RIP

RON SILVER DIES; SUCCUMBS TO CANCER AT AGE 62

Actor and longtime political activist Ron Silver died this morning, succumbing to a long battle with cancer, friends of the liberal Democrat-turned-GOP stalwart told The Post. "Ron Silver died peacefully in his sleep with his family around him this morning," said Robin Bronk, executive director of the Creative Coalition, which Silver helped create. "He had been fighting esophageal cancer for two years and his family is making arrangements for a private service."

Silver might be best known for playing legal scholar Alan Dershowitz in "Reversal of Fortune," about the successful appeal of Claus von Bulow's conviction for putting his socialite wife into a permanent coma. Once a self-identified lifelong Democrat, Silver was a founding member of the liberal-leaning Creative Coalition in 1989. But he made a breathtaking political transformation, going from far left to radical right after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Silver's last public appearance came on "Larry King Live" in late October just before last year's presidential election. The actor seemed to be swinging slightly back to the left, and took a moderate, down-the-line stance on then-Sen. Barack Obama's race with GOP rival John McCain. Silver acknowledged the GOP's failings under President Bush and seemed resigned to an oncoming landslide.

Silver's art followed his life. In 19 episodes of the monster political drama "The West Wing," between 2001 and 2006, Silver played hard-driving political consultant Bruno Gianelli, who brought his brash advice to mythical Democratic president Josiah "Jed" Bartlet. The Gianelli character resurfaced in the "West Wing's" last two seasons when he - like Silver in real life - switched teams and represented a GOP presidential candidate played by Alan Alda.

From The Times
February 25, 2009
Kelly Groucutt: bass player with the Electric Light Orchestra

As the bass player and occasional singer with the Electric Light Orchestra, Kelly Groucutt played a significant part in creating some of the most elaborate, clever and ambitious pop music of the prog-rock era.

One of the biggest-selling bands of their time, between 1975 and 1981 ELO scored 17 Top 40 hits and Groucutt played on all of them. They included such classic rock staples as Evil Woman, Strange Magic, Mr Blue Sky and Don’t Bring Me Down. Although the biggest hits were mostly sung by the group’s founder Jeff Lynne, Groucutt’s distinctive voice took the lead on such fan favourites as Nightrider, Sweet Is the Night and The Diary of Horace Wimp.

Born Michael William Groucutt in 1945 in Coseley, Staffordshire, he left school at 14 to work in a Midlands sheet-metal factory. When the son of the factory’s owner heard him singing along to the radio over the din of the machinery, he invited Groucutt to become the singer with a group he was forming. The result was Rikki Storm and the Falcons, with Groucutt cast as Rikki.

When they fell by the wayside, he formed Rikki Burns and the Vibras, taking up the guitar as well as singing. A spell in the Midnights followed, but with only local success, and by the mid-1960s he had given up music and returned to his day job.

He couldn’t stay away from music for long and was soon back playing with various groups including Greenwich Village, Marble Arch, Sight and Sound and Barefoot. It was while working with the latter in 1974 that he was approached by Jeff Lynne to join the Electric Light Orchestra, replacing Mike de Albuquerque on bass.

Formed in 1971 out of the ashes of the Move, ELO had already tasted modest success with a symphonic, Beatlesque sound which took up where I Am the Walrus left off. The group had scored such hits as 10538 Overture and an elaborately orchestrated version of Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven, but with the addition of Groucutt the line-up stabilised and ELO went on to enjoy their most productive and commercially lucrative period.

At the time the group had just recorded their most ambitious work to date, the concept album Eldorado. Billed as “A symphony by the Electric Light Orchestra” and involving orchestra and choir, Groucutt joined in time to tour the grandiose show built around the record, his operatic voice adding significantly to the band’s on-stage impact.

The first ELO album on which he played was Face the Music (1975), which included the hit singles Evil Woman and Strange Magic and featured his lead vocals on the tracks Nightrider and Poker.

The five-million-selling A New World Record followed in 1976 and included the hit singles Livin’ Thing and Telephone Line. Groucutt sang the lead on the album track Above the Clouds and on stage sang the operatic part from one of the record’s dramatic highlights, Rockaria!

Another multiplatinum-selling album, Out of the Blue, reached No 4 in both the British and American charts at the end of 1977, and included the hit singles Turn to Stone, Sweet Talkin’ Woman, Mr Blue Sky and Wild West Hero. To promote it, ELO embarked on a massive world tour with a lavish stage set involving a spaceship design and lasers.

In Britiain they played a record-breaking eight consecutive sold-out concerts at Wembley Arena and were the subject of a one-hour documentary on The South Bank Show. In America the concerts were billed simply as “The Big Night”. It was judged at the time to be the biggest-grossing tour in musical history.

The follow-up, Discovery, appeared in 1979 and found Lynne incorporating elements of disco into his rock symphonies. Hit singles on the album included Don’t Bring Me Down, Shine a Little Love and The Diary of Horace Wimp, the latter sung to great effect by Groucutt.

Discovery made ELO the biggest-selling act in Britain that year and was followed in 1980 by music for the soundtrack of the film Xanadu. Although the film itself flopped, the title song, teaming ELO with Olivia Newton-John, gave the band its only British No 1 single.

Further commercial success came with the 1981 sci-fi concept album Time, which replaced the strings of previous recordings with synthesisers, topped the British charts and spawned the hit single Hold on Tight.

Yet despite this success, ELO had already passed their peak and the 1982 single The Way Life’s Meant to Be was their first release in six years that failed to make the charts.

That same year, Groucutt released a solo album, Kelly, featuring several fellow ELO members. But as the band began recording its next album, Secret Messages, he abruptly announced his departure, disappointed at what he saw as an unfair distribution of the royalties from the group’s recordings.

When he subsequently sued, Lynne initially dismissed his claim by declaring: “He was an employee and was paid that way. Instead of spending his money on lawyers he should check his contracts properly first.” That the bass player had a case, however, was recognised when he received a payment of £300,000 in an out-of-court settlement.

ELO disbanded in 1986 but Groucutt went on to participate in a number of ELO spin-offs, including ELO Part 2 and The Orchestra. Away from music he was a keen amateur astronomer.

Groucutt is survived by his second wife, Anna-Maria Bialaga, and four children from his first marriage.

Kelly Groucutt, musician, was born on September 8, 1945. He died after a heart attack on February 19, 2009, aged 63

Andrew "Test" Martin, a former WWE wrestler, was found dead in his Tampa, Fla. apartment late Friday night, MyFOXTampaBay.com reported.

Neighbors called police after seeing the 33-year-old motionless over a span of several hours.The cause of death wasn't immediately known, but police said foul play isn't suspected. An autopsy will be performed.

Martin joined the WWE in 1998 and won many of the organization's major titles before suffering a severe back injury, MyFOXTampaBay.com reported.

He was known for his on and off-screen relationship with Stephanie McMahon, the daughter of WWE head Vince McMahon, FOXSports.com reported.

Martin tried several unsuccessful comebacks after his injury, but failed a drug test and was suspended in February 2007, FOXSports.com reported.In April 2008, Martin was arrested on a DUI charge in Tampa, FOXSports.com reported.He is the fourth ex-professional wrestler to die in the Tampa area in the past two years.

Betsy Blair Married to Gene Kelly and then to Karel Reisz, she counted herself lucky to have been on the Hollywood blacklist.

Few film-makers of the left emerged unscathed from the Hollywood witchhunt led by Senator Joe McCarthy. Some died, some were ruined, some headed for Europe. Others named names. Among its victims, the actor Betsy Blair, who has died aged 85, considered herself fortunate.

Despite being blacklisted, she was made less vulnerable by her marriage to fellow socialist Gene Kelly who, by the early 1950s, was virtually untouchable thanks to such succesful movies as On the Town, An American in Paris and Singin' in the Rain. Eventually she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in the 1955 film Marty.

Blair began acting in films in the late 1940s, with small roles in sturdy dramas such as The Guilt of Janet Ames, George Cukor's A Double Life and Another Part of the Forest, from the play by Lillian Hellman. She fell out of favour for activities that included substantial fundraising for leftwing causes. After Kind Lady (1951), where she nearly lost the part, she found herself unemployable. But, cushioned by wealth and a highly intelligent, inquisitive mind, she coped – still in her early 20s – with "committee" work, as wife to a superstar and mother to their five-year-old daughter.

Born Elizabeth Winifred Boger in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, she had started her career very early. After graduating from high school at 15 and being too impatient to wait to take up her scholarship at university, she went – with her teacher mother's connivance (her father was an insurance broker) – for an audition as a dancer in a New York night club. The teenager from a sedate, small-town background found herself in the big city, directed by and in love with the choreographer Gene Kelly.She understudied the role of Laura in the Broadway production of The Glass Menagerie and took the lead in Willliam Saroyan's play The Beautiful People. When Hollywood beckoned, the newly married couple headed west, arriving in Los Angeles on the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, 7 December 1941.

Blair's initial disdain for movies allowed her to concentrate on theatre work, motherhood, keeping open house to the elite of Hollywood and fundraising. She was turned down by the Communist party, which feared that her joining might compromise Kelly's outside activities.After a handful of parts and an enforced hiatus between 1951 and 1955, she was tentatively offered the role of Clara in the movie version of Paddy Chayevsky's teleplay, Marty. Thanks to pressure from the writer and Kelly, she was finally given the role, despite the blacklist.

The film, a tender portrait of a lonely butcher (Ernest Borgnine) and a plain girl who fall in love, became a sleeper: a critical and box-office success despite unknown actors and a small budget. It led to Oscar nominations for both leads. Borgnine took the best actor award. For Blair the outcome was different: "I got the nomination. I won the best actress award at the Cannes film festival and was hot for 200 days." She later took the best actress award at Bafta and found herself more famous in Europe than in America where, despite the accolades, she found no work, except in a Joseph H Lewis western, The Halliday Brand (1957). She left the US and Kelly for France, a Frenchman and a new life.

A small role in Tony Richardson's BBC TV production of Othello (1955) was followed by Meeting in Paris, a comedy with Claude Brasseur. More notice was paid to her next movie (in Spain) where she played a variation of her role as Clara. Calle Mayor (Main Street, 1956), directed by Juan Antonio Bardem, cast her as a small-town spinster who is duped into bed by the local lothario with a promise of marriage. Unfortunately for Isabel, he is doing it for a bet. During the shooting Bardem was arrested by the Franco regime but, thanks to international pressure, was released and completed the rather melancholy film to some acclaim.

Blair followed it with Il Grido (The Cry, 1957), directed by the great Michelangelo Antonioni. This neo-realist drama set in the industrialised Po valley of northern Italy came at the end of the cycle of such films, and was only a modest success. Blair continued working in movies, including an early version of Lies My Father Told Me (1960) in Ireland, and two Italian movies, I Delfini (1960) and Senilita (1961). Following a move to Britain, she made Basil Dearden and Michael Relph's All Night Long (1962), a film set in the London jazz scene.

Blair decided to stay in London where, in 1963, she met and married Karel Reisz, then established – via the Free Cinema movement and his feature debut Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – as an important director.For years she worked only sporadically, including Das Bombe (1964) and Claude Berri's comedy Marry Me, Marry Me (1968). She also returned to the theatre – an early highlight was an elegant evening of music and poetry, The Spoon River Anthology (1964), at the Royal Court theatre. She was also among a remarkable cast in the film version of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (1973), directed by Tony Richardson. But during this period she decided to train as a speech therapist – to the bemusement of her friends.In the mid-1980s she embarked on a spate of television and movie work, beginning with an excellent thriller, Descent Into Hell (1986), made in France. She made Flight of the Spruce Goose (1986) in Poland, was the mother in the poor television revamp of a Hitchcock classic, Suspicion (1987), and featured in the series Thirtysomething (1989).More than 30 years after her last Hollywood movie, she returned there to film Betrayed (1988), a political thriller directed by Costa-Gavras. This gripping story of a white supremacist (Tom Berenger) being tracked by an FBI undercover agent cast her as the racist's mother. Blair matched Berenger's chilling performance with authority and grace. A spot in one of the Marcus Welby television episodes, and a role as Sister of Mercy in the sprawling mini-series Scarlett (a sequel to Gone With the Wind, 1994), were – disappointingly – all that followed.

In 1999 she was one of many distinguished contributors to the documentary The Rodgers & Hart Story: Thou Swell, Thou Witty and – not surprisingly – turned up in both the Gene Kelly and Judy Garland episodes of the BBC Hollywood Greats series (2000). In 2002 she was due to feature in Stephen Daldry's The Hours, playing the older Laura Brown; in her younger guise, the depressive 50s housewife was played by Julianne Moore. In the event Blair did not, because Reisz became ill and died later that year; Moore ended up playing those scenes with old-age makeup.

Blair's autobiography, The Memory of All That: Love and Politics in New York, Hollywood and Paris, was published in 2003. She declared herself content, having, she said, no regrets about the blacklist, which obliged her to mature as a person and – consequently – as an actor. Modestly, she once said, "it certainly wasn't much of a career. For all my ambitions, I think my life was more important to me." Her daughter Kerry Kelly Novick and stepsons Matthew, Toby and Barney Reisz survive her.

Betsy Blair (Elizabeth Winifred Boger), actor, born 11 December 1923; died 13 March 2009