HOME |
RSS | 
In the past year, we brought you the obituaries of Frank Buckles, the last U.S. veteran of World War I and Claude Choules, the last surviving combat veteran of that war. Yesterday, the very last member of the military from the War to End All Wars passed away.
Florence Green was only 17 years old when she signed up for the Women’s Royal Air Force in 1918. She worked at the military airfields in Norfolk.
Mrs Green spent her war days working ”all hours” serving officers breakfast, lunch and dinner and would often spend time wandering the base simply ”admiring the pilots”.
Before her death she said: ”I enjoyed my time in the WRAF. There were plenty of people at the airfields where I worked and they were all very good company.
”I would work every hour God sent but I had dozens of friends on the base and we had a great deal of fun in our spare time. In many ways I had the time of my life.
”I met dozens of pilots and would go on dates. I had the opportunity to go up in one of the planes but I was scared of flying.
”It was a lovely experience and I’m very proud.”
Mrs. Green was a couple weeks short of 111 years old. Link -via reddit
Milo, a sea otter at the Vancouver Aquarium, died from complications of cancer on Wednesday after an extraordinary life -for an otter. Milo, along with a female otter who was rescued from Alaskan waters after the Exxon Valdeez oil spill, Nyac, appeared in a YouTube video called Otters Holding Hands in 2007. That video received 16 million views and made Milo a star. Nyac passed away in 2008. Milo was diagnosed with lymphoma last summer. He responded well to chemotherapy at first, but ultimately succumbed to the disease. Aquarium staff announced Thursday that Milo had been euthanized.
“He was one of our emblematic animals who was loved by staff, volunteers, members and people worldwide. Our team—especially those who worked closely with Milo during the past months to provide specialized care while he was receiving treatment — are saddened by his death, but take solace in his peaceful departure,” said a statement issued by the aquarium.
Lymphoma has been documented before in wild otters whose bodies were recovered after they died in California, but Milo was the first living sea otter to be treated for the disease.
Milo was born in a Portuguese zoo and arrived at the Vancouver Aquarium when he was young.
Milo was twelve years old. Link -via Arbroath
Actor Harry Morgan, best known for his roles as officer Bill Gannon in the TV series Dragnet and Colonel Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H, died today at his home in Los Angeles. There are 159 acting credits listed in Morgan’s IMDb entry. He began acting on stage in 1937 and tackled a wide variety of roles over the next half-century.
Mr. Morgan attracted attention almost immediately. In “The Ox-Bow Incident” (1943), which starred Henry Fonda, he was praised for his portrayal of a drifter caught up in a lynching in a Western town. Reviewing “A Bell for Adano” (1945), based on John Hersey’s novel about the Army in a liberated Italian town, Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Morgan was “crude and amusing as the captain of M.P.’s.”
He went on to appear in “All My Sons” (1948), based on the Arthur Miller play, with Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster; “The Big Clock” (1948), in which he played a silent, menacing bodyguard to Charles Laughton; “Yellow Sky” (1949), with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter; and the critically praised western “High Noon” (1952), with Gary Cooper. Among his other notable films were “The Teahouse of the August Moon” (1956), with Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford, and “Inherit the Wind” (1960), with Spencer Tracy and Fredric March, in which he played a small-town Tennessee judge hearing arguments about evolution in the fictionalized version of the Scopes “monkey trial.” In “How the West Was Won” (1962), he played Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
After a personable performance as Glenn Miller’s pianist, Chummy MacGregor, in “The Glenn Miller Story” (1954), starring James Stewart, he often played softer characters as well as his trademark hard-bitten tough guys. There were eventually a number of comedies on his résumé, among them “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home” (1965), with Shirley MacLaine and Peter Ustinov; “The Flim-Flam Man” (1967), with George C. Scott; “Support Your Local Sheriff!” (1969), with James Garner and Walter Brennan; and “The Apple Dumpling Gang” (1975), a Disney movie with Tim Conway and Don Knotts.
Harry Morgan was 96. Link -via Metafilter
Founder and former CEO of Apple Steve Jobs has died after a seven-year battle with cancer. He was 56.
The hard-driving executive pioneered the concept of the personal computer and of navigating them by clicking onscreen images with a mouse. In more recent years, he introduced the iPod portable music player, the iPhone and the iPad tablet — all of which changed how we consume content in the digital age.
More than one pundit, praising Jobs’ ability to transform entire industries with his inventions, called him a modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci.
“Steve Jobs is one of the great innovators in the history of modern capitalism,” New York Times columnist Joe Nocera said in August. “His intuition has been phenomenal over the years.”
Jobs’ death, while dreaded by Apple’s legions of fans, was not unexpected. He had battled cancer for years, took a medical leave from Apple in January and stepped down as chief executive in August because he could “no longer meet (his) duties and expectations.”
CNN has the highlights of Jobs’ eventful life in the obituary. Link
(Image credit: Apple)
Wilson Greatbatch is an awesome name for a man who invented things all his life. Greatbatch is best known as the inventor of the implantable pacemaker, which came about by accident!
The story goes that, by mistake, he installed a resistor with the wrong resistance, but he recognized that the pulse it created was identical to a normal beating heart.
Mr. Greatbatch realized that this new circuit could potentially be used to control a human heartbeat.
In his spare time, he experimented with his idea of an implantable pacemaker Ñ working upstairs in an old, cedar-sided barn on his property and using his savings to build 50 handmade pacemakers of various designs.
“I had to solve the problem of how to reduce an electronic apparatus in the size of a kitchen cabinet to the size of a baby’s hand,” he recalled in 1990.
He later founded the company Greatbatch, Inc. which produced lithium batteries for pacemakers and other devices. Greatbatch held over 350 patents when he died on Tuesday at his home in Amherst, New York. He was 92. Link -via Gizmodo
Erik Martin, better known as Electron Boy, the super hero who saved Seattle, succumbed to liver cancer on Friday. Neatorama featured his story last year, and again just last week in a link about the Make-A-Wish Foundation. In addition to his Seattle exploits, Electron Boy will also be remembered for the boost he gave to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
The story of his big wish went viral on the Internet. The foundation was swamped by people pledging money and offering to help other children with life-threatening illnesses see their dreams come true.
“Erik’s wish just cast this net and brought them into the mission” of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, said spokeswoman Jeannette Tarcha. “People just wanted to be part of it.”
A group of independent comic-book creators inked and published a real comic book of his exploits. And the “Fans of Electron Boy” page, still active on Facebook, drew thousands of members — today, its fans number nearly 12,000.
Erik’s superhero deeds were recognized on the floor of the U.S. House by Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn. The boy, who is a foster child, became a hero to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and to cancer patients and foster families alike.
Martin was 14 years old. Link -via Fark
Saxophonist Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band has died from complications of a stroke he suffered last weekend.
Clemons played on such classic hits as “Born to Run” and “Thunder Road” and is widely credited with helping to shape Springsteen’s sound.
He passed away at a hospital in Palm Beach, Florida, where he had stayed ever since suffering a stroke last Sunday, said a spokesperson for Springsteen and the E Street Band. He was surrounded by members of his family, including his wife, Victoria, according to the spokesperson.
Standing at more than 6 feet tall, Clemons was affectionately known as the “Big Man” to fans. He published his autobiography “Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales” in 2009 and suffered some health problems in recent years.
In addition to his career as a musician, Clemons also worked as an actor, appearing in the TV shows “The Wire” and “The Simpsons” as well as the films “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and “New York, New York.”
Clemons was 69 years old. Link to obituary. Link to a video tribute.
The man who typed up Schindler’s list and helped to save the lives of 1,200 Jews during the holocaust has died in Germany. Mietek Pemper was 91.
Born Mieczyslaw Pemper in 1920 in the Polish city of Krakow to a Jewish family, he was imprisoned at the Nazi concentration camp Plaszow, where he worked as the personal typist for its feared commandant Amon Göth.
While there he linked up with German industrialist Schindler whom Pemper, at great risk to his own life, supplied with a typed list of the names of more than 1,000 fellow prisoners to be recruited for work that was “decisive for the Nazi war effort.”
Schindler, an ethnic German from Czechoslovakia and a member of the Nazi party who first sought to profit from Germany’s invasion of Poland, is credited with saving the lives of some 1,200 Jews through such work schemes as well as bribes paid to German officers.
Oskar Schindler died in 1974. When Steven Spielberg made the 1993 film Schindler’s List, Pemper worked as a consultant. That was the first time he talked about his experiences. He was portrayed in the movie by Ben Kingsley, although the character had a different name. Pemper will be buried today in the the Jewish Cemetery in Augsberg, Germany, where he lived since 1958. City flags are being flown at half-staff today in Pemper’s honor. Link -via Fark
Actor James Arness, who protected the citizens of Dodge City as Marshal Matt Dillon for 20 years (1955-1975) on the TV series “Gunsmoke” has died of natural causes. He was 88.
In an era when TV actors typically chewed the scenery, Arness had a credible, commanding presence by hardly uttering a word. A typical scene found a dozen cowboys riding up to the town jail intent on busting out a prisoner pal.
Dillon faces them all down.
“The first move anybody makes,” he says, with a slight shake of his head, “I cut you in two.”
Arness’ defiant but rueful delivery is so understated, he makes Clint Eastwood seem like a loudmouth.
No wonder “Gunsmoke” wore so well. And became the last word on a programming craze that some seasons found as many as 30 Westerns on the air. When “Gunsmoke” went off in 1975, it was the only Western left.
Arness left a message for his fans on his website, planned ahead of time to be posted at his death. The Huffington Post has more on Arness’ life and career. Link -via Uncle John’s Blog
Claude Stanley Choules died today at a nursing home in Perth, Australia, at the age of 110. Choules was the last known combat veteran of World War I.
World War I was raging when Choules began training with the British Royal Navy, just one month after he turned 14. In 1917, he joined the battleship HMS Revenge, from which he watched the 1918 surrender of the German High Seas Fleet, the main battle fleet of the German Navy during the war.
“There was no sign of fight left in the Germans as they came out of the mist at about 10 a.m.,” Choules wrote in his autobiography. The German flag, he recalled, was hauled down at sunset.
“So ended the most momentous day in the annals of naval warfare,” he wrote. “A fleet of ships surrendered without firing a shot.”
Millions died in the war, which lasted from 1914-1918. Choules and another Briton, Florence Green, became the war’s last known surviving service members after the death of American Frank Buckles in February, according to the Order of the First World War, a U.S.-based group that tracks veterans.
Choules’ autobiography is entitled The Last of the Last. Link -via reddit
(Image credit: LSIS Nadia Monteith,AP Photo/Royal Australian Navy)
New York Times theater critic Mel Gussow died six years ago, but that didn’t stop him from writing his paper’s obituary for Elizabeth Taylor, who died earlier this week. Of course, newspapers keep obituaries ready, on file, for famous people. But I think that outliving your obituary writer is a special accomplishment.
Link via The Agitator | Photo: 20th Century Fox
Comments Off
Legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor has died of heart failure. Born in England to American parents, Taylor {wiki} came to live in the US in 1939 and appeared in her first movie at age nine. Her striking beauty was partially due to a mutation that gave her a double row of eyelashes. Taylor acted in 70 movies and produced three. She was married eight times, twice to actor Richard Burton. Taylor had four children, ten grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. She was 79.
Beyond acting, Taylor is credited with bringing the world’s attention to AIDS with her fund-raising and activism. In 1985, when Taylor’s lifelong friend Rock Hudson died of AIDS, she brought national attention to the growing disease. It satisfying to her to use her celebrity for good – she raised and donated millions to the cause, founding the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) and The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.
Frank W. Buckles celebrated his 110th birthday on February first. He died peacefully at his home on Sunday morning. Buckles was one of 4,734,992 Americans who served in World War I. With his death, there are no more surviving US veterans of that war.
Buckles, who served as a U.S. Army ambulance driver in Europe during what became known as the “Great War,” rose to the rank of corporal before the war ended. He came to prominence in recent years, in part because of the work of DeJonge, a Michigan portrait photographer who had undertaken a project to document the last surviving veterans of that war.
As the years continued, all but Buckles had passed away, leaving him the “last man standing” among U.S. troops who were called “The Doughboys.”
In recent years, Buckles became an advocate for a memorial in Washington to honor those who served in the “Great War”. Link -via Fark
A naked mole rat named Old Man was found dead last Thursday at his home at the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies in San Antonio, Texas. He was believed to be 32 years old. Old Man spent three decades assisting researchers in studying the process of aging. University of Texas at San Antonio physiology professor Rochelle Buffenstein knew him best.
Old Man was thought to be 11/2 to 2 years old in 1980 when he and 75 of his naked mole rat brethren were captured in a Kenyan sweet potato field — sweet potatoes being one of the mole rat’s favorite dishes.
Buffenstein brought him first to Cape Town University in South Africa, and then to City College of New York in Harlem. The pair arrived in San Antonio in 2007.
Naked mole rats are noted for their longevity with an average lifespan of 26 years. Other rodents live for two to four years. This makes them particularly useful for aging studies. Naked mole rats do not develop cancer. They develop plaque in their brains as they age like Alzheimer’s patients, but they do not display cognitive decline like humans do. Scientists are trying to find out why. Among the long-lived research subjects at the institute, Old Man stood out from the rest.
Even in his old age, Old Man remained an alpha male in his colony. Come feeding time, Old Man was served a special cereal that he loved and that Buffenstein imported from South Africa.
“He’d wrap his body around the bowl and eat until he was full,” she said. “The other rats would wait until he was finished before they ate.”
He also continued to mate with the colony’s breeding female right to the end. About the only outward sign of his advancing age was the sarcopenia, or loss of muscle mass, he developed about five years ago.
Tissue samples will be studied to determine the cause of death. Buffenstein is sure of one thing -it wasn’t cancer. Link -Thanks, Richard Marini!
(Image credit: Helen L. Montoya)
Leslie Nielsen, the star of the movie Airplane! and the TV series Police Squad! has died from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Florida. Originally from Regina, Saskatchewan, Nielsen appeared in over 200 movies and TV shows in a career spanning six decades.
After Airplane! became a hit, the film’s directors — Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker — wanted to take the film’s slapstyle style of comedy to TV. They asked Nielsen to play the lead role in their new series “Police Squad!”
In the show, Nielsen played Frank Drebin, a stereotypical police officer modeled after characters in earlier police TV series. The show lasted only six episodes but earned Nielsen an Emmy nom for lead actor in a comedy series.
Six years later, Nielsen reprised his role for a feature-length version of the show, Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, as well as two sequels.
Other credits include 1956′s Forbidden Planet, the 1960s TV series Peyton Place, Dr. Kildare and The Bold Ones: The Protectors.
Nielsen was 84. Link
Paul, the octopus who predicted the outcome of World Cup soccer matches (featured previously at Neatorama), has died at his home at the Oberhausen Sea Life Centre in Germany. He was two years old.
After Germany’s semi-final defeat, Paul tipped Spain to beat the Netherlands in the final, which prompted one news agency to report he had spurred a jump in demand for Spanish government bonds. Paul’s prediction duly came to pass: Spain won.
Staff at the Oberhausen Sea Life Centre in western Germany said in a statement they were “devastated” to learn of Paul’s death when they returned to work on Tuesday.
“He appears to have passed away peacefully during the night, of natural causes, and we are consoled by the knowledge that he enjoyed a good life,” said the centre’s manager Stefan Porwoll.
There was no indication that Paul had predicted his passing. Link -via Metafilter
TV writer and producer Stephen J. Cannell has died as a result of melanoma. He was 69. Cannell created (or co-created) dozens of TV series in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, including The Rockford Files, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street, Silk Stalkings, The Commish, Hardcastle And McCormick, Baa Baa Black Sheep, and Baretta. He also wrote novels and screenplays. Shown here is a montage of all but two of the evolving logos Stephen J. Cannell Productions tagged the end of the shows with. Link -via Metafilter
Neil Alan Smith, 48, was a dishwasher at a Crab Shack in St. Petersburg, Florida. When he was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver, the St. Petersburg Times reported the story. An online commenter to the story responded:
A man who is working as a dishwasher at the Crab Shack at the age of 48 is surely better off dead.
The newspaper editors were deeply offended at this gross dismissal of the value of a human life, and responded by publishing a full obituary for Mr. Smith. He was a private man, but noted among a small circle of friends for working hard and sharing with those in need:
“He set his boundaries,” said Peggy Rogers, 56, his roommate of six years. “He didn’t pry into your business, so you just kind of respected that and you didn’t do that to him.”
He told friends he had been married and divorced, had managed a gas station in New Hampshire before moving to Florida in 1999. He got a concession stand job at Derby Lane, then started working at the Crab Shack.
He lived in a mobile home near the restaurant and paid rent to the owner, Bonnie Schaeffer-Mott. Once, when she feared the power company would shut off the electricity, she asked Mr. Smith for help.
He gave her more than what she had asked to borrow and insisted she take it. “I’ll never forget that,” said Schaeffer-Mott, 51.
Every life matters.
Link via Geekosystem | Photo: Tampa Bay Online
Yes, there really was a Lynyrd Skynyrd, but his name was Leonard Skinner. Skinner, a gym teacher in Jacksonville, Florida, was the inspiration for the band’s name. Skinner died yesterday at a nursing home in Florida. He was 77.
Mr. Skinner never asked to become part of rock ’n’ roll lore. He didn’t even like rock ’n’ roll. He was just a by-the-book gym teacher at Robert E. Lee High School, his alma mater, who, in the late 1960s, sent some students to the principal’s office because their hair was too long.
Gene Odom, who worked security for the band and survived the crash of its plane in 1977, said one of the longhairs was Gary Rossington. Rossington was guitarist in a rock band that would later name itself Lynyrd Skynyrd in a smart-aleck tribute to the gym teacher.
Skinner made friends with the band in later years, and took advantage of the name recognition for his business ventures. Link -via The Daily What
Canadian radio actor Billie Mae Richards passed away Friday at her home near Toronto. She was 88. But Ms. Richards’ voice will live on in the Christmas classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
“Kids won’t believe it when my grandchildren tell them that their grandmother is really Rudolph,” Richards said in a 2005 interview with Filmfax magazine. She was credited as “Billy Richards” to mask the fact that she was a woman.
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” based on the eponymous 1949 song, premiered in 1964 and CBS airs it to this day around the holidays.
“What better legacy can you leave than a show that everybody loves?” Richards told NPR in 2004.
Link -via Breakfast Links
Edith Shain was the nurse who became an icon when photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt snapped her picture as she received a kiss from a sailor on VJ Day in New York City. She died at her home in Los Angeles yesterday, at the age of 91. To commemorate her passing, Buzzfeed posted a collection of recreations of that kiss. Link
Image credit: Flickr user Mike Stimpson (featured previously at Neatorama)
Comments Off 
Frank Frazetta, the artist whose name had become synonymous with fantasy imagery has passed away today. For many of us, this is the passing of a true legend. Even if you don’t know who he is, you would recognize his work from his countless contributions to pop culture.
In the 60s Frazetta turned to cover paintings for the thriving pulp paperback industry and created one of the most recognizable illustration styles of all times. His covers for Conan, Tarzan and other rough hewn heroes created a visceral, violent, erotic yet somehow still nuanced visual style that has been endlessly imitated but never surpassed — Frazetta’s imagery of brawny, relentless swordsmen, seductive, fleshy sirens and hellfire breathing monsters had a gut level impact because it came from the gut — his many followers were just tracing without the passion of the originals.
Frazetta was 82.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Meinhardt Raabe was a pilot in the Civil Air Patrol during World War II, a carnival barker, and a spokesman for Oscar Mayer. He earned a bachelors degree in accounting in 1937 and a masters degree in 1970. But he was best known for his role as the Munchkin coroner in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, where he delivered the immortal lines
As coroner, I must aver
I thoroughly examined her.
And she’s not only merely dead,
She’s really most sincerely dead.
Raabe, only 23 years old when the movie was made, spent the rest of his life repeating those lines as a motivational speaker for schools and civic groups. He was also Little Oscar, “the World’s Smallest Chef,” and drove the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile for 30 years. Raabe passed away yesterday at his home in Orange Park, Florida. He was 94. Link -via Stinque
See a 2007 video interview with Raabe.
I’ve just learned that Kim Peek, the savant that inspired the 1988 movie Rain Man, died on Saturday of a heart attack:
Peek was born on Nov. 11, 1951. At 9 months, doctors said he was severely mentally retarded.
"They told us we should institutionalize him because he would never walk or talk," Fran Peek said. "But we refused to do that."
By 16 months, Peek demonstrated extraordinary abilities. He could read and memorize entire volumes of information.
"He could find anything he wanted to. He read all of Shakespeare, the Old and New Testaments," Fran Peek said.
An MRI later showed that his brain lacked a corpus callosum — the connecting tissue between the left and right hemispheres. Peek said his son’s brain lacked the normal filtering system for receiving information. The condition left him able to retain nearly 98 percent of everything he read, heard or watched on television. The average person only retains about 45 percent.
As both a child and adult, Peek’s favorite place was the library, where he devoured books at a confounding rate. At the time of his death, Peek is believed to have committed at least 9,000 books to memory. He could recite so many gigabytes of facts that people often called him Kim-puter. NASA made him the subject of MRI-based research.
We’ve featured Kim Peek, the Real Rain Man on Neatorama before, in our post 10 Most Fascinating Savants in the World.
Veteran journalist and news anchorman Walter Cronkite died today. Often called “the most trusted man in America”, Cronkite set a high standard for television journalism in the 20th century. He was 92 years old.
Mr. Cronkite anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, at a time when television became the dominant medium of the United States. He figuratively held the hand of the American public during the civil-rights movement, the space race, the Vietnam war and the impeachment of Richard Nixon. During his tenure, network newscasts were expanded to 30 minutes from 15.
And that’s the way it is, July 17, 2009.
Link -via YesButNoButYes
See also: A collection of memorable reports from Walter Cronkite.
Dear friends,
Please join me in remembering a great icon of the entertainment community. The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.
Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours. Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded.
Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much dough on half baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he still was a crusty old man and was considered a positive role model for millions.
Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, three children: John Dough, Jane Dough and Dosey Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart. The funeral was held at 350 for about 20 minutes.
Thanks Jen and Tiffy! And yes, this is an oldie but it’s still a goodie Does anyone know the origin of this little story?
