Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Cleaning out the Inbox: Non-Sports Passings

      This version of tributes will deal with recent passings from the non-sports world.

Goodbye to James Darren at the age of 88.  

Darren first found fame in supporting roles as in the original "Gidget" and "The Guns of Navarone" but became a chartbuster when he sang the Gidget theme, which followed with several hits, the biggest being "Goodbye Cruel World" in 1961, which hit number three on the charts.

Darren moved into television which saw his memorable animated appearance as "Jimmy Darrock" on the Flintstones and the lead of the acclaimed but short-lived series "The Time Tunnel" in the sixties before moving into directing television in the 1970s.

Darren was cast in a supporting role in the William Shatner show "T.J. Hooker" in the 1980s and on Star Trek Deep Space Nine as "Vic Fontaine" a nightclub crooner in the final seasons of the show.

Darren would release a CD of the songs that he sang on the show entitled "This One's From The Heart".

Goodbye to Chad McQueen at the age of 63.

The only son of legendary actor Steve McQueen, McQueen acted and produced in the film industry and raced sports cars, motorcycles, and endurance racing but he'll always be "Dutch", one of the Cobra Kai in the original Karate Kid film from 1984.

Dutch, as played by McQueen, came off as the nastiest of the Cobras, even more than "Johnny Lawrence" the leader of the gang.

McQueen was approached by the producers of Cobra Kai to make a guest appearance to reprise the character but McQueen refused citing his lack of interest in acting and his busy schedule running his racing team.

Goodbye to John Ashton at the age of 76.

The character actor is most remembered for his role as "Sgt.John Taggart" in the first two "Beverly Hills Cop" films, which he reprised in the recent Netflix film that was the fourth in the series but Ashton worked in many series and films through the years with two that stand out to me.

Ashton also played Eric Stoltz's bedraggled father in the John Hughes film "Some Kind of Wonderful" and my favorite of roles as bounty hunter "Marvin Dorfler" in the classic "Midnight Run".

Goodbye to Jack Jones at the age of 86.

A two-time Grammy winner, Jones scored smooth-sounding top twenty hits with "Wives and Lovers" in 1963 and "The Impossible Dream" in 1966 before turning to acting with many minor roles in television and films.

Jones scored one final hit when he sang the theme to the television show "The Love Boat" in 1977, which Jones appeared briefly to parody in the 1982 film "Airplane 2".

Goodbye to Teri Garr at the age of 79.

A star in several films in the 70s and 80s, Garr had co-starring roles in films such as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Mr.Mom", "Young Frankenstein", and "Tootsie" among many.

Garr also appeared on "Star Trek" in the episode "Assignment Earth", which was a back door pilot using Star Trek as the vehicle but the pilot was not picked up.

In the 1990s, Garr played the mother of the character played by Lisa Kudrow on "Friends" as her career slowed after she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

Garr is also remembered for her many appearances on "Late Night with David Letterman", where it was as clear as day that Letterman had a crush on Garr with their banter and interaction.

No comments: