One can only imagine the great radio tales Paul Drew regaled fellow residents with at Victor Royale Assisted Living, an airy facility in the south end of Glendale just a few blocks away from Forest Lawn. Per an obit in Billboard by Gail Mitchell, this early architect of the top-40 format knew many of the great ones:

Drew worked with and/or mentored a diverse array of radio personalities, programmers, consultants and industry writers. That list includes consultants Jerry Clifton and Guy Zapoleon, writers Gerry Cagle (Network 40), Walt “Baby” Love (Radio & Records) and Jerry Del Colliano (Inside Radio), as well as air personalities Rick Dees, Dr. Don Rose, Jay Thomas and Charlie Van Dyke.

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The event beginning this afternoon at 4 p.m. on Maple Drive is private. In attendance alongside the late honoree’s children and grandchildren will be those who knew Ruth Kraft mainly as an avid tennis player who in recent years courageously battled cancer.

Before all those matches at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club and successful real estate investments made with late husband Gilman Kraft, who passed away in 1999, Ruth was a long-time LA publisher. From the obituary in Playbill:

In 1966, she moved to Los Angeles with her husband, a former owner of Playbill. Together, they began Performing Arts magazine, a publication similar to Playbill that served California theaters.

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The obit of Matt Groening‘s mother, Margaret Ruth, is circulating around the Web because of some familiar names from the town of Springfield.

The creator of The Simpsons clearly was influenced by his family when it was time to name the characters on the show.

Groening had a Marge (Margaret), Homer, Lisa, Maggie and Patty in his family and his mother’s maiden name was Wiggum — the last name of Ralph and Chief Wiggum.

[H/T Bleeding Cool]

Mario Machado, best known for his stint on The Big News and numerous movie cameos, died on Saturday at the age of 78.

The eight-time Emmy Award winner died of complications of pneumonia and was battling Parkinson’s disease, his daughter told the Los Angeles Times.

Machado was a reporter on The Big News in the 1970s and was the host of Noontime for seven years on KNXT (now KCBS-TV).

His film credits included the RoboCop franchise, Rocky III and Brian’s Song. Machado was also the first Chinese-American on-air reporter in Los Angeles.

Even back in 2009, when columnist and Gay Vegas book author Steve Friess wrote an item about Kenny Kerr, memories were already fading of the legendary Strip performer’s female impersonator legacy. Kerr died over the weekend at age 60.

From Friess’ December 2009 Las Vegas Weekly article:

Not even my own partner, who has been in Vegas for almost a decade, was certain what Kenny does. “He was a drag queen, right?” Miles asked.

Uh, yeah. But not in the low-rent, cheesy form that most people think of when bandying about that phrase. Kenny Kerr is — not was, is — the best performing drag queen ever to grace a stage in Las Vegas or anywhere else. Unfortunately, he’s also one of the worst businessmen. Which he cops to.

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This weekend in Marina del Rey, friends, family, colleagues and students of Mike Daniels will pay tribute to the departed local broadcast legend at a memorial from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the California Yacht Club. It’s where Daniels for many years docked his boat Grand Cru. He recently passed away at age 77 from cancer.

Daniels started working at KCBS in 1958 upon graduation from USC and stayed there until retirement. He also, starting in 1974, returned to campus as a teacher and separately also guided journalism aspirants at Loyola Marymount. From a recent Annenberg TV News report:

Daniels’ stories – ranging from investigative pieces to breaking news – earned him several Emmys and Golden Mike awards. Colleague and USC professor of journalism Joe Saltzman said Daniels was a “calming force” in the hectic, fast-paced world of TV news.

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In addition to being an immensely gifted filmmaker and inspired organizer of LACMA Live Reads, Jason Reitman is also a solid entertainment journalist. Check out the concise, clear and very compelling sentence with which he leads off his brief, touching Entertainment Weekly tribute to Roger Ebert:

I spoke with Roger Ebert perhaps a dozen times, but only heard his voice once.

Reitman’s piece, headlined “The Man Who Loved Movies,” is currently only available in the print and tablet editions of EW. It’s scheduled to go online shortly and when it does, the magazine can expect a torrent of appreciative reader comments.

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The measure of Gary Lycan, a much loved and respected Southern California radio columnist, is all over the Orange County Register‘s Facebook page. After a courageous battle with cancer, Lycan passed away on Tuesday at the age of 68.

Here is just a sampling at press time of some of the comments left on Facebook in response to the paper’s sharing of the obituary piece by Peter Larsen:

Tim Conway Jr. (KFI AM 640 radio host): If it wasn’t for Gary always including me in his pieces, I would not be working on KFI today. He was the best friend radio could have ever asked for.

Nancy Luna (Register food reporter): I am so sad to hear this news. Gary wasn’t just a great reporter, he was a great selfless person. He was one of my biggest supporters. He had a knack for sending me a note of encouragement when I needed it the most. Despite his illness, he was still upbeat and positive. I admired him for that. Gary, you will be missed deeply. Rest in peace.

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The only good thing about the death of Roger Ebert is that it has provoked an outpouring of Internet content residing far from a realm the critic never stood for: “snark.” It’s been one heartfelt, spectacular, memorable article after another, a tribute trail that includes a wonderful April 4 essay by Studio City-Sherman Oaks Patch editor Mike Szymanski.

Szymanski was lucky enough to forge a relationship with Ebert that went much further than most such Fourth Estate brushes. It started on the red carpet of the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in 1986 and blossomed into a fantastic same-time-next-year tradition north of the border:

We got to know each other by covering many, many film festivals together, and later found out we had a close mutual friend, [the late] Canadian-Italian journalist Angela Baldassarre, and for more than a dozen years always scheduled a dinner or lunch together no matter how busy we were during the crazy Toronto Interational Film Festival.

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Legendary film critic Roger Ebert died today, days after taking a “leave of presence” from his job at the Chicago Sun-Times. More info as it comes in.

*Update: The Sun-Times just posted its obit of Ebert. No real mention of the details of his death, other than that he was 70 years-old and that his passing came after a long battle with cancer.

Ebert reviewed films for the Sun-Times for 46 years. After losing parts of his jaw to cancer in 2006, losing his ability to eat or speak in the process, he somehow managed to become even more relevant by embracing social media. He was one of the few old-school journalists who truly got the brave new world of online media. His nearly 900,000 Twitter followers are a testament to that.

True to form, in his final week, he managed to pen not just one, but two lengthy reviews–one of the Stephanie Meyer adaptation The Host and the other of the indie doc The Iran Job, which played the LA Film Festival last Spring. He gave both two-and-a-half stars. Hopefully he was able to see something he liked a little better before he passed.

RIP.