Death Anniversary Thread

[The Ashes Urn 1,355]

American jazz double-bassist, composer, lyricist and poet Red Mitchell died on this day 30 years ago, aged 65.

 

[Drewsky1211 4,731]

Neville Chamberlain died on this day 82 years ago, aged 71.

Chamberlain was born into a family of politicians- his father Joseph and brother Austen were both MPs, and his sisters Beatrice, Ida, and Hilda were part of the suffragette movement. Neville was elected to the Birmingham City Council in 1911, and became the Lord Mayor of the city in 1915. During World War I, prime minister David Lloyd George asked Chamberlain to become the Director of National Service- Chamberlain resigned after eight months.

 

In 1918, Chamberlain was elected to Parliament. He would eventually serve ministerial roles in the MacDonald and Baldwin administrations. After Stanley Baldwin retired in 1937, Chamberlain succeeded him as Prime Minister. Chamberlain was expected to be a transitional PM- expected to step down for the next election for a younger candidate.

 

However, Chamberlain became infamous for his appeasement policies towards Nazi Germany. After Germany annexed Austria and the Sudetenland, Chamberlain attended the Munich Agreement and agreed that Germany could occupy the latter with the promise that they would not annex any more territory.

(this photo was poorly-aged the moment it was taken)

 

It wasn't until Germany invaded Poland that Chamberlain decided that they violated the agreement, and declared war on September 3. In May of 1940, Chamberlain resigned in favor of a wartime coalition government led by Winston Churchill. Chamberlain would die of colorectal cancer six months later.

[Gooseberry Crumble 5,337]

 

On this day 18 years ago in 2004  English footballer Emlyn Hughes  died aged 57 from cancer.

 

He played for Englands national team for over a decade from 1969-1980 . His professional career started of playing for Blackpool,  latterly Liverpool,  Wolverhampton Wanderers,  Rotherham United and then  Swansea. 

Post football he became a team captain on popular BBC quiz show A question of Sport. 

[Hell 1,334]

British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 and again between 1929 and 1931 Ramsay MacDonald died on this day 85 years ago, aged 71.

 

[The Ashes Urn 1,355]

American actor Charles Bickford died on this day 55 years ago, aged 76.

 

[Handrejka 1,903]

17 hours ago, Gooseberry Crumble said:

 

On this day 18 years ago in 2004  English footballer Emlyn Hughes  died aged 57 from cancer.

 

He played for Englands national team for over a decade from 1969-1980 . His professional career started of playing for Blackpool,  latterly Liverpool,  Wolverhampton Wanderers,  Rotherham United and then  Swansea. 

Post football he became a team captain on popular BBC quiz show A question of Sport. 

His death caused a lot of ranter fire on the forum at the time.

[Gooseberry Crumble 5,337]

7 minutes ago, Handrejka said:

His death caused a lot of ranter fire on the forum at the time.

Gosh really? Way before  my time.  I was part of the 2014 intake  but not starting to really bloom and post regularly until 2015.

[Handrejka 1,903]

11 minutes ago, Gooseberry Crumble said:

Gosh really? Way before  my time.  I was part of the 2014 intake  but not starting to really bloom and post regularly until 2015.

I was still only a lurker myself then. I joined a couple of months later. It was still in the days when guests could post and a lot did.

[Drewsky1211 4,731]

Helmut Schmidt died on this day 7 years ago, aged 96.

Schmidt was first elected to West Germany's parliament in 1953, resigning in 1962 as he was also a member of the Hamburg Senate, which was flooded that year- he wanted to focus on reconstruction of the city. Schmidt returned to the Bundestag in 1965, and soon became leader of the Social Democratic Party. Schmidt would serve as Willy Brandt's minister of defense, economics, and finance.

 

In 1974, Brandt resigned due to the Guillaume affair- one of his assistants was exposed as an East German spy. Because of this, Schmidt was appointed as Chancellor. He primarily focused on economic issues and workers' rights. Schmidt's coalition government broke up in 1982, and he was removed via a vote of no confidence, being replaced with Helmut Kohl. Schmidt would retire in 1986.

 

Schmidt would remain active in political issues, co-publishing for the Die Zeit newspaper until 1989, and would eventually make comments about Russia's invasion of Crimea. Schmidt was known for his affinity for smoking cigarettes, and was investigated by the police in 2008 for violating smoking bans at public places. Schmidt announced that he would stop smoking in September of 2015, following a surgery.

 

Schmidt was no stranger to the DeathList- he made a total of five consecutive appearances from 2011 onward.

[Gooseberry Crumble 5,337]

 

On this day 26 years ago in 1996 british journalist Marjorie  Proops , best known  for being the agony aunt at the Daily Mirror newspaper for decades, died aged 85.

Prior to this role  Marjorie  excelled at fine art and her first published work was a drawing of a baby   for a knitwear catalogue. Her early success and the compliments she received on her  work professionally  encouraged her to go free and was quickly receiving commissions for work from numerous womens magazines and national papers the Mail and Express.

    In 1939  Hugh Cudlipp of the Daily  Mirror  employed Marje  to draw hats thus representing the paper at  Ascot-paid on a retainer  of six Guinean a week during the second World War.  Alongside this  she wrote for other publications such as the Good taste magazine which domehow lead her into the field of writing a public  information booklet on veneral disease- something she said caused her to never quite view sex as romantic as she used too.

 

Eventually Cudlipp promoted her  to fashion correspondent in 1954 at the Mirror but when the papers advice columnist  Mary Marshall died  Marje  became  concerned at the pile  of unanswered letters from people with problems that at piled up at the papers office. She took it upon herself to open the letters , careful read and reply to the most serious letters, even calling in   psychologist  Eustace  Chesser to assist her. Chrsser was hugely impressed with her care, sensitivity , humility and overall approach to the delicate task -eventually resulting in Proops taking on the role more formally and permanently. 

 

In her own personal life there were difficulties,  frustrations and traumas for her to draw on . An unhappy marriage that that she decided to perserve with that resulted in the birth of one child,  a 20 year extra martial affair with her colleague  Philip Levy who was the Mirrors chief legal adviser, a heartbreaking failed attempt at fostering a child  and a more succesful informal  taking a young Nigerian  boy under her wing , becoming a mother figure to him and regarding him as a second  son. Made Okubadeju is now a successful pathologist.  Breast  cancer,  a psychiatric breakdown and a stroke are also personal difficulties and battles Marje faced. 

 

 

 

In her column  it was mainly the lighter letters that were published and answered  but all letters received a response including the much darker and more serious ones- sometimes even resulting in long  telephone calls between Marje and those writing to her seeking help.

She was a committed socialist and in her latter years became  a sort of establishment figure of the back of her years of campaigning journalism, taking roles on government committees such as the gambling commission and  a committee on one parent families. 

She advocated passionately and articulately for women's rights, contraception,  abortion etc but said she could never be a militant feminist as she liked and appreciated men too much.

Such was her fame she was even given a place  in Madame Tussauds. 

 

She had been an assistant editor at the Daily Mirror for 18 years at the time of her death as well as still being the papers agony aunt replying to letters just days before she died. 

 

 

[Hell 1,334]

Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1964 and 1982 and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet between 1960 and 1964 and again between 1977 and 1982 Leonid Breznhev died on this day 40 years ago, aged 75.

 

[The Ashes Urn 1,355]

American guitarist and studio musician Tommy Tedesco died on this day 25 years ago, aged 67.

 

[Drewsky1211 4,731]

Mary Kay Bergman died on this day 23 years ago, aged 38.

In 1989, Bergman became the voice of Disney's Snow White when Adriana Caselotti was unavailable. One notable incident occurred when Disney restored missing audio for a 1993 rerelease, in which Caselotti rerecorded the lines she said over 50 years prior- Disney chose Bergman's voice over hers despite the fact she was still capable of doing so. Disney received several complaints when Caselotti noticed her voice was replaced for the scene, and the company issued an apology.

 

Throughout the '90s, Bergman would voice characters for Captain Planet, The Simpsons, and Arthur- she would also be the voice of the title character of (the nightmare fuel) Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Daphne for some Scooby-Doo direct to video films, and the original voice of Timmy Turner in The Fairly OddParents pilots for Oh Yeah! Cartoons. She would also voice Quasimodo's mother in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as well as providing the vocal effects for Esmeralda's goat Djali.

 

In 1997, Bergman began to voice virtually all female characters on South Park. She would use the pseudonym "Shannen Cassidy" due to potential conflicts with Disney- the voice of Snow White providing voices for a show for adults. In 1999, she sang "Blame Canada" for South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, which was nominated for an Oscar (losing to "You'll Be In My Heart" from Tarzan- South Park would have its revenge by mocking Phil Collins in the episode "Timmy 2000").

 

Bergman suffered from bipolar disorder and anxiety, and ended up committing suicide. South Park dedicated the episodes "Starvin' Marvin in Space" (the last episode she recorded dialogue for) and "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics" (she recorded her lines earlier for the tie-in album for the episode) in her memory- the latter of which featured a montage of Bergman's characters, and then them gathering together at the end of the episode (set to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas").

[time 8,595]

Thirty-one years ago Morton Stevens died, aged 62, from pancreatic cancer.

A musician and composer, he was arranger/conductor for Sammy Davis Jr. and musical director for The Rat Pack, but was notably a film/TV music composer, nominated multiple times for Emmy awards, winning twice for his music for Hawai'i Five-O, including it's theme.

 

[time 8,595]

On 10/11/2022 at 05:37, Gooseberry Crumble said:

edit

In her own personal life there were difficulties,  frustrations and traumas for her to draw on . An unhappy marriage that that she decided to perserve with that resulted in the birth of one child,  a 20 year extra martial affair with her colleague  Philip Levy who was the Mirrors chief legal adviser, a heartbreaking failed attempt at fostering a child  and a more succesful informal  taking a young Nigerian  boy under her wing , becoming a mother figure to him and regarding him as a second  son. Made Okubadeju is now a successful pathologist, breast  cancer,  a psychiatric breakdown and a stroke. 

/edit

He's a what?

[The Ashes Urn 1,355]

American athlete Rod Milburn died on this day 25 years ago, aged 47.

 

[Gooseberry Crumble 5,337]

2 hours ago, time said:

He's a what?

Oh dear my editing failed will correct!!

[Hell 1,334]

South African politician who served as state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as deputy president from 1994 to 1996 in the democratic government F. W. de Klerk died on this day a year ago, aged 85.

 

[Drewsky1211 4,731]

Percival Lowell died on this day 106 years ago, aged 61.

Lowell spent the 1880s in Korea and Japan, and wrote books about the countries. After returning to the US in 1893, he became obsessed with the planet Mars after reading a book about it. He built his observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona- still a US territory at the time.

 

Lowell noticed canals on the fourth rock from the Sun, and hypothesized that life exists there- he believed that the canals were used to transport water from the Martian ice caps, as Mars was "a dying planet". While his ideas sparked the general public's imaginations, the scientific community was skeptical, and later determined that they were the result of natural erosion.

 

Lowell did, however, leave a lasting impact in astronomy. He hypothesized that a planet beyond the orbit of Neptune was disrupting it and Uranus' orbits with its gravitational pull, and began to search for it beginning in 1906. He would continue to search for the object until his death- unbeknownst to him, he found it in 1915, though believed it was a star. In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh, a worker at the observatory, watched the object again, and noticed it moved across the sky. That object was Pluto- its planetary symbol is a monogram of Lowell's initials, and a region on the now-dwarf planet was named after him in 2015.

[Sir Creep 7,070]

Kurt Vonnegut would have turned 100 today.

 

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/11/1135127289/kurt-vonnegut-slaughterhouse-five-cats-cradle

 

[The Ashes Urn 1,355]

American actor and tap dancer Charles Coles died on this day 30 years ago, aged 81.

 

[Gooseberry Crumble 5,337]

 

 

On this day in 2018  the creator of Marvel Comic books and thus Marvel films , Stan Lee, died aged 95.

Spiderman is probably his most famous creation. 

[Hell 1,334]

Mexican-born American actress best known for her starring role in the 1931 Spanish language version of Drácula, filmed in Los Angeles by Universal Pictures at night using the same sets as the Bela Lugosi version, but with a different cast and director Lupita Tovar died on this day 6 years ago, aged 106.

 

[Drewsky1211 4,731]

Margaret Wise Brown died on this day 70 years ago, aged 42.

Brown was a children's book author- her first book, When the Wind Blew, was published in 1937. Her first well-read work, The Runaway Bunny, was written in 1942.

 

In 1947, Brown's most famous children's book was made- Goodnight Moon. Despite poor initial sales, it has since become a classic bedtime story for young children, and has had many parodies based on it (i.e. Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach).

Brown died prematurely from an embolism that lodged in her heart.

[The Ashes Urn 1,355]

American soul singer Bobby McClure died on this day 30 years ago, aged 50.