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
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...Um , that was Wallace Beery , I thought I could go back and revise my post but I can't for an initial post , anyhow , it was Beery that Cooper was in many movies wuth .
They didn't like each other very much , apparently ! Cooper was also in the Our Gang/The Little Rascals series , whose producer Hal Roach sold his contract with to a major Hollywood studio , Roach feeling that Cooper could do better in features - the " right side " of Hollywood of old .
Noble , or needed gambling debts money ? Just asking .
ORRIN TUCKER led a dance band/big band during the Big Band Era , and was 100 years old !
His signature record was cutesy toon " Oh ! Johnny ! Oh ! Johnny ! ( " how you can love...heavens above...when I think of you I just..." ) , sung by Wee Bonnie Baker as vocalist with his band , with the song , Comics Land connection here , being redone/parodied in two Tex Avery MGM " Wolf And Red " cartoons as " Oh ! Wolfie ! " ( with a different femme vox-ist ) .
It occurs to me that Tucker may have been the last Big Band Era-bandleader of national tours/appearances/records-level fame to , um , let's be forward-looking and say " survive " .
Was he the last of his kind ?
It would appear likely .
On YouTube one posting said much the same , before I saw it I had thought that...I sampled I suppose the original record of " Oh ! Johnny ! " which , um , is sorta dull/" late 1930s dance band/square "-sounding , at least it seemed that to me this time , another post was an old " soundie "/" Scopitone " of Baker himself as vocalist , with a Modernaires-style vocal group doing a song titled " You're The One " , perhaps that might show him off in playing FDR-era pop music better , although the " Oh ! Johnny ! " illustrated their post with stills of Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan and Jungle Jim...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XChyy-SXCUc
Part I of my favorite Our Gang/Little Rascals comedy, "Teacher's Pet" (1930), starring Jackie Cooper.
POLY STYRENE and PHOEBE SNOW (Marianne Joan Elliot-Said and Phoebe Ann Laud , actually , respectively) , two late April deaths of women rock-oriented vocalists who came to fame in the Seventies .
Phoebe had the soul-influenced soft rock
hit " Poetry Man " , which she wrote herself , and such outside material as 60s hit " Love Makes A Woman " and Paul McCartney's " Every Night " .
Poly led/fronted British punk band X-Ray Spex ( THERE'S a comics-related image , eh ????????? ) , with such songs as " Germ-Free Adolescence " , " Warrior In Woolworths' "...and , " Oh
Bondage Up Yours ! " !!!!!!!!!!! XRS y have never even had a US-released record during their original period , but were , as the saying goes , " highly influential " .
...I'll punch this one up - The idea of this was that this was meant to be an ommnibus " People Who Died "/obits line , especially for those outside of " Comics Land " !!!!!!!!!
Two notable songwriters ( Both in famed partnerships . )/general music biz folk , NICK ASHFORD and JERRY LEIBER , died...
...Two more musical deaths , HEAVY D. (yes , it was his stagename) , of Heavy D. and the Boys , and Liz Anderson - mother of Lynn Anderson , the country singer and herself a (less sucessful) country singer and (more so than her daughter) songwriter .
You GOTTA see , at the N. Y. Times' obit , the cover of Liz's vintage LP , " Husband Hunting " !!!!!!!!!
...Levon Helm , drummer & singer with " The Band " ( " Up On Cripple Creek " , " The Weight " , etc. ) has died .
...ADAM YAUCH (MCA) , of the Beastie Boys , succumed to cancer . At a decidedly young age :-( .
Fighting to defend our rights to party may be a noble cause , but it does not tend to lead to an old age in a rocking chair !!!!!!!!!!! Or so I am told .
The last Beasties album I bought , " To The Five Boroughs " , had a song prominently using a sample of somebody going " Shazam ! " !
From a Kool and the Gang song I believe??
...DONNA SUMMER's death has hit me a bit , as the death of someone who was a massive , mega-platinum albums and big , big , radio hits star - even if she , perhaps , was not quite one of " our " artists to many folks here - They probably enjoyed record by her though !!!!!!!!!
...DON GRADY was one of Fred MacMurray's MY THREE SONS (which I assume had a comic book adaptation at some point - perhaps with a Rifleman-style " hee hee " cover ?????) for eleven of its twelve seasons and had a music career besides and was an original (??) mouseketeer...
And , GINNY TYLER was a " latter-day " Mouseketeer of a most unusual source and a cartoon/kids' recordings performer as well !!!!!!! Look up the NY Times or LA Times obits , I'm in a hurry now .
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