Ex-senator who resisted racial integration
RICHMOND, Va. - Former Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr., the Democrat-turned-independent who began his career as a staunch segregationist and preached fiscal restraint in Washington long before it became fashionable, has died. He was 98.
Byrd’s son, Tom Byrd, is president and publisher of The Winchester Star, which first reported the death. Tom Byrd’s office confirmed that the former senator died Tuesday.
Byrd served 17 years in the U.S. Senate, replacing his powerful father, Harry Flood Byrd, a U.S. senator from 1933 until failing health forced him to retire in late 1965.
Gov. Albertis Harrison appointed the younger Byrd, a longtime state senator who, like his father, supported segregation.
In 1966, Byrd won a special election for the remaining years of his father’s term. Switching from Democrat to independent, Byrd won re-election in 1970 and 1976.
He claimed Congress could balance the budget if it could just hold annual spending increases to the 3 percent to5 percent range and criticized President Ronald Reagan’s military buildup as “giving the Pentagon the impression it has a blank check.” He retired in 1982.
Both Byrds supported Virginia’s stand against desegregation, including the decision to push “massive resistance” - even school closings - to fight the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.
In 1956, he had called the ruling an “unwarranted usurpation of power” by the court.
He told The Washington Post in 1982 that he had “personally hated” to see schools close, but even those many years later he didn’t disavow massive resistance and suggested it helped the state avoid racial violence.
Actress enlivened Private Benjamin, Clue
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES - Eileen Brennan, who went from musical comedy on Broadway to wringing laughs out of memorable characters in such films as Private Benjamin and Clue, has died. She was 80.
Brennan’s managers, Jessica Moresco and Al Onorato, said she died Sunday at home in Burbank after a battle with bladder cancer.
Brennan got her first big role on the New York stage in Little Mary Sunshine, a musical comedy that won her the 1960 Obie award for best actress.
But it was a series of sharp tongued roles that won her fans on television and in movies, including gruff Army Capt. Doreen Lewis in 1980’s Private Benjamin, aloof Mrs. Peacock in 1985’s Clue and mean orphanage superintendent Miss Bannister in 1988’s The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking.
Private Benjamin brought her a supporting-actress nomination for an Oscar. She won an Emmy for repeating her Private Benjamin role in the television version and was nominated six other times for guest roles on such shows as Newhart, thirtysomething, Taxi and Will & Grace.
Brennan’s Private Benjamin role led to an enduring friendship with the movie’s star, Goldie Hawn.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 07/31/2013