VIEWS FROM A BROAD

Marc Christian MacGinnis dies at 56; Rock Hudson's ex-lover

 Marc Christian MacGinnis, who won a multimillion-dollar settlement in 1991 from the estate of his ex-lover, actor Rock Hudson, after convincing a jury Hudson had knowingly exposed him to AIDS, has died. He was 56.

Christian, who went by his mother's maiden name, made headlines in 1985 when he sued Hudson's estate and his secretary, Mark Miller, for $10 million, alleging that he had suffered severe emotional distress after hearing on a news broadcast that the former matinee idol and television star had AIDS, which was claiming lives throughout the gay community.

READ THE OBIT HERE

Remote Control' Host Ken Ober Dead At 52

BEFORE MTV became a wasteland of CRAP...

Longtime MTV "Remote Control" host Ken Ober has passed away at the age of 52, the comedian's representative confirmed to MTV News. The cause of his death was not available at press time.

Ober's career began in the mid-1980s with a turn on the talent competition "Star Search" and in more recent years segued into behind-the-scenes production positions on comedy shows like "Mind of Mencia" and "The New Adventures of Old Christine."

Ober's agent, Mark Measures, confirmed the comedian's passing but could provide no information as to the cause of his death. According to The New York Times, Ober's manager, Lee Kernis, said the comedian was found dead on Sunday, a day after he complained to a friend about a headache and flu-like symptoms.

SOURCE MTV

Nation's Biggest Publisher of Nations Biggest Gay Newspapers Closes- Paul Colichman probably just changed his Depends

sadly..the state of Gay printed media is taking a big hit....with Advocate disintegrating to a fluff piece insert and Windows media down the tubes... the only source of gay news will be up to the bloggers...

from the GAWKER.COM

Ending its long slog toward death, Window Media, the company that publishes a number of gay newspapers throughout the country—including the country's oldest, the Washington Blade, in D.C.—has ceased publications of all their titles.

Window Media owns the Southern Voice and David in Atlanta, the South Florida Blade and 411 Magazine in the Fort Lauderdale area, the Houston Voice, and the Washington Blade, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in October (and where I worked for a number of years). This morning Atlanta gay blogProject Q Atlanta reported that a sign had been placed on the office of the Southern Voice and David, stating, "It is with GREAT regret that we must inform you that effective immediately, the operations of Window Media, LLC and Unite Media, LLC have closed down." In a sad indignity, employees are told to return to the office on Wednesday with boxes to pick up their belongings. We hear that employees are currently huddled in the parking lot in Atlanta, not sure what to do with themselves and dealing with the local media that has come to report on the closure.

MICHAEL JACKSON'S FUNERAL COST $1 MILLION..here''s the breakdown

Hopefully, this is the last time I'll feel the need to talk about MICHAEL JACKSON'S funeral since this is the final reciept:

Yesterday, the financial details of the funeral were released . . . and the whole extravaganza cost over $1 million.

The bill from Forest Lawn Cemetery came to almost $856,000.  That included the entombing, which was $590,000.

Michael's casket cost $25,000 . . . the suit he was buried in was $35,000 . . . and $175,000 was spent on security.

JANET JACKSON reportedly paid about $50,000 to Forest Lawn up front but was reimbursed by Michael's estate.

Kenley Players impresario JOHN KENLEY dies at 103

Ya did theater good Mr. Kenley..

Ohio's most flamboyant showman has taken his final bow.

Impresario John Kenley, who died Friday at 103 in Cleveland, made Kenley Players popular for three decades by casting Broadway, Hollywood and TV stars in large-venue revivals.

From the 1950s through the early 1980s in Columbus, Dayton, Warren and Akron, Ohio, and other U.S. cities, Kenley produced thousands of plays and musicals with some of the biggest names in show business.

Among the stars who played Kenley's Ohio circuit: Ethel Merman, Mae West, Mickey Rooney, Billy Crystal, Gypsy Rose Lee, Robert Goulet, Betty White, William Shatner, Tommy Tune, Andy Williams, Van Johnson, Jayne Mansfield, Juliet Prowse, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Dick and Tommy Smothers, Roberta Peters, Christine Andreas, Florence Henderson. Joe Namath, Ann-Margret, Cathy Rigby and Paul Lynde.

"John was the real thing - a fantastic showman," said Andreas, a veteran Broadway actress.

"He loved the theater and reinvented it for Ohio."

Born John Kremchek on Feb. 20, 1906, near Denver, he was the son of a Slovak saloonkeeper. Kenley made his stage debut at age 4. While a teenager in Cleveland, Kremchek worked in vaudeville and burlesque as a female impersonator, acrobat, dancer and "stooge" (an audience plant).

He claimed his brightest idea was to cast TV stars in stage musicals.

"I did it first. And before television, I got them from radio," he told The Dispatch in the mid-1980s.

"You'd see(the stars) in your home in black-and-white on the Jack Paar or Steve Allen shows, and then Kenley would present them in living color onstage," said Tommy Tune, a protege, who got his start with Kenley in the 1970s.

Kenley also was known for his resourcefulness. He would add songs to old musicals and cast an eight-month-pregnant Barbara Eden as Maria in The Sound of Music. She wore loose costumes.

Rooney, Pia Zadora and Mariette Hartley.

READ john Kenley here

Soupy Sales dies at 83; slapstick comic had hit TV show in 1960s

Soupy Sales, a comic with a gift for slapstick who attained cult-like popularity in the 1960s with a pie-throwing routine that became his signature, has died. He was 83.

Sales had numerous ailments and died Thursday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, said Kathy O'Connell, a longtime friend.

As the star of "The Soupy Sales Show," he performed live on television for 13 years in Detroit, Los Angeles and New York before the program went into syndication in the United States and abroad.

Ostensibly for children, the show had broad appeal among adults who found Sales' puns, gags and pratfalls deliciously corny and camp. His cast consisted of goofy puppets with names like White Fang, Black Tooth and Pookie, and a host of off-camera characters, including the infamous naked girl.

READ SOUPY'S OBIT HERE

Vic Mizzy dies at 93; film and TV composer wrote 'Addams Family' theme song

LOVED HIS MUSIC AND THEMES...
Vic Mizzy, a film and television composer best known for writing the memorable theme songs for the 1960s sit-coms "Green Acres" and "The Addams Family," has died. He was 93.

Mizzy died of heart failureSaturday at his home in Bel-Air, said Scott Harper, a friend and fellow composer.
an offbeat assignment: the 1964-66 TV series based on Charles Addams' macabre magazine cartoons and starring John Astin as Gomez Addams and Carolyn Jones as his wife, Morticia.

For his theme song, Mizzy played a harpsichord, which gives the theme its unique flavor. And because Filmways refused to pay for singers, Mizzy sang it himself and overdubbed it three times. The song, memorably punctuated by finger-snapping, begins with: "They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ooky: the Addams family."

In the 1996 book "TV's Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes From 'Dragnet' to 'Friends,' " author Jon Burlingame writes that Mizzy's "musical conception was so specific that he became deeply involved with the filming of the main-title sequence, which involved all seven actors snapping their fingers in carefully timed rhythm to Mizzy's music."

For Mizzy, who owned the publishing rights to "The Addams Family" theme, it was an easy payday.

"I sat down; I went 'buh-buh-buh-bump [snap-snap], buh-buh-buh-bump," he recalled in a 2008 interview on CBS' "Sunday Morning" show. "That's why I'm living in Bel-Air: Two finger snaps and you live in Bel-Air."

The season after "The Addams Family" made its debut, Mizzy composed the title song for “Green Acres,” the 1965-71 rural comedy starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.

For "Green Acres," Burlingame observed in his book, Mizzy "again conceived the title song as intertwined with the visuals" of the show's opening title sequence and telling the story of wealthy Oliver and Lisa Douglas moving from New York City to a farm in the country.

READ THE LATIMES OBIT HERE

Stephen Gately funeral: Farewell to our brother, farewell to our son

SAD..

See all pics and Story here

Stephen Gately's distraught bandmates broke down yesterday as they paid tribute to the singer, whom they called their 'little brother'.

Boyzone's Ronan Keating sobbed as he told Gately's funeral mass in Dublin that the world had lost one of its greatest stars.

In an emotional eulogy that brought tears to the eyes of thousands of fans outside, Keating cried as he said the pop star had found perfect peace.

We have lost our brother and I've lost my wing man,' said Keating, who earlier delivered a moving performance of his song In This Life.

'He will live on in our songs and whenever us four are together his spirit is alive.

'For Stephen we'll carry on, but it will never be the same without him. A beautiful man who is now the perfect angel.

'Forever young and never forgotten. A man, a friend, a brother, a son, a husband and a hero

Pro wrestler, music video icon a Lou lbano dies at 76

Aweeeeeeee....

NEW YORK – "Captain" Lou Albano, who became one of the most recognized professional wrestlers of the 1980s after appearing in Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" music video, died Wednesday. He was 76.

Albano, whose real name was Louis Vincent Albano, died in Westchester County in suburban New York, said Dawn Marie, founder of Wrestlers Rescue, an organization that helps raise money for the health care of retired wrestlers. He died of natural causes, Marie said.

World Wrestling Entertainment called him one of the company's "most popular and charismatic legends."

read the whole Obit here

Argentine folk singer Mercedes Sosa dies aged 74

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - Argentine folk singer Mercedes Sosa, the "voice of Latin America" whose music inspired opponents of South America's brutal military regimes and led to her forced exile in Europe, has died. She was 74.

A family statement says Sosa died on Sunday in a Buenos Aires Hospital.

Sosa was best known for signature tunes such as "Gracias a la Vida" ("Thanks to Life") and "Si se calla el cantor" ("If the Singer Quiets"). She had been in the hospital for more than two weeks with liver problems and had since been suffering from progressive kidney failure and cardiac arrest.

Her latest album, "Cantora 1," is nominated for three prizes in next month's Latin Grammy awards in Las Vegas, including album of the year and best folkloric album.