RIP Jim Nabors

Actor and singer Jim Nabors passed away, he was 87.

This time of year has always made me think of Jim Nabors.  Yes, my very early years were filled with memories of Gomer Pyle, either on Andy Griffith or his own show, a highlight of those shows for me and my family was those occasions when Jim Nabors would sing, and sometimes in the Christmas holiday season he would sing on various variety shows and specials as well.

One particular Christmas season I remember helping my big brother put up the outside Christmas lights and decorations after he had bought our Mom Jim Nabors’ Christmas album.  I can still remember his version of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” as we put up the lights.  It’s a good memory, and one I miss very much here in Florida where we barely get a chill in December. 

I have later memories of Jim Nabors, like his slapstick robot role with Ruth Buzzi on Sid and Marty Krofft’s “The Lost Saucer” and his coming out and finally marriage to his lover of many years.  Jim Nabors will be missed. 

RIP David Cassidy

After a frightening few days, actor/musician/songwriter David Cassidy has passed away at the age of 67. We have lost more than a couple folks in the last few days, but this one has hit me the hardest, perhaps because he was such a part of my childhood.

Mel Tillis was more of someone I heard about than heard from, most as a joke on "The Tonight Show;" Della Reese was a great talent, but other than "Touched by an Angel," I was for the most part unfamiliar with her; Charles Manson haunted the recesses of my formative years, was legend if nothing else, and if I'm being honest, Steve Railsback's portrayal of him in the TV movie Helter Skelter was far more frightening than the real thing I saw cavorting in his cell on Tom Snyder's "Tomorrow;" and Malcolm Young of AC/DC was a great loss, but let's be honest, the band's golden age was decades ago, and that's coming from a fan. But David Cassidy, this one resounded with me.

David Cassidy was Friday night after "The Brady Bunch." And although I preferred the Bradys over "The Partridge Family," the latter was much cooler, much hipper, and more real to me. Perhaps I remember hearing somewhere that they were real, or based on real people (I know now it was the Cowsills), but the Family, their bus, and especially David Cassidy's Keith Partridge, were all way cooler than the Bradys. When David's little brother came along later, I liked him, but still remember thinking David was cooler.

One of my favorite underrated and lost TV series featured David Cassidy as an undercover cop in high school and was a backdoor pilot and spin-off from "Police Story." The premise of cop in high school worked better the first few episodes then fizzled out, but I still remember the oddly titled "David Cassidy: Man Undercover" fondly. It was the godfather of "21 Jump Street," and to this day I think it was better.

Later I discovered his music, both solo and with what passed for the Partridge Family on vinyl, the nerd in me loved his role of Mirror Master in the original 1990 "The Flash" TV series, and I still enjoy his daughter Katie on "Arrow" as both the Black Canary, and now the Black Siren.

David Cassidy was a star of TV, stage, and music, and will be missed.

RIP Robert Guillaume

We lost award-winning actor, singer, and star of stage, television, and film Robert Guillaume today. He was 89.

The prime-time soap opera sitcom "Soap" is rather dated by today's standards, and doesn't hold up all that well on rewatch if I'm being honest, but one thing does stand up and shine through the years - the talent and comic timing of Robert Guillaume, who played the butler Benson on the first few seasons of the show. In hindsight, it is hard to see just how amazing and groundbreaking the show was, how it was water cooler television, and the show to watch back in the day. The character of Benson was and remains the highlight of the complex soap parody. He later broke out into a solo self-titled spin-off as advisor to a governor, but as it was a more conventional sitcom, it didn't really appeal to me.

Guillaume would later star in "Sports Night," and guest on many shows and films of the eighties and nineties. He was always a star of the stage, appearing in such productions as Guys and Dolls, Finian's Rainbow, and The Phantom of the Opera, and receiving at least one Tony nomination, and much acclaim. Guillaume would gain new notoriety as audiences as the voice of Rafiki in Disney's The Lion King. he continued doing this role in associated sequels, games, and shows, winning a Grammy for one such project.

We have lost one of the great entertainers, Robert Guillaume will be missed.

Rest in Peace, Tom Petty

In the shadow of one of the worst shootings in American history, in between the news network full coverage, and the madness that follows such things, we have lost one of our great musical lights. Tom Petty was found unconscious yesterday morning, and finally, after much heartache and misinformation, pronounced dead of cardiac arrest at the age of 66, early last night.

The first time I saw or heard Tom Petty, or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, was in the movie FM, friends had referred to him as the new Mick Jagger. I don't know how accurate that is or was, but it was memorable. His music was the sound of my teens, my twenties, and so on, it truly mapped the 1970s, the 1980s, and 1990s for me. Hard Promises was one of three albums I bought with my very first paycheck. The great thing about Petty albums consistently is that you not only got the hits like "A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)" and "The Waiting," you also got AOR tunes and hidden gems like "A Thing About You," "Kings Road," and "The Criminal Kind." Yeah, I wore those grooves out.

I can remember having two, not just one, cassettes of Tom Petty's songs recorded from the radio when I first got a cassette recorder. He was an FM rock favorite and almost all of his music got airplay. Even before I graduated high school in 1982 (and Petty was white suburban FM rock and roll then) he had a catalog that included some of the best of the time, from "American Girl" and "Breakdown" to "Listen to Her Heart" and "I Need to Know." He was not a favorite, like Bowie or Prince, but man, he was always there, and always rocking. Yeah, he was a favorite, I just didn't know it.

Later favorite albums would include Long After Dark, which holds a special place in my heart for getting me my first date with a college girlfriend. She was a Petty fan, and my inside knowledge of when the album was coming out (easily found in Billboard magazine which I read obsessively when I worked at the college radio station) dazzled her enough to date me. This album also included Petty's move into the MTV era from that of FM AOR. I remember loving the post-apocalyptic music video for "You Got Lucky," the red vinyl single for "Change of Heart," and my favorite tune off the album, the B-side "Between Two Worlds."

My favorite Petty song comes from the next album Southern Accents, an album full of oddities mixed into the usual southern rock and roll highlights. This one had the hilarious country ditty "Spike" about a punk rocker, as well as the hit single with acid trip video, "Don't Come Around Here No More," coolly co-written by genius co-producer Dave Stewart from Eurythmics. But it was the weird dance vibe of "It Ain't Nothin' to Me," also with Stewart, that still blows me away. I don't know why, but I love this song even today and turn it up whenever I hear it.

Later Tom Petty, already a superstar in his own right, would officially go solo from the Heartbreakers, and also join with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Obrbison, and George Harrison to form the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. Petty, with and without the Heartbreakers, would continue to release albums and singles through to 2014. He was always producing and always innovating. We have lost another legend, a man who filled my life with music, creating a soundtrack of memories. We will all miss Tom Petty. Rest in peace, man.

Len Wein and the Golden Age of Comics

There's a saying among comics fandom, a play on words really, that the real golden age of comics is ten. Traditionally the Golden Age is considered roughly from 1938 to 1951 when all the great characters were created and things were simpler and better in general. Also as implied, when most folks start reading comics they are a magical age when they believe all the wonders they read, and that nostalgia stays with them, forming the basis for their love of the genre. For me, that love came roughly between the ages of six and twelve, and most of the good comics that formed my magic time were by a guy named Len Wein.

The man passed away this past weekend, and many folks have memorialized him, in personal blogs, comics press, and even the mainstream media. Most mention his huge triumphs in the field. Len Wein created Wolverine, Swamp Thing, co-created the New X-Men, and edited Watchmen - all events that advanced, shaped, and transformed comics as an entertainment medium - and all true. However, that's not really what I remember him for. I remember him for the comics that shaped me and my thinking, and my love of comics.

As I was beginning to learn to read, more from comic books and Dr. Seuss than from any of the Dick and Jane readers at school, Len Wein wrote the comics that thrilled and amazed me. When comics were coming down off the social relevance trend of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wein sought to bring back the characters that made comics fun for him. He re-established the paradigm of superheroes and super-villains, and returned a fun Silver Age and even Golden Age vibe to the oncoming Bronze Age of comics.

In Justice League of America, a comic he was only on for a short time, he turned these characters from a group of heroes who sometimes worked together into a team of friends who were a finely tuned fighting unit, who knew each other, watched each other's backs, and even socialized together. Wein returned not only traditional Silver Age villains like Amazo, the Key, Felix Faust, T.O. Morrow, the Shaggy Man, Eclipso, (and indirectly the Queen Bee and the Lord of Time), but also revived Golden Age superheroes like Earth-Two's other super-team (a decade before the All-Star Squadron) the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and gathered the old Quality Comics heroes as the Freedom Fighters of Earth-X, a parallel world where Germany won World War II - soon to be featured in an animated series on CW Seed. In an age where young readers were being newly introduced to these characters in the reprints of the 100-Page Super-Spectaculars, Wein brought us new stories of these greats.

Wein also, in his all-too-brief fifteen issue run on JLoA, expanded the membership for the first time in years. He added the Elongated Man, a move that was a long time coming; moved the emotional android Red Tornado over from Earth-Two, after killing him in one of comics' earliest hero deaths; and inducted the mysterious and seemingly out-of-place Phantom Stranger into the team's ranks. He was able to make the Stranger work within the team better than any later writers, probably because Wein himself was writing the character in his own title at the same time. He always had a mastery of these new members, as well as guest-stars, the Justice Society, when under his pen. Speaking of the JSA, Wein had the honor of writing the hundredth issue team-up of the JLA/JSA, as well as introducing the concept of adding a third team to the annual mix, and even wrote the only one-issue teaming of them. Speaking of guest-stars, he also helped engineer the first unofficial DC/Marvel crossover at the Rutland Halloween Parade.

Speaking of the JSA, another story that resonates with me to this day is Flash #215, written by Wein during his short stint on that title, which I've briefly talked about before. With a dramatic Neal Adams cover and interiors by Irv Novick, in my opinion, the Flash artist, this story told the tale of Barry Allen waking up in bed with his Earth-Two counterpart's wife Joan, finding that he'd replaced Jay Garrick. After that weirdness, Barry goes on the find Jay in the limbo dimension and fighting the Vandal Savage, yet another Golden Age character that Wein breathed new life into. This remains one of my favorite Flash stories, and made me love Jay Garrick.

Also notable from this era were his Adventure Comics stories with Supergirl and Zatanna respectively, which I still love. I bet if he'd stayed on JLoA longer, he would have brought Zatanna on to the team much earlier than she ended up joining. While they were going on at roughly the same time, and I did not read them at the time, I did eventually read Wein's fantastic stories of the Swamp Thing, Phantom Stranger, and Korak, and dug them. And let's not forget that he also co-created the Human Target, a back-up feature I never understood as a kid, but loved as an adult.

This was the mid-1970s now, and Len Wein had moved across the street to Marvel Comics, where he would create Wolverine as a Hulk foe; assemble the New X-Men, reviving that title which had been in low-selling reprints for a while; and had longer (if not as memorable, to me at least) runs on titles like Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, Fantastic Four, and Marvel Team-Up. What I do remember him on was Defenders, which he picked up on after Steve Englehart left the book. Wein would recruit Nighthawk to the team, one of my favorite Defenders, after an eerily familiar clash with Marvel's parallel universe evil Justice League, the Squadron Supreme (or was it Sinister? I always get confused).

Len Wein would return to DC Comics however as an editor. He was editing both Justice League of America and Flash ironically when I met him at a Creation convention around the time of those two titles' 200th and 300th landmark issues respectively. I told him how much I enjoyed his Justice League stories, but also expressed, perhaps too cockily, an opinion that the 200th issue shouldn't be so full of guest-stars as the 100th issue was. He took the left-handed compliment well, smiled, and said I would be pleased with Justice League of America #200. I was, the tale, which pitted the original members against all the later members of the team in a retelling and return to their origin, is not only one of my favorite stories, but also a lot of folks' too.

Later Wein would go on to edit Watchmen, write the new Blue Beetle series, and oversee the Who's Who project, all wonderful stuff. He continued to write and edit for years to come, including Batman, Wonder Woman, and After Watchmen. He won many awards, even wrote for television animation, the last work I saw from him was the adaptation of Harlan Ellison's script for Two-Face on the 1966 "Batman" television series. We have lost one of the greats in the comics field, and we are all poorer for it. Len Wein was and is a legend, and he'll be missed.

RIP Jerry Lewis

I was saddened to learn of the passing of Jerry Lewis earlier today. Not just a Hollywood legend, but an award-winning actor, writer, director, producer, author, philanthropist, and film innovator. He was the whole package, and he will be missed.

My first memories of Jerry Lewis were of someone who was just there, a Hollywood legend as I said, who would sometimes pop up on talk shows and variety shows. I remember having him pointed out by my brother when he made his cameo in It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but I never really got a good look at the man until I started watching his Labor Day telethons for muscular dystrophy(which he did for over four decades), there I saw what kind of man he was and how respected and gracious he was. The telethons were always big ratings blockbusters, so when a rival local channel started running Jerry Lewis movies opposite it one weekend, that's when I really saw what he was about.

My eyes were opened that weekend with Way… Way Out, Hook, Line, & Sinker, Who's Minding the Store?, The Ladies Man (a tour de force in which he not only starred, wrote, produced, and directed, but innovated new cinematography that still boggle the mind), and a film that remains a favorite, in my top ten of all time even, Boeing Boeing. I wonder if WCAU Channel 10 knows that in the name of money they introduced me and probably hundreds of others to the genius of Jerry Lewis that weekend.

As the years went by, I would appreciate his work more and more. While I never found him very funny in his original incarnation as half of Martin and Lewis with Dean Martin, I loved his other films as I discovered them on television, and later when I managed a video store. Other favorites include The Big Mouth, The Bellboy, Cinderfella, and The King of Comedy. Perhaps now, we might also finally see a complete version of the infamous The Day the Clown Cried, a film about a clown in the Nazi concentration camps, that while controversial, Lewis locked away because he felt it was not his best work.

Although he has proven himself difficult and a perfectionist in the field, Lewis' genius behind the camera remains, and his films are a legacy to that. There's an old joke that he was a genius in France, but let's face facts, in this, the French are not wrong. He changed, and improved how Hollywood makes films, and how we see them.

Jerry Lewis was one of the greats, and I was glad to have seen him one last time while he was alive on the most recent TCM Classic Cruise when he introduced and fielded questions about The Nutty Professor. He was a legend of stage, screen, and radio, and will be missed by all, whether they liked him or not.

Glen Campbell 1936-2017

I was sad to hear of Glen Campbell's passing earlier today, as I've always felt a weird kinship to the man. When I was but a wee one, the family would watch his television variety show, "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour," and when I was learning to read and spell, his name was an example of 'the wrong way' to spell my name.

I grew up with Glen Campbell, his songs "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Wichita Lineman" were AM radio staples just "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Southern Nights" were the same on FM when I discovered that bandwidth. His role as Texas Ranger Le Bouef in the original True Grit was one of the things that made the flick one of my favorite movies.

As I grew older, his participation with the Beach Boys and studio work as one of the Wrecking Crew were more than impressive. He was way more than a country guy my parents liked and a movie cowboy. Much later I was struck by the tragedy of his living with Alzheimer's in the documentary I'll Be Me.

Those not familiar with the man's work should seek out three of his final albums - Adios, Ghost on the Canvas, and Meet Glen Campbell, an album of covers with guest-stars, all proof positive he was vital and vibrant toward the end, even fighting that horrible disease. May he rest in peace.

RIP June Foray

After a sad and morbidly misleading fake death by internet rumor, June Foray, voice actress extraordinaire, has passed away for real, last night, at the amazing age of 99. A voice from my childhood is gone.

Having grown up with the Warner Bros cartoons, my early Saturday mornings built around them, the loss of June Foray is a major blow to my childhood. Even back in the day, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, everyone knew that Mel Blanc was the wonder voice behind all those cartoon characters, but then, even I was canny enough to realize that there were some female voices (Granny, Witch Hazel, and others) that couldn't possibly be Blanc. Asking adults, I learned that this was June Foray. The late Chuck Jones has been quoted as saying that June wasn't the female Mel Blanc, but Mel was the male June Foray. She was that good.

More than the Looney Tunes, the cartoon that really brings June Foray to mind for me is the "Rocky and Bullwinkle Show." In this series, Foray was the voice of not only Rocky the Flying Squirrel, but also Natasha, Dudley Do-Right's romantic interest Nell, and a number of voices in Fractured Fairy Tales. I remember vividly Sunday mornings with my big brother, pancakes, and Bullwinkle and Rocky, and June Foray.

Over the years Foray did voices in a variety of projects, including "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and "Horton Hears a Who," to name just a few. She worked in radio, television, film, even videogames, and did voice work for nearly all the animation companies and franchises. We have lost a legend, June Foray will be missed.

RIP Chester Bennington

I had just come out of a movie with my phone off. It's amazing how much one can miss in a mere two hours. I'm not pardoning people who use their cellphones in movies, no way, I think those folks should be jailed, but I'm just saying that sometimes it is stunning how the world can change in two hours. In the two hours today, the news broke that Chester Bennington, lead vocalist of Linkin Park, had taken his own life. As I sat in the car, having just turned my phone on, I was devastated.

I had only just been listening to the band a day or so ago. Linkin Park is one of those acts who may fade from one's memory, but all it takes is a few seconds of any song, and one remembers and realizes what an amazing construct they are. I had heard just a clip of "In the End" the other day, and was soon listening to Hybrid Theory on my laptop on continuous for a bit. They were amazing.

I am old, waaay old, but the emergence of Linkin Park reenergized me in a way that is hard to describe. I've mentioned it here before, but in high school I was the kid who always carried a radio around with me, I was always on top of what was new and 'cool' in music. I had made a promise to myself way back when, that if I got old, I would never lose that. Ah, to be young and naïve.

Sometime in the 1990s however, I did get old, and my interest in new music waned. I figured, oh well, it came with the thinning hair and the crow's feet, just deal with it. Then came a music channel called MTVX. I immediately gravitated toward it, and in its heavy hard rock rotation I found new bands that I connected with - like Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, Korn, System of a Down, Disturbed, and Linkin Park.

For someone like me who had always liked the hard rock aspects of some rap, Linkin Park's blending of metal with hip hop was a dream come true. I became a big fan. Chester Bennington's melodic howls and lead vocals contrasted with Mike Shinoda's crisp casual raps over a metal tapestry of sound. Yeah, I dug these guys. "Faint," "In the End," and "Bleed It Out" remain my all-time favorites.

Over the years Chester has also worked on side projects such as fronting Dead by Sunrise, and attempting to fill the late Scott Weiland's shoes in Stone Temple Pilots for a couple years, and left shortly before Weiland himself passed. Chester apparently died by his own hand, hanging himself, but details are still forthcoming. He was only 41.

Roger Moore 1927-2017

Actor and humanitarian Roger Moore has died. His family announced today that he had passed from cancer after a lengthy battle with that and various ailments beginning with a diabetes diagnosis in 2013. He was most well known for his seven-film stint as James Bond 007 in the 1970s and 80s.

Last week when I reviewed Octopussy, I was not so kind to Sir Roger Moore, and while it's true he had (literally) become a clown in the role by that point, he did star in two of my favorites from the franchise Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun. Notably he was in the role for the most films so far, and is still the best James Bond for many fans. And for prepubescent me, he was my favorite Bond as well, but perhaps that shows where the movies were aimed at the time.

Bond wasn't all Moore should be famous for. He was incredible as "The Saint," also on TV, he was fun in "Maverick." In particular, he was a favorite of mine in the infamous but much fun Spice World, with the Spice Girls. Roger Moore was a legend and he will be missed. I'll be watching a few of his Bonds and raising a martini to his memory, shaken, not stirred.

Rest in Peace Chris Cornell

Soundgarden and Audioslave front man Chris Cornell took her own life last night after performing with the reunited Soundgarden in Detroit. I had been texting with a Facebook friend about the concert when it was done. He was telling me what a great show it was, and how bigger things were coming for the band. He texted me later, saying that Cornell was dead. He had hanged himself.

I admit, until last night, it had been a few years since I thought of Chris Cornell. I loved his "You Know My Name," the first real rocker to be a James Bond theme in decades. I was never really an Audioslave guy, but Soundgarden was on my playlists long before Cornell became one of the founders of the grunge movement in Seattle. I loved their cover of the Ohio Players' "Fopp" early on and played that to death on mixtape after mixtape. I stayed with the band through grunge success, and remember the summer of 1991 with Temple of the Dog with Cornell on lead singing "Hunger Strike," which whenever it came on the radio I would yell back, "Domino's delivers." Fun times.

Here's the part where I usually say we've lost a legend, and he will be missed, and we have, and he is, but there's just something missing there. My good friend, and a terrific writer, Jessica A. Walsh, posted something on her Facebook wall that says exactly what is really on my mind. Chris Cornell seemed okay last night, he seemed amazing, and now he's gone. Here's what Jess wrote:

"Chris Cornell's apparent suicide is another reminder that what people reflect on the outside may not at all resemble how they're feeling on the inside. You can work, laugh, play music, hang out on social media, have a loving family, and still be dying inside.

"That's why we need to spend more time communicating and building relationships and being of service to one another."

Thank you, Jessica. And if anyone out there is feeling this way, please talk to someone, talk to me, talk to anyone. You have friends, you have choices, you have life, and it can all work out.

Mary Tyler Moore 1936-2017

Actress, icon, and star of television, stage, and film, Mary Tyler Moore, has passed away. She was 80. As long as I've been aware, she's always been there, whether it was reruns of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" or the Saturday night tradition of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," there's never been a time when she wasn't in my world, on my TV screen, or elsewhere. Recently I was diagnosed with diabetes, and there as well, she was a heroine for me, just as in the 1970s she was an icon for women all over the world.

I have seen every episode of the two above TV series, and loved most of them, their content impacting me to this day, sitcoms or not. The production company she co-founded with then-husband Grant Tinker, MTM Enterprises created some of the best television of the 1970s and 1980s, and I was a fan of those as well. I also really dug some of her failures, especially the short-lived and hilarious sitcom titled "Mary," which featured a pre-"Married with Children" Katey Sagal.

Mary also wrote books, starred on the stage, and on the big screen, notably in Ordinary People, and one of my guilty pleasures Flirting with Disaster. And who couldn't love her as a nun courted by Elvis Presley in Change of Habit? We have lost one of the great ones today, the woman who could truly turn the world on with her smile. You will be missed, Mary.

RIP Carrie Fisher

I'm saddened to announce here that actress, author, screenwriter, and producer Carrie Fisher has passed away after having a heart attack a few days back. Born the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, she was best known for her role as Princess Leia Organa of the Star Wars franchise.

I remember seeing Star Wars for the first time, the real, original Star Wars, and Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia was one of the things I marveled at. Here was a princess, but breaking down all the stereotypes we thought of when we thought of princesses, and Carrie's attitude and gutsiness was no small part in that role. We loved her, and we loved her romance with Harrison Ford' Han Solo, and loved it even more when we recently found their affair on set was real. And even today, the day after I saw Rogue One, where she appeared as her young self to last year's triumphant return as the character in The Force Awakens, she is still perfect, and still beautiful, and now, more the template for a princess than the stereotype breaker.

I've loved Carrie in other films, especially one of my favorites, The Blues Brothers, and read a couple of her books, and always enjoyed seeing her participation in other film and TV projects. She had made quite a comeback in recent years, and become a crusader for mental health and drug recovery, and we still loved her. The outpouring of concern when she had her heart attack on board a plane last week showed that love worldwide. Carrie Fisher, our Princess Leia, will be missed.

George Michael 1963-2016

Wow, 2016, you suck. George Michael, the singer-songwriter-producer born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, has passed away peacefully on Christmas Day.

Wham!, or Wham! UK as they were known when I discovered them, was one of my favorite groups, their blue-eyed soul blended with white boy rap was something I hadn't seen before and I dug it. I remember the duo, Michael combined with Andrew Ridgeley, and at the time, Pepsi and Shirlie, as their back-up singers and dancers, were one of my favorite acts. Long before the hit with "Bad Boys" and the megahit album Make It Big, I was a fan.

When George started to become the dominant solo act of the duo, and then went officially solo, I was still there. Songs like "Faith," "I Want Your Sex," and one of my personal favorite songs (and videos) of all time, "Freedom! '90" continued to hurl his star higher. Even sex scandals couldn't keep the man down. His "Last Christmas" is a favorite every holiday season, this one being no exception.

George Michael will be missed, a loss to many, and another victim of an unforgiving year. Love you, man.

Zsa Zsa Gabor 1917-2016

The 99 year old Hungarian born actress passed away earlier today after a heart attack. Zsa Zsa was noted for her numerous marriages, nine in total, that included the actor/director George Sanders and hotel billionaire Conrad Hilton. Often confused with her sister Eva, Zsa Zsa was not on “Green Acres.” She was however in Moulin Rouge in 1952, Touch of Evil, and the cult classic Queen of Outer Space, among others.

From the 1950s through to the 1990s she appeared in dozens of film and television productions, from drama to comedy, and as time went on, frequently appearing as herself or a parody of herself. Sadly her claims to fame since that time have been legal, financial or medical. Through it all, Zsa Zsa was inpenatrable, and was given last rites back in 2010, but stayed with us another six years. She will be missed by many, not by some, but remembered by all.

Alan Thicke 1947-2016

While I was never a big fan of his most famous claim to fame, the TV series "Growing Pains," I'm going to miss Alan Thicke, who passed earlier today. The actor, writer, and TV host was known to me for other reasons. As a game show geek, I knew he had composed the themes to such shows as "Joker's Wild," "Celebrity Sweepstakes," and "Wheel of Fortune," among others. He was huge in his homeland of Canada, and was the father of Robin Thicke, but that's not what I remember him for either.

Two accomplishments made Thicke loom large on my radar, first as a writer on the hilarious and sadly forgotten "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" spin-off "Fernwood 2-Night," and then as the host of the late night American talk show, "Thicke of the Night." The latter exposed me to many bands, that today I still love (Midnight Oil springs to mind), and Thicke's insistence on giving viewers what they weren't getting from Johnny Carson made it all stand out. I was in the minority, but I loved it, and was sad to see it go.

I'm even sadder to see Alan Thicke himself go. I just recently saw him in a horrendous film parody called RoboDoc, in which he was the best thing. No matter what he was in, and he was in everything as he never stopped working, he was always great, and never lost his sense of humor. Alan Thicke will be missed.

Leonard Cohen 1934-2016

Like many of my friends, and fellow fans and music lovers, I have no words.

Gene Wilder 1933-2016

I have a couple friends who say they learn of celebrity deaths from my blog, that I write about these things first. I don't want to, you know, and I especially don't like doing it when it's about someone I really liked and admired. Today we lost award-winning actor, writer, director, and author Gene Wilder, star of screen and stage. Yeah, one of the big ones.

I knew Gene Wilder at a very young age, from commercials for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to multiple viewings of Bonnie and Clyde when it came to television, a family favorite which later became one of my favorites. As a kid and later as an adult, two different levels of humor, I loved him in Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. As I grew older, I dug him in The Producers and when he got together with Gilda Radner, I even liked the charming but corny stuff they did together.

Wilder was a genius, a master of expressiveness and pantomime, a fantastic actor and a legend in his own time. He has been away for some time, but never forgotten. Gene Wilder will be missed.

RIP Garry Marshall

Award winning television and film icon, director, writer, and producer Garry Marshall passed away yesterday from complications of pneumonia, after having a stroke. He was 81 years old.

Garry Marshall's name was one of the first I was aware of that worked behind the camera on television, the other one was Norman Lear, and yeah, I realize I'm probably dating myself. I knew that Marshall was behind "The Odd Couple" which I got to stay up and watch on Friday nights, and I knew his sister Penny was on the show too. Listening to the adults talk, the big word I learned was 'nepotism.' Nothing wrong with that, and she was funny too.

His name next caught my attention on Tuesday nights with "Happy Days," one of my favorite shows, that would soon create a phenomenon of 1950s nostalgia in the 1970s. The adventures of Fonzie, Richie, Potsie and friends would soon spawn "Laverne & Shirley" and "Mork and Mindy, which launched the career of Robin Williams. Like the aforementioned Lear, Marshall was a master of the spin-off in the seventies. I even remember the ones that no one does - like "Blansky's Beauties" and "Out of the Blue" - and even "Joanie Loves Chachi."

Later Marshall turned to film, perhaps most famously for Pretty Woman, Beaches, Runaway Bride, and the Princess Diaries movies. I admit a weakness myself for his first, Young Doctors in Love and The Other Sister. We just recently watched Marshall act in A League of Their Own, his sister Penny's film, and one of The Bride's favorites.

Garry Marshall was always one of my favorites. I have his second memoir My Happy Days in Hollywood on my Kindle unread, but not for long now. We've lost one of the great ones.

More Prince, and Coast to Coast AM

I was numb all day yesterday. I just couldn't believe it was true. I did my duty though. I wrote about it here, and I wrote about it on Biff Bam Pop! right here, and even did a short episode of The GAR! Podcast on it found here and here. I had to leave the South Jersey Writers' Group's Open House last night early because I was just worn out, and who knows, just maybe a bit depressed as well. When I got home, MTV was playing Prince videos, and then Purple Rain, still I was devastated, but unfeeling really. But it didn't really hit me that Prince was gone, until I was in bed listening to my nighttime nemesis Coast to Coast AM.

I had tuned in to the later half of the program, which sometimes, if we're lucky, will have some content of what Coast to Coast AM used to be known for. Otherwise it's typical radio drivel, the same old same old. Coast used to be unique, now for the most part, it's boring. But every once in a while, we old fans will get a scrap of what used to be. The guest last night was rock historian R. Gary Patterson. And of course the king of no-research, host George Noory.

Now I don't blame Patterson for saying it was Vanity was in Purple Rain instead of Apollonia, that's an easy mistake, especially for someone who admittedly had only a passing knowledge of Prince. He was a bit after the man's time, and Patterson does know his stuff when it comes to older rock stars and their mysterious deaths - I bow to him in that area.

It was George that infuriated. I can understand if he didn't do any show prep. Noory never does any show prep, no matter what he says. He comes in to interviews as empty-headed as he leaves, as if his mind was a sieve. Perhaps that's why details of Prince's life, that had to have been all over the news all freaking day, somehow eluded him. Yeah, he asked all the stupid questions that that seemingly unique person who had never heard of Prince would ask.

I was embarrassed for the guest, I was angry at Noory, and that's when it hit me, that's when the tears came. We've lost Prince, as surely as we've lost Coast to Coast AM, and David Bowie… Prince is gone. And when people stop talking, and when the radio and TV stop playing, he will still be gone. And, anger at a lousy dying radio show aside, I will still be mourning.