RIP, British novelist Ian M. Banks, two months after announcing that he was terminally ill.

RIP Jiroemon Kimura, the oldest man of all time.

From Mark Tatulli, the creator of the LIO comic strip, this touching tribute to Ray Harryhausen, which appeared in newpapers on June 16, 2013:

http://www.gocomics.com/lio/2013/06/16

James Gandolfini

http://www.chicagotribune.com/...0619,0,5593670.story

Slim Whitman.

One of my favorites.

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:
Slim Whitman.

One of my favorites.

Farewell, Slim, you will be missed! Good for many a laugh in high school and college. Was he really the Number One singer in England?

Mr. Whitman ~ Great performer for decades and an individual with the understanding of "do what you love and love what you do!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDuy2udzoBQ

With so many of our classic storytellers passing, the tale "The Last of the Romany" by Norman Spinrad, comes to mind.

Peace.

Whitman's obituaries and Wikipedia entry don't seem to tell how long he kept performing live, but it was to some incredible age.

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
Whitman's obituaries and Wikipedia entry don't seem to tell how long he kept performing live, but it was to some incredible age.

His final album came out in 2010 when he was 86!

There is also a Slim Whitman/Mars connection. It was Whitman's rendition of "Indian Love Call" which caused invading Martians' heads to explode in the film Mars Attacks.

David Fox-Brenton has passed away.

Best know to attendees of the Ray Bradbury Pandemonium Theatre troupe performances in the role of Colonel Freeleigh in A Device Out of Time.

Very Sad! We were on hand the evening of Mr. B's 89th and had a chance to meet and briefly visit with Mr. Fox-Brenton. Having taught DW for so many years, I expressed my congratulations for his superlative rendering of Col. Freeleigh.

Whenever I did Dandelion Wine and we came to the Colonel's scenes, I would read the passages orally, trying to add character and the sense of "time travel" to my interpretations. Without fail, when these readings were concluded, my students seemed captured in the moments of Green Town, Summer of 1928. It was hardly my skills as an orator that had made the difference.

Instead, it was the pure poetry of the writing and the power of the characters in those timeless exchanges (Pawnee Bill, Ching Ling Soo, "Shiloh. What a lovely name!" "He is a time machine!" "Sure! Climb aboard any time boys!") And then, the final phone call to hear the food vendors chattering and the music playing along the hot Mexican streets, before the window closed and the boys arrive to discover the sad reality...

As I said my final "Thank you" to Mr. Fox-Brenton, I told him about my love of those scenes and that he "truly was Colonel Freeleigh." He seemed greatly appreciated!

...the window has again closed two thousand miles away!
Peace.

Another very sad one:

RIP Richard Matheson, aged 87.

He was another writer who was inspired by Ray Bradbury, and Ray was something of a mentor to him. Their two careers - as novelists, short story writers, and screenwriters - were remarkably similar, and they both worked in the same genres.

RIP, so sad to lose such a great writer. I Am Legend is one of my favorites. Also wrote great shows for TV. He will be missed.