Year: 2009

Jimmy Boyd (born January 9, 1939 in McComb, Mississippi; died March 7, 2009) was an American singer, musician, and actor.

Death of Jimmy Boyd
On March 7, 2009, he passed away from cancer.
Jimmy Boyd was 70 years old at the time of his death

Jimmy recorded the song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" for Columbia Records, when he was 12 years and 11 months old. Even in those days of limited media, it became a record industry phenomenon, selling over two and a half million records in its first week’s release. Jimmy’s name became an international household word, and he skyrocketed to the status of a major star. Columbia Records execs were baffled at the song’s popularity. They had already presented Jimmy with two gold records. (In the days before the Grammy Award existed, gold records were effectively the Grammys, and they were actually real gold). Jimmy’s record went to number one on the charts again the following year at Christmas, and went on to sell again and again every Christmas. Today on the internet it sells worldwide to new generations, and has reportedly sold over 60,000,000 records since its initial release.

Jimmy Boyd – I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Playing on original 78 rpm record

 

Horton Foote (March 14, 1916 – March 4, 2009) was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his screenplay for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he received an Academy Award. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta.

Cause of death was not released

Sydney Earle Chaplin (March 31, 1926 – March 3, 2009) was an award winning film and theatre actor. The third son of film legend Charlie Chaplin and the second by his second wife, actress Lita Grey.

Sydney Chaplin won the 1957 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical for Bells Are Ringing, opposite Judy Holliday, and received a Tony nomination for his performance as Nicky Arnstein, the gambling first husband of Fanny Brice, opposite Barbra Streisand, in the Broadway musical Funny Girl in 1964.

Death of Sydney Chaplin
Sydney Earle Chaplin died aged 82. He was survived by his wife, Margaret, a son (by his first marriage) and a granddaughter.

Breaking News

Ernie Ashworth (December 15, 1928 – March 2, 2009) was an American country music singer and longtime star of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ernie Ashworth recently undergone heart bypass surgery. But we don’t know the official cause of death.

Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009), better known as Paul Harvey, was an American radio broadcaster for the ABC Radio Networks. He broadcasted News and Comment on weekday mornings and mid-days, and at noon on Saturdays, as well as his famous The Rest of the Story segments. His listening audience was estimated at 22 million people a week. Harvey liked to say he was raised in radio newsrooms

Harvey died on February 28, 2009, at the age of 90 after being taken to a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. He died while surrounded by family and friends. His son, Paul Harvey Jr., said "millions have lost a friend" in response to his father’s passing.  The cause was not immediately known.

On February 27, 2009 it was reported that Ed McMahon has been in an undisclosed Los Angeles hospital for almost a month. He is currently listed in serious condition and is in the intensive care unit. His publicist told reporters that he was admitted for pneumonia, but could not confirm reports that McMahon has been diagnosed with bone cancer.

In March 2008, it was announced McMahon was recovering from a broken neck and two subsequent surgeries. He was injured in 2007 in a fall. He later sued Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and two doctors, claiming fraud, battery, elder abuse and emotional distress and accusing them of discharging him with a broken neck after his fall in 2007 and later botched two neck surgeries.

Edward "Ed" Leo Peter McMahon, Jr. (March 6, 1923) is an American comedian, game show host, announcer, and television personality most famous for his work on television as Johnny Carson’s announcer on Who Do You Trust? from 1957 to 1962 and on the Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992, and as the host of the talent show Star Search from 1983 to 1995.

Howard Zieff (October 21, 1927 Los Angeles – February 22, 2009 Los Angeles) was an American director, television commercial director, and advertising photographer.

Zieff’s films include The Main Event (1979), Private Benjamin (1980), Unfaithfully Yours (1984), The Dream Team (1989), My Girl (1991) and My Girl 2 (1994).

Zieff retired from directing after My Girl 2 was released as he became increasingly debilitated by Parkinson’s disease.

Death of Howard Zieff
Zieff passed away at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at 8:10am on Sunday, February 22, his wife (renowned retired motion picture literary agent) Ronda Gomez-Quinones at his side.

Zieff grew up in Boyle Heights. He studied art for one year at Los Angeles City College, then dropped out in 1946 to join the United States Navy. He learned photography at the Naval Photography School in Pensacola, Florida and then, after his discharge, at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He became a commercial photographer in New York City in the 1950s, soon earning a reputation as one one of the city’s best-known advertising photographers of the 1960s. His campaigns included "You Don’t Have To Be Jewish" for Levy’s rye bread, "Mamma Mia, that’s a spicy meatball" for Alka-Seltzer, and ads for the New York Daily News, Polaroid, and Volkswagen.

Robert Walter Quarry (November 2, 1925 – February 20, 2009) was an American actor, known for several prominent horror film roles. His films include Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), its sequel The Return of Count Yorga (1971), and Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972). 

Death of Robert Quarry
Robert Quarry was 83 and had been in generally declining health for the past year.

Kelly Groucutt (born Michael William Groucutt, (September 8, 1945 – February 19, 2009) was an English musician who was best known for being the bass player for the band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), between 1974 and 1983. He was born in Coseley, Staffordshire.

Death of Kelly Groucutt
Kelly Groucutt died of heart attack he suffered the previous night.
Kelly Groucutt was 63 years old at the time of his death.

The first Electric Light Orchestra album to feature Kelly on bass guitar and as a backing vocalist was 1975’s Face the Music. He continued contributing on the following albums A New World Record (1976), Out of the Blue (1977), Discovery (1979), Xanadu (1980) and Time (1981).

Groucutt remained with ELO until the onset of the recording sessions for 1983’s Secret Messages album. It was at this juncture that he left the band, unhappy with royalty payments during his tenure, and made the decision to sue management and band leader Jeff Lynne. A settlement for the sum of £300,000 was reached out of court prior to proceedings. He is credited with playing bass on Secret Messages, although it has been stated from an official source that he only played on four songs.

In 2006 Groucutt married his second wife, long time girlfriend Anna-Maria Bialaga. He has four children and two grandchildren.

He took part in some of the many ELO spin-off groups: OrKestra, ELO Part 2, and The Orchestra. He toured worldwide with The Orchestra (Former members of ELO and ELO Part II) and also took part in tours as part of a local, little known band called Session 60.

Related Story
Mike Edwards, Member of ELO, dies of Freak Accident 62 (September 3, 2010)

Electric Light Orchestra – Mister Blue Sky

Snooks Eaglin (born Fird Eaglin, Jr., January 21, 1936 – February 18, 2009) was a guitarist and singer in New Orleans. He has also been referred to as Blind Snooks Eaglin.

His vocal style is reminiscent of Ray Charles; indeed, in the 50s, when he was in his late teens, he would sometimes bill himself as "Little" Ray Charles. He is generally regarded as a New Orleans R&B artist playing a wide range of music from blues, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, country to Latin music. In his early years, he also played some straight-ahead acoustic blues.

Death of Snooks Eaglin 
Snooks Eaglin died of heart attack. He had been hospitalized for prostate cancer treatment and returned home not long prior to his death.

His ability to play a wide range of songs and his ability to perfectly understand and make the tunes his own earned him the nickname the "human jukebox." Eaglin claimed in interviews that his musical repertoire included some 1,000 songs.

At live shows, he did not usually prepare set lists, and was unpredictable, even to his bandmates. He played songs that come to his head, and he also took requests from the audience.

Snooks Eaglin with George Porter Jr.- Ripstick Traces