René A. Morel, French-born American violin luthier, died he was 79.

René A. Morel  was an experienced and influential luthier who was highly regarded by leading international string players,^[1][2] who had been described as "arguably the best violin restorer in the world" died he was 79..^[3] He served on the juries of many violin-making competitions, and held offices in both the International Society of Violin and Bow Makers (Entente) as well as the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers.^[4][5] Morel died on the morning of November 16, 2011 after an ongoing battle with cancer. He was 79.^[6]

^{(11 March 1932 – 16 November 2011)}

Early life

Morel was born in France. Morel's grandfather, Paul Mangenot, was an instrument maker. As a result, Morel began gaining experience in workshops from the age of 12. He worked for Amédée Dieudonne in Mirecourt, Marius Didier, and Bossard Bonnel in Rennes. Finally, Morel returned to Mirecourt where he repaired violins until the age of 18.^[5]
Morel completed service in the French Air Force, and then moved to America where he worked for Kagan & Gaines in Chicago.^[5]

Mid life

In 1955, Morel began work at Rembert Wurlitzer's shop in New York, the leading instrument dealer in the city that is one of the largest centers for string players in the world, helping Morel build his reputation among top musicians.^[4][5][7] Simone F. Sacconi ran the shop and taught Morel many new concepts about violin restoration.^[1]
In 1964, Morel opened his own shop at Jacques Français, Rare Violins, Inc. in New York.^[8] Using French techniques of tool handling and ideas learned with Sacconi, Morel had now been developing new methods of restoration and repair for over 30 years. Morel's advancements further improved the quality and acoustics of viols. Many virtuoso string players sought out Morel specifically for sound adjustment in their instruments.^[4][5]

Later life

On February 1, 1994, he opened Rene A. Morel Rare Violins^[9] in the same location, expanding his expertise to include dealing. In 1999, Morel & Gradoux-Matt, Inc. was started to make room for another experienced luthier, Emmanuel Gradoux-Matt. In 2008, Morel and Gradoux-Matt split, with Morel remaining at the same location, now within Tarisio Auctions on 54th Street.^[5]
A resident of Rutherford, New Jersey, Morel died of cancer at the age of 79 on November 16, 2011, in Wayne, New Jersey, and was survived by his companion, Christa Nagy, as well as by his three children.^[10]

Hobbies

"When he is not cutting wood for violins, René keeps fit by landscaping at his home far away from the city in Liberty, New York. He enjoys being close to the earth, horticulture and gardening occupy his free time. M. Morel also pursues hunting when he is not otherwise engaged...A bon vivant, M. Morel hopes to retire someday to his own vineyard, but in the meantime his favorite wines can be purchased through the Sherry-Lehmann catalogue." When he entertains in the city, he frequents René Pujol, Restaurant Français, La Côte Basque, and Les Sans Culottes.^[5]


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Armando Morales, Nicaraguan painter, died he was 84.

Armando Morales was an internationally renowned Nicaraguan painter. Morales is considered one of the most important painters in Nicaragua died he was 84..^[1][2][3][4]

 

^{(January 15, 1927 – November 16, 2011)}

Morales, who was born in Granada, Nicaragua, received many awards for his works.^[5][1] He received his first award at the Central American Painting Contest "15 de Septiembre" (September 15) which was held in Guatemala in 1956. He received the award for a painting which he named "Spook-Tree". That same painting was later bought by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The next year some of his paintings were featured at an exhibition called "Six Nicaraguan Artists" in Washington, he received excellent reviews and sold all his featured paintings.^[6]
Morales' work was exhibited at seven major shows from 1984 to 2000 at the Galerie Claude Bernard, a prominent gallery in Paris. The Gallery has published several catalogs of his work, and its website summarizes Morales' artistic career.^[7] He died in Miami, Florida, USA.


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Djamel Keddou, Algerian football player and manager (USM Alger), died he was 59.

Djamel Keddou  was an Algerian football player and manager died he was 59..^[1] He spent his entire playing career with USM Alger and had 25 caps for the Algeria national football team, winning a gold medal at the 1975 Mediterranean Games in Algiers.^[2] As a manager, he lead USM Alger to the Algerian Cup in 1988, beating rivals CR Belouizdad in the final.^[3] Keddou also managed Algerian clubs JS El Biar and ES Ben Aknoun.^[4]
On November 16, 2011, Keddou died after suffering a heart attack.^[5]

^{(January 30, 1952 – November 16, 2011)}

Honours

Player

• Won the 1975 Mediterranean Games
• Won the Algerian Cup once with USM Alger in 1981

Manager

• Won the Algerian Cup once with USM Alger in 1988

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Ruslan Akhtakhanov, Chechen poet and academic, died from a gunshot he was 58.

Ruslan Akhtakhanov was a Chechen poet and academic  died from a gunshot he was 58..

(Russian: Руслан Ахтаханов; c. 1953 – 16 November 2011)

Early life

Akhtakhanov was born in Znamenskoye, Chechen Republic.^[1]

Career and views

Akhtakhanov was a professor and vice-rector at the Modern Humanitarian Academy in Moscow and a poet.^[1][2] He was an outspoken opponent of Chechen separatism^[3] and a supporter of Chechnya’s president Ramzan Kadyrov.
He was a member of the Russian Union of Writers.^[3]

Death and burial

Akhtakhanov was shot and killed in Moscow in 2011 by an unknown assailant. He was 58.^[4][5] His body was buried in his hometown, Znamenskoye, on 17 November 2011.^[1]

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Karl Slover, Slovak-born American actor (The Wizard of Oz), he was 93.

Karl Slover  was a Slovak born American actor best known as one of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Only three other munchkin performers remained alive at the time of Slover's death  he was 93..

(September 21, 1918 – November 15, 2011)

Early years

Slover was born as Karl Kosiczky on September 21, 1918 in Prakovce, Slovakia (then Prakfalva, Kingdom of Hungary). Diagnosed at an early age with pituitary dwarfism, Slover was barely two feet tall by his eighth birthday. Dwarfism was not a family trait; his father stood six feet six inches, and his mother was just a few inches shorter. Slover's father went to great lengths to make Slover taller, including making and taking him to Hungary, where doctors fixed stretchers to his arms and legs.

Career

When Slover was just nine years old, his father sent him to work for a traveling midget show based out of Berlin, Germany. After working with the show for several years, Slover moved to the United States where he joined another traveling show.^[1] It wasn't long before Slover began appearing as midgets in films like The Terror of Tiny Town, Block-Heads, Bringing Up Baby, and They Gave Him a Gun.^[2]
Slover was working in Hawaii when his circus manager sent him to Hollywood, where 'little people' were needed for an upcoming film called The Wizard of Oz. At the age of 21 and standing just 4 feet 4 inches, Slover played the parts of four Munchkins in the movie; the first trumpeter, a soldier, one of the sleepy heads, and was among those who sang "Follow the Yellow Brick Road".^[3]
His "Oz" co-stars, The Matina Triplets whose names were Bela "Ike", Lajos "Leo", and Matjus "Mike" were originally from Budapest. They also appeared in the film as Munchkins.
After filming Oz, Slover began working for the 'Original World Famous Singers Midget Show' where he sang and danced throughout the United States. When the show ended in 1942, Slover joined the Royal American Carnival in Tampa, Florida. At this time he took the last name Slover, the last name of his stage manager.^[4]

Later years

Slover remained very active in his later years and participated in several celebrations related to The Wizard of Oz. Every June, Slover attended festivities celebrating Judy Garland's birthday at the Judy Garland Museum & Birthplace in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.^[5] In November 2007, Slover joined seven other surviving munchkins in Hollywood where honorary mayor Johnny Grant unveiled a star dedicated to the munchkins on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[6]
Slover died on November 15, 2011, at age 93. He was a lifelong bachelor, and resided at an assisted living facility in Dublin, Georgia at the time of his death.^[7] His interment was in Rentz's cemetery. At the time of Slover's death, three other munchkin actors were still alive from Oz: Jerry Maren, Margaret Williams Pellegrini and Ruth Robinson Duccini.


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Dulcie Gray, English actress (Howards' Way) and novelist, died from bronchial pneumonia she was 95.

Dulcie Gray, CBE was a British singer and actress of stage, screen and television, a mystery writer and lepidopterist. died from bronchial pneumonia she was 95.^[3]

^{(born Dulcie Winifred Catherine Bailey, 20 November 1915 – 15 November 2011)[2]} 

Early life and career

Gray was born in Kuala Lumpur, British Malaya (now Malaysia) in 1915, although she would later shave four years off her age, and attended school in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, later returning to Malaya to teach. After her father's death, she came back to England. Following a brief period at art school, she enrolled at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where she met fellow actor Michael Denison, whom she married in 1939. The couple were together for 59 years before his death from cancer in 1998. They had no children. The couple's professional careers were intertwined and they frequently appeared on stage together. Between them they starred in more than 100 West End plays and in the 1940s and 1950s, were familiar figures in British films. Onscreen they co-starred in My Brother Jonathan and The Glass Mountain in 1948, The Franchise Affair in 1950 and the Battle of Britain movie Angels One Five in 1952.
Her performance as the luckless waitress Rose in the original stage production of Brighton Rock at the Garrick Theatre in 1944 led to Gray being offered a contract with Gainsborough Pictures. However, she was passed over for the role of Rose in the 1947 film version of Brighton Rock, in favour of Carol Marsh.^[3]
During the 1940s, Gray appeared in Gainsborough melodramas such as They Were Sisters. She was known to television viewers as Kate Harvey in the 1980s BBC drama series Howards' Way (1985–90). Gray and Denison made their joint Broadway debut in the first New York production of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, appearing as Lady Markby and the Earl of Caversham from 1 May 1996 until 26 January 1997. Their wedding anniversary was feted by cast and crew at Tavern on the Green.
She was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in March 1973 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the Richmond Theatre; and in April 1995, when Michael Aspel surprised her and her husband Michael Denison, on board the Sir Tomas More motorboat at Teddington Lock, for a joint tribute.
In 1997, she gave an impromptu public performance of her song "You Tickle Me Spitless, Baby" as part of an interview with her and her husband on UK Channel 5's Five's Company. Before singing it on this daytime show, Gray had only sung this legendary ditty to friends at dinner parties. It was never officially released as a record.
In 1999, the year after her husband's death, she played Mrs Wilberforce in an 18-city tour of UK theatres in a stage adaptation of the 1955 Ealing classic film, The Ladykillers.^[4]
She last appeared on screen in 2000 in an episode of the BBC drama series Doctors.^[5]

Writing

She wrote some two dozen murder mysteries, which found wide popularity, including seventeen detective stories featuring "Inspector Cardiff", a character she created, eight radio plays, several volumes of short stories and an autobiography, Looking Forward, Looking Back. With her husband, she wrote some thoughts on her craft for young children, An Actor and His World.^[3] She also published Butterflies on My Mind, a work on the conservation and life of butterflies in Great Britain.^[6] She was also a patron of the Chiltern Shakespeare Company.

Death

Dulcie Gray died from bronchial pneumonia in the actors' residential care home, Denville Hall, Northwood, Middlesex, on 15 November 2011, five days before her 96th birthday.^[2]

Bibliography

• 1957 Murder on the Stairs
• 1958 Murder in Melbourne
• 1959 Baby Face
• 1960 Epitaph for a Dead Actor
• 1963 Murder in Mind
• 1964 The Devil Wore Scarlet
• 1964 No Quarter for a Star
• 1967 The Murder of Love
• 1968 Died in the Red
• 1969 Murder on Honeymoon
• 1970 For Richer For Richer
• 1971 Deadly Lampshade
• 1972 Understudy to Murder
• 1974 Dead Giveaway
• 1975 Ride on a Tiger
• 1979 Dark Calypso

Filmography

• Banana Ridge (1942)
• Victory Wedding (1942, short)
• Two Thousand Women (1944)
• Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945)
• A Place of One's Own (1945)
• They Were Sisters (1945)
• The Years Between (1946)
• Wanted for Murder (1946)
• Mine Own Executioner (1947)
• A Man About the House (1947)
• My Brother Jonathan (1948)
• The Glass Mountain (1949)
• The Franchise Affair (1951)
• Angels One Five (1952)
• There Was a Young Lady (1953)
• Welcome, Mr. Beddoes (1966)

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Moogy Klingman, American rock keyboardist (Utopia) and songwriter, cancer he was 61.

Mark "Moogy" Klingman ^[1] was an American musician and songwriter cancer he was 61.. He was a founding member of Todd Rundgren's band Utopia, and later became a solo recording artist, bandleader and songwriter.^[2] He released two solo recordings, and his songs have been covered by artists as wide ranging as Johnny Winter, Carly Simon, James Cotton, Thelma Houston, Eric Clapton, Barry Manilow and Guns N' Roses. He played on stage with Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Luther Vandross, Lou Reed, Jeff Beck and Allan Woody & Warren Haynes of the Allman Brothers and Gov't Mule. Other than Rundgren, his longest musical association may have been with Bette Midler, whom he served as band leader and who adopted for her signature song "(You Gotta Have) Friends", composed by Klingman and William "Buzzy" Linhart.^[3]

^{(September 7, 1950 – November 15, 2011)}

Life and career

"Moogy" Klingman's nickname was not from the musical instrument, but from his baby sister's pronunciation of "Marky" as "Moo-Gee."^[4] He did later play Moog synthesizers, but his nickname was already well established..
Klingman grew up in the Long Island suburb of Great Neck, New York. By age 10 he was collecting comic books and gramophone records, playing DJ in his basement. Through his older sister, he got an access pass to attend the 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance where Bob Dylan "went electric," meeting Dylan before and after the concert.^[5] Back home, his band The Living Few was signed to a demo deal by producer Dick Glass and recorded a demo of Dylan songs and original tunes.^[6]
At 16, he joined Jimmy James and the Blue Flames with Jimi Hendrix and Randy California.^[2] His jug band performance with schoolmate Andy Kaufman in a controversial civil rights concert resulted in his expulsion from high school in 1966, after which he went to Quintano's School for Young Professionals in New York City.^[7] By then, his band Glitterhouse had made records with the star producer Bob Crewe, as well as Crewe's soundtrack to the 1968 Roger Vadim film Barbarella with Jane Fonda.^[8]
Klingman's association with Todd Rundgren commenced in 1968 when they met outside the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village.^[9] Moogy was the original keyboardist for Todd Rundgren's Utopia, and Klingman's band Moogy & the Rhythm Kings (John "Willie" Wilcox, Ralph Schuckett, John Seigler)^[10] formed the core of the original Utopia. In Klingman's Manhattan loft, he and Rundgren constructed the Secret Sound recording studio where Rundgren produced his A Wizard, A True Star, Todd, and other albums.^[11] He played on ten Todd Rundgren solo albums, as well as several Utopia albums.
When Lou Reed found himself in 1972 with an acclaimed album, Transformer, but no backing musicians to support it on tour, he tried hiring an inexperienced bar band called The Tots, but ultimately fired them mid-tour. With barely a week's notice, Klingman came up with a new five-member backing band, and completed the tour.^[12]
Klingman played keyboards and produced Bette Midler's duet with Bob Dylan "Buckets of Rain" - which appeared on Midler's 1976 album, Songs for the New Depression.^[13] He became her musical director, taking over from Barry Manilow.^[14] Klingman collaborated with William "Buzzy" Linhart in co-writing "(You Gotta Have) Friends", which became Bette Midler's de facto theme song.^[15]
Klingman had solo albums out on Capitol and EMI records, as well as on his own label. Songs from his solo albums were covered by Johnny Winter, Eric Clapton, Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, Todd Rundgren and others. His song "Dust in the Wind" (not to be confused with the hit song of the same name by Kansas) was covered by Todd Rundgren on his album Something/Anything? and has been performed live in concert by Guns N' Roses.^[3]
Klingman became the executive producer and musical director^[16] of the Music From Free Creek "supersession" project when Rundgren's agent Albert Grossman wanted too much money on his behalf, and Rundgren passed the job on to his friend. The sessions featured the participation of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Keith Emerson, Mitch Mitchell, Harvey Mandel and Linda Ronstadt.^[17]
Klingman also performed live at many venues with various groups, playing for Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Buzzy Linhart and then in the 1990s, with members of the Allman Brothers/Gov't Mule, and a summer tour with Bo Diddley. He was the co-founder of the band The Peaceniks, along with Barry Gruber. Klingman also played in the Moogy/Woody Band with Allman Brothers alumni Allan Woody, and Warren Haynes. In 1979 he had a show on Manhattan Cable Channel J called "Manhattan Alley".^[18]
A benefit concert was held in January 2011, to help pay Klingman's medical expenses, and saw the original Todd Rundgren's Utopia, featuring Ralph Schuckett, Kevin Ellman, John Siegler and Klingman, reunite on stage for the first time in over thirty years.
Klingman died of bladder cancer^[9] in New York on Wednesday, November 16, 2011, at the age of 61.



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