Culture Icons... R.I.P

Gia Maione Prima (May 20, 1941 – September 23, 2013) was an American singer and wife of singer Louis Prima.
Born in Roebling, New Jersey, Maione was a 1959 graduate of Toms River High School (now known as Toms River High School South). She first gained notice in 1962, when she was signed to sing lead female vocals for Prima and his band. Prima had divorced Keely Smith, his former lead vocalist, the year before. Smith left the orchestra, creating the opening that Maione filled.
In 1963 she married Prima, becoming his fifth and final wife. She had two children by Prima, Louis Jr. and Lena. In 1965, the couple recorded Let's Fly With Mary Poppins, a popular album containing jazz versions of songs from the popular Disney film. The couple routinely performed at locations such as the Copacabana, the Sahara Hotel, the Sands Hotel, and the Palmer House in Chicago. Although paired with Prima near the end of his career, Prima, Maione and orchestra remained extremely popular and sang to sold out crowds up to the time of Prima's death.
In 1975, while undergoing an operation in Los Angeles to remove a benign brain tumor, Prima lapsed into a coma and never regained consciousness. He died almost three years later on August 24, 1978 in his home town of New Orleans.
The Prima estate was tied up in litigation for almost 15 years following Prima's death. In 1994, Maione assumed control of the Prima archives, at which time she set about managing his vast musical legacy. She dedicated herself to remastering and re-releasing Prima's work. Among her other duties, Maione handled the licensing of Prima's work for television, film and advertising, such as the use of 'Jump, Jive and Wail' for a series of Gap ads in the late 1990s. While living in Island Heights, New Jersey in 2002, she filed suit against Universal Music Group claiming that proper royalties had not been paid.
Until her death in 2013, Maione operated Prima Music, LLC, which releases previously unavailable Prima titles. The company also operates www.louisprima.com. She also stated that she had been interested in developing a Prima biopic. In a 2003 interview, she stated "In my opinion, there's only one person I believe could play Louis today. John Travolta. He has the rhythm, he's an Italian, and he has that devilish twinkle in his eye. The only thing he has to learn is the New Orleans flavor, and I know he could do that."
In 2004, Gia Maione was inducted into the Toms River Schools Hall of Fame.
Maione died on September 23, 2013 in Florida.


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Ruth Myrtle Patrick (November 26, 1907 – September 23, 2013) was a botanist and limnologist specializing in diatoms and freshwater ecology, who developed ways to measure the health of freshwater ecosystems and established a number of research facilities.

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Ruth Patrick was the daughter of Frank Patrick, a banker and lawyer. Frank had a degree in botany from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and was a hobbyist scientist. He often took Ruth and her sister on Sunday afternoons to collect specimens, especially diatoms, from streams. Ruth attended the Sunset Hill School in Kansas City, Missouri, graduating in 1925. Ruth's mother insisted that she attend Coker College, a women's school in Hartsville, South Carolina, but her father arranged for her to attend summer courses, through fear that Coker would not provide satisfactory education in the sciences. When she graduated in 1929, she then enrolled in the University of Virginia, earning a master's degree in 1931, followed by a Ph.D. in 1934.
Ruth's research in fossilized diatoms showed that the Great Dismal Swamp between Virginia and North Carolina was once a forest, which had been flooded by seawater. Similar research proved that the Great Salt Lake was not always a saline lake. During the Great Depression, she volunteered to work as a curator for the Academy of Natural Sciences, where she worked for no pay for eight years. She continued to work there for many years and was regarded as a talented and outstanding scientific administrator.
Her work has been widely published and she has received numerous awards for her scientific achievements, including the
Eminent Ecologist Award from the Ecological Society of America in 1972, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1976, the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences in 1993, the National Medal of Science in 1996, the Heinz Award Chairman's Medal in 2002, and the A.C. Redfield Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. The Ruth Patrick Science Education Center in Aiken, South Carolina, is named after her. The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography gives out a Ruth Patrick Award "to honor outstanding research by a scientist in the application of basic aquatic science principles to the identification, analysis and/or solution of important environmental problems." This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation R.M.Patrick when citing a botanical name.
On November 17, 2007, a gala was held in honor of Dr. Patrick's upcoming 100th birthday at The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, PA. Notable guests included Governor of Pennsylvania
Ed Rendell.
Patrick was married twice. She retained her maiden name when writing scientific papers, at her father's request. Her husbands were Charles Hodge IV and Lewis H. Van Dusen, Jr. With Charles Hodge IV she had one son. Charles was an
entomologist and a direct descendent of Benjamin Franklin.
Patrick died at a retirement home in 2013. She was 105.
 
Stanisław Szozda (25 September 1950 - 23 September 2013) was an elite Polish cyclist. He had his best achievements in the 100 km team time trial. In this event he won two silver medals at the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics, as well as two gold and two bronze medals at the world championships in 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1977. He was less successful in the individual road race, finishing in 76th and 11th place at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, respectively, and winning a silver medal at the 1973 UCI Road World Championships.
In 1974, he won the Tour de Bretagne Cycliste, both individually and in the team competition. He also won the Tour de Pologne in 1971, Tour of Algeria in 1973, Peace Race in 1974, and Tour of Małopolska in 1976. He finished second in the Peace Race in 1976 and first in 1973 with the Polish team.
He suffered a career-ending spinal injury after a fall during the 1978 Peace Race.
After retiring from competitions he worked as a trainer in the United States with Eddie Borysewicz, and after returning to Poland did not follow the traditional route of becoming a cycling coach. He was married to Grażyna Szozda; they have a daughter Natalia and a son Radosław. Szozda was awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta.
 
Sverre Tonning Olsen Bruland (February 2, 1923, Stavanger – September 24, 2013) was a Norwegian trumpet player and conductor. He was born in Stavanger.
He studied with Per Steenberg, Karl Andersen, Odd Grüner-Hegge, Igor Markevitch, Paul van Kempen, at the Juilliard School in New York between 1949 and 1950, and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.
He was hired as a trumpeter by the so-called Second Division Ensemble in Oslo, where he played between 1945 and 1946, and by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1946, where he played between 1946 and 1966. He made his debut as an orchestra conductor with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1954.
In 1966 he was hired as kapellmeister by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra. From 1976 to 1988 he was chief conductor of Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra.
Bruland won the 1st prize in the international conducting competition in Liverpool in 1958, and the conducting prize in Tanglewood, USA (Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer music school, Berkshire Musical Centre) in 1959.
Bruland conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on two public occasions with Norwegian music on the program.
He died on September 24, 2013, after a short illness.
 
Margaret Anne Feilman (21 June 1921 - 24 September 2013) was Perth's first female town planner, having also practised as an architect and landscape designer. A founding member of the Western Australian Town Planning Institute in 1950, she engaged in substantial public speaking as a means of "educating the public as a whole on the need for better planning".

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The daughter of Herbert Bernard and Ethel Anne Feilman (née Turner),[2] Feilman grew up in the Southwest Region of Western Australia. In 1938 she became the first female cadet in the Public Works Department of Western Australia, and completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Western Australia in 1943. Studying at Perth Technical College,[2] she passed the Final Examination for Registration as an Architect in 1945. She received a British Council scholarship in 1948.[3] In 1950 she completed her Postgraduate Diploma in Town Planning at the School of Town and Country Planning at the University of Durham, after which she returned to Perth and opened a practice in architecture and town planning. In 1952, for the state Public Works Department, she planned the townsite of Kwinana New Town, to house 25,000 industry employees.[4]
A founding member of the Western Australian branch of the
National Trust of Australia[5] in 1959, she later became an inaugural Commissioner on the Australian Heritage Commission in 1976, played a role in setting up the Register of the National Estate and supported the introduction of Heritage Conservation Studies in Australian universities. She was also involved in public comment about the various changes in heritage legislation
 
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Lauren Bacall, 1924-2014. Regarded as one of the USA's greatest actresses. She became famous for her dramatic film roles, but with her versatility she also worked on the stage and TV, and even in musical productions.

She was (and still is) universally acknowledged as one of the nicest people in the entertainment industry. She rarely had a bad word to say about anyone, and was a supportive lifelong friend to many. Her civility and sense of honor made her an icon in a profession noted for gossip and back-stabbing.

After co-starring with Humphrey Bogart she married him in 1945 when she was 20 and he was 45--earning her the nickname "Baby." She stuck by him until his death from cancer in 1957, and they had two children. After a fling with Frank Sinatra, she married Jason Robards and had a son.

Early in her acting career she was bedeviled by insecurity, which manifested in a quiver in her chin. To stifle this, she pressed her chin against her chest with her face pointed slightly downward. This necessitated raising her eyes slightly to look straight into the camera. This pose, soon called "The Look," charmed America and became her trademark.

If anybody knows how to paste a photo using this crappy new software: please help:

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Margaret Anne Feilman (21 June 1921 - 24 September 2013) was Perth's first female town planner, having also practised as an architect and landscape designer. A founding member of the Western Australian Town Planning Institute in 1950, she engaged in substantial public speaking as a means of "educating the public as a whole on the need for better planning".
...
She was also involved in public comment about the various changes in heritage legislation
Ummm. And I wonder how many of you have ever been to, lived in, or know about Kwinana.
I have. Two out of three, and while I never lived there, I did live about 20 minutes down the road.

The "first female" whatever doesn't change the fact that the place started out as, and has continued to be, a place no one wants to live - other than those who were born there and have no choice.

It's kind of like giving someone kudos for designing modern day Detroit, USA - for no other reason than because she was a woman.
 
I'll get in early for Malcolm Young, though. He isn't dead yet... but AC/DC is. Whether they continue touring or not.
 
I'll get in early for Malcolm Young, though. He isn't dead yet... but AC/DC is. Whether they continue touring or not.
The band survived the loss of Bon Scott. A rhythm guitarist is not so difficult to replace. Especially since every rock'n'roll guitarist on Earth already knows the entire AC/DC songbook.
 
We'll see! I doubt that Brian is in any hurry to retire.
Heh. Probably not.

But it isn't only the chords, Fraggle. AC/DC are (were) simplistic, primal and more than a little puerile, lyrically.
It's the history. It's who you were and where you were.

I died a little when Phil Rudd left. Then he came back, so that was alright. Bon Scott and Brian Johnson, well... there's an argument to be had. Not even sure which side I'd come down on.
But Malcolm and Angus Young are AC/DC, to my mind. They've been there since before I even started listening to music, were there all through my teens, were the soul of the "crowd" I ran with, as much as I ever did.

You might still enjoy listening to Queen, after Freddie Mercury died.
But do you, in all honesty, still think of them as "Queen"?
I don't. They're a cover band, with some of the same members.

I should have said "It's over for me", as far as AC/DC is concerned.
 
You might still enjoy listening to Queen, after Freddie Mercury died. But do you, in all honesty, still think of them as "Queen"? I don't. They're a cover band, with some of the same members.
I'm older than most of our members (71) so my favorite musicians have been dying for a long time. I get used to it. If the replacement is good, it's fine. If not, I wait for the next one.

Malcolm had some health problems and was not available for an entire tour. His nephew (if I got that right) filled in for him. They look so much alike that most of the fans didn't even realize that they weren't listening to Malcolm.

In other words, he can be satisfactorily replaced.
 
Musician Jack Bruce dead at 71 of liver failure. He was a trained in classical music, principally as cellist, before he established himself as bassist, singer and composer of acid rock phenom Cream.

Here he displays his musianship in an entirely different genre.

 
What does R.I.P. stand for? Recently in peace? Someone posted Johnny Carson and Rodney Dangerfield. Both died 10 years ago. Sorry, Fraggle. What's the limit?
R.I.P. is an abbreviation for Latin Requiescat in pace, "Rest in peace."

Dormit in pace, "sleep in peace," has been found in the catacombs of early Christians. Apparently this refers to dying in the peace of the church, united in Christ. I have not been able to determine when the phrase was changed from "sleep" to "rest," but I suspect that it's contemporaneous with the relatively modern idea of Heaven as an actual place where people who died on earth are still alive and walking around.

It is perfectly proper, polite and respectful to say "R.I.P.," or the entire phrase in either English or Latin, about a person who is dead, no matter how long ago he died. Here in the USA I think I only hear it said by someone who is referring to a person who died during his lifetime--i.e. not for Abraham Lincoln or Pocahontas--but not necessarily a person whom he knew personally. It would be okay to say "R.I.P. John F. Kennedy," whom many of us loved but few of us ever met.

As for a "limit" within this discussion thread, there is none. All I ask is that we say something interesting about the person who died, regardless of how long ago it happened. And if it happened quite recently, so it's news to many of us, even that is not necessary. If one of my favorite music, film or TV stars died last week, I'd like to know.

Scott Weiland, one of the founders of the Stone Temple Pilots, who later created Velvet Revolver with the refugees from Guns'n'Roses after Axl Rose left, just died yesterday. Sad day.
 
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