Our Daily Dead

LA Times
Larry Collins, the journalist and coauthor of “Is Paris Burning?” which laid bare a startling plot by Adolf Hitler to raze the City of Light if Allies recaptured it in World War II, has died. He was 75.

Collins died Monday of a cerebral hemorrhage in Frejus, France, according to his coauthor and neighbor Dominique Lapierre. An expatriate American, Collins lived in nearby Ramateulle on the French Riviera.

The two wrote novels and nonfiction works of popular history over four decades. After their initial 1964 blockbuster about the Nazi occupation of the French capital, they described Israel’s quest for independence in “O Jerusalem!” in 1972 and independence for India in “Freedom at Midnight” in 1975, followed by “Mountbatten and the Partition of India” in 1982.

Their novels showed the same meticulous research and historical accuracy as their nonfiction works. First came “The Fifth Horseman” in 1980, which imagines Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi placing a hydrogen bomb in New York City to enforce his demands. After several years of writing separately, they collaborated on a final novel, “Is New York Burning?” in 2004, plotted around a post-Sept. 11 nuclear attack by Osama bin Laden on New York.

Collins’ solo fiction thrillers included “Fall From Grace” in 1985, based on World War II counterintelligence to mislead Nazis about where Allied troops would invade France; “Maze” in 1989, about psychic mind control as a Cold War tactic used by the Soviet Union; “Black Eagles” in 1995, about the cocaine trade in black America; and “Road to Armageddon” in 2003, which plotted what Iran might do with a nuclear bomb.

The coauthors of half a dozen bestsellers met in 1954, when Collins was in the U.S. Army and Lapierre was in the French military, both based at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe outside Paris.

Collins said the idea for their first book came from a London newspaper item he happened to see in 1962 about Hitler’s obsession with obliterating Paris.

“Before then, hardly anyone knew of the threat Paris had faced and how narrowly it escaped,” he told Associated Press last year. “When we started researching, we found an elaborate plot.”

Listen up ODDites, ’cause this is important. Larry Collins, one half of the Collins-Lapierre duo that produced wonderful books, is gone. Blew out a blood vessel in his head, now he’s dead. If you haven’t read his book about El Cordobes
(”Or I’ll Dress You in Mourning”), read it you must. Do yourself a favor (and the ODDfellows too), and click on the Amazon link below to the book. Pretty please with azúcar one it. Must buy Jim Fergus’ book

“Freedom at Midnight” gets our ODDfellow vote as the best book about the partitioning of India and Gandhi. Must buy Jim Fergus’ book See if you can figure out the ODD reference in the recommended buy list.

“Is Paris Burning” was a best seller and hit movie. ‘Nuff said. Must buy Jim Fergus’ book

Collins and Lapierre had an immensely successful collaboration, Must buy Jim Fergus’ book
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in spite of the fact that one wrote in English, the other in French. Come on Eminem and Mikie J, why can’t we all just get along? Must buy Jim Fergus’ book

For those those who remember Robert Byrd in sheets, we quote Rickey Nelson, “It’s Late.” Must buy Jim Fergus’ book

LA Times
Richard “Dick” Nicholls, 60, the executive director of the Gilroy Garlic Festival who developed it from a regional party to an internationally known fund-raising event, died Wednesday in Salinas, Calif., of pancreatic cancer.

The festival began in the late 1970s, but really started to bloom after Nicholls was appointed director in 1986. Under his tutelage, the festival was soon attracting 135,000 or more visitors to the town of 33,000 and pumping more than $5 million into the local economy each July.

In the last few years, Nicholls directed $250,000 in festival profits to fund a cafeteria for Gilroy High School, $200,000 for local scholarships and $250,000 to the future Gilroy Center for the Arts.

Nicholls’ success gave him, as well as the festival, an international reputation. He served as board chairman of the International Festival and Events Assn., which includes organizations handling the Kentucky Derby and the Macy’s Parade. He was inducted into the group’s hall of fame in 1996.

Dance of the Vampires: Music of Iva Bittová and Leos Janácek
Psycho Trash
Jam Sabbatical

LA Times
Suzanne Flon, 87, a grande dame of French film and theater who had a supporting role in John Huston’s 1952 film “Moulin Rouge,” died Wednesday in Paris of complications from a stomach illness.

She was born Jan. 28, 1918, near Paris, and acted for more than five decades. She earned Cesar awards, France’s version of the Academy Award, for her work in the 1984 thriller “One Deadly Summer” and for the 1990 film “The Dragon.” She also received two Moliere awards for her stage performances.

Introduced to the entertainment industry as secretary to French singer Edith Piaf, Flon was named best actress at the 1961 Venice Festival for her performance in Claude Autant-Lara’s film “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”

She was still drawing praise in 2003 playing what a Los Angeles Times reviewer called “the family’s clear-eyed mainstay, a woman of deep sorrows but also of much strength and daring as well as loving attentiveness” in Claude Chabrol’s “Flower of Evil.”

The office of French President Jacques Chirac described Flon as a “grande dame of stage and screen” who leaves behind “a lesson for us about elegance, fantasy and sensitivity.”

Happy Post Dad’s Day.

Ok, there is ODD and then there is ODD. Say what you will about the maniac grin of Tom Cruise, but did the Scientologists have to go so far as to excommunicate him? Is there no rehabilitation possible? Perhaps an extended stay at Neverland Ranch? A weekend with Tom Sizemore? Tom Cruise is too much the ‘kook’ even for the Scientologists?

ODD thanks to Satori for the reminder about the passing of Neil’s dad. Scott Young was a staunch supporter of his son in all phases of Neil’s life and career.

And one of our ODDly favorite poets - PowderRiver Let’er Buck - sent along this, er, ode to Father’s Day (we were ODDly hog tied and missed the missive until today):

Happy Fathers day…Go forth and multiply

If only they knew, what hell was unleashed

The zipper fell, oh mercy the grief.

Each man would have grabbed the nearest of anvils.

Then hammered away at the package that dangles.

Blow after blow on that solid steel top.

Until it didn’t live and it wouldn’t flop

Then away he would have gone away to his quiet hovel;

Painfully driven and never in trouble.

Oh and this just in…note to ODDSelf: never steal a turkey in Lubbock.

LA Times
Lane Smith, the actor who portrayed President Nixon in the 1989 docudrama “The Final Days” and apoplectic Daily Planet editor Perry White in the 1990s television series “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” has died. He was 69.

Smith died Monday at his Los Angeles home of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease, his family said.

A veteran stage actor with scores of character parts in film and television, Smith achieved instant fame when he took on the role of Nixon in the production based on the book “The Final Days” by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Smith’s performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination.

Although he had been acting for three decades when he was cast as Nixon, Smith told Newsday when the show aired that he considered the role “a tremendous career break.”

“It’s an actor’s dream to play something like this,” he said. “I consider this my masterwork.”

The program itself generated controversy with Nixon supporters labeling it a “smear,” and Nixon critics saying it was too sympathetic to the fallen leader. But Smith won critical praise for capturing the physical gestures, mannerisms and what he considered the Greek tragedy of the only U.S. president forced to resign in disgrace.

Newsweek called Smith’s portrayal “a towering performance” and said: “This docudrama is a one-man show, and perhaps the most incandescent ever to ignite the tube.”

And Newsday said Smith “is such a good Nixon that his despair and sorrow at his predicament become simply overwhelming.”
And then along came Superman.

Smith had been a regular on other series, including the title character’s mentor in the 1986 medical drama “Kay O’Brien” and a corrupt industrialist aiding menacing aliens in the 1985 sci-fi series “V.” But “Lois and Clark,” which starred Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher and ran on ABC from 1993 to 1997, would be his most enduring employer.

In the updated take on the caped crusader from Krypton, White’s favorite expression changed from “Great Caesar’s ghost!” to “Great shades of Elvis!” and the editor spewed Elvis trivia.

YIKES!!!

“Great shades of Elvis!”