Manings, the stepfather of actress Meredith Baxter, wrote for 'Leave
It to Beaver' and won an Emmy for 'Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In' before
creating the CBS sitcom with his wife, Whitney Blake.


Allan Manings, a television comedy writer and producer who created the
situation comedy "One Day at a Time" with his late wife, actress
Whitney Blake, has died. He was 86.


Manings, who recently underwent surgery for esophageal cancer, died
after going into cardiac arrest Wednesday at his oncologist's office
in Beverly Hills, said his stepdaughter, actress Meredith Baxter.


In a career that began in the 1950s, Manings wrote for TV shows such
as "Leave It to Beaver," "Petticoat Junction" and "McHale's Navy."


As a writer on the comedy sensation "Roman & Martin's Laugh-In,"
Manings was part of a team that won the 1968 Emmy for outstanding
writing achievement in a musical or variety program.


He came into TV producer Norman Lear's fold as a writer and an
executive producer on "Good Times," the 1974-79 CBS sitcom about a
black family living in the South Side of Chicago and starring Esther
Rolle, John Amos and Jimmie Walker.


Tapping his wife's memories of having been raised by a divorced mother
and her own experiences as a divorced mother before they were married,
Manings and Blake created "One Day at a Time" for Lear's company.


The 1975-84 CBS sitcom starred Bonnie Franklin as the mom and
Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli as her teenage daughters.


"He was a wonderful man and a wonderful writer," Lear said of Manings
on Friday.


Getting a series about a divorced single woman with children on the
air in the 1970s "was difficult," Lear said. With a chuckle, he added:
"We were living in other times; we were growing in awareness."


A lifelong advocate for social justice, Manings often dealt with those
kinds of issues in his writing.


Lear said he and Manings were "totally politically sympatico."


"This man knew his citizenship mattered, and he lived that way. As a
voter, as a thinker, as an American, he knew what mattered. He was a
concerned, caring, generous soul. And a hell of a writer."


Long active in the Writers Guild of America, Manings received its
Morgan Cox Award in 1997. The award is presented to "that member or
group of members whose vital ideas, continuing efforts and personal
sacrifice best exemplify the ideal of service to the guild."


At the time, Manings had served on the guild's board of directors for
12 years, on the advisory board for the guild magazine and on more
than 20 different guild committees.


"Allan was one of the funniest men you would ever know," Baxter said.
"I call him Sweetheart Cranky Pants, because he's rough and
blustering, a very outspoken liberal but a terrific, funny man and a
real softy."


Manings most recently wrote a play, "Goodbye Louie … Hello," a comedy-
drama dealing with a family's memories. It will be produced by Theatre
West in Los Angeles in the coming months.


He was born March 28, 1924, in Newark, N.J., and grew up on Staten
Island. After serving in the Army in the Pacific during World War II,
he joined other returning GIs to become the first male students at
Sarah Lawrence College.


Manings' wife died in 2002.


In addition to Baxter, he is survived by two stepsons, Richard and
Brian Baxter; his sister, Muriel Manings; nine grandchildren and three
great-grandchildren.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?n=muriel-maddox&pid=142740095
Maddox, Muriel
Muriel Maddox, actress and writer, died at her Bel Air home on Friday, April 30, 2010.
After a brief career in the theatre she made her movie debut with Marlon Brando in "The Men." She also appeared in a remake of the movie "M" starring David Wayne, "Emergency Wedding" with Larry Parks, "The Blue Veil" with Jane Wyman, and "Red Snow" starring Guy Madison. During that movie she met her late husband, actor Bert Arnold, who played Guy's co-pilot.
She is also the author of six novels: "Llantarnam", "Love and Betrayal", "Captain from Corfu", "Noela", "That Man in Rio", and "Myra's Daughters." At the time of her death she was working on another novel.
She is survived by three children: Pamela Isabel Ribbey, Brian Hamilton Ribbey and Alan Lawrence Ribbey, and two grandsons: Blake Ribbey and Evan Ribbey.

Salvador Cuevas Ramirez, El Supremo of lucha libre fame, passed away in his hometown of Tijuana, Mexico on May 4, 2010. His death was reportedly due to a heart attack.

Born on July 8, 1950, Cuevas made a rather late start to his career on July 6, 1976, after training under the legendary Diablo Velazco. His initial character, El Magnifico, was short-lived. In March 1977 he donned a golden mask and changed his identity to El Supremo, ¡°The Supreme One¡±. His trademark finisher was the Supremo Special, a figure four necklock.

The highlight of his career came on May 4, 1980 when he defeated Kato Kung Lee to seize the NWA World Welterweight Title, one of the most prestigious titles in Mexico in that era. He held the title for only a month before dropping it to Lizmark on June 6. A taste for championship gold led him to defeat Franco Columbo on February 1, 1981 for the Mexican National Welterweight title, which he held for 422 days and through many title defenses in EMLL¡¯s major arenas.

El Supremo was finally unmasked on December 8, 1992 as a result of a ¡°Lucha de Apuesta¡± loss to Pierroth, Jr in Mexico City. The rules of this special match provide that the loser must unmask, and reveal his true identity. He continued to wrestle until 1995.

In today's sports world, the name Kinji Shibuya may not ring a bell,
perhaps not even in the corner of a contemporary pro wrestling ring.


But for those who remember the bygone era of the immensely popular
Big-Time Wrestling Cow Palace shows or those wild, live Friday night
in-studio telecasts on KTVU-Channel 2 in the 1960s and '70s, there may
have been no more recognizable sports personality on the Bay Area sports
scene than the evil Kinji, the massive villain everybody loved to hate.


It was more staged entertainment than sports, of course, and everybody
had a schtick. Shibuya perhaps had the best. He carefully crafted his
persona in the early 1950s as an angry Asian beast at a time when
anti-Japanese sentiment was still running high only a few years after
World War II. He not only made his mock nastiness work for a 25-year
ring career, he parlayed it into TV and movie work after he retired in
1976 at 55.


Shibuya wrestled against and with most of the greats of his era — Pat
Patterson, Pepper Gomez, Mr. Saito, Ray Stevens, Haystacks Calhoun and
many more — and took a back seat in popularity to none of them,
nationally as well as regionally. Pro wrestling was divided into as many
as 30 territories across the United States back in the day, and
according to wrestling historian George Schire, Shibuya touched them all
and was a huge draw anywhere he turned up.


But to the Bay Area, in particular, he was its most renowned and reviled
bad-guy face, usually teamed with another Asian baddie in his tag-team
specialty. He claimed numerous titles, for what they were worth, but it
was his stage presence that made him an instantly recognizable star figure.


"Back in the '60s, he could walk into the fanciest restaurant in San
Francisco and get seated right away," said his son, Robert Shibuya. "It
was like he was Sinatra."


That golden era long gone, Shibuya, a resident of Hayward since 1967,
died quietly at age 88 on May 3, initially with very little fanfare.
Fortunately, in the time since his death, there has been a tidal wave of
fond recollections and tributes on several Internet wrestling sites,
attesting to his importance as a wrestling pioneer.


Moreover, fans and friends have been resuscitating the scope of
Shibuya's large legacy at a grass roots level, revealing the real Kinji
— a quiet, thoughtful family man who in his later years raised champion
koi carp and strolled his Hayward neighborhood with a pair of garden
shears, trimming people's shrubs just so he could spark a friendly
conversation.


"People out of the blue have been contacting me and my brother on our
Facebook pages, giving their warm recollections and memories of our
father," said Michele Shibuya, Kinji's daughter. "He had one of the
richest lives anybody could ever want. Externally, he portrayed himself
as this very mean, tough guy. But internally, he was a very kind, gentle
spirit with a great sense of humor. He could engage people in a way that
was nonthreatening and loving, too."


That was in direct contrast to the personality who engaged and enraged
audiences through his ring menace. Shibuya claimed to be from Japan even
though he was born in Utah. He was a football star at the University of
Hawaii and played against the likes of Jackie Robinson and Kyle Rote,
and according to his family, the Washington Redskins were interested in
signing him but backed off because of his Japanese heritage.


He turned to pro wrestling in 1951, and discovered he could use those
biases to craft his ring persona. He started out as a good guy, but one
night at a show when an old woman stabbed him in the side with a hatpin
all the while screaming insults, he realized he could get more mileage
(and money) out of being a dangerous heel.


So it was told, through his alleged study of ancient Oriental martial
arts, he could supposedly paralyze an opponent's nervous system in 27
different ways. He also reputedly possessed a lethal karate chop with
which he once killed a man in the ring, which was all conjured fluff for
the act. He could talk the talk, too, particularly in blustery
interviews with the legendary announcer Walt Harris on the old
black-and-white KTVU broadcasts.


"Wrestling and roller derby actually helped put KTVU on the map," said
longtime Channel 2 sports anchor Mark Ibanez. "And Kinji was as big a
part of that as anyone."


Shibuya's wife of 59 years, Janet, as well as his children, accepted
such wrestling antics as just part of his regular job. He was a normal,
loving dad at home, but they nonetheless experienced plenty themselves
tagging along with their famous father.


"Can you imagine being a kid, sitting in the family car driving across
the Bay Bridge or San Mateo Bridge, and having people in other cars to
left and right looking over and imitating his moves or the karate chop?"
said Robert. "People from all walks of life, too — a guy in a Cadillac
one minute and a guy in a pickup truck the next."


Michele recalled going to some of the arena shows in which she and her
brother would have to wait until the house lights went down so they
wouldn't be recognized as Kinji's children. Before the show was over,
they would run outside, get in their pajamas and into a running car with
their mother. As soon as dad exited the ring, he would jump in and the
family sped away.


"I always used to joke with my mom that she was driving the getaway
car," Robert said.


Happily, in the wake of his passing, many people are remembering Shibuya
and won't let his legacy get away. It's a just epitaph for a man who
entertained so many.


A public memorial service will be held for Mr. Shibuya on Sunday at 3
p.m. at the Southern Alameda County Buddhist Church in Union City.
Contact Carl Steward at cstew...@bayareanewsgroup.com.