Oakland Raider Ben Davidson dies at 72

Ben Davidson, the iconic face of a 1960-Oakland Raiders and later became a fixture in popular ads for Miller Lite, has died. He was 72.

Davidson, who had been treated for prostate cancer, died Monday night, former Raiders coach John Madden told KCBS radio in San Francisco.

If the deceased Al Davis was the creator of Renegade Raiders, then Davidson might be considered one of the founding fathers, by cutting a strip larger than life with his mustache and intimidating 6-foot-8 with end of the physical presence defense.

The 11-year career as a professional footballer began with the Green Bay Packers.

After one season there and two with the red leather-Washington, who fled when he moved to the AFL and the Raiders in 1964. "It was an AFL All-Star three times and played in Super Bowl II with the Raiders.

The career of Davidson was rarely predictable. Born June 14, 1940, in Los Angeles, did not play sports as a child growing up in Boyle Heights and would not give up football after his freshman year at East Los Angeles College.

"I think I decided I would try," he told The Times in an interview in 2010 home in San Diego. "I did not know the positions. I knew the center was probably in the middle, but I had one or two games."

Davis was shot in the eye back to Davidson when Davis was an assistant coach at USC. Davidson moved from East Los Angeles College, University of Washington and has won two Rose bowls with Huskies in 1960 and 1961.

Davis and Davidson were finally able to join forces in Oakland, after Davidson arrived a year after Davis.

"We had fun," Davidson said in an interview in 2010.

That was an understatement. The sense of fun and Davidson football made him a person was denied a natural firaire television after his football career, most prominently in ads for Miller Lite.

His first film role was the 1970 Robert Altman's "MASH", which brought a slice of the Raider Nation 4077, playing in a football game intersquad.

"I hate to say this to the press," Davidson said in an interview in 2010. "But I have 70 years and have never had a real job."

His most important moment of controversy in the field was in 1970. It was then pulled the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson, the end of a game, Dawson dives in with his helmet when Dawson was on the floor. Chiefs receiver Otis Taylor said open, so that in a deck of banks.

Finally, a 17-14 lead into the final of the leaders and the Raiders 17-17 to win the AFC West.

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Actor Andy Griffith dies at 86

Andy Griffith, actor tempering the South so fascinated the public for over 50 years on Broadway, in film, on record, especially on television - especially as the sheriff of the small town in the sitcom long duration that bears his name - died Tuesday at home in Roanoke Island, North Carolina.

He was 86 years.

His death was confirmed by the Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie.

Griffith was already a star with rave reviews on Broadway in "No time for sergeants" and Elia Kazan movie "A Face in the crowd" when "The Andy Griffith Show" made its debut in autumn of 1960. He loved a later generation of viewers in 1980 and 90 in the role of legal drama "Matlock."

But his fame has never been as great as it was in 1960 when he starred for eight years as Andy Taylor, Commissioner of intelligent fiction southern town of Mayberry, current herd includes a weekly eccentric as his deputy ineffective Barney Fife and the ingenuity of the gas station attendant Gomer Pyle and, as a widower, patiently raising a young son, Opie.

"The Andy Griffith," Monday night on CBS was No. 4 ranking in the Nielsen its first year and never fell below the Top 10. It was No. 1 in 1968, his last season. After the race ended with episode No. 249, the show lived series spin-off, endless repetition and even Sunday school classes organized around their moral lessons rustic.

The show imagined a world soothing soak holes, ice cream social events and rock hard for over a decade of family values ​​that has grown increasingly turbulent. His vision of rural simplicity is part of a trend that began with the TV show "The McCoy" on ABC in 1957 and later included "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Green Acres", "Petticoat Junction" and "Hee Haw".

But at the end of 1960, the networks have appreciated younger viewers Cornpone despised, and Andy decided to go to the movies after the 1966-67 season. CBS made a very lucrative offer for him to do another season, and "The Andy Griffith Show" has become the No. 1 series in the 1967-68 season.

But Mr. Griffith had decided to go ahead, and so also the spirit of the age. "Rowan & Martin Laugh-In" with his statements about drugs and Vietnam, and "The Mod Squad", an integrated police force, have been grabbing a new generation of viewers.

But the characters of "The Andy Griffith Show" - Barney (Don Knotts), Gomer (Jim Nabors), Opie (Ron Howard), Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), and the rest, including Gomer Pyle's cousin Goober (George Lindsey, who died in May) - has remained temptadorament real lovers who still collect online and sometimes in person at the club fans to see replays.

Andy Griffith was much more complex than Andy Taylor and his fellow residents of Mayberry, but the show was based in his hometown, Mount Airy, North Carolina

Since the initiative in the Elia Kazan movie "A Face in the crowd" in 1957, the story of a TV character who becomes a crude power-mad megalomaniac, Mr. Griffith has authenticity to their roles given a dark intelligent.

From 1970 to 1990, Mr. Griffith has starred in six films with the "murder" or "kill" in their titles. In 1983, in "Murder in County Cowetta" has played an evil man who is terribly cold stone while he was tied to the electric chair.

Mr. Griffith, the fans probably imagined as a taujà happy, but he liked the life in Hollywood and he knew his way around a wine list.

His career was controlled by a personal manager, Richard O. Linke, which prohibited Mr. Griffith to request the views of anyone, not even his wife.

"If there is ever a question about something, I'll do what he wants me to do," Griffith said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine in 1970. "If not for him I would have gone to the toilet."

Far from relaxing, sociable Taylor, slurred Andy, Mr. Griffith was a lonely and anxious. When you reach a door in anger, and two episodes of the second season of "The Andy Griffith Show" had a bandaged hand (explained in the program as Sheriff Taylor suffered an injury while stopping criminals).

But the 35 million viewers of "The Andy Griffith Show" was reassuring to know that, even at the height of his popularity, Mr. Griffith was driving a Ford pickup truck and bought the clothes hanger. He said that his honor is preferred, 10-mile stretch of road in North Carolina that bears his name in 2002. (That was before President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.

As TV Guide reporter put it in an article in 1963 about the popularity of the series: "The dialogue - read with joy by Griffith intelligent, uncompromising seriousness Knotts - requires an exceptionally high level of performance of comedy and solid understanding of the subtleties of character. "

Considered the driving force behind the series, Griffith was heavily involved with the production of the show and helped shape the script and characters.

George Lindsey, who joined the series in 1965 as Goober, told the Times in 1993: "He is probably the best script constructionist who ever lived." Griffith added, "I found 110% since we took him to his level."

Ron Howard, who grew up to become one of Hollywood directors, Griffith believes that "such a wonderful guy for me."

Howard told People magazine in 1986 that Griffith "created an atmosphere of fun and hard work to try to make my films."

When Griffith and most of the major cast members met to "Return to Mayberry" in 1986, was one of television's top rated movie of the year.

"The backbone of our show is love," Griffith once said. "There's something Mayberry and Mayberry folk who do not leave you."

The small town atmosphere represented in Mayberry was not far from his childhood Griffith in Mount Airy, North Carolina, a small village at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he was born on 1 June 1926.

An only child, Griffith grew up singing and playing guitar with his mother. He learned to tell funny stories of his father, who made their living modestly in Mount Airy Furniture Co.

Griffith holds a BA in music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and dreamed of becoming a professional singer on stage. On a whim, she auditioned for a campus production of Gilbert and Sullivan "The gondolers".

"I liked it," Griffith recalled in a 1996 interview with National Public Radio. "I had two songs, both alone. I have received good reviews. He said I had a great time and represented the comedy is leading all the Gilbert and Sullivan did while I was there."

After graduating in 1949, Griffith teaches music at a high school in Goldsboro, NC, but he and his first wife, Barbara, singer and musician who was a member of the university theater group, continued to perform at Carolina North annual popular outdoor theater, "The Lost Colony" at Roanoke Island.

One thing that has always bothered Griffith was recruiting people that their interpretation of Sheriff Taylor was practically the same game. He said not only was devoted to the creation of a character designed for the small town sheriff, but also co-wrote almost every episode - even if not received credit for writing.

"You're supposed to believe in the character," said Griffith. "You must not think: 'Hey, Andy makes a storm."

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Former NBC president Julian Goodman Dies at 90

Julian Goodman, who has produced a experiodista the second Kennedy-Nixon before becoming the president of NBC during a tumultuous period of conflict with the government of Nixon, died Monday at his home in Juno Beach, Fla. He was 90 years.

The cause was kidney failure, said a spokesman for the family.

Although proud of the fact that often the defense of the First Amendment and the white of the Nixon White House as a political opponent, Mr. Goodman had a reputation for being shy and never ask for a promotion or a raise.

"People gave me when I did my job well," he wrote in 1985.

When he became president of NBC in 1965, told the New York Times, "I am not an ambitious man."

However, four years later, was engaged in a war of words with Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who has accused the media coverage of the Vietnam War. Mr. Goodman said: "Obviously, I would have preferred a different kind of television communication - What I submit to any group was in authority at the time."

After discussing it with the composer of Nixon speeches Patrick J. Buchanan, who said the network should be decentralized, but Mr. Goodman called it "dangerous thought". Has resisted the administration when he threatened to licensees of broadcast news, if the divisions of the routine gave President Richard M. Nixon what he considered fair - that is, more favorable - coverage.

During his tenure, NBC, Mr. Goodman has also negotiated a record $ 1,000,000 agreed to keep Johnny Carson as host of "The Tonight Show." He joined other leaders of the network to push to end the Fairness Doctrine, which forced the networks to the same time to different opinions. (E 'was finally abandoned.) I was forced to apologize to viewers in 1968, after NBC cut a message on a national network of New York Jets and Oakland Raiders, so play a movie version of "Heidi" could go as expected.

Viewers never see the end of the game, later known as the "Heidi Bowl" when Oakland scored two touchdowns in the final minutes to overcome a 32-29 advantage in New York. Mr. Goodman called the schedule change "as an excuse."

"I miss the end of the game as much as anyone else," he said.

Bryn Julian Goodman was born on 1 May 1922, in Glasgow, Kentucky, and began his journalism career as a reporter for $ 3 a week for The Times of Glasgow.

After serving in the army, he moved to Washington where he met William McAndrews, head of NBC News, who joined the news desk of the night, replacing David Brinkley.

As manager of the Washington office, Mr. Goodman later became a strong supporter of Mr. Brinkley, NBC News press paired with Chet Huntley to anchor the 1956 Democratic and Republican conventions. The two came to fame in the anchor of the evening news network together for over a decade.

Mr. Goodman often jokes that Mr. Brinkley freeing the table the night was his greatest contribution to journalism.

Mr. Goodman was surprised that it has been identified by the Nixon government. (His name appeared on a list of White House "enemies", a complete list of the original 20 "enemies" of Nixon).

He recalled a visit in 1970 of collaborating Nixon, Charles W. Colson, who said he had come with the intention of intimidating. But Mr. Colson and Mr. Goodman describes as complacent, because the only ornament on the desk of Mr. Goodman was a medal from Mr. Nixon's 1969 inauguration.

That Mr. Colson did not know was that Mr. Goodman was notoriously messy table cleared, leaving only the medal as a joke.

Mr. Goodman has produced the second Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960 in Washington, in a study of the NBC.

Cleveland rejected the initial election, saying he could not find a suitable location there. Cleveland responded with shade, and Mr. Goodman rarely puts a foot in the city again.

Through their associations with Mr. McAndrews and then NBC president Robert Kintner, Mr. Goodman went up to the network level, reaching the president's office, when Mr. Kintner was fired in 1965 .

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