Notable Deaths - August 28
Here are the notable deaths on August 28 throughout the years:
Ruth Gordon Jones (October 30, 1896 – August 28, 1985) - Better known as Ruth Gordon, was an Academy Award-, Golden Globe-, and Emmy Award-winning American actress and writer. She was perhaps best known for her films roles such as the oversolicitous neighbor in Rosemary’s Baby and the eccentric life-loving Maude in Harold and Maude. In addition to her acting career, Gordon wrote numerous well-known plays, film scripts and books. She and husband Garson Kanin collaborated on the screenplays for the Katharine Hepburn–Spencer Tracy films Adam’s Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952.) Both films were directed by George Cukor. The onscreen relationship of Hepburn and Tracy, seen in those films, was modelled on Gordon and Kanin’s own marriage. Gordon and Kanin received Academy Awards nominations for both of those screenplays, as well as for that of a prior film, A Double Life (1947), which was also directed by Cukor. She had a minor but memorable role as the mother of Orville Boggs (Geoffrey Lewis) in the Clint Eastwood films Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can. Gordon died from a stroke in Edgartown, Massachusetts, aged 88, in 1985. A small theater in Westboro, Massachusetts was named in her honor, as was an outdoor amphitheater in Quincy, Massachusetts. Harold and Maude and Adam’s Rib have both been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress.
Hilly Kristal (September 23, 1931 – August 28, 2007) - An American club owner and musician who was the owner of the iconic New York City club, CBGB, which opened in 1973 and closed in 2006 over a rent dispute. The club featured many famous musicians over the years and remained very popular until its closing. In 1968 he co-founded the Schaefer Music Festival with concert promoter Ron Delsener; the festival took place every year until 1976 in NYC’s Central Park and featured superstars from all music genres like The Who, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Bob Marley, B.B. King, Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys, Frank Zappa, Ray Charles, Patti LaBelle, Ike & Tina Turner, Fleetwood Mac, The Allman Brothers, Kris Kristofferson, Curtis Mayfield, Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, and The Doors, amongst many other bands. In 1970 Kristal opened a bar in the Bowery section of New York called “Hilly’s on the Bowery,” which closed within a couple of years. Then, in December 1973, he created “CBGB and OMFUG”, an abbreviation of the kinds of music he intended to feature there: “Country, BlueGrass, Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers.” The club became known as the starting point for the careers of such punk rock and New Wave acts as The Ramones, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Television, and Blondie. For a short while after the closing, Kristal considered moving the club to Las Vegas. Kristal died from complications of lung cancer, aged 75. Here is a rememberance video about the club: