Cleaning out the inbox: Passings

There have just been too many passings lately and I just cannot keep up with them.
It's sad around this time of year, so even though I could make one big post, in order to do them justice,
I will keep these to two posts and even though a few will be noted later, I would rather give the lives mentioned their due.

Goodbye to Roy Clark at the age of 85.
Clark, who will be remembered by most for his stint as co-host of Hee Haw with Buck Owens, was also a standout guitar player, but his use of comedy saw him crossover into entertainment more than other country stars as Clark was the first person that seemed to call for a guest star that needed some type of "country" presence.
Clark's music career was unusual to me as in he sold lots of albums, but other than his signature hit, "Yesterday, When I was young", Clark didn't have a lot of singles hits that immediately come to mind when you mention his name.
If you look at his body of work, there are listings to be seen, but they don't pop to your head when you hear the name, Roy Clark.
What does come to mind is Hee Haw, which to people of a certain age and living in certain parts of the country instantly brings memories to them.
Hee Haw was loved by some, derided by many, but it was a part of rural life for over two decades and Clark was there for all of them- "Pickin' and a Grinnin" as the show often started.
As silly as Hee Haw was (and it was considerably silly), watching it when I was a kid, it always seemed like it was Clark that was more at home with the show than co-host Buck Owens.
Clark seemed to enjoy the show more than Owens and that may have been that Clark didn't have the popular music career that Owens did, so Clark didn't have the feeling that his music career faded because of Hee Haw and enjoyed the popularity from the television without the loss that Owens, who watched his record sales decline as Hee Haw moved on.

Goodbye to Penny Marshall at the age of 75, with "Lefty" Koch sending word.
Marshall, best remembered for her leading role in "Laverne and Shirley" passed from diabetes complications.
As well thought of by so many as "Laverne DeFazio" that Marshall was, I'll remember her best from a show that I much preferred to "Laverne and Shirley" as she played "Myrna Turner" in the "Odd Couple".
Myrna was Oscar Madison's secretary with an odd laugh and an awkward manner that made her funny yet relatable.
Marshall would later become one of Hollywood's top directors with films such as "Big", "Awakenings" (a very underrated film) and the film based on the ladies baseball league- "A League of their own".
All of those films were successful, but all of them had their own genre' and didn't stereotype Marshall as a director that needed to work on a specific type of film to succeed.
Marshall would also produce films as well with the most notable being "Cinderella Man", the story of heavyweight champion James Braddock.

Goodbye to Larry "The Axe" Hennig at the age of 82.
Hennig, who might be best known to younger fans as the father of "Mr.Perfect" Curt Hennig and the grandfather of current WWE wrestler "Curtis Axel" was a main event wrestler around the country from the 1960s through the early '80s.
Hennig was part of one of the top tag teams in the game with Harley Race based in the Minneapolis based AWA before Race decided to move to the NWA for a chance to eventually win the world title.
Hennig stayed based in the Midwest where he would feud with promoter Verne Gagne for years as a single and then sliding into a legends slot, where occasionally he would return for a program.
One Larry Hennig story came in the 80s when Hennig was teaming with son Curt against the Road Warriors.
The Warriors were taking liberties with the smaller son and at the time weren't used to getting smacked around in return.
On one occasion, this occurred and when Curt crawled to the corner and tagged the burly veteran, Larry Hennig came into the ring and worked over the younger Warriors to give them a lesson in 'working'.


Goodbye to the Dynamite Kid at the age of 60.
Deadspin writes in the article above about the varied legacy of the Kid, who was an innovator ahead of his time in the ring but was a bully in and out of the ring with his fellow wrestlers along with being a steroid abuser and domestic batterer outside of it.
Dynamite Kid's matches in Japan with Tiger Mask stand up well even through the lens of today and were beyond advanced for the time.
Most American fans remember Kid better as part of the WWF champion British Bulldogs with his cousin Davey Boy Smith, who as a team were just as cutting-edge with their matches with the Hart Foundation- Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart.
Dynamite's in-ring career was famous for his "bumps" that were instrumental in breaking down his body and ended for the most part in Toronto with a basic bounce off the ropes that sent him to his knees with back pain that required serious surgery in a Bulldogs match against Don Muraco and Bob Orton.
It wouldn't be a Dynamite Kid note without the outside of the ring issues, bullying other wrestlers,beating up those weaker than him and ribs that were more nasty than humorous, Dynamite Kid also beat his wife, threatened her, their children and others with guns among other abuses.
A conflicted legacy indeed.


We finish with the passing of another star that was once thought to have a future in professional wrestling as Bill Fralic passed away at the age of 56 from cancer.
Fralic was Tony Mandarich before Mandarich as he was really the first offensive lineman of his time to be given national attention for his dominance.
Fralic was the player that the "pancake block" was named for and Fralic was the second pick of the 1985 draft and made the Pro Bowl his first four years in the league.
Fralic's body began to break down (he admitted steroid use after his retirement) and the question that I have is this- Had Fralic stayed healthy, would he have had a shot at Canton? Maybe, until he started getting injured, he was on the level of Kansas City's Will Shields, who would eventually be inducted.
However, the other part of the question is this- How much of his success was steroid related?
Fralic was one of the football players in the Wrestlemania 2 battle royal and even it was rumored that he might eventually wrestle and unlike the other players. Fralic peppered his promo's with some subtle heel inflections with a touch of arrogance that had many thinking that he would find success after football in the mat game.
Fralic only would return to the WWF once as one of the unsuccessful challengers to bodyslam Yokozuna before Lex Luger was able to lift Yoko for the slam and would run his own insurance agency in Pittsburgh.