Just heard it myself. So sad.
Any of you who have not seen Friday Night Dinner have missed one of the most side-splittingly, laugh-out-loud sitcoms of recent years. Paul Ritter as Martin is just brilliant.
His forensic pathologist in ‘Vera’ brought a touch of dark humour to a dark detective drama, too. He did something similar and equally good in ‘No Offence’
Only 54. So many good roles not now to come. Sigh.
"Shit on it"
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Oh no. He was certainly a very necessary thorn in the Catholic churches side. And one of the last public intellectuals we had.
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I hope he and Alan Rickman are playing siblings in some movie in the afterlife.
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It’s dour ceremony season for our UK members here
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navarro
April 9, 2021, 11:35am
2577
wow! given the longevity of his mother and his father living for almost a century, charles stands a chance of living to an astounding age.
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He was relatively young. This is very sad!
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Was just coming to add that… Here is the Guardian on his death…
A retrospective in pictures…
RIP!
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They had a title card for her and DMX on SNL tonight.
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They had a sketch tonight about a nerdy kid, and I’m wondering if that was meant to be a tribute to her…
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Some music history:
Ms. Losneck said Ms. Gabriel had survived in a tough business through productivity and competence. “She knew who to call when she needed an organist,” she said. “She knew how to manage the budget. All that gave her a measure of control.” Many of the records Ms. Gabriel made fit into a category often marginalized as elevator music. “It’s easy to look back on that music now and say it was kind of cheesy,” Ms. Losneck said, “but back then it was part of the cultural landscape.”
“She had developed a couple of deals that, while they weren’t particularly ‘hip,’ generated a lot of income and financed some of the more speculative workings of the department. Lesson one: Make money for the company and they will leave you be.” Mr. Mauro summarized his aunt’s career simply: “She was successful early on when the playing field wasn’t level.” Ms. Gabriel, interviewed by The Cincinnati Enquirer in 1983, had a succinct explanation of her ability to thrive in a man’s world. “I didn’t know I was somewhere I shouldn’t be,” she said.
Ethel Nagy Gabriel (November 16, 1921 – March 23, 2021) was an American record producer and record executive with a four-decade career at RCA Victor. She produced over 2,500 music albums including 15 RIAA Certified Gold Records and hits by Elvis Presley, Perry Como, Al Hirt, Henry Mancini, and Roger Whittaker among others.
She was the first female record producer for a major label and the first female A&R producer in the industry. Gabriel was the winner of a Grammy Award in 1982 and also produce...
Some highlights and lowlights:
Around 1959, Gabriel became head of the RCA Camden budget reissue label which was in danger of folding. Gabriel suspected that her boss, who was not in favor of women in the record industry, put her in charge of the moribund Camden label as a way to possibly force her out of RCA Victor. Gabriel went on to rejuvenate the Camden label and transform it within just a few years, into a multimillion dollar label.
At RCA Victor, Gabriel was on the ground floor of the creation of the company’s famous Nashville studios. She was a leader in the experiments and methods of electronically improving and influencing the sound of music, such as simulating the first stereo sounds (by shifting sound between speakers) and experimenting with the use of an echo chamber. She supervised the first stereo recording with Bing Crosby.
In 1984, Gabriel gave her entire RCA retirement ($251,485.92) to a friend, former United States Treasury Secretary Robert B. Anderson, to form a new recording company. In 1987, Anderson was sent to prison for bank fraud. Having lost her entire life’s savings, Gabriel’s memorabilia from her career with RCA Victor was put up for auction in Pennsylvania in 2007.
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Probably means little to anyone outside UK…
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