And as I looked around the internet, I couldn’t find a real obituary for him, which surprised me since 1985 wasn’t that long ago. I also was pretty disappointed. Not only is Perry’s stage name a name that’s thrown around a lot in popular culture- enough to merit widespread memorializing and analysis- it’s another reminder of the kinds of people the research has shown our society chooses to remember, and how they remember them.
One of the more interesting and relatively fair articles I found about Perry came from NPR in 2006 on the occasion of Mel Watkins’ biography of Stepin Fetchit.
Here’s the link to “Stepin Fetchit, Hollywood’s First Black Film Star”.
And here’s Perry’s IMDB page, too.
ALINA (SEYMOUR FROMER):
A New York Times obituary of Seymour Fromer, a collector of one of the largest collections of Judaica in North America, including archives documenting the history of Jews in the American West. Kind of interesting.
IAN (CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS):
My favorite obits this week were of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. He was terribly influential as a thinker, and leading proponent of structuralism. Practically every high-quality obituary page ran something on him, and this is just one sample from the Guardian.
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ASHLEY (MARY BRILL):
I enjoyed this very local obituary in the Sacramento Bee about a 59-year-old community activist named Mary Brill. It’s a touching tribute to a woman who suffered multiple scelrosis, a brain tumor and other health ailments, yet remained a powerful and engaged advocate for local issues. It’s also interesting that the Sacramento Bee is not served by Legacy.com, that a fair number of people commented on the obituary, and that Ms. Brill was a single, unmarried woman.
ALINA (INDIRA GHANDI):
This is an old obit from 1984 of Indira Ghandi that was featured on the New York Times website for obits of people who died on this day in history. This obit of the Indian leader is not much like an obit at all. First of all it’s very long and it’s more like a long feature article with a headline and section breaks. I think this is a good example of the kind of reporting that can be done around people who have died, especially prominent ones.
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MING AND IAN (HOWARD UNRUH):
(MING): The headline caught me in the first place. It seems that all the obituaries I’ve read before were talking about someone who either had achievement in a particular field or had a very interesting. meaningful life. But someone who killed 13 of his neighbors? Never. It’s more like reading a fiction story. When I was reading the details of the story, I could even picture the scene and it really terrified me. I was thinking that the military life this man experienced must have made him very scared, hurt or something. And. very ironically, after this, his life was all about sleeping and watching TV. His entire life literally left nothing but the massacre.
(IAN): I’m a sucker for a serial killer story. I think it comes from my love of horror movies. This guy, Howard Unruh, was a real-life monster, and never went to jail. He lived out his days confined in a hospital for the criminally insane after killing 13 of his neighbors for seemingly no reason at all.
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We’re getting really creative …
TIFFANY (NAN ROBERTSON):
As an aspiring female journalist, I cannot help but give gratitude to Nan Robertson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times who died Tuesday at the age of 83. Nan made it possible for women to be respected and treated equally in the newsroom at a time when they were regarded as second-class citizens. I don’t think there is a woman in the media who doesn’t owe a great deal to Nan Robertson and her legacy.
MING (JULES POWER):
Hey, this guy was a Northwestern alum! The obituary really caught the point of Mr. Power’s life–his achievement in Children’s programming production. The comment from George Woolery’s book tells exactly what Mr. Power helped to introduce: basic science and something more meaningful by producing programs. And I also like the quote from Mr. Power before his first broadcast.
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Welcome to our second edition.
The first, if you recall, ran the gamut from journalists to a cosmonaut to a follower of Charles Manson. Think we’re eclectic? We try again this week.
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Each Friday, all team members will submit their favorite obituaries from the previous week. Be on the lookout for themed posts as time rolls along — i.e., “best-written obits of the week” – but for now, here’s a sampling of eight that runs the gamut from a cosmonaut to a Charles Manson follower (yikes!).
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