'Happy Days' dad Tom Bosley dead at 83
'Happy Days' dad Tom Bosley dead at 83 (October 19th, 2010 @ 12:34pm)
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In this undated film publicity image released by CBS Films, Tom Bosley is shown in a scene from, 'The Back-Up Plan.' (AP Photo/CBS Films, Peter Lovino, file)
By BOB THOMAS - Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Tom Bosley, whose long acting career was highlighted by his hugely popular role as the understanding father on television's nostalgic, top-rated 1970s comedy series "Happy Days," died Tuesday. He was 83.
Bosley died of heart failure at a hospital near his Palm Springs home. Bosley's agent, Sheryl Abrams, said he was also battling lung cancer.
TV Guide ranked Bosley's Happy Days character No. 9 on its list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" in 2004. The show debuted in 1974 and ran for 11 seasons.
After "Happy Days" ended, Bosley went on to a recurring role in "Murder, She Wrote" as Sheriff Amos Tucker. He also was the crime-solving priest in television's "The Father Dowling Mysteries," which ran from 1989 to 1991.
When he was first offered the costarring role in "Happy Days," a series about teenage life in the 1950s, he turned it down.
"After rereading the pilot script," he recalled in a 1986 interview, "I changed my mind because of a scene between Howard Cunningham and Richie. The father/son situation was written so movingly, I fell in love with the project."
Propelled by the nation's nostalgia for the simple pleasures of the 1950s, "Happy Days," which debuted in 1974, slowly built to hit status, becoming television's top-rated series by its third season.
It made a star of Henry Winkler, who played hip-talking, motorcycle-riding hoodlum Arthur "Fonzi" Fonzarelli. His image initially clashed with that of Richie and his "straight" friends. But over the show's 11-season run Fonzarelli would transform himself from high school dropout to successful businessman.
After "Happy Days" ended, Bosley went on to a recurring role in "Murder, She Wrote" as Sheriff Amos Tucker, who was often outsmarted by Angela Lansbury's mystery writer, Jessica Fletcher.
His own series, "The Father Dowling Mysteries," ran from 1989 to 1991. The avuncular Father Frank Dowling was assisted in his detective work by nun Sister Steve, played by Tracy Nelson.
Although "Happy Days" brought him his widest fame, Bosley had made his mark on Broadway 15 years before when he turned in a Tony Award-winning performance in the title role in "Fiorello!" He also was the crime-solving priest in television's "The Father Dowling Mysteries."
His Broadway triumph depicted the life of New York's colorful reformist mayor of the 1930s and '40s, Fiorello La Guardia.
For two years, Bosley stopped the show every night when he sang in several languages, depicting La Guardia during the years the future mayor worked at New York's Ellis Island, aiding arriving immigrants.
The play won a Pulitzer Prize and Bosley received the Tony for best actor in a musical.
After failing to duplicate his success in "Fiorello!," Bosley moved to Hollywood in 1968. He would not return to Broadway until 1994 when he originated the role of Belle's father in Disney's production of "Beauty and the Beast."
In Hollywood, the rotund character actor found steady work appearing in the occasional movie and as a regular on weekly TV shows starring Debbie Reynolds, Dean Martin, Sandy Duncan and others.
During the 1990s, Bosley toured in "Beauty and the Beast" and "Show Boat," playing Captain Andy in the latter.
Bosley made only a handful of theatrical movies. Among them: "Love With the Proper Stranger," "Divorce American Style," "The Secret War of Henry Frigg," "Yours, Mine and Ours."
Born in Chicago in 1927, Bosley served in the Navy before returning to his hometown to study at De Paul University. Intrigued with acting, he enrolled at the Radio Institute of Chicago and began appearing in radio dramas. He made his theatrical debut in a production of "Golden Boy."
After moving to New York, he studied at the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg.
After making his off-Broadway debut in "Thieves Highway" in 1955, he struggled to find other acting jobs, supporting himself as a temporary office worker, a doorman at Central Park's Tavern on the Green and a hat checker at Lindy's deli.
Then came "Fiorello!" in 1959.
Bosley married dancer Jean Eliot in 1962 and the couple had one child, Amy. Two years after his wife's death in 1978, Bosley married actress-producer Patricia Carr, who had three daughters from a previous marriage.
Jill Clayburgh, Oscar-nominated actress, dies at 66
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Jill Clayburgh, whose Broadway and Hollywood acting career stretched through the decades, highlighted by her Oscar-nominated portrayal of a divorcee exploring her sexuality in the 1978 film An Unmarried Woman, died Friday. She was 66.
Her husband, Tony Award-winning playwright David Rabe, said she died after a 21-year battle with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. She was surrounded by her family and brother when she died at her home in Lakeville, Conn., he said.
She dealt with the disease courageously, quietly and privately, Rabe said, and conducted herself with enormous grace "and made it into an opportunity for her children to grow and be human."
Clayburgh came from a privileged New York family. Her father was vice president of two large companies, and her mother was a secretary for Broadway producer David Merrick. Her grandmother, Alma Clayburgh, was an opera singer and New York socialite.
Growing up in a such a rich cultural mix, she could easily have been overwhelmed. Instead, as she said in interviews, she asserted herself with willful and destructive behavior — so much so that her parents took her to a psychiatrist when she was 9.
She escaped into a fantasy world of her own devising. She was entranced by seeing Jean Arthur play "Peter Pan" on Broadway, and she and a school chum concocted their own dramatics every day at home. She became serious-minded at Sarah Lawrence College, concentrating on religion, philosophy and literature.
Clayburgh also took drama classes at Sarah Lawrence. She and her friend Robert De Niro acted in a film, The Wedding Party, directed by a Sarah Lawrence graduate, Brian DePalma. After graduating with a bachelor of arts degree, she began performing in repertory and in Broadway musicals such as The Rothschilds and Pippin.
Alongside Richard Thomas, she headed the 2005 Broadway cast of A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, Richard Greenberg's comedy about one family's unusual domestic tribulations.
Director Doug Hughes, who directed her in a production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons at the Westport Country Playhouse two years ago, called her for Naked Girl.
"That she has the time to do a run of a play is just an extraordinary boon because I've had the pleasure of seeing her play a bona fide tragic American role beautifully, and I have had the pleasure of directing her in a very, very smart light comedy and be utterly brilliant in that," he said in 2005.
During an interview that year, Clayburgh explained the unglamorous side of acting.
"One of the funny things about actors is that people look at their careers in retrospect, as if they have a plan," she said.
"Mostly, you just get a call. You're just sitting there going, 'Oh, my God. I'm never going to work again. Oh, God. I'm too old. Maybe I should go and work for Howard Dean.' And then it changes."
Besides appearing in such movies as I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can, Silver Streak and Running With Scissors, Clayburgh's Broadway credits include Noel Coward's Design for Living, the original production of Tom Stoppard's Jumpers, and the Tony Award-winning musicals Pippin and The Rothschilds.
Clayburgh was also nominated for an Academy Award for Starting Over, a comedy about a divorced man, played by Burt Reynolds, who falls in love but can't get over his ex-wife. She appeared on TV shows including Dirty Sexy Money and was nominated for two Emmys: for best actress in 1975 for her work on Hustling and for her guest turn on Nip/Tuck on FX in 2005.
She is survived by three children, including actress Lily Rabe, Michael Rabe and stepson Jason Rabe.
There will be no funeral, Rabe said. The family will have a memorial in about six months, though plans have not been finalized.
'Airplane!', 'Forbidden Planet' actor Nielsen dies
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By ANDREW DALTON and BOB THOMAS
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Despite decades spent playing sober commanders and serious captains, Leslie Nielsen insisted that he was always made for comedy. He proved it in his career's second act.
"Surely you can't be serious," an airline passenger says to Nielsen in "Airplane!" the 1980 hit that turned the actor from dramatic leading man to comic star.
"I am serious," Nielsen replies. "And don't call me Shirley."
The line was probably his most famous- and a perfect distillation of his career.
Nielsen, the dramatic lead in "Forbidden Planet" and "The Poseidon Adventure" and the bumbling detective Frank Drebin in "The Naked Gun" comedies, died on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 84.
The Canada native died from complications from pneumonia at a hospital near his home, surrounded by his wife, Barbaree, and friends, his agent John S. Kelly said in a statement.
Critics argued that when Nielsen went into comedy he was being cast against type, but Nielsen disagreed, saying comedy was what he intended to do all along.
"I've finally found my home- as Lt. Frank Drebin," he told The Associated Press in a 1988 interview.
Comic actor Russell Brand took to Twitter to pay tribute to Nielsen, playing off his famous line: "RIP Leslie Nielsen. Shirley, he will be missed."
Nielsen came to Hollywood in the mid-1950s after performing in 150 live television dramas in New York. With a craggily handsome face, blond hair and 6-foot-2 height, he seemed ideal for a movie leading man.
Nielsen first performed as the king of France in the Paramount operetta "The Vagabond King" with Kathryn Grayson.
The film- he called it "The Vagabond Turkey"- flopped, but MGM signed him to a seven-year contract.
His first film for that studio was auspicious- as the space ship commander in the science fiction classic "Forbidden Planet." He found his best dramatic role as the captain of an overturned ocean liner in the 1972 disaster movie, "The Poseidon Adventure."
Behind the camera, the serious actor was a well-known prankster. That was an aspect of his personality never exploited, however, until "Airplane!" was released in 1980 and became a huge hit.
As the doctor aboard a plane in which the pilots, and some of the passengers, become violently ill, Nielsen says they must get to a hospital right away.
"A hospital? What is it?" a flight attendant asks, inquiring about the illness.
"It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now," Nielsen deadpans.
It was the beginning of a whole new career in comedy. Nielsen would go on to appear in such comedies as "Repossessed"- a takeoff on "The Exorcist"- and "Mr. Magoo," in which he played the title role of the good-natured bumbler.
But it took years before he got there.
He played Debbie Reynolds' sweetheart in 1957's popular "Tammy and the Bachelor," and he became well known to baby boomers for his role as the Revolutionary War fighter Francis Marion in the Disney TV adventure series "The Swamp Fox."
He asked to be released from his contract at MGM, and as a freelancer, he appeared in a series of undistinguished movies.
"I played a lot of leaders, autocratic sorts; perhaps it was my Canadian accent," he said.
Meanwhile, he remained active in television in guest roles. He also starred in his own series, "The New Breed," "The Protectors" and "Bracken's World," but all were short-lived.
Then "Airplane!" captivated audiences and changed everything.
Producers-directors-writers Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker had hired Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges and Nielsen to spoof their heroic TV images in a satire of flight-in-jeopardy movies.
After the movie's success, the filmmaking trio cast their newfound comic star as Detective Drebin in a TV series, "Police Squad," which trashed the cliches of "Dragnet" and other cop shows. Despite good reviews, ABC quickly canceled it. Only six episodes were made.
"It didn't belong on TV," Nielsen later said. "It had the kind of humor you had to pay attention to."
The Zuckers and Abraham converted the series into a feature film, "The Naked Gun," with George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson and Priscilla Presley as Nielsen's co-stars. Its huge success led to sequels "The Naked Gun 2 1/2" and "The Naked Gun 33 1/3."
His later movies included "All I Want for Christmas," "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" and "Spy Hard."
Between films he often turned serious, touring with his one-man show on the life of the great defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow.
Nielsen was born Feb. 11, 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan.
He grew up 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle at Fort Norman, where his father was an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The parents had three sons, and Nielsen once recalled, "There were 15 people in the village, including five of us. If my father arrested somebody in the winter, he'd have to wait until the thaw to turn him in."
The elder Nielsen was a troubled man who beat his wife and sons, and Leslie longed to escape. As soon as he graduated from high school at 17, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, even though he was legally deaf (he wore hearing aids most of his life.)
After the war, Nielsen worked as a disc jockey at a Calgary radio station, then studied at a Toronto radio school operated by Lorne Greene, who would go on to star on the hit TV series "Bonanza." A scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse brought him to New York, where he immersed himself in live television.
Nielsen also was married to: Monica Boyer, 1950-1955; Sandy Ullman, 1958-74; and Brooks Oliver, 1981-85.
Nielsen and his second wife had two daughters, Thea and Maura.
'Dandy' Don Meredith Dies After Brain Hemorrhage
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SANTA FE, N.M. -- Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith has died in Santa Fe after suffering a brain hemorrhage and lapsing into a coma on Sunday. He was 72.
Meredith's wife, Susan, confirmed the former football star's death. She says a private graveside ceremony is being planned and that family members are traveling to Santa Fe.
Meredith played for the Cowboys from 1960-1968, becoming the starting quarterback in 1965. While he never led the Cowboys to the Super Bowl, Meredith was one of the franchise's first stars.
Over his nine-year career, Meredith threw for 17,199 yards and 111 touchdowns. He retired unexpectedly before the 1969 season.
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"Dandy Don" Meredith - 17
Known to millions of Monday Night Football fans for his famous line, "Turn out the lights, the party's over", Dandy Don led the team in passing from 1963-1968. Meredith led the Cowboys to the long defunct Playoff Bowl in 1965 against the Baltimore Colts, after finishing second in the NFL Eastern Division behind the Cleveland Browns. The game was not a pretty sight, losing 35-3, yet it was the beginning of what would turn out to be a common occurence -- the Cowboys in the NFL playoffs.
The following year Dallas began the season thoroughly whipping their first four opponents, averaging 45 points a game, and the league knew they were to be reckoned with. By the end of the year Dallas had upended Cleveland as Eastern Division Champions, and won the right to face the Green Bay Packers in the Cotton Bowl. The Dallas-Green Bay winner would earn the right to play the AFL representative in the first Super Bowl.
Dallas put up a tough fight, getting back into the game after falling behind 14-0. There was no intimidating the Cowboys this day. Vince Lombardi's Packers were in for the fight of their lives. The Cowboys were driving for the tying score when Dallas called the play that would haunt them for years. Dallas had the ball deep in Green Bay territory, down 34-27. Landry called a short out pass to tight end Pettis Norman, used primarily as a blocker and not receiver. Norman was wide open on the play, but because Meredith did not expect Norman in that position, Meredith threw the ball short. Norman, instead of catching the ball and jogging into the end zone, ran back for the ball and Green Bay tackled him at the two yard line. On the subsequent play, a pass into the end zone, rookie linebacker Dave Robinson hit Meredith, and the pass flew out of control from Dandy Don and into the arms of Packer safety Tom Brown.
Meredith played three more years, taking the Cowboys to their second NFL Championship game, also against the Packers, and two Divisional Championship games against the Browns before retiring
unexpectedly in 1969.
Meredith provided the leadership Dallas needed to begin their winning tradition. Meredith played with a broken nose, when he could barely breathe. He was sacked and pounded often, yet rarely missed a game, except when they would not let him play. In an era where cornerbacks were allowed to bump and run with receivers throughout the field, Meredith was as effective as anyone, especially in 1966 when he won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award.
"Dandy" Don Meredith remains an all time favorite quarterback, despite never winning an NFL Championship. Cowboy fans still love remembering Don Meredith leading the Cowboys. Time has illuminated the achievements his career, and "Dandy" Don is most often remembered as the courageous leader Dallas had when the tradition of Cowboys victory started. He was enshrined in the Ring of Honor in 1976
Legendary Penn State coach Paterno dead
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Joe Paterno, the longtime Penn State coach who won more games than anyone in major college football but was fired amid a child sex abuse scandal that scarred his reputation for winning with integrity, died Sunday of lung cancer. He was 85.
His family released a statement Sunday morning to announce his death: "His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled."
"He died as he lived," the statement said. "He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been. His ambitions were far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave this Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players and his community."
The Pennsylvania hospital where Paterno died confirmed the cause of death as a spreading lung cancer.
Mount Nittany Medical Center said in a statement that Paterno died at 9:25 a.m. Sunday of "metastatic small cell carcinoma of the lung." Metastatic indicates an illness that has spread from one part of the body to an unrelated area.
The hospital said Paterno was surrounded by family members, who have requested privacy.
Paterno's son had said in November that his father had been diagnosed with a treatable form of lung cancer during a follow-up visit for a bronchial illness.