http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2009-04-10-dave-arneson-obit_N.htm Co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons dies at 61 4-10-9 MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Dave Arneson, one of the co-creators of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy game and a pioneer of role-playing entertainment, died after a two-year battle with cancer, his family said Thursday. He was 61. Arneson's daughter, Malia Weinhagen, said her father died peacefully Tuesday in hospice care. Arneson and Gary Gygax developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys. It eventually was turned into video games, books and movies. Gygax died in March 2008. "The biggest thing about my dad's world is he wanted people to have fun in life," Weinhagen said. "I think we get distracted by the everyday things you have to do in life and we forget to enjoy life and have fun. "But my dad never did," she said. "He just wanted people to have fun." Dungeons & Dragons players create fictional characters and carry out their adventures with the help of complicated rules. The quintessential geek pastime, it spawned copycat games and later inspired a whole genre of computer games that Is still growing in popularity. "(Arneson) developed many of the fundamental ideas of role-playing: that each player controls just one hero, that heroes gain power through adventures, and that personality is as important as combat prowess," according to a statement from Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. that produces Dungeons & Dragons. Blackmoor, a game Arneson was developing before D&D, was the "first-ever role-playing campaign and the prototype for all (role-playing game) campaigns since," the company said. Arneson and Gygax were dedicated tabletop wargamers who recreated historical battles with painted miniature armies and fleets. They met in 1969 at a convention, and their first collaboration, along with Mike Carr, was a set of rules for sailing-ship battles called "Don't Give Up the Ship!" In later years, Dave published other role-playing games and started his own game-publishing company and computer game company. He also taught classes in game design. He was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design Hall of Fame in 1984. Weinhagen said her father enjoyed teaching game design at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, in recent years, where he taught students to make a solid set of rules for their games. "He said if you have a good foundation and a good set of rules, people would play the game again," Weinhagen said. Arneson is survived by Weinhagen and two grandchildren. *** http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1891127,00.html Marilyn Chambers, the Ivory Snow Porn Star, Dead at 56 By Richard Corliss Monday, Apr. 13, 2009 People in the '70s knew two things about Marilyn Chambers: that she had appeared as a model on an Ivory Snow box, fondly holding an infant under the corporate slogan "99 and 44/100% Pure"; and that she starred in Behind the Green Door, one of the first, weirdest and most popular hard-core movies in that brief period of the '70s known as Porno Chic. These two factettes, with their colliding irony, made the blond, willowy Chambers the pin-up princess of XXX cinema, a notoriety she parlayed into a career in soft- and hard-core sex films that lasted from 1972 until... yesterday. The sad news is that Chambers, to quote the title from a 1974 movie she did not appear in, is 99 and 44/100% dead. The actress was discovered last night in her mobile home in Santa Clarita, near Los Angeles, by her teenage daughter McKenna Taylor, from the last of Chambers' three marriages. An autopsy will be performed; foul play is not suspected. Chambers wasn't the first person to take the route from modeling and acting to hard-core, from commercials to pervertials. Eric Edwards, whose porn career spanned nearly four decades, had appeared in ads for Gillette razors and Close-Up toothpaste. But of all the shadow stars that emerged in the early porn sensation — Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems of Deep Throat, Georgina Spelvin of Devil in Miss Jones — Chambers was unusual in her WASPy good looks, her girl-next-door appeal and her use of her own name at a time when other actors resorted to jokey pseudonyms. If the Ivory Snow Girl could go into porn unashamed, then the genre was maybe not so sooty. She was different, and smart, in another way: when director Jim and Artie Mitchell asked her to star in Green Door, she demanded $25,000 (an astronomical sum in this pinchpenny industry) and a percentage of the gross. And she got it. Turned out the Mitchells, and the customers, got their money's worth. The special kick of Green Door, for the millions of young marrieds and college kids who make it a smash, was the image of a nice young lady submitting to, or demanding, some extravagant sexual attention. The minimal plot has Chambers inducted into a secret sex society, where she is put in a truss and suffers the pleasures of many gentlemen, including one of the first African-American sex-film stars, Johnnie Keyes. The plot could have been a metaphor for the incursion of a sex-film industry, once the entertainment of bordellos and stag parties, into the middle-class movie consciousness. Green Door had just a little more going for it than notoriety. The Mitchell brothers shared the artistic ambitions or pretensions of the era's porn-auteurs. Except for a narrative framing device, the film has almost no dialogue. Chambers' mass seduction scene is accompanied only by the sounds of heavy breathing, moans and the occasional audible wince. One of the film's money shots gets an instant replay in slo-mo, then in super slo-mo and finally in psychedelic greens and pinks. The last two minutes are extraordinary for a porn film: one extended closeup of a man's and a woman's faces as they kiss (and have sex). It was as if the Mitchells understood Ingmar Bergman's dictum that "Film begins with the human face." Cue Chambers' 15 mins. of white-hot celebrity. She did the TV talk shows. Warner Books published her autobiography, Marilyn Chambers: My Story. At the New School for Social Research she was a guest speaker at the first session of its new course, "Pornography Uncovered, Eroticism Exposed." She had done a tiny role in the 1970 Barbra Streisand comedy The Owl and the Pussycat; now, with her manager-husband, Chuck Trayner (who had earlier promoted, married and misused Lovelace), she planned her next big step: breaking into mainstream films. She landed in a Canadian backwater with the young David Cronenberg, then near the start of an exemplarily transgressive career writing and directing meta-horror movies (Shivers, Scanners, The Fly, Naked Lunch) about the body as the ultimate toxic agent. The project was the 1977 Rabid, in which Chambers plays Rose, a car-crash victim who undergoes surgery that forces her to feed on human blood; soon she has infected most of Toronto. The notion of a blond-angel porn star as the carrier of a fatal disease seemed misanthropic science fiction then. Within a few years, the festering of AIDS would ravage the world and decimate the sex-film community. Cronenberg hired Chambers on the advice of his producer, Ivan Reitman, who rightly figured her name would help sell the picture in foreign markets. If she wasn't quite as convincing as Cronenberg's first choice, Sissy Spacek (who at the time was making her breakout film, Carrie), she's a compelling, scary and often sympathetic presence. In the 1992 interview book Cronenberg on Cronenberg, the director described Chambers as "very shrewd and sharp," and she she "invented her own version of Method acting. When she had to cry it wasn't a problem, because Chuck would say, 'Remember when Fluffy died? — that was her cat — and then she'd cry. I thought she really had talent, and expected her to go on and do other straight movies. But she went back. I don't know whether it was Chuck, or that the industry wouldn't accept her." Hollywood didn't want her, but the San Fernando Valley did. That was the center of the burgeoning video market in the early '80s, when sex films accounted for an outsize share of sales and rentals. And Chambers was agreeable to lending the video-porn industry her allure. For the next two decades she starred in porn films and Cinemax-style sexploitation efforts. In her 40s and 50s she appeared as the hostess, and smiling dominatrix, of soft-core loops (Marilyn Chambers' Bedtime Fantasies, etc.) that still play on late-night pay cable. Perhaps her strangest career move came in the 2004 Presidential election, when she ran as Vice President on the Personal Choice party ticket; she received 946 votes. Marilyn Chambers spanned the entire era of above-ground erotic films, becoming something like the queen mum of porn. Unlike Lovelace and other early sex actresses, she never radiated victimhood. She seemed in charge of her career from the start — when she said, in effect, I'll make a dirty movie, if you pay me like a movie star — almost till the end. Almost till yesterday. *** http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/13/BAQ7171NB7.DTL Porn star Marilyn Chambers dies at 56 Sam Whiting, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Adult film actress Marilyn Chambers, the onetime Ivory Snow model who gained greater fame as the star of the X-rated "Behind the Green Door," was found dead Sunday by her teenage daughter at her home in Southern California. She was 56. Authorities have not released a cause of death. Ms. Chambers, given name Marilyn Briggs, was central to the erotic empire built by the late Mitchell brothers - Jim and Artie - at their Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre, now in its 40th year. Ten years ago, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown proclaimed a "Marilyn Chambers Day," praising the porn queen for her "artistic presence," her "vision" and her "energy." "That wasn't from any personal knowledge. That was all part of the allure of San Francisco," Brown said Monday. "At the time that she was doing what she was doing, it created an interest nationally if not internationally in our city. And people would come here to see if Marilyn Chambers was really dressed in snowflakes." The snowflakes reference goes back to her debut as a teenage model for Ivory Snow, which featured her on a laundry detergent box as a young mother cuddling a laughing baby. According to journalist Warren Hinckle, chronicler of the Mitchell Brothers era, she grew up in Connecticut as the daughter of an ad executive. "She went to all the right schools and was doing all the right things," Hinckle said. At age 18, she had made her way to San Francisco and answered an ad placed by the Mitchells, who were making films to show in their movie theater. "Behind the Green Door," released in 1972, was one of the first adult movies with a plot, of sorts. In their promotions, the Mitchells didn't mind that their star had a previous affiliation with the cleansing powers of soap. "Without this Ivory Snow thing, they might have stayed with these small-time performers," said Rita Benton, marketing director for the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. "It hit all the major news media in 1973. Then they promoted the movie as 'starring Marilyn Chambers, 99.44% pure.' That's what the Ivory Snow line used to be." Made for $50,000, "Behind the Green Door" has made millions, Benton said, and still sells on DVD, as does her second movie, "Resurrection of Eve," made in 1973. Ms. Chambers never lived full time in the Bay Area and was never a regular performer in the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre, which started live shows in 1976. She would come back for guest performances over the years. Most famously was during the administration of Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who seemed to have it in for the Mitchells. In what some described as a publicity stunt, the brothers invited Ms. Chambers, then 32, to travel north from her home and help raise morale. Ms. Chambers did as she was asked on a February night in 1985, undressing and taking an "undulating stroll through an appreciative audience," according to a Chronicle report, an audience that included five undercover police officers. In all, it took 13 officers to make the arrest. "The force ... that took me to jail was appalling," said Ms. Chambers, who then expressed concern that she wouldn't know how to tell her mother she had been detained. "She just got over the X-rated films," she said. A few years ago, Ms. Chambers made her last appearance at the Mitchell theater during a tribute to her. The place was packed, recalled Hinckle, who was there and got a photo of Ms. Chambers with his basset hound, Melman. Ms. Chambers also appeared in theatrical features, including David Cronenberg's thriller "Rabid" in 1977. She was married and divorced three times, according to the Associated Press, and is survived by her daughter, McKenna Marie Taylor; her brother, Bill Briggs; and her sister, Jann Smith. E-mail Sam Whiting at swhiting@schronicle.com. This article appeared on page B - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle *** http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=538421 Stan McNeal Three decades later, the Bird's flight still dazzles April 13, 2009 I was watching the MLB Network the other day and on came an ABC Monday night game from 1976 between the Tigers and Yankees. A game worth watching for one reason: Mark Fidrych was pitching for the Tigers. Two days later, I'm at my desk watching MLB Network and on comes news that Mark Fidrych has died. First Nick Adenhart, then Harry Kalas and Fidrych. As Todd Jones often reminds us, what happens in baseball mirrors what happens in real life. We have found out in the past week how true that is. I lived in Lakeland, Fla., in 1977, and when driving around town that spring training would be on the lookout for Fidrych sightings. Honk and he would wave. I remember seeing him cross Memorial Boulevard one evening, and sure enough, he waved. The Bird and his teammates also could be found fairly regularly at Zimmerman's bar on Florida Avenue. A regular guy, except he was on top of the baseball world at the time. He went 19-9 with a 2.34 ERA in 1976, started the All-Star Game as a 21-year-old rookie, won the AL Rookie of the Year award and finished second in the AL Cy Young voting. He pitched 250 1/3 innings that season, including 24 complete games in 29 starts. His pitching was great, but what made him the Bird was the way he was. He was tall and gangly with long, straggly hair. When he finished an inning, he was the first one back in the dugout. He patted the rubber. If a teammate made an error, Fidrych sometimes would saunter over on the spot and pat him on the back. He talked to the baseball, often pointing to where he wanted it to go. If someone today acted like the Bird did 33 years ago, they would be accused of trying to show up the opposition. But Fidrych got away with it. He was as popular as any player in the game that magical summer. The Tigers averaged 18,224 in attendance but more than doubled that for most of Fidrych's starts. There were 47,000-plus at Tiger Stadium for the Monday night game against the Yankees that MLB Network just aired. (Fidrych beat New York, 5-1, on a seven-hitter.) As a 22-year-old rookie first baseman for the Tigers, Jason Thompson had better than a front-row seat for the Bird's performance. Thompson, known as Roof Top for hitting balls over the roof of Tiger Stadium, played in Detroit for all five of Fidrych's seasons, then played six more seasons in the majors, mostly with the Pirates. He was a three-time All-Star with two 30-homer, 100-RBI seasons. Ask him his favorite season and he doesn't hesitate. "For me, 1976 was the most fun I ever had playing baseball, and it wasn't even close. What made it so special was that he wasn't an act," Thompson said. "He was so genuine. We used to be out there just watching him. We enjoyed watching him just like you guys." Thompson likens traveling with Fidrych that summer to being with a rock band. "He had to fly into places before the team to do all the media," Thompson said. "We weren't any good that year and we didn't draw but when he pitched, every place was rocking. I remember going to the old park in Minneapolis and the place was shaking so much I thought it was going to fall down." After games, the young Tigers would hang out together. "We were all just kids playing baseball, not making a lot of money. We'd all hang out after games." Thompson had played in the instructional league with Fidrych the previous fall and remembers him being good but "nobody thought he was going to be the next Roger Clemens or anything." Fidrych made the Tigers as a non-roster player in spring training but didn't get his first start until May 15. He beat the Indians, 2-1, with a two-hitter. The show was on. Unfortunately, the show didn't last but that one season because injuries derailed Fidrych's career in 1977. He started only 27 games over the next four years before his big-league days were done. He soon would make it back to his Massachusetts home, seemingly content to work on his farm in Northborough. "I've seen him a few times over the years," Thompson said. "He would come to Detroit a time or two a year, and I saw him at Tiger fantasy camps. He seemed happy, a family guy who stayed on his farm." Thompson operates a baseball academy in the Detroit area and was giving a hitting lesson when his wife came out to tell him that Fidrych had died. "I said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" Thompson said. "This is big Tiger country. I talk to people every day about Mark Fidrych. Everybody knows who he is. It hasn't even hit how big a loss this is." Stan McNeal is a staff writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at smcneal@sportingnews.com. *** http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090413&content_id=4253630 Kalas passing hits close to home Rays' thoughts are with Todd, son of late broadcaster By Bill Chastain / MLB.com 04/13/09 ST. PETERSBURG -- Philadelphia lost an icon when Harry Kalas died shortly after collapsing inside the Phillies' broadcast booth in Washington on Monday afternoon at age 73, while Todd Kalas, who is part of the Rays' broadcast team, lost a father. Harry Kalas was inducted into the broadcaster's wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2002, having won the Ford C. Frick Award, which is presented to broadcasters who've made major contributions to baseball. He had been a broadcaster for 43 years, the previous 38 with the Phillies, where he began working in 1971. Kalas was found unconscious in the team's broadcast booth around 12:30 p.m. ET, and he was taken to George Washington University Medical Center. Team officials quickly cleared the clubhouse to talk to the players, coaches and staff. The cause of the death is unknown, but Kalas missed the beginning of Spring Training after having an undisclosed medical procedure. He was in good spirits when he arrived in Clearwater, Fla., eager to follow the Phillies for another season. Todd was not at Tropicana Field for the Rays' home opener against the Yankees on Monday night, but he was on the minds of members of the Rays family. "For Todd and his family, it's just an awful moment and we send our sympathies, and I can't wait to visit with Todd in person," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. Maddon hails from Hazleton, Pa., so he understands the magnitude of Kalas' passing. "He was definitely a part of the culture, not only in Major League Baseball, but sports in general and definitely in that part of the world," Maddon said. "I remember listening to him growing up. And I know that people back there are going to take it very hard." Rays play-by-play voice Dewayne Staats said Todd called him earlier on Monday to tell him his father had passed and that Todd seemed to be taking it as well as he could. "Harry was the personification of taking his gift and doing what you're supposed to do with it," Staats said. "He enjoyed it. It's a great gift. And he made sure that he took full advantage of that, and as he transitions from this life into the next one, what better place to do it than at the ballpark, in the booth? And if Harry could have written it his way, that's exactly the way he would have written it." Staats said he felt like he had known Harry Kalas since 1965, when Kalas called Houston Astros games. "I was a little kid listening to him broadcast Jimmy Wynn home runs at the Astrodome," Staats said. "And his home run call was, 'And that ball is in Astros orbit.' So I feel like I've known him for a long time. And then in the mid '70s, '76 or '77, I got to know him when I joined the Astros full-time." Staats remembered Kalas as being quick to help nurture a young broadcaster, such as himself when he first got into the business. "Harry as a veteran broadcaster was nothing but gracious," Staats said. "He was really kind to a young broadcaster trying to feel his way. And I've always had just great warm feelings for him. So when Todd became part of our crew in the beginning, doing what he's doing, it was like, 'Yeah, that's right, that's what he should be.'" Longtime baseball man Don Zimmer knew Kalas for many years and said simply, "He was a great man." "I've known him as long as he's been announcing," Zimmer said. "I always saw him at ballparks, and we always kidded with each other. I saw him at restaurants, just a great guy, classy individual. "When I walked in here and heard that news today, I couldn't believe it. My god, 73 years old, he's young. He was a great man. Everybody loved him. And I loved listening to him. I heard him call many games. It's a sad story." Dave Wills, who is part of Tampa Bay's radio broadcast, spoke of seeing Kalas when the Rays played the Phillies in Philadelphia for their final two games of the spring. "Obviously, he looked a little frail from having some of the issues that he suffered through during the spring," Wills said. "But I don't think anybody thought he wasn't going to be among us in a couple of weeks. It's tough. I feel for Todd and his family. And I feel for the city of Philadelphia. He was their voice. The voice of a generation and one of the great voices of this game and is going to be sorely missed." Andy Freed, who shares the radio booth with Wills, called the situation weird. "We're so used to thinking about everything in terms of baseball," Freed said. "But I'm thinking of Todd today as I would my own father. It's just horribly sad. I think of it as a family member would, losing your own dad and not being able to share things with him anymore." The Phillies, who postponed their scheduled visit on Tuesday to the White House, said funeral arrangements are pending. In addition to Todd, Harry Kalas is survived by his wife, Eileen, and his other two sons, Brad and Kane. Bill Chastain is a reporter for MLB.com. Todd Zolecki contributed to this report. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. *** http://blogs.usatoday.com/thehuddle/2009/04/harry-kalas-voice-of-nfl-films-dies-at-73.html Harry Kalas, voice of NFL Films, dies at 73 Sean Leahy April 13, 2009 Broadcaster Harry Kalas died today in Washington after passing out in the radio booth before the game between the Philles and Nationals. Kalas, in addition to broadcasting Phillies games since 1971, was the voice of NFL Films. Kalas was 73. NFL Films president Steve Sabol released this statement after news of Kalas' death broke: "In the 46 years of NFL Films, we have worked with two of the greatest voiceover talents in television history. John Facenda was the 'Voice of God' and Harry Kalas was the 'Voice of the People.' "His substance was his style. There was no shtick, just a steady blend of crisp articulation and resonance. "In many ways, Harry is the narrator of our memories. His voice lives on not only on film, but inside the heads of everyone who has watched and listened to NFL Films." Football fans will recognize his voice from NFL Films material and more recently from video game commercials.