Dish-Houston

Photo Credit: KHOUFormer Houston hand doctor Michael Brown has died after being taken off life support in a Miami hospital accodring to Brown's attorney Dick DeGuerin.

Brown, who has embattled in legal troubles for years had been in a Florida hospital on life support since suffering a heart attack last month.

"This is a real tragedy. He was a brilliant man and for all of his faults and he had many he was one of the most generous human begins I ever knew," DeGuerin said.

An attorney for Rachel Brown, the hand doctor’s ex-wife, said the former doctor was declared brain dead Thursday night, and he was taken off life support around 9 a.m. Houston time on Friday.

"For all the bad things he’s done, he is still the father of her children," said Rachel’s lawyer, Marshall Davis Brown. "It’s a hard time for the family. Anytime somebody passes away, even if there are hard feelings between the people, there’s always the grief that we feel when we lose somebody important in their lives."

Brown was the founder of the Brown Hand Center in Houston, which is now under new ownership, became a familiar face due to his numerous television commercials.

In 2011, Brown went to trial after Rachel Brown, his fourth wife, claimed he physically assaulted her. He was found not guilty.

The explosive relationship made headlines because it contradicted the "family man" image Brown presented in the commercials featuring his family. Allegations that Rachel Brown cheated on him with former Astros star Jeff Bagwell added another layer of intrigue. Bagwell is now very much her boyfriend and they have had numerous public outings together. The story was all the more outrageous because Bagwell was also married at the time and alledgedly had another long term mistress on the side. 

In 2002, Brown pleaded guilty to assaulting his third wife, Darlina Barone, with a bed post while she was seven months pregnant. He was fined $1,500 and given 10 years of supervised probation.

In 2008, Barone asked for sole custody of their two children and to revoke Brown’s visitation privileges. She told a Harris County judge that her ex-husband had become increasingly erratic and violent, that a history of drug tests showed cocaine and Xanax in his system and resulted in the revocation of his medical license, and that she knew Brown to have driven with their children in the car after drinking and that the children were afraid to visit his home, according to court documents.

After his 2010 arrest for allegedly assaulting Rachel Brown, the former surgeon voluntarily forfeited his parental rights for his children with Barone.

More recently in September, Brown was sentenced to 30 days in federal prison for a disturbance on a flight from London to Miami.

Brown pleaded guilty in federal court in Florida to one count of assaulting and intimidating a flight crew member. He was arrested last January for choking the flight attendant and threatening to strip naked on the transatlantic flight. His attorney later blamed a reaction to mixing alcohol with an insomnia medication.

Moral of the story: Drugs are bad.

uncredited AP photoDavid "Kidd" Kraddick, the high-energy radio and TV host of the Kidd Kraddick in the Morning show heard on dozens of U.S. radio stations, died at a charity golf event supporting his charity Kidd's Kids near New Orleans, a publicist said. Kraddick was 53.

"He died doing what he loved, and his final day was spent selflessly focused on those special children that meant the world to him." said Biro, of the public relations firm Champion Management. He said he had no further details on the death.

The Kidd Kraddick in the Morning show is heard on more than 75 Top 40 and Hot AC radio stations and is a leader among most-listened-to contemporary morning programs, Biro said. The radio program also is transmitted globally on American Forces Radio Network while the show's cast is also seen weeknights on the nationally syndicated TV show Dish Nation.

"All of us with YEA Networks and the Kidd Kraddick in the Morning crew are heartbroken over the loss of our dear friend and leader," the network statement said. "Kidd devoted his life to making people smile every morning, and for 21 years his foundation has been dedicated to bringing joy to thousands of chronically and terminally ill children."

The Dallas Morning News reported Kraddick had been a staple in the Dallas market since 1984, starting in a late-night debut. The newspaper said he moved into morning show work by the early 1990s in that market and his show began to gain wider acclaim and entered into syndication by 2001 as he gained a following in cities nationwide.

The network statement said the cause of death would be released "at the appropriate time."

Word of Kraddick's passing spread quickly via social media.

"RIP Kidd Kraddick. You were an amazing man and a friend. You are already missed," Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban tweeted.

"Oh Man, I just heard Kidd Kraddick died! He's my childhood dj. What a sad day. His poor family. He was always nice 2 me from the beginning," singer Kelly Clarkson tweeted.

Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, only recently announced as the headline act of a planned first-ever Kidd's Kids charity concert in Dallas next month, wrote: "The sad sad news about Kidd Kraddick is shocking. He will be missed greatly."

"He came out and he borrowed my golf clubs and went out to the driving range," Richie Tomblin, the head golf pro at the course. "It's kind of a freaky situation. He came out. He practiced a little bit. He hit the ball at the first tee and wasn't feeling good and after that I didn't see him."

Tomblin said the hundreds of amateur golfers taking part went ahead with the event Saturday. He added he only found out afterward that Kraddick had died and he was still shaken about it.

You will be missed by all, Kidd. Thank you for making this wold a better place while you were here. God Bless your soul. 

Houston's own son Patrick Swayze, the hunky actor who danced his way into moviegoers' hearts with "Dirty Dancing" and then broke them with "Ghost," died Monday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.

"Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,"

said a statement released Monday evening by his publicist, Annett Wolf. Swayze died in Los Angeles, Wolf said, but declined to give further details.

Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from a particularly deadly form of cancer. He kept working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting "The Beast," an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot.

Swayze said he opted not to use painkilling drugs while making "The Beast" because they would have taken the edge off his performance. The show drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A&E said it had reluctantly decided not to renew it for a second season.

When he first went public with the illness, some reports gave him only weeks to live, but his doctor said his situation was "considerably more optimistic" than that. Swayze acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the disease.

"I'd say five years is pretty wishful thinking," Swayze told ABC's Barbara Walters in early 2009. "Two years seems likely if you're going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it."

C. Thomas Howell, who co-starred with Swayze in "The Outsiders," "Grandview U.S.A." and "Red Dawn", said:

 "I have always had a special place in my heart for Patrick. While I was fortunate enough to work with him in three films, it was our passion for horses that forged a friendship between us that I treasure to this day. Not only did we lose a fine actor today, I lost my older `Outsiders' brother."

Other celebrities used Twitter to express condolences, and "Dirty Dancing" was the top trending topic for a while Monday night, trailed by several other Swayze films.

Ashton Kutcher — whose wife, Demi Moore, co-starred with Swayze in "Ghost" — wrote: "RIP P Swayze." Kutcher also linked to a YouTube clip of the actor poking fun at himself in a classic "Saturday Night Live" sketch, in which he played a wannabe Chippendales dancer alongside the corpulent — and frighteningly shirtless — Chris Farley.

And Larry King wrote:

"Patrick Swayze was a wonderful actor & a terrific guy. He put his heart in everything. He was an extraordinary fighter in his battle w Cancer." King added that he'd do a tribute to Swayze on his CNN program Tuesday night.

A three-time Golden Globe nominee, Swayze became a star with his performance as the misunderstood bad-boy Johnny Castle in "Dirty Dancing." As the son of a choreographer who began his career in musical theater, he seemed a natural to play the role.

Swayze performed and co-wrote a song on the soundtrack, the ballad "She's Like the Wind," inspired by his wife, Lisa Niemi. The film also gave him the chance to utter the now-classic line, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

Swayze followed that up with the 1989 action flick "Road House," in which he played a bouncer at a rowdy bar. But it was his performance in 1990's "Ghost" that showed his vulnerable, sensitive side. He starred as a murdered man trying to communicate with his fiancee (Moore) — with great frustration and longing — through a psychic played by Whoopi Goldberg.

Swayze said at the time that he fought for the role of Sam Wheat (director Jerry Zucker wanted Kevin Kline) but once he went in for an audition and read six scenes, he got it.

Why did he want the part so badly? "It made me cry four or five times," he said of Bruce Joel Rubin's Oscar-winning script in an AP interview.

"Ghost" provided yet another indelible musical moment: Swayze and Moore sensually molding pottery together to the strains of the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody." It also earned a best-picture nomination and a supporting-actress Oscar for Goldberg, who said she wouldn't have won if it weren't for Swayze.

"When I won my Academy Award, the only person I really thanked was Patrick," Goldberg said in March 2008 on the ABC daytime talk show "The View."

Swayze himself earned three Golden Globe nominations, for "Dirty Dancing," "Ghost" and 1995's "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar," which further allowed him to toy with his masculine image. The role called for him to play a drag queen on a cross-country road trip alongside Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo.

His heartthrob status almost kept him from being considered for the role of Vida Boheme.

"I couldn't get seen on it because everyone viewed me as terminally heterosexually masculine-macho,"

he told the AP then. But he transformed himself so completely that when his screen test was sent to Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin pictures produced "To Wong Foo," Spielberg didn't recognize him.

Among his earlier films, Swayze was part of the star-studded lineup of up-and-comers in Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel "The Outsiders," alongside Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez and Diane Lane.

Other '80s films included "Red Dawn," "Grandview U.S.A." (for which he also provided choreography) and "Youngblood," once more with Lowe, as Canadian hockey teammates.

In the '90s, he made such eclectic films as "Point Break" (1991), in which he played the leader of a band of bank-robbing surfers, and the family Western "Tall Tale" (1995), in which he starred as Pecos Bill. He appeared on the cover of People magazine as its "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1991, but his career tapered off toward the end of the 1990s, when he also had stay in rehab for alcohol abuse. In 2001, he appeared in the cult favorite "Donnie Darko," and in 2003 he returned to the New York stage with "Chicago"; 2006 found him in the musical "Guys and Dolls" in London.

Swayze was born in 1952 in Houston, the son of Jesse Swayze and choreographer Patsy Swayze, whose films include "Urban Cowboy."

He played football but also was drawn to dance and theater, performing with the Feld, Joffrey and Harkness Ballets and appearing on Broadway as Danny Zuko in "Grease." But he turned to acting in 1978 after a series of injuries.

Within a couple years of moving to Los Angeles, he made his debut in the roller-disco movie "Skatetown, U.S.A." The eclectic cast included Scott Baio, Flip Wilson, Maureen McCormack and Billy Barty.

Off-screen, he was an avid conservationist who was moved by his time in Africa to shine a light on "man's greed and absolute unwillingness to operate according to Mother Nature's laws," he told the AP in 2004.

Swayze was married since 1975 to Niemi, a fellow dancer who took lessons with his mother; they met when he was 19 and she was 15. A licensed pilot, Niemi would fly her husband from Los Angeles to Northern California for treatment at Stanford University Medical Center.

-AP

NOTE: DISH reprinted the AP obit because it was too difficult to actually write one. Every once in a while something hits home and makes it difficult to write or communicate clearly. This is one of those moments. We will be printing some of the memories people have been sending us of Partick soon.

God Bless your soul Patrick. Thank you for blessing ours while you were here.

It's official, Michael Jackson passed away today at his home of cardiac arrest. 

He changed the face and sound of music and for that we are forever grateful!

God Bless your soul Michael. You will missed.