Actor Suzanne Pleshette died yesterday as reported HERE on mail.com.

Rest in peace funny lady. I watched you growing up and laughed at your wit playing the foil to Bob Newhart on his two shows.  My Mom was a fan of Bob Newhart, I was your fan in the house.

It was all over the news today that chess legend Bobby Fischer has passed away at age 64 in Iceland. Aside from his chess prowess, Fischer later became known for his anti-American and anti-Semitic sentiments, even though his own mother was Jewish.

So what’s the tie to LA?

In 1982, Fischer published a pamphlet called, “I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse!”, which chronicled his experiences regarding his arrest on May 26, 1981 after being mistaken for a bank robber. Fischer said that the police treated him brutally and that a bank robbery wasn’t the real reason for his arrest. It’s quite a fascinating read.

In the end Fischer may be remembered as both a genius and a nut job, but his mark on the world of chess will not be soon forgotten.

RIP, Bobby.

Frisbees, Hula Hoops and Superballs, Oh My!

Richard Knerr started Wham-O with a boyhood friend, Arthur “Spud” Melin, in 1948 in Pasadena. I always wondered how they named the company and according to the LA Times: “they named the enterprise Wham-O for the sound that their first product, a slingshot, made when it hit its target.”

The biggest item from Wham-O’s product line was the Hula Hoop. It was the iPhone of its day, with people standing in line in front of stores to get one in 1958. The partners had made it big with the Frisbee, then someone told them about bamboo rings used for exercise in Australia. Without even seeing this thing in action, they built plastic versions and “tested” them with kids in nearby schools, letting the kids who mastered them keep the hula hoops. Then Wham-O! (sorry) the Hula Hoop was huge.

If you are of a certain age, most of Wham-O’s products filled your childhood days: The Frisbee, the Superball, Slip ‘N Slide, and Silly String (now used to help soldiers find booby traps in Irag). Gawd I loved my Slip ‘N Slide! It made hot summer days fly by.

Thank you Mr. Knerr for years of fun.

Mr. Knerr was born in San Gabriel and lived in Arcadia. He suffered from a stroke and was 82.

photo from Wikipedia-hula hoop page. I read about this on Boing Boing then read the Los Angeles Times Obitas well. Great photo at the LA times site.

Proving that these things come in threes (or fours, if you include ice skater Chris Bowman), Carl Karcher, founder of the Carl’s Jr. fast food chain, died on Friday in Fullerton just a few days short of his 91st birthday.

Starting with a single hot dog cart in in 1941, Carl transitioned his business into Carl’s Drive-In Barbecue four years later, and opened the first Carl’s Jr. restaurant in 1956 (the “junior” referred to it being smaller than the Anaheim drive in).

There are now over 3000 restaurants owned by the company Karcher founded, CKE Restaurants, which includes Hardees, La Salsa, and Green Burrito, as well as Carl’s Jr.

While we have not been able to confirm details of memorial services, there is some speculation that Ronald McDonald, Jack Box, and the King will be pallbearers.

Hollywood legend Johnny Grant passed away today.

Here is the latest write-up from cbs2.com:

Johnny Grant, Honorary Mayor Of Hollywood, Dies

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― Johnny Grant, Hollywood’s honorary mayor, died Wednesday, according to Los Angeles police.

Grant, 84, has been one of Hollywood’s most enthusiastic supporters for more than 50 years. Grant got his start in entertainment by hosting a daily radio show in New York City for servicemen and women during World War II, and later co-hosted the first national telethon ever produced to help send America’s athletes to Helsinki Olympics in 1952.

Grant most recently was head of the Hollywood Walk of Fame committee, which determines star nomination selections. The Academy Of Television Arts And Sciences paid tribute to grant in 1988 — awarding him the highest honor of the governor’s award. Grant also served for 20 years as the producer of the Hollywood Christmas parade.

Photo from Johnny Grant’s official site: www.JohnnyGrant.com

Our own Jason Burns wrote about the passing of young Nataline Sarkisian HERE and HERE.

For me it was particularly heart wrenching as it forced me to look back and remember the passing of my then 17 year old nephew Craig. It started with an auto accident on 5/22/01, 2 days later all us flew to St Louis when the last ditch effort to save him was to put him into an artificial coma in hopes he would survive. The next 10 days were the most tear ridden days filled with helplessness that we have ever endured. In the end we lost him. I can fully understand the loss Nataline’s parents are facing as they prepare to bury their child.

As this played out in the media it raised a lot of questions and concerns. I was bothered that what we were getting was stirred by California Nurses and had their bias. Having lived through a similar loss I kept wondering why the parents didn’t do what was needed right now rather than wait for an insurance decision? I know that my sister and brother-in-law did what ever was needed right then to try and save him, worries about insurance came after. We are not a family of means but the cost was not the issue, doing what was needed right now was.

I got an interesting email from a very close friend who happens to work CIGNA on the 21st. More, including his email after the jump.
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Los Angeles loses yet another legendary sportscaster. Stu Nahan, who had been battling lymphoma, died on 12/26/2007 at age 81.

Stu came to Los Angeles in 1968 as a sportscaster on KABC-TV Channel 7, where he remained until 1977. He also broadcasted from KNBC-TV Channel 4, KTLA-TV Channel 5, KABC-AM (790) and on Dodgers-related programming on KFWB-AM (980).

Outside of Los Angeles, Nahan was known for being the boxing commentator in all of the Rocky films.

He shall be missed.

Coverage from KNBC and KTLA.

::Article from the Sacramento Bee covering Stu’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2007::

Photo from KNBC

Laura Huxley died at 96 years old last week, on December 13th, 2007. Weirdly enough, she died on my birthday and once again, her life has serendipitously touched mine.

Since moving to LA so many years ago, I’ve always felt a special kinship with her. When I first arrived, I would start each morning walking in the hills or around the Hollywood Reservoir to clear my head. I would invariably run into her, bursting with vigor and sporting one of her large hats.

She was an amazing woman and though her vital earthly essence will be missed, her amazing contributions to the world will live on. Her husband, Aldous Huxley, once mused that he would love to write her biography, “but the best parts would be unprintable!”

Born in Turin, Italy, she was a child prodigy, a virtuoso on the violin at age six. Laura went on to become a film editor for RKO studios, then later a therapist. She was fascinated with the worlds of psychotherapy and human consciousness.

After marrying Huxley in 1956, Laura and Aldous explored different realms of consciousness using meditation, LSD and other means to alter their minds. Both of them wrote books about their work and experiences and together, helped spark the psychedelic movement of the 60′s by publicizing their findings.
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Deborah Kerr died today. She was 86. She had a brilliant career, but is most often remembered for her role as Anna Leonowens in The King and I. What you probably don’t know or remember is that it was her on the other end of Burt Lancaster’s lips in that most famous kiss scene on beach in From Here to Eternity.

I love The King and I, I think Yul Brenner is HOT. The scene (shown in the photo) is one of my all time favorite in the movies. Their love is forbidden, and they never acknowledge it, but they have one dance together and it is S T E A M Y. Watch it, tell me that is not a sexy scene, even with all it’s old school innocence.

She was nomited six times for an Oscar, but never won. Though she was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1993 for her body of work.

Keep dancing, Deborah, we’ll miss you.

To see the beach scene kiss and a list of her nomination join us after the jump.
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In 1930 a notable Angeleno made the most expensive motion picture to date with $3.8 million out of his own pocket – and turned a profit with a box office total of $8 million.

During World War II, a notable Angeleno designed and built the world’s largest aircraft for the US Army. It was a failure and flew only once.

On July 7, 1946, a notable Angeleno crashed a small aircraft into a Beverly Hills residential neighborhood, destroying several houses and breaking all of his ribs.

A notable Angeleno owned TWA and RKO, as well as his own Aerospace Company and a Medical Research Institute.

A notable Angeleno was in his lifetime romantically linked to Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine, Jean Harlowe, Jane Russell, and Gene Tierney, among others.

A great Angeleno did all of these things. Though he was born and is buried in Houston, Texas, he accomplished truly magnificent and terrible things in Los Angeles. Obsessive-compulsive and filthy rich, he never stopped thinking and spent his life trying to improve everything he came into contact with. He was investigated on suspicion of being a Communist. He was a womanizer, a germophobe, and later a recluse. He’s been portrayed on film by Leonardo DiCaprio, Jason Robards, and Terry O’Quinn, among others.

He was Howard Hughes.

The 25 Greatest Dead Angelenos can all be found right here.

At first glance, it would seem that we have Eliezer Mier – the once and future L.B. Mayer, son of an immigrant scrap metal salesman – to thank for helping plant the seeds of what has become today’s publicity hogging, hit-and-run driving, coke-sniffing celebutards.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Mayer got into the movie business by starting a chain of successful theaters in New England, while in California, cattle was still being herded down the ditch that would someday become Sunset Boulevard. In those early days of film, the most successful exhibitioners were the biggest entertainers, and L.B. was known for his showmanship.
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It might be a stretch to include a Politician/Businessman as one of the greatest dead Angelenos, but the story and tumultuous political life of Pío Pico, last Mexican Governor of California, is an interesting and informative narrative that still has some relevance today.

Born of African, Indian, and European descent in 1801 at the San Gabriel Mission, this Mestizo was 100% Californio. When his father José María Pico (he was on the De Anza expedition to Alta California) died in 1819, Pío started his business ventures “by opening a small store in San Diego where he sold liquor, provisions, furniture, and shoes” in San Diego. By the 1850′s and “in only two generations the family amassed terrific wealth in land.” (Monroy)
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I was sixteen and had just learned to drive. This means I was progressively exploring in a widening circle outside my little bit of the west end of the Valley, pushing up against the seaward hills and searching east in my 1969 VW slapstick bug. I was a classically trained oil painter and a social recluse more comfortable with Prussian blue than with the prom. My first boyfriend had broken up with me, leaving me, to my chagrin, still disappointingly virginal. I was skinny and coltish but didn’t know it. I thought I was ugly. I lived in my books and my head and my classes, and as much as I was tentatively growing, I was terrified. Finding my first Anais Nin book wasn’t really about sex so much as it was about seeing the world lushly–and lifting a veil from historic, literary LA.
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I should have forgotten you long ago, but you’re in every song I know

images from Dames (1934).

Busby Berkeley‘s work speaks for itself. His choreography is, even by today’s standards, grandiose. I think it is that much more impressive, considering his best pieces were made during the Great Depression.

Busby Berkeley the man, however, needs a bit of an introduction. William Berkeley Enos was born in Los Angeles back in 1895. Although he began his career on Broadway, he came back to Hollywood once talkies hit the scene.

Like all legendary Hollywood directors, he had his fair share of scandal and controversy. He went through six wives, and was engaged in a fatal car accident which had him charged with, tried for, and eventually acquitted of second-degree murder. Eat your heart out, Phil Spector.

He died in Palm Springs in 1976. He is buried out in Riverside.

[Videos after the jump!]
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Photo illustration by Kent Nichols, based on a photo by Alan Light, under Creative Commons.

Read my tribute after the jump.
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