"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
— Benjamin Franklin
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
the crew...
doing what we do best at Birthdays!!!
Jake, Trisha and Isabella, Paul, Heather, Andrew and Madison, Ann and I, Marilyn, Great Grandma Moffat (Her and Marilyn were on their way to El Reno for a friend of Mom's and Family's 90th Birthday at Mt. Zion Church), Phil, Tammy and Austyn, and joining us too was Lawrence and Sharon Robinson (life long dear friends). We had a ball and ate and visited for a long time... wonderful to get family together for such occasions... never know when the next one might have someone missing ....
love to all, enjoy the moment!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAMMY... AND MANY MANY MORE ...
Wanted to take a second to wish Mrs. Tammy Moffat, one of the greatest teachers in the Stillwater Public School system, a very very Happy Birthday and many many more!
Tammy..... YOU ROCK!!!
Have a great, special and wonderful birthday!
Dad and Mom Moffat
Rich Man, Poor Man
The Story of Napoleon Hill
JM EmmertThe greatest achievers say that in a lifetime of setbacks and comebacks, the truest sense of accomplishment is not found in the realization of the goal, but rather in the will to continue when failure breeds doubt.
And so it was in 1927 when 44-year-old Napoleon Hill tried challenging himself to action. He struggled to shake off the “living death” that had enveloped him for more than a year and left him wondering whether to fall quietly into the abyss or rise again.
An assassination attempt in July 1926 had failed, but the fear it had instilled in him had been all encompassing, paralyzing him both physically and mentally. He had met disappointment and failure before and brushed them aside, racing furiously after the rainbow that he was certain would lead him to untold success. But this time, the man who had been in constant motion all his life found himself at a complete standstill.
Appalachian Childhood
Oliver Napoleon Hill was born in Wise County, Va., on Oct. 26, 1883. For young Napoleon, the wealthy industrialists he came to admire in later years were far removed from this primitive land where poverty, illiteracy and superstition reigned.
Nap, as he was called, was 10 when his mother passed away, leaving his father to care for him and his brother. James Hill was ill-equipped as a single parent and had difficulty in taming his son’s increasingly wild nature. Napoleon was enamored with the outlaw Jesse James, carried a six-shooter on his hip and went about the county terrorizing its citizens.
But James Hill soon remarried, and his new wife Martha quickly established herself as a force in the two-room log cabin. Napoleon, still pained from the loss of his mother, found a guiding light. Martha saw the boy’s potential and encouraged him. She told him he wasn’t a bad boy, and that he just needed to direct his energy toward accomplishing something worthwhile.
She suggested he use his overactive imagination to become a writer. When he welcomed the idea, the well-educated Martha spent the next year tutoring him. She promised to buy him a typewriter if he gave up his six-shooter. “If you become as good with a typewriter as you are with that gun,” she said, “you may become rich and famous and known throughout the world.” Napoleon agreed to the deal.
The Hand of Destiny
At 15, he landed a position as a freelance reporter for a group of rural newspapers, followed a few years later by a job with Bob Taylor’s Magazine, a popular periodical that offered advice on achieving power and wealth. His first major interview was with the then richest man in America—73-year-old Pittsburgh steel magnate Andrew Carnegie—and that interview changed his life.
Hill intently listened as Carnegie recounted his extraordinary accomplishments and proffered his theories on personal achievement. “It’s a shame that each new generation must fi nd the way to success by trial and error when the principles are really clear-cut,” Carnegie told him.
What the world needed, Carnegie suggested, was a philosophy of achievement, a compilation of success principles from the country’s greatest businessmen and leaders to show the commonality of their stories, and serve as inspiration and enlightenment to those wanting more in life.
He issued a challenge to Hill: Commit the next 20 years, without compensation, to documenting and recording such a philosophy of success, and he would introduce him to the wealthiest and most successful men of the time. Hill jumped at the opportunity.
And so, for the next two decades, between numerous business ventures and starting a family, Hill went about fulfi lling the pledge. He met with Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, King Gillette and other contemporary giants.
Carnegie believed that “defi niteness of purpose” was the starting point for all success—that “the man who knows exactly what he wants… has no diffi culty in believing in his own ability to succeed.” The concept became the foundation for Hill’s later writing and professional focus.
A Fortuitous Meeting
In 1908, then living in Washington, D.C., Hill placed a personal ad in the paper seeking a young lady “for mutual friendship with the possibility of leading to matrimony.” A woman answered the ad and they arranged a meeting, but when he went to her house, it was this woman’s cousin who caught his eye. And he caught hers. Upon meeting Hill, Florence Elizabeth Hornor decided she wanted to marry him and, in June 1910, she did. Thirteen months later, the couple welcomed a son, James. Another son, Napoleon Blair, was born in 1912. A third son, David, was born in 1918.
"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve."
By all accounts, Hill loved his wife and enjoyed being a father. Yet, by late 1912, the growing belief that his fame and fortune still lay out there led Hill to move to Chicago, leaving his family behind. For the next 17 years, he spent little time with Florence or his sons.
In Chicago, he worked as an advertising writer, candy store owner and teacher of a correspondence course in salesmanship. When the United States entered World War I, he wrote to President Woodrow Wilson offering his services. Hill had interviewed him years earlier as part of his Carnegie research project when Wilson was president of Princeton University. Wilson took him up on the offer, putting Hill to work on a series of propaganda materials.
By the end of the war Hill was certain of his calling as a writer. He went to Chicago printer George Williams and pitched the idea for a magazine dedicated to a philosophy of success: Hill’s Golden Rule would be a blend of biblical psalms, gospel teachings and the lessons he had learned from his research. The magazine, written and edited by Hill, was an instant hit, and he began to receive the fame he had long sought.
Deadly Ambitions
In 1920, he embarked on a nationwide lecture tour. However, rifts in his business relationships led Williams to seize control of the magazine. As would become the hallmark of his career, Hill picked up the pieces and moved to New York. By April 1921 he found financial backing forNapoleon Hill’s Magazine, which became a bigger success than the previous magazine and firmly established Hill as “America’s resident philosopher-laureate of success and ethics.”
Unfortunately, his colleagues became embroiled in a bad business venture, which led to repercussions for the magazine. Advertisers pulled out, and Hill fell behind in payments. A few months later, the magazine folded.
Once again, Hill dusted himself off and started over. He moved to Ohio and purchased and operated a business college offering courses in journalism, advertising and public speaking. Then he met Don Mellet, publisher of the Canton Daily News, who persuaded him to write a book on the principles of success he had been compiling over the years.
About this time, however, Mellet learned that local police were turning a blind eye to Prohibition gangsters distributing narcotics and bootleg liquor to area schoolchildren. Mellet exposed the goings-on in his paper; Hill went to the governor of Ohio and asked for an investigation.
In July 1926, Mellet was gunned down outside his home. Assassins were also lying in wait for Hill. By sheer luck, his car broke down and he never went home that night. After hearing of Mellet’s murder and receiving an anonymous warning to get out of town, Hill fled to West Virginia.
A Pivotal Juncture
Hill fell headlong into the depths of despair. Although he had come back from failure throughout his life, this time he struggled for more than a year to find his way. His thoughts wandered back to that promise made to Carnegie and the book he had started with Mellet’s encouragement.
Finally, Hill committed himself to finishing the work he had started. Re-energized, he set off for Philadelphia in search of a publisher for the book he had long hoped to write. After numerous rejections, Connecticut publisher Andrew Pelton agreed to print the book. Hill’s eight-volumeLaw of Success debuted on March 26, 1928, offering the collective wisdom of the greatest achievers of the previous 50 years. His work became a sensation.
By early 1929, Hill was earning $2,500 a month. Florence and the boys finally joined him in a Catskill Mountains mansion he had purchased along with 600 acres where he planned to build a success school.
Before the end of that year, however, the Great Depression brought Hill’s glory days to a crashing end; the fat royalty checks dried up, the home in Catskills was gone and so was the dream of a success school. Napoleon Hill was destitute.
Yet the evangelistic spirit still burned inside. He was passionate about spreading a “gospel of hope.” When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Hill to join the staff of his National Recovery Administration to help inspire public confidence, he accepted. But this meant leaving Florence and the boys again. This departure, however, closed the door on the marriage. In 1935, they were divorced.
In the next two years, Napoleon eked out a living in Washington as he fulfi lled his obligation to FDR’s administration. Among his contributions is said to be one of the president’s most famous lines: “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.”
Think and Grow Rich
When his duties ended, Hill returned to the lecture circuit. In early 1937, while in Atlanta, he met 29-year-old Rosa Lee Beeland. They married a few months later and she labored with him on his next manuscript, a work he tentatively called The Thirteen Steps to Riches. After months of editing and rewriting, he showed the completed manuscript to his publisher, Andrew Pelton, who initially balked, saying it too closely resembled Law of Success.
“Every failure carries with it the seed of an equivalent advantage.”
At Rosa’s insistence, Pelton gave the manuscript a more thorough reading. He finally agreed to publish it, with one condition—that the title be changed to Use Your Noodle to Win More Boodle. How that title came to be changed again is not known, but apparently wisdom prevailed and the new book went to press as Think and Grow Rich!, which became Hill’s greatest work.
Think and Grow Rich! sold out its first print run in three weeks. By the time the Depression was over, more than 1 million copies were sold. Today, it is considered the greatest self-improvement book of all time, with more than 30 million copies sold worldwide.
The true impact of the book was in the immediate call to action it offered millions of Americans devastated by the economic and agricultural disasters of the early ’30s. Here was the American Dream—their American Dream—elegantly wrapped in ribbons of wisdom and circulated as a currency of hope.
“If you can conceive it and believe it, you can achieve it.” In that one short statement, Hill laid down his philosophy for personal achievement and set in motion a success movement that inspired millions for generations to come. The man who had spent the better part of his life chasing an elusive rainbow had finally found his pot of gold.
In 1940 Hill was reportedly worth more than $1 million. He and Rosa spent lavishly on homes, cars and the trappings of wealth. In a short time, though, a chasm developed between the couple and a divorce followed. A prenuptial agreement gave Rosa virtually all royalties for Think and Grow Rich!. After a lifetime of work, Hill was left with nothing.
Trying again to start over, Hill went to South Carolina at the request of college president and publisher William Plumer Jacobs, who asked him to create a self-improvement course. The work would be a printed 16-volume set called Mental Dynamite. But with the onset of World War II and the rationing of paper, production was halted.
Positive Mental Attitude
For most of his life, Hill had lived with the conviction that every failure carried with it the seed of an equivalent advantage. That belief developed after the death of his mother, when his stepmother entered his life; it was sustained throughout his business career by the opportunities that opened up after his failures. Now, on the heels of his latest disappointment, he met a woman who would help him in business matters and be a companion through the end of his days.
Hill developed a friendship with a highly educated woman who worked for Jacobs Press. Annie Lou Norman, 47, lived with her sister and nephew in the house where Hill was staying. The friendship blossomed, and in 1943 they married. The couple moved to California, and Hill took to the lecture circuit again.
One lecture took him back to Chicago, where the president of Combined Insurance Company of America was anxious to meet Hill. W. Clement Stone had been struggling through the Depression when he had picked up a copy of Think and Grow Rich! Stone was so inspired that he bought books for each of his salesmen. In a short time, his company and coffers grew exponentially, and Stone went on to amass a fortune.
After their serendipitous meeting in Chicago, Stone thanked Hill for his work and the pair developed a friendship. In 1952, at 69, Hill entered into a partnership with Stone. Together, they produced a host of books, courses, lectures and radio and television programs. In 1954 they published Success Unlimited, the predecessor to SUCCESS magazine, offering inspirational messages similar to those Hill had distributed through Hill’s Golden Rule and Napoleon Hill’s Magazine.
Stone and Hill also co-authored Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, which in 1960 became an instant best seller.
As his life neared its end, Hill’s greatest desire was in perpetuating his life’s work. Upon his death in 1970 at the age of 87, Annie Lou Hill appointed W. Clement Stone the executive director of the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Stone had lived by Hill’s principles and stood as a shining example of his success philosophy. Now he would be charged to lead the effort of ensuring that Hill’s writings would continue to be shared with future generations around the world.
A Challenge Fulfilled
Some six decades earlier, Carnegie had issued this challenge to Hill: “I want you to write very slowly and take down this formula,” Carnegie had said. “Here it comes: ‘Andrew Carnegie, I’m not only going to equal your achievements in life, but I’m going to challenge you at the post and pass you at the grandstand.’ ” Napoleon had thrown down his pencil and protested that it was not remotely possible. Carnegie nodded and locked eyes with the young man. “Of course I know you’re not going to be able to do that… unless or until you believe it. But if you believe it, you will.”
Napoleon Hill never accumulated Carnegie’s vast fortune. But if the effects of his messages of inspiration were tallied in gold, he did indeed pass him at the grandstand. His enormous wealth lay in the millions of people he helped find themselves, believe in themselves and live the lives they never thought possible.
Martin Luther King ... said... I heard this speech when he made it.. and it still means the same today to me!!
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
Friday, January 09, 2009
from Heather this note.. and video of deer...
Heather says"My friend Kristen sent me this video today..words can not describe seeing this in real life.."
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Randy Travis - Raise Him Up... have you heard this tune? awesome!
When I first met his momma
She was just 19
Couldn't say for certain who the father was
I have known him since he was a pup
And I'm gonna raise him up
If you never knew your daddy
Like I never knew mine
It feels like everybody knows you're fatherless
This boy may not be blood of my blood
But I'm gonna raise him up
I'll provide for him
Walk beside of him
I am strong enough
Cause it's time he knew
What a son can do
With a father's love
He can change the world
Ya'll may have to look at joseph
A couple thousand years ago
When he held a newborn baby he named jesus
He said he may not be blood of my blood
Still I'm gonna raise him up
I'll provide for him
Walk beside of him
I am strong enough
I will show him too
What a son can do
With a fathers love
And he will change the world
33 years later
When the son was in his grave
Broken and abandoned by a world he came to save
His real dad said he's mine
Blood of my blood
And I'm gonna raise him up
I'll provide for you
Walk beside of you
I am strong enough
I have seen from you
What a son can do
With a fathers love
One man changed the world
And he can change your world
But you gotta raise him up
Raise him up
She was just 19
Couldn't say for certain who the father was
I have known him since he was a pup
And I'm gonna raise him up
If you never knew your daddy
Like I never knew mine
It feels like everybody knows you're fatherless
This boy may not be blood of my blood
But I'm gonna raise him up
I'll provide for him
Walk beside of him
I am strong enough
Cause it's time he knew
What a son can do
With a father's love
He can change the world
Ya'll may have to look at joseph
A couple thousand years ago
When he held a newborn baby he named jesus
He said he may not be blood of my blood
Still I'm gonna raise him up
I'll provide for him
Walk beside of him
I am strong enough
I will show him too
What a son can do
With a fathers love
And he will change the world
33 years later
When the son was in his grave
Broken and abandoned by a world he came to save
His real dad said he's mine
Blood of my blood
And I'm gonna raise him up
I'll provide for you
Walk beside of you
I am strong enough
I have seen from you
What a son can do
With a fathers love
One man changed the world
And he can change your world
But you gotta raise him up
Raise him up
forgot these photos were on my camera... these are an important item...
my lovely bride of 37 years had a 62nd birthday New Years Eve and we had a family celebration of this great event with most family attending.. after all, how many times does one turn 62... (I hope only once, haha....)
and there was a knock on the back door and our dear friends Craig and Missy Hannan appeared with a "care package" for the birthday lady.... and they "HIT the NAIL on the HEAD"! Her gift from them was the needed essentials to get through any day at work for Ann... Diet Coke, Cheetos, and Hershey's.... ummmm goodddddd!!! and they are disappearing daily... haha..
Did you see the sunrise this am?? AWESOME!!!
I am a terrible photographer... but I love sunrises.... and this photo, the camera, and the photographer could not even warm up how beautiful it was... it was superfantastic... ashly alla doshish.... or AWESOME!!!
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Saturday, January 03, 2009
In Memoriam: Playbill.com Remembers Those We Lost in 2008
By Kenneth Jones
03 Jan 2009
 |  |
| (clockwise from top left) Eartha Kitt, Harold Pinter, Clive Barnes and Gerald Schoenfeld |
A Nobel Prize-winning playwright. A major Broadway theatre owner and producer. A longtime New York City theatre critic. A sultry cabaret star who sexily purred songs into her eighties.
Respectively, Harold Pinter, Gerald Schoenfeld, Clive Barnes and Eartha Kitt were among theatre people we lost in 2008. As 2009 dawns, Playbill.com now looks back to reflect on the contributions of theatre folk who died in the past calendar year.
Some names you know, some had no international profile. They all made an impact. Whether their contributions were felt locally, regionally, nationally or around the world, the writers, producers, advocates, actors, composers, musicians, lyricists, directors, technicians and designers of the following list contributed to the welfare of the art form.
This necrology was culled from the 2008 pages of Playbill.com, with most reporting by Robert Simonson. This is not meant to be a complete list of the countless theatre people who left us — and left us inspired — in the past 12 months.
Full stories are archived in Playbill.com's Obituaries section.
Joseph Shaw, 87, an actor, director and teacher who spent 24 seasons at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, Jan. 9 in Stratford, ON.
Jim Posante, 59, a Michigan director, actor, teacher and choreographer who was a beloved fixture in the Ann Arbor theatre community, Jan. 13 following a sudden stroke.
Lois Nettleton, 80, a career stage actress whose many roles included a turn as Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, Jan. 18 in Woodland Hills, CA.
|  | |
| Suzanne Pleshette |
Bill Hart, 70, a director whose largely Off-Broadway-focused work led to collaborations with the likes of Sam Shepard, Joseph Chaikin and Joseph Papp, Jan. 20 of complications of pancreatic cancer.
Roberto Gari, 87, an actor with several Broadway credits who also had a career as an artist, and who was known for his late-career role as the stricken father on TV's "Strangers With Candy," Jan. 22 of a heart attack in Manhattan.
Michael Abbott, 81, who produced the first New York staging of the war drama Stalag 17 when he was only 21 and was about to serve the same role for a coming Broadway revival, Jan. 24 at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan.
Arthur Kramer, 81, the lawyer brother of playwright Larry Kramer who became known to theatregoers through a character based on him in the play The Normal Heart, Jan. 26 of a stroke in Stamford, CT.
Robert R. Oliver, 68, actor who played Mortimer in the current Off-Broadway revival of the musical The Fantasticks, Feb. 4 of a heart attack.
Augusta Dabney, 89, an actress whose stage, film and television credits stretched over six decades, and included many soap operas, Feb. 4.
Kirk Browning, 86, the longtime director of "Live From Lincoln Center" and a longtime hand at creating televised theatre, Feb. 10 of cardiac arrest in Manhattan.
Dennis Letts, 73, the patrician actor who created the role of Beverly Weston, the father who goes missing in his son Tracy Letts' acclaimed Broadway play, August: Osage County, Feb. 22 in Oklahoma after a battle with cancer.
Joan Marlowe, 88, co-publisher of the Theatre Information Bulletin and the former wife of Broadway critic Ward Morehouse, March 6.
Roy Scheider, 75, the character actor who in the 1970s found an unlikely career as a leading man in "Jaws" and "All That Jazz," March 9 in Little Rock, AR.
Ivan Dixon, 76, the Broadway, film and TV actor with credits as diverse asA Raisin in the Sun on Broadway and "Hogan's Heroes" on television, March 16 of complications from kidney failure in Charlotte, NC.
Anthony Minghella, 54, director who won an Academy Award for his direction of "The English Patient" and recently made a big splash in opera with his production of Madame Butterfly, March 18.
Paul Scofield, 86, Tony Award-winning actor (A Man for All Seasons) whose sonorous voice, commanding presence and mournfully dignified mien made him one of the leading players of the London and international stage during the latter half of the twentieth century, March 19 of leukemia.
Richard Widmark, 93, actor whose six-decade film career was sparked by a memorable portrayal as a cackling hood, March 24 at his home in Roxbury, CT.
James Anthony Church, 77, a British actor who spent three decades with the Royal Shakespeare Company before taking a post at the Denver Center Theatre Company, March 25 in London.
Jerry Kravat, 72, manager of the careers of a wide array of musical theatre and cabaret artists, including Barbara Cook, March 31 after cancer surgery.
Sherry Britton, 89, a five-foot-three, raven-haired beauty with an hourglass figure who was one of the last great stars of the burlesque stage, April 1 at her home in Manhattan.
|  | |
| Charlton Heston |
Madeline Gilford, 84, a performer and producer who was married to actor Jack Gilford for 40 years, and was blacklisted with him in the 1950s, April 14 in her Greenwich Village apartment.
Peter Howard, 80, arranger and conductor who worked on many Broadway shows in numerous capacities, but most commonly as either music director or dance arranger, April 18.
Patricia Ziegfeld Stephenson, 91, the only daughter of legendary Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld and actress Billie Burke, April 11 of congestive heart failure at her home in Los Angeles.
Oni Faida Lampley, 49, the award-winning playwright of The Dark Kalamazoo, Mixed Babies and her personal illness-inspired Tough Titty, April 28 after a battle with breast cancer.
Alvin Colt, 92, Broadway costume designer who won a Tony Award for the 1955 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Pipe Dream, May 4 in Manhattan.
John F. Altieri, 38, actor who most recently performed the role of Bob Crewe in the first national tour of Jersey Boys, May 5 of pneumonia in Las Vegas, NV.
Jimmy Slyde, 80, dancer who began tap dancing during the Big Band era and maintained an elegant, seemingly effortless standard throughout the rest of his long career, May 16 at his home in Hanson, MA.
Huntington Hartford, 97, the grandson of one of the founders of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company whose wealth occasionally led him into the world of theatre — including, in 1954, the conversion of an old movie house into the only legit stage in Hollywood at the time — May 19 at his home in Lyford Cay in the Bahamas.
Sydney Pollack, 73, a former stage actor who rose to direct a series of highly commercial and star-laden pictures, including "Tootsie" and "The Way We Were" in the 1970s and 1980s, May 27 at his home in Los Angeles.
Paul Sills, 80, one of the founders of the famous Chicago-based improvisational comedy group known as The Second City, June 2 of pneumonia at his home in Baileys Harbor, WI.
Peter Murray Kapetan, 51, an actor, singer and dancer who most recently appeared on Broadway in The Wedding Singer, June 4 in New York City.
Gene Persson, 74, a theatre producer responsible for such diverse productions as LeRoi Jones' tense racial drama, Dutchman, and the musical, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, June 6 of a heart attack at a Times Square pizzeria.
|  | |
| Cyd Charisse |
Dody Goodman, 94, actress whose ditzy comic persona was well known to patrons of theatre, film and television from the 1950s on, June 22 at the Actors Fund Home in New Jersey.
Patti McKenny, 57, a Chicago playwright, librettist and lyricist who was a vocal advocate of the development of homegrown musicals (via Chicago Musical Theatre Works, which she co-founded), June 28 of a heart ailment in her Northside Chicago apartment.
Keith Charles, 74, a veteran New York City actor with credits on Broadway (Applause) and Off-Broadway (Night and Her Stars, The Fantasticks), July 1 of lung cancer at his home in New York City.
Rosemary Ingham, 71, a costume designer and teacher who was there at the founding of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, and the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN, July 14 of a stroke at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, NY.
Larry Haines, 89, a stage and television actor who gave a Tony Award-nominated performance as the humane Dr. Dreyfuss in Promises, Promises, July 17 in Delray Beach, FL.
Gladys Nederlander, 83, a theatre producer and member of the powerful theatrical family that owns and operates theatres across the United States, July 21 of heart failure in New York City.
Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, 71, Drama Desk Award-winning actress who founded the National Black Theatre Inc., July 21.
|  | |
| Estelle Getty |
Bruce Adler, 63, the scion of a Yiddish theatre family who went on to have much success on the Broadway stage (1979's Oklahoma!), winning two Tony Award nominations, July 25 after a battle with liver cancer.
Stuart W. Little, 86, writer and critic who for three decades covered the New York theatre, including a stint at the New York Herald Tribune, July 27 of heart failure in Canaan, CT.
Luther Davis, 91, librettist who won a Tony Award for his book to the musicalKismet, July 29 in the Bronx.
Peter Kass, 85, an acting teacher whose many celebrated pupils included Faye Dunaway and Maureen Stapleton, Aug. 4.
|  | |
| Simon Gray |
Eleanore Reznikoff, 57, a theatre producer who worked with such companies as the Long Wharf Theatre, Lincoln Center, Yale Repertory Theater and Circle in the Square, and later became a film marketing and advertising executive, Aug. 9 in Los Angeles.
Terence Rigby, 71, the British actor adept at playing villains, and who embodied ambiguous menace in several plays by Harold Pinter, including Broadway's The Homecomingin 1967, Aug. 10 of lung cancer.
George Furth, 75, a playwright and actor who made his lasting contribution to the American theatre through two collaborations with composer Stephen Sondheim, the musicalsCompany and Merrily We Roll Along, Aug. 10 in Santa Monica, CA.
Jack Zink, 61, a major voice in South Florida entertainment coverage for more than three decades, most recently as the theatre and classical music critic and cultural affairs writer for The South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Aug. 18 from cancer.
Tad Mosel, 86, who adapted James Agee's novel "A Death in the Family" into the Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play All the Way Home, Aug. 24 in Concord, NH.
Richard Monette, 64, the longest-serving artistic director in the history of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival — 14 seasons, from 1994 to 2007 — Sept. 10 of a pulmonary embolus in a hospital in London, ON.
John E. Booth, 89, author of the books "The Critic, Power, and the Performing Arts" (1991) and "Actors Talk About Acting" (with Lewis B. Funke, 1963) and the first chairman of Theatre Development Fund, Sept. 10 of natural causes in his home in New Mexico.
David Jones, 74, the respected if undersung English director who forged career relationships with major stage figures such as playwright Harold Pinter and actors Patrick Stewart and Ben Kingsley, and helped rehabilitate the reputation of Gorky as a playwright, Sept. 18 in Rockport, ME.
Michael D. Mitchell, 68, artistic director of the Fulton Theatre, the resident Equity company operating at the historic Fulton Opera House in Lancaster, PA, Sept. 22 at his Lancaster home after a battle with cancer.
Irene Dailey, 88, the actress who created the role of the unhappily married wife in The Subject Was Roses on Broadway, and later found success in soap operas, Sept. 24 of colon cancer in Santa Rosa, CA.
|  | |
| Paul Newman |
Philip Thomas "Tom" Roland, 79, an actor, director and educator who worked in the Chicago area and beyond, including Wagon Wheel Theatre in Indiana and Northwestern University, Sept. 26 at Manor Care in Highland Park, IL.
Rob Guest, 57, a star of the musical stage in Australia (in Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables), Oct. 1 in Melbourne following a stroke.
Eileen Herlie, 90, a stage and television actress who was nominated for a Best Actress in a Musical Tony Award in 1960 for Take Me Along, and also starred in All American and in soaps, Oct. 8 in Manhattan.
Harry S. Gold, 50, executive director of business and legal affairs for Disney Theatrical Productions, Oct. 10 after a long battle with cancer in New York City.
Edie Adams, 81, a multi-talented actress who put her shapely figure, comic instincts, and clear, Juilliard-trained singing voice to good use by creating the roles of Eileen Sherwood in Wonderful Town and Daisy Mae inLi'l Abner, Oct. 15 of pneumonia and cancer in the West Hills section of Los Angeles.
Milton Katselas, 75, a respected Tony Award-nominated director, acting teacher, author, painter and founder of the Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school, Oct. 24 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Studs Terkel, 96, the Chicago journalist and radio host who used interviews with ordinary people to explore some of the central tenets of the American character, and whose books inspired stage shows includingWorking and The Good War, Oct. 31 at his Chicago home.
Yma Sumac, 86, the improbable singing star of the 1950s who claimed to possess a five-octave vocal range and ancestors who could be traced back to the Incas, and whose bizarre sound is heard on the cast recording of the musical Flahooley, Nov. 1 at an assisted-living home in Los Angeles after an eight-month bout with colon cancer.
Robin Farquhar, 59, the executive director of the Flat Rock Playhouse, the Equity theatre in the North Carolina mountains south of Asheville, Nov. 3 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Flat Rock.
Alee Ralph, 45, production supervisor and casting agent who worked on the national tours of many hit Broadway musicals, Nov. 3.
Michael Higgins, 88, who performed on Broadway and Off-Broadway stages from the 1940s to the 1980s, winning two Obie Awards (for The Crucible and Reunion) in the process, Nov. 5 in Manhattan.
Clive Barnes, 81, who covered the New York theatre and dance worlds for four decades, first as a critic for The New York Times and then for the New York Post, Nov. 19.
Gerald Schoenfeld, 84, the longtime Chairman of the theatre-owning powerhouse known as the Shubert Organization and a man routinely referred to as the most powerful man on Broadway, Nov. 25 at his home in Manhattan.
William Gibson, 94, playwright who wrote the Broadway hit Two for the Seesaw and won a Tony Award for The Miracle Worker, his dramatic telling of the relationship between Helen Keller and her determined teacher Annie Sullivan, Nov. 25.
Patricia Marand, 74, actress who was nominated for a 1966 Tony Award for her portrayal of Lois Lane in the Broadway musical It's a Bird ... It's a Plane ... It's Superman, Nov. 27 of brain cancer in her Manhattan home.
|  | |
| Paul Benedict |
Nina Foch, 84, a Dutch-born actress of stage and screen, who often played worldly women of cool, controlling instincts (see M-G-M's "An American in Paris"), Dec. 5 at her home in Los Angeles.
Robert Prosky, 77, Tony-nominated actor (A Walk in the Woods, Glengarry Glen Ross) who etched a long series of wise, lived-in portrayals in film, television and on the stage over a 50-year career, Dec. 8 at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC.
Van Johnson, 92, the handsome and affable screen star (with Broadway and stock credits) who reached such heights of popularity during the 1940s that he was called "The Voiceless Sinatra," Dec. 12 at an assisted living center in Nyack, NY.
Dorothy Sarnoff, 94, an actress who made an impression on Broadway as Lady Thiang in the original run of The King and I, and also worked in opera before embarking on an influential career as an image consultant, Dec. 20 at her home in Manhattan.
|  | |
| Dale Wasserman |
Harold Pinter, 78, the one-time British actor who tried his hand at writing in the 1950s only to become one of the most prominent and influential playwrights of the second half of the 20th century, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, Dec. 24 after a long illness.
Eartha Kitt, 81, cabaret and concert singer and Tony-nominated Broadway actress (Timbuktu!, The Wild Party) whose exotic, sex-kitten persona and sultry, purring vocal delivery were unlike anything that had come before her, though she has been much imitated since, Dec. 25 of colon cancer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)