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Notre Dame football legend, Heisman winner, Johnny Lujack dead at 98
By David Russell July 26, 2023 1:33am Updated
(More pictures at the link.)
Chicago Bears’ quarterback Johnny Lujack is congratulated by coach George Halas, left, on setting a National League aerial gain record of 468 yards in defeating their rivals, the Chicago Cardinals.
AP
Johnny Lujack, the Notre Dame quarterback who won three national titles with the Fighting Irish in the 1940s, died Tuesday at 98.
His granddaughter said Lujack entered hospice care recently, ESPN reported.
Lujack led Notre Dame to the championship as a sophomore in 1943, stepping in for Heisman winner Angelo Bertelli when Bertelli left the team for active duty in the Marine Corps for World War II following a 6-0 start.
Lujack himself served in the United States Navy for two years.
He returned to lead the team to the 1946 and 1947 titles, being named a unanimous All-American both years and winning the Heisman in the latter.
Lujack was the oldest living Heisman Trophy winner at the time of his death.
Lujack’s most famous play may have been a tackle in the “Game of the Century,” the 1946 matchup of No. 2 Notre Dame against No. 1 Army at Yankee Stadium.
The game ended in a scoreless tie, thanks to Lujack’s touchdown-saving tackle of Army Heisman-winner Doc Blanchard.
Lujack compiled a 21-1-1 record as Notre Dame’s quarterback.
He also played baseball, basketball and ran track while he attended the South Bend, Indiana school.
He played with the Chicago Bears from 1948-51, where he lead the NFL in passing yards (2,658) and touchdowns (23) in 1949.
In 1950, he led the league in rushing touchdowns (11).
Lujack was named to the Pro Bowl in 1950 and 1951, his final season, as he retired at 26 years old.
“Everything for me at Notre Dame was happenstance,” Lujack told UND.com in 1999. “If I played five years later, maybe people would not have even noticed that I was around. So I feel so fortunate about the timing and everything that came my way.”
He also returned to Notre Dame as an assistant coach to Frank Leahy in the early 1950s.
“Playing under Frank Leahy taught you so many important things: sacrifice, dedication, attitude, preparation, team concept,” Lujack said in 1999.
Lujack would be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1960.
He is survived by a daughter and son, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
His daughter Carol died in 2002 and his wife Patricia died in 2022.
https://nypost.com/2023/07/26/notre-dame-football-legend-johnny-lujack-dead-at-98/
Hey K², here's another article about Tony Bennett:
Hat tip to BOREALIS on the Military board.
Tony Bennett's World War II Experience Was a 'Front-Row Seat in Hell'
Honoree Tony Bennett arrives at the Los Angeles Confidential Magazine 2012 Grammys Celebration in Beverly Hills, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 9, 2012. Bennett, the eminent and timeless stylist whose devotion to classic American songs and knack for creating new standards such as "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" graced a decadeslong career that brought him admirers from Frank Sinatra to Lady Gaga, died Friday, July 21, 2023. He was 96. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
21 Jul 2023
Military.com | By Blake Stilwell
Singer Tony Bennett's stint in the U.S. Army during World War II led him to legendary entertainer Bob Hope, which inspired him to pursue a career spanning more than seven decades. Only after he announced he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease in 2021 did the crooner retire from performing live shows.
He continued to rehearse his repertoire, however, and broke the Guinness World Record for the oldest person to release an album of new material, at age 95. It was just one more honor earned by a man who spent a lifetime receiving awards and accolades for his work. Bennett died on July 21, 2023, two weeks shy of his 97th birthday.
His experience in World War II not only shaped the rest of his life, it put infantry rifleman Anthony Dominick Benedetto in the spotlight as a member of Special Services, singing for the Allied troops in the trenches, sometimes literally.
"The main thing I got out of my military experience was the realization that I am completely opposed to war," Bennett wrote in his 1998 autobiography, "The Good Life." "Although I understand why this war was fought, it was a terrifying, demoralizing experience for me... life can never be the same once you've been through combat."
From the age of 15, young Tony watched as his friends and relatives were drafted into service. Bennett turned 18 in the summer of 1944, and that November, he received a draft notice of his own. He was sent to the Army, completed basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and became an infantry rifleman at Fort Robinson, Arkansas.
After his post-training furlough, he waited to hear about his next assignment. He was shipped to Le Havre, France, to become a replacement troop for units that suffered heavy casualties fighting the Germans in Europe. Bennett was sent to G Company, 7th Army, 63rd Infantry Division.
Tony Bennett in the U.S. Army, 1945. (TonyBennett.com)
Bennett's group of replacements were taking over for casualties lost during the Battle of the Bulge. He recalled his batch being awakened at 4 a.m. by none other than Gen. George S. Patton himself, shouting: "Now listen up! Forget your mothers and everything else you've ever known! You're going up to the line."
The line was a terrifying place for all the replacements. Many, Bennett wrote, had no experience in combat and some had never fired a weapon. The idea was that more experienced soldiers would help instruct the replacements, but there was no time for that.
“Snow covered the ground and the front was a front-row seat in hell,” he wrote. “It was an absolutely terrifying spectacle.”
They quickly found themselves digging foxholes in the hard ground to protect themselves from German 88-millimeter artillery. During his first night on the line, Bennett was almost killed by shrapnel from a German 88. He learned the rules for the front line quickly: "Don't move."
"Most nights, we'd be awakened by the bombs that were going off around us," Bennett wrote. "On the front line, we'd see dead soldiers, dead horses and big craters in the ground where bombs had exploded. To me, it's a joke that they make 'horror' movies about things like Dracula and Godzilla, and they make 'adventure' movies about war. War is far more horrifying than anything anyone could dream up."
Bennett's company entered Germany in March 1945, pushing the Wehrmacht back and fighting house by house to take German towns. When he was finally pulled off the line, he went with a thousand other GIs to see Bob Hope perform a USO show.
"All the GIs loved him so much for boosting our dismally low morale," wrote Bennett. "He became a big part of the reason I went into show business, because at that moment he made me realize that the greatest gift you can give anyone is a laugh or a song."
The last official mission of his regiment was the liberation of a concentration camp near the town of Landsberg, 30 miles south of the Dachau Concentration Camp. The camp was still being defended by German prisoners, but Bennett's regiment fought hard to liberate those people, even fording the treacherous Lech River.
"Many writers have recorded what it was like in the concentration camps much more eloquently than I ever could, so I won't even try to describe it," he recalls in his autobiography. "Just let me say I'll never forget the desperate faces and empty stares of the prisoners as they wandered aimlessly around the campgrounds.
"We immediately got food and water to the survivors, but they had been brutalized for so long, they couldn't believe that we were there to help them and not to kill them."
Germany eventually surrendered, then Japan. Bennett had only been in the war for four months, so he had to stay on with the occupying force.
He was transferred to Special Services to entertain the Allied troops who had to stay behind. There, he met many musicians and performers who would see similar success on stage in their postwar years.
Tony Bennett singing with a U.S. Army Band, 1945. (TonyBennett.com)
In 1946, he set sail for New York, where he was honorably discharged on Aug. 15, where the war had "changed everything in ways I couldn't explain." He was ready to get his life started again.
https://www.military.com/off-duty/music/2023/07/21/tony-bennetts-world-war-ii-experience-was-front-row-seat-hell.html?ESRC=mr_230724.nl&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mr&utm_campaign=20230724
NYC carriage drivers leave touching note on Tony Bennett’s Central Park bench: ‘Once around the park again’
By Alyssa Guzman July 22, 2023 6:35pm Updated
(More pictures at the link.)
New Yorkers continue to honor legendary crooner Tony Bennett in one of his favorite city spots.
Notes and flowers appeared Saturday on the Central Park bench that bears the name of Bennett, who died Friday at age 96.
The park’s iconic carriage drivers left a touching note on the perch, slightly tweaking the lyrics to his 1953 song “Please Driver (Once Around the Park Again),” to read: “Please, Tony, once around the park again…We can’t believe you’re gone…”
“RIP, Central Park icon, Tony Bennett,” they wrote.
Tourists were seen taking pictures of the multiple bouquets and note on the bench, which is located on Center Drive near Central Park South and Sixth Avenue.
The jazz singer often visited the park and was seen in the later years of his life being pushed around the beautiful greenery in a wheelchair.
The Astoria native lived on Central Park South for 25 years.
He also would sit in the park and paint his favorite spot in watercolor.
“I have many spots I like around the park,” he told the New York Times in 2015. “I always paint nature. Nature is the boss.”
The Grammy winner said at the time that the park inspired his art, and he sketched or painted around 800 different scenes from it, from men rowing boats to taxis driving in the rain.
He would usually go to Central Park early in the morning to avoid any detection or would meet up with other friends who liked to paint.
“I live in the city, but when I enter the park I’m in the forest,” he told the outlet.
Bennett often painted as a child and even learned it in high school at the High School of Industrial Arts on the Upper East Side. Throughout high school, he would paint Central Park for homework assignments, the Times reported.
Several high-profile New Yorkers remembered the singer on Friday.
“A working-class kid from Queens, Tony Bennett, sang our song to the world. Don’t let the lyrics fool you – he left his heart right here in New York City. May he rest in peace,” Mayor Eric Adams tweeted.
“I will always be grateful for his outstanding contribution to the art of contemporary music. He was a joy to work with. His energy and enthusiasm for the material he was performing was infectious,” Long Island native Billy Joel wrote on social media with several photos of the two working together.
“He was also one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever known.”
Bennett was a regular at the Brooklyn Diner on West 57th, around the corner from his Manhattan home.
“He was the sweetest, nicest guy you’d ever want to socially spend a couple of hours with. There couldn’t be a nicer New York kind of a guy,” the restaurant’s owner Shelly Fireman told The Post.
“It’s sad for America; it’s sad for New York and we’re going to miss him a lot.”
Gerard Renny, who owned Lucky’s Bar and Grill on 57th Street and Sixth Avenue, another of Bennett’s neighborhood haunts, bought one of the singer’s works — a Las Vegas cityscape — for his then-pregnant wife.
“When he found out I bought that, one day I show up and my manager hands me an envelope and it’s an autographed photo thanking me and wishing me all the best for the baby.”
https://nypost.com/2023/07/22/nyc-carriage-drivers-leave-note-on-tony-bennetts-central-park-bench/
Actors who died in the last 12 months
~~~ Who would've thought ~~~
(26:10)
As life progresses
xandrewx
Oh, no! RIP Mr. Bennett. You had a long and glorious run.
Tony Bennett dead at 96 in his hometown of New York: ‘Good Italian stock’
By Rob Bailey-Millado July 21, 2023 8:34am Updated
(Lots more pictures at the link.)
Tony Bennett, the legendary pop, jazz and big-band vocalist, has died after a seven-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 96.
Publicist Sylvia Weiner confirmed Bennett’s death, revealing he passed away in his hometown of New York. His official cause of death — just two weeks shy of his 97th birthday — has not yet been announced.
“I come from good Italian stock — but I’ve tried to stay fit through the years,” Bennett told me nearly 20 years ago.
At the time he was a spry 72, meeting and greeting concertgoers with swagger before a benefit performance in the blazing hot Sonoran Desert of Tucson, Ariz.
For two decades beyond that, the 20-time Grammy winner kept swinging as smoothly as ever — making history as one of the only artists to chart new albums in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and the first three decades of the 21st century.
Anthony Dominick Bennedetto was born into a poor family of Italian immigrants living in Astoria, Queens, on Aug. 3, 1926. His father Giovanni, a grocer, died 10 years later, forcing his seamstress mother Anna Maria to find new ways to win bread amid the Great Depression.
It wasn’t long before little Tony was cashing in with his vocal chords, performing at the opening of the Triborough Bridge in 1936. The legendary baritone belter was a tender tenor way back then, and reportedly received pats on the head from Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
While attending the High School of Industrial Arts, the teen realized he wanted to be a professional singer — but also started training for his other lifelong artistic passion: Painting. (Decades later, his one-time hobby became a very classy — and lucrative — side hustle.)
He took a career hiatus to serve in World War II. After returning home, he was discovered in 1949 by Bob Hope — working with Pearl Bailey at a Greenwich Village club — and signed a deal with Columbia Records.
The 25-year-old entertainer now rechristened as Tony Bennett scored his first No. 1 hit in 1951 with “Because of You,” sparking seven decades of chart success.
Well over a half-century after it hit the charts, Bennett said he never got sick of singing his 1962 signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
But there were indeed dark times.
Bennett revealed in the 2011 book “All The Things You Are: The Life of Tony Bennett” that multi-pronged addictions left him broke, “drug addled” and near death.
Bennett also confessed to snorting cocaine and smoking marijuana in a “reckless effort” to forget his financial woes in the 1970s and ’80s.
“I was in a completely self-destructive tailspin. I used to take pills — uppies, downies and sleepies,” he said. “I owed something like $1.2 million, which was a fortune in those days. At least half of it was in back taxes I couldn’t afford to pay.”
But he bounced back like a pro, defying the pop culture odds to win over the “I want my MTV” generation with the help of his famously protective, career-saving new manager: Son Danny Bennett, now 69.
“I’ve always been unplugged,” Bennett quipped as he took the “MTV Unplugged” stage in 1994. His comeback recording of these interpretations of classics went on to surpass platinum (million-selling) status and won the Grammy for 1995’s Album of the Year.
Fast-forward through decades of Billboard bows and Grammy wins: One of America’s last legit living legends stayed busy promoting a 2014 duets album with Lady Gaga — and maintaining an international fine arts career.
Two years in the making, Tony and Gaga’s “Cheek to Cheek” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart and features classic covers ranging from Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” to Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” and Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.”
Bennett revealed in February 2021 that he is suffering from a progressive, degenerative brain disease. The family told AARP that his decline began in 2016, but his battle with Alzheimer’s became seriously concerning in 2018 when he was recording “Love for Sale” with Lady Gaga.
“Life is a gift, even with Alzheimer’s,” he tweeted at the time.
The not-so-unlikely duo reunited in August 2021, mid-pandemic, for a pair of heartwarming/breaking farewell concerts at Radio City Music Hall.
The show was a celebration with an element of control: Phone cameras were not allowed. Just to be sure, attendants locked them away in security pouches as fans arrived.
But The Post was there to capture the moment.
Billed as “One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga,” that cryptic title had many in the audience fretting aloud that it was the “last chance ever” to see Bennett live.
It was.
Besides being a farewell for the duo, however, it was also a time for revelations. Gaga, 36, recalled the tale of her first meeting with Bennett in a backstage dressing room: “Hi, I’m Lady Gaga,” the industry newbie said bashfully upon encountering the legend in 2011.
That’s when Bennett looked the “Fame Monster” pop provocateur and future “A Star is Born” Oscar winner in the eye and said, “I know who you are — you’re a jazz singer.”
An unabashed fan, Gaga might have summed up Bennett best in her intro to their final music video together, declaring: “Tony’s always ready.”
Bennett is survived by his wife, Susan Crow Benedetto, four children — Antonia, Danny, Dae and Joanna Bennett — and two grandchildren: Kelsey and Rémy Bennet.
The Post mined the archives for some sage advice from a survivor — in his own words.
Best job security
Bennett once said the key to his longevity is maintaining high standards: “I joined the American Theatre Wing (after fighting in World War II) and it was the best choice I ever made.” The first thing he learned: “Whether it was music or dancing or singing, they taught everybody, ‘Never compromise, only do quality.’ And now it’s all paid off.”
Best mass appeal
“In the ’50s, when I would do seven shows a day at the Paramount Theatre, by the end of the night you would have sung to everybody: The young teens, the married couples, the senior citizens. I learned that it’s always better to play to a large demographic. It’s better business and it means that you have to choose excellent songs that have a universal appeal.”
Best show of respect
Don’t phone it in: Most duet recordings are done thousands of miles apart these days, thanks to digital technology, but Bennett insisted his award-winning duets be exactly that; humans singing together in a studio.
Best survival tip
Get a hobby. Bennett said it was crucial to maintaining his sanity: “It is particularly beneficial as a performer to have another art form to pursue. Whenever I get a bit burned out from performing, which is a very gregarious activity in front of thousands of people, I can find time to be all on my own and just focus on painting, which is a more internal activity.”
Best trade secret
Listen to new voices: “Besides having the whole word enjoying [Lady Gaga] right now, she has a vast group of young people who love her, and they’ve never heard of popular jazz music, classical American music,” Bennett once told the Associated Press. “And my ambition was to do this album so they would get acquainted with that music.”
With Post wires
https://nypost.com/2023/07/21/tony-bennett-dead-at-96/.
Angelo Mozilo, ex-CEO of Countrywide and face of 2008 mortgage meltdown, dead at 84
By Reuters July 17, 2023 7:25pm Updated
Angelo Mozilo at a hearing on Capitol Hill in 2008. He had defended himself several times
against accusations that he was a key architect of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Carrie Devorah / Wenn / Avalon
Angelo Mozilo, who propelled Countrywide Financial Corp into the largest US mortgage lender before its crash in the 2008 financial crisis, has died, his family foundation said.
Mozilo, 84, died of natural causes, the foundation said in a statement on Sunday.
He became the face of the mortgage meltdown when the subprime crisis surfaced in 2007.
He was the son of a Bronx butcher who embodied a rags-to-riches success story.
In 2006, when Mozilo was the chief of the mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, the firm originated $461 billion worth of loans — close to $41 billion of which were subprime.
Subprime loans were responsible for the global financial crisis.
The firm was later bought by Bank of America for $2.5 billion, less than 10% of what it was worth in early 2007.
Mozilo was also charged by securities regulators of insider trading and securities fraud.
Once named as one of the best chief executives in the United States, the disgraced CEO was subsequently named as the second worst US chief executive of all time by Conde Nast Portfolio.
Bloomberg earlier reported news of Mozilo’s death.
Mozilo had defended himself several times against accusations that he was a key architect of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
“Somehow, for some unknown reason, I got blamed for it,” he earlier said.
https://nypost.com/2023/07/17/angelo-mozilo-countrywide-financials-former-ceo-dead-at-84/
Rest in Peace, Elise Finch.
Back when I watched TV News, I was a big fan of hers. Lovely lady. Far more intelligent than most.
She was a beauty inside and out. Losing her so early makes me sad.
Friends, colleagues mourn sudden death of beloved CBS New York meteorologist Elise Finch
By David Propper July 17, 2023 1:58am Updated
Heartbroken colleagues and friends are mourning the loss of “gifted and consummate professional” CBS-New York meteorologist Elise Finch, who died suddenly over the weekend, just a day or two after appearing on air.
Finch, who delivered the weather forecast on channel 2 across the Big Apple starting in 2007, died at a local hospital, her employer, New York affiliate CBS station WCBS, announced Sunday evening.
She was 51. Her cause of death has not been determined.
“Elise was a gifted and consummate professional who took great care with her work,” the television station wrote in a statement announcing her death. “She was also a wonderful ambassador in the community, including her hometown of Mount Vernon.”
Finch, whose full name was Elise Dione Finch Henriques, first started out as a weekend meteorologist and most recently delivered the weather forecast on the morning news.
She was also a “fiercely loving and devoted” mother to her daughter Grace and to husband Graig Henriques, who is a WCBS photojournalist, the station said.
WCBS anchor Jessica Moore choked up with grief as she announced Finch’s death on-air Sunday. She also tweeted a heartwarming message.
“Elise was fiercely loyal to those she loved, a straight shooter, a consummate professional, and made me laugh until I cried,” Moore wrote. “But above all she was completely devoted to her family, especially her daughter Grace. I love you so much, my friend. Heaven now has an angel like no other.”
Others also remembered Finch for her kindness, top-notch talent and warm personality that shined while she told New Yorkers what the weather would be for the week.
“My heart is broken. Our team will never be the same,” tweeted WCBS anchor Chris Wragge. “No one matched musical wits better. I’ll miss you much.”
WCBS reporter Tony Aiello also remembered Finch for her love of music.
“The song of her life deserved many more verses. Her gifts were many, and so too the lives she touched,” he tweeted. “My deepest condolences to Graig and little Grace, her parents and sister, and all our CBS2 family.”
WCBS reporter Ali Bauman summed it up succinctly: “Heartbroken by the loss of our friend, colleague, and role model.”
NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams also expressed condolences over the city’s loss.
“Elise served as CBS’ meteorologist for over a decade and graced thousands of households with her genius,” she tweeted. “She will truly be missed. My prayers go to her family and friends.”
Finch was on the air as recently as Friday afternoon, delivering the forecast to thousands of New Yorkers.
“Heartbroken today with the devastating news we lost our amazing friend and colleague Elise Finch,” WCBS sportscaster Steve Overmyer tweeted.
“Her smile and positive energy always left a smile on everyone’s face.”
https://nypost.com/2023/07/17/cbs-new-york-meteorologist-elise-finch-dead-at-51/
