Remembering The Passed

Remembering Connie Hawkins, Liliane Bettencourt, The Tappan Zee Bridge

Connie Hawkins was the great basketball player out of Brooklyn, who lost a good deal of his career to a gambling scandal that he was only tangentially connected to. Known for his ability to palm the ball, his long wingspan, and his graceful moves, he ultimately made it to the NBA and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992. Liliane Bettencourt was the heiress to the L’Oreal fortune and was estimated to be the richest woman in the world. Ultimately, her life was plagued by scandal and squabbles involving politicians and her family. The Tappan Zee Bridge was opened in 1955 to cross the Hudson River, and was meant to carry traffic west of the Hudson and to New England. It is being replaced by a new bridge that is opening in 2017-2018

Remembering Hugh Hefner, Anne Jeffreys

Hugh Hefner was one of the most successful magazine publishers of the 20th Century. In 1953 he started Playboy Magazine, which featured naked and nearly naked women, thus making respectable what was before ha risqué. He included nonfiction and fiction essays in the magazine and extolled the consumer goods of the “Playboy lifestyle.” Eventually, his empire included clubs, casinos, and a cable television station before it was rendered out of date by new developments and technology. He remains a controversial character, thought by some to be a social revolutionary and by others to be an exploiter of women. Anne Jeffreys was the beautiful actress, best known for playing Marion Kerby, along with her real-life husband Robert Sterling, in the television adaptation of Topper (1953-1955).

Remembering Monty Hall, S.I. Newhouse

For nearly a quarter of a century, Monty Hall was the creative force behind one of television’s most popular game shows, Let’s Make A Deal. He was the perfect host for the essentially simple show with a familiar format and idiosyncratic audience. His brilliance at ad-libbing during the show made him a memorable figure and his name synonymous with the show. S.I. Newhouse was the billionaire chairman of Conde Nast publications. He was responsible for some of America’s most familiar magazines including The New Yorker, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Although the dominance of the publishing industry has waned in recent years, he was generally considered one of the most influential men in journalism.

Remembering Jake LaMotta, Bernie Casey, Lillian Ross, Dr. Ted Eger

Jake LaMotta was one of the country’s most well-known boxers. He was the middleweight champion in the early 1950’s but he is best known for his six fights with Sugar Ray Robinson, and as the main character portrayed in the boxing film Raging Bull (1980) by Robert DeNiro, who own the Academy Award for his performance. Bernie Casey was an NFL wide receiver, turned actor, turned artist - a true Renaissance Man. Lillian Ross was the long-time writer for The New Yorker, who specialized in her descriptions of famous people including Ernest Hemingway and Charlie Chaplin. Dr. Ted Eger was a groundbreaking anesthesiologist, who pioneered the concept of MAC (minimum alveolar concentration) the standard unit for the potency of inhalational anesthetics.

Remembering Les Rosenthal, Harry Dean Stanton, Stanislav Petrov

Les Rosenthal was a financial pioneer in the futures industry. In 1975, along with Richard Sandor, he changed the landscape of financial marketplace and the nature of the Chicago trading business with the introduction of the interest rate future. His wise stewardship and mentor of younger associates at the Chicago Board Of Trade made him a legend in the business. Harry Dean Stanton was one of the most versatile character actors in Hollywood with a career spanning more than 60 years. He was especially known for playing unusual, offbeat characters. Stanislav Petrov was the Soviet military officer who noticed on his computer five incoming missiles about to strike the Soviet Union in 1983. He was forced to make a decision whether this was an actual strike in just a few minutes. He divined correctly that it was indeed a mistake, thereby averting nuclear war.

Remembering Don Ohlmeyer, Sir Peter Hall, Drs. Gary Wadler and Rolf Gunnar

Don Ohlmeyer was television producer responsible for Monday Night Football and much of ABC’s innovative sports programming. He later moved to NBC and created the “Must See TV” campaign, which revived the network’s fortunes. Sir Peter Hall was the British theater director who founded the Royal Shakespeare Company and directed the National Theatre for fifteen years. Dr. Gary Wadler was one of the world’s foremost authorities on doping in sports and performance enhancing drugs. Dr. Rolf Gunnar was one of the country’s top cardiologists, who was one of the leading experts in shock and myocardial infarction.

Remembering Jeannie Rousseau, Kate Millett, Pierre Pilote, Don Williams

Although her name is unfamiliar to most, Jeannie Rousseau was one of the most brilliant Allied spies of World War II. Despite terms in three concentration camps, she managed to collect vital information about the Nazis and specifically the V1 and V2 rocket programs at Peenemunde. Kate Millett was the American feminist writer who was a leader of the feminist movement of the 1970’s with her groundbreaking book, “Sexual Politics” (1970). Pierre Pilote was the great Chicago Black Hawks defenseman who captained the 1961 team to the Stanley Cup Championship. Don Williams was the country music singer and writer, who sang two country classics “Amanda” (1974) and Tulsa Time (1978),

Remembering Walter Becker, John Ashberry, Larry Elgart

In the late 1960’s, Walter Becker, a precocious but desultory student from Manhattan, attended Bard College and met another student, Donald Fagen. The two of them went on to form the rock band Steely Dan, which combined jazz and rock rhythms with erudite lyrics. Steely Dan became one of the seminal bands of the 1970’s. John Ashberry was an American poet and novelist, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his poetry collection, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Larry Elgart was a big-band leader who penned the memorable song “Bandstand Boogie” that became the familiar theme to the long-running television show American Bandstand (1952-1989).

Remembering Nicolaas Bloembergen

Nicolaas Bloembergen was the Dutch physicist who won one-quarter of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981 for his work in nonlinear optics and laser spectroscopy. His experience was profoundly shaped by his youth in The Netherlands during World War II, before he came to the United States. His work has had important applications in a number of areas where the properties of lasers can be used for practical benefit. He was also an advisor to the government on the potential use of lasers for the Strategic Defense Initiative of the1980’s, and his work with others indicate the use of lasers in space as a defensive weapon was not feasible.

Remembering Shelley Berman, Jud Heathcote, Rollie Massimino, Richard Anderson

Shelley Berman was the Chicago comedian who popularized the one-person telephone sketch. He was one of the country’s top comics in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s and he did a memorable turn on Twilight Zone, but his career took a downturn, only to be revived by his role as Larry David’s father on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Jud Heathcote was the basketball coach at Michigan State who recruited Magic Johnson to East Lansing. And won the 1979 NCAA basketball title with him. Rollie Massimino was the basketball coach at Villanova who engineered the 1985 upset of Georgetown in the NCAA Championship game, often called the greatest upset in championship history. Richard Anderson played Oscar Goldman, the man in charge in two television series, The Six Million Dollar Man (1974-1978) and The Bionic Woman (1976-1978).