Robert F. Kennedy would be 82 years old today. He was only 42 when he was shot to death by Sirhan Sirhan in 1968.Sirhan has been in jail for almost 40 years, and he’s still only 63 years old.Three people born the same year as Bobby Kennedy: Paul Newman, Barbara Bush and Margaret Thatcher.
Philosophy & First Ladies editor Paul Hehn has published a new profile of not-quite-First-Lady Anna Harrison.You may recall that her husband, William Henry Harrison, died 30 days after giving a 100-minute whopper of an inaugural speech, in the snow, without a hat or coat. Anna was still back in Ohio, packing, when he died.
Arthur Bremer, would-be assassin of George Wallace, released from prison after 35 years.See The Taxi Driver Connection for notes on Bremer’s weird domino effect on Hollywood, Hinckley, and Reagan.
Norman Mailer has died at age 84. The cause was reported as renal failure, though he also had lung surgery last month. The leads from various obituaries:
Monday is Guy Fawkes Day.
Walter Cronkite turns ninety-one today. He’s been retired for 26 years — longer than he held the anchor chair for The CBS Evening News. Fun fact: Cronkite was such an icon in his day that Swedish news anchors are known as Kronkiters.
Our friends at Infoplease asked us to look into the exact birthdate of 19th-century superstar actress Sarah Bernhardt. Most everyone agrees she was born in 1844, but the exact date may be October 22, 23, or 25… or something else entirely. The tale is both lively and confusing.First, a bit about The Divine Sarah, as she was known in her day. Cornelia Otis Skinner, in her 1967 book Madame Sarah, puts it this way:
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Robert Goulet has died while awaiting a lung transplant in Los Angeles. He was 73.Goulet was “the strikingly handsome singer with the rich baritone who soared to stardom on the Broadway stage in 1960 playing Lancelot in the original production of the hit musical Camelot,” says the The Los Angeles Times.
“Porter Wagoner, a country singer who mixed rhinestone suits, a towering cotton-candy pompadour and cornball jokes with direct, simple songs…”So begins the New York Times obituary of the longtime Grand Ole Opry star. He died of lung cancer on Sunday in Nashville.
The Boston Red Sox have swept the Colorado Rockies, 4-0, to win their second World Series in four years after an 86-year drought. Sorry, Babe Ruth! The colorful curse of the Bambino is a thing of the past.
Juicy tidbit about GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee: He comes from Hope, Arkansas, the very same small town that produced President Bill Clinton.
Two recent profiles: Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and college radio favorite Conor Oberst.Oberst fronts the folk-rock band Bright Eyes. Huckabee, the governor of Arkansas from 1996-2007, fronts a rock band called Capitol Offense. This being 2007, both bands have MySpace pages.
Singer Robert Goulet is gravely ill at the “sickbay to the stars,” Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.Goulet’s family says he has Interstitial Pulmonary Fibrosis, a “rare but rapidly progressive and fatal condition.” Goulet is hoping for a lung transplant if a donor can be found.
First Mister Ramen. Now Mister Rice-A-Roni.
New England quarterback Tom Brady had six touchdown passes yesterday. It was the most of his career and put him one short of the NFL record of seven, last achieved by Joe Kapp way back in 1969.
Deadpan comedian Joey Bishop has died in California at 89. Bloomberg has the obit.
Actress Deborah Kerr has died at age 86. She suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, according to the Associated Press.Kerr (pronounced “carr”) was a huge star in the 1950s. She shared a rolling-in-the-surf makeout scene with Burt Lancaster in From Here To Eternity that remains one of Hollywood’s most famous kisses. (See video below.)
DNA discoverer and Nobel Prize winner James Watson has ruffled feathers yet again with new comments about his fellow scientist Rosalind Franklin — the woman who took a crucial X-ray image that helped him make his big discovery.Watson told the Guardian that he thinks Rosalind Franklin was “partially autistic” and “either not a nice person, or just clueless.”
Tycoon Richard Branson says that his friend Steve Fossett is probably “no longer with us.”Fossett, the thrillseeking millionaire, disappeared in a small airplane over Nevada on September 3rd and has not been seen since. Branson made his remarks on NBC’s The Today Show, noting that “I think everybody involved has pretty well given up hope, sadly.”