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.
On November 23, 1963, the day after John F. Kennedy's assassination, Harold Hebb was killed in a knife fight outside a Nashville nightclub. Hebb was devastated by both events and sought comfort in songwriting. Though many claim that the song he wrote after both tragedies was the optimistic "Sunny", Hebb himself stated otherwise. He immersed himself in the Gerald Wilson album, You Better Believe It!, for comfort.
"All my intentions were just to think of happier times – basically looking for a brighter day – because times were at a low tide. After I wrote it, I thought "Sunny" just might be a different approach to what Johnny Bragg was talking about in "Just Walkin' in the Rain".[citation needed]
"Sunny" was recorded in New York City, after demos were made with the record producer Jerry Ross. Released as a single, it reached #3 on the R&B charts, # 2 on the BillboardHot 100,[3] # 12 in the UK,[4] sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.[2] When Hebb toured with The Beatles in 1966 his "Sunny" was as well received as any Beatles tune, as evidenced by tapes of the concerts. BMI rated "Sunny" number 25 in its "Top 100 songs of the century".
Hebb also had lesser hits with his "A Satisfied Mind" in 1966 (# 39 on the Billboard chart and #40 on the R&B chart) and "Love Me" in 1967 (# 84),[3] and wrote many other songs, including Lou Rawls' 1971 hit "A Natural Man." Six years prior to "Sunny", Hebb reached the New York Top 50 with a remake of Roy Acuff's "Night Train To Memphis". In 1972, his single "Love Love Love" reached # 32 in the UK charts.[4]
After a recording gap of thirty five years, Hebb recorded That's All I Wanna Know, his first commercial release since Love Games for Epic Records in 1970. It was released in Europe in late 2005 by Tuition, a popindielabel. New versions of "Sunny" were also issued (two duets: one with Astrid North, and one with Pat Appleton). In October 2008 he toured and played in Osaka and Tokyo in Japan.
Ipanema Films of Germany was involved in a biographical film which included Hebb, his biographer Joseph Tortelli and Billy Cox.
Early on Monday, August 2, 2010, vocalist Makh Daniels was killed in a van accident while traveling from Oregon to Reno, Nevada. [5] Daniels was a member of Early Graves a metal band from San Francisco, California[1] that includes aspects of thrash and hardcore in their music.[2] The band formed in 2007 from the ashes of tech metal band Apiary.[3] Ironclad Recordings, who, in June 2010, released Early Graves’ second full-length album titled Goner, has issued the following statement:
Though The Dillards were a tremendous influence on the main core of musicians who started Southern California's country rock movement in the late 1960s (which further extended from that genre into today's country music), their biggest claim to fame is playing the fictional bluegrass band "The Darlings" on The Andy Griffith Show. This was a recurring role and the Dillards were led by veteran character actor Denver Pyle as their father and jug player, Briscoe Darling. Maggie Peterson played Charlene Darling, their sister and the focus for the attentions of character Ernest T. Bass, played by Howard Morris. The appearances of the Dillards as the Darlings ran between 1963 and 1966. In 1986, the Dillards reprised the role in the reunion show Return to Mayberry.
The Dillards' roots sank deep into the mainstream of popular music --- after leaving The Dillards in 1968, Doug Dillard teamed up with Gene Clark who had just left The Byrds to form Phoenix at A&M records with Laramy Smith and led to the formation of Dillard & Clark.[2] This pioneering duo also featured as session players a veritable who's-who of Southern California country rock legends, such as Bernie Leadon, an original member of The Flying Burrito Brothers & later the archetypal country rock group The Eagles; Chris Hillman, who also had left The Byrds and also played in FBB with Leadon; Sneaky Pete Kleinow, another FBB member; Laramy Smith and Michael Clarke, former drummer for The Byrds.[2] This group was one of the blueprints for the country-rock movement.[3]
Doug, Rodney and Byron Berline can be seen in the movie The Rose starring Bette Midler. They played musicians in Harry Dean Stanton's band and their faces can be seen on the screen for around ten minutes.
Doug Dillard appears as "Farmer Clem" in Robert Altman's movie Popeye, which starred Robin Williams and features a musical score by Harry Nilsson. A soundtrack album was released on Boardwalk records (SWAL 36880), the basic tracks were recorded on location in Malta by "The Falcons" (Ray Cooper, Doug Dillard, Harry Nilsson, Van Dyke Parks, Klaus Voormann, and The Mysterious Karsten). Nilsson wrote all of the songs except for "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man".
Rodney sings the Dillards song "There Is A Time" (written by Rodney and Mitch Jayne) on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album Will The Circle Be Unbroken - Part 3.
Doug joined producers Randall Franks and Alan Autry, who also appeared in "Popeye," for the In the Heat of the Night (TV Series) cast CD “Christmas Time’s A Comin’” performing "Christmas Time's A Comin'" with the cast on the CD released on Sonlite and MGM/UA for one of the most popular Christmas releases of 1991 and 1992 with Southern retailers.
Dean Webb now plays in the band called The Missouri Boatridehttp://missouriboatride.com/ with Justin Sifford, Bob Gideon, and Larry Sifford.
Born in Los Angeles, Boyle trained as an architect, graduating from the University of Southern California (USC). When he lost his job in that field during the Great Depression, Boyle found work in films as an extra. In 1933 he was hired as a draftsman in the Paramount Pictures art department, headed by supervising art director Hans Dreier. Beginning with Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman, Boyle went on to work on a variety of pictures as a sketch artist, draftsman and assistant art director before becoming an art director at Universal Studios in the early 1940s.
Boyle collaborated several times with Alfred Hitchcock, first as an associate art director for Saboteur (1942) and later as a full-fledged production designer for North by Northwest (1959), The Birds (1963), and Marnie (1964). Denied permission to shoot footage on Mount Rushmore, Hitchcock turned to Boyle to create realistic replicas of the stone heads. Boyle abseiled down the monument, photographing its contours in detail, before constructing “just enough to put the actors on so we could get down shots, up shots, side shots, whatever we needed.” Almost two decades earlier, Boyle had delivered the Statue of Liberty reproduction that was used in the climactic scene of Saboteur. For The Birds, Boyle was put in charge of the title characters. He later recalled, “We needed to find out which birds we could use best, and finally settled on two types: sea gulls, which were very greedy beasts that would always fly toward the camera if there was a piece of meat, and crows, which had a strange sort of intelligence.” Boyle described his relationship with Hitchcock: “It was a meeting of equals: the director who knew exactly what he wanted, and the art director who knew how to get it done."[2]
During the course of his career, Boyle was nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction but never won. In 1997 he received the Art Directors Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award, and he was voted an Honorary Academy Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, "in recognition of one of cinema's great careers in art direction," which he received during the 80th Academy Awards ceremony on February 24, 2008 [4]. At the age of 98, Boyle became the oldest winner ever of an Honorary Award in the history of the Academy Awards. Despite being in ill health and arriving to the ceremony in a wheelchair, Boyle insisted on walking onstage, alongside Nicole Kidman, to receive the honor.
John Clinton Formby, known as Clint Formby (December 22, 1923 – July 31, 2010),[1] was a veteran radio broadcaster called the "Old Philosopher" based in the small city of Hereford, Texas, the seat of Deaf Smith County in the Texas Panhandle. His daily broadcast ran continuously on his KPAN AM & FMcountry-music station since October 10, 1955. Eventually reduced to five minutes in length, Formby's commentary was the oldest continuously-running broadcast by a single host in radio history.[2]
Early life, education, and military
Formby was born in McAdoo in Dickens County, also in West Texas, to John C. Formby (1902-1989), a Rural Free Delivery carrier, and the former Willie Elsby (1903-1994).[3]John and Willie married in 1922, and Clint was their only child. Clint Formby was the paternal grandson of Marshall Clinton Formby, Sr. (1877-1957) and the former Rosa Mae Freeman (1882-1971).[3][4]He attended public schools in Plainview and then Dickens County, where he graduated in 1942 from McAdoo High School. He played basketball, tennis, and was quarterback on the six-man football team at McAdoo. He then began college at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.[5]
However, he soon left college to enlist in the United States Army. He served as a staff sergeant and medic, having been attached to the 235th General Hospital in Marseille, France. He remained in Switzerland after the end of the war in April 1945 and attended the University of Basel in Basel.[5]After the war, he returned to Texas Tech where he met and married the first official Tech beauty queen, the former Margaret Clark (July 12, 1929–April 10, 2003).[3] Margaret, who was reared on a ranch near Van Horn. She founded the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, first in the Hereford library and later in a large modern building in Fort Worth.[6]While a student at Texas Tech, Formby he worked during the summer of 1948 to help his uncle, Marshall Formby, construct KPAN AM in Hereford, having performed as a carpenter and painter. Clint Formby's was the first voice on the new radio station when it went on the air on August 4, 1948, exactly sixty-two years to the date of his own funeral.[5]
Formby was a nephew of DemocraticState Senator and state highway commissioner Marshall Formby (1911-1984). He was a cousin of sitting Senator Robert L. Duncan, a Lubbock Republican. Clint Formby practically grew up with Duncan's mother, Mae Robena Duncan (1921-2009), his aunt who was only two years Formby's senior.[7]
Career in radio
Formby and his wife lived for a time in Colorado City, the seat of Mitchell County north of San Angelo, where they rented a garage apartment from attorney and future U.S. RepresentativeGeorge Mahon. Formby established a radio station in Snyder, the seat of Scurry County, and then began working on August 22, 1951, at his Uncle Marshall’s radio station in Hereford[5] for $47.50 per week. He became a partner in the station and eventually bought out his uncle. His persistent broadcasts, called "predictably unpredictable," can touch on nearly any subject.[2] He has urged listeners to tip waiters and waitresses more generously. He refuses to reveal his political party preference, advising listeners that they should be able to tell his inclination from his commentaries.[2]Once Vice President of the United StatesLyndon B. Johnson contacted Formby to advise him that he would like to hear Formby speak at the First Baptist Church of Hereford, filling in for the absent pastor, but Johnson was unsure if his plane could land in the small Hereford airport.[8] About this time, Marshall Formby, the state highway commissioner, was seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against Johnson’s presumed favorite and eventual winner, John B. Connally, Jr. Clint Formby served as his uncle's campaign manager in the gubernatorial primary.[5]
In one of his broadcasts, Clint Formby advocated dropping trade restrictions with CommunistCuba on the grounds that the Fidel Castro government is the only communist regime that has yet to kill an American citizen. He also visited Cuba. On another occasion, he scolded Hereford residents for parking their vehicles in their front yards. A widower, Formby each week advises his married male listeners to kiss their wives goodnight. KPAN calls itself the "only radio station in the world that gives a hoot about Hereford, Texas." Local sports are carried live on the Internet by KPAN. Otherwise, listeners must connect through regular AM or FM radio.[9]Formby traveled widely across the United States and the world and reported on his varied trips to his listeners.[5]
In 2010, Formby's Monday-Saturday program marked its 60th year on the air. Officially known as the "Day-By-Day Philosopher", the program ran for fifteen minutes from 7:45 to 8 a.m. for the first ten years and during the peak of radio drive time. In later years, Formby reduced the time to five minutes, saying that listeners now have too short of an attention span to justify a longer broadcast. It was the longest-running daily radio broadcast by an individual in America. "The Old Philosopher", as he was usually known, was featured on NBC's The Today Show on December 29, 2007.[8]Formby claimed to have not missed a broadcast in more than 16,000 consecutive mornings.[8]His "Most Beautiful Alley" contest raised $89,000 in scholarship money for students attending the Hereford campus of the two-year Amarillo College in Amarillo.[8]
In 1984, Formby was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Texas Broadcasters Association.[10]GovernorGeorge W. Bush named Formby to the board of the Texas Telecommunication Infrastructure Fund. In addition to KPAN, Formby’s other remaining radio stations include KSAM/KHUN in Huntsville and KTEM in Temple, Texas.[11]. Formby was a former board member of Broadcast Music, Inc.[12]
Civic matters
Formby was involved over the years in civic affairs in Hereford, first as a member of the Junior Chamber. He was a past president of the Kiwanis Club as well as district lieutenant governor and was involved in chartering two new clubs in West Texas. He served as president of Deaf Smith County Chamber of Commerce and in 1964 received the "Citizen of the Year" award from that group. He also won the "Good Neighbor Award" from the West Texas Chamber of Commerce. He was a member of First Baptist Church, where he taught the boys' high school Sunday school class for several years. He and Margaret were later charter members of Fellowship of Believers Church. He received the Texas Communicator of the Year from the Southern Baptist Convention. He worked to bring cable television to Hereford as the managing partner of Hereford Cablevision from 1975-2006.[5]
Formby was the only person thus far to have appeared on the cover of Texas Highwaysmagazine. He was also the only individual thus far to have served Texas Tech as president of the student body, the regents president, and the ex-students association.[5]
Family and death
The marriage of Clint and Margaret Formby produced five children, Larry C. "Chip" Formby (born 1953), who works with his father at the station, along with Chip's two sons by his wife Lisa, Jonathan and Lane Formby. The other sons are Marshall Clark Formby and wife Betty of San Antonio and Ben Formby and Scott C. Formby (born 1961) and wife Kathy, all of New York City.[6]A daughter, Linda Kay Formby, predeceased her parents.
Formby died of cancer at the age of eighty-six. Services were held at First Baptist Church of Hereford on August 4, 2010, with pastor Kyle Streun officiating. He is interred beside his wife and daughter at West Park Cemetery north of Hereford.
Thomas Frank Mankiewicz was a screenwriter/director/producer of motion pictures and television, perhaps best known for his work on the James Bond films and his contributions to Superman: The Movie and the television series, Hart to Hart died from cancer he was 68,
(June 1, 1942 – July 31, 2010)
Early life and career
Mankiewicz was born in Los Angeles on June 1, 1942.[1] His parents were Austrian-born actress Rosa Stradner and the celebrated screenwriter/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. In 1950, his father, after winning four Oscars in two years for the screenplays and direction of A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve, decided to move his family back to New York City where he had been raised, the son of a German immigrant language professor.
During vacations he worked at the Williamstown Summer Theater in Massachusetts both in production and as an actor. In 1960, he was hired as a third Assistant Director on The Comancheros, a film starring John Wayne and Lee Marvin, which was shot in the Monument Valley of Utah, the last film directed by the legendary Michael Curtiz.
In 1963, two young producers, Stuart Millar and Lawrence Turman, took Mankiewicz on as their assistant while making The Best Man, the 1964 film version of Gore Vidal’s Broadway play starring Henry Fonda. He was involved in virtually every aspect of the film, receiving his first on-screen credit as “Production Associate.”
He began to write, finishing an original screenplay, Please, about the last ninety minutes in the life of a suicidal young actress. It was optioned at times by three different studios, never made, but served as an example of his talent and was responsible for his first writing assignment, a Bob Hope Chrysler Theater directed by Stuart Rosenberg. He received a credit as “Thomas F. Mankiewicz,” but thought it looked so pretentious on the screen he became “Tom” Mankiewicz for the rest of his career.
The combination of that screenplay and the TV specials led Broadway producer Fred Coe to ask Mankiewicz to write the book for the musical version of the film Georgy Girl. It opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1970, was nominated for three Tony Awards, but closed after four performances.
Attending one of the four performances of Georgy was United Artists production head David Picker who admired Mankiewicz’s book for the musical. Picker and James Bond producer Albert Broccoli were looking for a writer to do a major reworking of Diamonds Are Forever in hopes of luring Sean Connery back to play Bond. Picker suggested that Broccoli add Mankiewicz to his list of possibles. He was hired on a two-week guarantee, stayed on the film for six months and received shared screenplay credit with the original writer, Richard Maibaum.
During this time actor Peter Falk asked Universal Studios to hire Mankiewicz to read the scripts for his hit television series, Columbo, and make plot suggestions. He was paid a consulting fee on each episode for an entire season while performing no actual writing services.
In 1977, director Richard Donner was hired to direct Superman: The Movie and Superman II. At the time the script drafts combined were more than four hundred pages long (an impossible length to shoot) and Donner felt they were much too campy as well. He brought Mankiewicz aboard to do a complete overhaul in terms of length, dialogue and tone. Mankiewicz stayed on the production for more than a year, assisting Donner in other departments as well. Donner gave Mankiewicz a separate credit in the main title: “Creative Consultant.” The Writer’s Guild strenuously objected on two grounds; first, that the traditional script arbitration process was being bypassed and second, that Mankiewicz’s credit came after the original screenwriters and not before them, implying that his contribution was more important. The dispute went to a legal hearing. Mankiewicz won. His credit remained where it was on Superman: The Movie, but he agreed to have it come just before the listed screenwriters on Superman II. In the 2006 documentary "Look, Up in the Sky: the Amazing Story of Superman", Mankiewicz accurately describes "Superman: the Movie" as a three-act play exploring Superman's three separate worlds, describing the film's depictions of Krypton as "Shakespearean", Smallville as comparable to the works of Andrew Wyeth and Metropolis as a place where sarcasm flies.
During this time, television producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg had five successful series on the ABC Network simultaneously. They also had a potential “pilot” script by Sidney Sheldon called Double Twist which they were unable to sell. Goldberg knew Mankiewicz wanted to direct and told him if he rewrote the two-hour script successfully he could direct it. Mankiewicz agreed and turned it into Hart to Hart. It sold. He co-wrote and directed the pilot, starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers. The hit series ran for five years and later was the subject of eight two-hour network and cable movies. Mankiewicz received his “Creative Consultant” credit on each episode, while directing seven of them. He also directed the final cable movie, Till Death Do Us Hart, in Munich, Germany, coming full circle on the show.
Later, Mankiewicz helped Richard Donner reconstruct Donner’s version of Superman II, restoring all of the original footage he had shot which had been altered or replaced by the producers, including multiple sequences with Marlon Brando which were seen by the public for the first time. Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut came out in 2006 and won the Saturn Award as the best DVD of the year.
Mankiewicz had a home in Kenya, East Africa, for eight years. He served on the Board of Directors of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation, based there. For the past decade he had been closely involved with the Los Angeles Zoo, and was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association.
He was an owner of thoroughbred race horses, having first partnered with actor Robert Wagner, then with A&M Records co-founder Jerry Moss, and later racing under his own silks. He was a past member of the Board of Directors of the Thoroughbred Owners of California.
Bobby Hebb [1] was an African American singer and songwriter, best known for his writing and recording of "Sunny"died from lung cancer he was 72.
alla Hebb, were both blind musicians.[2] Hebb and his older brother Harold performed as a song-and-dance team in Nashville, beginning when Bobby was three and Harold was nine. Hebb performed on a TV show hosted by country music record producer Owen Bradley, which earned him a place with Grand Ole Opry star Roy Acuff.[2] Hebb played spoons and other instruments in Acuff's band. Harold later became a member of Johnny Bragg and the Marigolds. Bobby Hebb sang backup on Bo Diddley's "Diddley Daddy". Hebb played "West-coast-style" trumpet in a United States Navy jazz band, and replaced Mickey Baker in Mickey and Sylvia.[2]
On November 23, 1963, the day after John F. Kennedy's assassination, Harold Hebb was killed in a knife fight outside a Nashville nightclub. Hebb was devastated by both events and sought comfort in songwriting. Though many claim that the song he wrote after both tragedies was the optimistic "Sunny", Hebb himself stated otherwise. He immersed himself in the Gerald Wilson album, You Better Believe It!, for comfort.
