Legendary French actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has died at 91, her foundation announced Sunday.
“The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announces with immense sadness the death of its founder and president, Madame Brigitte Bardot, a world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation,” it said in a statement to the French news agency Agence France-Presse.
Bardot had been hospitalized briefly in late October at Saint-Jean Hospital in Toulon, where she underwent a minor surgical procedure, according to a statement from her office to AFP.
Miriam “Mimi” Mardrid Puga speaks during a Denver City Council public hearing on the status of the Office of the Independent Monitor. Aug. 15, 2016.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
This year, the queer, Latin and Native scene in Denver lost a pillar of their community. Miriam “Mimi” Madrid died on Nov. 6.
Madrid was the founder and executive director of Fortaleza Familiar, a community based nonprofit that was focused on the wellness of Chicanx, Latinx, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ youth, as well as their families.
Fortaleza Familiar puts on different programs like “Liberate Ourselves,” which is a six-day youth leadership program. They also host campaigns to help people in need. According to their bio, Madrid worked more than a decade in reproductive justice, liberation movements and youth LGBTQ+ leadership.
“I believe in the power of youth, elimination of borders, popular education, all forms of art expression, intergenerational healing and learning, swaying on the continuums of gender expression, identity, and orientation, singing out-loud, leaving to come back, dancing in revolution, and sana-sana-colita-de-rana,” they wrote in their bio.
For Dia de Los Muertos, they published information about transgender deaths throughout the world, and highlighted deceased people who faced different forms of discrimination.
“These artists, activists, and changemakers lived boldly, often defying norms to create beauty and justice in the world,” the website reads. “Through their art, music, words, and movements, they opened doors and made room for generations to come.”
Kimmy Fry has been with Fortelza Familiar since 2023 and said that their favorite part of working with the non-profit was the relationships this group created, and what they were able to teach each other.
“There’s so much learning and unlearning and healing within our community because of all of our intersectional identities, and so that along with our generational knowledge sharing is super important along with not only do we have to take care of each other physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally,” Fry said. “We’re also trying to find those pockets of joy because Mimi’s passing is going to be long lasting.”
Fry said that her and Madrid would actively try to embody being whimsical throughout life.
“There’s this joke that Mimi and I would have about us being whimsical and that is all that we have left because we’ve already gone through sadness, we’ve already gone through anger and gone through spite,” Fry said. “So whimsical, and this silly energy is what’s keeping us alive and fueling us in this battle of just everything that’s happening politically. And it’s beautiful to think about because it’s not childlike. It’s something that we were born with. We were born to wonder and to explore and to be curious.”
Madrid came to Denver when they were in the fourth grade from El Paso, Texas. They got their degree in Convergent Media and Journalism from Metropolitan State University of Denver. They were also rewarded with a top Denver Press Club scholarship in 2018.
“The essence of journalism is listening,” Madrid told DPC. “We have to know and use all forms of communications, including print, photojournalism and videography. My goal is to illustrate the human condition, to partner with global storytellers like my grandmother to change the world one story at a time.”
They are survived by their wife, Eleanor Dewey, and many family members, both related and chosen.
Their work with Fortaleza Familiar will continue its outreach for queer, Latin and Native youth. Celeste Razavi-Shearer, a long time friend and colleague of Madrid, said their legacy of healing through nature will live on.
“Mimi is the kind of person whose presence instantly changed lives. He looked you in the eyes and saw you, even when the world might have cast you aside. Their actions on this land were guided by the ways of our ancestors — healing ways, just ways, ways aligned with Mother Earth. Her work began in surviving inherited challenges as a queer/trans/Two Spirit indigenous/Mexican youth,” Razavi-Shearer wrote.
“Those experiences of adversity shaped his life’s position as a protector, decolonizer, mentor, husband, sibling, parent, teacher, lover, farmer and artist. He had so many gifts, but his natural instincts around lifting up young people everywhere will never be forgotten. Fortaleza Familiar is the last community project he shaped in life, but his work and love lives on in so many who will forever miss his warmth, playfulness, beauty, brilliance, modesty, authenticity, generosity and lion’s roar for justice.”
Perry Bamonte, the Cure’s longtime guitarist and keyboardist, has died following an undisclosed illness. He was 65. In a statement posted to their website, the band wrote that Bamonte, who went by the nickname “Teddy,” was “quiet, intense, intuitive, constant and hugely creative,” as well as “a vital part of the Cure story.”
Perry Bamonte was born in September 1960 in London. He first joined the Cure in 1984, as a roadie and Robert Smith’s guitar tech. Six years later, Bamonte was invited to become a full-time member following the departure of keyboardist Roger O’Donnell. He would go on to perform more than 400 shows with the band and played across several Cure albums, including Wild Mood Swings and Bloodflowers. He left the group in 2005 and rejoined in 2022, ahead of their Shows of a Lost World tour.
In 2019, Bamonte was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside his Cure bandmates. You can read the full statement from the band below.
It is with enormous sadness that we confirm the death of our great friend and bandmate Perry Bamonte who passed away after a short illness at home over Christmas. Quiet, intense, intuitive, constant and hugely creative, ‘Teddy’ was a warm hearted and vital part of the Cure story. ‘Looking after the band’ from 1984 through 1989, he became a full time member of the Cure in 1990, playing guitar, six string bass and keyboard on the wish, Wild Mood Swings, Bloodflowers, Acoustic Hits and The Cure albums, as well as performing more than 400 shows over 14 years. He rejoined the Cure in 2022, playing another 90 shows, some of the best in the band’s history, culminating with the show of a Lost World concert in London 1st November 2024. Our thoughts and condolences are with all his family. He will be very greatly missed.
Chainsaw sculptor Clyde Jones stands with some of his cedar creations and hand paintings, (background) around his home in the small Chatham County mill town of Bynum.
Harry Lynch
File photo
BYNUM
Clyde Jones, the self-taught folk artist who carved thousands of eccentric “critters” with his chain saw and found international fame as “the Picasso of driftwood,” has died.
He was 86 or 87, depending on which year he was born, which he confessed being unable to remember.
In declining health for several years, Jones succumbed Wednesday to a variety of age-related illnesses and had entered long-term care, where friends played banjo by his bedside, according to a GoFundMe page set up for expenses.
“I told him I hoped he was at peace in there,” wrote Julie Trotter. “That he had done a lot of good. Made millions of kids happy. Brought folks a lot of joy. Told him that folks everywhere love him and his art.”
Local folk artist, Clyde Jones smiles as he walks among the attendees of the 11th Annual ClydeFEST in 2012. Chuck Liddy File photo
What’s more precious than a young’un?
Jones spent his life in the small Chatham County mill town of Bynum, where his yard off U.S. 15/501 grew to a well-known roadside attraction. With its sign reading “Critter Corner,” it caught the eye of passers-by with its menagerie of wild-eyed animals painted yellow and blue, sporting racquetballs and daisies for eyes.
He rode around town on a purple lawn mower painted with sparkles, often in a baseball cap, usually accompanied by a dog named Speck — now interred in his yard and surrounded by critters. He lived otherwise alone in a house that sported paintings of penguins, dolphins and other sea creatures.
On April 5, 2014, Clyde Jones sat on his custom decorated riding lawnmower as he awaited “customers” to get his water transfer tattoos during the 13th annual ClydeFEST Kids Carnival of Folk Art, which honors him and his work in Bynum. Chuck Liddy File photo
Jones never accepted money for his work, once turning down an offer from ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov. He had one of his giraffes sent to the governor’s mansion for First Lady Mary Easley in 2005, decorating it with daisies for eyes.
He preferred giving his art away, especially to children or charities that helped them, and he showed his chain-saw skills at hundreds of schools around North Carolina, offering kids a turn with his hammer.
“I’d go out of my way to give ‘em to a young’un,” he told The N&O in 1987. “What’s more precious than a young’un?”
Clyde Jones, a former mill worker turned chainsaw artist, pumps his fists in front of his Bynum home as the second of two wooden giraffes is secured to a trailer, ready for transport to the governor’s mansion on April 29, 2005. The giraffes were to be gifts for the governor’s wife, Mary Easley, a day ahead of ClydeFEST 2005. Ted Richardson File photo
That vision comes from the folk
He rose to fame along with Wilson whirligig artist Vollis Simpson, both of them fixtures of the visionary folk art movement that gained popularity around the 1980s, celebrating untrained, rural artists with a mystical eye.
Throughout his decades of creating, Jones would see his work grace the roof of Crook’s Corner restaurant in Chapel Hill, the Bynum General Store, the Smithsonian, the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore and the Great Wall of China.
He kept them rough-edged and crude — natural, he would say. Sometimes his creatures stood more than 10 feet high, polka-dotted and they seemed to laugh to themselves over a silent joke.
“The critters which Clyde Jones constructed transcended time and connected us to the stories of our childhood wanderings about the big world outside our bedroom and backyard,” said Will Hinton, a Louisburg artist and professor. “A grinning smile of joy was always my response to seeing his gifts of hand and heart. This ain’t something you learn in art school. This vision comes from the folk.”
Chain saw sculptor Clyde Jones wanders by some of his taller chainsaw creations in his backyard. Jones says he prefers cedar to make his sculptures. Harry Lynch File photo
Josh Shaffer is a general assignment reporter on the watch for “talkers,” which are stories you might discuss around a water cooler. He has worked for The News & Observer since 2004 and writes a column about unusual people and places.
Lloyd Scher, a former Mecklenburg County commissioner, philanthropist and two-time state legislature candidate, died Dec. 18 following a battle with Parkinson’s disease and an inoperable brain tumor. He was 75.
Loved ones remember Scher as a jovial man with a loud demeanor and quirky personality. He was an artist — photography and writing were his mediums of choice — and he seemed to know everybody around, from NBA players to producers.
But most of all, they remember his selfless heart.
“Everybody who knew Lloyd knew that he was a dreamer, and not everything he hoped for would come,” said Ed Cecil, who knew Scher since he was 13. “I want people to remember him for his generosity and his hard work to make things a better place than they were when he got there.”
From New York to North Carolina
Scher was born in New York and had three brothers. The siblings were raised by their mother and aunt after their father died when Scher was 5 years old.
He maintained “a pretty good Brooklyn accent” throughout his life, though it would soften over time, said Scott Verner, a longtime friend and former Charlotte Observer editor who was with Scher when he died. He also remained a stalwart fan of the Dodgers baseball team, which was based in Brooklyn during his childhood.
But Scher was a Charlottean through and through: He moved to the city at 8 years old and would spend the majority of his life here.
He left Charlotte only a couple of times when he was young, first to serve in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War, then to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
UNC was “the best school on earth” to Scher, Verner said. He applied seven times before getting accepted, with each rejection fueling his resolve. Once there, he was the varsity basketball team’s manager, becoming close friends with stars such as Al Wood and Jimmy Black.
And he was a dedicated foodie with particular obsessions, never leaving a restaurant without asking for seconds to go.
“Lloyd was Jewish, but his favorite thing was ham biscuits. He would hog the biscuits,” Cecil said. “And if it wasn’t the ham biscuits he was loving, it was the banana pudding. Lloyd always said he hoped he would die in a hot tub full of banana pudding.”
Elected life
The public might best remember Scher as a political figure. He was elected to four terms on the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners from 1992 to 2000.
Scher was regarded as an outspoken liberal at a time when Republicans had a strong presence in Charlotte politics.
As former commissioner Bill James once described to the Observer: “Lloyd is one of the few honestly open liberals on the commission … I do totally respect him. Even though I don’t agree with him, he takes honest stands on issues.”
Strong constituent services made Scher a popular candidate. He was ever-present in his neighborhoods and schools, frequently attending PTA meetings and performing puppet shows for kids.
However, personal financial troubles swayed enough voters to side with a new leader in his district in 2000. A criminal investigation into his fundraising hung over Scher’s campaign leading up to the election, though he was ultimately cleared of charges.
He later served on the county’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, where he tracked whether bartenders were checking patrons’ IDs before serving them alcohol, Verner said.
Scher shifted his attention to state politics in 2007. The North Carolina House of Representatives considered him to fill a vacant seat but went instead with Tricia Cotham.
The two formally ran against each other in the subsequent Democratic primary, making him Cotham’s first-ever opponent in her decades-spanning political career.
Scher once again entered the political fray in 2016 when he ran for state Senate. Scher lost to Republican Dan Bishop, who authored the controversial House Bill 2, often referred to as the “bathroom bill,” requiring individuals in public buildings to use the bathroom aligned with the gender on their birth certificate.
“He was as strong a Democrat as anybody could be,” Verner said. “It took a lot of courage to run against Bishop.”
‘Always trying to help somebody’
Scher served in other, quieter ways, too.
Beyond politics, Scher was a member of the Lions Club, where he worked to address limitations faced by blind and vision-impaired people, Verner said. He was also a faithful member of the Jewish religion and a longtime congregant of Temple Israel in south Charlotte.
Each year, Scher hosted his own birthday party and asked attendees to bring new and unwrapped toys. He delivered loads of gifts to local agencies that served disadvantaged children, Verner said.
“He was always trying to help somebody, even if it didn’t help him or help us. He wanted to take somebody to lunch. He wanted to make sure that everybody was having a good day,” Cecil said. “He was just a terrific guy looking out to have a good time in life and be fair with people. I’m going to miss him a lot.”
Nick Sullivan covers the City of Charlotte for The Observer. He studied journalism at the University of South Carolina, and he previously covered education for The Arizona Republic and The Colorado Springs Gazette.
Chris Rea, the British singer-songwriter best known for the hit “Driving Home for Christmas,” has died at the age of 74, his family announced on Monday.
“It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of beloved Chris,” said a statement on behalf of his wife and two children, the BBC reported. “He passed away peacefully in hospital earlier today following a short illness, surrounded by his family.”
Additional details were not immediately available.
British singer Chris Rea performs live on stage during a concert at the Tempodrom on October 30, 2017, in Berlin, Germany.
Frank Hoensch/Redferns via Getty
Christopher Anton Rea was born in 1951 in Middlesbrough, in northeast England, to an Italian father and Irish mother. He was one of seven children.
He came late to the guitar, picking one up at 21, and played in bands before going solo.
Rea found fame in the 1980s in Britain with hits such as “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” and “Let’s Dance.”
Throughout his career, Rea recorded 25 solo albums, two of which — “The Road to Hell” in 1989 and “Auberge” in 1991 — went to No. 1 in the country. The song he is probably most well-known for in the U.S., “Fool (If You Think It’s Over),” earned Rea a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 1979.
“Driving Home for Christmas,” first released in 1986, became one of the U.K.’s most loved festive songs and featured in a Marks and Spencer’s TV advertisement this year.
According to the BBC, the family was known locally for Camillo’s ice cream factory and cafes, which his father owned.
The mayor of Middlesbrough, Chris Cooke, paid tribute to Rea on Monday, saying the singer “leaves behind a brilliant legacy.”
“Chris Rea was deeply proud of his Middlesbrough roots and the people of our town were equally proud to call him one of their own,” he said, according to the BBC. “Millions of people around the world will listen to his music tonight. His songs helped put Middlesbrough on the map and he leaves behind a brilliant legacy.”
He had suffered from health problems, including pancreatic cancer, and in 2016, he suffered a stroke. In more recent years, he turned away from pop and released several bluesy records.
Joe Ely, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who helped spearhead Texas’ progressive country movement in the 1970s, has died, his representative confirmed to Rolling Stone. Ely died from complications of Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson’s, and pneumonia at his home in Taos, New Mexico. He was 78.
As is true of the most revered country icons, Ely lived a long and storied life that was ripe with material for songs. Although his music career technically began with the Flatlanders, the country band he formed with fellow Texans Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock in 1972, Ely really found his audience with his self-titled solo debut in 1977; with each passing year, Ely’s natural lyricism and ear for rock hooks helped push a new type of progressive country to the forefront of the Texas community. In the decades that followed, he went on to collaborate with the Clash, Bruce Springsteen, Uncle Tupelo, the Chieftans, and many others.
Born in Amarillo, Texas, on February 9, 1947, Ely and his family relocated to Lubbock where he spent his teenage years attending high school and playing guitar. In his 20s, Ely crossed paths with Gilmore and Hancock and they decided to form a band that would utilize their interests in country, folk, and storytelling. The Flatlanders only released one album, 1973’s All American Music, before disbanding that same year. However, once the three musicians found independent success as solo artists, they regrouped to record a handful of albums together and perform live as a band once again, eventually earning their place in the Austin Music Awards Hall of Fame.
When he launched his solo career, Ely settled into country music from an openminded and openhearted place, churning out songs that welcomed everyone into the fold regardless of how familiar they were with the genre. That accessible approach earned him multiple charting albums, with 1981’s Musta Notta Gotta Lotta hitting No. 135 on the Billboard 200 and No. 12 on the Top Country Albums chart. Later on, 1998’s Twistin’ in the Wind reached No. 55, 2003’s Streets of Sin peaked at No. 51, and his 2011 record Satisfied at Last claimed spot No. 46 on the Top Country Albums chart. Yet for all of his beloved originals, one of Ely’s biggest songs was a cover of Robert Early Keen’s “The Road Goes on Forever,” which he tacked onto his 1992 album Love and Danger. His final album, Love and Freedom, came out in February 2025.
Joseph Byrd, the co-founder, composer, and bandleader of the psych-rock outfit United States of America, has died, reports The New York Times. His family confirmed the news in a notice to The Los Angeles Times, stating that Byrd died on November 2 at home in Medford, Oregon. He was 87.
United States of America wrote songs that were equal parts hypnotic and otherworldly, pushing listeners to reconsider what they could take away from music. Although the band only released one album during their brief two-year-long run from 1967 to 1968, United States of America earned not just a cult following, but credit for their traceable impact on the evolution of psych-rock and experimental pop, likely influencing the wave of Krautrock that would follow as well as bands like Stereolab, Broadcast, and Portishead.
As the band’s co-founder alongside vocalist Dorothy Moskowitz, Byrd was an innovator in the psych-rock genre and, beforehand, a driven experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles. Born on December 19, 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky, Byrd was raised in Tucson, Arizona, where he learned how to play accordion and vibraphone, joined a number of pop and country bands, and tried his hand at writing song arrangements. Byrd quickly scaled his way through academics, going from University of Arizona to study composition, to a graduate program at Stanford University, before leaping to University of California, Berkeley. Over the years, Byrd studied under Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and eventually John Cage, the latter of whom spent additional time tutoring him in New York City.
Byrd felt at home in New York City’s flourishing arts scene, debuting his first concert in 1961 in Yoko Ono’s apartment thanks to a hand from La Monte Young. Later that same year, he worked as an assistant to composer Virgil Thomson and, come 1962, performed minimal music compositions during his own recital at Carnegie Hall. Byrd left for Los Angeles in 1963 with his then-girlfriend Dorothy Moskowitz. It was there that he joined the communist party, started a blues band with his new friend Linda Ronstadt, and began producing experimental arts events. Enthralled by the community and organizing shared happenings, Byrd was eager to dream up an even bigger project.
In 1967, Byrd co-created United States of America to see what would happen by combining avant-garde rock music with electronic sound, political radicalism, and performance art. Armed with early synthesizers and an eagerness for tape manipulation, United States of America paraded ahead to push the boundaries of prog-rock and psych-pop in the name of experimentalism. They recorded their first and only album, The United States of America, in December of that year with producer David Rubinson behind the board. Byrd co-wrote the majority of the songs and handled all of the electronic music, electric harpsichord, organ, calliope, piano, and synthesizer. Moskowitz sang lead vocals while Gordon Marron played electric violin and ring modulator, Rand Forbes played fretless electric bass, and Craig Woodson performed drums and percussion.
One of the great directors of a generation, Rob Reiner, is dead at the age of 78. He was found in his Los Angeles, CA, home on Sunday along with his wife, Michele. The deaths are being treated as a homicide, according to TMZ.People reports the couple was allegedly killed by their son, though this has not yet been confirmed by officials.
There will be much more to say as law enforcement finds out the circumstances of the deaths in the coming days. So, for now, let’s just put that aside and talk about Reiner; he provided the world so much joy through his art, it’s almost unprecedented.
Reiner, born in 1947, was the son of the prolific comedian, actor, author, and filmmaker Carl Reiner. He followed in his father’s footsteps, first rising to stardom with a lead role as an actor on the classic comedy, All in the Family. He parlayed that into many behind-the-scenes credits before making his feature directorial debut with This Is Spinal Tap in 1984.
Eventually, the film became a massive cult hit. But, for Reiner, it would be a few more years until he experienced commercial success as he had on TV. That first came in 1986 when he directed the Stephen King adaptation, Stand By Me, which started one of the most incredibly successful runs in Hollywood history.
Next, there was The Princess Bride, regularly cited as one of the greatest fantasy adventure films of all time. Then there was When Harry Met Sally, arguably the best romantic comedy ever. Then Misery, another King adaptation that won its lead actress, Kathy Bates, an Oscar. Then came the star-studded, still-quoted courtroom smash, A Few Good Men.
Many, many films followed, such as The American President, The Bucket List, North, Flipped, and more. Each cemented Reiner’s legacy as an all-time great. Plus, he co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment, which itself was responsible for another insane lineup of hits, before it was acquired by Turner in 1993.
I saw Reiner earlier this year at an event in Los Angeles. He was there to talk about two of his films, Stand By Me and Misery, and was as sharp and inspiring as ever. I got emotional being in the same room with the filmmaker, thinking about what his work has meant to me. Now, thinking about him being gone, it hits even harder, because he truly was a one-of-a-kind, generational talent.
Update, December 15, 1:23 a.m.: The original version of this post was updated to include additional clarity about the alleged crime.
Sophie Kinsella, the author of “Confessions of a Shopaholic” and a series of millions-selling sequels, has died, her family said on social media.
Kinsella, whose real name was Madeleine Wickham, had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in late 2022. She announced the diagnosis in April 2024. She said at the time that she delayed the announcement to let her children adjust to their new normal. Kinsella also said that she underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy to treat the disease.
“We are heartbroken to announce the passing this morning of our beloved Sophie (aka Maddy, aka Mummy). She died peacefully, with her final days filled with her true loves: family and music and warmth and Christmas and joy,” Kinsella’s family wrote on Instagram. “We can’t imagine what life will be like without her radiance and love of life.”
Kinsella published 10 “Shopaholic” novels, beginning with “Confessions of a Shopaholic” in 2000. The first two “Shopaholic” books were adapted into the 2009 film “Confessions of a Shopaholic,” starring Isla Fisher.
Her 2024 novella “What Does It Feel Like?” was a semi-fictional account of her cancer diagnosis, according to CBS News partner BBC News. In an introduction to the book, Kinsella said she had “always processed my life through writing.”
“Hiding behind my fictional characters, I have always turned my own life into a narrative. It is my version of therapy, maybe,” Kinsella wrote, according to the BBC.
Sophie Kinsella attends a photocall for the movie “Can You Keep A Secret?” on Oct. 19, 2019, in Rome, Italy.
Stefania D’Alessandro / Getty Images
Kinsella also published books, including her debut novel, under her real name. In total, she wrote 28 books including 10 “Shopaholic” novels, one young adult novel and four children’s books, according to the BBC. Her books have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide and have been translated into dozens of languages.
“Despite her illness, which she bore with unimaginable courage, Sophie counted herself truly blessed – to have such wonderful family and friends, and to have had the extraordinary success of her writing career,” her family said on social media. “She took nothing for granted and was forever grateful for the love she received.”
Kinsella is survived by her husband Henry Wickham, who she married in 1991, and their five children.
“You’re sitting alone in your room and you’re tapping away and you hope people enjoy your book and then off it goes,” she said. “But then you get somebody who says, ‘Well, you know what? I’ve read your book in the middle of the night when I was recovering from operation and it got me through.’ I mean how can you do anything better in life than that?”
The veteran was one of the last from the famed Japanese American “Go For Broke” regiment
Yoshio “Yosh” Nakamura has died at age 100. The longtime art teacher, school administrator, activist and World War II hero was born in Rosemead and lived in Whittier when he died on November 22nd.
Yoshio Nakamura speaking at the Japanese American National Museum in 2024Credit: Photo courtesy Japanese American National Museum
Some people spend their whole lives helping others find the best that’s inside them; this writer will never forget spending an afternoon with Yosh and one of his former students, LeRoy Schmaltz, at an art fair several years ago. Schmaltz had made his name in the 1950s and 60s, carving tikis for Disneyland, Don the Beachcomber and hundreds of shops and restaurants at his shop Oceanic Arts. The octogenarian carver had long since slowed down so I was surprised when he introduced his energetic friend Yosh as a former teacher who had inspired his art and become a lifelong friend. It seems like Nakamura had that effect on almost everyone he met.
“From the very beginning he was a humble, gracious leader who offered unwavering support and kindness,” Teresa Dreyfuss, president of Rio Hondo College, tells Los Angeles. “Yosh embodied the values we hold dear, and his legacy of compassion, service and integrity will continue to inspire us.”
Japanese-American infantrymen of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team hike up a muddy French road in the Chambois Sector, France, in late 1944Credit: Photo by Army Center for Military History
The lifelong San Gabriel Valley resident was a teenager when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. He remembered his history teacher reassuring him that American citizens of all ancestry were protected by the Constitution, but nonetheless, Nakamura and his family were among the 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans rounded up and sent to internment camps. “It was demoralizing,” Nakamura told a reporter in 2020. “To be blamed for something you didn’t do, just because of how you look.”
The Nakamura family was living at Gila River Camp in the Arizona desert when Yoshio enlisted in the United States Army, ending up in the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team, united under the “Go For Broke!” motto. He, like many other incarcerated Americans of Japanese descent, was eager to prove their allegiance to the United States.
More than 30,000 Japanese Americans enlisted in the military, and the famed 442nd, an almost entirely Japanese American infantry regiment, became the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. military history. The 442nd fought in battles that ultimately broke the Nazis’ last line of defense in Northern Italy. They have been honored with a monument in Little Tokyo, their story was dramatized in a 1951 film by MGM and in 2021, the United States Postal Service honored the group with a Forever stamp. Nakamura was awarded the Bronze Star for his service. In 2011, he received the Congressional Gold Medal.
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Yoshio Nakamura teaching art at Whittier High School in 1960Credit: Photo courtesy Whittier Public Library
Nakamura married another artist, Grace Shinoda Nakamura, and the pair were together for 67 years, advocating for education and the environment. Nakamura is survived by three children, Linda, Daniel and Joel.
While stationed in Italy, he discovered his love for art and delved into the works of Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael. Following the war, Nakamura studied art in Florence, Italy, and at USC under renowned artists including Glen Lukens and Francis de Erdely. By 1952, he was teaching watercolor and oil painting at Whittier High School, where he would eventually lead the department. He became one of the first employees of the new Rio Hondo College in Whittier in 1963 and stayed with the school for decades. Nakamura became Rio Hondo’s very first dean of fine arts. The Fine Arts building at Whittier High School and the gallery are named for him. Nakamura’s artwork is in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum and the Smithsonian Institution.
Yoshio Nakamura at Rio Hondo CollegeCredit: Photo Courtesy Rio Hondo College
“Yosh Nakamura was a true American hero,” Mitch Maki, President and CEO of the Go For Broke National Education Center tells Los Angeles. “He demonstrated his true patriotism and loyalty to our nation despite the fact that his family and over 120,000 Japanese Americans were wrongfully incarcerated during World War II. He believed in America’s Promise – the promise that in our nation no one is to be judged by the color of one’s skin, the nation of one’s origins, or the faith that one chooses to keep. We lost a hero, a kind human being, and a friend.”
Yoshio Nakamura at 2024 Nisei Week festivitiesCredit: Photo by Mark/Flickr
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel had identified the latest remains returned from Gaza as hostage Dror Or.That leaves the bodies of two hostages in Gaza as the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement nears a conclusion.Palestinian militants released Or’s remains Tuesday.Israel has agreed to release 15 Palestinian bodies for each hostage returned.Dror Or was killed by Islamic Jihad militants who overran his home in Kibbutz Beeri on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military said. His wife, Yonat Or, was also killed in the attack.That day, Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people across southern Israel and abducted 251 to Gaza. Kibbutz Beeri was one of the hardest-hit farming communities in that attack that started the war in Gaza.Two of Or’s children, Alma and Noam, were abducted by the militants on Oct. 7 and released in a hostage deal in November 2023.Almost all of the hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals. The remains of two — one Israeli and one Thai national— are still in Gaza.Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 69,700 Palestinians have been killed and 170,800 injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive. The toll has increased during the ceasefire, both from new Israeli strikes and from the recovery and identification of bodies of people killed earlier in the war.The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures, but has said women and children make up a majority of those killed. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel had identified the latest remains returned from Gaza as hostage Dror Or.
That leaves the bodies of two hostages in Gaza as the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement nears a conclusion.
Palestinian militants released Or’s remains Tuesday.
Israel has agreed to release 15 Palestinian bodies for each hostage returned.
Dror Or was killed by Islamic Jihad militants who overran his home in Kibbutz Beeri on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military said. His wife, Yonat Or, was also killed in the attack.
That day, Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people across southern Israel and abducted 251 to Gaza. Kibbutz Beeri was one of the hardest-hit farming communities in that attack that started the war in Gaza.
Two of Or’s children, Alma and Noam, were abducted by the militants on Oct. 7 and released in a hostage deal in November 2023.
Almost all of the hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals. The remains of two — one Israeli and one Thai national— are still in Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 69,700 Palestinians have been killed and 170,800 injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive. The toll has increased during the ceasefire, both from new Israeli strikes and from the recovery and identification of bodies of people killed earlier in the war.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures, but has said women and children make up a majority of those killed. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.
In the end, Alex Hunter picked the day of his death.
Boulder’s longest-serving district attorney — who defined more than a quarter century of criminal justice for the region and oversaw the early years of the JonBenét Ramsey case — had exhausted all options for medical care after suffering a heart attack in mid-November.
The 89-year-old spent several days in Colorado hospitals, alert and cogent, saying goodbye to colleagues, friends and family.
Then he picked 1:30 p.m. Friday as the time for medical staff to stop the life-supporting medicines keeping him alive. He drifted off and died later that evening, a month shy of his 90th birthday, said his son, Alex “Kip” Hunter III, who is acting as a spokesman for the family.
“He was just crystalline clear,” Hunter III said Monday. “He was intentional and purposeful, gracious and elegant. …He had come to a place where he was totally at peace with the scope of his life.”
Hunter spent 28 years as Boulder County’s elected top prosecutor, serving seven consecutive terms between 1973 and 2001. He forged a community-driven, progressive, victim-focused approach to prosecution and helped shape Boulder’s reputation as a liberal enclave.
He faced intense public scrutiny in the late 1990s after 6-year-old JonBenét was killed and, in the ensuing media firestorm, he chose not to bring charges against her parents — even after a grand jury secretly returned indictments against them during his final term.
Hunter kept a picture of the young beauty queen in his office and, throughout, stood by his controversial decision in the city’s highest-profile murder case, his son said.
“He probably suffered more criticism as a result of that than any other moment in his career,” Hunter III said. “And yet he remained confident till he died that that was the right decision.”
In 1997, Hunter named JonBenét’s parents, John and Patsy, as a focus in the investigation into their daughter’s killing. More than a year later, Hunter announced that Boulder County’s grand jury had completed its work investigating the case, and that there was not sufficient evidence for charges to be filed against the Ramseys.
He was roundly criticized during the early years of the Ramsey case, featured in tabloids and The New Yorker. Some called for a special prosecutor to replace him, and a Boulder detective resigned from the case, accusing Hunter of compromising the investigation. Outsiders said Boulder needed a tough-on-crime prosecutor — decidedly not Hunter — to bring justice to JonBenét’s killer.
What Hunter kept secret in 1999 was that the grand jury had voted to indict the parents on charges of child abuse resulting in death — essentially alleging the Ramseys placed their daughter in a dangerous situation that led to her death — but that he’d declined to sign the indictments and move forward with a prosecution, believing he could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
“It was so like him to refuse the grand jury instruction,” Hunter III said. “Because he believed in his heart that it would have a negative impact on the outcome of the case.”
Over time, Hunter came to realize the Ramsey case would define his career, even if he would rather it did not. He was surprised by how it followed him even years after his retirement, Hunter III said.
“Horrible crimes happen every day, and that was a horrible crime, but it’s had legs, it’s had a life that I think often surprised Dad in particular,” Hunter III said. “I think that a lot of Dad’s 28 years as the district attorney perhaps got lost in the JonBenét Ramsey case.”
From left, Adams County Chief Deputy District Attorney Bruce Levin, Assistant Boulder County District Attorney Bill Wise, Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter and the JonBenét Ramsey grand jury’s special prosecutor, Michael Kane, walk outside the Ramsey family’s former Boulder home on Oct. 29, 1998. (Photo by Paul Aiken/Daily Camera)
‘Doing the right thing time and time again’
Through the decades, Hunter was attuned to the Boulder community in a way few others ever were — for years, he invited cohorts of random voters into his office on Tuesday nights for candid discussions on crime and the courts, and he often made decisions and implemented policy based on what he heard in those meetings.
He was a master at reading a room and took pride in surrounding himself with good people, said Dennis Wanebo, a former prosecutor in the Boulder DA’s office.
He rarely faced any serious opposition on the ballot.
“He was there for 28 years,” said Peter Maguire, a longtime Boulder prosecutor during Hunter’s tenure. “And you don’t do that without being the consummate politician who has his finger on the pulse of the community, and by doing the right thing time and time again.”
Hunter was first elected by a narrow margin in 1973 in no small part because he promised to stop prosecuting possession of marijuana as a felony — prompting University of Colorado students to vote for him in droves, said Stan Garnett, who served as Boulder district attorney beginning in 2009.
Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter is pictured in this October 1980 photo. (Photo by Dave Buresh/The Denver Post)
Hunter was part of a wave of Democratic leadership that swept through Boulder in the 1970s. He hosted his own talk radio show for a while in the 1980s, and ran up Flagstaff Road almost every workday, leaving at 11:30 a.m. and having his secretary collect him at the top and return him to the courthouse. He was media-savvy and funny, charming and articulate.
He declared bankruptcy in the 1970s after a failed real estate venture left him $6 million in debt. Hunter married four times and had five children, one of whom, John Hunter-Haulk, died in 2010 at the age of 20 — the “heartbreak of his life,” that Hunter never fully moved past, his son said.
In the late 1970s, after regularly hearing people’s displeasure with plea agreements, Hunter declared that his office would no longer offer plea bargains in any cases, instead requiring defendants to plead guilty to the original charges or take their cases to trial.
The effort quickly failed as the court system buckled under the increased number of jury trials.
“People made fun of him at the time, other DAs mocked him for it and said it was a fool’s errand,” Wanebo said. “And maybe in hindsight it can be looked at that way. And yet there was also a very good secondary effect of that for our office, which was, we got really careful about what we charged people with.”
‘A Renaissance man’
Hunter was moveable when he made mistakes, Maguire said, though he needed to be convinced through either a reasoned or political argument — this is what the community wants — to change his stances.
“Alex was a Renaissance man,” Garnett said. “He was interested in everything. And he was very thoughtful, very kind. He was very ethical.”
Tom Kelley, a former First Amendment attorney for The Denver Post, remembered a time in which he convinced Hunter that he was legally obligated to release some criminal justice records to the newspaper. Kelley swung by the courthouse to pick the records up, and Hunter met him, leading Kelley through the courthouse’s winding back hallways in search of the records.
Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter makes his way down a hill in front of the Boulder County Justice Center, through a mass of media and bystanders, on his way to announce that the grand jury in the JonBenét Ramsey case was disbanding without taking action on Oct. 13, 1999. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
After he gave the documents to Kelley, Hunter immediately called up the Rocky Mountain News — The Post’s bitter rival — and let them know the records were publicly available, Kelley said.
“That was classic Alex Hunter,” he said. “He was a very decent person and he tried to give everybody a little bit of something… He had a strong political sense.”
For Hunter III, having the DA as his dad was “fantastic,” he said. His dad was regularly on the newspaper’s front page. He was “always the coolest dad in Boulder,” Hunter III remembered.
His father’s death this week feels like a mountain suddenly disappearing.
He cherishes the conversations they had as a family in the days before Hunter died.
“We were in deep conversation,” he said. “And he taught us more in that last week than you could learn in a lifetime.”
Jimmy Cliff, the Jamaican singer who was instrumental in taking reggae global, has died. Cliff’s wife, Latifa Chambers, and his family announced the news in a post on the singer’s social media pages, giving the cause as a seizure followed by pneumonia. Cliff was 81 years old.
Born James Chambers, Jimmy Cliff was a star of stage and screen, as well known for his role in the revolutionary cult film The Harder They Come as for his export of ska and reggae music across the Atlantic and back to North America. His breakout in late 1960s London followed a determined rise out of poverty in Jamaica, where he had graduated from playing Elvis Presley covers in singing contests to releasing a string of ska hits that helped the genre, fueled by the introduction of the electric bass guitar, create a party-starting fervor in Kingston.
That local success prompted a teenage Cliff’s signing to Britain’s fledgling Island Records. Upon arriving in Britain, however, Cliff “found people were not really into reggae music,” as he told Vivien Goldman in 1979. “They were more into American R&B, so I started to blend the two.” That fusion came to bear on his first two albums, released by Island: 1967’s Hard Road to Travel and his self-titled 1969 LP. The latter album spawned a UK Top 10 single in “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” (which lent its title to later pressings of the album), as well as “Vietnam,” which Bob Dylan is said to have called “the best protest song ever written.”
As Cliff rose in the public eye, Jamaica was in a period of social upheaval, with reggae as its soundtrack. Cliff cheered his working-class compatriots from afar, later telling the writer Lloyd Bradley in Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King that the desire for political change had forced rude-boy culture to evolve into a search “for something deeper” after independence. He went on, “As they started looking towards our own culture—like the government had been encouraging people to do—that led them to look more towards Africa and some sort of Black consciousness. That’s what the roots movement was all about.… Since things had been getting bad for quite a few years, they stepped up their fight to be heard and it was the musicians that provide that voice for them.”
Cliff returned to his native country, in 1969, where he soon swaggered into the lead role in The Harder They Come, director Perry Henzell’s electrifying drama about post-colonial Kingston youth. The first homemade feature produced in independent Jamaica, the 1972 release was a slow-burning word-of-mouth sensation, as was Cliff’s soundtrack. The album’s mix of reggae standards and Cliff originals rapidly accelerated the 1970s roots reggae boom, minting Cliff a superstar and setting the stage for Bob Marley—whom Cliff had given an early break in Kingston—and his major-label debut with the Wailers, Catch a Fire, soon after.
John Gravois, Star-Telegram politics editor from 1995 to 2017, was remembered for his generosity and enthusiasm.
Courtesy Moore Bowen Road Funeral Home
John Gravois, a man whose passion for journalism shaped both the Star-Telegram’s political coverage and the reporters who worked for him, died on Nov. 11. He was 67.
Colleagues remembered Gravois for his passion for the craft and ability to make the people around him better.
“I wanted to be John Gravois when I grew up,” said New York Times investigative reporter Jay Root, who worked under Gravois at the Star-Telegram.
He had the best instincts, Root said, recounting how Gravois had a sixth sense that allowed him to envision how a story would play out after only learning a few facts.
The Louisiana native took to journalism like a fish to water starting with his sixth grade school newspaper and graduating to a sports reporter position at his hometown paper at 16.
At the Houma Courier, Gravois took on the persona of “Pierre the Cajun,” making weekly picks for high school football games.
“The players, every time I got them wrong, they loved throwing me in the shower,” Gravois said in a 2023 interview with television station HTV Houma.
Gravois’s sports reporting expanded from high school to college and professional sports before he made the switch to politics.
Making the change was a natural fit, because in Louisiana and Texas there is not a lot of difference between the worlds of sports and politics, Gravois said in the same 2023 interview
A story that uncovered a pyramid scheme in his hometown of Houma led Gravois to his first experience getting death threats. Still, he noted that people concerned about the pyramid scheme were looking to the local newspaper to uncover what was going on.
“You have to have a willingness to confront power and not be afraid to ask powerful people questions,” Root said, adding that was something he learned from Gravois.
He was very authentic, and wasn’t a show-off even though it would have been easy for him to do that, said Jack Douglas Jr., who helped recruit Gravois to the Star-Telegram in 1995, and was later an investigative producer at KXAS Channel 5.
Douglas described Gravois as a “reporter’s editor” who worked with the journalists he supervised rather than lording over them.
“When you found a great story, or you thought you had a great story, you couldn’t wait to tell John about it, because he would get as excited as the reporter would,” Douglas said.
He was always generous with his time, and wanted his reporters to succeed, said John Moritz, chief politics reporter for the Austin American-Statesman who worked with Gravois at the Star-Telegram.
Moritz recounted how Gravois would connect younger reporters with their more experienced counterparts to help with a story or to get a deeper understanding of a topic.
Gravois loved every detail of Texas politics, said Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy.
He had an ability to take even the most minute boring detail or function of government and make it fascinating, because he focused on the people and the characters that made it interesting, Kennedy said.
“I used to think it was an act,” said Barry Shlachter, a former Star-Telegram reporter who worked under Gravois.
“That was John. The guy lived and breathed news.”
As the newspaper industry began to shrink amid declining advertising revenue and competition from social media, Gravois managed to keep finding jobs doing meaningful journalism work.
People have said he was an old school journalist, but he also embraced the evolution of news reporting, Douglas said.
“He used to say, ‘Think of the news businesses as being contained in a box. The shape of the box may always change, but what’s inside never will,’” Douglas said.
He left the Star-Telegram in 2017 for a position as a politics editor at the Houston Chronical before coming back to the Metroplex to work at the Dallas Morning News.
Eva-Marie Ayala, who worked with Gravois in Fort Worth and Dallas, recounted in a Facebook post how excited he would get on election nights or on covering big stories like hurricanes.
“The crazy Cajun said something to the effect of ‘Oh boy! This is gonna be a fun one. Historic. I wish I was there with you,” she wrote.
He constantly reminded reporters they were doing God’s work, wrote former Star-Telegram reporter Anna Tinsley-Williams in a Facebook post. She worked for Gravois for 16 years.
Moritz, of the American-Statesman, said he thought Gravois’ “God’s work” sentiment was pretentious at the time, but came to see its wisdom as the journalism industry continued to atrophy.
“The calling is we serve the reading public, and it’s up to us to give them the tools they need to hold the powerful accountable,” Mortiz said.
“Journalism needs a whole lot more John Gravois.”
John was preceded in death by his brother Michael, and his parents, Lloyd Joseph Gravois and Wanda Joy Gravois.
He is survived by his wife Suzanne, his daughter Joy and son Nicholas along with their spouses; three grandchildren, Adelyn, Gracie, and Lennie; his brother Jeffrey, sister-in-law Karrie, two nieces and a nephew, sister-in-law Nancy Hawley Gravois, and countless other friends and family members.
A visitation is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. Nov. 20 at Moore Bowen Road Funeral Home, 4216 S. Bowen Road, Arlington. A funeral Mass is scheduled for 11 a.m. Nov. 21 at St. Jude Catholic Church, 500 E. Dallas St., Mansfield.
A final visitation will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 5 Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home in New Orleans followed by a funeral Mass at 1 p.m.
Harrison Mantas has covered Fort Worth city government, agencies and people since September 2021. He likes to live tweet city hall meetings, and help his fellow Fort Worthians figure out what’s going on.
Gary “Mani” Mounfield, the British musician who played bass in the Stone Roses and Primal Scream, has died. His brother, Greg, shared the news on Facebook, and Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown eulogized his former bandmate on X, writing, “REST IN PEACE MANi X.” A cause of death has not been announced. Mounfield was 63 years old.
Mounfield was born in Crumpsall, England, in 1962. In the early 1980s, in Greater Manchester, he formed a band with John Squire and Andy Couzens called the Fireside Chaps. They eventually took on Ian Brown as the new frontman and changed their name to the Stone Roses. It wasn’t until 1989 that the Stone Roses (now without Couzens, but featuring Alan “Reni” Wren on drums) released their self-titled debut.
The Stone Roses became key figures in the Madchester scene. Writing about The Stone Roses, for Pitchfork’s “The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s,” Ben Cardew said, “For a good decade, the Manchester band’s debut album was inescapable in the UK, uniting ravers, guitar-heads, and pop fans with its exquisite songwriting, snaking guitar lines, Byrds-ian harmonies, and generous layer of psychedelia to cushion the post-club comedown.” Despite the Stone Roses’ popularity, they released just one more album, Second Coming, before initially disbanding in 1996.
The Stone Roses played a number of shows during their second stint, but released just two new songs: “All for One” and “Beautiful Thing.” They broke up again in 2017.
On X, fellow Mancunian Liam Gallagher said Mounfield was his “hero,” and Tim Burgess, of the Charlatans UK, called him “a beautiful friend.” New Order shared, “We are really sorry and shocked to hear of the passing of Mani. He was a great guy, good fun and a father to two boys. Long may he live in the hearts and minds of all his family, friends and fans.”
Todd Snider, the longtime Americana singer-songwriter known for his satirical folk songs and empathetic ballads, has died, reports The New York Times. His publicist confirmed that Snider died from pneumonia on Friday (November 14) in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 59.
Last month, Snider canceled his remaining tour dates in support of High, Lonesome, and Then Some, his new album, after sustaining “severe injuries” in an assault outside his Salt Lake City hotel. A statement posted to Snider’s Instagram said the musician would be “unable to perform for an undetermined amount of time” and that he was receiving the “needed medical treatment.”
Snider’s cheeky lyrics and rustic voice lent his Americana songs a certain air of timelessness. While his biggest hits “Alright Guy” and “Conservative, Christian, Right Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males” earned him an alternative fanbase, his ear for folk hooks and lyrical details garnered the attention of John Prine and Jimmy Buffett, both of whom took Snider under their wing early on. Over the years, numerous artists went on to cover Snider’s songs—Loretta Lynn, Billy Joe Shaver, Tom Jones, Mark Chesnutt, Jack Ingram—after being drawn to his storytelling.
Snider considered himself to be the “Nashville antihero.” Although most often heralded for his tongue-in-cheek approach to lyric writing, he was largely the poet of stoners, unconventional artists, and people who opted to take life slowly, telling country tales with a judgement-free approach that felt more at ease than confrontational or intentionally barbed. Over a dozen different studio albums, Snider sang about unlucky adventurers, low-key outlaws, the cyclical nature of substance abuse, and the multilayered depths of grief, beginning with his 1994 debut full-length Songs for the Daily Planet. Yet onstage, he always found extra space for humor, providing rambling introductions to his songs to make his audiences laugh or lean in closer to hear his words.
“I’m certain I don’t have any answers, and I want the people who listen to my songs to know that,” Snider told the Times in 2009. “If someone learns something from me, that would be their fault.”
Born on October 11, 1966 in Portland, Oregon, Snider ran away at age 16 to visit friends around the country. As he traveled across the United States, he ended up spending a long stretch in Austin before relocating to Memphis. It was there that he caught Buffett’s attention, played a short stint in his Coral Reefer Band, and was offered a spot on his Margaritaville label come 1993. After releasing three albums—1994’s Songs for the Daily Planet, 1996’s Step Right Up, and 1998’s Viva Satellite—Snider was left stranded when the record label changed owners.
Cleto Escobedo III, the leader of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! house band, has died. The saxophonist, who led the late-night TV show’s group, Cleto and the Cletones, from its inception in 2003, was host Jimmy Kimmel’s childhood friend since elementary school in Las Vegas. A cause of death has not been announced. Escobedo was 59 years old.
“Early this morning, we lost a great friend, father, son, musician and man, my longtime bandleader Cleto Escobedo III,” Kimmel wrote yesterday on Instagram. “To say that we are heartbroken is an understatement. Cleto and I have been inseparable since I was nine years old. The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true. Cherish your friends and please keep Cleto’s wife, children and parents in your prayers.”
When ABC approached Kimmel to offer him the late-night show, the host suggested Escobedo as the musical director of its house band. Kimmel ultimately convinced the station to give him a chance by bringing ABC executives to see Escobedo’s ensemble perform live. Not only were they captured by the saxophonist’s live presence, but the station’s executives were also charmed by Kimmel’s close friendship with Escobedo and the fact that Escobedo’s father also played in the band.
Born Cleto Valentine Escobedo III, on August 23, 1966, in Las Vegas, Nevada, he learned to play saxophone as an 11-year-old under the tutelage of his father, who was a longtime tenor saxophonist who played live and regularly spun music around the house. “I distinctly remember my dad was playing in Hawaii,” Escobedo said in a 2024 podcast interview. “I was five years old and watching his band and him play, and I used to get teared up watching my dad play. I was so excited by the music of it all.”
Around that age, Escobedo met Kimmel for the first time, and the two immediately hit it off due to a similar taste in comedy. They spent their days playing baseball in neighborhood streets, sleeping over at each others house, staying up late to watch the Late Show With David Letterman, and going fishing together with Escobedo’s father. Looking back, both men considered their friendship to be the type of close, jovial, and effortless bond between brothers.
After studying at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Escobedo started performing along the city’s famed Strip in the popular cover band Santa Fe. Following an audition to join Paula Abdul’s touring band, he got the first big break of his own, joining the pop star on a world tour that ultimately led to gigs with other artists, like Luis Miguel and Marc Anthony, as well as his own record deal on Virgin Records.
(AP) – Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is mourning the death of one of his oldest friends — his show’s bandleader, Cleto Escobedo III.
Kimmel announced Escobedo’s death Tuesday on Instagram, saying “that we are heartbroken is an understatement.” Escobedo was 59.
Escobedo and Kimmel met as children in Las Vegas, where they grew up across the street from each other.
“We just met one day on the street, and there were a few kids on the street, and him and I just became really close friends, and we kind of had the same sense of humor. We just became pals, and we’ve been pals ever since,” Escobedo said in a 2022 interview for Texas Tech University’s Southwest Collection oral history archive, disclosing that he and Kimmel were huge fans of David Letterman as kids.
Escobedo would grow up to become a professional musician, specializing in the saxophone, and touring with Earth, Wind and Fire’s Phillip Bailey and Paula Abdul. He recorded with Marc Anthony, Tom Scott and Take Six. When Kimmel got his own ABC late-night talk show in 2003, he lobbied for Escobedo to lead the house band on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“Of course I wanted great musicians, but I wanted somebody I had chemistry with,” Kimmel told WABC in 2015. “And there’s nobody in my life I have better chemistry with than him.”
In 2016, on Escobedo’s 50th birthday, Kimmel dedicated a segment to his friend, recalling pranks with a BB gun or mooning people from the back of his mom’s car.
“Cleto had a bicycle with a sidecar attached to it. We called it the side hack. I would get in the sidecar and then Cleto would drive me directly into garbage cans and bushes,” Kimmel recalled.
News of Escobedo’s death comes after Thursday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was abruptly canceled. David Duchovny, Joe Keery and Madison Beer were set as the show’s guests. The date and cause of Escobedo’s death weren’t immediately known.
Escobedo’s father is also a member of the Kimmel house band and plays tenor and alto saxophones. In January 2022, the father-son duo celebrated nearly two decades of performing on-screen together.
“Jimmy asked me, ‘Who are we going to get in the band?’ I said, ‘Well, my normal guys,’ and he knew my guys because he had been coming to see us and stuff before he was famous, just to come support me and whatever. I’d invite him to gigs, and if he didn’t have anything to do he’d come check it out, so he knew my guys,” Escobedo recounted in the 2022 interview. “Then he just said, ‘Hey, man, what about your dad? Wouldn’t that be kind of cool?’ I was like, ‘That would be way cool.’”
In the 2022 interview, Escobedo said the bandleader job had one major benefit: family time.
“Touring and all that stuff is fun, but it’s more of a young man’s game. Touring, also, too, is not really conducive for family life. I’ve learned over the years, being on the road and watching how hard it is, leaving your kids for so long. Sometimes they’re babies; you come back and then they’re talking, it’s like, ‘What?’” he said.
Escobedo’s survivors also include his wife Lori and their two children.
“The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true. Cherish your friends and please keep Cleto’s wife, children and parents in your prayers,” Kimmel wrote.
NEW YORK (AP) — Sally Kirkland, a one-time model who became a regular on stage, film and TV, best known for sharing the screen with Paul Newman and Robert Redford in “The Sting” and her Oscar-nominated title role in the 1987 movie “Anna,” has died. She was 84.
Her representative, Michael Greene, said Kirkland died Tuesday morning at a hospice in Palm Springs, California.
Friends established a GoFundMe account this fall for her medical care. They said she had fractured four bones in her neck, right wrist and left hip. While recovering, she also developed infections, requiring hospitalization and rehab.
“She was funny, feisty, vulnerable and self deprecating,” actor Jennifer Tilly, who co-starred with Kirkland in “Sallywood,” wrote on X. “She never wanted anyone to say she was gone. ‘Don’t say Sally died, say Sally passed on into the spirits.’ Safe passage beautiful lady.”
Kirkland acted in such films as “The Way We Were” with Barbra Streisand, “Revenge” with Kevin Costner, “Cold Feet” with Keith Carradine and Tom Waits, Ron Howard’s “EDtv,” Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” “Heatwave” with Cicely Tyson, “High Stakes” with Kathy Bates, “Bruce Almighty” with Jim Carrey and the 1991 TV movie “The Haunted,” about a family dealing with paranormal activity. She had a cameo in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.”
Her biggest role was in 1987’s “Anna” as a fading Czech movie star remaking her life in the United States and mentoring to a younger actor, Paulina Porizkova. Kirkland won a Golden Globe and earned an Oscar nomination along with Cher in “Moonstruck,” Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction, Holly Hunter in “Broadcast News” and Meryl Streep in “Ironweed.”
“Kirkland is one of those performers whose talent has been an open secret to her fellow actors but something of a mystery to the general public,” The Los Angeles Times critic wrote in her review. “There should be no confusion about her identity after this blazing comet of a performance.”
Kirkland’s small-screen acting credits include stints on “Criminal Minds,” “Roseanne,” “Head Case” and she was a series regular on the TV shows “Valley of the Dolls” and “Charlie’s Angels.”
Born in New York City, Kirkland’s mother was a fashion editor at Vogue and Life magazine who encouraged her daughter to start modeling at age 5. Kirkland graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and studied with Philip Burton, Richard Burton’s mentor, and Lee Strasberg, the master of the Method school of acting. An early breakout was appearing in Andy Warhol’s “13 Most Beautiful Women” in 1964. She appeared naked as a kidnapped rape victim in Terrence McNally’s off-Broadway “Sweet Eros.”
Some of her early roles were Shakespeare, including the lovesick Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for New York Shakespeare Festival producer Joseph Papp and Miranda in an off-Broadway production of “The Tempest.”
“I don’t think any actor can really call him or herself an actor unless he or she puts in time with Shakespeare,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. “It shows up, it always shows up in the work, at some point, whether it’s just not being able to have breath control, or not being able to appreciate language as poetry and music, or not having the power that Shakespeare automatically instills you with when you take on one of his characters.”
Kirkland was a member of several New Age groups, taught Insight Transformational Seminars and was a longtime member of the affiliated Church of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, whose followers believe in soul transcendence.
She reached a career nadir while riding nude on a pig in the 1969 film “Futz,” which a Guardian reviewer dubbed the worst film he had ever seen. “It was about a man who fell in love with a pig, and even by the dismal standards of the era, it was dismal,” he wrote.
Kirkland was also known for disrobing for so many other roles and social causes that Time magazine dubbed her “the latter-day Isadora Duncan of nudothespianism.”
Kirkland volunteered for people with AIDS, cancer and heart disease, fed homeless people via the American Red Cross, participated in telethons for hospices and was an advocate for prisoners, especially young people.
The actors union SAG-AFTRA called her “a fearless performer whose artistry and advocacy spanned more than six decades,” adding that as “a true mentor and champion for actors, her generosity and spirit will continue to inspire.”
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