DIDN’T MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT
Kris Kristofferson was one of country’s ironclad greats with songs like “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and “Me and Bobby McGee” under his belt, acted in films like A Star is Born, and formed the all-star quartet the Highwaymen with Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson. And he stood up for what was morally right even if he cost him gigs, from opposing the Iraq War to backing Sinead O’Connor to performing benefits for Palestinian children.
Teri Garr started off as a go-go dancer in Elvis films before breaking into her own as an actress both serious (The Conversation) and comedic (Fronkensteen’s assistant in Young Frankenstein). She followed suit with roles including Richard Dreyfuss’ wife in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and an Oscar-nominated turn as an actress in Tootsie, and was also known for her Letterman appearances and as Phoebe’s mother in Friends. A MS diagnosis a quarter century ago had long kept her a deadpooling perennial.
Ethel Kennedy was the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, the iconic politician and bungler of the Troggs’ “Wild Thing”. Ethel survived the assassination of her husband and the embarrassment of her eldest son’s brain worms before being felled by a stroke. Indubitably a 96-year-old dying of a stroke proves the Kennedy curse is back in business.
Gospel stalwart Cissy Houston brought her talents to the pop charts as a backing vocalist on “Think” and “Brown Eyed Girl”. The headline was she was Whitney Houston’s mother, and her extensive Thanksgiving get-togethers also included niece Dionne Warwick and cousin Leontyne Price. Phil Lesh took his classical training to acid as the innovative bassist for the Grateful Dead. Martin Lee, as part of Brotherhood of Man, won Eurovision with the hokey “Save Your Kisses For Me”, Nadia Cattouse was prominent in the 60s British folkie scene, while Jack Jones’ smooth lounge croonings can be heard on 60s hits like “Wives and Lovers” and is probably best known today for singing the theme song to The Love Boat.
We had recently covered Mitzi McCall, a comedienne upstaged by the Beatles’ debut on the Ed Sullivan show, and she wasn’t the last Mitzi in their Sullivan shadow – one of the acts on the mop tops’ second episode was Mitzi Gaynor, a singer and actress known for her roles in 50s musicals like South Pacific. John Amos was a regular on US sitcoms, playing the weatherman Gordy on early The Mary Tyler Moore Show episodes and the patriarch James Evans Sr. on Good Times, and brought dramatic acclaim as slave Kunta Kinte in Roots. Alvin Rakoff directed Laurence Olivier in A Voyage Round My Father and gave early breaks to Michael Caine, Alan Rickman, and Sean Connery, even recommending Sir Sean to Albert Broccoli as his choice for James Bond. Ron Ely played Tarzan in the 60s TV series and in recent years was centre of tragedy when his wife was murdered by his son, and Alan Rachins played Dharma’s hippie father on Dharma & Gregg,
Two leading US sports stars fell on the same day: Dikembe Mutombo was one of the NBA’s leading defensive players who also lent his towering stature to humanitarian efforts in his native Congo, while Pete Rose was one of MLB’s greatest players albeit with a legacy marred by betting on baseball games that rendered him a baseball persona non grata. They think it’s all over managed two Scottish footy hits with Peter Cormack and a belated obit for George Herd, while rugby hooker Ronnie Dawson was a trademark hit for time’s Ronnies and US college football player Tylee Craft was a kamikaze joker for Banana’s B-Team. Shot putter Geoff Capes was twice the World’s Strongest Man.
Lily Ebert survived Auschwitz and dedicated the rest of her life to Holocaust education, including a series of TikTok videos recorded with her great-grandson, and Julia Hawkins was nicknamed “Hurricane” for the running records she set after her centenary. OTT comedienne Janey Godley did voiceovers of Nicola Sturgeon during the COVID pandemic before falling from grace after racist tweets were unearthed, Frank Fritz featured on artefact-hunting reality programme American Pickers, Philip Zimbardo conducted the controversially abusive Stanford Prison Experiment, and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was an unnatural points sitting duck.
It’s Dikembe Mutombo who proves himself the star player of this round, with an assist from Janey Godley, scoring a slam dunk for It’s A Grim World After All, who takes the lead as we have two months to go…