Benjamin Lawson Hooks an American civil right died he was 85

Benjamin Lawson Hooks was an American civil rights leader. A Baptist minister and practicing attorney, he served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1977 to 1992, and throughout his career has been a vocal campaigner for civil rights in the United States.

(January 31, 1925 - April 15, 2010)

Benjamin Hooks was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He was the fifth of seven children of Robert B. Hooks and Bessie White Hooks. His father was a photographer and owned a photography studio with his brother Henry known at the time as Hooks Brothers, and the family was fairly comfortable by the standards of black people for the day. Still, he recalls that he had to wear hand-me-down clothes and that his mother had to be careful to make the dollars stretch to feed and care for the family.

Young Benjamin’s paternal grandmother, Julia Britton Hooks (1852–1942), graduated from Berea College in Kentucky in 1874 and was only the second American black woman to graduate from college. She was a musical prodigy who began playing piano publicly at age five, and at age 18 joined Berea’s faculty, teaching instrumental music 1870–72. Her sister, Dr. Mary E. Britton, also attended Berea, and became a physician in Lexington, Kentucky.

With such a family legacy, young Benjamin was inspired to study hard and prepare himself for college. In his youth, he had felt called to the Christian ministry. His father, however, did not approve and discouraged Benjamin from such a calling.

Benjamin was a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.

Hooks enrolled in LeMoyne-Owen College, in Memphis, Tennessee. There he undertook a pre-law course of study 1941–43. In his college years he became more acutely aware that he was one of a large number of Americans who were required to use segregated lunch counters, water fountains, and restrooms. “I wish I could tell you every time I was on the highway and couldn’t use a restroom,” he told U.S. News & World Report in an interview. “My bladder is messed up because of that. Stomach is messed up from eating cold sandwiches.”

After graduating in 1944 from Howard University, he joined the Army and had the job of guarding Italian prisoners of war. He found it humiliating that the prisoners were allowed to eat in restaurants from which he was barred. He was discharged from the Army after the end of the war with the rank of staff sergeant.

After the war he enrolled at the DePaul University College of Law in Chicago to study law. No law school in his native Tennessee would admit him. He graduated from DePaul in 1948 with his J.D. (law) degree.

Upon graduation Hooks immediately returned to his native Memphis. By this time he was thoroughly committed to breaking down the practices of racial segregation that existed in the United States. Fighting prejudice at every turn, he passed the Tennessee bar exam and set up his own law practice. “At that time you were insulted by law clerks, excluded from white bar associations and when I was in court, I was lucky to be called Ben,” he recalled in an interview with Jet magazine. “Usually it was just ‘boy.’ [But] the judges were always fair. The discrimination of those days has changed and, today, the South is ahead of the North in many respects in civil rights progress.”

By 1949 Hooks had earned a local reputation as one of the few black lawyers in Memphis. At the Shelby County fair, he met a 24-year-old science teacher by the name of Frances Dancy. They began to date, and soon became inseparable. They were married in Memphis in 1952. Mrs. Hooks recalled in Ebony magazine that her husband was “good looking, very quiet, very intelligent.” She added: “He loved to go around to churches and that type of thing, so I started going with him. He was really a good catch.”

Hooks was a friend and associate of Dr. T.R.M. Howard, the head of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a leading civil rights organization in Mississippi. Hooks attended the RCNL's annual conferences in the all-black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi which often drew crowds of ten thousand or more. In 1954, only days before the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, he appeared on an RCNL-sponsored roundtable, along with Thurgood Marshall, and other black Southern attorneys to formulate possible litigation strategies.

Hooks still felt the calling to the Christian ministry that he had felt in his youth. He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1956 and began to preach regularly at the Greater Middle Baptist Church in Memphis, while continuing his busy law practice. He joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (then known as Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration) along with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He also became a pioneer in the NAACP-sponsored restaurant sit-ins and other boycotts of consumer items and services.

In addition to his other roles, he decided to enter Tennessee state politics and ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature in 1954 and for juvenile court judge in 1959 and 1963. Despite his losses, the personable young lawyer and preacher attracted not only black voters but liberal whites as well. By 1965 he was well enough known that Tennessee Governor Frank G. Clement appointed him to fill a vacancy in the Shelby County criminal court. With this he became the first black criminal court judge in Tennessee history. His temporary appointment to the bench expired in 1966 but he campaigned for, and won election to a full term in the same judicial office.

By the late 1960s Hooks was a judge, a businessman, a lawyer, and a minister, but he continued to do more. Twice a month he flew to Detroit to preach at the Greater New Mount Moriah Baptist Church. He also continued to work with the NAACP in civil rights protests and marches. Fortunately for Hooks, his wife Frances matched him in energy and stamina. She became her husband’s assistant, secretary, advisor, and traveling companion, even though it meant sacrificing her own career. “He said he needed me to help him”, she told Ebony. “Few husbands tell their wives that they need them after 30 years of marriage, so I gave it up and here I am, right by his side.”

Hooks had been a producer and host of several local television shows in Memphis in addition to his other duties and was a strong supporter of Republican political candidates. In 1972, President Richard Nixon appointed Hooks to be one of the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Senate confirmed the nomination, and Benjamin and Frances Hooks moved to Washington, D.C. in 1973. As a member of the FCC, Hooks addressed the lack of minority ownership of television and radio stations, the minority employment statistics for the broadcasting industry, and the image of blacks in the mass media. Hooks completed his five-year term on the board of commissioners in 1978, but he continued to work for black involvement in the entertainment industry.

On November 6, 1976, the 64-member board of directors of the NAACP elected Hooks executive director of the organization. In the late 1970s the membership had declined from a high of about 500,000 to only about 200,000. Hooks was determined to add to the enrollment and to raise money for the organization’s severely depleted treasury, without changing the NAACP’s goals or mandates. “Black Americans are not defeated,” he told Ebony soon after his formal induction in 1977. “The civil rights movement is not dead. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop agitating, they had better think again. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop litigating, they had better close the courts. If anyone thinks that we are not going to demonstrate and protest, they had better roll up the sidewalks.”

In his early years at the NAACP, Hooks had some bitter arguments with Margaret Bush Wilson, chairwoman of the NAACP’s board of directors. At one point in 1983, Wilson summarily suspended Hooks after a quarrel over the organization’s policy. Wilson accused Hooks of mismanagement but the charges were never proven. A majority of the board backed Hooks and he never officially left his post as executive director. He has overseen the organization’s positions on affirmative action, federal aid to cities, foreign relations with repressive governments such as that in South Africa, and domestic policy decisions of every sort. Hooks likes to call himself “just a poor little ol’ country preacher,” but his modesty hardly hides his long list of accomplishments.

In 1980, Hooks explained why the NAACP was against using violence to obtain civil rights:

There are a lot of ways an oppressed people can rise. One way to rise is to study, to be smarter than your oppressor. The concept of rising against oppression through physical contact is stupid and self-defeating. It exalts brawn over brain. And the most enduring contributions made to civilization have not been made by brawn, they have been made by brain.

Early in 1990 Hooks and his family were among the targets in a wave of bombings against civil rights leaders. Hooks visited President George H. W. Bush in the White House to discuss the escalating tensions between races. He emerged from that meeting with the government’s full support against racially motivated bomb attacks, but he was very critical of the administration’s apparent lack of action concerning inner city poverty and lack of support for public education.

On the other hand, Hooks would not lay all the blame for America’s ills at the feet of its elected officials. He has been a staunch advocate of self-help among the black community, urging wealthy and middle-class blacks to give time and resources to those less fortunate. “It’s time today... to bring it out of the closet: No longer can we proffer polite, explicable, reasons why Black America cannot do more for itself,” he told the 1990 NAACP convention delegates. “I’m calling for a moratorium on excuses. I challenge black America today—all of us—to set aside our alibis.”^[1]

By 1991 some younger members of the NAACP thought that Hooks had lost touch with black America and ought to resign. One newspaper wrote: “Critics say the organization is a dinosaur whose national leadership is still living in the glory days of the civil rights movement.” Dr. Frederick Zak, a young local NAACP president, was quoted as saying, “There is a tendency by some of the older people to romanticize the struggle—especially the marching and the picketing and the boycotting and the going to jail.”

Hooks feels that the perilous times of the civil rights movement should never be taken for granted, especially by those who were born in the aftermath of the movement’s gains. “A young black man can’t understand what it means to have something he’s never been denied,’ Hooks told U.S. News & World Report. “I can’t make them understand the mental relief I feel at the rights we have. It almost infuriates me that people don’t understand what integration has done for this country.”

Hooks and his wife handled the NAACP’s business and helped to plan for its future for more than 15 years. He told the New York Times that a “sense of duty and responsibility” to the NAACP compelled him to stay in office through the 1990s, but eventually the demands of the executive director position proved too great for a man of his age. In February 1992, at the age of 67, he announced his resignation from the post, calling it “a killing job,” according to the Detroit Free Press. Hooks stated that he would serve out the 1992 year and predicted that a change in leadership would not jeopardize the NAACP’s stability: “We’ve been through some little stormy periods before. I think we’ll overcome it.”

Hooks served as a distinguished adjunct professor for the Political Science department of the University of Memphis. In 1996, the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change was established at the University of Memphis. The Hooks Institute is a public policy research center supporting the urban research mission of the University of Memphis, and honoring Hooks’ many years of leadership in the American Civil Rights Movement. The Institute works to advance understanding of the legacy of the American Civil Rights Movement – and of other movements for social justice – through teaching, research and community programs that emphasize social movements, race relations, strong communities, public education, effective public participation, and social and economic justice.

Hooks also resumed preaching at the Greater Middle Baptist Church in Memphis where he had begun preaching in 1956.

On March 24, 2001, Benjamin Hooks and Frances Hooks renewed their wedding vows for the third time, after nearly 50 years of marriage. The ceremony was held in the Greater Middle Baptist Church in Memphis .

Hooks was member of:

• American Bar Association
• National Bar Association
• Tennessee Bar Association
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference
• Tennessee Council on Human Relations

• Hooks was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1986.

• In 1988, Hooks received an honorary doctorate at Central Connecticut State University.

• NAACP created the Benjamin L. Hooks Distinguished Service Award, which is awarded to persons for efforts in implementing policies and programs which promote equal opportunity.

• University of Memphis created the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change. The Hooks Institute is committed to bringing scholars together to advance the goals of the civil rights movement, to promote human rights and democratic government worldwide, and to honor the lifetime of work of Hooks.

• Hooks received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in November 2007.

• Was inducted in the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site on January 12, 2008^[2]

The Memphis Library's main Branch Is named in his honor.

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Mississippi Slim American blues singer died he was 86

Carvel Lee Ausborn was better known by his stage name, Mississippi Slim, was a hillbilly singer who had a radio show on Tupelo's WELO during the later 1940s.

(1923 - April 14, 2010)

Ausborn was born in Smithville, Mississippi. According to Peter Guralnick, he had taken up guitar at the age of 13 to pursue a career in music. He was inspired by Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb and Ausborn's cousin Rod Brasfield, a then prominent country comedian who toured with Hank Williams.

Slim travelled all over the country with Goober and His Kentuckians and the Bisbee's Comedians tent show and even joined the Grand Ole Opry once or twice, largely on the strength of his cousin's connections. He also became known as one of Elvis Presley's first musical heroes and critics.

According to Bill Mitchell, Slim "was a good entertainer" who put on a "pretty lively show," primarily "love songs with comedy. The people really enjoyed it."

Mississippi Slim passed away April 14, 2010.

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William Walker Opera singer died he was 78

William Sterling Walker was a former baritone with the Metropolitan Opera (1962-1980) whose singing career included performances at the White House, at Carnegie Hall and other concert venues across North America and Europe, and some 60 appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. From 1991-2002, he produced opera as General Director of Fort Worth Opera in Fort Worth, Texas.

(born 1931 in Waco, Texas, died 2010 in Fort Worth, Texas^[1])
William Walker was born in Waco, Texas to parents who had moved to the city to escape rural hard times in Depression-era Bosque County. Walker came to Fort Worth at the age of 6, where his father eventually went to work for Consolidated Vultee, a predecessor of General Dynamics. Known as "Bill" to his family and friends, Walker began singing professionally at the age of 12 but secretly yearned to play baseball. After watching him strike out four times one night at a high school game, Walker's father suggested that perhaps his son should think more seriously about being a singer. ^[2] In 1949, upon graduation from Arlington Heights High School, Walker was awarded a vocal scholarship to Texas Christian University. ^[3] However, his studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to serve in the Korean War. During his time in Korea, he was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service. Upon his honorable discharge, Walker returned to Fort Worth, completed his bachelor's in voice and graduated from Texas Christian University in 1956. In 1957, he married the former Marci Martin and they moved to New York City. ^[4]

In 1960, Walker made his Broadway debut as Tattoo in Wildcat, a musical comedy by N. Richard Nash, Cy Coleman, and Carolyn Leigh, starring Lucille Ball, directed by Herbert Ross and choreographed by Michael Kidd. He was listed in the program as "Bill Walker". ^[5] A frequent performer in summer stock during the 1960s, Walker sang in many performances with the St. Louis Municipal Opera, ^[6] the Kansas City Starlight Theatre, and the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera in such works as Blossom Time, The Desert Song, Damn Yankees, and Carousel.

In 1962, Walker placed in the National Auditions for the Metropolitan Opera and was offered a contract to join the company. ^[7] His first roles at the Met were small ones, but subsequent exposure on television shows such as The Bell Telephone Hour, The Voice of Firestone, and most notably The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson -- where Walker appeared some 60 times – led to a higher profile in his opera career. ^[3] During his 18 seasons there, Walker gave more than 360 performances at the Met and sang the role of Marcello in La bohème more than 30 times. ^[8]

In 1965, Walker was featured in two new productions at the Met. He was selected to sing the role of Valentin in Faust co-starring Nicolai Gedda, Gabriella Tucci and Cesare Siepi, directed by Jean-Louis Barrault and conducted by Georges Pretre. He also sang the role of Prince Yeletsky in a new English-language production of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, conducted by Thomas Schippers. In 1972, Walker repeated the role in the first production of The Queen of Spades ever presented in its original Russian at the Met. ^[8]

In 1975 when the Met toured Japan for the first time, Walker sang the role of Marcello in La boheme with Franco Corelli and Dorothy Kirsten. ^[8] The following season, Walker stepped in for an ailing colleague and sang the role of Germont in La traviata for the first time at the Met, a role he had already sung at the Santa Fe Opera and in other regional productions. Critic Harold Schonberg wrote in The New York Times, "the best singing of the night came from Mr. Walker," ^[9] and Time magazine called his Germont "splendidly sung." ^[10]

Other roles at the Met included Figaro in The Barber of Seville, Papageno in The Magic Flute, Lescaut in Manon Lescaut, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Ford in Falstaff, Escamillo in Carmen, the High Priest in Samson et Dalila, Peter in Hansel und Gretel, Schaunard in La boheme, Count Di Luna in Il trovatore, The Herald in Lohengrin, Michele in Il tabarro, Silvio in Pagliacci, Dr. Malatesta in Don Pasquale, and Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor ^[8]

Walker's career included performances at the White House: In 1967 during the Johnson administration he was the principal entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. During the Carter administration, he sang at a White House state dinner honoring Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of West Germany. In 1976, under the auspices of the U.S. State department, Walker was sent abroad to perform as a representative of the United States. In addition to recitals in Reykjavik, Iceland and at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, Walker sang Germont in La traviata and Amonasro in Aida in both Warsaw and Lodz, Poland.

From 1969 to 1976, Walker gave more than 250 solo recitals in the United States and Canada, performing classical operatic arias, art songs and American musical show stoppers, most memorably "Soliloquy" from Carousel and "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" from Oklahoma!. With a technique considered innovative at the time, Walker addressed his recital audiences directly from the stage, interspersing his songs with funny, often self-deprecating stories, making him a more accessible performer to his audiences then the stereotypically aloof classical artist.

Walker was a frequent soloist with many great American orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. In the '70s, Walker appeared twice at Carnegie Hall as the baritone soloist in performances of Gustav Mahler's 8th Symphony with the Chicago Symphony, conducted by Sir Georg Solti.

Walker retired from singing in 1982. ^[7] In 1980, Walker was named the Hearndon Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music at Texas Christian University and taught master classes in performance for several years. He also taught master classes as the Carol Kyle Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas from 1980 to 1984.

In 1991, Walker returned to his hometown of Fort Worth to accept the position of General Director of the Fort Worth Opera, a small regional company "with a low budget, low profile and low community confidence." ^[11]

Even when he was still at the Met and working with world-class stage directors and designers, Walker believed that great singing was what made great opera. " 'That's what opera's all about, you know: let the opera singer sing and opera will flourish.'" ^[12] When he began to produce opera in Fort Worth, Walker capitalized on this philosophy of "a singer's opera" by recognizing the opportunity for Fort Worth Opera to be a showcase for up-and-coming vocal talent.

Focusing mostly on the standard Italian and French repertory, Walker led the company through "seven seasons of rising artistry and record audiences,"^[13] ultimately increasing season subscriptions, wiping out deficits, and bolstering the company's annual budget and its endowment to what were then record levels. During Walker's tenure, Fort Worth Opera joined other major Fort Worth performing arts organizations (Fort Worth Symphony, Texas Ballet Theater, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and Cliburn Concerts series) when they moved into their permanent home at Bass Performance Hall.^[14] Tickets for the 1998-1999 inaugural season of Fort Worth Opera at Bass Performance Hall were sold out. ^[13]

In 1998, despite the successes achieved under Walker's tenure, the executive committee of the larger Fort Worth Opera board of directors attempted to force Walker to retire, but their decision was overridden by a vote of the full board. "I'm the happiest man in America," Walker said at the time. "This is the job I prepared for my whole life. I can't wait to get started again." ^[15] Walker's contract was extended until 2002, when he retired and was named Executive Director Emeritus by the Fort Worth Opera board of directors. ^[16]

Commercially available audio and video recordings of Walker are rare.

• Cole Porter: A Remembrance RCA/NBC, rare recording from a Today Show broadcast in 1964
• The Naked Carmen Mercury SRM 1-604, 1970
• Wildcat Original Broadway Cast Soundtrack, RCA Victor LOC-1060, 1961

• The Voice of Firestone: A Firestone French Opera Gala (as Mercutio in Romeo et Juliette, telecast of February 10, 1963) ISBN 1-56195-054-8, New England Conservatory of Music/Video Artists International. Inc.
• The Bell Telephone Hour shows on file at the Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio) in New York. New York

Other recordings and career memorabilia are on deposit in the William Walker Collection at the library at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas.

In 2007, Walker and his wife, Marci, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. They have four children and three grandchildren.

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Steve Reid American jazz drummer died he was 66

Steve Reid ^[1] was an American jazz drummer who played with a wide range of artists including Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, James Brown, Fela Kuti and Sun Ra, and as a session drummer for Motown.

(January 29, 1944 – April 13, 2010)

Reid picked up drumming at age 16^[2]and in the same period his family moved to Queens, NYC, three blocks away from John Coltrane. This was the early sixties which was a peak for Coltrane but also for the jazz scene in NYC. Before going to college he worked at the Apollo Theatre as a musician, under the direction of Quincy Jones. An article describes Reid: "Steve had always been passionate about music but it was the rhythms that really got him." ^[3]

He then graduated at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY.

After this trip Reid started playing with some of the big names of Jazz and black music, including James Brown, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, and Miles Davis (on the album Tutu).

In 1969 Reid was arrested as a conscientious objector. In an interview he affirmed he did not want to have anything to do with the war in Vietnam.^{[citation needed]}

In the early seventies Reid started his own label, Mustevic Sound Inc.

Reid lived in Europe for several years (Lugano, Switzerland) in his later life and released several recordings for labels such as Soul Jazz records in London, UK, and German jazz label CPR. For his final releases, his ensemble was based around Reid himself, Chuck Henderson (soprano saxophone; previous saxophonist Lena Bloch, tenor sax, left to play with the UMass Amherst jazz ensemble), Boris Netsvetaev (piano; living in Hamburg, Germany) and Chris Lachotta (double-bass; living in Munich, Germany).

In 2006, Reid teamed up with the groundbreaking electronic musician Kieran Hebden^[4], better known as Four Tet, to release an improvisational experiment, The Exchange Session Vol. 1. The duo enjoyed this initial collaboration so much that they went on to release three further albums: The Exchange Session Vol. 2 (2006), Tongues (2007), and NYC (2008). In an interview discussing the duo's collaborations, Reid referred to Hebden as his newly-found "musical soul mate".^[5]

On April 13, 2010, Reid died in New York. ^[6]

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Arthur Mercante Sr died he was 90

Arthur Mercante Sr.was an international boxing referee died he was 90. His career lasted from the 1960s to the 1980s. He was the referee for many bouts, including the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight on March 8, 1971. Mercante served in the Navy during World War II and his commanding officer was heavyweight champion Gene Tunney. Mercante's son also became a noted referee. ^[1]

(1920 – April 10, 2010)

His refereeing career began professionally in 1954 and ended in 2001 at the age of 81. Arthur Mercante Sr., boxing’s most prominent referee of the past half-century and a presence at more than 140 championship boxing matches, including the 1971 Ali-Frazier “Fight of the Century,” died on Saturday at his home in Westbury, N.Y. He was 90.

In 1995 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota New York State. In a career that covered nearly half a century, Mercante was the third man in the ring for marquee figures like Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman, Mike Tyson and Floyd Patterson.



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Dixie Carter died she was 70

Dixie Virginia Carter^[1] died she was 70. Carter was an American actress, having appeared in films, television and on stage. She was best-known for her long-running role in the sitcom Designing Women (1986-1993). She had been nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for Desperate Housewives in 2007.

(May 25, 1939 – April 10, 2010)

Carter was born in McLemoresville, Tennessee, and spent many of her early years in Memphis. She attended college at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College). She was a graduate of Memphis State (now University of Memphis)with a degree in English.

At school, she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. In 1959, Carter competed in the Miss Tennessee pageant, where she placed first runner-up to Mickie Weyland.

In 1960, Carter made her professional stage debut in a Memphis production of Carousel. She moved to New York City in 1963 and got a part in a production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.

After an eight-year hiatus from acting, she returned to the craft in 1974, when she filled in for actress Nancy Pinkerton as Dorian Cramer on One Life to Live, while Pinkerton was on maternity leave. She subsequently was cast in the role of Assistant D.A. Olivia Brandeis "Brandy" Henderson on the soap opera The Edge of Night, on which she appeared from 1974-76. (She went along with the show when it switched from CBS to ABC.) Carter took the role even though some advised her that doing a daytime soap might negatively affect her career. However, it was with this role that Carter was first noticed, and after leaving Edge of Night in 1976, she relocated from New York to Los Angeles, and pursued prime time television roles.

She appeared in series such as Out of the Blue, On Our Own, Diff'rent Strokes and Filthy Rich (1982). Carter's appearance in Filthy Rich paved the way for her best known role, that of interior decorator Julia Sugarbaker in the 1980s/1990s television program Designing Women, set in Atlanta, Georgia. Filthy Rich had been created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who went on to create Designing Women. (Filthy Rich also featured future Designing Women cast member Delta Burke in its cast.) Hal Holbrook, her real-life husband, had a recurring role as Reese Watson; and her daughters, Ginna and Mary Dixie also had guest star roles as Julia Sugarbaker's nieces, Jennifer and Camilla.

From 1999-2002, she portrayed "Randi King" on the legal drama Family Law, portraying a lawyer for the first time since she was Brandy Henderson on The Edge of Night. In 2004, she would later make a guest appearance on Law and Order: SVU, playing a defense attorney named Denise Brockmorton in the episode called Home, in which she defended the paranoid mother of two children (Diane Venora) who had manipulated her older son to kill the younger son, after breaking her home rules.

Carter starred in several Broadway musicals and plays, She appeared on and off-Broadway as well, most recently portraying diva Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's Master Class, a role created by Zoe Caldwell.

In 2006-07 Carter found renewed fame with a new generation of fans as the very disturbed and disturbing Gloria Hodge on Desperate Housewives, earning an Emmy nomination for her work on the series. Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry started out in Hollywood as Carter's assistant on the set of Designing Women.

Her final film was That Evening Sun, which she filmed on location with her husband Hal Holbrook in East Tennessee in the summer of 2008. The film was produced by Dogwood Entertainment (a subsidiary of DoubleJay Creative) and is based on a short story by William Gay. That Evening Sun will premiere at South By Southwest, where it will compete for the narrative feature grand jury prize.^[2]

Carter gave an interview in 2006 for the feature length documentary, That Guy: The Legacy of Dub Taylor^[3] on the life of Dub Taylor, which received support from Taylor's family and many of Dub's previous co-workers, including Bill Cosby, Peter Fonda, Don Collier, Cheryl Rogers-Barnett and many others. The project was scheduled to have its World Premiere at Taylor's childhood hometown of Augusta, Georgia, on April 14, 2007.

In 1967, Carter married businessman Arthur Carter (no relation). They had two daughters, Mary Dixie and Ginna (who would later appear in an episode of Designing Women). Following the birth of her daughters, Carter left acting for eight years to focus on raising her children. She divorced Arthur Carter in 1977, and married Broadway and TV actor George Hearn the same year. Two years later, in 1979, she divorced Hearn. She married for the third time on May 27, 1984, to Hal Holbrook (14 years her senior), who is most noted for his appearances as Mark Twain. Carter renovated her old family home in McLemoresville. She and Holbrook divided their time between their homes in Beverly Hills, California, and McLemoresville, Tennessee, where Carter's elderly father, Halbert, resided until his death in early 2007, at age 96.

In 1996, Carter published a memoir titled Trying to Get to Heaven, in which she talked frankly about her life with Hal Holbrook, Designing Women, and her plastic surgery during the show's run.

Carter was also a registered Republican who described her political views as libertarian.^[4] She was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly along with Pat Boone at the 2000 Republican National Convention. Though her Designing Women character, Julia Sugarbaker, was known for her liberal political views and subsequent monologues, Carter disagreed with many of her character's left-of-center commentaries, and made a deal with the producers that for every speech she gave, Julia would get to sing a song in a future episode.^[5] Carter once jokingly described herself as "the only Republican in show business".^[6]

Carter died on April 10, 2010.^[7] No cause was immediately disclosed, Carter, who was 70, is survived by her actor husband of 26 years Hal Holbrook, and her daughters Mary Dixie and Ginna, by her first marriage to businessman Arthur Carter. The Dixie Carter Performing Arts and Academic Enrichment Center (informally called "The Dixie") in Huntingdon, Tennessee is named in honor of Carter.

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Kenneth McKellar died he was 82

Kenneth McKellar died he was 82. McKeller was a Scottish tenor.

(23 June 1927 – 9 April 2010)

McKellar studied forestry at the University of Aberdeen, after graduation working for the Scottish Forestry Commission.^[1] He later trained at the Royal College of Music as an opera singer.^[1] He did not enjoy his time with the Carl Rosa Opera Company and left them to pursue a career singing traditional Scottish songs and other works. His albums of the songs of Robert Burns (now digitised) are considered by musicologists to be definitive interpretations.

In 1964 he toured New Zealand. On many occasions in the 1960s and 1970s he appeared on the BBC Television Hogmanay celebration programme, alongside Jimmy Shand and Andy Stewart.

In 1966 the BBC selected McKellar to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest in Luxembourg. He sang five titles from which viewers selected "A Man Without Love" as the 1966 entry. According to author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor's The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History, the Scottish tenor drew gasps from the audience when he appeared on stage.^[2] The song was placed ninth of the eighteen entries, making it the least successful UK placing in the contest until 1978. McKellar received scores from only two countries. The Irish jury gave the UK song top marks, one of only two occasions the Irish have done so in Eurovision history.^[2]

"A Man Without Love" peaked at #30 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1966.^[3] His albums The World of Kenneth McKellar (1969), and Ecco Di Napoli (1970), had a total of ten weeks presence in the UK Albums Chart.^[3]

On 31 December 1973, the first Scottish commercial radio station Radio Clyde began broadcasting to Glasgow. The first record they played was "Song of the Clyde" sung by Kenneth McKellar. The same recording featured over the opening titles of the 1963 film, Billy Liar.

McKellar made the majority of his recordings on the Decca Records label.^[1] He also recorded several classical works, including Handel's Messiah alongside Joan Sutherland in a performance conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.^[1]

McKellar died of pancreatic cancer, at the age of 82, at his daughter's home near Lake Tahoe in the United States, on 9 April 2010.^[4]

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Meinhardt Raabe died he was 94

Meinhardt Raabe died he was 94. Raabe was an American actor. One of the last surviving Munchkin-actors in The Wizard of Oz, he was also the last surviving cast member with any dialogue in the film. Raabe was born in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, resided at Penney Retirement Community, Penney Farms, Florida, where he died on April 9, 2010.^[1]

(September 2, 1915 – April 9, 2010)

Raabe graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1937.
He was the coroner in The Wizard of Oz in 1939, with his only lines being:

As coroner, I must aver

I thoroughly examined her

And she's not only merely dead

She's really, most sincerely dead!

These lines, like most of those delivered by the Munchkins, were dubbed over with the speeded-up voices of other performers. In addition to his role in the film, Raabe worked for many decades as a spokesman for Oscar Mayer, where he was known as "Little Oscar, World's Smallest Chef". He traveled in the first Wienermobile, produced in 1936.



Raabe joined the Civil Air Patrol during World War II. After the war he earned an MBA, and married a cigarette girl who was his height, Margaret Marie Raabe (1915-1997).^[2] They were married for 50 years until her death in a car accident in 1997. Marie Raabe died on October 22, 1997, one day after the car she was riding in (Meinhardt was driving) ran into the back of a van, that had stopped to make a turn, near their retirement community in Penney Farms, Fl. Meinhardt Raabe was critically injured, but later recovered.


Raabe published an autobiography, Memories of a Munchkin: An Illustrated Walk Down the Yellow Brick Road. (ISBN 0-8230-9193-7). As of 2007, he lived alone at the Penney Retirement Community in Penney Farms, Florida.^{[3] [4]}
Raabe appeared in an October 2005 episode of Entertainment Tonight with eight other surviving Munchkins, and made a guest appearance on The Jimmy Kimmel Show on April 11, 2005. On November 21, 2007, he appeared with six other surviving Munchkin actors, including Jerry Maren at the unveiling of a Hollywood Star for the Wizard of Oz Munchkins on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[5] On September 19, 2009 he appeared on National Public Radio program Weekend Edition Saturday.^[6]
Despite his age, Raabe still made occasional appearances at Wizard of Oz conventions and celebrations across the country.


In 2008 he was honored by the International Wizard of Oz Club with the organization's L. Frank Baum Memorial Award.
He died on April 9, 2010 from a heart attack at age 94.

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