In 2024, we've experienced the loss of several luminaries in the world of entertainment. These beloved figures—actors, comedians, musicians, singers, and coaches—have touched our lives with their talent, passion, and dedication. They've left an indelible mark on our hearts and shaped the world of entertainment in ways that will continue to inspire and influence generations to come.
Among the incredible actors who bid farewell this year, we mourn the loss of a true chameleon who effortlessly.
Born in Piacenza, Poggi did all his studies prior to priestly ordination in that city and was sent to Rome in 1944 primarily to study diplomacy at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. While doing this, Poggi joined the Secretariat of State, for which he was to work for the next twenty years. In the process he rose to become the domestic prelate of Pope John XXIII in 1960. Poggi was in charge of the mission to investigate the legal status of titular churches in Tunisia during 1963 and 1964.
Poggi became a titular Archbishop that year and became secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs in 1966. He continued serving as a nuncio in Africa during the later part of the 1960s, but was then given a critical role by Pope Paul VI in his "Ostpolitik", which aimed to improve Vatican relations with the Communist-ruled nations of the Warsaw Pact. This role reached its greatest importance early in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, when Poggi, owing to his knowledge of Polish politics of the time, was sent first to Warsaw and then to the Kremlin to negotiate with Moscow. He later visited Prague. Critics of John Paul saw his sending of Poggi to the Eastern bloc as an effort on the Pope's part to control and dictate the policies of Lech Wałęsa's resistance to Wojciech Jaruzelski's military government.
After his work in the Eastern bloc, Poggi became the papal nuncio to Italy and in this role was able to remain close to the centre of Church operations under Pope John Paul. In 1992, Poggi became archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church. He was thus on November 26, 1994 created Cardinal-Deacon of S. Maria in Domnica - one day after his seventy-seventh birthday. Upon reaching the maximum age limit for voting in a conclave, Poggi resigned from his position in the Vatican Library and Archives but returned to work in relations with the nations of Eastern Europe. After ten years as a cardinal deacon he took the option and was elevated to Cardinal-Priest of San Lorenzo in Lucina. Cardinal Poggi was cardinal protodeacon from February 26, 2002, until he opted for the order of cardinal priests on February 24, 2005 but played no role in the subsequent conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.
William Earnest "Ernie" Harwell died he was 92. Harwell was an Americansportscaster, known for his long career calling play-by-play of Major League Baseball games. For 55 years, 42 of them with the Detroit Tigers, Harwell called the action on radio and television. In January 2009, the American Sportscasters Association ranked Harwell 16th on its list of Top 50 Sportscasters of All Time.[1]3
(January 25, 1918 — May 4, 2010)
Ernie Harwell grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, working in his youth as a paperboy for the Atlanta Georgian; one of his customers was writer Margaret Mitchell. He was an avid baseball fan from an early age; he became visiting batboy for the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association at the tender age of five and never had to buy a ticket for a baseball game since then.
In 1948, Harwell became the only announcer in baseball history to be traded for a player when the Brooklyn Dodgers' general manager, Branch Rickey, traded catcher Cliff Dapper to the Crackers in exchange for breaking Harwell's broadcasting contract. (Harwell was brought to Brooklyn to substitute for regular Dodger announcer Red Barber, who was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer.)
In 1960, Harwell became the "voice" of the Tigers, replacing Van Patrick. George Kell had begun doing Tigers radio and TV broadcasts in 1959, and was instrumental in bringing Harwell to Detroit. "George called and said, 'I recommended you and the Tigers asked me to get in touch with you.'" Harwell said. "I came and that was it."
Harwell teamed with Ray Lane in the broacast booth from 1967-72. In 1973, Paul Carey replaced Lane, forming the Tigers' best-known broadcasting team, until Carey's retirement after the 1991 season.
On December 19, 1990, the Tigers and radio station WJR announced that the station wanted to go in a "new direction" and that 1991 would be Harwell's last, as his contract was "non-renewed".[4] Fans across Michigan and throughout the baseball world were outraged, but the ballclub and the radio station (who eventually wound up blaming each other for the decision) stood firm: "(Harwell's firing is) not going to change no matter how much clamor is made over it," said team president Bo Schembechler. (The former University of Michigan football coach, a legend in his own right in the Wolverine State, continued to face harsh criticism before quitting in 1992, when owner Tom Monaghan sold the team). Rick Rizzs was hired away from the Seattle Mariners to call Detroit's games in 1992, teaming with Bob Rathbun; predictably, they were not as popular as Harwell and Carey had been.
Harwell worked a part-time schedule for the California Angels in 1992. The following year, the Tigers were purchased by Mike Ilitch, who made it one of his first priorities to bring Harwell back. The 1993 season concluded with a three-person radio team (Rizzs, Rathbun and Harwell) with Ernie calling innings 1–3 and 7–9 of each game. Rizzs returned to Seattle following the 1993 season. From 1994 to 1998, Harwell called television broadcasts for the Tigers. In 1999, he resumed full-time radio duties with the Tigers, teaming with analyst Jim Price and continuing in that role through 2002. During spring training of that year, Harwell announced that he would retire at the end of the season -- this time on his own terms; his final broadcast came on September 29, 2002. Dan Dickerson replaced Harwell as the lead radio voice for the Tigers.
Following his retirement, Harwell came back briefly in 2003 to call a Wednesday Night Baseball telecast on ESPN, as part of that network's "Living Legends" series of guest announcers[5]. In 2005, Harwell guested for an inning on the Fox network's coverage of the All-Star Game (which was held in Detroit that year), as well as an inning on the ESPN Radio broadcast. For Game 3 of the 2006 American League Division Series between the Tigers and New York Yankees, he provided guest commentary on ESPN's telecast for two innings, called an inning of play-by-play on the Tigers' radio flagship WXYT, and guested for an inning on ESPN Radio. Harwell also called one inning of Game 1 of the 2006 World Series for WXYT.
Harwell served as a guest color commentator for two Tiger games on FSN Detroit on May 24 and 25, 2007. Harwell worked the telecasts (alongside play-by-play man Mario Impemba) as a substitute for regular analyst Rod Allen, who took the games off to attend his son's high school graduation. (Harwell had filled in for Allen once before, on a 2003 telecast.) [6]
He also appeared as a guest on an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball telecast in Detroit on July 1, 2007. His typical sense of humor was on display. He talked about working beside the deep-voiced Paul Carey ("next to him, everyone sounds like a soprano") for 19 years, "which seemed like 30." He then asked Jon Miller and Joe Morgan how long they had worked together. "19 years." Harwell grinned at both of them, "Uh-huh, uh-huh."
Harwell occasionally did vignettes (small video clips) on the history of baseball for Fox Sports Detroit's magazine program Tigers Weekly.
He was known for his low-key delivery, southern accent (Detroit "Ti-guhs"), and conversational style. Some of his trademark phrases were:
"That one is long gone!" (His trademark home run call, with an emphasis on "long")
"He stood there like the house by the side of the road, and watched it go by." (After a called strikeout)
"Called out for excessive window shopping." (Also after a called strikeout)
"It's two for the price of one!" (After a double play)
"A fan from (insert a city) will be taking that ball home today." (When a fan would catch a foul ball)
"The Tigers need instant runs." (When the team was behind in the late innings)
Harwell would also begin the first spring training broadcast of each season with a reading from Song of Solomon 2:11-12 (KJV): "For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."[7]
The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association named Harwell as Michigan Sportscaster of the Year 19 times, and inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 1989. Harwell was also honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981 as the fifth broadcaster to receive its Ford C. Frick Award, and was elected to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame and the Radio Hall of Fame in 1998, among many other honors. In 2001, Harwell was the recipient of the prestigious Ty Tyson Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting, awarded by the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association (DSBA). In 2009, Harwell was named the first recipient of the DSBA's Ernie Harwell Lifetime Contribution Award. The award, called the Ernie Harwell Lifetime Contribution Award, is named after the Hall of Fame Detroit Tigers announcer. Harwell is the first winner of the award. The award will annually honor an individual from the broadcast industry who has contributed outstanding time and effort to the betterment of sports broadcasting through a lifetime body of work. The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame inducted Harwell in 2008. In 2010 Harwell was named as a recipient of the Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award from Fordham University radio station WFUV.[8] The press box at Detroit's Comerica Park was officially named the "Ernie Harwell Media Center" following his retirement from broadcasting.
Harwell's 1955 essay "The Game for All America", originally published in The Sporting News and reprinted numerous times, is considered a classic of baseball literature. He also authored several books, and penned an occasional column for the Detroit Free Press.
Harwell also wrote popular music. His first recorded song was "Upside Down" on the Something Stupid album by Homer and Jethro in the mid-1960s. In the liner notes of the album, it says: "Detroit Tiger baseball announcer wrote this one, and we think it's a fine observation of the world today, as seen from the press box at Tiger Stadium. We were up there with Ernie one day and from there the world looks upside down. In fact, the Mets were on top in the National League." All told, 66 songs written by Ernie Harwell have been recorded by various artists. "Needless to say, I have more no-hitters than Nolan Ryan." – Ernie Harwell in article published May 31, 2005 in the Detroit Free Press
The 1997 text-based computer simulation game APBA for Windows: Broadcast Blast features play-by-play commentary by Harwell.
Harwell served as a spokesman for Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Michigan. His contract with the organization, which began in 2003, ran for ten years with an option for another ten. Had Harwell fulfilled the entire contract (by which time he would have been 95 years old), Blue Cross had pledged to extend it for yet another decade. Harwell formerly ran a blog about healthy living and fitness for BCBS. He retired from it on March 5, 2009.
A devout Christian, Harwell had long been involved with the Baseball Chapel, an evangelistic organization for professional ballplayers.
In 2004, the Detroit Public Library dedicated a room to Ernie Harwell and his wife, Lulu, which will house Harwell's collection of baseball memorabilia valued at over two million dollars.
On April 26, 2008 Harwell was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from The University of Michigan at their Spring Commencement ceremony. One week later, on May 3, 2008, he was presented with another Honorary Degree of Laws this time from Wayne State University.
Harwell was a member of the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy Board, an organization which attempted to save portions of Tiger Stadium.[9] He offered to donate a large portion of his historic collection of baseball memorabilia, which he had collected over the course of his storied career, if part of Tiger Stadium could have been saved for a museum.
On September 3, 2009, Harwell announced that he had been diagnosed with incurable cancer of the bile duct, and that he, his family and doctors had decided against surgery or other treatment of the condition.
Harwell sat down for a 60 minute interview on an episode of MLB Network's Studio 42 with Bob Costas. The episode premiered November 17, 2009.
Harwell lived in Farmington Hills, Michigan and moved to Novi, Michigan in the late 1990's where lived until his death. At the time of his death at age 92, he still exercised regularly, did sit-ups, used a treadmill, and lifted weights. He was set to receive the Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Broadcasting on May 5 in New York City, just one day after his passing.Al Kaline will accept the award on Harwell's behalf.
On September 16, 2009 he announced to fans at Detroit's Comerica Park that he had been diagnosed with inoperable bile duct cancer. Less than a year later Ernie Harwell passed away on May 4, 2010, at his home in Fox Run Village, in Novi, Michigan.[15]
Bibliography
(1985). Tuned to Baseball. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-912083-10-7
(1993). Ernie Harwell's Diamond Gems, edited by Geoff Upward. Ann Arbor, MI: Momentum Books. ISBN 0-9618726-7-5
(1995). The Babe Signed My Shoe: Baseball As It Was – And Will Always Be, edited by Geoff Upward. South Bend, IN: Diamond Communications. ISBN 0-912083-72-7
(2001). Stories from My Life in Baseball. Detroit, MI: Detroit Free Press. ISBN 0-937247-35-9
Lynn Rachel Redgrave, British-born American actress has died from breast cancer she was , 67. Redgrave was a member of the well-known British family of actors, Redgrave trained in London before making her theatrical debut in 1962. By the mid-1960s she had appeared in several films, including Tom Jones (1963), and Georgy Girl (1966) which won her a New York Film Critics Award and nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
In 1967, she made her Broadway debut, and performed in several stage productions in New York while making frequent returns to London's West End. She performed with her sister Vanessa in Three Sisters in London, and in the title role in a television production of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? in 1991. She made a return to films in the late 1990s in films such as Shine (1996) and Gods and Monsters (1998), for which she received another Academy Award nomination.
She was invited to join The National Theatre for its inaugural season at the Old Vic, working with such directors as Laurence Olivier, Franco Zeffirelli, and Noel Coward in roles such as Rose in The Recruiting Officer, Barblin in Andorra, Jackie in Hay Fever, Kattrin in Mother Courage, Miss Prue in Love for Love, and Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing which kept her busy for the next three years.
Redgrave became well known in the United States after appearing in the television series House Calls, for which she received an Emmy nomination. She was fired from the show after she insisted on bringing her child to rehearsals so as to continue a breast-feeding schedule. A lawsuit ensued but was dismissed a few years after. Following that, she appeared in a long-running series of television commercials for Heinz Foods, then the manufacturer of the weight loss foods for Weight Watchers, a Heinz subsidiary. Her signature line for the ads was "This Is Living". She wrote a book of her life experiences with the same title,[2] which included a selection of Weight Watcher recipes. The autobiographical section later became the basis of her one-woman play Shakespeare For My Father.
In 1993 she was elected President of The Players, the famous theatrical club and historic bastion of American theatre history. In 1989 she appeared on Broadway in Love Letters with her husband John Clark, and thereafter they performed the play around the country, and on one occasion for the jury in the O. J. Simpson case. In 1993 she appeared on Broadway in the one-woman play Shakespeare For My Father, which John Clark produced and directed. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
In 2005, Redgrave appeared at Quinnipiac University and Connecticut College in the play Sisters of the Garden, about the sisters Fanny and Rebekka Mendelssohn and Nadia and Lili Boulanger.[3] She was also reported to be writing a one-woman play about her battle with breast cancer and her 2003 mastectomy, based on her book Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery from Breast Cancer with photos by Annabel Clark (Redgrave and Clark's youngest daughter) and text by Redgrave herself.[4]
In September 2006, she appeared in Nightingale, the U.S. premier of her new one-woman play based upon her maternal grandmother Beatrice, at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. She also performed the play in May 2007 at Hartford Stage in Hartford, Connecticut. On both occasions she earned excellent reviews but was forced to perform seated at a table rather than standing on stage due to unspecified health problems, which critics found distracting. In 2007, she appeared in an episode of Desperate Housewives as Dahlia Hainsworth.
She most recently appeared on an episode of ABC's Ugly Betty.
Redgrave narrated the audiobook Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis for Harper Audio, and Inkheart by Cornelia Funke for Listening Library.
On 2 April 1967,[5] Lynn Redgrave married and professionally partnered the British/Canadian/American actor and director John Clark. Together they had three children, Benjamin (born 1968), actress Kelly (later Pema [formerly of All My Children], born 1970), and Annabel Lucy Clark (born 1981),[6] an author and professional photographer in Manhattan. The marriage ended in divorce in December 2000.[7]
She discussed her health problems associated with bulimia and breast cancer; she was diagnosed with the latter in December 2002. She had a mastectomy in January 2003, and chemotherapy.[8] She died from breast cancer"[9] on 2 May 2010, aged 67.[10] Her brother, actor Corin Redgrave, also a cancer patient, had died on 6 April 2010, aged 70.
He was born in Somercotes, near Alfreton in Derbyshire, moving to Chesterfield with his family as a child. After leaving school he worked in a colliery drawing office, before starting underground work at the Williamthorpecoal mine. He became active in the North Derbyshire region of the NUM, and the local Labour Party, and attended education courses at Sheffield University's extramural department. He also became a local councillor in Chesterfield, and unsuccessfully sought nomination as a Labour candidate in the 1964 General Election for Ilkeston.[1]
In 1966 he was elected to a full-time post in the NUM, rising to become vice-president of the Derbyshire NUM in 1970 and Derbyshire area secretary in 1973. Although tipped to become national president of the NUM in 1981, he stood aside to support the younger Arthur Scargill as the left-wing candidate.
In January 1984 he was elected general secretary of the NUM, taking over the post in March, five days before the strike began. He backed Scargill's handling throughout the dispute, retiring from the position of general secretary in 1992.[1]
He was married to Betty Heathfield, but they separated in 1989 and later divorced. He remarried in 2001.
Peter Heathfield died in 2010, aged 81. He was survived by his second wife and his four children from his first marriage.
Brita Kerstin Gunvor Borg has died she was 83 , Borg was a Swedishsinger, actress and variety show artist. Her variety show career spanned from 1943 into the 1970s, while her singing career trailed away at the end of the 1960s. However, she was still an active actress in the 1980s. Borg represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 1959 in Cannes.
(June 10, 1926 – May 4, 2010)
Borg was born on Södermalm in Stockholm and began her career in the Södermalm-based variety show group Vårat gäng ("Our Gang") after having won a song competition which the magazine Vecko-Revyn organised in 1943. In 1945 she formed the quartet Flickery Flies with Allan Johansson, whom she later married. In 1947 she began her long collaboration with famous Swedish variety performer and writer Povel Ramel. She participated in his radio program Fyra kring en flygel ("Four around a grand piano") and was prima donna in several versions of the Knäppupp variety show between 1952 and 1962.
Amongst her most famous numbers were Fat Mammy Brown, where she played an African-Americanjazz/gospel singer in blackface and fat padding, the tangoBanne mej from the variety musical Funny Boy, where she played the seductive Gypsy girl Zamora, and Ulliga krulliga gubbar, a satirical Dixieland ballad about how modern it would have been to have a beard. When the prolific comedy duo Hasse Alfredsson and Tage Danielsson were writing for Knäppupp they provided her with songs such as Alla kan ju inte älska alla här i världen ("Everyone can't love everyone"), Aldrig har jag sett en rak banana ("I've never seen a straight banana") and Du är min tekopp ("You are my teacup"). In 1962 she reached the peak of her career as a variety show artist with the number Die Borg, parodying Swedish singers who made a career by catering to German audiences.
From 1964 onwards Borg performed in several variety shows with Hagge Geigert in Uddevalla and Gothenburg, and a sojourn at Folkan with Kar de Mumma. In the 1970s she moved to Arvidsjaur with her new husband, policeman Stig Salomonsson, and has since been most active as an actress, most often for Riksteatern. She played in the musical Call Me Madam in 1967, and made a celebrated performance as Annie Oakley in the musical Annie Get Your Gun in 1973. Since then she has toured with Riksteatern in performances of Christina Alexandra, Fiddler on the Roof, Ramel riket runt, and The Threepenny Opera. Among her most important dramatic performances was the performance alongside Halvar Björk in Richard Hobert's televised play Polskan och puckelryggen from 1983.
In the 1950s, Borg was a Swedish pop-queen. She made many recordings, first for Sonora, then for Knäppupp. In 1959 it was decided that whichever song won in the Melodifestivalen she would travel to sing in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 1959 in Cannes. In the final she reached a respecatble 9th place. It was Augustin. In 1960 she performed as Hasse Alfredson's duet-partner in the comic Oj då kära nån and Märta Melin och Ture Tyrén and was awarded the honour of singing a duet with Evert Taube in two recordings of Invitation till Guatemala and Mary Strand. In 1961 an LP recording was made where she interpreted Århundradets melodier ("The tunes of the century"), including Hässelbysteppen, Min soldat and Sjösala vals. Her genre was traditional pop songs, with the, at the time, common leaning towards Italian (La strada dell'amore, Ciao ciao Bambina). She had attempted more modern progression with gv in 1957 but eventually was surpassed by younger, but less voice-strong singers, with greater appeal to a young audience. Stig Anderson, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson gave her a last hit with the song Ljuva sextiotal, which stayed in the Swedish charts (Svensktoppen) for 20 weeks in 1969.
Borg was musical, humorous and conscientious, but ended up becoming an actress instead of a pop star. She has not made a major comeback similar to the comebacks by several other older Swedish pop stars such as Hanson, Carson and Malmkvist, or had her pop song recordings re-released in anthologies and CDs, like Leander and Lindblom have. She has barely even become camp or a gay icon, as Git Gay, maybe because she, as a variety show prima donna, had been self-ironic from the beginning. The self-ironic undertones remained when Vårat gäng made a comeback in the 1980s and she was able to present herself as "En något överårig tonårsidol" ("A teenage idol past her prime"), and in the anniversary Knäppup show Knäpp igen in 1992, when she sang Vi sätter P för primadonnan ("We stop the show for the prima donna").
Borg died on May 4, 2010 at the age of 83 in Borgholm.
Other songs
"Tangerine" (1943)
"Alla säger att jag ser så ledsen ut" (first Ramel-song 1947)
"Jag ska ta morfar med mig ut i kväll" (a big hit in 1948)
"Sodom och Gomorra"
"Calypso Italiano" (1957)
"Kärlek livet ut" (1957)
"Sorglösa brunn" (duet with Ramel)
"Ge en fräknig och ful liten flicka en chans"
"Regn, regn, regn" (on EP-record "Brita i regnet")
"Utsikt från en bro" (lyrics by Karl Gerhard about a waiting sailor's wife)
"Gotländsk sommarnatt"
"Frysboxcalypso" (advertisement for Elektro-Helios on a rare EP with Alfredson)
"Res med mig till Skottland!"
"Ett rent undantag" (a small, comedic variety show song which to Ramel's disappointment didn't become a hit)
Helen Wagner was an Americanactress.[1][2] from (As the World Turns). She was born in Lubbock, Texas. She is best known for her long running role as Nancy Hughes on the soap operaAs the World Turns. Wagner also played the role of Trudy Bauer during the first few television years of Guiding Light in the early 1950s. Wagner died on May 1, 2010, at the age of 91. The cause of her death has yet to be released.[3]
(September 3, 1918 – May 1, 2010)
Wagner played As the World Turns matriarch Nancy Hughes (with only a few interruptions), since the show's debut in April 1956 until her death. She is acknowledged by the Guinness Book of Records as being the longest-running character played by one actor or actress on television.[4] When As the World Turns premiered on April 2, 1956, Wagner spoke the first lines of the program: "Good morning, dear."[5]
On November 22, 1963, about ten minutes into that day's broadcast of As the World Turns, a scene in which Wagner's character was conferring with her father-in-law ("Grandpa" Hughes, played by Santos Ortega) was interrupted by Walter Cronkite's first news bulletin that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. (This bulletin was audio only as the studio camera was not ready until 20 minutes later.) Wagner later remembered that she and Ortega continued with the scene (which was being broadcast live as was the norm in those days) despite the broadcast interruption, unaware of the unfolding national tragedy until they were told about it once the scene was finished.[1]
She took some breaks from the role, both voluntary and involuntary. After six months in the role of Nancy, show creator Irna Phillips fired her because she did not favor the way Wagner poured coffee. After an overwhelming pressure to hire her back, Irna did so begrudgingly.
Wagner left the show again in the early 1980s. Then-producer Mary-Ellis Bunim wished to take the show in a different direction; the show fell out of the top slot in the daytime Nielsen ratings, and Bunim wished to gear the program toward the younger generation by showcasing the Hughes family less. Wagner and co-star Don MacLaughlin walked away from the show after vocal dissent in the press. However, she returned to the role in 1985, and in 1986 Wagner and an ailing Don MacLaughlin were prominently featured in the show's 30th anniversary celebration, where their characters, Nancy and Chris Hughes, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.
After the death of McLaughlin in 1986, Nancy became a widow. She later met and married Dan McClosky (Dan Frazer). Wagner later was part of a storyline where Dan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. After many years of little to no part in the story, Wagner returned to the screen with a pivotal role in a 2004 storyline, revolving around her grandson's marriage to naïve teenager Alison Stewart (Jessica Dunphy).
In 2005, 2006, and 2007, Wagner averaged around three appearances a month in the serial. Wagner was prominently featured in the show's 50th anniversary episode in April 2006.
There was a sharp decline in appearances for Wagner in 2008; she only appeared twice that year. In 2009, Wagner was absent from April onwards. Her character didn't even make an appearance when her son Bob had a brain tumor removed. Wagner returned to the screen on November 25, 2009, during the show's Thanksgiving episode, and also on December 29, 2009. She appeared again on April 2, 2010. Wagner's final appearance on As the World Turns, taped in March, aired on April 5, 2010 — 54 years after her first appearance and less than a month before her death.
Although Wagner played Nancy for more than 50 years, she never won a Daytime Emmy Award for her work. She was, however, awarded a "Lifetime Achievement Award" for her role on the show in May 2004.
In 1988, Wagner's alma mater, Monmouth College (Illinois), awarded her with an honorary degree of "Doctor of Humane Letters". The following year, Wagner chaired a national committee that raised more than $1 million to replace the school's "little theater" with a state-of-the-art theater. On the opening night in Monmouth's new Wells Theater, Wagner played the role of Eleanor in The Lion in Winter.[6]
Luigi Poggi died he was 92. Poggi was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
Poggi became a titular Archbishop that year and became secretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs in 1966. He continued serving as a nuncio in Africa during the later part of the 1960s, but was then given a critical role by Pope Paul VI in his "Ostpolitik", which aimed to improve Vatican relations with the Communist-ruled nations of the Warsaw Pact. This role reached its greatest importance early in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, when Poggi, owing to his knowledge of Polish politics of the time, was sent first to Warsaw and then to the Kremlin to negotiate with Moscow. He later visited Prague. Critics of John Paul saw his sending of Poggi to the Eastern bloc as an effort on the Pope's part to control and dictate the policies of Lech Wałęsa's resistance to Wojciech Jaruzelski's military government.
became archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church. He was thus on November 26, 1994 created Cardinal-Deacon of S. Maria in Domnica - one day after his seventy-seventh birthday. Upon reaching the maximum age limit for voting in a conclave, Poggi resigned from his position in the Vatican Library and Archives but returned to work in relations with the nations of Eastern Europe. After ten years as a cardinal deacon he took the option and was elevated to Cardinal-Priest of San Lorenzo in Lucina. Cardinal Poggi was cardinal protodeacon from February 26, 2002, until he opted for the order of cardinal priests on February 24, 2005 but played no role in the subsequent conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.
