Arthur E. Bartlett died he was 76,

He pioneered conversion franchising, persuading independent real estate agents to come under the umbrella of big corporation for more clout. He sold the company after seven years for $89 million.

Arthur E. Bartlett, a consummate salesman and co-founder of the real estate behemoth Century 21, died New Year's Eve at his Coronado home after a long bout with Alzheimer's disease and other sicknesses, his daughter Stacy Bartlett Renshaw said. He was 76.

A firm believer in the power of the large, corporate brand, Bartlett pioneered the concept of conversion franchising, in which he persuaded independent real estate agents across the country to don the signature mustard-colored jacket and market themselves as Century 21 salespeople.

The formula worked. Seven years after starting the company at the age of 38 with Marshall Fisher, he sold it to Trans World Corp. for $89 million in cash and stock. These days Century 21 is a subsidiary of Realogy Corp. based in Parsippany, N.J., and a global company with 7,700 independently owned offices in 67 countries and territories.

"He really was one of the true pioneers, visionaries, who recognized early on the power of franchising and branding for growing and expanding a business," said Matthew R. Shay, president of the International Franchise Assn. in Washington, D.C. "He recognized there was a built-in market to expand his brand by going after people who were already in the industry."

Bartlett was born in Glens Falls, N.Y., on Nov. 26, 1933, the second of three children of Raymond, a truck driver for General Mills, and Thelma, a hairdresser.

The family moved to Long Beach in the 1940s. Bartlett attended Long Beach City College but did not graduate, and worked part-time at a men's clothing store. He left school to join the Army but was discharged shortly after joining when doctors discovered an old football injury that rendered him unable to serve.

He met his future wife, Collette, at a party, and the couple married in 1955. The pair had one daughter, Stacy.

Bartlett then worked as a salesman for the Campbell Soup Co. and later for the real estate company Forest E. Olson in the San Fernando Valley, first as an agent and later as branch and district manager. Before forming Century 21, he co-founded Four Star Realty and Comps Inc., which he later sold.

Bartlett first learned of the concept of real estate franchising from Fisher, one of his former Forest Olson employees who was working at a rival real estate company, CJS. Over a chance encounter at a diner, Fisher explained the concept and Bartlett became intrigued. In 1971, the pair opened the first Century 21 in Santa Ana.

Through "sheer force of personality and determination," Shay said, Bartlett was able to convince thousands of smaller, independent real estate companies to become Century 21 businesses.

Bartlett believed that franchising was the right way for a small entrepreneur to survive. His aim was to build the company into a national force, marketing the brand on television and radio, giving what was once a local endeavor national attention.

"Correct or not, consumers have confidence in the big, brand name," Bartlett told The Times in 1982. "Franchising has been the savior of free enterprise in this country. It has given the small businessman a way to survive."

After selling Century 21, Bartlett tried carrying his franchising success into the home repair business, founding Mr. Build International, which sold remodeling franchises to contractors. The company did not take off the same way Century 21 did and is no longer in operation, his daughter said. He also served as the president of the Larwin Square shopping center in Tustin and invested in residential real estate throughout the Southland.

His wife, Collette, died in 2002. Bartlett married his second wife, Nancy, his former assistant, in 2005. Besides his wife and his daughter, he is survived by his granddaughter Bella Collette Renshaw, his stepson Larry Wells, his brother Ray and his sister Millie Schneider.

In his free time Bartlett enjoyed collecting classic cars -- including a 1934 Ford Coupe and a 1957 Thunderbird -- as well as boating and taking road trips with his family. He was also a gun enthusiast and enjoyed target shooting at local ranges.

Mary Daly died she was 81

Radical feminist Mary Daly, the iconoclastic theologian who proclaimed, "I hate the Bible," and retired from Boston College rather than allow men to take her classes, has died. She was 81.

Daly died Sunday of natural causes at Wachusett Manor nursing home in Gardner, Mass., said her longtime friend, Nancy Kelly.

Daly's tumultuous career at the Jesuit-run Boston College ended after three decades when she refused to open her classroom to men, believing women did not freely exchange ideas if men were present. Men, she said, "have nothing to offer but doodoo." But Emily Culpepper, a friend and professor at the University of Redmond in California, said Daly was not anti-male.

"She was anti-male domination, which is a different thing," Culpepper said.

Poet Robin Morgan called Daly "the first feminist philosopher."

"She really pushed the boundaries, and that drove some people bananas," Morgan said. "But that kind of intellectual courage is, in fact, what usually moves the species forward, even if it gets trampled on in its own time."

Daly grew up in Schenectady, N.Y., the only child of an ice cream freezer salesman and telephone operator. She received her bachelor's degree from the College of Saint Rose, then a master's degree at Catholic University of America. She later earned doctorates at Notre Dame and the University of Fribourg in Switzerland before becoming a professor at Boston College in 1966.

Daly's career at BC ended in 2001, when she retired to settle a lawsuit. Daly sued BC after the school tried to force her to retire over her refusal to accept men in her classes. She had agreed to privately tutor men who wanted to take her classes.

Daly wrote about her intellectual formation in a 1996 article in the New Yorker "Sin Big," in which she recalled being mocked by a male classmate, and altar boy, at her parochial school because she could never "serve Mass" because she was a girl.

"(T)his repulsive revelation of the sexual caste system that I would later learn to call 'patriarchy' burned its way into my brain and kindled an unquenchable Rage," she wrote.

Daly described herself as a pagan, an eco-feminist and a radical feminist in a 1999 interview with The Guardian newspaper of London. "I hate the Bible," she told the paper. "I always did. I didn't study theology out of piety. I studied it because I wanted to know."

Her first book, "The Church and the Second Sex" in 1968, criticized the church as a product and fount of sexism amid the growing women's movement. Five years later, she wrote "Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation." Her other books included "Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy" in 1984.

Gloria Steinem called Daly "a brilliant writer, a brilliant theoretician," who enabled women to move beyond the oppression of male-dominated religious hierarchies to see "that there's God in themselves and in all living things."

"She was enough ahead of her time so that I believe she will be appreciated far beyond it," she said.

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Tsutomu Yamaguchi died he was 93

TOKYO (AP) — Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only person officially recognized as a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings at the end of World War II, has died at age 93.

Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip for his shipbuilding company on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city.

He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) to the southwest, which suffered a second U.S. atomic bomb attack three days later.

On Aug. 15, 1945, Japan surrendered, ending the war.

The mayor of Nagasaki said "a precious storyteller has been lost," in a message posted on the city's Web site Wednesday. Yamaguchi died Monday morning of stomach cancer, the mass circulation Mainichi, Asahi and Yomiuri newspapers reported.

Yamaguchi was the only person to be certified by the Japanese government as having been in both cities when they were attacked, although other dual survivors have also been identified.


"My double radiation exposure is now an official government record. It can tell the younger generation the horrifying history of the atomic bombings even after I die," Yamaguchi was quoted as saying in the Mainichi newspaper last year.

In his later years, Yamaguchi gave talks about his experiences as an atomic bomb survivor and often expressed his hope that such weapons would be abolished.

He spoke at the United Nations in 2006, wrote books and songs about his experiences, and appeared in a documentary about survivors of both attacks.

Last month he was visited in the hospital by filmmaker James Cameron, director of "Titanic" and "Avatar," who is considering making a movie about the bombings, according to the Mainichi.

Immediately after the war, Yamaguchi worked as a translator for American forces in Nagasaki and later as a junior high school teacher.

Japan is the only country to have suffered atomic bomb attacks. About 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki.

Yamaguchi is one of about 260,000 people who survived the attacks. Some bombing survivors have developed various illnesses from radiation exposure, including cancer and liver illnesses.

Certification as an atomic bomb survivor in Japan qualifies individuals for government compensation, including monthly allowances, free medical checkups and funeral costs.

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James von Brunn died he was 89

James Von Brunn died he was 89. Brunn was a white supremacist who was facing the death penalty for the deadly shooting of security guard Stephen T. Jones at the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum on June 10th last year. While being held in federal prison he suffered from chronic congestive heart failure, sepsis and other medical problems. One of the guards, Harry Weeks who shot back at Brunn during the shooting at the museum said, "he's glad Brunn is gone and wished he had his day in court.'

(July 11, 1920 – January 6, 2010)

Born in St. Louis, von Brunn graduated from Washington University in 1943 with a degree in journalism.
That same year, he became a midshipman with the Navy Reserves after enlisting for "patriotic reasons," documents show.
Von Brunn claims to have been a decorated PT boat captain during World War II.
Von Brunn was a racist who not only made racial slurs toward Jews online but also wrote a book titled, "Kill the Best Gentiles," accusing the Holocaust of being a hoax. He was charged with first degree murder,killing in a federal building and intimidating Jewish people at the museum.

Well I guess what goes around comes around. You can't take a life and expect to keep yours. I can't understand why people are so inhumane, but to kill someone because you disagree or dislike their beliefs should be a punishable crime, and that's why Mr. Von Brunn is no longer in existence.

After moving to New York City in 1947, von Brunn found a job at a "big-league advertising [firm] on Madison Avenue" and attended evening art classes, he wrote in an online biography.

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Margery Beddow died she was 72

Broadway veteran Margery Beddow, a performer, director, and choreographer, died Sunday at her home in New York. She was 72.

(December 13, 1931 – January 3, 2010)


As a performer, Beddow appeared in 10 Broadway shows, including "Redhead," "Conquering Hero," "We Take the Town," "Two on the Aisle," "Almanac," "Take Me Along," "Ulysses in Nighttown," and revivals of "Fiorello" and "Showboat." She appeared in seven Bob Fosse musicals and was the author of the book "Bob Fosse's Broadway." Her work as a choreographer included two original Broadway shows, "Dear Oscar" and "Wind in the Willows," and several touring productions. She also directed and staged "Broadway by the Year" at Town Hall and "Noël Coward and his Ladies."

In her early career, Beddow was a prima ballerina of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and a dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. On screen she appeared in the both the original Mel Brooks film "The Producers" and the later musical version. Most recently she was seen in the Disney film "Enchanted" and the Academy Award-nominated "Doubt."

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Eunice Johnson died she was 93,

Ebony Fashion Fair Producer and Director Eunice W. Johnson died this past weekend. She was 93. Johnson, the widow of Johnson Publishing Company founder John H. Johnson, gave Ebony magazine its name for almost 50 years produced an influential traveling fashion show that brought haute couture to African Americans while raising millions of dollars for charity. She was also the driving force behind the creation of the Fashion Fair makeup line, one of the first makeup lines for women of color. Host Michel Martin speaks with Washington Post Fashion Editor Robin Givhan for more on Johnson's legacy.

A close business partner of her husband's since the beginning of Johnson Publishing in 1942, Johnson remained the company's secretary-treasurer at the time of her death and for years wrote a monthly fashion feature for Ebony magazine.
Johnson Publishing's flagship, conceived as an African-American version of Life and published since 1945, was named by Johnson to reflect fine black ebony wood, as well as the mystique surrounding the tree and color, said Wendy E. Parks of Johnson Publishing..
But Johnson's greatest legacy may be her role as producer and director of the Ebony Fashion Fair, an influential event that for decades has been a showcase for the world's top designers.
The fair was started in the 1950s as a fundraiser for a hospital in New Orleans at the suggestion of Jessie Covington Dent, wife of a former president of Dillard University.
It was a success, and Johnson and her husband decided to take the concept on the road. Produced annually since 1958, the fair became a traveling fashion extravaganza that now makes nearly 180 stops a year in the U.S. and abroad to largely black audiences from wide economic strata.
"It brought to the lower middle class black people a sense of what fashion really was. She gave the local community a chance to see these clothes," said Andre Leon Talley, editor at large for Vogue magazine.
The fair was both "an aspirational as well as an inspirational experience," Talley said. It became a showcase for a new generation of black designers as well as early African American models like Pat Cleveland.
The show's director and producer since 1961, Johnson was initially a curiosity as she toured French and Italian boutiques and fashion houses. But her sense of elegance, along with a deep pocketbook, quickly made her a respected figure in the world of high fashion.
"When they found out how much money I was going to spend, word got around," Johnson told the Tribune in 1997.
She stayed at the best hotels, dined at the finest restaurants and dressed impeccably.
"She always had on the last word 1/8in fashion,3/8 but it was always very elegant," Talley said. Legendary French designer "Yves Saint Laurent would receive her in the same manner he'd receive the editor of Vogue."
Since its founding, the Ebony Fashion Fair has produced more than 4,000 shows in the U.S., England and the Caribbean, and raised more than $55 million for charity, according to Johnson Publishing.
An outgrowth of the fair was Johnson Publishing's Fashion Fair line of cosmetics, conceived specifically for black women.
Johnson was born Eunice Walker and grew up in Selma, Ala. Her father was a doctor, and her mother was principal of a local high school and a teacher at Selma University, which had been co-founded by Johnson's maternal grandfather.
At Talladega University in Alabama, she received a bachelor's degree in sociology, with a minor in art. A lifelong learner, she later studied journalism at Northwestern University and interior design at the former Ray-Vogue School of Design.
She met John H. Johnson in 1940 at a dance hall called Bacon's Casino in Chicago. The couple was married in Selma on June 21, 1941, and returned to Chicago, where she worked by his side as he started a publishing company with $500 borrowed against his mother's furniture.
John Johnson died in 2005. Johnson Publishing is now run by the Johnsons' daughter, Linda Johnson Rice.

Willie Mitchell died he was 81

Willie Mitchell  was an American soul, R&B, rock and roll,pop and funk record producer and arranger, who ran Royal Recording in Memphis, Tennessee. He was best known for his Hi Records label of the 1970s, which released albums by a large stable of popular Memphis soul artists, including Mitchell himself, Al Green, Syl Johnson andAnn Peebles He was 81. Mitchell's son, Lawrence Mitchell, said his father suffered a cardiac arrest on Dec. 19.

(March 1, 1928 – January 5, 2010)

Willie Mitchell owned Royal Studio where Buddy Guy, John Mayer and many others recorded their music.


In the 1970s, Mitchell also owned Hi Records of Memphis, the label that produced some of Green's biggest hits. Green, also from Memphis, was flying to Australia and unavailable for comment Tuesday.


At Hi, Mitchell was responsible for several instrumental hits of the 1960s and helped the careers of Green and singer Ann Peebles in the 1970s. Even in later years, Mitchell stayed busy at his studio, working with then-emerging talents like Mayer and Anthony Hamilton.
Most recently, he wrote string and horn arrangements for Rod Stewart's new album of R&B covers, and produced a still-unreleased album from soul kingpin Solomon Burke.
He received a Trustees Award from the Grammy Foundation in 2008.
A trumpeter, Mitchell and his band provided the musical entertainment at several New Year's Eve parties for Elvis Presley at Presley's Graceland home. A Memphis boulevard was named in his honor in 2004.

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