Brian Carman (69)
one of five guys from Santa Ana High School—the Chantays—who in the early '60s
thought they could maybe play for dances at the community center. Carman and
bandmate Bob Spickard wrote “Pipeline,” an instrumental anthem to riding the
waves and living the surfing life that became one of southern California’s most
recognizable musical exports. Carman suffered from Crohn’s disease and an
ulcerated colon; he died in Santa Ana, California on March 1, 2015.
June Fairchild (68)
former Manhattan Beach prom queen, go-go dancer, and actress who appeared in
more than a dozen films, and, for a time, was an addict and alcoholic who slept
in a cardboard box on skid row in Los Angeles. Fairchild made a memorable
appearance as a druggie who snorted Ajax soap powder in Cheech & Chong’s Up
in Smoke (1978); she also had parts in Drive, He Said, a 1971 basketball film
directed by Jack Nicholson, and Thunderbolt & Lightfoot (1974) with Clint
Eastwood and Jeff Bridges. She died of liver cancer in Los Angeles, California
on February 17, 2015.
Lesley Gore (68)
singer-songwriter who topped the charts in 1963 at age 16 with her epic song of
teenage angst, “It’s My Party,” and followed it up with the hits “Judy’s Turn
to Cry” and the feminist anthem “You Don’t Own Me.” Gore was discovered by
Quincy Jones as a teenager and signed to Mercury Records; she cowrote with her
brother, Michael, the Oscar-nominated “Out Here on My Own” from the film Fame
(1980). Although a nonsmoker, she died of lung cancer in New York City on
February 16, 2015.
Sam Andrew (73)
cofounder of the band Big Brother & the Holding Company, a mainstay of the
San Francisco rock scene of the ‘60s, who played a key role in singer Janis
Joplin’s (d. 1970) early career. The band was among the first and most
successful exponents of the so-called San Francisco sound, a mix of folk,
blues, and rock influences fueled by psychedelic drugs. Andrew had a heart
attack 10 weeks ago and underwent open-heart surgery. He died in San Rafael,
California on February 12, 2015.
Gary Owens (80)
mellifluous-voiced announcer on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1968–73) and a
familiar part of radio, TV, and movies for more than 60 years. Owens hosted
thousands of radio programs in his long career and appeared in more than a
dozen movies and on scores of TV shows, including Lucille Ball and Bob Hope
specials. He also voiced hundreds of animated characters, was part of dozens of
comedy albums, and wrote books. He died in Los Angeles, California on February
12, 2015.
Dallas Taylor (66)
rock drummer who liked to say that he made his first million—and his last—by
the time he was 21. Taylor was a key sideman for Crosby, Stills, Nash &
Young; he played at Woodstock, appeared on seven top-selling albums, and bought
three Ferraris. He also stabbed himself in the stomach with a butcher knife and
drank so heavily that he required a liver transplant in 1990, five years after
becoming sober. He later became an addiction counselor specializing in
interventions and in reuniting alcoholics and addicts with their families. He
died in Los Angeles, California on January 18, 2015.
Darren Hugh
Winfield (85) one of the last of the Marlboro Men, a macho cowboy whose image
in advertising from the ‘50s to the late ‘90s made filtered cigarettes more
appealing to men. Previously Marlboros were marketed to women. Winfield’s
rugged good looks made him the face of Marlboro cigarettes in magazine and TV
ads from the late ‘60s to the late ‘80s. A real-life cowboy, he was discovered
in 1968 while working on the Quarter Circle 5 Ranch in western Wyoming. He died
in Riverton, Wyoming on January 12, 2015.
Ervin Drake (95)
songwriter and lyricist whose hit songs were recorded by such stellar
performers as Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, and Frankie Laine. Drake wrote the
words and music for the wistful “It Was a Very Good Year” in 1961 for Bob Shane
of the Kingston Trio. Sinatra heard it on his car radio, and his recording of
it on a comeback album in 1966 hit the Top 10. The Sinatra version has remained
a staple on radio and sometimes on TV; as the soundtrack to an extended film
montage, it opened the second season of the HBO series The Sopranos in 2000.
Drake died of bladder cancer in Great Neck, New York on January 15, 2015.
Anita Ekberg (83)
Swedish-born actress and sex symbol of the ‘50s and ‘60s who was immortalized
bathing in Rome's Trevi fountain in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960).
The scene where the blonde bombshell, clad in a black dress, her arms wide
open, calls out “Marcello,” remains one of the most famous images in film
history. Ekberg never starred in a Swedish film and was often at odds with
Swedish journalists, who criticized her for leaving the country and ridiculed
her for adopting an American accent. She remained in Italy for years, appearing
in scores of movies, many forgettable. She was hospitalized after Christmas and
died in Rome, Italy on January 11, 2015.
Don Harron (90)
Canadian comedian who entertained TV audiences in Canada and the US with his
comic alter ego Charlie Farquharson, a regular feature during the first 13
years (1969–82) of the long-running rural comedy series Hee Haw. Harron started
his career as an actor, appearing regularly on US TV shows in the ‘60s,
including The FBI, Mission: Impossible, 12 O’Clock High, The Outer Limits, and
Dr. Kildare. He died in Toronto, Canada after choosing not to seek treatment
for cancer, on January 17, 2015.
Lew Soloff (71)
trumpet player, an early member of Blood, Sweat & Tears whose later jazz
career included performances with his own ensembles and with Gil Evans, Ornette
Coleman, Chuck Mangione, Maynard Ferguson, and other giants of the genre.
Soloff joined Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1968, about a year after the
megagroup formed, and played trumpet and flugelhorn on numerous recordings,
being featured on the group’s eponymous album that in 1970 won a best-album
Grammy. He traveled the world with the jazz/rock band until leaving in 1973. He
died a day after suffering a heart attack while walking on a New York City
street, on March 8, 2015.
Al Delugach (89)
newspaper “rewrite man” and investigator who defied his own publisher to help
expose corruption in a St. Louis labor union in the ‘60s. Delugach and fellow
reporter Denny Walsh of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat spent three years
investigating the Steamfitters union, Local 562. In more than 300 stories they
revealed a pattern of labor racketeering that led to multiple federal
indictments for a kickback scheme related to the sale of insurance to the
union’s pension fund. The two reporters shared a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for local
investigative reporting. Delugach died of mesothelioma in Los Feliz, California
on January 4, 2015.
Rod Taylor (84)
ruggedly handsome Australian-born actor who helped actress Tippi Hedren to
battle swarms of vicious birds in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds.
Taylor’s first leading role was in the 1960 film version of the H. G. Wells
classic The Time Machine, but he was best known for costarring in the Hitchcock
film about a massive bird attack on a small northern California coastal town
(Bodega Bay). He also appeared in The Train Robbers and, most recently, in an
almost unrecognizable cameo role as the late British wartime prime minister
Winston Churchill in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009). Taylor,
who would have turned 85 on Jan. 11, died in Los Angeles, California two weeks
after suffering a fall, on January 7, 2015.
Donna Douglas (81)
actress who played the buxom tomboy Elly May Clampett on the hit ‘60s sitcom
The Beverly Hillbillies, the CBS comedy about a backwoods Ozark family who
moved to Beverly Hills after striking it rich from oil discovered on their land.
The series, which ran from 1962–71, also starred the late Buddy Ebsen and Irene
Ryan, and Max Baer Jr., who turned 77 on Jan. 4. Douglas died of pancreatic
cancer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on January 1, 2015.
Rev. Willie Barrow
(90) longtime civil rights activist. For decades Barrow was on the front lines
of the civil rights movement, working for Rev. Martin Luther King,
participating in the 1963 March on Washington, and in later years working to
stem Chicago’s gun violence. She died at a Chicago, Illinois hospital where she
was being treated for a blood clot in her lung, on March 12, 2015.
Frankie Randall
(76) singer and pianist, a Rat Pack favorite in the swinging ‘60s and a staple
of TV variety shows of that era. Besides his TV appearances with Dean Martin
and others, Randall recorded several songs, bringing his jazz-inflected,
supper-club approach not only to standards like “It Had to Be You,” but also to
the TV theme from Flipper and The Who’s rock anthem, “I Can See for Miles.”
Randall, who was closely identified professionally and socially with Frank
Sinatra (d. 1998), died of lung cancer in Indio, California on December 28, 2014.