Showing posts with label dies at 85. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dies at 85. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 May 2023

Joe Kapp, former Vikings, Cal QB, dies at 85

Joe Kapp, the tough quarterback who led the Minnesota Vikings to their first Super Bowl and California to its last Rose Bowl, has died. He was 85.

Cal confirmed that Kapp died on Monday. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

After a stellar collegiate career at Cal in the 1950s that was capped by an appearance in the 1959 Rose Bowl, Kapp went on to star in Canada before making it to the NFL. He took over for Fran Tarkenton in Minnesota and led the Vikings to a Super Bowl appearance in the 1969 season before losing to Kansas City.

Kapp is the only quarterback to lead his team to a Rose Bowl, Grey Cup and Super Bowl.

Kapp also later coached his alma mater for five seasons and was on the sideline for one of the most memorable plays in school history when the Golden Bears returned a kickoff with five laterals to beat rival Stanford on the final play in 1982, scoring the TD with the Cardinal band on the field.

Kapp helped lead Cal to the Pacific Coast Conference title in 1958 and a trip to the Rose Bowl, where the Bears lost to Iowa.

When he was hired to coach at Cal before the 1982 season, he vowed not to drink his favorite alcoholic beverage tequila until the Bears made another appearance in the storied bowl game. They never made it back in his lifetime.

Kapp spent his first eight seasons in the CFL with Calgary and the BC Lions. He took the Stampeders to the playoffs in his second season and led the Lions to back-to-back Grey Cup appearances, winning it all in his second try in 1964.

“Along with helping put the Lions on the map after some lean early years, Joe also served as a trailblazer for quarterbacks making a name for themselves on both sides of the border,” the BC Lions said in a statement.

He then went to the NFL in 1967 as part of a complicated trade between teams in different leagues and replaced Tarkenton, who had been traded by Minnesota to the New York Giants.

Kapp helped the Vikings make the playoffs before losing to Baltimore in 1968 and then threw 19 TD passes and led Minnesota to a 12-2 record the following year when he finished second in MVP voting.

He ran and threw a TD pass against Cleveland to lead Minnesota to a 27-7 victory in the 1969 NFL title game. The Vikings then lost the last Super Bowl before the merger to Kansas City.

Kapp left as a free agent the following season and played briefly for the Patriots in 1970. He refused to sign with the team after New England drafted Jim Plunkett first overall in 1971 and never played again.

He filed an antitrust suit against the league that he eventually lost.

Kapp had a 20-34-1 record in five years as coach at Cal from 1982-86.



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Sunday, 29 November 2020

Dave Prowse, actor who played Darth Vader, dies at 85

LONDON (AP/KRON) — Dave Prowse, the British weightlifter-turned-actor who was the body, though not the voice, of arch-villain Darth Vader in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, has died. He was 85.

Prowse died Saturday after a short illness, his agent Thomas Bowington said Sunday.

Born in Bristol, southwest England, in 1935, Prowse was a three-time British weightlifting champion and represented England in weightlifting at the 1962 Commonwealth Games before breaking into movies with roles that emphasized his commanding size, including Frankenstein’s monster in a pair of Hammer Studios horror films.

Director George Lucas saw Prowse in a small part in “A Clockwork Orange” and asked the 6-foot-6-inch (almost 2-meter) actor to audition for the villainous Vader or the Wookie Chewbacca in “Star Wars.”

Prowse later told the BBC he chose Darth Vader because “you always remember the bad guys.”

Physically, Prowse was perfect for the part. His lilting English West Country accent was considered less ideal, and his lines were dubbed by James Earl Jones.

Prowse donned Darth Vader’s black armor and helmet for “Star Wars” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) and “Return of the Jedi” (1983).

He expressed some regret that, thanks to Vader’s mask, “I can walk around with complete anonymity.”

“All actors crave recognition and I’d like to have some like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo,” he told The Associated Press in 1980. “Fortune tends to follow fame.”

Prowse also worked as a trainer for other actors, helping Christopher Reeve prepare to be the Man of Steel in hit 1978 film “Superman.”

Prowse was also known to a generation of British children as the Green Cross Code Man, a superhero in a series of road safety advertisements during the 1970s and ’80s.

He was a regular at “Star Wars” fan events, but was banned from official conventions by Lucas in 2010 after the pair fell out.

Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the “Star Wars” films, tweeted that Prowse was “a kind man & much more than Darth Vader.” Hamill said the actor “loved his fans as much as they loved him. #RIP”

“Ant-Man” director Edgar Wright also paid tribute to Prowse on Twitter.

“As a kid Dave Prowse couldn’t be more famous to me; stalking along corridors as evil incarnate in the part of Darth Vader & stopping a whole generation of kiddies from being mown down in street as the Green Cross Code man,” he wrote. “Rest in Peace, Bristol’s finest.”

Prowse is survived by his wife Norma and their three children.

"It's with great regret and heart-wrenching sadness for us and million of fans around the world, to announce that our client DAVE PROWSE M.B.E. has passed away at the age of 85," Bowington Management said on Twitter Sunday.

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