Goodbye to Chet Lemon at the age of 70.
Lemon played for the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers from 1975 to 1990 in a career that saw him named to three All-Star games and win a World Series with the 1984 Tigers.
Lemon would become noted for his work as a youth coach in Florida after his playing career ended. Several players, including Zack Greinke and Prince Fielder, would make the majors.
Goodbye to Morris The Alligator at 80+
Morris's age was estimated at over eighty after his passing at the Colorado Gator Farm.
Morris starred in several films, including the "classics" Alligator and Alligator 2, but is most remembered for his acting chops in "Happy Gilmore" as the gator who took the hand of Chubbs Peterson, who took Morris's eye in the ensuing melee.
Morris would meet his demise at the hands of Happy Gilmore later in the film.
Goodbye to Nino Benvenuti at the age of 87.
Benvenuti, a former two-time middleweight champion, also held the junior middleweight title and won the gold medal as a welterweight in the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
Benvenuti won his first sixty-five bouts before losing a split decision in 1966 to Ki-Soo Kim in Kim's home country of South Korea.
Benvenuti would win, lose, and regain the middleweight title in a three-match set against Emile Griffith with all three bouts held in New York City in 1967-1968.
Benvenuti successfully defended his title four times before losing it to Carlos Monzon by twelfth-round knockout in November 1970. He retired after Monzon won their rematch by third-round knockout in 1971.
Benvenuti was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1992.
Goodbye to George Wendt at the age of 76.
Wendt's biggest role was as "Norm" on the TV classic "Cheers", who was such a staple of the Boston bar that when he entered, everyone shouted "Norm" in response.
Wendt never won an Emmy for playing Norm Peterson, but was nominated six times for best supporting actor.
Wendt would not have the same success after Cheers, as his self-titled series lasted only a few episodes/ But he never stopped being busy with many character roles and occasional Saturday Night Live appearances, including as part of the Chicago Super Fans and their catchphrase "Da Bears".
Wendt is also the uncle of former SNL and "Ted Lasso" star Jason Sudeikis.
Goodbye to Ruth Buzzi at the age of 88.
Denise Nicarry sent me word of her passing. Buzzi was nominated five times for an Emmy award for her work on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" and won a Golden Globe for her various roles on the variety program, in which Buzzi was the only "featured performer" to appear in every episode of the program's one hundred and forty.
Buzzi's portrayal of the spinster "Gladys Ormphby", complete with hairnet, consistently scared the preschool TRS to death, which is even odder from a comic character!
Buzzi would star in the Saturday morning kids show by the Krofft brothers, The Lost Saucer, with co-star Jim Nabors, and would spend the remainder of her long career with guest roles and voice acting jobs in animated projects.
Goodbye to Will Hutchins at the age of 94.
Hutchins was the star of the western series, Sugarfoot, from 1957-1961 as a young lawyer named Tom Brewster who was given the nickname of "Sugarfoot" as someone who wasn't tough enough to reside in the Wild West.
Hutchins would star in the sitcom "Blondie" in 1968 as "Dagwood Bumstead" but Blondie would last only one season and he then transitioned to co-starring and supporting roles, and that is where I would see him and remember him best.
Hutchins would co-star in two Elvis Presley films, "Spinout" as police officer Tracy Richards, who fell in love with Deborah Walley, who played Elvis's female drummer in the film, and "Clambake" where Hutchins character water ski instructor Tom Wilson switches lives with Elvis's oil tycoon son Scott Hayward and we all learn a valuable lesson about wishing for lives opposite our own and quite a few music tunes as well!
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