Remember, Remember the Fifth of November. But This Week in Death doesn't terrorize you. It brings you Notes and news covering a week's worth of health and death. We're proud to be the only weekly email you receive with new word on Nicole Richie and Than Shwe. Does nature always win in its battle against Robert Goulet? That's why he comes up here.
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Winter's setting in... these people better bundle up if they want to stay healthy...
Richie: "The healthy birth of my child is my number one priority." Priority Number Two? Smoking.
Mommy-to-be Nicole Richie is stubbing out media reports that claim she was seen smoking while pregnant. "It's really very sad and hurtful that journalists don't believe in checking facts before writing false and unsubstantiated stories about my health and my pregnancy," Richie wrote in a statement released to "Access Hollywood." "The healthy birth of my child is my number one priority." A report that Richie was smoking while pregnant first surfaced in Cindy Adams' gossip column in the New York Post on Monday. Adams' article claimed Richie lit up on two occasions on the same day — outside DaSilvano and again outside of Nobu. No specific date was given for the incident.
[MSNBC]
Than Keeps up Erratic Behavior, Makes U.N. Shweat it Out
U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari was waiting to see Myanmar junta chief Than Shwe on Monday in pursuit of his mission to end a bloody crackdown on protests against 45 years of military rule, diplomats said. Theories varied widely on why Gambari, dispatched after the junta sent in the troops to end mass protests last week, had not met Than Shwe despite having talks with detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. Than Shwe, 74 and frequently rumored to be in poor health, may be sick, playing hard to get, or even demonstrating his contempt for international opinion, diplomats said. "We were all caught by surprise," one said after Gambari left the junta's new capital of Naypyidaw, 240 miles north of Yangon, on Sunday without meeting Than Shwe, whose government rarely heeds pressure from the outside.
[Reuters]
It Seems Her Vertigo was Acting Up Again. Maybe She Went to Spin Class
It was "Liza with a Z," but without 34 pounds, at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall on Saturday night. Liza Minnelli announced the weight loss during an occasionally wobbly performance showcasing her determination to overcome her problems with health and husbands. Minnelli looked thinner than she has in decades. Her face is no longer puffy and, if anything, verges on gaunt. One costume showed off slender legs, and a shimmering black blouse exposing one shoulder cast the 61-year-old Broadway baby in a rather sexy light. Her balance was a concern throughout the show. Minnelli's movement was unsteady, and she joked about needing the director's chair she sat in for a few numbers. Truth be told, her hands did more dancing than her feet. Hip replacement surgery will do that to you.
[Baltimore Sun]
Winter set in already for these few, their bodies are cold...
Knight did not Go Gently; Rage, Rage against the Dying of Light
Evelyn Knight, 89, who began her singing career in Washington nightclubs and emerged as a popular recording star in the 1940s and '50s, died of lung cancer Sept. 28 at a nursing home in San Jose, Calif. Between 1944 and 1951, Ms. Knight had 13 Top 40 hits, including two that reached No. 1. She headlined at posh supper clubs and hotels and was known as the "lass with the delicate air." After recording with Bing Crosby and appearing on network radio and television, she abruptly retired from show business in her 30s, never to return to the spotlight. Ms. Knight came of musical age at the same time as Dinah Shore, Jo Stafford and Peggy Lee, and for a time she was their equal in popularity. She was known for a sophisticated, witty singing style.
[Philadelphia Inquirer]
Burma Police: ♫ This is What You Get when You Mess with Us ♫
Khun Sa, the publicity-loving Golden Triangle drug lord who thrived in the region's kill-or-be-killed cauldron of ethnic rivalries and heroin-financed private armies, has died at age 73 in Yangon, Myanmar, according to an officer in the militia he once led. Kon Jern, a commander in the Shan State Army, a separatist group, said in a telephone interview that he learned of the death from one of Mr. Khun Sa's relatives. The cause of death was not known, but he was thought to suffer from high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. News agencies, quoting anonymous sources in Yangon, said he died Friday and was cremated early Tuesday. The country has been closed to outside journalists since Myanmar's ruling junta cracked down on recent anti-government protests. For decades, Mr. Khun Sa symbolized the seeming impunity of heroin traffickers in the Golden Triangle, the area encompassing the northern reaches of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand.
[New York Times]
Oh, Girl, That Death is so Scandalous... I think I'll Sing it Again! Sha Bang, Sha Bop, Bop Bop. Thong Song. Goulet!
Robert Goulet, the handsome, big-voiced baritone whose Broadway debut in "Camelot" launched an award-winning stage and recording career, has died. He was 73. The singer died Tuesday morning in a Los Angeles hospital while awaiting a lung transplant, said Goulet spokesman Norm Johnson. He had been awaiting a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after being found last month to have a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis. Goulet had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the transplant, said Vera Goulet, his wife of 25 years. "Just watch my vocal cords," she said he told doctors before they inserted a breathing tube. The Massachusetts-born Goulet, who spent much of his youth in Canada, gained stardom in 1960 with "Camelot," the Lerner and Loewe musical that starred Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as his Queen Guenevere.
[AP]
Rumor: Red Spy Dies From White Spy Dropping Piano on Head
Col. Aleksandr Feklisov, a Soviet spy whose long career included directing the intelligence-gathering of Julius Rosenberg, who was convicted of espionage and executed in 1953, and acting as an intermediary between the White House and the Kremlin during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, has died. He was 94. Sergei Ivanov, head of the press service of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, announced the death, said Interfax, a Russian news service. Details of his death were not announced. Mr. Feklisov was an intelligence officer for the Committee for State Security, best known by its Russian abbreviation, K.G.B., from 1939 to 1974, and a contract officer for the service from 1974 to 1986. He described his once-secret activities in a 1997 documentary on American television and in writings that include his autobiography, "The Man Behind the Rosenbergs" (2001).
[New York Times]
In the Long Run, Woodruff Has the Last Lap
John Woodruff, whose halting, come-from-behind victory in the 800-meter run in the 1936 Berlin Olympics astonished the sports world and, along with the gold-medal success of Jesse Owens and other black athletes, helped embarrass Adolf Hitler, died Tuesday in Fountain Hills, Ariz. He was 92. The cause was atrial fibrillation and chronic renal failure, his wife, Rose, said yesterday. Woodruff had earlier lost his legs because of a circulatory ailment. Woodruff was the last survivor of the 12 American men who won track and field gold medals in the 1936 Olympics. Hitler, the German chancellor, had opened the Games confident they would showcase the prowess of German athletes and prove his theories of Aryan racial superiority. He was said to be deeply embarrassed when Owens, Woodruff and three other black athletes came away with eight gold medals.
[New York Times]
This Week Was Somebody's Birthday! Whose Birthday? Some Death Pool Entrants' Birthdays. How Old Are They? 1,2,3... And Never been Kissed By... Death
Happy Birthday to:
October 30: Diego Maradona (47)
October 31: Norodom Sihanouk (85)
November 3: Bob Feller (89)
November 4: Walter Cronkite (91)
... And Many More!!!!!!!!
Paul Tibbets dropped a 20-point bomb on the pool this week, but he did not cause the Top 5 any death, destruction, or radiation damage. They remain...
1. El Esta Adead - 76 points (6 deaths)
2. Yiz-score - 74.3 points (5 deaths)
3. The Ex-Parrots - 62.3 points (6 deaths)
4. Kraut's Picks - 60.9 points (8 deaths)
5. Life's a Bitch - 53.9 points (8 deaths)
With the dawning of www.bestdeathpoolever.blogspot.com, this is set to be the winter of our discontent.
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