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- Blustery, stocky, loud although often genial character actor who has created a niche for himself playing often frustrated and fast talking Southern characters... most noticeably as Sheriff J.W. Pepper alongside Roger Moore in the James Bond adventures Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
He may have perfected a Southern drawl, however Clifton James was actually born on May 29, 1921 in Spokane, Washington. A graduate of the Actors Studio, he regularly appeared in guest roles on television series, including Gunsmoke (1955), Bonanza (1959) and The Virginian (1962). He was also busy in the cinema with minor roles in classy productions, such as Cool Hand Luke (1967), Will Penny (1967) and The New Centurions (1972). After his 007 escapades, James remained busy putting in a great dramatic performance in The Deadly Tower (1975), played another loud-mouthed Sheriff in the action comedy Silver Streak (1976) and was superb as team owner Charles Comiskey in the dramatization of the 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal, Eight Men Out (1988).
His other roles include that of a wealthy Montana baron whose cattle are being rustled in Rancho Deluxe (1975), and as the source who tips off a newspaper reporter (Bruce Willis) to a potentially explosive story in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). He had been quieter in his later years, but showed he could still contribute an enjoyable performance in the wonderful John Sayles movie Sunshine State (2002). James died at age 96 from complications of diabetes at his home in Gladstone, Oregon on April 15, 2017. - The only daughter of Matthew and Alice (Fitzpatrick) Delaney, Helen had two brothers. Matthew Delaney, of English-Irish ancestry, was an adventurous merchant seaman. Unlike many parents who tell their children this, she really did walk several miles to school daily, including through the snow. Helen was born with an eye affliction that doctors said would result in blindness, but when her beloved father died, her mother brought her in 1925 to New York for a series of eye operations. The fact that her vision became normal may have helped to lead Helen to realize that hard-luck cases should never be given up as lost. But a different sort of unhappiness struck after she married Fred Martini and they tried to have a child; when the baby was lost, doctors told her she would never have another. Instead, she turned her mothering instincts to animals. Fred was a jeweler, but they visited the Bronx Zoo regularly; they both loved animals, and with Helen's encouragement he quit his job to become a zookeeper. When Fred was put in charge of the Lion House, their lives changed forever, and for the better. A lioness refused to mother its cub, so Helen brought it to their New York apartment and raised it herself. She named him after war hero General Douglas MacArthur. Because of her successful care, the cub was returned to the Zoo at the age of 2 months, and next the officials asked her to rear a litter of tiger cubs. Again Helen saved their lives, and the story was followed closely in the news media, until at the age of 3 months they went back to the Zoo. There was no going back now. Unstoppable, she converted a storeroom at the Lion House into a nursery, where she could care for cubs whose mothers were too freaked out by captivity to nurse them properly. Helen was officially hired in August 1944 as the first and only woman keeper in the Bronx Zoo. Helen continued to treat cubs at home when necessary, as in the case of the black leopard Bagheera (named after the famous leopard in the Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling). Helen Martini grew famous in New York for treating animals in her apartment -- sometimes despite the complaints of neighbors -- including gorillas, marmosets, baby deer, antelope, squirrels, and skunks. She did all of this without any special training, simply relying upon books that she read and her own instincts and love. The public got to share when one of the tiger cubs she had raised had problems with a baby in her own (seventh) litter; Helen allowed zoo-goers to watch as she fed the sickly little cub she called Fer (Hindustani for tiger), along with the first jaguar cubs the Bronx Zoo had ever exhibited. This was in 1954. Helen got vindication for her mothering when, again in front of the public, she approached the Lion House and the 600-pound Bengal tigers flung themselves on the floor, rolled, purred and begged to be petted. The newspapers also reported that Bagheera "streaked to the bars" and clutched her around the neck, as "the crowd gasped and fell back," then patted her cheeks with "desperate affection." Helen never claimed to be particularly brave. She was simply taking care of her little ones.
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Tracy Layne was born on 12 February 1890 in Newport, Nebraska, USA. He was an actor, known for The Vigilantes Are Coming (1936), Winds of the Wasteland (1936) and Sergeant Murphy (1938). He died on 1 November 1981 in Gladstone, Oregon, USA.- Eddie Basinski was born on 4 November 1922 in Buffalo, New York, USA. He was married to XO. He died on 8 January 2022 in Gladstone, Oregon, USA.