I can’t win for losin’ you

My longtime paisan Jeff Lane broke the news to me on Facebook yesterday that country singer-songwriter Earl Thomas Conley left this world for a better one yesterday at the age of 77.  Blake Shelton, who scored one of his early chart hits (#18 in 2002) with the Conley-penned All Over Me, remarked on Twitter that ETC “was my all…

The passings parade

This week’s edition of the “roll call of the deceased” is a little shorter than it has been in recent weeks—which, when you stop and think about it, is an encouraging sign in that while we’ve established that Death rarely takes a holiday s/he might be lingering a bit during those three-martini lunches.  The celebrity…

The passings parade

Each week here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, I like to eat up just a little bit of blogosphere bandwidth to observe selected celebrity notables who’ve left this world for a better one—and I think the news of the death of character great Gervase Duan (G.D.) Spradlin this week hit me the hardest, because he was truly one…

The passings parade

Facebook was abuzz yesterday with the news of the death of singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse at the age of 27…and at the risk of being thought a terrible person, I’m not entirely sure I understand why this came as a surprise to so many people.  Winehouse was certainly a major musical talent (though I will admit I wasn’t…

The passings parade

Because I had already covered the deaths of legendary comedy scribes Sherwood Schwartz and Sam Denoff in a post this week, I gambled that what I sometimes refer to (and I’m not proud of this, but honesty is the best policy) the “celebrity death parade” would be a little shorter and quicker to accomplish.  However, if we…

Fare thee well to a pair of comedy kings

Normally I hold off on the obituaries until the weekends but because we’ve said goodbye to a pair of comedy writing legends within the past 3-4 days I couldn’t in good conscience wait until Saturday to give them their due.  Writer-producer Sam Denoff passed away on July 8th at the age of 83 and a foot in the…

The passings parade

This week’s edition of TDOY’s roundup of celebrity notables who’ve left this world for a better one will be a day later—and a bit shorter—due to the fact that I nearly forgot about the Vivien Leigh-Laurence Olivier Blogathon taking place this weekend at Viv and Larry.com.  So I’ll be devoting time to getting my entry in for today but I…

The passings parade

In putting together this week’s memoriam to certain celebrity notables from the world of film, TV, music and other areas of interest I was convinced (at first) that we seemed to be bidding a fond farewell to a few individuals who made noise in the acting profession…but upon checking their dates of death realized that…

The passings parade

Last week, I wasn’t able to include (as longtime TDOY chum Brent McKee mentioned in the comments) an obituary for musician Clarence “The Big Man” Clemmons because the renowned tenor saxophonist with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band played his last solo shortly after I posted the news of the week’s passings from the areas of music, TV, movies and…

The passings parade

We bid a fond farewell to a genuine television pioneer this week—his name might not be instantly familiar, but some of the people whose shows he worked on certainly are.  Bob Banner was a young production assistant at Chicago’s WMAQ-TV, working on the children’s classic Kukla, Fran & Ollie and being fortuitous enough to work at a…