Free Republic

Jim Ed Brown, a member of the country music trio The Browns and a star of the Grand Ole Opry for more than a half-century, died Thursday. He was 81. Brown, who was elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame in March with his sisters Maxine and Bonnie, died at Williamson Medical Center in Franklin, Tenn. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in September. The Browns’ 1959 crossover smash “The Three Bells” topped Billboard’s country chart for 10 straight weeks, and it spent four weeks atop Billboard’s all-genre singles chart.

From a very good friend of Teresa (Arasina): "Got the terrible news I'd been half expecting. Early this morning Teresa (arasina @Free Republic) has passed on to be with the Lord due to complications with what was an acute case of cystic fibrosis. Her lungs simply would not respond. Even with her oxygen machine she could not quite get enough oxygen. All that could be done at that point was sedation. On Saturday I'd called but she immediately said she couldn't speak. Yesterday I regrettably didn't reach out...and this AM Teresa's niece left the message of the bad news. The...

Lennie Merullo, the last living Cubs player from the 1945 World Series, died Saturday. He was 98. Merullo played seven seasons at shortstop with the Cubs from 1941-47. After Andy Pafko’s death in 2013, Merullo became the only living person to have played for the Cubs in a World Series.

Good Times actor Ben Powers has died, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 64. While a cause of death has yet to be revealed, an obituary created by his loved ones has surfaced that reveals the actor passed away April 6 in New Bedford, Mass. Powers was best known for his role as Keith Anderson on the '70s sitcom Good Times. His character was married to Thelma Evans played by BerNadette Stanis.

Stan Freberg was funny in every medium he tried. In cartoons, where he was the voice of a gopher, two bears and an insurance agent, among others. On his radio show and comedy albums, on which he spoofed everyone from George Washington to Elvis Presley, from to Harry Belafonte to Lawrence Welk and the Founding Fathers. In his revolutionary ad campaigns, which injected humor into the staid, overly earnest advertisements of earlier decades, sometimes at the cost of the very product he was selling. (In a classic commercial for pit-less prunes, a skeptic of the fruit sniffs, “They’re still rather...

John Paul Hammerschmidt, who defeated Bill Clinton in the future president’s first political campaign and was the first Republican congressman from Arkansas since Reconstruction, died on Wednesday in Springdale, Ark. He was 92. The cause was heart and respiratory failure, said his son and only survivor, John Arthur Hammerschmidt.

Full title: 'He died while smoking, drinking whiskey and telling lies': Hilarious and heartfelt obituary to Alaska fisherman, 60, published in local paper by adoring daughter ".........The obituary goes on to tell the story of Malcolm's life, starting with his upbringing in Kirkland, Washington. At the age of 19, Malcolm left his home state for Dutch Harbor, Alaska in order to realize his life's calling to 'yell at deckhands on commercial fishing boats.' For forty years, Malcolm worked as a boat cook, mechanic, deckhand, captain and boat owner catching crab, halibut, black cod and salmon - mostly out of the...

New York City television anchor and Strongsville native Lisa Colagrossi died Friday after suffering a brain aneurysm a day earlier. Colagrossi, 49, who anchored weekend morning news for NBC station WKYC-TV (Channel 3) in Cleveland in the early 1990s, became ill while on a reporting assignment for WABC-TV. She was also a morning anchor for the station. The station confirmed her death early Saturday in a lengthy tribute. Earlier, a Twitter post by anchor Sade Baderinwa said "hearts are broken" at the station over Colagrossi's death.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, indulge me for just a few minutes here. We all here at the EIB Network are experiencing a huge void in all of our hearts here today because of a death, one of our staff members, the very first staff member to join me 27 years ago in New York. Christopher Carson, "Kit," my trusted chief of staff, aide-de-camp, passed away today at 8 a.m. at his home in New Jersey after what really was a four-year battle, really valiant, never-seen-anything-like-it battle with essentially brain cancer. He thought that it was beaten back two...

NEW YORK (AP) — Pioneering radio and TV host Joe Franklin, who gave breaks to the likes of Al Pacino and Bill Cosby on his variety show long before they became famous and who boasted he never missed a broadcast in decades, has died at age 88. He died Saturday of cancer, which he had had for a few years, longtime producer and friend Steven Garrin said. Franklin often is credited with developing the standard TV talk show format, sitting behind a desk while interviewing wanna-be celebrities, minor celebrities and the occasional bona fide celebrity. The host of "The Joe...

West Virginia's longest-serving governor, Arch A. Moore Jr. died Jan. 7 in Charleston at age 91 just one day after his daughter, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., was sworn into office. The man with a reputation throughout the Mountain State for always recalling names, occupations and family details with incredible accuracy died after battling heart trouble and dementia. Moore, a Marshall County native, launched his life in politics at age 28 by winning his uncle's former seat in the House of Delegates. He was married to the late Shelley Riley Moore for 65 years. She died in September 2014...

Stuart Scott, a longtime anchor at ESPN, died Sunday morning at the age of 49. Among the features of the new ESPN studio in Bristol is a wall of catchphrases made famous by on-air talent over the years. An amazing nine of them belong to one man -- from his signature "Boo-Yah!" to "As cool as the other side of the pillow" to "He must be the bus driver cuz he was takin' him to school."

Actress Luise Rainer, who became the first winner of consecutive Oscars in the 1930s, has died at the age of 104. The German-born star was named best actress in 1936 and 1937 - a feat achieved by only five actors in Academy Awards history to date. Her achievement made her a force in the golden age of Hollywood cinema, but was also a curse, making her last major film in 1943. She settled in London and made occasional appearances on film and TV. Rainer appeared in US small screen series The Loveboat in 1984, while her last substantial film role...

Jane Byrne was not mighty, like her mentor, Richard J. Daley. She was not beloved, like her successor, Harold Washington. Nor was she long-serving, like her bitter rival, Richard M. Daley. But she was mayor, Chicago’s first and only female mayor — making Chicago the largest city in the United States to elect a female chief executive — serving a single, tempestuous term, ushering the city into the 1980s, leaving her own colorful legacy during a time of political change, social upheaval and financial crisis. Byrne, 81, died Friday in hospice care. She had been in poor health in recent...

Richard "Dick" Schaal, a pioneer at the Second City comedy theater in Chicago, the former husband of the actress Valerie Harper and a familiar face from a plethora of character roles on movies and television, including "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Rhoda," died Tuesday at the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement home in Woodland Hills, Calif., said his only daughter, the actress Wendy Schaal. He was 86..

John Lofton, Bible believing Christian , for decades covered national politics, cultural/religious issues,as a journalist, nationally-syndicated columnist, TV-radio commentator/analyst and political advisor. ---Editor, "Monday" the weekly, national publication of the Republican National Committee, 1970-73, ---Nationally-syndicated columnist for "United Features" Syndicate in more than 100 papers nationwide,1973-80.--- Editor,"Battleline," monthly newsletter of the American Conservative Union, 1977-80.---Editor, "Conservative Digest" magazine, 1980-82.--Columnist, "TheWashington Times" newspaper, 1982-89.--- Program-host/commentator, "American Voice", a national cable TV network in all 50 states, 1998-99.---A commentator on the "Mutual Radio Network,"--- An advisor to the Presidential campaign of Pat Buchanan;--- Author of a monthly column on the Federal bureaucracy...

'GREAT Escape actor Angus Lennie died last night in a nursing home in Acton, London, aged 84. Glasgow-born Lennie featured in a number of roles across film and television, including the long-running ITV soap Crossroads. But he was best known for playing Flying Officer Ives "The Mole" in the classic wartime escape drama. Alongside him in that legendary film were Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough among other big actors. It comes less than a month after Attenborough, who played Big X in the Great Escape, died aged 90. Lennie's film career also saw appearances in 633 Squadron, Tunes...

During his long career both in parliaments and on pulpits, Ian Paisley was compared to Ayatollah Khomeini, a second-rate Calvin who tried to turn Ulster into a 17th-century Geneva and, latterly, one of the Chuckle Brothers from the BBC children's comedy show. The last nickname came about during his years in office as Northern Ireland's first minister, when Paisley stunned friends and foes alike by forming a double-act in government with the former IRA chief of staff Martin McGuinness.

September 12, 2014 Northern Ireland Firebrand Ian Paisley Dead At 88 DUBLIN -- The Rev. Ian Paisley, the divisive Protestant firebrand who devoted his life to thwarting compromise with Catholics in Northern Ireland only to become a pivotal peacemaker in his twilight years, died Friday in Belfast, his wife said. He was 88. Paisley was Northern Ireland's most polarizing politician throughout its three decades of civil strife, during which the evangelist's blistering oratory was often blamed for fueling the bloodshed that claimed 3,700 lives. Yet at the zenith of his peace-wrecking powers, Paisley in 2007 stunned the world by delivering...

Breaking but officially announced by daughter. RIP