The big news late Sunday was that Green Mile star Michael Clarke Duncan died having never fully recovered from his July heart attack. Rarely does a celebrity death make people so sincerely sad.

Here’s an example of what someone who met him recently had to say about him. Chalene Johnson, creator of Turbo Jam/Turbo Fire and Beach Body bad ass met him when she was on the The Talk earlier this year.

I met Michael Clarke Duncan on the set of The Talk this spring. He was the last guest on that day’s show. I remember he asked the host if when they went to break if he could address the audience. Without cameras rolling he shared a motivational message with the audience explaining to them his very humble beginnings, the hard life he had lived and how he had turned his life around and found his purpose and peace late in life. He told them that they must believe it’s never too late. He told them to believe in themselves and to create a plan and to work on themselves first, despite when anyone else had ever told them. I fell in love with his spirit. Today I learned he passed away at age 54. He appeared so healthy, so full of life, so at peace, so genuinely doing what he was meant to do. God had a plan for his life. May he rest in peace. 

You can read more about the details of how Michael passed away here. 

Celebrity death #2 this week. You know they always come in 3′s. First we lost the unforgettable Arnold Horshack…now the world has lost the woman who made it okay for a woman to be single. Helen Gurley Brown was all Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte all rolled up into one way before her time.

She was fierce. She was Sex in the City in the 60′s and that took balls. Can you imagine the flack she caught for being so progressive in a time when men did not want to let the status quo go? You can read more about HGB’s amazing career here.

HGB back in the day:

Recent picture of HGB:

Helen Gurley Brown who as the author of “Sex and the Single Girl” shocked early-1960s America with the news that unmarried women not only had sex but thoroughly enjoyed it — and who as the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine spent the next three decades telling those women precisely how to enjoy it even more — died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 90, though parts of her were considerably younger.

The Hearst Corporation, Cosmopolitan’s publisher, said in a news release that she died at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital after a brief stay there. She lived in Manhattan.

As Cosmopolitan’s editor from 1965 until 1997, Ms. Brown was widely credited with being the first to introduce frank discussions of sex into magazines for women. The look of women’s magazines today — a sea of voluptuous models and titillating cover lines — is due in no small part to her influence.

Before she arrived at Cosmopolitan, Ms. Brown had already shaken the collective consciousness with her best-selling book “Sex and the Single Girl.” Published in 1962, the year before Betty Friedan ignited the modern women’s movement with “The Feminine Mystique,” it taught unmarried women how to look their best, have delicious affairs and ultimately bag a man for keeps, all in breathless, aphoristic prose. (Ms. Brown was a former advertising copywriter.)

Source

This makes me sad. Horshack was my very favorite Sweathog on Welcome Back, Kotter. 

Ron Palillo – the actor who played Horshack on “Welcome Back, Kotter” — died this morning at his home near Palm Beach, FL from an apparent heart attack … this according to someone close to the actor.

We’re told Palillo was found by his partner of many years Joseph Gramm around 4:00 AM. Gramm called an ambulance and Palillo was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

We’re told the heart attack was very unexpected. Palillo was 63.

According to one of Palillo’s colleagues at G-Star School of the Arts, Palillo had appeared to be in good health … but was a heavy smoker. We’re told he had been suffering from a bad cough and had even scheduled a doctor’s appointment for today.

Source

George Jefferson is gone. Something about the details of Sherman Hemsley’s death is fishy to me. They don’t know how he died..he no wife and kids. Ever? Hmmm….Maybe now someone will come forward and confirm the rumors that he was gay. 

Sherman Hemsley, the actor who made the character George Jefferson famous in “The Jeffersons,” has died, El Paso cops tell TMZ.

Hemsley died at his home in El Paso, Texas.Hemsley, who was 74, became famous during his appearances on “All in the Family.”  The spin-off, “The Jeffersons” was a monster hit.  He also starred in the TV show, “Amen.”  He was also a professional singer and even released the single in 1989, “Ain’t that A Kick in the Head.”

Hemsley had no wife and no kids. It’s unclear how he died.

Source

Inception star, Joseph Gordon-Levitt,  announced on Twitter Tuesday that his older brother “Burning Dan” has passed away.

“My super hero brother @burningdan 1974-2010. Celebrate his life here ~ http://bit.ly/dBTMQ8 because he’s f**ing awesome,” Joseph wrote.

Joseph wrote more on his multimedia website, where Dan was a partner:

BURNING dAN brightly embodied that bold beastly bliss sometimes referred to as “the creative spirit.” He was my chief collaborator on the foundational incarnations of hitRECord.org over the years and continues to inspire us ever the more. He would absolutely positively insist that we not let this bad news deter us on our collective mission. That said, I might not feel up to it for a little while.

Watching this community blossom into what it has become never ceased to amaze him and me. We would regularly marvel at it and high five. Thank you all for that. There he is now pouring heaping hollowed watermelons full of love over each and every one of us.

A cause of death has not been given for his brother, called ‘Burning Dan’ because he was a fire-spinning artist who performed at the Burning Man Festival.

Just in case you aren’t sure exactly what a ‘fire-spinning flow artist’ actually does..he’s a clip of Burning Dan performing.