Near Misses for 2005

[Handrejka 1,904]

Don't know if this passes the fame test but anyway

 

Thelma White, whose portrayal of a hard-boiled addiction queen in the

1936 movie "Reefer Madness" was largely forgotten until the film

resurfaced in the 1970s as a cult classic, died of pneumonia Tuesday at the

Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills. She was 94.

 

 

I was just beaten in posting about the Jefferson Airplane drummer.

[Tuber Mirum 125]

Famous German Fashion designer to the Hollywood stars and the crowned heads of Europe Rudolf Mooshammer was found dead in his Munich apartment last night.

He appears to have been murdered.

[Tuber Mirum 125]

Sorry, that's spelt Moshammer. He was strangled with a telephone cable. Police are investigating a possible connection with the murder of another prominent homosexual in 1990.

[Anubis the Jackal 77]

Homosexual?

Really?

Well i never.

[Tuber Mirum 125]

Neither did I, but they say it can be fun.

[Guest IYG]

Bread co-founder dies, click this for the link.

[Moosey 3]

Bread co-founder dies, click this for the link.

Tish, silly me. I thought you meant Bread.

[The Four Horsemen 26]

Was in Bread, now he's toast?

[faustus 9]

...but now he's brown bread ( i'm in the right thread now ! )...

[Tuber Mirum 125]

Victoria de los Angeles

[Guest IYG]

Lamont Bentley

[Paul Bearer 6,102]

solomon king ex jordonaire

[football_fan 42]

Bollywood star Parveen Babi dies

[honez 79]

Australia's arts community is mourning the loss of one of Australia's best known sopranos, June Bronhill, who died in her sleep aged 75.

[weatherman90 7]

...and of course, Johnny Carson, the King of Late Night

[football_fan 42]

Carry On star Patsy Rowlands dies

[Typhoid Harry 23]

Phillip Johnson, 98

 

 

NEW YORK Jan 26, 2005 - Philip Johnson, the innovative architect who

promoted the "glass box" skyscraper and then smashed the mold with

daringly nostalgic post-modernist designs, has died. He was 98.

 

 

Johnson died Tuesday night at his home in New Canaan, Conn., according

to Joel S. Ehrenkranz, his lawyer. John Elderfield, a curator at the

Museum of Modern Art, also confirmed the death Wednesday.

 

 

Johnson's work ranged from the severe modernism of his New Canaan home,

a glass cube in the woods, to the Chippendale-topped AT&T Building in

New York City, now owned by Sony.

 

 

He and his partner, John Burgee, designed the Crystal Cathedral in

Garden Grove, Calif., an ecclesiastical greenhouse that is wider and

higher than Notre Dame in Paris; the RepublicBank in Houston, a

56-story tower of pink granite stepped back in a series of Dutch gable

roofs; and the Cleveland Playhouse, a complex with the feel of an 11th

century town.

 

 

"Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of

organizing interior space," Johnson said in a 1965 interview.

 

 

He expressed a loathing for buildings that are "slide-rule boxes for

maximum return of rent," and once said his great ambition was "to build

the greatest room in the world a great theater or cathedral or

monument. Nobody's given me the job."

 

 

In 1980, however, he completed his great room, the Crystal Cathedral.

If architects are remembered for their one-room buildings, Johnson

said, "This may be it for me."

 

 

He got even more attention with the AT&T Building in New York City,

breaking decisively with the glass towers that crowded Manhattan. He

created a granite-walled tower with an enormous 90-foot arched entryway

and a fanciful top that seemed more appropriate for a piece of

furniture.

 

 

The building generated controversy, but it marked a sharp turn in

architectural taste away from the severity of modernism. Other

architects felt emboldened to experiment with styles, and commissions

poured into the offices of Johnson-Burgee.

 

 

Most were corporate palaces: the Transco II and RepublicBank towers in

Houston; a 23-story, neo-Victorian office building in San Francisco,

graced with three human figures at the summit; a mock-gothic glass

tower for PPG Industries in Pittsburgh.

 

 

"The people with money to build today are corporations they are our

popes and Medicis," Johnson said. "The sense of pride is why they

build."

 

 

But his large projects at times ran into a buzz saw of criticism from

local preservationists and even fellow architects. In 1987, he was

replaced as designer of the second phase of the New England Life

Insurance Co. headquarters in Boston after residents complained about

the project's size and style.

 

 

Critics unearthed a quotation he had made at a conference a couple of

years earlier: that "I am a whore and I am paid very well for high-rise

buildings." Johnson said later his choice of words was unfortunate and

he only meant that architects need to be able to compromise with

developers if they want to see them built.

 

 

Philip Cortelyou Johnson was born July 8, 1906, in Cleveland, the only

son of Homer H. Johnson, a well-to-do attorney, and his wife, Louise.

After graduating with honors from Harvard in 1927 with a degree in

philosophy, he toured Europe and became interested in new styles of

architecture.

 

 

That interest became his life's work in 1932, when Johnson was

appointed chairman of the department of architecture of the Museum of

Modern Art in New York. That same year, he mounted an influential

exhibition, "The International Style: Architecture 1922-1932."

[unregistered guest 1]

Philip Johnson- architect, closeted homosexual, and former nazi sympathizer has died at the age of 98.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...ot/obit_johnson

[Anubis the Jackal 77]

Philip Johnson- architect, closeted homosexual, and former nazi sympathizer has died at the age of 98.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...ot/obit_johnson

i hope it's true that the dead can't sue for libel!

[Teddy 21]

From the article...

Toward the end of his life, Johnson went public with some private matters — his homosexuality and his past as a disciple of Hitler-style fascism. On the latter, he said he spent much time in Berlin in the 1930s and became "fascinated with power," but added he did not consider that an excuse.

 

I think we should be safe

[Anubis the Jackal 77]

'DADO' RUSPOLI

 

Italian aristocrat, actor - and playboy of the postwar dolce vita

 

First Di died...then Dodi died...then Dando Died...then Dado died.........

Christ, it must be Dido's time soon

[Josco 49]

Don't want to dish the do-do, but Dodi was before Di

[Tuber Mirum 125]

It looks as though Ivan Noble Isn't long for this world.

Seems no chance that he will make it to next year.

Unusual business what with him writing that column about himself. I expect it inspired many, but was considered by others not to be in good taste. I'm not sure. Makes me feel like a Ghoul to discuss him on the Deathlist. (heaven forbid!)

Quite a few DDP teams will be celebrating though, when it finally gets him.

[Teddy 21]

It looks as though Ivan Noble Isn't long for this world.

Seems no chance that he will make it to next year.

Unusual business what with him writing that column about himself. I expect it inspired many, but was considered by others not to be in good taste. I'm not sure. Makes me feel like a Ghoul to discuss him on the Deathlist. (heaven forbid!)

Quite a few DDP teams will be celebrating though, when it finally gets him.

He was mentioned as a possible a few months back..

 

Not Noble

 

but he was left out on the basis that he was only famous because of his illness. As baz and The Four Horsemen pointed out, if it wasn't for his illness, could any of us have claimed to have heard of him?

 

Our rules here are slightly tighter, in that people need to be famous for more than just about to die. Hence the exclusion of anyone on Death Row unless they also pass the famousness test. Oh, and that is just an explanation - it is not to say we are right and other death pools are wrong - just that we are different. Thought I'd better say that before Rude Kid takes offence

[honez 79]

Don't want to dish the do-do, but Dodi was before Di

I heard that Dodi was such a gentleman, he always insisted that Di came first.