Alan Thicke and Aortic Dissection
On Dec. 13, 2016, at age 69, Alan Thicke collapsed while playing ice hockey with his 19-year-old son and died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm after first being diagnosed as having had a heart attack at a Burbank CA hospital.
Carrie Fisher’s Inflammatory Lifestyle
Carrie Fisher, best known as Princess Leia in Star Wars. was a brilliant writer and producer as well as a productive actress. She appeared in Shampoo, The Blues Brothers, Hannah and Her Sisters, When Harry Met Sally and other movies, and wrote several best-selling books.
Zsa Zsa Gabor Dies at 99
This is the story of a beautiful woman who married eight times mostly to older men for fortune and favors, plus a ninth husband who was 27 years younger and gained fame and fortune by marrying her. She wrote several autobiographies, including the 1970 book, How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, How to Get Rid of a Man.
Jean Shepard and Parkinson’s Disease
On September 29, 2016, country music lost one of its all-time greats. Most of you have heard Jean Shepard singing "Dear John Letter" with Ferlin Husky, the first post-World War II record by a female country singer to become the number one country song and sell more than a million records.
Denton Cooley, the Fastest Heart Surgeon
Heart surgeon Denton Cooley, who just died on November 18, 2017, was better than his peers in just about everything he did. He founded the Texas Heart Institute in 1972, where he and his team performed almost 120,000 open heart operations, 258,000 cardiac catheterizations and 270 heart transplants.
Julius Wagner-Jauregg’s Nobel Prize for Syphilis Treatment
In 1927, Austrian psychiatrist Julius Wagner-Jauregg received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for curing some patients with brain damage from syphilis by infecting them with malaria.
Leon Russell, A Song For You
Famous pianist, singer and songwriter Leon Russell died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Nashville, Tennessee on November 13, 2016. While I consider that dying at age 74 is way too young, the real tragedy is not how long he lived but how much he suffered during the last 10 years of his life.
Gwen Ifill and Uterine Cancer
On November 14, 2016, Gwen Ifill, a noted American journalist, television newscaster and author, died at age 61 of uterine cancer. She was a political analyst who was featured on Public Television's Washington Week and PBS NewsHour, and moderated the 2004 and 2008 American vice-presidential debates.
Tom Hayden’s Life of Protest
Tom Hayden was a radical protester and California politician who was widely despised for his anti-Vietnam War activities. On October 23, 2016, he died at age 76 of heart failure brought on by a lifetime of doing everything imaginable to cause the diabetes that destroyed arteries and nerves throughout his body.
Bob Marley and Melanoma
Bob Marley was a superstar Jamaican singer, guitarist and songwriter who sold more than 20 million records by bringing Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to the world. He was the first major rock artist to come out of a Third World country. He mixed protest music with popular songs of rebellion and faith, and his "No Woman No Cry," "Could You Be Loved," "One Love," and many other songs are still very popular today.
Glenn Yarbrough – A Lifetime of Searching
Glenn Yarbrough was the lead singer with the Limeliters, one of the most popular folk singing groups of the early 1960s. From 1959 to 1963 the three singers, Glenn Yarbrough on the guitar, Alex Hassilev on the banjo and Lou Gottlieb on the bass, earned millions of dollars by being seen on virtually every television set in the U.S.,
Nico’s Senseless Death
Nico (Christa Päffgen), one of the most fascinating entertainers of the 1960s, was born in 1938 in Cologne, Germany to a Yugoslavian father and a Spanish mother. Her early life was nothing but trauma.
Charmian Carr and Lewy Body Dementia
Just about everyone has heard her sing "I am Sixteen, Going on Seventeen" as Liesl, the eldest daughter of Captain Georg von Trapp in the film The Sound of Music. The song is about the first love of a 16 year old girl. In real life, she was a college student who had never been in any movie and her first audition for anything got her accepted for the part of Liesl because she was 21 and looked like she was 16.
Jacques Servier and the Fenfluramine Scandal
What would you think about a man who was worth almost eight billion dollars repeatedly denying that his company's weight-loss drug caused heart damage? Fenfluramine was withdrawn from the U.S. market in 1997, but the French parent company, Laboratories Sevier, continued to market its similar product under another brand name until 2009.
Gene Wilder: Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Alzheimer’s
Gene Wilder was a beloved American stage, screen and TV actor who made people laugh just by being himself. He was also a successful screenwriter, film director and author. He is best remembered for the movies where he appeared to be naive and childlike: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein . . .
Eero Mantryanta’s High EPO Gene
Eero Mantyranta was one of the greatest cross country skiers ever. He competed in four Winter Olympics (1960–1972) and won seven medals. In the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, he won the 15 kilometer race by an incredible forty seconds and then won the 30 kilometer race by more than a minute.
Houston McTear, a Natural Runner
One of the greatest natural track athletes of all time died from lung cancer at age 58. He went from extreme poverty to athletic riches and back to extreme poverty, never having won an Olympic medal. He was unknown to most people but is a legend to all true fans of track and field.
Fanny Blankers-Koen, Olympian-The Flying Housewife
At the 1948 London Olympics, Fanny Blankers-Koen won four events: the women's 100 meters, 200 meters, 80 meter hurdles and 4 x 100 meter relay. She was 30 years old, 5'9" and 140 pounds and the mother of two children. She was arguably the greatest female track and field star in the world.
Mal Whitfield, Olympian and Tuskegee Airman
Mal Whitfield was twice Olympic champion at 800 meters and one of America's greatest track and field athletes ever. Whitfield set six world records, won eight United States national titles, was elected to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1974 and the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 1988.
Eartha Kitt: Colon Cancer Even with Low Risk
When Eartha Kitt died at age 81 of colon cancer, her daughter said that, "she ate huge amounts of vegetables and their house in Beverly Hills had a huge vegetable garden as well as an aviary with chickens and roosters.
Kathleen Baker, Amazing Olympian with Crohn’s Disease
Kathleen Baker made the 2016 United States Olympic Swimming Team by finishing second in the women’s 100-meter backstroke at the United States trials. To be able to be in the Olympics, she had to have incredible drive and the ability to suffer pain from intense training day after day from early childhood. But there is far more than just the pain of training for this 19-year-old UC/Berkeley student.
Elie Wiesel, Messenger to Mankind
Elie Wiesel was a Romanian-American Jewish writer, professor and the author of more than 50 books. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to show the world its moral responsibility to fight hatred, racism and genocide.
Simon Ramo Did Everything Right
On June, 27, 2016, aerospace pioneer Simon Ramo died at 103 years of age. His quality of life never deteriorated with old age. He played tennis regularly on his seven-acre estate in Beverly Hills.
Jack Lovelock, the Wonder Miler
Jack Lovelock won the 1935 Olympic 1500 meter run in a world record 3 minutes and 47.8 seconds. It was the first time since 1904 that an Olympic 1,500-meter winner had broken the world record and was also New Zealand's first Olympic gold medal ever.
Otto Warburg, Cancer Pioneer
83 years after Otto Warburg published his landmark paper on cancer, the New York Times has a major article on the revival of his idea that cancer cells can be starved to death (NYT, May 12, 2016). Otto Warburg (1883 – 1970) was arguably the most brilliant and productive chemist of all time. Throughout his 50 years of research, he made major breakthroughs in intracellular respiration, photosynthesis and cancer.
Tommy Kono, Greatest Weightlifter in US History
Tommy Kono was probably the greatest Olympic weightlifter of all time. Between 1952 to 1960, he won two Olympic gold medals and one silver Olympic medal. His Olympic medals were in three different weight classes: gold in lightweight, gold in light heavyweight and silver in middleweight.
Chyna Laurer’s Destructive Choices
Chyna Laurer was a wrestler, bodybuilder and actress who wrestled for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) as the Ninth Wonder of the World. She often wrestled with men and beat them. In 1999 she became the first, and still the only, woman to win the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Intercontinental Championship.
Ida Keeling, Setting Running Records at 100
Two years ago, Ida Keeling (born May 5, 1915) set the world record for a 99 year old woman in the 100-meter dash at 59.80 seconds. At age 95 she set the world record for running 60 meters at 29.86 seconds. Her brain matches her athletic prowess. She can recall names and dates immediately. Running as she ages has given her life more meaning and purpose, which is very important as she probably has many more years to live,
Bess Myerson’s Highs and Lows
Bess Myerson won the 1945 Miss America contest because she was the most beautiful, most talented and at 5'10", the tallest entrant. She went on to become an adored television personality and then had a successful career in politics. However, this beautiful, brilliant and talented woman made terrible decisions in her personal life that eventually drove her from the limelight into scandal and obscurity.
Patty Duke: A Bipolar Life
Patty Duke was an abused young girl who became a famous TV, movie and Broadway actress, an accomplished singer, a television producer and a social activist for mental health. She was a great female role model as the mother of three children, who worked so hard that she became president of the Screen Actors Guild.
