Diana Rigg 2020-09-10 New York Post, Diana Rigg, star of ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Game of Thrones,’ dead at 82

Diana Rigg dies with 82. Actor.

Love her in the Avengers. Just an epic TV Show.

Remembering:

"The Avengers" as Emma Peel (1965-1968, Series 4-5).

"007 On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)".

Diana Rigg, star of ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Game of Thrones,’ dead at 82 (New York Post)

Diana Rigg, star of ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Game of Thrones,’ dead at 82

By Lauren Steussy and Barbara Hoffman

September 10, 2020 | 9:58am | Updated

Dame Diana Rigg, of James Bond and “The Avengers” fame, has died “peacefully” at 82.

The acclaimed actress known for her role as Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, the only Bond girl to ever marry 007, Rigg was bestowed her “Dame” title in 1994 for her contributions to all things drama.

The iconic Brit suffered from cancer and died surrounded by her family Thursday morning.

“My Beloved Ma died peacefully in her sleep early this morning, at home, surrounded by family,” her daughter, “Bletchley Circle” actress Rachael Stirling, told the Sun. “She died of cancer diagnosed in March, and spent her last months joyfully reflecting on her extraordinary life, full of love, laughter and a deep pride in her profession. I will miss her beyond words.”

Mastering both film and theater, Rigg earned Emmy, Tony, British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and Evening Standard awards in her long tenure on the stage and screen.

Despite her extensive stage experience, Rigg was perhaps best known for her star-making role in the television series “The Avengers” starting in 1965. There’s hardly a male baby boomer alive whose heart didn’t beat faster at the sight of Emma Peel, her whip-smart, cat-suited character in the mod espionage romp.

“It was a bit frightening,” Rigg, who was in her mid-20s in the swinging ’60s, told The Post in 2018. “Bear in mind, it was 50 years ago. I didn’t know quite what to do with that degree of lust. I’d been in London to drama school and I was [by] no means naive. But to be given that degree of notoriety was a bit of a shock.”

Most recently, Rigg played fan favorite Olenna Tyrell on HBO’s “Game of Thrones” from 2013 to 2015. The character went down in “GoT” history after she admitted to murdering King Joffrey just before being killed herself. She was nominated four times for the Guest Actress in a Drama Emmy for her work on the show.

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Diana Rigg in 1965

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Diana Rigg at the 2018 Tony Awards

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Diana Rigg as Emma Peel in "The Avengers," circa 1966

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Diana Rigg in 1964

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She also starred on Broadway in “Abelard and Heloise” in 1971. (Her nude scene in the play and critic John Simon’s bitchy assessment of her body generated boatloads of publicity, Variety reported.) She later headlined a revival of Molière’s “The Misanthrope” in 1975 and “Medea” in 1994. She earned a Tony nod each time for best actress in a play — and won for “Medea.”

After shucking her “Avengers” catsuit in 1968, Rigg became a Bond girl — the only one who landed the spy and became Mrs. Bond, while clad in an ahead-of-its-time white jumpsuit. The film was 1969’s “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” in which George Lazenby played 007 for his first and last time. Rigg didn’t seem to have thought much of him.

“George was untried, unschooled … he was a model, a male model,” Rigg told The Post. “I was brought on board to help him and to give him gravitas.” Alas, she took that gravitas to the grave: Mrs. Bond was swiftly dispatched by the minions of archvillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Rigg’s other film credits include the Paddy Chayefsky satire “The Hospital” (1971), Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1968), “The Assassination Bureau” (1969), “Julius Caesar” with Charlton Heston (1970), “A Little Night Music” with Elizabeth Taylor (1977), “The Great Muppet Caper” (1981), and Bruce Beresford’s “A Good Man in Africa” opposite Sean Connery (1994).

She also hosted PBS’ “Masterpiece Mystery” from 1989 to 2004.

Rigg is survived by a daughter she had with her ex-husband, theater producer Archibald Stirling, actress Rachael Stirling.

Roger Moore, DEAD (1927-10-14, 2017-05-23) (aged 89)

Roger Moore dies with 89. Actor.

My favourite 007 actor ever. Also liked his part in "The Saint" as Simon Templar.

Remember his 007 movies:

- "Live and Let Die" (1973) as James Bond,

- "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974) as James Bond,

- "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977) as James Bond,

- "Moonraker" (1979) as James Bond,

- "For Your Eyes Only" (1981) as James Bond,

- "Octopussy" (1983) as James Bond,

- "A View to a Kill" (1985) as James Bond,

Roger Moore Website

Roger Moore on IMDb

Here it goes the story of Roger moore from Wikipedia

Thanks to Roger moore on Wikipedia

Sir Roger George Moore KBE (/mɔər/; 14 October 1927 – 23 May 2017) was an English actor. He played the British secret agent James Bond in seven feature films between 1973 and 1985. He is also known for playing Simon Templar in the television series The Saint between 1962 and 1969.

Moore took over the role of Bond from Sean Connery in 1972, and made his first appearance as 007 in Live and Let Die (1973). The longest serving Bond to date, Moore portrayed the spy in six more films. Appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991, Moore was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for "services to charity". In 2008, the French government appointed Moore a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Early life

Roger Moore was born on 14 October 1927 in Stockwell, London. He was the only child of George Alfred Moore, a policeman, and Lillian "Lily" (Pope). His mother was born in Calcutta, India, of English origin. He attended Battersea Grammar School, but was evacuated to Holsworthy, Devon, during the Second World War, and attended Launceston College. He was further educated at Dr Challoner's Grammar School in Amersham, Buckinghamshire and then attended the College of the Venerable Bede at the University of Durham, but did not graduate.

Moore studied for two terms at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, during which his fees were paid by film director Brian Desmond Hurst, who also used Moore as an extra in his film Trottie True. At RADA, Moore was a classmate of his future Bond co-star Lois Maxwell, the original Miss Moneypenny. Moore chose to leave RADA after six months in order to seek paid employment as an actor. His film idol was Stewart Granger. At the age of 17 Moore appeared as an extra in the film Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), meeting his idol on the set. Later Moore and Granger were both in The Wild Geese (1978), though they had no scenes together.

At 18, shortly after the end of the Second World War, Moore was conscripted for national service. On 21 September 1946, he was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps as a second lieutenant. He was given the service number 372394. He eventually became a captain, commanding a small depot in West Germany. He later looked after entertainers for the armed forces passing through Hamburg.

Career

...

The Saint (1962–1969)

With Earl Green in The Saint

Worldwide fame arrived after Lew Grade cast Moore as Simon Templar in a new adaptation of The Saint, based on the novels by Leslie Charteris. Moore said in an interview in 1963, that he wanted to buy the rights to Leslie Charteris's character and the trademarks. He also joked that the role was supposed to have been meant for Sean Connery who was unavailable. The television series was made in the UK with an eye to the American market, and its success there (and in other countries) made Moore a household name. By spring 1967 he had achieved international stardom. The series also established his suave, quipping style which he carried forward to James Bond. Moore went on to direct several episodes of the later series, which moved into colour in 1967.

The Saint ran from 1962 for six seasons and 118 episodes, making it (in a tie with The Avengers) the longest-running series of its kind on British television. However, Moore grew increasingly tired of the role, and was keen to branch out. He made two films immediately after the series had ended: Crossplot, a lightweight 'spy caper' movie, and the more challenging The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970). Directed by Basil Dearden, it gave Moore the opportunity to demonstrate a wider versatility than the role of Simon Templar had allowed, although reviews at the time were lukewarm, and both did little business at the box office.

...

James Bond era (1973–1985)

James Bond films

Moore in 1973

Because of his commitment to several television shows, in particular the long-lasting series The Saint, Roger Moore was unavailable for the James Bond franchise for a considerable time. His participation in The Saint was not only as actor, but also as a producer and director, and he also became involved in developing the series The Persuaders!. Although, in 1964, he made a guest appearance as James Bond in the comedy series Mainly Millicent, Moore stated in his autobiography My Word Is My Bond (2008) that he had neither been approached to play the character in Dr. No, nor does he feel that he had ever been considered. It was only after Sean Connery had declared in 1966 that he would not play Bond any longer that Moore became aware that he might be a contender for the role. However, after George Lazenby was cast in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Connery played Bond again in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Moore did not consider the possibility until it seemed abundantly clear that Connery had in fact stepped down as Bond for good. At that point Moore was approached, and he accepted producer Albert Broccoli's offer in August 1972. In his autobiography Moore writes that he had to cut his hair and lose weight for the role. Although he resented having to make those changes, he was finally cast as James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973).

After Live and Let Die, Moore continued to portray Bond in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974); The Spy Who Loved Me (1977); Moonraker (1979); For Your Eyes Only (1981); Octopussy (1983); and A View to a Kill (1985).

Moore was the oldest actor to have played Bond – he was 45 in Live and Let Die (1973), and 58 when he announced his retirement on 3 December 1985.

Moore's Bond was very different from the version created by Ian Fleming. Screenwriters like George MacDonald Fraser provided scenarios in which Moore was cast as a seasoned, debonair playboy who would always have a trick or gadget in stock when he needed it. This was designed to serve the contemporary taste of the 1970s. Moore's version of Bond was also known for his sense of humour and witty one liners, but also a skilled detective with a cunning mind.

In 2004, Moore was voted 'Best Bond' in an Academy Awards poll, and he won with 62% of votes in another poll in 2008. In 1987 he hosted Happy Anniversary 007: 25 Years of James Bond.

Other films during Bond era

During Moore's Bond period he starred in 13 other movies, beginning with a thriller featuring Susannah York, entitled Gold (1974). He portrayed an adventurer in Africa opposite Lee Marvin in Shout at the Devil (1976), a commando with Richard Burton and Richard Harris in the unorthodox action film The Wild Geese (1978), a counter-terrorism expert opposite Anthony Perkins in the thriller North Sea Hijack (1979), and a millionaire so obsessed with Roger Moore that he had had plastic surgery to look like his hero in The Cannonball Run (1981). He even made a cameo as Chief Inspector Clouseau, posing as a famous movie star, in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983) (for which he was credited as "Turk Thrust II"). However, most of these films were neither critically acclaimed nor commercially successful. Moore was widely criticised for making three movies in South Africa under the Apartheid regime during the 1970s (Gold, Shout at the Devil, and The Wild Geese).

Post-James Bond career

Moore did not act on screen for five years after he stopped playing Bond; in 1990 he appeared in several films and in the writer-director Michael Feeney Callan's television series My Riviera and starred in the film Bed & Breakfast which was shot in 1989; and also had a large role in the 1996 film The Quest; in 1997 he starred as the Chief in Spice World. At the age of 73, he played an amorous homosexual man in Boat Trip (2002) and, although the film was critically panned, Moore's comedic performance was singled out by many critics and viewers as the one of the few enjoyable aspects of it.

The British comedy show Spitting Image once had a sketch in which their latex likeness of Moore, when asked to display emotions by an offscreen director, did nothing but raise an eyebrow; Moore himself stated that he thought the sketch was funny and took it in good humour. Indeed, he had always embraced the 'eyebrows' gag wholeheartedly, slyly claiming that he 'only had three expressions as Bond: right eyebrow raised, left eyebrow raised and eyebrows crossed when grabbed by "Jaws". Spitting Image continued the joke, featuring a Bond film spoof, The Man with the Wooden Delivery, with Moore's puppet receiving orders from Margaret Thatcher to kill Mikhail Gorbachev. Other comedy shows at that time ridiculed Moore's acting, with Rory Bremner once claiming to have had a death threat from one of his irate fans, following one such routine.

In 2009 Moore appeared in an advertisement for the Post Office, he also played the role of a secret agent in the Victoria Wood Christmas Special on BBC1 show over the festive period in the same year. Filming all his scenes in the London Eye, his mission was to eliminate another agent whose file photo looks just like Pierce Brosnan. In 2010 Moore provided the voice of a talking cat called Lazenby in the film Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore which contained several references to, and parodies of, Bond films. In 2011 Moore co-starred in the film A Princess for Christmas with Katie McGrath and Sam Heughan andin 2012 he took to the stage for a series of seven 'Evenings with' in UK theatres and, in November, guest-hosted Have I Got News For You.

In 2015 Moore was named one of GQ's fifty best dressed British men. In October 2015, Moore read Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Claus and Big Claus" for the children's fairytales app GivingTales in aid of UNICEF, together with a number of other British celebrities, including Michael Caine, Ewan McGregor, Joan Collins, Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, David Walliams, Charlotte Rampling and Paul McKenna.

Humanitarian work

Moore's friend Audrey Hepburn had impressed him with her work for UNICEF, and consequently he became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991. He was the voice of Father Christmas or 'Santa' in the 2004 UNICEF cartoon The Fly Who Loved Me.

Moore was involved in the production of a video for PETA that protests against the production and wholesale of foie gras. Moore narrates the video. His assistance in this situation, and being a strong spokesman against foie gras, led to the department store Selfridges agreeing to remove foie gras from their shelves.

...

Awards

For his charity work

2007: Dag Hammarskjöld Inspiration Award (UNICEF)
2005: German Federal Cross of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz) for his UNICEF work[24]:275
2004: UNICEF's Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award
2003: Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
1999: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)

Lifetime achievements awards

2008: Commander of the French National Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre national des Arts et des Lettres)
2007: Hollywood Walk of Fame
2004: TELEKAMERA ("Tele Tydzień" Lifetime Achievement Award, Poland)
2002: Monte Carlo TV Festival (Lifetime Achievement Award)
2001: Lifetime achievement award (Filmfestival, Jamaica)
1997: Palm Springs film festival, USA, Lifetime Achievement Award
1995: TELE GATTO (Italian TV; Lifetime Achievement Award)
1991: GOLDEN CAMERA (German TV; lifetime achievement award)
1990: BAMBI (Lifetime Achievement Award from the German magazine BUNTE)

For his acting

1981: OTTO (Most popular Film Star; from German Magazine BRAVO)
1980: SATURN Award (Most Popular International Performer)
1980: GOLDEN GLOBE: World Film Favorite-Male
1973: BAMBI (shared with Tony Curtis for "The Persuaders", from the German magazine BUNTE)
1973: BEST ACTOR IN TV, award from the French magazine TELE-7-JOURS, shared with Tony Curtis for "The Persuaders"
1967: ONDAS-AWARD (Spanish TV for "The Saint")
1967: OTTO (Most popular TV-star for "The Saint"; from German magazine BRAVO)

Sir Roger Moore

KBE

Roger Moore in 1973
Born	Roger George Moore 14 October 1927 Stockwell, London, England
Died	23 May 2017 (aged 89) Switzerland
Cause of death	Cancer
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1945–2016
Spouse(s)	Doorn van Steyn (m. 1946; div. 1953) Dorothy Squires (m. 1953; div. 1968) Luisa Mattioli (m. 1969; div. 1996) Kristina Tholstrup (m. 2002; his death 2017)
Children	3
Website	roger-moore.com

Bill Paxton, DEAD (1955-05-17, 2017-01-25) (aged 61)

Bill Paxton dies with 61. Actor.

One of the most compelling and hilarious actors of our time, and the only one to be killed by an Alien, a Predator, and a Terminator.

Remember a few of his movies like:

- "Streets of Fire" (1984) as Clyde the Bartender,

- "The Terminator" (1984) as Punk Leader,

- "Weird Science" (1985) as Chet Donnelly,

- "Commando" (1985) as Intercept Officer,

- "Aliens" (1986) as Private William Hudson,

- "Next of Kin" (1989) as Gerald Gates,

- "Predator 2" (1990) as Jerry Lambert,

- "True Lies" (1994) as Simon,

- "Twister" (1996) as Bill "The Extreme" Harding,

- "Titanic" (1997) as Brock Lovett,

- "U-571" (2000) as Lieutenant Commander Mike Dahlgren,

- "Vertical Limit" (2000) as Elliot Vaughn,

- "Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams" (2002) as Dinky Winks,

- "Edge of Tomorrow" (2014) as Master Sergeant Farell.

Bill Paxton on IMDb

Here it goes the story of Bill Paxton from Wikipedia

Thanks to Bill Paxton on Wikipedia

William "Bill" Paxton (May 17, 1955 – February 25, 2017) was an American actor and director. The films in which he appeared include The Terminator (1984), Weird Science (1985), Aliens (1986), Predator 2 (1990), True Lies (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Twister (1996), and Titanic (1997). Paxton also starred in the HBO series Big Love (2006–2011) and was nominated for an Emmy Award for the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys (2012).

Early life

Paxton was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of Mary Lou (née Gray) and John Lane Paxton. His father was a businessman, lumber wholesaler, museum executive, and occasional actor. His mother was Roman Catholic, and he and his siblings were raised in her faith. Paxton was in the crowd when President John F. Kennedy emerged from the Hotel Texas on the morning of his assassination on November 22, 1963. Photographs of an 8-year-old Paxton being lifted above the crowd are on display at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas.

Career

Among Paxton's earliest roles were a minor role as a punk thug in The Terminator (1984), a supporting role as the lead protagonist's bullying older brother Chet in John Hughes' Weird Science (1985), and Private Hudson in Aliens (1986).

He directed several short films, including the music video for Barnes & Barnes' novelty song "Fish Heads", which aired during Saturday Night Live's low-rated 1980–1981 season. He was cast in a music video for the 1982 Pat Benatar song "Shadows of the Night", in which he appeared as a Nazi radio officer.

Music career

In 1982, Paxton and his friend Andrew Todd Rosenthal formed a new wave musical duo called Martini Ranch. The duo released its only full length album, Holy Cow, in 1988 on Sire Records. The album was produced by Devo member Bob Casale and featured guest appearances by other members of that band. The music video for the band's single "Reach" was directed by James Cameron.

1990s

Paxton worked with director James Cameron on True Lies (1994) and Titanic (1997), the latter of which was the highest-grossing film of all time at its release. In his other roles, Paxton played Morgan Earp in Tombstone (1993), Fred Haise in Apollo 13 (1995), the lead in Twister (1996), and lead roles in dark dramas such as One False Move (1992) and A Simple Plan (1998).

2000s—2010s

He directed the feature films Frailty (2001), in which he starred, and The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005). Four years after appearing in Titanic, he joined Cameron on an expedition to the actual Titanic. A film about this trip, Ghosts of the Abyss, was released in 2003. He also appeared in the music video for Limp Bizkit's 2003 song "Eat You Alive" as a sheriff.

Paxton's highest profile television performances received much positive attention, including his lead role in HBO's Big Love (2006–2011), for which Paxton received three Golden Globe Award nominations. Paxton also received good reviews for his performance in the History Channel's miniseries Hatfields & McCoys (2012), for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award, alongside co-star Kevin Costner.

In 2014, he played the role of the villainous John Garrett in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. , and a supporting role in Edge of Tomorrow (2014). He starred alongside Jon Bernthal, Rose McGowan, and John Malkovich as a playable character in the 2014 video game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (downloadable "Exo Zombies" mode). In February 2016, Paxton was cast as Detective Frank Roarke for Training Day, a crime-thriller television series set 15 years after the events of the eponymous 2001 movie; it premiered a year later.

Personal life

Paxton was married from 1979 to 1980 to Kelly Rowan. In 1987, he married Louise Newbury; together, they had two children, James and Lydia.

Death

On February 25, 2017, Paxton died at age 61 from complications following heart surgery. A representative for the family released the following statement to the press on February 26:

It is with heavy hearts we share the news that Bill Paxton has passed away due to complications from surgery. A loving husband and father, Bill began his career in Hollywood working on films in the art department and went on to have an illustrious career spanning four decades as a beloved and prolific actor and filmmaker. Bill's passion for the arts was felt by all who knew him, and his warmth and tireless energy were undeniable. We ask to please respect the family's wish for privacy as they mourn the loss of their adored husband and father.

Filmography
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Look on Bill Paxton on Wikipedia
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Awards and nominations
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Look on Bill Paxton on Wikipedia
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Bill Paxton

Paxton in 2016
Born	William Paxton May 17, 1955 Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.
Died	February 25, 2017 (aged 61) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Complications following surgery
Occupation	Actor, director
Years active	1975–2017
Spouse(s)	Kelly Rowan (m. 1979; div. 1980) Louise Newbury (m. 1987; his death 2017)
Children	2, including James Paxton

Carrie Fisher, DEAD (1956-10-21, 2016-12-27) (aged 60)

Carrie Fisher dies with 60. Actress.

One of the most unforgettable actresses ever. Famous for being the Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies.

Remember a few of her movies like:

- "Star Wars (1977)" as Princess Leia Organa,
- "The Empire Strikes Back (1980)" as Princess Leia Organa,
- "Return of the Jedi (1983)" as Princess Leia Organa,

- "When Harry Met Sally... (1989)" as Marie,
- "Hook (1991)" as Woman kissing on bridge,
- "Scream 3 (2000)" as Bianca,
- "Heartbreakers (2001)" as Ms. Surpin,
- "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)" as Mother Superior,

- "Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)" as General Leia Organa,
- "Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)" as General Leia Organa.

Carrie fisher Official Website
Carrie fisher on IMDb

Here it goes the story of Carrie Fisher from Wikipedia

Thanks to Carrie Fisher on Wikipedia

Carrie Fisher (October 21, 1956 – December 27, 2016) was an American actress, screenwriter, author, producer, and speaker. She was best known for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars series of films. Her other film roles included Shampoo (1975), The Blues Brothers (1980), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The 'Burbs (1989), and When Harry Met Sally... (1989). Fisher was also known for her semi-autobiographical novels, including Postcards from the Edge and the screenplay for the film of the same name, as well as her autobiographical one-woman play and its nonfiction book, Wishful Drinking, based on the show.

Early life

Fisher was born in Beverly Hills, California, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. Her paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her mother was raised a Nazarene, and is of English and Scots-Irish ancestry. When Fisher was two, her parents divorced after her father left Reynolds for her mother's close friend, actress Elizabeth Taylor, the widow of her father's best friend Mike Todd. The following year, her mother married Harry Karl, owner of a shoe-store chain, who secretly spent Reynolds' life savings.

Fisher "hid in books" as a child, becoming known in her family as "the bookworm". She spent her earliest years reading classic literature, and writing poetry. She attended Beverly Hills High School until, at the age of 15, she appeared as a debutante and singer in the hit Broadway revival Irene (1973), which starred her mother. This activity interfered with her education, and she never graduated from high school. In 1973, Fisher enrolled at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, which she attended for 18 months, and in 1978, Fisher was accepted into Sarah Lawrence College, where she planned to study the arts. However, she left before graduating due to conflicts filming Star Wars.

Career
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Look on Carrie Fisher on Wikipedia
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Personal life

Fisher dated musician Paul Simon from 1977 until 1983 after meeting him on the set of Star Wars. In 1980, she was briefly engaged to Canadian actor and comedian Dan Aykroyd, who proposed on the set of their film The Blues Brothers. She said: "We had rings, we got blood tests, the whole shot. But then I got back together with Paul Simon." Fisher was married to Simon from August 1983 to July 1984, and they dated again for a time after their divorce.[citation needed] During their marriage, she appeared in Simon's music video for the song "Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War". Simon's song "Hearts and Bones" is about their romance.

She subsequently had a relationship with Creative Artists Agency principal and talent agent Bryan Lourd. They had one child together, Billie Catherine Lourd (born July 17, 1992). Eddie Fisher stated in his autobiography (Been There Done That) that his granddaughter's name is Catherine Fisher Lourd and her nickname is "Billy". The couple's relationship ended when Lourd left to be in a relationship with a man. Though Fisher described Lourd as her second husband in interviews, according to a 2004 profile of the actress and writer, she and Lourd were never legally married.

In her 2016 autobiography, The Princess Diarist, Fisher wrote that she and Harrison Ford had a three-month affair in 1976 during the filming of Star Wars.

Fisher also had a close relationship with singer James Blunt. While working on his album Back to Bedlam in 2003, Blunt spent much of his time at Fisher's residence. When Vanity Fair's George Wayne asked Fisher if their relationship was sexual, she replied: "Absolutely not, but I did become his therapist. He was a soldier. This boy has seen awful stuff. Every time James hears fireworks or anything like that, his heart beats faster, and he gets 'fight or flight.' You know, he comes from a long line of soldiers dating back to the 10th century. He would tell me these horrible stories. He was a captain, a reconnaissance soldier. I became James' therapist. So it would have been unethical to sleep with my patient."

On February 26, 2005, R. Gregory "Greg" Stevens, a lobbyist, was found dead in Fisher's California home. The final autopsy report lists the cause of death as "cocaine and oxycodone use" but adds chronic, and apparently previously undiagnosed, heart disease as contributing factors. Media coverage of an initial autopsy report used the word "overdose," but that wording is not in the final report. In an interview, Fisher claimed that Stevens' ghost haunted her mansion, which unsettled her: "I was a nut for a year", she explained, "and in that year I took drugs again."

Fisher described herself as an "enthusiastic agnostic who would be happy to be shown that there is a God". She was raised Protestant, but often attended Jewish services, the faith of her father, with Orthodox friends.

In 2016, Harvard College gave Fisher its Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism, noting that "her forthright activism and outspokenness about addiction, mental illness, and agnosticism have advanced public discourse on these issues with creativity and empathy."

Fisher was a supporter and advocate for several causes, including women's advocacy, animal rights, and LGBT causes. She was open about her experiences caring for friends who suffered from AIDS, contributing financially to various AIDS and HIV organizations, including hosting a benefit for amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. She also served as an honorary board member for the International Bipolar Foundation, and, in 2014, received the Golden Heart Award for her work with The Midnight Mission.

She was a spokesperson for Jenny Craig weight loss television ads that aired in January 2011.

Bipolar disorder and drug use

In appearances on 20/20 and The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive with Stephen Fry, Fisher publicly discussed her diagnosis of bipolar disorder and her addictions to cocaine and prescription medication. She said her drug use was a form of self-medication; she used pain medication such as Percodan to "dial down" the manic aspect of her bipolar disorder. She gave nicknames to her bipolar moods: Roy ("the wild ride of a mood") and Pam ("who stands on the shore and sobs"). "Drugs made me feel more normal", she explained to Psychology Today in 2001. "They contained me." She discussed her 2008 memoir Wishful Drinking and various topics in it with Matt Lauer on NBC's Today that same year, and also revealed that she would have turned down the role of Princess Leia had she realized it would give her the celebrity status that made her parents' lives difficult. This interview was followed by a similar appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on December 12, 2008, where she discussed her electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments. At one point, she received ECT every six weeks to "blow apart the cement" in her brain. In 2014, she said she was no longer receiving the treatment.

Fisher revealed in another interview that she used cocaine during the filming of The Empire Strikes Back. "Slowly, I realized I was doing a bit more drugs than other people and losing my choice in the matter", she noted. In 1985, after months of sobriety, she accidentally overdosed on a combination of prescription medication and sleeping pills. She was rushed to the hospital, creating the turn of events that led to much of the material in her novel and screenplay, Postcards from the Edge. Asked why she did not take on the role of her story's protagonist, named Suzanne, in the film version, Fisher remarked, "I've already played Suzanne."

In her later years, Fisher had an emotional support animal, a French Bulldog named Gary, whom she brought to numerous appearances and interviews. Following her death, reports indicated that Fisher's daughter Billie Lourd would take care of Gary.

Death and tributes

On December 23, 2016, after finishing the European leg of her book tour, Fisher was on a flight from London to Los Angeles. She suffered a medical emergency around fifteen minutes before the plane landed. A passenger seated near Fisher reported that she had stopped breathing; another passenger performed CPR on Fisher until paramedics arrived at the scene. Emergency services in Los Angeles were contacted when the flight crew reported a passenger in distress prior to landing. After Fisher was taken by ambulance to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, she was placed on a ventilator.

Following four days in intensive care at UCLA Medical Center, Fisher died on December 27, 2016, at 8:55 a.m. (PST); she was 60 years old. Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd, confirmed her mother's death in a statement to the press. News of Fisher's death spread quickly online where fans from around the world responded with tributes and condolences. Many of her costars and directors from Star Wars and other works also shared their thoughts on Fisher's death.

On December 28, 2016, while at the home of Fisher's brother Todd, their mother Debbie Reynolds experienced a medical emergency and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Reynolds and her son had been planning Fisher's funeral before 9-1-1 had to be called. The actress subsequently died at the hospital. It was reported later that Fisher's mother had suffered a stroke, and that Reynolds said, "I want to be with Carrie" shortly before she died. On January 5, 2017, a joint private memorial was held for Fisher and Reynolds. A portion of her remains were laid to rest beside Reynolds in a crypt at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills. The remainder of Fisher's ashes are held in a giant, novelty Prozac pill.

In her 2008 book, Wishful Drinking, Fisher wrote about what she hoped would eventually be her obituary: "I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra." Several obituaries and retrospectives featured the quote. In the absence of a star for Fisher on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, fans created their own memorial using a blank star. Along with flowers and candles, words put on the blank star read, "Carrie Fisher may the force be with you always". In the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic, thousands of fans paid tribute to Fisher by gathering at House Organa on the planet Alderaan where Fisher's character in Star Wars resided. Lightsaber vigils and similar events in Fisher's honor were held at various Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas theaters and other sites. On January 6, 2017, the lights on Broadway in New York City were darkened for one minute in honor of Fisher and her mother.

On January 9, 2017, the Los Angeles county Department of Public Health issued a death certificate listing "cardiac arrest/deferred" as the cause. More tests were expected.
Filmography
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Look on Carrie Fisher on Wikipedia
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Television
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Look on Carrie Fisher on Wikipedia
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Video games
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Look on Carrie Fisher on Wikipedia
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Bibliography:

Novels
Postcards from the Edge, 1987, ISBN 0-7434-6651-9
Surrender the Pink, 1990, ISBN 0-671-66640-1
Delusions of Grandma, 1993, ISBN 0-684-85803-7
Hollywood Moms, 2001, (introduction)
The Best Awful There Is, 2004, ISBN 0-7434-7857-6

Non-fiction
Wishful Drinking, 2008, ISBN 1-4391-0225-2
Shockaholic, 2011, ISBN 978-0-7432-6482-2
The Princess Diarist, 2016, ISBN 978-0-399-17359-2

Screenplays
Postcards from the Edge, 1990
These Old Broads, 2001
E-Girl (2007)
Doctored screenplays for Sister Act (1992), Last Action Hero (1993) and The Wedding Singer (1998)

Plays
Wishful Drinking, 2006
Wishful Drinking, 2008
A Spy in the House of Me, 2008

Fisher in 2013
Born	Carrie Frances Fisher October 21, 1956 Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Died	December 27, 2016 (aged 60) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, screenwriter, author, producer, speaker
Years active	1973–2016
Spouse(s)	Paul Simon (m. 1983; div. 1984)
Partner(s)	Bryan Lourd (1991–1994)
Children	Billie Lourd
Parent(s)	Eddie Fisher Debbie Reynolds
Relatives	Todd Fisher (brother) Joely Fisher (half-sister) Tricia Leigh Fisher (half-sister)

George Michael, DEAD (1963-06-25, 2016-12-25) (aged 53)

The unique and incredible George Michael is dead.

I saw George Michael live in 2007 in a big stadium (Estádio Cidade Coimbra). I was on front row on the show.
You can check my story of that show on a post I wrote in 2007: (George Michael, 2007-05-12, Coimbra) http://pedrossm.blogspot.pt/2007/05/george-michael-2007-05-12-coimbra.html

He was always one of my idols. Already since 1982 when he was in Wham! (1982 to 1986).

You can check his story on his wikipedia page and on his imdb page.

Here it goes a little from his history from wikipedia.

Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016), known professionally as George Michael, was an English singer, songwriter, and record producer, who rose to fame as a member (with Andrew Ridgeley) of the music duo Wham!. He was best known in the 1980s and 1990s with his style of post-disco dance-pop, with best-selling songs such as "Last Christmas" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go".

Michael sold more than 100 million records worldwide. His 1987 debut solo album, Faith, sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. Michael garnered seven number one singles in the UK and eight number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, including "Careless Whisper" and "Freedom! '90". He ranks among the best-selling British acts of all time, with Billboard magazine ranking him the 40th most successful artist to ever live. Michael won various music awards throughout his 30-year career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male twice, four MTV Video Music Awards, four Ivor Novello Awards, three American Music Awards, and two Grammy Awards from eight nominations.

In 2004, the Radio Academy named Michael the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004. The documentary A Different Story, released in 2005, covered his career and personal life. In 2006, Michael announced his first tour in 15 years, the worldwide 25 Live tour, spanning three individual tours over the course of three years (2006, 2007 and 2008). In 2016, Michael announced a second documentary on his life entitled Freedom, set to be released in March 2017. On 25 December 2016, Michael died at home at the age of 53.

Early life

George Michael was born in East Finchley, London. His father, Kyriacos Panayiotou, a Greek Cypriot restaurateur, moved to England in the 1950s and changed his name to Jack Panos.Michael's mother, Lesley Angold (née Harrison; 1937–1997), was an English dancer. Michael spent the majority of his childhood in Kingsbury, London, in the home his parents bought soon after his birth; he attended Kingsbury High School.

While in his early teens, the family moved to Radlett, Hertfordshire. There, Michael attended Bushey Meads School in the neighbouring town of Bushey, where he befriended his future Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley. The two had the same career ambition of being musicians. Michael would busk on the London Underground, performing songs such as "'39" by Queen. His involvement in the music business began with his working as a DJ, playing at clubs and local schools around Bushey, Stanmore, and Watford. This was followed by the formation of a short-lived ska band called The Executive with Ridgeley, Ridgeley's brother Paul, Andrew Leaver, and David Mortimer (later known as David Austin).

Musical career

1981–86: Wham!

George Michael first found success after forming the duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. The band's first album Fantastic reached No. 1 in the UK in 1983 and produced a series of top 10 singles including "Young Guns", "Wham Rap!" and "Club Tropicana". Their second album, Make It Big reached No. 1 on the charts in the US. Singles from that album included "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" (No. 1 in the UK and US), "Freedom", "Everything She Wants", and "Careless Whisper" which reached No. 1 in nearly 25 countries, including the UK and US, and was Michael's first solo effort as a single.

Michael sang on the original Band Aid recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (which became the UK Christmas number one) and donated the profits from "Last Christmas/Everything She Wants" to charity. In addition, he contributed background vocals to David Cassidy's 1985 hit "The Last Kiss", as well as Elton John's 1985 successes "Nikita" and "Wrap Her Up". Michael cited Cassidy as a major career influence and interviewed Cassidy for David Litchfield's Ritz Newspaper.

Wham!'s tour of China in April 1985, the first visit to China by a Western popular music act, generated worldwide media coverage, much of it centred on Michael. Before Wham!'s appearance in China, many kinds of music in the country were forbidden. The audience included members of the Chinese government, and Chinese television presenter, Kan Lijun, who was the on stage host, spoke of Wham!'s historic performance; "No-one had ever seen anything like that before. All the young people were amazed and everybody was tapping their feet. Of course the police weren't happy and they were scared there would be riots." The tour was documented by film director Lindsay Anderson and producer Martin Lewis in their film Foreign Skies: Wham! In China.

With the success of Michael's solo singles, "Careless Whisper" (1984) and "A Different Corner" (1986), rumours of an impending break up of Wham! intensified. The duo officially separated during the summer of 1986, after releasing a farewell single, "The Edge of Heaven" and a singles compilation, The Final, plus a sell-out concert at Wembley Stadium that included the world premiere of the China film. The Wham! partnership ended officially with the commercially successful single "The Edge of Heaven", which reached No. 1 on the UK chart in June 1986.

Solo career

The beginning of his solo career, during early 1987, was a duet with Aretha Franklin. "I Knew You Were Waiting" was a one-off project that helped Michael achieve an ambition by singing with one of his favourite artists, and it scored number one on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 upon its release.

For Michael, it became his third consecutive solo number one in the UK from three releases, after 1984's "Careless Whisper" (though the single was actually from the Wham! album Make It Big) and 1986's "A Different Corner". The single was also the first Michael had recorded as a solo artist which he had not written himself. The co-writer, Simon Climie, was unknown at the time, although he would have success as a performer with the band Climie Fisher in 1988. Michael and Aretha Franklin won a Grammy Award in 1988 for Best R&B Performance – Duo or Group with Vocal for the song.

...

Personal life

Sexuality

At the age of 19, Michael told Andrew Ridgeley and close friends that he was bisexual. Michael also told one of his two sisters, but he was advised by friends not to tell his parents about his sexuality. In a 1999 interview with The Advocate, Michael told the Editor in Chief, Judy Wieder, that it was "falling in love with a man that ended his conflict over bisexuality." "I never had a moral problem with being gay", Michael told Wieder. "I thought I had fallen in love with a woman a couple of times. Then I fell in love with a man, and realized that none of those things had been love." In 2007, Michael said he had hidden the fact he was gay because of worries over what effect it might have on his mother.

Speaking about his time with Wham! in the 1980s, Michael said: "I used to sleep with women quite a lot in the Wham! days but never felt it could develop into a relationship because I knew that, emotionally, I was a gay man. I didn't want to commit to them but I was attracted to them. Then I became ashamed that I might be using them." In 2009, Michael said: "My depression at the end of Wham! was because I was beginning to realize I was gay, not bisexual."

...

Health problems

On 26 October 2011, George Michael cancelled a performance at London's Royal Albert Hall due to a viral infection. On 21 November 2011, a hospital in Vienna admitted Michael after he had complained of chest pains while at a hotel just two hours before his performance at a venue there for his Symphonica Tour. The singer was later confirmed to have suffered from pneumonia and, until 1 December, was in an intensive care unit. While Michael appeared to be "in good spirits" and responded well to treatment following his admittance, on 25 November hospital officials said that his condition had "worsened overnight". This development led to cancellations and postponements of Michael's remaining 2011 performances, which had been scheduled mainly for the United Kingdom.

On 1 December 2011, doctors at the hospital in which George Michael had stayed announced that the singer was "steadily improving" and that he had moved out of the intensive care ward. On 21 December 2011, the hospital discharged Michael. On 23 December 2011, Michael made a public speech outside his house in Highgate, London, in which he stated that the staff at the Vienna General Hospital had saved his life and that he would perform a free concert specifically for those staff. While making the speech, he became emotional and breathless. During the speech, he also mentioned that he had undergone a tracheotomy. He also revealed that, after waking from the coma, he had a temporary West Country accent.

On 16 May 2013, George Michael sustained a head injury when he fell from his moving car on the M1 motorway, near St Albans in Hertfordshire, and was airlifted to a hospital.

Death

Michael died at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, aged 53. He was found dead by his partner Fadi Fawaz on Christmas morning, 25 December 2016.

No cause of death was immediately determined; his manager Michael Lippman conjectured that heart failure was the cause of death, and that Michael "passed away peacefully." Fawaz described, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, finding the performer on Christmas morning, “I went round there to wake him up and he was just gone, lying peacefully in bed. We don’t know what happened yet. Everything had been very complicated recently, but George was looking forward to Christmas, and so was I."

On 29 December a post-mortem was undertaken to determine the exact cause of death, but was inconclusive. Thames Valley Police said that further tests would be carried out, but the results were unlikely to be known for several weeks.

In its obituary of Michael, the BBC described him as a "pop superstar" and wrote, "Blessed with good looks and a fine singing voice, his stage presence made him a favourite on the live concert circuit as he matured from teen idol to long term stardom." He is survived by his father and two sisters.

Awards and nominations

Michael won numerous music awards throughout his 30-year career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male twice, four MTV Video Music Awards, four Ivor Novello Awards, three American Music Awards, and two Grammy Awards from eight nominations.

Discography

Faith (1987)
Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990)
Five Live (EP) (1993)
Older (1996)
Songs from the Last Century (1999)
Patience (2004)
Symphonica (2014)

Tours

Faith World Tour (1988–89)
Cover to Cover (1991)
25 Live (2006–08)
George Michael Live in Australia (2010)
Symphonica Tour (2011–12)

George Michael
Michael performing on stage during the Faith World Tour in 1988
Background information
Birth name	Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou
Born	25 June 1963 East Finchley, London, England
Died	25 December 2016 (aged 53) Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England
Genres	Post-disco dance-pop blue-eyed soul pop
Occupation(s)	Singer songwriter record producer
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1981–2016
Labels	Columbia Sony
Associated acts	Wham! Aretha Franklin Elton John Mary J. Blige Mutya
Website	georgemichael.com
Notable instruments
Piano John Lennon model "Z" Steinway

Aaliyah 2001-10-11 Rolling Stone, Aaliyah: 1979-2001

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/aaliyah-1979-2001-20011011

Aaliyah: 1979-2001

Friends and family remember the short, remarkable life of a music and film phenom

By Toure

October 11, 2001

Singer Aaliyah died on August 25th, 2001. ZumaPress

One late Saturday afternoon, just two weeks before her death, twenty-two-year-old Aaliyah walked from a black Mercedes-Benz to a small helicopter for a short flight from New Jersey to East Hampton, New York. She was on her way to the summer house that Jay-Z shared with her boyfriend of a year, Damon Dash, Jay's partner in Roc-a-Fella Records. She wore a dark-green hoodie and matching shorts so small they showed off most of her long, curvy legs, down to the little treble-clef tattoo on her right ankle. She wore all-white Nike Air Force Ones with white socks. Around her neck hung a small Roc-a-Fella pendant. In her left arm she clutched a large, fluffy pillow in a black pillowcase. She got on the helicopter, nuzzled into Dash's shoulder and went to sleep. I was there reporting a story on Jay-Z, and I was struck by Aaliyah's presence, the way she was in person, as she was onstage – sexy without losing her girlish sweetness. Throughout the weekend, she was quiet but not quite shy, quick to flash her wide, bright smile, quick to laugh at Dash's jokes and quick to dance with him in the middle of the living room when Michael Jackson's Off the Wall came on. On Sunday, she slept hours longer than everyone else, on a bed strewn with rose petals. She and Dash seemed very much in love.

Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born January 16th, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to Detroit with her family at age five. She grew up singing with her mother, and at eleven opened for her aunt Gladys Knight in Las Vegas. She studied dance at the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts and earned a 4.0 GPA. At fourteen, Aaliyah released an album produced by Chicago R&B kingpin R. Kelly, called Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, which sold more than 1 million copies. Reports surfaced that she had married Kelly when she was only fifteen and he was twenty-seven; Aaliyah denied it, although a marriage certificate was found in a Chicago county clerk's office.

In 1996 came her second album, One in a Million, which sold 2 million copies and launched its producer-songwriter team, two largely unknown figures named Timbaland and Missy Elliott, to stardom. Aaliyah began modeling for Tommy Hilfiger and taking acting lessons, which led to a starring role in Romeo Must Die (2000) as well as the role of Akasha in Queen of the Damned, slated for release next spring. She had also been cast in both of the upcoming sequels to The Matrix, which she had started shooting this summer in L.A.

Her third record, Aaliyah, released in July, was already gold when she flew to Abaco Island in the Bahamas to finish the video for the album's third single, "Rock the Boat," directed by Hype Williams. On Saturday, August 25th, she boarded a ten-seat twin-engine Cessna 402B bound for Opa-Locka, Florida, with the pilot, Luis Morales III, and seven members of her crew: video-production director Douglas Kratz, 28; bodyguard Scott Gallin, 41; hairstylists Anthony Dodd, 34, and Eric Forman, 29; Blackground Records executive Gina Smith, 30; makeup artist Christopher Maldonado, 32; and friend Keeth Wallace, 49. Less than a minute after it took off, the plane crashed just a few hundred feet from the runway. Aaliyah was among six passengers dead at the scene; three others passed away hours later.

Though Bahamian investigators have not officially determined what caused the crash, police initially speculated that the plane foundered because it had been overloaded with equipment that brought the total weight to more than 700 pounds over the aircraft's specified 6,300-pound limit.

Aaliyah was scheduled to leave the island the next day, but when her part in the video was completed she decided to leave early. "Aaliyah left midproduction, so we were still shooting when she left," Williams says. He challenges the contention that the plane was overloaded. "Those rumors about there being camera equipment on the plane, they're all false because when they left, they left us in the middle of the ocean still in production. Anything that's not the truth – it makes it harder for people to understand."

Reports have surfaced that the passengers argued with pilot Morales over whether the plane was overloaded, although it is the pilot's responsibility to make this determination. Jomo Hankerson, Aaliyah's cousin and the president of Blackground Records, her label, is angered by reports that the passengers argued with Morales. "I don't subscribe to the scenario that the passengers of a plane dictate them to overload the plane," he says. "That seems unfathomable. In the airline business, safety has to always come first."

Though the cargo's weight was the initial focus of investigation, the days that followed brought troubling reports about thirty-year-old pilot Morales and the Fort Lauderdale company that chartered the plane, Blackhawk International Airways. In the past three years, Blackhawk has received several citations for safety violations, including a warning for not adequately testing employees for drugs. Morales' record is also spotty: Less than two weeks before the crash, he pleaded no contest to charges of possession of crack cocaine and attempting to sell stolen airplane parts, and was put on probation. He began working at Blackhawk two days before the accident, and the company hadn't licensed him to operate the plane used for Aaliyah's flight.

Friends recall Aaliyah as driven, intelligent and clear on the reward of hard work, as well as an unusually sweet and gentle spirit who always found time for play. She had a shyness that was beautiful, they say, because it sprang from humility. "She had an old soul," says Hankerson. "She seemed like she was living everything in rewind, like she'd already done all of this. She had this personality that was contagious. It was never just a job when you were working with her. You always had fun. Good kid fun."

She was remarkable for being sexy without selling herself, for finding the thin line where she could attract the boys without embarrassing the moms. "She's the first artist I worked with who would not compromise her values to be famous," says Parrish Johnson, an executive vice president at Blackground. "In this business, church girls become prostitutes because they want to be stars, but she would never let stardom interfere with who she was."

She was nicknamed Li-Li and Baby Girl. She loved to sleep, to play word games, to make prank phone calls, to shop at Fred Segal in Los Angeles, to eat breakfast food, even late in the afternoon. "She would just do silly stuff," remembers Elliott. "One time, she put these big fake teeth in her mouth, the kind you get at a joke shop, and she came into my room and started doing the scenes from Romeo Must Die. Her personality was very playful, but she was also equally caring and compassionate."

She was a girly girl who always made sure her nails were done, her perfume was right, and her bag had lotion and lip gloss. "She matured a lot in the last year," says Kidada Jones, one of her best friends. "She really settled into her womanhood. Her parents gave her more freedom, and she took more control of her projects. She fell in love with Damon and that was it. She wanted to have a family, and we talked about how we couldn't wait to kick back with our babies." She prayed before every meal and before she went to bed. "God definitely must've needed an extra angel," says Sean "Puffy" Combs. "A real strong angel."

Aaliyah had not yet become a songwriter – Hankerson called her an "interpreter" – but the songs she chose to grace with her sultry, understatedly sexy vocals spoke volumes about the image she wanted to portray. "Try Again," from the Romeo Must Die soundtrack, is a playing-hard-to-get anthem, in which she's telling her suitor she's not going to be won right now but he shouldn't quit trying. She sings, "I'm into you, you're into me/But I can't let it go so easily." She debases neither men nor women, remaining above the gender wars that pop songs about dating often become. In "Are You That Somebody?" from the Dr. Dolittle soundtrack, she confesses her sexual desire but demands that her lover be discreet. "If I let this go, you can't tell nobody," she sings. "I'm talkin' 'bout nobody." Where other pop songs treat sex wantonly, she wonders aloud, "I hope you're responsible... I'm trustin' you with my heart, my soul."

But no choice reveals more about Aaliyah's adventurousness, self-confidence and world-class ears than her opting to work with Timbaland and Elliott long before their quirky, futuristic, highly textured, visual soul had become a dominant pop sound. "She was always trying to be the first to do something," Hankerson says. "She never wanted to copy something that's already been out." "Tim and I were new producers," says Elliott. "From day one, she had that much faith in our music that she treated us like we already sold 2 million records, when we hadn't sold anything yet. She really helped make us what we are today."

Her acting career began at nineteen with a call to Harold Guskin, who has coached Kevin Kline, Glenn Close and Matt Dillon. For six months, Guskin and Aaliyah met several times a week to work through plays by Chekhov, Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams. "We worked very seriously," Guskin says. "She was a great student. Very smart, incredibly emotionally available, and she had a wonderful imagination." When she was offered the role of the rebellious Trish O'Day in Romeo Must Die, Guskin worked with her on the set. "We had this scene with Delroy Lindo [who played her father] where she's blaming him for the death of her brother. Delroy's magnificent and she loved him, but in the scene she had to go at him, and I said, 'You treat him like a piece of crap.' Well, she took off on that scene. She just uncorked it. My students, who are major actors, couldn't believe that she'd just started in my living room."

Her last day was marked by fun and laughter, dancing and sun. "I feel that it was a great day," says Williams. "We were on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean. It was extremely hot, but everyone was in such good spirits. Up until the tragedy occurred everybody was really feeling good. Everyone who left the island and got on that plane was in the best of spirits."

Most of those in the crash were friends of Aaliyah's; she tended to treat the people who worked for her like family. The circle included hairstylists Anthony Dodd and Eric Forman. Williams says of Forman, "He was the main one to keep everyone's spirit and morale up." Christopher Maldonado was a makeup artist, one of the best in the industry. Douglas Kratz, director of video production at Virgin Records, was unusually gentle for a record executive. "He made sure Aaliyah was always comfortable and content," Williams says. "He wanted to be more of a friend and less of an obstacle." Scott Gallin was a bodyguard and actor who appeared in the film Bad Boys and on Miami Vice. Keeth Wallace was a close friend of the Haughton family who was nicknamed Joy. Gina Smith had been promoted to product manager at Blackground just a month before.

Aaliyah's August 31st funeral was closed to the public, but hundreds of her fans lined Park Avenue on Manhattan's Upper East Side as the singer's casket was carried to St. Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic Church. Family and friends attended the service, including Combs, Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Mike Tyson, Jay-Z, Ananda Lewis and Lil' Kim. Later, a public memorial at Cipriani 42nd Street was crowded with more than 3,000 mourners. In Los Angeles, a Sunset Boulevard billboard for Aaliyah's album became an ad hoc shrine.

Though some sources at Blackground say the "Rock the Boat" video will be released eventually, and Williams says he would like to see it on the air, Hankerson says he and his family haven't yet figured out how to move forward as a company. For now, they are struggling to deal with the loss of the girl whose name was an Arabic word meaning "supreme." "She was charmed from the womb," Hankerson says. "It just always worked out for her. This wasn't supposed to happen. I never question God. It's just really hard to see the reason for this one. They say he works in mysterious ways. This one's extremely mysterious to me."

This story is from the October 11th, 2001 issue of Rolling Stone.

Prince, DEAD (1958-06-07, 2016-04-21) (aged 57)

The amazing Prince is dead.

I saw Prince live in 1993 in a big stadium (Estádio Alvalade) and in 1998 in Pavilhão Atlântico. I was on front row both shows.

Love his music and a his movies like "Purple Rain" from 1984, "Under the Cherry Moon" 1986, "Sign o' the Times" 1987 and "Graffiti Bridge" 1990.

You can check his story on his wikipedia page and on his imdb page.

Here it goes a little from his history from wikipedia.

Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016), known by the mononym Prince, was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and actor. Prince was renowned as an innovator, and was widely known for his eclectic work, flamboyant stage presence, and wide vocal range. He was widely regarded as the pioneer of Minneapolis sound. His music integrates a wide variety of styles, including funk, rock, R&B, soul, psychedelia, and pop.

Prince was born in Minneapolis and developed an interest in music as a young child, writing his first song when he was seven years old. After recording songs with his cousin's band 94 East, 19-year-old Prince recorded several unsuccessful demo tapes before releasing his debut album For You in 1978, under the guidance of manager Owen Husney. His 1979 album Prince went platinum due to the success of the singles "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover". His next three records—Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982)—continued his success, showcasing Prince's trademark of prominently sexual lyrics and incorporation of elements of funk, dance, and rock music. In 1984, he began referring to his backup band as The Revolution and released Purple Rain, which served as the soundtrack to his film debut of the same name. A prolific songwriter, Prince in the 1980s wrote songs for and produced work by many other acts, often under pseudonyms.

After releasing the albums Around the World in a Day (1985) and Parade (1986), The Revolution disbanded and Prince released the double album Sign o' the Times (1987) as a solo artist. He released three more solo albums before debuting The New Power Generation band in 1991. He changed his stage name in 1993 to an unpronounceable symbol Prince logo.svg, also known as the "Love Symbol". He then began releasing new albums at a faster pace to remove himself from contractual obligations to Warner Bros.; he released five records between 1994 and 1996 before signing with Arista Records in 1998. In 2000, he began referring to himself as "Prince" again. He released 15 albums after that; his final album, HITnRUN Phase Two, was first released exclusively on the Tidal streaming service on December 11, 2015. On April 21, 2016, Prince died at his Paisley Park recording studio and home in Chanhassen, Minnesota, following two weeks of reported illness.

Prince sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. He won seven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the first year of his eligibility. Rolling Stone ranked Prince at number 27 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Early life

Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis, the son of Mattie Della (Shaw) and John Lewis Nelson. His parents were both African-American, and his family ancestry is centered in Louisiana, with all four of his grandparents hailing from that state. Prince's father was a pianist and songwriter and his mother was a jazz singer. Prince was named after his father, whose stage name was Prince Rogers, and who performed with a jazz group called the Prince Rogers Trio. In a 1991 interview with A Current Affair, Prince's father said, "I named my son Prince because I wanted him to do everything I wanted to do". Prince's childhood nickname was Skipper.

In an interview, Prince told Tavis Smiley that he was "born epileptic" and "used to have seizures" when he was young. During the interview, he also said: "My mother told me one day I walked in to her and said, 'Mom, I'm not going to be sick anymore,' and she said, 'Why?' and I said, 'Because an angel told me so'."

Prince's sister Tika Evene (usually called Tyka) was born in 1960. Both siblings developed a keen interest in music, and this was encouraged by their father. Prince wrote his first tune, "Funk Machine", on his father's piano when he was seven. When Prince was ten years old, his parents separated. Prince repeatedly switched homes following the separation, sometimes living with his father and sometimes with his mother and stepfather. Finally, he moved into the home of neighbors named Anderson and befriended their son Andre Anderson, who later became known as André Cymone.

Prince and Anderson joined Prince's cousin Charles Smith in a band called Grand Central while they were attending Minneapolis's Central High School. Smith was later replaced by Morris Day on the drums. Prince played piano and guitar for the band, which performed at clubs and parties in the Minneapolis area. Grand Central later changed its name to Champagne and started playing original music influenced by Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown, Earth, Wind & Fire, Miles Davis, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, and Todd Rundgren. Rock critics have noted similarities between Prince's later androgynous look, music and vocal style and that of Little Richard.

Prince also played basketball in high school, and continued to play it for recreation as an adult.

You can see the rest of his story in his wikipedia page: wikipedia

Illness and death

On April 7, 2016, Prince postponed two performances from his Piano & A Microphone Tour, at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta; the venue released a statement saying he was "battling the flu". He rescheduled the show for April 14, even though he still was not feeling well. While flying back to Minneapolis early the next morning, his private jet made an emergency landing at Quad City International Airport in Moline, Illinois, so that he could seek medical treatment. Representatives stated that he suffered from "bad dehydration" and had been fighting influenza for several weeks. TMZ reported that he was treated for a drug overdose and left the hospital contrary to doctors' recommendation. Prince was seen in public the following evening, when he shopped at the Electric Fetus in Minneapolis on Record Store Day, and made a brief appearance at a dance party at his Paisley Park recording studio complex in Chanhassen, Minnesota, stating that he was feeling fine.

He attended a performance by singer Lizz Wright at the Dakota Jazz Club on April 19, 2016.

On April 21, 2016, Prince was found, unresponsive, in an elevator at Paisley Park. A 9-1-1 call was placed at 9:43 a.m; he did not recover with CPR by emergency responders and was pronounced dead at 10:07 a.m. He was 57 years old.

U.S. President Barack Obama expressed condolences, as did many musicians and cultural figures. To honor Prince's memory, cities across the U.S. held tributes and vigils, and lit buildings, bridges, and other venues in purple light. In the first five hours after the media began reporting his death, "Prince" was the top trending term on Twitter, and Facebook reported there had been 61 million Prince-related interactions.

Artistry

Musical style

Jon Pareles of The New York Times described Prince as "a master architect of funk, rock, R&B and pop," while highlighting his ability to defy genre categories. Critic Simon Reynolds called him a "pop polymath, flitting between funkadelia, acid rock, deep soul, schmaltz—often within the same song," writing that "Prince doesn't so much build bridges between categories as create music that exceeds each category simultaneously." Prince has been compared with jazz great Miles Davis in regard to the artistic changes throughout his career.

Image and musicianship

As a performer, Prince was known for his flamboyant style and showmanship. He came to be regarded as a sex symbol for his androgynous, amorphous persona, play with gender, and defiance of racial stereotypes.

Journalist Nik Cohn described him as "rock's greatest ever natural talent". His singing abilities encompassed a wide range from falsetto to baritone and rapid, seemingly effortless shifts of register. In addition to this, Prince was renowned as a multi-instrumentalist. He was considered a guitar virtuoso and a master of drums, percussion, bass, keyboards, and synthesizer. On his first five albums, he played nearly all the instruments. The precise number of instruments he was capable of playing remains obscure. On his debut album, he was credited with having played 27 instruments, which based on the album credits included various types of bass, keyboard and synthesizer in the total. When asked during a television interview by Dick Clark how many instruments he could play, he responded, "Thousands."

You can see the rest of his story in his wikipedia page: wikipedia

Personal life

Prince resided near Minneapolis at the time of his death.

Over the years Prince was romantically linked with many celebrities, including Kim Basinger, Madonna, Vanity, Sheila E., Carmen Electra, Susanna Hoffs, Anna Fantastic, Sherilyn Fenn, and Susan Moonsie of Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6. Prince was engaged to Susannah Melvoin in 1985. When he was 37, he married his 22-year-old backup singer and dancer Mayte Garcia on Valentine's Day 1996. They had a son named Boy Gregory on October 16, 1996, who was born with Pfeiffer syndrome and died a week later. Prince and Mayte divorced in 1999. In 2001, Prince married Manuela Testolini in a private ceremony; she filed for divorce in May 2006.

Prince joined the Jehovah's Witnesses in 2001, following a two-year-long debate with friend and fellow Jehovah's Witness musician Larry Graham. Prince said that he did not consider it a conversion, but a "realization". "It's like Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix", he explained. He attended meetings at a local Kingdom Hall and occasionally knocked on people's doors to discuss his faith. Prince reportedly needed double hip-replacement surgery since 2005 but would not undergo the operation unless it was a bloodless surgery because Jehovah's Witnesses do not accept blood transfusions. The condition was caused by repeated onstage dancing in high-heeled boots. Towards the end of his life, Prince regularly walked with a cane in public engagements, leading to speculation that he was being disabled by not having his surgery. However, he used canes as part of his outfit from the early 1990s onward.

Prince was a vegetarian. The liner notes for his album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic featured a message about the cruelty involved in wool production.

In 2016, Prince announced that he was writing a memoir, tentatively titled The Beautiful Ones.

Discography

Main articles: Prince albums discography, Prince singles discography, The New Power Generation and Madhouse (band)

• For You (1978)
• Prince (1979)
• Dirty Mind (1980)
• Controversy (1981)
• 1999 (1982)
• Purple Rain (1984)
• Around the World in a Day (1985)
• Parade (1986)
• Sign o' the Times (1987)
• Lovesexy (1988)
• Batman (1989)
• Graffiti Bridge (1990)
• Diamonds and Pearls (1991)
• (Love Symbol Album) (1992)
• Come (1994)
• The Black Album (1994)
• The Gold Experience (1995)
• Chaos and Disorder (1996)
• Emancipation (1996)
• Crystal Ball (1998)
• The Truth (1998)
• The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale (1999)
• Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999)
• The Rainbow Children (2001)
• One Nite Alone... (2002)
• Xpectation (2003)
• N.E.W.S (2003)
• Musicology (2004)
• The Chocolate Invasion (2004)
• The Slaughterhouse (2004)
• 3121 (2006)
• Planet Earth (2007)
• Lotusflow3r (2009)
• MPLSound (2009)
• 20Ten (2010)
• Plectrumelectrum (2014)
• Art Official Age (2014)
• HITnRUN Phase One (2015)
• HITnRUN Phase Two (2015)

Filmography

Main article: Prince videography

Film

Year	Film	Role	Director
1984	Purple Rain	The Kid	Albert Magnoli
1986	Under the Cherry Moon	Christopher Tracy	Prince
1987	Sign o' the Times	Himself	Prince
1990	Graffiti Bridge	The Kid	Prince

Television

Year	Show	Role	Notes
1997	Muppets Tonight	Himself	Episode 11
2014	New Girl	Himself	Episode: "Prince"

Tours

• Prince Tour (1979–80)
• Dirty Mind Tour (1980–81)
• Controversy Tour (1981–82)
• 1999 Tour (1982–83)
• Purple Rain Tour (1984–85)
• Parade Tour (1986)
• Sign o' the Times Tour (1987)
• Lovesexy Tour (1988–89)
• Nude Tour (1990)
• Diamonds and Pearls Tour (1992)
• Act I and II (1993)
• Interactive Tour (1994)
• The Ultimate Live Experience (1995)
• Gold Tour (1996)
• Love 4 One Another Charities Tour (1997)
• Jam of the Year Tour (1997–98)
• New Power Soul Tour/Festival (1998)
• Hit n Run Tour (2000–01)
• A Celebration (2001)
• One Nite Alone... Tour (2002)
• 2003–2004 World Tour (2003–04)
• Musicology Live 2004ever (2004)
• Per4ming Live 3121 (2006–07)
• 21 Nights in London: The Earth Tour (2007)
• 20Ten Tour (2010)
• Welcome 2 (2010–12)
• Live Out Loud Tour (2013)
• Hit and Run Tour (2014–15)

Prince
Prince performing in 2008
Background information
Birth name	Prince Rogers Nelson
Also known as	Jamie Starr Christopher Alexander Nevermind The Purple One Joey Coco The Artist Formerly Known as Prince
Born	June 7, 1958 Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Died	April 21, 2016 (aged 57) Chanhassen, Minnesota, United States
Genres	Funk R&B rock pop new wave
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter multi-instrumentalist record producer actor film director
Instruments	Vocals guitar bass guitar drums keyboards Linn drum
Years active	1976–2016
Labels	Warner Bros. Paisley Park NPG EMI Columbia Arista Universal
Associated acts	The Revolution Wendy & Lisa The New Power Generation The Time Morris Day Sheila E. Vanity 6 Apollonia 6 Mazarati The Family 94 East Madhouse Anna Fantastic Andy Allo 3rdeyegirl