She died yesterday at her home in West Los Angeles, California, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing her family. She was diagnosed with lung cancer five years ago, the newspaper said.
Stuart was 87 when “Titanic,” director James Cameron’s epic fictional account of passengers aboard the doomed luxury liner, opened in December 1997. The movie followed Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) as they met, fell in love, navigated the Titanic’s strict class divisions and then tried to survive after the ship struck an iceberg.
Stuart narrates the movie as 101-year-old Rose, who joins treasure hunters searching the Titanic’s wreckage for a legendary diamond necklace. Toward the film’s end, she reveals the necklace she has secretly possessed since the night the ship sank, and drops it into the ocean.
The movie earned $1.8 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of all time. Stuart earned one of the movie’s 14 Academy Award nominations, for best supporting actress. It won 11 Oscars, including one for best picture.
“All these years -- I’ve been waiting for this a long, long time,” she said after learning of her nomination in February 1998.
She lost the Oscar to Kim Basinger, but the two shared the Screen Actors Guild award for supporting actress.
Stuart’s role in “Titanic” capped a film career that appeared to have ended, with little fanfare, decades earlier.
‘Classy Yet Seductive’
Elegant and blonde, she was a hard-working leading lady in Hollywood in the 1930s, appearing in 42 movies including “Air Mail” (1932), “Here Comes the Navy” (1934) and “Gold Diggers of 1935.” Yet stardom eluded her.
“She possessed a classy yet seductive low-pitched voice and proved herself a good actress on occasion, but no sort of instantly recognizable, larger-than-life or sympathetic persona was ever built up for her,” Variety wrote in a profile.
Stuart left acting in 1946, focusing on her family and her other love, painting, for almost 30 years. She appeared in television movies in the mid-1970s and on the big screen in “My Favorite Year” (1982) and “Mass Appeal” (1984).
Stuart said she was painting one day in May 1996 when she got a phone call inviting her to play a role in a forthcoming film about the Titanic directed by Cameron.
Hooked by Script
“Who is he?” she thought, according to her 1999 memoir, titled, “I Just Kept Hoping.”
Once she looked into the project, she was hooked. “Old Rose in the ‘Titanic’ script grabbed me instantly,” she wrote. “I knew that evening the role I wanted and waited for all these many years had arrived!”
So, finally, did the fame. People magazine named her one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world in 1998, and she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2000.
Cameron and his wife, actress Suzy Amis, who met during filming of “Titanic,” hosted a party to celebrate Stuart’s 100th birthday in July 2010. “Gloria’s so alive, and her creativity, her artistry and the sparkle in her eyes is a challenge to all of us to live as fully and richly as she has,” Cameron told the guests, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Fourth of July
Gloria Frances Stewart -- she later decided the spelling “Stuart” looked better on movie marquees -- was born July 4, 1910, in Santa Monica, California.
After two semesters at the University of California- Berkeley, she began her film career by signing a seven-year contract with Universal Studios. Her first movie was “Street of Women” (1932).
She starred with James Cagney in “Here Comes the Navy” (1934), nominated for an Academy Award for best picture, and was listed with Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Jean Harlow in a 1932 magazine article about beautiful women.
Still, she fretted over the studio placing her in two “dreadful musicals” in 1934, “Gift of Gab” and “I Like It That Way.”
“Betty Davis and Loretta Young and Olivia de Havilland were getting wonderful dramatic parts,” she recalled in her book. “Why not me? What had I ever done to deserve all this dreck?”
Shirley Temple Films
All told, she made 42 movies during her first seven years as an actress.
Though “sick to my stomach at the thought of doing a Shirley Temple movie,” Stuart did two after moving to Twentieth Century-Fox: “Poor Little Rich Girl” (1936) and “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” (1938).
Stuart’s first marriage, to her college sweetheart, sculptor Gordon Newell, ended in divorce after four years.
She was married to script writer Arthur Sheekman from 1934 until his death in 1978. Their daughter, Sylvia Thompson, a cookbook author, helped write her mother’s autobiography.
At 72, Stuart began another long relationship, with printer Ward Ritchie, who died in 1996.
Politically active, Stuart was an early member of the Screen Actors Guild, formed in 1933, and helped start the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League in 1936.
Former WWE and WCW wrestler Giant Gonzales (Jorge Gonzalez) died earlier this week at the age of 44, according to numerous reports in Argentina.
Gonzales, who died in Argentina, battled numerous health issues later in life after his basketball and pro wrestling careers ended.
According to the Ovacion newspaper in Argentina, the 7'6" Gonzales lived his last years "almost prostrate" because his knees could not support his bone structure and weight.
In WWE, Gonzales famously wore a body suit as part of his gimmick. One of his most memorable career matches was losing to The Undertaker at WrestleMania
IX and being added to the list of opponents during Taker's Undefeated Streak.
http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/Other_News_4/article_44028.shtml
Raiders legend George Blanda dies at 83
12:08 PDT -- Former Raider quarterback George Blanda, whose passing and kicking exploits during a 26-year NFL career led him to a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, has died. He was 83.
Blanda was known as the Ageless Wonder because he didn't retire until he was just short of his 49th birthday.
And some of his best work came in his last decade in the NFL, with Oakland.
After playing college ball for Bear Bryant at the University of Kentucky, the Pennsylvania-born Blanda spent 10 seasons with George Halas and the Chicago Bears, helping lead them to the NFL title game in 1956.
When he left the Bears, in 1959, after a squabble over money and playing time, he retired for the first time and sat out a season.
The next season, Blanda was coaxed into joining the Houston Oilers of the American Football League.
"I signed with Houston because I knew Bud Adams (the team owner) had a lot of money," Blanda said.
As a quarterback and placekicker, he paced the Oilers to the first two AFL titles in 1960 and 1961.
"I will always think of myself as an AFL player," he once said.
Raiders owner Al Davis acquired the 39-year-old Blanda in 1967, after Blanda had put in 17 years of pro ball, for just a waiver price of $100, and Blanda played nine seasons in the Bay Area, often spectacularly, as a kicker and backup quarterback to Daryle Lamonica.
Blanda's most memorable season in Oakland was 1970, when in a five-game stretch, he won four games and tied another with his arm and/or foot, a feat that led to him being named AFC Player of the Year.
"Al Davis always liked my attitude, and my time with the Raiders was special, because it looked like my career was over" the always-blunt Blanda said. "Instead, I played another nine years, which by itself was more than twice the average playing career."
When he retired after the 1975 season, he had scored 2,002 points, a record that stood until kicker Gary Anderson broke it in the 2000 season. He also set marks for most career field-goal attempts (637), and most PATs made and attempted (943 of 959).
His 340-game career was the longest in league history, and his 26 years of service were five seasons longer than any other player.
With Davis as his presenter, Blanda was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1981.
"Two renegades, me and Al Davis," Blanda said. "It was great."
Among other things that day, Davis said, "George Blanda inspired a whole nation in 1970. I really believe he is the greatest clutch player in the history of this game."
Blanda was voted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1989.
After retirement, Blanda gave motivational speeches to corporate groups, played in 25 or more celebrity golf events around the country (he was a 7-handicapper) and followed another favorite sport, horse racing.
He and his wife, Betty, split time between Chicago and LaQuinta, near Palm Springs.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/27/SPSE1FKCKA.DTL#ixzz10lAvhnOC
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