Farewell Raquel, Farewell Hurricane Hazel

RIP Raquel Welch (pictured at left), the GOAT Hollywood sex godess. She was always Walt's favourite. There hasn't been one like her, before or since. 

Of course I admired her for her mind. (She wrote a book, you know.) She liked to play strong women, characters of substance, and wrote that she disliked almost all of the roles she was offered. But hey, it was a living.

If I may be permitted a small personal recollection... Many years ago, I paid what was then a small fortune to see her Vegas/nightclub act, up close and personal. I was surprised to find that she was not as tall as you'd think if you just looked at her legs in the still pictures. She stood 5'6" in her bare feet. The rest of her stats, at her peak (I know you want to know!) were 37-22-35.

After a short illness, Raquel Welch died yesterday, aged 82. 

"Hurricane Hazel" McCallion (the one on the right) was smaller, but feistier. She got her nickname from the storm which devastated parts of Peel County, west of Toronto, in 1954, when Mrs McCallion (she eschewed the PC "Ms") was 33.

She was a businesswoman (not "businessperson"), politician and human dynamo, a force to be reckoned with in any arena in which she set foot. Yes, she skated and played hockey well into her golden years! 

She was elected and re-elected as Reeve of Streetsville ON. When Streetsville and an agglomeration of other towns, villages and hamlets became the City of Mississauga, "Hurricane Hazel" became its mayor in 1978. She served in that capacity until her retirement in 2014, making her the longest-serving mayor in Ontario (and possibly Canadian) history.

On her very long watch, Mississauga tripled in size -- it's now Canada's sixth-largest city -- while remaining debt-free. Her accomplishments are too numerous to be listed. We can only say, as we did of Raquel Welch, there wasn't another one like her, before or since.

Hazel McCallion died of pancreatic cancer at the end of January, and was buried in Mississauga on Valentine's Day, which would have been her 102nd birthday. RIP

VIDEO: Anus horribilis 2020: Noted in passing (Music)

Ed. here. 2020 is almost over, thank God, truly an Annus Horribilis if ever there was one. (I know my Latin but Walt insists on leaving the headline as he wrote it.) We were going to combine Sports and Music in one last segment of our yearend review, but Poor Len Canayen got a bit carried away yesterday, so we had to leave Music for today. 

I don't write much about music and musicians, partly because so much of modern/contemporary "music" is shit. Rock'n'roll, for instance, ceased to exist (IMHO) with the "British invasion" of 1964. So to write about that genre is to look back 60 years or more, which we do today as we note the passing of Richard Wayne Penniman, better known as Little Richard, who took his last bow on 9 May 2020, aged 87. 

Little Richard was the self-proclaimed king of Rock'n'roll. His first big hit, "Tutti Frutti", released in October 1955, was wild gibberish -- almost like a "holy roller" speaking in tongues -- from a voice like we'd never heard before. Was this the future of music? Frank Sinatra, Pat Boone, Bobby Darin and the others suddenly became the past! With a few others – Fats Domino, Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly – Little Richard laid down what rock’n’roll was to be like.

Born in Macon GA 5 December 1932, into a Seventh-day Adventist family,  Little Richard, learned the piano and sang gospel in the local church choir, something I can relate to personally. (I could never figure out why we Catholics couldn't have a few of those jumpy, toe-tappin' tunes.) Kicked out of the family  home at age 13, he performed in medicine shows before hitching to Atlanta, where he signed to RCA Records in 1951.

He didn't develop his own unique style, though, for another four years. His piano work, crucial to his sound, was limited to hammered chords and a kind of tuneless riffing, but with that megaphone voice, falsetto squeal, bursting energy and powerhouse band, his songs -- "Long Tall Sally", "Rip It Up", "Ready Teddy", "Jenny Jenny", "Lucille", "Keep A-knockin'" and many others -- became not just classics but powerful influencers on singers who followed, whether they acknowledged it or not.

In 1986, Little Richard was among the first to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 1993. He needed none of these and the many other awards or hall of fame citations he received to tell him who he was or what he had achieved. He knew that all along. He won't be forgotten.

The highly influential singer-songwriter John Prine, whose career spanned five decades, passed away on 7 April 2020, due to complications from Covid-19.. He was 73. His musical style was a sort of crossover of folk and country, with a bit of rock added in. It was his lyrics, however, which defined him and made him the voice of the baby boom generation.

John Prine wrote about the problems of everyday life, about loneliness, the elderly, victims of the Vietnam war and those abandoned by the American dream. He did so with a blend of poignancy, anger and sudden bursts of humour. So he would sing about an injured soldier leaving Vietnam with a morphine addiction "with a purple heart and a monkey on his back", about Christmas in prison, and a letter to an advice columnist, "Dear Abby, Dear Abby … My fountain pen leaks, my wife hollers at me and my kids are all freaks." 

In 1999 he released In Spite of Ourselves, an album of duets with female country stars including Iris DeMent and Emmylou Harris. You'll find some tracks from that album, along with "Souvenirs" (my favourite), here.

   

John Prine won four Grammy awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 2020. John, if you're reading this from wherever you are, please accept the first Wally ever awarded to a musician. You sang so much of what I wanted to say.

Anus horribilis 2020: Noted in passing (Sports... well, Hockey)

Ed. here. 2020 is almost over, thank God, truly an Annus Horribilis if ever there was one. (I know my Latin but Walt insists on leaving the headline as he wrote it.) Here is the final (no kidding) segment of our yearend review, saying farewell to some people in the sports and music fields -- really just subsets of the entertainment field -- who deserve a final tip of the toque.

We're going to do sports first, which for us means hockey. Is there any other sport? Poor Len Canayen already weighed in with his Sports Highlight of the Year, but that wasn't an obituary, so over to you, Len to tell us about... well, you tell it. 

Tank youse, Walt. A number of NHL players, past and present, died this year. Some were famous, some not. Among the latter was Fred Sasakamoose, who died on 24 November 2020 at the age of 86, five days after being hospitalized with Covid-19. 

Fred toiled in the minor leagues for six or seven years, playing just one season for the NHL Chicago Blackhawks. He appeared in just 11 games in the 1953-54 season, taking 6 minutes in penalties and scoring 0 goals and 0 assists -- 0 points in all.

So why is the passing of Fred Sasakamoose worthy of note? Well sir, he was the first First Nations (Americans read: Native American) player to suit up for an NHL team, and that was back in the `50s, before anyone heard of indigenous rights or diversity. And before SJWs started demanding that the Chicago team change their name and lose Chief Blackhawk from their logo.

That's what the NHL says, but real hockey fans will ask: What about George Armstrong, who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs for two games in 1949-50, and again for a remarkable 20 seasons, 1951-71. I always thought "the Big Chief" was an Indian (as we called them in those politically incorrect days), but the distinction seems to be that he was not a treaty Indian, whereas Sasakamoose was born in Debden SK which is the headquarters of the Big River Cree First Nations band government. That makes him an "official" First Nations person.

No matter. Hockey was pretty much a white man's game in those days and it wouldn't have been easy for Sasakamoose (or Armstrong) to be accepted and travel with his team to places like, say, New York or Boston. But he did it, and inspired others to follow in his footsteps... errr, skate grooves. Well done. 

Regular readers of WWW will know that Walt and I [and Ed.! Ed.] are huge fans of Canada's team, the Montréal Canadiens. Henri Richard, one of the greatest players ever to wear la Sainte Flannelle passed away on 6 March 2020. 

He was called "the Pocket Rocket" because he was the younger brother of the legendary Maurice "Rocket" Richard. Some said he was drafted by the Habs because of the family connection, but he proved the skeptics wrong, starring with les Glorieux for the entirety of his 20-season professional career. He won 11 Stanley Cups as a player, the most in the history of not just the Canadiens but the entire National Hockey League. 

In the league's centennial year of 2017, both Richards were named among "the 100 Greatest NHL Players" of all time. Henri shared the ice with many of the Canadiens' greatest stars: Jean Béliveau, Jacques Plante, Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion and Dickie Moore. He succeeded Béliveau as the Habs' captain in 1971. 

Other than the Canadiens' junior team, Henri Richard never played for another team during his career. "Because of the age difference, I didn't think it would be possible but I played with my brother for five years [1955-1960]," he told the Hockey Hall of Fame. "Maurice used to say that if I hadn't been there, he wouldn't have played that long. Some people say it was destiny, but I just think I was in the right place at the right time. That was a great team. There were so many great hockey players. I wouldn't have said it before, but now that it's all over, I thought winning like that was normal."

And so it was, during those glory years. It is the success of the Canadiens of Henri Richard's era, and of the Pocket Rocket himself, that gives us here at WWW hope for the future. Maybe this year will see the Stanley Cup return to Canada after a long absence. That would make Henri happy. His brother too.

Anus horribilis 2020: Noted in passing (media)

Ed. here. 2020 is almost over, thank God, truly an Annus Horribilis if ever there was one. (I know my Latin but Walt insists on leaving the headline as he wrote it.) Here is the second segment of our yearend review, saying ave atque vale to some people who in some way made this world a better place, and who will be missed. 

Walt wanted to do "sports and music" second, but I'm going with journalists today because only two who died in 2020 rate a fond farewell, so this will be a short piece for a Monday morning.

Maybe not. What Ed. just wrote might get me started on the sad state of the Fourth Estate in the quasi-free world, particularly the broadcast media, particularly in the Excited States of America and its branch plant in the Great No-longer-white North. [He means Canada. Ed.] We don't call them the lamestream media for nothing. 

Reporters? Journalists? Ha! Just a bunch of typists and cut-and-pasters turning out  mediocre liberal propaganda sweetened with a veneer of "celebrity" and entertainment "news" to convince the (North) American sheeple that everything is just fine -- especially now that Sleepy Joe Biden has been pushed into the White House under cover of night -- when in reality our society is disintegrating before our very eyes. You can see it (if you open your eyes!) but they can't... or won't.

Now that I've got that off my chest, let's note the passing of two journalists of the old school -- both of them Canadian -- who will no longer be letting the air out of the tires of the liberal establishment.

One such was columnist and author Allan Fotheringham -- aka "Dr Foth" -- known for his biting satirical commentaries aimed at the rich and the powerful, who died in Toronto on 19 August 2020. 

For 27 years, you weren't considered a member of the Canuck establishment unless you had been pilloried in Dr Foth's column on the last page of Maclean’s magazine. Such was his genius that he got invited to all the best parties and, some would say, became himself a member of said establishment. 

Allan Fotheringham was born on 31 August 1932 in the middle of nowhere -- Hearne SK -- just down the road from Lilac. His career began with a regular column at the University of British Columbia's student newspaper, the Ubyssey. (The incomparable historian cum storyteller Pierre Berton also wrote for the Ubyssey at about the same time.) Fresh from university, he was hired as a reporter and columnist by the Vancouver Sun. 

He began writing his weekly Maclean’s column in 1975, and is credited with making Maclean's the only magazine customarily read from back to front. He was known for his cutting sense of humour, often aimed at prime ministers and lesser mortals. His more memorable political nicknames include "the jaw that walks like a man" for PM Lyin' Brian Mulroney, "Natural Governing Party" for the Canadian Liberal Party, and the "Holy Mother Corporation" for the Canadian Broadcorping Castration (as I call it).

Mr Fotheringham was a regular panelist on the CBC TV programme Front Page Challenge. Like Christie Blatchford (see below), he became more conservative in his later years, and wrote columns for the Toronto Sun until 2000. In 2001, when his column was moved to an inside page of Maclean's, he left in a huff to become a columnist for the Globe & Mail. His syndicated column appeared in 20 newspapers until his retirement in 2007.

Many of his columns were collected into a series of books, beginning with Collected and Bound (1972), then Malice in Blunderland, or, How the Grits stole Christmas (1983); Look Ma — no hands : an affectionate look at our wonderful Tories (1986); Capitol offences : Dr. Foth meets Uncle Sam (1989); Birds of a Feather: The Press and the Politicians (1999); and Last Page First (2001). 

Allan Fotheringham's last book was an autobiography, Boy From Nowhere - A Life in Ninety-One Countries (Dundurn Press, 2011), which Walt recommends. Maclean's marked his passing with a column filled with some of his memorable jibes under the headline: "Allan Fotheringham was loved, revered and loathed but never ignored." That's exactly why I find him an inspiration as I continue with WWW.

On 12 February 2020, Canada lost a thorn in the paws of the smug and a powerful voice for ordinary people when Christie Blatchfor lost a short but fierce battle with cancer. Born on 20 May 1951 in Rouyn QC, Ms Blatchford was one of Canada’s most prominent writers, having been a leading journalist all four of Toronto's daily papers (including two that believe they are "national newspapers").

She started at the Globe and Mail in 1973, as Canada’s first female sports columnist. (I mean she was a female who wrote about sports, not a columnist who wrote about female sports.) She moved to the Toronto Star in 1977 as a features and news writer. They say a conservative is a liberal who just got mugged. Perhaps Ms Blatchford got mugged at the Red Star, for she moved to the right(ish) Toronto Sun in 1982, and finally to the newly launched National Post in 1998.

Over the years, Ms Blatchford's award-winning work covered sports, war, the courts, crime and much more. In recent years she focused more heavily on political commentary. She wrote columns and appeared in videos that displayed both her conservative views and her hard-nosed attitude.  In her last column in the Post, published on 22 October 2019, she expressed her bewilderment that Justin Trudeau was re-elected Prime Minister of Canada.

For her sins of political incorrectness, she was much maligned by the PC police and social commentariat, but readers loved her -- 1000s sent cards and best-wishes when her cancer diagnosis was revealed -- and her vox populi is missed, not least by her colleague Rex Murphy. See "Christie Blatchford was hard as a rock, soft as a teddy bear and Canadians will miss her", in the National Post, 12/2/20. Sub-head: "She was instinctively kind, had an alert and well-exercised radar for the plight of the underdog, the 'little guy,' the person or group never near the head tables of life."

Further reading: Agent 3, who knows a thing or two about what happens when you get caught in the "justice system" [Is dis a system? Mr Natural] recommends Christie Blatchford's Life Sentence - Stories from four decades of court reporting -- or, how I fell out of love with the Canadian justice system (especially judges) (Doubleday Canada 2016).

Footnote: The estimable Rex Murphy is younger than I am, but still old enough and conservative enough to be considered a curmudgeon -- one of trhe last of a dying breed. Last June, some of his younger and more liberal "colleagues" at the Notional Pest  attempted to get him fired for having the temerity to deny the existence of systemic racism in Canada. In spite of the baying of the PC hounds, the NP's editor still gives Mr Murphy his space. Walt says: Don't let `em get to ya, Rex. I don't want to be writing your obituary next year!

Anus horribilis 2020: Noted in passing (movies and TV)

Ed. here. 2020 is almost over, thank God, truly an Annus Horribilis if ever there was one. (I know my Latin but Walt insists on leaving the headline as he wrote it.) Here is the first segment of our yearend review, saying farewell to some people who in some way made this world a better place, and who will be missed....

We begin with two stars of the silver screen.

Dame Olivia De Havilland, born 1 July 1916 in Tokyo (! to British parents), died 26 July 2020 at the age of 104. She was one of the last surviving cast members of Gone With the Wind (1939). We all cried when the saintly Melanie Hamilton died. Dame Olivia's touching performance earned her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. 

She was nominated for that award three other times, and won twice, for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). Her impact on the movie industry extended far beyond her acting ability. Her court victory over the notorious Hollywood studio system -- still referred to as "the De Havilland decision" -- changed irrevocably the way that actors would be treated by studios.

Sir Sean Connery, born in Scotland (and don't you forget it -- Scotland, not "England" or "Britain"!) 25 August 1930, died on Hallowe'en, 31 October 2020. His five-decade-long movie career was dominated by the role of James Bond, being the first to bring the role to the big screen and appearing in seven of the spy thrillers. Bond fans will remember that much of the action in the first and last films took place in the Bahamas, and that was where Sir Sean died peacefully in his sleep.

Sir Sean's acting career spanned seven decades and he won an Oscar in 1988 for his role in The Untouchables, in which I thought he was rather miscast. Other films included The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and The Rock. But his best, IMHO, was The Man Who Would Be King, in which he co-starred with Michael Caine as soldiers of fortune whose karma caught up with them in faroff Kafiristan (a real place, actually.) "Peachey never let go of Danny's head..."

Now to the smaller screen....

Alex Trebek, the genial host of the long-running TV quiz show Jeopardy!, died 8 November 2020 after a long and courageous battle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.  Answers: George Alexander Trebek, Sudbury ON Canada, 22 July  1940. Questions: What was Alex Trebek's real name? Where and when was he born?

Mr Trebek became the host of Jeopardy! in 1984, reviving the show after it had been off the air since 1979. His reassuring presence helped make the answer-and-question game show an entertainment institution, watched daily by millions of fans around the world. In 2014 Mr Trebek set the Guinness World Record for most episodes hosted by the same presenter in 2014. 

He won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host seven times between 1989 and 2020 for his work on Jeopardy!, which TV Guide ranked in 2013 as No. 1 on its list of "60 Greatest Game Shows". Mr Trebek continued taping episodes of Jeopardy! throughout his fight with pancreatic cancer, with his final shows taped just a week before his death.

Actor and comedian Gerald Isaac "Jerry" Stiller, born in Brooklyn NY 8 June 1927, died on 11 May 2020. Those who remember him best as the eccentric Frank Costanza on Seinfeld, may be surprised to learn that Mr Stiller was a classically trained actor and author, as well as a comedian. He spent many years with his wife, Anne Meara, as part of the comedy duo Stiller and Meara. 

Mr Stiller saw a late-career resurgence starting in 1993, playing the father of the feckless George Costanza on the popular sitcom, a part which earned him an Emmy nomination. The year Seinfeld stopped producing new episodes, Stiller began portraying another eccentric -- Arthur Spooner -- on the CBS comedy series The King of Queens, another role which garnered him widespread acclaim.

Considering the kind of year 2020 has been, it's a pity Frank Costanza wasn't here to lead the Festivus "airing of the grievances". I'll try to keep the tradition alive on WWW. 

Still to come: "Noted in passing (sports and music) and (print media)"