/ Stars that died in 2023

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Hideko Takamine, Japanese actress died she was , 86

Hideko Takamine was a Japanese actress who began as a child actor and maintained her fame in a career that spanned nine decades.




(高峰 秀子 Takamine Hideko?, March 27, 1924 – December 28, 2010)

Life and career


Born in Hakodate, Hokkaidō, Japan, Takamine's first role was in the Shochiku studio's 1929 film Mother (Haha), which brought her tremendous popularity as a child actor. Soon she was billed as Japan's Shirley Temple. After moving to Toho in 1937, her dramatic roles in Kajirō Yamamoto's Tsuzurikata kyōshitsu and Uma brought her added fame as a girl star.[1] Some of her film appearances from the 1930s and 1940s were lost during the Second World War when Japan's film archives suffered from bombing and fires.

In 1950, she made what was considered a very daring move by breaking with the Japanese studio system, leaving the Shin Toho Studio and becoming a much sought-after freelance actress. Her films with directors Keisuke Kinoshita and Mikio Naruse during the 1950s and early 1960s made her Japan's top star. Her performance as a dedicated small town teacher observing her students' lives over several decades in Kinoshita's The Twenty-four Eyes (1954) is credited with that film's tremendous success and enduring popularity in Japan. Another powerful performance was as a tenant farmer's daughter who is raped and forced to marry the cruel landlord's crippled son in Immortal Love (1961).
Takamine was especially favored by director Mikio Naruse, starring in a dozen of his films and portraying strong-willed, hardworking women struggling in poverty or lowly positions, and often held down by the traditional family system. Some of her more moving roles include the tragic, love-struck heroine in Floating Clouds (1955) and an aging Ginza bar hostess desperate to escape her circumstances in When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960). Naruse was shy, few of his closest collaborators knew him well and Hideko Takamine remembered - "Even during the shooting of a picture, he would never say if anything was good, or bad, interesting or trite. He was a completely unresponsive director. I appeared in about 20 of his films, and yet there was never an instance in which he gave me any acting instructions.'[2]
She married director-writer Zenzo Matsuyama in 1955, but set a precedent by choosing not to give up her acting career. She made many of her most memorable films in the 1960s and retired from making movies in 1979.
After retiring as an actress, she gained renown as a witty essayist.[1] She died of lung cancer on 28 December 2010 at the age of 86.[1]

Filmography

(incomplete)

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Billy Taylor, American jazz pianist and composer (I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free), died from a heart attack he was , 89

 Billy Taylor  was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator died from a heart attack he was , 89. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and since 1994, he was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.[3]
Taylor was a also a Jazz activist. He sat on the Honorary Founders Board of The Jazz Foundation of America. In 1989, Billy Taylor, Ann Ruckert, Herb Storfer and Phoebe Jacobs started The Jazz Foundation to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians, later including musicians that survived Hurricane Katrina.[4]

(July 24, 1921 – December 28, 2010)

Biography

Early life

Taylor was born in Greenville, North Carolina but moved to Washington, D.C. when he was five. He graduated from Virginia State College with a B.S. in Music in 1942, and later earned a Masters and Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.[5] He also served as a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University.[5]


Early career

Taylor started playing piano professionally from 1944, starting with Ben Webster's Quartet on New York's 52nd Street. He later became the house pianist at Birdland, where he performed with the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. He was a protege of jazz pianist Art Tatum. In 1958, he was the Musical Director of NBC's The Subject is Jazz, the first ever television series where the topic was jazz. He also worked as a DJ on radio station WNEW in New York in the 1960s.[5]

Mid-career

In 1961, Taylor founded New York's Jazzmobile, which provides arts education program of the highest quality via workshops, master classes, lecture demonstrations, arts enrichment programs, outdoor summer mobile concerts, special indoor concerts and special projects.[6] During the 1960s, the Billy Taylor Trio was a regular feature of the Hickory House on West 55th street in Manhattan. From 1969 to 1972, Taylor led the band on The David Frost Show; he was the first African American to lead a talk show band. In 1981, Jazzmobile produced a Jazz special for the National Public Radio, and for which the program received the Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting Programs. Jazzmobile's 1990 Tribute Concert to Dr. Taylor at Avery Fisher Hall, part of the JVC Jazz Festival, featured Nancy Wilson, Ahmad Jamal Trio and Terence Blanchard Quintet.
Among his most notable works is "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free", composed in 1954, and subsequently achieving more popularity with Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Nina Simone covered the song in her 1967 album Silk and Soul. It is widely known in the UK as a piano instrumental version, used for BBC1's Film programme, hosted by Barry Norman and subsequently Jonathan Ross. Solomon Burke, Derek Trucks, The Lighthouse Family, Levon Helm and Jools Holland & His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra have also recorded versions.

Later career

In 1989, Taylor formed his own "Taylor Made" record label to document his own music, releasing four albums, You Tempt Me (1996) is a strong outing by his 1985 trio (with Victor Gaskin and drummer Curtis Boyd) that includes a rendition of Duke Ellington's "Take the "A" Train". White Nights (1991) has Taylor, Gaskin, and drummer Bobby Thomas performing live from Leningrad in the Soviet Union, then came Solo (1992), and Jazzmobile Allstars (1992).
Taylor remained active with his educational activities and continued to tour and work into his eighties. He continued to work for over 50 years. He visited the White House several times and he received awards from a President and a New York Governor. Taylor received an Emmy award for his work for television which includes carrying out over 250 interviews on behalf of CBS News Sunday Morning.[5]

Awards and honors

With over twenty-three honorary doctoral degrees, Taylor was also the recipient of two Peabody Awards, NEA Jazz Masters Award (1998) an Emmy Award (1983) for "Outstanding Informational, Cultural or Historical Programming", a Grammy Award (2004)[7] and a host of prestigious and highly coveted prizes, such as the National Medal of Arts (1992), the Tiffany Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Down Beat Magazine. He was also honored in 2001 with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Jazz Living Legend Award,[8] and election to the Hall of Fame for the International Association for Jazz Education.

Discography

As leader


  • 1945: Billy Taylor Piano (Savoy)
  • 1954: Cross-Section
  • 1956: at the London House (ABC-Paramount)[9]
  • 1956: Cross Section (Prestige)
  • 1957: My Fair Lady Loves (GRP)
  • 1959: Warming Up (Riverside)
  • 1959: Billy Uptown (Riverside)
  • 1959: Billy Taylor with Four Flutes (Riverside, with Herbie Mann, Jerome Richardson, Frank Wess)
  • 1962: Impromptu Mercury
  • 1977: Live at Storyville (West 54 Records)
  • 1985: You Tempt Me (Taylor-Made)
  • 1988: White Nights And Jazz In Leningrad (Taylor-Made)
  • 1988: Solo (Taylor-Made)
  • 1989: Billy Taylor And The Jazzmobile All Stars (Taylor-Made)
  • 1991: White Nights and Jazz in Leningrad (Taylor-Made)
  • 1992: Dr. T (GRP) with Gerry Mulligan
  • 1992: Solo (Taylor-Made)
  • 1993: Live at MCG with Gerry Mulligan, Carl Allen, Chip Jackson
  • 1993: Dr. T (GRP)
  • 1997: The Music Keeps Us Young (Arkadia Jazz, with Chip Jackson, Steve Johns)
  • 1998: Ten Fingers - One Voice Arkadia Jazz
  • 1999: Taylor Made at the Kennedy Center with Dee Dee Bridgewater Kennedy Center Jazz

As sideman

With Arkadia Jazz All Stars
  • Thank You, Duke!

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Agathe von Trapp, Austrian-born American singer, member of the Trapp family (The Sound of Music) died she was , 97

Agathe Johanna Erwina Gobertina von Trapp  was the eldest daughter of Georg von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead. She was a member of the Trapp Family Singers, whose lives were the inspiration for the play and film The Sound of Music. She was portrayed as the character "Liesl".[1]

(12 March 1913 – 28 December 2010)

Biography

She was born on 12 March 1913 in Austria.
The von Trapps fled Austria for Italy and they came to the United States in 1938. They settled in Vermont in 1942, and performed throughout the country.
She was the first soprano in the choir, together with her sister Johanna von Trapp. After her father's death in 1947, the family ceased to perform. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1948. She later moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where with her longtime friend, Mary Louise Kane, the women operated a private kindergarten for 35 years at the Sacred Heart Catholic parish in Glyndon, Maryland. They lived together for five decades. Ms. Kane reported Agathe's death to the media.[2]

Of the Trapp Family Singers siblings featured in The Sound of Music, only Maria Franziska (born 1914) survives. Rosemarie von Trapp (born 1929), Eleonore von Trapp (born 1931), and Johannes von Trapp (born 1939) are also alive, but they are half-siblings and not part of the original seven.
Agathe wrote 2003's Agathe von Trapp: Memories Before and After The Sound of Music, which chronicles the true story behind the film and includes dozens of her hand-drawn maps, portraits, and other illustrations.
She died on 28 December 2010 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson, Maryland.[3]


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Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Raphael Hillyer, American violist, founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet, died from heart failure ,he was 96

 Raphael Hillyer was an American viola soloist, teacher died from heart failure ,he was  96. Born Raphael Silverman in Ithaca, New York, his career included playing in the Boston Symphony Orchestra and co-founding the Juilliard String Quartet[1]. Hillyer was still lecturing and teaching viola at Boston University during the final month of his life.[2]


  (April 10, 1914 – December 27, 2010)

Career

Hillyer was a founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet. He was born in 1914 to a family with a musical background: his mother was a pianist and his father, a mathematician, also was an amateur violist. Hillyer’s formal violin studies began in 1921, and his youthful passion for music was further ignited on a trip with his parents in 1924 to Leningrad, Russia where he studied with Sergei Korgueff and an 18 year-old Dmitri Shostakovich. At the age of 16 Hillyer attended the Curtis Institute of Music, followed by studies at Dartmouth College, from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a mathematics degree in 1936. He then completed graduate work in music under Walter Piston and Hugo Leichtentritt at Harvard University,where he played frequent recitals with his friend and classmate, Leonard Bernstein.[3]
In 1942, Hillyer joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as a violinist under Serge Koussevitsky[4] and played with the Stradivari Quartet alongside Boston Symphony violist, Eugene Lehner, who became his mentor. In 1946, at the urging of Lehner, Hillyer, until then a violinist, prepared for an audition with a new quartet that was in need of a violist. With a borrowed viola and an intensity for which he was becoming well known, Hillyer played the audition and was chosen to be the violist and founding member of what became the Juilliard String Quartet. Hillyer remained with the Juilliard String Quartet for 23 years, recording, teaching and concertizing -- championing new music and reinvigorating chamber music. After retiring from the Juilliard String Quartet in 1969, Hillyer performed frequently as soloist and collaborator with other chamber music groups. He also intensified the work he had grown passionate about: teaching and mentoring young musicians throughout the world. He was a guiding force behind the Tokyo String Quartet for decades. [3] Hillyer continued to teach at Boston University until his death. On December 6, 2010, he taught his very last class, which was described by those in attendance as "as passionate and illuminating as any he had ever taught."To

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Grant McCune, American Academy Award-winning visual effects artist (Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope), died from pancreatic cancer he was , 67.

 Grant McCune  was an American special effects designer whose entry into Hollywood was the uncredited creation of the great white shark in the 1975 film Jaws died from pancreatic cancer he was , 67.. His efforts there led to work on a series of major films, including his design of the robots in the Star Wars films, winning an Oscar in 1977 for his efforts in the first film in the series.

(March 27, 1943 – December 27, 2010)

Biography

McCune was born on March 27, 1943, He attended California State University, Northridge where he earned his undergraduate degree in biology and met his future wife.[1][2] McCune was able to use his scientific training when he and Bill Shourt were hired in 1975 to work on creating the iconic shark in the movie Jaws, marking his start in Hollywood, though he was uncredited.[1] He was subsequently hired to work on the Star Wars movies as the franchise's chief model maker, responsible for the design details of the robots (such as R2-D2[3]) and alien characters in the films. He and his team earned an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 50th Academy Awards for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.[1] He received a second Oscar nomination for his work on the 1979 film Star Trek: The Motion Picture. As a partner at Apogee Productions, McCune's work was featured in such films as Caddyshack and Die Hard before founding his own firm, which was hired to work on such movies as Speed and Spider-Man.[3]
Interviewed by Popular Mechanics magazine in 2009, McCune described how one uses a photographer's eye in designing miniatures, using perspective and surface details to make the objects appear as realistic as possible.[4]
A resident of Hidden Hills, California, McCune died at his home there of pancreatic cancer at the age of 67 on December 27, 2010. He was survived by his wife, Katherine, as well as by a daughter and a son.[3][1





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Sir David Scott, British diplomat. died he was , 91


Sir David Aubrey Scott GCMG  was a British diplomat who served as High Commissioner to New Zealand and Ambassador to South Africa died he was , 91.

 Early life

Scott was the elder son of (Hugh) Sumner Scott who was a schoolmaster at Wellington College, and his wife Barbara Jackson, who was a J.P. and county councillor, becoming Chairman of the Berkshire County Council Education Committee. Scott was educated at Charterhouse School and at the University of Birmingham where he studied mining engineering.

Professional career

Military service

During World War II he served in the Royal Artillery.[1] From 1945 to 1947 he was chief radar adviser in the British Military Mission to the Egyptian Army.

Diplomatic posts

Scott joined the Commonwealth Relations Office in 1948 where he was assistant private secretary to the Secretary of State in 1949. From 1951 to 1953, he was at Cape Town and Pretoria and then worked in the Cabinet Office from 1954 to 1956. In 1955 Scott was on the Malta Round Table Conference, and was Secretary General of the and Caribbean and Malaya Constitutional Conference in 1956. He served in Singapore from 1956 to 1958 and was on the Monckton Commission on Central Africa in 1960. From 1961 to 1963, he was Deputy High Commissioner to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and in 1964 was at the Imperial Defence College. His next post was Deputy High Commissioner in India from 1965 to 1967 and he was awarded CMG in 1966.[2] From 1967 to 1970 he was British High Commissioner in Uganda and non-residential Ambassador to Rwanda. He was Assistant Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1970 to 1972 and was High Commissioner to New Zealand and Governor of the Pitcairn Islands[3] from 1973 to 1975 and was awarded KCMG in 1974. He was appointed British Ambassador to South Africa from 1976 to 1979 when he retired and was awarded GCMG.

Directorships

After his retirement, Scott became director of several companies including Barclays Bank International from 1979 to 1985, Mitchell Cotts Plc from 1980 to 1986, Delta Metals Overseas from 1980 to 1983, and Bradbury Williams Plc from 1984 to 1986. He was chairman of Ellerman Lines from 1982 to 1983 and of Nuclear Resources Ltd from 1984 to 1988. He was also a consultant to Thomas de la Rue & Co from 1986 to 1988. Scott was also Vice President of the UK South Africa Trade Association from 1980 to 1985 and published Ambassador in Black and White in 1981 and Window into Downing Street in 2003. He became a Freeman of the City of London in 1982 and liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights in 1983. He became president of the Uganda Society for Disabled Children in 1984 and was Governor of the Sadlers Wells Trust from 1984 to 1989. In 1989 he was a member of the Manchester 1996 Olympic bid committee. In retirement he was first Vice-Chairman then Chairman and finally (from 1998) President of the Royal Over-Seas League.

Family

Scott married Vera Ibbitson in 1941 and had three children. Their daughter Diana married Sir Brian Unwin. Their son Robert chaired the 1996 Manchester Olympic bid committee. Their third child Andrew is a schoolteacher and choral conductor. David and Vera Scott lived at Milford, Surrey. Vera died on 2 October 2010. David died on 27 December 2010.

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
Sir Arthur Galsworthy		 High Commissioner to New Zealand
1973–1975		 Succeeded by
Harold Smedley
Preceded by
Sir James Bottomley		 British Ambassador to South Africa
1976-79		 Succeeded by
Sir John Leahy

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Salvador Jorge Blanco, Dominican Republic politician, President (1982–1986) died he was , 84

José Salvador Omar Jorge Blanco was a politician, lawyer and a writer died he was , 84. He was the 48th President of the Dominican Republic, from 1982 –1986. He was a Senator running for the PRD party. He started his political career as a Committee Secretary for the Unión Cívica de Santiago in 1963 and joined the PRD in 1964.

(July 5, 1926 – December 26, 2010)

 Presidency

Blanco succeeded fellow PRD member Jacobo Majluta Azar to the presidency in 1982. Despite their political affiliations, Guzmán's term (before Majluta's) was characterized by a bitter feud with Blanco, who from the senate led the party in opposition to the administration. Unproven, but widely circulated rumors and conspiracy theories tied Guzmán's family advisers to corruption, especially following the president's alleged suicide in July 1982.



At the time of Blanco's election, it was hope that neopatrimonial patterns would experience a clearer and more dramatic break, given that Blanco was going to govern with a PRD majority in both houses (17 out of 27 in the senate and 62 of 120 in the chamber). However, two events highlight Jorge Blanco's constraints and his limitations while in office. In April 1984, sharp price increases mandated as part of an economic stabilization program approved by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) led to massive riots and scores of deaths. This tarnished the administrations record in civil and human rights, one of the areas where the PRD had been able to project its sharpest differences with the former Balaguer administration. Then, in November 1985, a party primary that was intended to highlight the PRD's continued commitment to internal democratic procedures to select its presidential nominee ended inconclusively due to a shoot-out at the Concorde Hotel, where the ballots were being counted. Blanco governed the Dominican Republic during a period of dramatic economic difficulties imposed largely by the international system. In 1985, for the first time since the 1965 civil war, the country experienced negative growth rates.[1]

Post-Presidency and Corruption Charges

Salvador Jorge Blanco was, at the end of his mandate in 1986, considered by many to be one of the most promising political leaders in Dominican Republic. However, following a long interrogation session and an order for his arrest on curruption charges relating to the illegal commissions on the purchase of equipment for the armed forced, Jorge Blanco fled to the Venezuelan embassy on April 30, 1987[citation needed], requesting political asylum. A heart spasm led to his internment in a Santo Domingo clinic, even as the Venezuelan government opted not to respond to his asylum request. Jorge Blanco was allowed to leave for the United States for medical treatment after acknowledging there was a warrant for his arrest. President Joaquín Balaguer, who succeeded him, tried Blanco for corruption in November 1988. Blanco was prosecuted (in absentia) by Marino Vinicio Castillo, and eventually sentenced to a multi-million fine and 23 years in jail after several months of a trial that was televised. In May 2001, the Supreme Court reviewed the case, it found the case was damaged by violations of President Jorge Blanco's rights and the conviction was quashed. Blanco always denied the charges and claimed his nightmare was the result of political persecution by Joaquín Balaguer.[2]

Death

On November 25 2010 the Ex-President was taken to the emergency room at the Center for Advanced Medicine Dr. Abel González, after falling from his bed and hitting his head causing a heavy internal hemorrhage. On the early morning of December 26 2010 he suffered a heart attack and passed away after being in a coma for 37 days. [3]

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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...