obituary
Page: 9
Kathryn Crosby, who appeared in such movies as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Anatomy of a Murder, and Operation Mad Ball before marrying famed singer and Oscar-winning actor Bing Crosby, has died. She was 90.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
She died of natural causes Friday (Sept. 20) night at her home in the Northern California city of Hillsborough, a family spokesperson said Saturday.
Appearing under her stage name of Kathryn Grant, she appeared opposite Tony Curtis in Mister Cory in 1957 and Victor Mature in The Big Circus in 1959. She made five movies with film noir director Phil Karlson, including Tight Spot and The Phenix City Story, both in 1955.
Her other leading men included Jack Lemmon in Operation Mad Ball, James Darren in The Brothers Rico, and James Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder, directed by Otto Preminger.
Trending on Billboard
Born Olive Kathryn Grandstaff on Nov. 25, 1933, in West Columbia, Texas, she graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in fine arts. She came to Hollywood and began her movie career in 1953.
She met Bing Crosby while doing interviews for a column she wrote about Hollywood for her hometown newspaper. They were married in 1957, when she was 23 and he was 54.
She curtailed her acting career after the wedding, although she appeared often with Crosby and their three children on his Christmas television specials and in Minute Maid orange juice commercials. She became a registered nurse in 1963.
In the 1970s, she hosted a morning talk show on KPIX-TV in Northern California.
After Crosby’s death at age 74 in 1977, from a heart attack after golfing in Spain, she appeared in stage productions of Same Time, Next Year and Charley’s Aunt. She co-starred with John Davidson and Andrea McArdle in the 1996 Broadway revival of State Fair.
For 16 years ending in 2001, she hosted the Crosby National golf tournament in Bermuda Run, North Carolina.
She is survived by children Harry, Mary, an actor best known for the TV show Dallas, and Nathaniel, a successful amateur golfer. She was married to Maurice Sullivan for 10 years before he was killed in a 2010 car accident that seriously injured Crosby.
Michaela DePrince, a powerful ballerina who appeared on Dancing With the Stars and in Beyoncé’s Lemonade film, has died. She was 29 years old. A cause of death was not revealed. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The devastating news was announced by her family via the dancer’s social media pages. “With […]
Tommy Cash, a country singer and the younger brother of Johnny Cash, has died. He was 84.
The news of Tommy’s passing was confirmed on Saturday (Sept. 14) in a social media post by the Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville.
“We are saddened to announce that the world lost a bright light last evening with the passing of Tommy Cash,” reads a statement on Instagram from Icon Entertainment CEO Bill Miller, who founded the museum.
A cause of death was not provided at press time.
Tommy died on Friday, just one day after the 21st anniversary of late country music icon Jonny Cash, who passed away on Sept. 12, 2003, from complications of diabetes.
“Tommy Cash was a loyal supporter of the Johnny Cash Museum and a very beloved member of our extended family as well as a highly respected member of the music industry,” Miller added. “This great man will be deeply missed by his friends and many loyal fans around the world. Please keep Tommy’s beloved wife, Marcy and his family in your prayers.”
Tommy was born in Dyess, Ark., on April 5, 1940. Following the artistic path of his older brother, Tommy enlisted in the U.S. Army and worked as a radio DJ for the Armed Forces, and later performed as a musician with Hank Williams Jr.‘s band.
Tommy’s solo music career began to take off after scoring his first record deal in 1965. Three years later, he released his debut album, Here’s Tommy Cash, and scored his first top 10 on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs in 1970 with “Six White Horses,” a tribute to John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The track, which reached No. 4, was later covered by country great Waylon Jennings.
Tommy scored two more top 10 hits on Hot Country Songs in 1970 with “Rise and Shine” and “One Song Away.” He went on to perform as a musician over the decades, teaming up with his big brother Johnny on “Guess Things Happen That Way” in 1990.
“He performed around the world throughout his career, carrying on the Cash legacy long after his brother, Johnny Cash, passed in 2003,” Miller concluded in his statement.
See the Johnny Cash Museum’s announcement about Tommy Cash’s death on Instagram here.
Frankie Beverly, the honey-coated baritone frontman for the soul and funk group Maze, has died. He was 77. His family announced his Sept. 10 passing on Facebook Wednesday (Sept. 11). A cause of death has not been revealed. The post, signed by The Beverly Family, reads as follows: “Grieving the loss of a loved one […]
Mark Moffatt, the Australia-born, Nashville, TX-based guitarist, producer and engineer who worked on recordings by a long-list of important acts, from The Saints to Keith Urban, Tim Finn, Yothu Yindi and many others, died Friday (Sept. 6) following a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 74.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Few Australian creatives can top Moffatt’s results in the studio. Moffatt was responsible for more tracks than another other single producer in the APRA Top 30 Australian songs, a list published in 2001 to celebrate the PRO’s 75th anniversary. And he produced a remarkable 15 ARIA Hall of Fame inductees.
Hailing from Maryborough, Queensland, he moved to Brisbane, then relocated to the U.K. to work on London’s Denmark Street for several years. When he found himself back in Brisbane in 1976, Moffatt slotted himself behind the desk producing The Saints’ “(I’m) Stranded,” a song that lit the powder keg that was the punk scene.
Trending on Billboard
Production stints with EMI and TCS Studios in Melbourne paved a way to Sydney in 1980, where Moffatt joined Festival Records as in-house producer, working on some of the biggest names in Australian music for more than a decade.
It was Moffatt who championed a young Keith Urban and produced Yothu Yindi’s hit “Treaty,” leaving a “rich catalog of success and an incredible legacy on the Australian and the global stage,” reads a statement from ARIA. “Mark gave life to sounds that defined generations.”
Moving to Nashville in 1996, Moffatt was APRA AMCOS’ inaugural Nashville member relations representative from his appointment in 2014, until he retired from the role in June 2024. During his time there, he was awarded the CMA Global Achievement Award.
The late music man “is without a doubt a legend of our industry and more importantly, a kind and wonderful person to have known,” reads a statement from APRA AMCOS.
At the time of his death, Moffatt was putting the finishing touches on an album for KILO, a band he formed with Australian rock singer John “Swanee” Swan.
“As much as Moffatt loved his music, his first love was his family,” reads a statement on his social page. He is survived by his wife, Lindsey, step-daughter Dana and two granddaughters, his son Geordie, and extended family in Australia.
A celebration of his life is being planned, with details to be supplied in due course.
Bass guitarist Herbie Flowers, who played with David Bowie, Elton John, Lou Reed and other music legends in a decades-long career, has died at 86.
The musician’s family confirmed his death on Facebook Saturday (Sept. 7).
“While we knew and loved him as Uncle Herbie, his musical contributions have likely touched your lives as well,” the husband of Flowers’ niece wrote. “He played bass on many of the songs from the golden age of rock,” the post reads.
A cause of death was not provided.
Flowers was a founding member of the pop group Blue Mink, who later joined the rock band T Rex. He won acclaim for his work with many of the biggest names in U.K. music in the 1970s, giving Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” from the 1972 Transformer album, its recognizable twinned bassline.
He also played bass for Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” Bryan Ferry’s “The Bride Stripped Bare,” and Paul McCartney’s “Give My Regards to Broad Street,” and featured in two of John’s early ’70s albums, among many others.
In a tribute, Bowie’s estate wrote on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), “his work with Bowie and associates over the years is too long to list here.”
“Aside from his incredible musicianship over many decades, he was a beautiful soul and a very funny man. He will be sorely missed,” it said. “Our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
Tim Burgess, lead singer for The Charlatans singer, wrote X that Flowers “made the greats sound greater.”
Flowers also founded the instrumental rock band Sky in the late 1970s, releasing seven albums.
Will Jennings, the Oscar- and Grammy-winning co-writer of Titanic‘s “My Heart Will Go On” and other hit songs by Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood and Whitney Houston, has died. He was 80.
The superstar lyricist passed away Friday (Sept. 6) at his home in Tyler, Texas, his caregiver Martha Sherrod confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. A cause of death was not provided, but Jennings had been experiencing health issues in recent years.
“A sad time, the passing of Will Jennings, a maestro, brilliant mind and a gentle spirit. It was an enormous honor to have worked with such a musical genius,” former J. Geils Band singer Peter Wolf, who collaborated with Jennings, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Saturday.
During his career, the Songwriters Hall inductee co-wrote six songs that reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: Barry Manilow’s “Looks Like We Made It” (1977); Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes’ “Up Where We Belong” (1982); Winwood’s “Higher Love” (1986); Houston’s “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” (1987); Winwood’s “Roll With It” (1988); and Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” (1998).
Jennings also collaborated with Clapton on “Tears in Heaven,” which hit No. 2 on the Hot 100 and topped Billboard‘s Adult Contemporary chart for three weeks in 1992. The tribute to Clapton’s late son also earned the pair a song of the year trophy at the 35th annual Grammy Awards.
Jennings won best original song at the Academy Awards in 1983 for co-writing An Officer and a Gentleman‘s “Up Where We Belong” alongside Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie. He took home the same honor in 1998 for the Titanic classic “My Heart Will Go On,” which he wrote-wrote with composer James Horner. The Dion-sung ballad also won a Grammy for song of the year.
Jennings was born in Kilgore, Texas, in 1944. Before hitting it big in songwriting, he was a professor at Tyler Junior College and later Austin State University, before teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. His résumé also includes musical collaborations with superstars like B.B. King, Mariah Carey, Jimmy Buffett and Roy Orbison.
Jennings is survived by his wife, Carole, and his sisters, Joyce and Gloria.
Screamin’ Scott Simon, who spent 52 years as the pianist of the energetic rock ’n’ roll and doo-wop group Sha Na Na, died Thursday in Ojai after a long battle with sinus cancer, his daughter Nina Simon announced. He was 75.
A member of Sha Na Na from 1970 until they quit touring in 2022, Simon sometimes played the piano with his feet as he belted out such hits as Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and Danny & the Juniors’ “At the Hop.”
Simon and Sha Na Na performed in the 1978 film adaptation of Grease as “Johnny Casino and the Gamblers,” playing six doo-wop numbers in the high school dance scenes.
Trending on Billboard
Meanwhile, Simon partnered with Louis St. Louis to write “Sandy,” sung by John Travolta. The film’s soundtrack went on to become one of the top albums of all time, with sales of more than 30 million copies.
With the 1977 premiere of The Sha Na Na Show, Simon moved to Los Angeles and appeared on all 97 episodes of the 30-minute syndicated variety program over four seasons. The band welcomed such guest stars as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, James Brown and the Ramones.
And on tour, Sha Na Na performed with acts including John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Steve Martin, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel.
Born on Dec. 9, 1948, in Kansas City, Missouri, Simon was a multisport athlete and active in United Synagogue Youth, a national community of Conservative Jewish teenagers. He played in jug bands, founded a jazz quartet, tried his hand at composing and did song parodies, like turning Van Morrison’s “Gloria” into “Toriah.”
He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University — where a classmate nicknamed him “Screamin’ Scott” — in 1966 and fronted a blues band called The Royal Pythons.
In 1970, he answered an ad in the Columbia newspaper about an opening for a piano player and guitarist in a campus doo-wop group. Sha Na Na had immediately preceded Jimi Hendrix onstage at Woodstock in 1969 yet was still relatively unknown. After Simon graduated, he came aboard as its keyboardist and eventual managing partner.
While Sha Na Na primarily played classic ’50s and ’60s songs, Simon composed multiple songs and solo albums performed by the band and by himself on records and on TV.
In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife, Deborah; another daughter, Morgan; stepson Nick; and granddaughters Rocket and Naomi.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Iconic bossa nova producer, songwriter, pianist and song interpreter Sérgio Mendes has died at 83. The legendary Brazilian superstar whose career spanned more than six decades and helped craft the modern sound of Latin pop and dance died in Los Angeles of undisclosed causes.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Beginning in his teens, Mendes — who was born on Feb. 11, 1941 in Rio de Janeiro — focused on dreams of becoming a classical pianist before being inspired by the then bubbling bossa nova explosion in the late 1950s that put a jazzy spin on the popular samba style. He honed his chops played clubs and performing with his bossa nova mentors, Antônio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto, before forming his first band, the Sexteto Bossa Rio, with whom he released his 1961 debut recording, Dance Moderno.
Mendes and his band quickly jumped from the clubs of Rio to New York, where Mendes played the first bossa nova festival at Carnegie Hall, followed by a pop-in at the iconic Birdland jazz club in 1962. That serendipitous visit led to an impromptu set with hard bop legend saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, resulting in 1963’s Cannonball’s Bossa Nova album, which featured a mix of jazz-tinged sambas with Mendes on piano. Mendes’ busy year also included contributions to American jazz flutist Herbie Mann’s 1963 albums, Do the Bossa Nova with Herbie Mann and its follow-up, Latin Fever.
After moving to the U.S. in 1964, Mendes formed the first in a series of eponymous bands, Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’65 and released The Swinger From Rio album, with contributions from Jobim and American jazz trumpeter Art Farmer, followed by a live album recorded with his Brasil ’65 crew, In Person at El Matador.
Bouncing between recordings for Atlantic Records and Capitol, Mendes released albums at a furious pace throughout the late 1960s, quickly cementing his status as one of the premier ambassadors for the swinging bossa nova sound. But it was when he signed to jazz great Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss’ A&M Records that Mendes’ album sales and chart success began to take off thanks to the renamed Brasil ’66’s debut single, the Jorge Ben-penned “Mas que Nada.”
The track with lead vocals from American jazz singer Lani Hall, appeared on the platinum-selling Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 and ran up to No. 47 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, helping cement its status as one of Mendes’ most beloved songs. The group, which continued to chart through the decade with groovy samba-inflected covers of pop songs, including their Grammy-nominated 1968 take on the Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill,” as well as the Fab Four’s “Day Tripper” and boss nova’d versions of the Mamas & the Papas’ “Monday, Monday” and the Cole Porter standard “Night and Day.”
The group’s second A&M album, 1967’s Equinox, reached No. 3 on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart, followed a few months later by Look Around, which established a soon-to-be-familiar pattern of mixing bossa nova covers and originals with takes on popular English-language songs, including the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends” and Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s Dusty Springfield hit, “The Look of Love”; Mendes’ version bested Springfield’s on the U.S. charts, going all the way to No. 4 on the Billboard pop tally. The song’s popularity was boosted when Mendes performed the Oscar-nominated song from the James Bond movie Casino Royale on the 1968 Academy Awards telecast.
In 1968, Mendes replaced the entire Brasil ’66 lineup — with the exception of singer Hall — on the group’s fourth LP, Fool on the Hill, which spawned two top 10-charting singles with the Beatles cover title track and a take on Simon & Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair.” Mendes released three more albums on A&M through the end of the 1960s — 1968’s Sergio Mendes’ Favorite Things and Crystal Illusions and 1969’s Ye-Me-Lê — which continued the winning formula of mixing bossa nova with grooving takes on Great American Songbook classics and American pop hits by the likes of Otis Redding, Glen Campbell and Bacharach/David.
His output continued apace in the 1970s, when he released more than a dozen albums, including 1970’s Stillness, which featured new lead vocalist Gracinha Leporace and Love Music, his third album with the reconfigured band — now known as Brasil ’77. The familiar formula continued apace, mixing songs by Jobim with covers of well-known tunes by Stevie Wonder and Leon Russell.
By the 1980s his release schedule began to slow, but Mendes’ popularity bumped up again with 1983’s self-titled album, which gave him his first top 40 LP in more than a decade, as well as his highest-charting single, the No. 4 Hot 100 adult contemporary hit written by Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil, “Never Gonna Let You Go.” Mendes scored his only Grammy win in 1992 with Brasileiro, which won the 1993 Grammy for best world music album.
In 2006 he teamed with Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am for Timeless, a No. 44 Billboard 200 LP which featured vocals from a raft of neo soul singers including Erykah Badu, Jill Scott and india.arie, as well as Q-Tip, John Legend, Stevie Wonder and Justin Timberlake.
Mendes continued to release music throughout the 2000s, including his final studio album, 2020’s In the Key of Joy. In addition to his Grammy award and two Latin Grammys, Mendes was nominated for an Oscar in 2012 for his theme song to the animated film Rio, “Real in Rio.” Mendes was also profiled in the 2020 documentary Sérgio Mendes: In the Key of Joy.
Listen to some of Mendes’ most beloved songs below.
[embedded content]
[embedded content]
James Darren, the former teen idol and pop singer who played the dreamy surfer Moondoggie in three Gidget movies before starring on television on The Time Tunnel and T.J. Hooker, died Monday. He was 88.
Darren died in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Jim Moret, a correspondent for Inside Edition, told The Hollywood Reporter. He had entered the hospital for an aortic valve replacement but was deemed too weak to have the surgery; he went home but had to return.
“I always thought he would pull through,” Moret said, “because he was so cool. He was always cool.”
Trending on Billboard
Early in his career, the dark-haired Darren received excellent notices for starring in Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) — portraying the son of a hoodlum defended by Humphrey Bogart’s character in 1949’s Knock on Any Door — and for playing the Greek soldier Spyros Pappadimos in The Guns of Navarone (1961).
Even though he could not surf, the Philadelphia native got the role of Moondoggie (real name: Jerry Matthews) opposite three actresses as the precocious Malibu teen: Sandra Dee in Gidget (1959), Deborah Walley in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Cindy Carol in Gidget Goes to Rome (1963).
Darren revived his singing career in the late ’90s when he appeared on several episodes of the syndicated series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the holographic lounge singer Vic Fontaine, a role he called “one of the most enjoyable” he ever played.
Several of his Frank Sinatra-styled performances were recorded for the 1999 album This One’s From the Heart.
After many years out of the limelight, Darren made an impression as the husband of a bar owner in Harry Dean Stanton‘s final film, Lucky (2017).
James William Ercolani was born on June 8, 1936. Growing up on South 10th Street in South Philadelphia, he was inspired by another Philly native, Eddie Fisher, to become a singer and actor, and he commuted to New York to study acting with Stella Adler.
While in the city, the owner of a photography shop connected him to Columbia Pictures talent scout Joyce Selznick (David O. Selznick’s niece), and he went on to sign a contract with the studio.
Darren made his film debut as a high school senior and gang member opposite Robert Blake in the crime drama Rumble on the Docks (1956), then followed with roles in Operation Mad Ball, The Brothers Rico and The Tijuana Story in 1957 and Gunman’s Walk in ’58.
The Gidget movies made him extremely popular with young ladies.
“The defining moment was when I was at a studio in San Francisco and word got out that I was there,” he recalled in a 2015 interview with Los Angeles magazine. “Thousands of girls were screaming out front. When I had to leave the building, they tackled me to the ground and pulled pieces of my hair out. The police had to rescue me and took me to the roof until things settled down.”
To land the Gidget gig, Darren had to convince the producers that he could carry a tune. “They were going to use somebody else’s voice, but I told them I could sing,” he said. “We went into one of the soundstages with a piano player and I sang the song and they said, ‘He can do it.’ Then they put me on their label, Colpix.”
Darren also was heard performing in All the Young Men (1960), Diamond Head (1962), Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) and For Those Who Think Young (1964).
He sang “Almost in Your Arms” at the 1959 Academy Awards and “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” on the 1964 Oscar telecast; performed as Yogi Bear in a 1964 animated film; and did a number on a 1965 episode of The Flintstones.
He also played the best friend opposite Sal Mineo in The Gene Krupa Story (1959), starred as a car mechanic in The Lively Set (1964) and ventured to Italy to topline Venus in Furs (1969) with Barbara McNair.
Darren was married to childhood sweetheart Gloria Terlitsky from 1955 until their 1958 divorce and to Evy Norlund, a former Miss Denmark, from 1960 until his death. He lived for decades in a home on Kimridge Road in Beverly Ridge Estates that had been owned by Audrey Hepburn.
In addition to his wife and Moret, survivors include his other sons, Christian and Anthony; grandchildren Amanda, Carly, Matthew, Natalie and Nicholas; and goddaughter A.J. Lambert, daughter of Nancy Sinatra.
Over the years, Darren encountered many fans of his music, some of them unexpected.
“I was in a pizza shop one day with a friend of mine. I heard this motorcycle pull up, and in walked Bruce Springsteen in his little motorcycle cap, like Brando wore in The Wild One — I guess he left his helmet outside,” he recalled in his chat with Weaver. “I said, ‘Oh, I gotta go say hi to him.’
“I walked up to him and said, ‘Hi, I don’t want to interrupt you, but my name is James Darren. I just want to tell you I’m a big fan. I love all your stuff.’ And he said, ‘James Darren? I bought “Goodbye Cruel World” in Freehold, New Jersey.’ Isn’t that sweet?”
–Duane Byrge contributed to this report
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.