/ Stars that died in 2023

Friday, July 9, 2010

Toni Adams American professional wrestling manager, former wife of Chris Adams. has died she was ,45

Toni Leah Adams was an American professional wrestling manager and valet who appeared in several North American regional promotions during the 1980s including the Universal Wrestling Federation and the United States Wrestling Association, although she is best known as the manager of her late ex-husband Chris Adams while in World Class Championship Wrestling and the Global Wrestling Federation.

Among those she has managed include Brian Christopher, Scotty Flamingo, Koko B. Ware, Tony Falk, Rod Price and Iceman Parsons.

(1964 – June 24, 2010)


Born Toni Lea Collins in August 19,1964 Freer, Texas, Toni began working in Fritz Von Erich's World Class Championship Wrestling as an assistant to the production staff in 1984. Meeting Chris Adams while working in the promotion, the two were married in Hawaii shortly after his divorce from his ex-wife Jeanie Clarke.

Toni's appearances on World Class television were sporadic, however she did make one memorable appearance in a 1986 interview where she was helping husband Chris (with his eyes bandaged selling his blinding injury) into his Corvette to drive to the airport en route to England. Toni again appeared in another interview between Adams and announcer Bill Mercer two months later, as he continued selling his eye injury (with vision restored to his right eye, but not to his left).

Following her husband to the Mid-South area, she soon appeared in an on-camera role for Bill Watts' Universal Wrestling Federation interviewing wrestlers and fans. She eventually made her managerial debut appearing with her husband Chris Adams in World Class Championship Wrestling in 1989. Soon after, she along with ring announcer Frank Dusek were attacked by Tojo Yamamoto & Phil Hickerson, billed as P.Y. Chu-Hi. While held by Chu-Hi, Yamamoto ripped open her blouse before Chris Adams came out from the locker room to chase them off.

As the feud continued for several weeks, Toni Adams began carrying kendo sticks to the ring and used them against Yamamoto & Hickerson during matches against Chris Adams. After the conclusion of this feud, she and Chris Adams would becomne involved in another feud with Billy Travis and, at one point, was spanked by Travis in the middle of the Dallas Sportatorium while Chris Adams was handcuffed to the ring rope.

During this time, she would run a summer camp as well as co-manage Chris Adams' wrestling school during the late 1980s (under the brand name Chris Adams Promotions). The two would also be in attendance at the National Association of Television Progamming Executives at the New Orleans Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana in January 1990 along with other television celebrities such as Vanna White, Alex Trebek, Geraldo Riviera, Oprah Winfrey, Sally Jessy Raphael and Donald Trump.[1]

Returning with Chris Adams to the United States Wrestling Association in May 1990, she would become involved in a storyline in which Chris Adams began feuding with former protege Steve Austin. The feud, which Adams created and developed, would later involve her and Chris's ex-wife Jeanie Clarke, who eventually married Steve Austin,[2] and faced each other in mixed tag team matches for much of the year in one of the most memorable feuds in the region.[3][4][5]

As Chris Adams' drinking problem became out of control, particularly one incident in which he had assaulted Toni Adams in February 1989 for which he was sentenced to one year's probation, Toni Adams would eventually divorce Chris Adams soon after the feud, which occurred sometime around 1991.[6][7]

The couple shared one son, Chris Adams Jr., born around 1988.

In late 1993, she returned to the USWA, losing to Rockin' Robin at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee on September 13, 1993. Managing Brian Christopher as Nanny Simpson, she participated in several mixed tag team matches with him against Koko B. Ware and Miss Texas during the next several weeks eventually pinning Miss Texas on October 18. However, she lost to Miss Texas and Sweet Georgia Brown in a tag team match with Vicious Viki on November 1 and, a week later, lost to Miss Texas in a "chain match" by disqualification on November 8.

The following month she feuded with Dirty White Girl losing to her at the November Blast supercard by disqualification on November 18 and in a "street fight" match several days later. During that same event, she was forced to eat dog food as a result of a stipulation in which Jerry Lawler and Brian Christopher defeated Rex Hargrove & Koko B. Ware.[8]

Briefly managing Eddie Gilbert before his feud with Jerry Lawler,[9] she later resurfaced in the Global Wrestling Federation as part of Skandar Akbar's Devastation, Inc. [10] and later as the valet of Iceman King Parsons during his feud with Chris Adams until the promotion's close.[11]

Toni Adams retired around 1995, remaining out of the spotlight permanently. She would eventually marry two more times during the final 15 years of her life.

Toni Adams, who had remarried as Toni Gant,but was divorceved from him, and lived in Louisville, Kentucky, was hospitalized in June 2010 due to an abscess infection in her abdomen, almost similar to the same illness that killed David Von Erich in 1984. She was hospitalized again in full cardiac arrest in late June, and died on June 24, 2010 at the age of 45. Upon her death, she was engaged to Leonard Donahoo. She is survived by three sisters, son Chris Adams Jr, daughter Tori Gant, and one grandchild. Funeral arrangements are pending, but are expected to be held in her native Texas.[12]


Championships and Accomplishments

  • PWI ranked her # 14 of the 100 Hottest Women in Wrestling in 2002

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Fred Anderson, American jazz tenor saxophonist has died , he was 81

Fred Anderson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist who was based in Chicago, Illinois. With a distinctive forward-bent playing posture, Anderson's playing was rooted in the swing music and hard bop idioms, but also incorporated innovations from free jazz, rendering him, as critics Ron Wynn and Joslyn Layne[1] have written, "a seminal figure among Chicago musicians in the '60s."
(March 22, 1929 – June 24, 2010)


Anderson was born Monroe, Louisiana. He grew up in the Southern United States and learned to play the saxophone by himself when he was a teenager.[2] Anderson moved his family to Evanston, Illinois in the 1940s. He studied music formally at the Roy Knapp Conservatory in Chicago, and had a private teacher for a short time.[2] Fred worked installing carpet for decades to sustain his music and his family, before opening up a succession of important Chicago nightclubs. Despite Anderson's prominence as an avant-garde musician, his guiding inspiration was Charlie Parker, portraits of whom are prominently displayed at Anderson's club, the Velvet Lounge.


He was one of the founders of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and an important member of the musical collective. His partner for many years was the Chicago jazz trumpeter Billy Brimfield.

Anderson appeared on several notable avant garde albums in the 1960s, notably the seminal Delmark recordings of saxophonist Joseph Jarman, As If It Were The Seasons (1968), and Song For (1966), which includes Anderson's composition "Little Fox Run."

In 1983, Fred Anderson took over ownership of the Velvet Lounge in Chicago, which quickly became a center for the city's jazz and experimental music scenes. The club expanded and relocated in the summer of 2006. Before that, his eclectic Beehive bar in west Chicago was a draw where musicians from around the world drank beer and played, mostly for each other.


Though he remained an active performer, Anderson recorded rarely for about a decade beginning in the mid-1980s. By the 1990s, however, he resumed a more active recording schedule, both as a solo artist, and in collaboration with younger performers, notably saxophonist Ken Vandermark and drummer Hamid Drake.

Anderson acted as mentor to young musicians who have gone on to prominent careers in music, either by featuring them in his groups or as performers at the Velvet Lounge. The list of musicians who he helped bring to public attention includes Drake, Harrison Bankhead, David Boykin, Nicole Mitchell, Justin Dillard, Aaron Getsug, Josh Abrams, Fred Jackson, George Lewis, Karl E. H. Seigfried, Isaiah Sharkey, and Isaiah Spencer. His son, Eugene Anderson, is a drummer.


Discography

As leader


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JoJo Billingsley, American back-up singer (Lynyrd Skynyrd), has died of cancer. she was ,58

Deborah Jo "JoJo" Billingsley was an American singer, soloist, songwriter and recording artist. As a backing vocalist, Billingsley was best known for her work with the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. As one of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Honkettes, she toured with the band from Japan to England.
(May 28, 1952[1] – June 24, 2010)



In December 1975, she was hired, along with Cassie Gaines and Leslie Hawkins, to be a backup singer for Lynyrd Skynyrd. The group's leader Ronnie Van Zant dubbed them "The Honkettes".

In the October 20, 1977, an airplane crash killed several members of the band and road crew, but Billingsley was the only band member not on the flight. She stated that she had a dream two nights before the plane crashed, foreseeing the event. She attempted to warn the other band members not to get on the plane. According to Billingsley, this experience led her to a religious awakening whereafter she was a born again Christian.[2]

In 2005, she performed several times as "The Honkettes" in an alternative version of Lynyrd Skynyrd called "The Saturday Night Special Band" that also included former Skynyrd members Ed King, Artimus Pyle and Leslie Hawkins that helped to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims.

In 2006, Hawkins and Billingsley performed with Lynyrd Skynyrd for only the third time since the 1977 plane crash. The first was at Charlie Daniels' 1979 Volunteer Jam (film of which appears in the VH-1 Behind The Music profile of the band), the second at the opening of Freebird The Movie at Atlanta's Fox Theatre in 1995), and singing "Sweet Home Alabama" at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at which Lynyrd Skynyrd was honored.

Billingsley also made many television and radio appearances, appeared in several movies and DVDs, and traveled extensively throughout the world. Her latest CD to be released was titled I Will Obey.

Billingsley lived with her husband, Tim, and her daughter, Destiny, in Cullman, Alabama where they attended Spirit Life Church. She also had a son, Justin, who is in the US Navy, currently stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

Billingsley died after a battle with cancer in Cullman at the age of 58.[3]


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Frank Giering, German actor (Funny Games has died he was 38

Frank Giering was a German actor, has died he was 38.
(23 November 1971 – 23 June 2010)

Giering studied at the HFF Potsdam.[1] He starred in a production of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole[2] and was cast by Austrian filmmaker, Michael Haneke for the TV movie, The Traitor and the 1997 filmsThe Castle and Funny Games.[3]

Giering's portrayal of the psychopathic killer, ‘Peter’ in "Funny Games" was considered a breakout performance.[4]

Giering was regularly seen in TV and cinema productions. His best known roles were Floyd in Sebastian Schipper's Absolute Giganten (1999) and the film Baader (2002), portraying the leader of the Red Army Faction. Since 2006, Giering starred in the ZDF series The Criminologist as the Commissioner Henry Weber.[5] He appeared in 30 episodes up until 2010.[6]

Death

Giering was found dead in his apartment in Berlin on 23 June 2010.[7] His death is still under investigation by the authorities. Giering had been outspoken about his struggles with alcoholism and emotional issues.[8]

Filmography




  • 1996: Die Halbstarken
  • 1997: The Castle
  • 1997: Funny Games
  • 1998: Tatort - Blick in den Abgrund
  • 1998: Opera Ball - Victims / Offenders
  • 1998: Und alles wegen Mama
  • 1998: Das merkwürdige Verhalten geschlechtsreifer Großstädter zur Paarungszeit
  • 1999: Gigantic
  • 2000: Marmor, Stein & Eisen
  • 2000: Bloody Weekend
  • 2000: Gran Paradiso
  • 2000: Exit to Heaven
  • 2000: Ebene 9
  • 2002: Dienstreise - Was für eine Nacht
  • 2002: Baader
  • 2003: Hierankl
  • 2003: The Curve
  • 2003: Anatomy 2
  • 2004: Nightsongs
  • 2004: Die Rosenzüchterin
  • 2006: Esperanza
  • 2006: Störtebeker
  • 2006-: Der Kriminalist
  • 2007: Free to Leave
  • 2008: Tatort - Der glückliche Tod
  • 2009: Lasko - Die Faust Gottes - Der FLuch
  • 2009: Keine Angst
  • 2009: Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten
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Pete Quaife British bassist (The Kinks), died of kidney failure.he was , 66,


Pete Quaife founded a group known as The Ravens in 1963 with brothers Ray and Dave Davies. Around late 1963/early 1964, they changed their name to The Kinks, and hired Mick Avory as a drummer. The group scored several major international hits throughout the 1960s. Their early singles, including "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night", have been cited as an early influence on the hard rock and heavy metal genres.[3] In the band's early days, Quaife, who was generally regarded as the best-looking member, was often their spokesman.[4] Following a ban from touring the United States in 1965, The Kinks focused their efforts on the UK market. Singles such as "Sunny Afternoon" (1966) and "Waterloo Sunset" (1967) showcased lead singer Ray Davies' observational writing style and became Top Ten hits throughout Europe and the UK. Quaife played an important role on the group's influential album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, which featured a strong theme of nostalgia. He departed from The Kinks in 1969 and formed the band Mapleoak, which he left in April 1970.

After retiring from the music business, Quaife resided in Denmark throughout the 1970s. He relocated to Belleville, Ontario in 1980, where he worked as a cartoonist and artist. He was diagnosed with renal failure in 1998 and moved back to Denmark in 2005. Quaife died in June 2010 of kidney failure.[1]


He was born Peter Alexander Greenlaw Quaife in Tavistock, Devon, and after a brief period studying commercial art, Quaife formed The Kinks in 1962 along with school friend Dave Davies and subsequently asked Dave's brother Ray Davies to join.[5] The band was originally called The Ravens and performed rhythm and blues at local venues such as the Hornsey Recreation Club at Crouch End Secondary School. The 'Kinks' name came about only upon the signing of a recording contract in late 1963.

The Kinks became a top chart act throughout the world beginning with their third single, 1964's "You Really Got Me". Quaife was commonly the voice of the band in early press interviews. He was temporarily replaced in the Kinks in mid 1966 by John Dalton, after a serious car crash left him unable to perform. He resigned from the band shortly thereafter, but reconsidered and returned in November 1966.

For the next two years Quaife played on albums such as Something Else By The Kinks and The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, and helped rehearse some songs on the album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). Quaife left The Kinks permanently in April 1969. He was again replaced on bass, this time permanently, by Dalton.

After leaving The Kinks, Quaife founded a new band, the country/rock outfit, Mapleoak. The group's name derived from the heritage of its members: The 'Maple' represented the two Canadian members of the group (singer-songwriters Stan Endersby (born 17 July 1947, in Lachine, Quebec, Canada) and Marty Fisher (born 24 December 1945, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), while the 'Oak' represented British members Quaife and drummer Mick Cook.

Quaife had contacts in Denmark, so the group gigged heavily there and in the UK during most of 1969 and early 1970. Cook left the band in June 1969, and was replaced by another Canadian: Gordon MacBain (born 5 August 1947, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada), who would write most of the group's original material.

Mapleoak released their first single, "Son of a Gun", in April 1970 but it failed to chart. Quaife then left both the band and the music industry. He subsequently moved to Denmark, and did not appear on Mapleoak's only album, which was released in 1971.

Quaife never fully returned to the music world as a professional performer. In 1980, he relocated to Belleville, Ontario, Canada to work as a graphic artist. In 1981, he made his only post 1960s concert appearance with The Kinks, playing bass in an encore number at a show in Toronto. Along with the original Kinks, Quaife was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. At the ceremony in New York, Quaife jammed on stage with the other musicians being honoured that year.


Quaife was diagnosed with renal failure in 1998. During dialysis sessions, he drew a series of cartoons based on his experiences. Following their enthusiastic reception by other patients, they have subsequently been published in book form as The Lighter Side of Dialysis (Jazz Communications, Toronto, 2004). Though he was invariably known as 'Pete' during his time with the Kinks, Quaife's books are published under the name 'Peter Quaife'.

In 1996, in an interview for Goldmine Magazine, The Who´s John Entwistle was asked who his favourite bassist was, he responded: "I'd say one of my favourite bass players was Pete Quaife because he literally drove the Kinks along".

At the time of his death Quaife had no formal association with the Kinks, but still enthusiastically talked of his time in the band, and made appearances at fan gatherings. During a Kinks Meeting in Utrecht, Netherlands, in September 2004, he read excerpts from Veritas, his fictional account of a 1960s rock group. He also joined in with The Kast Off Kinks on a few songs.


Quaife lived in Canada for more than two decades, but he moved back to Denmark in 2005 after his marriage ended in divorce, to live with his girlfriend Elisabeth Bilbo, who he had known since she was a 19-year old Kinks fan. At the time of his death, they had become engaged to marry.

In 2005, Quaife was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame along with the other original Kinks. In December 2007, Record Collector published an interview with Ray Davies, in which he was quoted as saying, "I spoke to Quaife about a month ago and he dearly wants to make another record with me". The tabloid press picked up on this quote, and turned it into a story saying that the Kinks were reforming for a tour in 2008. However, in an interview aired on the Biography Channel in December 2008, Quaife flatly said he would never participate in any type of Kinks reunion. Shortly thereafter, Quaife released a statement that he was permanently retiring from the public eye.

Death

Quaife, who had been receiving kidney dialysis for more than ten years, died on 23 June 2010, aged 66.[1] Two days after Quaife's death, Dave Davies posted a statement on his message board expressing his deep sorrow over the passing of his former band mate and lauding him for his friendship, personality, talent, and contributions to The Kinks' sound. He stated that Quaife "was never really given the credit he deserved for his contribution and involvlement [sic] [with The Kinks]".[6] Ray Davies dedicated his 27 June performance at the Glastonbury Festival to Quaife and performed several Quaife-era Kinks songs in tribute to him. Davies told the crowd, "I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for him."[7][8]

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Pennant Roberts Directorhas died at the age of 69

Pennant Roberts was a Welsh director noted for his work on British television.

He worked on the following BBC programmes: Softly, Softly, Doomwatch, The Onedin Line, Sutherland's Law, Survivors, Angels, Blake's 7, Doctor Who, Juliet Bravo, Tenko and Howards' Way.

(15 December 1940 – 22 June 2010[1])

Directed Pennant Roberts has died at the age of 69; he’ll be best remembered for his directing work on Dramas such as Tenko, Howards’ Way, Blakes 7, Juliet Bravo and Survivors as well as Doctor Who. Roberts directed six stories for Doctor Who between 1977 and 1985 and was one of the only directors invited back by producer John Nathan-Turner after he took the reigns in 1980. Nathan-Turner preferred to use new directors, those who hadn’t worked on the series before, but Roberts was an exception to this rule. The six stories he directed for Doctor Who were: The Face of Evil, The Sun Makers, The Pirate Planet, Shada (which was never completed because of industrial action), Warriors of the Deep and Timelash. Unfortunately his final two stories are not fan favourites but this is mostly due to other factors.

For example production on Warriors of the Deep was brought forward by several weeks because the Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, called a snap election and the studios used by Doctor Who would be required. Rather than scrap the story all together producer John Nathan-Turner opted to bring the filming forward meaning very little pre-production time which led to all kinds of problems.

Survivors - screengrabAside from Doctor Who Roberts had a long and varied career especially within the BBC’s own Drama department. He directed episodes of Terry Nation’s Survivors and Blakes 7 as well as the critically acclaimed Tenko (working alongside Louise Jameson who he had worked with on Doctor Who). His other credits for the BBC include the police drama Juliet Bravo and the glamorous 1980s drama Howards’ Way. His other credits include Angels, Doomwatch and Wycliffe.


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Friday, July 2, 2010

Tracy Wright, Canadian actress, has died of pancreatic cancer.she was , 50

In the realm of Canadian arts and culture, Tracy Wright was veritable royalty.

Over the past 20 years, the actress worked with some of Canada’s most prominent artists, including Daniel MacIvor, Bruce McCulloch, Bruce McDonald, and her husband Don McKellar (the two wed last January after a years-long partnership).

She died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 50 years old.

Although many Canadians never knew her name, anyone who saw her perform never forgot her presence, which had a way of emanating from her expressive eyes through to the audience, often without her ever uttering a line.


While she appeared in an almost surprising number of films, Wright was firmly rooted in the Canadian tradition of stage acting. At the beginning of her career she founded the Augusta Company with McKellar and Daniel Brooks, an experimental theatre company that spurred the kind of offbeat and inventive characters for which she would later be remembered. It also earned her a lifelong place on the Toronto stage, where she appeared in shows put on by some of the country’s best and most avant-garde companies, including STO Union and da da kamera.

One of her last turns in the spotlight was in A Beautiful View, Tarragon Theatre’s 2009 remount of the 2006 Daniel MacIvor show in which Wright originally starred alongside Caroline Gillis. She earned rave reviews for her portrayal of a vulnerable straight woman who falls unintentionally in and out of a relationship with another woman. In this, as in her other work, Wright was effortlessly funny, real, and fearlessly smart.

Wright thrived onstage, even planning on returning despite being hospitalized in the last months of her life. An artist staunchly devoted to her craft, she had been preparing for the title role in a staged reading of Bertolt Brecht’s The Life of Galileo by Toronto’s Small Wooden Shoe company (performed May 30 without her) and a role -- to be shared with her husband -- in the Theatre Centre’s rendition of TTTTg (Triple Trooper Trevor Trumpet Girl).

Her presence lives on, though, in her film work, for which she rarely starred but always shone. She established herself as a distinguished character actor whose talents complemented a wide range of genres. From her uproarious Kids in the Hall performance as a woman having an affair with Bruce McCulloch to her scene-stealing performances in McKellar’s Last Night and Reg Harkema’s Monkey Warfare, Wright proved that comedy is subtle, and that a glance, a stare, or a silent shrug can carry more emotional weight than any amount of dialogue. Indeed, her role in Last Night earned her one of her biggest roles, as an art curator engaged in an online affair with a young boy in Miranda July’s 2005 film Me and You and Everyone We Know. The apocryphal story goes that July wrote a character for her film based on Wright’s in Last Night. When July randomly spotted her at a film festival in Rotterdam, Wright was cast in the role she unwittingly created.

Fans can catch a glimpse of Wright in theatres this Friday as the Box Office Woman in Bruce McDonald’s This Movie is Broken, and later in McDonald’s upcoming Trigger, which stars Sarah Polley, Don McKellar, Caroline Gilli and Daniel MacIvor.



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Dickey Betts died he was 80

Early Career Forrest Richard Betts was also known as Dickey Betts Betts collaborated with  Duane Allman , introducing melodic twin guitar ha...