PASSINGS: Harry Kullijian, Joe Bodolai
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Harry Kullijian
Husband of Carol Channing
Harry Kullijian, a junior high school classmate of Carol Channing who married the entertainer 70 years later, died at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage after suffering an aneurysm Monday, the night before his 92nd birthday.
Kullijian had been a real estate developer and walnut grower in California’s Central Valley and served on the Modesto City Council. A native of Turlock, southeast of Modesto, and a graduate of the University of San Francisco, he fought in World War II and the Korean War.
He and Channing attended the same junior high school in San Francisco. After the death of his first wife in 2002, Kullijian was reunited with Channing, and they married in 2003.
They went on to form the Channing-Kullijian Foundation to support arts education in schools.
Joe Bodolai
Onetime ‘Saturday Night Live’ writer
Joe Bodolai, 63, a former “Saturday Night Live” writer who also produced the comedy shows “It’s Only Rock and Roll,” “The Kids in the Hall” and “Comics!” for Canadian television, was found dead Monday in a Hollywood hotel room, an apparent suicide.
Craig Harvey, the Los Angeles County coroner’s chief of operations, said antifreeze and Gatorade were recovered from the hotel room. There was no indication of foul play, Harvey said, and an autopsy is pending.
Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Andy Smith said no suicide note was found in the hotel room, but what appears to be such a note was posted on Bodolai’s blog Dec. 23. In the post, titled, “If This Were Your Last Day Alive, What Would You Do?” the writer listed “Things I Regret,” including “my inability to conquer my alcoholism,” not fighting harder to stay with Canada’s Comedy Network and “Most of all, the pain I have caused and am now causing my sons and the love of my life, my ex-wife Bianca.”
He also listed “Things I Am Proud Of,” including his sons, Vietnam War-era activism and his work as a writer for “SNL” in the early 1980s and producer for the Canadian sketch comedy show “The Kids in the Hall.”
On his Facebook page the day before, Bodolai posted, “I’m alone this year and am volunteering serving Christmas dinner to the homeless. Perhaps I will be one, but I love all of you and if I make it to next year let’s make it a morally, spiritually, better and funnier year.”
-- Los Angeles Times staff and wire reports
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