Anita Pointer one of the Grammy-winning Pointer Sisters — whose string of pop, country and R&B hits in the 1970s and 1980s included I’m So Excited, Jump (For My Love) and Fire — died of cancer on Saturday at age 74, her publicist said.
Pointer was surrounded by family at her Beverly Hills home when she died, publicist Roger Neal said.
Anita was the second-oldest of four sisters who began performing as a duo called June and Bonnie in 1969, and soon became a trio when Anita quit her job as a secretary to join the group, according to an official biography.
Photo: Reuters
The Pointer Sisters later became a quartet for a while with Ruth, the only one of the original singing sisters still alive, although Bonnie left the group in the late 1970s and they became a trio once again.
The Pointer sisters also have two surviving brothers, Fritz and Aaron.
Anita was preceded in death by her daughter Jada, who died in 2003. Anita took over raising her granddaughter, Roxie McKain Pointer.
“While we are deeply saddened by the loss of Anita, we are comforted in knowing she is now with her daughter Jada and her sisters June and Bonnie and at peace. She was the one that kept all of us close and together for so long. Her love of our family will live on in each of us,” the family said in a statement.
The sisters grew up singing in the church of their father, a preacher in Oakland, California.
Their debut album in 1973 produced their first hit single, Yes We Can Can.
Among their bigger hits were Fire in 1978, He’s So Shy in 1980, Slow Hand in 1981, and Neutron Dance, Automatic and Jump in 1983.
I’m So Excited from 1982 remains a standard.
The group in recent years continued performing with Ruth singing along with her daughter Issa and granddaughter Sadako.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS