RIP

[Kobi]

NEW YORK (AP) — Emmy-winning actress and singer Polly Bergen, who in a long career played the terrorized wife in the original "Cape Fear" and the first woman president in "Kisses for My President," died Saturday, according to her publicist. She was 84.

A brunette beauty with a warm, sultry singing voice, Bergen was a household name from her 20s onward. She made albums and played leading roles in films, stage musicals and TV dramas. She also hosted her own variety series, was a popular game show panelist, and founded a thriving beauty products company that bore her name.

In recent years, she played Felicity Huffman's mother on "Desperate Housewives" and the past mistress of Tony Soprano's late father on "The Sopranos."

Bergen won an Emmy in 1958 portraying the tragic singer Helen Morgan on the famed anthology series "Playhouse 90." She was nominated for another Emmy in 1989 for best supporting actress in a miniseries or special for "War and Remembrance."

Bergen was 20 and already an established singer when she starred with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in her first movie, "At War With the Army." She joined them in two more comedies, "That's My Boy" and "The Stooge."

In 1953, she made her Broadway debut with Harry Belafonte in the revue "John Murray Anderson's Almanac." In 1957-58 she starred on the musical-variety "The Polly Bergen Show" on NBC, closing every broadcast with her theme song, "The Party's Over."

Also during the 1950s, she became a regular on the popular game show "To Tell the Truth."

Bergen published the first of her three advice books, "The Polly Bergen Book of Beauty, Fashion and Charm" in 1962. That led to her own cosmetics company, which earned her millions.

Bergen became a regular in TV movies and miniseries, most importantly in the 1983 epic "The Winds of War" and the 1988 sequel, "War and Remembrance." She appeared as the troubled wife of high-ranking Navy officer Pug Henry, played by Robert Mitchum.

Mitchum also had the key role in the landmark 1962 suspense film, "Cape Fear," as the sadistic ex-convict who terrorizes a lawyer (Gregory Peck) and his wife (Bergen) and daughter because he blames Peck for sending him to prison. The film was remade in 1991 by Martin Scorsese.

In 1964's "Kisses for My President," Bergen was cast as the first female U.S. president, with Fred MacMurray as First Gentleman. (In the end, the president quits when she gets pregnant.) When Geena Davis portrayed a first woman president in the 2005 TV drama "Commander in Chief," Bergen was cast as her mother.

Among her other films was "Move Over, Darling" (1963) with Doris Day and James Garner, Susan Seidelman's 1987 "Making Mr. Right," and John Waters' 1990 "Cry-Baby," with Johnny Depp.

Bergen employed the same zeal in reviving her performing career after a series of personal setbacks of the 1990s. She played successful dates at cabarets in New York and Beverly Hills.

When she was refused an audition for the 2001 Broadway revival of "Follies," she contacted composer Stephen Sondheim. He auditioned her and gave her the role of a faded star who sings of her ups and downs in show business. The show-stopping song, "I'm Still Here," was reminiscent of Bergen's own saga. She was nominated for a Tony award for her role.

In 2002 she played a secondary role in the revival of "Cabaret" and the following year she was back on Broadway with the comedy "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks."

Nellie Paulina Burgin was born in 1930 in Knoxville, Tennessee, into a family that at times relied on welfare to survive. They family eventually moved to California, and Polly, as she was called, began her career singing on radio in her teens.

"I was fanatically ambitious," she recalled in 2001. "All I ever wanted to be was a star. I didn't want to be a singer. I didn't want to be an actress. I wanted to be a star."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5854996.html
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[Kobi]

Rob Bironas, who worked his way through odd jobs and the Arena Football League before becoming one of the NFL's most accurate kickers, died in a car crash. He was 36.

The Titans released Bironas in March after nine seasons. The Tennessean reported that Bironas worked out for the Detroit Lions and for Tampa Bay during the offseason.

Bironas married Rachel Bradshaw, daughter of Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw, in June.

"Rob made a significant impact as a player in his nine years with the team and more importantly touched many lives in the Nashville community off the field," the team said in a statement.

Bironas was the fourth most-accurate kicker in NFL history, connecting on 85.7 percent of his kicks (239 of 279). Only David Akers made more field goals (247) between 2005 and 2013 than Bironas. For kickers with 100 or more field goals since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, Bironas ranked third making 75.2 percent of his kicks from 40 yards or longer (94 of 125).

He finished as the Titans' second all-time leading scorer with 1,032 points, and he set a franchise record scoring triple digits in seven straight seasons. He also set an NFL record in 2011 in hitting a field goal from at least 40 yards in 10 consecutive games.

Bironas made a franchise-record 11 game-winning field goals during his career, including a 60-yarder against the Indianapolis Colts in 2006 that remains the longest field goal in Oilers or Titans history. Bironas kicked an NFL single-game record eight field goals in a 2007 victory over the Houston Texans, including a 29-yard game-winner as time expired. That helped him make his only Pro Bowl, the same year he was an Associated Press All-Pro.

http://news.yahoo.com/former-titans-...7120--spt.html

[CherylNYC]

Christopher Hogwood

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/ar...2RI%3A10%22%7D


Christopher Hogwood, whose Academy of Ancient Music was a key ensemble in the period-instrument movement, striving to perform early music as the composer intended and as audiences were first presumed to have heard it, died on Wednesday at his home in Cambridge, England. He was 73.

Rebecca Driver, a spokeswoman for the orchestra, said Mr. Hogwood had been ill for several months but did not specify the cause of death...

Mr. Hogwood, a conductor, harpsichordist and scholar for whom an “authentic sound” was paramount, co-founded the Early Music Consort, which focused on medieval and Renaissance music, in 1967, but the paucity of information regarding historically accurate performance styles troubled him. The Academy, which he established in 1973 as “as a sort of refugee operation for those players of period instruments who wanted to escape conductors,” initially focused on 17- and 18th-century music.

[Kobi]

LITTLE EGG HARBOR, N.J. (AP) — Lily McBeth, the teacher whose battles with school boards in conservative areas of New Jersey made her a reluctant symbol of the transgender rights movement, has died. She was 80.

McBeth died Sept. 24 near her home in Little Egg Harbor after a long illness, her daughter Maureen said.

"She was very much at peace with her life," Maureen McBeth said. "She just wanted to be who she was."

The former William McBeth had undergone sex reassignment surgery in 2005 after nine years of substitute teaching in Eagleswood Township, and she sought to continue in the job.

But vocal opposition from some parents concerned about the impact of a transgender teacher on young students led to a contentious debate that ended with her rehiring. She later substituted at the Pinelands Regional school district as well.

The schools' 2006 decisions to keep her on as a substitute were hailed around the nation as a model of tolerance and acceptance of transgender Americans. But she resigned in frustration in 2009 after getting only a handful of assignments. The schools said they had permanent substitutes and outside subs were only called when the permanent subs were unavailable.

Steven Goldstein, founder of the Garden State Equality rights group, said McBeth never wanted to become a symbol of anything, but became one nonetheless.

"It is so much easier to understand an issue with a human face, and Lily became the human face of transgender rights for many people," he said. "She did so much to increase understanding and awareness of transgender people just by being strong and being who she was."

Goldstein called McBeth one of the most important figures in New Jersey civil rights history in the last two decades.

After selling his physical therapy marketing company, William McBeth moved from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to New Jersey, where he got a substitute teaching job in Eagleswood, a community 17 miles north of Atlantic City. After his 2005 surgery, he sought to return as a substitute, which drew vocal opposition from some parents.

But many students were unfazed, particularly those that remembered her as a competent male teacher.

McBeth was a ukulele player and an avid carver of wooden decoy ducks. She acted in local theater productions, sang in a church choir and was active in a group seeking to re-establish clam populations in Barnegat Bay.

She donated her body to a medical school for research and physician training; funeral arrangements were private, her daughter said.

In a 2009 interview with The Associated Press, McBeth said she treasured interacting with students in the classroom.

"I tried to be an example of something you might want to be when you grow up: a kind, caring person," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/transgender-te...pUZvYAXsxXNyoA

[Kobi]

Newark native Geraldine “Jerrie” Mock, the first woman to fly solo around the globe, has died in her sleep at her home in Quincy in northern Florida. She was 88.

Mock was 38 and a full-time mother of three living in Bexley when she took off from Port Columbus on March 19, 1964. A licensed pilot for only seven years who had never flown farther than the Bahamas, Mock crossed both oceans in the Spirit of Columbus, an 11-year-old Cessna freshly painted to cover cracks and corrosions.

The last she heard from the Columbus control tower: “Well, I guess that’s the last we’ll hear from her.”

There were mechanical problems, storms and communication breakdowns. She mistakenly landed at a restricted air force base in Egypt and was detained until darkness fell.

In Saudi Arabia, the 5-foot brunette exited the plane to a silent crowd that patiently waited for the pilot to emerge. When they realized she was the pilot, the people erupted in cheers, appreciating the oddity that a woman was the flier.

“There’s no man!” they exclaimed.

Mock arrived back in Columbus 29 days later on the night of April 17, 1964, to a cheering crowd of 5,000. There were local accolades, some television appearances and a medal from President Lyndon B. Johnson.

As the 50th anniversary of Mock’s flight approached, her sister, Susan Reid, of Newark, helped raise $48,000 for a bronze statue that in September 2013 was dedicated at The Works, a museum in Newark.

A similar statue was unveiled in April at Port Columbus.

By then Mock had retired to Florida, in poor health but still modest about having “a little fun in my airplane.”

“There were dozens of women who could have done what I did,” Mock said in a recorded message played to the Columbus crowd, “All I did was have some fun. Statues are for generals, or Lincoln."

Bill Kelley was at the Port Columbus unveiling. A history buff, Kelley had pushed for 30 years for the statue, for which Mock’s sister was the model.

“He wanted her in flats (shoes),” his wife, Mary, said. But Mr. Kelley deferred to her and to Reid. who insisted that Mock be portrayed wearing the short, tapered “kitten heels” she always put on when she got out of the plane.

To Cliff Kelling, the statue looked just like the homemaker who had entrusted her safety to him and other Lane Aviation mechanics who prepared her plane for the flight.

“You kind of wonder who’s going to take a single-engine aircraft that’s got some wear on it and fly it around the world,” Kelling, a pilot and retired aviation-mechanics professor, said at the time. When told the pilot was a woman, “All I could do was admire her.”

Why she was never mentioned with the likes of other aviation heroes is often attributed to the times: President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated the previous fall, the Beatles had just arrived in America, and the Vietnam conflict was heating up.

Kelling attributed it to male chauvinism and the fact that Mock made it home alive.

“Amelia Earhart was lost, and that was news,” he said. “Jerrie Mock wasn’t lost, and that wasn’t news.”

At the Port Columbus unveiling, Mock’s daughter, Valerie Armentrout, said that her mother finally “will take her rightful position with Eddie Rickenbacker and (astronaut) Sally Ride.”

Growing up in Newark, Geraldine “Jerrie” Fredritz wanted something different. “I did not conform to what girls did,” she once said, adding, “What the girls did was boring.”

After her family took a short airplane ride at the local airport, 7-year-old Jerrie announced that she wanted to be a pilot. A few years later, as she listened to after-school radio broadcasts about the adventures Earhart, her heroine, she expanded her goal from flying across Ohio.

“I wanted to see the world,” she said. “I wanted to see the oceans and the jungles and the deserts and the people.”

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stor...-obituary.html

[Happy_Go_Lucky]

Maria Fernandes died napping in her car between part-time jobs, but let's focus on how she lived





http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...-how-she-lived


Maria Fernandes, the woman who died while napping in her car between shifts at the three different Dunkin' Donuts stores she worked at, is a powerful symbol of the horrors of America's low-wage economy. Rachel Swarns, writing in the New York Times, profiles Fernandes, seeking to make her "more than an emblem of our nation’s rising economic inequality." She was a Michael Jackson fan, an animal lover, and more. But you can't get around that her life—not just her death—was defined by her work, and by the low wages and impossible schedule it left her with

She had an apartment, but was falling behind on the $550 rent despite those three jobs. Dunkin' Donuts said she was a "model" employee, but wouldn't say how much she was paid or how many hours she worked. Which makes sense—it probably is in Dunkin' Donuts' best interest for us not to know how they treat their model employees.
Fernandes was certainly an individual who deserves to be remembered for who she was. But in a way her death is a reminder of how many people are one accident away from becoming emblems of rising inequality. And it shouldn't take a death to make us see the rank injustice of Maria Fernandes' life. The minimum wage should be higher than New Jersey's $8.25 an hour. Fast food chains like Dunkin' Donuts should offer workers regular schedules with enough hours, so they aren't forced to spend their days going from job to job, grabbing naps in between. Someone like Fernandes should not only be able to pay $550 a month for a basement apartment, she should also be able to afford her dream of going to cosmetology school. Maria Fernandes may have died in a way that focused attention on her life, but some of the attention should go to how sadly common the details of that life are. It should not be so ferociously difficult to get by, let alone get ahead, in this country.

[ProfPacker]

Still brings to mind the study Nickel and Dimed

[Happy_Go_Lucky]

Originally Posted by ProfPacker

Still brings to mind the study Nickel and Dimed

If I still taught school, ANY Barbara Ehrenreich book would be a 'must-read' in my class room. This country has lost its way.