Passages

[dex]

■ Jack Whitaker, whose Hall of Fame broadcasting career ranged from the first Super Bowl to Secretariat's Triple Crown to short essays from major sporting events, died Sunday morning, CBS reported. The network said Whitaker died of natural causes in his sleep in Devon, Pa. He was 95. He spent 22 years with CBS Sports and also worked for ABC and was part of the network's Olympics coverage in 1984 and 1988. Whitaker had been the only living play-by-play announcer from the first 21 Super Bowls.

[dex]

Shanley, Paul J.,

61, of Warwick passed away on August 19, 2019, after a courageous eight-month battle against a rare form of bone cancer, surrounded by his family. Paul’s fight was waged under the extraordinary medical care of the sarcoma team at Mass General Hospital and the loving care of his brother Michael and brother-in-law William Monahan.

Paul was married to his devoted wife and best friend, Patti, for 29 years. Together they were an inseparable team. Paul was the son of the late Joseph and Elaine (McNearney) Shanley. In addition to his wife, Paul leaves four children: his sons Rep. Evan Shanley, Christopher and Sean Lawrence, and his daughter Meaghan Shanley. His son, Tyler Shanley, died in infancy. Also, near and dear to Paul’s heart were Evan’s wife, Meredith, and their son, Maxwell Tyler, who joyfully called Paul “Dah Pa.”

Paul is survived by his fraternal twin brother, Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P. of Providence College, his brother Andrew and his wife Karen, his brother Michael, and his favorite sister Kathryn and her husband Jimmy. He also leaves many nieces and nephews who knew him for his big heart.

Paul spent most of his career in law enforcement. He retired as a Captain in the Warwick Police Department in 2007, after 26 years of service to the community. During his tenure, he was awarded the First Class Medal and Ribbon in 1988 for professionalism. He also completed many additional training opportunities and certifications, including a dignitary protection training session with the United States Secret Service.

Paul then accepted the position of Deputy Chief of Police at Brown University’s Department of Public Safety, a job held until his death. Among his many responsibilities, he was the department’s public information officer, conducted internal investigations, headed emergency planning, and was critically important as an expert in dignitary protection.

Paul graduated from Roger Williams University where he earned a B.S. in criminal justice in 1985 and a Master of Public Administration in 2015 as the university’s Outstanding Graduate Award in the MPA program.

Paul was an avid golfer and long-time member of Potowomut Golf Club. Paul loved the game in such a wonderfully pure way; those who walked the links with him could not help but be touched by this magic. Paul was a long-time practitioner of Jiu Jitsu who attained the rank of Godan (fifth-degree black belt) from the Kyudan Federation. He was an active member of St. Gregory the Great parish in Warwick, serving as a Eucharistic Minister, President of the Parish Council, a member of the Knights of Columbus, and a baseball and softball coach.

Paul took delightful joy in the things he did and possessed the ability to find humor in any situation. The only thing he took seriously was his commitment to serve and protect his community, his family, and his faith.

Visiting hours will be held on Thursday, August 22, from 3:00 – 7:00 pm in St. Gregory the Great Church, 360 Cowesett Road in Warwick. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at St. Gregory the Great Church on Friday, August 23, at 10:00 am. Burial will follow at St. Ann Cemetery in Cranston. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Dr. Greg Cote’s Sarcoma Research Fund at Massachusetts General Hospital, Development Office Attn: Keith Erickson, 125 Nashua Street, Suite 540 Boston, MA 02114, or online at giving.massgeneral.org. Arrangments entrusted to Russell J. Boyle & Son Funeral Home, Warwick.

[thumper]

Father Shanley spoke of his brother in his sermon Friday night during our Golden Friar mass at our 50th Reunion. He broke down in speaking of his quiet visits with him.

Brian and he were very close. The bond was evident.

PIZZA, SODA, GRINDERS !!!

[dex]

PASSAGES
Michael Van Leesten, R.I. civil-rights icon
By Madeleine List Journal Staff Writer


Michael Van Leesten, in a 2015 portrait. [THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL, FILE / STEVE SZYDLOWSKI]

PROVIDENCE — Michael Van Leesten, a champion of civil rights and a “drum major for justice,” died Friday at age 80.

“It’s a blow to our community,” said James Vincent, president of the NAACP Providence branch. “Mike was an icon.”

A strong advocate for racial equality throughout his entire life, Van Leesten traveled to Choctaw County, Alabama, in the mid-1960s to help register people to vote during a contentious and dangerous time for black voters in the south.

“We knew the Klan was always around and doing things,” Van Leesten told The Journal in 2013. “But when they actually came right through the neighborhood and we saw in the lead car the sheriff of the county … that was scary."

“That helped me to understand the kind of fear, and how fear could just really ruin your soul and how that had an impact on the lives of black people in the South at that time,” he said.

Van Leesten’s work continued in his home state of Rhode Island. He was one of the founders of the Opportunities Industrialization Center of Rhode Island, which provides job training, career counseling and other programs to people from underrepresented groups, and served as its chief executive officer. He also served as executive assistant to the chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation in Connecticut and helped with the development of the Fox-woods Resort Casino.

A graduate of Hope High School and Rhode Island College, where he was a star basketball player, Van Leesten encouraged economic growth in the state and worked to develop housing for people with modest incomes.

“Mike Van Leesten’s name is synonymous with ‘fighter’ and ‘integrity’ and ‘love’ and ‘compassion,’” said state Rep. Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, D-Providence. “His passing will certainly leave a void.”

During his interview with The Journal, Van Leesten spoke about working with Martin Luther King Jr. and learning about the power of nonviolence and strategic planning in order to move society forward.

“There’s an increasing awareness of the significance of the civil-rights movement to all of us because it strengthened the Constitution of the United States of America, made us a stronger Constitution, made us a stronger people, encouraged more people of different stripes to help build our country,” he said.

Clifford Montiero, who grew up with Van Leesten and worked with him as well as Rev. Arthur Hardge and Charles “Moe” Adams to create the Opportunities Industrialization Center, said Van Leesten showed others the importance of perseverance and of believing that the future could always be better than the present.

The two lifelong friends had spent many days together, creating the Opportunities Industrialization Center and working on various projects, often strategizing over breakfast.

Montiero said Van Leesten called him a few times recently and asked him to go to breakfast again, but as life often goes, Montiero had been busy. He said he wishes now, more than anything, he could go with his old friend one final time.

“You never know when your opportunity to have the last breakfast with somebody is,” he said. “The rest of my life, I’ll always be sorry that I did not go to breakfast with him.”

— mlist@ providence-journal.com , (401)

277-7121. On Twitter: @ madeleine_list

[dex]

Valerie Harper, TV’s Rhoda, dies at 80
By John Rogers The Associated Press


Actress Valerie Harper laughs during a 1987 interview in New York. Famous for her portrayal of Rhoda Morgenstern on back-to-back hit sitcoms in the 1970s, Harper died Friday at the age of 80. [AP / RON FREHM]

LOS ANGELES — Valerie Harper, who scored guffaws, stole hearts and busted TV taboos as the brash, self-deprecating Rhoda Morgenstern on back-to-back hit sitcoms in the 1970s, has died.

Longtime family friend Dan Watt confirmed Harper died Friday, adding the family wasn’t immediately releasing any further details. She had been battling cancer for years, and her husband said recently he had been advised to put her in hospice care.

Harper was a breakout star on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” then the lead of her own series, “Rhoda.” She was 80.

She won three consecutive Emmys (1971-73) as supporting actress on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and another for outstanding lead actress for “Rhoda,” which ran from 1974-78. Beyond awards, she was immortalized — and typecast — for playing one of television’s most beloved characters, a best friend the equal of Ethel Mertz and Ed Norton in TV’s sidekick pantheon.

Fans had long feared the news of her passing. In 2013, she first revealed that she had been diagnosed with brain cancer and had been told by her doctors she had as little as three months to live. Some responded as if a family member were in peril.

But she refused to despair. “I’m not dying until I do,” Harper said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show. “I promise I won’t.” Harper did outlive her famous co-star: Mary Tyler Moore died in January 2017. Ed Asner, Cloris Leachman and Betty White are among the former cast members who survive her.

In recent years, Harper’s other appearances included “American Dad!” ‘’The Simpsons” and “Two Broke Girls.”

Harper was a chorus dancer on Broadway as a teen before moving into comedy and improv when, in 1970, she auditioned for the part of a Bronx-born Jewish girl who would be a neighbor and pal of Minneapolis news producer Mary Richards on a new sitcom for CBS.

It seemed a long shot for the young, unknown actress. As she recalled, “I’m not Jewish, not from New York, and I have a small shiksa nose.” And she had almost no TV experience.

But Harper, who arrived for her audition some 20 pounds overweight, may have clinched the role when she blurted out in admiration to the show’s tall, slender star: “Look at you in white pants without a long jacket to cover your behind!”

It was exactly the sort of thing Rhoda would say to “Mar,” as Harper recalled in her 2013 memoir, “I, Rhoda.” Harper was signed without a screen test.

[dex]

PASSAGES
Film star Kirk Douglas, 103
By Hillel Italie The Associated Press

Picture
Kirk Douglas plays Spartacus, the slave who shook the Roman Empire, in a scene from the 1960 epic of the same name. [AP LASERPHOTO]

Kirk Douglas, the intense, muscular actor with the dimpled chin who starred in “Spartacus,” “Lust for Life” and dozens of other films, helped fatally weaken the blacklist against suspected Communists and reigned for decades as a Hollywood maverick and patriarch, died Wednesday, his family said. He was 103.

“To the world, he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to,” his son Michael said in a statement on his Instagram account.

His granite-like strength and underlying vulnerability made the son of illiterate Russian immigrants one of the top stars of the 20th century. He appeared in more than 80 films, in roles ranging from Doc Holliday in “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” to Vincent van Gogh in “Lust for Life.”

He worked with some of Hollywood’s greatest directors, from Vincente Minnelli and Billy Wilder to Stanley Kubrick and Elia Kazan. His career began at the peak of the studios’ power, more than 70 years ago, and ended in a more diverse, decentralized era that he helped bring about.

Always competitive, including with his own family, Douglas never received an Academy Award for an individual film, despite being nominated three times — for “Champion,” “The Bad and the Beautiful” and “Lust for Life.”

But in 1996, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him an honorary Oscar. His other awards included a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute.

A born fighter, Douglas was especially proud of his role in the the downfall of Hollywood’s blacklist, which halted and ruined the careers of writers suspected of pro-Communist activity or sympathies. By the end of the ‘50s, the use of banned writers was widely known within the industry, but not to the general public.

He was born Issur Danielovitch to an impoverished Jewish family in Amsterdam, New York. His name evolved over time.

Douglas, who years earlier had reluctantly signed a loyalty oath to get the starring role in “Lust for Life,” provided a crucial blow when he openly credited the former Communist and Oscar winner Dalton Trumbo for script work on “Spartacus,” the epic about a slave rebellion during ancient Rome that was released in 1960. (A few months earlier, Otto Preminger had announced Trumbo’s name would appear on the credits for “Exodus,” but “Spartacus” came out first.)

He called himself Isidore Demsky until he graduated from St. Lawrence University.

He took the name Kirk Douglas as he worked his way through the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, choosing “Douglas” because he wanted his last name still to begin with “D” and “Kirk” because he liked the hard, jagged sound of the “K.”

Beginning in 1941, Douglas won a series of small roles on Broadway, served briefly in the Navy and received a key Hollywood break when an old friend from New York, Lauren Bacall, recommended he play opposite Barbara Stanwyck in “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.”

He gained further attention with the classic 1947 film noir “Out of the Past” and the Oscar-winning “A Letter to Three Wives.”

His real breakthrough came as an unscrupulous boxer in 1949’s “Champion,” a low-budget production he was advised to turn down.

Many of his movies, such as Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory,” “The Vikings,” “Spartacus,” “Lonely Are the Brave” and “Seven Days in May,” were produced by his companies.

His movie career faded during the 1960s and Douglas turned to other media.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he did several notable television films, including “Victory at Entebbe” and “Amos,” which dealt with abuse of the elderly.

He had been married to Diana Dill, but they divorced in 1951. Three years later, he married Anne Buydens, whom he met in Paris while he was filming “Act of Love” (and otherwise pursuing a young Italian actress) and she was doing publicity.

He would later owe his very life to Anne, with whom he remained for more than 60 years. In 1958, the film producer Michael Todd, then the husband of Elizabeth Taylor, offered the actor a ride on his private jet. Douglas’ wife insisted that he not go, worrying about a private plane, and he eventually gave in. The plane crashed, killing all on board.

Douglas had two children with each of his wives and all went into show business, against his advice.

Besides Michael, they are Joel and Peter, both producers, and Eric, an actor with several film credits who died of a drug overdose in 2004.

Kirk Douglas’ film credits in the ‘70s and ‘80s included Brian De Palma’s “The Fury” and a comedy, “Tough Guys,” that costarred Burt Lancaster, his longtime friend who previously appeared with Douglas in “Seven Days in May,” “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” and other movies.

[wtm97]

Loved him...

“I AM SPARTACUS”

[dex]

Feb 6, 2020 19:54:05 GMT -5 wtm97 said:

Loved him...

“I AM SPARTACUS”

You love Corey Booker? To each his own

[wtm97]

No.

Watch the movie.

“I AM SPARTACUS”, is one of the great lines/moments of all time.

Corey Booker is a clown.

[dex]

'Boys of Summer' author Roger Kahn, the writer who wove memoir and baseball and touched millions of readers through his 1972 romantic account of the Brooklyn Dodgers in "The Boys of Summer," has died at 92. He died Thursday at a nursing facility in Mamaroneck, a Westchester County suburb, son Gordon Kahn said.

[wtm97]

Loved Roger Kahn - just a great writer. BOYS OF SUMMER is a must read classic.

God Bless you Roger RIP.

[dex]

PASSAGES

Former Giants great

Johnny Antonelli, a five-time All-Star who was a key pitcher on the World Series-winning New York Giants in 1954, has died. He was 89. The San Francisco Giants released a statement saying Antonelli died on Friday in Rochester, N.Y. A cause of death wasn't given. The left-hander won 126 games over 12 seasons, including his memorable 1954, when he had a 21-7 record and National League-leading 2.30 ERA. He was also a 20-game winner in 1956. Antonelli had a stellar performance for the Giants when they swept the Cleveland Indians in four games to win the 1954 World Series.

[pcdad]

Thanks for recognizing the passing of this Giant pitcher.
I don’t remember him, though I was told that I was brought to the Polo Grounds at the age of two.

[dex]

BOSTON — Jack Welch, who transformed General Electric Co. into a highly profitable multinational conglomerate and parlayed his legendary business acumen into a retirement career as a corporate leadership guru, has died. He was 84.

His death was confirmed Monday by GE. The cause of death was renal failure, his wife Suzy told The New York Times.

Welch became one of the nation’s most well-known and highly regarded corporate leaders during his two decades as GE’s chairman and chief executive, from 1981 to 2001. He personified the so-called “cult of the CEO” during the late-1990s boom, when GE’s soaring stock price made it the most valuable company in the world.

A chemical engineer by training, Welch transformed the company from a maker of appliances and light bulbs into an industrial and financial services powerhouse. During his tenure, GE’s revenue grew nearly fivefold, and the firm’s market capitalization increased 30-fold.

Welch’s results-driven management approach and hands-on style were credited with helping GE turn a financial corner, although some of the success came at the expense of thousands of employees who lost their jobs in Welch’s relentless efforts to cut costs and rid GE of unprofitable businesses.

Business success and outspokenness brought him wide fame.

In 1999, Fortune magazine named Welch as its “Manager of the Century.”

For his first book, “Jack: Straight From the Gut,” Welch received a $7.1 million advance. Although released on the very morning of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the book became a best-seller, and led to frequent speaking engagements where he took his candor on stage.

“From the day I joined GE to the day I was named CEO, 20 years later, my bosses cautioned me about my candor,” Welch wrote in ‘Straight from the Gut.’ “I was labeled abrasive and consistently warned my candor would soon get in the way of my career ... and I’m telling you that it was candor that helped make it work.”

Welch did not slow down after leaving GE.

He became a senior advisor with private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice in 2001. He also taught a course on business leadership at MIT’s Sloan School of Management in 2006. In 2009, Welch founded the Jack Welch Management Institute, an online MBA program that is now part of Strayer University.

While Welch was known for being hypercompetitive, he also stressed giving everyone a fair shake.

In the 2005 book, “Winning,” Welch wrote that he would like to be remembered “as a huge advocate of candor and meritocracy, and believing everyone deserves a chance. And I’d like to be remembered for trying to make the case that you can never let yourself be a victim.”

Along with Welch’s fame came greater scrutiny. Welch found himself defending his retirement compensation. Amid a wave of corporate scandals, details of Welch’s GE perks emerged in court papers during his 2002 divorce from his wife of 13 years, Jane Beasley. He received millions of dollars in benefits, including unlimited personal use of GE’s planes, office space and financial services.

After the perks became public, Welch reimbursed the company for many of them, and paid for use of aircraft and other services.

[dex]

Goodbye to a wounded World War II warrior

Mark Patinkin


A reader named William Kling let me know the sad news.

John Boyce had died at age 94.

Kling said it was announced Sunday at the Central Congregational Church in Providence.

John Boyce’s church.

It’s where he served for decades as volunteer treasurer.

That was John’s nature — service.

It is no exaggeration to say that, in his case, it involved sacrifice, too.

You could see it on his face, his right eye lost to a Nazi bullet, his nose rebuilt by plastic surgery.

Boyce stood 6-foot-1, and at age 18, in August of 1943, he enlisted.

I had the privilege of meeting him at a 2009 ceremony, when a French emissary awarded him that nation’s highest medal of bravery, the Legion of Honour.

I had to press John that day for details — how in January of 1944, he carried some of the dead off Italy’s Mount Cassino, then helped push back the enemy beyond Rome, where he dug in near the Coliseum.

But his war wasn’t over.

Six weeks after D-Day, in mid-August of 1944, Boyce found himself in a landing boat driving toward the beaches east of Marseilles as enemy bullets bounced off the hull. As he ran ashore, men around him fell.

Two weeks later, John Boyce fell, too.

That story I heard more recently from John’s wife, Twyler.

She, too, is 94, having grown up doors away from him in Saylesville. The two traveled life’s journey together for 78 years.

Recently, the journey became challenging, as John began to fail with age.

Twyler is a petite woman, and when his care became too much for her, she had to place him in the Tockwotton home in East Providence.

Not long after, as she sifted through John’s keepsakes in their Rumford house, she found a remarkable document.

John almost never spoke of the day he was shot, but it turned out he’d written an essay on it two years after the war for a Brown University class.

And now Twyler had found it.

The essay was typed on aged paper. Its simple title: “August 24, 1944.”

His company, wrote John, had begun a fast march to beat the enemy to the town of Crest.

He added: “Before the day was over, my whole life was to be changed.”

John was sent ahead to a hill to scout.

“No sooner had I reached the top,” he wrote, “when I was spun around three times and thrown to the ground like a match stick. I had been shot through the face with a German rifle bullet.”

He woke three days later in an evacuation hospital, blind and disfigured, wondering if he would ever see again.

As I sat with Twyler, I began to see another story of John’s life that was as compelling as his war experience.

The story of the love the two shared.

Twyler remembered the first time she saw him after he’d been flown back to a Framingham, Massachusetts, hospital treating the World War II wounded.

They’d been apart over a year.

As Twyler waited in a courtyard, John emerged with most of his head bandaged. It was clear he’d been disfigured.

“It didn’t matter,” Twyler told me. “I loved him.”

Over the next two years, she was at his side through nine plastic surgeries.

More recently, she visited him daily at Tockwotton.

The two had one son, and despite challenges from the lost eye, Twyler told me John never complained. If it came up, he would simply say, “I certainly wasn’t the only one.”

John made a career as an executive with Amica Insurance, and served his community in a range of ways, from church to Little League.

I was told his long journey ended Saturday evening, with his wife and younger brother George by his side.

My interview with Twyler was one month ago, in her home. Before I left, she showed me a keepsake box of John’s war medals.

There were many, including a Purple Heart.

It’s the kind of thing John was low-key about. He never flaunted his sacrifice.

But truly, John Boyce served all of us.

May he have good rest. mpatinki@ providencejournal.com

[phone] On Twitter: @markpatinkin