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Comedy great Anne Meara, one half of the comedy team "Stiller & Meara," died at 85 on Saturday, her family said.
Meara and her husband, Jerry Stiller, performed as the comedy team "Stiller & Meara" on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other programs in the 1960s. They were married for 61 years and worked together almost as long, a family statement said.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by her children, comedian Ben Stiller and daughter Amy, and grandchildren.
"Anne's memory lives on in the hearts of daughter Amy, son Ben, her grandchildren, her extended family and friends, and the millions she entertained as an actress, writer and comedienne," the family statement said.
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Billy Gibbons: 'It's Difficult to Fathom a World Without B.B. King'
ZZ Top guitarist mourns the legendary bluesman, "an early and continuing hero"
ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons pays tribute to B.B. King, the guitarist's longtime idol in a statement to Rolling Stone.
In an exclusive statement to Rolling Stone, ZZ Top guitarist and singer Billy Gibbons is paying tribute to blues legend B.B. King, who died last night at the age of 89. King, he says, has been important to him for practically his entire life.
"It's difficult to fathom a world without B.B. King," Gibbons says. "He's been with me literally since the dawn of my musical consciousness. I first encountered him when I was a small child. My father was a musician and would take me around to studios in Houston. We met B.B. King at ACA Studios when I was, maybe, 7. He made a huge impression on me and that encounter continues to resonate.
"Over the ensuing years, we were privileged to spend time in his presence on numerous occasions," the ZZ Top singer and guitarist continues. "He was warmhearted, generous and giving. B.B. King was an early and continuing hero. His passing is very sad but we take solace in the fact that we still hold him in absolutely the highest regard as both a transcendentally talented musician and a truly wonderful human being whose spirit will always be with us."
In addition to playing with King onstage on occasion, Gibbons joined King on "Tired of Your Jive" on the blues great's Grammy-winning 2005 LP B.B. King & Friends: 80.
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Elizabeth Wilson, a Vivid Actress in Many Character Roles, Dies at 94
Elizabeth Wilson, an actress who distinguished herself onstage, on television and in films like "The Graduate" and "9 to 5" in supporting roles that were often meaty but rarely glamorous, died on Saturday in New Haven. She was 94.
Her death was confirmed by Elizabeth Morton, a close friend whom she considered a daughter.
Ms. Wilson knew from an early age that she wanted to be an actress, but she was never very interested in being a star.
"In the 1940s," she told Connecticut magazine in 2012, "I was doing something called the Equity Library Theater in New York, when a movie company came to see the play I was in and offered me a contract. But the deal was, my nose was too big and they wanted me to have surgery. My jaw was crooked, and I'd have to have that fixed, too. And they didn't like my name; it was too common. I was to change these things, and they'd sign me to a multiyear contract.
"I don't know how I managed to do this, but I said, 'I don't think so.' Imagine! I can't believe I had the wisdom."
Photo
Ms. Wilson, in front, and Cherry Jones in the play "Tongue of a Bird'' in 1999.CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times
By all accounts, she was always content to be a character actress, more recognizable by face than by name. That face — equally capable of projecting snobbery, sadness and a winning eccentricity — was seen often in a career that lasted almost 70 years.
She won a Tony Award in 1972 for her portrayal of a blinded Vietnam War veteran's emotionally wounded mother in David Rabe's harrowing antiwar drama, "Sticks and Bones." She won Obie Awards for her parts in "Taken in Marriage" in 1979 and "Anteroom" in 1986.
She was nominated for an Emmy for her role as the rich but helpless mother of a woman (Lee Remick) plotting to kill her father in the based-on-a-true-story mini-series "Nutcracker: Money, Madness and Murder" (1987).
Mothers were a particular specialty. There was something about her appearance and manner — the fact that she stood an imposing 5-foot-10 may have had something to do with it — that led directors to cast Ms. Wilson, who never had children, as mothers almost from the start of her career.
She was still in her 20s when she first played a mother, in a production of "Springtime for Henry" that toured Japan after World War II under the auspices of the U.S.O.
On screen, she played the often befuddled mother of Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin Braddock in "The Graduate" (1967), the patrician mother of Ralph Fiennes's Charles Van Doren in "Quiz Show" (1994) and the scheming mother of an impostor (Christopher Lloyd) claiming to be Uncle Fester in "The Addams Family" (1991). (In the end the impostor is revealed as the true Fester.)
Onstage, her roles included Mrs. Peachum, whose daughter marries the notorious Mack the Knife, in a 1976 revival of "The Threepenny Opera." Her last maternal role, as the mother of Bill Murray's Franklin D. Roosevelt in "Hyde Park on Hudson" (2012), was also her last role of any kind.
Probably her best-known film performance, and certainly her most substantial, was not as a mother but as Roz, the memorably untrustworthy office snitch and the nemesis of the downtrodden workers played by Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, in the 1980 hit "9 to 5."
Elizabeth Welter Wilson was born on April 4, 1921, in Grand Rapids, Mich., to Henry Dunning Wilson, an insurance agent, and the former Marie Ethel Welter. She moved to New York after high school and studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse.
When she couldn't find work in her early years in New York, Ms. Wilson worked with the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Va., where she met the actor Fritz Weaver, with whom she was for a time romantically involved.
Her first Broadway role was a spinster schoolteacher in "Picnic" in 1953. (She would play the same part in the movie version two years later.) Her last was a resident of a home for retired actresses in the 1999 revival of Noël Coward's "Waiting in the Wings," which was also Lauren Bacall's Broadway farewell.
She played one of four aging sisters in the acclaimed 1980 production of "Morning's at Seven" and a woman fleeing an unspecified danger in the 1996 revival of Edward Albee's "A Delicate Balance," a performance that Vincent Canby of The New York Times called "simultaneously pathetic and menacing," adding, "You can't ask for more."
Ms. Wilson's early film roles included the bitter personal secretary of a doomed movie star in "The Goddess" (1958) and a dowdy waitress in the Alfred Hitchcock classic "The Birds" (1963).
Her television career began with the 1955 Rod Serling drama "Patterns" and ended with an episode of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" in 2002. She was Edith Bunker's cousin in a 1975 episode of "All in the Family" andBarnard Hughes's wife on the sitcom "Doc" (1975-76).
She was a favorite actress of Mike Nichols, who after directing her in "The Graduate" cast her in his films "Catch-22" (1970), "The Day of the Dolphin" (1973) and "Regarding Henry" (1991), and on Broadway in his 1973 revival of "Uncle Vanya."
Ms. Wilson is survived by a sister, Mary Muir Wilson, with whom she had been living in Branford, Conn., and several nieces and nephews.
She never married, although she told an interviewer in 2013 that she had "met a lot of interesting gentlemen in the work situation," two of whom (she did not name them) she was "madly in love with."
"But in those days," she added, "if a woman married, they had to quit what they were doing and stay home and raise a family. I didn't want to do that and now, thank God, you don't have to."
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Errol Brown, the Hot Chocolate lead singer whose energetic, powerful vocals topped such hits as "You Sexy Thing" and "Every 1's a Winner," died Wednesday, his manager said. Brown was 71.
Brown was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and moved to London as a child.
Hot Chocolate's heyday was in the '70s and '80s, when the band, which Brown formed with friend Tony Wilson, had a string of smashes in Britain and a handful of hits in America.
The best known is probably "You Sexy Thing," produced by Mickie Most, which hit No. 3 in the United States and was later used in several movies, including "The Full Monty."
Hot Chocolate also hit the U.S. Top 10 with "Emma" in 1974 and "Every 1's a Winner" in 1979. Brown later went on to a successful solo career and was appointed a Member of the British Empire in 2003.
He also co-wrote "Brother Louie," a song about an interracial romance, which was covered by the U.S. band Stories in 1973. Stories' version hit No. 1.
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Grace Lee Whitney, the actress who played Yeoman Janice Rand on "Star Trek: The Original Series," reportedly died Friday in her home in Coarsegold, California. No cause of death has been reported. She was 85.
The versatile actress and vocalist was born Mary Ann Chase in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1930. She was adopted by the Whitney family, and as a teenager, began her career in entertainment as a singer and dancer. She eventually became interested in acting and in 1966, clinched a role as Yeoman Janice Rand, a personal assistant to William Shatner's Captain James T. Kirk in the first season of the original "Star Trek" TV series.
Whitney later appeared in several "Star Trek" films, including "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," "The Search for Spock," "The Voyage Home" and "The Undiscovered Country."
Her autobiography, "The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy," was published in 1998. For many years, Whitney was a fixture at "Star Trek" conventions around the world.
As news of Whitney's passing spread Sunday, many "Star Trek" fans praised the actress for her on-screen talent, and remembered harboring "TV crushes" on the blond beauty. She was "one of the great women of Trek," TrekMovie.comtweeted. Co-star Shatner wrote that Whitney "was a constant shining smile."
Whitney's other acting credits include an appearance in the Broadway show "Top Banana," and films like "Irma la Douce" and "The Man from Galveston. " She also made appearances on several TV shows, including "Bewitched," "Death Valley Days" and "The Outer Limits."
Though Whitney is best remembered as an actress, her family told NBC News that her "preference would be to be remembered as a 'successful survivor of addiction.'" Whitney was a recovering alcoholic and drug addict and had reportedly spent the last 35 years of her life helping others with addiction problems, including volunteering at women's correctional facilities.
"Grace experienced 35 years of sobriety through continuous fellowship with others and through God and Jesus," her family told NBC.
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Nigel Terry, King Arthur in 'Excalibur,' Dead at 69
English stage actor made his film debut alongside Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in Anthony Harvey's "The Lion in Winter"
Nigel Terry, best known for his portrayal of King Arthur in John Boorman's 1981 film "Excalibur," passed away on April 30, 2015 of emphysema, according to The Guardian. He was 69.
A star of stage, film and television, Terry appeared recently in several British productions, including "Agatha Christie's Marple," "Doctor Who" and "Casualty." His most prominent television role in the United States was in the lead role on the short-lived 1992 medievial-set series "Covington Cross," where he played Sir Thomas Grey.
IMDb
His film debut came in 1968 alongside Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn, portraying the teenaged Prince John in Anthony Harvey's "The Lion in Winter." He took the title role in Derek Jarman's "Caravaggio" in 1986, and starred in several other films throughout his diverse career including "Christopher Columbus: The Discovery," "Blackbeard," "Edward II" and his final major film production in 2004, "Troy."
Terry held the distinction of being the first baby born in Bristol, England, after the end of World War II. By 1963, he'd made his way to London where he enrolled at Central School of Speech and Drama. Three years later, he joined the Oxford Meadow Players.
From there, it was on to the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Round House Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre, along with myriad appearances on British television throughout the 1970s.
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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee with the Drifters passes away from natural causes
Ben E. King, the legendary soul singer best known for his classic "Stand By Me," died Thursday of natural causes. He was 76. King's publicist confirmed the singer's death to the Telegraph, though no other details were provided.
After a stint with the doo-wop group the Five Crowns, the North Carolina-born, Harlem-raised King and his Five Crowns mates were hired to become the new faction of the Drifters. In King's yearlong tenure with the group, he sang lead on the Drifters' biggest singles, including "This Magic Moment," "Save the Last Dance for Me" and "There Goes My Baby." It was with the Drifters that King earned an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.
By 1960, the singer had launched his own solo career with "Spanish Harlem," a hit written by Jerry Lieber and Phil Spector and "Stand By Me," which he penned along with Leiber and Mike Stoller.
"I think this is one of the greatest moments of my life," King told CBS News of his Library of Congress induction. "To think that my children's children's children's will look at that one day and say wow, Gramp did that, that's a feeling."
In 1999, the BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) announced that "Stand By Me" was the fourth most-played song of the 20th century, the BBC reports. King's version of the song also landed on the Billboard charts on two separate occasions: 1961 and 1986. King would later score a Top Five hit in 1975 with "Supernatural Thing."
"With an extremely heavy heart, I must say goodbye to one of the sweetest, gentlest and gifted souls that I have had the privilege of knowing and calling my friend for more than 50 years - Mr. Ben E. King," Gary U.S. Bonds wrote of King on Facebook. "I can tell you that Ben E. will be missed more than words can say. Our sincere condolences go out to Betty and the entire family. Thank you Ben E. for your friendship and the wonderful legacy you leave behind.
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