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March 29, 2024

R I P of the day

Ventura Raymond (b. 1908-04-16 / d. 1979-03-29) alias Ray Ventura

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Sad list (15)

Smart
Paul (alias: Smarty). 2021-10-27

78

Born 1943-04-23. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident

Paul Smart was a British motorcycle racer. He died at the age of 78 following a road traffic collision. Paul was riding his motorcycle when the accident occurred. Whilst enjoying success in GP and at the TT, Paul is most known for winning the 1972 Imola 200 for Ducati. A statement from the family reads: "Paul was a hugely popular character in and out of the paddock, and much loved by his family, friends and fans around the world. He was 78. He will forever be synonymous with Ducati, the Italian brand he propelled to international acclaim with victory in the 1972 Imola 200 race. Paul also shared a special affinity with the Brands Hatch circuit, having lived literally next door in West Kingsdown for many years. So much more can and will be written in the days and weeks ahead about a life well lived that has been tragically curtailed. Paul is survived by wife Maggie, son Scott and daughter Paula who kindly request their privacy is respected at this difficult time." At Imola, Paul took his all-new Ducati Gran Tourismo 750 machine to victory at the inaugural event, which was Europe’s answer to America's Daytona200. The 750 was the first Ducati to use a desmodromic engine, had the frame, suspension, engine, and brakes of a production model touring bike. Smart was able to beat Giacomo Agostini and his MV Agusta 500cc race bike. Ducati honoured his victory with the Paul Smart 1000 LE special edition bike in 2006. The bike was styled to look just like his 1972 race winning machine. Paul also raced in the 250cc, 350cc and 500cc GP categories, securing a total of seven podiums. He finished second in the 250cc and 350cc races at the 1971 Swedish Grand Prix, whilst finishing second and third respectively in the 350cc class in West Germany and East Germany. In 1970 Paul finished third at the Isle of Man GP on a 350cc Padgett Yamaha, and in the same year finished second at the Finnish Grand Prix and Ulster Grand Prix on a 250cc machine. Paul Smart nickname is Smarty.

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Einstein
Stewart Robert (alias: Bob Einstein). 2019-01-02

76

Born 1942-11-20. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer

Stewart Robert Einstein was an American actor, comedy writer and producer. He created and performed the satirical stuntman character Super Dave Osborne, played Marty Funkhouser in Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Larry Middleman on Arrested Development. Einstein got his start as a writer on several television variety shows, including The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. Einstein won two Emmy Awards as a writer and was nominated four other times. He also won a CableACE Award for acting as Super Dave, along with five other nominations. Einstein was the son of radio comedian Harry Einstein, and the older brother of fellow actor and comedian Albert Brooks.

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Marty
Jean. 2015-12-03

89

Born 1925-12-11. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Age

Jean Marty is a French carom player, specializing in serial games.

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Borgnino
Ermes Effron (alias: Ernest Borgnine). 2012-07-08

95

Born 1917-01-24. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age

He was an American film and television actor whose career spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, winning an Oscar in 1955 for Marty. On television, he played Quinton McHale in the 1962–1966 series McHale's Navy and co-starred in the mid-1980s action series Airwolf, in addition to a wide variety of other roles. Borgnine was also known for his role as Mermaid Man in the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. Borgnine died of renal failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles,

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Mann
Delbert. 2007-11-11

87

Born 1920-01-30. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Infection (Lungs)

Pneumonia.
Marty (1955)
The Bachelor Party (1957)
Desire Under the Elms (1958)
Separate Tables (1958)
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960)
Lover Come Back (1961)
The Outsider (1961)
That Touch of Mink (1962)
A Gathering of Eagles (1963)
Heidi (TV adaptation, 1968)
David Copperfield (1969)
Kidnapped (1971)
All Quiet on the Western Front (TV adaptation, 1979)
The Last Days of Patton (TV)

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Agnelli
Edoardo. 2000-11-15

46

Born 1954-06-09. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Suicide

Son of the industrialist patriarch of Fiat, Gianni Agnelli. Originally expected to be the heir apparent as the only son, his life made it clear he would never succeed his father.
Edoardo was detained in Kenya ten years ago on heroin charges; he was in possession of approximately 300 grams. The drug charges were eventually dropped and Edoardo was banned from entering Africa again.
Gianni had known that Edoardo could never succeed him. In 1986, Edoardo admitted to his father that he had a secret son. The child born out of wedlock, Giovanni "Gio" Agnelli. (born 1973) was named in honor of Edoardo's father. The senior Agnelli was not amused, and denied the legitimacy of Edoardo's claim. Edoardo then held a press conference at Assisi at which he spoke about God and announced that he was preparing to take over the leadership of Fiat. Fiat responded publicly that Edoardo was unlikely to become active in its operations.
In 2000 Edoardo apparently committed suicide by jumping off a banked road. The funeral was immediate. Later that day, the Agnellis began to arrive at the family mansion at Villar Perosa, near Turin. Edoardo was laid in the Agnelli vault on Friday. The gigantic Fiat vehicle plants paused for a moment of respect, then resumed production. In subsequent years, it has been claimed in Muslim quarters that Edoardo is a martyr killed by Zionists. They claim, some of the close friends of him, that before his death he wanted to go to Tehran and seek political asylum, as his life was in danger. Further more they claim that the zionist regime could not have let such a big wealthy estate run in the hands of a devote shia muslim, particularly when he is a supporter of Iran.

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Marty
Gabriel (alias: Monseigneur François Marty). 1994-02-16

89

Born 1904-05-18. Domain:Religious. Cause of death:Accident

For his retirement, he was offered a 2CV. "It will lead me to the Paradise", he said.
Indeed, he was killed in that very car in a car-train accident.

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Feldman
Martin (alias: Marty Feldman). 1982-12-02

48

Born 1934-07-08. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Heart attack

He'd got bulging eyes, which were the result of a thyroid condition known as Graves Disease.
Feldman died from a heart attack (as a result of shellfish food poisoning) in a hotel room in Mexico City, Mexico during the making of the film Yellowbeard. The famous cartoonist Sergio Aragones was filming a movie nearby and when he introduced himself to Feldman earlier that night, he frightened Feldman and possibly induced his heart attack. He has told the story with the punchline "I killed Marty Feldman".
Mel Brooks on the DVD commentary of Young Frankenstein, cites a number of factors that may have contributed to Feldman's early death from a heart attack. He was a very heavy smoker (smoking 4-5 packs of cigarettes a day), drank copious amounts of coffee and, although a vegetarian, ate a diet high in eggs and dairy products. The increased stress placed upon his body by the high altitude environment of Mexico City (it is located at an altitude of 2,300m where the air contains 26% less oxygen than at sea level may also have been a factor in his sudden death.

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Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkin (alias: Brian Jones). 1969-07-03

27

Born 1942-02-28. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Unknown

He was a founding member, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist in the English rock group The Rolling Stones.
At around midnight on 3 July 1969, Jones was discovered motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool at his home in Hartfield, Sussex, England. His Swedish girlfriend, Anna Wohlin, is convinced he was alive when they took him out, insisting he still had a pulse. However, by the time the doctors arrived, it was too late, and he was pronounced dead. The coroner's report stated "Death by misadventure", and noted his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by drug and alcohol abuse.Some felt it was suicide, however, blaming Jagger and Richards for his state of mental depression.
Wohlin claimed in 1999 that Jones had been murdered by a builder who had been renovating the house the couple shared. The builder, Frank Thorogood, allegedly confessed to the murder on his deathbed to the Rolling Stones' driver, Tom Keylock; however, there were no other witnesses. In ("The Murder Of Brian Jones"), Wohlin alleges that Thorogood behaved suspiciously and showed little sympathy when Jones was discovered in the pool (he was the last to see Brian alive), but she admits she was not present at Jones's death. Witnesses who claim to have seen the 'murder' have been interviewed by journalists; however, these witnesses have almost always used pseudonyms, and none has been willing to go on record or report to the police. A critical witness, still alive, is a man called 'Marty' in the Hotchner book 'Blown Away'. Another builder present, called Mo(rris) passed away a couple of years ago.
Many items, such as instruments and expensive furniture, were stolen from the home after Jones's death, most likely by Thorogood, driver Tom Keylock, and others who worked on the property. Rumours also exist that recordings by Jones for his future projects were stolen but nothing has surfaced to date. A watch given by Alexis Korner to Brian, with a personal inscription, surfaced at Christie's in New York.
Upon Jones' death, Pete Townshend wrote a poem titled "A Normal Day For Brian, A Man Who Died Every Day" (printed in The Times), Jimi Hendrix dedicated a song to him on U.S. television, and Jim Morrison of The Doors wrote a published poem entitled Ode To L.A. While Thinking Of Brian Jones, Deceased.

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Thorez
Maurice. 1964-07-11

64

Born 1900-04-28. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Stroke

He proved to be the most Stalinist of all communist leaders in Western Europe, blocking the evolution of his party.
In 1950, at the height of his popularity among party members, Thorez suffered a stroke and remained in the Soviet Union for medical care until 1953. During his absence, the party was de facto controlled by his ally Jacques Duclos, who expelled Thorez's rival André Marty. Thorez resumed his duties upon returning to France. Although his health deteriorated, Thorez remained party leader, until shortly before his death in 1964 on a Black Sea cruise.
The city of Torez in Ukraine is named after him. The Maurice Thorez Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages (Московский институт иностранных языков имени Мориса Тореза) was named in his honor in the Soviet Union.
His grand-son François Thorez fled in Mexico with his two children in 1999. He was eventually retrieved and jailed in 2007.

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Bastien-Thiry
Jean. 1963-03-11

35

Born 1927-10-19. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

Bastien-Thiry led the most prominent assassination attempt against De Gaulle. The group set themselves up in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart on August 22, 1962. De Gaulle's car, an unarmoured Citroën DS, and nearby shops were raked with machine gun fire but de Gaulle, along with his wife and entourage, were able to escape without injury. After the attempt, some fourteen bullet holes were found in the president's vehicle, with another twenty striking the nearby Café Trianon, and an additional one-hundred-eighty-seven found on the pavement. De Gaulle credited the unusual abilities of the DS vehicle with saving his life — the shots had blown two of the tires, but the car could still escape at full speed.
Jean Bastien-Thiry was executed by firing squad at Ivry-sur-Seine, while clutching his rosary. Of the execution, de Gaulle said to an old friend, "The French need martyrs... They must choose them carefully. I could have given them one of those idiotic generals playing ball in Tulle prison. I gave them Bastien-Thiry. They'll be able to make a martyr of him. He deserves it."

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Fanon
Frantz Omar. 1961-12-06

36

Born 1925-07-20. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:cancer (blood)

Frantz Omar Fanon (/ˈfænən/, US: /fæˈnɒ̃/; French: [fʁɑ̃ts fanɔ̃]) was a Francophone Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist, political philosopher, and Marxist from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and Marxism. As well as being an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist humanist concerned with the psychopathology of colonization and the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization. With his health declining, Fanon's comrades urged him to seek treatment in the U.S. as his Soviet doctors had suggested. In 1961, the CIA arranged a trip under the promise of stealth for further leukemia treatment at a National Institutes of Health facility. During his time in the United States, Fanon was handled by CIA agent Oliver Iselin. As Lewis R. Gordon points out, the circumstances of Fanon's stay are somewhat disputed: "What has become orthodoxy, however, is that he was kept in a hotel without treatment for several days until he contracted pneumonia." Fanon subsequently died from double pneumonia in Bethesda, Maryland, on 6 December 1961 after finally having begun his leukemia treatment. He had been admitted under the name of Ibrahim Omar Fanon, a Libyan nom de guerre he had assumed in order to enter a hospital in Rome after being wounded in Morocco during a mission for the Algerian National Liberation Front. He was buried in Algeria after lying in state in Tunisia. Later, his body was moved to a martyrs' (Chouhada) graveyard at Aïn Kerma in eastern Algeria.

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Drieu La Rochelle
Pierre. 1945-03-15

52

Born 1893-01-03. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Suicide

At the liberation of Paris in 1944, Drieu had to go into hiding. Despite the protection of André Malraux, and after a failed first attempt in July 1944, he committed suicide by poisoning himself with medicaments. He recounted that he first tried to commit suicide at 7. Suicide had been a constant temptation throughout his adult life. Like Robert Brasillach, his death caused him to be revered as a martyr by neo-fascists and others who shared his deep dissatisfaction with bourgeois society.

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d'Estienne d'Orves
Henri Honoré. 1941-08-29

40

Born 1901-06-03. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

D'Estienne d'Orves was codenamed "Jean-Pierre Girard"; on 21 December 1940. He set sail from Newlyn to Plogoff on a fishing ship, the Marie-Louise, along with his 20-year-old radio operator Alfred Gaessler, a German-speaking Alsatian, codenamed Georges Marty. He arrived at the Raz the next day.
He set his quarters in Chantenay-sur-Loire, near Nantes, at the Clément's house, and made several trips to Paris and in Brittany, with the notable assistance of Maurice Barlier. He set up the basic organisation of the spying web, and was able to transmit significant information about German forces (coastal defences, submarines, aerodromes and refueling point near Nantes).
From 6 January to 19 January, he was in Paris to set up a second network, meeting with Max André, Jan Doornik and numerous other people from the French Resistance. Back to Nantes on 20 January, he came back to the Clement's, who reported suspicious activities by the radio operator Gaessler, seen hanging around in bars and talking with German soldiers. When interrogated, Gaessler said that this was a good way to gather information. D'Estienne d'Orves decided to lay down Marty at the next trip to London, but two days later, the Gestapo stormed the house and arrested him. After a brief resistance, a wounded and handcuffed D'Estienne d'Orves was brought to Angers, along with his companions.
Marty's treason allowed the Nazis to also arrest Barlier, Doornik and most of the network, totaling 26 people. The small intelligence network created by Max André, however, was untouched, and continued its operations until the Liberation of Paris in August 1944. For several weeks, Gaessler sent false information to London and allowed the Nazis to arrest several other agents. He was evacuated by the Nazis to Austria, and disappeared in 1945.
He was tried from 13 May onwards, and claimed full responsibility of the network, defending his fellow prisoners. On the 23rd, Court Martial sentenced him to death, along with eight of his companions, and transferred them to Fresnes.
Acknowledging their patriotism, the Court Martial filed a request for grace immediately, and German legal advisor Keyser took it upon himself to make the trip to Berlin and request a grace for the prisoners from Hitler himself. But the invasion of USSR by the Third Reich, on 22 June 1941, forced the French Communists to join the Resistance and greatly increased the attacks against German forces, inducing a harshening in the repression. Hence, on 28 August, the execution order was given for D'Estienne d'Orves, Barlier and Doornik. The three were granted to spend their last night together, and to be shot standing and without a blindfold. They were blessed by Chaplain Franz Stock.
D'Estienne d'Orves had an interview with president Keyser, the German military judge who had sentenced him to death, where he said: "Sir, you are a German officer. I am a French officer. We both served our duty. Please allow me to hug you".
The execution took place on 29 August 1941, at dawn, at Fort du Mont Valérien. Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves was buried in Verrières le Buisson.

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Bronstein
Lev Davidovitch (alias: Léon Trotski). 1940-08-21

61

Born 1879-11-07. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Murder

Trotski, or Trotsky... These bloody russian names and dates !
He was able to speak 7 languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Hebrew, German, English, French and Spanish. Although it is stated in his autobiography "My Life" that he was never perfectly fluent in any language but Russian and Ukrainian, Raymond Molinier wrote that Trotsky spoke fluent French.
In 1938, Trotsky and his supporters founded the Fourth International, which was intended to be a revolutionary and internationalist alternative to the Stalinist Comintern.
Trotsky moved into his own residence in Coyoacán, a neighborhood in Mexico City in 1939. On May 24, 1940, he survived a raid on his home by Stalinist assassins led by State Political Directorate (GPU) agent Iosif Romualdovich Grigulevich, Mexican Stalinist painter David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Vittorio Vidale. On August 20, Trotsky was successfully attacked in his home by a KGB agent, Ramón Mercader, who drove the pick of an ice axe into Trotsky's skull.
The blow was poorly delivered, however, and failed to kill Trotsky instantly, as Mercader had intended. Witnesses stated that Trotsky spat on Mercader and began struggling fiercely with him. Hearing the commotion, Trotsky's bodyguards burst into the room and nearly killed Mercader, but Trotsky stopped them, shouting, "Do not kill him! This man has a story to tell."
Trotsky was taken to a hospital, operated on, and survived for more than a day. Mercader later testified at his trial:
I laid my raincoat on the table in such a way as to be able to remove the ice axe which was in the pocket. I decided not to miss the wonderful opportunity that presented itself. The moment Trotsky began reading the article, he gave me my chance; I took out the ice axe from the raincoat, gripped it in my hand and, with my eyes closed, dealt him a terrible blow on the head.
According to James P. Cannon, the secretary of the Socialist Workers Party (USA), Trotsky's last words were "I will not survive this attack. Stalin has finally accomplished the task he attempted unsuccessfully before."
Trotsky was never formally rehabilitated by the Soviet government, despite the Glasnost-era rehabilitation of most other Old Bolsheviks killed during the Great Purges. But under President Gorbachev, Trotsky was called in 1987 "a hero and martyr". His son Sergej Sedow, killed in 1937, was rehabilitated in 1988. Bukharin was rehabilitated in 1988 as well. Trotsky's books, forbidden till 1987, were published since 1989. Trotsky was featured on a commemorative postage stamp in 1987.

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