The Truth about Clapton and the death of our son

Nine years after losing their son Conor in a freak accident, Lory Del Santo and Eric Clapton are dealing with their grief in different ways. Here, the former model tells Lisa Sewards how she has finally found solace in becoming a mother again for the third time. For Clapton, the tragedy is run through with feelings of guilt about how reluctant a father he had been when his son was alive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lory Del Santo allows herself a smile when she picks up her newborn baby boy. Her eyes, glazed and touched with tragedy, briefly flicker to life. Then, when he has gone to sleep, a darkness envelops her again. It has been nine years since Lory and rock legend Eric Clapton's four year-old son, Conor, fell 53 floors to his death through the open window of a New York skyscraper. For Lory, the memory is so raw, it still seems like it happened only yesterday. The birth of Loren has been the first light in Lory's life since that desperate day and it is only his arrival which has now given her the strength to talk about the tragedy which was so utterly pointless. 'I cried for years and years, but the tears finally dried up. I have to be stronger now for Loren,' she says. 'After Conor died I was paralysed, emotionally and mentally. But Loren's birth has helped bring me back.' Lory has a difficult start in life. She was born the second daughter of a strict Italian Catholic family. Her father died young and her mother worked long hours to make ends meet, sending her girls to convent schools in the hope that they would obtain a position in a bank or school near their humble home in a village outside Verona. But Lory had greater dreams and left for Rome to pursue a twin career, modelling and TV presenting. Still only 20, she became instantly famous in Italy as the glamourous girlfriend of a high-profile businessman. She moved on to Milan to continue her TV career where she also became known for photography. She started going to pop concerts and after one was asked to dinner with a crowd of friends. 'I didn't recognise Eric at first,' remembers Lory, 39. 'But we got talking and I found him very natural, relaxed and uncomplicated. He asked me to dinner the next night. That day I found out who he was when I was reading the papers and realised that I know one of his songs. Cocaine. We had dinner, but I didn't want anything to happen. I didn't want to get involved with a famous person who was interested in a one-night stand, never to be seen again. I wanted a serious relationship with a man with whom I could have a baby. 'At first I kept my distance but Eric so peristent that he gave me some confidence, so we started to have a relationship. It went very slowly at first. I didn't ask his any questions, or make any demands on him. I didn't want to get heavy or boring. Then one day he rang and said, "Hey, I'm in town." I said, "Which town?" He said, "In Milan." I asked why and he said, "Because I love you,"' At this point Clapton was coming to the end of his marriage to Patti Boyd, the wife he stole from Beatle George Harrison and had been with for nine years, despite his numerous affairs. It was a tormented time for him and as Lory got to know him better, she was able to see the darked side of the recovering heroin addict's personality. She never saw him use drugs, but began to realise that he was an alcoholic. 'It was hard to tell at first because he would be drinking all day and he would show no signs of being drunk. I realised at a club when he became abusive that he had a drink problem and was drinking purely to get drunk. His problems were mental and emotional. I didn't really know much about alcoholism at the time but I knew he always had a willingness to stop.' 'His solution to the problem was to go away for a month at a time to try to stop and he'd come back to me drinking water. Then things would be all right before that bad times returned and he'd start drinking again. All I could do was to help be a good example, tried to help himself. He asked me to go to AA meetings with him and I would help him by being silent and talking to him when he wanted to, doing things when he wanted to do them and never stopping him from doing the things he wanted to do.' 'But it was the silences which were the hardest of all. He needed total silence, to live in a place with no noise. I never heard him play the guitar or sing in the house, except once when he rang me and sang Happy Birthday over the phone. He would go into silent periods for days, even weeks, and eventually come out of the silence by saying something like, "Do you want to eat?" That would be followed by something the next day, eventually building up to a couple of sentences a day. I would always wait for him to talk first because he expected me to be silent those times, too. Then he would say something really beautiful to me that would make up for all the silences.' It was during a particularly communicative period several months after they met that Lory and Clapton discussed having a baby. His failure to have a child with Patti was one of the reasons for the break-up of their marriage. So when Clapton asked one day what Lory was thinking, he couldn't have been more delighted. 'I said I wanted a baby. He said, "Oh, me too." I said, "Really?" because I couldn't believe it. Then he said, "Are you really, really serious? Because if you are let's do it."' 'Our decision happened in September and by December I was pregnant. I remembered we were having dinner on Christmas Day at his manager's house and I felt dredfully sick. They all thought I was being typically Italian and not liking the English food. But I discovered later that I was pregnant. I was so happy it was unbelievable, but Eric was not all pleased and he went into a dark mood when I told him.' 'I was shocked at his reaction, but so happy that nothing could touch me for two days. I was living in London with Eric and commuting back to Milan for part of the week for my work. It was a hard time for Eric as he had moved out of his country home where he had been living with his wife to a town house in London. He hates traffic and noise so this was affecting him badly. He had lots of doubts about his life, his past and his future. At the same time he was trying to cope with our baby. Eric hates change and likes to have a very simple, organised life. He likes to know what's next, so this threw him completely off track. But I knew that he had wanted the baby more than anything else, otherwise it wouldn't have happened.' It took six months for Clapton to adjust to the idea of becoming a father. 'It was very difficult to speak to him so I decided to disappear. I didn't want anything from him so I decided to go back to my life. I didn't even plan to call him when I got back to Italy.' Lory was convinced that when Clapton's hangers-on discovered the pregnancy they'd warn him that she would use it as a means of getting things from him. 'He never understood me deeply because otherwise he'd have know that I didn't want anything materially from him. His manager and these people don't know me. I was honest and proud and always paid my own way, even down to the plane tickets to see him. But he started doubting too. I left him to his thoughts. You can't fight for things that are not going to happen. 'After three months I got a call from his manager. He told me bad things which are too painful to repeat. He wanted me to end the pregnancy, but I told when I make a decision, I go through with it. We took a decision together and that's the way it is. I'm not a piece of meat with no brain or principles. You can't make a decision, change your mind, then rob someone of a baby. I can disappear but there is no way in the world you can make me give up the baby.' Worse was to come. 'I got a call from Eric. He had tried to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree. He had fainted then realise he was still alive. I was in shock. Then afterwards I felt really angry and sad because I thought how could he try and do this when we had a family to look forward to. I was angry that myself and the baby weren't important enough to him. To think of suicide in this situation was unreal to me. When you risk dying at any time, life is too precious to waste like that.' Another time Clapton phoned out of the blue and asked how she was. 'I didn't mention the baby. But he asked how I was. I told and he said, "Ah, good. Since I know you're okay, I'll call soon." But then he disappeared again for two months. During the size months total that he disappeared, he wrote me this beautiful letter, saying how much he loved me and how much he wanted our baby. I used to read this letter over and over and take it bed with me, thinking things were going to be all right. One day when he called and asked if I'd read his letter. I told him I did, often, and he insisted on coming over for dinner. I was tired but we met up and had the most wonderful dinner. He left three days later and I was happy because I thought he'd finally realised how important our baby was.' 'After he'd gone, I noticed that letter was also gone. It was the only proof of him wanting our baby and he'd taken it. He disappeared again until I was eight months' pregnant. When he finally called I told him I was coming to London to have the baby, He was shocked and asked why London, not Milan. So I told him as this baby's father was English he should be born there. And from that moment he took care of everything.' 'He found me a mews house in Chelsea and came to visit every day. When I went into labour, he arrived immediately and the hospital doctor asked if he wanted to come in for the birth. He said, "Oh, no," but changed his mind. At one point he told me, "How long am I going to be here because I'm due to go on holiday and I've been working so hard." I knew underneath that he was capable of strong emotions, Eric picket him up and said, "Oh my God, I'm a father,"' Then Clapton went on holiday, but when he returned they started to live as a family for the first time, spending all their time together. At first Clapton wanted Lory, Patti and himself to live under one roof in his sprawling country mansion. Naturally, Patti refused, citing Lory in the ensuing divorce proceedings. 'Eric, Conor and I were living in the countryside and I was very happy. For a time the problems went away. There was a period whe Eric didn't drink.' 'But then it became obvious that he couldn't cope with our baby, and the idea that a baby's needs come first. For a start, there was no longer the silence he craved, and , as Conor grew bigger, Eric just couldn't handle the mess a child makes. he resented the presence of a baby in a life which had previously been so ordered and simple.' 'He would never play with Conor. He would just look at him as if he was a world apart from him. Eventually, I said I knew it was a matter of time and patience before he adjusted. Three years after Conor was born, I decided I couldn't wait any longer. I really wanted another baby and he was so insecure. We had to go our separate ways, just meeting up so he could see Conor from time to time. The tragedy is that the day he finally realised what Conor meant to him was just the day before our son died.' Conor died in March 1991. The day before had been one of the happiest days in Eric and Lory's life. 'It was a special day. Conor and I had come to New York for Easter to spend time with Eric and he had taken Conor to the circus on Long Island. They had such a great time. When Eric got back he looked at me and said, "I now understand what it means to have a child and be a father." He was so happy. That day I saw a new future for us. It was the first time that Eric had ever had Conor on his own. Eric was so happy and said from then on when he had Conor he wanted to look after him without any help. I was delighted and said, "Are you sure?" He insisted that he would look after him, cook for him and wash him all by himself. He said, "I want him to come to London where I can take care of him." He had finally discovered what is meant to be a father, then fate broke this.' Lory's face darkens when she talks about what happened on the day of the tragedy in her friend's apartment on New York's 57th Street, where she was due to stay for a month. The pain is visible on her face and her voice drops to barely a whisper. 'The night before I put Conor to bed. He was pretending to be asleep but when I went to bed, he jumped in with me - he was so excited about the day he'd had with his Daddy. We began the next day with the same excitement. Conor was full of talk about the elephants he had seen with his Daddy at the circus the day before. Eric was coming to collect us and take us to Central Zoo. Conor was in his room still wearing his pyjamas - he wouldn't go to sleep in any others. He was playing with his nanny and I heard him talking and shouting happily. I was having a bath and getting changed ready to go to the zoo. It was 11am and I shouted to him from the bathroom to hurry up and he shouted back happily back, "In a minute,"' 'That day the apartment block janitor was in the apartment cleaning. I told the nanny and the maid not to leave Conor alone for one second. I came out of the bathroom and heard the fax ring. I stopped to check it and after discovering that it was an estimate for some repair work, I started to compare it with others. I was there for 15 minutes, during which time I heard Conor suddenly start running as he decided to play hide and seek.' 'I heard the nanny and she was running right behind him. But as Conor run into the room where the janitor was cleaning, the janitor stopped her to tell here that he had slid open the window - a huge wall of glass. In the second she stopped to listen to what he was saying, Conor ran straight through the window. I heard a dreadful scream but it wasn't Conor. It was the nanny, I ran into the room, shouting more and more hysterically, "Where's Conor, where's Conor?" Then I saw the open window and I understood at once. I felt all my strength leave me and I collapsed on the floor.' 'Eric arrived five minutes later, not realising Conor had fallen to the street below. He came into the bedroom and I screamed, "He's dead." His eyes went dark and he said, "Dead, he's dead. It's impossible." He found it hard to believe at first. Then his face turned to stone; it was like a film. We said absolutely nothing to each other. I just stopped functioning.' 'The glass was about 4ft by 6ft tall and as we were staying there temporarily, I never knew it was even possible to open it. It wasn't a window, but like a glass wall which was never, even meant to be opened. It was kept permanently locked, but the lock was broken and for some incomprehensible reason, janitor swung it open to let in some fresh air. It had a wooden ledge a foot off the ground. Our son much have thought the glass was still there when he jumped on to the low ledge a foot of the gound. At first first I wanted to kill the janitor. He had no common sense. He never even asked for forgiveness later.' 'I kept thinking of ifs... if I hadn't stopped to read the fax, I would have seen the window open and closed it. From that moment on I ceased to live. The concierge called the ambulance but obviously there was no hope. Eric went to see him at the mortuary, but I just couldn't.' Lory discovered shortly after Conor's death that she was three months pregnant by her partner, Milanese businessman Silvio Sardi (now her husband). 'At my darkest moments there was this light of the new baby to get my through. When Devin, now eight was born on August 23, just two days after what would have been Conor's fifth birthday, I was laughing and crying at the same time. I was conscious not to overburden Devin with love to fill the vacuum left by Conor, and I had to learn to stop searching for the ghost of Conor in him. I will have to do this too with Loren, who looks uncannily like Conor, but, unlike with Devin, his birth hasn't been overshadowed by great sadness.' Conor's funeral was held at St Mary Magdelene's Church in Clapton's home village in Ripley, Surrey, attended by celebrity friends including Phil Collins, George Harrison and even Patti Boyd. 'It seemed unreal seeing that little wooden box. People were supportive, but nothing can help. I never saw Eric cry, but people grieve in different ways. I cried every day for four years and there's not a day goes by when I don't think, talk to or pray for Conor. On the night of the funeral I stayed with Eric in his house - the same place where we first all lived happily together - and we prayed and prayed all night.' 'I had nightmares for years, when I heard my son's voice calling for help and I'd run to save him. Eric prays, but he's a very introspective person. To this day we have never ever spoken a word about what happened. We haven't even mentioned Conor's name. We don't need to because there are no words - we just both know. He wrote a song, Tears in Heaven, about it which was his way of dealing with the grief, but I have never heard this song, nor do I ever want to. Once in Amsterdam, I heard it announced on the radio and heard the first few bars, but I just ran away.' 'I can't even have a picture of Conor in my house to remind me because it's too painful. Years ago I locked all the pictures of him away. I don't even know where they are anymore. I stayed in the apartment where he fell for a week, unable to do anything. After that I never went back. I never kept any of my son's clothes or toys. I can't bear to see any picture of Conor but his faces is clearly visible in my head.' Two years after Conor's death, Lory lost another baby boy who was born three months' premature and died of an infection at two weeks. To her credit, she has relaunched her career. She rents out apartments to models who come on assignments to Milan, runs a gym, has continued with her photography and occasionally presents programmes for Itailian TV. She is still in contact with Clapton. 'At first we kept meeting at people's funerals - his mother's and his grandmother's. It got to a stage when I thought, "Who next?" Now when we talk we keep things really light even though sometimes he can be weak. In many respects, our relationship never really ended. But the hardest part is that after Conor died we had to face the end of a dream that was just beginning.'

-EricClaptonUK

Literary Pick (*****)

 The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories

-Charles Bukowski

 

 

Truly disturbing..

Religious Divide

Segregated Headstone Reach Over the Cemetery Wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These grave markers — pressed up against either side of an imposing wall, with a pair of clasped hands reaching over the wall's top — date to a time in Dutch history when Catholic and Protestant graves were strictly segregated. A Catholic and a Protestant married couple, separated in death, arranged for this unique workaround in order to rejoin one another:

In 1842, a colonel in the Dutch cavalry, JWC van Gorkum, married a woman known as JCPH van Aefferden. The union was controversial — van Gorkum was Protestant and van Aefferden was Catholic. Despite the prevailing culture at the time, the two remained married for decades, only separating when van Gorkum died in 1880. He was buried in a cemetery near the Dutch town of Roermond called Begraafplaats Nabij de Kapel in 't Zand ("the cemetery near the chapel in 't Zand"). Pillarisation was taken very seriously — each community had its own schools, media, and graveyards — and Begraafplaats was no different. It took this segregation literally, with each religion having its own section. Van Gorkum was buried in the Protestant section, as would any other Protestant during that era.

But when van Aefferden passed away eight years later, she couldn't be buried with her late husband; even in death, Catholics needed to stay with their own. While alive, she made her wishes clear — she did not want to be buried in her family tomb, and, instead, wished to be as close to her husband as possible. The solution, seen above, is her grave site. (Here's a bigger version of her tombstone, and here's his.) The two tombstones, separated by a wall and by religions, feature a pair of hands connecting over the brick divider.

-BoingBoing

 

RIP

Diana Rigg, 'Game of Thrones' and 'The Avengers' Actor, Has Died At 82

 

 

 

 

 

English actor Diana Rigg became widely known in the U.S. for her role as Emma Peel in the 1960s TV series The Avengers. She died Thursday in her home in London.

Actor Diana Rigg, best known for starring in the 1960s British TV espionage thriller The Avengers, died on Thursday at the age of 82 in London. According to a statement from her daughter Rachael Stirling, she was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.

"My Beloved Ma died peacefully in her sleep early this morning, at home, surrounded by family," Stirling wrote. "She died of cancer diagnosed in March, and spent her last months joyfully reflecting on her extraordinary life, full of love, laughter and a deep pride in her profession."

In The Avengers, Rigg played Emma Peel with a certain dangerous flair that contrasted with her buttoned-up partner, John Steed, played by Patrick Macnee. More recently, she earned four Emmy nominations for her portrayal of Olenna Tyrell in the HBO show Game of Thrones.

 

Rigg was originally a stage actor who worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She told NPR in a 1991 interview that she loved seeing the faces of the audience when acting.

"They're my inspiration. I absolutely adore it," she said. "Obviously, sometimes they aren't when they're scratching themselves or falling asleep, but largely, I think you can't beat a live audience."

Her on-screen credits were many and varied. She played the only woman to get James Bond to the altar in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. She took on the role of Lady Holiday in The Great Muppet Caper specifically for her daughter Rachael. ("If you're an artist, you draw pictures for your children. If you're a writer, you write the odd little story for them. If you're an actress, you can read bedtime stories brilliantly. As far as she was concerned, it was the best thing that ever happened, to see her mother ... with Miss Piggy," she said in the NPR interview.) And she won an Emmy for her role as Mrs. Danvers on the PBS Masterpiece miniseries Rebecca.

But as her film and television roles grew, she always returned to theater.

"Diana Rigg's combination of force of personality, beauty, courage and sheer emotional power, made her a great classical actress," theater director Jonathan Kent said. "Her dazzling wit and that inimitable voice made her an unforgettable leading figure in British theater."

And in a statement Rigg's agent provided to NPR, playwright David Hare wrote this:

"Diana Rigg had a dazzling change of direction in middle age as a great classical actor. When Emma Peel played Euripides' Medea, Albee's Martha and Brecht's Mother Courage she swept all before her." 

 -NPR

Mel's Diner Theme Song

 

Literary Pick (****)

 Still Foolin' Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going and Where The Hell Are My Keys

-Billy Crystal

 

 

One of the best bios I've read, very nostalgic, Billy Crystals voice and personality really comes through. I loved how the book seemed to pick up speed, and I was able to learn about his experiences with the movies City Slickers, When Harry Met Sally, and Analyze This. I even loved reading about his passion for baseball and all the legends that he not only met but became very close friends with. Loved this book!

Honorary Mention

 Pastor John G. Huneke

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 HUNEKE--The Rev. Dr. John G., Pastor of The Lutheran Church of the Reformation, Barbey Street, Brooklyn, since November 1972, passed away on September 20th at the age of 82. Reverend Huneke graduated from Columbia College, Class of '53. He also studied at Union Theological Seminary and Harvard Divinity School and was ordained in 1958. In May, 2010, he received the Degree of Doctor of Divinity from The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. Pastor Huneke served St. John's Lutheran Church in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for thirteen years and has served The Lutheran Church of the Reformation for 40 years. He will be greatly missed by his fellow clergy and his devoted and loyal parishioners and friends. He is survived by his wife, Clare Feger Huneke. The Rev. Dr. Huneke will repose at: N.F. Walker Funeral Home, 87-34 80th Street, Woodhaven, NY 11421. Telephone: 718-296-4343. Visiting Hours: Thursday, September 26, 25pm and 79pm. September 27, 10:30am Service at the Funeral Home. The Rt. Rev. Robert A. Rimbo, Bishop, Metropolitan New York Synod of the ELCA presiding. Memorials may be sent to The Rev. Dr. John G. Huneke Endowed Scholarship Fund at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

Literary Pick (***)

 Women Talking

-Miriam Toews

WKRP in Cincinnati Theme Song

 

Joni Eareckson

This is a book that was always lying around the house as I was growing up in one of our apt.'s in Brooklyn when I was very young and it has always left an impression on me. I find it remarkable that as a quadriplegic she was able to draw with her mouth.

-1976, Zondervan Publishing House

Literary Pick (****)

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
-Haruki Murakami

Olivia de Havilland

Olivia de Havilland, Classic Hollywood Star, Dies at Age 104

 The Gone With The Wind co-star was one of the last surviving links to a bygone era.

No one was better at falling apart elegantly than Olivia de Havilland. We tend to think of de Havilland (who died on Saturday at age 104) in her Oscar-nominated role as the good-hearted but frail Melanie in Gone with the Wind, taking to her chambers while Vivien Leigh’s brash Scarlett took on the dirty work of survival. But there was also her Oscar-winning turn in The Heiress, in which her high-society spinster character pined away for a stealthy cad. Or her descent into institutionalized madness in The Snake Pit. Even late in life, in glossy dross like Airport ’77, there was a nobility in her deterioration, as if St. Peter might compensate her with a third Academy Award statuette if she just succumbed one time to a ridiculous, horrible air disaster.

De Havilland was not always the regal sufferer. She was actually a fun, vibrant foil to Errol Flynn in Captain Blood, Four’s a Crowd, and seven other movies. Still, just a year after 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood, her indelible turn in the most popular movie of all time sealed her image forever.
Offscreen, de Havilland was gracious as well. She was too discreet to say much about her lifelong feud with her sister, fellow golden-age star Joan Fontaine—at least, until the eve of her 100th birthday, when she opened up about their difficult relationship in the pages of Vanity Fair.
A year younger, Fontaine nonetheless managed to do nearly everything first, from getting married to winning her Oscar (for 1941’s Suspicion, beating de Havilland, who was nominated that year for Hold Back the Dawn), to becoming a mother, to dying (at 96, in 2013). The two often vied for the same roles as well. Fontaine had once auditioned to play Melanie; in fact, Fontaine claimed, it was she who suggested to the filmmakers that her sister was dowdy enough for the part. Meanwhile, de Havilland had sought to play the nameless female lead in Rebecca, a role that proved to be Fontaine’s big break. When de Havilland finally won her first Oscar, for 1946’s To Each His Own, Fontaine waited in the wings to congratulate her sister, but de Havilland reportedly snubbed her and walked away.

“Our biggest problem was that we had to share a room,” de Havilland told Vanity Fair in 2016 with a sigh, elaborating that the trouble between them stemmed from Fontaine’s apparent desire to have what de Havilland had: “I suppose the way I saw it then was that I wanted Hollywood as my domain, and I wanted San Francisco society to be hers. I thought San Francisco was superior, I really did—the art, the opera, the clubs, the balls. I thought the sophistication Joan gained from her time in Japan made her perfectly suited for high society. But she wasn’t the slightest bit interested. ‘I want to do what you are doing’ was her mantra.”
The steel beneath de Havilland’s delicate façade was apparent, not just in movies or in her relationship with Fontaine. After Gone with the Wind, she chafed at the ingénue parts Warner Bros. kept foisting on her. Each time she objected, the studio would issue a suspension, and then demanded that she make up that time—in total, six months—after her seven-year contract was up. Instead, she sued the studio and won, setting a precedent that benefitted all entertainers signed to similar long-term show business contracts. The battle kept her off the screen for three years, but her first role upon her return was unwed mother Jody Norris in To Each His Own. The performance earned de Havilland her first of three Oscar nominations in the next three years and the first of her two best-actress victories. (She’d be nominated again for 1948’s The Snake Pit and 1949’s The Heiress, winning for the latter.)
The sisters came by their talent naturally; their mother, Lillian, was a stage actress before she married and moved to Tokyo, where the girls were born, and where her husband, Walter, practiced patent law. De Havilland was not yet three, in 1919, when Lillian, due to a rocky marriage and for the sake of her sickly daughters’ health, moved with her girls to Saratoga, California. Walter and Lillian divorced in 1925; once the divorce was final, Lillian married department-store owner George Fontaine. De Havilland took to acting as a teen and was just out of high school when she got to understudy Gloria Stuart as Hermia in Max Reinhardt’s 1934 Hollywood Bowl production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Taking over for Stuart after she left for a film role, de Havilland earned glowing reviews and signed with Warner Bros. when Reinhardt adapted the production to the screen.
Over the years, de Havilland was linked romantically to Howard Hughes, James Stewart, and John Huston. (Never to Flynn, though; despite their obvious chemistry, they never acted upon their mutual attraction.) She was married twice, to author/screenwriter Marcus Goodrich, and to Paris Match editor Pierre Galante; each marriage produced one child before ending in divorce.
De Havilland settled in Paris when she married Galante in 1955, and despite occasional visits to Hollywood over the next three decades for film and TV appearances, she lived there for the rest of her life. She made headlines only rarely in her twilight years—most recently, when she tried to sue Ryan Murphy and the FX network for defamation over its series Feud: Betty and Joan, which featured de Havilland as a character (played by Catherine Zeta Jones).
The “FX series puts words in the mouth of Miss de Havilland which are inaccurate and contrary to the reputation she has built over an 80-year professional life, specifically refusing to engage in gossip mongering about other actors in order to generate media attention for herself,” her lawyers claimed—honing specifically on the fictionalized de Havilland describing Fontaine by using the word “bitch.” Ultimately, a California appeals court ruled to toss the suit on the grounds of the First Amendment.
For all her accomplishments, de Havilland will be best remembered for that epic she made when she was 22. Seven decades later, she was still justifiably proud of Gone with the Wind, a movie she had watched often and still found suspenseful every time. “But you know,” she said in a 2010 Evening Standard interview, “you never really need to watch the films you made again. They stay inside you, always with you.”
-Vanity Fair

Regis Philbin

Regis Philbin, the affable talk show host and a fixture of the small screen for decades, has died at 88.
"We are deeply saddened to share that our beloved Regis Philbin passed away last night of natural causes, one month shy of his 89th birthday," his family told NPR in a statement.
"His family and friends are forever grateful for the time we got to spend with him – for his warmth, his legendary sense of humor, and his singular ability to make every day into something worth talking about," they said. "We thank his fans and admirers for their incredible support over his 60-year career and ask for privacy as we mourn his loss."
With his larger-than-life persona, Philbin cultivated an air of informality on his talk shows, well known for the amusing banter he shared with his co-hosts. Although the Philbin of television seemingly oozed charisma, he suffered in his youth from a lack of self-confidence. "I missed so many opportunities along the way to do what I wanted to do because I didn't have the confidence to tell myself, much less anybody else, 'Yes, this is the business I wanted to be a part of,' " he told Fresh Air in 2011.

Feeling that he lacked the talent to make it in showbiz, after his graduation from Notre Dame he spent two years serving in the Navy. On his last day, a major in the Marines asked Philbin what he wanted to do with his life.
"I told him, 'What I'd like to do is go into television but I don't know if I have any talent or what I could do,' and he got very angry. ... He said, 'Well, what do you mean? Don't you know you can have anything you want in this life if you only want it bad enough? Do you want it?' And I said, 'Major, I'm not sure.' And he boomed at me, 'Do you want this?!' And I snapped to and gave him a salute and said, 'Yes, yes I want this.' "
The major, Philbin recounted, told Philbin to drive to Hollywood. "And that's what I did."
Philbin began his television career as an NBC page for The Tonight Show in the 1950s. He worked as a newscast broadcaster for several years, before getting his first big break in 1967, when he became the sidekick to Joey Bishop on The Joey Bishop Show. From there, he went on to host local morning shows.
His biggest stroke of luck might have come when Kathie Lee Gifford joined him in 1985 as co-host of ABC's The Morning Show in New York City. The pair was so successful, that Live with Regis and Kathie Lee was nationally syndicated three years later. With impressive ratings, it was a mainstay on American television through the '90s.
In 1999, Philbin took on another role — the inaugural host of ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. He continued regularly hosting the show until 2002, making his famous question — "Is that your final answer?" — a national catchphrase.
Meanwhile, Philbin was continuing his daily job as host of Live. After Gifford left the show in 2000, Philbin went through several guest co-hosts, before soap opera actress Kelly Ripa was chosen as his permanent partner in 2001. They worked together for about a decade, before Philbin stepped down from the show in 2011 at the age of 80.
By that point, he held the Guinness World Record for the most hours spent in front of a television camera.
-NPR

Literary Pick (**)

Suicide Club
-Rachel Heng

Reading Rainbow Theme Song

Literary Pick (****)

A Tale for the Time Being
by Ruth Ozeki

I love how Japanese novels seem to be so low-key and relaxing to read, that's why it has become my favorite genre other than biographies.
Because of this novel I enjoyed independently learning about the Japanese tsunami flotsam debris (about 1.5 million tons) washing ashore the Canadian coast due to the 9.0 earthquake that occurred in 2011 and killed nearly 20,000 people. Many strange items were found in the debris in BC, including a Harley Davidson bike which was offered to be returned to it's owner Yokoyama, but instead he donated it to the Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee USA as a memorial to all those who lost their lives. A football was also found and traced back to a student who had lost every single belonging. Other items such as a fishing boat, a row boat were also found. Japan reportedly gave B.C. 1 million dollars to help with the cleanup.
The novel tells of how a couple living in Canada find the diary of a young girl who is contemplating suicide, and the journey begins to find who the author of this diary is in hopes of saving her.

The Greatest American Hero

Sit, Ubu, sit

Hugh Downs

Hugh Downs, Longtime ‘20/20,’ ‘Today’ Anchor, Dies at 99 

Hugh Downs, anchorman for the ABC news program “20/20” and, before that, NBC’s “The Today Show,” died Wednesday in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 99.
Downs’ career in broadcasting spanned more than half a century. And despite his assertion “I am not a talent, I am a personality,” Downs proved a first-rate interviewer and journalist time and again. His personality was ingratiating and low-key; well into his 70s, his pleasant demeanor made him a welcome guest in the nation’s living rooms. With Barbara Walters, his co-host on both “Today” and “20/20,” he formed one of the most complementary partnerships in television news programming.
Prior to “Today,” Downs made a name for himself as emcee of the quizshow “Concentration” and as sage in residence on the Jack Paar “Tonight Show.”
After early work in radio and TV, Downs moved to New York in 1954 to join Arlene Francis on NBC’s “Home” show, clocking in some 900 hours on the program. In 1956 he became the announcer for “Caesar’s Hour,” starring Sid Caesar, and the following year joined “The Tonight Show.” He also supervised science programming for the NBC network. In 1958 he also became host of the daytime series “Concentration,” a gig he held for several years concurrent with his “Today Show” activities.

In 1960, when Paar walked off “The Tonight Show” in a dispute with network censors, Downs stepped in and saved the day, winning NBC’s admiration in the process. He was rewarded with the anchor spot of the “Today” show in 1962, replacing John Chancellor. He remained for nine years, reaching 12 million homes every morning for two hours.
During that period he also reported and narrated news documentaries and specials such as “The American Wilderness,” the Emmy-winning “The Everglades,” “The Ice People,” “The Great Barrier Reef,” “Survival on the Prairie” and “The First Americans.”
Downs left “Today” in 1971 to pursue other interests, consulting, teaching and writing work. In 1978 he joined ABC, hosting “20/20,” the network’s newsmagazine show. He also did a great deal of reporting, particularly in the early years, on medical breakthroughs and did adventure news segments.
He hosted PBS’ “Live From Lincoln Center” series from 1990-96. He also narrated a number of highly praised news specials including 1990’s “Depression: Beyond the Darkness”; 1988’s “The Poisoning of America,” which won him a second Emmy; “Growing Old in America”; and “The National Cholesterol Test.” He won additional Emmys for hosting PBS’ “Over Easy,” “Live From Lincoln Center: Yo Yo Ma in Concert” and a 1989 interview with Patty Duke on her manic depression.
The Guinness Book of World Records certified in 1985 that Downs had clocked the greatest number of hours on network commercial television (he lost the record for most hours on all forms of TV to Regis Philbin in 2004).
He won numerous awards for his communications and charitable work and served on a number of boards including as chairman of the board of governors of the National Space Society.
In 1960 Downs published his autobiography “Yours Truly, Hugh Downs”; later came “On Camera: My 10,000 Hours on Television.” Other published works include compiled science articles called “Rings Around Tomorrow,” sailing reminiscence “A Shoal of Stars” and several books on aging. He also published a collection of essays based on his 10-minute NBC radio broadcasts, “Perspective.”
Downs retired from TV journalism work in 1999.
Hugh Malcolm Downs was born in Akron, Ohio. He completed only one year of college at Bluffton in Ohio before his family’s Depression-strapped finances forced him to enter the job market. In 1939, after a long search, he landed a spot as an announcer on small Lima, Ohio, station WLOK — at $7.50 a week. Within a year he was program director and earning a princely $25 a week.
He soon moved on to WWJ in Detroit while studying at Wayne U. He would later attend Columbia U. and get a post-Master’s degree in gerontology from Hunter College.
During the war he was drafted into the Army and assigned to the 123rd Infantry. He was part of an experimental basic training program that condensed 13 weeks into four. Like many of his colleagues, he collapsed from exhaustion, was hospitalized and given a medical discharge.
In 1943 he joined NBC station WMAQ in Chicago as an announcer, interviewer and DJ. He broke into television as the announcer for Fran Allison and Burr Tillstrom’s “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” show out of Chicago.
Downs’ wife, Ruth, died in 2017.

-Variety

Jerry Stiller

Comedian Jerry Stiller, actor Ben Stiller's father, dies at 92

Comedian who formed a popular duo with his wife, Anne Meara, has died of natural causes 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The comedian Jerry Stiller has died at the age of 92. His death was announced on Monday on Twitter by the actor Ben Stiller, who called him “a great dad and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband”.
Jerry Stiller enjoyed a long career on stage and screen, often accompanied by his wife, Anne Meara, with whom he formed a popular comedy act. They met in 1953, married the following year and regularly teamed up for improv sketches, performing in Las Vegas nightclubs and on The Ed Sullivan Show and other TV programmes, often in character as the squabbling spouses Mary Elizabeth Doyle and Hershey Horowitz, playing upon their Irish Catholic and Jewish cultures. In 2010, they took their act online, performing from the front room of their New York apartment. Meara died in 2015.
Stiller was born in Brooklyn in 1927 and attended Seward Park high school, whose alumni included Tony Curtis and Zero Mostel. After decades of performing, he enjoyed a new streak of popularity when he was cast as the usually irate Frank Costanza, father to George Costanza, in the sitcom Seinfeld.
He played Frank from 1993 to 1998, and received an Emmy nomination in 1997. One of Frank’s most memorable scenes was in the 1995 episode The Fusilli Jerry where, after a fight with Kramer, he is pushed on to a piece of dried pasta art that leads him to let out a thunderous cry. Next came a part in the TV show The King of Queens, playing another cantankerous dad, Arthur Spooner, from 1998 to 2007. In 2001, he was nominated for a Grammy award for best spoken word album for Married to Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara.

Stiller’s many films included Airport 1975 and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. He appeared in two versions of Hairspray: as the father of Ricki Lake’s character in John Waters’ 1988 original and, in the 2007 movie of the musical, as dress-shop owner Mr Pinky.
He appeared opposite Ben in several films, including The Heartbreak Kid, where they played father and son, and Zoolander, where he played the gold lamé-clad Maury Ballstein. Stiller told the New York Post that he bought Ben a Super 8 film camera when he was 10. “I just wanted to get him off my back. He went down and started filming movies on the street with his friends.”
He is also survived by his daughter, the actor Amy Stiller.
-The Guardian

Bill Withers

Bill Withers, the mellifluous vocalist behind "Lean on Me," "Lovely Day" and "Ain't No Sunshine," has died at age 81. 

Bill Withers, the soul legend who penned timeless songs like “Lean on Me,” “Lovely Day,” and “Ain’t No Sunshine,” died Monday from heart complications in Los Angeles. He was 81.

“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved, devoted husband and father,” his family said in a statement. “A solitary man with a heart driven to connect to the world at large, with his poetry and music, he spoke honestly to people and connected them to each other. As private a life as he lived close to intimate family and friends, his music forever belongs to the world. In this difficult time, we pray his music offers comfort and entertainment as fans hold tight to loved ones.”

The three-time Grammy winner released just eight albums before walking away from the spotlight in 1985, but he left an incredible mark on the music community and the world at large. Songs like “Lean On Me,” “Grandma’s Hands,” “Use Me,” “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and “Lovely Day” are embedded in the culture and have been covered countless times. While many of Withers’ biggest songs were recorded in the Seventies, they have proven to be timeless hits. “Lean on Me” emerged once again in recent weeks as an anthem of hope and solidarity in the time of COVID-19.


“He’s the last African-American Everyman,” Questlove told Rolling Stone in 2015. “Jordan’s vertical jump has to be higher than everyone. Michael Jackson has to defy gravity. On the other side of the coin, we’re often viewed as primitive animals. We rarely land in the middle. Bill Withers is the closest thing black people have to a Bruce Springsteen.”

Withers was born July 4th, 1938, and grew up in Slab Fork, West Virginia, in the final years of the Great Depression. He was the youngest of six kids and struggled to fit in, largely due to his speech impediment. “When you stutter,” he told Rolling Stone, “people tend to disregard you.” He also had to endure incredible racism in the Jim Crow South. “One of the first things I learned, when I was around four,” he said, “was that if you make a mistake and go into a white women’s bathroom, they’re going to kill your father.”

He joined the Navy after high school and worked as a milkman in Santa Clara County, California, after he left the service. He later worked at an aircraft-parts factory. Music played a small role in his life until he visited a nightclub in Oakland where Lou Rawls was booked to perform. “He was late, and the manager was pacing back and forth,” Withers said. “I remember him saying, ‘I’m paying this guy $2,000 a week, and he can’t show up on time.’ I was making $3 an hour, looking for friendly women, but nobody found me interesting. Then Rawls walked in, and all these women are talking to him.”
That was all it took. He soon bought a cheap guitar at a pawn shop, taught himself to play, and began writing songs between shifts at the factory. A demo tape got into the hands of Clarence Avant, an executive at Sussex Records, and Withers was soon called into the studio to record an album with producer Booker T. Jones, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, and Stephen Stills on guitar. One of the first songs they cut, “Ain’t No Sunshine,” was a tale of lost love that Withers wrote after watching the 1962 Jack Lemmon-Lee Remick movie Days of Wine and Roses on television.

The album they recorded at that session, 1971’s Just As I Am, became an enormous hit and turned Withers into a star overnight. He followed it up with 1972’s Still Bill, which became an even bigger hit thanks to the leadoff single, “Lean on Me.”
Withers wrote the song shortly after learning to play the piano, but didn’t think much of it. His label disagreed, and it became a worldwide smash. “I try not to be too analytical about it because it wouldn’t be magic anymore,” Withers told Rolling Stone in 2015. “I didn’t change fingers; I just went one, two, three, four, up and down the piano. Lot of children come up and say, ‘That’s the first song I learned to play,’ and I’m thinking, ‘Don’t congratulate yourself; that’s pretty easy.’ You could make a tool and play that.”

But fame didn’t agree with him. He hated life on the road, his marriage to TV star Denise Nicholas became fodder for the tabloids, and his distrust of businessmen made him unwilling to work with a manager. “Early on, I had a manager for a couple of months, and it felt like getting a gasoline enema,” he said. “Nobody had my interest at heart. I felt like a pawn. I like being my own man.”
He was able to assert his independence and craft his own music on Sussex, but things grew complicated once the tiny label started to go bankrupt. He was working on a new album when he learned Sussex no longer had the ability to pay him. In a moment of rage, he erased the entire album. “I was socialized in the military,” he said. “When some guy is smushing my face down, it doesn’t go down well. Since I was self-contained and had no manager, my solution was to erase the album. I don’t even know which one it was, but it’s gone.”

When Sussex Records finally went bankrupt in 1975, he moved over to Columbia Records. It only added to his misery. “I met my A&R guy, and the first thing he said to me was, ‘I don’t like your music or any black music, period,’” Withers said. “I am proud of myself because I did not hit him. I met another executive who was looking at a photo of the Four Tops in a magazine. He actually said to me, ‘Look at these ugly niggers.’”
He recorded five records for Columbia and scored radio hits with “Lovely Day” and “Just the Two of Us,” but his heart was no longer in the work. During one particular low point, the label asked him to record a cover of Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto.” When he refused, relations with the label grew even more sour. “I was not allowed in the studio,” he said. “People say my career was 15 years, but it was eight years. I was not allowed in the studio from 1978 through 1985.”
His final album was 1985’s Watching You Watching Me. “They made me record that album at some guy’s home studio,” he said. “This stark-naked five-year-old girl was running around the house, and they said to her, ‘We’re busy. Go play with Bill.’ Now, I’m this big black guy and they’re sending a little naked white girl over to play with me! I said, ‘I gotta get out of here. I can’t take this shit!’”

The album was a commercial disappointment, and he retired from recording and even performing live, though in 2004 he made a rare exception for the 40th birthday party of Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores. “His wife kept calling,” he said. “She said it was only for 150 people, but I kept refusing. Then the [money] got so high that my nose started to bleed.”
The private gig found Withers and his band performing around 10 songs, with the crowd joining in for “Lean on Me.” It would be his last concert. Smart real-estate investments and royalties from his old records meant that money was rarely a problem. A comeback tour could have netted him a fortune, but he simply had no interest. “What else do I need to buy?” he asked Rolling Stone. “I’m just so fortunate. I’ve got a nice wife, man, who treats me like gold. I don’t deserve her. My wife dotes on me. I’m very pleased with my life how it is. This business came to me in my thirties. I was socialized as a regular guy. I never felt like I owned it or it owned me.”

As the decades ticked by, many fans forgot that Withers was even alive, which he found hysterical. “One Sunday morning I was at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles,” he told Rolling Stone. “These church ladies were sitting in the booth next to mine. They were talking about this Bill Withers song they sang in church that morning. I got up on my elbow, leaned into their booth and said, ‘Ladies, it’s odd you should mention that because I’m Bill Withers.’ This lady said, ‘You ain’t no Bill Withers. You’re too light-skinned to be Bill Withers!’”
In 2015, he made a rare public appearance when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “I still have to process this,” he said shortly after learning the news. “You know that Billy Joel line, ‘Hot funk, cool punk, even if it’s old junk, it’s still rock & roll to me?’ I’m happy to represent the old-junk category.”
Looking back decades later, Withers was still amazed at his success at a relatively late age in his life. “Imagine 40,000 people at a stadium watching a football game,” he told Rolling Stone. “About 10,000 of them think they can play quarterback. Three of them probably could. I guess I was one of those three.”

-Rolling Stone

At Seventeen

Janis Ian - At Seventeen (Live, 1976)

RIP

Kirk Douglas, ‘Spartacus’ Actor and Hollywood Icon, Dead at 103

“Kirk’s life was well lived, and he leaves a legacy in film that will endure for generations to come,” son Michael says

Kirk Douglas, the beloved actor whose roles in 'Spartacus,' 'Lust for Life' and 'Champion' made him a Hollywood icon, has died at age 103.

Kirk Douglas, the epitome of old-school Hollywood star power whose intense performances conveyed his characters’ fiery and sometimes conflicted core, died Wednesday at the age of 103.
“It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103,” his son Michael said in a statement (via People). “To the world, he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to. But to me and my brothers, Joel and Peter, he was simply Dad, to Catherine, a wonderful father-in-law, to his grandchildren and great-grandchild their loving grandfather, and to his wife, Anne, a wonderful husband.
“Kirk’s life was well lived, and he leaves a legacy in film that will endure for generations to come, and a history as a renowned philanthropist who worked to aid the public and bring peace to the planet,” Michael added. “Let me end with the words I told him on his last birthday and which will always remain true. Dad, I love you so much, and I am so proud to be your son.”


Three times nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, Douglas was one of American cinema’s finest tough guys; his muscular jaw and mischievous eyes able to suggest formidable men who might have dark secrets beneath their handsome surface. In movies as varied The Bad and the Beautiful, Spartacus, and Lust for Life, Douglas reveled in film acting’s sheer combustibility, delivering portrayals that were models of physicality and brute force. He was also among the first actors to segue into producing as a means to exert more creative control, helping to launch his son Michael’s career when he gave him the rights to the book-turned-play One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which earned a Best Picture Academy Award in 1975. “I never had any intentions of being a movie star,” Douglas said in 1957. “I never thought I was the type. My only aim was to become a stage actor…[S]omeone had asked me to come to Hollywood, so I thought I’d take a chance.”
Born Issur Danielovitch in December 1916 to Jewish immigrants, Douglas grew up in upstate New York, dreaming of acting as an escape from a small-town community rife with anti-Semitism. “I wanted to be an actor ever since I was a kid in the second grade,” he recalled in his Nineties. “I did a play, and my mother made a black apron, and I played a shoemaker. And my father, who never interested himself in what I was doing, was in the back, and I didn’t know it. After the performance, he gave me my first Oscar: an ice cream cone. I’ve never forgotten that.”
Attending St. Lawrence University, Douglas would befriend fellow aspiring actor Karl Malden and then move on to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he met Lauren Bacall. His career was temporarily stalled by World War II — Douglas joined the Navy in 1941 after failing the Air Force’s psychological test — but was given a medical discharge in 1944. Upon returning to civilian life, Douglas snagged theater work, including the role of a soldier in 1945’s The Wind Is Ninety, which attracted the attention of film producer Hal B. Willis, who gave him a screen test and brought him to Hollywood. Indeed, Douglas’ first film role came in a Willis production, 1946’s The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.
Three years later, Douglas starred in Champion, about an amoral, ambitious boxer. The role landed him his first Academy Award nomination and cemented his persona as a bruising onscreen presence not to be taken lightly. The actor’s uncompromising demeanor was reflected offscreen as well: In 1955, he formed his own production company, Bryna Productions, named after his beloved mother. Douglas’ aim was to find material that spoke to his passions, rather than being at the mercy of others to determine his career destiny. “The impact of television brought enormous changes in the Hollywood studios, with fewer and fewer films being produced,” Douglas once recalled. “Many stars found themselves unemployed and I wasn’t about to let it happen to me.…It was a matter of survival. It still is.”

Douglas’ survival instincts translated into his performances during the 1950s. Whether playing an unscrupulous journalist in Billy Wilder’s acidic character portrait Ace in the Hole or a soulless producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (the latter netting him his second Oscar nomination), the actor brought unsettling amounts of intensity to characters whose moral rot shone all over their face. But he was just as eloquent playing the hero: His portrayal in Paths of Glory (1957) of a principled World War I French colonel defending the honor of three of his soldiers during a rigged court proceeding is a stunning display of righteous decency. (It also began a friendship with then-rising director Stanley Kubrick, whom Douglas would bring on board to helm 1960’s Spartacus.)

 

Kirk Douglas as Spartacus Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images 

Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 biopic of Vincent van Gogh, Lust for Life, became arguably his finest performance and certainly his most blistering. The film remains one of the most vivid portraits of artistry ever committed to screen, with Douglas pouring his soul out to play the troubled, brilliant painter, a role that would earn him his third Oscar nomination. “I don’t think I’d be much of an actor without vanity,” he confessed to biographer Tony Thomas. “I was terribly disappointed not to win [an Oscar], especially for Lust for Life. I really thought I had a chance with that one.…However, I don’t want to appear ungrateful. I’ve been very lucky. Few people manage to do what they want in life. I have.”
Douglas continued to work steadily through the Sixties and Seventies, but his next great achievement might have been pursuing the rights to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey’s anti-authoritarian 1962 novel about a rebel instigating an uprising at a mental institution. Douglas turned the book into a Broadway play in which he was the star, but after years of frustration in which no Hollywood studio would consider adapting the work for the screen, he gave the rights to his son Michael. The eventual movie version, which starred Jack Nicholson, won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor. In an ironic twist, Douglas’ son had an Academy Award before he did. (Kirk would eventually receive an Honorary Oscar in 1996.)

In his later years, Douglas easily transitioned to the role of revered elder statesman, playing lovable rascals in lightweight comedies like Tough Guys (1986) and Oscar (1991), the former being the sixth and final film in which he’d co-star with his good friend Burt Lancaster, whose drive to become a producer in the 1950s inspired Douglas’ own pursuit of the same aspiration. In 1996, shortly before accepting his Honorary Oscar, Douglas suffered a stroke that severely impaired his speaking ability. He wrote about the experience in his memoir My Stroke of Luck with candor and dark humor: “The doctor’s words echoed in my mind: It’s just a minor stroke. Yeah, minor to you, major to me.”
As Douglas got older, his reputation was further burnished retroactively for his willingness to stand up to the 1950s Hollywood blacklist, fighting to get disgraced screenwriters credits on his pictures — particularly Dalton Trumbo, who had written Spartacus. “I’m very proud that Spartacus broke the blacklist, because that was very important,” Douglas once said with pride. In 1991, he received the Writers Guild of America’s Robert Meltzer Award for his commitment to ending the blacklist, and in 2012, he wrote a book, I Am Spartacus!: Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist, that highlighted his role in hiring Trumbo, an outspoken communist, for the swords-and-sandals epic. (That same year, journalists John Meroney and Sean Coons offered evidence arguing that Douglas overstated his importance in ending the Hollywood blacklist. Their contention was that the actor-producer wasn’t nearly as courageous as he claimed to be and that he actually threatened those who wouldn’t go along with his version of events.)
Nonetheless, Douglas leaves behind a legacy of indomitable performances and, more importantly, a bare-knuckle ruggedness rarely seen in today’s far tamer Hollywood. In a 1969 interview with Roger Ebert, Douglas proclaimed, “Being a star doesn’t really change you,” he said. “If you become a star, you don’t change — everybody else does. Personally, I keep forgetting I’m a star. And then people look at me and I’m reminded. But you just have to remember one thing: The best eventually go to the top. I think I’m in the best category, and I’ll stay at the top or I’ll do something else. I’m not for the bush leagues.”

 -Rolling Stone