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.
He pioneered conversion franchising, persuading independent real estate agents to come under the umbrella of big corporation for more clout. He sold the company after seven years for $89 million.
Arthur E. Bartlett, a consummate salesman and co-founder of the real estate behemoth Century 21, died New Year's Eve at his Coronado home after a long bout with Alzheimer's disease and other sicknesses, his daughter Stacy Bartlett Renshaw said. He was 76.
A firm believer in the power of the large, corporate brand, Bartlett pioneered the concept of conversion franchising, in which he persuaded independent real estate agents across the country to don the signature mustard-colored jacket and market themselves as Century 21 salespeople.
The formula worked. Seven years after starting the company at the age of 38 with Marshall Fisher, he sold it to Trans World Corp. for $89 million in cash and stock. These days Century 21 is a subsidiary of Realogy Corp. based in Parsippany, N.J., and a global company with 7,700 independently owned offices in 67 countries and territories.
"He really was one of the true pioneers, visionaries, who recognized early on the power of franchising and branding for growing and expanding a business," said Matthew R. Shay, president of the International Franchise Assn. in Washington, D.C. "He recognized there was a built-in market to expand his brand by going after people who were already in the industry."
Bartlett was born in Glens Falls, N.Y., on Nov. 26, 1933, the second of three children of Raymond, a truck driver for General Mills, and Thelma, a hairdresser.
The family moved to Long Beach in the 1940s. Bartlett attended Long Beach City College but did not graduate, and worked part-time at a men's clothing store. He left school to join the Army but was discharged shortly after joining when doctors discovered an old football injury that rendered him unable to serve.
He met his future wife, Collette, at a party, and the couple married in 1955. The pair had one daughter, Stacy.
Bartlett then worked as a salesman for the Campbell Soup Co. and later for the real estate company Forest E. Olson in the San Fernando Valley, first as an agent and later as branch and district manager. Before forming Century 21, he co-founded Four Star Realty and Comps Inc., which he later sold.
Bartlett first learned of the concept of real estate franchising from Fisher, one of his former Forest Olson employees who was working at a rival real estate company, CJS. Over a chance encounter at a diner, Fisher explained the concept and Bartlett became intrigued. In 1971, the pair opened the first Century 21 in Santa Ana.
Through "sheer force of personality and determination," Shay said, Bartlett was able to convince thousands of smaller, independent real estate companies to become Century 21 businesses.
Bartlett believed that franchising was the right way for a small entrepreneur to survive. His aim was to build the company into a national force, marketing the brand on television and radio, giving what was once a local endeavor national attention.
"Correct or not, consumers have confidence in the big, brand name," Bartlett told The Times in 1982. "Franchising has been the savior of free enterprise in this country. It has given the small businessman a way to survive."
After selling Century 21, Bartlett tried carrying his franchising success into the home repair business, founding Mr. Build International, which sold remodeling franchises to contractors. The company did not take off the same way Century 21 did and is no longer in operation, his daughter said. He also served as the president of the Larwin Square shopping center in Tustin and invested in residential real estate throughout the Southland.
His wife, Collette, died in 2002. Bartlett married his second wife, Nancy, his former assistant, in 2005. Besides his wife and his daughter, he is survived by his granddaughter Bella Collette Renshaw, his stepson Larry Wells, his brother Ray and his sister Millie Schneider.
In his free time Bartlett enjoyed collecting classic cars -- including a 1934 Ford Coupe and a 1957 Thunderbird -- as well as boating and taking road trips with his family. He was also a gun enthusiast and enjoyed target shooting at local ranges.
Radical feminist Mary Daly, the iconoclastic theologian who proclaimed, "I hate the Bible," and retired from Boston College rather than allow men to take her classes, has died. She was 81.
Daly died Sunday of natural causes at Wachusett Manor nursing home in Gardner, Mass., said her longtime friend, Nancy Kelly.
Daly's tumultuous career at the Jesuit-run Boston College ended after three decades when she refused to open her classroom to men, believing women did not freely exchange ideas if men were present. Men, she said, "have nothing to offer but doodoo." But Emily Culpepper, a friend and professor at the University of Redmond in California, said Daly was not anti-male.
"She was anti-male domination, which is a different thing," Culpepper said.
Poet Robin Morgan called Daly "the first feminist philosopher."
"She really pushed the boundaries, and that drove some people bananas," Morgan said. "But that kind of intellectual courage is, in fact, what usually moves the species forward, even if it gets trampled on in its own time."
Daly grew up in Schenectady, N.Y., the only child of an ice cream freezer salesman and telephone operator. She received her bachelor's degree from the College of Saint Rose, then a master's degree at Catholic University of America. She later earned doctorates at Notre Dame and the University of Fribourg in Switzerland before becoming a professor at Boston College in 1966.
Daly's career at BC ended in 2001, when she retired to settle a lawsuit. Daly sued BC after the school tried to force her to retire over her refusal to accept men in her classes. She had agreed to privately tutor men who wanted to take her classes.
Daly wrote about her intellectual formation in a 1996 article in the New Yorker "Sin Big," in which she recalled being mocked by a male classmate, and altar boy, at her parochial school because she could never "serve Mass" because she was a girl.
"(T)his repulsive revelation of the sexual caste system that I would later learn to call 'patriarchy' burned its way into my brain and kindled an unquenchable Rage," she wrote.
Daly described herself as a pagan, an eco-feminist and a radical feminist in a 1999 interview with The Guardian newspaper of London. "I hate the Bible," she told the paper. "I always did. I didn't study theology out of piety. I studied it because I wanted to know."
Her first book, "The Church and the Second Sex" in 1968, criticized the church as a product and fount of sexism amid the growing women's movement. Five years later, she wrote "Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation." Her other books included "Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy" in 1984.
Gloria Steinem called Daly "a brilliant writer, a brilliant theoretician," who enabled women to move beyond the oppression of male-dominated religious hierarchies to see "that there's God in themselves and in all living things."
"She was enough ahead of her time so that I believe she will be appreciated far beyond it," she said.
TOKYO (AP) รข€” Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only person officially recognized as a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings at the end of World War II, has died at age 93.
Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip for his shipbuilding company on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city.
He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) to the southwest, which suffered a second U.S. atomic bomb attack three days later.
On Aug. 15, 1945, Japan surrendered, ending the war.
The mayor of Nagasaki said "a precious storyteller has been lost," in a message posted on the city's Web site Wednesday. Yamaguchi died Monday morning of stomach cancer, the mass circulation Mainichi, Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers reported.
Yamaguchi was the only person to be certified by the Japanese government as having been in both cities when they were attacked, although other dual survivors have also been identified.
"My double radiation exposure is now an official government record. It can tell the younger generation the horrifying history of the atomic bombings even after I die," Yamaguchi was quoted as saying in the Mainichi newspaper last year.
In his later years, Yamaguchi gave talks about his experiences as an atomic bomb survivor and often expressed his hope that such weapons would be abolished.
He spoke at the United Nations in 2006, wrote books and songs about his experiences, and appeared in a documentary about survivors of both attacks.
Last month he was visited in the hospital by filmmaker James Cameron, director of "Titanic" and "Avatar," who is considering making a movie about the bombings, according to the Mainichi.
Immediately after the war, Yamaguchi worked as a translator for American forces in Nagasaki and later as a junior high school teacher.
Japan is the only country to have suffered atomic bomb attacks. About 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki.
Yamaguchi is one of about 260,000 people who survived the attacks. Some bombing survivors have developed various illnesses from radiation exposure, including cancer and liver illnesses.
Certification as an atomic bomb survivor in Japan qualifies individuals for government compensation, including monthly allowances, free medical checkups and funeral costs.
James Von Brunn died he was 89. Brunn was a white supremacist who was facing the death penalty for the deadly shooting of security guard Stephen T. Jones at the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum on June 10th last year. While being held in federal prison he suffered from chronic congestive heart failure, sepsis and other medical problems. One of the guards, Harry Weeks who shot back at Brunn during the shooting at the museum said, "he's glad Brunn is gone and wished he had his day in court.'
(July 11, 1920 – January 6, 2010)
Born in St. Louis, von Brunn graduated from Washington University in 1943 with a degree in journalism.
That same year, he became a midshipman with the Navy Reserves after enlisting for "patriotic reasons," documents show. Von Brunn claims to have been a decorated PT boat captain during World War II.
Von Brunn was a racist who not only made racial slurs toward Jews online but also wrote a book titled, "Kill the Best Gentiles," accusing the Holocaust of being a hoax. He was charged with first degree murder,killing in a federal building and intimidating Jewish people at the museum.
Well I guess what goes around comes around. You can't take a life and expect to keep yours. I can't understand why people are so inhumane, but to kill someone because you disagree or dislike their beliefs should be a punishable crime, and that's why Mr. Von Brunn is no longer in existence.
After moving to New York City in 1947, von Brunn found a job at a "big-league advertising [firm] on Madison Avenue" and attended evening art classes, he wrote in an online biography.
Broadway veteran Margery Beddow, a performer, director, and choreographer, died Sunday at her home in New York. She was 72.
(December 13, 1931 – January 3, 2010)
As a performer, Beddow appeared in 10 Broadway shows, including "Redhead," "Conquering Hero," "We Take the Town," "Two on the Aisle," "Almanac," "Take Me Along," "Ulysses in Nighttown," and revivals of "Fiorello" and "Showboat." She appeared in seven Bob Fosse musicals and was the author of the book "Bob Fosse's Broadway." Her work as a choreographer included two original Broadway shows, "Dear Oscar" and "Wind in the Willows," and several touring productions. She also directed and staged "Broadway by the Year" at Town Hall and "Noรซl Coward and his Ladies."
In her early career, Beddow was a prima ballerina of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and a dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. On screen she appeared in the both the original Mel Brooks film "The Producers" and the later musical version. Most recently she was seen in the Disney film "Enchanted" and the Academy Award-nominated "Doubt."
Ebony Fashion Fair Producer and Director Eunice W. Johnson died this past weekend. She was 93. Johnson, the widow of Johnson Publishing Company founder John H. Johnson, gave Ebony magazine its name for almost 50 years produced an influential traveling fashion show that brought haute couture to African Americans while raising millions of dollars for charity. She was also the driving force behind the creation of the Fashion Fair makeup line, one of the first makeup lines for women of color. Host Michel Martin speaks with Washington Post Fashion Editor Robin Givhan for more on Johnson's legacy.
A close business partner of her husband's since the beginning of Johnson Publishing in 1942, Johnson remained the company's secretary-treasurer at the time of her death and for years wrote a monthly fashion feature for Ebony magazine.
Johnson Publishing's flagship, conceived as an African-American version of Life and published since 1945, was named by Johnson to reflect fine black ebony wood, as well as the mystique surrounding the tree and color, said Wendy E. Parks of Johnson Publishing.. But Johnson's greatest legacy may be her role as producer and director of the Ebony Fashion Fair, an influential event that for decades has been a showcase for the world's top designers.
The fair was started in the 1950s as a fundraiser for a hospital in New Orleans at the suggestion of Jessie Covington Dent, wife of a former president of Dillard University. It was a success, and Johnson and her husband decided to take the concept on the road. Produced annually since 1958, the fair became a traveling fashion extravaganza that now makes nearly 180 stops a year in the U.S. and abroad to largely black audiences from wide economic strata.
"It brought to the lower middle class black people a sense of what fashion really was. She gave the local community a chance to see these clothes," said Andre Leon Talley, editor at large for Vogue magazine.
The fair was both "an aspirational as well as an inspirational experience," Talley said. It became a showcase for a new generation of black designers as well as early African American models like Pat Cleveland.
The show's director and producer since 1961, Johnson was initially a curiosity as she toured French and Italian boutiques and fashion houses. But her sense of elegance, along with a deep pocketbook, quickly made her a respected figure in the world of high fashion.
"When they found out how much money I was going to spend, word got around," Johnson told the Tribune in 1997.
She stayed at the best hotels, dined at the finest restaurants and dressed impeccably.
"She always had on the last word 1/8in fashion,3/8 but it was always very elegant," Talley said. Legendary French designer "Yves Saint Laurent would receive her in the same manner he'd receive the editor of Vogue."
Since its founding, the Ebony Fashion Fair has produced more than 4,000 shows in the U.S., England and the Caribbean, and raised more than $55 million for charity, according to Johnson Publishing.
An outgrowth of the fair was Johnson Publishing's Fashion Fair line of cosmetics, conceived specifically for black women.
Johnson was born Eunice Walker and grew up in Selma, Ala. Her father was a doctor, and her mother was principal of a local high school and a teacher at Selma University, which had been co-founded by Johnson's maternal grandfather. At Talladega University in Alabama, she received a bachelor's degree in sociology, with a minor in art. A lifelong learner, she later studied journalism at Northwestern University and interior design at the former Ray-Vogue School of Design.
She met John H. Johnson in 1940 at a dance hall called Bacon's Casino in Chicago. The couple was married in Selma on June 21, 1941, and returned to Chicago, where she worked by his side as he started a publishing company with $500 borrowed against his mother's furniture.
John Johnson died in 2005. Johnson Publishing is now run by the Johnsons' daughter, Linda Johnson Rice.
Willie Mitchell owned Royal Studio where Buddy Guy, John Mayer and many others recorded their music.
In the 1970s, Mitchell also owned Hi Records of Memphis, the label that produced some of Green's biggest hits. Green, also from Memphis, was flying to Australia and unavailable for comment Tuesday.
At Hi, Mitchell was responsible for several instrumental hits of the 1960s and helped the careers of Green and singer Ann Peebles in the 1970s. Even in later years, Mitchell stayed busy at his studio, working with then-emerging talents like Mayer and Anthony Hamilton. Most recently, he wrote string and horn arrangements for Rod Stewart's new album of R&B covers, and produced a still-unreleased album from soul kingpin Solomon Burke.
He received a Trustees Award from the Grammy Foundation in 2008.
A trumpeter, Mitchell and his band provided the musical entertainment at several New Year's Eve parties for Elvis Presley at Presley's Graceland home. A Memphis boulevard was named in his honor in 2004.
Jets owner Woody Johnson's troubled daughter Casey, who was battling drugs and alcohol, was found dead Monday in her California home she was 30. Casey Johnson, the heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune who recently made tabloid headlines with a purported engagement to reality star Tila Tequila.
(September 24, 1979 – January 4, 2010)
The body of the 30-year-old socialite, whose worried parents had cut off her trust fund in an act of tough love, was discovered by her maid.
Her death was announced by Tequila on her Twitter page and confirmed by police.
"Everyone please pray 4 my Wifey Casey Johnson," Tequila wrote. "She has passed away. Thank u for all ur love and support but I will be offline to be w/ family."'
Los Angeles police and firefighters were called to a house at 11:51 a.m. Monday. Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene.
"It appears to be a natural death," says police Officer Sara Faden. "There's no evidence of foul play. A toxicology report from the coroner's office will proceed next." Johnson, who leaves a toddler daughter Ava whom she had adopted, was the great-great granddaughter of the founder of the pharmaceutical giant, and the daughter of New York Jets owner Robert Wood Johnson.
An openly gay socialite, Johnson had a knack for attracting paparazzi -- and trouble. A nasty fight with ex-girlfriend Courtenay Semel, daughter of former Yahoo chief Terry Semel, reportedly resulted in Johnson's hair catching on fire last October. Then in November, she was arrested for allegedly breaking into another former girlfriend's house.
In December, Tequila announced the pair were engaged. "Tonight, my beautiful girlfriend has just asked me to marry her and check out this rock," the lingerie-wearing Tequila said in an Internet video. "Bam! That is a 17-carat diamond ring from my baby."
Roberto Sรกnchez died he was 64. Sanchez better known by his artist names Sandro/Sandro de Amรฉrica ("Sandro of America" in Spanish) or Gitano (gypsy), was an Argentine singer and actor.
(August 19, 1945 - January 4, 2010)
He learned to play the guitar as a child, identifying his music as Romani[1]. His paternal grandfather was Russian Rom - Roma are known in Argentina as Gitanos[2][3]. Considered as a precursor of Rock music in Spanish, initially he imitated Elvis Presley, but afterwards he created a personal style that marked his career. He started the musical group Sandro & los de Fuego, which gained popularity on the TV showSรกbados Circulares. He became well-known in the decades 1960-1970 with songs like Trigal, Tengo, ¿A esto le llamas amor?, Eres el demonio disfrazado, Porque yo te amo and Rosa, Rosa. He died on January 4, 2010 of complications from heart and lung transplant surgery. He was 64.
Sandro also appeared in various films, among others: Quiero Llenarme de Ti ("I Want to fill myself with you") and telenovelas, among others: Fue sin Querer ("It wasn't on purpose"), with Puerto Rican actress: Gladys Rodrรญguez. He was the first Latino singer to fill Madison Square Garden doing so five times during the 1970s. Sandro was also the first singer to do a television concert via satellite. The concert was broadcast from Madison Square Garden on April 1970. This concert marked the debut of Latino music for a world audience. In the 1990s Argentine and other Latin American artists made the CD Padre del rock en castellano ("Father of Spanish Rock") in his honor.On November 20, 2009, Sandro received a double transplant (heart and lungs) in Mendoza, Argentina. 5 days later, Argentine TV (Cronica TV) reported Sandro was breathing without a respirator. On 4 January at 20:40, after 45 days of receiving a double cardio-pulmonary transplant, and after many complications, Roberto Sanchez, Sandro de Amรฉrica died of septic shock, mesenteric ischemia and disseminated intravascular coagulation in the Hospital Italiano of Mendoza. Latin America media commented almost immediately on his death. [4].
In an eight-season career, Gleason was a .267 hitter (907-for-3395) with seven home runs and 298 RBI in 798 games, including 613 runs, 111 doubles, and 35 triples. Incomplete data shows him stealing 70 bases and getting hit by 52 pitches.
Gleason died in his native St. Louis at the age of 73.
Jean Carroll died she was 98. Carrol was an American actress and comedienne during the 1950s and 1960s died he was 98.
(January 7, 1911 – January 1, 2010)
Carroll was born as Celine Zeigman on January 7, 1911 in Paris, France She began her career as part of a song-and-dance team with her husband, vaudevillianBuddy Howe, who later became her manager. She appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show more than 20 times and had her own short-lived sitcom, The Jean Carroll Show (or Take It From Me), which aired for one season in (1953-1954).[1] In November 2006, she was honored with an evening at the Friar's Club in New York City, the emcee was Joy Behar and the main speaker was Lily Tomlin. In 2007, Carroll was featured in the Off-Broadway production The J.A.P. Show: Jewish American Princesses of Comedy, which includes live standup routines by four female Jewish comics juxtaposed with the stories of legendary performers from the 1950s and 1960s, Belle Barth, Pearl Williams and Betty Walker, Totie Fields, and Carroll herself. She was later featured in 2009 in the P.B.S. documentary, Make 'em Laugh.[2]
She died on January 1, 2010 in White Plains, New York, five days before her 99th birthday.[3]
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Richard Kindleberger was born in Baltimore, Maryland, 1943, and later grew in Lincoln, Nebraska. He had one sister and two brothers. His father, Charles P. Kindleberger, was an economist at MIT and an architect of the Marshal Plan. In 1960, Richard graduated from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School and began to develop his fondess for languages and learned Russian, French, German, and Spanish. After graduating from Cornell Univeristy in 1967, he began to work as a reporter at the Worcester Evening Gazette for almost 3 years. When Richard received a master’s in Russian literature, he was later hired by the globe where he works as an environmental reporter and a copy editor in 1972. He joined a spotlight team and had to help investigate reports on abuses in the State's Civil Service System and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. He explained to readers that civil service problems were transcended examples from workers that had political connections.
On 1978, Richard married Sarah Wells and later had two daughters named Kate and Carrie Kindleberger. Richard spent more than 12 years with Sarah until she died from a cancer. Richard took care of his two daughters for almost three years until he later married Jean Hale.
Spending at least thirty years as a reporter and editor, Richard died from a brain tumor on the first day of 2010.
Former Remy Zero drummer Gregory Slay Remy Zero are a Birmingham, Alabama-based alternative rock band made up of Cinjun Tate (vocals, guitar), Shelby Tate (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Cedric LeMoyne (bass guitar), Jeffrey Cain (guitar) and formerly Gregory Slay (drums, percussion) before his death in January 2010 he passed away New Year's Day following a lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis. He was 40..
(January 1, 2010)
In spite of the illness, Slay found immediate success with the Birmingham, Ala.-based band when the group's demo famously landed in the hands of Radiohead, who were so impressed they invited Remy Zero to join them on their 'Bends' tour. From there, Remy Zero went on to record three albums, scoring hit singles with 1998's 'Prophecy' and 2001's 'Save Me.' The latter would be their last hit; they disbanded in 2003. While there was talk of reuniting in 2006, the band decided to make the hiatus permanent and continue with their individual projects.
For Slay, that meant working on his own music as Sleepwell and various other projects, including his Emmy-nominated work on the theme song for the television series 'Nip/Tuck.' He also worked frequently with his former Remy Zero band mates, most recently teaming up with guitarist Jeffrey Cain on an album produced for Mobile, Ala. musician Eliot Morris called 'All Things In Time.'
The strong bond between the group is evidenced by the statement they issued on Slay's passing.
"Our beloved friend, partner, brother, master musician, beautiful artist -- passed away this morning, January 1, 2010. He was in a peaceful place and surrounded by his family. We are so grateful for the time we were allowed with each other and for the wonderful opportunity to create with him for so many years. Gregory inspired all who had the chance to see him perform, to hear the music that he made or just to be around his bountiful spirit. He will be greatly missed.With our deepest love ... Jeffrey Cain, Cedric LeMoyne, Cinjun Tate and Shelby Tate -- the members of Remy Zero."
John Shelton Wilder died he was 88. Wilder was an Americanpolitician who was a Tennessee state senator from 1968 to 2007 and the 48th lieutenant governor of Tennessee from 1971 to 2007,[1] possibly the longest time anyone has served as Lieutenant Governor or a similar position in the history of the United States.[2]
(June 3, 1921 – January 1, 2010)
Wilder was from Fayette County, near Memphis. He was from an affluent family with extensive agricultural and agribusiness interests. He attended Fayette County Public Schools and received an undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee College of Agriculture and a law degree is from Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis.[1]
He and his family were known for fairer dealings with black farm employees and tenants than was typical of the area during the segregation era. This fact served him very well upon entering into elective politics at about the time that Tennessee blacks in rural areas were first being allowed their constitutional rights to participate in political decisions which had been guaranteed under the Tennessee and federal constitutions but previously unenforced. Wilder was also a prominent attorney in Somerville, the county seat of Fayette County.
Wilder married his wife Marcelle in 1941 and served in the U.S. Army during World War II.[1] He was a member of the former Fayette County Quarterly Court (now the County Commission) for 18 years.[3] A Democrat, he was first elected to the Tennessee Senate in 1958, serving until 1960.
Wilder did not run for reelection in 1960, but returned to the state Senate in 1966. After this time, a state constitutional amendment extended the length of terms in the state Senate to four years. Wilder was elected to a four-year term in 1968 and was reelected every four years thereafter until 2004. He represented Senate District 26, which currently included Chester, Crockett, Fayette, Hardeman, Hardin, Haywood, McNairy, and Wayne counties.
Wilder was elected Speaker of the State Senate by his fellow Senators in January 1971, which made him the state's Lieutenant Governor. Under the Tennessee state constitution, the Speaker of the Senate is first in line of succession to the governorship. The title of Lieutenant Governor was granted to the Speaker of the Senate by statute in 1951.
He was the first Tennessee Lieutenant Governor in almost half a century, and only the second since Reconstruction, to serve under a governor of a different political party, RepublicanWinfield Dunn, who had been elected the previous November.
Prior to this time, the General Assembly had never had its own independent staff, or even its own offices, frequently working out of hotel rooms. Wilder now oversaw a massive building project (which somewhat ironically entailed the demolition of one of the hotels that many legislators had previously favored) was undertaken to correct this and make the legislative branch of state government more co-equal to the other two.
Wilder defied precedent by seeking to serve as lieutenant governor for an extended period. Previously, no one had served more than three consecutive terms as Speaker of the Senate since Tennessee's current constitution was adopted in 1870. He faced little opposition until the mid-1980s. By then, many of the members of the Senate Democratic Caucus had tired of his leadership. There were also regional issues at stake – by this time the speakers of both houses of the legislature had been from West Tennessee for almost two decades. The dissident faction coalesced around the leadership of State Senate Majority Leader Riley Darnell from Clarksville in Middle Tennessee. When Darnell received the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor in 1987, Wilder's long tenure as Lieutenant Governor appeared to be over.
However, in a surprise (but not entirely unprecedented) move, Wilder was then nominated by the Republican Caucus for Lieutenant Governor. With the support of all 15 Republicans in the chamber, and six dissenting Democrats, Wilder won the vote 21 – 15 and then proceeded to organize the Senate on a "bipartisan" basis, awarding a majority of the committee chairmanships to his Democratic loyalists with the remainder going to the Republicans. This was not out of character for Wilder; in 1979 he had acquiesced in the ouster of Governor Ray Blanton three days before his term was supposed to end after a series of controversial pardons. The state constitution is somewhat ambiguous on when a governor is supposed to be sworn in, so Wilder and his counterpart in the State House, Ned McWherter, supported the early swearing-in of his Republican successor, Lamar Alexander. Wilder called the move "impeachment, Tennessee style."
After this, Wilder, until 2005, continued to be reelected "unanimously" and to award chairmanships to his supporters in both parties, making the Tennessee Senate one of the few legislative bodies in the world to be elected on a partisan basis, but organized on a more-or-less nonpartisan one. Even when two outgoing state Senators switched parties in the mid-1990s, giving the Republicans a short-lived one-seat Senate majority, nothing of consequence changed.
This coalition had made Wilder one of the longest-serving (reputedly the longest) freely-elected legislative leaders in the world. Given his support among many Republican state senators, he long faced little opposition in holding onto his State Senate seat, even though the Memphis suburbs have become increasingly Republican.
Unlike many lieutenant governors, particularly in other states, Wilder never ran for governor. In 2009 he said that he had wanted to run for governor in 1975, but had been talked out of it by his family, and was "glad I stayed where I was because the Senate is the Senate."[4] In a now almost-vanished Southern style, he often referred to himself in the third person, as in, "The Speaker likes being Speaker."
Wilder was a cycling enthusiast and was a licensed private pilot for over a half-century, continuing occasionally until the end of his legislative career to fly himself 200 miles (320 km) from Fayette County to Nashville for legislative meetings.[5][6] When Republicans attacked him for this during his 2004 reelection campaign, claiming that the partial reimbursement that he receives for this has cost the state over $250,000 over the past ten years, his campaign's reply was that much of this travel was to enable him to both to attend to his Senate duties and still be involved in the giving of care to his wife of 63 years, Marcelle, who died in the summer of 2004.
On November 2, 2004, Wilder was elected to his 11th consecutive term (and 12th overall) in the Tennessee Senate. However, the Democrats lost control of the Senate, albeit by only a one-seat margin. This meant that if the Republicans could have established true party discipline, they could have chosen either to retain Wilder or replace him; however, since several incumbent Republicans who were either reelected or whose terms did not expire in this election cycle were known to be allies and close friends of Wilder, the outcome that was considered to be most likely by most close observers was that these Republicans would join with the Democratic minority to continue Wilder's working majority and that he would be reelected Lieutenant Governor.
At least one Nashville television station had speculated that Wilder would become a Republican before or at the start of the next session in order to maintain his power. This was not an unreasonable possibility, as Republicans have done very well in much of his district at all levels. However, others suggested that this was unlikely and that he would probably remain a nominal Democrat but would appoint Republicans to all or most of the committee chairmanships; by mid-November 2004 this was regarded to be by far the most likely outcome, despite some telephone calls to Wilder's Republican supporters from United States Senate Majority LeaderBill Frist.
In December 2004, the executive committee of the Tennessee Republican Party announced that sanctions were possible for Republican legislative members who cast votes for Democrats for organizational purposes. (These votes are open, not secret ballots). These were potentially to include party endorsement of opposing candidates in future primaries. This was a major policy change, as traditionally the Tennessee Republican Party has made no endorsements in contested primary elections. Nonetheless, two Republican members of the Tennessee State Senate – enough to assure Wilder's reelection provided his traditional unanimous Democratic support in recent years – voted for Wilder on January 11, 2005, and he was sworn in for his 18th term as lieutenant governor. (One of them, Micheal Williams, was then rewarded with the post of Speaker pro Tempore.) Wilder then appointed Republican majorities to seven of the nine committees but left the five existing Democratic chairmen in place; this resulted in Democratic majorities and chairs on two committees, including what is regarded as the most important one, the Finance Committee, which left many Republicans very upset.
Following the November 2006 elections, the Republican Party retained a one-seat majority in the Tennessee Senate. However, Republicans who had supported Wilder in the past, particularly Williams, found themselves under severe pressure to adhere to party discipline, with even the threat of officially-endorsed primary opponents, unprecedented for Tennessee Republicans, for those who failed to comply with the party line, according to a series of columns by Tennessean columnist Larry Daughtrey. Wilder was challenged within the Democratic caucus for nomination as speaker by State Senator Joe Haynes of Nashville. Later articles in The Tennessean and the Nashville City Paper cited the possibility that all 16 Republicans might vote for Senator Ron Ramsey and that 16 Democrats, including Wilder himself, would vote for Wilder, with Democratic State Senator Jerry Cooper, accused of wrongful business dealings with a bank controlled by Wilder, abstaining to prevent any appearance of conflict of interest. Under Senate rules, a 16-16 tie would result in Wilder's retention of the speakership.
However, in the vote held on January 9, 2007, all 17 Republicans voted for Ramsey and were joined by Democratic Senator Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville, ending Wilder's tenure as Speaker of the Senate and Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee.[7]
On March 8, 2007, the Tennessee news media reported that Wilder had been seriously injured in a fall and was in intensive care in a hospital in Memphis. He was released from the hospital on March 11, 2007, and returned home to finish his recuperation.[8]
On March 20, 2008, Wilder announced his decision not to run for re-election later that year.[9]
Wilder died early on the morning of January 1, 2010 at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis following a stroke on December 28, 2009.[10] He was survived by son Shelton Wilder.
