Della Reese, Music Legend and 'Touched By an Angel' Star, Dead at 86

The legendary gospel singer and star of Touched By an Angel was 86 years old

By Jordan Runtagh

Della Reese, the vocal powerhouse who later starred as heaven-sent Tess on the television series Touched By an Angel, died Sunday evening at age 86.

She leaves behind sons James, Franklin and Dominique, as well as husband Franklin Lett. She was predeceased by daughter Deloreese.

“On behalf of her husband, Franklin Lett, and all her friends and family, I share with you the news that our beloved Della Reese has passed away peacefully at her California home last evening surrounded by love. She was an incredible wife, mother, grandmother, friend, and pastor, as well as an award-winning actress and singer. Through her life and work she touched and inspired the lives of millions of people,” her costar Roma Downey confirmed to PEOPLE in an exclusive statement.

“She was a mother to me and I had the privilege of working with her side by side for so many years on Touched By an Angel. I know heaven has a brand new angel this day. Della Reese will be forever in our hearts. Rest in peace, sweet angel. We love you.”

“We’re deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Della Reese,” CBS tells PEOPLE in a statement. :She was a multi-talented, award-winning performer who shined brightly on soundstages and in concert halls. For nine years, we were privileged to have Della as part of the CBS family when she delivered encouragement and optimism to millions of viewers as Tess on Touched By an Angel. We will forever cherish her warm embraces and generosity of spirit. She will be greatly missed. Another angel has gotten her wings.”

Born Delloreese Patricia Early on July 6, 1931 in Detroit’s Black Bottom neighborhood, Reese began singing in public at just 6 years old at her local church, establishing her roots in gospel music. Her vocal talent flourished and by 13 she was tapped to perform with Mahalia Jackson’s gospel group, with whom she’d later tour.

Photo: CBS / Courtesy Everett Collection

She formed her own group, the Meditation Singers, in the late 1940s, but her exposure to jazz artists like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan sparked a desire to broaden her musical scope. Now using her famous stage name, she signed a deal with Jubilee Records in 1953, releasing six albums largely composed of jazz standards.

National fame would come in 1957 with the release of “And That Reminds Me,” a Top 20 hit and her first global seller.

She followed it up with “Don’t You Know?” — which would become her signature song, and a string of hits including “Not One Minute More, “And Now,” “Someday (You’ll Want Me to Want You),” and “The Most Beautiful Words.”

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

In the late ’60s she began to expand her career from a jazz nightclub act to all-around entertainer by breaking into television. She became a familiar face on the small screen, securing guest spots on a host of shows, including The Mod Squad, The Love Boat, Sanford and Son, MacGyver, Night Court, and The Young and the Restless.

Her short-lived variety series, Della, debuted in 1969, and the following year she became the first black woman to co-host The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. It was after a Tonight Show appearance in 1979 that Reese suffered a brain aneurysm that nearly claimed her life.

Reese became an ordained minister in the 1980s through the Christian New Thought branch known as Unity, leading her to found her own church, Understanding Principles for Better Living (also known as “UP Church”).

Photo: CBS Photo Archive

She would draw on her faith for her most famous acting role, playing the part “supervising angel” Tess on the CBS series Touched By an Angel beginning in 1994. Though the show was initially met with mixed reviews, it went on to become a huge success, running until 2003. Tess’ playful sarcasm and no-nonsense attitude added something of a humorous edge to the wholesome show, and she became its most beloved character.

Reese was plagued with health problems later in life, including a battle with diabetes which she blamed on poor diet and exercise. Following two appearances on the television show Signed, Sealed, Delivered in 2014, she retired from acting.

First published at People, November 20, 2017

Vladimir Horowitz

Vladimir Horowitz. Photo courtesy Facebook

Known for his performances of the Romantic piano repertoire and his numerous recordings, he is remembered as one of the greatest piano virtuosi of all time.

Classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz died on this day in 1989 - aged 86.

A graduate of the Kiev Conservatory, Horowitz displayed such remarkable talent at a young age that he was invited to play for Alexander Scriabin in 1915, shortly before the composer-pianist’s untimely death. 

As a student, Horowitz favored composing over performing, but he made his concert debut in 1922 in what is now Kharkiv, only after his family was left impoverished by World War I and the Russian Revolution. His reputation in the Soviet Union was established at age 20 when he played an extraordinary series of 23 recitals in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia) without repeating any pieces– he showcased over 200 works. This achievement led to spectacular successes on European and American tours.

       

His renown expanded after he left for Germany in 1925, where he rapidly gained recognition as an extraordinary new talent, leading to performances in England and France.

Horowitz earned titles such as the "Liszt of our age" and a "virtuoso without limits" partly due to his prolific recording career, which began in the 1920s. Several of his recorded performances, including the 1930 rendition of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto and the 1932 recording of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, are now considered landmarks in classical music history.

His American debut came in 1928, and in 1945 he became a naturalized citizen. Every concert he gave was a momentous occasion.

In 1928, Horowitz made his American debut at Carnegie Hall, performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Carnegie Hall would go on to become his home venue and the setting for many of his recordings.

In 1953, Horowitz stepped back from the intense public scrutiny surrounding him and largely avoided the spotlight. Instead, over the next 12 years, he recorded music and focused on studying new compositions.

His comeback was in 1965 at Carnegie Hall, this marked the beginning of a limited number of public recitals in the following years, primarily on Sunday afternoons at Carnegie. In the 1980s, he began to accept short trips outside the United States, traveling to Europe and Japan.

Dying of a heart attack in 1989, in New York City, he is buried in the Toscanini family tomb in Milan, alongside his wife Wanda Toscanini, the daughter of Arturo Toscanini. He is remembered as one of the greatest piano virtuosi of all time.

First published at The Violin Channel, November 5, 2017

Roy Dotrice: Guernsey actor dies aged 94

Actor Roy Dotrice discovered his passion for acting while he was held as a German prisoner during the Second World War

Actor Roy Dotrice, known for his role as Leopold Mozart in the Oscar-winning film Amadeus, has died aged 94.

His family said he died at his London home, surrounded by relatives.

A character actor, Guernsey-born Mr Dotrice gained new fans in recent years as the narrator of A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of novels that inspired TV hit Game of Thrones, which he also starred in.

In 2008, he was awarded an OBE for services to drama by the Queen.

A family statement said he "died peacefully on Monday October 16 in his London home surrounded by family, including his three daughters, grandchildren and great-grandson".

Record performance

Mr Dotrice joined the Royal Air Force and served during World War Two as a wireless operator and air gunner.

His plane was shot down and he was held as a prisoner of war, where his first taste for the theatre took root, performing concerts for his fellow inmates.

Mr Dotrice's narration of George R.R, Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire saw him awarded a place in the Guinness World Records in 2004 for the greatest number of characters voiced in an audio book - 224.

Roy Dotrice after receiving his OBE for services to drama in 2008

During his decades-long career as an actor, Mr Dotrice won accolades including a Tony award and a Bafta for best actor as Albert Haddock in the BBC adaptation of AP Herbert's Misleading Cases.

He also appeared in TV series Game of Thrones, Shaka Zulu, Mr And Mrs Smith and Life Begins, and films Eliminators, The Cutting Edge and Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Roy Dotrice as Leopold Mozart in the film Amadeus (1984). Photo courtesy Landmark Media.

He was married to wife Kay for 60 years, until her death in 2007. They had three daughters together, all of whom became actresses.

First published at BBC News, October 17, 2017

Roy Dotrice obituary

Veteran actor best known for playing John Aubrey in Brief Lives, Fagin in the stage version of Oliver! and a late role in Game of Thrones

Roy Dotrice in the television drama series Armchair Theatre – A Cold Peace, 1965. 
Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

By Michael Coveney

As leading character actors go, Roy Dotrice, who has died aged 94, was among the finest of his generation, not least because of his record-breaking run of performances in the 1960s as the 17th-century gossipmonger and diarist John Aubrey in Brief Lives. This solo show was devised by Patrick Garland after the director had seen Dotrice’s brilliant study in decrepitude as Justice Shallow in the Henry IV, Part II in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1964 Wars of the Roses history play cycle.

He opened in Brief Lives at the Hampstead Theatre Club in 1967, moving to Broadway and back to London in 1969 to the Criterion theatre, where he played 400 shows; then on to the May Fair, another Broadway season and a world tour. In all, he notched up 1,782 performances and claimed a place in the Guinness Book of Records. His gibbering, miraculously observed portrait of the reclusive, randomly vivacious and lovable antiquarian – Garland had compiled the text from Aubrey’s memories, miscellanies, letters and jottings – had fully occupied nine years of his life and he celebrated his release by leaping into Fagin’s rags in a 1979 revival of Oliver! at the Albery, with little need to alter his costume or makeup. He was an old man for life.

Roy Dotrice in Brief Lives at the Criterion theatre, London, in the 1970s. 
Photograph: Ian Tyas/Getty Images

The role of Aubrey defined his career, with the double-edged consequence of typecasting in Britain, so he reinvented himself in Los Angeles, becoming almost a household name in the US on various American sitcom and drama series, performing further solo stage shows as Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill and the entertainer Will Rogers, and winning a Tony on Broadway as the paternalistic Irish farmer Phil Hogan in Daniel Sullivan’s superb revival in 2000 of Eugene O’Neill’s Moon for the Misbegotten, co-starring Cherry Jones and Gabriel Byrne. His flame flickered only intermittently on home soil, and a British touring revival of Brief Lives in 2008 did not reach the West End.

Dotrice was born in Guernsey in the Channel Islands, son of Louis Dotrice, a master baker, and his wife, Neva (nee Wilton). He was educated at the island’s Dayton and Intermediate schools and, when the Germans occupied Guernsey in 1940, he escaped in a small motorboat with his friends, mother and brother to the south coast of England. He was consigned to a workhouse in Manchester before signing up, aged 16, with the RAF as a wireless operator and air gunner. One year later he was shot down over enemy lines and spent the rest of the second world war in German PoW camps.

Roy Dotrice, left, and Ian McShane in a scene from the television adaptation of Harold Pinter’s play The Caretaker in 1967. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

While interned he became absorbed in theatre, saying he was roped in to play female roles – first, as a fairy godmother in pantomime – because “I was the youngest and prettiest”. He discovered when liberated in 1945 that he had accumulated both status – he was now an officer – and pay packets; he spent the lot in six months of parties and short stays at the Savoy hotel. He performed with fellow ex-PoWs in a touring revue, Back Home, in aid of the Red Cross, trained briefly at Rada, and took his first leading role – on £4 a week – in Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path at the Stockport Hippodrome.

Over the next eight years, from 1947, he played hundreds of leading roles and directed in rep at Liverpool, Oldham and Manchester, forming the Guernsey Rep in 1955, where he acted and directed for two years before joining the Shakespeare Memorial theatre company in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1957. He was made a contract player, appearing as Egeus in The Comedy of Errors and the Duke of Burgundy in the King Lear of Charles Laughton; the 1959 company also included Laurence Olivier (as Coriolanus), Albert Finney, Peggy Ashcroft and Paul Robeson (as Othello) and was renamed the RSC by Peter Hall in 1960.

Roy Dotrice The Best of Friends at the Hampstead theatre in 2006. 
Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Like Diana Rigg and Ian Holm, he was part of the Stratford continuity, and at the RSC’s new London home at the Aldwych in 1961 he played in John Whiting’s The Devils and as the senile family retainer Firs in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Back at Stratford in 1963 he was Caliban in The Tempest, Julius Caesar, and Edward IV in the Wars of the Roses, adding the Olivier double-act of Hotspur and Shallow in 1964.

His first major movie role was in The Heroes of Telemark (1965) with Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris, but he never matched his theatrical pre-eminence on celluloid, though he made a mark in Lock Up Your Daughters (1969) with Christopher Plummer, Glynis Johns and Susannah York, Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), and as Mozart’s father, Leopold, in Miloš Forman’s Amadeus (1984). In the 70s he oscillated between Chichester and Australia, appearing in the title role of Peer Gynt in Sussex, and touring Australia in Move Over, Mrs Markham and Bernard Shaw’s The Apple Cart.

Roy Dotrice as Leopold Mozart in the film Amadeus (1984). Photo courtesy Landmark Media.

While living and working mostly in the US, he kept his flat in St Martin’s Lane, next door to the Duke of York’s theatre, so that he and his wife Kay Newman, whom he had met and married in rep in 1947, could visit their family. But his returns to the London stage were insignificant; he played the elegantly sinister husband of Nyree Dawn Porter’s unhinged art dealer in a low-grade thriller, Murder in Mind, at the Strand in 1982, and Magwitch in a mediocre four-hour Great Expectations at the Old Vic in 1985.

Meanwhile, in the US, he won an Emmy for a televised performance of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker and critical plaudits for his Washington and New York stage appearances in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, Noël Coward’s Hay Fever (opposite Rosemary Harris) and The Woman in Black. In 2006 he returned first to Chichester as the Starkeeper in Angus Jackson’s revival of Carousel and then to Hampstead theatre as Shaw himself in a revival of Hugh Whitemore’s Best of Friends, with Patricia Routledge and Michael Pennington. He made his last British appearance in 2009 as the retired army general running a ski resort in Vermont, in White Christmas at the Lowry in Salford; he gave, said the British Theatre Guide, “a lovely, tender performance”.

Through his American television work he was well known to the producers of Game of Thrones, eventually appearing as Pyromancer Hallyne in the second series in 2012. Before then, unavailable in physical presence because of illness, he “voiced” 224 characters in the audio book of the series, and won another name-check in the Guinness Book of Records.

He loved baseball, fishing and soccer, was a stalwart member of the Garrick Club and was appointed OBE in 2008.

Kay died in 2007. He is survived by their daughters, Karen, Michele and Yvette, who are all actors, and seven grandchildren.

* Roy Dotrice, actor, born 26 May 1923; died 16 October 2017

First published at BBC News, October 16, 2017

Review: CHOPIN AND HIS EUROPE, Mendelssohn Symphony No.3 "Scottish", The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. Reviewed by Tony Magee.

Having just spent another few days in Edinburgh, which I must say is the most delightful city I have visited so far, I am inspired to submit this review of another of the concerts I attended in August in Poland, the relevance of which you will see...

Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op.56, "Scottish"

The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century

conducted by Gustavo Gimeno

Tuesday 29th August, 5pm

Warsaw Filharmonia Narodowa concert hall

This, the second last day of the Chopin Music Festival saw huge crowds gathering, most already with tickets (like me), but a sizeable proportion standing around in the hope that something would come up at the last minute. Scalping must be banned in Poland because I saw no evidence of it, but there were certainly several people whom I saw claim a last minute ticket at the box office through someone else cancelling.

I criticised the tuning of this orchestra in a previous review, however for the work featured today I have only praise for the wonderful, rich and spacious sound they produced in delivering this charming symphony by Mendelssohn. Conductor Gustavo Gimeno was in total control as he swept and gestured his musicians, who all watched him attentively but still retained flexibility and individuality either as periodic soloists or complete sections in a performance that exuded balance, control, dynamics and phrasing of such delight.

Mendelssohn conceived the idea of composing a symphony that would convey the charm and climate of Scotland, during a visit there in 1829, making some initial musical sketches that were then put aside for some time. Twelve years were to elapse before he returned to it and so the symphony is in effect a display of the composer in maturity, at least as far as a short life of only 38 years goes.

The fourth movement is probably the most familiar to audiences, partly due to its use famously (or infamously?) in the recurring 1970s television sketch Hampton Wick, starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett.

The Orchestra of the 18th Century is a period instruments orchestra, which means the musicians play either original historic instruments or modern day copies. String players often use historic violins, violas, cellos and basses but in a full period instruments orchestra like this one, that extends through all the sections - winds, brass and even percussion. In keeping with the historic approach to music, pitch is usually A430 instead of today's A440. Even that is changing though. Many modern European orchestras now tune to A442, sometimes referred to as "Paris Pitch" and in Russia I have heard of A445 being used.

At Chamber Recording Studios in Edinburgh, where I have been a guest twice in the last month, they are tuning both pianos (a Yamaha U3 upright and a Broadwood grand) to A441.

Australia, the United States, England, Wales and Ireland are still uniformly on A440, unless a touring concert artist requests something different.

This concert concluded my musical activities in Warsaw and two days later I departed for Berlin. Poland is a beautiful country and in particular, Warsaw was special to me. Such lovely, warm and friendly people with an ambience, pride and devotion to their beloved Chopin and Paderewski, who head up the countries fascination, dedication and respect for all things musical.

Ewa Pobłocka, Polish pianist, in Canberra for recital and jury duties

by Tony Magee

The great Polish pianist Ewa Pobłocka is in Canberra during September 2017, as a jury member for the 3rd Australian International Chopin Piano Competition. I am in Warsaw at the same time, attending the Chopin and His Europe festival, which is run by her husband, Stanislaw Leszczynski. Whilst in Australia, Miss Pobłocka avails herself of my Bechstein concert grand at my house, in order to get some practice in before her recital at Llewellyn Hall on September 10.

This short biography courtesy of The Chopin Society of Atlanta:

One of the greatest pianists of her generation, Ewa Pobłocka has performed throughout Europe and in both Americas, as well as in Singapore, Korea, Japan and Australia, giving concerts with the most famous orchestras in major concert halls. 

She has repeatedly toured European countries as a Warsaw Philharmonic soloist under the baton of Kazimierz Kord and Antoni Wit. She is a versatile pianist boasting a vast repertoire, giving recitals, orchestral and chamber music concerts, willingly accompanying singers. 

She has given numerous first performances and world premiere recordings of works by Polish contemporary composers, including Andrzej Panufnik’s Piano Concerto (the first Polish performance and the premiere recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer), Witold Lutosławski’s Piano Concerto (the first Polish recording, with the Great Symphony Orchestra of the Polish Radio under the composer’s baton), Paweł Szymański’s Piano Concerto (dedicated to Ewa Pobłocka, commissioned by Radio France, whose first performance was at the Présences Festival in Paris), and Paweł Mykietyn’s Piano Concerto (also dedicated to the pianist).

Ms. Pobłocka performs for many European radio broadcasters. She has also made more than 40 records under such labels as Deutsche Grammophon, Conifer Records, Victor JVC, and CD Accord, many of which earned awards and were enthusiastically acclaimed by critics. Her most recent CD albums include Edward Grieg’s complete piano works and Johannes Brahms’ solo compositions. Forthcoming releases will feature pieces by Robert Schumann, Fryderyk Chopin’s complete songs, and a Chopin recital on a historic Pleyelpiano of 1848.

Ms. Pobłocka is also a distinguished music educator. She teaches a piano class at the Music Academy in Bydgoszcz and the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. She is also a guest professor at the music universities in Nagoya (Japan) and Calgary (Canada). She serves on the jury of many international piano competitions.

The artist has received the annual Minister of Culture Award, the Cavalier’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta from the Polish President (2004), and the presidential title of professor (2007).

Copyright © 2002-2014 Chopin Society of Atlanta

Read Clinton White's review for City News Digital Edition here.

Dame Shirley Bassey gets 80th Birthday Makeover!

Photo courtesy Madame Tussauds Blackpool, 2017

LEGENDARY singer, Dame Shirley Bassey, has been given a special “diamond” makeover to mark her milestone 80th birthday.

Madame Tussauds Blackpool looked for a fitting tribute for the Welsh siren’s birthday on the 8th January. With traditional gifts for an 80th anniversary being oak, pearls and diamonds, the latter seemed the obvious choice.

After all, Bassey memorably sang, ‘they are all I need to please me’ in the iconic James Bond title track, Diamonds Are Forever.

Shirley’s wax figure, which captures the singer in her heyday, will be adorned with tens of thousands of pounds worth of diamonds and jewels.

The precious jewellery, on loan from A. & B. Christie, includes a stunning necklace of platinum, diamonds and pearls, made in 1961, and a string of diamonds bracelet, which even came with their own security.

First published at Madame Tussauds, Blackpool, September 1, 2017