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Star Wars actor Richard LeParmentier dies aged 66... 35 years after he was choked by Darth Vader
He played the arrogant Admiral Motti, commander of Vader's Death Star
The circumstances surrounding his actual death are currently unclear
LeParmentier as Admiral Motti in the infamous Death Star choking scene as featured in 1977 film Star Wars: A New Hope. He has died aged 66
Star Wars actor Richard LeParmentier has died, aged 66.
He famously played a choking victim of Star Wars villain Darth Vader in 1977 film A New Hope.
TMZ reports that the circumstances surrounding LeParmentier's death are currently unclear.
The actor had appeared in more than 50 movies and TV shows but was best remembered for his role as the arrogant Admiral Motti, commander of Vader's planet destroying Death Star in 1977 film Star Wars: A New Hope.
In the infamous scene, Motti mocks Vader's 'sorcerer's ways' and 'sad devotion to that ancient Jedi religion.'
This leads to a near-fatal confrontation with the helmeted Vader who crushes his windpipe using 'the force.'
LeParmentier also played a police officer in 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and is reported to have recently been working as a screenwriter for British television.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1946 to British and Irish parents, he moved to the UK in 1974.
He was married from 1981 to 1984 to British actress Sarah Douglas, who played the supervillain Ursa in Superman II.
LeParmentier also made an appearance in the Christopher Reeve film as a reporter.
He also had roles in James Bond film Octopussy and the TV shows Capital City and We'll Meet Again.
Famous scene: Richard's character Admiral Motti was choked by Darth Vader but narrowly escaped death
The actor, who appeared at several sci-fi conventions, said in 2008 of his famous Star Wars scene: 'I did the choking effect by flexing muscles in my neck. It set off a chain of events, that choking.
'I can't do it anymore because, oddly enough, I have had an operation on my neck and had some 21st century titanium joints put into it,' he added to The Coventry Telegraph Geek Files.
Originally, LeParmentier was asked by creator George Lucas to play an unnamed part with only a few lines, but he turned it down, before being offered the role that would launch his career.
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His family paid tribute to 'a warm, genuine person with an unparalleled joie de vivre.'
'He absolutely loved travelling the world and meeting his friends and fellow Stars Wars fans - whose tributes have given us all the best lines in this message,' Rhiannon, Stephanie, and Tyrone LeParmentier said in a statement.
'Every time we find someone's lack of faith disturbing, we'll think of him .. He has gone to the Stars, and he will be missed.'
He died while visiting relatives in Austin, Texas.
The actor had appeared in more than 50 movies and TV shows but was best remembered for his role as the arrogant Admiral Motti, commander of Vader's planet destroying Death Star.
AAL:to be determined
2011 NFL Draft Wish List:
1. Patrick Peterson Cornerback LSU
2. Mark Herzlich Outside Linebacker Boston College
3. John Moffitt Center Wisconsin
4. Steve Schilling Guard Michigan
5. Jeremy Kerley Wide Receiver TCU
6. Carl Johnson Tackle Florida
7. Johnny Patrick Cornerback Louisville
When he turned 70 a couple of years ago, Richie Havens noted with pride that, "I don't feel one iota different from the day I walked into Greenwich Village" 50 years prior. "Everything I hoped for has happened," he told Billboard. "I never had a bad day on stage. I don't think I'm ever going to go away...least while I'm alive."
Havens, a protest music hero ("Handsome Johnny," "No Opportunity Necessary...," "Stop Pulling and Pushing Me") and the man who opened the 1969 Woodstock festival, died on Monday morning from a sudden heart attack at his home in New Jersey, according to his publicist. He was 72. In March of 2012, Havens had announced an end to his 45-year touring career, citing health issues.
Born in Brooklyn, Havens started out singing doo-wop and gospel -- which inspired him to write songs, but not necessarily in those genres. "I said to myself when I started singing doo-wop that I would never write another song like those guys were writing," he explains. "They were fantastic writers, which is what educated me. I lot of guys went off to do their own doo-wop stuff, But I wanted to figure another way around and do something that was different and new and my own."
The search led Havens to "the melting pot of poetry" that was New York's Greenwich Village during the 50s and 60s. Arriving when he was 20 years old, he was mentored by Fred Neil -- "He didn't know I was singing with a doo-wop group in Brooklyn, but he knew something in his music had changed me," Havens recalled -- and put out a pair of albums for Douglas Records before Bob Dylan's manager Albert Grossman signed him and got him a deal with Verve Forecast. "Mixed Bag" in 1967 featured "Handsome Johnny," which Havens co-wrote with actor Louis Gossett Jr., and a cover of Dylan's "Just Like a Woman."
Havens mixed a variety of styles into his music, drawing on folk, blues, rock, jazz, funk and even elements of country and bluegrass that filtered through the scene in New York. He was also an avid interpreter of other songwriters' including Dylan, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and Leonard Cohen. It made it hard for him to find a niche but easy to find places to play; he laughingly remembered that his first who out of town, in Detroit, was at a jazz club, and the next, in Chicago, was at a blues spot.
"I looked at the poster for that first show and it said, 'Richie Havens -- folk/jazz singer.' I went, 'Really? Is that what I am? Is that what I do?' I just went into any situation the put me in, and people seemed to like it."
Havens' breakthrough situation was at Woodstock, of course. Pressed by organizers to open the show when another artists' equipment was stuck on the New York Thruway, Havens -- who was originally scheduled to go on fifth -- played a galvanizing set that included a vamp on "Motherless Child" that morphed into his song "Freedom."
"It was 5 o'clock and nothing was happening yet," Havens remembered. "I had the least instruments and the least people (in his band). But they had to catch me first. I felt like, 'They're gonna kill me if I go up on stage first. Give me break. I need those four people in front of me to warm up the crowd.' But the people were great. I was supposed to sing 40 minutes, which I did, and from the side of the stage they go, 'Richie, four more songs?' I went back and did that, then it was, 'Four more songs...' and that kept happening 'til two hours and 45 minutes later I had sung every song I know."
Woodstock gave Havens a boost to his highest-charting albums -- "Richard P. Havens, 1983" in 1969 (No. 80 on the Billboard 200) and "Alarm Clock" in 1971 (No. 29). The latter featured his lone Billboard Hot 100 single, a cover of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" that peaked at No. 16. Havens' final chart entry was the 1987 album "Simple Things," which reached No. 173, while his final set of original material was 2008's "Nobody Left to Crown."
Notable moments in Havens' career included television performances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "The Tonight Show," a role in the 1972 stage production of The Who's "Tommy," a roles in the films "Catch My Soul," "Greased Lightning," Bob Dylan's "Hearts of Fire" and Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan-inspired film "I'm Not There," singing "Tombstone Blues." During the mid-70s he co-founded the Northwind Undersea Institute, a children's-oriented museum in the Bronx, as well as the Natural Guard, an organization to teach children about ecological issues.
He sang at President Bill Clinton's inauguration in January of 1993, and a decade later he received the American Eagle Award form the National Music Council. He collaborated with the electronic duo Groove Armada on "Hands in Time" for the "Collateral" film soundtrack, and he's worked with Genesis members Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett, blues artist Bill Perry and with David Letterman CBS Orchestra drummer Anton Fig. Havens published an autobiography, "They Can't Hide Us Anymore," in 2000 and was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006.
Havens is survived by four daughters, five grandchildren and at least one grandchild. Through his publicist, Haven's family has asked "for privacy during this difficult time" but promised that "a public memorial will be planned for a later date."
Benny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."
Only the last three from Day 1 Richie Havens Sweetwater Bert Sommer Tim Hardin Ravi Shankar
Melanie
Arlo Guthrie
Joan Baez
Day two
Quill
Country Joe McDonald
Santana
John Sebastian Keef Hartley Band
The Incredible String Band Canned Heat
Mountain Grateful Dead
Creedence Clearwater Revival Janis Joplin with The Kozmic Blues Band[28]
Sly & the Family Stone
The Who (Moon, Entwistle)
Jefferson Airplane
Sunday, August 17 – Monday, August 18
Joe Cocker and The Grease Band
Country Joe and the Fish Ten Years After
The Band (Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel)
Johnny Winter
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Paul Butterfield Blues Band Sha Na Na Jimi Hendrix / Gypsy Sun & Rainbows
Benny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."
By CNN Staff
updated 10:06 AM EDT, Tue April 23, 2013
Chrissy Amphlett from The Divinyls perfoms at Fremantle Oval on December 22, 2007 in Perth, Australia.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Amphlett was the lead singer for the Australian band the Divinyls
The band's "I Touch Myself" reached No. 1 in Australia, No. 4 in United States in 1991
Amphlett fought multiple sclerosis, breast cancer
(CNN) -- Australian rocker Chrissy Amphlett, the Divinyls lead singer whose group scored an international hit with the sexually charged "I Touch Myself" in the early 1990s, died Sunday after a battle with breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, her husband said.
She was 53.
"Chrissy's light burns so very brightly," her husband, former Divinyls drummer Charley Drayton, said in a statement. "Hers was a life of passion and creativity; she always lived it to the fullest. With her force of character and vocal strength, she paved the way for strong, sexy, outspoken women."
In 1991, the Divinyls' "I Touch Myself" reached No. 1 in Australia and No. 4 on the United States' Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The group, which formed in Australia in the early 1980s, was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association's hall of fame in 2006.
Amphlett, who lived in New York with her husband, announced in 2010 that she had breast cancer, several years after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She said in an interview that her family made the diagnoses easier.
"It's unfair, but life is not fair -- even rock stars get breast cancer," she told the Sydney Morning Herald. "But there have been many girls before me who have dealt with it successfully. It's easy to feel sorry for me but I feel sorry for people who are suffering it alone." People we lost in 2013: The lives they lived
Benny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."
By Alan Duke, CNN
updated 5:42 PM EDT, Tue April 23, 2013
Allan Arbus (L-R), Loretta Swit, Mike Farrell, Burt Metcalfe and Alan Alda accept an award at the 2009 TV Land Awards.
(CNN) -- Allan Arbus, the actor who played psychiatrist Maj. Sidney Freedman in the M*A*S*H television series, has died, his daughter's representative said Tuesday. He was 95.
"Amy's father has passed," the rep said in a brief statement. Amy Arbus is a New York-based photographer.
The Internet Movie Database credits Arbus with a dozen episodes of M*A*S*H, as well as a long list of television feature roles starting in 1969.
His last acting job was in 2000 in an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," according to IMDb.com
Benny Blades~"If you break down this team man for man, we have talent to compare with any team."
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