Deaths (Obituaries)

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      in Television

      Frank Fritz, a Host of the Antiques Show ‘American Pickers,’ Dies at 58

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      He and his friend Mike Wolfe launched the treasure-hunting show in 2010, part of a wave of reality TV aimed at finding fortune in everyday items.Frank Fritz, a jocular Everyman who as one half of the duo behind the hit show “American Pickers” found ratings gold by unearthing fortunes in attics, basements and garage sales, died on Monday in Davenport, Iowa. He was 58.His manager, Bill Stankey, confirmed the death, in a hospice. He said that the cause had not been announced, but that Mr. Fritz had been dealing with a number of health issues, including Crohn’s disease and the effects of a stroke in 2022.Debuting on the History Channel in 2010, “American Pickers,” which Mr. Fritz hosted with his longtime friend Mike Wolfe, was part of a wave of reality TV shows that mined everyday Americana for stories, profit and no small amount of drama.Unlike older, more sedate shows like public television’s “Antiques Roadshow,” “American Pickers” blended serious appraisal with rough-edged personality and quirky flair.Each episode featured Mr. Fritz and Mr. Wolfe tooling around a small American town in their Sprinter van, trading quips in between visits to local homes and storage sheds, where they would pick through piles of junk to find diamonds in the rough.Mr. Fritz with his co-host, Mike Wolfe, in an “American Pickers” episode in 2011, a year after the series began. History ChannelWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Television

      John Amos, a Star of ‘Good Times’ and ‘Roots,’ Is Dead at 84

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      He was the patriarch in one of the first sitcoms with an all-Black cast and an enslaved African as a grown man in the blockbuster TV mini-series.John Amos, who played a stern patriarch on “Good Times,” America’s first sitcom featuring a two-parent Black family, and who had a starring role in “Roots,” the slavery narrative that became America’s most watched show in the late 1970s, has died in Los Angeles. He was 84.His publicist, Belinda Foster, confirmed the death on Tuesday, saying he had died on Aug. 21. She did not specify the cause or say why the announcement of his death was delayed.Mr. Amos’s acting career spanned more than five decades, with his breakthrough coming in 1970 on the CBS comedy “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” playing Gordy, the weatherman on a local television news program working alongside Ms. Moore’s Mary Richards, an associate producer. After three seasons, Mr. Amos left for “Good Times,” a Norman Lear production and a spinoff of the producer’s sitcom “Maude.” Chronicling the trials and tribulations of a Black working-class family living in the Chicago projects, “Good Times,” which ran from 1974-79, also on CBS, never shied away from the gritty realities of life in public housing, touching on topics like racial bigotry, drug abuse and poverty — but all with a sense of humor.Mr. Amos played James Evans Sr., a fierce disciplinarian with a tender heart who took on odd jobs to support his wife, Florida Evans (Esther Rolle), his sons Michael (Ralph Carter) and J.J. (Jimmie Walker), and his daughter, Thelma (Bern Nadette Stanis).Mr. Amos and Esther Rolle in a scene from “Good Times.” The show accrued high ratings and was notable for its all-Black cast.CBS Photo Archive/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Gavin Creel, Tony-Winning Musical Theater Actor, Dies at 48

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      He won the award playing a Yonkers feed store clerk in “Hello, Dolly!” and was also nominated for roles in “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Hair.”Gavin Creel, a sly and charming musical theater actor who won a Tony Award as a wide-eyed adventure seeker in “Hello, Dolly!” and an Olivier Award as a preening missionary in “The Book of Mormon,” died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 48.His death was confirmed by his partner, Alex Temple Ward, via a publicist, Matt Polk. The cause was metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, which Mr. Creel learned he had in July.Mr. Creel was a well-liked member of the New York theater community whose death comes as a shock, given his age. He had been performing on Broadway for two decades, mostly in starring roles, and just last winter his physical and vocal agility, as well as his charisma and curiosity, were on display in a memoiristic show he wrote and performed Off Broadway called “Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice,” about learning to love the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Mr. Creel during his Broadway debut in 2002 when he played Jimmy Smith in “Thoroughly Modern Millie” opposite Sutton Foster as Millie Dillmount.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesA superior singer with a sunny tenor, Mr. Creel made his Broadway debut and received his first Tony nomination in 2002 as the suave salesman Jimmy Smith in the original production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” starring opposite Sutton Foster, who played the title character, a spunky social climber named Millie Dillmount.He went on to find success in a string of Broadway revivals, playing the straight son of a gay couple in “La Cage aux Folles” (which opened in 2004); the leader of a tribe of hippies in “Hair” (2009); a womanizing clerk in “She Loves Me” (2016); a callow clerk in “Hello, Dolly!” (2017); and both a prince and a wolf in “Into the Woods” (2022).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Kris Kristofferson, Country Singer, Songwriter and Actor, Dies at 88

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      Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.His death was announced by Ebie McFarland, a spokeswoman, who did not give a cause.Hundreds of artists have recorded Mr. Kristofferson’s songs — among them, Al Green, the Grateful Dead, Michael Bublé and Gladys Knight and the Pips.Mr. Kristofferson’s breakthrough as a songwriter came with “For the Good Times,” a bittersweet ballad that topped the country chart and reached the Top 40 on the pop chart for Ray Price in 1970. His “Sunday Morning Coming Down” became a No. 1 country hit for his friend and mentor Johnny Cash later that year.Mr. Cash memorably intoned the song’s indelible opening couplet:Well, I woke up Sunday morningWith no way to hold my head that didn’t hurtAnd the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t badSo I had one more for dessert.Expressing more than just the malaise of someone suffering from a hangover, “Sunday Morning Coming Down” gives voice to feelings of spiritual abandonment that border on the absolute. “Nothing short of dying” is the way the chorus describes the desolation that the song’s protagonist is experiencing.Steeped in a neo-Romantic sensibility that owed as much to John Keats as to the Beat Generation and Bob Dylan, Mr. Kristofferson’s work explored themes of freedom and commitment, alienation and desire, darkness and light.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      ‘Days of Our Lives’ Actor, Drake Hogestyn, Dies at 70

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      Mr. Hogestyn was best known for playing John Black on the daytime soap opera and appeared in more than 4,200 episodes over 38 years.Drake Hogestyn, who played John Black, the sturdy and fiercely loyal character who by turns was a spy, private investigator and mercenary, for nearly 40 years on the long-running soap opera “Days of Our Lives,” died on Saturday, a day shy of his 71st birthday.Mr. Hogestyn had pancreatic cancer, according to a statement from his family shared by the show. He died in Los Angeles, according to a publicist for the show, Andrea McKinnon.In 1986, Mr. Hogestyn first appeared on “Days of Our Lives,” which premiered in 1965 on NBC and follows various characters in the fictional Midwestern town of Salem. For a few years, he played another character, Roman Brady, but came to be known best for his role as John Black.Mr. Hogestyn appeared in more than 4,200 episodes of the soap opera and became a fan favorite for his portrayal as the rugged, raspy-voiced and often heroic character who had the skills of an intelligence agent, a police officer and a private investigator.The character was also known for being married to Dr. Marlena Evans, a psychiatrist and the town’s de facto matriarch, played by Deidre Hall. In 2005, the actors won a Soap Opera Digest Award for Favorite Couple.“It’s, like, I’ll always love her,” Mr. Hogestyn said, at a gathering for the show’s fans in 2004, of the characters’ enduring romance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      Maggie Smith, Grande Dame of Stage and Screen, Dies at 89

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      She earned an extraordinary array of awards, from Oscars to Emmys to a Tony, but she could still go almost everywhere unrecognized. Then came “Downton Abbey.”Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” to the acid-tongued dowager countess on “Downton Abbey,” died on Friday in London. She was 89.Her death, in a hospital, was announced by her family in a statement issued by a publicist. It did not specify the cause of death.American moviegoers barely knew Ms. Smith (now Dame Maggie to her countrymen) when she starred in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969), about a teacher at a girls’ school in the 1930s who dared to have provocative views — and a love life. Vincent Canby’s review in The New York Times described her performance as “a staggering amalgam of counterpointed moods, switches in voice levels and obliquely stated emotions, all of which are precisely right.” It brought her the Academy Award for best actress.She won a second Oscar, for best supporting actress, for “California Suite” (1978), based on Neil Simon’s stage comedy. Her character, a British actress attending the Oscars with her bisexual husband (Michael Caine), has a disappointing evening at the ceremony and a bittersweet night in bed.In real life, prizes had begun coming Ms. Smith’s way in 1962, when she won her first Evening Standard Theater Award. By the turn of the millennium, she had the two Oscars, a Tony, two Golden Globes, half a dozen BAFTAs (British Academy of Film and Television Awards) and scores of nominations. Yet she could go almost anywhere unrecognized.Until “Downton Abbey.”Ms. Smith on the set of the 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” She won an Academy Award for best actress for the performance.Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

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    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Nick Gravenites, Mainstay of the San Francisco Rock Scene, Dies at 85

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      A blues devotee from Chicago, he tasted fame in the late 1960s with the Electric Flag, a band that made its debut at Monterey but proved short-lived.Nick Gravenites, a Chicago-bred blues vocalist and guitarist who rose to prominence during the explosion of psychedelia in San Francisco in the 1960s as a founder of the hard-driving blues-rock band the Electric Flag and as a songwriter for Janis Joplin and others, died on Sept. 18 in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 85.His son Tim Gravenites said he died in an assisted-living facility, where he was being treated for dementia and diabetes.Mr. Gravenites grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where he was part of a cadre of “white misfit kids,” as he put it on his website, who honed their craft watching Chicago blues masters like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf in local clubs. His colleagues included the singer and harmonica player Paul Butterfield and the guitarists Michael Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop; all four of them would go on to help fuel the white blues-rock boom that began in the 1960s.“Being a ‘bluesman’ is the total blues life,” Mr. Gravenites said in a 2005 interview with Sound Waves, a Connecticut lifestyle magazine. “It has to do with philosophy.”“The life in general doesn’t ask much from you in terms of personality,” he continued. “It doesn’t ask that you be a genius, or a saint.” Many bluesmen, he added, fell far short of sainthood: “They just ask that you be able to play the stuff. That’s all.”Mr. Gravenites sang with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. From left: Mr. Butterfield, Jerome Arnold, Mr. Gravenites, Sam Lay, Elvin Bishop and Mike Bloomfield.David Gahr/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Caterina Valente, Singer Who Was a Star on Two Continents, Dies at 93

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      Born in Paris to Italian parents and raised in Germany, she had her own show on television in the 1950s and was later a small-screen mainstay in the U.S.Caterina Valente, a polyglot performer who sang in more than a dozen languages and was a television mainstay on two continents in the 1950s and ’60s, died on Sept. 9 at her home in Lugano, Switzerland. She was 93.Her death was announced on her website.Ms. Valente achieved stardom in mid-1950s Germany in a popular music genre known as schlager: novelty songs, with titles like “Ganz Paris Träumt von der Liebe” (“All Paris Dreams of Love”) and “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Honolulu Strandbikini.” By 1955, her hits had put her on the cover of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.“Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Honolulu Strandbikini” was one of the first of Ms. Valente’s many hit records.DeccaShe had her own television show in Germany in 1957, and she appeared regularly at the Olympia in Paris throughout her career. Her fluid, confident delivery and sure pitch, as well as her skill as both a guitar player and a tap dancer, also carried her across the Atlantic, and by the early 1960s she was a regular on American television.Ms. Valente capitalized on her cosmopolitan origins. She was born in Paris to Italian parents who themselves were entertainers; was brought up in wartime Germany; and was fluent in a half-dozen languages. She would regularly make records for the French, Italian and German markets, which led to hits all across the continent. She won France’s Grand Prix du Disque for her 1959 recording of the song “Bim-Bom-Bey.”Ms. Valente on a 1966 episode of “The Dean Martin Show.” She was a regular on this and other American variety shows for many years.NBC, via Everett CollectionWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More