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.
Benny Powell was an African American jazz trombonist. He played both standard (tenor) trombone and bass trombone.
(March 1, 1930 – June 26, 2010)
Born Benjamin Gordon Powell Jr in New Orleans, Louisiana, he first played professionally at age 14, and at 18 began playing with Lionel Hampton. In 1951 he left Hampton's band and began playing with Count Basie, in whose orchestra he would remain until 1963. Powell takes the trombone solo in the bridge of Basie's 1955 recording of "April in Paris".
Born in New Orleans, Powell is, perhaps, best known for his 12-year tenure (1951-63) with Count Basie, and for his eight-bar contribution to the Count's all-time hit, “April in Paris.” But more than that, Powell, in his all-too-rare solos with the Basie band, displayed a blues-laced, story-telling approach to improvisation. Check out, for instance, his masterfully balanced two-chorus statement on “Blues Backstage” from 1954, or his fleet trip through “In a Mellotone,” recorded in a live performance five years later.
After leaving Basie, Powell embarked upon a rich, diverse musical career. A versatile and accomplished player, he has worked extensively on Broadway, television, on recordings, as well as leader.
During the 1960s and '70s, Powell graced the trombone sections of Duke Pearson's fine New York big band and the renowned Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. (His four-chorus solo on Jones'”Fingers” is a master class in modern jazz trombone improvisation.) He also began-and continues-to make his name as a leader in his own right, a respected teacher, and a dedicated activist in the cause of jazz.
After a decade in Hollywood, where he worked on The Merv Griffin Show, Powell returned to New York in the early 1980s and connected with two visionary instrumentalist-composers, the late clarinetist John Carter and pianist Randy Weston, with whom he still performs.
Although an unsuccessful kidney transplant in 1990 left him to undergo thrice weekly dialysis treatments until a second match was successfully transplanted in 1996, Powell never let it keep him from working-and even touring-with the likes of Weston, Benny Carter and Jimmy Heath.
He died in a Manhattan hospital at the age of 80, following back surgery.
Allyn Malcolm Ferguson Jr. was an American composer, best known for the themes for 1970s television programs Barney Miller and Charlie's Angels, which he co-wrote with Jack Elliott. In its obituary, Variety called him "among the most prolific composers of TV-movie scores in the past 40 years".[1]
(October 18, 1924 – June 23, 2010)
Ferguson was born in San Jose, California on October 18, 1924. He started playing the trumpet when he was four years old and began playing piano at seven.[2] After graduating from San Jose State University, he traveled to Paris, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger and at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland.[2] He established the Chamber Jazz Sextet in the 1950s, combining classical and jazz influences. The group produced "Pictures at an Exhibition: Framed in Jazz" in 1963, a big band-style production of the Modest Mussorgskypiano suite.[1]
Ferguson died of natural causes at age 85 on June 23, 2010, at his home in Westlake Village, California. He was survived by his wife, Joline, as well as by three children and six grandchildren.[1]
José Sergio Vega Cuamea , better known by his stage name"El Shaka",[2] was a Mexicanbanda singer. He was born in Hornos, Sonora, located near Ciudad Obregón in Mexico.[3] On 26 June 2010, he was killed by gunfire in the Mexican state of Sinaloa after a car chase.[2][4][5][6][7] The assailants pursued Sergio Vega for a distance, shooting at him and his passenger Montiel Sergio Ávila 30 times.[4] He was killed and Ávila was seriously injured.[8] Vega had recently increased his security because of other celebrity deaths like Sergio Gómez.[2][9]
Vega, eighth of thirteen children emigrated to the United States in the late 1980s.[10] In 1989, while living in Phoenix, Arizona, he and his brothers formed a group called Los Hermanos Vega,[10] which signed with Joey Records and had several hits such as "Corazón de Oropel" and "El Rayo de Sinaloa".[3][10]
In 1994, after five years with the group and following a falling out with his brothers,[3] Vega decided to leave, forming another group called Los Reyos del Norte,[3][10] and signing with Digital Universal. This group had hits such as "Las Parcelas de Mendoza", "El Dólar Doblado", "El Ayudante", "Olor a Hierba", "Eres mi Estrella", and "Ayúdame a Vivir". After three years under this name Vega decided, for publicity reasons, to change the name of his group to Sergio Vega y Sus Shakas Del Norte, which it has remained to the present day.[update] Two of his most recent album releases included Me Gusta Estar Contigo (2004),[10][11] and Cuando El Sol Salga Al Reves (2007)[11] and his latest album El Jefe De Plazas (2008) with hits like "Disculpe Usted" and "Que Se Mueran Los Feos".
Death
On June 26, 2010, Vega was murdered while on his way to perform at a village festival concert in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Gunmen travelling in a truck drove alongside his red Cadillac and opened fire on the vehicle. They then reportedly fired shots at Vega's head and chest from close range. [12]
At the time of his death, rumours had been circulating online that he had already been killed.[12] Just hours before he was shot Vega was interviewed for an article on entertainment website La Oreja, in which he confirmed he was still alive. "It's happened to me for years now, someone tells a radio station or a newspaper I've been killed, or suffered an accident," Vega told the website. "And then I have to call my dear mom, who has heart trouble, to reassure her," he explained. [12]
Vega was a singer of narcocorridos — ballads that celebrate the lives of drug dealers.[12][13] Musicians who play this kind of music in Mexico are known to sometimes become the targets of rival gangs.[12][13] At least seven of these musicians have been killed over the past three years in Mexico.[12]
Viveka Babajee was born in Mauritius. She is the youngest of four sisters. Her mother is a Maharashtrian, who was born in Hyderabad.
Career
Viveka Babajee appeared in some Bollywood movies like Yeh Kaisi Mohabbat (2002). She was a popular model in Mumbai.
Death
She was found hanging from the ceiling fan in her apartment on June 25, 2010 at her Bandra residence in Mumbai. Police reports say that Babajee committed suicide due to depression. Unconfirmed reports said that she got depressed when she broke up with her boyfriend.
Plater was born in Jarrow-on-Tyne, England, although his family moved to Hull in 1938.[2] Jarrow was much publicised as a severely economically depressed area before the Second World War (Plater joked that his family left Jarrow just after the Great Depression to catch Hull just before the Blitz). He trained as an architect at King's College, Newcastle (later the University of Newcastle), but only practised in the profession briefly, at a junior level.[3] He later stated that it was shortly after he was forced to fend off a herd of pigs from eating his tapemeasure while he was surveying a field that he left to pursue full-time writing. Plater stayed in the north of England for many years after he became prominent as a writer and lived in Hull.[3]
He also contributed to the BBC series Dalziel and Pascoe, and adapted Chris Mullin's novel A Very British Coup (1988) for television. He was the driving force [3] behind the TV version of Flambards, which under his influence was claimed to be slanted well to the political left of K. M. Peyton's original books. Jazz is a recurring motif through much of Plater's work, often referenced explicitly as well as underpinning his story structures.[4]
He was a supporter of Hull City AFC. His play Confessions of a City supporter on his lifelong relationship with the club was staged during the first ever run of performances at the new home of the Hull Truck Theatre Company.[5]
In an interview with Richard Whiteley, Plater claimed he had never intended to write sensational plot-driven sagas with outlandish characters and that he had never intended to make the sort of "rubbish programmes featuring high speed car crashes of which there are too many of television". Plater said that he had always tried to make his characters normal people, whose normal lives are interrupted when the outside worlds comes into their lives.
Plater claimed his two best known characters, Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne in the Beiderbecke series, were based on himself. Trevor represented his personal interests, jazz, football and snooker (the parallel of a Geordie in Yorkshire also fitted) while Jill represented his political beliefs such as conservationism, environmentalism and socialism. The couple were based on his earlier characters of Neville Keaton and Judy Threadgold in Get Lost! (1981).
Personal life and honours
Plater was married to Shirley Johnston (1958-85), with whom he had two sons and a daughter,[6] and later Shirley Rubinstein (from 1986) gaining three stepsons; [2] they had three grandchildren living in Yorkshire, and six in Newcastle, as well as various others scattered around the UK, 16 in all.
John Alvin Willis was an American theatre and film book editor, theatre awards producer, actor, and educator .has died he was , 93. He is best known for editing the long-running annual publications Theatre World and Screen World.
Willis was widely regarded as one of the most important theatre and film historians of the twentieth century.
Willis died at age 93 on June 25, 2010, in his Manhattan home.[1]
Achievements as an entertainment historian
Willis was editor in chief of both Theatre World and its companion series Screen World for forty-three years. Theatre World and Screen World are the oldest definitive pictorial and statistical records of each American theatrical and foreign and domestic film season, and are referenced daily by industry professionals, students, and historians worldwide.
Theatre World
Theatre World, founded in 1945, covers the complete statistical and photographic Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, and regional theatre seasons, major theatrical awards, obituaries, and the longest Broadway and Off-Broadway runs, among other categories. Ben Hodges is the current editor of Theatre World.
Since their establishment in 1945, Mr. Willis presided over the annual Theatre World Awards. The awards hold the distinction of being the first to recognize Outstanding Debut in a Broadway or Off-Broadway Role; the first honorees were Barbara Bel Geddes and Marlon Brando.[2] Over the years, Mr. Willis has regularly overseen and attended the ceremonies, and personally presented the Debut Award to such diverse talents as Warren Beatty, Jennifer Holliday, and John Leguizamo.[2] As such, Willis has long provided encouragement to newcomers in a challenging industry. As the Theatre World Award is often the very first professional award for most honorees, the New York theatre community holds it in high regard.
Willis was instrumental in the establishment of TWA's nonprofit status in 1997. The awards are currently chosen by a committee of New York Drama Critics and hosted by Peter Filichia.
Screen World
Screen World, founded in 1949, documents, maintains statistics and includes photographs from almost every film produced and/or released in the United States. It includes obituaries, Academy Award nominees and winners. Barry Monush is the current editor.
Theatre World/Screen World archive
Mr. Willis also founded the Theatre World/Screen World archive, widely considered to be the most complete privately held theatrical pictorial and statistical archive on twentieth century theatre and film, including complete press kits, publicity information, advertisements, all reviews, publicity photographs, and even ticket stubs, from nearly every Broadway and Off-Broadway production between 1950-2000, as well as much of the same from Off-Off-Broadway and regional theatre productions. And because of Mr. Willis’s personal interest in performers, he amassed a collection of tens of thousands of photographs of performers from the twentieth century, many collected directly from the performers themselves, signed, and incredibly rare. Mr. Willis favorably responded to all inquiries for the loan of materials from the archive, and organizations such as the Actors Studio and Vanity Fair have used his photographs for tributes and articles. He has also been responsible for many annual deposits of his collected photographs and statistical information on films to the Institute of the American Musical, in Los Angeles, California.
Mr. Willis also served as editor of the Dance World and Opera World series, the landmark A Pictorial History of the American Theatre 1860–1985." Previously, he served as assistant to Theatre World founder Daniel Blum on Great Stars of the American Stage, Great Stars of Film, A Pictorial History of the Talkies, A Pictorial History of Television, A Pictorial Treasury of Opera in America" and "A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen.
Awards
On behalf of Theatre World and/or Screen World, Mr. Willis received a Special 2001 Tony Award for “Excellence in the Theatre” and the 2003 Broadway Theatre Institute Lifetime Achievement Award, in addition to having received a Drama Desk Award, a Lucille Lortel Award, and the National Board of Review William K. Everson Award, as well awards from Marquis Who’s Who Publications Board, in which he has been consistently listed among luminaries in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in Entertainment, and Who's Who in the East, for well over twenty years. He served on the nominating committees for the Tony Awards and the New York University Hall of Fame, and is currently on the national board of the University of Tennessee Clarence Brown Theatre. In 2007, he was honored by his alma mater, Milligan College, when they dedicated the John Willis Wing of the new Gregory Center for Liberal Arts.
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.
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]
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]
Benny Powell was an African American jazz trombonist. He played both standard (tenor) trombone and bass trombone.
ith Count Basie, and for his eight-bar contribution to the Count's all-time hit, “April in Paris.” But more than that, Powell, in his all-too-rare solos with the Basie band, displayed a blues-laced, story-telling approach to improvisation. Check out, for instance, his masterfully balanced two-chorus statement on “Blues Backstage” from 1954, or his fleet trip through “In a Mellotone,” recorded in a live performance five years later.
Although an unsuccessful kidney transplant in 1990 left him to undergo thrice weekly dialysis treatments until a second match was successfully transplanted in 1996, Powell never let it keep him from working-and even touring-with the likes of Weston, Benny Carter and Jimmy Heath. 
