Sigh...those famous people DO always die in threes, don't they?
First Sean Taylor of the Washington Redskins (Tragic home invasion shooting- also looks like there's a break in that case...nice to see the wheels of justice move rapidly every once and awhile...)
Next, Kevin DuBrow- lead screamer of the 80's metal band QUIET RIOT (nobody's talking- sounds like maybe he fell off a wagon or two) and now THIS bombshell!
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Evel Knievel, the red-white-and-blue-spangled motorcycle daredevil whose jumps over crazy obstacles including Greyhound buses, live sharks and Idaho's Snake River Canyon made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.
Bummer of a week. DuBrow and Knievel really hit me hard! As a kid growing up in the 70's I, like most kids my age, idolized this guy! I had the action figures (with the cool motorcycle you could rev up and jump over stuff with!) and I spent many a Saturday afternoon constructing ramps to jump over garbage cans with my bike, or bails of hay with my motor cycle. (Somehow, I never so much as even got a skinned knee doing this- talk about a charmed life!)
Then, as a teenager in the 80's I adored QUIET RIOT! A lot of people look at these guys as sort of joke worthy now, but they really kicked open a lot of doors for the hard rock community back in the day. They were the first metal band EVER to have a #1 album, and amongst their early band members was one Randy Rhodes, perhaps one of the finest rock guitarists ever to grace the stage (who died a very tragic death WAY the hell too young!). These guys also were hitting it big around my Junior year of High School, so obviously this was some very seminal music for me.
It truly is a bitch to get older and watch the people you admired in your youth pass away. But such is the circle of life I suppose (cue the ELTON JOHN music and the barf bags!) Perhaps it's also the paternal thing, as the wife is about to give birth in a few weeks... nothing to make you stare your mortality right in the eyes like having a child. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, mind you...
Oh well- Rest in peace Mr Knievel... tell Kevin and Sean we miss 'em already.
* And just to keep the Q and A going (albeit in a slightly morbid direction)...what loss in the entertainment world has hit you the hardest this year?
11 comments:
I guess I would have to say Kevin. I got to meet him and talk to him for a bit several years ago when I worked tech for a Quiet Riot show. I have to say, of all the stars I met, he and his band were actually the nicest people in the world. I remember that it was his b'day, and he had gone to an A.A. meeting, and missed his girlfriend. He was very gracious and gave a lot of time to the fans that hung around after the show. The band even drove themselves to the gig in a mini van. Rudy drove. Call it Rock n' Roll!!!
btw Tim, Thunderbird. It has been going through my head all week too.
Good boy, Fletch! I thought you might get that one!
Tom Snyder. I know he had a goofy persona and Lord knows I imitated him out of fun, but I really liked him.
He was like a favorite uncle.
And that famous line..."Fire up a colortini, watch the pictures as they fly through they air."
Once, on his Tomorrow Show, one of those little plastic mini bottles of vodka fell out of his coat pocket and he laughed and pointed out that that was one of the ingredients for a 'colortini'. Classic.
When did they change the rules for posting on this? I now have to sign in and get an account?
Ian Richardson is easily the one I'll miss the most.
He was my Sherlock Holmes in the first two films I ever had produced, THE SIGN OF FOUR and THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. He was initially suspicious of this young upstart American writing these films but when he found out I knew as much about Sherlock as he did, we became pals. I remember the day after he had read my script of HOUND, he burst into the production office, proclaiming: "It fairly leaps off the page!" He was certainly part of what made those three months in England one of the happiest and most thrilling times of my life.
We kept in touch by Christmas card over the years. In the late 90's, Julieanne and I saw him in a production of THE MAGISTRATE at the Strand Theatre, after which we all went next door to the Coal Hole, a pub frequented by Edmund Kean in his day. A few days later we had an apres theatre dinner at Simpson's-In-The-Strand with him and his wife, Maroussia.
He was a charming, witty, and could be, at times, an exasperatingly opinionated fellow, which was part of that charm.
He was also a brilliant actor...besides being a very fine Holmes for me. He was terrific in the BBC political thriller, HOUSE OF CARDS/TO PLAY THE KING; played a fine Dr. Joseph Bell, Doyle's model for Holmes, in a wonderful series of Victorian mysteries, and, of course, he was part of that legendary group of actors who came out of the RSC back in the sixties...folks like Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, David Warner, Ian Holm, Diana Rigg, and our Mr. Richardson.
Chuck,
You don't have to sign in. It confused me too at first.
Just click on NICKNAME and write in your name, and that's that.
Damn...where IS everybody? The posts have been mighty sparse lately...
I suppose the Evel Kneivel death.
Just the day or two before his death there was a small article about Kneivel winning a lawsuit against Kanye West. So, I was able to follow the link to Kneivel's website. i spent several minutes there thinking about the same stuff you did X. The toy, the bicycle jumps inspired by him, Fonzies famous jump on Happy Days, and his way cool daredeveil outfit.
And then a day or two later I was reading the obituary. It was just a strange coincidence that something as trivial as his winning a lawsuit, brought him back to my consciousness for a brief time and then he died.
I also thought about you when I heard of the quiet riot death. I knew you would blog on that.
Old metal heads die hard, D$!
Tim, see you in Manchester!!!!
I always have a heck of a time remembering whether someone died this year or last year or whenever. Was at Boone when George Burns died and did not know for 2 more years.
I don't think I have been profoundly saddened by a celebrity death this year, but a couple did make me stop and think.
1) Anna Nicole Smith - I have a personal opinion that celebs should be left alone when they want to be. I also believe that that there should be a defined "open season" in which it is legal to hunt and kill paparazzi, even if it is only one day per year. Her death, or more to the point: the media frenzy surrounding her death, filled me with a sadness and revulsion for what our culture has become.
2) Richard Jeni - I've seen a few of his HBO comedy specials. His most recent one found him very fit, very funny and very insightful. The best so far. Then I found out he offed himself. You never know what goes on in someone's life. "Judge not...", I guess. Unless the asshole is shoving a camera in your face. Then, judge hard.
BTW, more celeb obits can be found here:
http://www.dpsinfo.com/dps/2007.html
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