Notable Deaths of 2025

[Lambykins]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/val-kilmer-star-batman-forever-040433506.html
Val Kilmer, age 65.

[majorhavoc]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/val-kilmer-star-batman-forever-040433506.html
Val Kilmer, age 65.

  RIP, Doc. You were most definitely a daisy.

[12_Gauge_Chimp]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/val-kilmer-star-batman-forever-040433506.html
Val Kilmer, age 65.

  RIP, Doc. You were most definitely a daisy.

He was everyone's favorite huckleberry.

[Lambykins]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jay-north-star-original-dennis-210052318.html
Jay North, tvs Dennis the Menace, age 73.

[echo83]

Clem Burke, 70, one of the greatest drummers of all time:

https://nypost.com/2025/04/07/entertainment/clem-burke-dead-blondie-drummer-dies-at-70/

And if there was ever a doubt as to the man's abilities:

[Z.O.R.G.]

Pope Francis dies aged 88 - BBC News

[12_Gauge_Chimp]

Former NFL player (Chicago Bears) and professional wrestler (WCW) Steve "Mongo" McMichael passed away April, 23rd, 2025 at age 67.

Cause of death is listed as complications from ALS. He'd been moved to hospice care earlier in the day and passed away only a few hours later.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McMichael

[aikorob]

Remember HeeHaw?
Lulu Roman has passed
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/lulu-roman-hee-haw-comedian-who-became-a-gospel-singer-after-trading-drugs-for-god-dies-at-78/ar-AA1DDne0?ocid=BingNewsSerp

[12_Gauge_Chimp]

Ruth Buzzi, best known for her time on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh In", passed away May 1st, 2025 at age 88.

Cause of death is listed as complications from Alzheimers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Buzzi

[EBuff75]

Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter, a lifelong bachelor who was renowned for his love of a simple life in New Hampshire and dislike of Washington, died at home on Thursday at the age of 85, the court said in a statement.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/justice-david-souter-stealth-supreme-court-nominee-disappointed-conser-rcna131329

[mzmc]

Margot Friedländer, most prominent voice of Holocaust survivors in Germany, dies at 103.

[NT2C]

Margot Friedländer, most prominent voice of Holocaust survivors in Germany, dies at 103.

I cannot say with any certainty that she was the one but...

I have to tell a story now, from back when I was very young.  My father divorced my mother in 1960 and got custody of me.  I was 4.  He worked then as a clerk at Domino Sugar and started dating a nurse he met.  Eventually, they married.  For a while we lived in her tiny apartment overlooking the ocean liner berths in NYC but we moved to a bigger apartment in 1962 when my step-mother got pregnant with my half-sister.  The apartment was on the 5th floor of an old brick apartment building on the Upper West Side, just a block from Central Park.  Next door to our apartment lived a husband and wife who had two small Scottie dogs that I loved to play with, so I visited often.  They were German, their last name was Friendlander, and they were both survivors of Theresienstadt.  They seemed very old to me at the time, but looking back now, I realize they were scarcely older than my father, so late 20s, early 30s.  I used to love visiting them and Mister Friedlander would tell me stories about the war, a little about the camp, and a lot about being hungry all the time and having to scrounge through rubble, a little like my friends and I playing in the rubble of demolished buildings that were being torn down in the area for "urban renewal".  (They were our playgrounds, those wrecked old buildings, and I still have scars on me from cuts and scrapes earned in them.)  Mrs. Friedlander was pretty quiet, and her German accent much heavier than her husband's.  When they had their afternoon glasses of schnapps (cherry) they would give me a little glass of "Tom Collins mixer".  This was a carbonated soft drink similar to Sprite in taste, but with bits of fruit in it, and was intended to be used in making a Tom Collins cocktail.  I developed a taste for some German foods from having dinner with them.  They were nice people, and I missed them very much after we moved to a newly built NYC housing project.  My father told me they had moved but he didn't know where, so we never kept in touch.

I have no earthly idea if this is the Mrs. Friedlander of my childhood.  She could have been.  The face seems similar, but these are 60+ year-old memories and who knows, maybe she was, maybe she was.

Aleha hashalom. Zikhronah livrakha. 

[mzmc]

Margot Friedländer, most prominent voice of Holocaust survivors in Germany, dies at 103.

I cannot say with any certainty that she was the one but...

I have to tell a story now, from back when I was very young.  My father divorced my mother in 1960 and got custody of me.  I was 4.  He worked then as a clerk at Domino Sugar and started dating a nurse he met.  Eventually, they married.  For a while we lived in her tiny apartment overlooking the ocean liner berths in NYC but we moved to a bigger apartment in 1962 when my step-mother got pregnant with my half-sister.  The apartment was on the 5th floor of an old brick apartment building on the Upper West Side, just a block from Central Park.  Next door to our apartment lived a husband and wife who had two small Scottie dogs that I loved to play with, so I visited often.  They were German, their last name was Friendlander, and they were both survivors of Theresienstadt.  They seemed very old to me at the time, but looking back now, I realize they were scarcely older than my father, so late 20s, early 30s.  I used to love visiting them and Mister Friedlander would tell me stories about the war, a little about the camp, and a lot about being hungry all the time and having to scrounge through rubble, a little like my friends and I playing in the rubble of demolished buildings that were being torn down in the area for "urban renewal".  (They were our playgrounds, those wrecked old buildings, and I still have scars on me from cuts and scrapes earned in them.)  Mrs. Friedlander was pretty quiet, and her German accent much heavier than her husband's.  When they had their afternoon glasses of schnapps (cherry) they would give me a little glass of "Tom Collins mixer".  This was a carbonated soft drink similar to Sprite in taste, but with bits of fruit in it, and was intended to be used in making a Tom Collins cocktail.  I developed a taste for some German foods from having dinner with them.  They were nice people, and I missed them very much after we moved to a newly built NYC housing project.  My father told me they had moved but he didn't know where, so we never kept in touch.

I have no earthly idea if this is the Mrs. Friedlander of my childhood.  She could have been.  The face seems similar, but these are 60+ year-old memories and who knows, maybe she was, maybe she was.

Aleha hashalom. Zikhronah livrakha. 

Friedländer is a very common last name, in Germany in general, and among Jewish Germans in particular, but everything else checks out, too. Sounds indeed like that might have been her,

[NT2C]

Margot Friedländer, most prominent voice of Holocaust survivors in Germany, dies at 103.

I cannot say with any certainty that she was the one but...

I have to tell a story now, from back when I was very young.  My father divorced my mother in 1960 and got custody of me.  I was 4.  He worked then as a clerk at Domino Sugar and started dating a nurse he met.  Eventually, they married.  For a while we lived in her tiny apartment overlooking the ocean liner berths in NYC but we moved to a bigger apartment in 1962 when my step-mother got pregnant with my half-sister.  The apartment was on the 5th floor of an old brick apartment building on the Upper West Side, just a block from Central Park.  Next door to our apartment lived a husband and wife who had two small Scottie dogs that I loved to play with, so I visited often.  They were German, their last name was Friendlander, and they were both survivors of Theresienstadt.  They seemed very old to me at the time, but looking back now, I realize they were scarcely older than my father, so late 20s, early 30s.  I used to love visiting them and Mister Friedlander would tell me stories about the war, a little about the camp, and a lot about being hungry all the time and having to scrounge through rubble, a little like my friends and I playing in the rubble of demolished buildings that were being torn down in the area for "urban renewal".  (They were our playgrounds, those wrecked old buildings, and I still have scars on me from cuts and scrapes earned in them.)  Mrs. Friedlander was pretty quiet, and her German accent much heavier than her husband's.  When they had their afternoon glasses of schnapps (cherry) they would give me a little glass of "Tom Collins mixer".  This was a carbonated soft drink similar to Sprite in taste, but with bits of fruit in it, and was intended to be used in making a Tom Collins cocktail.  I developed a taste for some German foods from having dinner with them.  They were nice people, and I missed them very much after we moved to a newly built NYC housing project.  My father told me they had moved but he didn't know where, so we never kept in touch.

I have no earthly idea if this is the Mrs. Friedlander of my childhood.  She could have been.  The face seems similar, but these are 60+ year-old memories and who knows, maybe she was, maybe she was.

Aleha hashalom. Zikhronah livrakha. 

Friedländer is a very common last name, in Germany in general, and among Jewish Germans in particular, but everything else checks out, too. Sounds indeed like that might have been her,

Yes, I knew it was a common last name, particularly amongst German Jews, but the camp identity is what did it for me.  Being a young child, I was curious about their tattoos.  My dad had tattoos from his military days that I was always curious about.  When Mr. Friedlander told me what the tattoos were for, and that they put them on people they were planning to kill, I got concerned about my dad, so he had to explain about the camp he and his wife were in, and about the war's end, rescuing them from that fate.  That did three things: First, it made me forever hate tattoos of all kinds, second, it sparked a lifelong interest in the history of WWII, third, it made me one of the very few, non-Jewish Americans who had ever heard of Theresienstadt.  So seeing that last name and that she'd been in that camp... the world suddenly shrank very small for me.

[Lambykins]

Joe Don Baker, 89, actor . Walking Tall
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/joe-don-baker-rugged-star-110715126.html

Also, country singer Johnny Rodriguez passed two days ago. He was 73.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/arts/music/johnny-rodriguez-dead.html