Al Freeman, Jr.— actor, director dies at 78.

 

From NPR we have the story of the death of Al Freeman, Jr... go HERE.

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Ron Palillo Dies at 63 – Played Horshack on Welcome Back Kotter

 

Ron Palillo, who portrayed the goofy high school underachiever Arnold Horshack in the hit 1970s sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter” with such definitive oddballness that he had trouble for years afterward finding work as an actor, died on Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 63.

The apparent cause was a heart attack, said his agent, Scott Stander.

Horshack typified him as a character.

“I know him, love what he does, not right for the part,” Mr. Palillo said in a 1997 newspaper interview, repeating what he said was the mantra of every casting director he met after his years on “Kotter,” which was on ABC from 1975 to 1979. “Everybody thought of me as Arnold Horshack. I resented Horshack for so many years.”

Mr. Palillo had supporting roles on television series like “The Love Boat” and “The A-Team.” But the Horshack typecasting became chronic.

“I think producers could smell the desperation in me,” he told The Akron Beacon Journal in 1997.

In 1991 he moved to New York to be in the daytime drama “One Life to Live”and he also had the lead role in an Off Off Broadway production of “Amadeus.” He taught drama at the University of Connecticut, his alma mater. In 2010, in West Hartford, Conn., he directed the first production of “The Lost Boy,” a musical he wrote based on the life of J. M. Barrie, author of “Peter Pan.”

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Republican Quote for the Day – and how does Ryan’s budget plan fare with former Republican heroes?

“Mr. Ryan’s plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn’t pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation’s fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity — just empty sermons.”

– Former Reagan budget director David Stockman

This means it may be hard for some front-office Republicans to get behind the Romney-Ryan budget onslaught.

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Today is lunacy day…

 

Bud and Rachel

Tomorrow Elly and I board a train for Wisconsin to get to Buddy and Rachel’s wedding, and today is filling up with more and more things we gave to do in order to leave. Meanwhile, I’m adjusting to my current level of pain from the accident and hoping the next seven days will be possible to get through.

We have to go shopping, get our mail held (a trip to the post office), put the dogs in a kennel, start packing – which means getting my meds together, going over wedding clothes, setting up necessary things with friends and neighbors for things that have to be done while we are gone, etc. etc. stc,

I’m already tired just thinking about it.