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and now he's dead
and now he's dead
Evan Tanner, The Fighting Champion Who Reminded You Of Your Friends
Longtime ultimate fighter and former UFC middleweight champion Evan Tanner was found dead in the California desert yesterday. He had apparently become stranded without water and succumbed to the heat. Tanner, 37, always looked more like a mountain man or a brooding surfer than a brutal fighter. But he kicked ass with the best of them. He rose to fame along with his sport itself, and his crossover appeal—which was immense—will probably only increase as the full story of his death becomes known. Rest in peace, dude. More »
and now he's dead
Voice Actor Don LaFontaine
Don LaFontaine, one of the best voice actors in history, is dead at 68. LaFontaine began writing and voicing movie trailers in the late 1960s, inventing, supposedly, most of the beloved and hilarious cliches ("in a world," "one man stands...") that still introduce us to whatever summer Hollywood garbage we'll be enjoying this Fourth of July. There are countless amusing LaFontaine parodies, commercials, and jokey news segments available on YouTube, but it seems more appropriate to enjoy his work on its own merits, not just as camp. So here's the classic theatrical trailer for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
greatly exaggerated reports
Steve Jobs's Obituary, As Run By Bloomberg
The Bloomberg financial newswire decided to update its 17-page Steve Jobs obituary today — and inadvertently published it in the process. Some investors were undoubtedly rattled to see, as our tipster did late this afternoon, the Apple CEO's obit cross the wire and then suddenly disappear. Jobs's battle with pancreatic cancer, and speculation over his health, jarred Wall Street earlier this year and continues to be the subject of speculation. The Times weighed in on the matter as recently as last month, when columnist Joe Nocera spoke with the secretive tech executive. But news organizations routinely prepare obituaries in advance, even for the healthy. And if Bloomberg readers had seen the internal story slug, "testjobs," their jitters might have abated. The obit, which we've obtained and reprinted after the jump, is a bit macabre to read but should not scare you out of your Apple shares. (UPDATE: Bloomberg has "retracted" its obituary, and the retraction is also after the jump.) More interesting are the accompanying notes for Bloomberg reporters! More »
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Ford Models Founder Jerry Ford, The Last Decent Guy In A Creepy Industry
Jerry Ford,* the (dapper!) fellow pictured here, is dead at 83.** Ford founded Ford Models, one of the leading agencies in the seventies and eighties that legitimized the industry and gained renown for discovering Lauren Hutton, Christie Brinkley, Rachel Hunter, Vendela and sundry other blonde ubermodeltypes and OMG I totally forgot about Xuxa. Ford is slightly less famed for its canny picking of future Mouseketeer Gone Wild types: the agency represented Lindsay Lohan and Mischa Barton, Ashley Tisdale, Courteney Cox, Ali Larter and ha ha ha we will forgive him for this but Paris Hilton. Because Jerry Ford was the first genuinely decent boss in a business characterized by predatory "robber barons." A lot has changed since Ford's heyday, and not for the better! More »
and now he's dead
Reminder: Have You Started On Those Things You Want to Do Before You Die?
Someday, everyone reading this is going to die! And we should all get started on whatever we really want to do now, because the Grim Reaper could come to collect us at any minute. He's already come for Dave Freeman, co-author of 100 Things to Do Before You Die: Travel Events You Just Can't Miss. Mr. Freeman
Magazine Fiction Editor L. Rust Hills Dead At 83
"In the 1960s Esquire was perhaps the nation’s most vibrant magazine — sexy, mischievous, irreverent and hip — and Mr. Hills’s idea of fiction, as well as of the literary life, fit into the ethos of the magazine perfectly." [Times]
"In the 1960s Esquire was perhaps the nation’s most vibrant magazine — sexy, mischievous, irreverent and hip — and Mr. Hills’s idea of fiction, as well as of the literary life, fit into the ethos of the magazine perfectly." [Times]
and now he's dead
Rocky Aoki, 1938-2008
Hiroaki "Rocky" Aoki, the wrestler and restaurateur who essentially introduced America to Japanese food with his Benihaha chain, died today in New York. He was 69. Aoki raised the money to start his first Benihana by driving an ice cream truck in Harlem, which is awesome. More recently, he's been known to New Yorkers through his children, model Devon and annoying scenester DJ Steve. He faced deportation in 2006, and you could do worse for an introduction to his colorful life than this New York story on that incident. It begins, ominously: "'My daughter Grace is telling me, Daddy, your wife is going to poison you to death. Be careful what you eat,' says Rocky Aoki with an odd, amused grin." [AP]
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Jesse Helms
One is told not to speak ill of the dead, and even the obit writers of this ill-mannered site usually find some praiseworthy note—Hitler was kind to animals!—in even the shabbiest of lives. But it would be dishonest to pretend that Jesse Helms was anything other than a caricature of a Southern bigot. More »
and now he's dead
