Category: people

After beginning his career as a symphonic oboist, he became the most influential record producer of the 1940s and ’50s, working with everyone from Sinatra to Johnny Mathis to Doris Day to Mahalia Jackson. In 1961 he became a star in his own right with the TV program (old-fashioned even in its day) Sing Along With Mitch.

“Acclaimed Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa plans a comeback concert next month, declaring he has started his ‘second life’ after surgery for esophagus cancer and seven months of treatment.”

“Elizabeth Sargent, a one-time dancer noted for her boldly sexual poetry, is now in her 80s and in remission from cancer. For 40 years, she’s lived on the ninth floor of the red brick southern tower above the famed stage of the 119-year-old landmark. She has until Aug. 31 to clear out.”

The judge “ruled that reporter Don Rosenberg’s assertion that the newspaper had retaliated against him for filing a suit against the Cleveland Orchestra and the Plain Dealer should not go before a jury because there were “no material facts to dispute.”

“Shangrow had founded the Seattle Chamber Singers and Orchestra Seattle, and had conducted with the Seattle Symphony and orchestras around the northwest. For many years, he was host of Live by George, a Seattle radio show that featured live, in-studio classical performances.”

David William was part of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival for 17 seasons and its artistic director for three years. “The British-born stage actor and director died of a head injury suffered in a fall on Wednesday, according to a statement from the annual theatre festival in southwestern Ontario.”

“A hefty man with expressive, doughy features, Mr. Chaykin was the kind of actor whose name was known to few but whose face to many. His screen career lasted 35 years, and he appeared in dozens if not hundreds of movies and television shows, mostly in supporting or cameo roles.”

“She’s often mixed up her hard-edged detectives with portraits of British queens or wicked schoolteachers, but I think she’s at her best when she’s playing someone with a genuine unpleasant or strange edge. In these roles, Mirren is who Angelina Jolie ought to actually want to grow up to be.”

“There is nothing and no one, from Barack Obama to ice cream, that this man does not have, or cannot be persuaded to have, an opinion on, in voices ranging from “extreme vernacular, to slightly Victorian ornamental, to street life”. Could he be suffering from multiple personality disorder? he wonders.”