Legends dropping like flies

Rock till the end brotha. Rest In Peace.

and soo close to his older brother dying

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiK1KXSkMrXAhVIW5QKHSlMD4IQFggyMAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGeorge_Young_(rock_musician)&usg=AOvVaw3PB3WpOxInflM9WhF_BGnY
 
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/della-reese-%E2%80%98touched-by-an-angel%E2%80%99-star-and-randb-singer-dies-at-86/ar-BBFn6WO?OCID=ansmsnnews11 :cry:
Della Reese, who segued from pop and jazz singing stardom in the ‘50s and ‘60s to a long career as a popular TV actress on “Touched By an Angel” and other shows, died Sunday night at her home in California. She was 86.

“She was an incredible wife, mother, grandmother, friend, and pastor, as well as an award-winning actress and singer. Through her life and work she touched and inspired the lives of millions of people,” Reese’s family said in a statement. “She was a mother to me and I had the privilege of working with her side by side for so many years on ‘Touched By An Angel.’ I know heaven has a brand new angel this day. Della Reese will be forever in our hearts.”

Reared in gospel, Reese became a seductive, big-voiced secular music star with her No. 1 R&B and No. 2 pop hit “Don’t You Know” in 1959. The 45, her first single on RCA Records, was a ballad drawn from an aria from Puccini’s opera “La Boheme.”

She ranged through a series of releases that showed off her mastery of standards, jazz and contemporary pop through the early ‘70s, and over the course of her career she received four Grammy Award nominations.

By 1969 she had launched her TV show “Della” – the first talker hosted by an African-American woman – and had begun a move into an acting career that would take her to even greater national prominence.

Speaking of her TV and film work with the Associated Press’ Bob Thomas in 1997, she said, “I had good training for it. I was always a stylist, a lyricist. I became acquainted with the words in order to convince you I must believe in what I’m singing. That’s what acting is: believing. It was just like one thing flowing into another.”

After a number of guest appearances, Reese broke into TV full-time with a starring role in the hit 1975-78 Jack Albertson-Freddie Prinze comedy series “Chico and the Man.” Roles on “It Takes Two,” “Crazy Like a Fox,” “Charlie & Co.” and (opposite her good friend Redd Foxx) “The Royal Family.”

She also took starring roles in the features “Harlem Nights” and “A Thin Line Between Love and Hate” and appeared in 20 made-for-TV pictures.

Her greatest popularity came as co-star of the inspirational CBS show “Touched By An Angel.” Though the show was axed during its debut 1994-95 season, a letter-writing campaign convinced execs to bring the series back, and Reese prevailed as the heavenly samaritan Tess for a total of nine seasons, winning seven consecutive NAACP Image Awards as best lead actress in a drama and collecting two Emmy nominations and a 1998 Golden Globe nod.

Though she continued to make TV guest appearances and took the occasional film role in the new millennium, she returned to her religious roots as the founding pastor of her own Los Angeles-based church, Understanding Principles for Better Living (or “Up”). In later years, she was frequently billed as Reverend Doctor Della Reese Lett.

She was born Delloreese Patricia Early on July 6, 1931, in Detroit. She began singing in church as a six-year-old; the glamorous black vocalist-actress Lena Horne was one of the film stars she admired as a girl. By her teens, she was working as a singer in gospel luminary Mahalia Jackson’s unit.

After graduating from Detroit’s Cass Technical High School (later attended by Diana Ross), she briefly attended Wayne State University, but soon moved into music professionally, taking Della Reese as her pro handle.

Like homegrown R&B superstar Jackie Wilson, Reese received prominent exposure during an engagement at Detroit’s Flame Show Bar; her style reflected the influence of such jazz precursors as Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

Signed to Jubilee Records, the indie New York label that launched the doo-wop acts the Orioles and the Cadillacs, Reese scored her first chart success with the 1957 ballad “And That Reminds Me,” which reached No. 12 on the U.S. pop chart.

That song secured her a contract with RCA. She secured the biggest hit of her career out of the box with “Don’t You Know,” and followed it up in 1960 with the similarly styled “Not One Minute More” (No. 16 pop, No. 13 R&B). Her top-charting LP was “Della,” which climbed to No. 35 in ’60.

Though other major chart hits eluded her, Reese recorded prolifically – frequently in a jazz style, and frequently in a live club setting – for RCA and ABC through the ‘60s. She was a popular attraction on the Las Vegas Strip during this era.

Reese got her first acting break from casting director Reuben Cannon, who offered her a guest shot on the youth-oriented cop show “The Mod Squad” in 1968. Roles on such skeins as “Police Woman,” “The Rookies” and “McCloud” followed.

The first series to show off her tart style to full advantage was “Chico and the Man,” in which she portrayed star Albertson’s landlady. The hit NBC show reached an abrupt end with co-star Prinze’s suicide in January 1977.

She subsequently was a familiar player on such successful series as “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “The Love Boat,” “The A-Team” (on which she guested as star Mr. T’s mother), “Night Court,” “MacGyver,” “Designing Women” and “L.A. Law.”

However, it was “Touched By An Angel” that cemented her TV stardom. With co-star Roma Downey, Reese, portraying the acerbic, Cadillac-driving supervising angel Tess, ministered to the spiritual needs of her earthbound “search and rescue cases.” Reese also performed the show’s theme song, “Walk With You.”

After receiving its first-season cancellation reprieve, the unique family-oriented show maintained a devoted audience of fans for nearly a decade, and spawned the spinoff “Promised Land.” Following its final 2002-03 season, it enjoyed syndicated runs on Ion, Hallmark Channel, Up and Me-TV.

By the time “Touched By An Angel” moved into reruns, Reese, an ordained minister since the early ‘80s, was increasingly focused on her religious work, with TV and film appearances largely restricted to guest shots. She announced her retirement from performing in 2014.

Throughout her long career, Reese proved indomitable in the face of serious health crises. In 1979, she suffered a brain aneurysm during a taping of “The Tonight Show,” and weathered two brain surgeries. She collapsed on the set of “Touched By An Angel” in 2002, and later announced she suffered from type 2 diabetes.

Reese’s four marriages included a brief, annulled union with Mercer Ellington, son of jazz great Duke Ellington. She is survived by her husband Franklin Lett, a film producer and concert promoter.
 
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jim-nabors-dead-gomer-pyle-andy-griffith-show-star-was-87-1008103

[youtube]1ZxSSDBeLCQ[/youtube]
 
A racing legend and a childhood hero for me. RIP Dan Gurney :(

Dan Gurney, the first driver to win in Formula One, IndyCar and NASCAR, died Sunday of complications from pneumonia. He was 86.

His wife, Evi, announced his death in a statement distributed by All American Racers Inc.

“With one last smile on his handsome face, Dan drove off into the unknown just before noon today,” said the statement signed by Evi Gurney, the Gurney family and AAR teammates.

“In deepest sorrow, with gratitude in our hearts for the love and joy you have given us during your time on this earth, we say, ‘Godspeed.’ ”

Gurney began racing in 1955 and won in nearly every racing series he attempted. He drove for Ferrari, BRM, Porsche and Brabham in Formula One, then formed his own team. He won the Belgian Grand Prix in 1967 in his own car, the first and only time an American won an F1 race in a car of his own design.

Gurney teamed with A.J. Foyt that year to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Ford GT40, and he's often credited with starting the tradition of spraying the champagne from the podium at that race.

Gurney retired from driving in 1970 with 51 victories.

Mario Andretti hailed Gurney in a post on Twitter.

“I was first inspired by him when I was in midgets dreaming of being like him. I was last inspired by him yesterday. Yes, I mean forever,” Andretti wrote. “He understood me better than anyone else, which is why he wrote the foreword for my book in 2001.”

Funeral arrangements are to be private, but the family asked that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the Hoag Hospital Foundation in Newport Beach.
 
Dave Cloud
https://imgur.com/gallery/l00zF/new

(Re-post from EVDL): On Jan 19, 2018, at 15:56, Steven Lough via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote:
Words can not describe the sadness I am feeling this afternoon. Loy, Dave Cloud's wife, just called me and told me that Dave passed away earlier today.
His life work will be remembered long after many of us join him in that Big EV Garage in the Sky.
He was like a brother in arms to me. We dreamed big dreams together. The big difference is that money or the lack of hardware never stopped him from just going to the work shop and making it happen.

Here are just a few pictures I have found and put together over the last two days.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/23079348@N08/sets/72157691669366944/
Rest in Peace my friend...
Steven S Lough
PRESIDENT EMERITUS
Seattle EV Association
www.seattleeva.org
 
we will all remember where we were when we first heard the news oh boy (it wuz here on E•S) of the passing of the greatest canadian who ever lived (you know... since the death of that other pizza guy).
the man the myth & raconteur from The Peg that the kids (his) called 'pizza pops'.

his lasting legacy will be the bitter & never ending feud with the pizza pocket crowd over which one's better.
a rivalry worse than hub/mid-drive or romulans v capulets, so fierce that blood has been spilled in the war of the pizza poultices (altho that may have been tomato sauce).
but like hub motors we all know pops are the prime choice of anyone who knows anything.

with the loss of our pizza pioneers, canada is in danger of losing its cutting edge in pizza tech.
as these thingz usually happen in 3's the pizz-on-a-stick guy must be getting up there.
paul-faraci-founder-of-pizza-pop.jpg


http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.4555711/february-28-2018-episode-transcript-1.4558454
 
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/14/health/stephen-hawking-dead/index.html

Stephen Hawking lived much of his life with something that would have killed most of us. Seems hard to believe he was vulnerable to death.

180313235607-stephen-hawking-oct-2016-large-alt-11.jpg
 
but how fast could he do a mile?
fitty yeerz frum now the yung whipperschnappz will gaf about the same.

raze a pizza pie.

shc_building_rendering.gif

the only building in the world that he permitted to carry his name is the stephen hawking centre at the perimeter institute in waterloo ont.
thatz one more pi coincidence thatz one 2many.
makes me wonder, knowing the end was looming if the date wuz of his own choosing.
not into numerology perhapz some significance to the exact time as well.
there's that word again.

PI_logo_web.png
 
Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh said:
you're rongo on just bout everything.

If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?
Dauntless said:
He'll build himself a tardis and be there before he left.

You're drunko on just about everything.

And you're looking at them.

Luddite.
 
Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh said:

Hehehehehehehehehee. That's funny! :lol:

BTW don't worry about Kämrəd Dauntless, he is so March of 1917. :wink:
 
e-beach said:
. . . . he is so March of 1917. :wink:

Ah yes, the time when the month old democracy was running things in Russia. It was still 7 months before you communists/social democrats would start killing everyone in sight the following October, something like 62 million in the next 20 years. I remind you of hope, of dreams. Such a laugh to you to squash those dreams.

[youtube]YrRMQsnSvAE[/youtube]
 
Hey now, it's okay that Harlan Ellison hated the lengendary 'Star Trek' episode he wrote, it was important to him to hate everything.

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/2018/6/29/17518928/harlan-ellison-star-trek-grudge-science-fiction-rip
 
https://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/08/14/aretha-franklin-greatest-hits-lc-orig.cnn

I wish I could have found Aretha Franklin singing the national anthem they had on 'Sport Center.'
 
So what's it like to be Burt Reynolds and to be unable to make another 'Smokey and the Bandit' movie, or the like? I think he would have been great in movies like 'Space Cowboys,' etc. They let Harrison Ford in on the 'Cowboys Vs. Aliens,' picture.

Burt. . . .

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/06/entertainment/burt-reynolds-has-died/index.html
 
Dauntless said:
So what's it like to be Burt Reynolds and to be unable to make another 'Smokey and the Bandit' movie, or the like? I think he would have been great in movies like 'Space Cowboys,' etc. They let Harrison Ford in on 'Cowboys Vs. Aliens,' picture Burt. . . .

Harrison Ford didn't vandalize his own face. That probably helped.

I think Pedro Pascal has picked up where Burt left off. I'm glad there's still room for leading men who are, like Burt, manly. I thought they'd gone away for good in the '90s.
 
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