Guru, Author at Just Never Forget : Page 7 of 9

Philip Seymour Hoffman: An Actor Who Religiously Demanded Perfection

By Guru 24 August 2020

Slouched in the front row of the labyrinth Theater Company’s performance space in New York’s West Village in May 2013, Philip Seymour Hoffman was his typical focused, super-disciplined self. In…

James Gandolfini: Television’s Mafia Boss

By Guru 24 August 2020

James Gandolfini's lumbering, brutish mob boss with the tortured psyche will endure as one of TV's indelible characters. But his portrayal of criminal Tony Soprano in HBO's landmark drama series…

Margaret Thatcher: The ‘Iron Lady’ of England

By Guru 24 August 2020

Margaret Thatcher set her country on a rightward economic course, led it to victory in the Falklands war and helped guide the United States and the Soviet Union through the…

Roger Ebert: The Ultimate Movie Critic

By Guru 24 August 2020

He announced that he would be taking a “leave of presence” on the day before his death — a peculiar formulation. But Roger Ebert wanted like hell to stay with…

Paul Walker: Race Car Star Who Captured A Generation

By Guru 23 August 2020

Paul Walker combined unthreatening star charisma with preppy good looks and a canny commercial sensibility to become Hollywood's ambassador of illegal street racing. In an ironic twist of life imitating…

Ravi Shankar: The Human Embodiment of the Sitar

By Guru 23 August 2020

Ravi Shankar, widely hailed as sitar’s greatest virtuoso, created a passion among Western audiences for the rhythmically vital, melodically flowing ragas of classical Indian music — a fascination that had…

Neil Armstrong: “One Giant Leap For Mankind”

By Guru 23 August 2020

“One giant leap for mankind," said Neil Armstrong as he stepped foot on the moon to write a new chapter in human space travel. With that, the quiet, self-described nerdy…

Donna Summer: The Queen of Disco

By Guru 23 August 2020

Donna Summer’s "Last Dance," ''Love to Love You Baby" and "Bad Girls" became the soundtrack for a glittery age of sex, drugs, dance and flashy clothes between the 70s and…

Whitney Houston: Gospel Singer to Global Diva

By Guru 23 August 2020

Whitney Houston, the multimillion-selling singer who emerged in the 1980s, was a church-choir teen in a poor working-class neighborhood in New Jersey who went on to become one of her…

Steve Jobs: The Grandmaster of Technology

By Guru 23 August 2020

INSANELY great. A two-word eulogy that fits into the technological utopia that Steve Jobs constructed, expanded and dominated. A two-word phrase that Jobs concocted in the mid-1980s as a precocious…

Patrick Swayze: The ‘Ghost’ We All Love

By Guru 23 August 2020

Who doesn't love Patrick Swayze in "Dirty Dancing," or "Ghost" or "Road House?" Those movies made him a huge star. But the real Swayze is seen in "I Am Patrick…

Michael Jackson: The One Who ‘Moonwalked’ on Earth

By Guru 23 August 2020

“One giant leap for mankind,” Neil Armstrong remarked as he pranced on the moon. Michael Jackson didn’t have to go that far. He simply turned the earth into his moon,…

Heath Ledger: The ‘Joker’ Who Drew Parallels With Marlon Brando

By Guru 23 August 2020

Heath Ledger was an Australian-born actor, whose breakthrough role as a gay cowboy in the 2005 movie “Brokeback Mountain” earned him a nomination for an Academy Award and comparisons to…

Ronald Reagan: The Last US President To Oversee The Cold War

By Guru 23 August 2020

Ronald Reagan was a cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was "morning again in America".…

Frank Sinatra: He Had It ‘His Way’

By Guru 23 August 2020

Like his iconic “My Way”, Frank Sinatra, the singer and actor whose extraordinary voice elevated popular song into an art, simply had it his way. Widely held to be the…

George Harrison: The Beatle Who Blended East With The West

By Guru 23 August 2020

One of the enduring legacies of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar was that he successfully broadened the appeal of Indian classical music abroad. But Shankar himself was ambivalent about this achievement.…

FloJo: A Name As Flamboyant And Flowing As Her Track Style

By Guru 23 August 2020

Florence Griffith Joyner was a three-time gold medalist at the 1988 Summer Olympics who revolutionized women's sprinting with her searing speed and flamboyant fashion sense. Decades after her shattering achievements…

Diana: The Still-Mourned ‘Princess of the People’

By Guru 23 August 2020

When Tony Blair addressed Britain on August 31st, 1997 and spoke, with that masterly catch in his voice, of "the people's princess", it seemed that the death of Diana, Princess…

Sudirman: Malaysia’s Unforgettable Prince of Pop

By Guru 23 August 2020

As the Eid al-Fitr beckons each year in mostly-Muslim Malaysia, street traders typically take it upon themselves to set the mood by playing a plethora of festive songs for the…

Malaysia’s Tunku: A Rare One Who Stood For All In His Country

By Guru 23 August 2020

“All talk on Islamic States is just an empty dream,” said Tunku Abdul Rahman, the gregarious noble who led in the founding of Malaysia and was for 13 years its…