Zappa associate Larry "Wild Man" Fischer dies, Outsider music icon was
66
By CHRISTOPHER MORRIS
Variety

Larry "Wild Man" Fischer, the former mental patient and ubiquitous
street musician who briefly attained stardom as one of the first
signings to Frank Zappa's Bizarre imprint, died in Los Angeles June 15
at 66. Fischer had suffered from heart ailments for several years,
according to a post on Live Journal page of his friend and fan, DJ
Barry "Dr. Demento" Hansen.


Diagnosed as a teen with paranoid schizophrenia and manic depression,
L.A. native Fischer was institutionalized at Camarillo State Hospital
at the age of 16. After his release, he began performing on the
streets of Hollywood, selling his eccentric songs to passersby for a
dime. He received his nickname from soul singer Solomon Burke. Zappa,
leader of the Mothers of Invention, inked Fischer to Warner-
distributed Bizarre/Straight, whose roster also included the groupie
"band" the GTOs and Captain Beefheart. Zappa produced Fischer's two-
LP, 36-song debut "An Evening With Wild Man Fischer" (1968). Fischer
parlayed that album into an appearance on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.


"Fischer's relationship with Zappa ended abruptly after Fischer nearly
hit his producer's infant daughter Moon Unit with a thrown bottle. But
his naive, bluntly honest, free-associating songs later made him an
avatar of the "outsider music" cult. In the late '70s, Fischer became
a habitue of the Rhino Records store in Westwood. He recorded "Go to
Rhino Records," the first single issued by the label's eponymous
label. He went on to release "Wildmania" (1978) and a pair of albums
with the novelty act Barnes & Barnes, who also produced "It's a Hard
Business," an unlikely duet with Rosemary Clooney. Warner Music
Group's Rhino Handmade reissued his collected work for the label in
the 1999 limited edition set "The Fischer King." Fischer's life and
career were explored in Josh Rubin's 2005 documentary "Derailroaded."

Clarence Clemons, the legendary saxophonist in the E Street Band who played alongside Bruce Springsteen for the past 40 years, died on June 18th. Clemons had suffered a massive stroke on June 12th. While initial signs had been hopeful after his hospitalization and two subsequent brain surgeries, he reportedly took a turn for the worse later in the week. He was 69.

Clemons – known affectionately to fan and friends as the Big Man – was the heart and soul of the E Street Band. His playing on tracks like "Born To Run," "Thunder Road," "Jungleland," "Dancing In The Dark" and countless more represent some of the most famous sax work in the history of rock & roll. "The story I have told throughout my work life I could not have told as well without Clarence," Springsteen wrote in the introduction to Clemons' 2009 memoir Big Man: Real Life and Tall Tales.

Bruce Springsteen on Clarence Clemons: 'His Loss is Immeasurable'

So much has been said and written about the stormy night in Asbury Park in 1971 when Clemons met Springsteen that it's hard to separate fact from myth. At the time, Springsteen was a struggling musician playing the New Jersey bar circuit and Clemons was a former college football player who spent his nights playing sax in clubs along the shore. "It was raining and thundering like a motherfucker," Clemons wrote in his memoir. "When I opened the door it blew off the hinges and flew down the street . . . Somebody introduced me to Bruce, everybody knew everybody, and he asked me if I wanted to sit in."

Clemons soon became part of Springsteen's backing band (not yet known as the E Street Band), and when Bruce recorded his debut LP Greetings From Asbury Park in the summer of 1972, Clemons was brought in for the sessions. Over the next two decades, Clemons became the most recognizable member of the E Street Band – for his massive size, equally huge personality and his onstage role as Springsteen's foil.

He's the only member of the band on the cover of Born To Run with Springsteen. "When you open it up and see Clarence and me together, the album begins to work its magic," Springsteen wrote in Clemons' memoir. "Who are these guys? Where did they come from? What is the joke they are sharing? A friendship and a narrative steeped in the complicated history of America begins to work and there is music already in the air."

In the 1980s, Clemons began a second career as an actor, appearing in TV shows like Diff'rent Strokes and movies such as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. He also scored a solo hit in 1985 with "You're A Friend Of Mine," a duet with Jackson Browne. He was on tour with Ringo Starr's All Star Band in 1989 when Springsteen phoned him to say he was breaking up the band. "I didn't speak or even attempt to interject," Clemons wrote in his memoir. "I got very quiet and stopped smiling. In fact, it looked to Ringo like I was being told about somebody dying."

The E Street Band reformed in 1999 and has been incredibly active ever since. Clemons loved being back on the road, even as he battled incredible pain with his knees, back and hips. Earlier this year, he played sax on two tracks on Lady Gaga's new album Born This Way. He appears in the recently released video for "Edge of Glory," and his final live performance was with Gaga on the season finale of American Idol.



Veteran TV game-show director and producer won a 1993 lawsuit against
Walt Disney Co.
June 16, 2011


Paul Alter, 89, a veteran TV game-show director and producer who won a
1993 lawsuit against the Walt Disney Co. over similarities between a
story outline he wrote and the film "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid," died of
natural causes Saturday at his home in Los Angeles, his family
announced. He was 89.


From the early 1950s through 2000, Alter directed TV game shows,
including "Family Feud," "I've Got a Secret," "The Price Is Right," "To
Tell the Truth" and "What's My Line?" He won Daytime Emmy Awards for
directing in 1982 for "Family Feud" and in 1996 for "The Price Is
Right."


He also was a producer for "Tattletales" and "Beat the Clock."


Alter sued Disney in 1992, claiming a story outline he wrote and
submitted to the studio was used without credit in the making of "Honey,
I Blew Up the Kid," a sequel to the 1989 comedy "Honey, I Shrunk the
Kids."


Alter's suit enumerated 17 areas of similarity between his 12-page
outline written in the late 1970s, which had been rejected by Disney,
and the movie released in 1992. Disney countered that other writers came
up with the idea for the film.


A jury sided with Alter and awarded him $300,000 in November 1993, and
Disney agreed to a settlement in January 1994.


The Chicago native served as an aerial photographer for the Army during
World War II, his family said.

Bob Banner, an Emmy Award-winning television producer and director whose credits included "The Garry Moore Show," "Candid Camera" and "Solid Gold" and who gave a career boost to a young Carol Burnett years before becoming executive producer of her popular comedy variety show, has died. He was 89.

Banner died Wednesday of end-stage Parkinson's disease at his home at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement community in Los Angeles, said family spokeswoman Lauren Cottrell.

A television pioneer, Banner launched his career in Chicago in 1948 as a production assistant on the children's puppet show "Kukla, Fran & Ollie." But he quickly rose through the ranks and became the director of "Garroway at Large."

After moving to New York, he produced and directed "The Fred Waring Show" and went on to be a director on "Omnibus," the acclaimed cultural series hosted by Alistair Cooke. He also directed "The Dave Garroway Show" and produced and directed special shows for "Wide, Wide World" and "Producers' Showcase."

As the producer-director of "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show," Banner won an Emmy for directing in 1958.

The same year, he formed Bob Banner Associates and took over production of "The Garry Moore Show," a variety program whose cast of regulars came to include Burnett.

Burnett has Banner to thank for that.

Her first appearance on the Moore show was in early 1959 as a replacement for an ailing guest, comedian Martha Raye.

"I had worked for Bob in California in 1958 when he was doing 'The Dinah Shore Show.' I was a guest, so he knew my work," Burnett told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday. "So Bob, whom I always call Bubba, called me to come over and replace (Raye) on Garry's show."

Burnett was starring in the off-Broadway production of "Once Upon a Mattress" at the time. And that fall, after "Once Upon a Mattress" had moved to Broadway, "Bubba called and said, 'We'd like you to be a regular on our show and that was a huge break for me.' "

Banner went on to produce Burnett TV specials, including "Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall" and "Carol Plus Two," before he became executive producer of "The Carol Burnett Show."

"It was he who talked me into opening the show myself with questions and answers," Burnett recalled. "He said, 'Carol, you can't just go out and do sketches. The audience has to get to know you first as a person.' I said, 'I can't do that. I'd be terrified that, A, the audience wouldn't ask anything and, B, that they would.'

"But he talked me into it, and it became one of my favorite things to do. And it was a good opening for the show."

Recalling the soft-spoken Banner as "a very gentle man" with a good sense of humor, Burnett said that "he could always talk to me about certain things that I wasn't cottoning to so much, but whatever road he wanted us to take was terrific. He had great taste and great instincts."

Among Banner's numerous credits as an executive producer are "The Jimmy Dean Show," "Solid Gold," "Star Search," "It's Showtime at the Apollo," numerous specials with Perry Como, the TV special "Peggy Fleming Visits the Soviet Union" - as well as the TV movies "My Sweet Charlie" and "Bud and Lou."

He also executive-produced "That's What Friends Are For," a 1988 AIDS benefit concert at the Kennedy Center hosted by Dionne Warwick.

Born Aug. 15, 1921, in Ennis, Texas, Banner graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1943 before serving three years in the Navy during World War II.

At Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., after the war, he received a master's degree from the school's theater arts department in 1948 and was an instructor in speech and drama there when he got his first taste of television.

He didn't initially have a high opinion of the new medium.

"Oh, horrors," he recalled thinking of working on "Kukla, Fran & Ollie" in a 2000 interview with the Dallas Morning News.

"I didn't want to tell the people at Northwestern that I had been assigned to do a puppet show. ... A puppet show didn't seem quite like theater at Northwestern," he said.

But Banner changed his tune after the show became a hit.

"I went around Northwestern saying I was on 'The Kukla, Fran & Ollie' show," he recalled. "This show I didn't want to admit I was involved with changed my life."

Banner is survived by his wife, Alice; his sons Baird, Robert and Chuck; and two grandchildren.

http://www.thestate.com/2011/06/15/1860772/banner-emmy-award-winning-tv-producer.html