/ Stars that died in 2023

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Willie "Big Eyes" Smith,American blues musician, died at 75.


Willie "Big Eyes" Smith was a Grammy Award-winning American electric blues vocalist, harmonica player, and multi-award winning drummer.[2] He was best known for several stints with the Muddy Waters band beginning in the early 1960s.

(January 19, 1936 – September 16, 2011)[

Born in Helena, Arkansas, United States, Smith learned to play harmonica at age seventeen just after moving to Chicago, Illinois. Smith's influences included listening to 78s and to KFFA King Biscuit radio shows, some of which were broadcast from Helena's Miller Theater, where he saw guitar player Joe Willie Wilkins, and harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson II. On a Chicago visit in 1953 his mother took him to hear Muddy Waters at the Zanzibar club, where Henry Strong's harp playing inspired him to learn that instrument. In 1956, at the age of eighteen he formed a trio. He led the band on harp, Bobby Lee Burns played guitar, and Clifton James, who was the drummer. As "Little Willie" Smith he played in the Rocket Four, led by blues guitarist Arthur "Big Boy" Spires, and made recordings that were later reissued on the Delmark label. In 1955 Smith played harmonica on Bo Diddley's recording of the Willie Dixon song "Diddy Wah Diddy" for the Checker label.[citation needed] Drummers were in more demand than harp players, so Smith switched to drums and starting playing with Muddy Waters band. In 1959, Smith recorded with Waters on the 1960 album Muddy Waters Sings Big Bill Broonzy a tribute to Big Bill Broonzy[3]
In 1961 Smith became a regular member of Muddy Water's band, which then consisted of George "Mojo" Buford, Luther Tucker, Pat Hare, and Otis Spann. By the mid '60s he'd left the band for more steady work as a cab driver. In the late '60s he rejoined Muddy's band and remained a permanent member until 1980. All of Muddy's Grammy Award winning albums (Hard Again, I'm Ready, They Call Me Muddy Waters, Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live, The London Muddy Waters Session, and The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album[4]) were released between 1971 and 1979, during Smith's tenure with the band. Though he did not play on all of these albums, Smith is estimated to have participated in twelve sessions yielding eighty-four tracks.[5]
In June 1980 Smith and other members of Muddy's band, Pinetop Perkins (piano), Calvin Jones (bass), and Jerry Portnoy (harmonica), and Smith on drums, stuck out on their own, also recruiting veteran Chicago blues man Louis Myers (harmonica/guitar) to form The Legendary Blues Band, with the vocals shared by all. Later that year, Smith and the Legendary Blues Band appeared backing John Lee Hooker in the movie The Blues Brothers (1980). Smith was the only band member, besides Hooker, to appear onscreen in close-up.[6] With varying personnel over the years, the Legendary Blues Band recorded seven albums, Life of Ease, Red Hot 'n' Blue, Woke Up with the Blues (nominated for a W. C. Handy Award), U B Da Judge, Prime Time Blues, and Money Talks, were recorded between 1981 to 1993. By the time Money Talks came out in 1993, Smith had become a very credible singer. The Legendary Blues Band toured with Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton.
His first solo recording started in 1995 with Bag Full of Blues, with Pinetop Perkins, harpist Kim Wilson, plus guitarists James Wheeler, Nick Moss, and Gareth Best. In 1999, Smith recorded with Muddy Waters son Big Bill Morganfield on his album Rising Son. Smith's album Way Back (2006), contained 11 songs, half of which he wrote. He was backed by Bob Margolin and Frank Krakowski on guitar, Pinetop Perkins on piano, and guest shots by James Cotton and others.
Smith's 2008 album, Born in Arkansas, utilized bassman Bob Stroger, pianist Barrelhouse Chuck, guitarist Billy Flynn, guitarist Little Frank Krakowski (who has worked with Smith for years) and his son and drummer, Kenny "Beedy Eyes" Smith. In June 2010, Smith released Joined at the Hip with Pinetop Perkins. Joining these two in the studio were bassist Bob Stroger, and Kenny Smith on drums. John Primer, who was another Muddy Waters band alumnus, joined on lead guitar along with Frank Krakowski.
On February 13, 2011, Smith won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album for Joined at the Hip, an album he recorded with Pinetop Perkins.

Death

Smith died following a stroke on September 16, 2011.[1]

The Blues Foundation Awards

Blues Music Awards[7]
Year Category Result
2011 Traditional Blues Album of the Year- Joined at the Hip(w/Pinetop Perkins) Winner
2009 Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
2008 Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
2007 Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
2006 Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
2005 Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
2004 Blues Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
2003 Blues Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
2002 Blues Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
1999 Blues Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
1998 Blues Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
1997 Blues Instrumentalist-Drums Winner
1996 Blues Instrumentalist-Drums Winner

Selective discography

As bandleader

2010 Joined At the Hip (with Pinetop Perkins) Blues Telarc
2008 Born in Arkansas Blues Big Eyes Records
2006 Way Back Blues Hightone
2004 Bluesin' It Blues Electro-Fi
2000 Blues from the Heart Blues Juke Joint
1999 Nothin' But The Blues Y'all Blues Juke Joint
1995 Bag Full of Blues Blues Blind Pig

Legendary Blues Band

Year Title Genre Label
1993 Money Talks Blues Wild Dog Blues
1992 Prime Time Blues Blues Wild Dog Blues
1991 U B Da Judge Blues Ichiban
1990 Keepin' the Blues Alive Blues Ichiban
1989 Woke up with the Blues Blues Ichiban
1983 Red Hot 'n' Blue Blues Rounder
1981 Life of Ease Blues Rounder

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Friday, February 22, 2013

Jimmy Leeward, American stunt and racing pilot, died from plane crash at 74.

James Kent "Jimmy" Leeward was an American air racer, owner of the Leeward Air Ranch in Ocala, Florida, and the pilot of the heavily modified North American P-51 Mustang racing aircraft, The Galloping Ghost.[2]

(October 21, 1936[1] – September 16, 2011) 


Career

Leeward grew up around airplanes and at age 11 or 12 often flew a Piper Cub with his father. At age 14, his father allowed him to fly solo in a North American T-6 Texan trainer aircraft. By age 18, he was flying charters in a Beechcraft Model 18. While still in college, he flew a Formula One racer in the Fort Wayne air races.[3] in 1964, he crewed on an airplane at the very first Reno Air Races and in 1976, he first flew his P-51D Mustang "Cloud Dancer" in the Unlimited Class at Reno. In 1983, he purchased the P-51D racer "Jeannie" from Wiley Sanders.[4] This airplane had a racing history going back to the Thompson Trophy races of the 1940s. Leeward raced this airplane at the Reno Air Races from 1983 to 1990. After a number of years of storage and then modifications, he returned to Reno with this aircraft, now returned to its original name The Galloping Ghost in 2010. In the interim years, he raced at Reno in his other Mustang, "Cloud Dancer".[3]
Besides the Mustangs, Leeward also owned a 1937 Ryan SCW, a Piper J-3 Cub and a 1932 Aeronca C-3 his father had owned and flown in the 1930s.[3] Active in aviation, in the 1970s he became a board member of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA).[5]
In 1982, Leeward began creating plans to build what would be the community of Leeward Air Ranch. He finished developing the community in 1983 and then worked as the developer for the Ocala Business Center, using a runway in the Leeward Air Ranch for air services.[6][7]
Apart from being an experienced air racer, Leeward also had several film credits[8] mainly as a stunt pilot.
Leeward began to drive in car races in the mid-1980s, driving at the Sunbank 24 Hour in 1986 at Daytona International Speedway[9] and injuring himself during qualifying in the Grand Prix of Miami of the same year.[10]

Death

Leeward died on September 16, 2011, when his aircraft went off course and crashed into the crowd at the National Championship Air Races at Reno Stead Airport, northwest of Reno, Nevada, killing 11 and injuring 69 spectators.
He was survived by his wife and four children.

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Kara Kennedy, American television producer, daughter of Ted Kennedy, died from a heart attack at 51.


Kara Anne Kennedy Allen  was a member of the American political dynasty, the Kennedy family. She was the oldest of the three children of U.S. Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy from Massachusetts, and the niece of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Bobby Kennedy. Kara Kennedy, the mother of two children, served on the boards of numerous charities and was a film maker and television producer.

(February 27, 1960 – September 16, 2011)

Early life and education

Kara Anne Kennedy was born in 1960 to Virginia Joan (nƩe Bennett) Kennedy and Edward Moore Kennedy, Sr. in Bronxville, New York. In his book True Compass, Senator Kennedy wrote about his joy at her birth: "I had never seen a more beautiful baby nor been more happy." Her siblings are Edward Moore Kennedy, Jr. (born 1961), and Patrick Joseph Kennedy II (born 1967). She spent her early years in Virginia and Cape Cod. She attended the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C. and Trinity College, Hartford. Kennedy graduated from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.[2][3]

Career

After graduating from the National Cathedral School in 1978, Kennedy worked on her father's 1980 Presidential campaign before matriculating at Tufts University. Following the receipt of her degree in 1983 she pursued a career in television, working at Fox News in New York. She also was a producer for the television program Evening Magazine at station WBZ-TV in Boston.[2]
Kennedy co-managed her father's successful 1988 re-election campaign with her brother Ted.
Kennedy produced films for VSA arts, formerly known as Very Special Arts, an organization founded by her aunt Jean Kennedy Smith to encourage participation in the arts by persons with disabilities. One of Kennedy's best known projects was a film she produced on Chris Burke, the actor with Down's Syndrome who starred in the television series Life Goes On. She revealed that the film project had as much of a positive impact on her as it did on the viewing audience.
In 1990, Kennedy married architect and real estate developer Michael Allen of Jamestown, Rhode Island. When their first child, Grace, was born in September 1994, she made the decision to be a full time mother and homemaker. Her son Max was born in 1996.
Kennedy served as a director emerita and a national trustee of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation,[4] a non-profit organization that provides financial support, staffing, and creative resources for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, the presidential library and museum of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Boston, Massachusetts.
Kennedy also gave her time to Sibley Hospital, and to the women of the N Street Village in Washington, D.C. She served as a board member of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate where she co-produced a film about the Institute that was shown at its inaugural groundbreaking event. Kennedy was a reading tutor and was preparing to join the Board of Reading Partners at the time of her death.
Kennedy was on the National Advisory Board of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS).[5]

Personal life

In September 1990, Kennedy and Michael Allen, an architect and real estate developer from Rhode Island, were married at the Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a frequent site of Kennedy family events.[3] When she married, Kennedy dropped her middle name "Anne" and replaced it with her maiden name "Kennedy" as her new middle name.[2] They had two children: Grace Kennedy Allen (born September 19, 1994, in Washington, D.C.) and Max Greathouse Allen (born December 20, 1996, in Rockville, Maryland).[6] Kennedy and Allen divorced shortly before her death.[7]
In 2002, at age 42, Kennedy was diagnosed with lung cancer.[3] Initially told the disease was inoperable, she found — with her father's help — a surgeon at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who was willing to remove part of her right lung in an effort to save her life. The operation was successful, and she resumed an active life that included regular running and swimming.[8]
On August 12, 2009, Kennedy accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama on behalf of her father at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. Her father died thirteen days later; he had been diagnosed with brain cancer in May 2008.[9][10]
In April 2011, Kennedy wrote an article for The Boston Globe magazine about her father's influence on her and her family life with him growing up. Kennedy revealed her close relationship with her father, and the role he played in helping her to wage her battle against lung cancer.

Death

On September 16, 2011, Kennedy suffered a fatal heart attack in a Washington D.C. health club after her daily workout.[11] She was 51.[3][11]

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Sir William Hawthorne, British aerospace engineer, died at 98.

Sir William Rede Hawthorne CBE, FRS, FREng, FIMECHE, FRAES,) was a British professor of engineering who worked on the development of the jet engine.

(22 May 1913 – 16 September 2011

Life

Hawthorne was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, the son of a civil engineer from Belfast. He was educated at Westminster School, London, then read mathematics and engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1934 with a double first. He spent two years as a graduate apprentice with Babcock and Wilcox Ltd, then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, where his research on laminar and turbulent flames earned him a ScD two years later. In 1939 he married Barbara Runkle (d. 1992, granddaughter of MIT's second President John Daniel Runkle), and they had one son and two daughters.
After MIT, he returned to Babcock and Wilcox. In 1940, he joined the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. He was seconded from there to Power Jets Ltd at Lutterworth, where he worked with Frank Whittle on combustion chamber development for the jet engine. Building on his work on the mixing of fuel and air in flames at MIT, he derived the mixture for fast combustion; the chambers produced by his team were used in the first British jet aircraft.
In 1941, he returned to Farnborough as head of the newly formed Gas Turbine Division and in 1944 he was sent for a time to Washington to work with the British Air Commission. In 1945, he became Deputy Director of Engine Research in the British Ministry of Supply before returning to America a year later as an Associate Professor of Engineering at MIT. He was appointed George Westinghouse Professor of Mechanical Engineering there at the age of 35, and in 1951 returned to Cambridge, UK as the first Hopkinson and Imperial Chemical Industries Professor of Applied Thermodynamics (1951–1980). Hawthorne's most outstanding work at Cambridge was in the understanding of loss mechanisms in turbomachinery, and during his time as Head of Department he and Professor John Horlock (later Vice-Chancellor of the Open University) established the Turbomachinery Laboratory.
The oil shortage following the Suez Crisis and Hawthorne's interest in energy matters led to his invention and development of Dracone flexible barges for transporting oil, fresh water, or other liquids. (The name Dracone is allegedly a reference to Frank Herbert's Dragon in the Sea science fiction novel which featured this kind of tanker.[1]) Hawthorne was active on many committees and advisory bodies concerned with energy matters, in particular the Advisory Council on Energy Conservation, of which he was chairman from its inception in 1974.
Hawthorne was elected to the fellowship of the Royal Society in 1955, and was knighted in 1970. He became Head of the Department of Engineering in Cambridge in 1968 and was appointed Master of Churchill College, Cambridge in the same year (1968–1983).
President of the Pentacle Club from 1970–1990, Hawthorne was well known for performing magic, and is remembered to this day by the kitchen staff at Churchill College as 'the man who made cheese rolls come out from behind his ears'.

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Dave Gavitt, American basketball coach, founder of the Big East Conference, died at 73.

David "Dave" Gavitt was a American college basketball coach and athletic director at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island. He was also well known as the first commissioner of the Big East Conference and as part of the committee which created the 1992 Olympic Basketball "Dream Team."

(October 26, 1937, Westerly, Rhode Island – September 16, 2011[1]

Coaching career

Gavitt graduated from Dartmouth College in 1959, where he was a member of the 1959-1960 varsity basketball team, the last Dartmouth basketball team to win the Ivy League championship. He spent two years as an assistant basketball coach at Worcester Academy before becoming an assistant coach at Providence under the legendary Joe Mullaney in 1962. He left in 1966 to become and then head coach at his alma mater before taking over for Mullaney at Providence in 1969.
Under his ten-year tenure, the Friars advanced to the postseason eight straight years (1971–78; five NCAA appearances, 1972-'74, '77-'78, and three NIT appearances, 1971, '75, 76). In 1973, Gavitt's team made it to the Final Four for the first time in school history. He also served as director of athletics at PC from 1971 to 1982, and was at that position when the school's women's athletics programs were started as a result of Title IX.

The Big East, USA Basketball and beyond

In 1979, Gavitt, along with several other college athletics administrators, helped to form the Big East Conference as a means to better compete with the major schools in the country. He became the conference's first commissioner, from 1979 to 1990.[2] Under his direction, the Big East steadily expanded and was an almost immediate success, as several schools became basketball powerhouses (culminating in the 1985 Final Four, in which three schools from the conference - Georgetown, Saint John's, and eventual champion Villanova - were present).
During his tenure, six of the conference's schools (Georgetown, Villanova, Saint John's, Providence, Seton Hall and Syracuse) participated in the Final Four, and all nine teams made it to the NCAA tournament at least once. His contributions, in fact, are memorialized in the Dave Gavitt Trophy, given to the winner of the Big East's men's basketball tournament, which he was responsible for not only creating, but its annual use of Madison Square Garden. Also, from 1982 to 1984, he was chairman of the NCAA Division I Basketball Committee. It was under his guidance that the tournament expanded to sixty-four teams, in order to provide better opportunity for small conference teams to participate. He was also responsible for the playing of Final Four games in larger venues such as domed stadiums, and the first full contract with a television network to provide universal coverage of the tournament, further adding to the tournament's popularity and prestige.
Gavitt has also been involved in Olympic basketball. In 1980, he was selected as the head coach of the Olympic basketball team, only to lose out on the opportunity due to the boycott of the Moscow games by the United States. He would also go on to serve on the Olympic governing body, including a presidency from 1988 to 1992. It was during his tenure that he developed the concept of the "Dream Team," an Olympic basketball team composed of the NBA's best.
Besides these responsibilities, Gavitt was CEO of the Boston Celtics from 1990 to 1994, President of the NCAA Foundation from 1995 to 1997, and Chairman of the Board of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame until 2003. He is a member of the Providence College Athletic Hall of Fame (1984), National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame (2000), and the International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame (2000). Gavitt was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on September 8, 2006. He became the third former member of the Friar athletic program (after John Thompson and Lenny Wilkens), and the first native of Rhode Island to be enshrined. The court at the Dunkin' Donuts Center, Friar's home court, in Providence, Rhode Island is named after him.


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Norma Eberhardt, American actress (Live Fast, Die Young, The Return of Dracula), died from a stroke at 82.


Norma Eberhardt was an American actress who began her career as a fashion model. Her film credits included Live Fast, Die Young and The Return of Dracula, both released in 1958.[1][2]

(July 8, 1929 – September 16, 2011)

Early life and career

Eberhardt was born and raised in Oakhurst, New Jersey.[1][2] She was discovered by fashion photographer as a teenager while attending an Easter Parade on the Asbury Park boardwalk with her mother.[1][3] Reportedly, the photographer was struck by her two different colored eyes, one brown eye and one blue eye.[1][2] The photographer, who was based in nearby New York City, assumed that Eberhardt was over the age of 18.[1] However, when she commuted to his office on her seventeenth birthday, the photographer realized that he needed her mother to co-sign her modeling contract. He personally drove her back home to obtain her mother's permission and signature for the contract. Eberhardt soon signed with the John Robert Powers Agency, appearing in advertising campaigns on billboards.[1]

Acting

Eberhardt's billboard campaigns soon led to radio, television and film roles. She moved to Los Angeles and was under contract with a studio by 1951.[1] She rented out a room at the The Studio Club For Women in Hollywood, where she became roommates with actress Mary Murphy. (Eberhardt and Murphy would later co-star in the 1958 film, Live Fast, Die Young).[1] Both actresses dated actor James Dean.[1] Eberhardt, Murphy and Dean were all cast in small roles in the 1952 comedy, Sailor Beware, starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.[1] Sailor Beware marked Eberhardt's film debut, as well as Dean's second film role.[1] Eberhardt also dated Jerry Lewis during this time.[1]
Her second film role was in 1952's Jumping Jacks, which also starred Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.[1] She next portrayed an agoraphobic character locked up in a reform school for rich-girl delinquents in the 1953 film, Problem Girls, starring Susan Morrow.[1]
Eberhardt is best known for two starring film roles during 1958. She co-starred with Francis Lederer in the 1958 horror film, The Return of Dracula. That same year, she co-starred with her real-life former roommate, Mary Murphy, in the crime drama, Live Fast, Die Young. Eberhardt and Murphy played two sisters who run away from home to pursue a life of crime as jewelry thieves who become affiliated with the mafia.[1] The film, which was marketed with the tagline, "A sin-steeped story of the rise of the Beat Generation," struck a chord with its core audience and has become a cult classic.[1] In an interview, Eberhardt mused on the film's cult popularity by speculating, "The film tapped into what kids were feeling — that society sucked and they were rebelling against it."[1]
In 2007, Eberhardt's image from Live Fast, Die Young appeared on T-shirts worn by Slash, the former guitarist for Guns N' Roses and member of the supergroup, Velvet Revolver. Eberhardt was described as "highly amused" when she discovered that her likeness appeared on Slash's wardrobe.[1]
Eberhardt switched to television, including guest roles on Dragnet in 1959 and the CBS sitcom, Hogan's Heroes, in 1969.[1][2]

Personal life

Eberhardt married Claude Dauphin, a French actor and former member of the French Resistance, in 1955. Dauphin, who began acting in the 1930s, operated an underground radio station in Nazi occupied France during World War II.[1] The couple divided their married life between residences in Paris, New York City, Ocean Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey, and Hollywood.[1][2] Dauphin died in 1978.[1]
She was a founding member and an honorary trustee of the Township of Ocean Historical Museum in Ocean Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey.[2]
Norma Eberhardt died of a stroke at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City on September 16, 2011, at the age of 82.[2] She was survived by her 108-year-old father, George Eberhardt, and six brothers and sisters.[2] Her funeral was held at the Church House of the Presbyterian Church in Shrewsbury, New Jersey.[2]

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Monday, February 18, 2013

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Dickey Betts died he was 80

Early Career Forrest Richard Betts was also known as Dickey Betts Betts collaborated with  Duane Allman , introducing melodic twin guitar ha...