Ronee Blakely: Last News

Chris Morris Music Reporter Loretta Lynn, who rose from an impoverished childhood in Kentucky’s coal fields to become a pioneering female star of country music, has died. She was 90. According to a statement from her family shared with Variety, Lynn died Tuesday in her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. Memorably portrayed in an Oscar-winning turn by Sissy Spacek in the 1980 biopic “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (drawn from Lynn’s bestselling 1976 autobiography, co-authored by George Vecsey), Lynn was one of the first women to rise to stardom as a country vocalist. She dominated the charts in the 1960s (when she was the top-charting femme country singer) and ’70s (when she was second only to Dolly Parton), ringing up 11 No. 1 country hits in her own right and another five chart-toppers with Conway Twitty, her regular duet partner of the ’70s. In all, she charted 51 top-10 country singles.

Actor Allen Garfield, known for his roles in films like “The Conversation,” “The Candidate,” “The Stunt Man” and “Nashville,” died at age 80 due to complications from the coronavirus, according to multiple reports. Actress Ronee Blakely, who played Garfield’s on-screen wife in “Nashville,” shared the news of the actor’s death in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

By Bruce Haring