"Another One Bites The Dust" (Celebrity Deaths)

[Jim Cassedy]

I have said this before - - and I can not let this week pass without bringing it up again:
> Although, generally speaking, I'm not a superstitious person, or a tin-foil-hat conspiracy
guy, the ONE superstition that I personally believe, is the old "Celebrities Die In Threes"
theory. It almost always happens

This week it was:
Malcom Jamal Warner
Ozzie Osborne
Hulk Hogan

R-I-P to them. They may be dead, but they're keeping the superstition alive!

[Randy Stankey]

We were joking around at work about Ozzy.

We all decided that he should be cremated on a giant bonfire at the center of Stonehenge and thirteen monks in black robes should use flaming torches to light the fire.

[Bobby Henderson]

This week it was:
Malcom Jamal Warner
Ozzie Osborne
Hulk Hogan

Add Chuck Mangione to the list.

[Leo Enticknap]

My favorite talk radio show on drives back from early morning service calls has an annual "ghoul pool" competition. During the last week of the year, you are invited to email them with a list of three celebs that you predict will kick the bucket during the following year, at least one of which must be too young and (as far as is public knowledge) too healthy to die of natural causes. You get bonus points for an assassination. Prizes are unstated, but they usually do something if only a manageable number of listeners get all three. Last year two listeners almost did, but as Dick van Dyke and Meghan Markle are still with us, close but no cigar.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Isn't there betting on such things (and everything else) in England?

[Marcel Birgelen]

You could argue about the legality of such betting, as such a bet could incentivize certain actions... but apparently, such kind of bets are perfectly legal in most jurisdictions where betting is also legal.

[Randy Stankey]

Hey! If people can bet money on a "Chicken Drop," people can bet money on anything!

[Leo Enticknap]

Someone who would have appreciated the morbid humor, and, IMHO, did that better than any comedian of the last century. Obit:

Tom Lehrer, wickedly funny musical satirist whose subversive ditties caused outrage and delight

His songs were banned in US schools after protests by Roman Catholics over The Vatican Rag (‘Two four six eight/ Time to transubstantiate’)

Tom Lehrer, who has died aged 97, wrote and performed such subversive ditties as Poisoning Pigeons in the Park and The Masochism Tango, and was a sensation during the satire boom of the 1950s.

A lanky figure with cropped hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a sardonic smile, Lehrer had a clear eye for phoniness and folly and a genius for subversive juxtapositions of words and ideas: “I ache for the touch of your lips, dear,” he wrote in The Masochism Tango, “But much more for the touch of your whips, dear./ You can raise welts/ Like nobody else/ As we dance to the Masochism Tango.”

In other numbers, a trite Irish ballad celebrates a succession of murderous misdoings; a romantic love song is subverted into the lament of a lover who has murdered his girlfriend and cut off her hand as a keepsake: “The night you died I cut it off/ I really don’t know why./ For now each time I kiss it/ I get bloodstains on my tie.” “You know,” Lehrer concluded after the end of this last piece, “of all the songs I have ever sung, that is the one I’ve had the most requests not to”. “Mr Lehrer’s muse [is] not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste,” observed The New York Times.

Lehrer became a cult figure on both sides of the Atlantic for his astute parodies of composers ranging from Mozart to Gilbert and Sullivan and from Cole Porter to traditional melodies popular in what Lehrer called “the folk song scare” of the 1950s. These became the vehicles for send-ups of boy scouts, religion, love, plagiarism and the old college tie, and dealt with such unmentionables as venereal disease, incest, pornography and drug addiction.

Not everyone saw the joke. The Herald Tribune critic panned Lehrer’s songs as “more desperate than amusing” and the London Evening Standard dismissed him loftily as “obvious, jejune, and remarkably unsophisticated”.

His songs were banned by school boards in America after protests by Roman Catholic groups about The Vatican Rag (“Two four six eight./ Time to transubstantiate.”). I Wanna Go Back To Dixie was billed simply as “a typical Dixie song, all about the many delightful features of the South”, but the lyrics (“I wanna talk with Southern genn’lmen/ Put my white sheet on again/ I ain’t seen a good lynching in years”) so enraged students at Carolina University that they burned Lehrer in effigy.

On the other hand, Fight Fiercely Harvard, a parody of the glee club songs of the time, was adopted in all seriousness by the Harvard football team and remains its theme song to this day.

In all, the Lehrer canon amounted to only about 50 recorded songs and three albums. In the late 1960s, after sell-out tours of the USA and Britain he retired from performing. It was widely rumoured that the muse had deserted him when the horrors of the Vietnam War made it difficult to be funny about serious things – or as Lehrer was quoted as saying (though he later denied it): “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

But he later admitted that he had been planning to retire from the outset of his career, and that the only thing that had persuaded him to defer his departure was “the chance to visit underdeveloped countries like England”. “I don’t have to do this for a living,” he told his audiences. “I could be earning £800 a year teaching.”

Thomas Andrew Lehrer was born in New York on April 9 1928 and grew up in the cramped but intellectually stimulating world of the city’s Jewish immigrant community. His father manufactured ties, but it was from his mother that he inherited his musicality and sense of humour. He would recall how, after being pestered by a dance teacher for dropping out of her class, his mother had explained with perfect deadpan that she had just had both legs amputated so she hoped the teacher would forgive her.

Visits with his mother to musical theatre ignited a passion that led him as a child to insist on changing his piano teacher from a classical pianist to one who was willing to indulge his desire to play show tunes. He began writing tunes himself when he was seven or eight and was sent on summer camp with a boy called Stephen Sondheim, who became his musical hero.

At the same time, Lehrer was showing a precocious talent for mathematics, and at the age of just 15, he went up to read the subject at Harvard. His mathematical and scientific background would occasionally enter his lyrics, as in The Elements and Lobachevsky, a rollicking ditty about scientific plagiarism, based on Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, a Russian mathematician who developed a form of non-Euclidean geometry. In a typical Lehrer in-joke, the plagiarism was not Lobachevsky’s but Lehrer’s own plagiarism of a Danny Kaye song.

Lehrer’s first serious efforts at song-writing began in his days as an undergraduate, when he started performing at parties and at Harvard functions. His reputation spread outside the university to the town of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he began singing in night clubs and cabarets.

After a few years, however, he began to tire of performing the same songs over and over again. Polling his concert audiences, he calculated that he could find 300 customers for a Tom Lehrer record. But the record companies were not interested, so in 1953 he recorded his first album, The Songs of Tom Lehrer, himself. As his songs were banned by American radio stations as too crude, he had to rely on the record to spread his music. After several months of local sales, he began receiving orders from around the country as Harvard students took the album home to share with their friends.

After leaving Harvard, Lehrer spent a year singing songs in cabaret and trying to avoid call-up into the armed services, “but it got too tiring so I let them take me in”. He was given a desk job in Washington and had two “wonderful years” working with Harvard men and civilian PhDs. When he later wrote the satirical It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier, he admitted it did not represent his attitude to the army at all since he had loved every moment.

He left the army just as the concept of a touring popular music concert was emerging. Finding that he was still in demand, Lehrer gave his first concert that year at Hunter College, and spent the next three years touring most of the English-speaking world. In the British satire explosion of the late 1950s, he was adopted as a sort of mascot Yank and even dined with Princess Margaret: “She thought I was Danny Kaye, whom she fancied,” Lehrer recalled. “Instead I was me and was dull.”

Even at the height of his celebrity, however, Lehrer knew that live entertainment was not his cup of tea. “I wouldn’t want to do this all my life,” he said in 1957. “It’s okay while I’m still an adolescent.” (He was nearly 30 at the time.) His second album, An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer, was recorded in 1959, as a farewell, during a concert at Harvard. “I figured that if the record was out, who would want to come hear me?” he said.

He returned to Harvard, where he had already embarked on a doctorate, but soon decided he would rather teach than research: “I kept saying to myself that if I ever get this dissertation written, I will never have to do any research again. Then I realised that I must be telling myself something, so I decided enough is enough.” He held teaching appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and Wellesley, and also worked for several defence contractors (including the Atomic Energy Commission’s nuclear laboratory in Los Alamos).

Although he was no longer performing, Lehrer’s songwriting career was not yet over. In 1964, NBC began broadcasting an American version of the British satirical show That Was The Week That Was. Lehrer started to send in songs for the show and found they usually used them. In contrast to his earlier black comic parodies, his songs for TW3, including numbers like Pollution and Wernher Von Braun (“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?/ ‘That’s not my department’, says Wernher von Braun”), hit a more acid political note.

By 1965, Lehrer had enough new material to fill another record and, to assure himself that audiences would actually enjoy the material, he did a four week stint at the hungry i, a San Francisco club, recording That Was The Year That Was during his last week there.

It was his last LP of satirical songs, though he recorded a few educational numbers for the children’s television shows Sesame Street and The Electric Company. Generally, though, when people asked him to write a new song about current issues, he likened it to “asking a resident of Pompeii for some humorous comments about lava”. He even admitted encouraging rumours of his death in the vain hope of cutting down on unwanted requests.

Lehrer banked his royalties and moved on, spending half the year at Harvard and the other half at the University of California at Santa Cruz teaching mathematics. “I teach the application of mathematics to social science,” he explained. “Actually there aren’t any, but I manage to make it stretch out”.

Lehrer, it seemed, would have been content to live out the rest of his life in the classroom, but in 1978, the British theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh approached him about creating a musical revue of his songs. As Mackintosh had just produced a well regarded revue of his hero, Stephen Sondheim, Lehrer agreed, and two years later Tomfoolery opened at the Criterion Theatre in London. The success of the show brought Lehrer back into the spotlight just long enough for him to explain why he had stopped performing and writing songs. “What are laurels for if you can’t rest on them?” he asked.

Lehrer’s songs retained an enthusiastic following in the 21st century – his nuclear holocaust ditty We Will All Go Together When We Go seemed more relevant than ever – and when representatives of the rapper 2 Chainz sought permission to sample his song The Old Dope Peddler in 2012, he replied: “As sole copyright owner of The Old Dope Peddler, I grant you mother------s permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?”

In 2022, uniquely for a recording artist, he announced on his website that he was relinquishing all copyright claims on his work, putting all his songs into the public domain.

Tom Lehrer never married and always brushed away questions about his private life, describing himself as “fundamentally a loner”, but with a few good friends.

Tom Lehrer, born April 9 1928, died July 26 2025

So he kept up with the latest in popular culture, pretty much to the end.

My grandparents met him when they were both medical students on an exchange student program in St. Louis in the late '50s or early '60s, bought his first album (the self-published one) at that concert, took it back to England, and delighted in shocking their friends and relatives with it for years before Lehrer became well known on the other side of the Atlantic.

The year before covid, we went on a nightmare Carnival cruise to Ensenada (a mass family affair; not our choice of vacation). The police wouldn't let anyone off the boat there for reasons we were never told (but gang activity was suspected), and then my wife became violently seasick and was confined to bed for the entire day during the sailing back to LA, leaving me to try to keep our then three-year old entertained. That experience reminded me of Lehrer's In Old Mexico, which my wife did not see the funny side of at the time I first played it to her...

[Terry Monohan]

Now 'Loni Anderson' has left us. I liked her in the 1980's movie 'Night At The Roxbury' She played the mom in this fun disco comedy . Partly filmed inside the Mayan Theatre in downtown LA now about to close or turn into another type of music event space. The Dead Hollywood 3 cycle starts again.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Now 'Loni Anderson' has left us. I liked her in the 1980's movie 'Night At The Roxbury' She played the mom in this fun disco comedy . Partly filmed inside the Mayan Theatre in downtown LA now about to close or turn into another type of music event space. The Dead Hollywood 3 cycle starts again.

Jeeez I misread that as Laurie Anderson... I was about to set myself upon a week of binge listening.

[Leo Enticknap]

Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner, Wife Found Stabbed to Death in LA Home

The family of acclaimed film director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, has announced in a statement that the couple has been found stabbed to death Sunday afternoon inside the Brentwood home in Los Angeles.

"It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner," a family spokesman told CNN. "We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time."

Los Angeles police confirmed two people were found stabbed to death, launching a high-profile homicide investigation that has reverberated across Hollywood.

Brentwood is the famed location of the June 12, 1994 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman of which the late O.J. Simpson was charged but acquitted for.

Exclusive sources told People Magazine that Reiner's son Nick Reiner, 32, might be involved in the investigation, but law enforcement at Sunday night's news conference rejected any proclamation on a suspect, saying "that did not come from the LAPD."

Reiner has two sons, Jake and Nick. In past interviews, Nick Reiner had spoken candidly about struggles with drug addiction and periods of homelessness, recounting in a 2016 interview with People magazine that he lived on the streets in several states and described the experience as deeply difficult, the Post reported.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called Reiner's death a devastating loss for the city.

"Rob Reiner's contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice," Bass said in a statement.

"An acclaimed actor, director, producer, writer, and engaged political activist, he always used his gifts in service of others."

The Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical aid request shortly after 3:30 p.m. and found a 78-year-old man and 68-year-old woman dead inside. Those are the ages of Reiner and his wife.

Paramedics were dispatched to the home around 3:30 p.m., followed shortly by LAPD officers responding to what was described as an "ambulance death investigation." Detectives from the department's Robbery-Homicide Division were called in, and a knife is believed to have been used in the attack, sources said.

Police blocked off the street outside the upscale Brentwood property as detectives moved in and out of the home. The residence, decorated for the holidays, sits in a gated neighborhood known for its privacy.

Detectives with the Robbery Homicide Division were investigating an "apparent homicide" at Reiner's home, said Capt. Mike Bland with the Los Angeles Police Department.

Reiner is long one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, and his work includes some of the most memorable movies of the 1980s and '90s, including "This is Spinal Tap," "A Few Good Men," "When Harry Met Sally" and "The Princess Bride."

His role as Meathead in the 1970s TV classic "All in the Family" alongside Carol O'Connor's Archie Bunker catapulted him to fame.

Reiner turned 78 in March.

"Jen and I are heartbroken by the tragic loss of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner," California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a late-night X post.

"Rob was the big-hearted genius behind so many of the classic stories we love, with projects as wide-ranging as The Princess Bride to A Few Good Men.

"His boundless empathy made his stories timeless, teaching generations how to see goodness and righteousness in others — and encouraging us to dream bigger. That empathy extended well beyond his films.

"Rob was a passionate advocate for children and for civil rights — from taking on Big Tobacco, fighting for marriage equality, to serving as a powerful voice in early education.

"He made California a better place through his good works. Rob will be remembered for his remarkable filmography and for his extraordinary contribution to humanity."

The son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner has been married to photographer Michele Singer Reiner since 1989. The two met while he was directing "When Harry Met Sally" and have three children together.

Reiner was previously married to actor-director Penny Marshall from 1971 to 1981. He adopted her daughter, Tracy Reiner. Carl Reiner died in 2020 at age 98 and Marshall died in 2018.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Reading between the lines, "That did not come from the LAPD" is very different from "That is bullshit." If the cops were confident that the son had nothing to do with it, I suspect that they'd have made a statement along the lines of the latter. But maybe I'm reading too much.

Whatever, I bet that all the Hollywood multi-millionaires on both sides of the 405 are silently hoping that the root cause was an internal family dispute of some sort. If it was a home invasion by person or persons unconnected to the Reiner family, the security industry in that part of town is in for a bonanza.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Rob Reiner



Reading between the lines, "That did not come from the LAPD" is very different from "That is bullshit." If the cops were confident that the son had nothing to do with it, I suspect that they'd have made a statement along the lines of the latter. But maybe I'm reading too much.

Whatever, I bet that all the Hollywood multi-millionaires on both sides of the 405 are silently hoping that the root cause was an internal family dispute of some sort. If it was a home invasion by person or persons unconnected to the Reiner family, the security industry in that part of town is in for a bonanza.

Meanwhile it has been widely reported that his son has been arrested, being the suspect of a double murder. This is going to be a sad story, but I guess the security industry in that part of town has steered clear of said bonanza for now...

[Randy Stankey]

If the police are investigating somebody suspected of a crime, they can NOT reveal who they are investigating, why or what they may or may not have found. This is for several reasons but, chiefly, they can't incriminate somebody in the public media without evidence.

They can say that they are investigating a "person of interest." They can say that they have arrested somebody on the basis of some evidence. They can NOT say anything like, "We think Rob Reiner's son is the one who stabbed his father to death." That is wrong on so many levels it's not even funny!

The words, "That did not come from the LAPD," were carefully chosen for that reason.

This is Constitutional stuff, people!

[Leo Enticknap]

But neither was that initial statement along the lines of "We are certain that it wasn't the son." It was completely neutral. I read that as meaning that they suspected the son, but had nothing like the evidence needed to go public with that suspicion.

Perhaps the LAPD were being especially careful after the arrest for the Providence shootings only a day or two earlier, that turned out to be the wrong guy; not to mention the same thing happening in the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination (they arrested, in a blaze of social media publicity, a known political troublemaker who attended the event and had made inflammatory statements that certainly provided all the probable cause needed to take him in for questioning, but within a few hours was established to have had nothing to do with the murder).

It's a tragedy, for sure. But it must be a relief to other residents of that area that they are not in the same boat as those in Providence, where it would appear that there is still a mass murderer on the loose.

[Marcel Birgelen]

AFAIK, the LAPD didn't initially comment on the name, but I guess the case was sufficiently high-profile, there were multiple credible witnesses of what happened. He was apparently arrested in public, on Sunday around 9:15pm near the USC campus. Apparently, there also was a public fallout between Rob Reiner and his son on a Christmas party hosted by Conan O'Brian on the 14th of December.

Meanwhile, the LA District Attorney's Office has published a press release, which clearly states that it is son who has been indicted with two counts of first-degree murder of his parents. So... that's at least three lives destroyed...