From the Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2001 issue

Columns

Obits

by Clark Humphrey

The Seattle Press, "Seattle's Bi-Weekly Urban Journal," called it quits after 16 years of publication under various titles and owners. The Fremont-based community paper was a victim of both a short-term ad-sales slump and a long-term decline in the sort of neighborhood mom-and-pop retailers to whom the paper had sold most of its ads. Dawn Anderson's 1987-91 rock zine Backlash, the first Seattle paper to notice Nirvana, was a Seattle Press spinoff.

John Lee Hooker, 83, recorded over 100 albums of Mississippi Delta blues since 1948, influencing generations of rock musicians with his electric playing and gravely voice on songs like "Boom Boom" and "Boogie Chillen" (though not with his polyester-dominant wardrobe). He was scheduled to close Seattle's "Concerts at the Pier" series in August.

Isabell Ides, 101, was the matriarch of the Makah nation on the Washington coast, and a preserver and teacher of the tribe's language and culture. She leaves more than 100 direct descendants.

Humongous Entertainment suspended production of its once-popular children's video games, which featured such characters as Putt-Putt the car and Freddie the fish.

Princess Leila Pahlavi, 31, was the youngest daughter of the exiled Shah of Iran. She OD'd on sleeping pills in her London hotel suite while watching the Iranian election results on TV.

Richard E. Thornton, M.D., 68, was a Bellevue orthopedic surgeon who also dabbled in music and poetry. His Seattle Times paid obit said, "Some say the milkshakes did him in, but you can't find fingerprints on ice cream." It also referred to him as "J. P. Beaumont's personal physician." Beaumont is the sleuth in a series of mystery novels by J. A. Jance, set in Seattle.

Ruth Lauritzen Soberg, 88, was born to Norwegian parents in an Alaskan village. She wrote a memoir of her early years, Unga Island Girl (Ruth's Book), which won a prize at the 1997 Bumbershoot book fair.

Essee Kupcinet, 85, was the wife of Chicago columnist Irv Kupcinet and an organizer for Chicago-area arts organizations. A lifelong smoker who died of lung failure, she'd requested to be buried with a full pack of Pall Malls.

Carroll O'Connor, 76, starred in All in the Family, the groundbreaking 1971-79 series that brought "adult" subject matter (and a spare, off-Broadway theatrical style) to the sitcom world. It was not revealed whether the last words he heard were from a black woman proclaiming, "Mr. Bunker, I AM the doctor."