In Remembrance Of Those Who Died
In Order That WE Can Be Free

"You Picked a Fine Time to Lead Us, Barack"
by Jonathan McWhite

'Diff'rent Strokes' Actor Gary Coleman Dies At 42

Former child star Gary Coleman, who rose to fame as the wisecracking youngster Arnold Jackson on the TV sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes" but grew up to grapple with a troubled adulthood, has died. He was 42.

"We are very sad to have to report Mr. Gary Coleman has passed away," his spokesman, John Alcantar, said in a statement Friday afternoon. "He was removed from life support; soon thereafter, he passed quickly and peacefully. By Gary's bedside were his wife and other close family members."

Coleman died after being stricken with a brain hemorrhage following an accident at his home in Santaquin, Utah, on Wednesday, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was rushed by ambulance to a Provo hospital, Coleman's spokesman had said earlier Friday.

He was then taken to another hospital -- Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo -- later Wednesday night.

In the late '70s and early '80s, Coleman was one of television's brightest stars, the personality around which NBC's "Strokes" -- the story of two inner-city children who are taken in by a wealthy businessman, his daughter and their housekeeper -- was built.

"There was a touch of magic and a different stroke in Gary Coleman. He was the inspiration behind his show's title," said producer Norman Lear, whose company oversaw the show.

Coleman's natural charm and way with a line -- the frequently uttered "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?", directed at his older brother (played by Todd Bridges), became a catchphrase -- helped make the show a breakout hit, a mainstay of the NBC schedule from 1978 to 1985 (and on ABC for a year afterward).

But in later years Coleman's name became a punch line. He was denigrated because of his short stature -- he never grew taller than 4 feet 8 inches because of nephritis, a kidney condition. He sued his parents over mismanagement of his finances; though he won a $1.3 million settlement in 1993, he had to file for bankruptcy six years later. He was occasionally in the news for scuffles.

Indeed, the 2003 Broadway musical "Avenue Q" featured a character named Gary Coleman who was identified as the former star of "Diff'rent Strokes," and was now the superintendent of an apartment building. (Coleman himself had once been a security guard after "Diff'rent Strokes" went off the air.) The character joined the cast in singing a song called "It Sucks to Be Me."

Coleman was born on February 8, 1968, and raised in Zion, Illinois, near Chicago. He was adopted as an infant by Willie Coleman, a representative for a pharmaceutical company, and Sue Coleman, a nurse. By age 5, Coleman was modeling for retailer Montgomery Ward, a job that was followed by appearances in commercials for McDonald's and Hallmark, according to a 1979 profile in People magazine.

After Lear cast him in an unsuccessful pilot for a new version of "The Little Rascals" -- Coleman played Stymie -- he got the role of Arnold in "Diff'rent Strokes."

"Pudgy cheeks, twinking eyes, and flawless timing made him seem like an old pro packed into the body of a small child," wrote Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh in "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present."

At the time, NBC was mired in last place among the three major broadcast networks and, excluding movies, had just two series in the Nielsen Top 20. "Strokes" was an immediate hit, finishing in the Top 30 its first three years, and made Coleman into a household name.

Veterans marveled at his comic timing. He appeared several times on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show," performed on several specials and had a hit TV movie with "The Kid From Left Field." Until NBC started its mid-'80s rise with "The A-Team" and "The Cosby Show," he was the primary prime-time face of the network.

"Gary is exceptional, and not only by the standards set for children. He's bright, sweet and affectionate. He seems incapable of a wrong reading, and I've never seen that in any actor," co-star Conrad Bain, who played "Strokes' " millionaire industrialist Philip Drummond, told People in 1979.

"His talent," his mother added, "may be God's way of compensating him for what he's been through, and the fact that he'll never have the physical size of other boys." Coleman reportedly had a kidney transplant at 5, and would have another when he was 16.

Coleman was ready for new challenges when "Diff'rent Strokes" was canceled in 1986.

"I liked "Diff'rent Strokes" up until about the last three or four years. I was bored," he told CNN's Larry King in 1999. "I was disinterested, and I was jealous because I was missing my childhood and I was missing normalcy. I knew what normalcy was, and I wasn't having it."

But after the show went off the air, the actor -- by then 18 -- struggled to find a place in show business. He had occasional guest spots on game shows and other sitcoms but rarely regular work. (His youthful co-stars fared no better -- Bridges struggled with drug addiction before turning his life around, and Dana Plato, who played Kimberly Drummond, engaged in porn and crime. She died in 1999.)

Coleman also found himself with little money, after making more than $70,000 an episode at "Diff'rent Strokes' " peak. Upon turning 18, he looked into his finances and discovered that his fortune -- which should have been put in a trust fund and totaled in the millions -- was mostly nonexistent. A lawsuit against his "adopted parents," as he started calling them, was resolved in Coleman's favor, but he lost the money in attorneys' fees and bad investments, he told People in 1999. At one point in the '90s he was a security guard on a movie set.

He wanted to work, he told King.

"I like to work. To answer the thing about the security guard, it's actually two parts. I like to work, and I'm not going to allow this industry or any industry to prevent me from earning a living," he said.

Still, by the time People interviewed him that same year -- after he declared bankruptcy -- he was down to $100 cash, a few thousand in merchandise, an $800-a-month apartment and a leased pickup. He had also been sued by an autograph seeker whom he'd struck, claiming he'd felt threatened.

In the past 10 years, the headlines were generally bad news -- "Gary Coleman cited for disorderly conduct" (2007), "Gary Coleman in alleged bowling alley scuffle" (2008), "Gary Coleman charged with reckless driving" (2008), "Gary Coleman hospitalized for another seizure" (2010).

Even the bright spots had dark shadows: He married 22-year-old Shannon Price in 2007, but the marriage hit the rocks before they had celebrated their first anniversary. At the time of his death, the couple had filed for divorce.

But he stayed active. He took guest spots, promotional appearances and -- in 2003 -- ran for governor of California.

Part of his drive, he said, came from his height.

"I suffer a little bit from Napoleonism, if you will," he told CNN in 2003. "I don't like being short. I wish I was tall because I'd be accepted in other, more tall circles or adult circles, if you will."

At one time, when Coleman was on top of the world, he'd hoped to be a great actor like his hero, Sidney Poitier, according to People. He never let go of his dream, even after all his troubles, the magazine reported.

"He's an intelligent, successful black man," Coleman told People in 1999. Then he laughed, aware he'd always have other challenges. "But he's taller, so success comes rather more easily to him." -CNN Entertainment

Worlds Smallest Plane

“We The People” by Ray Stevens

Dennis Hopper, Creator Of Hit 'Easy Rider,' Dies

Dennis Hopper, the high-flying Hollywood wild man whose memorable and erratic career included an early turn in "Rebel Without a Cause," an improbable smash with "Easy Rider" and a classic character role in "Blue Velvet," has died. He was 74.

Hopper died Saturday at his home in the Los Angeles beach community of Venice, surrounded by family and friends, family friend Alex Hitz said. Hopper's manager announced in October 2009 that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The success of "Easy Rider," and the spectacular failure of his next film, "The Last Movie," fit the pattern for the talented but sometimes uncontrollable actor-director, who also had parts in such favorites as "Apocalypse Now" and "Hoosiers." He was a two-time Academy Award nominee, and in March 2010, was honored with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame .

After a promising start that included roles in two James Dean films, Hopper's acting career had languished as he developed a reputation for throwing tantrums and abusing alcohol and drugs. On the set of "True Grit," Hopper so angered John Wayne that the star reportedly chased Hopper with a loaded gun.

He married five times and led a dramatic life right to the end. In January 2010, Hopper filed to end his 14-year marriage to Victoria Hopper, who stated in court filings that the actor was seeking to cut her out of her inheritance, a claim Hopper denied.

"Much of Hollywood," wrote critic-historian David Thomson, "found Hopper a pain in the neck."

All was forgiven, at least for a moment, when he collaborated with another struggling actor, Peter Fonda, on a script about two pot-smoking, drug-dealing hippies on a motorcycle trip through the Southwest and South to take in the New Orleans Mardi Gras.

On the way, Hopper and Fonda befriend a drunken young lawyer ( Jack Nicholson , whom Hopper had resisted casting, in a breakout role), but arouse the enmity of Southern rednecks and are murdered before they can return home.

"'Easy Rider' was never a motorcycle movie to me," Hopper said in 2009. "A lot of it was about politically what was going on in the country."

Fonda produced "Easy Rider" and Hopper directed it for a meager $380,000. It went on to gross $40 million worldwide, a substantial sum for its time. The film caught on despite tension between Hopper and Fonda and between Hopper and the original choice for Nicholson's part, Rip Torn , who quit after a bitter argument with the director.

The film was a hit at Cannes, netted a best-screenplay Oscar nomination for Hopper, Fonda and Terry Southern, and has since been listed on the American Film Institute's ranking of the top 100 American films. The establishment gave official blessing in 1998 when "Easy Rider" was included in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Its success prompted studio heads to schedule a new kind of movie: low cost, with inventive photography and themes about a young, restive baby boom generation. With Hopper hailed as a brilliant filmmaker, Universal Pictures lavished $850,000 on his next project, "The Last Movie."

The title was prescient. Hopper took a large cast and crew to a village in Peru to film the tale of a Peruvian tribe corrupted by a movie company. Trouble on the set developed almost immediately, as Peruvian authorities pestered the company, drug-induced orgies were reported and Hopper seemed out of control.

When he finally completed filming, he retired to his home in Taos, N.M., to piece together the film, a process that took almost a year, in part because he was using psychedelic drugs for editing inspiration.

When it was released, "The Last Movie" was such a crashing failure that it made Hopper unwanted in Hollywood for a decade. At the same time, his drug and alcohol use was increasing to the point where he was said to be consuming as much as a gallon of rum a day.

Shunned by the Hollywood studios, he found work in European films that were rarely seen in the United States. But, again, he made a remarkable comeback, starting with a memorable performance as a drugged-out journalist in Francis Ford Coppola 's 1979 Vietnam War epic, "Apocalypse Now," a spectacularly long and troubled film to shoot. Hopper was drugged-out off camera, too, and his rambling chatter was worked into the final cut.

He went on to appear in several films in the early 1980s, including the well regarded "Rumblefish" and "The Osterman Weekend," as well as the campy "My Science Project" and " The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2."

But alcohol and drugs continued to interfere with his work. Treatment at a detox clinic helped him stop drinking but he still used cocaine, and at one point he became so hallucinatory that he was committed to the psychiatric ward of a Los Angeles hospital.

Upon his release, Hopper joined Alcoholics Anonymous , quit drugs and launched yet another comeback. It began in 1986 when he played an alcoholic ex-basketball star in "Hoosiers," which brought him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.

His role as a wild druggie in "Blue Velvet," also in 1986, won him more acclaim, and years later the character wound up No. 36 on the AFI's list of top 50 movie villains.

He returned to directing, with " Colors ," "The Hot Spot" and "Chasers."

From that point on, Hopper maintained a frantic work pace, appearing in many forgettable movies and a few memorable ones, including the 1994 hit " Speed ," in which he played the maniacal plotter of a freeway disaster. In the 2000s, he was featured in the television series " Crash " and such films as " Elegy " and " Hell Ride ."

"Work is fun to me," he told a reporter in 1991. "All those years of being an actor and a director and not being able to get a job — two weeks is too long to not know what my next job will be."

For years he lived in Los Angeles' bohemian beach community of Venice, in a house designed by acclaimed architect Frank Gehry.

In later years he picked up some income by becoming a pitchman for Ameriprise Financial, aiming ads at baby boomers looking ahead to retirement. His politics, like much of his life, were unpredictable. The old rebel contributed money to the Republican Party in recent years, but also voted for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008.

Dennis Lee Hopper was born in 1936, in Dodge City, Kan., and spent much of his youth on the nearby farm of his grandparents. He saw his first movie at 5 and became enthralled.

After moving to San Diego with his family, he played Shakespeare at the Old Globe Theater.

Scouted by the studios, Hopper was under contract to Columbia until he insulted the boss, Harry Cohn. From there he went to Warner Bros., where he made "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant" while in his late teens.
Later, he moved to New York to study at the Actors Studio, where Dean had learned his craft.

Hopper's first wife was Brooke Hayward, the daughter of actress Margaret Sullavan and agent Leland Hayward, and author of the best-selling memoir "Haywire." They had a daughter, Marin, before Hopper's drug-induced violence led to divorce after eight years.

His second marriage, to singer-actress Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, lasted only eight days.

A union with actress Daria Halprin also ended in divorce after they had a daughter, Ruthana. Hopper and his fourth wife, dancer Katherine LaNasa , had a son, Henry, before divorcing.

He married his fifth wife, Victoria Duffy, who was 32 years his junior, in 1996, and they had a daughter, Galen Grier. –Yahoo Movies

Jungle Alcohol

The video below is a French documentary about the Marula tree which is native to Africa.

The fruit of the Marula tree is used in the production Amarula liqueur. Once a year, the tree produces a very juicy fruit, which contains a large percentage of alcohol when ripe. Because there is shortage of water at the time of year when the Marula tree is laden with fruit, as soon as the fruits are ripe, animals gather around Marula trees and eat the Marula fruit to quench thirst. You can watch for yourself what happens. If you don't speak French, you won't understand the narrative but the video "speaks for itself", and is a hoot!

You can easily tell who overindulged by watching the video below.

Jungle Alcohol

Arab Car Parking-2

Dog Treat

Morse Code vs. Texting

One Work Riddle

Cornstarch & Water

Demolition Call

German Car Parking-1

Girl In Bar

Happy Endings Massage

Salsa

A Mother Like No Other

Happy Mother's Day

Say Fire Truck (Rated R) The ORIGINAL!