1st June 2015 – Tommy Rogers, 54
Pro-wrestler who was one half of The
Fantastics with Bobby Fulton. He won twelve tag team titles.
“"I am totally devastated by this
loss. Words can't even describe it. Tommy blessed me with an opportunity to be
a part of one of the great tag teams of professional wrestling. He was one of
the best athletes in the profession."
“Cowboy Johnny Mantell, a veteran of World
Class Championship Wrestling, recalled the Fantastics coming into the territory
and outshining the established Von Erich brothers."When the Fantastics
came in, I can remember sitting in the office and hearing them talking about
what are they going to do, because they were worried the Fantastics were
getting over the Von Erichs. I mean, the fan mail that was coming into the
Sportatorium was two to three times to one for the Fantastics than it was for
the Von Erichs. There was lots of rumbling about that. It was because Tommy and
Bobby could really work out there and work in the ring. It was easier for the
heels to get their heat on those guys than it was on the Von Erichs.” Though
they were babyfaces, modeled partly on the success of earlier heartthrob teams
like the Fabulous Ones, their penchant for blood and guts belied their babyface
personas “Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers were very, very hard working guys,”
said Stan Lane of The Midnight Express. “They really, really loved the business
and they were willing to go the extra mile as far as bumps, or whatever, to get
the match over. Rogers and Fulton were thrown together as The Fantastics in
Bill Watts’ Mid-South territory, holding down the fort as resident heartthrobs
when the Rock ’n’ Roll Express was out of town. They wore tuxedo costumes, more
like upscale garb of The Fabulous Ones than the tatters of the Rock ’n’ Roll
Express.”
Steve Johnson, Slam Wrestling obit
2nd June 2015 – Irwin Rose, 88
American biologist who won the Nobel Prize
for Chemistry in 2004.
“Dr. Rose became fascinated with the
problem of protein disposal in the 1950s, when few biochemists shared his
enthusiasm. Scientific inquiry was focused then on how things were created —
how cells read the blueprints encoded in DNA and use the information to
manufacture proteins.“He was interested in the opposite: How are proteins
destroyed?” said Dr. Jonathan Chernoff, the scientific director of the Fox
Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, where Dr. Rose spent most of his
career. “There were not very many people working on it,” Dr. Chernoff added in
an interview on Tuesday. “I don’t think they particularly considered it an
interesting question. But he thought it was an interesting question. And he was
right.”
Kenneth Chang, NY Times obit
4th June 2015 – Dame Anne Warburton,
87
British diplomat, and Britains first female
Ambassador.
“In 1949 she started work in London with
the Economic Co-Operation Administration, moving after three years to Paris as
an economist with the Nato secretariat. After a spell with the bankers Lazard
in London, she joined the diplomatic service in 1957. She returned to New York
in 1959 as second, then first, secretary at Britain’s mission to the UN. After
three years she moved to Bonn as first secretary. A spell in Whitehall followed
before, in 1967, she was posted to the UN again as counsellor in Geneva, where
she stayed for five years.Anne Warburton’s ground-breaking appointment to
Denmark came in 1976; she presented her credentials on May 5, the 36th
anniversary of the country’s liberation by British troops. Her head of
chancery, Robin McLaren, rated the posting as “possibly not as challenging as
other places”, but she found living there a “special joy”.
Telegraph obit
“In 1992 Prime Minister John Major, then
president of the European Community, invited her to chair a team to investigate
sexual abuse against Muslim women in Bosnia. She met many victims and their
harrowing interviews formed the basis of a landmark report in the efforts to
reduce sexual abuse in warfare A formidable woman, Warburton sat on the
Cambridge University Senate and the boards of the British Library, the
Fitzwilliam Museum and the English-Speaking Union and was an Equal
Opportunities Commissioner. In addition to high standards and integrity, she
was also kind. Her successor at Lucy Cavendish, Baroness Perry of Southwark
noted: "Dame Anne was friendly, warm and considerate which made the
hand-over easy when it could have been so difficult." Warburton named her
beloved golden retriever Lucy.”
Janie Hampton, Independent obit
4th June 2015 – Leonid Plyuschch, 77
Mathematician and dissident who escaped the
Soviet Union in 1976.
“After Soviet tanks clanked into
Czechoslovakia in 1968, Mr. Plyushch was one of nearly a score of dissidents
who signed a declaration of solidarity with Czechs who had been protesting
Moscow’s iron grip. That year, he was also a signatory to a letter to the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights pleading for an investigation into
Soviet violations of individual rights. By early 1972, Leonid Brezhnev, the
Soviet leader (himself a native of Ukraine), and his Kremlin allies had had
enough of Mr. Plyushch’s outspokenness and his work to forge a bond between
Ukrainian human rights activists and like-minded people based in Moscow. Mr.
Plyushch was arrested and accused of “anti-Soviet propaganda and seeking to
undermine Soviet power.” Questioned several times by the secret police, who
confiscated a number of his manuscripts, Mr. Plyushch languished in prison for
a year before being brought to trial. Meeting privately, and not bothering to
hear expert testimony, the court ruled that he needed psychiatric treatment.
Locked up in a Ukrainian hospital, in an overcrowded ward for severely
psychotic patients, Mr. Plyushch experienced “the daily progression of my
degradation,” as he put it in a news conference in Paris after his ordeal. He
was given high doses of antipsychotic drugs and insulin, The Journal of Medical
Ethics reported in 1976.”
David Stout, NY Times obit
4th June 2015 – Marguerite Patten, 99
Cook who worked for the government during
World War 2, and who later became the first TV chef.
“Early in her career she worked as a
wartime home economist for the Ministry of Food, cooking an infinite variety of
dishes to tease out new ways with brown flour, imaginative uses of dried egg,
or tasty treats with scrag-end. From 1944 she appeared on the BBC’s
early-morning radio programme Kitchen Front and regularly on Woman’s Hour. This
apprenticeship was a prelude to live demonstrations on television when she took
over the cookery for a magazine programme, Designed for Women, broadcast from
1947. These postwar years also saw the beginnings of a prolific career in
journalism. As well as television appearances, there were large-scale
demonstrations across Britain, which took on a surreal character as the 50s
wore on. A flour manufacturer, Frenlite, saw possibilities in combining variety
acts and cookery and Marguerite was soon baking sponges and whisking meringue
to the musical accompaniment of Geraldo and his Show Band, the wisecracks
of Cyril Fletcher, and the warbled tunes of the husband-and-wife act Pearl
Carr and Teddy Johnson. But Marguerite was a writer more than a performer (although
her memorable 1999 Radio 4 series on the cookery of the 20th century fixed her
queen-motherly tones in many a brain), and her writing career was transformed
by her association with the publisher Paul Hamlyn. He conceived an
inexpensive book filled with large colour photographs to illustrate the
recipes. The resulting Cookery in Colour (1960) changed everything, with sales
of 2 million.”
Tom Jaine, Guardian obit
5th June 2015 – Tariq Aziz, 79
Former Iraqi Deputy PM under Saddam
Hussein.
5th June 2015 – Seth Winston, 64
Director who won an Oscar in 1992 for
Session Man.
6th June 2015 – Colin Jackson, 68
Scottish international footballer who
played for Rangers for 19 years, and later for Morton and Partick Thistle. He
won three league titles and 8 domestic cups during his near two decade stay at
Ibrox.
6th June 2015 – Victor Bugliosi, 80
Lawyer known for being the prosecutor of
Charles Manson, and who later became a best selling true crime author of books
based on the crimes. He wrote the book
Helter Skelter with the late Curt Gentry in 1974.
“Bugliosi, however, didn’t remain obscure
for long: The ambitious Los Angeles County deputy district attorney soon gained
worldwide fame for his central role in prosecuting the bizarre murders that
terrorized California in the summer of 1969. Two years later, Bugliosi won the
convictions of mastermind Manson and the followers who carried out the
Tate-LaBianca killings. Then he used his celebrity to launch a career as a
bestselling author, beginning with “Helter Skelter,” his account of the Manson
case that has sold more than 7 million copies. With a lawyer’s cool, he went on
to write books on subjects as contentious as George W. Bush’s conduct of the
Iraq war and the existence of God. But he never shook his primary legacy — nor
tired of the glory. “No matter what I
do, I’ll be forever known as the Manson prosecutor,” he told The Times in 1994.”
Rebecca Trounson and Elaine Woo, LA Times
obit
10th June 2015 – David Bellotti, 71
Former Lib Dem MP from 1990 to 1992, who
won his seat of Eastbourne after the IRA assassination of Ian Gow.
“That Gow’s murder failed to bring out a
sympathy vote for the Tories served to underline how unpopular the party had
become after the poll tax debacle. On October 18 1990 Bellotti secured a
majority of 4,550, a swing of more than 20 per cent; within a matter of weeks
Margaret Thatcher had resigned as prime minister. For Paddy Ashdown, who had
become party leader after the merger of the Liberals and the Social Democrats
in 1988, Bellotti’s success was the first evidence that the new party was
registering with the electorate. “The Liberal Democrats are now established as
a decisive force for defeating the Conservatives,” he declared.Yet Bellotti’s
time in Westminster was short-lived, and perhaps notable only for him raising
the issue of the paucity of mental health care in the country. In April 1992 he
was defeated by the Conservatives’ Nigel Waterson. He returned to local
government and embarked on a torrid time as chief executive of Brighton &
Hove Albion FC.”
Telegraph obit
10th June 2015 – Robert Chartoff, 81
Producer of Rocky and Raging Bull.
“For two decades, beginning in 1967, Mr. Chartoff
and his partner, Irwin Winkler, produced many of the signature Hollywood films
of the era, often plumbing American themes with the help of star-filled casts.
They included the suspense thriller “Point Blank” (1967), an underworld
little-guy-versus-the-system tale with Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson; “They
Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969), a sad, sardonic Depression-era parable
starring Jane Fonda about desperate contestants in a dance marathon; “New York,
New York” (1977), an atmospheric drama, directed by Martin Scorsese, about a
troubled love affair between a volatile sax player (Robert De Niro) and a
singer (Liza Minnelli); and “True Confessions” (1981), a crime story, set in
Los Angeles in 1948 and based on a novel by John Gregory Dunne, about a pair of
brothers, a cop (Robert Duvall) and a priest (Mr. De Niro), both of them
morally compromised. But Mr. Chartoff is probably best known for two of
Hollywood’s boxing blockbusters. “Raging Bull” (1980), based on a memoir by the
former middleweight champion Jake LaMotta, directed by Mr. Scorsese and
featuring a tour de force performance by Mr. De Niro, was one of Hollywood’s
most revered films. In 2007 the American Film Institute ranked it No. 4 on its
list of the 100 best films of all time (though it did not win the Oscar in
1980; “Ordinary People” did.)”
Bruce Weber, NY Times obit
11th June 2015 – Ron Moody, 91
Oscar nominated actor, best known for his
role as Fagin in Oliver! In this life,
one thing counts, in the banks, large amounts, I’m afraid these don’t grow on
trees, you’ve got to pick a pocket or two...etc. [I’ll be singing that all
day now.]
Moody was a fantastic actor who lit up any
number of films, from Othello to the Asterix films. He was the voice of Badger
in The Animals of Farthing Wood, and even appeared in Casualty and Eastenders.
He acted alongside everyone from Margareth Rutherford to Cliff Richard!
He was offered the role of Doctor Who in
1969 and 1974.
“When the possibility of creating the role
of Dickens’s miserly mentor of child pickpockets arose, he was wary: “At first
I never wanted to do it. They told me there was this musical of Oliver Twist so
I went to see the Alec Guinness film [Oliver Twist, 1948], which I found to be so
antisemitic as to be unbearable. But Bart is as Jewish as I am and we both felt
an obligation to get Fagin away from a viciously racial stereotype, and instead
make him what he really is – a crazy old Father Christmas gone wrong.” By the
time the musical opened at the New theatre, London, in 1960, he had come to
think of the part as a symbol of Jewish survival. His habit of changing his
lines annoyed others in the cast, particularly Georgia Brown as Nancy, and Bart
asked him to stick to what he had done on the first night. Moody declined to go
on to the production’s subsequent Broadway run because he felt it would have
trapped him, but proved so striking in Carol Reed’s 1968 film version that he
was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe.Keen to emphasise his
versatility, in 1983 he presented some of his inventions from the previous
three decades in a one-hour show for Channel 4. Under the title The Other Side
of London, he employed familiar locations in the capital as backdrops not only
for Fagin, but also a dancing Scrooge, a tap-dancing Dracula and a crooning
Quasimodo.”
Dennis Barker, Guardian obit
14th June 2015 – Zito, 82
Brazilian midfielder who won the 1958 and
1962 World Cups, and was a strong influence on the young Pele while Santos
captain.
“Zito made his debut for his country in
1955, but it was when he came into Brazil’s two-man midfield in their third
game of the 1958 World Cup in Sweden that he made all the difference. Brazil
had deployed an innovatory 4-2-4 system, which would subsequently sweep the
footballing world, but there was a certain imbalance. Didi, one of their two
midfielders, was the perfect, creative inside-forward, but his partner, Dino
Sani, was a little too adventurous and a little too similar to be his partner.
Zito, an organised right-half who could win the ball as well as use it,
replaced Sani against the Soviet Union in Gothenburg and immediately tightened
things up. He remained in the side all the way to the 5-2 victory against
Sweden in the final, and it was his pass that set Garrincha off on a dynamic
run that led to Vavá’s first goal in that encounter. Exceptionally committed,
and an accomplished passer who preferred to move the ball rather than carry it,
Zito was by general consent the best half-back in the 1958 tournament. He
played every match in the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, and in the 3-1 win in
the final against Czechoslovakia in Santiago (part of a 4-3-3, rather than
4-2-4, formation), it was Zito who put Brazil 2-1 ahead with a header from
Amarildo’s cross. He was called up for Brazil’s ill-fated expedition to the
1966 World Cup finals in England, but he was by then well into his 30s and did
not play in any of the games. Statistical sources differ as to how many
appearances Zito made for Brazil, but he played around 50 matches for his
country.”
Brian Glanville, Guardian obit
15th June 2015 – Kirk Kerkorian, 98
American businessman whose building and
owning of several casinos in Las Vegas built up that city into what it is
today.
“He shunned glitzy Hollywood parties and
movie premieres in favor of making deals. Rather than arrive at an event by
limousine, he often drove himself in a Mercury station wagon. "He was a
very private guy who shunned the limelight, both in a business way and from a
charitable standpoint," said Patty Glaser, his attorney of four decades. After
making his first fortune ferrying gamblers to Las Vegas with Trans
International Airlines, he built the 30-story, 1,568-room International Hotel,
the world's largest hotel when it opened in the late 1960s. He brought Elvis
Presley to perform there in 1969 as the rock legend relaunched his live
performance career. Although medium-size by today's Sin City standards, the
hotel, now the Westgate Las Vegas, represented a major risk when most properties
averaged 250 rooms. "I had total confidence or I wouldn't have gone into
the project," Kerkorian later said. "I've always been bullish on Las
Vegas." When Kerkorian opened the first MGM Grand in Las Vegas in the
1970s, it was again the world's largest hotel, containing more than 2,000 rooms
and a 1,200-seat showroom. Years later, he would build another MGM Grand, this
one with more than 5,000 rooms — again, the world's largest.”
Sally Ho and Steve Rothwell, Associated
Press obit
18th June 2015 – Jack Rollins, 100
American producer who worked with Woody
Allen (Deconstructing Harry, Crimes and Misdemeanours), and worked with David
Letterman from 1983 to 1991.
21st June 2015 – Buddy Landel, 53
American pro-wrestler who was tipped for
great things at one point, but injuries, luck and demons took it away.
21st June 2015 – Cora Combs, 92
American pro-wrestler who was the oldest
living one at the time of her death, and who had a forty year wrestling career.
22nd June 2015 – James Horner, 61
American film composer. He composed the
music for films including: Titanic, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Gorky Park,
Star Trek: The Search for Spock, Commando, Batteries Not Included, Field of
Dreams, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Rocketeer, Fish Police, Patriot Games, Clear
and Present Danger, Braveheart, Casper, Apollo 13, Jumanji, Courage Under Fire,
Deep Impact, Bicentennial Man, The Perfect Storm, Enemy at the Gates, A
Beautiful Mind, Troy and Avatar. For starters.
“Horner’s music was an integral part of some
of the most successful films of recent decades. His score for James Cameron’s
Titanic (1997) won an Oscar for best original dramatic score, and he also won
best original song for My Heart Will Go On, the love theme from Titanic, which
was co-written with Will Jennings and sung by Celine Dion. It became a huge hit
in its own right, selling 15m copies. The recording of Horner’s Titanic score
also sold 27m copies. He had previously collaborated with Cameron on Aliens
(1986), which had earned him his first Oscar nomination, and on the score for
Cameron’s 2009 sci-fi fantasy Avatar, which was also nominated. There were
several films with Mel Gibson, of which Braveheart (bringing another Oscar
nomination) was the most prominent. His Braveheart score, like his work on
Titanic, showcased Horner’s fondness for folk and ethnic musical influences.
But he would also cite composers such as Britten, Prokofiev and Tallis as
influences on his work. He formed a successful partnership with the director
Ron Howard, and his work on Apollo 13 (1995) and A Beautiful Mind (2001) again
put him on the Oscars shortlist. With Edward Zwick, a director Horner described
as “very difficult and very opinionated”, he worked on Glory (1989) and Legends
of the Fall (1994), earning Golden Globe nominations for each.”
Adam Sweeting, Guardian obit
23rd June 2015 – Sir Chris Woodhead,
68
Former Chief Inspector of schools.
“Asserting that he was “paid to challenge
mediocrity, failure and complacency”, Woodhead was viscerally opposed to the
control of schools by local authorities. Most controversially of all, he
claimed that in England’s state schools there were 15,000 incompetent teachers
(a first inspection of 2,862 schools detected just 88) and 3,000 heads. His
traditionalism appealed to the Prince of Wales, whom he talked out of starting
his own teacher training college. But his assaults on sacred cows and his
almost Messianic tone infuriated the teaching unions – the NUT campaigned for
his removal – and many educationalists (whom he castigated as biased and
second-rate). Tim Brighouse, chief education officer for Birmingham, led the
resistance, accusing him of launching a “reign of terror”; Woodhead replied
that you did not necessarily get the best out of teachers by praising
everything they did. When Brighouse claimed that one head had been driven to a
breakdown by a school inspection, Woodhead accused him of capitalising on
personal distress to discredit Ofsted.”
Telegraph obit
23rd June 2015 – Dick Van Patten
American actor who was in the Mel Brooks
films Spaceballs and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He wa also in Charly and Soylent
Green, as well as Westworld, High Anxiety, and the original Freaky Friday film.
“Though long associated with television and
film comedies, the actor spent a great deal of time on stage, making the first
of his two dozen or so appearances on Broadway as a child back in 1937, in Kurt
Weill’s “The Eternal Road.” He had most recently appeared onscreen in a guest
role as Lester on TV Land’s “Hot in Cleveland.” Other relatively recent credits
include “7th Heaven” in 2004, “Arrested Development” in 2005, “That ’70s Show”
in 2006 and “The Sarah Silverman Program” in 2008. Van Patten starred as Tom
Bradford, the father of eight children, on ABC’s “Eight Is Enough” from 1977-81.
The show was based on the life of journalist Tom Braden, who had written a book
of the same name. Van Patten also appeared in the 1987 reunion movie and 1989’s
“An Eight Is Enough Wedding.” He reprised the role of Tom Bradford via voice
work on the animated sitcom “Family Guy” in 1999.”
Carmel Dagan, Variety obit
23rd June 2015 – Elizabeth Maclennan,
77
Scottish actress who set up the 7.84
Theatre with her late brother, David and her playwright husband John McGrath.
“[Maclennan and McGrath] were infected by
the spirit of the age, and turned their back on lucrative careers to form 7:84,
often working for nothing. The company broke barriers politically and
stylistically; 7:84 was hot on gender issues, destroyed the fourth wall, and
was influenced as much by working-class club entertainments as by Brechtian
theory. The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil was a clarion call for
justice to the Scottish people, and the atmosphere of those performances is
preserved in John Mackenzie’s film of the production for the BBC in 1974, which
blended joyful footage of a performance before a lively Benbecula crowd with
sobering documentary inserts revealing the truth behind the current oil boom,
and brutal film realisations of some of the more sweeping moments. Over the
years the company toured most of the world, speaking out on political injustice
well beyond just home shores, playing to everyone from prisoners to
schoolchildren to the homeless. Highlights included the wonderfully titled
Little Red Hen (Shaw Theatre, 1975), the story of an elderly political
activist, which saw even London audiences feel the enlivenment of a 7:84
performance; Out of Our Heads (1976), about the less-celebratory aspects of
Scotland’s drinking culture, and Men Should Weep (1982), a then-forgotten play
of tenement torment, mightily resurrected. After a special performance for
striking NHS workers, MacLennan made an impassioned speech attacking the Tory
government and beseeching people to learn from history so as not to repeat it.”
Simon Farquhar, Independent obit
27th June 2015 – Chris Squire, 67
Bass guitarist who was co-founder of Yes.
“The origins of Yes lay in a meeting
between Squire and the singer Jon Anderson in May 1968, when Anderson was
working at a club in Wardour Street called La Chasse, near the Marquee. Squire
had just emerged from a period of seclusion, apparently prompted by a bad
reaction to a dose of home-made LSD, during which he had obsessively practised
his bass playing. Squire, born in Kingsbury, north London, the son of a cab
driver, had begun his musical career as a choirboy at St Andrew’s church. He
had previously played in a group called the Syn, which also featured the future
Yes guitarist Peter Banks. After focusing on Motown soul music, the Syn
had begun to indulge their own psychedelic leanings, and, according to Squire,
“were like a precursor of Yes”.Squire and Anderson swiftly discovered they
shared much musical common ground, and were both fans of such harmony-driven
artists as Simon & Garfunkel, the Byrds and the Beatles. They began writing
songs together, and recruited the drummer Bill Bruford (who had briefly been a
member of R&B band Savoy Brown), keyboard player Tony Kaye and guitarist
Banks (with whom Squire had recently been dabbling in a group called Mabel
Greer’s Toyshop). On 4 August 1968, Yes made their live debut at East Mersea
Youth Camp in Essex, and the following night played at the Marquee. They were
subsequently given a residency at the club and were chosen to be the opening
act for Cream’s farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall in December 1968. The
following year Atlantic Records signed them to a worldwide deal.”
Adam Sweeting, Guardian obit
28th June 2015 – Ian Allan, 92
Scottish publisher who published books on
trains.
“By 1962, the Ian Allan Group was settled
in offices at Shepperton station down the line from Waterloo. The company
boardroom was the 12-wheeled Pullman car Malaga, built in 1921 and used by King
George VI when he rode Southern rails. Allan published books and magazines on
all forms of transport and ran rail tours, an activity that led to the
development of a travel business. A keen freemason, he published The Square and
sold masonic along with military, police and club regalia. He owned two hotels,
traded in organic gardening products and even ran a car dealership, selling,
among other makes, Saabs, Land Rovers and Cadillacs. Cars were a threat to
railways, and although Allan played key roles in the steam railway preservation
movement, he was always a businessman.”
Jonathan Glancey, Guardian obit
29th June 2015 – Bill Spalding
Glasgow writer who specialized in
illustrated books of old Glagow, showing much of the heritage which has been
lost. His books included Old Cardonald, The Golden Year of the Anchor Line, Old
Govan, Partick Remembered, Bygone Partick, and The Story of Partick. His books
are frequently to be found in the gift shops of Glasgow museums.
29th June 2015 – Josef Masopust, 84
Czech football midfielder who played for
his national team from 1954 to 1966, and scored the opening goal in the 1962
World Cup final. He was considered the greatest footballer to ever come out of
the old Czechoslovakia.
“Masopust was one of the greatest midfield
players of his generation. He was an inspirational figure in the Czechoslovakian
team that reached the FIFA World Cup final in 1962, scoring the opening goal
against Brazil in the Santiago decider before the South American side recovered
to win 3-1. "Josef Masopust is a player I greatly admired," said UEFA
President Michel Platini. "He was a gentleman, both on and off the pitch.
In his day, Josef was truly an outstanding player. He was a classic midfielder
for Dukla Praha with a flair and talent for goalscoring and an uncanny ability
for elegant dribbling. He deservedly won the Ballon d'Or in 1962 and was part
of the great Czechoslovakia squad that came second in Chile that year."
Masopust was born in the town of Most in northern Bohemia on 9 February 1931.
After starting out at local club FK Baník Most, he signed for FK Teplice as a
teenager and began his top-flight career there. In 1952, he joined Dukla Praha
and inspired them to eight league titles.Masopust's international career, which
yielded 63 caps, started against Hungary in 1954. He played at the 1958 World
Cup and followed that up by helping Czechoslovakia to finish third in the 1960
UEFA European Championship, before making an impressive mark on the World Cup
two years later.”
UEFA obit
“He won eight championships with them, in
1953, 1956, 1958, 1961-64, and 1966. He also won the Czech Cup three times, in
1961, 1965 and 1966. He made his international debut in 1951, although his
precise style of play did not at first convince the selectors and he took some
time to become a regular in the side. In 1965, Masopust crowned his career by
being invited to play for the International XI in Sir Stanley Matthews’s
farewell match, when the great winger bowed out of the game at the age of 50.
Two years later, Dukla Prague achieved their best result in European football
up until that time, reaching the semi-final of the European Cup only to succumb
to the eventual champions, Celtic.”
Telegraph obit
30th June 2015 – Edward Burnham, 98
Actor who appeared in Doctor Who twice, as
Professor Watkins in The Invasion and as Professor Kettlewell (complete with
mad scientist hair) in Robot. He was the lackadaisical teacher Florian in To
Sir With Love, and one of the members of the medical board in 10 Rillington
Place. He also had roles in Quatermass and the Pit, The Avengers (in The Fear Merchants
as Richard Meadows), The Abominable Dr Phibes, Tales of the Unexpected
(Operation Safecrack as Henry Bliss), All Creatures Great and Small, and Black
Books.
“Edward Burnham had two major roles in
Doctor Who. In 1968 he played Professor Watkins, the uncle of Isobel, in 4
episodes of the second Doctor story The Invasion. He returned to the series at
the end of 1974 in Tom Baker's début story Robot, playing Professor Kettlewell,
the creator of the Experimental Prototype Robot K1. Edward Burnham was an actor
for over 60 years, appearing on Television as early as 1938 in productions of
The Marvellous History of St. Bernard and The Swiss Family Robinson. In 1959 he
appeared in the science fiction series Quatermass and the Pit. Other roles
followed in productions such as The Citadel, Z Cars, The Plane Makers, To Sir,
with Love, The Pallisers, The Search for the Nile, Churchill's People, All
Creatures Great and Small, Nightingales and Nicholas Nickleby.”
Marcus Hilton, Doctor Who News obit
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