It is perhaps fitting that October’s edition falls on Halloween, or All Hollows eve, marking the time in the liturgical calendar where we honor the dead. That is what this rag tries to do every month so you all are keeping the Halloween theme alive all year. And by the way, I am no fan of Halloween. This notion of dressing up to be someone else, other than to wrench candy from the neighbors as a six year old, has always been alien to me. I’m totally happy with who I am (even if most others aren’t) so see no need to dress up as someone or something else. The notion of grown people dressing up would drive me to the grave. Anyway, this month we write about those who departed without costumes; many all to soon.
Terri Garr, who died this month at 72, occupies the top spot. Regulars of this dreck know I am no movie guy but I have seen both “Young Frankenstein” and “Tootsie.” It was, however, her appearances on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” that caused me to love her. Bright, funny, great looking and a Don’t-Fuck-With-Me attitude sealed it for me. Could you ask for more? Her comedic timing was brilliant. Her facial expressions telling, and she had the acting chops to play serious roles as well as comedic ones, although I think a cood comedic actor wipes the floor with those pompous Shakesperian actors every time. Note that I put Mark Rylance in the comedic column. Her characters were generally “on the edge,” and she was able to portray that fine line between unhinged and total lunacy. Pauline Kael, the film critic for The New Yorker, called her “the funniest, neurotic, dizzy dame on the screen.” She was born into showbiz. Her dad was a vaudeville comedian and her mother was a Rockette. She was put in dance school at a young age and by 16 had a role in the Los Angeles production of “West Side Story.” She was a dancer in six Elvis Presley movies, including “Viva Las Vegas.” She could have stopped there for me. She was cast by Francis Ford Coppola in “The Conversation,” which led to Mel Brooks casting her as Gene Wilder’s lab assistant in “Young Frankenstein.” Brooks wanted her to have a German accent so she spent some time with a German woman who made wigs for Cher and appropriated her accent to seal the deal with Brooks. That movie made her a bankable star. She was then cast in a serious role by Spielberg in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” She played opposite Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie” where she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Aside from films, she did a lot of television (thankfully no “Love Boat”), but it was the chemistry and spontaneity she had with David Letterman that, to me, was her high point. We’re talking on the “Late Show,” when Letterman was his irreverent best and not his CBS show where he was far too mainstream. After a lot of goading, he got Garr to agree to shower in his office with the cameras running. He ultimately apologized to her for that segment believing it bordered on sexism. If probably did but it was good TV and she was a good sport. On X, Letterman referred to Garr as one of his all-time favorite guests and to watch them, there is no doubt he wasn’t just writing that because she died. Although she experienced symptoms for many years, it was not until the 90’s that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It slowed her down and eventually killed her, but for many years she was a tireless spokeswoman for the affliction, winning the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Ambassador of the year in 2005. The world is not as a good a place without her.
Nelson Rockefeller was as pole-in-the-ass white as one can be. Refrigerator white. Born into the Rockefeller fortune, he became the Governor of New York and Vice President of the United States. Not one you would expect to be at one of P Diddy’s Freak-offs. Yet he did what most male Americans secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) wish they could eventually do; and that is die in the saddle. For those of you not so versed in the equestrian world, that would be to die while in the process of coitus. I myself gained incredible respect for him upon hearing about the manner of his demise. The Rockefeller family went to great pains to keep it under wraps but their efforts failed miserably as the story soon broke down. A quote in New York Magazine went like this: “Nelson thought he was coming, but he was going.” And that was pretty racy for 1979. Well, the woman to whom Mr. Rockefeller’s saddle was harnessed when he met his maker, Megan Marshak, died herself this month at 70, the same age as Mr. Rockefeller when he passed. Ms. Marshak was 25 when the big event occurred leading to the joke, at the time, that Mr. Rockefeller succumbed to low blood pressure; 70 over 25. None of this made Mr. Rockefeller’s wife, Happy, happy. Ms. Marshak was Monica Lewinsky before Monica Lewinsky was Monica Lewinsky. At least Bill didn’t keel over and die in the closet. Anyway, let’s talk about Ms. Marshak because in many ways she was pretty upstanding (no pun intended). Ms. Marshak was a 22 year old intern working for the AP when she was at a press conference held by then Vice President Rockefeller. She asked him a question (first in Spanish and then English) and they both seemed taken with one another. Then, when the internship ended without a job offer, she applied to work for Rockefeller, who hired her as a deputy press secretary. It soon became an open secret that they were having an affair. When Rockefeller died and the story of how it happened unraveled, she admitted to being there when he expired but said nothing more, apparently signing a nondisclosure agreement with the family. After that, she remained mum about the event, even when offered big money to come clean about the whole thing. She went on to work at CBS and married. She penned her own obituary according to her brother. To the end she remained coy about Mr. Rockefeller, opening her obit noting that her life was always associated with Mr. Rockefeller’s death, and in closing it she included the link to the song “What I Did for Love,” from “A Chorus Line,” with the line “wish me luck, the same to you … but I won’t forget, can’t regret what I did for love.” Gotta respect her.
John Amos, who had breakthrough roles for Blacks on “Good Times,” and “Roots,” among others, died at 84. Born in Newark and raised in East Orange, he at first wanted to be a football player. He attended Colorado State University, not to be confused with Colorado University , home of Coach Prime. After college, he was a Golden Gloves boxing champion and signed by the Denver Broncos. A hamstring injury got him cut in training camp. He moved over to the Kansas City Chiefs but didn’t fare much better there. He did standup comedy for a time, wrote for the “Leslie Uggams Show,” and started acting, eventually winding up as the meteorologist on “The Mary Tyler Moore show.” He left that situation to star in “Good Times,” a Norman Lear production about a working-class Black family. It was the first television sitcom to really normalize the Black existence and not play to stereotypes. The show explored the reality of raising a family in a housing project. The cast, and especially Amos, would often clash with the all-white writing team when it came to accurately portraying the reality of Black life, which the writers often had no clue about. After a few years, the clashes became more like battles and Amos’ character was written off as having died in a car accident. He went on to star in Alex Hailey’s Roots (for which he received and Emmy for Best Lead Actor), which brought the reality of slavery into White-American homes in a way that it probably never was before. Both of these shows opened lots of doors for Amos, who starred in films and television and thankfully, like Ms. Garr, he never had to appear in “The Love Boat.” He wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed one man show “Halley’s Comet,” about a man who revisited the Comet at 87 after first seeing it at age 11, permitting his character to reminisce about world wars and nuclear weaponry. Amos lived for many years in Tewksbury, New Jersey. Wonder if he was neighbors with Christie Whitman.
Ethel Kennedy, best known as the widow of Robert Kennedy, and the mother of now Trump supporter, Robert Kennedy, Jr. (how is that for opposite ends of the spectrum) died at 96. The mother of 11 children, the last of which was born after her husband was assassinated while running for President, Ms. Kennedy remained a political force throughout her life. Her husband’s death, some five years after his brother, the President, was assassinated, often drew comparisons with Jack’s wife, Jacqueline Kennedy. However, they were a study in contrast. While “Jackie,” pretty much removed herself from the political arena, Ethel reveled in it and supported causes her husband would have championed had he lived. Where Jackie was elegant, Ethel was gritty; more of a tomboy. The Kennedy household was a whirlwind of kids (like I said, eleven) and liberal political guests, such as Arthur Schlessinger, Harry Bellefonte, and George Plimpton (one of the people who fought to wrench the gun from Sirhan Sirhan’s hand after the assassination), to name a few. Mrs. Kennedy’s life, like many of her in-laws’, was marked with plenty of tragedy. Her parents died in a plane crash when she was in her 20’s. She also lost a brother in a plane crash and her brother’s wife to a choking incident. Two of her children died young. Born Ethel Skakil, in Chicago, her father was in the coal and petroleum business and the Skakil fortune rivaled the Kennedy’s. Although her father was Protestant, she was raised Catholic because of her mom. For a time, she considered the nunnery which is somewhat at odds with 11 kids. She received the Presidential Medal for Freedom from President Obama. Bill Clinton eulogized her saying that she was “a fireball of continuous energy.” She first met her husband on a ski trip and was immediately smitten. Bobby, not so much, instead dated her sister. He was a Kennedy after all. He then dated Ethel who was able to bring him out of his shell. He, in turn, reoriented her politics which were formed being the daughter of a conservative Republican. She became a life-long champion of human rights and environmental issues. She was as competitive as any Kennedy. In one of their fabled touch football games, she lined up against Mr. Plimpton and wound up biting his ankle. She was not someone to be messed with.
This is my thing about bass players. Everyone knows Jerry Garcia, and lots of people know about Bob Weir, and most drummers know Mickey Hart and even Bill Kreutzmann. Heck, many people know about the piano player Pigpen. Not nearly as many, I suspect, know that Phil Lesh, who died this month at 84, was the bass player for the Grateful Dead. Heck, he even co-wrote “Truckin’,” “Box of Rain,” and a lot of other tunes that make Deadheads swoon. Lesh didn’t start out as a bass player. He began his musical career playing the violin after his dad, a piano player (amateur, not pro), coaxed him into music. In high school, he switched to trumpet and was in the marching band. He was later accepted into the Sixth Army Band, in San Francisco, only to be denied entry when he was found unfit for the military. How is that? From the armed forces to the Grateful Dead. He also did some work for the Post Office, where I suspect he got used to being around stoned people all the time. Through his study of the violin and trumpet, he picked up a classical and jazz background, both of which would influence his playing with the Dead. I am not a Deadhead but their music is not simply a bunch of drugged out guys jamming for hours to an audience often as stoned as them. Their music is actually more sophisticated, with elements of Lesh’s Jazz and classical training, and Jerry Garcia’s bluegrass which is what he played before the Dead, all woven together. Fans of his would position themselves in what was known as the Phil Zone. Turns out that, like most musicians, Lesh had no real desire to play the bass but met Jery Garcia when he was playing bluegrass banjo and enjoyed his style. When Garcia started the Warlocks, the precursor to the Dead, he invited Lesh to play bass. Problem was, Lesh didn’t play the instrument. He learned quickly, joined the band, and played with the Dead until they disbanded. According to a statement he gave to Soundwaves Magazine, “it never really mattered to me very much what instrument I was playing, so long as I could make some music.” And make music he did. Sometimes very structured in the studio, and more often very improvisationally on stage. After the Dead broke up, he played with other pseudo Dead-bands, some of which he fronted. At each encore, Lesh, a liver transplant recipient (shocking that at one time he had a drinking problem), implored fans to donate their organs. A nice touch. I’ll give it to him, though. He stuck with the bass. What a long strange trip it has been.
Cissy Houston (born Emily Drinkard), a great singer in her own right, but who is probably better known as being the mother of Whitney (and the aunt of Dionne Warwick and cousin of the opera singer Leontyne Price), died at 91. I’ll stick with Cissy. Born in Newark, NJ, she started singing Gospel with the Drinkard Family Singers and later with the Sweet Inspirations. With them, she backed the likes of Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Dusty Springfield, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix (yes, in “Burning of the Midnight Lamp,” on the Electric Ladyland album), and Elvis. As a solo artist living in East Orange, she sang in New York’s top jazz clubs and would have her daughter sing with her at times, to introduce her to audiences. She won two Grammy awards for her Gospel work. As a session singer she sang on Paul Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion,” Linda Ronstadt’s “Heart Like A Wheel,” and Bette Midler’s debut album, “The Divine Miss M.” In addition to all her work around the world, she was, for 50 years, the Minister of Music for the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark. Hallelujah.
Jack Jones Died this month at 86. Why does a second tier crooner of the American Songbook make it in this sad rag? He sang the theme of the “Love Boat,” the television show where washed-up B-listers went to sea. I love the show for who appeared on it. When you wondered where your favorite second-tier movie star went; it was probably to sail on the Love Boat. Anyway, back to Jones, he sang the Love Boat theme from 1977 through 85. He was replaced for the last year of the show by Dionne Warwick because the producers wanted a more contemporary sound. Jones also appeared in the show several times. To give him his due, Jones was a talented, smooth, singer who mastered his craft and performed for nearly 60 years, from Carnagie Hall to night clubs and lounges all around the world. His dad was the singer Alan Jones and that is probably where he got his pipes. He twice won a Grammy for Best Solo Male Vocal Performance. He did some movie work and musical theatre but singing standards with big bands was his passion. For me, it is the “Love Boat,” that made him famous.
What’s it like to be a pitcher and come to the majors winning your first eight games, five by shutout, seven as complete games, amassing an E.R.A. of .50? Up until this month you could have asked Fernando Valenzuela, who did all that as the L.A. Dodgers phenom pitcher but, unfortunately, he uncorked his last screwball at only 63. A loss to baseball. In 1981, however, his rookie year, Fernandomania overtook the City of the Angels, and the young Mexican lefty took the town by storm. And that was back when no one in LA even got to the ballpark before the fourth inning. He was the biggest thing since Fidrych although I don’t think anyone eclipses the Bird in the young-phenom role. Valenzuela had an odd windup that confounded batters. At the apex of his windup he would look skyward with his eyes almost rolling in the back of his head and then somehow get his screwball across the plate, or at least through the swing of the batter. He started the Allstar game in his rookie season, only the second pitcher ever to do so. He was also the only pitcher to be named Rookie of the Year and win the Cy Young, when he edged out Tom Seaver, then of the Chicago White Sox, for the award. He made the Allstar team the next five years. He helped LA beat the Yankees to win the World Series, something they accomplished this year as well. Take that Yankee fans. In 86 he won a league-leading 21 games, but lost a close Cy Young vote to Mike Scott, who Met’s fans know he cheated to be so good. Prior to the 86 season, he signed for $5.5 million over three years, making him the highest paid pitcher in Major League Baseball. The lowest paid pitcher probably makes that today. In 1990, he pitched his only no-hitter in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. It was a bit of a surprise as in his prior start he gave up eight earned runs. Valenzuela was also a pretty good hitter who swatted ten home runs and would occasionally be used as a pinch hitter by the Dodgers’ manager, Tommy Lasorda. By 1991, Valenzuela was running out of gas and the Dodgers released him. He was not done, though, and played for the Angels (then the California, now LA ), Orioles, Phillies, Padres and Cardinals with one year in the Mexican league. The Cardinals released him in 97 but he continued to pitch in the Mexican winter league into his 40’s. Angry at the way the Dodgers released him in 91, he boycotted the team for ten years, ultimately softening and becoming the Dodgers Spanish language broadcaster (first on radio and then television) until last month when he left for health reasons. The Dodgers retired his number 34 in 2023 but oddly, he was never inducted in to the Hall of Fame. What’s with that?
Luis Tiant, another great Hispanic pitcher, also died this month at 83. A phenom from Cuba, he played in Mexico and for the Havana Sugar Kings. He married a Mexican woman and they were going to honeymoon in Cuba and spend the summer but, with the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the tightening tensions between Cuba and America, and Castro’s tightening his grip on the Country and its emigration policies, his dad told him to stay away. He wouldn’t see his parents for 14 years and his country for nearly 50. He did, however, have a great career as a pitcher. He made his major league debut in 1964 with the Cleveland Indians and had a great year. His time with Cleveland was up and down and up. In 68 he went 21-9 with an ERA of 1.60. In almost any year that would get him a Cy Young. Not in 68, however. That year Denny McLain won 31 games for the Tigers, a record no one will touch, and Bob Gibson had a record 1.12 ERA. The following year he lost 20 games and was traded to the Minnesota Twins, beginning a downward spiral that nearly ended his career. He bounced around for a bit, ultimately winding up on the Boston Red Sox in 71 where he had an unimpressive go. Luckily for him, Boston, in another terrible Sox trade, sent Sparky Lyle to the Yankees. Because of that, they decided to keep Tiant in their bullpen where he pitched well and worked his way back into the starting rotation where he excelled. Like Valenzuela, Tiant had an odd windup that included a sort of shimmy-shake. He also had a wide variety of pitches including curves, palm-balls, sliders, fast-balls and off speed pitches. At one point, the Yankees catcher, Thurmon Munson, quipped to the Daily News sportscaster Dick Young: “It looks like Tiant has another pitch. Now he has about 50.” Over the next six years with Boston, he would be great, winning 20 games in three of the seasons. In the 1975 World Series against the Reds, Tiant pitched a shutout in game one and won the fourth game, pitching all nine innings to win 5-4. He started game six and pitched seven innings in a game Boston won on a Carlton Fisk home run. Still, Boston lost the series in seven games. Prior to the Series in 75, Senator Geroge McGovern visited Cuba. He carried with him a letter from Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke, addressed to Fidel Castro, a great baseball fan. The letter asked that Tiant’s parents be permitted to leave Cuba to travel to Boston to see their son pitch. At the end of his meeting with Castro, Senator McGovern handed Castro the letter. After reading it, Castro said that not only could the Tiants travel to Boston, they could stay as long as they liked. Thus, on August 21, 1975, Tiant’s parents landed in Logan Airport to see their son for the first time in 14 years. Five days later, Tiant’s dad, Lefty, who had been a great pitcher in the Cuban leagues, strutted out on the mound in Fenway, handed his jacket to his son who was set to start the game against the California Angels, and threw out the first pitch of the game. Almost makes you want to like Castro. Not quite. Tiant’s parents stayed in the U.S. and in fifteen months, they died within three days of one another. Like Valenzuela, Tiant, although nominated several times, did not get into the Hall of Fame. What’s up with that?
Ozzie Virgil, the first Dominican player in baseball when he came up and played with the New York Giants in 1956, snared his last grounder at 92. He did his high school years in the Bronx and joined the Marines playing for their Camp Lejeune team where the Giants spotted and signed him. A great fielder, but not such a great hitter, he played in the majors for 13 years. His son, Ozzie Jr., was a catcher. If you fly to Monte Cristi, D.R., you will land at the Osvaldo Virgil National Airport. Not bad.
As a Jets’ fan, there is not a lot of great times to remember. One of the few exceptions to that rule is the Sack Exchange, the quartet of Mark Gastineau, Marty Lyons, Joe Klecko and Abdul Salaam. Salaam, whose name means “Soldier of Peace,” but was anything but on the playing field, scored his last sack at 71. While Gastineau and Klecko, the edge rushers who accumulated the most sacks got more of the glory, they could not have done what they did without the excellent run defense of Salaam and Lyons. In 81, the Jets accumulated 66 sacks, the second most ever in NFL history, propelling the Jets to a 10-5-1 record. The following year, in a strike shortened season, they took the team to the AFC championship, which, really doesn’t count. It was, though, the sort of excitement, that the current Aaron Rodgers-led team is unable to generate because they can’t seem to beat the hapless Patriots, making the Jets even more happless. Anyway, Salaam, went to Kent State and was named Mr. Defense in his Junior year. After the 82 season, Salaam was traded to San Diego and the Jets have been wandering around since.
Mitzi Gaynor, who died this month at 93, is one of those people, whose names I have always known, but whom I couldn’t tell you anything about. Until now. For some reason, I had it in my head that she was on “Hollywood Squares” where every star from yesteryear seemed to wind up. Sort of its own niche “Love Boat.” Alas, she never occupied a square. Perhaps I am mistaking her for Ann Marie. Anyway, Ms. Gaynor was the star of many movie musicals, culminating in her role as Ensign Nellie Forbush in South Pacific. Mary Martin had originated the role on Broadway but at 40, the producers deemed her too old for the movie role, which would net them a lawsuit today. Elizabeth Taylor and Doris Day wanted the gig but Ms. Gaynor was the only one to agree to a screen test and thanks to Frank Sinatra, she was able to get time off from the movie “The Joker is Wild,” that she was filming with the Chairman of the Board. Apparently, when Sinatra learned that Ms. Gaynor needed time off to sing for Oscar Hammerstein, who wanted to hear her croon, he asked for a change in the filming schedule so she could make the audition. For that role, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress. She did a lot of television variety shows and, like Jack Jones, cabaret acts, and worked into her 80’s. Notably, she appeared on the Ed Sullivan show the night the Beatles made their second appearance. Overshadowed on the show, she felt good about it because afterwards, Paul McCartney asked her for her autograph. Not too shabby.
I am always enamored of Holocaust survivors because I so cherish their ability to move on in life after enduring what is simply unspeakable. Many, like Lily Ebert, who died this month at 100, are so amazing because they relived the horrors by speaking their experience in order to ensure that the atrocities experienced by millions of Jews never occurs again, which is not to say that abominable things do not occur in our world with some regularity, Hopefully, they never will on that scale, and with that level of organized hatred. Ms. Ebert was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in Hungary. Her father died when she was 18. In 1944, when she was 20, the Nazi’s invaded Hungary and eventually moved her family to a concentration camp where she and two of her sisters watched their mother and two other sisters get taken to the gas chambers. She promised herself then, that if she survived, she would be a voice for them and others that had no survivors to speak for them. She was one of the lucky survivors. She and her surviving sisters were sent to a labor camp and when the Allies were on the offensive near the end of the war, the nearly 2,000 members of the camp were taken on a death march. When the allies bombed the area, their captors fled, and the allies liberated them. She then when from Germany, to Switzerland, and Isreal where she met her husband. They had three kids and settled in England. True to her word on the day her mother and sisters were killed, she was outspoken about the Holocaust, writing a bestselling book entitled “Lily’s Promise.” She helped found the Holocaust Survivors Center which, among other things, provided therapy for survivors in need. She spoke constantly of the atrocities that had been visited on the Jews and was made a Member of the British Order for her work in Holocaust education. In 2021, with the help of her great-grandson, she set up a Tik-Tok account to not only educate people on the Holocaust, but, according to her obituary in the New York Times, to let people know that she had lived a normal life. Take that all you twerkers. That normal life included wearing a chain every day with the pendant of an angel. It was a pendant that her mother gave her that she hid inside the heel of her shoe with the help of her brother, with whom she was reunited after the war. Had her captors found the pedant, she would have certainly been killed. To her, the risk was well worth a lifetime of having it close to her heart.
Finally, this month, Marty Ficke died. He was one of the least law enforcement, law enforcement people I knew, which is what made him such a great law enforcement person. A simply great human being. I have encountered far too few of his type lately, which is one of the reasons he will be missed so much.
Don’t eat too many of those Halloween leftovers, it could shorten your life.
Great job, Charlie, as always. Not sure how you made it out of the Bronx without becoming a Yankee fan, but watching the Jets play on Halloween night 2024 makes any fan want to play dead.