Notable Passings

...Producer-Director Gary Winick has passed away due to brain cancer.

Winick directed 13 GOING ON 30 (2004), CHARLOTTE'S WEB (2006), and LETTERS TO JULIET (2010).

Winick directed LETTERS TO JULIET after having brain surgery. Several of my family members have enjoyed it very much, and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

...Frank Buckles, the last surviving U.S. veteran of WWI, has died at the age of 110.

The travel and work accomplished by Buckles in the last decade of his life, in support of the WWI Memorial, is awe-inspiring. Visit the official Frank W. Buckles website.

...One of the all-time great Dodgers, Duke Snider, passed on at the age of 84.

On the Dodgers' official website, team poet Vin Scully said "...he had the grace and the abilities of DiMaggio and Mays and of course, he was a World Series hero that will forever be remembered in the borough of Brooklyn. Although it's ironic to say it, we have lost a giant."

As I recall, my grandfather once went golfing in Spain with Snider. :)

...Eddie Brandt, the founder of the North Hollywood movie memorabilia store Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee, has died at the age of 89.

A couple years ago USC Cinema School published an article about the store.

I haven't been there since the early '80s, when I think they were in a different location, but once upon a time I had a lot of fun regularly visiting the store and adding special movie stills to my collection.