D6 The Boston Globe MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2019
Obituaries
By Richard Goldstein
NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YORK — Jack Whita-
ker, an Emmy-winning sports
broadcaster for more than
three decades whose specialty
was elegant, graceful com-
mentaries, first for CBS and
later for ABC, died on Sunday
at his home in Devon, Pa. He
was 95.
His death was announced
by CBS Sports.
Mr. Whitaker was a
thoughtful white-haired figure
who covered just about every
niche in the sports world —
from the first Super Bowl to
Secretariat’s victory in the Bel-
mont Stakes, as well as base-
ball, golf, and the Olympics. In
1961, he became the host of
the anthology series “CBS
Sports Spectacular,” and he be-
gan covering the PGA Champi-
onship and the Masters in the
early 1960s.
But he was perhaps best
known for his essays about
sports, inspired by writers he
admired like Alistair Cooke
and Heywood Hale Broun. He
received an Emmy in 1979 as
“outstanding sports personali-
ty” and a Lifetime Achieve-
ment Award at the Sports Em-
my Awards in 2012.
“IknowthatI’mregarded
as The Talking Head,” he told
Sports Illustrated in 1977. “I’d
like to be exactly that and say
something that people will re-
member or get excited about.
I’d like to bring sports into the
thinking process.”
Mr. Whitaker reserved his
greatest passion for golf. Cov-
ering the 1982 British Open at
Troon, Scotland, for ABC’s
“World News Tonight,” he
wove historical imagery into
his account of golf’s origins on
the Scottish links.
“Through all the years, the
British Open has changed very
little,” he said. “The biggest ad-
dition has been the tented city,
looking like Henry V’s camp at
the Battle of Agincourt. Here
you can buy among other
things lawn mowers, cash-
mere sweaters and Cham-
pagne, which is replacing tea
as Britain’s national beverage.
But basically the British Open
is the same as it was in 1860
when they first played it down
the road at Prestwick. Playing
in the British Open is like
reading American history at
Independence Hall or study-
ing opera at La Scala. It’s golf
at its most simple, its most
pure, its most magnificent.”
Notwithstanding his cele-
bration of the golf world, Mr.
Whitaker offended the Mas-
ters chairman, Clifford Rob-
erts, at the 1966 tournament
when he likened the specta-
tors’descentonthe 18thgreen
of a three-way playoff to a
“mob.”
Roberts was displeased
generally with Mr. Whitaker’s
coverage, and as a result CBS
removed him from covering
the tournament.
He returned to Augusta in
1973, but never again held the
prestigious anchor role on the
final green.
Jack Whitaker was born on
May 18, 1924, in Philadelphia.He was enthralled by college
football as a teenager, attend-
ing the Penn games at Frank-
lin Field and listening to play-
by-play from around the na-
tion.
After graduating from St.
Joseph’s College in Philadel-
phia, now St. Joseph’s Univer-
sity, he was hired in 1947 by a
250-watt radio station in
Pottsville, Pa. At the first event
he covered, a midget auto race
on a dirt track, the cars threw
up so much dust that he could
barely see anything. But better
times beckoned.
He was hired by a radio sta-
tion in Allentown, Pa., then
caught a glimpse of golf’s 1950
US Open on a TV set in the
studio and looked to a future
in the new medium.
Joining WCAU-TV in Phila-
delphia soon afterward, he
broadcast sports for the late-
evening news. His colleagues
included Ed McMahon, the fu-
ture sidekick of Johnny Car-
son,andJohnFacenda,who
would become the voice of
NFL Films and who once ad-
vised Mr. Whitaker to “put a
little more of yourself into
your reports.”
Mr. Whitaker began doing
color commentary for Phila-
delphia Eagles games in 1956,
then became the team’s play-
by-play broadcaster in 1960,
when the Eagles won the NFL
championship.
Mr. Whitaker became the
play-by-play broadcaster for
New York Giants football
games in 1965, and he was
part of the CBS broadcast crewat the first Super Bowl two
years later. He teamed with
the baseball Hall of Famer
Frankie Frisch as the backup
duo for baseball’s game of the
week, and anchored Kentucky
Derby coverage.
He covered Secretariat’s 31-
length victory in the 1973 Bel-
mont Stakes — he called it the
most dominant individual
sports performance he had ev-
er seen — and witnessed the
filly Ruffian’s fatal breakdown
in her 1975 match race at Bel-
mont with Foolish Pleasure.
It inspired this passage: “A
false step here and the years of
planning and breeding and
training and loving came to an
end. A horse with speed and
stamina and heart. A horse,
like the Bible says, ‘whose
neck is clothed in thunder.’”Mr. Whitaker joined ABC in
1982, and on the eve of the
Kentucky Derby, he pondered
the aura surrounding the race.
“America never looks better
than on a spring afternoon at
the horse farms around Lex-
ington,” he reflected on “World
News Tonight.”
As he put it: “The bluegrass
fields and limestone-permeat-
ed water has given strength to
81 Derby winners. Just up the
road is Churchill Downs in the
city of Louisville. In Louisville,
America thrives. It was here
that Americans discovered
how to blend golden corn, bar-
ley, malt and rye into bourbon
whiskey. It was here that base-
ball’s National League was
foundedandwheretheystill
make the famous Louisville
sluggers. And it was in Louis-ville that the Kentucky Derby
thrived and grew into some-
thing beyond a horse race.”
Mr. Whitaker provided
sports commentary for ABC’s
“20/20” and “Nightline” in ad-
dition to the evening news. He
retired from the network in
1993.
In the 1990s, he joined
with his second wife, Nancy
Chaffee Whitaker, a tennis
champion of the 1950s, in run-
ning a tennis tournament on
Long Island sponsored by
Cartier jewelers to benefit can-
cer research. Nancy Whitaker
died in 2002.
Jack Whitaker is survived
by his wife Patricia; his daugh-
ters, Marybeth Helgevold and
Ann Hanan; his sons, Gerry,
Jack III and Kevin; 11 grand-
children and 15 great-grand-
children.
In his 1998 memoir, “Pre-
ferred Lies and Other Tales,”
Mr. Whitaker reprised his
years on the sporting map
while making clear that golf
held a special place.
“My happy golf travels have
taught me that the difference
between a Pebble Beach and a
Main Line Golf Club is truly
incidental,” he wrote. “One has
an ocean and breathtaking
views, the other was split by
US Highway 30 and had hard,
bumpy greens. But the thrill of
the well-hit shot, or the frus-
tration of a poorly hit one, was
exactly the same. Golf accom-
modates itself anywhere. It
travels better than Beaujolais.
Golf is the most movable feast
of all.”JackWhitaker,Emmy-winningsportscasterrenownedforhisessays
FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES/FILE 2016
Mr. Whitaker (right, with CBS sportscasters James Brown
and Phil Simms at Super Bowl 50) covered golf, horse
racing, and baseball, in addition to football.By Jim Vertuno
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN, Texas — Former
NFL running back Cedric Ben-
son, one of the most prolific
rushers in NCAA history, died
in a motorcycle accident Satur-
day night in Texas. He was 36.
Mr. Benson was a key player
in the Univesity of Texas Long-
horns’ resurgence under coach
Mack Brown.
‘‘He was as good as you'll ev-
er see as a football player and
as tough as they come,’’ said
Brown, who recently returned
to coach North Carolina follow-
ing a long run at Texas. ‘‘But
what I'll remember most is
what a special, special person
he was. We always enjoyed
talking with him because he
was such a bright and unique
guy.’’
At the scene of the accident,
Austin police Sergeant Eric
Wilson said the motorcycle was
traveling on Ranch to Market
Road 2222 when a white mini-
van pulled out from another
road, according to the Austin
American-Statesman. A pas-
senger on the motorcycle was
also killed and two people in
the van suffered minor inju-
ries.
Speed may have been a fac-
tor in the crash, which hap-
pened at the bottom of a hill,
according to the newspaper.
A few hours before the acci-
dent, he had a photo of a BMW
motorcycle on his Instagram
account with the caption “My
Saturday Evening.”
Mr. Benson was one of the
top high school recruits out of
the West Texas town of Mid-
land. According to Texas Foot-
ball magazine, he is eighth onthe career rushing list for Texas
high schools. He led Midland
Lee to three straight state
championships, the only three
in school history, from 1998-
2000.
Mr. Benson played at the
University Texas from 2001-
2004 and his 5,540 yards ranks
second at the university and
ninth in NCAA history. He
scored 64 career touchdowns
with the Longhorns and won
the Doak Walker award, given
to the nation’s top running
back, in 2004.
The only player in school
history to rush for at least
1,000 yards in four seasons, he
inducted into the school’s Hall
of Honor in 2014.
Mr. Benson was drafted No.
4 overall by the Bears in 2005
and helped Chicago reach the
playoffs the following season.
He had his finest years with
Cincinnati from 2008-11, tak-
ing over as the featured back
on a team that made the play-
offs twice but lost in the first
round each time.
Mr. Benson ran for a career-
high 1,251 yards while leading
a playoff push in 2009, the first
of three straight 1,000-yard
seasons. He also led the Ben-gals to the playoffs in 2011.
‘‘Once he bought into our
system, he was like a flower. He
just blossomed,’’ former Ben-
gals running backs coach Jim
Anderson said. ‘‘He gave us an
element we didn’t have. We
had complementary guys, but
Cedric gave us a missing ele-
ment. He was a good man. He
was one of my guys and it
hurts.’’
‘‘He showed his Texas
toughness in leading us to a di-
vision championship in just his
second season with us,’’ Ben-
gals owner Mike Brown said.
Mr. Benson played one sea-
son with Green Bay, where he
started the first five games in
2012 before suffering a season-
ending Lisfranc fracture in In-
dianapolis on Oct. 17.
He finished his NFL career
with 6,017 yards and 33 total
touchdowns.
Mr. Benson returned to Aus-
tin after his playing career and
set up a foundation, NUFCED,
to aid underprivileged children
and families.
Those efforts included help-
ing repair damage at the home
of the first victim killed in a se-
ries of bombings in Austin in
early 2018.CedricBenson,36,fiercerunningback
ASSOCIATED PRESS/2005ASSOCIATED PRESS/2011Mr. Benson had
his best years as a
running back for
the Cincinnati
Bengals. He had
also been an
offensive star for
the University of
Texas.ASSOCIATED PRESS
FAIRBANKS, Alaska — A
linguist renowned for his work
with Alaska Native languages
has died.
Michael Krauss died Sunday,
a few days before his 85th
birthday, the Fairbanks Daily
News-Miner reported. A son,
Isaac Krauss, confirmed his fa-
ther’s death.
Mr. Krauss documented
conversations with the last sur-
viving speakers of Eyak, advo-
cated for preserving endan-
gered languages and created a
map of Alaska Native languag-
es.
He was a professor emeritus
at the University of Alaska Fair-
banks. Mr. Krauss founded the
Alaska Native Language Center
in 1972 and the university
named its Alaska Native Lan-
guage Archive, a component of
the center, for him.
‘‘His sort of skill repertoire,
his toolkit with regards to the
practical, applied as well to the
theory of language, was vast,’’
said Jerry McBeath, emeritus
professor at the same universi-
ty.
McBeath praised Mr. Krauss’
intellect and compassion.
‘‘He was a very generous per-
son, an excellent friend and a
person who had grown beyond
his discipline,’’ he said, citing
Mr. Krauss’ love of music and
how he played in barbershop
quartets with his son and Mc-
Beath’s family.
Mr. Krauss graduated from
the University of Chicago in
1953 at age 18 and attended
Western Reserve University,
studying Romance languages.
He earned a master’s degree
from Columbia University and
a doctorate from Harvard for
his work with Gaelic.
Mr. Krauss moved to Alaska
in 1960 and took a job teaching
French, though he was not very
interested in French, said Gary
Holton, former director of the
archive and now a professor of
linguistics for the University of
Hawaii at Manoa.
Mr. Krauss was interested in
Alaska Native languages and
began to focus on the last six
people fluent in Eyak, a lan-
guage spoken in south-central
Alaska.
‘‘He at the time in 1961 pret-
ty much decided to focus his ca-
reer on documenting every-
thing that could be known of
those last six speakers of Eyak,’’
Holton said.
Michael
Krauss,84;
documented
languages
By Anita Gates
NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YORK — Richard Wil-
liams, a groundbreaking ani-
mation director who won two
Academy Awards for “Who
Framed Roger Rabbit,” died Fri-
day at his home in Bristol, Eng-
land. He was 86.
His death was confirmed by
his wife, Imogen Sutton.
“Who Framed Roger Rab-
bit” (1988), a film-noirish com-
edy, was the first Hollywood
film to show live actors and ani-
mated characters interacting in
ways that looked seamlessly
real. Bob Hoskins played the
detective on a Hollywood mur-
der case. The suspect was Rog-
er Rabbit (the voice of Charles
Fleischer): a toon, as cartoon
characters (living creatures)
were known in the film’s fanta-
sy universe. Roger’s voluptuous
toon wife, Jessica (Kathleen
Turner’s voice), spoke the film’s
signature line: “I’m not bad. I’m
just drawn that way.”
Chicago Sun-Times critic
Roger Ebert called the film “en-
chanted entertainment from
the first frame to the last.”
Mr. Williams received a spe-
cial Oscar for animation direc-
tion and for creating new char-
acters for the film, which fea-
tured many well-established
cartoon characters, and shared
a visual effects Oscar with Ken
Ralston, Ed Jones, and George
Gibbs. The addition of the ani-
mated characters reportedly
took 14 months of postproduc-
tion work.
He won his first Oscar (best
animated short) in 1973 for a
half-hour version of “A Christ-
mas Carol,” featuring the voice
of Alastair Sim (who had
starred in the 1951 film) as
Ebenezer Scrooge. Mr. Wil-
liams based his work on en-
gravings from the original 1843
novella.
He and two co-producers
shared a 1983 Emmy for “Zig-
gy’s Gift,” a television special in
which Ziggy, the childlike com-
ic strip character, took a job as a
sidewalk Santa.
But his greatest project re-
mained unfinished. Work on
“The Thief and the Cobbler,” an
Arabian Nights-inspired film,
began in the 1960s. In the
1990s he lost control to finan-
ciers, and it was released in sev-
eral versions under several ti-
tles.
When The New York Times
reviewed a new print in 2016,
Glenn Kenny compared it to
Orson Welles’ “The Magnificent
Ambersons” — “a staggering
masterpiece that can never be
seen in its ideal form.”Mr.Williamswastheauthor
of “The Animator’s Survival
Kit” (2001). The book, “a collec-
tion of methods, principles,
and formulas,” included a
whole chapter on “runs, jumps,
and skips.” It became an essen-
tial industry reference, in print
and as a 16-DVD box set. Film
historian Kevin Brownlow
called it “utterly riveting, even
to a layman.”
Mr. Williams’ career advice
was sometimes less than ideal-
istic. “Persist,” he once told a
screening audience. “Keep go-
ing. Don’t get stopped. Because
they’re going to stop you if they
can.”
Richard Edmund Williams
was born on March 19, 1933, in
Toronto, where he was brought
up by his mother, Kathleen
(Ball) Williams, an illustrator,
and her second husband, Ken-
neth Williams, a commercial
artist.
He liked to say that his
mother was his inspiration, but
she insisted it was Walt Disney.
During a Museum of Modern
Art interview in 2016, Mr. Wil-
liams quoted her as telling him,
“You saw ‘Snow White’ when
you were 5, and you were never
the same.”
At 15, he ran away from
home, traveling to California in
hopes of meeting Disney, but
his mother insisted he return.
He took courses at the Ontario
College of Art, and at 16 was
earning a living as an illustra-
tor. Then he had a change of
heart.
Deciding that fine art was
his real calling, Mr. Williams
spent two years painting in Ibi-
za, Spain. He also played in a
jazz band there. (That passion
endured; as a cornetist, he
went on to lead several bands.)
When he returned to anima-
tion, he worked for an anima-
tion studio in London and then
opened his own.
In his first film, a self-fi-
nanced short called “The Little
Island,” three goofy little men
on a desert island each believe
in a single virtue: truth, beauty,
good. It won a 1959 BAFTA
(British Academy of Film and
Television Arts) award.
“The Charge of the Light
Brigade” (1968), a live-action
drama starring John Gielgud,
brought Mr. Williams wide at-
tention. Writing in The Times,
Vincent Canby described his
contributions as “marvelous
animated line drawings, done
in the style of patriotic mid-
19th-century cartoons.”
Mr. Williams continued
working into his 80s, putting in
at least seven hours a day.RichardWilliams,86,
‘RogerRabbit’animator