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Perhaps Anna Nicole Smith's legacy is that she somehow managed to establish any kind of legacy at all. She plowed her way onto our pop cultural landscape in 1992, took up permanent residency, amazingly remained relevant for the next 15 years, and died of a drug overdose in 2007. As a young single mother working at a fried chicken joint in Mexia, Texas, she was one of countless wannabe models who dreamed of being "the next Marilyn Monroe." Only she's actually come pretty close, whether we want to admit it or not, thanks to the internet. More »
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The final living veteran of World War I died peacefully in her sleep this weekend at the impressive age of 110. Florence Green enlisted in Britain's Royal Air Force in 1918 at the tender age of 17 and served during the final two months of the war. She would have turned 111 on February 19th. She outlived the last two surviving male veterans of WWI—Claude Choules, a Royal Navy sailor and the last WWI combatant, and Frank Buckles, the last American veteran, both of whom died last year at the age of 110. With Miss Green's passing, the end of an era is truly upon us. More »
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Here's some sad news to kick off your Monday. Uncle Chichi, toy poodle, West Village staple and arguably the world's oldest dog has passed away at the ripe old age of 25 or 26. The discrepancy in both Chichi's age and "World's Oldest" title comes from the fact that he was adopted from a Charleston animal shelter 24-years ago and lacks the paperwork and puppy photos needed to be an official world record holder. While his rescue status makes Guinness love him a little less, it only makes us love him even more. More »
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Born Jamesetta Hawkins in 1938, the singer who was nicknamed Miss Peaches crossed genres, from blues and rhythm and blues to rock and roll, soul, gospel and jazz. James's singnature song, "At Last," was released in 1961, but is still a romantic favorite — President Barack Obama danced to it with his wife Michelle at the inauguration ball. In 1962, James released "Something's Got a Hold on Me," the opening line of which ("Oh sometimes… I get a good feeling, yeah…") is currently in a chart-topping dance track by Avicii. James's time with Chess records was the subject of the 2008 film Cadillac Records, in which Beyoncé played the singer. James struggled with heroin addiction in the '70s, but bounced back in the late '80s and '90s, recording jazz and R&B albums. She won six Grammys, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall Of Fame and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In April 2009, James made her final television appearance performing "At Last" on Dancing with the Stars; in December of last year, she was declared terminally ill. We lost an epic talent today, but these songs live on. More »
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It's a sad day in the world of sports. Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke has died from injuries sustained during an accident on January 10th. The 29-year-old skiing phenom was training at a resort in Park City, Utah, on The Superpipe (a daunting canyon with 22-foot high walls that's carved into the side of a ski slope) when she fell and ruptured an artery in her neck. Ultimately, the damage done to her brain proved to be irreversible, and she passed away this morning. More »
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If you're worried about what will happen after you die you may want to make out a will, but that takes effort and is actually important. Instead, why not concentrate on posting a final message on your Facebook wall? The app If I Die allows you to leave a sweet farewell for loved ones or heap guilt on your enemies in a post that will be seen by everyone you know — unless of course, Facebook isn't quite as popular six decades from now. More »
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Fifteen-year-old Amanda Cummings stepped in front of a bus two days after Christmas, suicide note in her pocket. Her family's understandably heartbroken by their loss, but they're even more heartbroken by the response Amanda's death has gotten on the internet. Online forum 4chan, notorious for targeting dead kids for some good, old fashioned, hilarious postmortem bullying, have decided that she's the current object of their impish derision, and Amanda's family doesn't understand why. More »
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Cheetah, a chimp who is believed to have played Tarzan's sidekick in the 1930s movies, died on Christmas Eve at the age of 80. In response to his death, Mia Farrow, daughter of actress Maureen O'Sullivan, tweeted, "My mom, Tarzan's Jane, referred to Cheetah-the-chimp as 'that bastard' –- saying he bit her at every opportunity." In the clip above he looks affectionate — but we bet a bite was just around the corner. More »
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Helen Frankenthaler, an artist who helped develop a style of painting known as Color Field, has died at the age of 83. Though she was one of the most famous female artists of her generation, she said she never thought of herself as a "lady painter." More »
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Tonight Vanity Fair announced that Christopher Hitchens, the polarizing author and essayist, died on Thursday night at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston due to complications of esophageal cancer. He was 62. More »
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On Monday Pusuke, a Shiba mix who took Guinness World Records' title for oldest dog last year, died in Sakura, Japan. He was 26 years and eight months old. His owner Yumiko Shinohara, said Pusuke had suddenly become ill and refused to eat. She added that she "would just like to thank him for staying alive so long." Sniffle. Okay, everybody go hug your pet now! More »
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Today's stars constantly praise "Old Hollywood" glamour, but they conveniently forget about the nasty side that involved concealing your scandalous pregnancy and, in order to keep up appearances, pretending your "love child" was adopted. Judy Lewis was an actress in the '60s and '70s and later became a clinical psychologist, but she's best known as the daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young — though she didn't learn who her parents were until she was 31. This week she died of lymphoma at age 76. More »
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Anne McCaffrey, author of the famous "Dragonriders of Pern" series of fantasy novels, has died at the age of 85. She was one of the first fantasy authors to focus on female heroes, and she was the first woman to win the Hugo and the Nebula award, some of the sci-fi and fantasy communities highest honors. Here's the message her son Todd posted on Facebook announcing her death: More »
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Evelyn Lauder, an impressive businesswoman and a fierce champion of breast cancer research, died yesterday at age 75 from ovarian cancer. More »
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Curmudgeonly CBS News commentator Andy Rooney passed away Friday night after suffering serious complications following minor surgery last month. More »
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Hillary Clinton's mom Dorothy Rodham, who died yesterday at the age of 92, was frequently by her daughter's side throughout her political career (and Bill's). Clinton cites Rodham as a major influence, and the photos that follow highlight her role in her daughter's very public life. More »
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You may know Sylvia Robinson as "Little Sylvia." Or as one half of the duo "Mickey & Sylvia," who sang "Love Is Strange," which was a hit in 1957 — and again in 1987, as part of the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. But she also — along with her husband, Joe — founded Sugar Hill Records in 1979 and released the hip hop classic "Rapper's Delight." She's being called a pioneer and "the mother of hip-hop." She is survived by three sons and ten grandchildren. More »
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Animal fans who bravely chose to love again after the death of Knut the polar bear have been dealt another devastating blow. This week Heidi the cross-eyed opossum was put to sleep at Germany's Leipzig zoo. Heidi was three and a half and had been listless and unable to move for weeks. "We carried out every possible test and treatment," said zoo director Joerg Junhold. "We made the final decision ... to relieve the animal from suffering and pain." Heidi had hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide and possessed some astonishing talents. In February she appeared on an American TV show and correctly predicted the Oscar winners for best actress and best actor. More »
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Raise a chip for Arch West, the Frito-Lay executive credited with inventing Doritos in the '60s. West died last week at 97 and his family plans to dust his grave with a layer of Doritos before burying his urn. It seems like a fitting tribute, but hopefully the folks behind Cheez Whiz won't get any ideas. More »
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The Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmentalist activist Wangari Maathai died of ovarian cancer on Sunday at the age of 71. Her story is one of a woman both rewarded and reviled for her efforts to change her country and the world. More »
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You may not have heard of the late aviatix and all around daredevil Betty Skelton, but after reading this article about her life, you might kind of want to be her. More »
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Today in "ladies we probably should have learned about in history class," we have Nancy Wake, a freelance journalist turned high-society hostess turned decorated French resistance hero, who died last Sunday in London at 98. During World War II, Wake escorted hundreds of Allied troops through occupied France, helped set up communication lines between the British military and the French Resistance, and even killed a Nazi sentry with her bare hands. Wake, who Germans dubbed the "White Mouse" for her ability to evade capture, once said of her wartime activities, "I don't see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas." More »
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Ms. Platt — who was married to director Peter Bogdanovich in the '60s — served as production designer on several of his films, including The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon. She also wrote the screenplay for the 1978 film Pretty Baby, in which Brooke Shields played a child prostitute, and was nominated for an Academy Award for art direction for her work on Terms of Endearment. Plus, as noted in her obituary, she was, in a roundabout way, part of the chain of events that resulted in The Simpsons arriving on TV. More »
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Amy Winehouse's death wasn't surprising, but I'm left strangely shocked. Her drug use and repeated attempts at rehab foreshadowed a grim outcome, but I guess I never thought about things that way. More »
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Soul singer Amy Winehouse was found dead today in her north London home. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5824099&view=rss&microfeed=true Gloria Clyne once said: "I never got rich, but it was a priceless experience." More »
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Producer Sherwood Schwartz, creator of television hits Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch, Emmy Award-winner, and writer on The Red Skelton Show and The Bob Hope Show. He reportedly died in his sleep; he's survived by four children. [Today] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5820456&view=rss&microfeed=true Arkansas residents held a memorial service today for local celebrity, Ellen, an elephant who could paint and play the harmonica. More »
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Famously outspoken former First Lady Betty Ford passed away yesterday at the age of 93. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5819643&view=rss&microfeed=true The tune Ruth Roberts wrote was chosen as the New York Mets' official song in late 1961, after defeating 18 other competitors. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5818267&view=rss&microfeed=true Norma "Duffy" Lyon, famous for the butter sculptures she created for the Iowa State Fair, has died at the age of 81. Lyon sculpted cows, Elvis, and gymnast Shawn Johnson out of butter over the course of her fifty-year career. She's survived by her husband, nine children, and twenty-three grandchildren — says her daughter, "not everybody's mom is the butter cow lady." More »
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Yesterday Maria Gomes Valentim, who Guinness World Records named the world's oldest person, died of pneumonia, just a few weeks shy of her 115th birthday. Valentim was born in 1896 and lived in Carangola, Brazil for her entire life. She credited her long life to a healthy diet and the occasional glass of wine. 114-year-old Besse Cooper of Monroe, Georgia lost the "oldest person" distinction in May when Valentim's age was verified, but now she's regained the title. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5814288&view=rss&microfeed=true Ziskin, who produced Pretty Woman , To Die For, As Good as It Gets and four Spider-Man films, also co-founded and produced the "Stand Up To Cancer" TV fundraisers. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2004, and died Sunday. More »
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The world has lost a wonderful crazy cat lady. Lilian Jackson Braun's series of mystery novels included titles like The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers, The Cat Who Played Brahms, The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare, The Cat Who Sniffed Glue, and, of course, The Cat Who Smelled a Rat. More »
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Andrew Gold, whose work includes "Thank You For Being A Friend," "Lonely Boy," and 70s singles "Do Wah Diddy" and "Never Let Her Slip Away," passed away on Friday of a heart attack. He was 59. Fun facts: he collaborated with Art Garfunkel on "I Only Have Eyes For You" and his cover of the Mad About You theme was the wake-up song of choice for one of NASA's Mars Pathfinders. More »
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"She is from New York. She is Jewish. She is a woman," wrote one of the graduate programs to which Rosalyn Yalow applied. Their loss: She went on to become the second woman to win a Nobel prize in medicine. More »
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"Godfather of rap" Gil Scott-Heron, who was famous for the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", died yesterday in a New York hospital at the age of 62. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5806500&view=rss&microfeed=true Kate Swift, whose books Words and Women and The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing how using only masculine pronouns and other words excludes and devalues women, has died of stomach cancer at the age of 87. Thanks to her, many publications have stopped using gendered terminology like "fireman" and "stewardess." More »
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Yvette Vickers, Playboy Playmate and star of Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman and other B movies, has been found dead in her California home. Authorities think she may have been dead for months. More »
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Alice Ward, described as a "tough-talking mother of nine," died yesterday after being taken off of life support. Ward and her sons, retired welterweight champion Micky Ward and his trainer half-brother Dicky Eklund, inspired the award-winning film The Fighter, starring Melissa Leo, Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale. At the Critics Choice awards, Bale noted that in January, Ward had died — stopped breathing due to cardiac arrest — for 30 minutes, but came back to life. "That is one tough cookie," Bale declared. It seems Alice Ward was a fighter until the end: More »
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