Year: 2008

Gale Morgan Harold III (born July 10, 1969) is an American actor best known for his roles on Queer as Folk and Vanished. In May 2008, it was announced that he will be joining the cast of Desperate Housewives.

In May 2008, Gale Harold joined the cast of Desperate Housewives beginning May 18, 2008 as Jackson, Susan Mayer’s latest love interest.

On October 14 2008, Harold was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. As of October 15 2008, He is at USC Medical Center in the Intensive Care Unit.

Frank Lawrence "Lefty" Rosenthal (June 12, 1929 – October 13, 2008) was a sports handicapper and a former Las Vegas casino executive. He also hosted a television talk show in Las Vegas during the late 1970s.

The 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino, based on the book by Nicholas Pileggi, was inspired by Rosenthal’s career in Las Vegas. Rosenthal (re-named "Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein") was played by Robert De Niro, and his Mafia associate Anthony Spilotro (re-named "Nicky Santoro") was played by Joe Pesci. Rosenthal’s story was featured on The History Channel’s, "True Crime Authors," as well.

Death of Frank Rosenthal
Frank Rosenthal died of a heart attack in his Florida home.
Frank Rosenthal was 79 years old at the time of his death

Evangelis Billy Graham is in hospital after tripping and falling over one of his dogs at his North Carolina home.

The 89-year-old evangelist is in Mission Hospital in Asheville reportedly suffering from some discomfort and bruising.

A hospital spokeswoman says Graham is in fair condition and that X-rays show no broken bones.

William Franklin Graham Jr., KBE (born November 7, 1918) better known as Billy Graham, is an evangelist and an Evangelical Christian. He has been a spiritual adviser to multiple U.S. presidents and was number seven on Gallup’s list of admired people for the 20th century. He is a Southern Baptist.

* The good news is that there is no broken bone.  But Billy Graham will turn 90 years old in 4 weeks. 

Graham has suffered from prostate cancer and macular degeneration. He was hospitalized last year for nearly two weeks after experiencing intestinal bleeding.

The Dalai Lama was hospitalized in New Delhi, his spokesman said early Friday, just days after a medical checkup cleared the Tibetan spiritual leader to resume foreign travel.

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Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson had a successful heart procedure on Monday and left the hospital the day after, a spokesman for the president said on Thursday.

LONDON (AP) — A publicist for Meat Loaf says the 57-year-old rocker was hospitalized in London for three days following an awards ceremony earlier this week. Complete AP article

Reggae star Alton Ellis dies 70

Raggae singer Alton Ellis – 2007

Alton Ellis OD (born Alton Nehemiah Ellis) (September 1, 1940 – October 10, 2008) was a musician best known as one of the innovators of rocksteady music, and was often referred to as the "Godfather of Rocksteady". In 2006, he was inducted into the International Reggae And World Music Awards Hall Of Fame.

Alton Ellis died on 10 October 2008 at Hammersmith Hospital, West London, after collapsing during a show in London in August of that year.

Eileen Herlie (born Eileen Herlihy; March 8, 1918 – October 8, 2008) was a Scottish-American actress.

Until the late 1990s, Herlie was one of the few actresses to ever portray the same character on three different soaps. In 1993, she portrayed Myrtle on the All My Children sister-soap Loving. In December 2000, she portrayed Myrtle in crossover appearances on the soap opera One Life to Live, where a ‘Who’s the Daddy?’ storyline was playing out on all four ABC soaps (All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital, and the now canceled Port Charles).

Death of Eileen Herlie
On October 8, 2008, Eileen passed away due to complications from pneumonia. She was 90 years old.

All My Children – Aileen Herlie

Eileen Herlie’s biography continues next page

Eileen Herlie was born to a Catholic father and a Protestant mother in Glasgow, Scotland. Herlie was trained as a theatre actress, but her first big film break was being cast by Laurence Olivier in his 1948 film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. She portrayed Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, despite the fact that she was 11 years younger than Olivier, who portrayed her son, Hamlet. She reprised her Gertrude in the 1964 Broadway production starring Richard Burton. She repeated her Gertrude in the 1964 film version of the Broadway stage production.

After Olivier’s Hamlet Herlie continued to make sporadic film appearances, but remained primarily in the theatre. In 1955 she was Irene Molloy in The Matchmaker on Broadway (this play was later made into Hello Dolly!). In 1960, she was nominated for a Tony Award as ‘Best Actress in a Musical’ for Take Me Along, in which she played opposite Jackie Gleason.

In 1976, Herlie made the move to television soap operas in the role of Myrtle Fargate on All My Children. In the 1980s, Herlie was nominated for three consecutive Daytime Emmy Awards (1984, 1985 and 1986). She became close friends with fellow cast member Louis Edmonds, and spoke at his funeral in 2001.

A fire at Nick Nolte’s home in Malibu, California gutted his living room on Tuesday but the actor escaped with minor injuries after trying to douse the flames with a garden hose, officials said.

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Nick Reynolds is the father of folk songs, paved the way for Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

Nick Reynolds (July 27, 1933 San Diego, California – October 1, 2008 San Diego, California) American folk musician and recording artist. One of the founding members of The Kingston Trio group, whose largely folk-based material captured international attention during the late fifties and early sixties.

Death of Nick Reynolds
Nick Reynolds died on October 1, 2008, in San Diego, CA
Nick Reynoldswas 75 years old at the time of his death

Nick Reynolds lived the last years of his life comfortably and well in Coronado, California with his wife Leslie. For eight years, Nick joined John Stewart to do a “Trio” fantasy camp in Scottsdale, Arizona. In addition to a dinner with a question and answer session, fantasy campers joined Reynolds and Stewart on stage to perform a song, becoming for that one moment a member of a "Kingston Trio," the group whose contributions to folk, pop, and world music constitute Nick Reynolds’ musical legacy.

Nick Reynolds’ biography continues next page

The man who never returned

Biography
Growing up in Coronado Island, California, his passions as a kid growing up were tennis, skin-diving and singing with his family. His father, a Navy captain, was an avid guitar player who brought back songs from his travels around the world. He taught Nick the guitar and ukulele, and the family spent many nights singing and harmonizing for pure enjoyment. Nick enrolled in Menlo College in 1954 as a business major, and met Bob Shane in an accounting class. They soon started hanging out, drinking, and chasing women together, and this, in turn, led to playing music, initially as a way of being popular at parties — Shane’s guitar and Reynolds’ bongos became a fixture at local frat gatherings, and after a few weeks of this, Shane introduced Reynolds to Dave Guard.

Shane returned to Hawaii for a time to work for his father’s sporting goods company. Guard and Reynolds began playing with Joe Gannon on bass and singer Barbara Bogue, and became Dave Guard & the Calypsonians. Reynolds then left for a time following his graduation and was replaced by Don McArthur in a group that was known as the Kingston Quartet, and in a resulting shuffle, Reynolds and Shane (back all the way from Hawaii) were brought back into the group, now rechristened the Kingston Trio. Their initial approach to music was determined by the skills that each member brought or, more accurately, didn’t bring to the trio — Nick Reynolds sang a third above the melody, swapped his ukulele for a tenor guitar, and his bongos for a conga drum. Reynolds provided the group with an ebullient vocal style, superb harmonizing, and an ability to convey tender lyrics with a touching intimacy. The trio disbanded in 1967 but was revived in the seventies under the direction of original member Bob Shane, and continues to the present although Shane retired from performing in 2004. When the Trio disbanded, Nick moved to Oregon where he spent twenty years ranching and raising 4 children.

In 1981 the Trio reunited, featuring Bob Shane, Nick Reynolds, Dave Guard, John Stewart, George Grove, Roger Gambill. A PBS Reunion Special DVD was recorded, hosted by Tommy Smothers and featuring special guest Mary Travers. In 1983, Nick Reynolds collaborated with John Stewart and Lindsey Buckingham on a new album/CD "Revenge of The Budgie" with seven new recordings.

In the mid-eighties Reynolds moved back to California and rejoined the Trio in 1987/1988. He sang and played with them happily for another 11 years, then retired for the second time in December, 1999. Folk Music Archives interviewed the Trio in San Antonio and New York City when Nick Reynolds, a founding 1958 member performed his last full-time performance with the group during a concert with the San Antonio Symphony.

House Peters Jr., a TV actor who became the original Mr. Clean in Proctor & Gamble’s commercials for household cleaners.

House Peters, Jr. (January 12, 1916 – October 1, 2008) was an American actor and the son of House Peters, Sr. He was born in New Rochelle, New York, as Robert House Peters, Jr. and died at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital in Los Angeles, California (age 92).

Peters died of pneumonia at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital in Los Angeles.

In a career that spanned 1935-1967, Peters appeared in many films, primarily as the “heavy,” or villain. He appeared in television series including Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone and Lassie.

From the late 1950s into the 1960s, Peters Jr. played Mr. Clean in television spots, advertising the eponymous cleaning product.