Grim Reader, Sept 23, 2011: Dolores Hope, Arthur Evans and Walter Bonatti
by Michael Schaffer
SEPTEMBER 23, 2011 TAGS:
GREETINGS, OBIT READERS! This week in death is a week of twos: two political daughters, two ex-Senators, two who fought for gay rights, two who became Seinfeld references. Plus, obits for Dolores Hope, the king of mini-golf, and the rare Afghan warlord who lived to an old age. Let’s see what you missed on the obit pages:
THE WOMAN FROM HOPE: What to say about a celeb’s spouse? In the case of Dolores Hope, the obits are all over the place: The Los Angeles Times plays up her role in running the philanthropies she set up with husband Bob Hope. The Associated Press emphasizes her own work as a “sultry-voiced songstress,” playing down the news that she abandoned her middling career on meeting Bob. The Guardian, in a refreshing bit of candor, explains that Dolores “was known primarily for her 69-year marriage to the comedian,” a marriage that amid the social changes of the 20th century became a symbol of traditional fidelity. The Guardian is the rare outlet that also notes the rumors of Bob’s extramarital dalliances and the biographer’s allegation that he’d been briefly married before. Go figure.
PARTY GIRL, VEEP’S DAUGHTER: Eleanor Mondale Poling is remembered as the “glamorous and flamboyant daughter” of Jimmy Carter’s vice president, in the Daily Beast’s telling. The obit notes that the “leggy blonde” didn’t hew to the family tradition of earnest public service; instead, she went out to Hollywood, got bit parts of shows like Three’s Company, and eventually became a TV entertainment reporter. All the Mondale obits link her to famous men -- Warren Zevon, Jim Belushi, Ron Perlman, and, most famously, Bill Clinton (Monica Lewinsky’s speculation about Bill and Eleanor made the Starr report, though Mondale and Clinton both denied all). Great quote from the Associated Press obit: “I like to get wild. But it’s not murder, and I don’t do drugs.”
A DEAD KENNEDY: The death of Kara Kennedy, the oldest child of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, gives the Obitosphere another chance to put together a compendium of Kennedy tragedy. The Los Angeles Times’ wire round-up features all manner of cancers, tragedies, early deaths. Kennedy herself was just 51; a brother cites lingering effects of her own chemotherapy for the death. The obit notes that “she kept a low public profile as an adult.”
THE GOP JFK: Charles Percy was “a progressive Republican who harbored unrealized aspirations for the presidency, embodied an era when independence and political pragmatism were often valued commodities compared with the ideological and party purity rewarded today,” says the Chicago Tribune. Percy earned a spot on Nixon’s “enemies list” by opposing the Vietnam war and calling for a Watergate special prosecutor. The New York Times notes that the novelist Richard Ford once referred to his suburban characters as “decent Chuck Percy Republicans.” Predictably, his party-bucking example is cited by Washington mandarin types who use the obits to bash today’s polarized capital. The Independent says his good looks got him dubbed as a possible Republican JFK early in his career.
REAGAN-ERA CONSERVATIVE: Malcolm Wallop was “a leading conservative voice during the Reagan era,” says the Associated Press, whose obit runs in a bunch of the publications that you’d think would be running staff-written pieces on a three-term senator. Wallop is remembered for being anticommunist, pro-Star Wars, and a sharp critic of taxes and regulations. A New York Times piece says colleagues loved his candor, but doesn’t explain how that squares with his admittedly expedient evolution from environmental pol to right-winger. Everyone mentions his unusual bio as the grandson of a man who served as both a Wyoming state legislator and a member of Britain’s House of Lords.
HERETIC FOR GAY RIGHTS: Once upon a time, retired Episcopal bishops didn’t have to deal with heresy trials. But that was before the great cultural crack-up of the 20th century reached even the hoity-toitiest of American churches. After Walter Righter, retired bishop of Iowa, took part in the ordination of a gay man, “conservatives focused their outrage on Righter,” putting him on religious trial. He won, and the case established a precedent that scripture didn’t forbid gay ordinations, according to the Los Angeles Times. Fun detail: At trial, he introduced himself as “Walter Righter the heretic,” and his wife wore a name tag that said “heretic’s wife.”
FOUGHT HOMOPHOBES, DICK CAVETT: Arthur Evans is remembered by the New York Times as part of a post-Stonewall generation of unapologetic gay leaders. Evans split off from other activists he feared were diluting the message by also being involved with antiwar and other movements. Instead, his Gay Activists Alliance confronted editors (like Midge Decter of Harper’s) and pols (like Mayor John Lindsay), who it felt condoned homophobia. Awkward fact: He came out to his parents while appearing as an activist on The Dick Cavett Show. Funny fact: For a time, Evans supported himself by running a VW repair shop named … the Buggery.
MINI-GOLF GIANT: “Ralph J. Lomma was Gulliver in the Lilliputian terrain of miniature golf,” says the Wall Street Journal. His firm claimed to be the world’s largest supplier of mini-links, developing a way to prefabricate them so they could be assembled in a day. The Journal and the New York Times both offer mini-histories of the pastime, though those histories differ: The Journal says mini-golf first became a craze in the Depression and proved counter-cyclical, thriving in bad economic times. The Times, meanwhile, puts its roots in 19th-century England, saying it was “intensely in vogue” in the Roaring Twenties. Lomma’s innovation, in this telling, was to develop the zany windmill arms and other moving parts that helped the game move away from just being a small-scale version of the real thing.
PROGRESSIVE EDUCATOR LEFT BEHIND: Education scholar Vito Perrone thought standardized tests “warped the education process, inhibited children’s natural interest in learning, caused teachers stress and prevented them from carrying out their real jobs,” says the New York Times in an obit that steps gingerly around the fact that dissing Perrone’s views was the rare policy that the Bush and Obama administrations shared. Perrone partisans lamely credit him with having galvanized opposition to Bush’s educational policies -- which, if Grim Reader recalls correctly, still became the law of the land. Interestingly, he came to prominence in North Dakota, leading a progressive-ed effort that boosted the state to among America’s highest educational performers. (Whether that performance was measured with testing goes unmentioned.) Perrone actually died almost a month ago, a fact that was covered in Grand Forks but not New York.
CONTROVERSIAL CLIMBER: Walter Bonatti was a legendary Alpinist, but in the obits this week, his career is defined by a summit he failed to reach: K2, the Pakistani mountain that is the world’s second-highest. Bonatti and two Italian colleagues, along with Pakistani guides, made it almost up to the top when controversy struck. Bonatti accused his colleagues of having hidden the camp, forcing him to sleep overnight uncovered and flee down the slope in the morning. The colleagues, who made it to the top, accused Bonatti of siphoning off their oxygen. His view ultimately was vindicated, but not for decades, during which he battled a reputation for selfishness and egotism, says the Telegraph.
HOMELESS HOOP STAR: The Los Angeles Times catches the very sad obit for Lewis Brown, a 6’11’’ onetime local basketball legend. Brown went on to play NCAA college basketball, did a pro stint in France, and briefly tried out for NBA teams. But, the brief obit says, he also battled substance abuse problems and spent the past decade living on the streets of Hollywood.
WARLORD-TURNED-PEACEMAKER: Bernhanuddin Rabbani’s obits in the Guardian and the Telegraph cast his life as the story of modern Afghanistan: A student turned Islamist turned anticommunist rebel turned warlord turned stalwart foe of the Taliban, the ethnic Tajik was the country’s president, and wanted to be that again after the Taliban got booted. In recent years, he led peace efforts -- a repositioning of which “many Afghans took a sceptical view,” according to the Telegraph. He was assassinated after being lured to a phony peace talk.
ZIGGY CREATOR: Tom Wilson was the man behind Ziggy, whom his hometown Cincinnati Enquirer describes as the “short, bald, big-nosed, barefoot and frequently befuddled but eternally optimistic character” of the eponymous comic strip. Wilson, who also ran product licensing for kiddie favorites like Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears, was not known for envelope-pushing. The AV Club quotes an old story that dubs his creation “unflinchingly unhip but unbelievably popular.” A Reuters item mentions Ziggy’s role in a celebrated Seinfeld episode.
MARBLE RYE LADY, RIP: Frances Bay was a veteran character actress who only got into the Hollywood game in midlife, says the Los Angeles Times. “Her characters were often described simply as ‘old woman,’ ‘elderly neighbor,’ an aunt or a grandmother,” says the obit. The most memorable, though, was called an “old bag” by none other than Jerry Seinfeld, who tussled with Bay’s character for a marble rye in a memorable episode of his sitcom.
DEPARTMENT OF SINGULAR NICKNAMES: Finally, an Associated Press obit notes that Bucharest music scene stalwart Johnny Raducanu was known as “Mr. Jazz of Romania.” Grim Reader suspects he’s likely to keep that title beyond the grave.
Michael Schaffer’s Grim Reader appears Friday in Obit. He is the author of One Nation Under Dog, about culture and the American pet industry.
THE WOMAN FROM HOPE: What to say about a celeb’s spouse? In the case of Dolores Hope, the obits are all over the place: The Los Angeles Times plays up her role in running the philanthropies she set up with husband Bob Hope. The Associated Press emphasizes her own work as a “sultry-voiced songstress,” playing down the news that she abandoned her middling career on meeting Bob. The Guardian, in a refreshing bit of candor, explains that Dolores “was known primarily for her 69-year marriage to the comedian,” a marriage that amid the social changes of the 20th century became a symbol of traditional fidelity. The Guardian is the rare outlet that also notes the rumors of Bob’s extramarital dalliances and the biographer’s allegation that he’d been briefly married before. Go figure.PARTY GIRL, VEEP’S DAUGHTER: Eleanor Mondale Poling is remembered as the “glamorous and flamboyant daughter” of Jimmy Carter’s vice president, in the Daily Beast’s telling. The obit notes that the “leggy blonde” didn’t hew to the family tradition of earnest public service; instead, she went out to Hollywood, got bit parts of shows like Three’s Company, and eventually became a TV entertainment reporter. All the Mondale obits link her to famous men -- Warren Zevon, Jim Belushi, Ron Perlman, and, most famously, Bill Clinton (Monica Lewinsky’s speculation about Bill and Eleanor made the Starr report, though Mondale and Clinton both denied all). Great quote from the Associated Press obit: “I like to get wild. But it’s not murder, and I don’t do drugs.”
A DEAD KENNEDY: The death of Kara Kennedy, the oldest child of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, gives the Obitosphere another chance to put together a compendium of Kennedy tragedy. The Los Angeles Times’ wire round-up features all manner of cancers, tragedies, early deaths. Kennedy herself was just 51; a brother cites lingering effects of her own chemotherapy for the death. The obit notes that “she kept a low public profile as an adult.”
THE GOP JFK: Charles Percy was “a progressive Republican who harbored unrealized aspirations for the presidency, embodied an era when independence and political pragmatism were often valued commodities compared with the ideological and party purity rewarded today,” says the Chicago Tribune. Percy earned a spot on Nixon’s “enemies list” by opposing the Vietnam war and calling for a Watergate special prosecutor. The New York Times notes that the novelist Richard Ford once referred to his suburban characters as “decent Chuck Percy Republicans.” Predictably, his party-bucking example is cited by Washington mandarin types who use the obits to bash today’s polarized capital. The Independent says his good looks got him dubbed as a possible Republican JFK early in his career.
REAGAN-ERA CONSERVATIVE: Malcolm Wallop was “a leading conservative voice during the Reagan era,” says the Associated Press, whose obit runs in a bunch of the publications that you’d think would be running staff-written pieces on a three-term senator. Wallop is remembered for being anticommunist, pro-Star Wars, and a sharp critic of taxes and regulations. A New York Times piece says colleagues loved his candor, but doesn’t explain how that squares with his admittedly expedient evolution from environmental pol to right-winger. Everyone mentions his unusual bio as the grandson of a man who served as both a Wyoming state legislator and a member of Britain’s House of Lords.
HERETIC FOR GAY RIGHTS: Once upon a time, retired Episcopal bishops didn’t have to deal with heresy trials. But that was before the great cultural crack-up of the 20th century reached even the hoity-toitiest of American churches. After Walter Righter, retired bishop of Iowa, took part in the ordination of a gay man, “conservatives focused their outrage on Righter,” putting him on religious trial. He won, and the case established a precedent that scripture didn’t forbid gay ordinations, according to the Los Angeles Times. Fun detail: At trial, he introduced himself as “Walter Righter the heretic,” and his wife wore a name tag that said “heretic’s wife.”
FOUGHT HOMOPHOBES, DICK CAVETT: Arthur Evans is remembered by the New York Times as part of a post-Stonewall generation of unapologetic gay leaders. Evans split off from other activists he feared were diluting the message by also being involved with antiwar and other movements. Instead, his Gay Activists Alliance confronted editors (like Midge Decter of Harper’s) and pols (like Mayor John Lindsay), who it felt condoned homophobia. Awkward fact: He came out to his parents while appearing as an activist on The Dick Cavett Show. Funny fact: For a time, Evans supported himself by running a VW repair shop named … the Buggery. MINI-GOLF GIANT: “Ralph J. Lomma was Gulliver in the Lilliputian terrain of miniature golf,” says the Wall Street Journal. His firm claimed to be the world’s largest supplier of mini-links, developing a way to prefabricate them so they could be assembled in a day. The Journal and the New York Times both offer mini-histories of the pastime, though those histories differ: The Journal says mini-golf first became a craze in the Depression and proved counter-cyclical, thriving in bad economic times. The Times, meanwhile, puts its roots in 19th-century England, saying it was “intensely in vogue” in the Roaring Twenties. Lomma’s innovation, in this telling, was to develop the zany windmill arms and other moving parts that helped the game move away from just being a small-scale version of the real thing.
PROGRESSIVE EDUCATOR LEFT BEHIND: Education scholar Vito Perrone thought standardized tests “warped the education process, inhibited children’s natural interest in learning, caused teachers stress and prevented them from carrying out their real jobs,” says the New York Times in an obit that steps gingerly around the fact that dissing Perrone’s views was the rare policy that the Bush and Obama administrations shared. Perrone partisans lamely credit him with having galvanized opposition to Bush’s educational policies -- which, if Grim Reader recalls correctly, still became the law of the land. Interestingly, he came to prominence in North Dakota, leading a progressive-ed effort that boosted the state to among America’s highest educational performers. (Whether that performance was measured with testing goes unmentioned.) Perrone actually died almost a month ago, a fact that was covered in Grand Forks but not New York.
CONTROVERSIAL CLIMBER: Walter Bonatti was a legendary Alpinist, but in the obits this week, his career is defined by a summit he failed to reach: K2, the Pakistani mountain that is the world’s second-highest. Bonatti and two Italian colleagues, along with Pakistani guides, made it almost up to the top when controversy struck. Bonatti accused his colleagues of having hidden the camp, forcing him to sleep overnight uncovered and flee down the slope in the morning. The colleagues, who made it to the top, accused Bonatti of siphoning off their oxygen. His view ultimately was vindicated, but not for decades, during which he battled a reputation for selfishness and egotism, says the Telegraph.
HOMELESS HOOP STAR: The Los Angeles Times catches the very sad obit for Lewis Brown, a 6’11’’ onetime local basketball legend. Brown went on to play NCAA college basketball, did a pro stint in France, and briefly tried out for NBA teams. But, the brief obit says, he also battled substance abuse problems and spent the past decade living on the streets of Hollywood.
WARLORD-TURNED-PEACEMAKER: Bernhanuddin Rabbani’s obits in the Guardian and the Telegraph cast his life as the story of modern Afghanistan: A student turned Islamist turned anticommunist rebel turned warlord turned stalwart foe of the Taliban, the ethnic Tajik was the country’s president, and wanted to be that again after the Taliban got booted. In recent years, he led peace efforts -- a repositioning of which “many Afghans took a sceptical view,” according to the Telegraph. He was assassinated after being lured to a phony peace talk.
ZIGGY CREATOR: Tom Wilson was the man behind Ziggy, whom his hometown Cincinnati Enquirer describes as the “short, bald, big-nosed, barefoot and frequently befuddled but eternally optimistic character” of the eponymous comic strip. Wilson, who also ran product licensing for kiddie favorites like Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears, was not known for envelope-pushing. The AV Club quotes an old story that dubs his creation “unflinchingly unhip but unbelievably popular.” A Reuters item mentions Ziggy’s role in a celebrated Seinfeld episode.MARBLE RYE LADY, RIP: Frances Bay was a veteran character actress who only got into the Hollywood game in midlife, says the Los Angeles Times. “Her characters were often described simply as ‘old woman,’ ‘elderly neighbor,’ an aunt or a grandmother,” says the obit. The most memorable, though, was called an “old bag” by none other than Jerry Seinfeld, who tussled with Bay’s character for a marble rye in a memorable episode of his sitcom.
DEPARTMENT OF SINGULAR NICKNAMES: Finally, an Associated Press obit notes that Bucharest music scene stalwart Johnny Raducanu was known as “Mr. Jazz of Romania.” Grim Reader suspects he’s likely to keep that title beyond the grave.
Michael Schaffer’s Grim Reader appears Friday in Obit. He is the author of One Nation Under Dog, about culture and the American pet industry.
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