What sad news I came across while reading the New York Times online on Sunday.

One of my favorite singers and songwriters has passed away.

Abbey Lincoln, at 80, died Saturday as most jazz fans know by now. And most of Abbey’s fans know the details of her vivacious life. Her lounge singing start in the 1950s, her supreme acting in important roles in the 1960s films Nothing But a Man (1964) and For Love of Ivy (1968), both of which came after her 1962 marriage to jazz drummer and bandleader Max Roach.

Her personal and musical relationship with Roach would play an important part in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s as well as in Lincoln’s own musical career. She branched out from supper-club singer to jazz singer and songwriter, collaborating with a multitude of jazz giants over the course of her long career, including pairings with Archie Shepp, Eric Dolphy and Sonny Rollins, and, of course, Roach.

In the past two decades, Lincoln’s songwriting really hit its stride, with a string of fantastic, critically acclaimed albums starting with 1991’s The World Is Falling Down, 1993’s The Devil Got Your Tongue, 1994’s perfect A Turtle’s Dream and 2007’s ambitious Abbey Sings Abbey. There are a bunch of great albums in between too.

My favorite Abbey tune is “Throw it Away,” from A Turtle’s Dream. In memory of one of the coolest chicks that ever came out of the American jazz scene, here are a few passages from the song:

Throw it away

Throw it away

Give your love, live your life

Each and every day

And keep your hand wide open

‘Let the sun shine through

‘Cause you can never lose a thing

If it belongs to you

You can also listen to NPR’s “Fresh Air” tribute to Lincoln, including interviews with the late singer from 1986 and 1996.

Keep your hand wide open, Abbey.

Dennis Hopper was an actor who expressed his passion for life in his work.

He passed away on May 29 at the age of 74 after a battle with cancer. Go here for a tribute.

As reported yesterday, the metal legend Ronnie James Dio has passed away. He was 67.

It was just last year that Dio appeared in Atlantic City with a group featuring some of the members of Black Sabbath called Heaven and Hell. (Dio replaced orighinal Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osborne in 1980 and released the album Heaven and Hell with the band.)

It was after last year’s Atlantic City show that Dio, who was also in the group Rainbow, announced he was suffering from stomach cancer.

Read more about Dio here.

Photo from rothgoldsteins.com

Maxwell “Sonny” Goldberg (pictured left) passed away Monday, May 10, in Philadelphia at the age of 83.
Goldberg was a key player in the growth of the Atlantic City casino industry, having co-owned with business partner Milton Neustadter the Howard Johnson’s Hotel. The Howard Johnson’s Hotel for several years served as home to the annual March of Dimes Telethon, and in 1978 would later become Caesars Boardwalk Regency (now Caesars Atlantic City), A.C.’s second casino-hotel. Goldberg is also the former owner of the Steel Pier. He was born and raised in Atlantic City, graduated from Atlantic City High School, and is a veteran of the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he served as a flight engineer. (more…)

Lena Horne, who died Sunday at the age of 92, was a trailblazer for her race and for the human race. A brilliant interpretive singer and actress, she perhaps never achieved the fame that would have come if she had been born in a later era, when racism and prejudice had eased in this country.

Her fiery determination to succeed, and to do so without perpetuating the stereotypes that were designed to keep African Americans in their place, was the secret of her success. Although she starred in Cabin In The Sky and Stormy Weather, she didn’t get the film work that she deserved; she often appeared in revue style musicals doing a song or two that could be cut out when the films played in the south.

She really developed her international stardom thanks to her concerts and numerous television appearances. In 1981, she headlined a one-woman show on Broadway — Lena Horne: The Woman and Her Music that reminded the world that she still had plenty of sass, those great pipes and was still stunningly beautiful, at age 60.

She will be missed.

I loved Lynn Redgrave and was thrilled when I got to be in the same room with her during a press conference at the Toronto Film Festival in 1998 for Gods and Monsters.
Like so many movie buffs, I became a big fan of hers thanks to her brilliant performance in the offbeat 1967 hit Georgy Girl; as an “ugly duckling” myself I identified with her performance as a plain jane who is looking for love.

While she had numerous film roles after that, they were mostly in supporting roles. She did most of her best work in the theater, including shows that she wrote about life in her famous family, including the play Shakespeare For My Father. She was the baby of the Redgrave family that included brother Corin Redgrave (who died last month), sister Vanessa Redgrave, and her actor parents Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Her niece, actress Natasha Richardson, died last year in a skiing accident. It has been a bad year for the Redgrave family.

As the down to earth member of the family, Lynn Redgrave did tons of television work, including recent stints on Ugly Betty, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Desperate Housewives. She loved America and became a U.S. citizen.

Lynn Redgrave was “the other Redgrave sister,” but when she appeared in a project, be it a terrific movie like Gods and Monsters (which earned her a second Oscar nomination), or an episode of The Love Boat, Lynn Redgrave always brought a smile to my face.

Rants and raves about burning topics that have caught my attention midweek, be it greedy corporate shenanigans, frustration or joy in regards to the Philly sports teams, a movie, show or DVD that has fired up my imagination, an intriguing personality, or my on-going battle to lose weight in our fast food world. — Lori Hoffman, Associate Editor, Atlantic City Weekly

This is a sad day for those of us who grew up on Absecon Island and remember a great family restaurant in Atlantic City, Sabatini’s. Clare Sabatini, the matriarch of the Sabatini family, who later became famous for her “eminent domain” battle with Donald Trump, has passed away. While I remember going to the restaurant with my family, what I remember more is growing up in the same Ventnor neighborhood, playing touch football with Charlie Sabatini — who was incredibly fast — and having Anna Marie Sabatini tell me about the “birds and the bees” in graphic detail. Mrs. Sabatini was a sweet woman that I saw in passing over the decades at various events around town. She was a true pillar of the community, a community that has now lost a great friend. My sympathy goes out to the Sabatini family for their loss.

Chicago Flights Coming in 2011
There is good news and bad news from Atlantic City International Airport. First the bad news: as of May 9, there will no longer be a daily flight to Toronto as the service did not do as much business as hoped. I’m really sorry to hear that, since I was considering flying to the Toronto Film Festival instead of driving.

On a brighter note, Spirit Airlines has announced that it will add flights between Chicago and Atlantic City starting in the spring of next year. Currently, business at ACY is on an upswing. The airport served more passengers in March of this year than in any month in its history. In addition, ridership in the first three months of 2010 has been 20 percent above the totals for the first quarter of 2009. (more…)

A publicity still from the 1950s.

The always classy actress Jean Simmons passed away over the weekend of lung cancer just shy of her 81st birthday this Sunday. One of my all time favorite moments in any film is her drunken seduction/dance opposite Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls (1955).
She first earned acclaimed as Ophelia opposite Laurence Oliver in Hamlet (1948), earning an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Her performance as evangelist Sister Sharon opposite Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry (1960) is one of the finest performances in her career.

Her other memorable screen roles include All the Way Home (1963), a nice display of her comedic skills opposite Cary Grant in The Grass Is Greener (1960), and another Oscar nominated role as an unhappy wife in The Happy Ending, directed by her husband at the time, Richard Brooks. In the category of a “guilty pleasure,” I loved her in the little seen Robert Wise romantic comedy This Could Be The Night (1957) opposite Paul Douglas, Anthony Franciosa and Joan Blondell.

A recent shot of Jean Simmons.

TV fans from the 1980s might remember her as the patriarch of the Cleary family (an Emmy winning performance) in the popular 1983 mini-series, The Thorn Birds, or as a diplomat, Admiral Satie, who has lost her sense of justice as she conducts a trial to uncover sabotage on a memorable episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Drumhead” (1991). More recently she was the voice of the grandmother in the English language of the Japanese animation Howl’s Moving Castle (2004).

By all accounts she was a lovely person as well as a wonderful actress.

Teddy Pendergrass

R&B singer Teddy Pendergrass, who died Wednesday at the age of 59, will always hold a special place in Atlantic City history. The Philadelphia native chose the resort (or as he said at the time, “Atlantic City chose me”) to host his first full concerts since the 1982 car accident that left him paralyzed and dimmed his amazing career (his heroic performance at Live Aid in Philadelphia in 1985 had been his first appearance on stage after the accident). Pendergrass performed two sold out shows at the Xanadu Theater at the Trump Taj Mahal on Memorial Day weekend in 2001. He would perform again in the city that year and in 2002 and was often seen in the audience of other R&B artists playing the resort through the years. Read more about Pendergrass here.

Brittany Murphy, 1977-2009.

It is always sad when someone dies too young, especially when you think about the work they might have achieved. Brittany Murphy was a talented actress who had yet to find her true breakout role. She passed away at the age of 32 over the weekend, with the initial report suggesting she died of a heart attack. There has been some speculation that her heart might have weakened by substance abuse. An autopsy report will be released at a later date.

Murphy had not yet shown us the true depth of her talent but there were glimmers in such movies as Clueless, Sin City, The Dead Girl, and in particular her acting in 8 Mile. For a complete story on her death go here.