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Cuny Alain (b. 1908-07-12 / d. 1994-05-16)
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59
Born 1963-08-01. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Heart
Artis Leon Ivey Jr., known professionally as Coolio, was an American rapper. First rising to fame as a member of the gangsta rap group WC and the Maad Circle, Coolio achieved mainstream success as a solo artist in the mid-to-late 1990s with his albums It Takes a Thief (1994), Gangsta's Paradise (1995), and My Soul (1997). He is best known for his 1995 Grammy Award-winning hit single "Gangsta's Paradise", as well as other singles "Fantastic Voyage" (1994), "1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New)" (1996), and "C U When U Get There" (1997). From 1996 on, Coolio released albums independently, and provided the opening track "Aw, Here It Goes!" for the 1996 Nickelodeon television series Kenan & Kel. He created the web series Cookin' with Coolio and released a cookbook. While at a friend's house in Los Angeles on September 28, 2022, Coolio was discovered unresponsive on a bathroom floor. He was pronounced dead by first responders. He was 59 years old at the time of his death. Police have opened an investigation into his death, though foul play is not suspected, and Coolio's manager stated he appeared to have suffered cardiac arrest. Coolio was cremated in a private ceremony with no funeral service. His ashes were then encased in jewelry for his family, with the rest of his ashes going into an urn.
70
Born 1951-06-15. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Thierry Liagre was a French actor. Liagre began acting in the 1980s after studying at the Cours Simon. He was known for appearing in films, on television, and onstage, particularly at the Théâtre La Bruyère. Thierry Liagre also stood out in "Les Visitors" in 1993, alongside Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, where he played the mad with rage cook of the Courtepaille restaurant.
96
Born 1923-10-10. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
When the actor Patrick Jordan was in Star Wars he had a choice. Did he want a guaranteed fee for his part as an Imperial Officer, or a tiny share of the royalties? He got the part through his friend Alec Guinness with whom he had worked in the Old Vic theatre company in the 1940s. Jordan shared Guinness’s contempt for Star Wars, and was dubious about the film’s prospects, so he took the one-off fee. He regretted the decision ever after with rueful humour, claiming that had he chosen a cut he would never have had to work again. He was born and raised in Harrow, Middlesex, the son of Margaret, a cook, and Albert Jordan, a regimental sergeant major. An accident while playing bows and arrows with his two brothers left him with a distinctive scar on his right cheek. He made his stage debut in a 1946 Old Vic production of Richard II at the New Theatre, which was directed by Ralph Richardson and featured Harry Andrews and Alec Guinness. With Old Vic he went on to perform in other Shakespearean plays, including Coriolanus and The Taming of the Shrew, in the last of which also appeared Renée Asherson. Jordan remained friends with Asherson and Guinness.
73
Born 1945-04-07. Domain:Society. Cause of death:cancer (pancreas)
Joël Robuchon was a French chef and restaurateur. He was named "Chef of the Century" by the guide Gault Millau in 1989, and awarded the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (France's best worker) in cuisine in 1976. He published several cookbooks, two of which have been translated into English, chaired the committee for the Larousse Gastronomique, and hosted culinary television shows in France. He operated more than a dozen restaurants in Bangkok, Bordeaux, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, London, Macau, Monaco, Montreal, Paris, Shanghai, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo, and New York City, with the highest record of a total of 32 Michelin Guide stars among them (31 at the time of his death), the most of any chef in the world.
49
Born 1968-11-30. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Infection
DuShon Monique Brown was an American actress known for her performances as Nurse Katie Welch on the Fox series Prison Break and Connie in the NBC series Chicago Fire. Brown checked herself into the hospital earlier in the week of her death, after experiencing chest pains, but was released after undergoing tests. She died at St. James Olympia Fields Hospital on March 23, 2018. The Cook County coroner scheduled an autopsy on March 24, 2018. On May 31, 2018, the Cook County Medical examiner confirmed the death was the result of sepsis of an unknown etiology. Obesity and high blood pressure were also cited as the reason of sudden death.
72
Born 1944-05-19. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer (lung)
He was an American actor and restaurateur. Pellegrino has often acted in law and gangster-themed film and television productions. He was a member of an early 1960s singing group called the Holidaes. Notable acting roles include Johnny Dio in Goodfellas, assorted appearances on Dick Wolf's Law & Order, and FBI Chief Frank Cubitoso on HBO's The Sopranos. Pellegrino was a co-owner of the restaurant Rao's in New York City. Books written by Pellegrino include Rao's Cookbook, Rao's Recipes from the Neighborhood and Rao's on the Grill. He also produced the CD An Evening at Rao's, featuring music from Rao's jukebox.
96
Born 1919-01-21. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
He was an American film actor, pianist, dancer and singer. His mother was a cook for Humphrey Bogart. At age 16, Bluett started playing the piano at Bogart's parties. He formed a harmonizing group with his friends called "Four Dreamers". Nat King Cole used to play with the band. Bluett played a soldier in Gone With the Wind in 1939. His career consisted of minor roles due to the limited opportunities for African-Americans at the time. He relocated to Vancouver in order to avoid being drafted into World War II, and returned afterwards.
38
Born 1976-09-23. Domain:Business. Cause of death:Suicide
He was an American inventor, entrepreneur, and chef, known for his use of molecular gastronomy. He owned and operated the Cantu Designs Firm and Moto Restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. Cantu's body was found hanging inside a building he was renovating into a brewery on the Northwest Side of Chicago. After an autopsy on April 15, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said the cause of death was asphyxiation by hanging and ruled it a suicide. Cantu did not leave a note and had no history of depression or mental illness.
70
Born 1944-03-04. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
He was an American singer-songwriter and musician. An active recording artist since the early 1960s, when he started his career as the lead singer of his family musical group the Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career spanned more than 50 years and spanned a repertoire in the styles of R&B, soul, rock and roll, doo-wop, gospel, and country. His passing was announced by a publicist at XL Recordings. He suffered diabetes, prostate cancer, heart diseases, colon cancer, pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease.
87
Born 1923-05-29. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
From a humble background, he was largely self-educated. He began working as a pastry cook apprentice when he was 14 years old.
31
Born 1977-07-20. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Heart attack
He was a Cook Islands rugby league player. He played as a prop for Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, Bradford Bulls, Castleford Tigers and represented the Cook Islands.
He died of a suspected heart attack at the age of 31 after collapsing during a weight training session in the gym.
68
Born 1940-02-02. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Suicide
SF author, critic, and poet Thomas M. Disch died of suicide in his New York City apartment. Ellen Datlow reports that Disch had been depressed for several years, especially by the death of long-time partner Charles Naylor, and worries of eviction from his rent-controlled apartment.
Disch had been maintaining a livejournal (http://tomsdisch.livejournal.com/). His last post was about inflation:
"
Inflation/ Starvation/ Fun:
Short of succumbing to the madness of anorexia, I doubt I am likely to experience actual starvation before I die. Nor, I'd bet, will most of those who visit this site. But I'd also bet that most of us have felt the pinch of inflation in our daily diet. I remember the rapid evolution of low-cost middle-class A & P into up-scale, twice-the-price Food Emporium with no practical difference except the prices and the phasing out of cooking staples, a process still barely begun in most supermarkets. The eventual goal is shelves stocked only with bachelor commodities--breadfast cereal, frozen entrees for dieters, and bellywash in small bottles. Cooking gas will be rationed in winter as people try to heat their urban apartments with their ovens. Etc.
I'm curious as to where we are on that scale now. How has your own diet been affected? I had sticker shock this week when I found that a "low-cost" lunch has climbed from $5 to $10/15 in just the last couple years. The Tv advertises a $5 slice of pizza as a bargain. I don't see how teens can get by unless they are dealing drugs or balling for dollars.
But that's just me. Maybe there have been no changes in your part of Omaha at all. Just curious.
"
And a few weeks before:
"
Will the soil still be arable
once Carthage is deleted? Will we be able
to eat the tomatoes? But hush!
I see a snitch Follow me into the sewer
We'll be safe underground
"
And also...
"
The Tablets of Common Knowledge 1
Two of them appeared in a perp-walk
on Channel One tonight, looking tough and stoic--
but still young enough to serve as someone's
bitch once they've been bled by their lawyers
and whoever may be able to spare them, a while,
the horrors of an enforced sodomy. That.
as we know, is what prison is there for
and that is why there is an interval
between the sentencing and the first rape.
Kill yourselves while you can, guys.
It's what I would do.
"
65
Born 1940-12-01. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:alcohol, other drugs
He was an American comedian, actor, film director, social critic, satirist, writer, and MC. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986. In 1990, Pryor suffered a second and more severe heart attack and underwent triple heart bypass surgery. On June 9, 1980, during the making of the film Bustin' Loose, Richard Pryor set himself on fire after freebasing cocaine and drinking 151-proof rum. While on fire, he ran down Parthenia Street from his Los Angeles, California home, until being subdued by police. He was taken to the hospital, where he was treated for burns covering more than half of his body. Pryor spent six weeks in recovery at the Herpolscheimer Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital. His daughter, Rain Pryor, stated that Pryor poured high-proof rum over his body and set himself on fire in a bout of drug-induced psychosis. Later, in an on-camera interview, Pryor commented, "I tried to commit suicide. Next question." Pryor incorporated a description of the incident into his comedy show Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip in 1982. He joked that the event was caused by dunking a cookie into a glass of low-fat and pasteurized milk, causing an explosion. At the end of the bit, he poked fun at people who told jokes about it by waving a lit match and saying, "What's that? Richard Pryor running down the street."
86
Born 1917-11-05. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
The actress chose the stage name "Robinson" after the novel Robinson Crusoe because it denoted liberty, as her Czech birth name meant "freedom". She was the daughter of a Czechoslovak pastry cook father and a French tram ticket collector mother. At 14 Robinson, whose real name was Svoboda, began work in a factory, and then became an errand-girl before working as a maid for a painter.
Her daughter Sophie-Julia (from a relationship with Jean-Louis Jaubert, from the group 'Les Compagnons de la Chanson') died of AIDS in 1993 aged 38.
Had a son, Jean-François, from her first marriage with Robert Dalban
Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1958
68
Born 1933-03-07. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Suicide
Kohl was found dead aged 68 in her Ludwigshafen home. She had apparently committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills, after years of suffering from what was claimed to be a very rare and painful photo allergy induced by an earlier penicillin treatment that had forced her to avoid practically all sunlight for years.
Kohl is known for her collection of German-style cooking recipes published as Kulinarische Reise durch Deutsche Länder (Culinary Journey through German Regions) which was published in 1996.
81
Born 1919-08-10. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Age
He was a French cinematographer. He is most famous for his work with Alain Resnais, especially for the two films Hiroshima mon amour, L'année dernière à Marienbad and Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Prospero's Books).
91
Born 1907-05-23. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
Geneviève Mathiot dite Ginette Mathiot, Officier de la Légion d'Honneur was a French food writer and home economist. Mathiot wrote over 30 books including the famous Je sais cuisiner which sold over 6 million copies; she also wrote the famous *Je sais faire la pâtisserie (The Art of French Baking), which has been updated and published by Phaidon in 2011. She never married and used traditional cooking methods to design cookbooks which the young wife caring for a young family could read and understand with ease. She is well known in France and her recipes are still used today by some of the most celebrated chefs, and millions of copies of her recipe books have been sold. She pursued a long career in education, first as a home economics teacher, and later as the Inspectrice générale de l'enseignement ménager de la Ville de Paris then finally as the Inspector General overseeing the teaching of Home Economics in France.
48
Born 1941-01-08. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:cancer (throat)
Chapman died of pneumonia brought about by throat cancer, which had spread to his spine. He was diagnosed in November 1988 after visiting his dentist where a growth was found on his tonsils. At his side when he died were John Cleese, Michael Palin, David Sherlock, his brother John and John's wife, although Cleese found himself too saddened to be in the room when his writing partner died. Terry Jones and Peter Cook had visited earlier that day. Chapman's death occurred one day before the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of Flying Circus; Terry Jones called it “the worst case of party-pooping in all history.” A memorial service was held for Chapman in December 1989 in the Great Hall at St Bartholomew's Hospital. Cleese delivered the eulogy; after his initial remarks, he said of his former colleague “…good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries!”, and then pointed out that Chapman would have been disappointed if Cleese passed on the opportunity to scandalize the audience. He explained that Chapman would have been offended had Cleese, the first person to say "shit" on British television, not used Chapman's own funeral as an opportunity to also become the first person at a British memorial service to use the word "fuck".
88
Born 1880-06-27. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Helen Adams Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. One of Helen's Swiss ancestors was the first teacher for the deaf in Zurich. Keller reflected on this coincidence in her first autobiography, stating "that there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his." Helen Keller was not born blind and deaf; it was not until she was 19 months old that she contracted an illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain", which might have been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left the child deaf and blind. At that time, she was able to communicate somewhat with Martha Washington, the six-year-old daughter of the family cook, who understood her signs; by the age of seven, Helen had more than 60 home signs to communicate with her family. In 1886, her mother, inspired by an account in Charles Dickens' American Notes of the successful education of another deaf and blind woman, Laura Bridgman, dispatched young Helen, accompanied by her father, to seek out Dr. J. Julian Chisolm, an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist in Baltimore, for advice. He subsequently put them in touch with Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell advised the couple to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, the school where Bridgman had been educated, which was then located in South Boston. Michael Anagnos, the school's director, asked former student Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired and only 20 years old, to become Keller's instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship, Sullivan evolving into governess and then eventual companion. Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller's house in March 1887, and immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with "d-o-l-l" for the doll that she had brought Keller as a present. Keller was frustrated, at first, because she did not understand that every object had a word uniquely identifying it. In fact, when Sullivan was trying to teach Keller the word for "mug", Keller became so frustrated she broke the doll. Keller's big breakthrough in communication came the next month, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water"; she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world. Due to a protruding left eye, Keller was usually photographed in profile. Both her eyes were replaced in adulthood with glass replicas for "medical and cosmetic reasons". Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and author. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities, amid numerous other causes. She was a suffragist, a pacifist, an opponent of Woodrow Wilson, a radical socialist and a birth control supporter. Keller wrote a total of 12 published books and several articles.
34
Born 1933-04-19. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Accident
At the end of her life, Jayne had already divorced Mickey Hargitay, with whom she had three children, Mickey Jr, Zoltan and Mariska.
After her gig, she and her companion and attorney Sam Brody, and the three little Hargitays left in the 1966 Buick Electra (owned by Gus Stevens himself), driven by Ronnie Harrison, who was only 20 years old. Think he kept his eye on the road? Naw. The group was heading to New Orleans, so Jayne could do a television show the next day.
On their route, they passed a waterway called the Rigolets, the proceeded to travel down a "winding, narrow stretch of the two-lane route known as the Old Spanish Trail, US90." about 2:25am they passed over this bridge, then passed through this curve in the road. What’s that? An insecticide truck? Whoops. Blam. There they go. Killed Brody, killed Ronnie and killed Jaynie. The car plowed underneath the truck which was spraying chemicals, thus making it very foggy. The impact sheared the top of the car off. The car was described once as, "crumpled like a piece of tinfoil after a cookout." The kids made it out okay, because they were asleep in the back, but the top part of Jayne’s head was ripped off. This does not mean decapitation. The death certificate reads "crushed skull with avulsion of cranium and brain."
33
Born 1931-01-22. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Murder
Sam Cook was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He added an "e" onto the end of his name because he thought it added a touch of class.
The details of the case involving Sam Cooke's death are still in dispute. The official police record states that Cooke was shot dead by Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel, where Cooke had checked in earlier that evening. Franklin claimed that Cooke had broken into the manager's office/apartment in a rage, wearing nothing but a shoe and an overcoat (and nothing beneath it) demanding to know the whereabouts of a woman who had accompanied him to the motel. Franklin said that the woman was not in the office and that she told Cooke this, but the enraged Cooke did not believe her and violently grabbed her, demanding again to know the woman's whereabouts. According to Franklin, she grappled with Cooke, the two of them fell to the floor, and she then got up and ran to retrieve her gun. She said that she then fired at Cooke in self-defense because she feared for her life. According to Franklin, Cooke exclaimed, "Lady, you shot me", before finally falling, mortally wounded.
According to Franklin and to the motel's owner, Evelyn Carr, they had been on the phone together at the time of the incident. Thus, Carr claimed to have overheard Cooke's intrusion and the ensuing conflict and gunshots. Carr called the police to request that they go to the motel, informing them that she believed a shooting had occurred.
A coroner's inquest was convened to investigate the incident. The woman who had accompanied Cooke to the motel was identified as Elisa Boyer, who had also called the police that night shortly before Carr did. Boyer had called the police from a phone booth near the motel, telling them she had just escaped from being kidnapped.
Boyer told the police that she had first met Cooke earlier that night and had spent the evening in his company. She claimed that after they left a local nightclub together, she had repeatedly requested that he take her home, but that he instead took her against her will to the Hacienda Motel. She claimed that once in one of the motel's rooms, Cooke physically forced her onto the bed and that she was certain he was going to rape her. According to Boyer, when Cooke stepped into the bathroom for a moment, she quickly grabbed her clothes and ran from the room. She claimed that in her haste, she had also scooped up most of Cooke's clothing by mistake. She said that she ran first to the manager's office and knocked on the door seeking help. However, she said that the manager took too long in responding, so, fearing Cooke would soon be coming after her, she fled the motel altogether before the manager ever opened the door. She claimed she then put her own clothing back on, stashed Cooke's clothing away and went to the phone booth from which she called police.
Boyer's story is the only account of what happened between the two that night. However, her story has long been called into question. Because of inconsistencies between her version of events and details reported by other witnesses as well as circumstantial evidence (e.g., cash that Cooke was reportedly carrying was never recovered, and Boyer was soon after arrested for prostitution), many people feel it is more likely that Boyer went willingly to the motel with Cooke and then slipped out of the room with Cooke's clothing in order to rob him rather than to escape an attempted rape.
Ultimately, though, such questions were beyond the scope of the inquest, whose purpose was simply to establish the circumstances of Franklin's role in the shooting, not to determine exactly what had happened between Cooke and Boyer preceding that. Boyer's leaving the motel room with almost all of Cooke's clothing in tow, regardless of exactly why she did so, combined with the fact that tests showed Cooke was inebriated at the time seemed to provide a plausible explanation for Cooke's bizarre behavior and state of dress, as reported by Franklin and Carr. This explanation, together with the fact that Carr, from what she said she had overheard, corroborated Franklin's version of events, was enough to convince the coroner's jury to accept Franklin's explanation that it was a case of justifiable homicide. And with that verdict, authorities officially closed the case on Cooke's death.
However, some of Cooke's family and supporters have rejected not only Boyer's version of events but also Franklin's and Carr's. They believe that there was a conspiracy from the start to murder Cooke, that this murder took place in some manner entirely different from the official account of Cooke's intrusion into Franklin's office/apartment, and that Franklin, Boyer and Carr were all lying to provide a cover story for this murder. None have been able to provide any evidence of this, however.
My brother was first class all the way. He would not check into a $3-a-night motel; that wasn't his style.
69
Born 1869-09-23. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
She was an Irish-born cook believed to have infected 51 people, three of whom died, with typhoid fever, and the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the disease. Because she persisted in working as a cook, by which she exposed others to the disease, she was twice forcibly quarantined by authorities, and died after a total of nearly three decades in isolation. Mallon spent her life in quarantine at the Riverside Hospital. Six years before her death, she was paralyzed by a stroke. On November 11, 1938, she died of pneumonia at age 69. A post-mortem found evidence of live typhoid bacteria in her gallbladder, confirming the findings of three decades earlier. George Soper wrote however, "There was no autopsy", a claim cited by other researchers to assert a conspiracy to calm public opinion after her death. Mallon's body was cremated, and her ashes were buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx.
82
Born 1828-05-08. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
He was a Swiss businessman and social activist. During a business trip in 1859, he was witness to the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in modern day Italy. He recorded his memories and experiences in the book A Memory of Solferino which inspired the creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1863. The 1864 Geneva Convention was based on Dunant's ideas; In 1901 he received the first Nobel Peace Prize together with Frédéric Passy.
He lived in the nursing home in Heiden until his death. In the final years of his life, he suffered from depression and paranoia about pursuit by his creditors and Moynier. There were even days when Dunant insisted that the cook of the nursing home first taste his food before his eyes to protect him against possible poisoning. Although he continued to profess Christian beliefs, in his final years he spurned and attacked Calvinism and organized religion generally.
According to his nurses, the final act of his life was to send a copy of Müller's book to the Italian queen with a personal dedication. He outlived his nemesis Moynier by just two months. Despite the ICRC's congratulations at the bestowal of the Nobel prize, the two rivals never reached a reconciliation.
According to his wishes, he was buried without ceremony in the Sihlfeld Cemetery in Zürich. In his will, he donated funds to secure a "free bed" in the Heiden nursing home always to be available for a poor citizen of the region and deeded some money to friends and charitable organizations in Norway and Switzerland. The remaining funds went to his creditors partially relieving his debt; his inability to fully erase his debts was a major burden to him until his death.