Ultravox star Chris Cross has died, his bandmate Midge Ure has announced, in a tribute paid to his friend as “the glue that held the band together”.
The musician, whose real name was Chris Allen, was the bass guitarist with the new wave band, best known for their 1981 hit Vienna.
He died on 25 March, according to reports, but the news was shared last night. No further details have been given.
In his tribute, posted on social media, Ultravox frontman Ure said: “We worked together, we played together, made music and directed videos together. We were instant friends as well as Ultravox comrades.
“Even after years apart we managed to pick up where we left off like the years in between never existed. You were the glue that held the band together. You were the logic in the madness and the madness in our lives. It was great to know and grow with you. You are loved and missed old friend.”
Keyboard player Billy Currie also paid tribute, writing on his Facebook page: “Hi People, Very sad to hear about Chris… We had some amazing times together. Laughing mostly.”
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Allen was one of the founding members of Tiger Lily, the band that went on to become Ultravox, in the mid-1970s.
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Ure, who was not part of the original line-up, took over as frontman from John Foxx in 1979, steering the band to the biggest hits of their career.
Vienna was Ultravox’s highest charting single, peaking at number two in February 1981 – and was famously kept off the top spot for three weeks straight by Joe Dolce’s Shaddup You Face, according to the Official Charts Company.
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The song was the sixth biggest single of the year in the UK, and was voted the nation’s favourite number two single in a poll by Radio 2 and Official Charts in 2013.
Other hits included Dancing with Tears in My Eyes, All Stood Still and Reap The Wild Wind.
Follow a split, the band reunited in 2008 and toured the following year. They had 16 top 40 singles and 10 top 40 albums in total.
Fans have also paid tribute on social media, with one writing on X, formerly Twitter: “Such sad news about the passing of Chris Cross. He was integral part of both incarnations of Ultravox and a great musician who will be sadly missed.”
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.