Archive - Jan 3, 2009

Celebrity deaths, hospitalizations, illness, major news, background information and some trivial stories. List of deaths by year, month, and category.

Let's make it clear: We're not enjoying people's deaths. Nobody is making bets on Who Died Today. We are here to share love and memories of stars, celebrities, and famous people. We just want to remember good times. A lot of celebrities are forgotten. We would like to remember them and celebrate them one more time as we say good-bye.

** My 2011 Top 10 Hollywood Deaths **

hollywoodmemoir.com keeps you informed on recently deceased famous people. It also keeps tracks on illness, accidents, and hospitalizations of celebrities and famous people.

Below is tweet feed from a supplemental website, HollywoodDivorceNews.com

Olga San Juan (March 16, 1927 - January 3, 2009) was a Brooklyn-born dancer and comedian of Puerto Rican extraction who was active in films primarily in the 1940s. She was dubbed the "Puerto Rican Pepperpot" for singing and dancing roles alongside Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and others. In 1951, she starred on Broadway in the Lerner & Loewe musical, Paint Your Wagon.

She was married to actor Edmond O'Brien in 1948, divorcing him in 1976, with whom she had three children, including television producer Bridget O'Brien and Maria O'Brien and Brendan O'Brien, both of whom became actors.

She died at the age of 81 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California of kidney failure stemming from a long-term illness.

Olga San Juan with Bing Crosby - I'll See You In Cuba (Blue Skies)

Olga San Juan's Filmography continues next page

Filmography
Caribbean Romance (1943)
Rainbow Island (1944)
Bombalera (1945)
Out of This World (1945)
Duffy's Tavern (1945)
Hollywood Victory Caravan (1945)
The Little Witch (1945)
Blue Skies (1946)
Cross My Heart (1946)
Variety Girl (1947)
Are You With It? (1948)
One Touch of Venus (1948)
The Countess of Monte Cristo (1948)
The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949)
The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
The 3rd Voice (1960)

Martin Patterson "Pat" Hingle (July 19, 1924 - January 3, 2009) was an American actor.

Hingle is traditionally known for playing judges, police officers, and other authority figures. One of his notable roles is the father of the character played by Warren Beatty in Splendor in the Grass (1961). While he is probably best known in recent times for playing Commissioner Gordon in the 1989 film Batman and its three sequels, Hingle has a long list of television and movie credits to his name, going back to 1948. Among them are Hang 'Em High (1968), Sudden Impact (1983), Road To Redemption (2001), When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? (1979), Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive (1986), The Grifters (1990), Citizen Cohn (1992), Muppets from Space, and Shaft (2000). Along with Michael Gough, who played Alfred Pennyworth, he is one of only two actors to appear in all of the first four Batman films.

In the 1997 revival of the musical 1776, Hingle played Benjamin Franklin, with Brent Spiner as John Adams. In 2002, he was a regular cast member of ABC's series The Court. He also played Horace in 1995's "The Quick and the Dead".

Recently, he appeared in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, as the original owner of Dennit Racing.

Death of Pat Hingle
He died of blood cancer on January 3rd, 2009.

Actor Pat Hingle - In His Own Words

Biography of Pat Hingle continues next page

Early life
Hingle was born Martin Patterson Hingle in Denver, Colorado, the son of Marvin Louise (née Patterson), a schoolteacher and musician, and Clarence Martin Hingle, a building contractor. Hingle enlisted in the U.S. Navy in December 1941, dropping out of the University of Texas. He served on the destroyer USS Marshall during World War II. He returned to the University of Texas after the war and earned a degree in radio broadcasting.

Near fatal 1960 accident
In 1960, he had been offered the title role in Elmer Gantry, but could not do it due to a near fatal accident; caught in an elevator in his West End Avenue apartment building that had stalled between the second and third floors, he crawled out, trying to reach the second floor corridor, lost his balance and fell 54 feet down the shaft, fracturing his skull, wrist, hip and most of the ribs on his left side, breaking his left leg in three places and losing the little finger on his left hand. He lay near death for two weeks and his recovery took more than a year.

William Zantzinger died on January 3, 2009 at the age of 69 

"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" is a topical song by Bob Dylan. Recorded on 23 October 1963, the song was released on Dylan's 1964 album The Times They Are A-Changin' and gives a generally factual account of the killing of 51-year-old barmaid Hattie Carroll by the wealthy young tobacco farmer from Charles County, William Devereux "Billy" Zantzinger (whom the song calls "William Zanzinger"), and his subsequent sentence to six months in a county jail. Dylan's song, however, sentenced Zantzinger to lifelong infamy.

The lyrics are a commentary on the racism of the 1960s, which valued a black woman's life so lightly. At the time, Charles County was still strictly segregated by race in public facilities such as restaurants, churches, theaters, doctor's offices, buses, and the county fair. The schools of Charles County were not integrated until 1967, four years after Hattie Carroll was killed.