This post is particularly hard for me because...well, because. I've had it written for several weeks. I was working on it the night of December 17th and we had the following conversation:
Tim: Whatcha workin' on baby?
Me: My list of famous folks who died in 2010. You know I do that every year.
Tim: Am I on there?
Me: NO. Quit that.
Tim: Well, I'm just saying.
Me: Well, quit saying.
Tim: K, love, just for you.
The next morning he had a major heart attack. We went to the hospital.
This list did not cross my mind again until the 20th. That's when I made the last entry, Steve Landesberg. I had come home to shower and get some fresh clothes. I went back to the hospital and the list once again left my mind.
Then, after also suffering a stroke, and fighting so hard, two days after Christmas my Love passed away.
Last night, while looking through things on our computer, I saw the list. I said to myself, just forget it. But then I remembered the conversation Tim & I had had about it and I decided that not only should I post it but I should include him on it. He deserves that honor. He was more important to me than anybody in the world.
This years list is not as "clean" as previous lists. I haven't done much editing to it. I normally add photos but I just can't bring myself to do that. Except for my husband. He gets his photo here.
January
6th- George Leonard, 86, American writer, editor and educator, pioneer of the Human Potential Movement, after long illness.
12th- Brian Damage, 46, American punk and rock drummer (Misfits), complications of colorectal cancer.
13th- Teddy Pendergrass, 59, American soul singer, complications from colorectal cancer.
17th- Erich Segal, 72, American professor, author (Love Story), and screenwriter (Yellow Submarine), heart attack.
19th- Jennifer Lyon, 37, American reality TV personality (Survivor: Palau), breast cancer.
22nd- James Mitchell, 89, American actor (All My Children), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
27th- Barry Blitzer, 80, American television writer (Get Smart, The Flintstones), complications from abdominal surgery.
J. D. Salinger, 91, American author (The Catcher in the Rye), natural causes.
Zelda Rubinstein, 76, American actress (Poltergeist, Picket Fences), natural causes.
30th- Aaron Ruben, 95, American television producer (Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C., Sanford and Son), pneumonia.
February
1st- Justin Mentell, 27, American actor (Boston Legal), car accident.
David Brown, 93, American film producer (Jaws), renal failure.
Jack Brisco, 68, American professional wrestler, complications from open heart surgery.
8th- David Froman, 71, American actor (The Edge of Night, Matlock), cancer.
Bill Utterback, 79, American illustrator and caricaturist.
19th- Lionel Jeffries, 83, British film actor, screenwriter and director.
25th- Andrew Koenig, 41, American actor (Growing Pains), suicide (body discovered on this date).
28th- Tom "T-Bone" Wolk, 58, American bass guitarist (Hall & Oates), heart attack.
March
4th- Nan Martin, 82, American actress (The Drew Carey Show), emphysema.
10th- Corey Haim, 38, Canadian actor (Lucas, The Lost Boys, License to Drive), pneumonia.
11th- Merlin Olsen, 69, American football player (L.A. Rams) and actor (Little House on the Prairie, Father Murphy), mesothelioma.
14th- Peter Graves, 83, American actor (Mission: Impossible, Airplane!), heart attack.
18th- Fess Parker, 85, American actor (Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone), natural causes.
24th- Robert Culp, 79, American actor (I Spy, The Greatest American Hero, Everybody Loves Raymond), heart attack.
April
1st- John Forsythe, 92, American actor (Bachelor Father, Charlie's Angels, Dynasty), complications from pneumonia.
6th- Wilma Mankiller, 64, American activist, first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation (1985–1995), pancreatic cancer.
10th- Dixie Carter, 70, American actress (Designing Women, Diff'rent Strokes), endometrial cancer.
14th- Mississippi Slim, 66, American blues singer, heart attack.
25th- Dorothy Provine, 75, American actress, (It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World), emphysema.
May
1st- Helen Wagner, 91, American actress (As the World Turns).
2nd- Lynn Redgrave, 67, English actress (Georgy Girl, Gods and Monsters), breast cancer.
9th- Lena Horne, 92, American singer and actress (Stormy Weather, The Wiz).
16th- Ronnie James Dio, 67, American heavy metal singer (Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Dio), stomach cancer.
20th- Robert L. McNeil, Jr., 94, American chemist and inventor, creator of Tylenol, heart failure.
26th- Art Linkletter, 97, Canadian-born American radio and television personality (House Party, People are Funny), natural causes.
28th- Gary Coleman, 42, American actor (Diff'rent Strokes), intracranial hemorrhage
29th- Dennis Hopper, 74, American actor and film director (Easy Rider), prostate cancer.
June
3rd- Rue McClanahan, 76, American actress (The Golden Girls, Maude), stroke.
6th- Marvin Isley, 56, American bassist (The Isley Brothers, Isley-Jasper-Isley), complications of diabetes.
13th- Jimmy Dean, 81, American country music singer (Big Bad John), actor and businessman (Jimmy Dean Foods), natural causes.
16th- Bill Dixon, 84, American jazz musician.
Ronald Neame, 99, British film director (The Poseidon Adventure) and screenwriter.
24th- JoJo Billingsley, 58, American back-up singer (Lynyrd Skynyrd), cancer.
25th- Richard B. Sellars, 94, American Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson.
July
13th- George Steinbrenner, 80, American baseball team owner (New York Yankees), heart attack.
August
8th- Jack Parnell, 87, British musician and bandleader (The Muppet Show), cancer.
21st- Nancy Dolman, 58, Canadian actress (Soap), wife of Martin Short, natural causes.
23rd- George David Weiss, 89, American composer ("What a Wonderful World", "Can't Help Falling in Love", "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"), natural causes.
Bill Phillips, 74, American country music singer.
September
7th- Glenn Shadix, 58, American actor (Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas), fall.
11th- King Coleman, 78, American rhythm and blues singer ("Do the Mashed Potatoes"), heart failure.
Harold Gould, 86, American actor (The Sting, Rhoda, The Golden Girls), prostate cancer.
Kevin McCarthy, 96, American actor (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), natural causes.
17th- Bill Littlejohn, 96, American animator (Tom and Jerry, Peanuts), natural causes.
21st- John Crawford, 90, American actor (The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, The Waltons), stroke.
22nd- Eddie Fisher, 82, American singer and entertainer, complications from hip surgery.
26th- Gloria Stuart, 100, American film actress (The Invisible Man, Titanic), respiratory failure.
29th- Tony Curtis, 85, American actor (Some Like It Hot, Spartacus, The Defiant Ones), cardiac arrest.
October
10th- Solomon Burke, 70, American R&B singer-songwriter ("Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"), natural causes.
16th- Barbara Billingsley, 94, American actress (Leave It to Beaver, Airplane!).
19th- Tom Bosley, 83, American actor (Happy Days, Father Dowling Mysteries), heart failure.
26th- James Phelps, 78, American gospel and R&B singer, complications of diabetes.
27th- Denise Borino-Quinn, 46, American actress (The Sopranos), liver cancer.
28th- James MacArthur, 72, American actor (Hawaii Five-O, Swiss Family Robinson), natural causes.
November
1st- Charlie O'Donnell, 78, American announcer (Wheel of Fortune), heart failure.
4th- Michelle Nicastro, 50, American singer, actress (When Harry Met Sally...) and voice actress (The Swan Princess), lung cancer.
5th- Jill Clayburgh, 66, American actress (An Unmarried Woman, Ally McBeal, Dirty Sexy Money), chronic leukemia
15th- William Self, 89, American actor and television production manager (Batman, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea), heart attack.
28th- Leslie Nielsen, 84, Canadian-born American actor (Airplane!, The Naked Gun), pneumonia.
December
7th- Elizabeth Edwards, 61, American author, lawyer and political activist, breast cancer.
9th- James Moody, 85, American jazz saxophonist and flautist, pancreatic cancer.
15th- Blake Edwards, 88, American film director, producer and screenwriter (The Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffany's), pneumonia.
20th- Steve Landesberg, actor (Barney Miller, The Golden Girls), 65, cancer
27th- Charles Timothy Brakhage Sr., husband, father, son, grandfather, brother, uncle, friend, 46. We will always love and miss you babyluv.
