THE GUARDIAN: Star of Love Story, Paper Moon and Barry Lyndon who remained a prolific screen actor despite his stormy personal life
Ryan O'Neal and Ali Macgraw in Arthur Hiller’s film Love Story, 1970. Photograph: Paramount/Allstar
With his blond good looks and blue eyes, Ryan O’Neal, who has died aged 82, was often cast as a callow, boy-next-door type in the 1970s films that made him internationally famous. Back then, his clean-cut onscreen image offered few clues as to the notoriety his private life would gain. But his troubled relationship with three of his children, Tatum, Griffin and Redmond, his drugtaking and a tempestuous relationship with the actor Farrah Fawcett would come to overshadow his long, fluctuating acting career.
As the well-groomed Oliver Barrett IV, a Harvard law student, he falls for Jennifer Cavalieri (Ali MacGraw), a working-class music student, in Love Story (1970). They marry against his wealthy father’s wishes, and she dies of cancer. The two young stars created some chemistry, and with the tagline “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”, the tearjerker was a huge success. But despite noteworthy performances in Paper Moon (1973) and Barry Lyndon (1975), O’Neal was never to equal the popularity that Love Story conferred on him.
O’Neal was born in Los Angeles into a movie family. His father was Charles “Blackie” O’Neal, a novelist and screenwriter whose film scripts included the subtle horror movie The Seventh Victim (1943) and the Randolph Scott western Return of the Badmen (1948). His mother, Patricia (nee O’Callaghan), appeared in a few films, but mostly acted on stage. » | Ronald Bergan | Saturday, December 9, 2023
BBC: British fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood has died aged 81.
In a statement on Twitter, her fashion house said she died "peacefully and surrounded" by her family in Clapham, south London.
Westwood made her name with her controversial punk and new wave styles in the 1970s and went on to dress some of the biggest names in fashion.
Her husband and creative partner Andreas Kronthaler said: "I will continue with Vivienne in my heart.
"We have been working until the end and she has given me plenty of things to get on with." » | Andre Rhoden-Paul, BBC News | Thursday, December 29, 2022
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Adopting principles of glasnost and perestroika, he weighed the legacy of seven decades of Communist rule and set a new course, presiding over the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the U.S.S.R.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev had a profound effect on his time: In little more than six tumultuous years, he lifted the Iron Curtain, transforming the map of Europe and the political climate of the world. | Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, whose rise to power in the Soviet Union set in motion a series of revolutionary changes that transformed the map of Europe and ended the Cold War that had threatened the world with nuclear annihilation, has died in Moscow. He was 91.
His death was announced on Tuesday by Russia’s state news agencies, citing the city’s central clinical hospital. The reports said he had died after an unspecified “long and grave illness.”
Few leaders in the 20th century, indeed in any century, have had such a profound effect on their time. In little more than six tumultuous years, Mr. Gorbachev lifted the Iron Curtain, decisively altering the political climate of the world.
At home he promised and delivered greater openness as he set out to restructure his country’s society and faltering economy. It was not his intention to liquidate the Soviet empire, but within five years of coming to power he had presided over the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He ended the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan and, in an extraordinary five months in 1989, stood by as the Communist system imploded from the Baltics to the Balkans in countries already weakened by widespread corruption and moribund economies.
For this he was hounded from office by hard-line Communist plotters and disappointed liberals alike, the first group fearing that he would destroy the old system and the other worried that he would not.
It was abroad that he was hailed as heroic. To George F. Kennan, the distinguished American diplomat and Sovietologist, Mr. Gorbachev was “a miracle,” a man who saw the world as it was, unblinkered by Soviet ideology.
But to many inside Russia, the upheaval Mr. Gorbachev had wrought was a disaster. President Vladimir V. Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” For Mr. Putin — and his fellow K.G.B. veterans who now form the inner circle of power in Russia — the end of the U.S.S.R. was a moment of shame and defeat that the invasion of Ukraine this year was meant to help undo. » | Marilyn Berger | Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu, the cleric and social activist who was a giant of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, has died aged 90. Tutu, described by foreign observers and his countrymen as the moral conscience of his nation, died in Cape Town on Boxing Day.
Excitable, emotional and charismatic, Tutu won the Nobel peace prize in 1984 and chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the controversial and emotional hearings into apartheid-era human rights abuses. This is his life, in his own words
• Anti-apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu dies aged 90
• ‘A patriot without equal’: world mourns death of Desmond Tutu
THE GUARDIAN: Singer who enjoyed huge success with Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, written for the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
In 1969, BJ Thomas, who has died of complications from lung cancer aged 78, spent four weeks at the top of the US chart with Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, from the soundtrack of the popular film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It is the song he will always be synonymous with, but he nearly didn’t get to sing it. » | Adam Sweeting | Monday, May 21, 2021
THE GUARDIAN: Ruler of Kuwait for 14 years who was known as ‘the dean of Arab diplomacy’
The emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who has died aged 91, ruled his country for 14 years and acquired a reputation for being committed to peaceful dialogue and unity among other Gulf states known for their divisive quarrels in recent times. Discreet, mild-mannered and valuing his personal links with fellow monarchs, Sabah was known as “the dean of Arab diplomacy”.
Since 2017, however, when the younger, more assertive leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates boycotted their rival Qatar, he found it increasingly hard to play the role of regional mediator, but was still credited with having forestalled potentially disastrous military action. The war in Yemen, scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, was another nightmarish situation. » | Ian Black | Thursday, October 1, 2020
Cuban leader Fidel Castro has died at the age of 90, state television in the country has announced. Castro was known as one of the most iconic revolutionary leaders in recent history after he led a communist guerrilla army to replace Fulgencio Batista’s corrupt dictatorship, and went on to survive countless CIA-backed attempts on his life
THE GUARDIAN: Monarch whose reign saw the spread of division, corruption and strife, and was saved only by ‘black gold’
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who has died aged 90, promised much but accomplished little. By the time he came to the throne in 2005, he was 81 years old. And though he had gained considerable experience as acting monarch after his brother King Fahd’s stroke, he was beset by numerous difficulties – dynastic, democratic, religious, ideological, regional and global – and, with only rising oil revenues in his favour, found himself unable to address them to any significant extent.
Abdullah’s succession as Saudi Arabia’s sixth monarch resulted from his father King Abdulaziz ibn Saud’s strategy of marrying the daughters and widows of defeated enemies. It was hoped that Abdullah’s birth in Riyadh would end the enmity between the ousted northern Hail emirate and the newly emerging Saudi kingdom. Abdullah’s mother, Fahda bint Asi al-Shuraim, was the widow of Saud ibn Rashid, who ruled over the emirate before its collapse at the hands of Saudi forces in 1921. Abdullah continued the tradition of his father and included, among his 30 or so wives, daughters of the Shaalan of Aniza, al-Fayz of Bani Sakhr, and al-Jarba of the Shammar tribe.
On the basis of his mother’s background, a plethora of images were cultivated around Abdullah. Images of the monarch as the repository of the tribal bedouin heritage flourished as Saudi Arabia drifted into globalisation and a consumer culture. After a traditional upbringing in the royal court and with no formal modern instruction, the king capitalised on this heritage. His maternal connections and limited education, together with a speech impediment, delayed Abdullah’s rise to pre-eminence among the many sons of the founder of the kingdom. » | Madawi al-Rasheed | Thursday, January 22, 2015
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Former President of South Africa, who guided the country from apartheid to democracy during a life filled with hardship and struggle
Nelson Mandela, who has died aged 95, was the architect of South Africa’s transformation from racial despotism to liberal democracy, saving his country from civil war and becoming its first black president.
This singular triumph crowned a tempestuous life, filled with hardship and struggle. Mandela spent 27 years behind bars, and more than a decade before that as a hardened enemy of the white supremacist regime, serving variously as street activist, guerrilla leader and township lawyer.
As such, he was the one man with the credibility to secure the political settlement that toppled apartheid and allowed the birth of a democratic South Africa in 1994. Not even the fiercest black radical could question Mandela’s devotion to the struggle and, by the same token, no white South African could doubt the sincerity of his remarkable gestures of reconciliation. » | Thursday, December 05, 2013
Margaret Thatcher Obituary: From Greengrocer's [sic] Daughter to Iron Lady
Margaret Thatcher has died at the age of 87. We look at her life, her achievements and how she became such a controversial and divisive figure.
Monday, April 08, 2013
Obituary: Margaret Thatcher
BBC: Margaret Thatcher, who has died following a stroke, was one of the most influential political figures of the 20th Century.
Her legacy had a profound effect upon the policies of her successors, both Conservative and Labour, while her radical and sometimes confrontational approach defined her 11-year period at No 10.
Her term in office saw thousands of ordinary voters gaining a stake in society, buying their council houses and eagerly snapping up shares in the newly privatised industries such as British Gas and BT.
But her rejection of consensus politics made her a divisive figure and opposition to her policies and her style of government led eventually to rebellion inside her party and unrest on the streets.
Father's influence
Margaret Hilda Thatcher was born on 13 October 1925 in Grantham, Lincolnshire, the daughter of Alfred Roberts, a grocer, and his wife, Beatrice.
Her father, a Methodist lay preacher and local councillor, had an immense influence on her life and the policies she would adopt.
"Well, of course, I just owe almost everything to my own father. I really do," she said later. "He brought me up to believe all the things that I do believe."
She studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and became only the third female president of the Oxford University Conservative Association.
After graduating she moved to Colchester where she worked for a plastics company and became involved with the local Conservative Party organisation.
In 1949, she was adopted as the prospective Conservative candidate for the seat of Dartford in Kent which she fought, unsuccessfully, in the 1950 and 1951 general elections. (+ video) » | Monday, April 08, 2013
Lady Thatcher: 'The Prime Minister That Changed the World' - Video Obituary
Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin and the late Labour pollster Philip Gould look back at the life and legacy of Margaret Thatcher. On becoming Britain's first female prime minister in 1979, she promised harmony – but became one of the most divisive figures in postwar politics
VANITY FAIR: Christopher Hitchens was a wit, a charmer, and a troublemaker, and to those who knew him well, he was a gift from, dare I say it, God. He died today at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, after a punishing battle with esophageal cancer, the same disease that killed his father.
He was a man of insatiable appetites—for cigarettes, for scotch, for company, for great writing, and, above all, for conversation. That he had an output to equal what he took in was the miracle in the man. You’d be hard-pressed to find a writer who could match the volume of exquisitely crafted columns, essays, articles, and books he produced over the past four decades. He wrote often—constantly, in fact, and right up to the end—and he wrote fast; frequently without the benefit of a second draft or even corrections. I can recall a lunch in 1991, when I was editing The New York Observer, and he and Aimée Bell, his longtime editor, and I got together for a quick bite at a restaurant on Madison, no longer there. Christopher’s copy was due early that afternoon. Pre-lunch canisters of scotch were followed by a couple of glasses of wine during the meal and a similar quantity of post-meal cognac. That was just his intake. After stumbling back to the office, we set him up at a rickety table and with an old Olivetti, and in a symphony of clacking he produced a 1,000-word column of near perfection in under half an hour. » | Graydon Carter | Thursday, December 15, 2011
THE GUARDIAN: Celebrated journalist, writer and unshakeable secularist has died from complications of oesophageal cancer
The writer, journalist and contrarian Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62 after crossing the border into the "land of malady" on being diagnosed with an oesophageal cancer in June 2010. Vanity Fair, for which he had written since 1992 and was made contributing editor, marked his death in a memorial article posted late on Thursday night.
The reactions to Hitchens's illness from his intellectual opponents – which ranged from undisguised glee to offers of prayers – testified to his stature as one of the leading voices of secularism since the publication in 2007 of his anti-religious polemic God is Not Great. The reaction from the author himself, who after a lifetime of "burning the candle of both ends" described his illness as "something so predictable and banal that it bores even me", testified to the sharpness of his wit and the clarity of his thinking under fire, as he dissected the discourse of "struggle" that surrounds cancer, paid tribute to the medical staff who looked after him and resolved to "resist bodily as best I can, even if only passively, and to seek the most advanced advice".
Born in 1949, Hitchens was sent to boarding school at the age of eight, his mother deciding: "If there is going to be an upper class in this country, then Christopher is going to be in it." This resolution pursued him to his time at Oxford, where he confessed to leading a "double life" as both an "ally of the working class" and as a guest at cocktail parties where he could meet "near-legendary members of the establishment's firmament on nearly equal terms".
After he graduated in 1970 with a third-class degree, the doors of Fleet Street opened wide for Hitchens, who followed his friend James Fenton into a job at the New Statesman. He began a lifelong friendship with Martin Amis and quickly gained a reputation as a pugnacious leftwing commentator, excoriating targets such as the Roman Catholic church, the Vietnam war and Henry Kissinger in dazzling essays, news reports and book reviews. » | Richard Lea | Friday, December 16, 2011
In our video homage, the late, great journalist and cultural critic, a longtime contributing editor to Vanity Fair, says that “one wouldn’t be doing one’s job if one didn’t itch to prick.” View a mere sampling of his brilliant ripostes.
THE GUARDIAN: Former first lady of France and human rights campaigner
In the last interview Danielle Mitterrand gave before her death at the age of 87, the former French first lady recalled berating her friend Fidel Castro for the torturing and killing of Cuban political prisoners. Surprised he did not tell her to shut up or throw her out, she asked why he put up with her nagging. "Because I like you a lot," replied the Cuban president.
Mitterrand was liked and admired by many, as much for her ability to take world leaders to task as for her unwavering support for minority and humanitarian issues, from the death penalty and discrimination to the lack of water or education in impoverished African villages. She was also respected for breaking the first-lady mould and refusing to be defined by either her husband's role as head of state or the humiliation he heaped on her through his infidelity.
She was born Danielle Gouze in Verdun, the daughter of two leftwing academics. During the second world war, her father, by then a secondary school headteacher, was sacked by the Vichy administration after refusing to hand over a list of names of Jewish pupils and teachers in his school to the Nazis.
While her family harboured men being hunted by the Gestapo, Danielle joined the French Resistance at the age of 17, with her elder sister Christine, and was later awarded the prestigious Resistance Medal. In 1941, she helped François Mitterrand, a fellow member codenamed Captain Morland on the run from the Gestapo, by pretending to be his girlfriend, and the pair promptly fell in love. They married in 1944. The couple had three sons: Pascal, who died aged two months, Jean-Christophe and Gilbert. » | Kim Willsher | Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud has died.
He was the seventh of King Abdulaziz Al Saud's 36 sons, each of whom have had significant and powerful roles within the kingdom.
Prince Sultan was never educated at a conventional school but learnt to read and write using tradition methods.
In 1947, his father named him the Emir of Riyadh. He was appointed minister of agriculture in 1953, then minister of transport on 1955, and minister of defence in 1962.
Prince Sultan became deputy prime minister in 1982 and was named the heir apparent after his elder brother Abdullah Abdulaziz was crowned King in 2005.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Lawrence Eagleburger, who died on June 4 aged 80, served briefly as American Secretary of State in the dying months of the administration of the first President Bush, after a distinguished career as a diplomat.
A rumpled, self-deprecating figure with more of the look and manner of a barman than a seasoned diplomat, Eagleburger was guided in his approach to foreign policy by an antipathy to what he described as “modern-day American imperialism, which is the imposition of our standards of conduct on the rest of the world”.
This had led, he explained in 1988, to situations in which either “we end up feeling good about what we say, but with no ability to affect the outcome. Or we end up getting ourselves involved in issues which, when put to the test, we will not be prepared to carry through.”
Eagleburger’s scepticism showed itself most strikingly in the early 1990s in his resistance to pressure for America to become involved in the Balkans. In the 1970s he had served under Jimmy Carter as ambassador to Yugoslavia and, before taking charge at the State Department, he was deputy to Secretary James Baker and chief adviser to President Bush on Balkan affairs.
He gained a reputation as a strong partisan of Serbia, most controversially denying that Serbian paramilitaries and the Yugoslav National Army had committed atrocities in the breakaway republic of Croatia and in Bosnia. » | Sunday, June 05, 2011
My comment:
Lawrence Eagleburger’s antipathy to “American imperialism” and the imposition of America’s standards on the rest of the world, regardless of indigenous culture and its suitability for democracy, has landed America in deep trouble for far too long. And American administrations still haven’t learnt that their foreign policy needs to be substantially modified. The Americans’ dogged determination has got them nowhere; on the contrary, it has led to the Americans being hated in many parts of the world. Winning over “hearts and minds” is a meaningless pursuit with such pig-headed policies. The Americans’ love of raw capitalism and democracy blinds them to the realities on the ground. Simple fact is that democracy isn’t suitable for all; and not everyone wants to live in a democratic system anyway.
BBC: Osama Bin Laden came to the world's attention on 11 September 2001, when the attacks on the United States left more than 3,000 people dead and hundreds more injured.
In a matter of three years, the Saudi-born dissident had emerged from obscurity to become one of the most hated and feared men in the world.
Osama Bin Laden was born in 1957, apparently the 17th of 52 children of Mohamed Bin Laden, a multimillionaire builder responsible for 80% of Saudi Arabia's roads.
His father's death in a helicopter crash in 1968 brought the young man a fortune running into many millions of dollars, though considerably less than the widely published estimate of $250m.
Mujahideen
While studying civil engineering at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden came into contact with teachers and students of the more conservative brand of Islam.
Through theological debate and study, he came to embrace fundamentalist Islam as a bulwark against what he saw as the decadence of the West.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 changed Bin Laden's life forever. He took up the anti-communist cause with a will, moving to Afghanistan where, for a decade, he fought an ultimately victorious campaign with the mujahideen.
Intelligence experts believe that the US Central Intelligence Agency played an active role in arming and training the mujahideen, including Bin Laden. The end of the war saw a sea change in his views. (+ video) » | Monday, May 02, 2011
Thursday, September 09, 2010
David Cameron Pays Tribute to His Late Father
THE TELEGRAPH: David Cameron has paid tribute to his father, who died yesterday while on holiday in France, calling him “an amazing man.”
The Prime Minister said that while his father's death was “unexpected and sudden” it happened while Ian, 77, was enjoying a “wonderful holiday” with family and friends.
Mr Cameron also thanked Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, for helping him get to the hospital in time to see his father before he died.
Downing Street released a statement from Mr Cameron and his family this morning.
It said: “Our dad was an amazing man - a real life-enhancer. He never let the disability he was born with or the complications in later life get in the way of his incredible sense of fun and enjoyment.
“He touched a lot of lives in lots of different ways and was a brilliant husband and father. You could never be down for long when he was around. >>> | Thursday, September 09, 2010
Obituary: Ian Cameron
THE TELEGRAPH: Ian Cameron, who died on September 8 aged 77, was a successful stockbroker in the City of London and the father of the Prime Minister, David Cameron.
Ian Donald Cameron was born in London on October 12 1932, the son of Donald Ewen Cameron and his wife Enid (née Levita), who came from a distinguished Polish banking family. The Camerons had worked in the City for several generations.
His great-grandfather, Sir Ewen Cameron, came south from Invernesshire in the 1860s to work for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, and helped the Rothschilds to sell war bonds during the Russo-Japanese war. Ian Cameron’s grandfather, Ewen Ivan, became senior partner of the stockbroking firm, Panmure Gordon, as did Ian’s father, Donald.
From birth Ian's legs were severely deformed, requiring him to undergo several operations and to wear special raised boots. He was sent to board at Betteshanger prep school in Kent, where, because of his disability, he was made to have an extra hour’s rest every day. At home, his mother treated him with much affection, but also believed that the effect of his disability had to be minimised, that he had to develop a sense of independence.
Shortly before he went to Eton, Ian’s father left his mother and married an Austrian, Marielen von Meiss-Teuffen. It was a difficult period for the boy, and he did not shine academically at school. He did, however, show the determination that was to be a hallmark of his character, and was not shy. One of his school friends recalled playing a game of indoor football with him: “I had the ball at my feet, and I said 'Oh yes, this is Ian, I can get past him’. Suddenly my wrists were seized in an iron grip, because all the strength of his legs had gone into his arms and wrists. I virtually needed a course of physiotherapy after that. He had this amazing strength, and he was always incredibly resilient, courageous and outgoing.” When it came to the Field Game, the school’s home-grown hybrid of football and rugby, Ian played in a position comparable to scrum-half, where he found that his low centre of gravity sometimes proved an advantage.
After school, Ian decided against going to university; neither did he do National Service, on account of his disability. Instead he trained as an accountant, a profession he disliked so much that he later banned his children from pursuing it. He then spent two years as a banker at Robert Fleming before following the family tradition by entering Panmure Gordon; he became a partner before the age of 30. Moving into a flat in Basil Street, Knightsbridge, he threw what a friend described as “endless parties with the most beautiful girls”. >>> | Thursday, September 09, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Obituary: Lech Kaczynski
THE TELEGRAPH: Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in an air crash on April 10 aged 60, had been president of Poland since 2005.
Photograph: The Telegraph
An unashamed nationalist who sought to give Poland a more powerful voice in international affairs, his populist, Right-wing beliefs commended him to many Poles, particularly the large Roman Catholic population.
It was an enthusiasm not universally shared on the world stage. Kaczynski and his twin brother Jaroslaw – who served for a time as his prime minister – urged President George W Bush to install anti-missile missiles in Poland and pursued what many saw as a vendetta against former communists.
They campaigned vociferously against homosexuality, prostitution and abortion, and capitalised on the Polish mistrust of the Russians and the Germans (who in turn referred to the Kaczynski twins as "the Polish potatoes"). According to one analyst: "[The Kaczynskis] see the Germans as untrustworthy pigs and the Russians as worse."
Lech Aleksander Kaczynski was born on June 18 1949, 45 minutes after his twin. Their father was an engineer by profession, their mother a philologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Both their parents had taken part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, which left more than 150,000 Poles dead and their nation too weak to resist the subsequent predations of the Soviet Union. It was a disaster that proved formative for Lech. "At home I learned a conviction that Poland was under oppression, that the communist system had been forced upon us," he later declared.
The twins first became famous in Poland when they were 12, after being chosen to star in a fantasy film called Two Boys Who Stole The Moon (1962). Both then studied Law at Warsaw University, and after graduating Lech took up a teaching post at the University of Gdansk, where he completed a PhD.
By the end of the 1970s both twins were involved in trade union politics. Lech Walesa had been one of Lech Kaczynski's students, and his former teacher now began acting as his lawyer as the shipyard electrician took on the might of the communist state. >>> | Saturday, April 10, 2010
