In 2024, we've experienced the loss of several luminaries in the world of entertainment. These beloved figures—actors, comedians, musicians, singers, and coaches—have touched our lives with their talent, passion, and dedication. They've left an indelible mark on our hearts and shaped the world of entertainment in ways that will continue to inspire and influence generations to come.
Among the incredible actors who bid farewell this year, we mourn the loss of a true chameleon who effortlessly.
Just weeks before his latest show Treme debuts on HBO, TV writer and producer David Mills has died of a reported brain aneurysm in New Orleans at the age of 49. Mills was head writer and producer on the show, which is about how a group of people of New Orleans rebuild their lives after Hurricane Katrina.
In additon to Treme, Mills
(1961–2010)
was an accomplished and award winning writer for such shows as the HBO miniseries The Corner, ER, Homicide: Life on the Street, Kingpin, NYPD Blue and was a story editor on the CBS drama Picket Fences.
Mills also worked closely for years with David Simon, creator of one of the best shows ever to grace television screens The Wire and who is also the creator of Treme. He also wrote for several newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
Another tragedic news from Korean Entertainment industry. Actor and singer (Sky) Choi Jin-Young was announced dead on March 29th, 2010 around 2:45 PM. He was first found in critical condition in his house and was quickly sent to Yonsei hospital where he was announced dead. There was a bruise around his neck area and it is assumed that he had commited a suicide. Choi Jin-Young was 39.
Choi Jin-Young is famous for being a younger brother of a Korean actress Choi Jin-Shil who also ended her life with her own will on October of 2008. Choi Jin-Young was very close with his sister Choi Jin-Shil. He was suffering from depression after her death and was taking the same anti-depression pills that his sister had taken. It is being told that Choi Jin-Young had committed to suicide at least once after his sister passed away. However, the assumed suicide seems to be a spontaneous one because Choi Jin-Young had an appointment to meet someone on the day of his death.
ELLIOT A. WILLENSKY Acclaimed Composer and Lyricist Elliot, passed away on Monday, March 29, 2010 in Summit, New Jersey, at age 66, after suffering a stroke.
Elliot Willensky, who composed songs for the late Michael Jackson solo smash hit, 'Got To Be There".Willensky wrote songs for dozens of musical luminaries, including Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight, Thelma Houston, Syreeta and Jerry Butler.
Willensky's duet, "If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful," sung by Jermaine Jackson and Whitney Houston, became, according to People Magazine, one of the top 10 songs performed at weddings.
"He was a romantic," Steven Willensky said. "He had a love and passion for song writing."
After graduating from Bayonne High School, Willensky earned a Bachelors' degree in biology from Boston University and did post-graduate studies at BU and the University of Massachusetts.
He was a research scientist in Maryland when he followed his passion for music and became a songwriter in 1969.
He was 27 and living in Los Angeles when Motown Records accepted his song as Michael Jackson's first solo single, "Got To Be There."
The song went gold and later became a hit for Chaka Khan.
His TV credits include The Bell Telephone Hour, music coordinator of Tony Orlando and Dawn Show, and jingles for Hertz, Fresca, and Chrysler.
His last project before he died was writing "When It's Time To Say Goodbye" for an upcoming documentary about the life of Karen Ann Quinlan.
He is survived by his mother Gertrude Berlin Willensky Sussman, brothers Fred and Steven, and nieces Rona and Marisa and nephew David.
William McIntyre, who was often credited as Bill McIntyre, was an American actor, whose credits included roles in Newhart, Dallas and Murphy Brown died he was 81.[1] He also had a long career in theater, including Off Broadway and in regional productions.[1]
He returned to Germany in 1957, took up the trombone and for one year studied at the Nuremberg Conservatory. In the 1960s he played with the Nuremberg radio dance orchestra and with Bert Kämpfert's orchestra. In 1968 he became member of the pit orchestra of Hamburg theater (Deutsches Schauspielhaus) directed by Hans Koller. In 1969 Herbolzheimer formed his Rhythm Combination and Brass (RC&B) for which he wrote most of the arrangements. This big band was unique in that it had an international lineup of eight brass, but originally only one saxophone, with Herb Geller in that chair. The list of brass players included Allan Botschinsky (Denmark), Art Farmer (USA), Dusko Goykovich (Bosnia), Palle Mikkelborg (Denmark), Ack van Rooyen (Netherlands) and Jiggs Whigham (USA). The rhythm section consisted of two keyboards, guitar, bass, drums and percussion and included renowned musicians such as Dieter Reith (Germany), Philip Catherine (Belgium), Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (Denmark), Bo Stief (Denmark), Alex Riel (Denmark), Grady Tate (USA), and Nippy Noya (Indonesia). For special events the group was augmented as necessary, but the basic combination remained as such for several years. In the late 1970s the band toured successfully with a "jazz gala" program featuring guest stars such as Esther Phillips, Stan Getz, Nat Adderley, Gerry Mulligan, Toots Thielemans, Clark Terry (( Tony Lujan)) and Albert Mangelsdorff. In later years the RC&B played many concert tours, television shows and jazz festivals. It was later replaced by a regular sized big band that is still active today.
In 1972 Herbolzheimer wrote music for the Edelhagen Band's opening of the Olympic Games in Munich. Later he worked for German television as leader and arranger, and accompanied visiting American musicians such as Al Jarreau and Dizzy Gillespie. Between 1987 and 2006 Herbolzheimer was the musical director of Germany's national youth jazz orchestra, the BundesJazzOrchester (BuJazzo). He conducted regular workshops and clinics for big band jazz.
In 1974 Herbolzheimer's Rhythm Combination & Brass entered an annual television competition held in the Belgian seaside resort Knokke, winning the coveted Golden Swan Award. He also won the International Jazz Composers Competition 1974 in Monaco. Herbolzheimer's arrangements are a distinctive amalgam of swing, latin and rhythmic rock music.
Herbolzheimer died aged 74 in his hometown of Cologne, Germany on 27 March 2010.
Growing up on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas, Ellis first heard the electric guitar performed by George Barnes on a radio program. This experience is said to have inspired him to take up the guitar. He became proficient on the instrument by the time he entered North Texas State University as a music major. Ellis majored in music, but because they did not yet have a guitar program at that time, he studied the string bass. Unfortunately, due to lack of funds, his college days were short lived. In 1941 Herb dropped out of college and toured for 6 months with a band from the University of Kansas.
In 1943 joined Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra and it was with Gray's band that he got his first recognition in the jazz magazines. After Gray's band, Ellis joined the Jimmy Dorsey band where he played some of his first recorded solos. Ellis remained with Dorsey through 1947, traveling and recording extensively, and playing in dance halls and movie palaces. Then came a turnabout that would change Ellis's career forever. Then, as pianist Lou Carter told journalist Robert Dupuis in a 1996 interview, "The Dorsey band had a six-week hole in the schedule. The three of us had played together some with the big band. John Frigo, who had already left the band, knew the owner of the Peter Stuyvesant Hotel in Buffalo. We went in there and stayed six months. And that's how the group the Soft Winds were born."
The Soft Winds was fashioned after the Nat King Cole Trio. They stayed together until 1952. Herb Ellis then joined the Oscar Peterson Trio (replacing Barney Kessel), forming what Scott Yanow would later on refer to as "one of the most memorable of all the piano, guitar, and bass trios in jazz history".
Ellis became prominent after performing with the Oscar Peterson Trio from 1953 to 1958 along with pianist Peterson and bassist Ray Brown. He was a somewhat controversial member of the trio, because he was the only white person in the group in a time when racism was still very much widespread.
In addition to their great live and recorded work as the Oscar Peterson Trio, this unit served as the virtual "house rhythm section" for Norman Granz's Verve Records, supporting the likes of tenormen Ben Webster and Stan Getz, as well as trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, and Sweets Edison and other jazz stalwarts. With drummer Buddy Rich, they were also the backing band for popular "comeback" albums by the duet of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. The trio were also the mainstays of Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts as they swept the jazz world, almost constantly touring the United States and Europe. Ellis left the Peterson Trio in November 1958, to be replaced not by a guitarist, but by drummer Ed Thigpen. The years of 1959 through 1960 found Ellis touring with Ella Fitzgerald.
The three provided a stirring rendition of "Tenderly" as a jazz improvisational backdrop to John Hubley's 1958 cartoon The Tender Game, Storyboard Film's version of the age-old story of boy falling head over heels for girl.[2]
With fellow jazz guitarists Barney Kessel, Charlie Byrd and Joe Pass, he created another ensemble, the Great Guitars.
Johnny Maestro and The Brooklyn Bridge (or simply The Brooklyn Bridge) is an American musical group, best known for their rendition of Jimmy Webb’s "The Worst That Could Happen" (1968).
(born John Mastrangelo; May 7, 1939 – March 24, 2010)
Brooklyn-born Johnny Maestro began his career in 1957 as the original lead singer of The Crests, one of the first interracial groups of the recording industry. [1][2] Patricia VanDross, older sister to famed R&B singer Luther Vandross sang with Johnny Maestro during his tenure as lead vocalists with The Crests. After a regional hit with "My Juanita"/"Sweetest One" on the Joyce label, and two years of chart success on Coed Records with "16 Candles", "Step by Step", "The Angels Listened In", and "Trouble in Paradise", Maestro left the Crests for a solo career. Maestro was unable to reach his former chart heights with the Crests, but did have Top 40 hits with "What A Surprise" and "Model Girl" in 1961 and 1962.
By 1967, another New York group called the Del-Satins, who had made several non-charting recordings between 1959 and 1967 under their own name (and backing up Dion on his post-Belmonts recordings), were looking for a new lead singer to replace original lead Stan Ziska. Other members were brothers Fred and Tom Ferrara (baritone and bass), Les Cauchi (first tenor) and Bobby Failla (second tenor). According to Cauchi, members of the group ran into Maestro at a local gym, playing his guitar, and approached him with the offer to join the group. After initially turning them down, Maestro's manager called Cauchi and told him Maestro had changed his mind.[citation needed]
In 1968, after touring locally and playing in clubs and small venues, the Del-Satins attended a "Battle of the Bands" and encountered a seven piece brass group named the Rhythm Method. Impressed with each other's skills and talents, the groups decided to try to join forces. The name supposedly came from the joke that the group would be "harder to sell than the Brooklyn Bridge".[citation needed]
Johnny and the Bridge rehearsed their unusual combination of smooth vocal harmonies and full horns, and signed a recording contract with Buddha records. Their first release, a version of the Jimmy Webb song "The Worst That Could Happen" (a note-for-note cover of the version previously recorded by The 5th Dimension on the album The Magic Garden, which had not been released as a single), reached No. 3 on the Billboard pop chart. The follow up, "Welcome Me Love", and its flip side, Blessed is the Rain — both by Tony Romeo —[3] each reached the Top 50. A dramatic version of "You'll Never Walk Alone" and the controversial "Your Husband, My Wife" also reached the middle ranges of the charts. The group sold over 10 million records by 1972, including LP sales, mostly produced by Wes Farrell. Appearances on Ed Sullivan, The Della Reese Show and other programs helped to bring the group to the national stage.
After its heyday, The Brooklyn Bridge downsized to a five-man group, with the vocalists playing their own instruments. For example, Maestro could be seen on stage playing rhythm guitar, while former Rhythm Method bassist Jim Rosica picked up a vocal part. Later in the 1970s, as the Rock and Roll Revival evolved from a nostalgic fad to a respected genre, the group began to add members, retaining its core vocalists. By 1985, the group had solidified into an eight piece group, including original Del Satins Cauchi and Fred Ferrara and original Bridge member Rosica, and augmented by a horn section for special occasions. The drummer for the current line up Lou Agiesta, was the drummer for the original American touring company of Jesus Christ Superstar.
The later version of the Brooklyn Bridge released a Christmas EP in 1989 and a greatest hits compilation in 1993, re-recording Maestro's hits with The Crests. In the early 1990s, Maestro moonlighted as the background tenor on Joel Katz's studio project CD "Joel & the Dymensions" (which also featured baritone-bass Bobby Jay). In 1994, The Brooklyn Bridge recorded a 10-song a cappella CD.
Recently, the Brooklyn Bridge was featured in one of PBS's biggest fundraising events ever, "Doo Wop 50", performing both "Sixteen Candles" and "The Worst That Could Happen" (the entire program was released on VHS and DVD). In 2005, the Brooklyn Bridge released a full concert-length DVD as part of the "Pops Legends Live" series. They continue to tour and in 2004 released a CD titled "Today", featuring more re-recordings of their hits and versions of other groups' songs of the 1950s and 60's.
The Brooklyn Bridge were inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame on October 15, 2006. On March 31, 2009 Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge released Today Volume 2.
Just weeks before his latest show Treme debuts on HBO, TV writer and producer David Mills has died of a reported brain aneurysm in New Orleans at the age of 49. Mills was head writer and producer on the show, which is about how a group of people of New Orleans rebuild their lives after Hurricane Katrina.
