Tag: Dies

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Harold Budd, Composer of Spaciousness and Calm, Dies at 84

Harold Budd, Composer of Spaciousness and Calm, Dies at 84

John Cage also had an influence, but less on his music than on his ideas and courage to forge a career outside the academy. Works like “Magnus Colorado” (1969) and the 24-hour program “Lirio” (1971) included reverberant gongs and controlled lighting, fusing Mr. Budd’s compositional ideas with his interest in visual art and installation. For “The Oak of the Golden Dream” (1970), Mr. Budd used the Buchla Box, an early synthesizer, to combine an imperturbable bass drone with an evocative high-altitude melody reminiscent of Terry Riley’s early works.

Gripped by a growing sense of sterility in the classical avant-garde while teaching composition at the California Institute of the Arts from 1970 to 1976, Mr. Budd retired from public work. privately, he explored the distinct melodic simplicity that he found in music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

His composition “Madrigals des Rosenengel” (1972) was the hour of birth of his mature style. A recording of the piece reached Mr. Eno, whose own thinking about music, listening and atmosphere merged into what he would call “ambient” music – one of many labels including “New Age” that Mr. Budd opposed. “I’m just not interested in this at all,” he said in a 2014 interview with The Guardian of such categorization.

Despite the break with previous work, some of Mr. Budd’s early influences remained. On his album “The Pavilion of Dreams” the alto saxophonist Marion Brown could be seen, a colleague of John Coltrane. It contained the hymn “Let’s go into the house of the Lord” with an arrangement inspired by that of Coltrane acolyte Pharoah Sanders, and “Butterfly Sunday”, a rework of Coltrane’s “After the Rain”. Other collaborators on the album were the English experimental composers Michael Nyman and Gavin Bryars.

From this point on, and especially after “Ambient 2: The Plateau of Mirrors”, Mr. Budd set a course that seldom fluctuated, but still offered plenty of variety and discovery. He performed alone and with groups, recorded with poets and wrote his own poems and made two albums of improvisations with video artist Jane Maru.

Mr. Budd is survived by two sons, Matthew and Terrence, from his first marriage to Paula Katzman; and another son, Hugo, from his marriage to Ellen Wirth, who died in 2012. Mr. Budd’s brother and stepsister died before him. He lived in South Pasadena, California.

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Entertainment

Barbara Windsor, Beloved British TV and Movie Star, Dies at 83

Barbara Windsor, Beloved British TV and Film Star, Dies at 83

LONDON – Barbara Windsor, a star of the “Carry On” films and long-running BBC soap opera “EastEnders”, whose dirty staccato laugh and ability to embody the life of the working class brought her to the collective memory of Britain, died on December 10th in a nursing home here. She was 83 years old.

Her death was announced in a statement from her husband and sole immediate survivor, Scott Mitchell, who said the cause was Alzheimer’s disease.

As a sign of the impact Ms. Windsor has had on Britain’s cultural life over the past six decades, royal family members have been among those paying tribute on social media, as has Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who wrote on Twitter that Ms. Windsor was “Cheered the world up with her own British brand of harmless cheek and innocent scandals.”

Ms. Windsor also made an impact in the United States, if only briefly, when she appeared on Broadway in 1964 in “Oh! What a fine war, ”Joan Littlewood’s music hall-style show that used disrespectful World War I songs to mock the absurdity of conflict.

Some American theatergoers may have found Ms. Windsor’s Cockney accent difficult to understand – one of her earliest films, “Sparrow’s Can’t Sing,” which was subtitled at some screenings in New York – but she won a Tony Award for Best Performance nominated actress in a musical.

In 1970 she told a BBC interviewer that she really wanted to do a movie in Hollywood, preferably a comedy with Jack Lemmon. “That would be great, wouldn’t it?” She said. She did not achieve that particular ambition but was soon immortalized in British cinemas thanks to her roles in the quirky, allusive and hugely successful “Carry On” films.

She later became even better known for her role as the matriarchal landlady Peggy Mitchell in “EastEnders,” a character she repeatedly portrayed from 1994 to 2016. She stopped when her Alzheimer’s disease made it impossible to continue.

Ms. Windsor was born Barbara Ann Deeks on August 6, 1937 in Shoreditch, then part of the working class in East London. Her father, John, a bus driver, and mother, Rose, a seamstress, had a tumultuous marriage, and by age 15, Ms. Windsor had to testify about their disputes in a divorce negotiation.

As a child during World War II, she was evacuated to Blackpool, a seaside resort in northern England. There, in her 2001 autobiography, All About Me: My Extraordinary Life, she revealed that she first stayed with a family that tried to sexually abuse her before moving in with a friend whose mother sent them both to dance classes. The mother was so impressed with her talent that she wrote a letter to Ms. Windsor’s parents asking them to go to London to teach them. “She’s a real show,” reads the letter Ms. Windsor recalled in the 1970 BBC interview.

Back in London, Ms. Windsor was discovered by a talent agent trying to cast her in a pantomime, the particularly British form of theater popular at Christmas, but her school refused to give her time off. She eventually went to drama school, where teachers repeatedly tried – and failed – to get her to lose her accent.

Despite the promise Ms. Windsor made, her break didn’t come until 1960 when she traveled to East London to audition for a role in Ms. Littlewood’s theatrical workshop, a company whose works often brought the life and humor of the working class to the stage. The recognition she received for her work there soon led to appearances on television and then in film, where she was hailed for her hackneyed roles in the “Carry On” comedies.

In these films, the camera often focused on the short (4-foot-11) but buxom Ms. Windsor’s figure. She is probably best remembered for a scene in “Carry On Camping” (1969) where her bikini top flies off during an outdoor aerobics class (an assistant peeled the top off with a fishing line during filming). This clip has since been shown several times on British television.

Although Ms. Windsor succeeded on screen, her personal life was in trouble. She had connections with a number of famous men, including soccer player George Best and East London gangsters Reggie and Charlie Kray. In 1964 she married Ronnie Knight, another gangster who was tried in 1980 for ordering a killer to murder his brother’s killer (he was acquitted), and in 1983 she married £ 6 million (more than £ 17 million or so) had stolen $ 23 million in today’s money) from a security deposit and fled to Spain.

Her relationship with Mr. Knight caused a nervous breakdown, she told the BBC in a 1990 interview. This marriage and a subsequent marriage ended in divorce.

Her life picked up again in the 1990s after she starred as Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders, the popular sink soap opera, whose storylines often reflected social themes.

She quickly became one of the stars of the show, known for beating her co-stars when the plot called for a climatic moment and for storylines that could be far darker than anything you could find in a “carry on” – Movie would find. (In 2010, one of her character’s sons burned the pub down in the middle of a crack cocaine binge.)

In the 1990s, her figure had breast cancer twice and had a mastectomy. This act prompted hundreds of viewers to write to the BBC to thank them for how sensitive they were with the subject. In 2016, when she last appeared on the series, her character killed himself because her cancer had returned.

Whatever happened to Ms. Windsor on-screen or off-screen, she never lost the joy of performing.

“I don’t think negatively,” she told the BBC in 1990 when asked how she would look back on her life. “I’m going to single out all of the wonderful things that happened and how happy I was paid – paid! – for something that I absolutely adored. “

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Entertainment

Sara Leland, Ballerina of Ardour and Abandon, Dies at 79

Sara Leland, Ballerina of Passion and Abandon, Dies at 79

Sara Leland, a principal dancer for the New York Ballet who had staged George Balanchine’s ballets around the world during her career and later became a popular ballet master for the company, died on November 28th in Westwood, New Jersey when she was 79.

Her hospital death was caused by heart failure, said her niece, Mary-Sue O’Donnell.

Ms. Leland, known to friends and colleagues by her maiden name Sally, was a young dancer with the Joffrey Ballet in New York when Balanchine, the ballet master of the City Ballet, saw her dancing in a class and invited her to join his company.

In 1960, her first year with the city ballet, she got a leading role in “Les Biches”, a new ballet by Francisco Moncion; She was promoted to soloist three years later and began playing lead voices in a variety of ballets, including Balanchine’s “Agon,” “Symphony in C,” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Jerome Robbins “Interplay”; and Frederick Ashton’s “Illuminations”.

Balanchine created a role for her in the “Emeralds” section of his full-length “Jewels” (1967) and in the short-lived “PAMTGG”, which is based on a commercial jingle for Pan American World Airways (1971). Robbins created roles for her in “Dances at a Gathering” (1969) and “Goldberg Variations” (1971). Her ability to quickly pick up and remember choreographic sequences led Robbins to ask her to help him with rehearsals, and they worked closely together in creating these two ballets.

Ms. Leland was promoted to solo dancer in 1972 shortly before the Stravinsky Festival of the City Ballet, which opened with “Lost Sonata,” a pas de deux created by Balanchine for Ms. Leland and John Clifford. That same evening she played the second movement with Edward Villella in the premiere of Balanchine’s “Symphony in Three Movements,” a ballet with which she would be associated throughout her career and which she later taught generations of city ballet dancers.

“Sally was a quick learner and Balanchine was really struggling with ‘Symphony’ in terms of tempo, so he gave Sally lots of steps to demonstrate the Corps de Ballet,” said Barbara Horgan, Balanchine’s longtime assistant.

These steps stayed with Mrs. Leland. “When I first directed ‘Symphony’ I remember writing down the intricate counts of Sally that kept it all in mind,” said Christine Redpath, repertoire director at City Ballet. “I still remember her abandoned mercury dancing in this work.”

Balanchine choreographed roles for Ms. Leland in “Union Jack” (1976) and “Vienna Waltzes” (1977). Her steely technique and versatility enabled her to perform in an exceptionally wide range of the company’s repertoire, including abstract ballets such as Balanchine’s “Serenade” and “Agon”; romantic, expressive pieces such as “La Valse” and “Davidsbündlertänze”; and conventional story ballets like “The Nutcracker” (as Dewdrop and the Sugar Plum Fairy) and “Don Quixote” (as Dulcinea).

“It was fun to see because you didn’t have to hold your breath,” said Ms. Horgan. “She was strong enough to take risks – but they weren’t risks to her. Some dancers are alike in everything, but she wasn’t. “

Ms. Leland began staging works by Balanchine and Robbins in the mid-1970s, while she was still performing, traveling to Amsterdam, Havana and Copenhagen to teach her ballets and working on it with companies in the US including the Joffrey Ballet, Dance to work Harlem Theater and the Boston Ballet. In 1981, two years before she retired from the stage, she was appointed deputy ballet master at the city ballet.

“I watch Mr. Balanchine as closely and closely as possible these days,” she said in a 1982 interview with The Christian Science Monitor. “I appreciate every minute of every rehearsal he conducts. I try to study his ballets so closely that I will never forget them and that in the future I can stage them exactly as he intended.”

Sally Harrington was born on August 2, 1941, in Melrose, Massachusetts, to Ruth (Gibbons) Harrington and Leland Kitteridge Harrington, known as Hago, a former Boston Bruins player of the National Hockey League. She later took the stage name Sara Leland.

An older sister, Leeta, was born with spina bifida and a doctor suggested taking ballet into physical therapy. The family lived near the school of E. Virginia Williams, a noted teacher who had admired Balanchine’s work and studied his teaching methods. Mrs. Leland went to study with her sister.

Her talent was immediately evident and she began to train intensively with Mrs. Williams, who founded the New England Civic Ballet in 1958, the forerunner of the Boston Ballet. Ms. Leland’s mother and Ms. Williams became close friends, and Ruth Harrington ran the company’s reception, brought dancers into the family home, and made costumes for the troupe.

“It became her life,” said Mrs. O’Donnell, Mrs. Leland’s niece.

Robert Joffrey saw Ms. Leland perform with the company in 1959 and invited her to join the Joffrey Ballet. On vacation in Boston the next year, she attended ballet classes with Mrs. Williams and was discovered by Balanchine, who was an artistic advisor to the New England Ballet.

“Balanchine adored Sally,” said Richard Tanner, a former ballet master with City Ballet. “She was such an unusual dancer with so much freedom of movement and lack of inhibition. She danced really big and he loved that. He liked her personality too, everything about her. “

Shortly after Ms. Leland started doing rehearsals, Balanchine asked her to practice the main ballerina roles in his ballets. Her unusual ability to maintain and teach the choreography of all parts of a ballet meant that she could work on more than 30 works in the repertoire. She also frequently staged Balanchine’s works abroad, notably “Jewels” at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1998.

Mrs. Leland married Arthur Kevorkian in 1975; They divorced in 1993. In later years, Mrs. Leland, an avid gardener, lived in New City, NY, in the Hudson Valley. Mrs. O’Donnell, her niece, is her only survivor.

Wendy Whelan, the city ballet’s associate artistic director, said Ms. Leland made an indelible mark on several generations of dancers.

“It was bigger than life; She had that huge, big smile and so many things that I imagined a balanchine dancer would radiate when I joined the company, ”said Ms. Whelan. “Passion, freedom, individuality – that was all. When she was teaching it was always’ More! Greater! Do it!’ She embodied all the qualities that we wanted to incorporate into the dance. “

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Entertainment

Charley Delight, Nation Music’s First Black Famous person, Dies at 86

Charley Pride, Country Music’s First Black Superstar, Dies at 86

Charley Pride, the son of a Mississippi stock trader who later became the first black country music superstar, died Saturday at the Dallas hospice. He was 86 years old.

His publicist Jeremy Westby said the cause was complications from Covid-19.

A bridge builder who broke into country music amid the race riots of the 1960s, Mr. Pride was one of the most successful singers to ever work in this largely white genre. From 1966 to 1987 he placed 52 records in the country’s top 10.

Singles like “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin ‘” and “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone” – among his 29 recordings, which are number 1 on the country charts – showed a rural mix of traditional instrumentation and more uptown arrangements.

At RCA, the label for which he recorded for three decades, Mr. Pride was the second biggest record seller after Elvis Presley. It was created as an inspiration for generations of performers, from Black Country hitmaker Darius Rucker, who used to be part of the rock band Hootie and the Blowfish, to white heirs like Alan Jackson, who had a version of “Kiss an Angel” on his 1999 album Album “Under the Influence”.

The reasons for calling Mr. Pride were undeniable: a resonant baritone voice, an innate ear for melodies, an affable demeanor and a camera-friendly appearance.

However, in interviews, he sometimes downplayed the role his blackness played in his career, especially when faced with racial prejudice.

“People thought it was going to be difficult, but it wasn’t,” Mr. Pride said in a 1997 interview with Nashville about what it was like as a black man to break into the country music scene in the 1960s. “I never got any flak or anything. And that was amazing to most reporters, especially since I was at the height of sit-ins and bus boycotts. “

Mr. Pride’s 1994 autobiography paints a more intense picture of his early years in the music business. “The racist element was always there,” he wrote (with Jim Henderson) in Pride: The Charley Pride Story.

For example, RCA Records once sent promotional copies of its earliest recordings to journalists and disc jockeys across the country without including the standard promotional photos, intentionally or intentionally hiding its race. The label attributed these first “Country” singles to Charley Pride, as if to underscore its affinity for rural white culture.

As his racial identity became apparent, Mr. Pride wrote, he often struggled to secure bookings and sometimes endured the outrage when southern disc jockeys call him “good nigra” on the air. In order to relieve tension during his early concerts, he carefree referred to his “permanent tan”.

Despite his best efforts to please his white audiences, Mr. Pride wasn’t country music’s answer to Jackie Robinson, as some have observed. Notwithstanding his generosity of spirit, his individual success never opened doors for black performers in country music the way Robinsons did to other black players in Major League Baseball.

In fact, it was more than four decades before Mr. Pride became the second African American after his country music debut to achieve a # 1 country hit with the single “Don’t Think I Don”. t think about it. “

Even so, the dignity and grace with which Mr. Pride and his 63-year-old wife Rozene Pride paved their way through the white world of country music became a beacon for his fans and colleagues.

“No person of color has ever done what they did,” Rucker said in Charley Pride: I’m Just Me, a 2019 American Masters documentary on PBS.

Mr Pride himself was more selfless in assessing its impact, but expressed satisfaction in having a role in promoting integration. “We are not yet color-blind,” he wrote in his autobiography, “but we are a few steps forward and I like to think that I have contributed to this process.”

Charley Frank Pride was born on March 18, 1934 on a 40 acre farm in Sledge, Miss., The fourth of eleven children to Tessie (Stewart) Pride and Mack Pride Sr. His father had planned to call him Charl, but a typo on his birth certificate officially left the first name Charley.

With his cotton-picking income, Charley bought his first guitar, a $ 10 Sears-Roebuck, when he was 14. His father, a strict man, frowned at what he thought was the inconvenience of the blues that were prevalent in Mississippi at the time, and instead preferred the music of the Grand Ole Opry, and with it his son’s early devotion to Hank Williams and Roy Acuff.

Instead of choosing to become a singer, Mr. Pride first opted for a career in baseball in the Negro American League and left home at the age of 16 to work for the Memphis Red Sox and Boise Yankees, an Idaho, to advertise subsidiary of the New York Yankees.

He married Ebby Rozene Cohran in 1956 and was drafted into the Army, disrupting his baseball career, which had already suffered a setback when he was injured while pitching for Boise.

After his release from service two years later, Mr. Pride returned to baseball in the early 1960s and accepted invitations to try out with the California Angels and New York Mets, but was ultimately not offered a contract by either franchise.

At this point the Prides had relocated to Helena, Mont., Where Mr. Pride played both semi pro baseball and music at social events for the local smelter where he worked.

He and his wife started a family in Helena, where Mr. Pride attracted the attention of country singers Red Sovine and Red Foley. They eventually persuaded him to give country music a try.

The demo recordings that Mr. Pride made in Nashville in the early 1960s did not initially arouse interest. It was not until the producer Jack “Cowboy” Clement was overseeing one of his sessions in the summer of 1965 that Chet Atkins finally took notice and offered Mr. Pride a record deal.

“Just Between You and Me,” the third single from Mr. Pride’s sessions with Mr. Clement, reached the country’s top 10 in 1967 and opened a string of hits that continued into the late 1980s.

In 1971, the year Kiss an Angel Good Mornin ‘was released – his eighth # 1 country single and only Top 40 pop hit – Mr. Pride was named both Male Singer of the Year and County Music Association named Entertainer of the Year. That year he also won two Grammy Awards in the “Holy” and “Gospel Performance” categories for a single with “Let Me Live” on one side and “Did You Think to Pray” on the other.

In 1972 Mr. Pride was again named Male Singer of the Year by the Country Music Association and won another Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for the album “Charley Pride Sings Heart Songs”.

He became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1993. The only African American who preceded him in the show’s cast was harmonica player DeFord Bailey, a star on the Opry from 1927 to 1941. (In 2012, Mr. Rucker lived up to the third black performer to ever join the Opry.)

Mr. Pride was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.

In 2008, he and his brother Mack, along with 28 other surviving Negro League baseball veterans, were honored to be honors of the current 30 teams in Major League Baseball in recognition of their accomplishments and the greater legacy of the Negro leagues. Mr. Pride was selected by the Texas Rangers, whose franchise he owned as a partner and for whom he sang the national anthem before the fifth game of the 2010 World Series. Mack Pride died in 2018.

A former team member, former President George W. Bush, said in a statement, referring to former first lady Laura Bush, “Charley Pride was a good gentleman with a great voice. Laura and I love his music and the spirit behind it. “

Mr. Pride received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2017 and was honored with the Country Music Association’s Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award last month. His last public appearance was on November 11th at the CMA Awards in Nashville, where he sang “Kiss an Angel” with Jimmie Allen, one of several contemporary black country hitmakers, to cite Mr. Pride as an influence.

The event organizers said at the time that they “follow all protocols” to deal with Covid-19, but some in attendance did not wear masks. Mr. Pride’s publicist said he tested negative for the coronavirus twice after returning. He was then hospitalized for double pneumonia, which was classified as Covid-19

In addition to being an entertainer, Mr. Pride was a successful businessman who invested in real estate in the Dallas area and started Chardon, an artist booking and management company that helped boost the careers of country singers like Janie Fricke and Neal McCoy start.

He was also a partner of Pi-Gem, a song publisher owned by producer Tom Collins.

In addition to his wife, his sons Carlton and Dion, both musicians, survive. one daughter, Angela Rozene Pride; two brothers, Stephen and Harmon; two sisters, Catherine Sanders and Maxine Pride; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Early in his career, as soon as they realized he was Black, many of his fans asked Mr. Pride why his vocal phrasing was less homely – that is, more button-down and less country – than that of Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, and some of the other white singers who inspired him.

“I have a lot of questions that have been asked: ‘Charley, how did you get into country music and why don’t you sound the way you should sound?’ He explained to his audience during a 1968 concert recording released by RCA.

“It’s a little unique, I’ll admit,” he continued. “But I’ve been singing country music since I was about 5 years old. That’s why I sound like I sound like I am. “

Bryan Pietsch contributed to the reporting.

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Noah Creshevsky, Composer of ‘Hyperreal’ Music, Dies at 75

Noah Creshevsky, Composer of ‘Hyperreal’ Music, Dies at 75

Mr. Creshevsky was also a very admired teacher. He joined the faculty at Brooklyn College in 1969 and was director of the college’s pioneering center for computer music from 1994 to 1999. He also taught at the Juilliard School and Hunter College in New York, and spent the 1984 academic year at Princeton University.

Noah Creshevsky was born as Gary Cohen on January 31, 1945 in Rochester, NY, to Joseph and Sylvia Cohen. His father worked in his family’s dry cleaner and his mother was a housewife. He changed his surname to Creshevsky, according to Mr Sachs, “in honor of his grandparents whose name it was”. At the same time, he also changed his first name because he said, “I’ve never felt like a Gary.”

The Cohen household wasn’t particularly musical, but young Gary was drawn to a piano he’d bought for his older brother. His parents, said Mr Sachs, “were surprised to see toddler Noah – his legs too short to reach the pedals – picking pop tunes that he had heard and kept.”

He began his formal musical education at age 6 in the prep department of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. “Since my nature is more that of a composer than an interpreter, I’ve never spent much time practicing someone else’s composition,” Creshevsky said in an interview published by Tokafi, a music website. “Instead of working on the music my teachers at Eastman assigned, I improvised on the piano for many hours.” He made money, he said, and worked as a cocktail pianist in bars and restaurants.

After graduating from Eastman in 1961, he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1966 from the State University of New York at Buffalo, now known as the University of Buffalo. There he studied with the well-known composer Lukas Foss. In 1963 and 1964 he spent a year with Boulanger at the École Normale de Musique in Paris, a rite of passage for many prominent American composers.

After graduating, he moved to New York City, where he formed a new music group, the New York Improvisation Ensemble. He studied with Berio in Juilliard and made his Masters in 1968.

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World News

A German-Vietnamese social media star dies at 29, and different information from around the globe.

A German-Vietnamese social media star dies at 29, and other news from around the world.

Brittanya Karma posted her bucket list on Instagram last year.

Featured in a magazine? Check. Appear on German television? Check. Appear on Vietnamese television? Check. Got a million views on Facebook? Check.

The number of ticks on the list is a testament to the abundance of her short life. Ms. Karma, a Vietnamese-German rapper and reality television star, died on November 29th in Hamburg, where she was born and where she lived. She was 29. The cause was complications from Covid-19, her agent said.

Recognition…Brittanya Karma

Ms. Karma was first noticed a few years ago when a Facebook post in Vietnamese language gently mocking her mother went viral and got more than a million clicks. She quickly gained a Vietnamese following by describing her life in Germany and speaking out against physical embarrassment. She soon added a YouTube channel and Instagram account. Two years ago she opened a TikTok account with her fiancé Eugene Osei Henebeng, who goes by the name of Manu.

Ms. Karma used her YouTube channel to communicate with her many Vietnamese followers and her TikTok to speak to her German fans. In the videos she posted on these channels as well as on Instagram and Facebook, she told stories, joked or danced around the house with Manu during this year’s lockdowns.

“Confidence is my superpower,” she said in one of her TikTok videos.

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Entertainment

Othella Dallas, Keeper of Katherine Dunham’s Flame, Dies at 95

Othella Dallas, Keeper of Katherine Dunham’s Flame, Dies at 95

Ms. Dallas appeared on Broadway in 1946 in Bal Nègre, a Dunham-directed and choreographed revue, and toured Europe with the company. In Paris she met a Swiss engineer named Peter Wydler. When Dunham discovered that Ms. Dallas was about to get married, she was initially furious, but she served as Ms. Dallas’s witness and popped the champagne at the wedding in 1949. Eartha Kitt sang “C’est Si Bon”.

Ms. Dallas left the company later that year to stay with her husband in Switzerland. In the 1950s she taught the Dunham technique in Zurich, but soon left it to pursue a music career in America. In 1975, finally based in Europe, she opened her dance school in Basel.

“Yes, I was lucky,” she said in the documentary, reflecting on her improbable life. “I was fortunate enough to have so much. That is, what is happiness? “

Othella Dallas was born Othella Talmadge Strozier on September 26, 1925 in Memphis. Her father Frank was a pharmacist. Her mother, Thelma Lee, was a seamstress who also sang in the vaudeville. A grandmother ran a music school. Othella attended high school in St. Louis and aspired to be a doctor.

As a girl she suffered from rickets; Doctors suggested putting her legs back. Instead, as she told her, her grandmother took her to a voodoo priest, who prescribed that her legs be massaged in greasy dishwater while he recited an incantation.

After enough dips in the sink, he said she was cured.

“Make them dance,” he announced.

“Let them dance where?” asked her mother. “Those old filthy nightclubs?”

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Business

Deb Worth, a First as a Columnist on Homosexual Life, Dies at 62

Deb Price, a First as a Columnist on Gay Life, Dies at 62

After stints at The Northern Virginia Sun and the States News Service, which covered Washington news for dozens of newspapers across the country, she joined the Washington Post in 1984. Both she and Ms. Murdoch were editors at the newspaper’s National Desk, and they became a couple in 1985.

They were the first to register as Domestic Affiliates in Takoma Park, Md., Where they lived, in 1993, and joined a civil union in Vermont in 2000. In 2003 they were finally able to legally marry in Toronto was the first same-sex wedding announcement that the Washington Post put on their wedding website.

“Enthusiastic tennis players, world travelers and certified divers, the newlyweds will be celebrating their honeymoon in Hawaii later this year,” the announcement said.

The couple produced two well-received books. “And say hello to Joyce, America’s First Gay Column Coming Out” (1995) garnered most of Ms. Price’s columns with comments from Ms. Murdoch. They dedicated it to “all gay readers who put 25 cents in a newspaper box and found nothing that reflects their own life”.

Her second was “Courting Justice: Gays and Lesbians v. The Supreme Court” (2001), described by a Kirkus reviewer as “a Crackerjack resource volume on gay legal history”.

Ms. Price continued her column until 2010 when she received a Nieman Fellowship to study at Harvard.

In Hong Kong, where the couple was moving when Ms. Murdoch was given an academic appointment there, Ms. Price, a long-time business and finance specialist, worked for the Asian Wall Street Journal. She became editor-in-chief of Caixin Global, an independent financial publication in China, and senior business editor at The South China Morning Post.

Mrs. Murdoch is her only immediate survivor. Ms. Price’s older brother Stephen died in 2018.

“We never had children,” said Ms. Murdoch. “We knew that our gay rights work would be our most important legacy.”

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Entertainment

Natalie Desselle, Comedic Coronary heart of ‘BAPS’ and ‘Eve,’ Dies at 53

Natalie Desselle, Comedic Heart of ‘BAPS’ and ‘Eve,’ Dies at 53

“She loved it – it was one of her favorite roles,” Ms. Robinson recalled the actress. “She must be in a fairy tale that was changed from white to black.”

“It is such a message for young black children to see stories that contain them, even fairy tales. I said I belong and I am in this world too,” said Ms. Robinson.

Natalie Desselle Reid was born on July 12, 1967 in Alexandria, La.,. Her father, Paul Desselle, was the senior groundskeeper at England Air Force Base in Alexandria. Her mother, Thelma, was a cafeteria attendant who later became an administrative assistant at Peabody Magnet High School, where Natalie, her sisters Paula and Calisa, and her brother Sherman graduated.

On April 6, 2003, Ms. Desselle married Leonard Reid. The couple had a son, Sereno, 23, and two teenage daughters, Summer and Sasha. Ms. Desselle took her husband’s surname but continued to work as Natalie Desselle.

She is survived by her husband, three children, two sisters, brother and father.

Like her character in BAPS, Ms. Desselle, who Ms. Robinson said was inspired by the 1950 film All About Eve, went west to become a star. She coldly called Ms. Robinson, one of the few black women working as a manager at the time, and asked her to meet with her.

“I wasn’t exactly happy to have too many black clients because it was just too difficult to get them to work,” said Ms. Robinson. “And being black yourself is quite a statement.”