Tag: Tribute

Around this time of year, it’s hard not to think of those we lost – family and friends, most of all. Then, there are the people who in their own way almost become like family to all of us … people from all walks of life, in all kinds of fields. With Lee Cowan, we say a heartfelt “Hail and Farewell.”

You probably didn’t think about it as you celebrated the holidays this past week – but 56 Christmas Eves ago, we got a view of our island home like we’ve never seen before.

The man who took that picture – Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders – left us this year, and up until the end he never lost that humbling feeling of where we all sit in the vacuum of space.

“When I look up at, uh, that moon, even today, and see, when it’s just a tiny sliver, the hair kind of goes up on the back of my neck a little bit,” he told us in 2018. 

It’s easy to forget we’re all hurdling through life on the same rock – oceans and walls may separate us, but Quincy Jones reminded us we can’t afford to have our hearts divided.

From Frank Sinatra, the King of the Crooners, to Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, Jones made them all better. 

Asked about his “amazing life” back in 2016, Jones laughed, “Man, it’s unbelievable. I look back and I can’t believe it happened, you know? … And it keeps happening!”

Quincy Jones dreamed big – after all, aren’t dreams supposed to be as big as an Iowa cornfield? As James Earl Jones‘ character said in “Field of Dreams,” “They’ll arrive at your door, as innocent as children, longing for the past. People will come.”

Jones grew up stuttering, only to go on to develop one of the warmest, recognizable voices ever. He brought his characters to life, even when talking about death. “We are all connected in the great circle of life,” he said as Mufasa in “The Lion King.” 

A sentiment shared by another talent we lost this year, actor John Amos, who played a proud father in “Good Times.” 

Bernice Johnson Reagon expressed her pride in song. She was a founding member of Sweet Honey In the Rock, a voice for justice and truth in the world.

Thelma Mothershed-Wair took her stand for justice when she was only a teen. She and eight other students helped desegregate Little Rock High School in 1957 – marching through those doors as bravely as others marched into war.

People like Robert Dixon, one of the last of the Army’s Buffalo Soldiers, who left us at age 103; Jerome Gary Cooper, who was the first Black American to lead a Marine Corps infantry unit; and William Goines, who became the first Black Navy SEAL.

We salute John Kinsel Sr., one of the legendary Navajo Code Talkers; Bud Anderson, one of the few Triple Ace Pilots; and Lou Conter, Richard “Dick” Higgins and Bob Fernandez – just some of those we lost who were at Pearl Harbor on that day that still lives in infamy.

We celebrate our military heroes in films, too, of course. In one of his many roles, Louis Gossett Jr., put the drill in drill sergeant, as star of “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

As a World War II Navy nurse, Mitzi Gaynor gave us a glimpse of troops stationed in the “South Pacific.”

Donald Sutherland brought us into the world of a Korean War M*A*S*H unit. He could do it all. 

Dame Maggie Smith‘s characters cast spells on audiences – truly elegant spells. Fame came to her in her 70s, out of a series, “Downton Abbey,” that took both sides of the Atlantic by storm.

“They’re always saying there aren’t enough parts for women of a certain age,” she told “Sunday Morning” in 2002. “But in actual fact, I’ve been incredibly lucky.”

Smith was like so many actors we lost this year who, sink or swim, played their roles full steam ahead: Bernard Hill (“Titanic,” “The Lord of the Rings”) … Cheng Pei-pei (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) … Gena Rowlands (“A Woman Under the Influence,” “Gloria”) … Olivia Hussey (“Romeo and Juliet”) … Bill Cobbs (“Night at the Museum”) …  James B. Sikking (“Hill Street Blues”) … Carl Weathers (“Rocky”) … Shannen Doherty (“Beverly Hills 90210”) …

Roger Corman made plenty of monster films – he was famous for doing a whole lot with very little, the undisputed “King of the B Movie.”

It was a gamble to swim at night off the beach town of Amity Island in “Jaws.” Susan Backlinie found that out the hard way; she was the stuntwoman who was that famous shark’s midnight snack.

Jeannie Epper was Wonder Woman’s stunt double, and took falls in countless other productions, too. Asked about her stunt work in 2014, she said, “I love it; it’s where I’m the most alive.” 

We lost some prominent game shows hosts, too: Peter Marshall, from “Hollywood Squares,” and Chuck Woolery, the host of “Love Connection.” When it came to finding love at sea, it was crooner Jack Jones who gave them a soundtrack; he sang the theme to “Love Boat.” Steve Lawrence – and his late wife, Eydie Gorme – sang any number of songs about love.

But it was biological anthropologist Helen Fisher who said it’s not the heart that falls in love, but the brain. Love, she said, was a science. 

Author Barbara Taylor Bradford ignited our brains with steamy tails of love and betrayal in dozens of bestselling novels. Asked by “Sunday Morning” in 2009 why she liked to write about people who are “so fabulous,” Bradford replied, “Readers really don’t want to read about ugly people.”

I hate your ugly face
I see it every place
It follows me wherever I try to go
Your skin is tanned like leather
And it looks just like a heifer’s
Oh, I hate you dear and I think you ought to know  

That silly ditty about being ugly was the first song country singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson ever wrote. He did it when he was just a kid. He went on, of course, to make movies, and his songs were performed by countless musicians … including The Grateful Dead.

The bassist who anchored The Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh, left us this year, too. He said he owed his life’s longevity to someone else – an organ donor. “I have to thank my organ donor, Cody, for the privilege to be alive at all, to have experienced this,” he said during the “Fare Thee Well” tour in 2015.

Fate often has a hand in how some of us will be remembered.

Broadway great Chita Rivera burst on the scene in “West Side Story,” and had a stellar career, but a car crash almost ended it all. “I always used to think that we should have two lifetimes,” she told “Sunday Morning” in 2013: “One to try it out, and the second one to know what’s coming.”

To all those who left their footprints behind on the stages of the world, we offer a heartfelt thank you: Janis Paige (“The Pajama Game”) … Ken Page (“Cats”) … Helen Gallagher (“No, No, Nannette”) … Hinton Battle (“The Wiz”) … Glynis Johns (“A Little Night Music”) … Gavin Creel (“Hello, Dolly”). 

Think of all the people that have made us crack a smile over their lifetime, as well as ours: Dabney Coleman (“9 to 5”) … Teri Garr (“Young Frankenstein”) …

Martin Mull (“Fernwood 2 Night”) … Joyce Randolph (“The Honeymooners”) … Richard Lewis (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) …

But it was Bob Newhart who showed us all, being a mild-mannered straight man who found his way to a punchline in fits and starts could make us think and laugh at the same time. He was the master of the slow burn – a style all his own. For him, humor was spiritual in way – he often hinted as much. In 1991 he noted, “God has a great sense of humor. Some of the things He’s come up with, He’s the best comedy writer of all!”

Dancer and choreographer Judith Jamison had her own divine grace on stage. As the former artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, she could communicate through movement what poets do in words. “We just happen to be very blessed because we’ve been given the gift of dance,” she said in 1991. 

And then there was breaker Ray Ramos. He was both an artist and an athlete.

On the baseball diamond, there was Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid.” His performance on the field said it all. 

The same was said about L.A. Lakers legend Jerry West – so iconic a player that his silhouette became the NBA’s logo.

We also lost Greg Gumbel, one of the great sportscasters of our era. He became the first Black American network broadcaster to call play-by-play for any major sport championship.

But not all our sports heroes remain on their pedestal. Pete Rose would likely have been in the Baseball Hall of Fame were it not for his gambling on the game he says he loved so much. In 2014 he told “Sunday Morning” he believed, in his heart of hearts, that he would one day get into the Hall: “Sure. I don’t know if I’m gonna live to see it.”

He was still signing autographs the day before he died.

But perhaps the most unnerving fall from grace was O.J. Simpson. He broke all kinds of football records; he made it in Hollywood, too. But became infamous during the trial for the murder of his former wife, Nichole Brown Simpson. He was acquitted, but never forgiven.

Simpson was a one-time guest on “The Phil Donahue Show.” Phil Donahue was a host who reinvented daytime television – for better and for worse. “We’ve been outrageous for 29 years,” he said in 1996. “That’s how we got here. I assure you, we didn’t get here by looking like PBS.”

While Donahue was looking for saucy TV conversation, TV fitness instructor Richard Simmons was looking for some saucy per-spiration. He was a self-help sensation, as much about physical health as mental health.

Simmons changed the conversation around exercise the way someone else changed the conversation around sex: Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Her humor was disarming; her delivery, charming. She helped countless couples. But something she didn’t always talk about was her roots as a Holocaust survivor. She told “Sunday Morning ” in 2002, “I have an obligation to contribute something to this world, because otherwise, you know, why was I spared?”

We’re losing more and more survivors every year.

Amnon Weinstein restored the violins stolen from Jews during the Holocaust. “I want to give these 6 million people a way to speak,” he said in 2015. 

Ben Stern survived the march from Buchenwald to the Austrian border.

Lily Ebert took to TikTok to keep her stories about the Holocaust alive.

Martin Greenfield, who learned to sew in Auschwitz, went on to be a tailor for U.S. presidents and Hollywood celebrities.

And it was two sons of a Jewish immigrant from Russia, the Shermans, who also dressed some of those celebrities in song. Richard Sherman, and his late brother, Robert, helped put Walt Disney movies on the map. Their music was usually as sweet as sugar, but they often had a message, too.

In 2013 he described for “Sunday Morning” his song “It’s a Small World” as “a prayer for peace. We have to learn to live with each other and respect each other and understand each other.”

Understanding is sometimes tough. Minimalist painter Frank Stella once said what you saw is what you got. He kept working into his 80s.

Bette Nash was also working that long; in fact, she earned the Guinness World Record for longest-serving flight attendant, more than six decades in the air, and in uniform.

Julia Hawkins broke world records, too, after she started running and winning races at the age of 100.  

There were so many who left us far earlier than the century mark, like country music legend Toby Keith – red, white and blue personified.

And then there was Liam Payne, a member of boy-band sensation One Direction. He was only 31.

Those who walked through the door of our lives and then exited the same way are far too many to mention – like M. Emmet Walsh. He could play a bad guy and a good guy, almost back-to-back.

Laurent De Brunhoff kept his father’s creation, Babar, alive, continuing the tales of a gentle elephant exploring Paris.

There are so many whose faint fingerprints still linger. People like Japanese manga artist Akira Toriyama. You can thank him for Dragon Ball.

Bruce Degen, who gave us the frizzy-haired science teacher Ms. Frizzle and her magical school bus.

And there’s our own family: Jean Rather, wife of CBS’ Dan Rather; CBS’ interim board chairman Richard Parsons, who had a knack for fixing all kinds of troubled corporations; then there was Jim Houtrides and Bud Lamoreaux, who both were integral in getting our friend Charles Osgood on the air every Sunday morning.

Charles Osgood was our poet laureate. He never failed to give us his smart but kind perspective – whether in words or song.

From Charles Osgood and all of us at “Sunday Morning,” we bid all of those who passed this year a fond “Hail and Farewell.”

        
Story produced by Young Kim. Editor: Steven Tyler. Digital producer: David Morgan.