Dead and Kind of Famous
The podcast where two friends (one who's a nobody and one who's kinda famous) dive into the life stories of dead folks who enjoyed a touch or two of fame in their time and now reside permanently in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Dead and Kind of Famous
We Love You, Los Angeles: Remembering the Victims of the Fires
This podcast is all about making sure that the stories of Hollywood’s dead never die, and after this absolutely horrific week, we need to do just that in our own small way. Thank you to all of the firefighters, volunteers, loving citizens of Los Angeles, and people helping from afar. Humanity is the only thing that can save us in these dark times.
Below you’ll find the links to the Los Angeles Times article that we referenced and used as a source for this episode in addition to links to various charities who are doing great work. Thank you so much for listening. We love you, Los Angeles <3
The LA Fire Victims: Who they Were
Dalyce Curry's Funeral Services GoFundMe
Charities
Baby2Baby
California Community Foundation
Los Angeles Regional Food Bank
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Hello and welcome to Dead and Kind of Famous, the podcast that normally digs into the life stories of dead folks who now reside permanently in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. But this week is, unfortunately, a little different. Hi everyone, this is not a typical episode. I know that we are all anxiously awaiting the part three, finale, of Myla Nurmi's story and I'm really excited to talk about that. But at the moment I'm feeling like it's not appropriate to do that and I'm also separated from my co-host, marissa Rivera, due to the fires that have plagued Los Angeles and Altadena and the surrounding areas.
Speaker 1:It has been a really rough week for everyone in this city and you know what this podcast is about people who are laid to rest in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles. So it feels like we would be doing a disservice to the city to not talk about the fires, but it really sucks to not have Marissa here to do this with me, to not have Marissa here to do this with me. I don't enjoy talking by myself, but yeah, we're both safe, everybody's safe, so that's really good. But yeah, it's been very difficult the last few days. I'm talking right now from a Airbnb in Utah because my family flipped out about the fires and the smoke that was filling our house which is fine, by the way but we went to Long Beach for a little bit to escape out of friends, and then that was getting bad air quality and since I have a toddler, we decided to travel even further away and we drove five hours away and just so that she would be able to play outside and have fresh air, and you know and we thought we'd be able to relax, but of course I can't relax. It's, it's terrible. Everything that's happened is terrible. I'm still checking that watch duty app Like it's my job all the time, trying to see what's going on, and as of now, it does look like things are getting better. But it's just kind of puts you in this paranoid state and, especially as a parent, it's been just really hard to do what I have to do to do right by my kid, but I feel guilty for not being to do right by my kid, but I feel guilty for not being in Los Angeles and helping everybody out on the ground, you know. But at the same time, I'm so proud of everybody there for showing up for each other and it's just really inspiring. You know that everybody comes together like this, and it is a great city really is, and I hope you get that sense from listening to this show and hearing about everybody's life stories that are so incredible and just knowing how many amazing people are here and have been here.
Speaker 1:So, that said, this podcast is about making sure that the stories of Hollywood's dead never die. It's also about people who aren't quite famous. And then there's me who's not famous at all, and I hope that on the day that I have to go meet my maker, I hope that people will talk about me even if I wasn't famous, and I'm not going to be. So I feel like that's the job of this show, right? So I just wanted to mention a few of the people who have passed in the fires and do right by them. I also want to do a shout out to my main source for finding the stories of these folks. It is the Los Angeles Times. There's an article called the LA fire victims, who they were, so I can include a link to that in the show notes for this episode as well, but I'm just going to summarize a little bit here.
Speaker 1:So one of the people who died in the fire in Altadena in fact, her name was Dallas Curry and she was 95 years old. She was a retired actress and she is one of those actresses I think that you would not know of. She appeared in many really amazing films, but she also she was smaller parts in them, didn't always have a name, and she appeared in films like Lady Sings the Blues with Diana Ross, and she was in the Blues Brothers as well, and she was just an amazing person. Apparently, her granddaughter said that she was full of vitality, elegance and an unmatched zest for life, and you can tell from her pictures that that seems to be true. I also saw a picture of her in her youth and I will put this together as well for you guys to see. But she was a stunning, stunning woman and you can see her zest just in her eyes at any age, and it's terrible that she has passed. She was 95 years old. So rest in peace, dallas Curry. We remember you fondly and we toast you.
Speaker 1:I feel like if we could leave an offering for Dallas. I feel like she is elegant and she is. I mean, it sounds like her Cadillac actually survived the fire that's what I read as well Like the house completely burned down, but her Cadillac was proudly sitting outside. So I don't know, some sort of little flashy Cadillac or some kind of like those fabulous like leopard seat covers or something for her car. I feel like she would get down with that. That might be a good offering for Dallas, I don't know, um, or probably just some really beautiful flowers. She seems like a lady who don't always love flowers.
Speaker 1:Uh, the next person that I want to mention is Rory Sykes. Um, he's 32 when he passed away, which is quite young, and I really was kind of floored by his story, looking at this. He was born with cerebral palsy, throughout his life had 11 leg operations and eye operation. He was born blind but he had a lifetime of physiotherapy and he was able to walk and see again. I mean, that's incredible, right, he was somebody who was a speaker at a young age and he was on this Australian talk show with his mom and he said this quote where he said it's not what happens to you in your life, it's what you do with it that counts. And that was when he was a kid. So he's just the sweetest and rest in peace, rory. I think his offering should be smiley faces and ice cream. Apparently, he loved ice cream, so you should get all 31 flavors. Just all the best for Rory, you were awesome.
Speaker 1:There's also several other people who passed Arthur I'm not sure if I'm saying this right Arthur Simenu, who's 69. And he was a guy who was a passionate hang glider, an early pioneer of the sport, as this article mentions, and he even didn't wear shoes to do so until he was older and needed to probably project his joints on the landings every now and then. So yeah, I mean, of course, the offering for him would be a little tiny, tiny hang glider figurine or something of that nature. Then there was Mark Sternberg, who immigrated with his wife, marina, in 1980. And he was looking for a place where his family would not have to endure antisemitism, which was he was experiencing in Russia, and he was actually an engineer for NASA here at JPL. So just an incredibly smart, courageous person, um. So he gets a little. He gets a little NASA rocket ship for sure for his offering.
Speaker 1:Um, anthony Mitchell and Justin Mitchell are another couple of folks who died in this fire, um, in one of these fires, and this was a father and son, um, anthony senior. He was a guy who was a mentor to every young man in his life, gave everybody fun nicknames and was just someone who gave everybody advice. He was always wanting to offer that to every young person that he saw. And then his son was born with cerebral palsy, much like Rory Sykes and, um, he made it to his thirties even though he was. You know, his parents were told he would only make it to the age of 12. So that's already incredible.
Speaker 1:And um, uh, this one kind of gets me. They were found together, huddled in their Altadena home and that is how they passed, and I just feel like I don't know that that one really sticks with me. It sounds like, I don't know, I'm running out of things, of offerings for some of these people. I feel like I don't know, I just they just have all of my respect and, um, I'm not sure I'm sorry I'm running out of things. Creative to, to add to this, it's just really sad, you know, um, but I'll keep going.
Speaker 1:There was Randall Miod, who is 55. I might be saying his name wrong, I apologize. Um, he had on his Instagram page that he was a Malibu man of mystery. I picture this guy like the dude from the Big Lebowski. Um, he was like just an eternal surfer. He, uh, people said he was like Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, so that makes sense too. Um, and he had this like really old red barn style house, uh, and he rented it for a long time and then was given the opportunity to buy it which is amazing and everybody called it the crap shack and he welcomed surfers from all over and and he was just like. He was that guy, you know, really like warm hearted youthful person up through every, you know, every part of his life, just kind of that, that person who stays true to who they are and doesn't change, and I think that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So those are some of the people I had some notes about, but some of the other people that have passed, at least that we know of now, are early in Louise Kelly, evelyn McClendon, charles Mortimer, rodney, kent Nickerson, annette Rosalie, victor Shaw, kim Wieniecki and Zee Fang Zhao. So those are all folks that we lay to rest in Los Angeles right now. I think this article does a much better job of honoring them in specifics and beautiful journalism than I just did, but it's a little bit of a summary that felt appropriate for our show, so I just wanted to share that with you all. I also want to share that there are um a couple opportunities here that I will also add links to for you all to to offer your support to the community um in a special way, if you'd like to. So there is a GoFundMe for Dallas Curry, actually for her funeral services. Her family's trying to put together money for her funeral services, and that's the woman I mentioned first who was an actress in Lady Sings the Blues and Blues Brothers. So if you wanted to offer your support to her family, you can absolutely reach out to the GoFundMe. I will also include some other links to some amazing charities doing really great work in Los Angeles in the show notes that you can give to as well.
Speaker 1:But until next time, I'm going to sign off from here in my Airbnb in Utah, and I can't wait to talk to you again about Myla Nurmi and get back to a little bit of normalcy, a little bit of old Hollywood, a little bit of escaping into the past, getting out of this awful current moment. I appreciate you guys so much and I can't wait for that better future moment that's coming to us. So, uh, until next time. You might not be famous, but you're not dead yet and uh, that's something to celebrate in these times. So we'll see you soon. Bye, take care, thank you.
