Lee Hazelwood (1929-2007)

Lee Hazelwood was everything a wilfully unsuccessful rock'n'roll star should be: cool, louche, edgy, odd, unique. Everything he did was different, creating a style and an image that shouldn't have worked but always did. His deep baritone intoning camp voiceovers or interplaying with sexy leading ladies gave an underplayed aura and sardonic twist to his music. All of his records are slightly ridiculous, overdone melodramas telling the stories of losers and wasters and failed romances. But in camping up the absurd quality of life, his music becomes deeply moving. It's sentimental and sympathetic at the same time, and truly wonderful.
Trouble was Lee Hazelwood's first record, a weird story about Trouble and its hapless inhabitants. Each small song is introduced by Lee's voiced musings on life, its characters, and its setbacks. It set the tone for the rest of his career: bizarre, individual, sentimental, moving, and utterly cool.
This record may not be to everyone's tastes, but I love it. A series of country covers, Lee and Ann Margret, feisty sexy Swede, duet, one of many great partnerships that Lee had in his career. Like many of his records, the songs tell the stories of failed relationships and the desperate ties that bring people together.
This is Lee Hazelwood's best record. He moved to Sweden in the 60s; while there he made a documentary, which I've never seen but must be quite odd, for which this is the soundtrack. It's an odd collection of love songs and angry anti-Vietnam protest songs, climaxing in a dazzingly camp but beautiful version of a Swedish folk song, "Vem Kan Segla," "Who Can Sail Without the Wind?"

Yvonne de Carlo

When I was younger, I watched the Munsters and had a crush on Lily Munster. I thought it strange that I should fancy an ageing vampire, but looking back at pictures of the early Lily Munster, aka Yvonne de Carlo, aka Maria Montez, real name Peggy Middleton, it all made sense. She played the alluring vampish femme fatale, a gorgeous gothic beauty. She was in lots of bad movies which I've never seen before she shot to fame in the Munsters. Her life seems to have been a glorious exercise in gothic camp. For a proper obituary, go to the Guardian, which describes her transition from "vamp to vampire."

Arthur Lee (1945-2006)

In the summer of 2002, I was walking around Madrid where I then lived when I saw a poster pasted on a wall. In bright colours it announced that Arthur Lee + Love were playing. I didn't think it could be possible; Arthur Lee was still in prison and Love hadn't played together for thirty years. It was probably some dodgy tribute band. But it turned out that the Californian authorities had kindly released Lee from prison and that he was touring with a young LA band. I thought I'd go along, more to see one of my idols in the flesh than in the expectation of a decent gig. As the time neared for the concert, my excitement mounted - I was actually going to be in the same room as Arthur Lee. And probably few others would turn up, so I'd be close to him. I just hoped it wouldn't be too sad to see the great Arthur Lee broken by drugs, madness, and prison.
As it was, there were five or six hundred cool young Madridilenos there, as eager as I was to see Arthur Lee. And on he walked, in a pale green suit and trilby, a tall, impossibly cool black man dominating the stage. Any doubts about the gig soon disappeared. The band kicked into the thumping bass and drums of My Little Red Book, the great garage song of the 60s. Arthur Lee was back and he meant business. They went through the whole Love back catalogue, the crowd and Lee sharing the excitement and joy of a man who had rediscovered his sense of purpose. It was the greatest gig I've ever been to; some of the best pop music ever created played with urgency, conviction, and renewal.

Nothing has ever compared to Arthur Lee. As the lead singer and main songwriter of Love, he was responsible for music that, with historical hindsight, define the 1960s. Swirling psychedelia, dark edgy lyrics, sentimental idealism mixed with a druggy cynicism, their music captures the feeling of hope and fear that was evident, say, at the Stones' appearance at Altamont. Forever Changes is their defining moment, musically transcedent but lyrically fragmented and eerie, it sounds like nothing before it. But listen to any indie band gleefully playing a trumpet over glorious strings, and they'll have got it from Love. Love, though, weren't just a one album band; from My Little Red Book to Singing Cowboy, they created exciting and electryifying music.
After Forever Changes, Arthur Lee split Love up, and never recovered the musical inspiration behind their best moments. In the 1990s, he was sent to jail for 12 years under the three strikes and you're out rule, for waving around a shotgun he didn't have a licence for. But it seemed to focus his mind, and released after ive years he performed live again, including playing the whole of Forever Changes in sequence. It gave us all a chance to see him and revel in his unparallelled greatness.

Fred Trueman (1931-2006)

Now that Fred Trueman is dead, Geoff Boycott can reign alone as the Greatest Living Yorkshireman. For Fred Trueman was the only Yorkshireman more forthright, blunt, and no nonsense than Boycott. They both share typical Yorkshire characteristics: stubborn, arrogant, seeing everything in black and white. But Trueman's temperament seemed to match the way he played cricket. He was fast and fiery, inspiring fear in the opposition batsman. Everything looks slower in black and white, but Trueman was fast and, as he never tired of repeating, as fast as anyone since.
Before a day's play, he would walk into the opponent's dressing room and tell each batsman how he was going to get them out. And then do it. It was this attitude which instilled fear in the batsman as much as the frightening accuracy and speed of his bowling. The batsmen knew exactly what was going to happen to them, and were afraid.
His no nonsense attitude never did him any favours. After an explosive start to his career, he spent many years on the sidelines for saying just what he thought. A Yorkshireman doesn't suffer fools gladly; he's from God's County and, like a priest, is going to tell anyone what's right (him) and what's wrong (you). And that, as much as his wonderful cricket, is what made Fred Trueman great. They don't make cricketers like him - arrogant, individual, fearsome - any more, as Trueman himself would agree.

Gene Pitney (1941-2006)

The shrill, passionate voice spoke of heartbreak and sadness, the well-dressed troubador sharing his pain for our entertainment. It seemed to come out from not just his soul, but from somewhere piercingly ethereal.
He had the singing style of the 50s mixed with a cool 60s sensibility, commanding the stage like a showman combined with a Motown like sound. Despite being very much of his time, his popularity never waned. He had a No.1 hit in the 80s with Marc Almond, the gay tattooed singer with a penchant for big 60s ballads. And when he died, he was in the middle of another sellout British tour.
But, although he didn't write many of his own hits, he was also a songwriter for well-known singers such as Roy Orbison and Ricky Nelson, for whom he wrote "Hello Mary Lou". These songwriting hits came before his own success; his was a voice which couldn't be unleashed all at once.
Gene Pitney could have carried on filling the stadiums, and belting out the hits, the small man singing from the depths of his heart.

George Best (1946-2005)

Best spent his adult life drinking his way to an early death. For thirty years, he was viewed by the public as an alcoholic womanizer, stumbling from embarrassment to shame, drunk, messy and swearing on Wogan, being asked by room service where it all went wrong as he lay hungover next to a Miss World. He at once cringed in shame at, yet revelled in, his alcoholism, just as the public did too.

But mainly he was remembered for his footballing career, in which he won league and European Cup medals, becoming a glamorous symbol of the affection in which Manchester United were then held after the Munich Air Disaster. But he went beyond one football club: he was the ultimate new footballer - affluent, famous, iconic, adored. And he also went beyond football itself: he was as much a symbol of Britain's swinging Sixties as the Beatles or Twiggy. The Sixties were the decade in which the working class became more famous, more notorious, more talked about than the upper classes - and George Best, the shy boy from Belfast, was one of the most famous, notorious, talked about men in the world.
But it all came down to the football: he was the brightest, the quickest, the silkiest of footballers, running around bewildered defenders with grace, speed and balance. He barely rocked when less couth defenders tried to cut him in half, always in control of his body and the ball. His football was as sexy as he was.

Ronnie Barker (1929-2005)

Ronnie Barker was legendary in British television for many reasons, but foremost among his achievements was Porridge, the 1970s comedy. Alongside Richard Beckinsale, Porridge presented a bleak, warm, humorous, moving portrait of prison life. Barker portrayed a man leading an aimless life, who only felt secure inside prison walls, where his position was strong, where he could rebel against the system, where he could win small yet significant victories.

Barker became known in the 1960s in The Frost Report, where he appeared alongside David Frost, members of the Monty Python team and Ronnie Corbett. He and Corbett made a natural duo, with their contrasting sizes and mannerisms. From the early 70s, The Two Ronnies ran and ran. Although often sexist and now dated, the programme's best sketches relied on intricate puns, often written by Barker under various pseudonyms.
Porridge only ran for a few episodes. Written by Clement and la Frenais (The Likely Lads and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet), and with a fine all-round cast, it was Barker's finest hour. It has been said that Barker was a finer actor than comedian, and the character of Norman Stanley Fletcher showcased his abilities as a character actor. The cynical yet warm-hearted con, the selfish but keenly observant insider, playing off the naive Godber (Beckinsale), Barker presented one of the best-loved characters in British television comedy.
Barker's other famous role was in Open All Hours, as equally successful but not as great an achievement as Porridge, in which Barker played the stuttering, bigoted, repressed shopkeeper. He retired in 1988, mainly for health reasons after the failure of Clarence, his last sitcom, ensuring his reputation did not fade. His brief return to television were in straight roles, once again highlighting his ability as a character actor.

Richard Whiteley (1943-2005)

Ferret Man Dies Daytime television is a strange affair; one person's nonentity is another's cult hero. Richard Whiteley however, who appeared on British TV more than any other person, managed to stutter his way into the consciousness of those other than students, the unemployed and elderly. The host of Countdown, which for 23 years attracted four million viewers daily, despite - or because of - his inept presentation skills, had become something of a national icon, a personification of a certain kind of Britishness - a leisurely, bumbling, tea-drinking inquistiveness. Countdown never tried to be cool or contemporary, it was a game about letters and numbers, populated by people who love puns, anagrams and pointless number games.
Whiteley was also known as a presenter on Yorkshire television, renowned, as on Countdown, for his slip-ups and mistakes rather than his innate ability in front of a camera. His most famous moment was being bitten by a ferret; he carved a career out of forgetting people's names, not being able to read an autocue, ensuring any programme he presented had no fluency to it. And that was what made Countdown great; instead of a slick production, it was homely, family and friends playing games to pass a rainy afternoon away.
Richard "Twice Nightly" Whiteley will be missed because he was someone we could easily identify with, however much he sometimes frustrated us. Like cricket, Countdown was an institution which didn't desperately try to keep up with the times, stumbling along at its own pace. Will Countdown go on? Will, can, Richard Whiteley be replaced? What will students and the elderly do with their weekday afternoons? Life without Richard goes on, but only just.

Arthur Miller (1915-2005)

Arthur Miller was the first of America's great modern playwrights. His thoughtfully constructed plays dwelt on the themes that bothered post-World War Two America: guilt, paranoia, the failure of the American dream, insecurity, political ideology. He was the conscience of that America, pointing a finger at America's ills without resorting to retribution or point-scoring.
Besides his undoubted talent as a playwright, he is also remembered for his marriage to the American icon, Marilyn Monroe. This coming together of two supposed extremes of American society - the glitzy, dumb, Hollywood blonde and the erudite, older New Yorker - revealed Marilyn Monroe's ambition to be taken seriously, but, with her colossal insecurity, was doomed. Miller wrote her last great role in The Misfits as her marriage and life came to an end.
Throughout his life, despite the breakdown of his marriage which he returned to in his work again and again, Miller retained a dignified integrity. This was most apparent in his testimony before McCarthy where, unlike some of his theatrical colleagues, Miller maintained his silence, refusing to name names. Just as Kazan's film On the Waterfront was a worthy, if indefensible, justification for betraying former friends, Miller confronted the McCarthy trials in The Crucible, reaffirming the necessity of the individual to stand by his and his friends' beliefs.
After Monroe's death, Miller faded from the spotlight, as his plays no longer addressed contemporary America so immediately (which may account for his failure to win the Nobel Prize). However, his plays still remain as popular and as telling.

John Peel (1939-2004)

Teenage dreams. So hard to beat.
When Radio One began in 1967, it was the establishment's final acceptance of teenage, popular culture. Being part of the establishment resulted in a skewed, Americanized station, where the new djs all spoke in cod American accents, as if to accentuate their hipness. These djs included Tony Blackburn and Dave Lee Travis, who, remarkably, are even more ridiculous now than they were then. However, the BBC also took on John Peel, albeit reluctantly. For thirty-seven years he championed the new, the strange and the wonderful. And whilst just before Peel's death, Tony Blackburn was rebelling against his new employers by playing two Cliff Richard records back to back, John Peel was still playing the unplayable (and by that I don't mean Cliff).

For most of his life, Peel seemed to brush fame and history rather than embrace them. After attending public school (his accent wasn't entirely genuine either), he profited from Beatlemania, getting a job as a radio dj in the US. Whilst working in Dallas, he happened to be at the press conference when Jack Ruby shot dead Lee Harvey Oswald. This was how he seemed to like it: to be present at the making of history, but not to have too great a prominent part.


Just about anybody who was anybody, and quite a few who were nobody, played on Peel's shows, from Jimi Hendrix to Belle & Sebastan, Led Zeppelin to Orbital. He rode and supported all the new musical waves that came along, from prog to punk to indie to dance. He promoted bands before they became famous and then let them get on with it once they achieved some success. He was no hanger-on, just wanting to be the medium by which we the listeners heard the bands. By not trying to be cool he became cool.

The whole time spent at Radio One was a battle for Peel. He was too original, playing what he wanted, ever to be accepted fully. But while others came and went, he remained, and by the end, at sixty-five, was the station's only dj playing good new music. In a way, he was always an anomaly. In an industry where everyone toes the line of the day, he never did.

Brian Clough (1935-2004)

On Brian Clough's death, a common reaction was that he couldn't have succeeded in today's footballing climate, dominated by money and the most powerful clubs. This isn't a particularly warm tribute to the great manager, as though to say he was a relic of his time, a mere one-off lucky enough to have been involved in football at the right time. In the next breath, some go on to say that Jose Mourinho, manager of Chelsea, backed by a billionaire Russian gangster, is the next Cloughie.... Like all great managers (and players), Clough would have succeeded in any era, adapting to the climate as fit. That Clough's achievements dwarf Arsene Wenger's ("Greatest Manager in the World") is testament to this.

The completely invalid point these commentators are trying to make is that there is no place for the individual in this money-dominated game. Brian Clough's individualism though is certainly what set him apart from most. He thrived on being deeply unfashionable, managing two East Midlands clubs, on being contrary and on being unique. He could be no other, he would be no other.

Clough spent most of his playing career at Middlesbrough, where as a striker he notched up a phenomenal strike rate (204 goals in 222 games) before his career was prematurely curtailed by a knee injury. He quickly went into management. At Derby County, he got them promoted into the First Division in 1968 and promptly made his ambition clear: to become English champions. This ludicrous claim came good in 1972, Derby's first ever League title. The next season they reached the semi-finals of the European Cup. Later in the decade, he repeated and bettered this feat, winning the First Division with Nottingham Forest and then the European Cup two years running. These achievements are remarkable, though there is no point romanticizing them. Clough wasn't afraid to spend money when necessary (Trevor Francis was English football's first million pound player and Peter Shilton the game's most expensive goalkeeper at the time) and had plenty of good players at his disposal.

Clough's intransigence played a large part in his formidable success. He did it his way and no other. But it got him into trouble too. He abruptly resigned from Derby, due to the directors trying to tell him what to do. He lasted forty-four days at Leeds, where his domineering temperament clashed with the star players' egos. And of course the FA steered well clear of ever giving him the England job. (Proven winners need not apply. Witness: Graham Taylor, Terry Venables, Glenn Hoddle, Kevin Keegan.) Towards the end of his career there was the famous incident when he gave two invading fans a clip round the ear and a v sign. They all later (literally) kissed and made up.

Would he have made a great England manager? Perhaps not - his experience at Leeds suggests otherwise. Clough was best at getting the most out of average players, rather than already great players. His style was motivational and aggressive, not a style necessary suited to star footballers (imagine someone telling David Beckham what to do), nor to timid players (the clash of Clough's old school personality and Justin Fashanu's unsure homosexuality a case in point).

Unfortunately, Brian Clough rather faded away. After the 1991 FA Cup Final, the only trophy to have eluded him, he sank into alcoholism and retired upon the sad note of Nottingham Forest's relegation amidst allegations of dodgy transfer dealings.

But to sum it all up in a nutshell, Brian Clough as manager won two European Cups, the same as Manchester United and Juventus, one more than Barcelona and two more than Arsenal. I think he would have somehow made it in today's game.

Brian Clough is the last known person in football to have punched and knocked down Roy Keane, and got away with it.

Marlon Brando (1924-2004)

Like the room service boy once asked George Best, "Where did it all go wrong?" That, at least, is the perceived perception of Marlon Brando's life, a waste of the most remarkable talent in cinema history, ending his life a bloated parody of himself. The contender who could have been the greatest of them all threw it all away for the money, the women and the food.

And yet Marlon Brando, alongside Elvis and Marilyn, is the image of the (American) twentieth century, defining a whole epoch with that beautiful, surly face. His performances in A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, The Godfather and Last Tango in Parisare amongst the most memorable in cinema. And even his strange, twisted performance in Apocaylpse Now is what most people finish the film talking about.

Marlon Brando was more than a contender. He was it. He redefined cinema acting, he redefined masculinity, he redefined our concept of beauty. Cary Grant was handsome. But Brando was sexual, physical and, most of all, beautiful. Had anyone seen a body, besides Tarzan's, like Brando's before? The animal, savage beauty thrilled both men and women alike; the homoerotic ambiguity was just one of the many ways Brando challenged fast-held concepts.

He hated what he was best at, acting, refusing to wallow in the pretentious bullshit most actors give their profession. It was just a job and, paradoxically, that is what makes his performances so convincing. He is not acting, he is being.

So, was he a failure, did he waste his talent? Of course, rather than just appearing in a handful of the greatest films ever made, he could have appeared in dozens. But that seems to be missing the point. Marlon Brando wasn't simply an actor, he was a symbol, inspiring and influencing everyone from Elvis onwards, and those few performances changed everything.

Recommended Viewing

A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams's hysterical melodrama was just the place for Brando to launch himself into first the theatrical world and then the movie world. The whole situation is a little too Gone With the Wind (and look who's playing Blanche DuBois...), but Brando's brooding presence gave the film its dark edge, complicating and adding to its homoerotic undertones.

On The Waterfront Dubious though the politics of this film may be (basically, it's ok to snitch on your communist mates), it's one of the masterpieces of Hollywood cinema. Brando plays the dumb kid boxer, full of a confused honesty, without patronizing the character. His performance is subtle, moving and highly convincing, full of slight, sure touches. The whole film is packed with performances of a lifetime - Eva Marie Saint as Brando's girlfriend, Karl Malden as the priest, Lee J. Cobb as the gangster, Rod Steiger as Brando's brother - but it's Brando who is the film's electric glue.


The Godfather Brando as Corleone is perhaps his coolest performance. Since On the Waterfront, he'd made bad film after pointless film and by the early 70s he seemed a spent force. And then came The Godfather. In the midst of a new generation influenced by his 50s roles, Brando really seemed like a mentor, a Godfather, the cyncial experience showing the naive young excitables the way. Brando won Best Actor, sent a Native American to collect the Oscar in protest, who then turned out to be just an actor. Brando's career in microcosm: genius, controversial, and exposing the fake.


Last Tango in Paris In Last Tango, Brando gave a performance the dud 60s hadn't led anyone to expect. Brando as the tortured American male in Paris enduring a mid-life crisis on his wife's death is unforgettable. The trademark mumbles become the uneasy expression of grief and guilt and perhaps for the first time we feel (rightly or wrongly) that Brando is genuinely exposing himself, allowing us to see his tortured interior. Having said all of which, Last Tango is indicative of Bertolucci's predilection to expose, both physically and emotionally, young innocent females to the cruelties and crudities of life. So we see Maria Schneider naked, raped, masturbating; we see Brando, well, crying and swearing a lot. This lewd sexism, together with its arty pretensions, robs the film of its genuine power, but, nevertheless, both Brando and Schneider are compelling.

Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003)

"She ran the whole gamut of emotions from A-Z". Dorothy Parker's quip would have been amusing had it not referred to one of the most versatile of Hollywood actresses. Four-time Oscar winner (though of course not for her best films), star of classic comedy and drama, involved with two of the most turbulent men in Hollywood history, there was much more to Hepburn than the stately, austere New England persona her stark beauty presented.
Katharine Hepburn came from a privileged background; her accent alienated audiences in the 1930s and sounds astonishingly arch and severe now. However, she overcame these prejudices to become one of America's best-loved actresses. Her tempestuous affair with Spencer Tracy, a married, violent alcoholic, earned her the sympathy of audiences. It would be stupid to cast her as a victim though. Hepburn gave as good as she got; the strong, willed, determined character we see in her films had its foundation in reality.
She was also involved with the maverick producer and aviator Howard Hughes. Hughes, a man renowned for his passion for planes and big-breasted women (whose careers he prided himself on making or ruining), found his match in the intelligent, small-breasted Hepburn. She was able to maintain her independence from him whilst in a working and emotional relationship, which no one else ever managed.
Katharine Hepburn was the last of the Hollywood royalty and her death seems to have marked the passing of any link with Hollywood's golden age. She starred in some of its greatest films, from Bringing Up Baby to her last Oscar-winning performance, the sentimental On Golden Pond and maintained a dignity above the usual in-fighting and scandal of Hollywood.


Bringing Up Baby falls just short of outright insanity. To describe the many twists and turns of this screwball classic would take a book in itself. But for the first time it brings together Hepburn, in her most memorable and beguiling performance, and Cary Grant. Grant, archaeologist on the cusp of success and marriage, finds himself tormented by heiress Hepburn and her pet leopard. Grant's whole identity is questioned, as he finds himself wearing a silk dressing gown defending his sexuality or desperately following a dog everywhere it goes. The on-set chemistry between Hepburn and Grant sparkles, we can feel the frisson of their love/hate relationship. 1930s Hollywood and its actors knew how to send themselves up; there was none of the forced sincerity of present-day Hollywood. Consequently, Bringing Up Baby, despite the almost surrealist nature of its comedy, just feels so natural.


The Philadelphia Story The posh New England persona has often been resented by other, less fortunate Americans and Hepburn found herself a victim of this prejudice, not least because she lived up to it. Hepburn therefore got together with Howard Hughes to make a film which would both mock and shed that image. Teaming up once again with Cary Grant, with the magic of James Stewart added into the mix, The Philadephia Story is classic romantic comedy. Funny, carefully structured and wonderfully performed, it shows Hepburn as warm, loving yet insecure, making it easier for America to accept her.