Celebrity Death Thread 2010

[Headspace]

I used to respect Headspace, but my fucking god that sig makes me rage every time I see him post.

You just don't get Jesse Camp, it's alright.

and gdi Cyn. Hard to reply with jokes when you do it yourself

[Cyn]

Had to get the extremely obvious one out of the way.

[6souls]

Guru from Gangstarr

http://www.hiphopsite.com/2010/04/20...e-with-cancer/
http://www.djpremierblog.com/

After being hospitalized two months ago for an undisclosed illness, Gang Starr frontman, Guru – aka Keith Elam – died yesterday in what has been revealed as a lengthy battle with cancer, at the age of 43, according to DJPremierBlog.Com. While his illness has been shrouded in mystery and controversy over the last few weeks, it seems like the problems surrounding his death are just beginning.

His industry-hated business partner and producer, Solar, has been controlling the flow of information regarding Guru’s health, with family members and friends of Guru claiming that Solar has been blocking family members and friends from seeing Guru, and using the situation to propel his own business interests. In the wake of Guru’s death, a “final letter from Guru” has been released, courtesy of Solar. It reads:

I, Guru, am writing this letter to my fans, friends and loved ones around the world. I have had a long battle with cancer and have succumbed to the disease. I have suffered with this illness for over a year. I have exhausted all medical options. I have a non-profit organization called Each One Counts dedicated to carrying on my charitable work on behalf of abused and disadvantaged children from around the world and also to educate and research a cure for this terrible disease that took my life. I write this with tears in my eyes, not of sorrow but of joy for what a wonderful life I have enjoyed and how many great people I have had the pleasure of meeting.

My loyal best friend, partner and brother, Solar, has been at my side through it all and has been made my health proxy by myself on all matters relating to myself. He has been with me by my side on my many hospital stays, operations, doctors visits and stayed with me at my home and cared for me when I could not care for myself. Solar and his family is my family and I love them dearly and I expect my family, friends, and fans to respect that, regardless to anybody’s feelings on the matter. It is my wish that counts. This being said I am survived by the love of my life, my sun KC, who I trust will be looked after by Solar and his family as their own. Any awards or tributes should be accepted, organized approved by Solar on behalf myself and my son until he is of age to except on his own.

I do not wish my ex-DJ to have anything to do with my name likeness, events tributes etc. connected in anyway to my situation including any use of my name or circumstance for any reason and I have instructed my lawyers to enforce this. I had nothing to do with him in life for over 7 years and want nothing to do with him in death. Solar has my life story and is well informed on my family situation, as well as the real reason for separating from my ex-DJ. As the sole founder of GangStarr, I am very proud of what GangStarr has meant to the music world and fans. I equally am proud of my Jazzmatazz series and as the father of Hip-Hop/Jazz. I am most proud of my leadership and pioneering efforts on Jazzmatazz 4 for reinvigorating the Hip-Hop/Jazz genre in a time when music quality has reached an all time low. Solar and I have toured in places that I have never been before with GangStarr or Jazzmatatazz and we gained a reputation for being the best on the planet at Hip-Hop/Jazz, as well as the biggest and most influential Hip-Hop/Jazz record with Jazzmatazz 4 of the decade to now. The work I have done with Solar represents a legacy far beyond its time. And we as a team were not afraid to push the envelope. To me this is what true artists do! As men of honor we stood tall in the face of small mindedness, greed, and ignorance. As we fought for music and integrity at the cost of not earning millions and for this I will always be happy and proud, and would like to thank the million fans who have seen us perform over the years from all over the world. The work I have done with Solar represents a legacy far beyond its time and is my most creative and experimental to date. I hope that our music will receive the attention it deserves as it is some of the best work I have done and represents some of the best years of my life.

Needless to say, we’ll never know if these words were truly written by Guru, but given his incredulously poor reputation, let’s just say we doubt it. Federal investigation, anyone? Rest In Peace, Guru.

[Thoronas]

Sad about Guru but also a pretty fucked up situation.

[Andarvi]

ahh man i love guru

[Xno Kappa]

R.I.P. Guru

Only Soulja Boy's headless corpse can now balance the plane between real/pop Hip Hop.

[Tidy]

RIP Guru :[

[Kurp]

I've never heard of Guru, Solar, or Gang Starr before. That letter is packed with complete bullshit though.

[Kiro]

Honestly feel like shit hearing about Guru dying. Fucking horrible.

[sb]

That letter confuses me, was GURU gay?

[Fhloston]

RIP Guru ;(

At least they will be playing his music in tribute tonight when my co-workers blast the rap stations. Will be good to hear some real rap on there for once, and not Lil Wayne & Drake every other fucking song..

They played a lot of his music when the death rumors came about, was some good listenin'.

[6souls]

NY Times has an Obit for Guru

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/ar...ic/21guru.html

Guru, the gravel-voiced rapper who as a member of the duo Gang Starr was one of the most expressive rappers of the 1990s and a major figure in bridging hip-hop and jazz, died Monday in New York. He was 47.

He learned he had multiple myeloma last summer and was hospitalized for related respiratory problems in February, his brother, Harry Elam Jr., said. Soon afterward he slipped into a coma, from which he did not recover, his brother said.

Though Guru came to be known as one of the formative rappers of the flourishing New York hip-hop scene of the late 1980s and early ’90s, he was not a native. Born Keith Elam in the Roxbury section of Boston on July 17, 1962, he began his career in the mid-1980s as MC Keithy E, but soon switched to Guru (which he later turned into an acronym, for Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal).

In 1988, after an early version of Gang Starr splintered, Guru met DJ Premier — Christopher Martin, a Houston transplant to Brooklyn — forming a partnership that would lead to six influential and critically acclaimed albums, two of which, “Moment of Truth” and the hits collection “Full Clip,” were certified gold.

Together, Guru and DJ Premier made archetypal East Coast rap, sharp-edged but not aggressive, full of clear-eyed storytelling and suavely executed, dusty sample-driven production. In the early 1990s, as hip-hop was developing into a significant commercial force, Gang Starr remained committedly anti-ostentatious. As a lyricist, Guru was often a weary moralist weighed down by the tragedy surrounding him, though the group’s music was almost always life-affirming, never curmudgeonly.

From a young age, Guru had been “creative like crazy,” his sister Tricia Elam said. “Dynamic and curious, eager and ambitious.” But his artistic impulses didn’t neatly line up with his middle-class upbringing.

Guru’s father, Harry Elam, was the first black judge in the Boston municipal courts, and his mother, Barbara, was the co-director of library programs in the Boston public school system. Before beginning his rap career in earnest, Guru graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1983 and took graduate classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. He worked briefly as a social worker.

Leaving school to pursue a rap career flummoxed his family, said Guru’s brother, Harry Jr. “I was on my way to becoming a professor, and my brother is dropping out of grad school, and I’m saying, ‘What are you doing?’ But he believed in it and followed it through.”

Besides his brother and sister, Guru is survived by his parents; another sister, Jocelyn Perron, and a son, Keith Casim.

Guru’s music bridged generations in part thanks to his career-long engagement with jazz, even after hip-hop largely ended its flirtation with it in the early 1990s. As a solo artist, Guru released four volumes of his “Jazzmatazz” series, the first of which, from 1993, was one of the most influential in the fleeting jazz-rap movement of the day. And “Jazz Thing” a Gang Starr collaboration with Branford Marsalis, was used over the closing credits of the Spike Lee film “Mo’ Better Blues.”

For all of Guru’s gifts as a storyteller — songs like “Just to Get a Rep” are among the starkest tales hip-hop has told — he benefited from an unusually forceful voice, rich and burred around the edges. It was tough to compete with, which he explained on “Mostly Tha Voice,” from Gang Starr’s fourth album, “Hard To Earn”: “A lot of rappers got flavor, and some got skills/ But if your voice ain’t dope, then you need to chill.”

[Eticket]

Bret Michaels is not looking good.

http://www.people.com/people/article...363506,00.html

[Olo401]

Lynn Redgrave dies at 67, 7-year bout with breast cancer

[Rhinox]

Poor Vanessa Redgrave she has a shitty year and a half. First she lost her brother then her oldest daughter now her sister.

[Kirin]

Ernie Harwell dead at 92.

Legendary Detroit Tigers sportscaster. I have faint memories of hearing his voice on the radio growing up when my dad would listen to Tigers games on the radio, but in hearing my dad talk about him today I can tell his generation who spent so much more time attached to the radio lost a massive piece of his childhood. God bless and R.I.P.

[Olo401]

Robin Roberts, hall-of-fame Phillies pitcher, 83 (not the ESPN lady..)

[Jak]

R.I.P. Lena Horne, a beautiful and talented woman.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obit_horne

NEW YORK – Lena Horne, the enchanting jazz singer and actress who reviled the bigotry that allowed her to entertain white audiences but not socialize with them, slowing her rise to Broadway superstardom, died Sunday. She was 92.

Horne died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Gloria Chin. Chin would not release any other details.

Horne, whose striking beauty and magnetic sex appeal often overshadowed her sultry voice, was remarkably candid about the underlying reason for her success.

"I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept," she once said. "I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked."

In the 1940s, she was one of the first black performers hired to sing with a major white band, the first to play the Copacabana nightclub and among a handful with a Hollywood contract.

In 1943, MGM Studios loaned her to 20th Century-Fox to play the role of Selina Rogers in the all-black movie musical "Stormy Weather." Her rendition of the title song became a major hit and her signature piece.

On screen, on records and in nightclubs and concert halls, Horne was at home vocally with a wide musical range, from blues and jazz to the sophistication of Rodgers and Hart in songs like "The Lady Is a Tramp" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered."

In her first big Broadway success, as the star of "Jamaica" in 1957, reviewer Richard Watts Jr. called her "one of the incomparable performers of our time." Songwriter Buddy de Sylva dubbed her "the best female singer of songs."

But Horne was perpetually frustrated with the public humiliation of racism.

"I was always battling the system to try to get to be with my people. Finally, I wouldn't work for places that kept us out ... it was a damn fight everywhere I was, every place I worked, in New York, in Hollywood, all over the world," she said in Brian Lanker's book "I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America."

While at MGM, she starred in the all-black "Cabin in the Sky," in 1943, but in most of her other movies, she appeared only in musical numbers that could be cut in the racially insensitive South without affecting the story. These included "I Dood It," a Red Skelton comedy, "Thousands Cheer" and "Swing Fever," all in 1943; "Broadway Rhythm" in 1944; and "Ziegfeld Follies" in 1946.

"Metro's cowardice deprived the musical of one of the great singing actresses," film historian John Kobal wrote.

Early in her career Horne cultivated an aloof style out of self-preservation, becoming "a woman the audience can't reach and therefore can't hurt" she once said.

Later she embraced activism, breaking loose as a voice for civil rights and as an artist. In the last decades of her life, she rode a new wave of popularity as a revered icon of American popular music.

Her 1981 one-woman Broadway show, "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music," won a special Tony Award. In it, the 64-year-old singer used two renditions — one straight and the other gut-wrenching — of "Stormy Weather" to give audiences a glimpse of the spiritual odyssey of her five-decade career.

A sometimes savage critic, John Simon, wrote that she was "ageless. ... tempered like steel, baked like clay, annealed like glass; life has chiseled, burnished, refined her."

When Halle Berry became the first black woman to win the best actress Oscar in 2002, she sobbed: "This moment is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll. ... It's for every nameless, faceless woman of color who now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened."

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne, the great-granddaughter of a freed slave, was born in Brooklyn June 30, 1917, to a leading family in the black bourgeoisie. Her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, wrote in her 1986 book "The Hornes: An American Family" that among their relatives was a college girlfriend of W.E.B. Du Bois and a black adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Dropping out of school at 16 to support her ailing mother, Horne joined the chorus line at the Cotton Club, the fabled Harlem night spot where the entertainers were black and the clientele white.

She left the club in 1935 to tour with Noble Sissle's orchestra, billed as Helena Horne, the name she continued using when she joined Charlie Barnet's white orchestra in 1940.

A movie offer from MGM came when she headlined a show at the Little Troc nightclub with the Katherine Dunham dancers in 1942.

Her success led some blacks to accuse Horne of trying to "pass" in a white world with her light complexion. Max Factor even developed an "Egyptian" makeup shade especially for the budding actress while she was at MGM.

But in his book "Gotta Sing Gotta Dance: A Pictorial History of Film Musicals," Kobal wrote that she refused to go along with the studio's efforts to portray her as an exotic Latin American.

"I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become," Horne once said. "I'm me, and I'm like nobody else."

Horne was only 2 when her grandmother, a prominent member of the Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, enrolled her in the NAACP. But she avoided activism until 1945 when she was entertaining at an Army base and saw German prisoners of war sitting up front while black American soldiers were consigned to the rear.

That pivotal moment channeled her anger into something useful.

She got involved in various social and political organizations and — along with her friendship with Paul Robeson — got her name onto blacklists during the red-hunting McCarthy era.

By the 1960s, Horne was one of the most visible celebrities in the civil rights movement, once throwing a lamp at a customer who made a racial slur in a Beverly Hills restaurant and in 1963 joining 250,000 others in the March on Washington when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. Horne also spoke at a rally that same year with another civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, just days before his assassination.

It was also in the mid-'60s that she put out an autobiography, "Lena," with author Richard Schickel.

The next decade brought her first to a low point, then to a fresh burst of artistry.

She had married MGM music director Lennie Hayton, a white man, in Paris in 1947 after her first overseas engagements in France and England. An earlier marriage to Louis J. Jones had ended in divorce in 1944 after producing daughter Gail and a son, Teddy.

In the 2009 biography "Stormy Weather," author James Gavin recounts that when Horne was asked by a lover why she'd married a white man, she replied: "To get even with him."

Her father, her son and her husband, Hayton, all died in 1970-71, and the grief-stricken singer secluded herself, refusing to perform or even see anyone but her closest friends. One of them, comedian Alan King, took months persuading her to return to the stage, with results that surprised her.

"I looked out and saw a family of brothers and sisters," she said. "It was a long time, but when it came I truly began to live."

And she discovered that time had mellowed her bitterness.

"I wouldn't trade my life for anything," she said, "because being black made me understand."

[Bwelch]

Lena! No! u_u

[Qalbert]

http://www.comicsbeat.com/2010/05/10...-frazetta-rip/

Word is going around the internet that legendary fantasy artist Frank Frazetta has died at age 82, but we haven’t been able to confirm this, despite many tweets and blog postings stating that he has died. At this point it has to be considered UNCONFIRMED although he has been in ill health of late, and was hospitalized yesterday.

UPDATE: We are sad to confirm via Frazetta’s agent Robert Pistella that the artist passed away this afternoon in a hopital near his home. The cause of death was a stroke. Funeral arrangements will be announced shortly.

Frank Frazetta was born February 9, 1928. His early artistic career consisted of years of exquisitely drawn comics work, including contributions to the EC line of comics, assisting Al Capp on L’il Abner and later drawing several years of the strip, and working with Harvey Kurtzman on Little Annie Fanny.
In the 60s Frazetta turned to cover paintings for the thriving pulp paperback industry and created one of the most recognizable illustration styles of all times. His covers for Conan, Tarzan and other rough hewn heroes created a visceral, violent, erotic yet somehow still nuanced visual style that has been endlessly imitated but never surpassed — Frazetta’s imagery of brawny, relentless swordsmen, seductive, fleshy sirens and hellfire breathing monsters had a gut level impact because it came from the gut — his many followers were just tracing without the passion of the originals.
In recent years, as reported here and elsewhere, the Frazetta estate had been much in dispute among his four children, following the death of his wife, Ellie. After some family squabbles that could only be called stressful and embarrassing, peace was made, however, and the sale of some of Frazetta’s most iconic paintings had begun, notably with the $1,000,000 sale of one of his paintings to a buyer believed to be Metallica’s Kirk Hammett. Another Frazetta painting was recently put up for auction, although it was not owned by the family.
Below is one of the last known public photos of Frazetta, shown in February at a family barbeque in Florida with his daughters and granddaughter.
Our condolences to his friends and family.