/ Stars that died in 2023

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Don Cornelius, American television host and producer (Soul Train), died when he committed suicide by gunshot he was , 75

Donald Cortez " Don" Cornelius  was an American television show host and producer who was best known as the creator of the nationally syndicated dance and music franchise Soul Train, which he hosted from 1971 until 1993 died when he committed suicide by gunshot he was , 75. Eventually Cornelius sold the show to MadVision Entertainment in 2008.


(September 27, 1936 – February 1, 2012)

Early life and career

Cornelius was born on Chicago's South Side on September 27, 1936,[1] and raised in the Bronzeville neighborhood. Following his graduation from DuSable High School in 1954, he joined the United States Marine Corps and served 18 months in Korea. He worked at various jobs following his stint in the military, including selling tires, automobiles, and insurance, and as an officer with the Chicago Police Department.[2] He quit his day job to take a three-month broadcasting course in 1966, despite being married with two sons and having only $400 in his bank account.[1] In 1966, he landed a job as an announcer, news reporter and disc jockey on Chicago radio station WVON. He stood roughly 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) tall.
Cornelius joined Chicago television station WCIU-TV in 1967 and hosted a news program called A Black's View of the News. In 1970, he launched Soul Train on WCIU-TV as a daily local show. The program entered national syndication and moved to Los Angeles the following year.[3][4][5] Eddie Kendricks, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Bobby Hutton and The Honey Comb were featured on the national debut episode.
Originally a journalist and inspired by the civil rights movement, Cornelius recognized that in the late 1960s there was no television venue in the United States for soul music. He introduced many African-American musicians to a larger audience as a result of their appearances on Soul Train, a program that was both influential among African-Americans and popular with a wider audience.[6][7] As writer, producer, and host of Soul Train, Cornelius was instrumental in offering wider exposure to black musicians such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Michael Jackson, as well as creating opportunities for talented dancers, setting a precedent for popular television dance programs.[8] Cornelius said, "We had a show that kids gravitated to," and Spike Lee described the program as an "urban music time capsule".[8]
With the creation of Soul Train Don was able to keep the movement going well past Martin Luther King's death. He kept the momentum going well on through the 70’s and 80’s. He gave African Americans their own show, the first of its kind. In this show he was able to show African Americans in a new light, creating a Black is Beautiful Campaign.[9] Before he did this, African Americans were seldom seen on television. Soul Train showcased their culture and brought African American musicians and dancers to television.[10] This show even appealed to white audiences and it got huge attention.[11] It was one of the most groundbreaking television shows ever.[12]
Cornelius (second from right) with The Staple Singers during production of a 1974 episode of Soul Train.
Besides his smooth and deep voice and afro (which slowly shrunk over the years as hairstyle tastes changed), Cornelius was best known for the catchphrase that he used to close the show: "... and you can bet your last money, it's all gonna be a stone gas, honey! I'm Don Cornelius, and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace and soul!" After Cornelius's departure, it was shortened to "...and as always, we wish you love, peace and soul!" and was used through the most recent new episodes in 2006. Another introductory phrase he often used was: "We got another sound comin' out of Philly that's a sho 'nough dilly".
He had a small number of film roles, most notably as record producer Moe Fuzz in 1988's Tapeheads.
The 2008 Soul Train Music Awards ceremony was not held due to the WGA strike and the end of Tribune Entertainment's complicating the process of finding a new distributor to air the ceremony and line up the stations to air it. The awards show was moved in 2009 to Viacom's Centric cable channel (formerly BET J), which now airs Soul Train in reruns.
Cornelius last appeared on the episode of the TV series Unsung featuring Full Force, which was aired two days before his death.

Arrest

On October 17, 2008, Cornelius was arrested at his Los Angeles home on Mulholland Drive on a felony domestic violence charge.[13] He was released on bail. Cornelius appeared in court on November 14, 2008, and was charged with spousal abuse and dissuading a witness from filing a police report. Cornelius appeared in court again on December 4, 2008, and pleaded not guilty to spousal abuse and was banned from going anywhere near his estranged wife, Russian model Victoria Avila-Cornelius (Viktoria Chapman), who had filed two restraining orders against him. On March 19, 2009, he changed his plea to no contest and was placed on 36 months probation.

To see Did you know facts about Don Cornelius, click here.

Death

In the early morning hours of February 1, 2012, officers responded to a report of a shooting at 12685 Mulholland Drive and found Cornelius with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead by the Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner.[1][14] According to former Soul Train host, Shemar Moore, Cornelius may have been suffering from early onset of dementia or Alzheimer's disease and his health had been in decline.[15][16]
An autopsy found that Cornelius had been suffering from seizures during the last 15 years of his life, a complication of a 21-hour brain operation he underwent in 1982 to correct a congenital deformity in his cerebral arteries. He admitted that he was never quite the same after that surgery and it was a factor in his decision to retire from hosting Soul Train in 1993. According to his son, he was in "extreme pain" by the end and said shortly before his death, "I don't know how much longer I can take this."[17]

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Robert B. Cohen, American businessman, founder of Hudson News, died from progressive supranuclear palsy he was 86,

Robert Benjamin Cohen was an American businessman and founder of Hudson News, a chain of newsstands and stores located primarily in American airports and train stations.[1][2] Cohen grew the Hudson retailer from a single location he opened in LaGuardia Airport in 1987.[3][4] The Hudson News chain is now part of the larger Hudson Group retailer. The are approximately 600 Hudson News locations throughout the United States, as of 2012.[2][4] Most are located in transportation hubs, including a 1,000-square-foot store in Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.[2]


News into the world's largest airport newsstand

(May 26, 1925 – February 1, 2012)

Biography

Early life

Cohen was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, to Isaac and Lillian Goodman Cohen on May 26, 1925.[1] His father had previously run a newspaper delivery route and newsstand in Brooklyn, New York.[2] In the early 1920s, Isaac Cohen founded a newspaper distributor, the Bayonne News Company.[1][2] Robert Cohen earned his bachelor's degree from New York University (NYU) in 1947. Cohen played on the NYU Violets basketball team in college and his teammates included Dolph Schayes.[4] In 1947, the same year that he earned his bachelor's degree, Cohen married his wife, the former Harriet Brandwein.[1]

Newspaper and magazine distributorship

Cohen took control of his father's newspaper and magazine distribution company, the Hudson County News Company, shortly after graduation from NYU.[1][3][4]
Cohen focused much of his career (prior to founding Hudson News) on the expansion of his newspaper distribution business, Hudson County News Company, into one of the largest of its kind in the United States.[2] He served as president of Hudson County News Company. By the 1970s and 1980s, Cohen had grown the business into one of the largest magazine distributorships and wholesalers in the United States, focusing on the Boston and New York City metropolitan areas.[1][2][3][4]
Cohen found himself in legal trouble for business practices during the early 1980s. In 1981, Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court to paying Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union officials $37,000 in exchange for favorable treatment in dealings between the union and his companies.[2] He was fined $150,000 as part of the guilty plea.[2]
Cohen acquired the Metropolitan News Company, the regional distributor of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in 1985 in a partnership with The New York Times.[1][2][3] Cohen also acquired Newark Newsdealers which, again, was part of a partnership with The New York Times Company.[2] Robert Cohen sold his interest of the distributorship and his companies to the The New York Times Company in 1994.[1]
Cohen owned Worldwide Media Service Inc., which is the largest newsstand distributor of American magazines outside of the United States, from 1985 until 2003.[3]

Hudson News


A Hudson News store.
During the mid-1970s, Robert Cohen's Hudson County News Company acquired a bankrupt newsstand at Newark International Airport, which marked his entrance into the retail sector.[2] The newsstand had purchased magazines from Cohen's Hudson County News Company before it went into bankruptcy.[4] The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark International Airport and other transit hubs in the New York City area, asked Cohen to take control of the airport newsstand when it closed.[4]
At the time of the purchase in the 1970s, airport newsstands were described as very small, usually carrying only a limited selection of newspapers, magazines and other periodicals.[2] Cohen envisioned a larger, more modern, well lit news stores to replace the tiny, dim newsstands and kiosks. In 1987, Cohen opened the first Hudson News store in LaGuardia Airport in New York City.[2][3] Hudson News stores featured a wide selection of hundreds of domestic and foreign publications, whose covers were fully displayed, allowing costumers to easily browse the selection.[2][4] The stores featured bright, inviting lighting and wide isles, in contrast to other, cramped airport newsstands. Cohen called the layout for his new Hudson News store a "new-concept newsstand."[4] The La Guardia location became the model for future Hudson News locations.[2]
Robert Cohen's son, James Cohen, succeeded his father as the president of the Hudson Group, which operates Hudson News.[2] In 2008, Robert Cohen sold his majority stake in Hudson News to Dufry of Switzerland, one of the largest operators of duty-free stores in the world.[2][4]

Personal life

Outside of business, Cohen took a keen interest in racehorses. His best known horse, Hudson County, finished second in the Kentucky Derby in 1974, just behind race winner, Cannonade.[1] Cohen had paid $6,700 for Hudson County before the Derby.[2]
Robert Cohen died at the age of 86 at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 1, 2012, of progressive supranuclear palsy, a neurological disorder.[2] He was survived by his wife, Harriet; son, James; six grandchildren; and his sister, Rosalind Stone. He was predeceased by two children, gossip columnist Claudia Cohen and Michael Cohen, who died in 1997.[1][2] A memorial service was held at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, New Jersey, where he and his family were longtime residents.[3]

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Gerlando Alberti, Italian Sicilian Mafioso, died from cancer he was 88

Gerlando Alberti , also known as "U Paccarè" was a member of the Sicilian Mafia.[1] He belonged to the Porta Nuova family in Palermo headed by Giuseppe Calò. His nickname was "u Paccarè", the imperturbable one.[2]
Alberti was involved in numerous notorious Mafia events, such as the Ciaculli massacre in 1963, the Viale Lazio massacre in 1969, the disappearance of journalist Mauro De Mauro in 1970, and the killing of Chief Prosecutor Pietro Scaglione in 1971. [3] He was one of the top mafiosi involved in cigarette smuggling and heroin trafficking in the 1970s. He once said of the Mafia: "Mafia! What is that? A kind of cheese?"[2][4]

(September 18, 1927 – February 1, 2012)

Early career

Alberti was the son of a fruit seller and was born and grew up in Palermo, in the derelict district of Danisinni. He was born at home; the midwife begged to be allowed to bring his mother to the front door because of the lack of daylight in the house. He only went to school for four years. Alberti was initiated in the Mafia by Gaetano Filippone. His first test was to steal an entire cheese. In 1956 he was acquitted of a killing for lack of evidence.[2][3][5]
In the 1950s and 1960s, Alberti was considered to be an upstart Mafia boss in the shadow of men like Pietro Torretta, Tommaso Buscetta and the La Barbera brothers. They formed the so-called "New Mafia", which adopted new gangster techniques. Those starting their careers in their shadow were forming into new generation of mafiosi; they had initiative, and the road to leadership of a cosca had suddenly become quicker and more readily available to those who were fast with their tommy-guns.[6]
Alberti's official business was selling textiles, employing a squad of travelling salesmen, a wonderful cover for both his trafficking operations and smuggling jewels and works of art (he allegedly possessed a Caravaggio Nativity[7][8]). In 1961 he set up a textile trading business in Milan and formed a cosca in Northern Italy, with bases in Genoa and Milan.[3][5]

Mafia killer?

Alberti was indicted in July 1963 with 53 other mafiosi after the Ciaculli massacre, which turned the First Mafia War into a war against the Mafia. Together with Tommaso Buscetta, he was suspected of the attack against Angelo La Barbera, one of the protagonists of the war, in Milan in May 1963. At the "Trial of the 114" he was acquitted but sent into internal exile in a village in Lombardy.[5] Alberti, although living in Milan, had been in Palermo at the time of the bomb attack in Ciaculli. Interrogated, he declared that he had been with a woman and could not reveal her name.[2]
In December 1969 he was again in Palermo (while he was supposed to be in exile) when Mafia boss Michele Cavataio was killed by a Mafia hit squad for his double-crossing role in the First Mafia War. At the time, the Carabinieri began to consider Alberti as the boss of a kind of Murder Incorporated for the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.[3][9]

Rising star

Alberti was one of the rising stars of the Mafia in the 1970s. He had a luxurious lifestyle with apartments in Milan and Naples, he owned a green Maserati and he and his men spent their evenings at nightclubs with expensive women.[5] His position was confirmed on June 17, 1970, when the traffic police in Milan stopped an Alfa Romeo for speeding. In the car were Alberti, Tommaso Buscetta, Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, Gaetano Badalamenti and Giuseppe Calderone. Unaware of the identity of the men in the car the police let them continue their journey.[5][10] At the time, they were involved in a series of meetings about the future of Cosa Nostra. They decided to set up a new Sicilian Mafia Commission (the first one was dissolved after the Ciaculli massacre) – initially headed by a triumvirate consisting of Gaetano Badalamenti, Stefano Bontade and the Corleonesi boss Luciano Leggio.[11]
On May 5, 1971, Pietro Scaglione, Chief Prosecutor of Palermo, was killed with his driver Antonino Lo Russo. It was the first time since the end of World War II that the Mafia had carried out a hit on an Italian magistrate. The police rounded up 114 mafiosi who would be tried in the second "Trial of the 114". Scaglione was killed in the district under Alberti’s command. Alberti had arrived from Naples just before the attack and left immediately afterwards. A barman who had confirmed to the police that Alberti was in Palermo while Scaglione’s murder was taking place was kidnapped and killed.[5]
At the second "Trial of the 114" in 1974, Alberti was convicted and sentenced to six years. Sent to the island of Asinara, he escaped in June 1975, but was arrested again in December that year, hiding among Sicilians in Northern Italy.[5] In October 1977 he became a fugitive again, when he was supposed to appear before a court in Naples charged with cigarette smuggling.[2]

Heroin lab

In March 1974, Alberti was charged in Rome with heroin trafficking as the result a 30 month investigation. The inquiry started in September 1971 when US Customs agents seized 84 kilos of heroin in a Ford that was sent from Genoa to New York. Alberti and Gaetano Badalamenti were considered to be among the bosses of the international ring.[12][13]
On August 25, 1980, two heroin-refining labs were discovered on Sicily; a small lab was discovered first in Trabia and later that day a bigger lab in uncovered in Carini that could produce 50 kilograms a week. Alberti was arrested with three Corsican chemists in Trabia, among them André Bousquet an old hand from the French Connection days, who was sent by Corsican gangster Gaetan Zampa.[2][14] On his arrest, Alberti asked, "Mafia! What is that? A kind of cheese?", denying any knowledge or association with the crime.[4]

Attempt on life

Alberti was considered to be part of a moderate wing at the start of the 1981-83 Second Mafia War, allied with Gaetano Badalamenti and Stefano Bontade, against the Corleonesi led by Totò Riina. He barely survived an attempt on his life while incarcerated in the Ucciardone prison on February 9, 1983. He received two sentences, one for the heroin lab in Trabia and one life sentence for the killing of a hotel owner who had tipped off the police about the lab.[2][15]
Due to his conviction and his links with the men on the losing side of the Second Mafia War, Alberti’s role in Cosa Nostra shrunk. On June 20, 2006, the aging Alberti was arrested again when authorities issued 52 arrest warrants against the top echelon of Cosa Nostra in the city of Palermo (Operation Gotha).[16] Despite his life sentence he had obtained house arrest due to poor health. On January 21, 2008, the Palermo Court absolved Alberti in relation the Gotha investigation,[17] but he received an 8 years and 5 months sentence in appeal.[18]
He was arrested again on December 16, 2008, when the Carabinieri arrested 94 Mafiosi in Operation Perseo. He was among the men that wanted to re-establish the Sicilian Mafia Commission that had not been functioning since the arrest of Totò Riina in 1993.[19] In October 2010, he was sentenced to 6 years and 4 months.[20] Due to his age and cancer he was put under house arrest. He died on February 1, 2012, in his house in the Porta Nuova district of Palermo.[1]
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Monday, July 21, 2014

Patricia Neway, American operatic soprano and musical theatre actress (The Sound of Music), Tony Award-winner, died he was 92.

Patricia Neway was an American operatic soprano and musical theatre actress who had an active international career during the mid-1940s through the 1970s. One of the few performers of her day to enjoy equal success on both the opera and musical theatre stages, she was a regular performer on both Broadway and at the New York City Opera during the 1950s and 1960s. Critic Emily Langer of The Washington Post wrote that, "Neway was a rare type of singer — one with the classical training and raw vocal strength to meet the demands of opera as well as the acting talent and appeal required to succeed in musical theater."[1] She is particularly remembered for creating roles in the world premieres of several contemporary American operas, most notably Magda Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul. On Broadway she won a Tony Award for her portrayal of the Mother Abbess in the original production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music.

(September 30, 1919 – January 24, 2012) 

Biography

Born on Ditmas Avenue in Kensington, Brooklyn to Irish-American parents, Neway grew up in Rosebank, Staten Island. Her father was a printing plant foreman who had briefly worked in vaudeville as the high tenor in a vocal quartet. She attended the Notre Dame Academy on Staten Island and then Notre Dame College where she earned a degree in the sciences with a minor in mathematics. Although she had studied piano briefly as a child, her interest in music and singing awakened in her years at Notre Dame College after she began singing through a book of Neapolitan Songs that her uncle had given to her father as a present. What began as a hobby turned into a passion and following her graduation from Notre Dame she entered the Mannes College of Music where she earned a degree in vocal performance. She later studied singing with tenor Morris Gesell, whom she eventually married.[2]
While still a student, Neway made her Broadway debut as a member of the chorus in a 1942 production of Jacques Offenbach's La vie parisienne.[3] In April 1944 she was the soprano soloist in the world premiere of Norman Dello Joio's The Mystic Trumpeter with conductor Robert Shaw and the Collegiate Chorale at Town Hall.[4] She made her first opera appearance in a leading role in 1946, as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, at Chautauqua Opera. In 1948, she returned to Broadway to portray the Female Chorus in the United States premiere of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, at the Ziegfeld Theatre.[5]
In 1950, Neway made opera history when she starred as Magda Sorel in the world premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti's critically acclaimed Cold War-era opera The Consul at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia, with Cornell MacNeil as John Sorel and Marie Powers as the Mother.[6] Later that year, she went with the production to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, where it ran for 269 performances. She later recorded the role for Decca Records, and performed the role for the premieres in London, Paris, and other European cities.[7] Neway, Kuhlmann, and Powers also performed these roles in the UK at the Cambridge Theatre in February 1951, with Norman Kelley playing the role of the magician Nika.[8][9] For her work in the Broadway production she won the Donaldson Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1950.[10]
In 1951, Neway made her debut with the New York City Opera (NYCO), where she returned often through 1966. Her first appearance with the company was as Leah in the world premiere of David Tamkin's The Dybbuk on April 10, 1951, with Robert Rounseville as Channon.[11] She also notably sang in the world premiere of Hugo Weisgall's Six Characters in Search of an Author in 1959, with Beverly Sills.[12] Among the many other productions she appeared in with the NYCO were: Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana (as Santuzza, conducted by Julius Rudel), Alban Berg's Wozzeck (as Marie), Menotti's The Consul (as Magda), Amahl and the Night Visitors (as the Mother), and The Medium (as Mme Flora), Bucci's Tale for a Deaf Ear (as Laura Gates),[13] Carlisle Floyd's Wuthering Heights (as Nellie, opposite Phyllis Curtin as Catherine); Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw (as the Governess, with Richard Cassilly as Peter Quint), and Richard Strauss's Salome (as Herodias), among others.
While singing largely at the NYCO, Neway continued to perform with other opera companies and on Broadway. In 1952 she sang and recorded the title heroine in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Between 1952-1954 she was engaged as a principal soprano at the Opéra-Comique, in Paris. While there, she gave two of the greatest performances of her opera career, portraying the title role in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, and the role of Katerina Mihaylovna in Franco Alfano's Risurrezione.[5] In 1955, she sang in the world premiere of Raffaello de Banfield's Una lettera d'amore di Lord Byron in New Orleans, with Astrid Varnay. In 1957 she portrayed Madame de Croissy for NBC Opera Theatre's production of Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites, with Rosemary Kuhlmann as Mother Marie, Elaine Malbin as Blanche, and Leontyne Price as Mme Lidoine.[14]
Neway notably portrayed Miriam in the world premiere of Lee Hoiby's The Scarf at the very first Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy on June 20, 1958. In August 1958, she sang the role of the Mother in the world premiere of Menotti's Maria Golovin at the Brussels World's Fair.[15] She continued with the production when it premiered on Broadway in November 1958, at the Martin Beck Theatre, under the umbrella of the NBC Opera Theatre. The following year she sang the role again with the New York City Opera in addition for recording the role for a national television broadcast on NBC.[16]
In June 1959, Neway returned to the Spoleto Festival to portray Geraldine in the world premiere of Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge (which she recorded in 1960). The following November she returned to Broadway where she originated the role of the Mother Abbess in the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music for which she won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical, in 1960.
In 1963, Neway created the role of Jenny MacDougald in the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd's The Sojourner and Mollie Sinclair, in Raleigh, North Carolina, opposite Norman Treigle as Lachlan Sinclair, and conductor Julius Rudel.
In 1964, she performed the role of Lady Thiang in The King and I at Lincoln Center with Risë Stevens as Anna and Darren McGavin as the King. In 1966, she made her first appearance at the San Francisco Opera, as the Governess in The Turn of the Screw. She returned there in 1972 to play the Widow Begbick in Kurt Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.
In 1967, she appeared as Nettie in a special television production of Carousel, starring Robert Goulet as Billy Bigelow. Her featured solo was the song "You'll Never Walk Alone". In 1970 she created the role of the Queen in the world premiere of Menotti's stage play, The Leper.[10]
Neway's other repertoire included Arnold Schönberg's Erwartung.

Retirement and death

After retirement, Neway moved to Corinth, Vermont where she lived with her second husband, John Francis Byrne, until Byrne's death in 2008. Her first marriage to Morris Gesell had ended earlier in divorce.[17] She died at her home in Corinth on January 24, 2012, aged 92.[3]


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Stig Sæterbakken, Norwegian writer, died he was 46.

Stig Sæterbakken was a Norwegian author. He published his first book at the age of 18, a collection of poems called Floating Umbrellas, while still attending Lillehammer Senior High School. In 1991, Sæterbakken released his first novel, Incubus, followed by The New Testament in 1993. Aestethic Bliss (1994) collected five years of work as an essayist.

(January 4, 1966 – January 24, 2012) 

Sæterbakken returned to prose in 1997 with the novel Siamese, which marks a significant departure in his style. The following year saw the release of Self-Control. And in 1999, he published Sauermugg. The three books, the S-trilogy—as they are often called—were published in a collected edition in 2000.
In February 2001, Sæterbakken's second collection of essays, The Evil Eye was released. As with Aestethic Bliss this book also represents a summing up and a closing of a new phase in the authorship. In many ways the essays throw light on Sæterbakken's own prose over the last years, the S-trilogy in particular.
Siamese was released in Sweden by Vertigo. Vertigo followed up with a translation of Sauermugg in April 2007. This edition, however, was different from the Norwegian original. It included some of the later published Sauermugg-monologues, together with left overs from the time the book was written, about 50 pages of new material all together. The expanded edition was entitled Sauermugg Redux. Siamese has since been translated into Danish, Czech and English.
Sæterbakken's last books were the novels The Visit, Invisible Hands, and Don't Leave Me. He was awarded the Osloprisen (Oslo Prize) in 2006 for The Visit. Invisible Hands was nominated for both the P2-listener's Novel prize and Youth's Critics' Prize in 2007. The same year he was awarded the Critics Prize and Bokklubbene's Translationprize for his translation of Nikanor Teratologen's Eldreomsorgen i Øvre Kågedalen.
Sæterbakken was artistic director of The Norwegian Festival of Literature from 2006 until October 2008, when he resigned owing to the controversy which arose when David Irving was invited to the festival in 2009 (see below).
Sæterbakken's books were released and translated in several countries, among them Russia and USA. April 2009 Flamme Forlag released an essay by Sæterbakken, in their series of book-singles, called Yes. No. Yes.
Sæterbakken died on 24 January 2012, aged 46.[1]

David Irving controversy in 2008

In October 2008 Sæterbakken angrily resigned from his position as content director of the 2009 Norwegian Festival of Literature at Lillehammer. This followed the decision by the board of the festival on October 8/9 to renege an invitation to controversial author and Holocaust denier David Irving to speak at the festival. Sæterbakken was the initiator of the invitation. A media storm had erupted in Norway over Irving's appearance and several high-profile writers had denounced the initiative and called for a boycott of the festival. Even Norway's free speech organization Fritt Ord had requested that its logo be removed from the festival. Sæterbakken characterized his colleagues as "damned cowards" arguing that they were walking in lockstep.[2]

Books translated to English

  • "Siamese"(published in Norwegian in 1997)[3]

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Pierre Sinibaldi, French footballer and manager, died he was 87.

Pierre Sinibaldi was a French football player and manager.[1]

(29 February 1924 – 24 January 2012) 


In the 1960s and again in the early 1970s, he coached R.S.C. Anderlecht with whom he previously won four Belgian Championships between 1962 and 1966. As a player for Stade de Reims (1944–1953), he won two French Championships (1949, 1953) and the French Cup (1950); in 1947, he was the top scorer in the Division 1 with 33 goals. Sinibaldi, whose brothers Paul (goalkeeper) and Noël also played in Reims, was nominated only twice for the French national team, the first time for a 2-1 win against England in 1946.

Clubs (player)

Clubs (coach)




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Althea Wynne, British sculptor, died she was 75.

Althea Kathleen Wynne, also known by her married names of Dresman and Barrington Brown, was an English sculptor and art teacher, and a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. She specialized in creating large figurative work for gardens and public open spaces.

(6 October 1936 – 24 January 2012)

Early life

The daughter of an officer in the Royal Air Force, Wynne was educated at North Foreland Lodge, Farnham School of Art (1953–1955), Hammersmith College (1955–1957), and the Royal College of Art (1957–1960).[1][2]

Life and career


Group of three horses at Minster Court, City of London
In 1959 Wynne gained an early commission from London County Council for a ciment-fondu group of swimmers,[1] and in 1960 she won an open competition to design a new silver horse-racing trophy.[3] However, the same year she married Philip Dresman, and with him had a son and two daughters. For some years she spent most of her time bringing up her children, before returning to work as a teacher of art and the history of art.[1] In 1982 she married secondly Antony Barrington Brown, a photographer,[4] and at about the same time became active as a sculptor again.[1]
Wynne settled at Upton Lovell in Wiltshire, where several pieces of her work were displayed in her garden.[1] In Who's Who in Art her recreations were stated as "riding, sailing, talking".[5]
She died suddenly in January 2012, killed with her husband in a road accident on the A36 near her home while returning from the foundry that was to cast her last commission, two large bronzes of Windsor Grey horses for Windsor Great Park.[1] Both Wynne and Barrington Brown were killed instantly in a collision between their car and a truck carrying aggregates.[4] In February it was reported that there were plans to proceed with the Windsor project, finding another sculptor to complete the work by June 2013.[6]

Work

As a sculptor, Wynne's chief inspirations were the natural environment and classical (especially Etruscan) art.[1] Most of her work was figurative, showing various forms of animal and female human figures.[3] In 1988 her fountain "Doves Rising" was added to the Peace Park in Hounslow.[1] A lifelong rider, she made a number of equine statues, and in 1989 Prudential Property gave her a commission for three bronze horses to stand by the steps at Minster Court in the City of London.[1] Since nicknamed Sterling, Dollar and Yen,[7] the group is ten feet high, weighs fourteen tonnes, and has been compared with the horses of St Mark's Basilica in Venice.[1] In 1991 her "Family of Goats", for the London Docklands Development Corporation, was erected at Rotherhithe.[3] Other work includes a group called "White Horses", at the centre of a restaurant on RMS Queen Elizabeth II, which shows four horses riding the waves,[8] "Europa and the Bull", a full-size bronze figure, and the three huge obelisks rising through the Bluewater shopping centre at Greenhithe in Kent. She held solo exhibitions in Salisbury in 1988 and 1991, at Broadgate in 1993, and in Winchester in 1997.[1] In 2012 her bronze '‘Penelope Waiting" was the signature piece for an exhibition of sculpture at Avebury Manor.[9]
Wynne wrote of the inspirations for her work
My work is deeply influenced by my love of early classical sculpture, the calm poise and harmony of which I try to emulate. The Greeks also had an understanding of animals from which I draw some of my inspiration, and my equestrian subjects owe much to my love of riding.[3]

Professional associations



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