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More sad news. May he rest in peace.

Country singer Mel Tillis dies

NASHVILLE — Mel Tillis, the affable longtime country star who wrote hits for Kenny Rogers, Ricky Skaggs and many others, and overcame a stutter to sing on dozens of his own singles, has died.

A spokesman for Tillis, Don Murry Grubbs, said Tillis died early Sunday at Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, Florida. He was 85.

Grubbs said Tillis battled intestinal issues since 2016 and never fully recovered. The suspected cause of death is respiratory failure.

Tillis, the father of country singer Pam Tillis, recorded more than 60 albums and had more than 30 top 10 country singles, including “Good Woman Blues,” “Coca Cola Cowboy” and “Southern Rain.” Among the hits he wrote for others were “Detroit City” for Bobby Bare; “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town,” by Rogers and the First Edition; and “Thoughts of a Fool” for George Strait.

Country music stars Charlie Daniels, Crystal Gayle and Blake Shelton offered their condolences on Twitter.

“He once spent an entire day at his place in Tennessee showing me all the memorabilia he’d gathered over the years where he gave me a pair of his stage boots,” Shelton’s account said. “He even took time to talk me through some hard times in my life on a couple phone calls.”

Although his early efforts to get a record deal were rebuffed because of his stutter, he was a promising songwriter in Nashville in the 1950s and 1960s, writing tunes for Webb Pierce and Ray Price.

In all, the Country Music Hall of Fame member wrote more than 1,000 songs and in 2012 received a National Medal of Arts for bringing “his unique blend of warmth and humour to the great tradition of country music.”

He also dabbled in acting, appearing in such feature films as Clint Eastwood’s “Every Which Way But Loose,” and the Burt Reynolds movies “Cannonball Run I and II” and “Smokey and the Bandit II.” He starred in several television movies and briefly had a network TV show, “Mel and Susan Together,” with Susan Anton.

In 2007, Tillis became a regular performer on the Grand Ole Opry country music show.

“You know what? Another part of the dream has been fulfilled,” he said at the time. “It’s been a long, hard road.”

Tillis was raised in Pahokee, Florida, and developed his stutter as a child while being treated for malaria. He dropped out of the University of Florida and instead served in the Air Force and worked on the railroad before relocating to Nashville in 1957.

Musical from an early age, he started performing in the early 1950s with a group called The Westerners, while stationed in Okinawa and serving as a baker in the Air Force.

He held a variety of odd jobs before breaking out, including being a truck driver, a strawberry picker, a firefighter on the railroad and milkman, which inspired his breakthrough song. Feeling down one day he began singing to himself, “Oh Lord, I’m tired. Tired of living this ol’ way.” He turned his lament into “I’m Tired,” which became a hit for Webb Pierce.

Price, Skaggs, Brenda Lee and hundreds of others would cover his songs.

Tillis, meanwhile, became a major success on his own in the late 1960s and toured for decades, often using his stutter as a source of humour — though his stutter disappeared when he sang.

“One of the reasons I worked it into my show is that it’s my trademark,” he once told The Associated Press.

He said that when he was in the Air Force as a flight leader, he marched airmen right into a wall.

“I couldn’t get out the word ‘halt,”‘ he said.

Grubbs says the Tillis family will release information about funeral services in Florida and Nashville.

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Movies

I went to JUSTICE LEAGUE with low, low, low expectations and thought it wasn’t bad. It’s not great but it’s not as awful as it could have been.

Justice League underwhelms at box office with $96 million opening

DC Comics’ mightiest heroes are uniting on the big screen for the first time, saving the world from certain doom, and topping the box office in Justice League — but the highly anticipated film is nonetheless falling short of expectations. Warner Bros’. superhero team-up is on track to gross an estimated $96 million in the U.S. and Canada during its first weekend in theaters, dominating the competition but coming in well below analysts’ projections of about $110 million.

The fifth installment of the DC Extended Universe marks the franchise’s first sub-$100-million domestic debut, trailing Wonder Woman ($103.3 million), Suicide Squad ($133.7 million), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($166 million), and Man of Steel ($116.6 million). It’s also not in the same, ahem, league as Disney and Marvel’s The Avengers ($207.4 million) and Avengers: Age of Ultron ($191.3 million).

While $96 million is no small sum, Justice League reportedly cost a hefty $250 million-$300 million to make, and it’s intended to be a linchpin of one of Warner Bros’. signature brands. On the plus side, the film is faring well overseas, where it’s poised to take in $185.5 million.

Directed by Zack Snyder — with extensive reshoots overseen by Avengers alum Joss Whedon while Snyder dealt with a family tragedy — Justice League met with mixed to negative reviews (better than BVS but much worse than Wonder Woman) and received a mediocre B-plus CinemaScore.

The film stars Ben Affleck as Batman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ezra Miller as the Flash, Ray Fisher as Cyborg, and Henry Cavill as Superman, with Ciarán Hinds voicing the villain Steppenwolf.

In second place, the new Julia Roberts drama Wonder is exceeding expectations with an estimated $27.1 million, to go along with an A-plus CinemaScore and solid reviews. The modestly budgeted Lionsgate release had been pegged for an opening in the ballpark of $10 million.

Directed by Stephen Chbosky and based on R.J. Palacio’s middle-grade novel of the same name, Wonder centers on a young boy (played by Jacob Tremblay) coping with a facial deformity and trying to fit in at a new school. Roberts plays the boy’s mother, and Owen Wilson portrays his father.

Disney’s superhero threequel Thor: Ragnarok is holding steady in third place with an estimated $21.8 million in its third weekend. That brings the domestic total to $247.4 million, and the worldwide total to $738.1 million.

Rounding out the top five — and continuing their battle from last week — are Paramount’s paternal comedy Daddy’s Home 2, with about $14.8 million, and Fox’s whodunit Murder on the Orient Express, with about $13.8 million.

This weekend’s other new wide release, Sony’s faith-based animated movie The Star, is poised to take in an estimated $10 million, good for the No. 6 spot.

Sony also began rolling out Dan Gilroy and Denzel Washington’s legal drama Roman J. Israel, Esq., which will gross about $65,000 from four locations, for a a per-theater average of $16,250. The film, which has received mixed reviews, will expand into about 1,500 theaters Wednesday.

According to ComScore, overall box office is down 4.3 percent year-to-date. Check out the Nov. 17-19 figures below.

1. Justice League — $96 million
2. Wonder — $27.1 million
3. Thor: Ragnarok — $21.8 million
4. Daddy’s Home 2 — $14.8 million
5. Murder on the Orient Express — $13.8 million
6. The Star — $10 million
7. A Bad Moms Christmas — $6.9 million
8. Lady Bird — $2.5 million
9. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri — $1.1 million
10. Jigsaw — $1.1 million