In Remembrance---2009

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Tony award winning actress Marilyn Cooper died last Wednesday after a long illness. She was 74.

Cooper was in the original cast of West Side Story and created the role of Agnes for Gypsy. She won her Tony for Woman of the Year.

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Russian ballerina Ekaterina Maximova died today; she was 70.

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Tony award winning dancer and choreographer Frankie Manning died yesterday. He was 94.

Manning was a dancer at the Cotton Club and appeared in several film musicals, including Hellzapoppin'. He won his Tony for helping choreograph Black and Blue. He appeared in Malcolm X and taught Denzel Washington how to do the Lindy hop for that film. He was also awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Country singer-songwriter Vern Gosdin, also known as "The Voice", died Tuesday of complications from a stroke. He was 74.

Among his hits were "Slow Burnin' Memory", "Do You Believe Me Now", and the CMA song of the year for 1989: "Chiseled In Stone". He also wrote "Someone to Turn To", which was recorded by the Byrds for Easy Rider.

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Danny Gans, a popular singer and comedian in Las Vegas (he won Las Vegas Entertainer of the Year 11 times), died today. He was 52.

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British actor Peter Dennis died April 18 of cancer. He was 75.

Dennis was best known for his one-man show, Bother! The Brain of Pooh, in which he read the works of A. A. Milne, but he also appeared in films (Shrek, Sideways) and television (Seinfeld, Alias). He was most recently seen in the series final of E/R.

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Greg Page, a former National Golden Gloves heavyweight champion died April 27 of complications from a brain injury he suffered in a 2001 fight. He was 50.

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Salamo Arouch, a Jewish boxer and Holocaust survivor who was forced to fight other prisoners at Auschwitz, died April 26. He was 86.

Salamo's story was told in the film Triumph of the Spirit.

[Mark]

Jack Kemp, former quarterback and VP nominee, dies

[Jamdin]

Comic legend and noted gourmand, Dom DeLuise, died Monday, May 4, 2009 at 75

[Ed_Laprade]

Originally Posted by Jamdin

Comic legend and noted gourmand, Dom DeLuise, died Monday, May 4, 2009 at 75

A funny guy, he'll be missed. So can we give him his well deserved applause now? (His tag line, at least in the early days, was: "Save it... for the end!")

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving diminutive "Munchkins" in the 1939 movie "The Wizard of Oz," died of natural causes on Thursday in Missouri at age 89, a newspaper reported.

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Sam Cohn, a powerful talent agent who represented Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Woody Allen, and many others, died Wednesday. He was 79.

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Dom DiMaggio, the brother of Joe DiMaggio who was also a baseball player (for the Boston Red Sox), died today. He was 92.

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Chuck Daly, coach of the Detroit Pistons, died today of pancreatic cancer. He was 78.

Daly led the Pistons to back-to-back NBA championships, then coached the Dream Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

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Venetia Phair, who came up with the name for the planet Pluto when she was 11, died April 30. She was 90.

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Donald "Ean" Evans, the bassist for Lynyrd Skynyrd, died Wednesday from an agressive form of cancer. He was 48.

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John Furia Jr., a prolific screen and television writer, died Thursday. He was 79.

Among the shows he worked on were Bonanza, The Waltons, The Twilight Zone, Kung Fu, and Hawaii Five-O.

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Harold Fischer, an ace fighter pilot whose capture by the Chinese during the Korean War exacerbated tension in U.S.-Chinese relationships, died April 30 from complications of back surgery. He was 83.

[Dannyalcatraz]

Wayman Tisdale, a three-time All-American at Oklahoma who played 12 seasons in the NBA, died after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 44.