Friedrich Karl Flick
VIENNA, Austria (AP)–Friedrich Karl Flick, the billionaire industrialist whose father was convicted at Nuremburg of using slave labor in Nazi Germany, died Thursday. He was 79.
He died at his home on Lake Woerther, the Austria Press Agency reported, citing his investment manager, Joerg-Andreas Lohr.
An Austrian magazine recently named Flick the richest man in Austria, with a fortune of $8.6 billion, APA reported.
His father, also named Friedrich, was convicted by the Allied War Crimes Tribunal in 1947 for using 40,000 slaves in his industrial empire, which extended from armaments to motor vehicles.
Friedrich Karl Flick joined his father’s business in 1957. In 1975, three years after the death of his father, he took over as head of the industrial empire that held stakes in companies such as Daimler-Benz, Feldmuehle and Dynamit Nobel AG.
In 1981, Flick became embroiled in a major postwar political party financing scandal when it surfaced that some of his managers had given millions of German marks to German political parties.
Flick denied any knowledge of such donations. The scandal became known as the “Flick Affair” and sparked years of debate about party financing.
In 1994, Flick announced he was moving his permanent residence and the management of his assets to Austria, the home of his third wife.
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Gene Janson
CHICAGO (AP)–Gene Janson, a veteran Chicago stage actor, died Wednesday. He was 72.
He died of a heart attack, said his son, Christopher Janson. He was taken to Lincoln Park Hospital after feeling ill during a performance of “The Best Man” at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater.
In the Gore Vidal drama produced by the Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, Janson portrayed a fictional former U.S. president who dies unexpectedly.
Janson worked mainly on the stage, although his film credits included “The Blues Brothers,” “While You Were Sleeping,” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” He also appeared in TV shows and commercials.
Janson was familiar to Chicagoans as a pledge drive spokesman for WTTW-TV, a job he held for more than 20 years.
Remy Bumppo planned to resume “The Best Man” with an understudy in Janson’s role, a spokesman said Friday. The company has dedicated the rest of the play’s run to his memory.
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Buck O’Neil
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP)–Buck O’Neil, the goodwill ambassador for the Negro Leagues who fell one vote shy of the Hall of Fame, died Friday night. He was 94.
Bob Kendrick, marketing director for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, said O’Neil died at a Kansas City hospital. A cause of death was not given.
A star in the Negro Leagues who barnstormed with Satchel Paige, O’Neil later became the first black coach in the majors. Baseball was his life–in July, he batted in a minor league All-Star game.
O’Neil rocketed into national stardom in 1994 when filmmaker Ken Burns featured him in his groundbreaking Public Broadcasting Service documentary “Baseball.”
A good-hitting, slick-fielding first baseman, O’Neil twice won a Negro Leagues batting title, then became a pennant-winning manager of the Kansas City Monarchs.
As a scout for the Chicago Cubs, he discovered and signed Hall of Famers Lou Brock and Ernie Banks. In 1962, the Cubs made him the first black coach in the major leagues.
Jackie Robinson was the first black with an opportunity to make plays in the big leagues. But as bench coach, O’Neil was the first to make decisions.
Born in 1911 in Florida, John “Buck” O’Neil began a lifetime in baseball hanging around the spring training complex of the great New York Yankee teams of the ’20s. Some of the players befriended the youngster and allowed him inside.
In February 2006, it was widely thought that a special 12-person committee commissioned to render final judgments on Negro Leagues and pre-Negro league figures would make him a shoo-in for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
But when word came from Florida that day that 16 men and one woman had been voted in, he was not among them. For reasons never fully explained, he fell one vote short of the required three-fourths.
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Dick Wagner
PHOENIX (AP)–Dick Wagner, a former president of the Cincinnati Reds and Houston Astros who later became a top executive in the commissioner’s office, died Thursday. He was 78.
Wagner died at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix from injuries sustained in a 1999 car crash, said his wife, Gloria.
Among the moves he helped engineer with the Reds were the acquisition of pitcher Tom Seaver from the New York Mets in 1977, the firing of manager Sparky Anderson in 1979 and the trade of outfielder George Foster to the Mets in 1982. Wagner also dealt Seaver back to the Mets after the 1982 season.
Wagner began his baseball career in 1946, when he left the U.S. Navy and was hired by the Detroit Tigers as general manager of their Thomasville farm team in the Georgia-Florida League. With the Tigers and Pittsburgh Pirates, he worked for teams in Flint, Mich., and Lincoln, Neb.
He became promotions director of the St. Louis Cardinals under Bob Howsam in 1964, and when Howsam moved to the Reds, Wagner followed him as his deputy in 1967.
Wagner helped build the Big Red Machine into a team that won consecutive World Series titles in 1975 and 1976, then took over from Howsam as team president in February 1978. He was fired in July 1983.
Wagner became the Astros’ president and general manager in September 1983, then resigned after the 1987 season.
Two months later, he became a special assistant in the commissioner’s office and worked closely with AL president Bobby Brown.
In February 1993, commissioner Bud Selig hired Wagner to run the staff in New York. Wagner held the position until January 1994.
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Timo Sarpaneva
HELSINKI, Finland (AP)–Timo Sarpaneva, one of Finland’s foremost designers of glassware, died Monday, the Finnish news agency STT reported. He was 79.
Sarpaneva’s sleek and elegant glasses, vases and kitchen utensils embodied the concept of modern Scandinavian design through more than four decades, winning him high acclaim and prizes abroad.
He held numerous international exhibitions, including a highly successful tour of the United States in 1994-95, and his works have been included in dozens of museums worldwide.
In 1963, Sarpaneva became an honorary member of the British Royal Society of Arts, and four years later he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London.
Although his creativity included sculptures in metals and wood, he was perhaps best known for graceful designs of everyday drinking glasses and vases, which continue to be popular.
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