Posts Tagged ‘RIP’

From ESPN

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Relatives and friends of Lorenzen Wright gathered Wednesday and grieved for the former NBA player who has been missing for 10 days, as police investigated the discovery of a man’s body outside of Memphis.

Wright’s uncle, Curtis Wright, told The Associated Press that police called the player’s father, Herb Wright, on Wednesday afternoon with the news he had died.

Sgt. Alyssa Macon-Moore of the Memphis Police Department wrote in an e-mail to the AP that police were investigating the death of an unidentified man beside a wooded area about 15 miles south of downtown Memphis. Asked if the man was Wright, she wrote they could not confirm the victim’s identity Wednesday night.

The family issued a statement through a cousin of Lorenzen Wright, Camella Logan: “Lorenzen’s family has come together to mourn his loss and honor his legacy. We appreciate your thoughts, prayers and condolences as they are comforting at this very difficult time. Additionally, we ask that you please respect our privacy as we try to cope with his sudden loss.”

Wright’s mother, Deborah Marion, arrived at the scene Wednesday night with a handful of family members. She crossed the crime scene tape and tried to talk to police when she was told to move back. She sat in a TV van before returning to the tape. Two officers then let her through.

The distraught Marion then started running down the road toward the crime scene before being stopped by an officer. She spoke with officers and then walked back past reporters without speaking straight to a van.

The 34-year-old Wright was last seen July 18 when he was expected to fly out of town. His family filed a missing person report July 22.

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When I first read this I thought, no way is this not a mockery of the King of Pop. However, upon further review, I’m going to reserve judgment and say this just may be hot!

From Blackweb 2.0

Finally, all that crotch-grabbing and spinning around in imitation of the King of Pop that most of us grew up doing will be put to good use. At the recent E3 event, Ubisoft announced the development of a video game based on Michael Jackson’s moves. The game will offer “an interactive experience that enables players to step into the shoes of Michael Jackson himself and re-live his most iconic performances through their own singing and dancing.”

“Michael always pushed every limit when it came to technology to give his fans unforgettable entertainment experiences, whether it involved his videos, his recordings or his concerts. Now, with this interactive product, we have the chance to bring Michael, the artist, into households around the world in a perfect match of Michael’s artistry and the family entertainment which he always highly valued. Kids, their parents, extended family members and friends will now have an opportunity to all come together and experience Michael’s music and dance in an innovative, exciting and fun way.” – John Branca, co-executor for The Estate of Michael Jackson

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Today in New York City, thousands came together to mourn the loss of legendary singer and actress Lena Horne at St. Ignatuus Loyola Church. Essence Magazine

The bad weather did not stop family, friends and celebrities, including Diahann Carroll, opera singer Jessye Norman and Dionne Warwick from filling up the sanctuary.

Actress Audra McDonald sang a touching rendition of “Amazing Grace,” while former NY mayor David Dinkins, actress (and granddaughter) Jenny Lumet and Congressman John Lewis gave their tributes during the service.

Pictures captured by Essence of friends, family and loved ones of Ms. Horne below.

From The New York Times

Lena Horne, who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan.

Her death was announced by her son-in-law, Kevin Buckley.

Ms. Horne might have become a major movie star, but she was born 50 years too early, and languished at MGM in the 1940s because of the color of her skin, although she was so light-skinned that, when she was a child, other black children had taunted her, accusing her of having a “white daddy.”

Ms. Horne was stuffed into one “all-star” musical after another — “Thousands Cheer” (1943), “Broadway Rhythm” (1944), “Two Girls and a Sailor” (1944), “Ziegfeld Follies” (1946), “Words and Music” (1948) — to sing a song or two that could easily be snipped from the movie when it played in the South, where the idea of an African-American performer in anything but a subservient role in a movie with an otherwise all-white cast was unthinkable.

“The only time I ever said a word to another actor who was white was Kathryn Grayson in a little segment of ‘Show Boat’ ” included in “Till the Clouds Roll By” (1946), a movie about the life of Jerome Kern, Ms. Horne said in an interview in 1990. In that sequence she played Julie, a mulatto forced to flee the showboat because she has married a white man.

But when MGM made “Show Boat” into a movie for the second time, in 1951, the role of Julie was given to a white actress, Ava Gardner, who did not do her own singing. (Ms. Horne was no longer under contract to MGM at the time, and according to James Gavin’s Horne biography, “Stormy Weather,” published last year, she was never seriously considered for the part.) And in 1947, when Ms. Horne herself married a white man — the prominent arranger, conductor and pianist Lennie Hayton, who was for many years both her musical director and MGM’s — the marriage took place in France and was kept secret for three years.

Ms. Horne’s first MGM movie was “Panama Hattie” (1942), in which she sang Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things.” Writing about that film years later, Pauline Kael called it “a sad disappointment, though Lena Horne is ravishing and when she sings you can forget the rest of the picture.”

Even before she came to Hollywood, Brooks Atkinson, the drama critic for The New York Times, noticed Ms. Horne in “Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939,” a Broadway revue that ran for nine performances. “A radiantly beautiful sepia girl,” he wrote, “who will be a winner when she has proper direction.”

She had proper direction in two all-black movie musicals, both made in 1943. Lent to 20th Century Fox for “Stormy Weather,” one of those show business musicals with almost no plot but lots of singing and dancing, Ms. Horne did both triumphantly, ending with the sultry, aching sadness of the title number, which would become one of her signature songs. In MGM’s “Cabin in the Sky,” the first film directed by Vincente Minnelli, she was the brazen, sexy handmaiden of the Devil. (One number she shot for that film, “Ain’t It the Truth,” which she sang while taking a bubble bath, was deleted before the film was released — not for racial reasons, as her stand-alone performances in other MGM musicals sometimes were, but because it was considered too risqué.)

In 1945 the critic and screenwriter Frank Nugent wrote in Liberty magazine that Ms. Horne was “the nation’s top Negro entertainer.” In addition to her MGM salary of $1,000 a week, she was earning $1,500 for every radio appearance and $6,500 a week when she played nightclubs. She was also popular with servicemen, white and black, during World War II, appearing more than a dozen times on the Army radio program “Command Performance.”

“The whole thing that made me a star was the war,” Ms. Horne said in the 1990 interview. “Of course the black guys couldn’t put Betty Grable’s picture in their footlockers. But they could put mine.”

Touring Army camps for the U.S.O., Ms. Horne was outspoken in her criticism of the way black soldiers were treated. “So the U.S.O. got mad,” she recalled. “And they said, ‘You’re not going to be allowed to go anyplace anymore under our auspices.’ So from then on I was labeled a bad little Red girl.”

Ms. Horne later claimed that for this and other reasons, including her friendship with leftists like Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois, she was blacklisted and “unable to do films or television for the next seven years” after her tenure with MGM ended in 1950.

This was not quite true: as Mr. Gavin has documented, she appeared frequently on “Your Show of Shows” and other television shows in the 1950s, and in fact “found more acceptance” on television “than almost any other black performer.” And Mr. Gavin and others have suggested that there were other factors in addition to politics or race involved in her lack of film work

Although absent from the screen, she found success in nightclubs and on records. “Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria,” recorded during a well-received eight-week run in 1957, reached the Top 10 and became the best-selling album by a female singer in RCA Victor’s history.

In the early 1960s Ms. Horne, always outspoken on the subject of civil rights, became increasingly active, participating in numerous marches and protests.

In 1969, she returned briefly to films, playing the love interest of a white actor, Richard Widmark, in “Death of a Gunfighter.”

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MKRob Sports

Florida International University running back Kendall Berry, 22, was stabbed to death on the university campus Thursday night, the school said in a statement.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Kendall’s family,” said FIU President Mark B. Rosenberg. “We are here to support them and our entire university community as all of us come to terms with this tragedy.”

Berry was a running back for the team.

“The FIU family is shocked and saddened by the death of one of our students, Kendall Berry, who was stabbed on the Modesto A. Maidique Campus Thursday evening, March 25,” the statement said.

Police are looking for suspects in this killing. At this time, police believe there is no immediate threat to the university community, according to the statement.

Fashion Week in NY is underway, however a dark cloud now hangs in the air. Fashion Maverick Alexander McQueen has taken his own life.

McQueen’s office has confirmed his death and gave a statement: “It’s a tragic loss. We are not making a comment at this time out of respect for the McQueen family.”

Details of the suicide are sketchy at best for the moment, however we can only verify that Alexander McQueen has indeed taken his own life at the young age of 40. Police found his body in his London home and say that the death is not being ruled as suspicious, however there will be an autopsy performed.

Today was to be his presentation for NY Fashion Week of his secondary line McQ, however the PR company in charge has canceled the showing.

McQueen was born on March 17th, 1969 on London’s East End. Coming from humble beginnings (his father a taxi driver and mother a seamstress), he was determined to make a name for himself and by his teenage years, he had begun to apprentice on Savile Row. Here he would make suits for the likes of Mikhail Gorbechev and Prince Charles. By the time he graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, his graduation collection was praised by Isabella Blow, an influential stylist. The two grew to be very close as his fashion star began to rise. However, Blow committed suicide in 2007. In honorarium, McQueen dedicated his 2008 line to her.

Among his great accomplishments, McQueen was named England’s Designer of the year four times.

XI sends its deepest condolences to the McQueen family, friends and fans and as a magazine that hails fashion, his genius will be missed.

Fashion Experts React to McQueen’s sudden death

Reactions around the online world:

Naomi Campbell broke down, sobbing hysterically, when she found out about her longtime friend, designer Alexander McQueen’s death.

Chicago Bears defensive end Gaines Adams died on Sunday morning in Greenwood, South Carolina at age 26.

Greenwood County coroner Jim Coursey told WYFF-TV that Adams was pronounced dead at Self Regional Hospital. He also told the station that Adams appeared to be in good health before his passing.

An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Adams was the fourth overall selection in the 2007 draft by the Bucs. Tampa traded him to the Bears in October for a second-round draft pick in April.

He appeared in 15 games last season with the Bears and Bucs and recorded one sack.

Adams is the second NFL player to die in as many months, following the passing of former Bengals WR Chris Henry in December.

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