Elizabeth Connell, South African soprano, died from cancer he was 65

Elizabeth Connell  was a South African-born operatic soprano (formerly mezzo-soprano) whose career was conducted mainly in the United Kingdom and Australia died from cancer he was 65. She was acclaimed for her performances of the great Strauss, Verdi and Wagner heroines.

(22 October 1946 – 18 February 2012)

Biography

Elizabeth Connell was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1946. Following her debut at Wexford Festival Opera in 1972, she sang at the opening of the Sydney Opera House in Prokofiev's War and Peace in 1973, and continued to have a special relationship with Opera Australia for the rest of her career. Following a five-year association with English National Opera, she was a freelance artist with the major opera houses.
She appeared at the opera houses of London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, New York (Metropolitan Opera), San Francisco, Milan (La Scala), Naples and Geneva in a wide repertoire and at the Bayreuth, Salzburg, Orange, Verona and Glyndebourne Festivals. Connell had a successful collaboration with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Carlo Maria Giulini, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Edward Downes, Sir Colin Davis, Lorin Maazel, James Levine, Seiji Ozawa and Sir Mark Elder.
In concert, Connell's performances included Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis and Mahler's Eighth Symphony with conductors such as Abbado, Giulini, Maazel, Sinopoli and Pierre Boulez. In recital, she appeared with Geoffrey Parsons, Graham Johnson, Eugene Asti and Lamar Crowson in Milan, Geneva, Sydney, Johannesburg and at the Wigmore Hall.
Engagements included Kostelnička in Janáček's Jenůfa, Ortrud in Wagner's Lohengrin, Bellini's Norma, Abigaille in Verdi's Nabucco and Ariadne in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos for Opera Australia; Ortrud, Beethoven's Fidelio and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at the Berlin State Opera, Isolde in Hamburg, Senta in Wagner's The Flying Dutchman in Hamburg and Berlin and Strauss's Elektra in Berlin, Madrid, Bordeaux and Montreal as well as the Färberin in a new production of Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten in Frankfurt and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
She sang Elektra in Las Palmas, Gertrude (Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel) for the Royal Opera (with worldwide Telecast and DVD release) and concerts of Jenůfa with the London Symphony and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestras under Daniel Harding as well as Fidelio with London Lyric Opera with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.^[1]
In December 2008, Elizabeth Connell had a triumphant success at the opening night of Puccini's Turandot at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, which she also sang in Hamburg and for Opera Australia.
In May and June 2010, she sang in a new production of Tristan und Isolde at the Prague State Opera, conducted by Jan Latham-König.
Her 2010 performances also included Elektra in Auckland as well as a solo recital in London St John's, Smith Square.
In February 2011, she returned to Prague for Turandot. In April 2011 she was due to sing Lady Macbeth in a new production of Macbeth for Opera Australia, but she had to cancel at short notice because of a medical emergency.
In October 2011, Connell took part in an opera gala at the Bad Urach Festival, where she sang arias and scenes from Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Verdi's Otello and Macbeth.
In 2012, she was due to make her debut with the Toulon Opera as Ortrud in a new production of Lohengrin, and to return to Melbourne as Turandot, but her illness prevented her doing so.
Her final performance was a recital on 27 November 2011 in Hastings. Elizabeth Connell died in London on 18 February 2012, aged 65, from cancer.^{[2] [3]}

Recordings

Her many recordings include Rossini's William Tell (Decca, Riccardo Chailly), Mahler's Eighth Symphony (EMI, Klaus Tennstedt), Mendelssohn's Second Symphony (DG, Abbado), Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten (Decca, Lothar Zagrosek), Donizetti's Poliuto, Verdi's I due Foscari (Philips, Lamberto Gardelli), Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder (Denon, Eliahu Inbal), Wagner's Lohengrin (Philips/Friedrich) and Schubert Lieder with Graham Johnson, as part of Hyperion Records Complete Schubert Edition.
In 2008, two important CD releases were added to her discography: Her first operatic recital, singing great scenes by Wagner and Strauss for ABC Classics, conducted by Muhai Tang, and Benjamin Britten's Owen Wingrave, conducted by Richard Hickox. Elizabeth Connell also recorded portions of Sir Granville Bantock's "The Song of Songs" under the baton of Vernon Handley, for Hyperion.

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Michael Davis, American bassist (MC5), died from liver failure he was 68

Michael Davis was an American bass guitarist, singer, songwriter and music producer, best known as a member of the MC5.

(June 5, 1943 – February 17, 2012)

MC5

After dropping out of the fine arts program at Wayne State University, Davis became the bassist for the MC5 in 1964, replacing original bassist Pat Burrows^[2] when singer Rob Tyner and guitarist Wayne Kramer decided that they liked Davis's style and wanted him in the band. He played on the band's three original albums, including their debut Kick Out the Jams, and remained in the group until 1972.^[3] Sometime in the mid-1970s, Davis spent time in Kentucky's Lexington Federal Prison on a drug charge, where he was unexpectedly reunited with Wayne Kramer.

Destroy All Monsters

Upon his release from prison, joined the Ann Arbor based art noise band Destroy All Monsters^[4] at the urging of friend Ron Asheton, of The Stooges.
Davis spent seven years with Destroy All Monsters, penning the underground punk hits "Nobody Knows", "Meet the Creeper", "Little Boyfriend", "Rocking The Cradle" and "Fast City" among others. The band recorded and released on Cherry Red Records, toured the U.K., and then broke up.

Blood Orange and MC5 reunion

After Destroy All Monsters, Davis moved to Tucson, Arizona where he played in Blood Orange with drummer Cory Barnes. When plans for Blood Orange to depart for a European tour were shelved indefinitely, Davis began playing with Rich Hopkins and Luminarios, the latter taking him back into the studio to record several albums for Germany's Blue Rose Records. In the spring of 2003, Davis reunited with fellow surviving members Wayne Kramer and Dennis Thompson to play a show at London's 100 Club as part of a promotion for an MC5 inspired line of apparel for Levi Strauss Vintage Clothing. This spawned a 200 city world tour and a trip back into the studio to write new songs.

Music education project

Following a serious motorcycle crash on a Los Angeles freeway in May 2006, Davis along with his wife Angela Davis, launched a non-profit organization called The Music Is Revolution Foundation to support music education in public schools.
Volunteers Jake Cavaliere (The Lords of Altamont), Handsome Dick Manitoba (The Dictators), Steve Aoki (Dim Mak Records/Kid Millionaire), Pro-Skater Corey Duffel, Pennywise bassist Randy Bradbury and Obey Giant's Shepard Fairey work alongside Davis to raise funds and public awareness about the ability of music education to increase cognitive ability and test scores, reduce absenteeism and drop-out rates and to inspire a new generation of future voters to learn about other cultures and other times, develop greater understanding of the world around them, and express themselves through music.

Music Producer

Davis produced and performed on The Mother's Anger's self-titled debut album. He also produced Dollhouse's debut album, Rock N Soul Circus.

Art career

After the MC5 self-destructed in the early 1970s, Davis continued exploration as a visual artist while serving time at the Lexington Federal Correction Institution for a narcotics violation. During this period, he was tasked with creating oversized abstract paintings for permanent display in the prison’s Visitor Center and administrative offices. Several years of immersion in life in the desert southwest and world travels with various rock bands left Davis with the inspiration and desire to return to his roots as a painter, studying art along the way at The Armory Center For The Arts in Pasadena, California, the University of Oregon, in Eugene, Oregon, and at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon and Butte Community College/California State University, Chico in Chico, California.
In 2006 he collaborated with artist Chris Kro, pro skateboarder Corey Duffel, and Foundation Skateboards to design a commemorative line of skateboard decks and t-shirts.
In 2007, he collaborated with OBEY’s Shepard Fairey on a limited line of MC5:OBEY merchandise.
In 2009, his painting “White Panther/Big World” appeared on the Cleopatra Records release MC5: The Very Best of MC5.
In 2011, his painting titled “Black To Comm Sk8r Boys” appeared as the cover art for the Easy Action Records multi-media audio/DVD release from the 2009 sold- out performance by British rock superstars Primal Scream and the reunited surviving members of the MC5 at the Royal Festival Hall. This piece inspired a series of four additional paintings, as well as a run of limited edition prints, all featuring the Sk8tr Boys, this time against iconic Detroit backdrops.

Death

On February 17, 2012, Davis died of liver failure at the age of 68. He was survived by his wife, four sons, and a daughter.^[1]

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Dick Anthony Williams, American actor (Edward Scissorhands, The Jerk, Homefront), died after long illness he was 77

Dick Anthony Williams (born Richard Anthony Williams) ^[1] was an American actor. Williams is known for his starring performances on Broadway in The Poison Tree, What the Wine-Sellers Buy and Black Picture Show. Williams won the 1974 Drama Desk Award for his performance in What the Wine-Sellers Buy, for which he was also nominated for a Tony Award, and was nominated in 1975 for both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his performance in Black Picture Show.<sup>[2]

(August 9, 1934 – February 16, 2012)</sup>

Biography

Born Richard Anthony Williams in Chicago, Williams had an extensive resume as an actor in films and on television.^[3] His best-known film roles include Pretty Tony in The Mack, the easy-going limo driver in Dog Day Afternoon, Denzel Washington's father in Mo' Better Blues and sympathetic Officer Allen in Edward Scissorhands. In television, he was a regular on the short-lived post World War II-era ABC primetime soap opera Homefront Abe Davis during the early 1990s. In 1996, he played the father of Larry's assistant Beverley in an episode of The Larry Sanders Show.Williams also starred in a documentary film "The Meeting", about two African-American political leaders (Malcolm X and Martin L. King, Jr.) discussing the fate of black people in America. Williams married Gloria Edwards, an actress,^[4] who died in 1988, and he had two children with her.

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Anthony Shadid, American journalist, died from asthma he was 43

Anthony Shadid was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times based in Baghdad and Beirut.^[1][2] He won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting twice, in 2004 and 2010 died from asthma he was 43.

(September 26, 1968 – February 16, 2012)

Career

From 2003 to 2009 Shadid was a staff writer for The Washington Post where he was an Islamic affairs correspondent based in the Middle East. Before The Washington Post, Shadid worked as Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press based in Cairo and as news editor of the AP bureau in Los Angeles. He spent two years covering diplomacy and the State Department for The Boston Globe before joining the Post's foreign desk.^[3][4]
In 2002, he was shot in the shoulder by^[5] an Israel sniper in Ramallah while reporting for the Boston Globe in the West Bank. The bullet also grazed his spine.^[6][7]
On March 16, 2011, Shadid and three colleagues were reported missing in Eastern Libya, having gone there to report on the uprising against the dictatorship of Col. Muammar Al-Ghaddafi.^[8] On March 18, 2011, The New York Times reported that Libya agreed to free him and three colleagues: Stephen Farrell, Lynsey Addario and Tyler Hicks.^[9] The Libyan government released the four journalists on March 21, 2011.^[10]

Awards

Shadid twice won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, in 2004 and 2010, for his coverage of the Iraq War.^[11] His experiences in Iraq were the subject for his 2005 book Night Draws Near, an empathetic look at how the war has impacted the Iraqi people beyond liberation and insurgency. Night Draws Near won the Ridenhour Book Prize for 2006. He won the 2004 Michael Kelly Award, as well as journalism prizes from the Overseas Press Club and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Shadid was a 2011 recipient of an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the American University of Beirut.^[12] He won the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting in 2003 and in 2012 for his work in 2011.^[13] House of Stone was a finalist for the National Book Award (Nonfiction) and the National Book Critics Circle Award (Autobiography).^[14][15]

Personal life

Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, of Lebanese Christian descent, he was a 1990 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.^[16][17] where he wrote for The Daily Cardinal student newspaper.^[18] He was married to Nada Bakri, also a reporter for the New York Times. They have a son, Malik. Shadid has a daughter, Laila, from his first marriage.^[19]

Death

Pulitzer-Prize winner Anthony Shadid died on February 16, 2012, from an acute asthma attack while attempting to leave Syria.^[11][20] Shadid's smoking and extreme allergy to horses are believed to be the major contributing factors in causing his fatal asthma attack.^[20][21] "He was walking behind some horses," said his father. "He's more allergic to those than anything else—and he had an asthma attack."^[21] His body was carried to Turkey by Tyler Hicks, a photographer for The New York Times.^[2][22]
Anthony’s cousin, Dr. Edward Shadid of Oklahoma City challenged the Times' version of the death, and instead blamed the publication for forcing Anthony into Syria.^[2][22]

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Harry McPherson, American lawyer and lobbyist, advisor to Lyndon B. Johnson, died from cancer he was 82

Harry Cummings McPherson, Jr.  served as counsel and special counsel to President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965 to 1969 and was Johnson’s chief speechwriter from 1966 to 1969. McPherson’s A Political Education, 1972, is a classic insider’s view of Washington and an essential source for Johnson’s presidency. A prominent Washington lawyer and lobbyist since 1969, McPherson was awarded American Lawyer magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. He died February 16, 2012, in Bethesda, Maryland.<sup>[1]

(August 22, 1929 – February 16, 2012)</sup>

Early life, education, military service

McPherson was born and raised in Tyler, Texas. He attended Southern Methodist University and received his B.A. in 1949 from the University of the South. Intending to be a poet and a writer, he enrolled at Columbia University for a master’s degree in English literature.^[2] When the Korean War broke out in 1950, however, he enlisted in the Air Force. McPherson served in Germany as an intelligence officer, studying Russian troop deployments and plotting targets.^[3]
As soon as the Korean War ended, McPherson enrolled at the University of Texas School of Law.

This was the era when McCarthyism was at its peak. I was very upset about Joe McCarthy and decided that I wanted to be a lawyer to defend people against the likes of McCarthy. I was worried that he was going to usher a period of totalitarianism in the United States. I wanted to fight that.^[3]

He received his LL.B. in 1956. Shortly afterwards, he was invited to Washington by a cousin who worked for Lyndon Baines Johnson. Johnson, who was at the time the Senate majority leader, was seeking a young lawyer from Texas to work for the Democratic Policy Committee, which Johnson chaired.

Early public service in Washington

McPherson served as assistant general counsel (1956–1959), associate counsel (1959–1961) and general counsel (1961–1963) to the Democratic Policy Committee, the Democratic Party’s key legislative policy organ on the Senate side. His duties included summarizing bills coming before the Senate for members of the Calendar Committee. An outspoken advocate for civil rights, he helped draft legislation that became the Civil Rights Act of 1957, whose goal was to ensure that all African Americans could exercise their right to vote. After Kennedy was elected with Johnson as his vice president, McPherson continued to serve as counsel to the Democratic Policy Committee under Senator Mike Mansfield.
From 1963 to 1964, McPherson served as deputy under secretary of the Army for international affairs and special assistant to the secretary for civil functions. His responsibilities included settling civilian disputes in the Panama Canal Zone and Okinawa, and overseeing the Army Corps of Engineers.
The following year (August 1964-August 1965) he served as assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which arranged for thousands of foreigners to study at American universities, for foreign officials and cultural groups to visit the United States, and for American orchestras and dance companies to travel abroad.

Counsel to President Lyndon B. Johnson

McPherson with President Johnson. Photo courtesy Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum.

In 1966, McPherson and his colleague Berl Bernhard organized the White House Conference on Civil Rights, whose 2,400 participants included Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, and representatives of almost every major civil rights group. According to Kevin L. Yuill, “This conference, promised in Johnson's famous Howard University speech in 1965, was to be the high point of Johnson's already considerable efforts on civil rights.”^[6]
McPherson came to believe the Vietnam War was unwinnable, and along with Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford helped persuade Johnson to scale back the bombing of North Vietnam.^[4] McPherson drafted Johnson’s landmark televised address of March 31, 1968, announcing the policy turnaround in Vietnam as well as the fact that he would not seek reelection.^[4]
McPherson’s A Political Education, covering the years 1956 to 1969, is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Johnson’s years as senator and president. The book’s thought-provoking conclusion:

Perhaps the most serious question of all was whether we could learn from our experience and shorten the lag between events and our response to them. Nearly twenty years passed from the time black Americans began leaving the South, until the national government began to respond to their unique problems in the Northern and Western cities. Our apprehension of the danger to us in the unification of Vietnam under Hanoi’s rule was the same in 1963 as it had been in 1954. Our political leaders, like the rest of us, dealt with new phenomena on the basis of prevailing assumptions. Usually the assumptions were changed only by bitter experience, not by analysis and foresight. The public’s reluctance to think new thoughts had much to do with that; so did their faith, which their leaders shared, that as a nation we were immune to history. We believed we could afford the lag, with our cushion of power, wealth, and resourcefulness. Detroit and Tet told us otherwise.
It was Lyndon Johnson’s fate to be President at a time when the cost of the lag came home. On the whole, he paid it bravely. … He finished the old agenda, and by painful example taught us something about the new.^[7]

In a 1981 interview, McPherson called Johnson "a vehement, dominant, brilliant man – not intellectually brilliant in the sense of having a vast store of reading and knowledge about world history, certainly not the historian that Harry Truman was. But brilliant in sheer wit, in sheer intellectual mental horsepower. The smartest man I ever saw."^[8] He reiterated this admiration in 1999: "To this day, Johnson is still the smartest man I’ve ever met, although maybe not the wisest.”^[3]

Private law practice in Washington, D.C.

Soon after Johnson left office, McPherson joined the Washington-based law firm Verner, Liipfert, and Bernhard, which he helped turn into one of the capital’s best-known lobbying firms. (In 2002 the firm merged with DLA Piper.) McPherson has counseled businesses, nonprofit organizations, foreign governments, and individuals on a range of matters involving Congress, the executive branch, and regulatory agencies. Notable cases include:

• Represented a major television network in the successful struggle to repeal the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules (the “fin-syn” rule), imposed by the FCC in 1970 and abolished in 1993, which prevented major television networks from owning any of the programming aired in primetime.^[9]
• Brokered the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in 1998 between Big Tobacco and 46 states, which gave tobacco companies some immunity from class action suits in exchange for limiting nicotine levels and paying antismoking groups about $250 billion.^[4]
• Represented more than 2,500 Czech-Americans in obtaining compensation for assets seized by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia.^[9]

McPherson has served on several presidential commissions. President Jimmy Carter appointed him to the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (1979). President Ronald Reagan appointed him vice chairman of the United States Cultural and Trade Center Commission, which planned a 600,000-square-foot (56,000 m²) facility in the Federal Triangle. Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton appointed him a member of the 1993 U.S. Base Realignment and Closure Commission.
He has also been active in cultural, civic, and political organizations. From 1969 to 1974 he was a member of the board of trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smithsonian Institution. He was on the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1974 to 1977, and was chairman of the Democratic Advisory Council of Elected Officials Task Force on Democratic Policy (1974–76). After serving as vice-chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, he served from 1976 to 1991 as its general counsel.^[9] From 1983 to 1988 he was president of the Federal City Council, a civic organization of business, professional and cultural leaders in Washington.^[9] From 1992 to 1999, he served as president of the Economic Club of Washington.^[9]
Recently McPherson helped the board of DLA Piper’s international pro bono division institute a program that sends Northwestern University Law School professors to teach at Ethiopia’s underfunded Addis Ababa University School of Law.^[4]
McPherson married Clayton Reid in 1952; the couple had two children, Coco and Peter. He was divorced in 1981 and married in 1981 to Mary Patricia DeGroot,^[10] with whom he has a son, Samuel.

Publications and awards

A Political Education (originally published 1972) is McPherson’s insider view of the nation’s capital from 1956 to 1969. Anatole Broyard of The New York Times described the book as “fascinating to read” and McPherson as “refreshingly candid in both his praises and his criticisms.”^[11] A Political Education has become a political classic and is considered essential reading for understanding of LBJ and the Johnson administration.^[12] It is frequently cited in two definitive biographies of Johnson, Caro’s Master of the Senate and Dallek’s Flawed Giant.
McPherson is the author of numerous articles on foreign policy and political issues published in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. He served on the Editorial Advisory Board of Foreign Affairs and the Publications Committee of The Public Interest.
In 1994, McPherson was recipient of the Judge Learned Hand Human Relations Award. In 2008, he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by American Lawyer magazine.^[4]

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Gary Carter, American Hall of Fame baseball player (Montreal Expos, New York Mets), died from a brain tumor he was 57

Gary Edmund Carter  was an American professional baseball catcher whose 21-year career was spent primarily with the Montreal Expos and New York Mets. Nicknamed "Kid" for his youthful exuberance, Carter was named an All-Star 11 times, and was a member of the 1986 World Champion Mets died from a brain tumor he was 57. Known throughout his career for his hitting and his excellent defense behind the plate, Carter made a major contribution to the Mets' World Series championship in 1986, including a 12th-inning single against the Houston Astros that won Game 5 of the NLCS and a 10th-inning single against the Boston Red Sox to start the fabled comeback rally in Game 6 of the World Series. He is one of only four people ever to be named captain of the Mets, and he had his number retired by the Expos.^[2]
After retiring from baseball, Carter coached baseball at the college and minor-league level. In 2003, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Carter was the first Hall of Famer whose plaque depicts him as a member of the Montreal Expos.

(April 8, 1954 – February 16, 2012)

Early life

Carter was born in Culver City, California in 1954 to Jim Carter, an aircraft worker, and his wife, Inge. Gary was athletic at a young age, winning (along with four other boys) the 7-year old category of the first national Punt, Pass, and Kick skills competition in 1961.^[3] When Gary was 12, his mother died of leukemia.^[4] He attended high school at Sunny Hills High School, in Fullerton, California, where he played football as a quarterback and baseball as an infielder. After receiving more than 100 scholarships for athletics,^[5] Carter signed a letter of intent to play football for the UCLA Bruins as a quarterback, but instead signed with the Montreal Expos after they drafted him in the 1972 Major League Baseball Draft.^[5][6]

Montreal Expos

Carter was drafted by the Montreal Expos as a shortstop in the third round of the 1972 Major League Baseball Draft. Carter got his nickname "Kid"^[7] during his first spring training camp with the Expos in 1974.

Rookie season

The Expos converted Carter to a catcher in the minor leagues.^[8] In 1974, he hit 23 home runs and drove in 83 runs for the Expos' triple-A affiliate, the Memphis Blues. Following a September call-up, Carter made his major league debut in Jarry Park in Montreal in the second game of a double header against the New York Mets on September 16. Despite going 0–4 in that game, he finished the season batting .407 (11-27). He hit his first major league home run on September 28 against Steve Carlton in a 3–1 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.^[9]
Carter split time between right field and catching during his rookie season (1975), and was selected for the National League All-Star team as a right fielder. He did not get an at bat, but appeared as a defensive replacement for Pete Rose in the ninth inning, and caught Rod Carew's fly ball for the final out of the NL's 6–3 victory.^[10] In that rookie season, Carter hit .270 with 17 home runs and 68 runs batted in, receiving The Sporting News Rookie of the Year Award and finishing second to San Francisco Giants pitcher John Montefusco for the National League Rookie of the Year award. That year, he was voted the Expos Player of the Year for the first of four times (he also won in 1977, 1980 and 1984).

Expos catcher

Carter again split time in the outfield and behind the plate in 1976 while a broken finger limited him to 91 games. He batted .219 with six home runs and 38 RBIs. In 1977, young stars Warren Cromartie, Ellis Valentine and Andre Dawson became full-time outfielders. By June, starting catcher Barry Foote was traded, opening up a regular starting position for Carter behind the plate. He responded with 31 home runs and 84 RBIs. In 1980, Carter clubbed 29 home runs, drove in 101 runs, and earned the first of his three consecutive Gold Glove Awards. He finished second to third baseman Mike Schmidt in NL MVP balloting, whose Phillies took the National League East by one game over the Expos.
Carter caught Charlie Lea's no-hitter on May 10, 1981,^[11] during the first half of the strike shortened season. The season resumed on Sunday, August 9, 1981 with the All-Star Game. Carter was elected to start his first All Star Game over perennial NL starting catcher Johnny Bench who had moved to play first base that year, and responded with two home runs and being named the game's MVP. Carter was the fifth and most recent player to hit two home runs in an All-Star Game.
MLB split the 1981 season into two-halves, with the first-place teams from each half in each division meeting in a best-of-five divisional playoff series. The four survivors moved on to two best-of-five League Championship Series. The Expos won the NL East's second half with a 30–23 record. In his first post season, Carter batted .421, hit two home runs and drove in six in the Expos' three games to two victory over the Phillies in the division series. Carter's average improved to .438 in the 1981 National League Championship Series, with no home runs or RBIs, and his Expos lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then prime minister of Canada, once remarked of Carter's popularity saying “I am certainly happy that I don’t have to run for election against Gary Carter.” However some Expos were put off by Carter’s unabashed enthusiasm, feeling that he was too taken with his image and basked in his press coverage too eagerly, derisively naming him "Camera Carter". Andre Dawson “felt [Carter] was more a glory hound than a team player”.^[12]

1984 season

Carter hit a home run in the 1984 Major League Baseball All-Star Game to give the NL a 2–1 lead that they would not relinquish, earning him his second All-Star game MVP award. Carter's league leading 106 RBIs, 159 games played, .294 batting average, 175 hits and 290 total bases were personal highs.
The 1984 Expos finished fifth in the NL East. At the end of the season, the rebuilding Expos chafed at Carter's salary demands and traded him to the Mets for Hubie Brooks, Mike Fitzgerald, Herm Winningham and Floyd Youmans.^[12]

New York Mets

In his first game as a Met on April 9, 1985, he hit a tenth-inning home run off Neil Allen to give the Mets a 6–5 Opening Day victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. The Mets and Cardinals rivaled for the National League East championship, with Carter and first baseman Keith Hernandez leading the Mets. The season came down to the wire as the Mets won 98 games that season; however, they lost the division to a Cardinals team that won 101 games. Carter hit a career high 32 home runs and drove in 100 runs his first season in New York. The Mets had three players finish in the top ten in NL MVP balloting that season (Dwight Gooden 4th, Carter 6th and Hernandez 8th).
A rivalry also developed between the Mets and Carter's former team, the Expos. On July 30 while facing the Expos at Shea, Montreal pitcher Bill Gullickson threw a pitch over Carter's head. Gooden did the same to Gullickson in the bottom of the inning. The Los Angeles Times speculated that Carter caught the ball as if he knew where the pitch was going to end up.^[13]

1986 World Series Champions

Main article: 1986 New York Mets season

In 1986, the Mets won 108 games and took the National League East by 21¹⁄₂ games over the Phillies. Carter suffered a postseason slump in the NLCS, batting .148. However, he hit a walk-off RBI single to win Game 5. Carter also had two hits in Game 6 which the Mets won in 16 innings.^[14]
The Mets won the 1986 World Series in seven games over the Boston Red Sox. Carter batted .276 with nine RBIs in his first World Series, and hit two home runs over Fenway Park's Green Monster in Game Four. He is the only player to hit two home runs in both an All-Star Game (1981) and a World Series game. Carter started a two-out rally in the tenth inning of Game 6, scoring the first of three Mets runs that inning on a single by Ray Knight. He also hit an eighth-inning sacrifice fly that tied the game.^[15] Carter finished third on the NL MVP ballot in 1986.^[14]

300 career home runs

Carter batted .235 in 1987, and ended the season with 291 career home runs. He had 299 home runs by May 16 1988 after a fast start, then slumped until August 11 against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field when he hit his 300th. During his home run drought, Carter was named co-captain of the team with Hernandez, who had been named captain the previous season.
Carter ended 1988 with 11 home runs and 46 RBIs—his lowest totals since 1976. He ended the season with 10,360 career putouts as a catcher, breaking Detroit Tigers catcher Bill Freehan's career mark (9941). The Mets won 100 games that season, taking the NL East by fifteen games. However, the heavily favored Mets lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1988 National League Championship Series. Carter batted .183 in fifty games for the Mets in 1989. In November the Mets released Carter after five seasons, hitting 89 home runs and driving in 349 runs.

Return to Montreal

After leaving the Mets, Carter platooned with catcher Terry Kennedy on the San Francisco Giants in 1990, batting .254 with nine home runs. He found himself again in a pennant race in 1991 with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who finished one game behind the Atlanta Braves in the National League West.
At the end of the season, Carter returned to Montreal for his final season off waivers from the Dodgers. Carter was still nicknamed "Kid" by teammates despite his age. In his last at-bat, he hit a double over the head of Chicago Cub right-fielder Andre Dawson, the only other player to go into the Hall of Fame as an Expo.^[16] The Expos went 87-75 and finished second behind the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League East.

Seasons	Games	Games caught	AB	Runs	Hits	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	BB	SO	HBP	Avg.	Slg.
19	2295	2056	7971	1025	2092	371	31	324	1225	39	848	997	68	.262	.439

Carter had a .991 fielding percentage as a catcher and 11,785 career putouts. He ranks sixth all-time in career home runs by a catcher with 298.

Post-playing career

After his retirement as a player, Carter served as an analyst for Florida Marlins television broadcasts from 1993 to 1996. He also appeared in the movie The Last Home Run (1998) which was filmed in 1996.^[17]

Hall of Fame

Gary Carter's number 8 was retired by the Montreal Expos in 2003.

Carter was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 2001.^[18] In 2003, Carter was elected into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame along with Kirk McCaskill, and his number eight was retired by the Expos and is tacitly recognized on the facade of Nationals Park in Washington, D.C..
In his sixth year on the ballot, Gary Carter was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame along with Eddie Murray on January 7, 2003. Carter had originally expressed a preference during his final season to be inducted as an Expo. Given the uncertainty of the Expo franchise, Carter's employment by the Mets organization since retiring as a player, his World Series title with the Mets, and his media celebrity during his stint in New York, following his election Carter shifted his preference to be enshrined with a Mets cap. The New York City media strongly supported Carter's preference to go into the Hall as a Met. Carter "joked that he wanted his Cooperstown cap to be a half-and-halfer, split between the Expos and Mets".^[19] The final decision rested with the Hall of Fame, and Hall president Dale Petroskey declared that Carter's achievements with the Expos over twelve season had earned his induction, whereas his five seasons with the Mets by itself would not have, saying "we want to have represented on the plaque the team that best represents where a player made the biggest impact in his career. When you look at it, it's very clear. Gary Carter is an important part of the history of the Expos".^[20] Carter was the first Hall of Famer whose plaque depicts him with an Expos logo.^[20] At the induction ceremony, Carter spoke a few words of French, thanking fans in Montreal for the great honor and pleasure of playing in that city, while also taking great care to note the Mets' 1986 championship as the highlight of his career.^[19]
After the Expos moved to Washington, D.C. to become the Washington Nationals following the 2004 season, a banner displaying Carter's number along with those of Andre Dawson, Tim Raines and Rusty Staub was hung from the rafters at the Bell Centre, home of the NHL's Montreal Canadiens. While the Mets have not retired number eight, it has remained unused since Carter's election to the Hall of Fame.

Coaching

Carter was named Gulf Coast League Manager of the Year his first season managing the Gulf Coast Mets in 2005. A year later, he was promoted to the A-level St. Lucie Mets, and guided his team to the 2006 Florida State League championship, again earning Manager of the Year honors. In recent years, Carter has been criticized, most notably by former co-captain Keith Hernandez, for twice openly campaigning for the Mets' managerial position while it was still occupied by incumbents Art Howe in 2004, and in 2008 Willie Randolph.
In 2008, he managed the Orange County Flyers of the Golden Baseball League, and again guided his team to the GBL Championship and was named Manager of the Year. For the following season Carter was named manager of the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball.^[21] The Ducks won the 2009 second half Liberty Division title, but they were defeated by the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs in the Liberty Division playoffs.^[22] The next season Carter was named head baseball coach for the NCAA Division II Palm Beach Atlantic University Sailfish.

Personal life

He and his wife, Sandy, were married in 1975. They had three children.^[4]
His daughter Kimmy is the head softball coach at Palm Beach Atlantic^[23] and was a softball catcher for Florida State from 1999-2002.^[24]
Carter was an active philanthropist. Through The Gary Carter Foundation, of which Carter was the president, Carter and his staff support 8 Title I schools in Palm Beach County whose students live in poverty. Typically, these schools have 90% or more students eligible for free or reduced lunches. The Foundation seeks to "better the physical, mental and spiritual well being of children." To accomplish this, they advocate "school literacy by encouraging use of the Reading Counts Program, a program that exists in the Palm Beach County School District". Since its inception, The Gary Carter Foundation has placed over $622,000 toward charitable purposes, including $366,000 to local elementary schools for their reading programs.^{[citation needed]}

Illness and death

In May 2011, Carter was diagnosed with four malignant tumors in his brain after complaining of headaches and forgetfulness. Doctors confirmed that he had a grade IV primary brain tumor known as glioblastoma multiforme. Doctors said that the extremely aggressive cancer was inoperable and Carter would undergo other treatment methods to shrink his tumor.^[25][26] On January 20, 2012, daughter Kimmy posted on her blog that an MRI had revealed additional tumors on her father's brain. Even as he battled an aggressive form of brain cancer, Carter did not miss Opening Day for the college baseball team he coached.^[27]
Carter died of brain cancer on February 16, 2012. He was 57 years old.^[28] On February 25, 2012, the Mets announced that they were adding a memorial patch to their uniforms in Carter's honor for the entire 2012 season. The patch features a black home plate with the number 8 and "KID" inscribed on it.^[29] On the Mets' 2012 opening day, the Carter family unveiled a banner with a similar design on the center field wall of Citi Field.
The NHL's Montreal Canadiens, who had purchased the mascot and hung retired numbers in its arena after the Expos relocation to Washington, paid tribute to Gary Carter by presenting a video montage and observing a moment of silence before a game against the New Jersey Devils on February 20, 2012. All Canadiens players took to the ice during pre-game warm-ups wearing number 8 Carter jerseys, and Youppi! appeared wearing an Expos uniform. In addition, Youppi! wore a patch on his Canadiens jersey featuring a white circle with a blue number 8 inside it for the remainder of the season. ^[30]
Tom Verducci, longtime Sports Illustrated baseball writer, reminisced about Carter following his death, "I cannot conjure a single image of Gary Carter with anything but a smile on his face. I have no recollection of a gloomy Carter, not even as his knees began to announce a slow surrender ... Carter played every day with the joy as if it were the opening day of Little League."^[4] "Gary actually took a lot of grief from his teammates for being a straight arrow. It wasn't the cool thing to do but on the same token, I think he actually served as a role model for a lot of these guys as they aged. He was the ballast of that team. They did have a lot of fun, there's no question about that, but they were also one of the fiercest, most competitive teams I've ever seen and obviously their comebacks from the '86 postseason defines that team. Carter was a huge part of that."^[31]
Faillon Street W. in Montreal, near the former Jarry Park stadium, has been renamed Gary-Carter Street in his honour.^[32]
On March 28, 2014, during an exhibition game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Mets at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, QC, a banner was unveiled in honour of Gary Carter in a special ceremony before the first pitch. Carter's widow Sandy and daughter Kimmy were present on field for an emotional video tribute and the unveiling of the banner on the outfield wall, which reads "Merci! Thank You!" and contains an image of a baseball overlaid with Carter's retired number 8.^[33]

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