Actress Natasha Richardson dead at 45

Natasha Richardson, a gifted and precocious heiress to acting royalty whose career highlights included the film "Patty Hearst" and a Tony-winning performance in a stage revival of "Cabaret," died Wednesday at age 45 after suffering a head injury from a skiing accident in Quebec.

Alan Nierob, the Los Angeles-based publicist for Richardson's husband Liam Neeson, confirmed her death in a written statement.

"Liam Neeson, his sons (Micheal and Daniel) and the entire family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Natasha," the statement said.

"They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone and ask for privacy during this very difficult time."

Neeson was reported in Toronto at the time of Richardson's accident, filming the movie "Chloe" with Julianne Moore.

Producers confirmed that Neeson immediately left the Toronto set upon news of his wife's accident.

The statement did not give details on the cause of death for Richardson, who suffered a head injury when she fell on a beginner's trail during a private ski lesson at the luxury Mont Tremblant ski resort in Quebec. She was taken to hospital Tuesday in Montreal and later flown to a hospital in New York.

Family members had been seen coming and going from the New York hospital where Richardson was taken.

Vanessa Redgrave, Richardson's mother, arrived in a car with darkened windows and was taken through a garage when she arrived at the Lenox Hill Hospital on Manhattan's Upper East Side about 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday. An hour earlier, Richardson's sister, Joely, arrived alone and was swarmed by the media as she entered through the back of the hospital.

It was a sudden and horrifying loss for her family and friends, for the film and theatre communities, for her many fans and for both her native and adoptive countries. Descended from at least three generations of actors, Richardson was a proper Londoner who came to love New York, an elegant blonde with large, lively eyes, a bright smile and a hearty laugh.

If she never quite attained the acting heights of her Academy Award-winning mother, she still had enjoyed a long and worthy career. As an actress, Richardson was equally adept at passion and restraint, able to portray besieged women both confessional (Tennessee Williams' Blanche DuBois) and confined (the concubine in the futuristic horror of "The Handmaid's Tale").

Like other family members, she divided her time between stage and screen. On Broadway, she won a Tony for her performance as Sally Bowles in a 1998 revival of "Cabaret." She also appeared in New York in a production of Patrick Marber's "Closer" (1999) as well as 2005 revival of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," in which she played Blanche opposite John C. Reilly's Stanley Kowalski.

She met Liam Neeson when they made their Broadway debuts in 1993, co-starring in "Anna Christie," Eugene O'Neill's drama about a former prostitute and the sailor who falls in love with her.

"The astonishing Natasha Richardson...gives what may prove to be the performance of the season as Anna, turning a heroine who has long been portrayed (and reviled) as a whore with a heart of gold into a tough, ruthlessly unsentimental apostle of O'Neill's tragic understanding of life," New York Times critic Frank Rich wrote.

"Miss Richardson, seeming more like a youthful incarnation of her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, than she has before, is riveting from her first entrance through a saloon doorway's ethereal shaft of golden light."

Her most notable film roles came earlier in her career. Richardson played the title character in Paul Schrader's "Patty Hearst," a 1988 biopic about the kidnapped heiress for which the actress became so immersed that even between scenes she wore a blindfold, the better to identify with her real-life counterpart.

"Natasha Richardson...has been handed a big unwritten role; she feels her way into it, and she fills it," wrote the New Yorker's Pauline Kael.

"We feel how alone and paralyzed Patty is - she retreats into being a hidden observer."

Richardson was directed again by Schrader in a 1990 adaptation of Ian McEwan's "The Comfort of Strangers" and, also in 1990, starred in the screen version of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale."

She later co-starred with Neeson in "Nell," with Mia Farrow in "Widow's Peak" and with a pre-teen Lindsay Lohan in a remake of "The Parent Trap." More recent movies, none of them widely seen, included "Wild Child," "Evening" and "Asylum."

She was born in London in 1963, the performing gene inherited not just from her parents (Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson) but from her maternal grandparents (Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson), an aunt (Lynn Redgrave) and an uncle (Corin Redgrave). Her younger sister, Joely Richardson, also joined the family business.

Friends and family members remembered Natasha as an unusually poised child, perhaps forced to grow up early when her father left her mother in the late '60s for Jeanne Moreau. (Tony Richardson died in 1991).

Interviewed in 2001, Natasha Richardson said she related well to her family if only because, "we've all been through it in one way or another and so we've had to be strong."

"Also, we embrace life. We are not cynical about life."

Richardson always planned to act, apart from one brief childhood moment when she wanted to be a flight attendant - "wonderful irony now since I hate to fly and have to take a pill in order to get on a plane. I'm so terrified."

Her screen debut came at age four when she appeared as a flower girl in "The Charge of the Light Brigade," directed by her father, whose movies included "Tom Jones" and "The Entertainer." The show business wand had already tapped her the year before, when she saw her mother in the 1967 film version of the Broadway show "Camelot."

"She was so beautiful. I still look at that movie and I can't believe it. It still makes me cry, the beauty of it. I could go on and on - in that white fur hooded thing, when she comes through the forest for the first time. You've never seen anything so beautiful!" Richardson said.

She studied at London's Central School of Speech and Drama and was an experienced stage actress by her early 20s, appearing in "On the Razzle," "Charley's Aunt" and "The Seagull," for which the London Drama Critics awarded her most promising newcomer.

Although she never shared her mother's fiercely expressed political views, they were close professionally and acted together, most recently on Broadway to play the roles of mother and daughter in a one-night benefit concert version of "A Little Night Music," the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler musical.

Before meeting up with Neeson (who called her "Tash") Richardson was married to theatre producer Robert Fox, whose credits include the 1985 staging of "The Seagull" in which his future wife appeared.

She sometimes remarked on the differences between her and her second husband - she from a theatrical dynasty and he from a working-class background in Northern Ireland.

"He's more laid back, happy to see what happens, whereas I'm a doer and I plan ahead," Richardson told the Independent on Sunday newspaper in 2003.

"The differences sometimes get in the way but they can be the very things that feed a marriage, too."

She once said Neeson's serious injury in a 2000 motorcycle accident - he suffered a crushed pelvis after colliding with a deer in upstate New York - had made her really appreciate life.

"I wake up every morning feeling lucky - which is driven by fear, no doubt, since I know it could all go away," she told the Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2003.

Edmonton man left quadriplegic after Bon Jovi concert awaits day in court

It's been 18 months since Dennis Schulz, an Edmonton,Alberta father of two, went to a Bon Jovi concert and in just a heartbeat, had his neck snapped under the weight of a falling fellow human being.

But any relief for the quadriplegic, who launched a multimillion-dollar lawsuit back in 2007, is still a year or two away in a case that has entangled the concert promoter, the arena owner, the company in charge of serving booze at the show and even Edmonton's chief of police.

"I can't say if the [trial] date will be 2010 or 2011," Schulz's lawyer, Patrick Phelan, said in an interview with the Canadian Press. He said his client prefers not to talk to reporters but added that "his attitude is excellent," especially considering the circumstances.

"How would you feel if you had no motion in your arms and legs?" Phelan said.

Schulz was 40 at the time he and his wife, Elana Hartman, went to see the rock band perform at Rexall Place on July 12, 2007.

They were near the corner of the building in section 222, Row 22 (Schulz was in Seat 5) — good seats, the second row of the upper deck, not far from the stage.

Schulz and his wife were sitting in front of Kendra Stasyk and Darryl Allan. Behind that couple were Brad McCorry and Alisa Rabideau.

According to Schulz's statement of claim, the atmosphere wasn't safe from the get-go: the lighting was too dark, the music too loud and security lax.

Around 9:30 p.m. that night, things quickly got out of hand.

According to the statement, Rabideau was drunk and was "rudely, recklessly and repeatedly spilling beverages on spectators seated a row ahead of her."

This led to a conflict between Allan and Rabideau's companion, McCorry.

The two men began pushing each other, and Allan toppled straight back, pushing Schulz's head down until his neck snapped. His head was left hanging limply, say witnesses, his chin resting on his rib cage.

Wife, province also suing

Nobody noticed at first as the melee continued and the band played on.

Schulz's C4-5 vertebrae were snapped. Today, he can't feel anything below his neck. He can't feed himself or even cough on his own.

"Mr. Schulz ... has been advised by his doctors that he will not work at his job as a journeyman machinist again," Phelan wrote in a letter on file in the courthouse. "He will not walk again. Currently, he has no movement in his hands."

The allegations contained in the statement of claim have yet to be proven in court.

Schulz is one of three plaintiffs. His wife, Hartman, is also suing for loss of income and the province of Alberta is trying to recoup health care costs. Schulz is asking for $7 million for medical care.

His lawsuit was filed in November 2007, and in subsequent months, the defendants filed statements of defence. Many have also filed notices to each other stating that should they be found liable, they may be coming after each other for the money.

Rabideau, in her statement of defence, says she wasn't drunk or disorderly and that Allan started the confrontation by throwing a drink in her face.

In his statement of defence, McCorry said he accidentally spilled a drink on Stasyk and apologized, but Allan overreacted, throwing a drink on Rabideau, then lunging at McCorry. He said he "placed his open hand on Allan's chest to ward him off. Allan then went backwards."

Allan, in his statement, said McCorry pushed him without provocation or warning. He said he "had no opportunity to avoid contact with McCorry or to prevent himself falling."

Stasyk, in her statement, said she didn't do anything to start or inflame the melee.

Schulz accuses the concert promoter, Panhandle Productions, and the arena operator, Edmonton Northlands, of negligence for failing to provide adequate security. Both deny this.

Schulz says the employees of the company in charge of serving liquor at the concert, Dominion SportService, overserved and didn't check to see if anyone was drunk. Dominion denies this.

Schulz says the police, some of whom were contracted to provide security for the event, were lax. He claims that rather than monitor the crowd, officers simply asked ushers to report problems to them.

Edmonton Police Chief Mike Boyd has filed a statement of defense that says "adequate policing resources were supplied."

Police have not laid any charges, citing the case as non-criminal.

If the case goes to trial, it's expected to last about a month.

This is a terrible incident. There's no denying that, I hope this man and his family get some form of compensation. His life has been ruined over shameless stupidity and blatant negligence. Serving alcohol at public events where the crowds are large and impossible to control is a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

My problem with this isn't the law suit per se, but rather that it won't be the people directly involved in the incident, that actually caused the problem that will end up paying.

The reality is that the court will never order those people to pay, if the law suit is won, then the arena, and likely the police will have to pay simply because they have the money to pay (i.e. taxpayer's money for the most part).

I also have to ask this though: Who on earth would go to a Bon Jovi concert and be surprised that it is dark and loud and semi "out of control"? ITS A ROCK CONCERT!!!!

It is sad to say, but the lawyers of this country have made is so we can guarantee that a good sized percentage of that crowd will be high on drugs or drunk because the police and security have very limited authority to intervene until AFTER something actually happens.
If the police or security had marched down there and tried to remove this drunken couple and THEN this fellow was injured in a fight somehow, everyone would be blaming the police for it and the lawsuit would be a slam dunk.

Perhaps if we were to get back to some common sense and say that police and security have the right to search people entering and have drug dogs clearing the entire crowd, and that anyone deemed to be already high or drunk at the doors could be turned away, then maybe, just MAYBE, we could make public events like this fun for the good and decent folks again and get the jerks out of there.

I am not going to hold my breath though. There are too many lawyers out there who will sue and fight for anything anytime and basically doom the rest of us to live with this nonsense because we might be trampling on someone's rights by telling them that they can't be drunk or high at these events.

U.S. Army apologizes for "John Doe" letters

The Army said on Wednesday that 7,000 family members of soldiers killed in the Iraq or Afghan wars mistakenly were sent letters addressing them as "John Doe."

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., was sending a personal letter to all the families who received the improperly addressed letters as the result of a printing error, the Army said.

The 7,000 original letters were sent late last month to inform survivors about private organizations that offer gifts, programs and other assistance to families that have lost soldiers in Iraq or other countries where they are deployed for the war on terrorism.

It was sent from the U.S. Army Human Resources Command's Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Center in Alexandria, Va., which issued a formal apology Wednesday.

'Dear John Doe'
The letters, which were printed by a contractor, were to have been automatically addressed with the specific names and addresses of survivors, said Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman. Instead, they contained the placeholder greeting — "Dear John Doe."

"It's our fault for not catching it," he said. "We are certainly sorry."

Casey's personal note to the families alluded to the fact that he lost his own father in Vietnam and it said the Army is extremely sensitive to family grief.

An apology also was being posted on the human resources Web site, Boyce said.

"There are no words to adequately apologize for this mistake or for the hurt it may have caused," Brig. Gen. Reuben D. Jones, the Army adjutant general, said in the statement to be posted.

Boyce said all the other information in the letter regarding the assistance organizations was correct.

"It is important the original intent of the letter is not lost," Jones' statement said. "The organizations mentioned are dedicated to honoring loved ones and recognizing their sacrifice and commitment."

I would love to get my readers thoughts on this, especially if there are any readers with relatives in the U.S. Army.