AP Obits--12/30/06
Obitsman
Obituaries in the news
By The Associated Press
Sat Dec 30, 9:40 PM ET
Harald Bredesen
ESCONDIDO, Calif. (AP) ‹ Harald Bredesen, a Lutheran minister who helped
shape the ministry of evangelist Pat Robertson and spread a form of
evangelical praise known as "speaking in tongues," died Friday. He was
88.
Bredesen died at Palomar Hospital from complications following a fall at
his home on Tuesday, said Tom Gilbreath, Bredesen's longtime assistant.
Bredesen befriended Robertson while they both lived in New York in the
late 1950s. Robertson credits Bredesen with leading him into a
charismatic Christian experience known as "Baptism in the Holy Spirit,"
after which Robertson began to speak in the exuberant prayer language
popular among Pentecostal Christians.
Bredesen was a founding board member of Robertson's Christian
Broadcasting Network and hosted its long-running program "Charisma."
He is credited with helping to spread the charismatic movement, which
has hundreds of millions of adherents today across several Christian
denominations.
Bredesen was also friends with singer Pat Boone and was helped with the
founding of the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
___
Rudolf de Crignis
NEW YORK (AP) ‹ Rudolf de Crignis, a Swiss-born artist whose abstract
monochrome paintings had a subtle depth, has died. He was 58.
De Crignis died on Dec. 23 in New York. The cause was a brain tumor
diagnosed in November, his partner, Michael Paoletta, said Saturday.
Charlotte Jackson, owner of a Santa Fe, N.M., gallery that has showcased
the artist's work since the 1990s, said that despite the speed of his
illness, de Crignis managed to complete two major projects before he
died.
"He was a wonderful man and a wonderful artist. Very quiet. Very Swiss,"
she said.
De Crignis's works were featured at galleries in New York, as well as at
Yale University, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard and the Kunsthaus in
Zurich, Switzerland.
Born in Winterthur, Switzerland, he studied art in Zurich and in
Hamburg, Germany. He began his career as a performance and video artist.
His interests later shifted to painting. He had his first solo show in
Zurich in 1980.
De Crignis created works in radiant blues and subtle grays, applying
thin layers of paint with a luminosity that was compared to James
Turrell's light installations.
Jackson said a typical showing of de Cringnis' work might include an
entire room of blue paintings, each a slightly different shade. He also
did drawings with colored pencils with lines so thin they were hard to
see, she said.
___
Saddam Hussein
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) ‹ Saddam Hussein, whose despotic rule of Iraq ended
with the 2003 invasion of American-led forces, died Saturday. He was 69.
The former dictator was executed by hanging for his role in the killings
of 148 Shiite Muslims from Dujail.
Saddam was born on April 28, 1937, in the village of Ouja near Tikrit.
His father died or disappeared before he was born.
He joined the Baath Party, a radical, secular Arab nationalist
organization, at age 20. When the party took power in July 1968, its
leader Gen. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr appointed Saddam, his cousin, as his
deputy. Saddam systematically purged key party figures, deported
thousands of Shiites of Iranian origin, supervised the state takeover of
Iraq's oil industry, land reform and modernization.
Saddam forced his cousin to resign and seized power on July 16, 1979.
Saddam built Iraq into a one of the Arab world's most modern societies,
but then plunged the country into an eight-year war with neighboring
Iran that killed hundreds of thousands of people on both sides and
wrecked Iraq's economy.
Only two years after making peace with Iran, Saddam invaded Kuwait. The
United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Iraq and a U.S.-led
coalition attacked. On Iraqi radio on Jan. 17, 1991, Saddam predicted
"the mother of all battles," but the Iraqis were driven out of Kuwait.
The Sept. 11 terror attack on the U.S. focused attention on Saddam as a
possible sponsor of terrorism. His refusal to meet U.N. demands for full
disclosure of his illegal weapons program provided a justification for
war.
When the U.S. invaded in 2003, Iraqis had been transformed from among
the region's most prosperous people to some of its most impoverished.
___
Joan Worth
LOS ANGELES (AP) ‹ Artist Joan Worth, who carried on her late husband's
work in furthering the legacies of comedian Lenny Bruce and black leader
Malcolm X, has died. She was 72.
Worth, the widow of writer and producer Marvin Worth, died Dec. 8 at her
home in Beverly Hills, said her daughter Missy Worth. A cause of death
has not been released.
During their 44-year marriage, Worth pursued a career as a painter.
However, she was also a close collaborator with her husband, helping him
rework scripts as he amassed a string of credits as a producer,
including the biopics "Lenny" and "Malcolm X," and "The Rose," loosely
based on the life of Janis Joplin.
Marvin Worth had been Bruce's early manager. He and his wife were close
friends of both Bruce, who died of a morphine overdose in 1966, and
Malcolm X, who was assassinated in 1965.
Marvin Worth died of lung cancer in 1998. Upon his death, his wife took
over as president of Marvin Worth Productions.
In 1999, Joan Worth produced "Lenny" at the Queens Theatre in London.
She also took over working with producer Hal Willner on a six-CD
compilation, "Lenny Bruce: Let the Buyer Beware," released in 2004.
And with producer-writer Alan Sacks, she co-wrote, co-produced and
co-directed the one-man show "Lenny Bruce: In His Own Words."
Before her death, Worth was also writing "Malcolm X," a one-man show.
Charlene
Obitsman wrote:
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061231/ap_on_re_us/deaths_11
>
> Obituaries in the news
> By The Associated Press
> Sat Dec 30, 9:40 PM ET
>
> Harald Bredesen
> ESCONDIDO, Calif. (AP) ‹ Harald Bredesen, a Lutheran minister who helped
> shape the ministry of evangelist Pat Robertson and spread a form of
> evangelical praise known as "speaking in tongues," died Friday. He was
> 88.
...
> Bredesen was also friends with singer Pat Boone ...
Alice Cooper had better be careful over the next few days.
wd42