Jackie Cooper's Celebrity Deaths

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

The death of former child actor Jackie Cooper ( not to be confused with the , somewhat less fortunate as an adult and , infamously , ripped off by his parents Jackie Coogan ) inspires me to start a " Celebrity Deaths - That , Um , Don't Have The Most Obvious Connectuions To Our Beloved Genre , As Those Folks Will Tend To Get A Solo Thread , Admittedly..." omnibus thread .

  Directly , Cooper played Perry White in the Salkind/Reeve series of Superman movies , and , as per Wikipedia , about the last thing he did in the directing of episodic TV series that occupied much of his later working years were episodes of the Salkind Superboy series...

  Cooper also starred in the CBS series Hennessy ( Probably the subject of a couple Dell FOUR COLOR COMICS issues anyway , wasn't it ????????? ) , enthused over by our Cmdr. Benson , and another B&W-era series , The People's Choice .

  In pre-TV days movies with ____ ____ made them something of a team

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...BUD YORKIN , 89 , was the partner of Norman Lear in mega-TV juggernaut Tandem company of the 70s , behind  ALL IN THE FAMILY and its many spinoffs , and more . Perhaps not a " one of ours " producer?? Well , I'm sure we all watched many Tandem shows during the Seventies .

  The Hollywood Reporter piece I read about Yorkin actually tackled , not only in its text but even in its headline , the thought that many may be having here ~ That Yorkin was rather overshadowed by his partner in Tandem , Lear's , high media profile . Yorkin seems to have been more the business head in the partnership ~ Although , as far as Hollywood credits of Yorkin's , they included winning an Emmy for directing an early color TV special of Fred Astaire's and directing such theatrical films as " Come Blow Your Horn " and " Never Too Late " . The piece even cites some " s/he said/he said " disagreemenst as to whether the Lear or Yorkin  did what...Hollywood I suppose !!!!!!! Inevitable I guess .

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...PF SLOAN , 1960s writer-producer-singer (In that order , more or less) died at 70 .

  He , and partner Sreve Barri , were frequently Svengalis behind " not really " 60s studio groups like the Fantastic Baggys and the original Grass Roots (who mutated into a " real " full-time band sans Sloan's involvement) ~ them reflecting Bob Dylan , etc. , folk influence , he wrote #1 (sans Barri from here on , IIRC) 60s hit " Eve Of Destruction " (The record was by Barry McGuire) .

  The super-catchy Turtles hit " You Baby " was another Sloan-Barri classic !

  I am listening now to , from his didn't-really-take-off 60s recording career , the touching " From A Distance " on YouTube (sniff) . I saw him once in the 80s .

  In recent years he had put out some indie releases of re-recordings and new songs , but I never really got around to getting them (snkff , again) .

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

In the light of PATTY DUKE's recent death , this may seem to come to much into the " speaking ill about the recent dead " corral , but I really do remember this ~ I remember once seeing a repro of a New York Post fron page from the 50s , from the time of the Quiz Show Scandal , showing Patty with the headline: " THEY EVEN FIXED THE KID " . I could not find it yesterday , even at the NYPost's own site ~ But I remember such a headline .

  Patty was a child and obviously not responsible for any such misbehavior (Which wasn't illegal then , IIRC , anyhow .) , especially with the abusive adoptive parents who pushed her into acting , please note that I said that .

[Ronald Morgan]

Just before her death, Patty Duke did a commercial for ME-TV with her TV show father, William  Schallert, who's now 93 and still with us. She plays both cousins in the commercial. He confusedly calls Cathy Patty and Patty Cathy, then turns to the camera and says "I give up."

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Actually , in Patty's later years , she did these PSAs/advertisments for the United States Social Security office that showed you "...how easy it is to retire and start getting your benefits ! " in character as Patty and Cathy , with Schallert in them too (They were both shown as videos within Social Security offices and were in print form) , as well as other TPDS characters !!!

  She also participated in space/Trek-themed such promos that George Takei did (which dropped Kirk's name IIRC) also shown and obtainable in Social Security offices !

Ronald Morgan said:

Just before her death, Patty Duke did a commercial for ME-TV with her TV show father, William  Schallert, who's now 93 and still with us. She plays both cousins in the commercial. He confusedly calls Cathy Patty and Patty Cathy, then turns to the camera and says "I give up."

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...PHILIP KIVES , the founder of K-Tel , the " All The Hits !!! " LP collections , knives , and much else mail order magnates , died at 87 .

  Stories that his body will be put , with some of it chopped off , in a coffin with 19 other corpses are probably untrue ! But interesting :-) .

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Test...........

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Two among the last surviving Big Band Era performers, songstress BEA WAYNE and saxophonist/bandleader LARRY ELGART, passed on. At 100 and 95 respectively.
Ms. Wayne, as vocalist with the Larry Clinton band and solo, sang such hits as " Heart And Soul " And " My Reverie ".
Mr. Elgart (who was a sideman during the BBE proper, launching his successful band during the 1950s) took the Big Band concept into the LP era with orchestras led solely by him and teamed with his brother Led- A recoding the Elgarts made as the theme for a local Philadelphia TV series e joyed a long life when the show, with a new host, went on the network - It was " Bandstand Boogie ", the theme to " American Bandstand "! Fufthermore, Elgart brought a Big Band record into the Top 40 during the Reagan era with his disco-beat medley of swing classics, " Hooked On Swing ", the soundtrack to many a " feel the burn! "-era community center aerobics class!

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Les Elgart was Larry' s bandleading brother, I'm sorry for my mistype above.

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...ARETHA FRANKLIN, " Lady Soul ", died at 76 of pancreatic cancer.

  Frankly, not doing the math, I might have thought she was older than the mid-20s that would have made her during her late 60 " golden era ". Bluntly, she tended to be heavy at a touch, perhaps, matronly-looking. The " Queen of Soul " image and her having a piano as her sometimes -"axe ", and a tendency I saw commented on to keep her private life out of the press.

[The Baron]

RIP Burt Reynolds

[Richard Willis]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/burt-reynolds-dead-deliveran...