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.
Albertina Walker[1] was an American gospel singer died from respiratory failure.she was , 81.
(August 29, 1929(1929-08-29) – October 8, 2010(2010-10-08))
Early years
Walker was born in Chicago, Illinois,[2] to Ruben and Camille Coleman Walker. Her mother was born in Houston County, Georgia, and her father in Bibb County, Georgia. They moved to Chicago between 1917-1920 where they lived out their lives. Albertina had four siblings born in Bibb County and four born in Chicago. Albertina began singing in the youth choir at the West Point Baptist Church at an early age, and joined several Gospel groups thereafter, including The Pete Williams Singers and the Robert Anderson Singers. Albertina was greatly influenced by Mahalia Jackson, her friend and confidante. Mahalia Jackson took her on the road when she was just a teenager. "Mahalia used to kid me. She'd say, 'Girl, you need to go sing by yourself.' " recalled Walker in a recent Washington Post Interview. Albertina Walker did just that. In 1951, she formed the group called The Caravans. She was popularly referred to as the "Queen of Gospel Music", initially by such notables as the late Reverend James Cleveland and Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., for her outstanding achievements within the genre after the death of Mahalia Jackson in 1972.[3]
Musical career
In the early 1950s Walker founded her own Gospel music group The Caravans, enlisting fellow singers from The Robert Anderson Singers (Ora Lee Hopkins, Elyse Yancey and Nellie Grace Daniels). The Caravans' membership has included: James Cleveland, Bessie Griffin, Shirley Caesar, Dorothy Norwood, Inez Andrews, Loleatta Holloway, Cassietta George, and Delores Washington. Her discovery of these artists resulted in the nickname "Star Maker". Walker retired The Caravans in the late 1960s, performing as a solo artist.
In the mid 1970s, Walker signed with Savoy Records then Benson Records, Word Records, A&M Records, and other record companies, recording a series of solo projects, many of them with big church choirs including The Evangelical Choir, The Cathedral of Love Choir, The Metro Mass choir, and her own church choir, The West Point Choir. Albertina recorded her first solo project Put a Little Love in Your Heart in 1975. She also recorded several projects together with Reverend James Cleveland. To date, she has recorded over 60 albums, including gold selling hits "Please Be Patient With Me", "I Can Go to God in Prayer", "The Best Is Yet to Come", "Impossible Dream", and "Joy Will Come".[citation needed] Walker sang for United States presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and South Africa's president, Nelson Mandela.
In 1995, Walker joined Thelma Houston, CeCe Peniston, Phoebe Snow and Lois Walden to record a gospel album in common, Good News in Hard Times, as the quintet called The Sisters of Glory.
Walker recorded a reunion album with her group The Caravans entitled Paved the Way, which was released by Malaco Records on September 5, 2006.[citation needed] Performers included Walker, Dorothy Norwood, Inez Andrews, and Delores Washington. The album was dubbed by Billboard magazine as one of the most memorable releases of 2006[4] and entered the Billboard charts in the top ten and remained in the top forty for sixteen weeks.Paved the Way was recently nominated for a Grammy, Dove, Soul Train Music Award and two Stellar Awards.
Awards
Albertina earned many awards and honors over her six decades of music ministry. Among them, a 1995 Grammy Award for the Best Traditional Gospel Album (Songs of The Church); 10 Grammy Award nominations; 5 Gold Records; 3 Stellar Awards; 3 Dove Awards; several Gospel Music Workshop of America Excellence Awards; an induction into the 2001 Gospel Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2005, the Grammys honored her contributions to the Gospel music industry. She was also the recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship. President George Bush honored Albertina Walker for her contribution to Gospel music May 31, 2002.
Influences
Ms. Walker is featured in the book entitled Who's Who in Black America as well as other volumes related to the Golden Age of Gospel Music. She received several keys to various cities and was honored at the Chicago Gospel Festival where a bench bearing her name was placed in downtown Chicago's Grant Park. The City of Chicago paid tribute to Albertina by renaming 35th and Cottage Grove "Albertina Walker and The Caravans Drive". Albertina was also conferred an honorary Doctor of Letters Degree by the Chicago Theological Seminary, an institution of the University of Chicago.
Walker co-founded the Gospel Music Workshop of America along with James Cleveland. Albertina also lent her support to many charitable organizations such as United Negro College Fund, American Cancer Society, National Council of Negro Women, Nation of Islam's Million Family March, One Voice "A Fight Against AIDS", NAACP and Operation Push. In 1988 Albertina Walker founded The Albertina Walker Scholarship Foundation for the Creative and Performing Arts. Her foundation offers financial assistance to college students in the form of scholarships to further their education in the field of music.
Mary Leona Gage was a beauty queen from Maryland who was crowned Miss USA 1957, the first, and so far, only woman from that state to capture the Miss USA crown died from heart failure. she was 71. She was stripped of her title when it was revealed that she was 18, married, and the mother of two children.The Miss Universe title ultimately was won by Peru's Gladys Zender. Zender also nearly lost her crown when she was revealed to be only 17, therefore under the minimum age requirement. Pageant officials, however, allowed her to retain her title.
Steve Lee was a Swiss musician and vocalist, best known as the vocalist of the band Gotthard died from a motorcycle accident.he was , 47.
(August 5, 1963 – October 5, 2010)
Biography
In 1988, Steve Lee joined the group Forsale.
In 1992, in Lugano, along with guitarist Leo Leoni, bassist Marc Lynn, and drummer Hena Habegger, they founded the band Krak. Under the lead of bassist and founding member of Krokus, Chris von Rohr, the band changed its name to Gotthard (a name inspired by the Gotthard Pass).
Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom,[1]OBE[2] ( was an Englishcomedian, singer-songwriter and actor best known for a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring his hapless onscreen character Norman Pitkin. These films initially made more money than the James Bond film series,[3] and secured Wisdom a celebrity status in lands as far apart as South America, Iran and many Eastern Bloc countries, particularly in Albania where his films were permitted by Enver Hoxha – Wisdom was the only Western actor to enjoy this privilege.[4]Charlie Chaplin famously referred to Wisdom as his "favourite clown".[5]
4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010)
Wisdom later forged a career on Broadway and as a television actor, winning critical acclaim for his dramatic role of a dying cancer patient in the television play Going Gently in 1981. It was broadcast on 5 June that year. He toured Australia and South Africa.[3] After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, a hospice was named in his honour.[4] In 1995 he was given the Freedom of the City of London and of Tirana.[4] The same year he received an OBE.[4] Wisdom was knighted in 2000 and spent much of his later life on the Isle of Man. Some of his later appearances included roles in Last of the Summer Wine and Coronation Street,[4] and he retired from acting at the age of 90 after his health declined.
Early and personal life
Norman Joseph Wisdom was born in the Marylebone district of London. His parents were Frederick, a chauffeur, and Maud Wisdom (née Targett), a dressmaker who often worked for West End theatres. The couple married in Marylebone on 15 July 1912.[6] Wisdom had an elder brother, Frederick Thomas "Fred" Wisdom (13 December 1912 – 1 July 1971). The family resided at 91 Fernhead Road, London W9, where they slept in one room.[7]
Wisdom was married twice. His first wife was Doreen Brett, whom he married in 1941 and with whom he had one son, Michael, born in 1945;[8] the marriage was dissolved in 1946.[9] He married his second wife, Freda Isobel Simpson, a dancer, in 1947; they had two children: Nicholas (born 1953, who later played first-class cricket for Sussex) and Jacqueline (born 1954). The couple divorced in 1969[10] and Wisdom was granted full custody of the children.[11] Freda Wisdom died in Brighton in 1992.[12]
Wisdom was a lifelong supporter and a former board member of football team Brighton and Hove Albion. However he also liked Everton and Newcastle United.[13] He enjoyed golf[14] and was a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats. Popular in the Isle of Man, he lived for 27 years in a house in Andreas named Ballalough (Manx language for "place of the lake", though really a humorous corruption of the English "belly laugh"). He was an Honorary Member of the Winkle Club, a famous charity in Hastings, East Sussex.[15]
A lover of cars, he owned a 1987 Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit and a Jaguar S-Type, until his age and declining mental health meant he failed a Department of Transport fitness-to-drive test and they were sold in September 2005. A supporter of various charities including Mencap, in 2005 Wisdom starred in a video for the Manx girl group Twisted Angels, for their single "LA", in support of the local charity Project 21.[16]
During the 1960s he was involved in a famous legal case (Wisdom v Chamberlain ) in which he was pursued by the Inland Revenue for tax on profits made from the sale of silver bullion he had bought as he was concerned about the further devaluation of sterling. He had contended that it was an investment but the court held that it had been a trading venture and was duly chargeable to income tax.[17]
Armed forces
Norman Wisdom
4 February 1915 (1915-02-04) – 4 October 2010 (2010-10-05) (aged 95)
At the outbreak of World War II Wisdom was sent to work in a communications centre in a command bunker in London where he connected telephone calls from war leaders to the prime minister. He met Winston Churchill on several occasions when asked for updates on incoming calls and once was disciplined for calling him Winnie.[7] He then joined the Royal Corps of Signals and performed a similar function with a military unit based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. After Wisdom appeared at a charity concert at the Cheltenham Town Hall actor Rex Harrison came backstage and urged him to become a professional entertainer.[20]
Theatre
Leaving the army in 1946, Wisdom made his debut as a professional entertainer at the age of 31 and his rise to the top was phenomenally fast. Initially the straight man to the magicianDavid Nixon,[5] he had already adopted the costume that would remain his trademark: tweed flat cap askew, with peak turned up; a suit at least two sizes too tight; a crumpled collar and a mangled tie. The character that went with this costume—known as "the Gump"—was to dominate Wisdom's film career.
A West End star within two years, he made his TV debut the same year and was soon commanding enormous audiences. Charlie Chaplin called Wisdom his "favourite clown".[5]
Film career
Wisdom made a series of low-budget star-vehicle comedies for the Rank Organisation, beginning with Trouble in Store in 1953.[21] This film earned him a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Film in 1954.[22]
Their cheerful, unpretentious appeal make them the direct descendants of the films made a generation earlier by George Formby.[23] Never highly thought of by the critics, they were very popular with domestic audiences and Wisdom's films were among Britain's biggest box office successes of their day, and were successful in some unlikely overseas markets, helping Rank stay afloat financially when their more expensive film projects were unsuccessful.
The films usually involved the Gump character, Norman Pitkin, in a manual occupation in which he is barely competent and in a junior position to a straight man, often played by Edward Chapman (as Mr Grimsdale) or Jerry Desmonde. They benefited from Wisdom's capacity for physical slapstick comedy and his skill at creating a sense of the character's helplessness. The series often contained a romantic subplot; the Gump's inevitable awkwardness with women is a characteristic shared with the earlier Formby vehicles but in which his innocent incompetence made him endearing to the heroine.
Despite a move to filming in colour, by the mid-1960s Wisdom's commercial film appeal was in eclipse. The obvious incongruity of a fifty-year old man playing the prime minister's grandson in Press for Time (1966) counted against him; Wisdom's age was inaccurately reported for many years.
Later career
In 1966, Wisdom went to the United States to star in a Broadway production of the James Van Heusen and Sammy Cahnmusical comedyWalking Happy. His performance was nominated for a Tony Award.
On 31 December 1976, Wisdom performed his theme song "Don't Laugh At Me (Cause I'm a Fool)" on BBC1's A Jubilee of Music, celebrating British pop music for Queen Elizabeth II's impending Silver Jubilee.[24] Wisdom had performed in front of the Queen at many Royal Command Performances, the first being in 1952.[25]
He also completed his first American film as a vaudeville comic in The Night They Raided Minsky's. After a typical performance on the Ed Sullivan Show,[5] further US opportunities were denied him when he had to return to London after his second wife left him. His subsequent career was largely confined to television and he toured the world with his successful cabaret act. He won critical acclaim in 1981 for his dramatic role of a dying cancer patient in the television play Going Gently.
On 11 February 1987 Wisdom was the subject of Thames Television's This Is Your Life for the second time. He became prominent again in the 1990s, helped by the young comedian Lee Evans, whose act was often compared to Wisdom's work.[26] His classic Rank films were playing to new audiences on television screens and DVD, with a growing number of new young fans in the United Kingdom and abroad. The highpoint of this new popularity was the knighthood he was awarded, for services to entertainment, in the 2000 new year's honours list.[27] During the ceremony, once he had received his knighthood, he walked away and again performed his trademark trip which the Queen smiled and laughed at.[28]
From 1995 until 2004 he appeared in the recurring role of Billy Ingleton in the long-running BBC comedy Last of the Summer Wine. The role was originally a one-off appearance, but proved so popular that he returned as the character on a number of occasions. In 1996, he became recipient of a Special Achievement Award from the London Film Critics.[29]
Wisdom was a guest on a This Is Your Life special in the year 2000 for actor and director Todd Carty. He appeared as a half-time guest at the England vs Albania 2002 World Cup qualifier at St James' Park, Newcastle upon Tyne, and scored a penalty at the Leazes End.[30]
In 2002 Wisdom filmed a small role as Winston the butler in the film Alone in the Dark, although this was not released until 2008 under the title Evil Calls: The Raven. In 2004, he made a cameo appearance in Coronation Street playing fitness fanatic pensioner Ernie Crabbe. In 2007 he came out of retirement to take a role in a short film called Expresso.[31]
Popularity in Albania
Wisdom was a cult figure in Albania, where he was one of the few Western actors whose films were allowed in the country during the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. He was known as "Mr Pitkin" after the character from his films. In 1995, he visited the post-Stalinist country where, to his surprise, he was greeted by many appreciative fans including the then President of Albania, Sali Berisha. During this trip, Wisdom was also filmed by Newsnight visiting a children's project funded by ChildHope UK.[32] On a visit in 2001, which coincided with the England football team playing Albania in the city of Tirana (of which Wisdom was granted the freedom in 1995),[33][34] his presence at the training ground eclipsed even that of David Beckham. He appeared on the pitch before the start of the Albania v England match wearing a half Albanian and half English football shirt. He was well-received by the crowd, especially when he performed one of his trademark trips on his way out to the centre circle.[35]
In his book and TV series One Hit Wonderland, Tony Hawks united with Wisdom and, along with Sir Tim Rice, released a single, "Big In Albania", in an attempt to enter the Albanian pop charts. It reached Number 18 on the Top Albania Radio chart.[36]
Songwriting
Whilst Norman's stage performances often involved musical numbers, few of them were penned by him. He has seven songs attributed to him in the ASCAP database, which were: Beware, Don't Laugh at Me (Cause I'm a Fool), Falling in Love, Follow a Star, I Love You, Please Opportunity, and Up in the World.[37]
After his death some confusion was caused by an unsubstantiated Wikipedia claim that he provided lyrics for the song popular during the Second World War, (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover (actually written by Walter Kent and Nat Burton). Three British newspapers reported this supposed fact:[38]The Guardian[39], The Independent,[40] and The Daily Mirror.[41] All three publications later retracted this, The Guardian issued an apology,[42] although The Independent and the The Daily Mirror merely changed the text of their webpages without any indication of the error[citation needed]. The Guardian also retracted that "he was nominated for an Oscar for The Night They Raided Minsky's",[42] whilst The Daily Mirror retains this attribution (item 6 of their "10 Things you need to know..")[41]
Retirement
Wisdom announced his retirement from the entertainment industry on his 90th birthday (4 February 2005). He announced that he intended to spend more time with his family, playing golf and driving around the Isle of Man, where he was living.[14]
In 2007, he made a singular return to acting in a feature film directed by Kevin Powis, Expresso. The film, which Wisdom later announced (reported BBC/ITV News) was to be officially his last film role, is set during one day in a coffee shop and was funded by the UK Film Council and ScreenWM. Shot in January, it premièred at the Cannes Film Festival on 27 May 2007. It was later adopted by the UK charity Macmillan and released on DVD in aid of the charity. In the film Wisdom plays a vicar plagued by a fly in a café. Producer Nigel Martin Davey gave him only a visual role so he would not have to remember any lines, but on the day Wisdom was alert and had his performance changed to add more laughs.[43]
Health decline
In mid-2006, after he suffered an irregular heart rhythm, Wisdom was flown by helicopter to hospital in Liverpool and after a few days was fitted with a heart pacemaker.[44]
In August 2007, newspapers of the Daily Mail group and the Isle of Man Newspapers reported that Wisdom was in the Abbotswood nursing home in Ballasalla, where he had been resident from 12 July 2007.[45]
On the release of Expresso to DVD in the same month, BBC News confirmed that Wisdom lived in a care home, due to his suffering from vascular dementia.[43] It was also reported that he had granted his children power of attorney over his affairs and having sold off his flat in Epsom, Surrey, they were now in the process of selling his Isle of Man home to raise money to fund his longer term care.[46]
In an exclusive interview on 27 August 2007 with the News of the World, journalists were given access to Wisdom's room at the home. He claimed to be happy and content in a routine which his family and carers considered kept him safe in spite of the memory losses associated with his condition.[47]
On 16 January 2008,[48]BBC2 aired Wonderland: The Secret Life Of Norman Wisdom Aged 92 and 3/4,[49] a documentary highlighting the dilemma of coping with an ageing parent. In a spoken trailer on BBC Radio 5 Live for the programme and in later publicity interviews undertaken by his family, it was stated that Wisdom's memory loss had become so severe that he no longer recognised himself in his own films.[50]
Premature obituary
On 28 December 2008, Sky News announced that Wisdom had died, running a pre-recorded obituary, both as part of its rolling broadcast coverage and on its website. Shortly afterwards, when it became apparent that other news sites were not carrying the story, Sky dropped the story, stating that it had been published in error in response to e-mail queries.[51]
Death
In the six months prior to his death, Wisdom suffered a series of strokes causing a decline in his physical and mental health. He died at 6:46 pm on 4 October 2010 at Abbotswood nursing home on the Isle of Man at the age of 95.[52]
According to his publicist, Phil Day, "I have never met anyone in the profession who didn't like him, right up to royalty".[39]
His funeral took place on 22 October 2010 in Douglas, Isle of Man and all of the Isle of Man were invited.[53][54] His well known cloth cap was placed on the coffin in the church.[54]
Tributes and other references
In 2007, a Norman Wisdom-themed bar opened at the Sefton Hotel, Douglas, called Sir Norman's. It has stills from his many films on the walls and TV screens playing some of his old films. The bronze statue of Wisdom, which used to be on a bench outside Douglas Town Hall, has been moved to the steps leading into the bar.[citation needed]
In September 1991 a French speaker in an agriculture committee in the European Communities called for the communities to show "la sagesse des Normands", which was translated into English as calling for Norman Wisdom to sort out Europe's problems.[55]
David M. Bailey was the son of Presbyterianmissionairies and was raised in Beirut, Lebanon. He spent some of his youth in Germany where he learned to play the guitar, played in some bands, and began writing songs. Upon returning to the United States , he attended Grove City College; he then got married and entered corporate America. He soon was diagnosed with a Glioblastomabrain tumor that was to have killed him in 6 months. He quit his job and decided to tour and write songs as long as he could. In 2003, he was one of half a dozen winners at the Kerrville New Folk Competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival.[1] In late 2008 David was diagnosed with a recurrence of Glioblastoma. On November 20, 2008, Bailey had surgery to remove a cyst and new tumor.[2][3][4] His trials with the initial occurrence of glioblastoma, and the initial recurrence in 2008, were discussed Sanjay Gupta's book "Cheating Death". On October 2, 2010, Bailey died from complications due to the cancer.[5]
Other
While living in Grove City he became fond of the New Wilmington Missionary Conference, and performed there for many years. His children have grown up going as well.
His music has been compared to that of James Taylor, Jim Croce and Cat Stevens.[4][6]
Albertina Walker [1] was an American gospel singer died from respiratory failure.she was , 81.
Walker was born in Chicago, Illinois,[2] to Ruben and Camille Coleman Walker. Her mother was born in Houston County, Georgia, and her father in Bibb County, Georgia. They moved to Chicago between 1917-1920 where they lived out their lives. Albertina had four siblings born in Bibb County and four born in Chicago. Albertina began singing in the youth choir at the West Point Baptist Church at an early age, and joined several Gospel groups thereafter, including The Pete Williams Singers and the Robert Anderson Singers. Albertina was greatly influenced by Mahalia Jackson, her friend and confidante. Mahalia Jackson took her on the road when she was just a teenager. "Mahalia used to kid me. She'd say, 'Girl, you need to go sing by yourself.' " recalled Walker in a recent Washington Post Interview. Albertina Walker did just that. In 1951, she formed the group called The Caravans. She was popularly referred to as the "Queen of Gospel Music", initially by such notables as the late Reverend James Cleveland and Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., for her outstanding achievements within the genre after the death of Mahalia Jackson in 1972.[3]
In the early 1950s Walker founded her own Gospel music group The Caravans, enlisting fellow singers from The Robert Anderson Singers (Ora Lee Hopkins, Elyse Yancey and Nellie Grace Daniels). The Caravans' membership has included: James Cleveland, Bessie Griffin, Shirley Caesar, Dorothy Norwood, Inez Andrews, Loleatta Holloway, Cassietta George, and Delores Washington. Her discovery of these artists resulted in the nickname "Star Maker". Walker retired The Caravans in the late 1960s, performing as a solo artist.
Albertina earned many awards and honors over her six decades of music ministry. Among them, a 1995 Grammy Award for the Best Traditional Gospel Album (Songs of The Church); 10 Grammy Award nominations; 5 Gold Records; 3 Stellar Awards; 3 Dove Awards; several Gospel Music Workshop of America Excellence Awards; an induction into the 2001 Gospel Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2005, the Grammys honored her contributions to the Gospel music industry. She was also the recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship. President George Bush honored Albertina Walker for her contribution to Gospel music May 31, 2002.
