RIP

[~ocean]

Mary Tyler Moore just died at the age of 80.

[GeorgiaMa'am]

Butch Trucks, who co-founded the Allman Brothers Band, has died. He and Gregg and Duane Allman and three other musicians formed the band in Macon, Georgia. Butch was the drummer. He was 69 years old.

[cricket26]

[Kobi]

Mike Connors, the B-movie actor who found stardom on the long-running detective series "Mannix," has died. He was 91.

Connors played the private investigator Joe Mannix on the CBS television series that ran from 1967 to 1975.

Connors was born Krekor Ohanian Aug. 15, 1925, in Fresno, California. He was of Armenian descent. He served during World War II in the U.S. Army Air Forces. After the war, he attended the University of California at Los Angeles on a basketball scholarship. His basketball coach was the legendary UCLA coach John Wooden.

It was during his college basketball career that a director, William Wellman, noticed Connors' strong facial expressions and encouraged him to start an acting career.

After the actor had played a character named Touch Connors on a TV show and in movies during the 1950s, a talent agent suggested that name as his stage name -- so as not to be confused with the actor George O'Hanlon.

Connors' early film credits included "Island in the Sky," which starred John Wayne, and Cecil B. DeMille's blockbuster "The Ten Commandments," in which he played a shepherd alongside Charlton Heston.

During the mid-to-late '50s, Connors turned to television, appearing on such TV series as "Frontier," "City Detective," "State Trooper," and "Maverick."

He later had a starring role on "Tightrope!" from 1959 to 1960, which led to "Mannix" beginning in 1967. After "Mannix," he starred on the short-lived "Today's F.B.I.," which ran from 1981 to 1982.

Connors continued to act on TV as well as in films from the 1985 to 2003 including the films "Too Scared To Scream" (1985), "Fist Fighter" (1989), "Downtown Heat" (1994), "Gideon" (1998) and "The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave" (2000). He reprised his role as Joe Mannix in the 2003 comedy film "Nobody Knows Anything!"

Connors returned to TV in 2007 to appear in an episode of "Two and a Half Men."

[Kobi]

Actress Barbara Hale, who won an Emmy Award for playing legal secretary Della Street on the long-running "Perry Mason" television series, has died. She was 94.

Hale signed on with "Perry Mason" when the series began in 1957, playing the secretary to lawyer Perry Mason, played by Raymond Burr. Hale played Della as a quiet, devoted employee, a classic girl Friday. She was capable and professional, and she looked the part, dressed in timeless business wear that avoided following trends, her hair perfectly coifed. While she wasn't out there winning cases herself, it was clear that Della was the backbone that made her boss' success possible.

For fans of the "Perry Mason" series of novels, begun in 1933 by Erle Stanley Gardner, Hale became the unmistakable face of Della. She wasn't the first actress to play the secretary – five others portrayed Della in early movie adaptations – but Hale did it so well, and for so long, that she became the standard. Her portrayal won her an Emmy Award for best supporting actress in a dramatic series in 1959, as well as another nomination in 1961. When the series was canceled in 1966, she remained in fans' minds as the epitome of Della, and when it was revived for a series of 30 "Perry Mason" TV movies beginning in 1985, she was back.

Those movies also starred Burr as Mason – until his 1993 death. Four more movies were made with other lawyers standing in for Mason, thanks in part to Hale's reassuring continuity, with the final installment coming in 1995. Hale and Burr worked together for decades, and the two became good friends during their long time as colleagues. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times a few years after Burr's death, Hale said, "If anybody had a hero, I did. And Raymond was the man."

Though Hale is remembered most frequently as Della, she had a number of other notable roles on the big screen as well as on television. An early favorite was "Higher and Higher" (1943), Frank Sinatra's film debut. Hale played a young debutante, the love interest of Sinatra's character, and the two sang together. Of the chance to share vocals with Ol' Blue Eyes, Hale later told the Los Angeles Times, "Isn't that fun? I never had been so scared in my life, but he's been a very dear friend ever since."

Hale's first starring role was in 1946's "Lady Luck" opposite Robert Young. She'd go on to play opposite other top leading men of the day, including James Stewart in "The Jackpot" (1951), Rock Hudson in "Seminole" (1953), and Charlton Heston in "The Far Horizons" (1955). After a break from the big screen during the years when she starred on "Perry Mason," Hale returned for a few films in later years, including a supporting role in 1970's "Airport."

On television, Hale guest-starred on a number of shows during the years between the main "Perry Mason" series and the movie revivals, including "Lassie," "Adam-12," "Marcus Welby, M.D.," and "The Greatest American Hero." Her final television appearance came after a hiatus of five years with a 2000 turn on an episode of "Biography" focusing on Burr.

Hale has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and she won a 2001 Golden Boot Award for her memorable presence in a number of movie Westerns during her pre-"Perry Mason" career.

[Kobi]

John Hurt, the acclaimed English character actor who starred in “The Elephant Man,” has died. He was 77.

Hurt, whose prolific career stretched for six decades across stage, film, and television, was known for playing offbeat characters whose stories were tinged with darkness. He was almost unrecognizable under prosthetic makeup in his Academy Award-nominated performance as John Merrick, the deformed 19th-century Englishman whose life story was depicted in “The Elephant Man” (1980).

Other notable roles included Winston Smith, protagonist of the dystopian classic “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1984); Kane, the ill-fated spacefarer who was host to the titular parasite in “Alien” (1979); the insane Roman emperor Caligula in the BBC miniseries "I, Claudius" (1976); a secret incarnation of the face-changing, time-traveling Doctor on the 50th anniversary episode of "Doctor Who" (2013); and Mr. Ollivander, the magic wand salesman who appeared in three of the "Harry Potter" films (2001 - 2011).

He was knighted in 2015 for his services to drama.

[Kobi]

"Professor" Irwin Corey, the classic comedian billed as the World's Foremost Authority, died Monday, Feb. 6, 2017. He was 102.

The centenarian funnyman was known for a decidedly weird routine. Dressed in the garb of an absent-minded professor – wild hair, a shabby suit, and sneakers – he'd wander onstage distractedly. He'd consult his notes, maybe laugh at something he saw there, pocket the notes, consult them again … finally, the first word of his routine, always the same: "However …" What followed was a masterpiece of doublespeak, improvised by Corey and thoroughly confusing and amusing his audience.

One oft-quoted snippet of a Corey routine started: "However ... we all know that protocol takes precedence over procedures. This Paul Lindsey point of order based on the state of inertia of developing a centrifugal force issued as a catalyst rather than as a catalytic agent, and hastens a change reaction and remains an indigenous brier to its inception. This is a focal point used as a tangent so the bile is excreted through the panaceas."

Corey sprinkled more recognizable aphorisms among the 50-cent words, and these quotable quotes were so perfect that some have entered the lexicon as clichéd phrases, with few who repeat them knowing who coined them. Here's how Corey turned a phrase:

"Wherever you go, there you are."

"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going."

"You can get further with a kind word and a gun that you do with just a kind word."

The distinctive routine came from the brain of a man who had an unconventional childhood and young adulthood. Born in Brooklyn July 29, 1914, Corey was one of six siblings who grew up in an orphanage despite not being orphans. Abandoned by her husband, Corey's mother struggled to support her children while working and also attempting to recover from tuberculosis. The Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum was a solution born out of desperation – she could work enough to send them money for the children's care while also recuperating from her illness.

It was Corey's home until he was 13, and it was where he started his long comedy career, performing to amuse the other children. But then the young teen joined the tide moving west, riding the rails to California in search of work. He returned to New York as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps, working his way across the country and, in his spare time, taking up boxing and becoming a featherweight champion.

Back east, Corey began performing as a comedian, working the Catskills circuit as well as New York City clubs. As his career burgeoned, World War II interrupted. Corey was determined not to serve, first seeking 4F status and then, when he was drafted nevertheless, convincing his superiors he was a homosexual and being discharged after six months.

Postwar, Corey honed his Professor persona and ramped up his path to fame, appearing on many of the hottest shows of TV's early days. He was a regular guest of talk show hosts including Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, and Ed Sullivan. Through his surreal stand-up routine, he influenced many of the next generation of comics as they got their start: Lenny Bruce, Jonathan Winters, and George Carlin were just a few of the stand-ups who looked up to him. He occasionally acted, too, as when he guest-starred on an episode of "The Phil Silvers Show" and, later, in movies such as "How To Commit Marriage" (1969) and "Car Wash" (1976).

Alongside his stage and screen career came a number of odd stunts, not least of which was his 1960 bid for the presidency of the United States as part of Hugh Hefner's "Playboy" ticket. His campaign slogans included, "Vote for Irwin and get on the dole" and, "Corey will run for any party, with a bottle in his hand."

In 1974, attendees of the National Book Award ceremony were perplexed as Corey arrived onstage to accept the award on behalf of its actual winner, Thomas Pynchon, author of "Gravity's Rainbow." His acceptance speech was much like one of his "professorial" comedy routines. Just as the audience was at its most bewildered, a streaker ran across the stage – not associated with Pynchon or Corey in any way; he was just a random sign of the times. Corey knew the more serious contingent of the literary world was annoyed by his appearance, but he didn't care: As he told interviewer Jim Knipfel, "I got paid $500 for it, and I had a good time."

In his 80s and 90s, Corey undertook an unusual mission. Walking the streets of New York City, he sold newspapers to drivers for a dollar or a handful of change. According to The New York Times, those papers were often free ones that he took from public newspaper boxes. Unkempt and repeating his mantra – "Help a guy out?" – Corey appeared like any other panhandler, though some recognized the comedian. What they didn't know was that he donated all his proceeds from these escapades to a charity that provides medical supplies for children in Cuba. He even had the autographed photo of Cuban President Fidel Castro on his apartment wall to prove it.

It was one of many ways in which Corey was politically and socially conscious. A far-left liberal, he loved relating his favorite example of his radicalism: "When I tried to join the Communist Party, they called me an anarchist," as he told The New York Times. He was blacklisted in Hollywood for his support of the party, a consequence that continued to affect his career for years after the end of the McCarthy era. But he remained active with his leftist views, supporting causes including the Mumia Abu-Jamal defense fund and Palestinian relief efforts.

Of his political activism, Corey told interviewer Kliph Nesteroff, "I was never aware that I was a political commentator. It just happens. You just do it. You breathe, but you're not conscious of breathing. When I did my act, I wasn't conscious that it was political."