OBITUARIES

[Stanley]

I remember him best for 'Good Morning Vietnam'. It seems there is a price to be paid for living on high levels of nervous energy....

[Nolic]

RIP Robin, a smiling and funny man who hid a great depression. Nolic

[Stanley]

See THIS for a report of the death of Lauren Bacall. She always struck me as a good woman. Humphrey Bogart thought so, one of the longest lasting marriages in Hollywood.

[Tripps]

Came across this tonight remarkable lady.

Dame Katherine Ollerenshaw

[David Whipp]

Richard Attenborough - a good innings.

[Marilyn]

Joan Rivers.
(Personally, I didn't appreciate her...too loud and too brassy for me)

[Nolic]

I don't think there will be a major public outpouring as a result of her death. I did not like her. Nolic

[Stanley]

I was a bit of a coward this morning because I decided not to post because I object to the way she gained attention. If the only way you can get attention is to make outrageous and damaging statements about other celebrities it's time to re-assess your approach. That's right, I didn't like her....

[Marilyn]

How straight forward of you both. I said something similar initially, but scrubbed it back and told myself I mustn't be so blunt! Didn't want to offend anyone by being too cutting.
Ha!
Needn't have bothered!
( hubby did say that if she had one more facelift she would need her chin waxed)

[Cathy]

American humour rarely makes me laugh and with Joan Rivers I always used to wonder how she got away with saying what she did. I though she was very rude and cutting and that the things she 'made fun of' were totally uncalled for and quite often crude. I was talking to a Canadian/American this week about Joan Rivers humour and she said that Joan Rivers always said exactly what the public wanted to say but couldn't and her humour was a type of release for them. The Canadian/American woman also said she is amazed by what we can openly say here in Oz without getting into trouble for it.
.

[PostmanPete]

I must be the odd one out here because I had tickets to see her in Liverpool on the 18th October. I suppose I will have to make do with a refund.....

[Tizer]

I, too, don't like that type of scathing humour. The worst I've met was a man who was very quick witted and could be very funny but most of the the time he was making nasty jokes at the expense of his colleagues. We worked in the same company and he had a senior job, which made it even worse. He was a Liverpudlian and could have competed with Jimmy Tarbuck or Ken Dodd for being funny if only he'd restrained himself from being nasty to people. His quickfire wit was so powerful that you were always in danger of finding yourself starting to laugh and ending up ashamed by it.

[Sue]

I too never liked her humour

[Thomo]

Richard Keil 7'2" James Bond's Jaws.

[David Whipp]

Alec Moorhouse, who passed away suddenly on Tuesday.

[Stanley]

It came through on the grapevine yesterday. I was stopped and told yesterday morning....

[Stanley]

See THIS for Sir Donald Sinden's biography. He has died aged 90. I liked his performances and remember mainly his series on TV with Elaine Strich.

[Stanley]

Ian Paisley is dead at 88 years old. Sorry, but I don't buy the eulogies I have been hearing on the media. Paisley was an opportunistic bigot and close examination of his ' Reverend Doctor' doesn't do much to recommend him. His career was based on hate and he changed tack when it became obvious that there was more opportunity in reconciliation. The 'Chuckles Brothers' was a sick joke.

[Stanley]

Sad to report, my old mate Graham Riley who was my manager of the MSC team at Ellenroad, has died from exposure to asbestos. A good friend and a wonderful bloke to work with. I'm sorry he's gone..... Here we are in 1989.

[Sunray10]

The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire has died aged 94. She was at Chatsworth I believe, and was she also at Bolton Abbey. I understand she was a ardent fan of Elvis Presley with a large collection of his records. And she was the last of the Mitford sisters.

[Sunray10]

George Hamilton IV has died at the age of 77 in Nashville. He was an American country-western singer of the 60s and 70s with a number of hit records in the US and Britain.

[Stanley]

I once got into big trouble with two old ladies who overheard me giving students my standard lecture on undeserved privilege and the fact they shifted the village from the front of Chatsworth to improve the view when we were on a visit. They were so angry with me, you'd have thought she was their personal friend.... They knew nothing about the way the Cavendish wealth was created by oppressing the poor.

[Stanley]

Linda Bellingham has died of cancer aged 66. Lovely woman and I enjoyed all her performances especially in the long running saga of the OXO ads. Worth looking up the interview she did on Woman's Hour only a fortnight ago during which she explained that she was refusing treatment so as to shorten the time her family had to suffer up to what she had been told was the inevitable end. She died in her husband's arms. A brave woman who gave much to the world.

[Bruff]

Gough Whitlam the former PM of Australia has died aged 98.

I vaguely remembered his name being all over the news as a boy whenever it cropped up in the years following, and in time I came to understand it was largely around the circumstances of his removal as PM (there's no other word as it wasn't because he lost an election). He was removed by the Governor-General Sir David Kerr under the authority of the Queen - the sort of democracy-in-action that makes one proud to be British. It's unclear whether this was because one of his acts as PM was to remove God Save the Queen as the National Anthem of Australia, but there are constant mutterings to this day that his extremely progressive social agenda won him no 'friends in high places'.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

I remember the affair well. My opinion then, and it remains the same now, is that he was too progressive for the establishment and Malcolm Fraser took advantage of the situation to plot behind the scenes and wrest the premiership from him. The mystery to me, in view of the overwhelming support for Whitlam at the time is that Labour lost the next election by a landslide. Not a glorious episode and as you say, a good example of the control the colonialists had over 'democracy'. I don't think it could happen now......