RIP Ted Nichols

 

TED NICHOLS DEAD AT 97

Saturday Mornings Forever

March 1. 2026

 

It's being reported that Ted Nichols died back in January.

He served as a composer and musical director for Hanna-Barbera, working on shows that included The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show, Space Ghost, The Space Kidettes, Shazzan, Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor, Fantastic Four (1967), The Herculoids, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, Young Samson & Goliath, The Adventures of Gulliver, Cattanooga Cats, Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, Harlem Globetrotters, Josie and the Pussycats, Help!...It’s the Hair Bear Bunch!, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, and The Roman Holidays.

NICHOLS, Ted (Theodore Nicholas Sflotsos)

Born: 10/2/1928 Missoula, Montana, U.S.A

Died: 1/9/1926, Williams, Arizona, U.S.A.

 

Ted Nichols’ westerns – composer:

The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (TV) 1968-1969

RIP John Hammond

 

John Hammond, Blues Singer-Guitarist, Dies at 83

Best Classic Bands

By Jeff Tamarkin

3/1/2026

 

John Hammond, the blues singer and guitarist also known as John P. Hammond and John Hammond Jr., died yesterday, Feb. 28, 2026. His passing was confirmed by musician Paul James, a collaborator and close friend of Hammond’s, who posted on Facebook that he received news of Hammond’s death from the latter’s wife Marla. The cause and place of his death have not yet been revealed. Hammond was 83.

The son of the famed Columbia Records producer and talent scout also named John, the younger Hammond took to the guitar in high school and began performing traditional-style acoustic blues. He turned professional after dropping out of Antioch College in Ohio and signed with Vanguard Records in 1963; his debut album consisted largely of interpretations of material written by such blues artists as Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Robert Johnson, as well as Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene.” During his lengthy career, Hammond, who also played harmonica, released more than 30 albums, most remaining true to his favored blues styles. One album, however, 2001’s Wicked Grin, consisted almost entirely of covers of Tom Waits songs.

Born in New York City on November 13, 1942, John Paul Hammond was the son of Jemison McBride and John Henry Hammond Jr. The latter—with whom the younger John did not live and saw infrequently after his parents divorced—is credited with discovering and promoting an astounding array of artists including Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

John Jr. continued to record for Vanguard for several years, then for many other labels, and although he continued to favor the acoustic guitar throughout most of his career—his instrument of choice was often the National Reso-Phonic Guitar—he also performed on electric guitar as early as the mid-’60s; his 1965 album So Many Roads featured accompaniment by guitarist Mike Bloomfield as well as three members of Ronnie Hawkins’ group who would soon emerge as members of The Band: Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm. During this period, Hammond also befriended and sometimes recorded with musicians such as Duane Allman, Jimi Hendrix (who briefly played in Hammond’s band before he became famous) and Eric Clapton. In 1973, Hammond recorded the album Triumvirate along with Bloomfield and Dr. John.

Hammond won a Grammy in 1985 for his performance on the compilation album Blues Explosion and received several other nominations during his career. He has also won eight Blues Music Awards and received an additional 10 nominations.

HAMMOND, John (John Paul Hammond Jr.)

Born: 11/13/1942, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

Died: 2/28/2026, U.S.A.

 

John Hammond’s western – composer:

Little Big Man - 1970

RIP Lorraine Bayly

 

Lorraine Bayly, former Play School host and star of The Sullivans, dies aged 89

ABC News

2/27/2026

 

Lorraine Bayly, a former Play School host and star of long-running soap opera The Sullivans, has died aged 89.

Ms Bayly had endured years of poor health and died in a Sydney nursing home on Saturday morning, her family told entertainment reporter Craig Bennett.

In a post on Facebook, Mr Bennett said that Ms Bayly's family had asked him to share the news.

"Lorraine had enjoyed a stellar 62-year career on stage and screen, until her retirement 10 years ago," he said.

Steven Tandy, who played Lorraine’s son Tom on The Sullivans, shared a tribute to the actress in a Facebook post.

"I have so many cherished memories of Lorraine," Mr Tandy wrote.

"She was the most giving of people — always down to earth and affectionate, yet not without a certain almost girlish vivaciousness.

"I truly loved and admired her and was so grateful for the close friendship we shared. Fly high, lovely lady. Your work is done. May love and beauty surround you always."

Familiar face on Aussie television

In 1966, Bayly became an original presenter on Play School, a role she had to relinquish when she was asked to join The Sullivans.

Ms Bayly was well known for playing matriarch Grace on the show in the 1970s, a long-running wartime drama that aired from 1976 to 1983.

After leaving The Sullivan's, Bayly took a role in Carson's Law that was written specifically for her, playing solicitor Jennifer Carson.

Speaking to TV Tonight, she described the demanding courtroom speeches as "hellishly difficult to do".

"It was written for me. I was very flattered," she told TV Tonight.

"I really enjoyed doing it. A lot of the court cases were paralleled in society."

Bayly won Silver Logies for most popular actress for both The Sullivans and Carson's Law.

She also played alongside Hollywood icon Kirk Douglas in the film The Man From Snowy River and had a role in the 1975 movie Ride a Wild Pony, alongside John Meillon.

On stage, she performed in productions ranging from Death of a Salesman, Travelling North and The Sound of Music, which marked her final theatre appearance in 2016.

Bayly was one of the founders of Sydney's famed Ensemble theatre in the 1950s and began her performance career playing classical piano on Sydney radio station 2UE.

BAYLY, Lorraine (Lorraine Daphne Bayly)

Born: 1/16/1937, Booligal, New South Wales, Australia

Died: 1/26/2026, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

 

Lorraine Bayly’s western – actress:

The Man from Snowy River – 1982 (Rosemary Hume)

RIP Lauren Chapin

 

Lauren Chapin, the Youngest Kid on ‘Father Knows Best,’ Dies at 80

Life wasn't always easy for the actress, who played Kathy "Kitten" Anderson for six seasons.

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

February 24, 2026

 

Lauren Chapin, who portrayed the precocious Kathy “Kitten” Anderson on the iconic 1950s TV series Father Knows Best, has died. She was 80.

Chapin, who said she was molested as a child before dealing with drug abuse, jail sentences, several miscarriages and divorce after her show ended, died Tuesday after a battle with cancer, her son, Matthew, reported on Facebook.

Following appearances on a 1952 episode of CBS’ Lux Video Theatre and in the Judy Garland-starring A Star Is Born (1954), Chapin was hired for Father Knows Best when she was 9.

She said she got the job in part because she bore a strong resemblance to one of star Robert Young’s four daughters, also named Kathy. (Norma Jean Nilsson had played the part on the preceding NBC Radio version.)

Chapin’s older TV siblings were Betty “Princess” Anderson (Elinor Donahue) and James “Bud” Anderson Jr. (Billy Gray), and their mom was the level-headed homemaker Margaret Anderson (Jane Wyatt). Young played Jim Anderson, an insurance salesman.

Father Knows Best ran for six seasons, from October 1954 through May 1960, with two stints at CBS sandwiched around one at NBC. Reruns then aired for another couple of years in primetime on ABC and for decades in syndication, and the cast reunited for a pair of TV specials in 1977.

Chapin was born in Los Angeles on May 23, 1945. Her older brothers, Billy Chapin (The Night of the Hunter) and Michael Chapin (It’s a Wonderful Life), were child actors as well.

She was signed to a contract at Columbia Pictures and studied with choreographers Gower and Marge Champion and famed French mime Marcel Marceau.

When she was about 6, her mom, Marguerite, whom she said was an alcoholic, took her brother Billy to New York to build his stage career, and she was left with her father, William, whom she said molested her. By age 11, she said was a “manic depressive personality” and once attempted suicide.

“It was very difficult to understand how Kathy Anderson could be loved and protected and Lauren Chapin lived a whole different kind of life,” she said during a 1989 appearance on Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee. “I didn’t understand how God could let me suffer.”

Five months after Father Knows Best ended, Chapin appeared on an installment of General Electric Theater alongside Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows, but that would mark her final acting appearance for 16 years.

She dropped out of Pasadena High School as a junior, and on the Regis and Kathie Lee program, she said got married at 16 and divorced at 18; another marriage was annulled after she discovered her husband was still married. Another man she was involved with turned her into a call girl and on to heroin, which she said she did for seven years until she was 25. Along the way, she lost eight children to miscarriages.

She said she also had to sue her mother to claim a portion of the money she had earned from Father Knows Best.

After achieving sobriety in the 1970, Chapin worked as a minister and as a talent manager; on her website, it was noted that actress Jennifer Love Hewitt “got her start in show biz” through Chapin.

She also published a memoir, 1989’s Father Does Know Best, and appeared on a 2016 YouTube series, School Bus Diaries.

In addition to her son and brother Michael, survivors include her daughter, Summer.

“If I could be on television again, I would pray for a series like Father Knows Best,” she told People magazine in 1981, “one that has no violence, no sex and shows nothing but purity and love.”

CHAPIN, Lauren (Lauren Ann Chapin)

Born: 5/23/1945, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Died: 2/24/2026,

 

Lauren Chapin’s western – actress:

Tension at Table Rock -1956 (little girl)

RIP Robert Carradine

 

Actor Robert Carradine Dies At Age 71

DEADLINE

By Mike Fleming Jr.

February 23, 2026

 

Robert Carradine has died at age 71. He took his own life. The actor is best known for his roles in The Long Riders, Revenge of the Nerds and Lizzie McGuire.

A beloved member of the storied clan of actors, Carradine was the bedrock of his family, according to surviving older brother Keith Carradine. But he struggled for two decades with bipolar disorder and ultimately it got the best of him.

The family issued this statement to Deadline: “It is with profound sadness that we must share that our beloved father, grandfather, uncle, and brother Robert Carradine has passed away. In a world that can feel so dark, Bobby was always a beacon on light to everyone around him. We are bereft at the loss of this beautiful soul and want to acknowledge Bobby’s valiant struggle against his nearly two-decade battle with Bipolar Disorder. We hope his journey can shine a light and encourage addressing the stigma that attaches to mental illness. At this time we ask for the privacy to grieve this unfathomable loss. With gratitude for your understanding and compassion.”

Keith Carradine said the family wanted all to know about what he called his brother’s valiant struggle with bipolar disorder.

“We want people to know it, and there is no shame in it,” he said. “It is an illness that got the best of him, and I want to celebrate him for his struggle with it and celebrate his beautiful soul. He was profoundly gifted, and we will miss him every day. We will take solace in how funny he could be, how wise and utterly accepting and tolerant he was. That’s who my baby brother was.” 

Robert Carradine is survived by his children, grandchildren, brothers, nieces, nephews and anyone who had the honor of having him in their life. His family asks for privacy at this time.

Born March 24, 1954, Carradine was the youngest son of actor John Carradine and a brother of actors David Carradine, Keith Carradine and Disney Imagineer Christopher Carradine. He made his big-screen debut in 1972 alongside John Wayne in The Cowboys, a role his brother David convinced him to audition for by telling him he “had everything to gain, and nothing to lose.” He went on to forge his own path as an actor, appearing in Hal Ashby’s Oscar-winning film Coming Home, along with Jane Fonda and Jon Voight. It was a performance that led to speculation that he just might be the best actor in the family. He followed that performance with Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets in 1973.

In 1980, Robert had two films in the Cannes Film Festival, Samuel Fuller’s semi-autobiographical The Big Red One, with Mark Hamill and Lee Marvin, and Walter Hill’s The Long Riders, with his brothers David and Keith. Walter Hill cast real brothers to play real-life outlaw brothers — Robert, Keith and David as the Younger brothers, James and Stacy Keach as Frank and Jesse James, Randy and Dennis Quaid as the Miller brothers, and Christopher and Nicholas Guest as the Ford brothers.

During shooting, Robert’s brother, David, fell in love with and then bought his movie horse, Z-Tan, who later came to live on Robert’s property in the Hollywood Hills. If you drove Mulholland Drive in the 1980s, you might have seen Robert’s daughter, actress Ever Carradine, riding him between their home and Runyon Canyon.

Perhaps his biggest film success came in 1984 with Revenge of the Nerds, in which he starred as head nerd Lewis Skolnick, along with Anthony Edwards. It was a role that embedded him in the consciousness of a generation and went on to become one of the most beloved franchises of the decade. In the years that followed, he found a new generation of fans as the father in the Lizzie McGuire series.

Despite no formal training, or ever learning to read music, Carradine maintained a deep love for playing guitar, especially with brothers Keith and David. They appeared together countless times at the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride, CO, where Robert and Keith had homes. He also accompanied his friend and childhood hero, Peter Yarrow, and folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. In the late 1980s, he and Mare Winningham had a band called The Waybacks, a nod to Mare’s childhood memories of riding not in the front or the back, but the way back of the family station wagon. It was a story they often told on stage together.

His other great love was race car driving, a passion that began with racing go-karts at 11 and blossomed into a lifelong love of all things motorized. In the late ’80s and ’90s, he raced at the Grand Prix level, and was a driver on team Lotus with Paul Newman. Carradine always said that race car driving was his true love because winning a race meant that no one was better than him.

When he wasn’t driving cars, playing music or acting in films, Robert was raising his children. In 1974, Carradine had a daughter, actress Ever Carradine, with Susan Snyder. He raised Ever as a single dad until 1990, when he met Edith Mani, with whom he welcomed two more children, Marika and Ian.

Carradine was loved by everyone who knew him. His niece, actress Martha Plimpton, says he was everyone’s favorite uncle. It was a role he cherished, and he never missed an opportunity to be with his nieces, their spouses and their children. He also loved being a grandfather to Ever’s children, Chaplin and Sam, and Marika’s son, Jack. He was a regular at Little League and horse shows and always jumped at the opportunity to babysit his grandkids. Robert is remembered by his family for being all heart, friends with anyone he met from every corner of his life, incapable of holding grudges, kind, funny, and loved nothing more than driving his loved ones to or from the airport.

CARRADINE, Robert (Robert Reed Carradine)

Born: 3/24/1954, · Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Died: 2/23/2026. U.S.A.

 

Robert Carradine’s westerns – actor:

Bonanza (TV) – 1971 (Phinney McLean)

The Cowboys – 1972 (Slim Honeycutt)

Kung Fu (TV) – 1972, 1974 (Sonny Jim)

The Cowboys (TV) – 1974 (Slim)

The Hatfields & McCoys (TV) 1975 (Bob Hatfield)

The Long Riders – 1980 (Bob Younger)

Ballad of a Gunfighter – 1999 (The Kid)

Montee Walsh (TV) – 2003 (Sunfish Perkins)

Django Unchained – 2012 (tracker)

Justice – 2017 (Stratton Collins)

Bill Tilghman and the Outlaws – 2019 (Frank James)

Tales of the Wild West (TV) – 2019 (Frank James)

The Marshal – 2024 (Frank James)

The Night They Came Home – 2024 (Bart)

Was Once a Hero – 2024 (Doc Jennings)

Cowboy Killer – (Detective Flannery)

RIP Angela Luce

 Farewell to Angela Luce

The Neapolitan singer and actress Angela Luce has passed away at the age of 87

 

Infinity

2/20/2026

Angela Luce, Neapolitan singer and actress, has passed away at the age of 87. Over the course of her long career, she has managed to juggle her two great talents: singing and acting.

In 1975, she ranked third at the Sanremo Festival with the song Ipocrisia while in 1995 she won a David di Donatello for her role in the film L'amore molesto by Mario Martone. He has worked with the big names of Italian cinema such as Totò, Mario Mattoli, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Pupi Avati.

For many it was the voice of Bammenella, the 1917 classic written by Raffaele Viviani and relaunched by the singer.

Angela Luce remembers Peppino Gagliardi

In an interview with Verissimo in May 2025, Angela Luce was moved by remembering her former partner Peppino Gagliardi, singer and multi-instrumentalist who passed away in 2023.

"We were engaged for two years. I fell madly in love with him, I really loved him and I think he did too", the singer had recalled: "He liked him, he liked women. He did me a wrong that I could not forgive: he betrayed me. Although I loved him, I did not forgive him."

"He then realized that he had made a mistake and what he had lost, but it was too late for me. I didn't want to see him anymore. He got married later and had two beautiful children, I was pleased," the singer had added.

LUCE, Angela (Angela Luce Savino)

Born: 12/3/1938, Spaccanapoli, Naples, Kingdom of Italy

Died: 2/20/2026, Naples, Campania, Italy

 

Angela Luce’s westerns – actress:

For a Few Dollars Less - 1966 (Katherine)

Drop Them Or I’ll Shoot – 1968 (Valencia)

RIP Eric Dane

 

Eric Dane

Dead at 53 After ALS Battle

 

TMZ

February 19, 2026

 

Eric Dane has died at the age of 53, following a battle with ALS, TMZ has learned.

The family says in a statement to TMZ ... "With heavy hearts, we share that Eric Dane passed on Thursday afternoon following a courageous battle with ALS. He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife, and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the center of his world. Throughout his journey with ALS, Eric became a passionate advocate for awareness and research, determined to make a difference for others facing the same fight. He will be deeply missed and lovingly remembered always. Eric adored his fans and is forever grateful for the outpouring of love and support he’s received. The family has asked for privacy as they navigate this impossible time.”

The "Grey's Anatomy" star announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly referred to as ALS, back in April 2025.

He explained it had been an exhausting road just to get accurate answers. He bounced from one specialist to another, test after test ... until a neurologist finally dropped the bomb: ALS.

Over the months, he chronicled his battle with the progressive neurodegenerative disease ... revealing how he was down to just one functioning arm and was running out of body strength.

Commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS is a nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the spinal cord and brain ... it gets worse over time and causes loss of muscle control, according to the Mayo Clinic. There is no known cure for ALS.

Eric persevered with work ... even filming the third season of the HBO series, "Euphoria."

Last time we saw Eric was on his 50th birthday in 2022, where we talked about birthday cake.

He was 53.

RIP.

DANE, Eric (Eric William Dane)

Born: 11/9/1972, San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

Died: 2/19/2026, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Eric Dane’s westerns – actor:

Redeeming Love – 2022 (Duke)

Americana – 2023 (Dillon Macintosh)