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khunsanuk
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Jimmy Savile has now left this planet My link

 

just seen this news.

when i was growing up he seemed to be on tv all the time.

certainly a colourful character and led an interesting life.

despite his tv persona he raised many millions of £ for charity with his fundraising and was well received by many people of note.

at my age now i would not be keen on watching him but as a child he was fun.

 

RIP sir Jimmy..... :rip:

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Andy Rooney dead at 92 :(

 

 

 

(CBS News) Andy Rooney, the "60 Minutes" commentator known to generations for his wry, humorous and contentious television essays - a unique genre he is credited with inventing - died Friday night in a hospital in New York City of complications following minor surgery. He was 92, and had homes in New York City, Rensselaerville, N.Y. and Rowayton, Conn.

 

"It's a sad day at '60 Minutes' and for everybody here at CBS News," said Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and the executive producer of "60 Minutes." "It's hard to imagine not having Andy around. He loved his life and he lived it on his own terms. We will miss him very much."

 

Rooney had announced on Oct. 2, 2011 in his 1,097th essay for "60 Minutes" that he would no longer appear regularly.

 

Rooney wrote for television since its birth, spending more than 60 years at CBS, 30 of them behind the camera as a writer and producer, first for entertainment and then news programming, before becoming a television personality - a role he said he was never comfortable in. He preferred to be known as a writer and was the author of best-selling books and a national newspaper column, in addition to his "60 Minutes" essays.

 

But it is his television role as the inquisitive and cranky commentator on "60 Minutes" that made him a cultural icon. For over 30 years, Rooney had the last word on the most watched television program in history. Ratings for the broadcast rose steadily over its time period, peaking at a few minutes before the end of the hour, precisely when he delivered his essays - which could generate thousands of response letters.

 

Each Sunday, Rooney delivered one of his "60 Minutes" essays from behind a desk that he, an expert woodworker, hewed himself. The topics ranged from the contents of that desk's drawer to whether God existed. He often weighed in on major news topics. In an early "60 Minutes" essay that won him the third of his four Emmy Awards, his compromise to the grain embargo against the Soviet Union was to sell them cereal. "Are they going to take us seriously as an enemy if they think we eat Cap'n Crunch for breakfast?" deadpanned Rooney.

 

Mainly, his essays struck a chord in viewers by pointing out life's unspoken truths or more often complaining about its subtle lies, earning him the "curmudgeon" status he wore like a uniform. "I obviously have a knack for getting on paper what a lot of people have thought and didn't realize they thought," Rooney told the Associated Press in 1998. In typical themes, Rooney questioned labels on packages, products that didn't seem to work and why people didn't talk in elevators.

 

Rooney asked thousands of questions in his essays over the years; none, however, began with "Did you ever...?" a phrase often associated with him. Comedian Joe Piscopo used it in a 1981 impersonation of him on "Saturday Night Live" and, from then on, it was erroneously linked to Rooney.

 

Rooney was also mistakenly connected to racism when a politically charged essay highly insensitive to minorities was written in his style and passed off as his on the internet in 2003.

 

Over the next few years, it found its way into the e-mail boxes of untold thousands, causing Rooney to refute it in a 2005 "60 Minutes" essay, and again, as it continued to proliferate, in a Associated Press article a year later.

 

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WWII vet - strange they seldom mention that. He was a correspondent for the Stars & Stripes, the US Army newspaper. He flew bombing missions with the USAAF over Germany and was the first to report on the Nazi concentration camps as they were overrun. That is how his career in journalism began.

 

 

 

 

 

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Boxing ex-world champion Joe Frazier dies

 

Former world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier has died after a brief battle with liver cancer, his family said.

 

Frazier - also known as Smokin' Joe - had been receiving hospice care in Philadelphia after being diagnosed with cancer several weeks ago.

 

The 67-year-old was the first man to beat Muhammad Ali in 1971, but lost his next two bouts with Ali.

 

He held the world title between 1970 and 1973.

 

On Sunday, Frazier's manager Leslie Wolf said the boxer's condition was very serious but that doctors and Frazier's team were "doing everything we can".

 

Frazier won an Olympic gold medal in 1964 after going to the Games as a replacement for Buster Mathis, who had beaten him in the trials but could not attend the Games due to an injury.

 

He won the heavyweight title in 1970 by defeating Jimmy Ellis in New York.

 

Three years later he lost the title to George Foreman.

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Damn - Munchy must have a direct freakin' link to the Obit section at AAP !

 

I always thought Frazier was under-rated, and I agree that a lot of people lionised Ali while ignoring Frazier and Foreman. All 3 were streets ahead of most who came after them, particularly other heavyweight boxers. I dont remember anyone trying to bite his opponent's ear off, although I will concede that the 'accidental' headbutt seems to have been a feature of the sport for a long time.

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I saw he was in a hospice yesterday, there was an article on Ali saying he was in his prayers.

Certainly one of the sports heroes of my generation and came across as a pretty nice guy.

 

When Ali dies there will be quite a few hurry to point out how nasty he was when he was younger but people forget how hard it was for black Americans back then.

I think he changed the way many whites thought about blacks.

 

Still, this isn't his thread, RIP Smokin' Joe.

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Smokin' Joe lived in my part of town. The sad thing was Ali was more famous and more liked I think than he was. I always felt bad for him. I also didn't like how Ali acted leading up to their fight. I don't know if its true but the story was that Ali didn't have much money when he was stripped of his title. The Nation of Islam didn't give him much if any. Joe and a few other folks gave Ali money. Joe accepted there was going to be some trash talking leading up to the fight but he felt Ali crossed the line. Being called an Uncle Tom and other such things in 1971 in the heat of the Black Power movement was especially hurtful. Joe was not gonna be denied in that first fight. With the Joe Louis fight in the mid 30s and the Dempsey fight earlier being the only possible exceptions it was the biggest fight in boxing history.

 

Joe never forgave Ali. I heard he used to even say 'See how Ali talks? I did that'. I wish they could have made up. Ali did change and I think Ali regretted the hurt he caused him. Its my guess.

 

I will say this, I think that era produced the greatest cadre of heavyweights ever. There were guys in that era who I think would have been champions in almost any other era. Ernie Shavers, Jerry Quarry and a couple others had the bad timing of being in the same era as Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Norton and Holmes. Shavers was tough as hell and would easily have been champ in another era. Quarry was also tough as nails. Fought those guys bravely.

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