RIP Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard, energetic jazz trumpeter, dies at 70
By Peter Keepnews
Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Freddie Hubbard, a jazz trumpeter who dazzled audiences and critics alike with his virtuosity, his melodicism and his infectious energy, died Monday in Sherman Oaks, California. He was 70.

The cause was complications of a heart attack he had Nov. 26, said his spokesman, Don Lucoff of DL Media.

Over a career that began in the late 1950s, Hubbard earned both critical praise and commercial success - although rarely for the same projects.

He attracted attention in the 1960s for his bravura work as a member of the Jazz Messengers, the valuable training ground for young musicians led by the veteran drummer Art Blakey, and on albums by Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and many others. He also recorded several well-regarded albums as a leader. And although he was not an avant-gardist by temperament, he participated in three of the seminal recordings of the 1960s jazz avant-garde: Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" (1960), Eric Dolphy's "Out to Lunch" (1964) and John Coltrane's "Ascension" (1965).

In the 1970s Hubbard, like many other jazz musicians of his generation, began courting a larger audience, with albums that featured electric instruments, rock and funk rhythms, string arrangements and repertory sprinkled with pop and R&B songs like Paul McCartney's "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" and the Stylistics' "Betcha by Golly, Wow." His audience did indeed grow, but his standing in the jazz world diminished.

By the start of the next decade he had largely abandoned his more commercial approach and returned to his jazz roots. But his career came to a virtual halt in 1992 when he damaged his lip, and although he resumed performing and recording after an extended hiatus, he was never again as powerful a player as he had been in his prime.

Frederick Dewayne Hubbard was born on April 7, 1938, in Indianapolis. His first instrument was the alto-brass mellophone, and in high school he studied French horn and tuba as well as trumpet.

After taking lessons with Max Woodbury, the first trumpeter of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, at the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music, he performed locally with, among others, the guitarist Wes Montgomery and his brothers.

Hubbard moved to New York in 1958 and almost immediately began working with groups led by the saxophonist Sonny Rollins, the drummer Philly Joe Jones and others. His profile rose in 1960 when he joined the roster of Blue Note, a leading jazz label; it rose further the next year when he was hired by Blakey, widely regarded as the music's premier talent scout.

Adding his own spin to a style informed by Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Clifford Brown, Hubbard played trumpet with an unusual mix of melodic inventiveness and technical razzle-dazzle. The critics took notice. Leonard Feather called him "one of the most skilled, original and forceful trumpeters of the '60s."

After leaving Blakey's band in 1964, Hubbard worked for a while with another drummer-bandleader, Max Roach, before forming his own group in 1966. Four years later he began recording for CTI, a record company that would soon become known for its aggressive efforts to market jazz musicians beyond the confines of the jazz audience.

Hubbard won a Grammy Award for the album "First Light" in 1972 and was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2006.

He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Briggie Hubbard, and his son, Duane.

Hubbard was once known as the brashest of jazzmen, but his personality as well as his music mellowed in the wake of his lip problems. In a 1995 interview with Fred Shuster of Down Beat, Hubbard offered some sober advice to younger musicians: "Don't make the mistake I made of not taking care of myself. Please, keep your chops cool and don't overblow."

In Memoriam 2008

In chronological order of their deaths, these are people with whom I was at least vaguely familiar who passed away this year:

Lee Dreyfus, former governor of Wisconsin.

Gerry Staley, former MLB pitcher.

Jimmy Stewart, former British racecar driver.

Phillip Agee, author and former CIA agent.

Jim Dooley, former Chicago Bears coach.

Johnny Grant, former honorary mayor of Hollywood.

Rod Allen, former lead singer of the Fortunes (”Here Comes that Rainy Day Feeling Again”).

Sir Edmund Hillary, first mountaineer to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Johnny Podres, former MLB pitcher.

Bobby Fischer, chess grandmaster.

Ernie Holmes, former NFL player.

John Stroger, Chicago politician.

Lois Nettleton, movie and TV actress.

Lou Palmer, radio announcer.

Georgia Frontiere, owner of St. Louis Rams football team.

John Stewart, member of the Kingston Trio.

Eugene Sawyer, former mayor of Chicago.

Suzanne Pleshette, movie and TV actress.

Heath Ledger, movie actor.

Margaret Truman Daniel, author and daughter of Harry S Truman.

Ed Vargo, former MLB umpire.

Earl Butz, former secretary of agriculture.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, former guru to the Beatles.

Roy Scheider, movie actor.

Freddie Bell, R&B singer.

Tom Lantos, member of Congress and Holocaust survivor.

Robin Moore, author (”The Green Berets”).

Evan Mecham, former governor of Arizona.

Buddy Miles, rock drummer.

William F. Buckley Jr., author, political commentator, founder of the National Review magazine.

Mike Smith, lead singer of the Dave Clark Five.

Jerry Groom, former NFL player.

Buddy Dial, former football star.

Bob Purkey, former MLB player.

Ivan Dixon, movie and TV actor (”Hogan’s Heroes”).

Sir Arthur Clarke, author (”2001: A Space Odyssey”).

Richard Widmark, actor.

Paul Scofield, actor.

Neil Aspinall, former road manager for the Beatles.

Wally Phillips, Chicago radio personality.

Charlton Heston, movie actor.

Bob Pellegrini, former NFL player.

Joy Page, movie actress (”Casablanca”).

Al Wilson, soul singer (”Show and Tell”).

Paul Davis, pop singer (”65 Love Affair”).

Eddy Arnold, country music singer.

Arthur Burks, mathemetician and computer pioneer.

Utah Phillips, folk singer.

Jimmy McGriff, jazz and blues organist.

Dick Martin, comedian (”Laugh-In”).

Sydney Pollack, movie actor and director.

Earle Hagen, TV theme composer (”The Andy Griffith Show”).

Harvey Korman, actor and comedian.

Yves St. Laurent, fashion designer.

Paul Sills, co-founder of the Second City improv troupe.

Mel Ferrer, actor.

Bo Diddley (pictured above), rock pioneer.

Tim Russert, TV journalist.

Cyd Charisse, actress and dancer.

Dody Goodman, actress and comedian.

George Carlin, comedian.

Larry Harmon, actor (Bozo the Clown).

Evelyn Keyes, actress (”Gone With the Wind”).

Charles Joffe, producer of most of Woody Allen’s movies.

Michael DeBakey, pioneer heart surgeon.

Bobby Murcer, former MLB player.

Tony Snow, journalist and White House press secretary.

Les Crane, TV personality.

Jo Stafford, singer (”Jambalaya”).

Estelle Getty, TV actress (”Golden Girls”).

Anne Armstrong, Republican politician.

Skip Caray, baseball broadcaster.

Orville Moody, golfer.

Bernie Mac, comedian and actor.

Isaac Hayes, soul musician.

Gene Upshaw, NFL player and union executive.

Phil Hill, racecar driver.

Jerry Reed, country singer and actor.

Ike Pappas, TV journalist.

Richard Wright, keyboardist and songwriter for Pink Floyd.

Norman Whitfield, Motown songwriter (”I Heard It Through the Grapevine”).

Anna Langford, Chicago politician.

Connie Haynes, singer.

Dick Lynch, former NLF player.

Mickey Vernon, former MLB player.

Paul Newman, actor.

Nick Reynolds, former member of the Kingston Trio.

Lloyd Thaxton, TV personality.

Gil Stratton, sportscaster and actor (”Stalag 17″).

Tom Tresh, former MLB player.

Edie Adams, singer and actress.

Levi Stubbs, lead singer of the Four Tops.

Ben Weider, bodybuilding enthusiast.

Richard Blackwell, fashion critic.

Tony Hillerman, mystery writer.

Delmar Watson, former child actor (”Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”).

Studs Terkel, author and radio personality.

Yma Sumac, singer.

Michael Crichton, author (”Jurassic Park”).

Heather Pick, TV journalist.

Jody Reynolds, singer and guitarist (”Endless Sleep”).

Preacher Roe, former MLB pitcher.

Miriam Makeba, singer.

Herb Score, former MLB pitcher.

Odetta, folk singer.

Nina Foch, actress.

Beverley Garland, actress.

Sunny von Bulow, heiress.

Dennis Yost, lead singer of the Classics IV.

Robert Prosky, actor.

Betty Page, pin-up model.

Van Johnson, actor.

Sammy Baugh, former NFL player.

Paul Weyrich, conservative political activist.

Conor Cruise O’Brien, political activist and author.

W. Mark Felt, “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame.

Dock Ellis, former MLB pitcher.

Harold Pinter, playwright.

Eartha Kitt, singer and actress.

Delaney Bramlett, singer and songwriter.

Presidential Controversies (From Swimming Nude to Getting Drunk)

By Gregory McNamee on History

When Barack Obama takes office on January 20, 2009, as the forty-fourth president of the United States, he will bear the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Apart from having the normal jitters, the new president, remembering recent events, will doubtless be uncomfortably aware that from then on his every move will be under the close eye of lawmakers, lobbyists, journalists, and citizens. One error, one gaffe, one small lapse of judgment, the new president might reasonably think, and I’m toast: just think of Bill Clinton. Just look at the last eight misbegotten years.George Washington

Small wonder that Franklin Pierce, who served as president from 1853 to 1857, remarked that all he wanted to do on leaving office was to get drunk. And small wonder that James Madison, our fourth president, was moved to reply to an admirer, “I would much rather be in bed.”

The new president might be cheered, though, to know that our presidents have from the very start been the subjects, and sometimes the authors, of controversy and scandal.

Our presidents, to put it another way, have always been in hot water—or, in the case of John Quincy Adams, in cold water. Adams was fond of swimming nude in the Potomac River. Respectable Washingtonians disapproved, but Adams kept bathing au naturel even after someone once stole his clothes as he swam, and even after a reporter cornered him in the river and refused to let him dress until Adams had given her an exclusive interview.

The first to discover how unpopular a president can be was George Washington, who, we tend to forget, was not universally well liked in his time. Ardent republicans in the first government of the United States accused Washington of wanting to establish himself as a new, homegrown king, especially after Washington took stern measures to force his fellow citizens to pay their taxes. Washington did have an imperious and sometimes impatient way, as he showed when he went to the Senate on August 22, 1789, to press for a new treaty with the Creek Indians. After Washington had made his argument for making this new treaty, a senator asked for clarification on one or two points. When Washington did not reply satisfactorily, the senator moved that the treaty be sent for further study to a committee. “This defeats every purpose of my coming here!” Washington cried. He swore that he would never again enter the Senate, and his successors have followed suit.

Washington touched off a minor scandal when he appointed a New York tavern keeper named Sam Fraunces to the new post of steward, responsible for keeping the president well fed and for arranging state dinners for visiting dignitaries. Fraunces took his duties seriously, saying, “While General Washington is president of the United States, and I have the honor to serve him as steward, his establishment shall be supplied with the very best of everything that the country can afford.” Fiscal conservatives trying to balance the new country’s books after an expensive revolutionary war were outraged by Fraunces’s free-spending ways, but Washington kept him on until, the story has it, he discovered that his steward had paid the outrageous sum of three dollars for a single fish. He fired Fraunces, and for the rest of his term budget-minded critics of the government had nothing to complain about.

Andrew Jackson of Tennessee had less refined tastes than George Washington’s. During his time in office (1829–1837) he was often criticized for hosting drunken parties in which his friends from the wild frontier showed their enthusiasm by breaking White House china and the occasional window. But Jackson came under more criticism still when he refused to recharter the Bank of the United States, a private corporation in which the federal government held a substantial block of stock. Westerners and populists detested the bank, and so did Jackson, who denounced it as an instrument of monopoly and special privilege, saying, “Our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress.” That may have been so, Jackson’s critics allowed, but even so the bank was well managed and kept the economy on course. When the bank dissolved after Jackson ordered that the federal government cease making deposits, panic ensued. Jackson eventually had to charter a new national bank under rules that, albeit with many changes, still apply today. Jackson wasn’t happy about the outcome. He threatened to hang anyone who opposed him.

Until recently, Andrew Johnson (1865–1869) was the only American president to have been impeached. Historians are now inclined to the view that Johnson did no wrong, but the politicians of his time hated the Tennessean, who served on the Union side during the Civil War. When the war ended, Johnson urged that the defeated Confederate states be readmitted to the Union without reparations. Many unforgiving congressmen felt otherwise, and they impeached Johnson for “high crimes and misdemeanors” when he fired his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, for siding with so-called radical Reconstructionists who insisted on severely punishing the southern states. Those congressmen also insisted that only they could dismiss members of the cabinet, and they passed the Tenure of Office Act—which was later ruled unconstitutional—to make sure that this would be so. Johnson escaped conviction by just one vote, but to this day he is remembered, like Richard Nixon, largely for having touched off a scandal in government.

Calvin Coolidge, a taciturn New Englander, reasoned that by keeping his mouth closed he’d keep out of trouble. The technique usually worked, but Coolidge had a habit that Ronald Reagan shared, and that brought both presidents much criticism. Coolidge, it seems, loved his afternoon nap—which often lasted for three or four hours, on top of eight or nine hours of normal nighttime sleep. Coolidge had a sense of humor about his penchant for sawing logs, even if his political opponents did not; once, when an aide awakened him from a sound midday sleep, Coolidge asked, “Is the country still here?” Coolidge also argued that the country benefited from his nap habit—after all, he said, he couldn’t initiate any potentially costly federal actions while he was asleep.

But there is no time to sleep now. Godspeed, Mr. President. Controversy awaits—but also, it is to be hoped, so do glory and greatness.

8 Famous People Who Died in the Bathroom

1. Elvis Presley

On January 8, 1935, Elvis Presley, the King of Rock 'n' Roll, was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. He was discovered in Memphis by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, who was looking for a white singer with an African-American sound and style.

Elvis catapulted to fame following three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 and 1957. Although he was pushed off the charts by The Beatles and the rest of the British invasion in the early 1960s, he still sold more than a billion records in his lifetime, more than any other recording artist in history.

His movie career kept him in the public eye until his comeback album in 1968, and in the 1970s, he sold out shows in Las Vegas as an overweight caricature of his former self.

Elvis's addiction to prescription drugs was well known, and on August 16, 1977, he was found dead on the bathroom floor in his Graceland mansion. A vomit stain on the carpet showed that he had become sick while seated on the toilet and had stumbled to the spot where he died. A medical examiner listed the cause of death as cardiac arrhythmia caused by ingesting a large number of drugs.

2. Lenny Bruce

Controversial comedian Lenny Bruce was born Leonard Alfred Schneider in October 1925. Bruce was famous in the 1950s and 1960s for his satirical routines about social themes of the day, including politics, religion, race, abortion, and drugs. His use of profanity -- rarely done at that time -- got him arrested numerous times. He was eventually convicted on obscenity charges but was freed on bail.

On August 3, 1966, Bruce, a known drug addict, was found dead in the bathroom of his Hollywood Hills home with a syringe, a burned bottle cap, and other drug paraphernalia. The official cause of death was acute morphine poisoning caused by an accidental overdose.

3. Elagabalus

Scandalous 3rd-century Roman emperor Elagabalus married and divorced five women, including a Vestal Virgin (a holy priestess), who under Roman law should have been buried alive for losing her virginity. Elagabalus also may have been bisexual.

Objecting to his sexual behavior and his habit of forcing others to follow his religious customs, his grandmother Julia Maesa and aunt Julia Avita Mamaea murdered Elagabalus and his mother (Julia Maesa's own daughter) in the emperor's latrine. Their bodies were dragged through the streets of Rome and thrown into the Tiber River.

4. Robert Pastorelli

Born in 1954, actor and former boxer Robert Pastorelli was best known as Candace Bergen's housepainter on the late 1980s sitcom Murphy Brown. He had numerous minor roles on television and also appeared in Dances with Wolves, Sister Act 2, and Michael, as well as a number of made-for-TV movies.

Pastorelli struggled with drug use and in 2004 was found dead on the floor of his bathroom of a suspected heroin overdose.

5. Orville Redenbacher

Orville Redenbacher, founder of the popcorn company that bears his name, was born in 1907 in Brazil, Indiana. Millions came to know him through his folksy television commercials for the specialty popcorn he invented.

He sold the company to Hunt-Wesson Foods in 1976 but remained as a spokesperson until September 20, 1995, when he was found dead in a whirlpool bathtub in his condominium, having drowned after suffering a heart attack.

6. Claude François

Claude François was a French pop singer in the 1960s who had a hit with an adaptation of Trini Lopez's folk song "If I Had a Hammer."

On March 11, 1978, François's obsession with cleanliness did him in when he was electrocuted in the bathroom of his Paris apartment as he tried to fix a broken light bulb while standing in a water-filled bathtub.

7. Albert Dekker

Actor Albert Dekker, who appeared in Kiss Me Deadly, The Killers, and Suddenly, Last Summer, was blacklisted in Hollywood for several years for criticizing anticommunist Senator Joe McCarthy.

Dekker later made a comeback, but in May 1968, he was found strangled to death in the bathroom of his Hollywood home. He was naked, bound hand and foot, with a hypodermic needle sticking out of each arm and obscenities written all over his body. The official cause of death was eventually ruled to be accidental asphyxiation.

8. Jim Morrison

Born on December 8, 1943, Jim Morrison was best known as the lead singer for The Doors, a top rock band in the late 1960s. His sultry looks, suggestive lyrics, and onstage antics brought him fame, but drug and alcohol abuse ended his brief life.

On July 3, 1971, Morrison was found dead in his bathtub in Paris. He reportedly had dried blood around his mouth and nose and bruising on his chest, suggesting a massive hemorrhage brought on by tuberculosis. The official report listed the cause of death as heart failure, but no autopsy was performed because there was no sign of foul play.

Attack of the Killer Balloons

During World War II, Japan had a secret weapon designed to spark a massive forest fire in the United States. Thanksfully, the device - which was partly made by Japanese schoolgirls - was a dud. Here's the bizarre story of the Fugo killer balloons:

On May 5, 1945, Reverend Archie Mitchell, his wife Elsie, and five children from his Sunday school drove from the tiny southern Oregon town of Bly for a picnic on Gearhart Mountain. While Reverend Mitchell parked the car, his wife and the children explore. They came upon a device the U.S. government knew about but had kept secret. When one of them touched the device, it exploded: Mrs. Mitchell and the five children were killed. The six Oregonians became the only known fatalities on the U.S. mainland from enemy attack during all of World War II.

MADE IN JAPAN

The exploding contraption was a Japanese Fugo balloon bomb, the brainchild of Major General Sueyoshi Kusaba of the Japanese Ninth Army Technical Research Laboratory. The balloons measured 33 feet across and 70 feet long from top to bomb. They were constructed (by Japanese schoolgirls) from bits of a tough paper called washi, made from mulberry trees, and glued together with potato paste. The bomb parts were made in a factory - not by schoolgirls.

Filled with hydrogen gas, the payload consisted of 36 sandbags for ballast, four incendiary bombs, and one 33-pound antipersonnel bomb. Launched to rise 35,000 feet, the balloons were designed to use the prevailing Pacific eastward winds to reach the west coast of North America. As the balloons leaked gas and lost altitude, barometric pressure switches caused the sandbags to drop off and the balloons to rise back to the jetstream. The trip took three to five days. By the time they reached the United States, the baloons, now out of sandbags, were supposed to drop the bombs and then self-destruct. The Japanese hoped the bomb would cause forest fires and panic the American public.

FUGO, FUGO, FUGO!

Between October 1944 and April 1945, Japan launched 9,300 of these balloons. Estimates are that fewer than 500 balloons reached the United States or Canada; the rest fell into the Pacific Ocean.

In November 1944, one balloon was discovered in the ocean off San Pedro, California. In January 1945, a balloon bomb landed in Medford, Oregon, without exploding. At some point, a rancher in Nevada discovered a balloon and used it as a tarp to cover his hay; police later discovered that two bombs were still attached to it.

WHAT BALLOONS?

Most of the balloons either exploded harmlessly or failed to detonate on impact. Approximately 90 of them were recovered in the United States as far east as Michigan. Strict censorship kept their existence out of the newspapers, and those who knew of their presence were sworn to secrecy. It was feared that news of the balloons arrival would encourage the launching of more balloons. They weren't seen as much of a danger, but the hush-hush handling of the situation worked: the Japanese abandoned the project because they didn't hear of any success.

But after the Mitchell family tragedy in Oregon, the public was warned. The last balloon bomb was found in Alaska in 1955; its bombs were still capable of exploding. Ironically, on March 10, 1945, one of the last paper balloons desceded near Hanford, Washington. The balloon landed on electrical power lines, shutting off the Hanford nuclear reactor for three days. The Hanford reactor, part of the top-secret Manhattan project, was producing plutonium for the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, five months later.

The Fugo balloon bombs are considered a failure as weapons system. There were no proven bomb-caused forest fires, and they caused little other damage. Elsie Mitchell and the five children were the tragic exceptions.

6 Australians who caught lucky breaks

Australia is known as the “lucky country.” And while statistically Australians aren’t any luckier than anyone else, why split hairs? Here are a 6 examples of the Luck of the Aussies.
1. Bernhardt Otto Holtermann: Mining by Candle
Many prospectors descended on Australia in the nineteenth century, looking for gold. Nobody, however, did quite as well as German-born miner Bernhardt Holtermann and his business partner, Louis Beyer. Mining by candlelight outside Hill End in October 1872, they struck a gold nugget nearly five feet high, weighing 235 kg (630 pounds), and worth about US$21,000 (a lot of money in those days). At the time it was the world’s largest specimen of reef gold. They extracted the rock in one piece, and prepared to pose for photos, as thousands descended to the mountain to see “Holtermann’s Nugget.” While Holtermann regarded the nugget as his own, his company refused to sell it to him. Instead, the giant nugget was crushed with other quartz, yielding about 93 kg of gold – meaning that, even when his luck ran out, he was still a lucky guy.
2. Jack Buntine: Dodging bullets for a smoke

Eight thousand, one hundred and forty-one Australians died during World War I at the Turkish outpost of Gallipoli. Private Jack Buntine was not one of them – which is almost surprising. Jack was known for running over the tops of trenches (against regulations) to rescue wounded friends or swap cigarettes with enemy soldiers. “I suppose I was pretty lucky,” he later said, “but you know, I never worried about getting hit… We used to go swimming at Gallipoli and they would be shooting at us. You’d see bullets going in the water around you, but they didn’t worry me.”
After surviving a vicious bout with the flu, Jack survived the Great Depression by working as a trapper, shooter and gold miner. His first wife died of peritonitis at the age of 31, leaving him with two children, so he found a more regular job with the Post and Telegraph Department, climbing up telegraph poles and driving maintenance trucks on dangerous, unsealed bush tracks. He enjoyed this so much that he continued to do it until his retirement. He died peacefully in 1998 at age 103.
3. Hugh Jackman: On the strength of a publicity photo

The movie Mission: Impossible II (2000), filmed mostly in Sydney, co-starred a few Aussie actors. But it turned out to be a big break for one Australian actor in particular – and he didn’t even appear in the film! Indeed, it helped his career because he wasn’t in it. As the shooting schedule ran two months overtime, Scottish actor Dougray Scott couldn’t return to Hollywood in time to play his next role: Wolverine, an angry super-hero, in X-Men. The X-Men producers, forced to do a last-minute recast – selected Hugh Jackman on the strength of a mere publicity photo. Jackman, then unknown in Hollywood (and best-known in Australia as the star of stage musicals and light romantic comedies), was thrust into a completely different role, getting top billing over a distinguished cast. Overnight, he became a major Hollywood star, as the X-Men became a successful movie franchise. Not bad for a face in a publicity photo.
4. Ian Thorpe: Saved from 9/11, twice

If things had happened slightly differently, and according to plan, Ian Thorpe might have joined the 2,752 people who died in the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001. The swimmer (at the time Australia’s most popular sportsman, and considered by many to be the world’s best swimmer) was visiting New York with his personal assistant, Michelle Flaskas. They were supposed to stay at the Tribeca Hotel, across the road from the World Trade Centre, but were forced to switch to another hotel, 15 minutes’ walk away, because of a double booking. On the morning of September 11, they had planned to go to a viewing platform near the top of one of the Twin Towers. Thorpe first went for a morning jog, then – while waiting for Flaskas to get ready – switched on the television to see that both towers were ablaze. He was perhaps half an hour away from certain death.
5. Victoria Friend: 20 minutes from death

It hardly seems right when an accident survivor is described as “lucky”, even if they’ve just lost friends or relatives. But within those parameters, Victoria Friend was extremely lucky. In 1999, Friend survived a light air crash in the New South Wales bush. The same crash killed her fiancé, Geoff Henderson, and left her lying alone for over 40 hours, with multiple fractures and severe burns to 40 percent of her body. After she was eventually rescued, doctors said that her vital organs were shutting down, and that she wouldn’t have survived much longer. One doctor estimated that she was a mere 20 minutes from death, and was rescued just in the nick of time. She briefly became a national celebrity, praised for her amazing ability to survive.
6. Steven Bradbury: Happy to skate on thin ice

At Salt Lake City in 2002, speed-skater Steven Bradbury won what television commentators called “perhaps the most incredible gold medal in Olympic history”. He was Australia’s first-ever Winter Olympics champion and, of course, the nation was celebrating. Others, however, were not so happy. Bradbury won his medal after his opponents (including the favorite, America’s Apolo Anton Ohno) had crashed in a heap in front of him. He simply skated around them, and cheerfully crossed the finish line first, to the jeers of the mostly American crowd. NBC commentators called it a farce, demanding a re-skate. Even foul play was suggested, as the umpire happened to be Australian. Ohno, meanwhile, picked himself up, continued to the end, and graciously accepted the silver medal.
Bradbury later claimed that he had won a strategic victory; he knew he couldn’t skate faster than his opponents, but he also knew that he could gamble on a crash. Whatever the case, he won – and by his own admission, it was due to luck more than anything else.

10 Victims of the Hope Diamond Curse

On this day in 1792, the Hope Diamond was stolen from the house that stored the crown jewels. It’s a pretty fascinating little bauble, if you’re the sort of person who is impressed by 45.52 carat gems (I am). But you probably wouldn’t want to own it – it’s cursed, you know. The story goes that the curse started from the Tavernier Blue, which was the precursor to several large diamonds, including the Hope Diamond. Take this with a grain of salt, because it’s never been proved: Jean-Baptiste Tavernier stole the 115.16 carat blue diamond from a Hindu statue, where it was serving as one of the eyes. Upon discovering it was missing, priests put a curse on whoever was in possession of the gem.

Which brings me to our Quick 10 topic: 10 people who have (supposedly) experienced the Hope Diamond Curse.



1. Jean Baptiste-Tavernier. The story is that he came down with a raging fever soon after stealing the diamond, and after he died, his body was possibly ravaged by wolves. However, other reports show that he lived until the ripe old age of 84, so… yeah.

2. King Louis XIV. He bought the stone from Tavernier and had it recut in1673. It was then known as “The Blue Diamond of the Crown” or the “French Blue”. King Louis died of gangrene and all of his legitimate children died in childhood, except for one. But that isn’t atypical of the times, I don’t think.

3. Nicholas Fouquet, who worked for King Louis XIV, is said to have worn the diamond for some special occasion. Shortly thereafter, he fell out of favor with the king and was banished from France. The Louis changed this sentence to life imprisonment, so Fouquet spent 15 years in the fortress of Pignerol. Some people believe that he was the real Man in the Iron Mask, but other accounts dispute this.

marie4. and 5. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Louis inherited the French Blue, Marie wore it, and I think we all know what happened there.

6. Marie-Louise, Princess de Lamballe, was a member of Marie Antoinette’s court and was her closest confidante. She was killed by a mob in a most horrific fashion – apparently hit with a hammer, decapitated, stripped, and disemboweled, among other things. Her head was impaled on a pike and carried to Marie Antoinette’s prison window.

7. Wilhelm Fals was a Dutch jeweler who recut the diamond again. His son ended up murdering him and then killing himself.

8. Greek merchant Simon Maoncharides owned the diamond. His curse? He drove his car over a cliff and killed himself, his wife and his child.

evalyn9. Evalyn Walsh McLean. Evalyn was a spoiled heiress who lived a charmed life… until she bought the diamond. She happily wore the diamond and there are stories that she would even affix the jewel to her dog’s collar and let him wander around the apartment with it. But wearing the Hope Diamond came at a steep price: first her mother-in-law died, her son died at the age of nine, her husband left her for another woman and later died in a mental hospital, her daughter died of a drug overdose at 25 and she eventually had to sell her newspaper – the Washington Post - and died owing huge debts. Evalyn’s surviving kids sold the diamond to Harry Winston. Nine years later, Winston mailed the gem to the Smithsonian for $2.44 in postage and $155 in insurance. Which brings us to number 10:

10. James Todd, the mailman who delivered the diamond to the Smithsonian, apparently had his leg crushed in a truck accident shortly thereafter. He also suffered a head injury in a separate accident. Oh, also, his house burned down.

There’s no doubt that Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI and Princess de Lamballe were a tragic bunch; and Evalyn Walsh McLean definitely went through her share of hard times. But lots of these are probably exaggerated and twisted a bit to fit the tale and make the curse seem even more horrible. I wonder if even writing about the diamond can make you fall under the umbrella of the curse? After all, the Princess de Lamballe and the mailman didn’t have much to do with the gem at all.