struggle Against Sexism, Classism, Racism, Gentrification, and the Empowerment Zone.

    In Ms Magazine, Laura L Lovett, whose biography of Hughes, With Her Fist Raised, came out last year, said the activist “defined herself as a feminist, but rooted her feminism in her experience and in more fundamental needs for safety, food, shelter and child care”.

    She is survived by three daughters: Malmsten, Patrice Quinn and Angela Hughes.

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  • Nick Bollettieri, coach to many tennis stars, dead at age 91

    Nick Bollettieri, coach to many tennis stars, dead at age 91

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    Nick Bollettieri, the Hall of Fame tennis coach who worked with some of the sport’s biggest stars, including Andre Agassi and Monica Seles, and founded an academy that revolutionized the development of young athletes, has died. He was 91.

    Bollettieri died Sunday night at home in Florida after a series of health issues, his manager, Steve Shulla, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Monday.

    “When he became sick, he got so many wonderful messages from former students and players and coaches. Many came to visit him. He got videos from others,” Shulla said. “It was wonderful. He touched so many lives and he had a great send-off.”

    Known for his gravelly voice, leathery skin and wraparound sunglasses — and a man who called himself the “Michelangelo of Tennis” despite never playing professionally — Bollettieri helped no fewer than 10 players who went on to be No. 1 in the world rankings. That group includes sisters Serena and Venus Williams, Jim Courier, Maria Sharapova, Agassi and Seles.

    “Our dear friend, Nick Bollettieri, graduated from us last night. He gave so many a chance to live their dream,” Agassi wrote on Twitter. “He showed us all how life can be lived to the fullest… Thank you, Nick.”

    Bollettieri remained active into his 80s, touring the world to drop in on the top tournaments and, in 2014, became only the fourth coach to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. That was the same year another one of his proteges, Kei Nishikori, reached the final of the U.S. Open.

    Six of his pupils already are in the Hall of Fame, a number sure to grow once others are eligible.

    “I forged my own path, which others found to be unorthodox and downright crazy,” Bollettieri said in his induction speech at the hall in Newport, Rhode Island. “Yes, I am crazy. But it takes crazy people to do things that other people say cannot be done.”

    The Bollettieri Tennis Academy opened in 1978 in Bradenton, Florida, and was purchased by IMG in 1987.

    The IMG Academy now spans more than 600 acres and offers programs in more than a half-dozen sports in addition to tennis.

    Bollettieri was an educator who would brag he never read a book, never mind that he majored in philosophy in college and even gave law school a try, albeit for less than a year.

    He also was an adept self-promoter — one who would publish a pair of autobiographies — no matter that detractors dismissed him as a hustler and huckster. The truth is, any criticism was no match for the astounding success of his pupils.

    His teaching methods were widely copied and tennis academies dot the globe today.

    “Our sport lost one of its most passionate coaches & advocates,” Hall of Fame member Billie Jean King wrote on Twitter. “Nick was always positive & was able to get the best out of everyone fortunate enough to work w/him.”

    Bollettieri’s first student to reach No. 1 was Boris Becker in 1991. Then came others, such as Martina Hingis, Marcelo Rios and Jelena Jankovic.

    Just as rewarding, Bollettieri said, were the successes of less accomplished players.

    “The fuel that has sustained me to the summit is, without a doubt, my passion to help others become champions of life, not champions just on the tennis court,” he said. “Nothing makes me more happy than when I run into a past student or receive a kind note telling me how I changed their lives, that they are better parents, lawyers, doctors, CEOs and people because of the impact I made on their lives.”

    Bollettieri’s devotion to his players came at a cost. For much of his career, he was on the road nine months out of every year, and he cited his travel schedule as one reason he was married eight times.

    Survivors include his wife, Cindi, seven children and four grandchildren, according to Shulla, who said a celebration of Bollettieri’s life is planned for March.

    Nicholas James Bollettieri was born July 31, 1931, in Pelham, New York. He earned a philosophy degree and played tennis at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, and was a paratrooper in the Army before enrolling in law school at the University of Miami.

    For spending money, Bollettieri began teaching tennis for $1.50 an hour, according to the Hall of Fame. More than 60 years later, his fee was $900.

    After a few months, he dropped out of law school to concentrate on coaching. At first, he conceded, knowledge of tennis technique wasn’t his forte.

    “I didn’t know much about teaching the game,” he said. “The gift God gave me was the ability to read people.”

    Bollettieri won praise for his motivational skills, yelling when he deemed it necessary. He had an eye for talent and was a visionary regarding boot-camp training for young athletes who lived together.

    He bought a club in 1978, and students lived in his house. Two years later, he borrowed $1 million from a friend to build a first-of-its-kind complex in what had been a tomato field.

    The site now has a boarding school, 55 tennis courts and facilities for seven other sports, including football, basketball and baseball.

    Running a business wasn’t Bollettieri’s strong suit, and he sold the academy to IMG but continued to work there, stressing a tactical approach that transformed tennis. He urged players to take advantage of modern racket technology, emphasizing power over finesse.

    The academy churned out big hitters who relied on their serve and forehand to overpower opponents. That approach worked for Agassi, Seles, Courier and many others.

    “In my dreams,” Bollettieri confessed with a grin, “I say, ‘Nick, you’re darn good.’”

    ___

    Steven Wine is a retired AP sports writer.

    ___

    AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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  • Kirstie Alley, Emmy-winning ‘Cheers’ star, dies at 71

    Kirstie Alley, Emmy-winning ‘Cheers’ star, dies at 71

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    LOS ANGELES — Kirstie Alley, a two-time Emmy winner whose roles on the TV megahit “Cheers” and in the “Look Who’s Talking” films made her one of the biggest stars in American comedy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, died Monday. She was 71.

    Alley died of cancer that was only recently discovered, her children True and Lillie Parker said in a post on Twitter. Alley’s manager Donovan Daughtry confirmed the death in an email to The Associated Press.

    “As iconic as she was on screen, she was an even more amazing mother and grandmother,” her children’s statement said.

    She starred opposite Ted Danson as Rebecca Howe on “Cheers,” the beloved NBC sitcom about a Boston bar, from 1987 to 1993. She joined the show at the height of its popularity after the departure of original star Shelley Long.

    Alley would win an Emmy for best lead actress in a comedy series for the role in 1991.

    “I only thank God I didn’t have to wait as long as Ted,” Alley said in her acceptance, gently ribbing Danson, who had finally won an Emmy for his “Cheers” role as Sam Malone in his eighth nomination the previous year.

    She would take a second Emmy for best lead actress in a miniseries or television movie in 1993 for playing the title role in the CBS TV movie “David’s Mother.”

    She had her own sitcom on the network, “Veronica’s Closet,” from 1997 to 2000.

    In the 1989 comedy “Look Who’s Talking,” which gave her a major career boost, she played the mother of a baby who’s inner thoughts were voiced by Bruce Willis. She would also appear in a 1990 sequel “Look Who’s Talking Too,” and another in 1993, “Look Who’s Talking Now.”

    John Travolta, her co-star in the trilogy, paid her tribute in an Instagram post.

    “Kirstie was one of the most special relationships I’ve ever had,” Travolta said, along with a photo of Alley. “I love you Kirstie. I know we will see each other again.”

    She would play a fictionalized version of herself in the 2005 Showtime series “Fat Actress,” a show that drew comedy from her public and media treatment over her weight gain and loss.

    She dealt with the same subject matter in the 2010 A&E reality series “Kirstie Alley’s Big Life,” which chronicled her attempt to lose weight and launch a weight-loss program while working as a single mother in an unconventional household that included pet lemurs.

    Alley said she agreed to do the show in part because of the misinformation about her that had become a tabloid staple.

    “Anything bad you can say about me, they say,” Alley told the AP at the time. “I’ve never collapsed, fainted, passed out. Basically, anything they’ve said, I never. The only true thing is I got fat.”

    In recent years she appeared on several other reality shows, including a second-place finish on “Dancing With the Stars” in 2011. She appeared on the competition series “The Masked Singer” wearing a baby mammoth costume earlier this year.

    She appeared in the Ryan Murphy black comedy series “Scream Queens” on Fox in 2015 and 2016.

    One of her co-stars on the show, Jamie Lee Curtis, said on Instagram Monday that Alley was “a great comic foil” on the show and “a beautiful mama bear in her very real life.”

    Alley’s “Cheers” co-star Kelsey Grammer said in a statement that “I always believed grief for a public figure is a private matter, but I will say I loved her.”

    Another “Cheers” co-star, Rhea Pearlman, recounted how she and Alley became friends almost instantly after she joined the show. She said Alley organized large Easter and Halloween parties and invited everyone. “She wanted everyone to feel included. She loved her children deeply. I’ve never met anyone remotely like her. I feel so thankful to have known her.”

    A native of Wichita, Kansas, Alley attended Kansas State University before dropping out and moving to Los Angeles.

    Like Travolta, she would become a longtime member of the Church of Scientology.

    Her first television appearances were as a game show contestant, on “The Match Game” in 1979 and “Password” in 1980.

    She made her film debut in 1982’s “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.”

    Other film roles included 1987’s “Summer School,” 1995’s “Village of the Damned” and 1999’s “Drop Dead Gorgeous.”

    Alley was married to her high school sweetheart from 1970 to 1977, and to actor Parker Stevenson from 1983 until 1997.

    She told the AP in 2010 if she married again, “I’d leave the guy within 24 hours because I’m sure he’d tell me not to do something.”

    ———

    Rancilio reported from Detroit. Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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