Recently in RIP Category

Reporter Amanda Baumfeld turned in a great obituary about Buddy McDonald, one fo the original Little Rascals. He died this week in a Seal Beach retirement home. Here's a snippet of Baumfeld's piece:

What he might not be known for is his endless dedication and work in substance abuse counseling, those who know him said.

In the 1950 s, McDonald developed a drinking problem and ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous. It was a move that ended up being a "significant turning point of his life," according to his son, Scott.

Soon after, McDonald became a popular speaker at AA meetings throughout Southern California and strived to help people regain control of their lives.

In 1965, he met Leon Emerson, a Downey Municipal Court judge. The two of them thought people convicted of alcohol-related offenses should be sent to AA meetings instead of jail.

I also found an interview with Buddy that ran on a Web site devoted to Laurel and Hardy comedies. The interview is fascinating and describes a robbery conviction from the 1950s:

Question: What did they send you to prison for?

Bud McDonald: Robbery. I was with some other guys, and we robbed a market. I had just come out of the marine corps, served in Guadalcanal. I didn't know any better, I didn't have any money to get an attorney, so I took a public defender. He got me to cop a plea. I plead guilty. Later on, when I was sober about a dozen years after Alcoholics Anonymous, a probation officer named Brown in Walnut Park gave me some advice. He was going to law school and we found a law I didn't know about and together with my sponsor, a man named Carson, they got all my felonies taken back to court and the guilty pleas removed and the not guilty pleas entered. All my citizenship rights and everything else were restored to me.
 

EL MONTE -- The mysterious death of a man whose body was found outside an office building in the 9600 block of Flair Drive is looking more like a suicide.

The death was listed with the coroner's office as a "possible suicide."

Coroner's officials said the death was due to blunt force truama.

The afternoon of the discovery, detectives took measurements of a large mechanical lift being used for construction at the site, and spent a good deal of time with their eyes trained upwards toward the lift and the nearby multi-story building.

The dead man is being described only as an Asian man in his 30s pending notification of family members.

*Lt. Gil Carrillo of the Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau said Monday that until an autopsy has been performed that determines the incident was a suicide, detectives will continue investigating.

A summary of some items we've been covering over the weekend:

1. EL MONTE -- Homicide detectives are investigating the mysterious death of a man whose body was found on the property of an office building Sunday.
2. ROSEMEAD -- The man who died in a fiery crash at the end of a police chase Saturday was driving an SUV that belonged to a woman found shot to death at her Gardena business.
3. LA PUENTE -- A man allegedly shot and wounded two of his roommates during an argument at their house Saturday.
4. SOUTH EL MONTE -- Officials have released the name of a man found who was fatally shot in his car last week.
5. NORWALK -- A man was shot and wounded in the parking lot of a convenience store Sunday.
6. SONORA -- The Montrose Search and Rescue Team rescued a 34-year-old man Sunday after he spent two nights at the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft.

Two of my favorite entertainers gone in two days, Bernie Mac and now Isaac Hayes. They say this stuff happens in threes. I hope not.

From the Associated Press:

Isaac Hayes, the baldheaded, baritone-voiced soul crooner who laid the groundwork for disco and whose "Theme From Shaft" won both Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon after he collapsed near a treadmill, authorities said. He was 65.

 

Bernie Mac was a funny guy. Who couldn't laugh at his prickly TV character. From the Associated Press in Chicago:

CHICAGO (AP) - A publicist says Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actor and comedian Bernie Mac has died at age 50.

Publicist Danica Smith says Mac died early Saturday at a hospital in the Chicago area of complications due to pneumonia.

The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs, but he had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently had been hospitalized and treated for pneumonia.

Mac had starring roles in "Ocean's Eleven,""Bad Santa,""Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Transformers."

The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with his Fox television series "The Bernie Mac Show," which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006.

Somewhere on my desk I have a frayed, faded and much abused copy of the 1993 edition of Police Call.

I learned today from LA Observed that Gene Hughes, publisher of the magazine, died recently at age 80.

Police Call was a collection of radio frequencies used by police, fire and other government agencies. Hughes, a scanner junkie, put them together  and made the gibberish understandable to the lay person.

As much as anything I have Hughes (real name Gene Costin) to thank for my ability to tell the difference between real news and real noise.

Here's a bit from the LAO post:

Costin was 13 and living in a Los Angeles foster home in 1940 when he discovered that he could listen in on the LAPD's radios. The rest is history.

Here's a link to Wired's obit. The photo is from Wired also.

From the Associated Press:

Larry Harmon, who turned the character Bozo the Clown into a show business staple that delighted children for more than a half-century, died Thursday at his home of congestive heart failure, his publicist told The Associated Press. He was 83.

Although not the original Bozo, Harmon portrayed the popular frizzy-haired clown in countless appearances and, as an entrepreneur, he licensed the character to others, particularly dozens of television stations around the country. The stations in turn hired actors to be their local Bozos.

Bozo participated in the 1996 Rose Parade.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" took television by storm in the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating such national catch-phrases as "Sock it to me!" has died. He was 86.
Martin, who went on to become one of television's busiest directors after splitting with Dan Rowan in the late 1970s, died Saturday night of respiratory complications at a hospital in Santa Monica, family spokesman Barry Greenberg said.
"He had had some pretty severe respiratory problems for many years, and he had pretty much stopped breathing a week ago," Greenberg said.
Martin had lost the use of one of his lungs as a teenager, and needed supplemental oxygen for most of the day in his later years.
He was surrounded by family and friends when he died just after 6 p.m., Greenberg said.
"Laugh-in," which debuted in January 1968, was unlike any comedy-variety show before it. Rather than relying on a series of tightly scripted song-and-dance segments, it offered up a steady, almost stream-of-consciousness run of non-sequitur jokes, political satire and madhouse antics from a cast of talented young actors and comedians that also included Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley and announcer Gary Owens.

As for the photo caption:

** FILE ** This Oct. 1968 file photo shows comedians Dan Rowan, left, and Dick Martin, hosts of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" flanking then Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon during a rally at Burbank Calif. Richard Nixon, running for president in 1968, dropped in on the show to shout a befuddled sounding, "Sock it to me!" His opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was offered equal time but declined because his handlers thought it would appear undignified. Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" took television by storm in the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating such national catch-phrases as "Sock it to me!" has died. He was 86. (AP Photo, File)

The Department of Coroner is apparently backing off earlier statements about the mysterious death of Ernesto Fraye. On Monday Coroner's Lt. Fred Corral said that an investigator from his office believed Fraye died as the result of a suicide.

The investigator visited the scene in Pico Rivera where Frayre was shot to death and made the determination in his narrative of the case, Corral said Monday.

Sheriff's detectives viewing the same scene called Fraye's demise "a criminal death."

Frayre, 24, was found in his car on Sideview Drive, just North of Shade Lane and Rivera Park about 10 a.m. Sunday.

On Tuesday, the department of coroner decided to withhold judgment in the case and are beginning to question the theory of suicide, Chief Coroner's investigator Craig Harvey told City News Service.

Among Harvey's revelations to CNS, no gun was found at the scene.

On Sunday morning, Frayre's body was found sitting in the driver's seat of a Ford sedan. He appeared to have been shot in the head, Los Angeles County Fire Department officials said, however it was not clear how many times he had been shot. At the time of the discovery, officials did not say if a gun was recovered at the scene.

A witness who spoke to reporter Brian Day, but declined to give his name for fear of retaliation, said he heard gunshots in the area shortly after 3:30 a.m. About three hours later, the witness said he walked down the street and saw the car with Fraye inside but didn't realize he was dead and thought nothing of it.

Fraye had been married Saturday night, friends and family members said.

Tuesday afternoon a makeshift memorial had been placed near where Fraye had died. At left is a photo of Fraye and the memorial.

KTLA is reporting that longtime anchor Hal Fishman has died. Fishman, long a fixture at the station, had been ill for several days. He was 75.
This from a KTLA biography:

Hal was been the bearer of good news and bad news to the television viewers of Los Angeles, including the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the visit of Pope John Paul II, and the Sylmar and Northridge earthquakes. Hal also helped to break the Rodney King beating story, among many others.

He was easy to make fun of, and Dan Akroyd did it best, but Tom Snyder was a great interviewer. In his own way, he was an innovator, perfecting talk television with an eclectic variety of guests including Charles Manson, John Lennon and Ayn Rand.
About the only personal note I can add is that Snyder was great entertainment when pulling a midterm all nighter.

Aram has a nice tribute to the genius on his blog this a.m. I'm a Vince Lombardi guy. But, having lived in the Bay Area at the beginning of the 49ers great run in the 1980s. I'm old enough to remember where I was when Dwight Clark made the catch, and I'll never forget how Walsh took a team that was the laughingstock of the NFL and turned it into one of the premier franchises in all professional sports.