Sunday, February 27, 2011

Chris Condon, American cinematographer (Jaws 3-D), 3D lens inventor died he was , 88

Chris J. Condon  (born Christo Dimitri Koudounis) was the inventor of 3D lens used by his company StereoVision, a cinematographer, and founder of Sierra Pacific Airlines  died he was , 88.

(1923 - December 19, 2010)

He was born in North Chicago, Illinois. During World War II he received a four Bronze Battle Stars while working on the combat air crew and cinemetographer on B-24 and A-26 in the Pacific.[1]
After the war he worked at Douglas Aircraft as a trainee before starting his own business in 1947 Century Precision Optics Company of North Hollywood, California where he developed the Tele-Athenar telephoto lens which were used by Walt Disney photographers in the True Life Adventures series.[1]
In 1953 he received his first patent for a 3D projection system.[1] The system replaced the previous method of using two cameras. His invention was inspired by House of Wax.[2]
He taught at Columbia College Hollywood from 1958 to 1960.[1]
He co-wrote the American Cinematographer Manual for the American Society of Cinematographers with Joseph Mascelli in 1963.[1]
In 1969-1969 he and his partner Allan Silliphant received a patent for the world's 1st Single-Camera 3-D Motion Picture Lens and they formed the company Magnavision which was changed to StereoVision Entertainment. After the success of soft core 3D movie The Stewardesses he and Oliphant founded Sierra Pacific Airlines.[1]
In 1972 he received a patent for a special widescreen 3-D camera lens for modern 35mm and 70mm reflex motion picture cameras.[1]
During the 1970s his lenses were used in Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, Dynasty, Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth.[1]

Credits


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Anthony Howard , British journalist, broadcaster and editor (New Statesman). died from a surgery for a ruptured aneurysm he was 76

 Anthony Michell Howard, CBE  was a prominent British journalist, broadcaster and writer. He was the editor of the New Statesman, The Listener and the deputy editor of The Observer died from a surgery for a ruptured aneurysm he was  76. He selected the passages used in "The Crossman Diaries", a book of entries taken from Richard Crossman's "The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister".


(12 February 1934 – 19 December 2010[1])

 Early life

Howard was the son of a Church of England clergyman, Canon Guy Howard. He was educated at Purton Stoke School at Kintbury in Berkshire, Highgate School, Westminster and at Christ Church, Oxford where, in 1954, he was chairman of the Oxford University Labour Club and, the following year, President of the Oxford Union.
Howard had planned a career as a barrister, having been called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1956 while fulfilling his National Service obligations in the army, during which he saw active service in the Royal Fusiliers during the Suez War, but he "stumbled" into his career as a journalist in 1958, starting on Reynolds News as a political correspondent. Howard moved to the Manchester Guardian in 1959. The following year, he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship to study in the United States, though he remained on the Guardian’s staff.

Career

Howard was political correspondent of the New Statesman from 1961 until 1964. An admirer of Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell during this period, he was a strong advocate of the democratic process:
"I strongly believe that people should have the right to elect their own rulers and for a long time I was deeply affronted by what the Conservative Party did and never more affronted than when Alec Douglas-Home became leader of the Conservative Party. That seemed to me to be an Etonian fix organised by Harold Macmillan."[2]
In January 1965, Howard joined The Sunday Times as its Whitehall correspondent, a post he saw as being in advance of the then current journalistic practices.[3] Cabinet Ministers were instructed by Prime Minister Harold Wilson's private secretary not to co-operate with Howard. Civil servants received similar instructions.[3] Howard though, was soon invited to become the Observer’s chief Washington correspondent, serving in the role from 1966 to 1969, later contributing a political column (1971-72). During his period in America he made regular contributions to The World At One on Radio 4. "It got to where I was almost the World at One Washington correspondent", he once remarked.[4]
As editor of the New Statesman (1972-78), succeeding Richard Crossman, whose deputy he had been (1970-72), he appointed Robin Cook as the magazine's parliamentary adviser in 1974,[5] (Cook also contributed articles), James Fenton, Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis as literary editor in 1977. Under Howard, the magazine published a rare non-British contributor: Gabriel García Márquez in March 1974, on the overthrow of Salvador Allende's elected government in Chile the previous September. Perhaps out of a sense of mischief, he featured a series of diatribes against the British Left, by the magazine's former editor Paul Johnson, a drinking companion and friend of Howard's, whose rightward drift was well advanced by then. Howard was unable to halt the magazine's fall in circulation, however. He then edited The Listener for two years (1979-81).
Howard was deputy editor of The Observer (1981-88), where one of his journalist protégés was the journalist and (later) novelist Robert Harris, whom he appointed as the newspaper's political editor. His professional relationship with the editor, Donald Trelford, ultimately broke down over allegations that Trelford had allowed the newspaper’s proprietor Tiny Rowland to interfere in editorial content. After leaving The Observer, following an ill-fated editorial coup against Trelford, he was a reporter on Newsnight and Panorama (1989-92), having previously presented Channel Four’s Face the Press (1982-85). His last editorial positions before turning freelance were at The Times as Obituaries editor (1993-99) and Chief Political Book Reviewer (1990-2004), though he contributed opinion columns to the newspaper until September 2005, when his regular column was discontinued.
Howard assisted Michael Heseltine on his memoirs, Life in the Jungle: My Autobiography (2000), and more recently published an official biography Basil Hume: The Monk Cardinal (2005), despite being an agnostic.

Personal life

Howard married Carol Anne Gaynor, herself a journalist, in 1965. He was awarded the CBE in 1997. He died in London, after surgery for a ruptured aneurysm.[6]

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Trudy Pitts American jazz organist, pianist and vocalist, died from pancreatic cancer he was , 78,

Gertrude E. "Trudy" Pitts [1] was an American soul jazz keyboardist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was known primarily for playing the Hammond B3 organ died from pancreatic cancer he was , 78,.[2]



(1932 – December 19, 2010)

Biography

Trained as a musician and a music educator, Pitts studied at the Philadelphia Musical Academy, Temple University and Juilliard, as well as other institutions. Early work experience included a position as an assistant to the pianist in the Tony Award-winning musical Raisin.
At the end of the musical's tour, she was encouraged by her husband (who had worked with Shirley Scott as a drummer) to continue developing her repertoire.
In 1967, the Boston Globe printed a piece calling her a rising star and complimented her drawbar variations, vibrato shadings, and bass pedal work. Her husband, William Theodore Carney II (born 1925), aka "Mr. C.", often joined her on the drums.[3]



Trudy Pitts eventually went on to play with Ben Webster, Gene Ammons, and Sonny Stitt.[1] She recorded four albums for Prestige Records, appearing with Willis Jackson among others.[4] In 1999, a compilation album of several records was released as Legends of Acid Jazz, Trudy Pitts & Pat Martino. Recent festival appearances include the 11th Annual Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in May 2006. On September 15, 2006, Pitts was the first jazz artist play a concert on Philadelphia's Kimmel Center's 7,000 pipe organ, "taking the medium to a whole new level".
In 2008, she again performed on an exceptional organ, this time the Kennedy Center's Filene Organ.
Trudy Pitts died on December 19, 2010, aged 78, from pancreatic cancer.[1]

Discography

As leader

Albums
  • 1967: Introducing the Fabulous Trudy Pitts (Prestige PR 7523) with Pat Martino
  • 1967: These Blues of Mine (Prestige PR 7538) with Pat Martino
  • 1968: A Bucketful of Soul (Prestige PR 7560) with Mr. C.
  • 1968: The Excitement of Trudy Pitts (Recorded Live! at Club Baron) (Prestige PR 7583) with Wilbert Longmire
Singles
  • 1967: Steppin' In Minor c/w Take Five (Prestige PR 45-448) Same sessions as PR 7523
  • 1968: A Whiter Shade Of Pale c/w Bucket Full Of Soul (Prestige PR 45-461)

As sidewoman

WIth Pat Martino
  • 1967: El Hombre (Prestige PR 7513)
WIth Willis Jackson
  • 1968: Star Bag (Prestige PR 7571)
With Roland Kirk

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Phil Cavarretta, American baseball player (Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox), died from complications from a stroke.he was 94

 Philip Joseph Cavarretta  was an American Major League Baseball first baseman, outfielder, and manager.
Cavarretta spent almost his entire baseball career with the Chicago Cubs. He was voted the 1945 National League Most Valuable Player after leading the Cubs to the pennant while winning the batting title with a .355 average. His 20 seasons (1934-1953) played for the Cubs is the second-most in franchise history, behind Cap Anson. He managed the Cubs in his final three seasons with the club.

(July 19, 1916 – December 18, 2010)

Baseball career

Cavaretta attended Lane Tech High School in Chicago, and signed a professional contract with the Cubs before finishing high school. In his first professional game with Peoria at age 17 in 1934, Cavaretta hit for the cycle as a right fielder. That same year he was brought up to the Cubs to replace manager Charlie Grimm at first base. He first appeared in a major league game on September 16, 1934, less than two months after his 18th birthday, pinch-hitting unsuccessfully for the Cubs' shortstop Billy Jurges in the fifth inning of the first game of a doubleheader in Brooklyn. A week later, on September 25, in his first start and his first appearance at the Cubs' home park, Wrigley Field, Cavaretta hit a home run that supplied the winning margin in the Cubs' 1-0 win over Cincinnati.[1] In his 1935 rookie season, he batted .275 with 82 runs batted in, also leading the league in double plays, as the Cubs captured their third pennant in seven years by winning 21 straight games in September; however, he batted only .125 in the World Series loss to the Detroit Tigers. Over the next several seasons he provided solid if unspectacular play at first base, routinely batting between .270 and .291 every season but one through 1943, though he lost significant playing time from 1938-40 due to a hip injury and an ankle broken twice while sliding. In the 1938 World Series against the New York Yankees, he batted .462 as the Cubs were swept.
Exempted from World War II service because of a hearing problem[citation needed], in 1944 Cavaretta batted .321 with a league-high 197 hits, had career highs with 106 runs, 35 doubles and 15 triples, and earned his first of four straight All-Star selections (reaching base a record five times in the game) though the Cubs suffered their fifth consecutive losing season. But the team improved by 23 games in 1945, edging the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals by three games for the pennant as Cavaretta was named MVP. That season he also had a career-high 97 RBI, leading the NL in on base percentage and finishing third in slugging average. He batted .423 in the World Series against the Tigers, though the Cubs again lost, in seven games. In Game 1, he singled and scored as the Cubs took a 4-0 lead in the first inning, singled and scored again in the third, and homered in the seventh as Chicago took the opener 9-0. He scored the Cubs' only run in Game 2, and in an 12-inning 8-7 win in Game 6 had a 2-RBI single and scored a run; he had three hits in Game 7, but the Cubs lost 9-3.
He made the All-Star team again in 1946 and 1947, batting .314 the latter year, as the Cubs again fell back in the standings. Over the next six years, he played a gradually diminishing role with the team. He was named manager in June 1951, succeeding Frankie Frisch, though the team finished in last place; continuing as manager for two more years, he compiled a record of 169-213. In 1953, his final season with the Cubs, he surpassed Stan Hack's modern team record of 1,938 games; Ernie Banks would eventually break his mark of 1,953 games in 1966. Cavaretta was fired during 1954 spring training after admitting the team was unlikely to finish above fifth place (they finished seventh), and in May he signed with the crosstown Chicago White Sox; he ended his career there in 1955.

Legacy

In his 22-year major league career, Cavaretta compiled a .293 batting average with 95 home runs and 920 RBI. He later managed in the minor leagues from 1956-58 and again from 1965-72, became a coach and scout with the Tigers, and was a New York Mets organizational hitting instructor.
Cavaretta was the last living player to have played against Babe Ruth in a major league game; he did so on May 12, 1935, against the Boston Braves.[2]

Death

On December 18, 2010, Cavarretta died of complications from a stroke. He was also battling leukemia at the time of his death. [3]

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Clay Cole, American television host (The Clay Cole Show) and DJ. died he was , 72

Clay Cole [4] was an American host and disk jockey, best known for his eponymous television dance program, The Clay Cole Show, which aired in New York City on WNTA-TV and WPIX-TV from 1959 to 1968.


(January 1, 1938 – December 18, 2010)

Origins

Clay Cole was born Albert Rucker, Jr., on January 1, 1938, in Youngstown, Ohio.[4] He became a juvenile stage and radio actor; then in 1953, at age 15, became the television host and producer of his own Saturday night teen music show, Rucker's Rumpus Room,[4] first on WKBN-TV, then, until 1957, on WFMJ. Arriving in Manhattan in 1957, he worked first as an NBC page, then as a production assistant on the troubled quiz show Twenty One , the events at which were recreated in the 1994 film Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford.[1]

Early television and film career

In 1958, he continued his Saturday night television legacy, launching Al Rucker and the Seven Teens program on WJAR-TV, Providence, Rhode Island. In New York City in 1959, when asked to change his name, he chose that of a distant cousin, Clay Cole.[1] Clay's 1960 all-star ten-day Christmas show at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater broke the all-time house box office record.[5][6] Clay was among the few white performers invited to appear at Harlem's Apollo Theater; he headlined three week-long revues, starring Fats Domino, Gladys Knight & the Pips and Chubby Checker. In 1961, he appeared as himself in the film Twist Around the Clock.[1] When WNTA-TV was sold in 1963, Cole's program was picked up by New York City television station WPIX-TV, where the program became known as Clay Cole's Discotek by 1965.[3][1] During the 1960's "British Invasion", musical acts arriving from the UK often appeared on Cole's television show before doing network shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show. The Rolling Stones and The Who were among those who first appeared on Cole's television show.[1][7][8] Cole's show differed from American Bandstand in a few ways: while both Cole and Dick Clark had an interest in young people and their music, Cole did not hesitate to join in on his show's dance floor. He was also more confident about booking lesser-known performers and comedians for his show.[9][7][1]

Writing, producing and directing career

Leaving the Clay Cole Show[9] in 1967, Clay became a television writer - producer, involved in the production of over 3500 broadcast television shows.[7][4][1] He is twice winner of the Emmy Award (NATAS) as "producer of outstanding television programming" in 1981 and 1982 for the Joel Siegel Academy Awards special.[7] He producedThe Discovery of Marilyn Monroe, Play Bridge with Omar Sharif and 365 This Day In Hollywood segments. Along with David Susskind and Raysa Bonow, he created and produced the first primetime entertainment magazine People for CBS in 1979. Cole also hosted A. M. New York.[1][7] He returned briefly in 1974 as the star of the first HBO-produced music special Clay Cole's 20 Years of Rock and Roll,[4] a two-hour event taped at Rockland Community College,[10] and as co-host of the WABC-TV weekday program, AM New York. His final professional assignment was as writer/producer/director of the television special, the 2002 Sanremo Music Festival in Italy, featuring Britney Spears, Destiny's Child, Alicia Keys, Shakira, Kylie Minogue and other international pop divas.[7]

Retirement and death

Cole retired and had been living on Oak Island since 2007,[11] off the Cape Fear River on the North Carolina coastline.[1] His pop culture memoir, Sh-Boom! The Explosion of Rock 'n' Roll (1953-1968), has been published by Morgan James.[12][13] It has been nominated for the 2010 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. Cole made a personal appearance at the annual Long Island Radio & TV Day in April 2010,[14] and also at the New Jersey Rock Con later that year.[15]
In addition, Cole was a member of the nominating committee of the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.
Cole died of a heart attack at his home on December 18, 2010,[3] at the age of 72.[4][1][7][16]

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Nash Roberts, American television meteorologist. died he was , 92

Nash Charles Roberts Jr.  was a New Orleans, Louisiana-based meteorologist widely known for the accuracy of his hurricane forecasts died he was , 92.

(April 13, 1918 – December 18, 2010)

He began his career in weather during World War II. He worked for Admiral Chester Nimitz in the Pacific. Roberts was on the first plane to enter the eye of a tropical system near the Philippines. This method is still used today by the "Hurricane Hunters" of the Air Force based at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi to measure and record internal conditions in hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean to help predict their development and path.
In 1948 he began broadcasting on WDSU-TV. Roberts was the first full-time weathercaster in the Deep South and one of the first to use radar on television weather broadcasts.


1960s WDSU logo featuring Nash Roberts
Nash continued as a local forecaster on New Orleans television and radio. His calm guidance during these storms made him legendary to people throughout southeast Louisiana. He was the only local forecaster to accurately predict the paths of Hurricane Betsy in 1965, which hit the New Orleans area directly, and Hurricane Camille in 1969, a storm that devastated coastal Mississippi.
After 25 years at WDSU (1948-1973), he moved to Newscene 8 at WVUE-TV for 5 years, then to Eyewitness News at WWL-TV in April 1978. As he aged, he gradually cut back his schedule, giving most of the day-to-day weathercasting chores to younger meteorologists.
In later years, Nash was the favorite forecaster in the area, especially among older viewers, to the point where competitors good-naturedly referred to him as "the Weather God". After his retirement, he would be brought back as a special consultant when hurricanes threatened in the Gulf. By the late 1980s he seemed to many like a figure from an earlier era, as he eschewed computer graphics and other modern special effects in favor of a simple black marker and paper map. Nash retired from the Eyewitness News anchor desk in late 1984, but would come back during storms to help calm and educate the locals during hurricane season, sometimes to the visible resentment of the station's younger weathermen, especially when Nash's experience, intuition, and pen and paper yielded more accurate predictions than their computer models. He accurately predicted the path of Hurricane Georges in 1998, while all the full time on-air meteorologists of the area predicted an incorrect track.
Roberts finally retired from even his special hurricane appearances in 2001 (in part to help take care of his wife of over 60 years, Lydia), and that same year donated his papers to Loyola University, New Orleans.
He was fully retired, and had not been seen on TV in several years by 2006. Roberts and his wife evacuated in advance of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the first time he had left town for a hurricane. Nash figures prominently in a 2006 book about Hurricane Camille, "Roar Of The Heavens," by Stefan Bechtel.
Lydia and Nash Roberts had two sons, four grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Lydia Roberts died in June 2007; [1] Nash himself died December 18, 2010 after a lengthy illness at age 92. [2]


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Glen Adams, Jamaican musician. died he was , 65

Glen Adams[1] was a Jamaican musician, composer, arranger, engineer, producer, based since the mid-1970s in Brooklyn, New York  died he was , 65.


(27 November 1945 – 17 December 2010)

Career

Adams' mother was from Kingston and his father from St. Vincent; the two met while working in Curaçao.[2] Adams' first break in the music business came as a teenager, when he appeared as a singer in a vocal group on Radio Jamaica's Opportunity Knocks show hosted by Vere Johns. Later performing on the same show as a solo singer which led to appearances on cabaret shows and performances in Kingston and St. Andrews at weekends.[2][3] Adams' older sister Yvonne was also a popular singer and he was spotted by Clement "Coxsone" Dodd while rehearsing a song that she had written called "Wonder Thirst". Coxsone took him into the Federal Recording Studio to record the track in 1960.[2] Although not officially released as a single at the time, the song became a popular dub plate on sound systems,[2] and the title of the song became his nickname.[3]

Adams formed a duo, Ken and Glen, with Ken Boothe and they came second place in the 1966 Festival Song Competition with "I Remember".[2] The duo also backed Stranger Cole on his number one single "Uno Dos Tres".[2] He co-founded The Heptones before moving on to The Pioneers, appearing on the latter's "Shake It Up" and "Good Nanny".[2][3] While continuing to earn a living as a tailor, he moved on to work with Duke Reid's Treasure Isle set-up as an informal musical director, introducing singers such as Joe White to Reid.[2]
Adams also worked with Bunny Lee from around 1967 as a solo singer, backing singer and A&R man, in exchange for studio time.[2][3] At a recording session in October 1968, when several musicians failed to turn up due to a dispute about payment for a previous session, Adams was asked to play piano, despite not being proficient on the instrument. Unhappy with the results, he switched instruments with organist Lloyd Charmers (although he had never played the organ before). He played organ on eight tracks in that session, which included Lester Sterling's "Bangarang" and Slim Smith's "Everybody Needs Love" and he has stuck with the instrument ever since, becoming a regular session player.[2][3] Along with other musicians such as the Barrett brothers (Aston and Carlton), he performed in sessions for a range of producers under a variety of group names notably The Hippy Boys for Bunny Lee, where Adams did some of his most memorable work accompanying Slim Smith, The Reggae Boys and The Upsetters for Lee "Scratch" Perry.[3] Adams also worked for Herman Chin Loy, where he was one of a number of keyboard players to record under the name Augustus Pablo, before Horace Swaby adopted that identity.[4]
Perry and The Upsetters toured the United Kingdom to capitalise on the success of Perry's hit "Return Of Django" (and the less successful follow-up, "Live Injection");[5] returning to Jamaica in 1970. As part of The Upsetters, Adams backed The Wailers during their spell with Perry and Adams did much of the arranging and composed the song "Mr. Brown".[2][3] The lyrics were inspired by a local tale about a duppy who was supposedly seen speeding around on a three-wheeled coffin with two "John Crows" (buzzards) on top, one of which would ask for "Mr. Brown".[2] Adams was due to record the track himself but Perry suggested that the Wailers record it, with Peter Tosh and Adams adding spooky organ riffs.[2] Adams regularly introduced this song at his concerts with the statement: "I wrote this song for Bob Marley". When The Wailers parted company with Perry in 1971 taking The Upsetter's rhythm section with them, Adams remained with Perry. During this period he had also started to split his time between Jamaica and the United States. In the United States he set up his own Capo record label[5] and put together a new band, the Blue Grass Experience. He eventually moved to Brooklyn permanently in 1975, where he became more involved in producing and also worked for Brad Osbourne's Clocktower and Lloyd Barnes' Bullwackie labels[5] and played with The Realistics band.[3]
In the late 1970s, Adams expanded into R&B and Rap production, working with hip hop artist T Ski Valley.[3][6] He has also worked with Shaggy and remixed an album of previously-unreleased Upsetters material in 1996, released by Heartbeat Records as Upsetters a Go Go.[6]
After many years in the studio, Adams returned to live performance in the 2000s, touring the USA and Europe with The Slackers[3] and also playing occasional NYC shows with the Jammyland All-Stars.
Adams owned his own recording studio and in his later years produced artists such as Susan Cadogan and Keith Rowe,[3] half of the vocal duo Keith & Tex from Jamaica.
Glen Adams died on 17 December 2010 at the University Hospital of the West Indies after falling ill while visiting Jamaica.[7]

Discography

Singles

  • Far Away, 1967
  • Grab A Girl, 1968
  • Hey There Lonely Girl, 1968
  • Hold Down Miss Winey
  • I Can't Help It, 1968
  • I Remember, 1967
  • I Wanna Hold Your Hand, 1968
  • My Argument, 1968
  • Run Come Dance, 1968
  • I'm Shocking, I'm Electric (She), 1967
  • She's So Fine (I've Got A Girl), 1968
  • Silent Lover, 1967
  • Taking Over Orange Street, 1968

Albums


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Colin Burgess, the original drummer of AC/DC, passed away on Dec. 16, 2023, at the age of 77

Colin Burgess Colin Burgess, original drummer for AC/DC.   PETER CARRETTE ARCHIVE/GETTY ...