The Last Headline
By Ken White
Categories: Society & Culture
The story behind the obituary — narrated. Short-form audio deep-dives into the lives behind the headlines TheLastHeadline.com covers, for the drive, the walk, or whenever you'd rather listen than scroll.
19 episodes indexed on PodSearch.
Recent episodes
- Marty Erlichman Went to the Bon Soir in 1961 to See a Comedian and Handed the 19-Year-Old Opening Act His Card — He Managed Barbra Streisand for Most of the Next 65 Years Without a Contract
Marty Erlichman died Oct. 31, 2026, at 97. He signed a 19-year-old Barbra Streisand in 1961 and managed her, on a handshake, for most of 65 years. Read the full story: https://thelastheadline.com/posts/martin-erlichman/
- Jerry Koosman Won Two Games and Got the Final Out of the 1969 World Series — Four Years After the Mets Nearly Released Him
Jerry Koosman died Nov. 1, 2026, at 83. The Mets lefty won Game 2 and closed out Game 5 of the 1969 World Series, nearly lost his job four years earlier over a $50 loan, and won 222 games in 19 seasons. Read the full story: https://thelastheadline.com/posts/jerry-koosman/
- Bill Clifton, Born William Marburg, Staged the 1961 Luray Concert That Bluegrass Festivals Grew From — Then Spent Fifteen Years Taking the Music to Europe
Bill Clifton died Oct. 30, 2026, at 95. Born William Marburg to a well-off Maryland family, he took a stage name, staged a landmark 1961 bluegrass concert in Luray, Virginia, and spent fifteen years carrying the music to Europe. Read the full story: https://thelastheadline.com/posts/bill-clifton/
- Steve Ellis Cut “Everlasting Love” at 17 Between Building-Site Shifts — and the Rest of His Band Never Played a Note on the No. 1 Hit
Steve Ellis died Oct. 30, 2026, at 76. A teenage mod from north London, he took “Everlasting Love” to No. 1 with a 40-piece orchestra behind him and no bandmates — then spent fifty years refusing it, embracing it and outliving it. Read the full story: https://thelastheadline.com/posts/steve-ellis/
- Juan Atkins Gave Techno Its Name and Its First Blueprint in a Fading Auto City — Then Died Before a Set in Mexico City
Juan Atkins died Oct. 31, 2026, at 64. The Detroit pioneer behind Cybotron, Model 500 and Metroplex is credited with naming techno; no cause of death has been announced. Read the full story: https://thelastheadline.com/posts/juan-atkins/
- Cyril Hilsum’s Radar Lab Needed a Thin Screen — the Liquid Crystals It Commissioned Made LCDs Practical, and He Was Still Patenting at 97
Cyril Hilsum died Sept. 23, 2026, at 101. The street peddler’s son from London’s East End helped steer a Cold War radar lab’s search for a flat display to the Hull chemists whose liquid crystals made LCDs reliable — and earned his last patent at 97. Read the full story…
- Marvin Shanken Borrowed $5,000 From His Sister for a Newsletter With 200 Subscribers — and Built the Magazines That Told America What to Drink and What to Smoke
Marvin R. Shanken died Oct. 29, 2026, at 83. He bought a tiny trade newsletter with borrowed money in 1972, rescued a dying wine tabloid in 1979, and launched a cigar magazine his senior executives told him not to — and the scores and awards his pages handed out ended up steering what America…
- Bob Mackie Sketched Marilyn Monroe’s Famous Gown, Made 17,000 Outfits for Carol Burnett, and Dressed Cher for Decades — Everyone Knew His Work, Almost Nobody Knew His Name
Bob Mackie died Sept. 14, 2026, at 87. The “Sultan of Sequins” drew the sketch for Marilyn’s birthday gown, built the curtain dress for Carol Burnett, and won nine Emmys and a Tony — while his own name stayed far less famous than his clients’. Read the full story…
- Mike Beigel Built the Filter Behind “Higher Ground” — Millions Know the Sound, Almost Nobody Knew His Name
Mike Beigel died in September 2026 at 79. The Mu-Tron III, a pedal he carved out of a synthesizer project that fell apart, gave Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” its sound — and then a gadget from 10cc sank the company he built around it. Read the full story…
- Joe Redner Ran Tampa’s Most Famous Strip Club, Counted More Than 150 Arrests, and Spent Half a Century Suing City Hall Over the First Amendment — “Strip Club King” Was Never the Whole Story
Joe Redner died Oct. 16, 2026, at 86. Tampa called him the strip club king; he spent fifty years, 150-plus arrests, and roughly nine political campaigns arguing that a dance is speech and that freedom means being left alone when you aren’t hurting anybody. Read the full story…
- June Jones Carried the Run-and-Shoot From a Dead Spring League to the NFL to Hawaii — and Turned a Winless Team Into the Best Era in School History
June Jones died Oct. 29, 2026, at 73. He carried the run-and-shoot from a defunct spring league to the NFL to a Hawaii program that had just gone winless — and built it into the best era in school history, capped by a 12-0 season. Read the full story: https://thelastheadline.com/posts/june-jones/
- Patrick Stewart Spent Six Decades as the Calmest Man in Two Universes — the Enterprise’s Captain Picard, the X-Men’s Professor X — and Said He Built That Composure as a Boy in a House Where His Father Beat His Mother
Sir Patrick Stewart died Oct. 28, 2026, at 86, after six decades playing the steadiest authority figures in science fiction — Captain Picard, Professor X. He said the composure audiences trusted was something he built on purpose, growing up inside his father’s violence in a Yorkshire mill town…
- Tom Skerritt Spent Sixty Years Playing the Military’s Most Trusted Men — an Army Surgeon, a Doomed Starship’s Captain, Top Gun’s Legendary Instructor — and His Own Service Never Left Texas
Tom Skerritt died Oct. 21, 2026, at 93, after six decades playing the military men audiences trusted most — M*A*S*H’s Duke Forrest, Alien’s Captain Dallas, Top Gun’s Viper. His own service was four years as an Air Force clerk in Austin, Texas, and he never left the country. Read the full story…
- Susan Saint James Was TV’s Breeziest Wife on “McMillan & Wife” and Its Most Reliable Best Friend on “Kate & Allie” — Then Lost Her 14-Year-Old Son in a Plane Crash, and Answered It by Writing a Note to Everyone Left Behind
Susan Saint James died Oct. 26, 2026, at 80, of pancreatic cancer. Twenty-two years earlier her youngest son Teddy died when the family’s chartered jet crashed on takeoff in Colorado. What she did in the weeks after is the part her children are talking about now. Read the full story…
- Barbara Barrie Won Cannes in 1964 for Playing a Marriage That Was Still Illegal in Much of America — Sixty-Two Years Later, She Died at 95 Under a New York Law She Had Publicly Championed
Barbara Barrie earned Oscar, Emmy, and Tony nominations across more than 60 years on stage and screen, but her breakout was “One Potato, Two Potato,” an interracial-marriage drama made three years before Loving v. Virginia. She died Oct. 28, 2026, at 95, under New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act —…
- The Maid Inspector Clouseau Refused to Believe Was Guilty Died Three Months After Her Husband — and Eight Days Before Her 86th Birthday
Elke Sommer won a Golden Globe for “The Prize” and became a permanent part of comedy history as Maria Gambrelli in “A Shot in the Dark.” She died Oct. 28, 2026, at 85, three months after her husband of decades, hotelier Wolf Walther, and just over a week short of her own birthday. Read the full…
- The Firehouse Subs Co-Founder Was an Actual Firefighter Who Also Played Guitar With Lynyrd Skynyrd and Foreigner — Chris Sorensen Died at 65, and Most of the Country Didn’t Hear About It for Two Weeks
Chris Sorensen was a Jacksonville firefighter, a guitarist good enough to sit in with Huey Lewis and Earth, Wind & Fire, and the co-founder of a sandwich chain that sold for $1 billion. He died Oct. 11, 2026, at 65 — and the news barely traveled for two weeks. Read the full story…
- The LSU Coach Who Mistook a 13-Year-Old Shaquille O'Neal for a Soldier Died Two Days After Shaq Thanked Him on Camera One Last Time
Dale Brown built LSU basketball almost from nothing, took two wildly different teams to the Final Four, and found the best player of his generation standing in a gym on an Army base in West Germany. Shaq says it best: “He made me one of the best basketball players ever.” Read the full story…
- John Anderson Died Three Days After Going Back to the Hall of Fame That Already Had His Name In It — And I Actually Got to Hear Him Sing
John Anderson died Oct. 21, 2026, at 71, three days after returning to the Country Music Hall of Fame to help induct the next class — exactly two years after his own induction. A tribute from someone who actually got to see him play live. Read the full story…
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