The Absent Friends Quartet

There has been a preponderance of celebrity deaths in recent weeks, and probably none of these deaths on their own would merit the Absent Friends treatment from The Grandstander.  However, when they are stacked right on top of each other like so much cordwood, well, as Willie Loman's wife said in Death of a Salesman, "attention must be paid."   So, here you go, four shorter the usual Absent Friends tributes.

Was I a fan of former teenie-bopper idol, Tiger Beat cover boy, actor, and bubblegum rocker Bobby Sherman?  No, I was not.   Inexplicably, my friend Dan was and remains a huge Bobby Sherman fan, so I know that he will be happy with this post.  

Sherman died last month at the age of 81, and his obituaries told the story of what happened when the Show Biz lights went out for him.  Sherman devoted himself to a career in public safety.  I will let this entry from his Wikipedia page tell the story:

In 1974, Sherman guest-starred on an episode of the Jack Webb television series Emergency! ("Fools", season 3, episode 17, aired January 19, 1974), and found a new calling. Eventually, he left the public spotlight and became a paramedic. He volunteered with the Los Angeles Police Department, working with paramedics and giving CPR and first aid classes. He became a technical Reserve Police Officer with the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1990s, a position he still held as of 2017.^[8] For more than a decade he served as a medical training officer at the Los Angeles Police Academy, instructing thousands of police officers in first aid and CPR. He was named LAPD's Reserve Officer of the Year in 1999.

Sherman also became a reserve deputy sheriff in 1999 with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, continuing his CPR and emergency training of new deputy hires. He retired from the sheriff's department in 2010.^[8]

Sherman and his wife co-founded the Brigitte & Bobby Sherman Children's (BBSC) Foundation.^[17] The foundation's mission is to provide motivated students in Ghana with a high-quality education and music program, and to provide tools to pursue higher education.

Sherman's singing and acting career made him famous and wealthy, but what he did after all of that made him a pretty neat guy.

Connie Francis died at the age of 87 last week.  A teenaged singer from New Jersey, Francis, like so many others of her era, was discovered by Dick Clark and his American Bandstand show when it was based in Philadelphia in the late nineteen fifties and sixties.  She had hit records with such songs as "Who's Sorry Now", "Stupid Cupid", "Lipstick On Your Collar", and "Where The Boys Are", the title tune of a movie in which Francis co-starred.  Like so many others of her era, her career as a mainstream pop star pretty much ended when The Beatles arrived in America.

Interesting item from her obituaries.  The complete and total love of her life was singer Bobby Darin,  However, Connie's father showed up one day with gun and threatened to shoot Darin unless he got out of his daughter's life.  Bobby took the hint and scrammed, although the torch for him still burned within her.  Connie Francis was married four time and, according to her, only hubby number three as any good at all.

Ozzy Osbourne

1948-2025

Like I said at the beginning, this is a death I would not have noted but for the fact that it was bunched together with all the others.  Back Sabbath and Ozzy the solo artist were not my bag, music-wise, nor did I ever watch that reality show that he did with his family.  I did like him on that commercial where he and others admonish business people for proclaiming themselves "rock stars."  That's a pretty good bit.

Oh, and he once bit the head off of a live bat on stage.

Hulk Hogan

1953-2025

When I worked at Equitable Life back in the 1980's, one of my co-workers was a huge fan of professional wrestling, and so it came to pass that for a period of four or five years, I too, became a follower of the pro wrestlers that populated the World Wrestling Federation. now the WWE, and I admit to attending many of the monty Wrestling cards that were held at the Civic Arena back in the day.  So, yes, I can say that I have seen Hulk Hogan perform live and in person on more that one occasion, and, yes, I did see him lift up and bodyslam Andre the Giant inside the squared circle at the Arena.  Hogan died yesterday at the age of 71.   Pro Rasslin' made him famous and wealthy,  but not without some bumps along the path.  I won't recount this incidents here; you can read all about them in his obits.  He also turned into a MAGA-head. (Holds nose while typing those words.)

RIP Bobby Sherman, Connie Francis, Ozzy Osbourne, and Hulk Hogan.

Let me leave you with THIS PERFORMANCE Of "Where The Boys Are" by Connie Francis on the Ed Sullivan show in 1961, her salad days.  She was pretty good!