RIP Jerry Eisenberg

 

Jerry Eisenberg, R.I.P.

News From Me

ByMark Evanier

February 12, 2025

 

A truly great cartoonist and a helluva nice guy died last night at the age of 87. Jerry Eisenberg had been sick for some time — the official cause of death was Pneumonia — and the news is already shaking up the animation community. Everyone knew him. Everyone adored him.

Jerry was a second-generation great cartoonist. His father, Harvey Eisenberg, had quite a history in animation and comic books…and both Eisenbergs were responsible for some of the better things that the Hanna-Barbera studio ever did. Jerry broke into the field as an animator for the MGM cartoon studio in the fifties, then when it closed down, he worked for H-B for years, designing many of their characters including — this is a very partial list — Peter Potamus, all the racers on Wacky Races, most of the gang on Jabberjaw…oh, I shouldn't have started this list either. Suffice it to say there probably wasn't a single Hanna-Barbera production done between 1961 and 1977 that didn't have characters in it designed by Jerry. He even worked on the super-hero shows.

'77 was when he moved over to the then-new Ruby-Spears cartoon studio — the one I was writing about earlier today on this blog — and became a producer of most of their shows including Fangface, Plastic Man, Thundarr the Barbarian…again, a list I shouldn't have started. Later, he worked for Marvel Productions, Disney, Warner Brothers…just about everywhere in town. He was one of the fastest artists I've ever seen and one of the nicest, jolliest guys.

Condolences go out to Raymonde, his wife of many years…and our thanks because she took great care of him.

Wanna know more about this man? Here's a three-hour interview with him. You can learn all about him and even if you just watch a few minutes of it, you'll see why everyone loved him. I certainly did.

EISENBERG, Jerry (Jerome Theodore Eisenberg)

Born: 12/14/1937, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Died: 2/11/2025, Tarzana, California, U.S.A.

 

Jerry Eisenberg’s western – animator, character designer:

Quick Draw McGraw (TV) – 1961 [animator]

The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (TV) – 1968-1969 [character designer]

RIP Norma Mora

 

Legendary actress of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema dies

Norma Mora not only left a legacy in Mexican cinema, but also in theater and beauty pageants, she was even considered a 'sex symbol'.

Univision

February 12, 2025

 

Norma Mora, one of the last stars of the Golden Age of cinema in Mexico, died on February 11, 2025 at the age of 81 at La Casa del Actor IAP Mario Moreno, where she had lived since 2002.

The institution announced the news through a brief statement published on social networks.

"With great sorrow, I inform you of the death of our dear colleague Norma Mora, who died in La Casa del Actor, surrounded by the affection and respect of her colleagues, guests, workers, the director and members of the board of trustees. Rest in peace."

The actress left a great legacy in Mexican cinema, but she also ventured into beauty pageants and was considered a 'sex symbol' in the 1960s and 1970s. She also tried her hand at dancing and singing, recording several albums.

Norma Helen García Mora Starr was born on April 30, 1943 in Mexico City. She was of Arab, Irish, and Jewish descent.

She began her artistic career by winning a beauty pageant in 1959, which catapulted her into the world of show business.

Throughout his career he filmed films with great stars of Mexican Golden Cinema such as Germán Valdés 'Tin Tan', Viruta and Capulina, as well as with 'El Santo', among others.

Among his films are 'Viva Chihuahua', 'Qué perra vida', 'Santo en el museo de cera', 'Los astronautas', 'Ahí viene los Argumedo', 'Vuelve los Argumedo' and 'Capulina: Rauna, la sargento X8', just to mention a few.

MORA, Norma (Norma Elena García-Mora Starr)

Born: 4/30/1943, Mexico City, federal District, Mexico

Died: 2/11/2025, Mexico City, federal District, Mexico

 

Norma Mora’s westerns – actress:

Viva Chihuahua – 1961 (Laura)

Ahí vienen los Argumedo – 1962

Los forajidos – 1962 (Margara)

Los parranderos - 1963

Sangre en la barranca – 1963 (Rosita)

Vuelven los Argumedo – 1963 (Sofia)

Para todos hay – 1965 (Lilia)

El tigre de Guanajuato: Leyenda de venganza – 1965

Crisol – 1967 (Rosario)

RIP Tom Robbins

 

Author Tom Robbins, La Conner resident, dies at 92

Legendary novelist lived in Skagit County for more than 5 decades

Cascadia Daily News

February 9, 2025

 

Legendary author Tom Robbins, known for writing “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” and other novels in La Conner, died Sunday, Feb. 9 at the age of 92, surrounded by family.

Robbins’ wife, Alexa Robbins, announced her husband’s death on Facebook, noting the beloved author was “brave, funny and sweet” and had “an eternally youthful spirit.” The couple was together for 36 years.

Tom Robbins, born in North Carolina in 1932, moved to Seattle in 1962 and to La Conner eight years later. The small town in Skagit County hosted a celebration for Tom in 2023 where he was crowned “King for a Day” as he paraded downtown First Street with Alexa, who said in her post, “The celebration was the best kind of memorial because he was there to enjoy it.”

Alexa Robbins noted in her post that donations in Tom’s honor can be made to The Museum of Northwest Art, The La Conner Swinomish Library, SPOT Animal Rescue, and Hospice of the Northwest, where Tom was cared for by “devoted caregivers” before he died.

In lieu of a service, Tom Robbins wants “people remember him by reading his books,” Alexa Robbins said in her post.

ROBBINS, Tom (Thomas Eugene Robbins)

Born: 7/22/1932, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, U.S.A.

Died: 2/9/2025, La Conner, Washington, U.S.A.

 

Tom Robbins’ western – writer, narrator:

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues -1993

RIP Bruce French

 

Bruce French, ‘Passions’ Actor and a Veteran of the Stage, Dies at 79

The Iowa native, who often played men of faith, also guest-starred on David E. Kelley shows and appeared in 'Star Trek' for film and television.

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

February 9, 2025

 

Bruce French, the dependable character actor who did lots of work for the theater and portrayed Father Lonigan, the blind priest on the soap opera Passions who somehow could sense that evil was imminent, has died. He was 79.

French died Friday in Los Angeles of complications from Alzheimer’s, his wife of 34 years, longtime Days of Our Lives actress Eileen Barnett, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Iowa native, who has more than 150 acting credits on IMDb, guest-starred for David E. Kelley on such shows as L.A. Law, Picket Fences, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Public and Boston Legal, and he appeared on three Star Trek series — The Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise — and in the 1998 film Star Trek: Insurrection.

Plus, he played the wealthy neighbor of Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver’s shifty characters on both seasons of the 2007-08 FX drama The Riches.

French recurred as the kind-hearted Lonigan during the entire nine-season run of Passions, which debuted on NBC in July 1999 and wrapped on DirecTV’s 101 Network in August 2008. A fixture in the New England town of Harmony, his character often clashed with bad guy businessman Alistair Crane (David Bailey and then John Reilly), who caused him to lose his sight.

French also played men of faith in Mission: Impossible III (2006) and in many other films and TV shows over the years. In fact, he owned a priest’s clerical collar that he would take with him on auditions, Barnett said.

The son of an undertaker, French was born in 1945 on the Fourth of July in Reinbeck, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Iowa, served with the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and studied acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

He starred off-Broadway in 1972 in The Shadow of a Gunman, then made his onscreen debut in the Frank Perry-directed Man on a Swing (1974), starring Cliff Robertson and Joel Grey. He followed with two other notable films released in 1978: Hal Ashby’s Coming Home and Robert Mulligan’s Bloodbrothers.

French also appeared on the big screen in Christine (1983), Mr. Mom (1983), Fletch (1985), Murphy’s Romance (1985), Legal Eagles (1986), Wildcats (1986), Jurassic Park III (2001), Mr. Deeds (2002), Thank You for Smoking (2005), Beginners (2010) and Beautiful Boy (2010).

And for TV, he was on everything from The Waltons, Soap, Dallas, Family Ties, Hill Street Blues, Moonlighting, Falcon Crest, Cheers and Designing Women to Who’s the Boss?, Beverly Hills, 90210, The West Wing, Gilmore Girls, Bones, Mad Men, Eli Stone and Grey’s Anatomy.

One of French’s favorite stage roles was his turn as Lucky in an L.A. Actors Theatre production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot that was filmed for KCET’s Theatre in America series in 1977.

He also was at his best as the dispirited schoolmaster Andrew Crocker-Harris in 2009 in Terence Rattigan’s The Browning Version at the Venice-based Pacific Resident Theatre.

French was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s about four years ago, Barnett said. In addition to his wife — they first met at the University of Iowa, reconnected 25 years later and married in January 1991 — survivors include his nieces, Claire and Paula.

FRENCH, Bruce

Born: 7/4/1945, Reinbeck, Iowa, U.S.A.

Died: 2/7/2025, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Bruce French’s western – actor:

The Chisolms (TV) – 1979 (Schmidt)

RIP Mort Künstler

 

Mort Künstler, hailed as America's most prominent historical artist, dies at 97

Find a Grave

By C.S.

February 4, 2025

Artist. During a career which spanned seven-decades, he will perhaps be remembered for his realistic and detailed paintings of the Civil War. Born into a European Jewish family (some sources state date of birth as 1931), his interest in drawing was sparked during his youth. While attending Brooklyn College, he focused on sports and excelled in football, track & field and swimming which led to a scholarship to attend the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). However, after his father suffered a heart attack, Mort returned home where he enrolled at the Pratt Institute to resume his artist interest. An excursion to Mexico on a motorcycle with a classmate, led to further experience painting and after graduation, he landed a position at Neeley Associates Illustration Studio as an apprentice. He became a freelance artist and found work for various men's adventure magazines, in addition to artwork for paperbacks. This led to opportunities with The Saturday Evening Post and National Geographic Magazine. During the 1970s, he produced movie posters for the motion pictures The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Taking of Pelham, One Two, Three (1974). His Civil War artwork became official US Postage Stamps during the 1990s. In 2011, his portrayal of George Washington crossing the Delaware River was unveiled. His works are displayed in museums nationwide, as well as in Canada and Europe.

KUNSTLER, Mort

Born: 8/28/1927, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.

Died: 2/2/2025, Rockville Centre, New York, U.S.A.

 

Mort Künstler’s westerns – artist:

Breakheart Pass – 1975 [poster artist]

The Making of Gettysburg – 1993 [paintings]

RIP James Carlos Blake

 

Legacy

January 20, 2025

 

James Carlos Blake, regionalist novelist, whose heart and writing skill were on both sides of the border, died Saturday, January 11, 2025. He was 82.

Born in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico in 1943, he was a descendant of a prominent creole family in Mexico City, whose complex and colorful history was often the basis for novels, short stories, and essays. At fourteen, he became an American citizen in Miami.

As a young man, he was not always well-behaved, but after joining the army and deploying as a tunnel rat to the frozen borderlands of the Koreas, he returned a more thoughtful man, and went to college. And he began to write.

"I'm attracted to and write about people who are very resentful of submitting themselves to authority that they don't think is warranted," he told an interviewer. Despite the violent nature of his protagonists, they are always thinkers. "All my characters are intelligent," he said."I've never been interested in alcoholics, druggies, or crazy people, because they are not exercising free will." Sex and violence were hallmarks of his work, he said, because "they are the two great engines of the world."

His historical criminal protagonists, from John Wesley Hardin ("The Pistoleer"), a notorious Old West gunfighter, to Rodolfo Fierro ("The Friends of Pancho Villa"), Villa's segundo and on-demand executioner, to Harry Pierpont ("Handsome Harry), John Dillinger's best friend and constant accomplice, Blake endowed with high intelligence, insight, a big problem with authority, and a dark sense of humor.

His 2012 novel, "Country of the Bad Wolfes," introduced the saga of the fictional Wolfe family, a borderland clan who actions came from a tendency to violence and hell-raising. Four Wolfe family novels followed.

In 2021 he suffered a traumatic brain injury, and after twenty years in Arizona, he returned to Florida to live under the care of a brother.

Throughout his literary career, he wrote inventive, lucid, and tangible prose.

He wrote seven hours a day, seven days a week.

Blake James Carlos

Born: 5/26/1943, Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Died: 1/11/2025, Venice, Florida, U.S.A.

 

James Carlos Blake’s westerns – author:

The Pistoleer – 1995

The Friends of Pancho Villa - 1996

Wildwood Days - 2000

Country of the Bad Wolfes – 2012

Dans la peau - 2012

Pistolero - 2015

RIP John Erwin

 

John Erwin, Voice Actor in ‘He-Man’ and ‘Archie’ Cartoons, Dies at 88

He also recurred on the Clint Eastwood series ‘Rawhide’ and was finicky as Morris the Cat on TV commercials in the 1970s.

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

January 31, 2025

 

John Erwin, the reclusive actor who provided the voices for the heroic title character in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and the vain frenemy Reggie Mantle in a series of Archie cartoons, has died. He was 88.

Erwin died of natural causes “around Dec. 20” in his home in Camarillo, California, his reps at the PR firm Celebworx announced.

For nearly a decade starting in 1969, Erwin was heard in dozens of TV commercials as the snarky Morris the Cat, the finicky orange tabby who would eat nothing but the 9Lives brand of cat food. The hugely successful campaign was created by the Leo Burnett advertising firm.

Earlier, Erwin was seen on camera when he recurred as the cattle driver Teddy on CBS’ Rawhide, starring Clint Eastwood.

For Filmmation, Erwin voiced the blond, muscular He-Man (and his alter ego, Prince Adam) on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe from 1983-85 and on She-Ra: Princess of Power from 1985-87. He also played the villain Beast Man and other secondary characters on the syndicated shows that were based on a line of Mattel toys.

“Working with John Erwin was a ballad of irreverence, professionalism and surprise,” Alan Oppenheimer, who starred as the evil Skeletor on He-Man, said in a statement. “He was a series actor, writer, performer of commercials, musician, painter and an all-around lovely gentleman, an indelible addition to my life.”

Added Melendy Britt, the voice of She-Ra (He-Man’s twin sister), “For 40 years, John Erwin was not only my brother onscreen, he was my friend.”

Born on Dec. 5, 1936, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, John Lee Erwin played various characters, including a paratrooper and chaplain, on the 1956-57 syndicated series Citizen Soldier.

He joined Rawhide in 1959 during its second season and went on to appear on 22 episodes of the Western through 1965. Meanwhile, he portrayed a soldier in the Civil War-set 13 Fighting Men, starring Grant Williams.

Erwin first voiced Reggie in 1968 on the Saturday morning CBS/Filmation cartoon The Archie Show and continued with that character on various other animated series, including Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, through 1978.

He worked on the cartoons Groovie Goolies, Foofur and Spacecats and in the film Babe (1995) and came out of retirement to voice He-Man one last time on a 2005 episode of Family Guy.

Erwin also served as an announcer/narrator on such TV shows as Here’s Lucy and Malcolm & Eddie and in films including Looker (1981), Everybody’s All-American (1988) and Back to the Future Part II (1989).

Survivors include “his loving family of children and grandchildren,” his PR firm noted. His family did not want to provide a photograph of him.

Despite pleas from his fans over the years, Erwin never appeared publicly on the convention circuit to talk about his He-Man days, and Oppenheimer, speaking in 2014, said that was because he was “very shy.” He once asked his co-star to go on the road with him to London.

“I said to him, ‘If Skeletor and He-Man worked together, the line would be from London to Edinburgh,’” Oppenheimer recalled. “He just wouldn’t do it; he really likes his solitude. And he says, ‘I don’t even look like He-Man.’ I said, ‘I don’t look like Skeletor, and nobody cares.’ But I can’t get him out.”

ERWIN, John

Born: 12/5/1936, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Died: 12/20/2024, Camarillo, California, U.S.A.

 

John Erwin’s westerns – actor:

Rawhide (TV) 1959-1965 (Teddy)

Fighting Men – 1960 (Corporal McLean)