Armando Chin Yong, Malaysian opera singer, died from heart disease he was , 53

Armando Chin Yong , also known as Chen Rong to the Chinese-speaking, was a Malaysian opera singer, the only tenor with an international reputation forged in European and Asian opera houses and concert halls.^[1] He received much of his singing education in Rome, Italy^[2] and Vienna, Austria.^[3] He died unexpectedly, aged 52, of a heart attack after walking his dog in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 2 February 2011^[4] leaving his widow, Chu Shoo Woan and their 12-year old son, Ian Chin Yi.^[5] Armando Chin was a devout Christian and worshipped at Gereja Kristen Grace Taman Bukit Maluri (Taman Bukit Maluri Grace Christian Church), Kepong, Kuala Lumpur.

(6 July 1958 – 2 February 2011)

Biography

Born in Bahau, Negeri Sembilan, Armando Chin grew up under difficult circumstances and had to leave school at age 14 to work to help support his family^[6] He was noted for his natural vocal talent even as a teenager. After considerable hardship, he managed to enroll in the Malaysian Institute of Arts^[7] and graduated in 1983, majoring in classical singing. He won the annual Southeast Asian Singing Competition in 1984.^[8] In 1985 he went to Rome for advanced vocal studies of the Bel Canto school under Italian tenor, Angelo Marenzi,^[9] who was himself a student of the legendary Italian baritone, Tito Gobbi. During his time in Rome he also studied operatic stage performance at the Osimo Opera Art Academy.^[10] In 1988, he entered the National Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria to study vocal music and operatic stage performance under Professor Ralf Döring.^[3]
Armando Chin has earned high accolades from European music critics. The Italian newspaper "La Gazzetta" pointed out that when performing the operas of Donizetti and Cilea, he had such an artistic way of controlling the dynamics that it was very close to perfection.^[11] In 1987, after a performance of Puccini's one-act opera Gianni Schicchi in Teatro la nuova Fenice in Osimo, Italy, he was hailed by the newspaper Il Messaggero^[12] as Italy's most outstanding young tenor. Later in the same year he was again hailed for his performance in Bellini's La Sonnambula at the Bilbao National Opera House, Bilbao, Spain. In 1989, Armando Chin was invited to sing at the Wexford Festival Opera in Wexford, the Republic of Ireland.
From 1990 to 1992, Armando Chin was engaged full time by the Dresden Staatsoper^[13] or the Dresden State Opera in Dresden, Germany.
Following his return to Malaysia in 1993, he gave a performance in Taipei, Taiwan followed by a role in Verdi's opera, Rigoletto, in Singapore. In 1994, he sang in Handel's Messiah in Shanghai, China and in Beethoven's 9th Symphony in Hong Kong.
Armando Chin was invited to sing in the 1995 Taipei Charity Concert by Mirella Freni and Nicolai Ghiaurov and sang the encore Libiamo ne' lieti calici (Drinking Song) from Verdi's opera, La traviata, with Mirella Freni. In 1996, he was the solo tenor in the Suntory-sponsored grand production of Beethoven's 9th Symphony with a choir of 10,000 voices performed in Osaka, Japan. In the same year he also took part in the "Remembering Mario Lanza in Concert" tour of Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. He was the Steersman in the 1997 production of Wagner's opera, Der fliegender Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), in Taipei, Taiwan. He was also Rodolfo in Puccini's opera, La Boheme, in a 1997 Taipei production, a role he reprised in 1999.
In 2000, Armando Chin was performing in solo concerts in Taiwan again. He performed at the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore in 2003. He sang for former Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at a banquet in 2004, and was highly praised by the Prime Minister.
In January 2005, Armando Chin sang in a Chinese-language opera Lei Yu staged in Singapore's Esplanade Concert Hall.^[3] His April 2005 vocal recital at Xi'an, China was highly lauded not only by the public and the students of Xi'an Conservatory of Music,^[14] but also by the professors of music and singing of China.^[11] In 2008, he was actively involved in fund-raising concerts for the Sichuan earthquake fund.
But for his untimely death, Armando Chin had planned a return to the opera stage in Paris and Vienna in 2011.

Competition Prizes

1st Prize, Southeast Asian Singing Competition 1984
1st runner-up, 6° Concorso Internazionale di Canto "Ismaele Voltolini" (6th Ismaele Voltolini International Singing Contest) in Mantova, Italy from 8 to 13 September 1986.
2nd Prize (tied, no 1st prize awarded), 1° Concurso Internacional de Canto de Bilbao (1st Bilbao International Singing Competition) from 29 November to 6 December 1986 in Bilbao, Spain.
Diploma di Merito, Concorso Internazionale per Pianisti e Cantanti Lirici "Francesco Paolo Neglia" (Diploma of Merit, Francesco Paolo Neglia International Competition for Pianists and Singers) on 12 July 1987, Enna, Italy.
2. Preis, 8. Internationale Hans Gabor Belvedere Gesangswettbewerb (2nd Prize, 8th International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition), 1989 in Vienna.^[15]
1. Preis, Förderungspreis für junge Opernsänger (1st Prize, Scholarship Prize for Young Opera Singers) on 1 July 1989 in Vienna.

Choral Associations

Armando Chin Yong was the Vice-President of the Yin Qi Music Centre Sdn Bhd^[16] in Kuala Lumpur which runs the Yin Qi Christian Choir, a non-denominational choir specialising in large sacred works. Armando Chin Yong was a guest soloist in several of their productions.
He also trained seven of the singers in Malaysia's top international chamber choir, Cantus Musicus, including its Music Director, Lisa Ho and its Assistant Choral Director, Timothy Ooi. Maestro Chin was to have had further singing collaborations with Cantus Musicus in 2011 and 2012.

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Jimmy Fell, British footballer (Grimsby Town), died from natural causes he was , 75.

James Irving Fell, was an English footballer, who played in the Football League for Grimsby Town, Everton, Newcastle United, Walsall and Lincoln City died from natural causes he was , 75..

(4 January 1936 – 2 February 2011)

Grimsby Town

Fell attended Clee Boys Grammar School, becoming a chemist at Courtaulds whilst playing part-time for Grimsby Town.^[1]
The 1958-59 season commenced with Fell taking on the role of emergency goalkeeper after regular custodian Clarrie Williams was injured in the season's opening game against Liverpool at Anfield in front of a crowd of 47,502 on 23 August 1958. With no substitutes allowed, Fell replaced Williams between the sticks and performed so heroically in the 3-3 draw that The Daily Mirror presented him with an 'Andy Capp' award.^[2]

Lincoln City

Fell joined Lincoln City in January 1964, debuting in the 2-1 victory at Hartlepools United on 11 January 1964 and scoring his first goal for the club in the 2-1 home defeat to Bradford City on 30 March 1964.^[3] He was a regular in the starting line-up in his first two seasons at Sincil Bank but played just three times at the start of the 1965/66 season before joining Boston United.^[3]

Retirement

A keen angler and cricketer, in his later years he worked at Grimsby Leisure Centre^[1] and died, of natural causes, at his home in Welholme Road, Grimsby on 2 February 2011.^[1]

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Bill Foster, American television director (Benson, Full House, Sanford and Son, The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults), died from cancer he was , 78

Bill Foster  was an American television director known for his work with sitcoms died from cancer he was , 78.

(1933 - February 2, 2011)

His credits, which spanned more than fifty years and encompassed hundreds of hours, included episodes of Full House, Sanford and Son, Amen, Marblehead Manor and You Again?.^[1][2]
Foster directed the 1967 pilot episode of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, which earned him the only Emmy nomination of his career.^[1][2] Foster went on to direct the television broadcasts of the 23rd and 24th Primetime Emmy Awards in 1971 and 1972 respectively.^[1][2] He also directed the AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to James Cagney in 1974, for which he won a Directors Guild of America Award in 1975.^[1][2]
In 1986, Foster directed the now infamous live syndicated special, The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults, which was hosted by Geraldo Rivera.^[1] The special, which advertised the potential to find the secrets of Al Capone buried in a vault beneath the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, turned up very little.^[1]
Foster spent much of his career directing television sitcoms, especially during the 1970s and 1980s.^[1] He directed 43 episodes of the sitcom, Benson, between 1982 and 1986.^[2] Foster also directed 36 separate episodes of NBC's Amen, which starred Sherman Hemsley and Clifton Davis, between 1986 and 1989.^[2] Foster largely retired after directing 23 episodes of the ABC television series, Full House, from 1989 to 1990.^[2]
Bill Foster died of cancer on February 2, 2011, in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 78.^[1] He was survived by his wife, Lynn, and children, Julia and Susan.^[1]

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Defne Joy Foster, Turkish actress, presenter and VJ died she was , 35.

Defne Joy Fosterwas a Turkish-American actress, presenter and VJ.

(September 2, 1975 – February 2, 2011)

Early life

Foster was born on September 2, 1975 in İncirlik, Turkey.^[1][2] Her father Steve is an African American and her mother Hatice is a Turk from İzmir. Defne (sometimes rendered as "Daphne" or "Daphné" in some sources) did her studies in Alsancak primary school and in İzmir Özel Fatih Lisesi, a private school in the same city of İzmir. ^[3]

Career

This section requires expansion.

Foster first appeared on TV screens as a VJ on Kral TV and later went into acting on various TV series.^[4]
She last participated in Yok Böyle Dans, the Turkish version of Dancing with the Stars, where she finished 4th.^[4]

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1997	Ruhsar		TV series
2000	Beyaz Yalanlar	Ahu	TV series
2000	Dadı	Defne	TV series
2003	Sihirli Annem	Eda	TV series
2006	Selena	Pandora	TV series
2007	Hayal ve Gerçek	Gizem	TV series
2010	Yok Böyle Dans	Herself	Reality show

Death

Foster was found dead at her friend Kerem Altan's apartment in Istanbul on February 2, 2011.^[5][4][6][7] The results of an autopsy are expected by mid-March 2011.^[8]
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Awal Gul, Afghan detainee in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, died he was heart attack , 48.

Awal Gul  was a citizen of Afghanistan who died in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba after nine years of imprisonment without charge died he was  heart attack , 48. .^[1][2]


(July 1, 1962 – February 2, 2011)

Personal

The Department of Defense reports Awal Gul was born on July 1, 1962. Sawati Ghundi, Afghanistan.^[1] He was the father of 18 children.^[3]

Relationship with the Taliban

"While the U.S. claims he was a Taliban commander, Gul has long insisted that he quit the Taliban a year before the 9/11 attack because, as his lawyer put it, 'he was disgusted by the Taliban's growing penchant for corruption and abuse.'"^[3] USA Today reported that Gul "had played a key role in persuading Taliban commanders to surrender Nangarhar Province to a council of tribal leaders."^[4] His attorneys wrote in a letter after Gul's death:

The government charged that he was a prominent member of the Taliban and its military, but we proved that this is false. Indeed, we have documents from Afghanistan, even a letter from Mullah Omar himself on Taliban letterhead, discussing Mr. Gul’s efforts to resign from the Taliban a year or more before 9/11/01. . . . Mr. Gul was never an enemy of the United States in any way. . . . We now hear for the very first time in the nearly 10 years since Mr. Gul’s arrest, that (1) he operated a guesthouse for Al-Qaida members, and (2) that he admitted providing bin Laden operational support on several occasions. Over the course of almost 3 years in court, the government has never provided any evidence at all to support this slander. Neither Mr. Gul nor any credible witness has ever said such things. Indeed, this is why the government placed Mr. Gul in the group of prisoners set for “indefinite detention;” it admitted that it lacked any credible evidence to prove its suspicions in a court of law. The government never even made these claims until now, when Mr. Gul is not alive to defend himself. Beginning in the early 1980′s, Mr. Gul was a member of local forces who were allied with the United States against the Soviets. From 1989-1996, he continued to run the local weapons depot in his hometown, not unlike a police commander, which he used to keep the peace. In 1996, the Taliban swept through eastern Afghanistan and took over his city at the barrel of a gun. Mr. Gul was given two options: flee with your family to Pakistan or stay home and operate the depot at the command of the Taliban. It must be remembered that the Taliban was initially greeted warmly by many Afghans, and even the American government, as a source of hope. Mr. Gul stayed home. The Taliban soon proved themselves to be as corrupt and abusive as we can imagine. Mr. Gul discovered this change over time and resigned from the Taliban more than one year before September 11, 2001. He was arrested in December 2001 when he voluntarily traveled to meet American military officials.^[5]

Phillip Smucker, writing in The Asia Times, described being contacted by Matthew Dodge, a lawyer defending Gul before a Guantanamo military commission.^[6] According to Smucker, the prosecution's charges depended on a new alternate theory as to how Osama bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora. The new theory is that bin Laden didn't escape through collusion with corrupt Eastern Shura officials across the border to Pakistan's Tribal Areas -- but rather through Awal Gul's help north to Konar province.

Guantanamo

Gul is one of the Guantanamo detainees whose medical records, and arrival date, were not made public.^[7][8]

Combatant Status Review

Main article: Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Gul was among the 60% of prisoners who chose to participate in tribunal hearings.^[9] A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee.
Gul's memo accused him of the following:^[10][11]

a. Detainee is a member of the Taliban and associated with al Qaida.

1. Detainee was trained in the use of Stinger missiles in Pakistan
2. Detainee associated with Usama Bin Laden on three occasions.
3. Detainee served intermittently as commander of a Taliban supply base near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, for ten years.

b. Detainee engaged in hostilities against the U.S. or its coalition partners.

1. Detainee fought against the Northern Alliance in Kabul on the Gul-Da-Da-Ra front lines and was the commander of a ten-man unit.
2. Detainee was the commander of “Taliban Unit Four,” a 250-soldier unit, for approximately five years.

Testimony

Gul told his Tribunal he thought he surrendered on February 10, 2002.^[12] However press reports his capture on December 25, 2001.^[13][14]

Administrative Review Board

Detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal labeled them "enemy combatants" were scheduled for annual Administrative Review Board hearings. These hearings were designed to assess the threat a detainee may pose if released or transferred, and whether there are other factors that warrant his continued detention.^[15]
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Awal Gul's first annual Administrative Review Board in 2005.^[16] The two page memo listed nine "primary factors favor[ing] continued detention" and two "primary factors favor[ing] release or transfer".
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Awal Gul's second annual Administrative Review Board in 2006.^[17] The two page memo listed eleven "primary factors favor[ing] continued detention" and five "primary factors favor[ing] release or transfer".
A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Awal Gul's third annual Administrative Review Board in 2007.^[18] The four page memo listed twenty-four "primary factors favor[ing] continued detention" and thirteen "primary factors favor[ing] release or transfer".

Military Commissions Act

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 mandated that Guantanamo captives were no longer entitled to access the US civil justice system, so all outstanding habeas corpus petitions were stayed.^[19]

Boumediene v. Bush

On 12 June 2008 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Boumediene v. Bush, that the Military Commissions Act could not remove the right for Guantanamo captives to access the US Federal Court system. And all previous Guantanamo captives' habeas petitions were eligible to be re-instated. The judges considering the captives' habeas petitions would be considering whether the evidence used to compile the allegations the men and boys were enemy combatants justified a classification of "enemy combatant".^[20]

Writ of habeas corpus

Gul had a habeas corpus petition filed on his behalf.^[21] On December 30, 2008, United States Department of Justice official Daniel M. Barish informed the court that the DoJ had filed "factual returns" in seven habeas cases, including Gul's.^[21] The petition was fully argued before a federal court in March 2010, eleven months before his death.^[3] No further action was taken.^[3]

Death

Media reports indicate he died after collapsing in the shower following a workout on an elliptical machine.^[22][23]An autopsy completed February 3 indicated a heart attack or a pulmonary embolism was the possible cause.^[24] His attorneys have maintained that "we have no way of knowing whether the government is telling us the truth" about Gul's death.^[5] They further wrote: "It is shame that the government will finally fly him home not in handcuffs and a hood, but in a casket. . . . Justice will now come too late for Mr. Gul."^[5]
5,000 attended the funeral February 7. They ran alongside a vehicle carrying the body. Gul's body was wrapped in white cloth, but his face and beard were visible inside the coffin, which was buried in Jalalabad, east of Kabul.^[25][26]

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Clark Hulings, American realist painter and physicist died he was , 88.

Clark Hulings was an American realist painter died he was , 88.. He was born in Florida and raised in New Jersey. Clark also lived in Spain, New York, Louisiana, and throughout Europe before settling in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the early 1970s. The travels did much to influence his keen eye for people in the state of accomplishing daily tasks.
His training as an artist began as a teenager with Sigismund Ivanowsky and George Bridgman, and concluded at the Art Students League of New York with Frank Reilly. Clark came back to the League to give a lecture in 2007.
After early careers in portraiture and illustration, he devoted himself to easel painting. A modern genre painter, he is best known for his elaborate European and Mexican market and street scenes, his still lifes of roses and his depictions of donkeys. For the past forty years Hulings’ art has been eagerly sought after by collectors, museums and corporations.^[3][4]

(November 20, 1922 – February 2, 2011)

Early life and early career

Clark Hulings was born in 1922 in Florida, where his father was the manager of a plant which produced a gas for fumigating orange trees. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was an infant, and he and his sister were sent to live with his maternal grandparents in Potsdam, New York, for the next three years, while his father worked in Valencia, Spain. In Spain, Hulings’ wealthy but aging father, while away on oil business for John D. Rockefeller, remarried the 19 year old daughter of the British Consul in Valencia, Elena (Harker) Hulings with whom he fathered a daughter, Nicole (Hulings) Whitehead, and the two older children joined them abroad. Clark was raised by his much beloved stepmother Elena, whose image appears in several later paintings as a saintly mother type (often with an aura near her head, doing chores such as washing clothes or buying flowers).
In 1928, the Hulings family returned to the United States, settling in Westfield, New Jersey.^[2] At the age of twelve, his father arranged art lessons with Sigismund Ivanowski, a portrait and landscape painter who had served as Court Painter to Tsar Nicholas II. In his 1986 book "A Gallery of Paintings," Hulings credits his father with conveying to him his "great love of paintings." By the time Hulings graduated from school in 1940, the tuberculosis which had killed his mother left him in fragile health. He was unable to enter college. However, he did continue a limited schedule with Ivanowski, as well as with George Bridgman, the celebrated drawing teacher, at the Art Students League of New York.
In the fall of 1941, Hulings was well enough to enroll at Haverford College. After graduating in 1944 with a degree in Physics, he was appointed to work on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Yet his recurring ill health prevented his acceptance into the program. Instead, he remained in Santa Fe to recuperate, supporting himself by painting pastel portraits of children. In the spring of 1945 he was given a one-man show of landscapes at the New Mexico Museum of Fine Art.

Portraiture and illustration

In 1946 Hulings moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana where his parents lived at the time, and he had a one-man show of his work at the galleries of the Louisiana Art Commission. He included several portraits of family members and the show launched him on his successful career as a portrait painter. Hulings continued to paint landscapes and also became interested in design and illustration work, which led him back to The Art Students League for three years beginning in 1948 - this time as a student of Frank Reilly, a noted teacher and artist himself.
In 1951 he gained employment doing wash drawings for a newspaper mat agency that specializing in supermarket ads. He gradually moved up to paperback book covers and magazine illustrations, by 1955, his illustration career was firmly established.
But the lure of landscape painting sent him to Europe, first for four months, and later for almost three years. Over the course of his travels he studied figure painting in Florence, abstract design in Düsseldorf and roamed from the Arctic Circle to Southern Egypt.
Hulings returned to New York City in the fall of 1960 and resumed his illustration career to recoup finances. But he planned his work schedule to include serious easel painting.

Easel painting

By 1962 Hulings was earning enough with his easel painting to devote all of his attention to his lifelong path. He was admitted to the Grand Central Art Galleries, which represented him for the next eight years and held one-man shows of his work in 1965 and 1967. Hulings also began placing paintings in competitive shows of realistic art, winning several prizes, including The Council of American Artists’ award at the Hudson Valley Art Association for Restaurante Vicente, and the gold medal given by the Allied Artists of America for Onteniente. He moved back to the artistic and cultural magnet of Santa Fe, New Mexico after a doctor suggested that it would be good for his health, due to dormant tuberculosis that was being aggravated by New York City pollution.
In 1973 he garnered the first ever Prix de West award at the National Academy of Western Art (NAWA) in Oklahoma City for his painting "Grand Canyon - Kaibab Trail". This is an enormous oil that portrays a mule team barely navigating the Grand Canyon in deep winter snow. He went on to win three silver and two gold medals for both oil and watercolor at subsequent competitions at NAWA, part of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
In 1976 A Collection of Oil Paintings by Clark Hulings was published by The Lowell Press as a catalog to accompany a one-man show at the Cowboy Hall of Fame under the auspices of NAWA. He was presented with the Hall’s Trustees Gold Medal for his "distinguished contribution to American art". Two years later he was honored with a comprehensive retrospective of his work in Midland, Texas.
In 1980, Hulings’s painting The Pink Parasol won wide acclaim at the annual Western Heritage Sale in Houston, Texas. His market scene, Kaleidescope, submitted in the 1981 sale, brought another record sale price. In 1999 he mounted a new one-man show at Nedra Matteucci Galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It included thirty-five paintings, ten field sketches and twelve drawings. Everything sold on opening night. In 2007 he topped this success with another one-man show, this time in two venues. Timeless Beauty: Pursuing Life’s Textures included 36 paintings, 21 of which were sold at Bartfield Galleries in New York, and 15 of which were auctioned on Hilton Head, South Carolina through Morris & Whiteside Galleries. Once again, everything sold immediately. In conjunction with the show a revised edition of his book, A Gallery of Paintings, was also released.
Hulings married Mary Belfi in 1966 and their daughter Elizabeth was born two years later. When they were not traveling, they lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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Margaret John, British actress (Gavin & Stacey) died she was , 84.

Margaret John was a Welsh, BAFTA award-winning actress, best known for her role as Doris in Gavin & Stacey died she was , 84.. She has been described, by fellow actress Ruth Jones, as "an absolute national treasure".^[5]


(14 December 1926 – 2 February 2011)

Early life

Born in Swansea, as a child she wanted to be a nurse or veterinarian, but she could not stand the sight of blood.^[1] She occasionally acted at school with her sister Mair. Spotted while acting in a chapel pagent competition, after an audition John trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, graduating in 1950.^[6]

Career

Margaret John's first public appearances were at Swansea's Grand Theatre, where she had small parts in weekly repertoire.^[7] Not being a fluent Welsh speaker, she found some productions in Welsh at times challenging.^[5] After appearances on radio and in the theatre, she made her television debut in 1956 in a Welsh language drama.^[1] Her television roles included appearances on episodes of The First Lady, The Troubleshooters, Softly, Softly, The Mike Yarwood Show, Doomwatch, Blake's 7, Secret Army, Lovejoy, My Family, High Hopes, The District Nurse, Casualty, and Doctors. On Radio 4, she appeared on Linda Smith's A Brief History of Timewasting and played Mrs Stone, the school secretary, in the original ten series of King Street Junior from 1985 to 1998.
In a career that spanned more than fifty years, she appeared in such television programmes including: Coronation Street, Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars, Doctor Who, Little Britain, Emmerdale, Last of the Summer Wine, Crossroads, Gavin and Stacey and The Mighty Boosh.
In the early 1980s, she enjoyed a long run on ITV's daily soap opera Crossroads as doctors' receptionist Marian Owen. But between 2007 and 2010, she portrayed the suggestive neighbour Doris, cannabis-smoking, raunchy and much given to toyboys, in the BBC comedy series Gavin & Stacey.
At the 18th BAFTA Cymru Film, Television and Interactive Media Awards on 17 May 2009, at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay, in a ceremony hosted by Gethin Jones, John was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award.^[8]
In September 2009, John appeared in the graphic short film Cow by director Peter Watkins Hughes warning of the dangers of texting while driving.^[9]
Also in 2009, John appeared in The Vagina Monologues, before which her last theatre production was in the 1980s in Medea at London's Young Vic Theatre, opposite Eileen Atkins. John appeared on stage in Calendar Girls at the Wales Millennium Centre from 27 July to 7 August 2010 and at Venue Cymru, Llandudno from 9 to 14 August 2010, alongside fellow Welsh actress Ruth Madoc, playing Lady Cravenshire, the judge of the WI's cake competition.^[10] She also starred in the 2009 low-budget film A Bit of Tom Jones?, a bawdy farce about the Welsh singer's penis.^[11]
In March 2010 she appeared in the BBC1 Wales programme Margaret John - National Treasure, which featured clips from the last 50 years of television and special guest interviews with, amongst others, Ruth Jones, Eve Myles and Joanna Page. The programme was broadcast again, in tribute to John, on 5 February 2011.^[5] She also featured in a short BBC video in which she cooked Welsh cakes for St. David's Day.^[12]
Her last appearance on screen was in the new S4C drama Alys on 30 January 2011. ^[13]
She also had still been busy working in the previous month.

Personal life

Aged 48, she married Ben, a viola player who performed with both the London Symphony Orchestra and Frank Sinatra.^[14] He died aged 39, three years after they married, and she did not remarry. They had no children.^[15]
An obsessive jigsaw fan and solitaire player, she regularly worked for many charities, including: Sport Relief; Children in Need; Comic Relief, the PDSA and the George Thomas Hospice. She was also the face of the National Lottery AdvantAGE campaign, created to provide opportunities for old people.^[1]

Death

Margaret John died in hospital in her home town of Swansea on 2 February 2011 after a short illness of Pneumonia.

Selected film and television appearances

• 1960: How Green Was My Valley - Bronwen
• 1967: Z-Cars (episode: "When Did You Last See Your Father?") - Betty Nutall
• 1968: Doctor Who - Megan Jones, director of Euro Sea Gas, "Fury from the Deep"^[16][17]
• 1973: Seven of One, "I'll Fly You for a Quid" - Mrs Owen
• 1977: Last of the Summer Wine (episode #26: "Who Made a Bit of a Splash in Wales Then?") - Foggy's ladyfriend
• 1978–1984: Crossroads - Marian Owen
• 1978: Blake's 7 (episode: "The Way Back") - Arbiter
• 1999–2008: High Hopes - Mrs Elsie Hepplewhite
• 2005: The Mighty Boosh (episode: "Nanageddon") - Nanatoo
• 2006: Doctor Who (episode: "The Idiot's Lantern") - Granny Connolly
• 2007–2010: Gavin and Stacey - Doris
• 2007: Run Fatboy Run - Libby's Grandmother
• 2009: A Bit of Tom Jones?
• 2010: Skins - Eunice
• 2011: Game of Thrones - Old Nan

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