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.
Mary Allin Travers[3] was an American singer-songwriter and member of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, along with Peter Yarrow and Noel "Paul" Stookey. Peter, Paul and Mary was one of the most successful folk-singing groups of the 1960s. Almost unique among the folk musicians who emerged from the Greenwich Village scene in the early 1960s, Travers actually came from the neighborhood.[3]
While in high school, she joined The Song Swappers, which sang backup for Pete Seeger when Folkways Records reissued a union song collection, Talking Union, in 1955. The Song Swappers recorded a total of four albums for Folkways in 1955, all with Seeger. Travers had regarded her singing as a hobby and was shy about it, but was encouraged by fellow musicians.[3] Travers also was in the cast of the Broadway-theatre show, The Next President.[5]
The group Peter, Paul and Mary was formed in 1961, and they were an immediate success. The Associated Press, in Travers' obituary noted:
The group's first album, "Peter, Paul and Mary" came out in 1962 and immediately scored hits with their versions of If I Had a Hammer and Lemon Tree. The former won them Grammys for best folk recording and best performance by a vocal group.
Their next album, Moving, included the hit tale of innocence lost, Puff (The Magic Dragon), which reached No. 2 on the charts and generated since-discounted reports that it was an ode to marijuana.
The trio's third album, In the Wind, featured three songs by the 22-year-old Bob Dylan. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right and Blowin' in the Wind reached the top 10, bringing Dylan's material to a massive audience; the latter shipped 300,000 copies during one two-week period.[6]
All in all, "[a]t one point in 1963, three of their albums were in the top six Billboard best-selling LPs as they became the biggest stars of the folk revival movement."[6]
Their version of If I Had a Hammer became an anthem for racial equality, as did Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind, which they performed at the August 1963 March on Washington.[6]Puff, the Magic Dragon is so well-known that it has entered American and Britishpop culture.
The group broke up in 1970, and Travers subsequently pursued a solo career and recorded five albums, "Mary" (1971), "Morning Glory" (1972), "All My Choices" (1973), "Circles" (1974) and "It's in Everyone of Us" (1978). [3] The group re-formed in 1978, toured extensively and issued many new albums. The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.
Travers’s first three marriages [1. ? (m. 1958-1960), 2. Barry Feinstein (m. 1963-1968), 3. Gerald Taylor (m. 1969-1975)][7] ended in divorce. She is survived by her fourth husband, restaurateur Ethan Robbins (married 1991), two daughters, Erika Marshall (born 1960) of Naples FL, and Alicia Travers (born 1965) of Greenwich CT; half-brother John Travers; a sister, Ann Gordon, Ph.D. of Oakland CA, and two grandchildren, Wylie and Virginia. Travers lived in Redding, Connecticut.[3]
In 2005, Travers was diagnosed with leukemia. Although a bone-marrow transplant was apparently successful in beating the disease, Travers died on September 16, 2009, at Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Connecticut, from complications arising from chemotherapy.[3] She was 72 years old.
Born in Cordele, Georgia, Powell grew up in the nearby town of Vienna. He attended the United States Air Force Academy, but did not graduate because he was expelled from the Academy during his senior year for cheating.[1] He then attended Georgia State University and pursued, but did not receive, a Masters in Political Science from Emory University. He married Nan Sue Jared in 1966. Their daughter, Emily, is married to Mark Boddy and they have three children: Sarah, Rachel, and David. While at Emory, he had sent a paper of his on Southern Populism to Jimmy Carter in 1968 and ended up working for the future president.
During Carter's run for the governorship of Georgia, Powell became his driver and served as an aide and advisor. After Carter's election, Powell served as press secretary. He worked on Carter's presidential campaign in 1976 and became a member of the "Georgia Mafia", a group of close aides from Georgia who moved to high positions in Carter's administration. Powell served as White House Press Secretary, a position he held between 1977 and 1981. During this time, it was Powell who mentioned the "Jimmy Carter and the killer rabbit" story to the Associated Press. In total, Powell served as Carter's press secretary for ten years, during his governorship, presidential campaign, presidential transition, and his presidency.
After leaving the White House, Powell lent his distinctive deep, drawling voice to two documentaries, Baseball and The Civil War. In 1985, he published his memoirs, entitled The Other Side of the Story. He was a member of the Board of Advisors for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation and served as the CEO of Powell Tate, a public relations firm in Washington DC.
Powell died on September 14, 2009 at his home on the Eastern Shore in Maryland, apparently from a heart attack.[2]
Diagnosed with Stage IVpancreatic cancer in January 2008, Swayze told Barbara Walters a year later that he was "kicking it".[2] However, he died from the disease on September 14, 2009.[3][4] His last role was the lead in an A&E TV series, The Beast, which premiered on January 15, 2009. Due to a prolonged decline in health, Swayze was unable to promote the series, and on June 15, 2009, Entertainment Tonight reported that the show had been canceled.[5]
Patrick Swayze was born on August 18, 1952 in Houston, Texas, the eldest child of Patsy Yvonne Helen (née Karnes; b. 1927), a choreographer, dance instructor, and dancer, and Jessie Wayne Swayze (1925-1982), an engineering draftsman.[6][7] He had two younger brothers, actor Don (born 1958) and Sean Kyle (born 1962), and two sisters, Vicky Lynn (1949-1994) and Bambi, who were adopted into the family.[8] His surname originated with an English immigrant ancestor named "Swasey".[7]
Until the age of 20, Swayze lived in the Oak Forest neighborhood of Houston, where he attended St. Rose of Lima Catholic School, Oak Forest Elementary School,[9] Black Middle School,[9][10] and Waltrip High School.[9] During this time, he also pursued multiple artistic and athletic skills, such as ice skating, classical ballet, and acting in school plays. He studied gymnastics at nearby San Jacinto College for two years.
Swayze's breakthrough role came with his performance as dance instructor Johnny Castle in the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, alongside his Red Dawn costar, Jennifer Grey. Dirty Dancing was a low-budget project that was intended to be shown in theaters for one weekend only and then go straight to video, but it became a surprise hit and achieved massive international success. It was the first film to sell one million copies on video, and as of 2007, has earned over US$300 million worldwide and spawned several alternate versions, ranging from a television series to stage productions to a computer game. Swayze received a Golden Globe Award nomination for the role and also sang one of the songs on the soundtrack, "She's Like the Wind," which he had originally cowritten with Stacy Widelitz for the film Grandview, U.S.A. The song became a top ten hit and has been covered by other artists, such as David Hasselhoff, and in 2006 was converted into a hip-hop version by Lumidee, who took it to the top of the charts in Germany.[16]
After Dirty Dancing, Swayze found himself heavily typecast as beefcake and appeared in several flops, of which Road House was the most successful. His biggest hit came in 1990, when he starred in Ghost, with Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg.[17] This role had considerable cultural impact, and modern hip-hop lyrics routinely used the phrase "I'm Swayze" (meaning "I'm ghost," which is in turn slang for "I'm leaving") in reference to that film. In 1991, he starred alongside Youngblood castmate Keanu Reeves in another major action hit, Point Break, and was also chosen by People magazine as that year's "Sexiest Man Alive."
Swayze was seriously injured in 1996 while filming HBO's Letters from a Killer near Ione, California, when he fell from a horse and hit a tree. Both of his legs were broken and he suffered four detached tendons in his shoulder. Filming was suspended for two months, but the film aired in 1999. Swayze recovered from his injuries, but he had trouble resuming his career until 2000, when he costarred in Waking Up in Reno, with Billy Bob Thornton and Charlize Theron, and in Forever Lulu, with Melanie Griffith.
Swayze made his West End theatre debut in the musical Guys and Dolls as Nathan Detroit on July 27, 2006,[18][19][20] alongside Neil Jerzak, and remained in the role until November 25, 2006. His previous appearances on the Broadway stage had included productions of Goodtime Charley (1975)[21] and Chicago (2003).[22]
In 2007, Swayze starred in the film Christmas in Wonderland. Swayze played an aging rock star in Powder Blue, costarring his younger brother Don in their first film together. Swayze starred in the A&EFBI drama The Beast,[23] filmed in Chicago, as FBI Agent Charles Barker.[24]
Swayze was married to Lisa Niemi from June 12, 1975 until his death. The couple first met in 1970 when Swayze was 18 years old. Niemi, 14 years old at the time, was taking dance lessons from Swayze's mother. Swayze and Niemi had no children.[25]
As a reaction to his 57 year old father's death from a heart attack in 1982, Swayze began to drink heavily.[26] His sister Vicky committed suicide by overdose in 1994,[26] leading him to seek treatment for alcoholism. After initial recovery, he temporarily withdrew from show business, retreating to his ranches in California and Las Vegas, New Mexico, to breed Arabian horses. His best-known horse was Tammen, a chestnut Arabian stallion.
Swayze, a licensed pilot with an instrument rating, made the news on June 1, 2000, while flying with his dogs in his twin-engine Cessna from Van Nuys, California to Las Vegas, New Mexico. His plane developed a pressurization problem over northern Arizona, causing Swayze to make a precautionary landing on a dirt road in a housing complex in Prescott Valley. The plane's right wing struck a light pole that he hadn't seen from the air, but Swayze was unharmed. He locked up the cockpit, left it parked in the subdivision, and obtained a ride (with his dogs) from a passing vehicle, allegedly in order to telephone the authorities. According to the police report, witnesses said that Swayze appeared to be extremely intoxicated and asked for help to remove evidence (including an open bottle of wine and a 30-pack of beer) from the crash site.[27] He made himself unavailable to police for several hours. It was later determined that the alcohol in question was not in the cabin but stored in external storage compartments inaccessible in flight and that the alleged "intoxication" was due to the effects of hypoxia and carbon monoxide during descent.
Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late January 2008, and underwent chemotherapy and other treatments at the Stanford University Medical Center. On March 5, 2008, a Reuters article reported that Swayze "has a very limited amount of disease, and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far".[29] Swayze's doctor confirmed that the actor was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but insisted he was not as close to death as reports suggest. Specifically, Swayze was diagnosed with a type of pancreatic tumor called intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm.
In early May 2008, it was widely reported in a number of tabloids that Swayze had undergone surgery to remove part of his stomach after the spread of the cancer and that he had rewritten his will, transferring his property to his wife.[30][31] In a statement made on May 28, Swayze said that he continued to respond well to treatment at Stanford University Medical Center. In late May 2008, he was seen at a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game, his first public appearance since his diagnosis.[32] In 2008 Swayze was treated with Cyberknife radiotherapy cancer treatment.[33]
In late July 2008, six months after reportedly being given just weeks to live by medical experts, Swayze was seen in Los Angeles LAX airport, appearing healthy. When asked about his condition, he told reporters "I'm cooking. I'm a miracle dude. I don't know why".[34]
Swayze appeared on the ABC, NBC, and CBSsimulcast of Stand Up to Cancer in September 2008, to appeal to the general public for donations for the initiative. Swayze said to a standing ovation "I dream that the word 'cure' will no longer be followed by the words 'it's impossible'. Together, we can make a world where cancer no longer means living with fear, without hope, or worse".[35]
After the show ended, Swayze lingered onstage and talked to other cancer patients; executive producer Laura Ziskin said, "He said a beautiful thing: 'I'm just an individual living with cancer'. That's how he wants to be thought of. He's in a fight, but he's a fighter".[35][36]
In late 2008, Swayze denied claims made by tabloids that the cancer had spread to his liver.[37] However, in his interview with Barbara Walters, which aired in January 2009, Swayze admitted that he had a "tiny little mass" in his liver. On January 9, 2009, Swayze was hospitalized with pneumonia. The pneumonia was said to be a complication of chemotherapy treatments for Swayze's cancer.[38] On January 16, he was released from the hospital to rest at home with his wife.[39] On April 19, 2009, doctors informed Swayze that the cancer had again metastasized to his liver.[40]
Swayze opined that his chain smoking probably "had something to do with" the development of his disease. Photos taken of a gaunt Swayze in the months before his death showed him continuing to smoke.[41][42]
Swayze died "with family at his side" on September 14, 2009, at age 57, twenty months after being diagnosed.[43][44][45]
Apart from being interested in writing, Carroll was an all-starbasketball player throughout his grade school and high school career. He entered the "Biddy League" at age 13 and participated in the National High School All Star Game in 1966. During this time, Carroll was living a double life as a heroin addict who prostituted himself to afford his habit. By age 13, Carroll was using heroin, but was also writing poems and attending poetry workshops at St. Mark's Poetry Project.
Carroll attracted the attention of the local literati, and published his first book, Organic Trains, at age 17. Several of his poems have been published in such magazines as Paris Review and Poetry. In 1970, his second collection of poems, 4 Ups and 1 Down was published, and he started working for Andy Warhol. At first, he was writing film dialogue and inventing character names; later on, Carroll worked as the co-manager of Warhol's Theater. Carroll's first publication by a mainstream publisher (Grossman Publishers), the poetry collection Living At The Movies, was published in 1973.[1]
In 1978, Carroll authored The Basketball Diaries, an autobiographical book concerning his life as a teenager in New York City's hard drugculture. Diaries is an edited collection of the diaries he kept between the ages of twelve and sixteen, detailing his sexual experiences, high school basketball career, and his addiction to heroin, which began when he was 13.
In the mid-1980s, Carroll returned to writing full time and began to appear regularly on the spoken word circuit. Since 1991, Carroll has performed readings from his unfinished first novel, tentatively titled The Petting Zoo.
Carroll, 60, died of a heart attack at his Manhattan home on September 11th, 2009.[2]
Armand "Army" Archerd[1] died he was 87. Archerd was a columnist for Variety for over fifty years before retiring his "Just for Variety" column in September 2005. In November 2005, Archerd began blogging for Variety and was working on a memoir when he died.
Archerd was born in The Bronx, New York, and graduated from UCLA in 1941. He was hired by Variety to replace columnist Sheilah Graham (former girlfriend of F. Scott Fitzgerald) in 1953. His "Just for Variety" column appeared on page two of Daily Variety and swiftly became popular in Hollywood. Archerd broke countless exclusive stories, reporting from film sets, announcing pending deals, giving news of star-related hospitalizations, marriages, and births. In 1984, he was given a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, in front of Mann's Chinese Theater, where he had emceed dozens of movie premieres.
One of his most significant scoops was in his July 23, 1985, column, when he printed that Rock Hudson, despite denials from the actor's publicists and managers, was undergoing treatment for AIDS.
Gelbart was born in Chicago to Jewish immigrants Harry Gelbart ("a barber since his half of a childhood in Latvia")[2] and Frieda Sturner, who hailed from Dombrowa, Poland.
In 1997, Gelbart published his memoir, Laughing Matters: On Writing M*A*S*H, Tootsie, Oh, God! and a Few Other Funny Things.[2]
Gelbart was a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post, and also was a regular participant on the alt.tv.mash Usenet newsgroup as "Elsig".
Gelbart, who was diagnosed with cancer in June and died at his Beverly Hills home on Sept. 11, 2009. His wife of 53 years, Pat Gelbart, told that after being married for so long, "we finished each other's..." She declined to specify the type of cancer he had. [3][1]
Ms Baines was believed to have been the oldest African-American voter
The oldest person in the world has died in Los Angeles at the age of 115 of suspected heart failure.
Gertrude Baines, born 6 April 1894, had held the title since January, when a Portuguese woman, Maria de Jesus, died, also at the age of 115.
Ms Baines's doctor said she had attributed her long life to a healthy lifestyle and her religious beliefs.
The title of world's oldest person now passes to a 114-year-old Japanese woman, Kama Chinen.
Officials at the Western Convalescent Hospital, where Ms Baines had lived for several years, said she had died at 0725 local time (1425GMT).
"She told me that she owes her longevity to the Lord, that she never did drink, she never did smoke and she never did fool around," the AFP news agency quoted Dr Charles Witt as saying.
He said two days before her death she had been "in excellent shape".
"She was mentally alert. She smiled frequently," he said.
Ms Baines, whose father was once a slave, was believed to be the oldest ever African-American voter when she cast her ballot for US President Barack Obama in November 2008.
She said she was voting for him "because he's for the coloured people".
She celebrated her 115th birthday in April and received a letter of congratulations from Mr Obama.
