RIPs in November from Quincy Jones to business billionaires

Quincy Jones was the man in the 1980s. One of my favorite memories of my tween years was the American Music Awards when Michael Jackson moonwalked and just absolutely killed it in both performance and music. Producer Quincy Jones was a major mastermind behind that. He passed away at the start of this month from pancreatic cancer at 91. Off the Wall and Thriller and We Are the World are albums I still own and listen to plenty. They are timeless and I owe that listening pleasure to Jones for directing it all. It’s no small beans in my book that he also created the Sanford and Son TV theme song.

Teri Garr passed away at age 79. Most well known for Tootsie and Mr. Mom, I have to say my favorite was Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, in which Garr starred as Gene Wilder’s assistant Inga. I watched that so many times as a kid. She always seemed to be around elsewhere, whether it was on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, M*A*S*H, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or Friends.

Virginia Carter passed away at age 87. She was hired by TV legend Norman Lear to be his female conscious. Her own breast cancer inspired the storyline about Edith Bunker in All in the Family finding a benign lump in her breast in the show. Her work with overpopulation activists inspired a storyline about Edith’s son-in-law Meathead getting a vasectomy. She was also the producer of Lear’s Afterschool Specials, among many other credits.

Arthur Frommer, creator of top-selling travel guides, passed away from pneumonia at age 95. I love travel guides. The romance of them is immense. Even if you don’t pop them open once while off in Tanzania or France or Brazil—and also if you don’t even take them with you—if you are holding one, you are anticipating an exotic trip. They are less essential in the internet age, but Frommer was a giant of the industry when guidebooks mattered most—a time when we had ideas like “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day.”

Bela Karolyi was a gymnastics coach who passed away at 82. I know very little about this sport, but I know Simone Biles and Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton. Probably a few others. I also picture Karolyi and his bushy mustache. I think he’s coached every major gymnast since the 1800s, but like I say, I don’t for sure know much about the sport.

John Robinson passed away from pneumonia at 89. He was one of those football coaches who just seemed like an entirely nice guy. He won the Rose Bowl leading the University of Southern California three times in the late 1970s then was hired by the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, where he lost two NFC Championships (to the 1985 Chicago Bears and the 1989 San Francisco 49ers) and also drafted legendary running back Eric Dickerson with the second pick in the 1983 draft.

Judy Love, who co-founded Love’s Travel Stops, passed away at 87. I would say it’s no Sheetz, but you could do worse than stopping at Love’s for a sandwich break, and although the store has been criticized for workplace discrimination against women, Love herself is reported to a sweetheart.

In more business obituary news, Bernard Marcus was a co-founder of The Home Depot and passed away at age 95. He became a billionaire by creating the still currently fashionable warehouse style of hardware stores. In his late years, his outspoken support of Donald Trump triggered a lot of boycotting of his brand.

Elwood Edwards passed away from a stroke at age 74. He was the voice of AOL’s “welcome” “you’ve got mail,” “files done,” and “goodbye.” He was paid $200 by AOL but then never really took advantage of that break, instead going back to a simple life working at a Cleveland TV station.

Murray McCory passed away from heart failure at age 80. He was the founder of the JanSport school backpacks everyone has had one of at least once in their lives, coming up with the idea in a college contest to have something that wouldn’t chaff his back and could hold a water bottle. JanSport, named after McCory’s girlfriend and then wife whom he later divorced, is now operated by a conglomerate that also owns North Face.