Ed" McMahon, Jr. died he was 86

Edward Leo Peter "Ed" McMahon, Jr. died he was 86. McMahon was an American comedian, game show host, announcer, and television personality. Most famous for his work on television as Johnny Carson's announcer on Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992, and as the host of the talent show Star Search from 1983 to 1995, he later also became well-known as the presenter of the now-defunct American Family Publishers sweepstakes (not, as is commonly believed, its main rival Publishers Clearing House).^[1][2]

(March 6, 1923 – June 23, 2009)

McMahon annually co-hosted the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. He performed in numerous television commercials, most notably for Budweiser. In the 1970s and 1980s, he anchored the team of NBC personalities conducting the network's coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

McMahon appeared in several films, including The Incident (1967), Fun With Dick and Jane (1977), Full Moon High (1981), and Butterfly (1982), as well as briefly in the film version of Bewitched (2005). According to Entertainment Weekly he is considered one of the "greatest sidekicks".^[3]

McMahon was born in Detroit to Eleanor (née Russell) and Edward Leon McMahon, a fund-raiser and entertainer.^[4] He was raised in Lowell, Massachusetts. He attended Catholic University of America, majoring in speech and drama. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949. He was a member of Phi Kappa Theta fraternity. McMahon began his career as a bingo caller in Maine when he was fifteen.

Prior to this, he worked as a carnival barker for three years in Mexico, Maine. He put himself through college as a pitchman for vegetable slicers on the Atlantic City boardwalk. His first broadcasting job was at WLLH-AM in his native Lowell and he began his television career in Philadelphia at WCAU-TV. In the 1950s, he emceed the game shows Missing Links, Snap Judgment, Concentration, and Who Dunnit?.

During World War II, McMahon was a fighter pilot in the United States Marine Corps serving as a flight instructor and test pilot. He was a decorated pilot and was discharged in 1946, remaining in the reserves.^[5]

After college, McMahon returned to active duty. He was sent to Korea in February 1953. He flew unarmed O-1E Bird Dogs on 85 tactical air control and artillery spotting missions. He remained in the Marine Corps Reserve, retiring with the rank of Colonel in 1966 and was then commissioned as a Brigadier General in the California Air National Guard.

Several of his ancestors, including the Marquis d'Equilly, also had long and distinguished military careers. Patrice MacMahon, duc de Magenta was a Marshal of armies in France, serving under Napoleon III, and later President. McMahon once asserted to Johnny Carson that mayonnaise was originally named MacMahonnaise in honor of this ancestor, referring to him as the Comte de MacMahon.^[6] In his autobiography, McMahon said that it was his father who told him of this relationship and he went on to suggest that he was not certain of the truth of the story.^[7]

McMahon and Johnny Carson first worked together as announcer and host on the daytime game show Who Do You Trust? (1957-1962). McMahon and Carson left the show to join The Tonight Show in 1962. He describes what happened when the pair first met, the whole meeting being "... about as exciting as watching a traffic light change".^[8]

For more than 30 years, McMahon introduced the Tonight Show with a drawn-out "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny!" His booming voice and constant laughter alongside the "King of Late Night" earned McMahon the nickname the "Human Laugh Track" and "Toymaker to the King".

As part of the introductory patter to The Tonight Show, McMahon would state his name out loud, pronouncing it as Ed "Mc MAH yon", but neither long-time cohort Johnny Carson nor anyone else who interviewed him ever seemed to pick up on that subtlety, usually referring to him as Ed "Mc MAN".

The extroverted McMahon served as a counter to the notoriously shy Carson. Nonetheless, McMahon once told an interviewer that after his many decades as an emcee, he would still get "butterflies" in his stomach every time he would walk onto a stage, and would use that nervousness as a source of energy.

He was also host of the successful weekly syndicated series Star Search, which began in 1983 and helped launch the careers of numerous actors, singers, choreographers, and comedians. He stayed with the show until it ended in 1995, and in 2003, he made a cameo appearance on the revival of the CBS show, hosted by his successor, Arsenio Hall.

McMahon at the premiere of Air America, 1990

McMahon was the long-running co-host of the annual Labor Day weekend Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. His 41st and last appearance was in 2008, making him second only to Lewis himself in number of appearances.^[9]

McMahon and Dick Clark hosted the television series (later special broadcast) TV Bloopers And Practical Jokes on NBC from 1982 until 1998, when Clark decided to move the production of the series to ABC.

In 2004, he became the announcer and co-host of Alf's Hit Talk Show on TV Land. He has authored two memoirs, Here's Johnny!: My Memories of Johnny Carson, The Tonight Show, and 46 Years of Friendship as well as For Laughing Out Loud.

McMahon hosted Lifestyles Live, a weekend talk program aired on the USA Radio Network. He also appeared in the feature documentary film, Pitch People, the first motion picture to take an in-depth look at the history and evolution of pitching products to the public.

In the early 2000s McMahon made a series of Neighborhood Watch public service announcements parodying the surprise appearances to contest winners that he was supposedly known for. (In fact, it is not clear whether the company McMahon fronted, American Family Publishers, regularly performed such unannounced visits, as opposed to Publishers Clearing House and its oft-promoted "prize patrol".)

Towards the end of the decade, McMahon took on other endorsement roles, playing a rapper for a FreeCreditReport.com commercial^[10] and in a Cash for Gold commercial alongside MC Hammer. McMahon was also the spokesman for Pride Mobility, a leading power wheelchair and scooter manufacturer.

McMahon had three daughters and three sons:

• Claudia McMahon
• Katherine McMahon
• Linda McMahon (married name Linda Schmerge)
• Jeffrey McMahon
• Michael Edward McMahon (April 12, 1951^[11] - July 28, 1995, cancer)
• Lex McMahon (stepson; adopted after McMahon married Pam Hurn)

In June 2008, it was announced that McMahon was $644,000 behind on payments on $4.8 million in mortgage loans and was fighting to avoid foreclosure on his multimillion-dollar Beverly Hills home.^[12] McMahon was also sued by Citibank for $180,000. McMahon appeared on Larry King Live on June 5, 2008 with his wife to talk about this situation. In the interview, McMahon's wife Pam said that people assumed that the McMahons had so much money because of his celebrity status. Pamela McMahon also commented that they do not have "millions" of dollars.^[13]

On July 30, 2008, McMahon's financial status suffered another blow. According to Reuters, McMahon failed to pay divorce attorney Norman Solovay $275,168, according to a lawsuit filed in the Manhattan federal court. McMahon and his wife, Pamela, hired Solovay to represent Linda Schmerge, his daughter from another relationship, in a "matrimonial matter," said Solovay's lawyer, Michael Shanker.^[14]

On August 14, 2008, real estate mogul Donald Trump announced that he would purchase McMahon's home from Countrywide Financial and lease it to McMahon, so the home would not be foreclosed.^[15] McMahon agreed instead to a deal with a private buyer for his hilltop home, said Howard Bragman, McMahon's former spokesman. Bragman declined to name the buyer or the selling price, but he said it is not Trump. "For Mr. Trump, this acquisition was not business-related, but, as he has stated, was meant to help out an American icon," said Michael Cohen, special counsel to Trump. "If another buyer should emerge who will create the benefit Mr. Trump sought for Ed McMahon, then he is clearly pleased." In early September, after the second buyer's offer fell through, Trump renewed his offer to purchase the home.^[16]

On April 20, 2002, McMahon sued his insurance company for more than $20 million, alleging that he was sickened by toxic mold that spread through his Beverly Hills house after contractors failed to properly clean up water damage from a broken pipe. McMahon and his wife, Pamela, became ill from the mold, as did members of their household staff, according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court suit. The McMahons also blame the mold for the death of the family dog, Muffin. Their suit, the latest of many in recent years over toxic mold, was filed against American Equity Insurance Co., a pair of insurance adjusters and several environmental cleanup contractors. It seeks monetary damages for alleged breach of contract, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. A spokeswoman for the insurance company declined to comment. On March 21, 2003, the long battle ended with McMahon reaping $7 million from what was later discovered to be several companies who were negligent for allowing mold into his home. Their dog's death was confirmed to be caused by mold.

In March 2008, it was announced McMahon was recovering from a broken neck and two subsequent surgeries. He was injured in 2007 in a fall. He later sued Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and two doctors claiming fraud, battery, elder abuse, and emotional distress, and accused them of discharging him with a broken neck after his fall in 2007 and later botching two neck surgeries.

On February 27, 2009 it was reported that McMahon has been in an undisclosed Los Angeles hospital (later confirmed as Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center) for almost a month. He was listed in serious condition and was in the intensive care unit. His publicist told reporters that he was admitted for pneumonia at the time, but could not confirm nor deny reports that McMahon had been diagnosed with bone cancer.^[17]

McMahon died at age 86 on June 23, 2009, at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. No formal cause of death was given, but McMahon had been suffering from pneumonia.

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Sir Henry Egar Garfield Hodge died he was 65

Sir Henry Egar Garfield Hodge, died he was 65. Sir Henry The Hon. Mr Justice Hodge, was an English solicitor and judge of the High Court of England and Wales.

(12 January 1944 - 18 June 2009)

Hodge was educated at Chigwell School and read law at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1965. He qualified as a solicitor in 1970. From 1977, he practised as a solicitor in north London with the firm, Hodge Jones & Allen, that he founded with partners Peter Jones and Patrick Allen. He became a recorder in 1993, and a circuit judge in October 1999, when he retired from his firm. He was appointed Chief Immigration Adjudicator in 2001.

On 1 October 2004, he became the third solicitor to sit as an High Court judge in England and Wales, after Sir Michael Sachs (appointed in 1993) and Sir Lawrence Collins (appointed in 2000). In April 2005, he became president of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal.

He served as Deputy Chairman of the Legal Aid Board from 1996 to 1999. He was chairman of the National Council for Civil Liberties, and deputy director of the Child Poverty Action Group. He received an OBE for services to the Social Security Advisory Committee. He was also a Vice-President of the Law Society.

In October 2007 Hodge caused great controversy when he blocked a decision from the Home Office to deport an immigrant from Sierra Leone after the man carried out a number of sexual attacks on women in London parks. Hodge's reason for not seeking to deport him was that the criminal in question had no family left in the Sierra Leone, the country he left to come to Britain when aged six.

He married Labour politician Margaret Hodge in 1978. In addition to a son and daughter from her first marriage, they have two daughters together. He died of leukaemia on 18 June 2009.

Peter Wheeler, Former TVR Owner, Died At 64

Peter Wheeler was a chemical engineer from Yorkshire, UK, who owned the Blackpool-based TVR sports car company for 23 years. Wheeler made his fortune supplying specialist equipment to the North Sea oil industry. After owning a TVR, he ended up buying the company in 1981. Wheeler sold TVR to Nikolai Smolenski in 2004 for around £15 million. Despite his background in chemistry, Peter Wheeler also contributed to the design of TVRs.

(1944 - 2009)

Under Wheeler's ownership, TVR moved from cars with Triumph and Ford engines to using the Rover V8, and later the Speed Eight and Speed Six designed for TVR by Al Melling.After making his money in oil equipment, Wheeler purchased TVR back in 1981 from Martin Lilley and owned it until 2004, when he sold the firm to young Russian plutocrat Nikolai Smolenski. Over the 23 years he was at the helm, however, Wheeler presided over not just the company's financials, he was present in virtually every decision the specialty car maker made, from model choices to styling decisions. He even raced his company's own creations in the TVR Tuscan Challenge.

Wheeler, 64, leaves behind a rich legacy of uniquely styled, uniquely uncompromised driver's cars from a brand we still hope has a future. Richard Meaden has penned a nice memoriam of Wheeler over at Driver's Republic – click on the link below to check it out.

Peter died on 12th June 2009 after a short illness.

Huey Long died he was 105 and the last living member of the Ink Spots

Huey Long was an African American singer and musician and the last living member of the Ink Spots.

(April 25, 1904 – June 10, 2009)

Born in Sealy, Texas, Long began his musical career in 1925 playing banjo for Frank Davis' Louisiana Jazz Band, based in Houston. He switched from the banjo to the guitar after moving to Chicago, where he appeared at the 1933 World's Fair with Texas Guinan's Cuban Orchestra.

In early 1944, Ink Spots leader Bill Kenny offered Long a position with the group. He stayed with them until 1985, and eventually moved to New York City, where he taught and wrote music.

In later life he retired to Houston where his daughter Anita set up a homey museum commemorating the Ink Spots and dedicated to Long in particular.

Long celebrated his 105th birthday in April 2009 and resided at his Houston home until his death in June 2009.

If I Didn’t Care


Maybe


Ink Spots - It's Only A Shanty in Old Shanty Town



Ink Spots--When You Come To The End Of The Day



Ink Spots--Here In My Lonely Room


The Ink Spots - The Gypsy

Bob Bogle, Ventures' guitarist, died he was 75

Bob Bogle — co-founder of legendary Tacoma garage-rock band, the Ventures, and the architect behind the distinctive guitar sound of early hits "Walk, Don't Run" and "Perfidia" — has died.

Mr. Bogle, a resident of Vancouver, Wash., was 75 when he died on Sunday. He suffered from Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and had been too frail to play with the Ventures in his waning years. But he lived long enough to see his band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2008.

Mr. Bogle became ill over the weekend and was taken to a hospital where he died, according to Ventures co-founder Don Wilson, Mr. Bogle's friend and musical collaborator for more than five decades.

"Even though you know it's gonna happen, when it does, it's like a bomb dropping on you," said Wilson, who lives in Sammamish.

"Boy, I tell you, he's the brother I never had," he said. "And he is much more than any brother could be. He and I were partners for, like, 52 years. And to tell you the honest truth, we had never, ever had an argument in all that time — never."

Friends, peers and admirers recalled the lack of ego that accompanied Mr. Bogle's virtuosity.

"He was a very creative, talented person," said Buck Ormsby of the Fabulous Wailers, the Tacoma band that paved the way for the Ventures with their 1959 hit "Tall Cool One."

"He looked like he was so relaxed in everything he did," Ormsby said. "... And he was a great guy, just one of the nicest guys you'll ever want to meet."

Seattle radio disc jockey Mark Christopher spearheaded a campaign to get the long-overlooked Ventures into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when he was with Seattle oldies station KBSG-FM.

"It was just a privilege to meet him and just an honor to know that he did get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and saw that before his time," Christopher said. "That was a biggie for me. I just wanted to make sure the guys, because they were getting older, at least got to see something like that before their time came."

Wilson recalled selling cars in Seattle in the late '50s, when Mr. Bogle walked into his dealership one day. Wilson was struggling to make commission. And when he learned that Mr. Bogle worked construction, Wilson asked if he could get him a job.

"That's why we started working together," Wilson said. "And then we found out that we each knew a few chords on the guitar, you know, and we had a lot of free time on our hands. But neither of us owned a guitar."

The two men bought a pair of guitars and a chord book at a downtown Tacoma pawnshop in 1958, aspiring only to find easier work headlining local nightclubs. But fate had so much more in store for them.

The Ventures scored their first hit with a remake of a Chet Atkins song called "Walk, Don't Run" in 1960. It would become one of the most influential songs in rock history, sparking a remarkable run that saw the Ventures chart with 38 albums between 1960 and 1972 en route to more than 100 million records sold.

"That song started a whole new movement in Rock 'n' Roll. The sound of it became 'surf music' and the audacity of it empowered guitarists everywhere," said Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty, as he inducted the Ventures into the rock hall of fame last year. "Every guitar player on this planet knows what I'm talking about."

While Nokie Edwards eventually took over as lead guitarist for the ventures, Wilson recalled how Mr. Bogle laid the foundation for the Ventures' innovative sound.

"If you listen to 'Walk, Don't Run' and 'Perfidia,' the lead guitar is just totally unique," Wilson said. "He used that vibrato bar — they call it a whammy bar — and he used it like nobody else.

"Nobody had heard anything like it. That was why 'Walk, Don't Run' was such a monster hit. I run across so many people, guitar players — famous ones — and they say the first song I learned was 'Walk, Don't Run'.

The Ventures Live: Wipe Out


The Ventures "Walk Don't Run"


The Ventures Hawaii Five-0


Tequila (The Ventures)


Memphis ( The Ventures)


The Ventures - Apache


The Ventures - The Flight Of The Bumblebee



The Ventures - The House Of Rising Sun



The Ventures - Ghost Riders In The Sky


The Ventures - Secret Agent Man

Dusty Rhodes died he was 82

James Lamar Rhodes has died he was 82. Rhodes was an outfielder with a 7 year career from 1952-1957, 1959. He played for the New York Giants and San Francisco Giants, both of the National League.

(May 13, 1927, Mathews, Alabama – June 17, 2009

Of him, the great manager Leo Durocher said "a buffoon is a drunk on a hitting spree". In the 1954 season, he was often used as a pinch-hitter for Monte Irvin, and came through with an incredible number of clutch hits.

In the first game of the 1954 World Series, Rhodes had a pinch hit home run in the bottom of the tenth inning off Bob Lemon to win the game.^[2] The next day he delivered a pinch hit single in the fifth inning and then remained in the game to play left field. In the seventh inning he hit a homer off Early Wynn to help ensure the victory.^[3]

Roy Campanella, the Brooklyn Dodger catcher, said of Durocher and his action of pinch-hitting Rhodes: "If they have to pinch hit Rhodes for Irvin, they must be hurting." Willie Mays mocked this assumption in his autobiography. Mays considered Rhodes to be a "fabulous hitter", as did Durocher, who wrote in his autobiography, "...boy could he hit!", while commenting on Rhodes atrocious fielding abilities. [1]

After his sports career, Dusty Rhodes worked for a friend on a tug boat for 25 years, a job which Dusty said he loved. Dusty stated after his career when asked why his career was so short, "After Durocher left the Giants, baseball wasn't fun anymore."

Rhodes retired to Boca Raton, Fla., then to Henderson, Nev., with Gloria, his wife of 30 years.

"He loved baseball. He loved his kids. He loved his wife," Turco said. "I don't know in what order. But he was a funny guy. He would tell you a story and you'd fall on the floor."

Over the last two years, Rhodes battled heart problems, diabetes and emphysema, which resulted in frequent visits to hospital emergency rooms, Turco said.

He was on his way to a regular medical check-up when he went into cardiopulmonary arrest, dying a few hours later at Valley Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas, according to a spokeswoman for the Clark County coroner's office.

In addition to his wife, Rhodes' survivors include three children from a previous marriage; a sister; and 11 grandchildren.

Tomoji Tanabe has died he was 113

Tomoji Tanabe the worlds oldest living man has died. Tanabe was a Japanese supercentenarian and, at the time of his death at age 113, the oldest living man in the world. Tanabe became the oldest man in Japan following the death of Nijiro Tokuda, who was 111 at the time, on 12 June 2006. Upon the death of 115-year-old Emiliano Mercado del Toro on 24 January 2007, he assumed the title of the oldest validated man in the world. He was the last verified man born in 1895.

(18 September 1895 – 19 June 2009)

Tanabe was the seventh-oldest validated person in the world and the third-oldest in Japan. In spite of being the youngest "oldest living man" since 1999 at his title accession in January 2007, at the time of his death, Tanabe ranked 10th among the oldest men ever and was only one day removed from tying American supercentenarian, Johnson Parks (1884–1998), at 9th. In addition, Tanabe is one of only eleven men ever to reach the verified age of 113 without dispute.

Born in Miyakonojo, Miyazaki Prefecture, Tanabe worked as a civil engineer at the city office.[1] He is survived by eight children, 25 grandchildren and 54 great-grandchildren.[2] He credited total abstinence from alcohol as the secret to his longevity.[3] On his 112th birthday, he stated: "I want to live forever. I don't want to die", as he received 100,000 yen ($870) and flowers from the local mayor. Tanabe (Guinness Book of World Records' oldest living male, June 2007) was "extremely healthy". He ate vegetables and drank milk daily.[4][5]

A former city land surveyor,[6] Tanabe, on his 113th birthday said "I am happy. I eat a lot. I don't want to die yet." Last year, he said he wanted to "live indefinitely."[7][8] Tanabe received a giant tea cup engraved with his name and date of birth plus birthday gifts, flowers and US $ 1,000 cash from Miyakonojo Mayor Makoto Nagamine. A Miyakonojo official said: "His favorite food is fried shrimp, but we've heard that he's cut back on oily food. He's said he wants to live for another 10 years, that he doesn't want to die."[9]

However after his last birthday, Tanabe's health went down quickly. He had mostly been bed-ridden since early May 2009 and could not eat, due to a chronical heart condition. On June 19, 2009, Tanabe died in his sleep of heart failure at his home in southern Japan. He was 113 years, 274 days old.[10] Upon Tanabe's death, English World War I veteran Henry Allingham, age 113, became the world's oldest living man.