Author: John

Sam Butera (August 17, 1927 – June 3, 2009) was a tenor saxophone player best noted for his collaborations with Louis Prima and Keely Smith. Butera is frequently regarded as a crossover artist who performed with equal ease in both R & B and the post-big band pop style of jazz that permeated the early Vegas nightclub scene

Death of Sam Butera
Sam Butera died in Las Vegas at age 81. Sam Butera had Alzheimer’s Disease.

Luis Prima – Hey Marie (Sam Butera on the Sax)

David Carradine (born John Arthur Carradine, December 8, 1936 – June 3, 2009) was an American actor, best known for his work in Kung Fu and more recently in Kill Bill.

Carradine was born in Hollywood, California, the son of Ardanelle Abigail (née McCool) and noted American actor John Carradine

Carradine was known for his roles as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s television series Kung Fu (as well as the sequels in the 1980s and 1990s), as well as ‘Big’ Bill Shelly in Martin Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha (1972), folksinger Woody Guthrie in Bound for Glory (1976), Abel Rosenberg in Ingmar Bergman’s The Serpent’s Egg (1977), and as Bill in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Vols. 1 & 2 (2003, 2004, respectively).

Death of David Carradine
On June 4, 2009, Carradine was found dead in his room at the Park Nai Lert Hotel in Junfan Mulay, Bangkok, Thailand. The initial police investigation indicated that Carradine had hanged himself using a cord of the type which is used with curtains. Circumstances suggested that the death was an autoerotic asphyxiation.

David Carradine Filmography continues next page

David Carradine Filmography

Year	Film	Role
1964	Taggart	Cal Dodge
1966	Shane	Shane
1967	Johnny Belinda	Locky
	The Violent Ones	Lucas Barnes
1969	Heaven with a Gun	Coke Beck
	Young Billy Young	Jesse Boone
1972	Boxcar Bertha	‘Big’ Bill Shelly
1972-1975	Kung Fu	Kwai Chang Caine
1973	The Long Goodbye	Dave aka Socrates – Marlowe’s Cellmate
	Mean Streets	Drunk
1975	Death Race 2000	Frankenstein
1976	Cannonball	Coy ‘Cannonball’ Buckman
	Bound for Glory	Woody Guthrie
1977	The Serpent’s Egg	Abel Rosenberg
	Thunder and Lightning	Harley Thomas
1978	Deathsport	Kaz Oshay
	Circle of Iron	The Blind Man/Monkeyman/Death/Changsha
	Gray Lady Down	Capt. Gates
1979	Mr. Horn	Tom Horn
1980	The Long Riders	Cole Younger
1982	Q	Detective Shepard
	Trick Or Treats	Richard
1983	Lone Wolf McQuade	Rawley Wilkes
1984	The Warrior and the Sorceress	Kain
	Airwolf	Dr. Robert Winchester
1985	North and South	Justin LaMotte
1986	Kung Fu: The Movie	Kwai Chang Caine
1988	Tropical Snow	Oskar
1990	Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat	Jozek Mardulak/Count Dracula
	Bird on a Wire	Sorenson
1991	Karate Cop	Dad
	Martial Law	Dalton Rhodes
	The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw	Caine
1992	Evil Toons	Gideon Fisk
	Roadside Prophets	Othello
	Waxwork II: Lost in Time	The Beggar
1993-1997	Kung Fu: The Legend Continues	Kwai Chang Caine
1997	Last Stand at Saber River	Duane Kidston
1998	Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror	Luke Enright
	An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island	Chief Wulisso
1999	Charmed	Tempus
	American Reel	James Lee Springer
2000	Down ‘n Dirty	Gil Garner
2001	Queen Of Swords	The Serpent
2002	Balto II: Wolf Quest	Nava the Wolf Shaman
	The Outsider	Haines
	King of the Hill	Junichiro Hill
2003	Kill Bill: Vol. I	Bill
2003-2004	Alias	Conrad
2004	Kill Bill: Vol. II	Bill
	Hair High	Mr. Snerz
	Dead & Breakfast	Mr. Wise
	Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon	Grand Master
2005	Danny Phantom	Clockwork
2006	Medium	Jessica’s Brother
	Saints Row	William Sharp
2007	Homo Erectus	Mookoo
	Epic Movie	The Curator
	Fall Down Dead	Wade
	Camille	Cowboy Bob
	How to Rob a Bank	Nick
	Fuego	Lobo
	Big Stan	The Master
2008	Chatham	Captain Zeb
	Richard III	Buckingham
	Hell Ride	The Deuce
	Son of the Dragon	Bird
	Last Hour	Detective Mike Stone
	Death Race	Frankenstein
	My Suicide	Vargas
2009	Absolute Evil	Raf McCane
	Crank: High Voltage	Poon Dong

Koko Taylor born Cora Walton, September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American blues musician, popularly known as the "Queen of the Blues." She was known primarily for her rough and powerful vocals and traditional blues stylings.

Death of Koko Taylor
Taylor died on June 3, 2009, after complications from a surgery on May 19, 2009. Her final performance was at the Blues Music Awards, on May 7, 2009.

I’m a Woman – KoKo Taylor

Danny La Rue, OBE (July 26, 1927 – May 31, 2009) was an Irish-born British entertainer known for his singing and drag impersonations.

Accolades
He was made an OBE in the 2002 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Other accolades included Royal Variety Performance appearances in 1969, 1972 and 1978, Variety Club of Great Britain Showbiz Personality of the Year (1969), Theatre Personality of the Year (1970), Entertainer of the Decade (1979) and the Brinsworth Award from the EABF for his outstanding contribution to the entertainment profession and the community.

Death of Danny La Rue
La Rue suffered a mild stroke in January 2006 and all of his planned performances were cancelled. He had several subsequent strokes. He died at his home shortly before midnight on 31 May 2009 after suffering from prostate cancer. His friend Annie Galbraith was with him at their home in Kent at the time of death 

Personal life
La Rue would often perform parts of his show in men’s clothes, and was often seen out of costume on television. In later life, he was more candid about his private life, including his homosexuality. La Rue lived for many years with his partner and manager, Jack Hanson, until Hanson’s death in Australia in 1985, following a stroke.

Danny La Rue

Related Story – Barbara West second last survivor of Titanic, dies 95

Millvina Dean (February 2, 1912 – May 31, 2009) was the last living survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic which occurred on 15 April 1912. At nine weeks of age, she was the youngest passenger on board

Ill health and death of Millvina Dean
In December 2008, at the age of 96, Millvina Dean was forced to sell several of her family’s possessions to pay for her private medical care following a broken hip.

In response, the Millvina Fund was set up in May 2009 by the director and stars of the film Titanic, James Cameron, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, who donated over £20,000 to support Dean with her bills. This fund was set up through a challenge by photographer Don Mullan, and matches one he set up through selling prints.

Dean died on 31 May 2009 at the age of 97, 98 years to the day after the Titanic was launched in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Millvina Dean’s biography continutes next page

Family
Elizabeth Gladys Millvina Dean was born in London to Bertram Frank Dean and Georgette Eva Light. She had a brother, Bertram Vere Dean (1910–1992), and a great great great niece Khara Barnard who lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dean never married and had no children.

Titanic voyage
Millvina’s parents decided to leave England and emigrate to Wichita, Kansas where her father had family living and where he hoped to open a tobacco shop. The Deans were not supposed to be aboard the Titanic, but owing to a coal strike, they were transferred to the ship and boarded it as third-class passengers at Southampton, England. Millvina was barely two months old when she boarded the ship. Her father felt the ship’s collision with the iceberg on the night of 14 April 1912, and after investigating, returned to his cabin telling his wife to dress the children and go up on deck. Millvina, her mother, and brother were placed in Lifeboat 10 and were among the first steerage passengers to escape the sinking liner. Her father, however, did not survive, and his body, if recovered, was never identified.

Return to England
At first, Millvina’s mother wanted to continue on to Kansas to fulfil her husband’s wish of a new life in the United States. However, after losing her husband and being left with two small children for whom to care, they returned to England aboard the RMS Adriatic. While aboard the ship, Millvina understandably attracted considerable attention. An article in the Daily Mirror newspaper dated 12 May 1912 described the ordeal:

She was the pet of the liner during the voyage, and so keen was the rivalry between women to nurse this lovable mite of humanity that one of the officers decreed that first and second class passengers might hold her in turn for no more than ten minutes.

Family deaths
Dean’s mother died on 16 September 1975, aged 96, and her brother, Bertram, died, aged 81, on 14 April 1992, 80 years to the day after the Titanic struck the iceberg.

Later years
It was not until Millvina was in her seventies that she became involved in Titanic-related events. Over the years, she participated in numerous conventions, exhibitions, documentaries, television and radio interviews, and personal correspondence. In 1998, Millvina traveled to the United States to participate in a Titanic convention in Springfield, Massachusetts, and another in 1999 in Montreal. She had also been scheduled to appear at a commemoration of the Titanic’s 94th anniversary in 2006, but a broken hip prevented her appearance.

In October 2007, she became the last-living Titanic survivor following the death of Barbara West Dainton, who died at the age of 96 in England.

The Chicago actor Steve Cinabro has died at the age of 49, according to an announcement from his family.

Steve was a longtime Chicago actor and member of the European Repertory Theatre. Among his credits with that company were Philippe Minyana’s “The Warriors” (2004), Tony Kushner’s “Slavs” (2003), “Happy End” (1998) and a very memorable Aegisthus in European Rep’s 1995 production of Steven Berkoff’s “Agamemnon.”

Steve, who was born in Blue Island, graduated from the Goodman School of Drama in 1987. He appeared in various TV shows and movies shot in Chicago, including “Turks,” “Early Edition,” and “The Untouchables.” Much of his work was for European Rep, but Steve also appeared in shows at the Shattered Globe Theatre, Organic Theatre and elsewhere.

Playwright Tracy Letts and fellow European Repertory Theatre member Dale Goulding both praised Steve’s contributions to the Chicago theater community that, in Goulding’s words, “he loved so much.”

Funeral mass is scheduled for Monday morning at 10 a.m. at the St Benedict’s Roman Catholic Church in Blue Island.

Mickey Ross – An Emmy winning Comedy writer and producer, who worked on "All in the Family," "The Jeffersons" and "Three’s Company," died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from a stroke and heart attack. He was 89

Jay Walter Bennett (November 15, 1963 – May 24, 2009) was an American guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, engineer, producer, and singer-songwriter.

From 1994 through 2001 Bennett was a member of Wilco. Wilco won 2 Grammy Awards so far.

Bennett was a much sought after studio session player as well, having played on albums by Sheryl Crow, Allison Moorer, and Billy Joe Shaver, among many others.

Death of Jay Bennett 
In May 2009, Bennett sued Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy for breach of contract stemming from his work for Wilco. The suit came less than two weeks after Bennett publicly revealed that he needed hip replacement surgery which he could not afford due to lack of health insurance. On May 24, 2009 Bennett died unexpectedly in his sleep.

Jay Bennett’s MySpace Page

Roh Moo-hyun (August 6, 1946 – May 23, 2009) was the 16th President of South Korea. He held the position from 25 February 2003 to 25 February 2008. Before entering politics, he was a human rights lawyer.

Death of Roh Moo-Hyun
Roh Moo-Hyun died on 23 May 2009 after jumping from a 30-meter (100 ft) high cliff. He sustained serious head injuries and was sent to a hospital in the nearby city of Busan at around 8:15 a.m. and pronounced dead at around 9:30 a.m. According to his lawyer, Roh left a suicide note saying life was "difficult" and apologized for making "too many people suffer."

The South Korean police later confirmed Roh’s suicide. Current President Lee Myung-bak stated that "the news was truly unbelievable and deeply sad." The corruption cases were said by Justice Minister Kim Kyung-han to have been formally dropped.

 

Lucy Gordon (May 22, 1980 – May 20, 2009) was an English actress and model, born in Oxford. Gordon was found dead in her Paris flat, on 20 May 2009, two days before her 29th birthday.

Death of Lucy Gordon
A French police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the cause of death appeared to be suicide

Lucy Gordon Filmography
1999: 2point4 children (episode "After the Fox") as Lampety Jones
2001: Perfume as Sarah
2001: Serendipity as Caroline Mitchell
2002: The Four Feathers as Isabelle
2005: The Russian Dolls as Celia Shelburn
2007: Serial as Sadie Grady
2007: Spider-Man 3 as Jennifer Dugan
2008: Frost as Kate Hardwick
2009: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men as Hitchhiker
2009: Cinéman as Fernandel’s friend
2010: Serge Gainsbourg, vie héroïque as Jane Birkin