(Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images) RIGHT: Former New York Giants player Frank Gifford looks on during the Ring of Honor ceremony during halftime of an NFL football game between the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants at New Meadowlands Stadium Sunday, Oct. King is a nine time solo Grammy Award winning musician who started his career in 1947. KIng Blues Club & Grill in Times Square on Apin New York City. King performs his 10,000th concert at B.B. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) 2RIGHT: NEW YORK - APRIL 18: Blues Legend B.B. The incident remains under investigation. 31, 2015, unresponsive in a bathtub by her husband and a friend and taken to an Atlanta-area hospital. The daughter of late singer and entertainer Whitney Houston was found Saturday, Jan. 16, 2012 file photo, Bobbi Kristina Brown, right, and Nick Gordon attend the Los Angeles premiere of "Sparkle" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Leonard Nimoy CENTER: FILE - In this Aug. Spock in the STAR TREK episode, "Charlie X." Season 1, episode, 2. (AP Photo/Mario Torrisi, file) 2LEFT: 1LOS ANGELES - SEPTEMBER 15: Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Ekberg's lawyer Patrizia Ubaldi confirmed her death Sunday, Jan. Anita Ekberg, the Swedish-born actress and sex-symbol of the 1950s and '60s who was immortalized bathing in the Trevi fountain in "La Dolce Vita," has died. 29, 1960 file photo, Swedish actress Anita Ekberg poses on the terrace of her hotel in Maratea, southern Italy. He was at the Caldwell Home in Fitchburg.ĭon Featherstone had two children, Judith Nelson and Harold Featherstone.Next Image LEFT: In this Nov. “Donald was a class act,” Nancy Featherstone said of her husband. He got sick years ago, but it was somewhat manageable - that is, until 2 1/2 years ago. Nancy said her husband had a lengthy battle with Lewy body disease, which is a form of dementia. She said she was “saddened, really, to the core, to hear of his passing.” He had brought a distinction to the Montachusett area because of his famous pink flamingo. “It’s just overwhelming how talented he was. “He was so generous and kind and so artistic,” she said. Judith Lindstedt, director of the documentary “Featherstone’s Flamingo: Pink and Proud,” which was about Don, called him a “marvelous person.” “He always realized how completely goofy it was that people would fall in love with the flamingo, but they did.” “He was a very nice guy,” said Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of Annals of Improbable Research, the organization that awarded Featherstone the Ig Nobel prize, whose title is a parody of the Nobel and which is given for unusual or trivial scientific achievements, in 1996. “Very good marriage, very strong.Īnd so many others said they were lucky to know him. “Donald and I had a very strong relationship,” she said. Next month - July 23 - would have been their 39th anniversary. Right then, he knew she was the one.Īt the beginning of their first date in January 1976, he gave her an engagement ring. Featherstone resided in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where he kept 57 plastic flamingos on his back lawn. In August 1975, they were both in Chicago for a trade show, and Don saw Nancy walking toward him, she said. Donald Featherstone (Janu June 22, 2015) was an American artist most widely known for his 1957 creation of the plastic pink flamingo while working for Union Products. In it, there is a character, a pink lawn flamingo, named in his honor: Featherstone, played by Jim Cummings.Ī film distributed by Disney was perhaps the most appropriate, for his life was one of magic, right down to how he and Nancy met.
His flamingo also got him into a movie, 2011’s “Gnomeo & Juliet,” distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
It ended up on a gift card that is still sold today, she said. One was a version of the painting called “The Bookworm,” which he submitted to a contest at the Fitchburg Public Library. Painting took a back seat.īut when he retired, he got back into painting, sharing his work only with her. He worked for Union Products for 43 years and made over 600 items for them, she said. “He particularly enjoyed sculpting and painting,” she said. “Donald had nine years of formal art training,” Nancy Featherstone said, adding that he was “an extremely talented artist.” “He got a kick out of it he enjoyed it,” she said, referring to the recognition he received for his creation.įeatherstone, born in Worcester and raised in Berlin, studied art at the Worcester Art Museum. Nancy said she’d tell people - often in Don’s presence - that her husband was the one who created the popular lawn ornament.Īnd they’d say, “I never knew someone actually did that. And it was something for which he’d become famous throughout the world.īut it was never something he’d brag about or bring up on his own. Her husband, who died Monday at the age of 79, was the creator of the pink lawn flamingo. You see, the flamingo wasn’t a random gift.
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