march 2005 > final credits > last link on the left

Al Wasserman >permalink<

Documentary filmmaker

Wasserman was a pioneer in his field. He created programs ranging from news documentaries to dramatic re-enactments. His 1947 documentary, "First Steps," won an Academy Award. Wasserman served as a staff writer, director and producer at CBS-TV from 1955 to 1960. Moving to NBC in 1960, Wasserman became the founding producer of NBC's "White Paper" series, reporting on civil rights and producing films about "The Age of Kennedy." In 1973, he directed "The Making of the President 1972," an hour-and-a-half film based on Theodore H. White's book of the same name, which was not shown until 1975 because of the evolving Watergate scandal. From 1976 to 1986, he was a producer of the CBS series "60 Minutes."

March 31, 2005 at age 84. Lung cancer.

Frank Perdue >permalink<

Chicken salesman

In 1971, Frank Perdue hit upon the idea of selling brand-name chicken on TV. He figured he had to convince consumers that not all chickens were alike and that one brand was better than another. In a competitive market with extremely thin profit margins, Frank believed he could sell Perdue Farms chickens at premium prices.

Perdue went to 46 New York advertising agencies before finding a copywriter who believed that chickens could indeed be hawked -- but the spots had to be funny. Audience tests proved that a balding, big-nosed man who looked a bit like a chicken himself, with a deadpan expression and a funny-sounding voice, could indeed make his brand a household name. That man was Frank Perdue and he was one of the first CEOs to pitch his own product on television. His 1971 tagline was "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken."

"My chickens eat better than you do. A chicken is what it eats. If you want to start eating as good as my chickens, take a tip from me - eat my chickens."

"Freeze my chickens? I'd rather eat beef!" Perdue told viewers that if they weren't completely satisfied, they should write him directly. "Do not write the government," he said, "The president of the United States? What does he know about chickens?"

It helped that he looked like a chicken. His gawky appearance made people smile and feel comfortable with him. They tended to trust him more than they did slick-looking announcers of the day who had with unctuous tones.

Perdue ultimately did nearly 200 different spots, in addition to radio and print ads. He became a star, and sales soared from $56 million in 1970 to more than $1.2 billion by 1991. Today, the chicken business is a $16-billion-a-year industry, and Perdue Farms is America's third largest supplier.

Perdue added marigold petals and dye to the feed that gave his birds a golden-yellow hue. The colour did not affect their taste, but it seemed to please customers and helped sell birds.

Soon Perdue's tough-minded approach to business and strong-arm tactics made enemies and prompted headlines. In 1981, the U.S. Justice Department charged his company with unfair trade practices. Processing-plant employees complained of dangerous working conditions. Reports of repetitive motion injuries rose rapidly among workers who performed the same handling, sorting and cutting tasks all day long. Perdue was vigorously anti-union, and in testimony before the President's Commission on Organised Crime in 1986, he confessed to soliciting assistance from the Gambino crime family in New York. "They have long tentacles, and I just figured they might be able to help," Perdue said.

Perdue was a frequent target of animal rights activists opposed to factory farming. In 1992, a woman dressed in a chicken suit hurled a cream pie in his face. Until the late 1990s, Perdue was often ranked in Forbes' list of 400 richest Americans. In 1997, it ranked him 214th and estimated his net worth at $825 million.

March 31, 2005 at age 84.

Terri Schiavo >permalink<

Person

Terri Schiavo Religion, politics, the courts … and the court of public opinion. The private life and public death of Terry Schiavo entered all of these spheres. Her legacy will be the fruit of discussion for years to come, addressing the issues of the quality of life and the dignity of death.

The details of Terri’s life have been subject to the enormous lens of media scrutiny. Fifteen years ago, Schiavo collapsed in her home from a possible potassium imbalance caused by an eating disorder, temporarily stopping her heart and cutting off oxygen to her brain. She'd been kept alive with a feeding tube ever since. A timeline of events covering her subsequent years is available at the sites of the Canadian and British Broadcasting Corporations.

All arguments set aside, Terri’s final hours came and went without family, as husband Michael controlled all access, the result of a bitter legal battle with the Schindler family. Even the Vatican issued a statement saying Schiavo's death was a "violation of the sacred nature of life."

Ironically, it seems only an autopsy might determine what Terri’s appreciation of life ultimately was. The American judicial system determined her fate on March 18th, refusing to order that a feeding tube be reinserted.

The issue of determined death has been the subject of public interest in several high-profile cases in recent years.

In 1975, Karen Ann Quinlan fell into a persistent vegetative state after going to a party where she swallowed sedatives and alcohol. A year later, the New Jersey Supreme Court allowed her parents to turn her respirator off, but she lived in a coma until 1985 when she died of pneumonia.

In 1983, Nancy Cruzan was involved in a single-car accident that left her with irreversible brain damage. Her’s was the first right-to-die case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided, against testimony from medical authorities, that her family did not have a constitutional right to remove her medical care without "clear and convincing evidence" on what the victim would want in such cases. A Missouri judge later ruled in the family’s favour in late 1990. Nancy was removed from a feeding tube and died 12 days later.

In 1994, the ‘assisted’ death of Canadian Sue Rodriguez sparked a nation-wide debate on the right-to-die issue, and the concept of assisted suicide has been raised in many countries. As recently as January, 2005 Marcel Tremblay hoped his death would encourage Canadian politicians to change the law to allow assisted suicide.

For ongoing coverage about the issues surrounding Terri Schiavo and the debate surrounding her final days, the Last Link recommends Wikipedia’s comprehensive and moderated summation of events.

March 31, 2005 at age 41. Cause ... ?

Alan Dundes >permalink<

Folklorist

[photo link] Dundes spent his life trying to make sense of nonsense. At the University of California, Berkeley, where for four decades he was a member of the anthropology department, Dundes studied superstitions, fairy tales, riddles, proverbs, chain letters, light-bulb jokes and bathroom graffiti. He wrote books like "Why Don't Sheep Shrink When It Rains? A Further Collection of Photocopier Folklore" and "Cracking Jokes: Studies of Sick Humor Cycles & Stereotypes."

If people did it, said it, made it, wrote it, or believed in it, Dundes wanted to know why. He examined the folklore of wishing wells, walled-up wives, the sick jokes of Helen Keller, tongue-twisters, the pervasiveness of the number three (bears, pigs and kittens), and folklore-on-paper spit out by office copy machines. In 2001, Dundes became the first folklorist elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Publishing his works was not always easy for Dundes. It took a decade to find someone to print his first book, "Urban Folklore From the Paperwork Empire." The University of Texas Press printed the book but were so embarrassed that they took their name off after the first edition. Dundes once said, "Not everyone can tell a joke. But anyone can operate a Xerox machine."

Dundes irked theologians when he edited "Holy Writ as Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore" in 1999, claiming the scriptural stories of the Old Testament began as oral tales told around campfires.

As part of Dundes' Introduction to Folklore course, each student is required to submit 50 bits of folklore - jokes, proverbs, myths, riddles, games, customs, pranks, limericks, parodies, puns, yells, dances, gestures, or graffiti. The contributions have provided Berkeley with an archive of more than 500,000 items of folklore.

Dundes was known in his own right for imparting sage advice and non-stop laughs. At the end of a commencement address, he once fired off a long list of folk wisdom one-liners: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism," "If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried," and "It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others."

March 30, 2005 at age 70. Heart attack.

Dr. Don Rose >permalink<

Disc jockey

Back in the 1960s, Top 40 AM Radio was the playground of some of the most creative (and sometimes insane) broadcast talent ever heard. At the top of the list of lunatics was Dr. Don Rose. The Last Link first heard Dr. Don on a series of records released in the Cruisin' series, which followed the life of a couple named Peg and Eddie from 1955 to 1970. Each record was a year in their life as reflected in the radio they listened to. The series featured Dr. Don Rose as heard on WQXI Atlanta in 1967. The records feature the songs, commercials, station jingles and madcap platter chatter of the jocks of the day -- they're the next best thing to time travel.

Dr. Don Rose could be described in today's terms as a one man Morning Zoo. His zany (and often corny) one-liners were punctuated with cowbells and the moos of a pair of cows named "Lulabelle" and "Half-Pint." Born Donald Rosenberg in North Platte, Nebraska, Rose started in radio in 1955, playing polka records on a farm station in Beatrice in his home state. He was fired from his first three stations, and followed a typical radio nomadic trail through stations in Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico and Georgia, finally spending six successful years from 1968 to 1973 at WFIL in Philadelphia, where he won his first Disc Jockey of the Year award from Billboard magazine.

Dr. Don was not a medical doctor. "I studied medicine in Cairo," he liked to say. "I'm a chiropractor. I could probably be a pretty good bone doctor -- people say I have the head for it. But I've always specialized in psychoceramics - crackpots."

Rose hit his peak while at San Francisco powerhouse KFRC, "the Big 610." His morning show was rated Number 1 rated from his October, 1973 arrival until the station changed to a big band format in 1986. Advertisers wanting to buy time on his morning program were forced to buy spots through the rest of the day. Such was the appeal of Rose's vaudeville act posing as a Top 40 DJ that his station successfully fended off the underground radio format emerging on the FM dial. He won his second Disc Jockey of the Year while working at KFRC.

Despite his upbeat radio persona, Rose suffered decades of debilitating pain and medical problems stemming from a botched 1972 heart surgery. The effects of that operation caused chronic knee infections that required 11 operations and led to his losing his kneecap. He once broadcast his daily radio show flat on his back from a hospital bed for months. In 1984, he fell over a log on a camping trip and broke his damaged leg, which was subsequently amputated. He retired for good after having a heart attack on the air in 1988 at KIOI-FM. Dr. Don Rose, the best looking guy you'll ever hear, spent 33 years in the business.

To hear Dr. Don and find out more about him, check his entries at the 440 Satisfaction and Broadcast Legends web sites.

March 30, 2005 at age 70.

Mitch Hedberg >permalink<

Comedian

Mitch Hedberg cut a surreal image on the comedy stage. Mitch's beatnik/slacker/space-case persona underscored his takes on the absurdities of life in a consumer culture. His casual observations, delivered in a mumbling drawl, came on as one joke after another with no apparent segues. His style most closely resembled that of Steven Wright.

His onstage image of a 1970s stoner reflected his self-admitted quarter-century affair with drugs and alcohol, and his chronic shyness forced him to deliver jokes with his eyes closed.

In recent years, Hedberg showed signs of breaking into the mainstream. He appeared numerous times on David Letterman's show, and was a sometime guest on Conan O'Brien and the Howard Stern radio show. He started performing comedy in 1989, and after a 1999 performance at the Just for Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival, Time magazine hailed him as the next Seinfeld. He wrote and directed the 1999 film "Los Enchiladas!" and his retro 1970s look made him the perfect Eagles road manager in Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" movie of 2000.

Responding to stories that Mitch's death was drug-related, his mother told reporters the comedian was born with a heart defect, terming such speculation as "gossiping."

Hedberg released two comedy CDs, and a listing of his more famous one-liners can be found at Wikiquote, the online encyclopedia's compendium of quotations.

March 30, 2005 at age 37. Apparent heart failure.

Richard Davies >permalink<

U.S. Ambassador to Poland

[photo link] Davies was the American envoy in Warsaw from 1973 to 1978. He established regular contact with Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, a Roman Catholic archbishop. Wojtyla later became Pope John Paul II in 1978.

After retiring from government service in 1980, Davies served as chairman of the Solidarity Endowment, an American group supporting the Polish workers' movement. From 1990 to 1998, Davies was active in Partners for Democratic Change, an international organisation fostering civil societies and institutions in Central and Eastern Europe. Davies earlier served as counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962

March 30, 2005 at age 84.

Harry Petschek >permalink<

Physicist

Those of us who live in northern climes often enjoy the night-time spectacle known as the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights [photo link]. And there are even those who claim that they can hear them. It took a Russian satellite to explain what makes these cosmic curtains glow.

At the age of 25, Harry Petschek had won acclaim for his doctoral thesis "Approach to equilibrium ionization behind strong shock waves in argon." He later applied his research to developing re-entry heat shields for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, who were responding to the USSR's 1957 launch of the first man-made orbiting satellite, Sputnik. In 1964, Petschek began research on magnetic reconnection and developed Petschek's Theory, which proved that when magnetic fields in space convert to kinetic energy upon meeting the earth's magnetic field, space particles infused with energy from the transformation create the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.

Turning his attention away from the celestial, Petschek directed the development of the intra-aorta balloon, a device that eases pressure on the heart's main artery and assists in treating heart failure. The instrument remains in use today. He later developed a bedside infusion pump and an instrument for extracting DNA from biological samples. Four years ago, he was hospitalised for quadruple bypass surgery. Petschek was thrilled to find the clinic where he was being treated still using the bedside infusion pump he created.

March 29, 2005 at age 74. Cancer.

Johnnie Cochran Jr. >permalink<

Lawyer

If it doesn't fit, you must acquit Cochran began his legal career in the Los Angeles District Attorney's office. He rose through the ranks eventually becoming the Assistant District Attorney for Los Angeles County. One of Cochran's subordinates was Lance Ito. He later started his own firm, gaining prominence as an advocate for victims of police abuse. He was Michael Jackson's attorney in the 1990s and brokered the multi-million dollar settlement in the first child sex abuse case against the pop star.

In 1994, on the day of O.J. Simpson's low-speed Bronco chase, Cochran was scheduled to appear on the ABC television show "Nightline" as a legal expert to comment on the developments of the day. While on camera, Cochran declared Simpson to be "presumed innocent." However, off camera, Cochran told a friend, "O.J. is in massive denial, he obviously did it."

O.J.'s defense attorney Robert Shapiro hired Cochran at Simpson's request. Simpson's lawyers then became known as the "Dream Team" (which included such massive talents and egos as F. Lee Bailey, Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz and Barry Scheck). The trial was carried live on television for months, drawing record viewers in an early version of reality TV. Cochran won an acquittal for Simpson by putting the Los Angeles Police Department on trial with accusations of racism. Co-counsel Shapiro accused Cochran after the trial of dealing the race card "from the bottom of the deck."

In addition to Michael Jackson, Cochran also defended former Cleveland Browns football great Jim Brown, former star of TV's "Diff'rent Strokes" Todd Bridges, rappers Tupac Shakur and Snoop Doggy Dog (real name Calvin Broadus), and Sean "P Diddy" Combs. When Cochran was still toiling in the Los Angeles Attorney's office, he once prosecuted comedian Lenny Bruce on obscenity charges. The case was dismissed First Amendment grounds.

Upon learning of Cochran’s death, O.J. Simpson said "I've got to say, I don't think I'd be home today without Johnnie. Without Johnnie running the ball, I don't think there's a lawyer in the world that could have run that ball. I was innocent, but he believed it." The woman who phoned in the tip that started the Simpson investigation, Elsie Tistaert, died March 4, 2005.

March 29, 2005 at age 67. Inoperable brain tumour.

Milton Green >permalink<

Hurdler

Green was a world-record hurdler who boycotted the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. In 1935 and 1936, he tied the world record of 5.8 seconds in the 45-yard high hurdles four times. He also tied the 7.5-second world record in the 60-meter high hurdles in 1936. Green was considered a favourite to make the 1936 Olympic team, but he boycotted the Berlin games to protest Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.

Green later became a business developer who specialised in shopping centers in Georgia, Maine and Florida. In 1984, at the age of 71, he won six golds and four silvers at the Florida Senior Olympics. He stayed in shape by practicing the exercise regimen of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

In August of 2004, the Associated Press mistook him for another man with the same name and published his obituary. Green was more amused than upset when he read of his own death. Green joined the short list of those able to read about their own demise, including Mark Twain, who famously reported that the rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated. Green's daughter said "He thought it was absolutely hysterical. He couldn't stop laughing." After the false report was published, Green had the pleasure of fielding phone calls from friends who called to offer condolences.

March 29, 2005 at age 91.

Richard K. Wright >permalink<

Prop master

Wright worked on nearly sixty films as a prop master. A prop master is the person responsible for buying, acquiring, and/or making any props needed for a film. Anything an actor touches or uses is a prop. Wright worked extensively with the Farrelly Brothers on the films "Stuck on You," "Shallow Hal," "Me, Myself & Irene," "There's Something About Mary," "Kingpin" and "Dumb & Dumber." He also worked on "Osmosis Jones" and "Shallow Hal. Wright died on the set of his latest film, "Peaceful Warrior."

March 29, 2005 at age 65. Brain aneurysm.

William Paton Cleland >permalink<

Cardiac surgeon

In the late 1950s, Cleland was a leading member of a team that developed open-heart surgery in Britain. Cardiac surgery developed rapidly after World War II when the first "blue baby" operation was done in America. Such procedures were carried out with an intact beating heart. However, there was a need to be able to open the heart to fully correct defects. Building upon pioneering work developed by Canadian surgeon Wilfred Bigelow, Cleland kept patients supplied with oxygenated blood while the heart was stopped, allowing for what is routinely referred to today as 'open heart surgery.' Cleland demonstrated his techniques before over 200 physicians in Moscow in May of 1959.

When Cleland was told at a British teaching hospital that he would make a good surgeon, his mother did not approve. She cautioned "Bill was never any good at carpentry."

March 29, 2005 at age 92 [various sources cite his death occured March 20, 2005].

Dave Freeman >permalink<

Comedy writer

Freeman wrote material for some of Britain's most famous comics, films and television programs. His 40-year career began at the BBC when he teamed up with Benny Hill. Together they worked on the comic's TV show from 1955 to 1968. Freeman left the show when Hill moved to Thames TV in 1969 and the show began to feature scantily clad women, tainting the program with sexism.

Freeman also worked for such names as Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes, Tony Hancock, Sid James and Frankie Howerd. He wrote for the TV shows "Bless This House," "Robin's Nest," "Keep It In The Family" as well as the Carry On's "Carry On Again Christmas," "Carry On Behind," and "Carry On Columbus." He also wrote a pre-Honor Blackman/Diana Rigg episode of "The Avengers."

Freeman was a petty officer in the Royal Navy and a Special Branch detective before turning to comedy writing. He was also a successful playwright, and his "A Bedful of Foreigners" has been produced around the world.

March 28, 2005 at age 82.

John D. Stewart >permalink<

Rocketeer

In 1936 at the age of 14, Stewart founded the Paisley Rocketeers Society, regarded as the oldest continuously operating rocket group in the world. Prior to World War II, Stewart and his like-minded enthusiasts launched dozens of homemade model rockets which propelled letters and postcards to friends. They even developed the first three-stage rocket launch in the UK on December 31, 1937. In 1938, the rockets carried a camera payload which photographed some clouds.

Britain had no source of rocket motors, so fireworks were used instead. Instead of carrying pyrotechnic flares, the top compartments were ideal as mail compartments used to finance the cost of the flights. The mail was sent to inaccessible places such as islands and across mountain ranges.

Inspired by such writers as H. G. Wells, Stewart also founded a science-fiction club. The Paisley Rocketeers Society had members that soon included Arthur C. Clarke and Eric Burgess, both early participants in the British Interplanetary Society.

March 28, 2005 at age 83.

John T. McTernan >permalink<

Defense lawyer

[photo link] During the 1950s, McTernan was a left-wing legal gunslinger who prowled America defending people accused of being Communists during the McCarthy years. He also aided unpopular clients like Angela Davis and Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers. McTernan was one of but a dozen or so lawyers who battled in courtrooms and legislative chambers to defend people and principles, almost always on constitutional grounds. Often his work was performed without remuneration.

McTernan was for some time a member of the Communist Party himself. He won four of the six cases he took to the United States Supreme Court. One was his defense of 14 of 16 Communist leaders tried in Manhattan in 1952 on charges of plotting violent revolution. He took the case after 200 local lawyers refused it. In a case against Clinton Jencks, a union organiser accused of falsely signing an affidavit saying he was not a Communist, McTernan exposed Harvey Matusow, a paid government informer who after trial admitted falsely accusing people of being Communists in about 200 cases.

In 1948, McTernan presented a case before the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned a covenant that evicted Anna and Henry Laws, a couple in Los Angeles, from the house they owned because they were black. Another case involved overturning the murder convictions of 23 Mexican-American youths in what were popularly known as the Sleepy Lagoon killings. Another involved 15 leaders of the Communist Party in California whose convictions the Supreme Court reversed on the ground that their subversive talk was more abstract than dangerous.

March 28, 2005 at age 97.

Robert F. Slatzer >permalink<

Author

Slatzer wrote two books about Marilyn Monroe and claimed that he was briefly married to her. In "The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe" (1974), Slatzer contended that he and Monroe were married secretly in Mexico in 1952, but that the relationship was ordered dissolved by 20th Century Fox Studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck. Slatzer claimed Zanuck was worried about Monroe's image. Supposedly, Slatzer and Monroe "undid" the marriage by burning the copy of the certificate filed in Mexican courts. Slatzer wrote a second book on Monroe, "The Marilyn Files," published in 1992.

There has been no independent confirmation of the marriage. Donald Spoto, in his 1993 book "Marilyn Monroe: The Biography," showed through cancelled cheques that Monroe was in Beverly Hills on the day Slatzer claims they were married. In addition to his books on Monroe, Slatzer wrote "Duke: The Life and Times of John Wayne" and "Bing Crosby: Hollow Man." Slatzer was later involved in numerous film and television projects, and served as director of the 1970 film "Bigfoot" that starred John Carradine.

March 28, 2005 at age 77.

Robin Spry >permalink<

Filmmaker

Canadian filmmaker Robin Spry was best known for his documentary about a pivotal moment in Canadian history. Known as the 1970 October Crisis, a series of actions taken by the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) eventually culminated in terrorists kidnapping British diplomat James Cross and killing Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte.

Spry’s 1974 National Film Board documentary of the event, “Action: The October Crisis of 1970,” grippingly captured the confusion of those days. Using news footage and that from his own camera, Spry offered an eyewitness account of events that led Prime-minister Pierre Trudeau to enforce The War Measures Act, suspending the liberties of Canadians nationwide. A parallel can be drawn to the actions taken by the American government in the wake of 9/11.

Spry started his career in 1964 at the NFB, touching on subjects such as abortion and youth rebellion. He worked as a producer, director and writer of feature films, television dramas and documentaries. He won numerous Canadian cinema and television awards, including 10 Genie Awards and three Gemini Awards. Spry’s 1995 miniseries “Hiroshima” followed the story of how the first atomic bomb was developed, and starred Canadian Kenneth Walsh as U.S. President Harry Truman. It won a U.S. Emmy nomination and was awarded a Gemini Award for best TV movie. Spry most recently worked on a new science-fiction series called “Charlie Jade,” which debuts April, 2005 on Canada’s Space: The Imagination Station channel.

His father, Graham Spry, was a co-founder of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. With Alan Plaunt, the elder Spry organised the Canadian Radio League to persuade Prime-minister R.B Bennett that only a public system like the British Broadcasting Corporation could resist Americanisation of the Canadian airwaves and unite the country. The League's efforts resulted in the establishment of the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission in 1932, the forerunner of the CBC. Robin Spry was killed in Montreal when he lost control of his vehicle and hit a retaining wall.

March 28, 2005 at age 65. Automobile accident.

Ahmed Zaki >permalink<

Actor

[photo link] Acclaimed Egyptian actor Ahmad Zaki broke the colour barrier in his country's filmmaking industry, becoming the first black actor to play leading roles. Before Zaki, black actors tended to portray secondary or comic roles. He was nicknamed "the Bronze Star" and was compared to Robert DeNiro for his natural instinct for acting. Zaki appeared in more than 60 movies, and his popularity was such that he even received calls from President Hosni Mubarak during his last days in hospital.

Two of Zaki's most notable roles were portraying former Egyptian presidents Jamal Abd al-Nasir and Anwar al-Sadat. Zaki died before completing one of his dreams -- a film about Halim, the celebrated Egyptian singer and heart throb. Zaki had finished nearly 70 per cent of his scenes. A week before his death he instructed producer Emad Adeeb to shoot his funeral "to edit it into the film."

March 27, 2005 at age 55. Lung cancer.

Bob Casey >permalink<

Minnesota Twins PA announcer

[photo link] Through thick and thin, whenever and wherever sports fans gather to watch their home team, they could always rely on the familiar voice of the stadium's announcer to guide them through the game. For fans of the Minnesota Twins, that voice is now silent. Bob Casey was the only public-address announcer in the history of the team, working 44 seasons and more than 3,000 games since the franchise moved to Minnesota from Washington, D.C. in 1961.

Casey was known for his nasally voice and distinctive delivery. He would introduce star Kirby Puckett as "Kir-BEEEEEEEEE PUCK-it" and remind fans there was "Nooooooooooooo smoking" at the Metrodome.

March 27, 2005 at age 79. Liver cancer, pneumonia.

George Atwood >permalink<

Bass player

At the age of 12, Atwood won an all-state competition playing the tuba. Two years later he joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. After leaving the circus he toured with Gene Krupa and Benny Goodman. Atwood later found work as a session musician, and worked with Buddy Holly and the Crickets. He played bass on Holly's recordings of "Heartbeat," "Love's Made a Fool of You" and "Wishing." George also played bass for the Norman Petty Trio, The Roses, Roy Orbison and Buddy Knox. In June, 1999 Atwood was inducted into the Norman Petty Studios Hall of Fame.

March 27, 2005 at age 84.

Gwydion Brooke >permalink<

Bassoonist

No parking. When Sir Thomas Beecham founded London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1946, Brooke was part of the exceptionally gifted team of wind players he assembled. Gwydion was the last survivor. Among his colleagues were Dennis Brain on horn, Jack Brymer on clarinet and Richard Walton on trumpet.

Although a man of few words, Brooke never shied away from making himself heard. When Walter Legge tried to disband the Philharmonia in 1964, Brooke formed a self-governing council to preserve the orchestra as the New Philharmonia. In the early 1970s, during a troubled period when Lorin Maazel was the principal conductor, Brooke gave him his marching orders, telling him: "Mr. Maazel, we all wish you well in Cleveland."

Brooke first played a French-system bassoon. Years later, Gwydion recalled that he was "determined to beat the bloody thing." In 1930, he acquired a bassoon made by the German firm Adler (who also made sewing machines). Brooke played the instrument for the next 49 years, testing it nightly in a bath for leaks and informing colleagues that it had "the death-watch beetle." More and more of the wood became replaced by modern resins and new tone holes were drilled until the instrument was playable only by Brooke and no one else, however talented. When the instrument was stolen in 1979, Brooke refused all offers of replacement. He tried playing conventional bassoons and found he could not master them -- so he simply quit playing.

March 27, 2005 at age 93.

Wilfred Bigelow >permalink<

Surgeon

[photo link] Born in Brandon, Manitoba, Wilfred Bigelow was the surgeon who invented the technique of inducing hypothermia for open-heart surgery, first performing the procedure on a dog at Toronto's Banting Institute in 1949. He was also a co-inventor of the pacemaker.

Bigelow had noticed after having to amputate a man's frostbitten fingers that lowering the temperature of an extremity reduced its metabolism or oxygen requirements. Bigelow theorised that deliberately cooling the heart could make direct surgery possible. By interrupting the bloodflow, surgeons could work directly on the heart for extended periods of time. Early patients were packed in ice. In 1950, the procedure was enhanced with the use of a heart-lung pump. A decade later the two techniques were combined and are now used by surgeons around the world on a daily basis. The window of time that surgeons had to operate within went from ten minutes to two hours.

During one of the early animal experiments, a dog's heart had stopped beating. Bigelow gave the heart a poke with a probe and the heart resumed beating. This led to the development, with John Callaghan and electrical engineer Jack Hopps of the National Research Council at Ottawa, of the cardiac pacemaker. A decade later, a Swedish doctor using transistor circuitry allowed the pacemaker to be placed under the skin, an improvement over the foot-long externally carried device first developed.

Bigelow won the prestigious Gairdner Foundation Award in 1959 for his work on hypothermia. In 1981 he was inducted into the Order of Canada.

March 27, 2005 at age 91.

Buenos >permalink<

Monkey

Buenos, a black spider monkey, was one of the most popular attractions at the Japan Monkey Centre in Aichi, west of Tokyo. She had a long tail stretching more than three feet which she used for shaking visitors' hands. Zoo officials were preparing to apply for the Guinness World Record Book to enter Buenos as the world's oldest monkey, other than apes.

Officials credit her calm and kind personality that made her life stress-free as the secret of her longevity. She also started living with a young male monkey 10 years ago, and ate mostly fruit and vegetables. Black spider monkeys have an average life span of 30-33 years. If Buenos were human, she would have been 140 to 150 years old. Larger primates can live much longer than medium-sized monkeys such as black spiders.

According to Guinness, the oldest non-human primate is Cheeta the chimpanzee, the star of the 1930s and 1940s "Tarzan" films of which he is the only surviving cast member. Cheeta turns 74 this year in California.

Buenos suffered a heart attack on February 12. She recovered and was about to leave the hospital but had another heart attack.

March 26, 2005 at age 53. Coronary trouble.

Eddie Saeta >permalink<

Assistant director, production manager

Saeta was one of the first assistant directors (A.D.) to hire a female second assistant director. As a production manager on 1972's "Lady Sings the Blues," he worked with producer Berry Gordy to hire minorities and require they be accepted as union members. In 1937, he was among the first A.D.s to join the Screen Directors Guild (now the Directors Guild of America) and was a life-long member.

Saeta worked on more than 100 features, including Orson Welles' 1947 "Lady from Shanghai," the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever," 1980's "The Man With Bogart's Face," 1981's "All The Marbles," and 1973's "Dr. Death: Seeker of Souls" which he produced and directed. He also worked on TV series, movies and specials including "Rin Tin Tin," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," and "Brian's Song" for which he received a Directors Guild award.

March 26, 2005 at age 90.

Georgeanna Seegar Jones >permalink<

Test-tube baby pioneer

Life Jones and her husband, Howard, established the invitro fertilization program at Eastern Virginia Medical School in 1978 in Norfolk, Virginia. On December 28, 1981, the couple announced the birth of Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American baby conceived outside the womb. The world's first invitro baby, Louise Brown, was born July 25, 1978 in England, the result of work performed by Patrick C. Steptoe and Robert Edwards.

By the end of 1982, the Joneses had helped 10 couples bring their pregnancies to fruition. After a Life magazine profile, their waiting list jumped to 10,000. More than 114,000 babies have since been born through in vitro fertilization in the United States.

Jones was regarded as one of the foremost female scientists of the 20th century and one of her nation's first reproductive endocrinologists. Work she performed in the 1930s laid the foundation for the development of home pregnancy tests used today. Jones officially retired in 1996 but she continued going to the office until she broke her hip last fall.

March 26, 2005 at age 92. Cardiac arrest.

Gérard Filion >permalink<

Newspaper publisher

[photo link] During his tenure as publisher of the Montreal newspaper "Le Devoir" from 1947 to 1963, Filion and his editorial crew used the paper to become the loudest critic of Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis's Union Nationale government.

Duplessis held a tight grip on the province from 1944 to 1959, and critics at the time accused his government of keeping the province in ways characterised as conservative, patronage-oriented, rural and dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. Filion believed that French Canadians had to come to terms with becoming an urban and industrial society.

Le Devoir published a series of articles written by future cabinet minister Pierre Laporte on a natural-gas scandal in 1958 that helped bring about the eventual defeat of the government. After Duplessis died in 1959, the Liberal Party took power and the province rapidly changed. Laporte was murdered by the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) in October, 1970. Events of that period in Quebec's history were captured in a documentary by Robin Spry, who died March 28, 2005.

In the 1960s, Filion helped modernize the educational system as a member of a provincial royal commission. He also led an investment agency and several of the province's Crown corporations.

"I never hated Duplessis," Filion told Le Devoir in 2000. "Without Duplessis, I would have been an ordinary journalist. He made me."

March 26, 2005 at age 95.

Kenneth M. Failor >permalink<

U.S. Coinage Commission Director

Failor spent most of his career at the U.S. Mint watching over his nation's coinage. He investigated ways to prevent gold hoarding by the general public. He knew that New York always had more 50-cent pieces in circulation and Baltimore more nickels, and that Washingtonians favoured pennies. It was Failor's task to work out an equitable system of distributing coins to the Federal Reserve banks and branches to even out the country's coin collection.

However, Failor's big moment in monetary history came in the fall of 1941. The United States was about to take a delivery of gold from the Russians as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's lend-lease arrangement. Earlier, the Russian government had tried to ship the $6 million worth of gold on a British cruiser from Murmansk, but the Nazis sunk the cruiser. The Russians asked for an additional 90 days to get the gold to the United States via Alaska. Years later, in 1945, Failor took possession of the precious cargo and arranged for three planes to fly it to Washington in unmarked boxes. When the planes had trouble taking off because of the gold's great weight, the pilots suggested dumping some of the boxes overboard. Failor suggested not, and received a letter of commendation for the successful completion of his mission.

March 26, 2005 at age 95. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Greg Garrison >permalink<

TV Pioneer

Garrison's 40-year TV career began as a "gofer" for WFIL-TV, an ABC affiliate in Philadelphia. By the end, he had directed nearly 4,000 network shows. Within four days of starting at WFIL, he rose to assistant stage manager. Three days later he became a cameraman, and a week later a director. Such were the days of early television.

Garrison directed coverage of the 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, and later directed one of the televised Kennedy-Nixon debates. From 1950 to 1952, he directed "Your Show of Shows," a live comedy-variety program featuring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca and Carl Reiner. The groundbreaking show's writers included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart.

He also directed "The Milton Berle Show," plus numerous TV specials for Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Jack Benny, George Burns, Lucille Ball, Phil Silvers, Bob Newhart and Jonathan Winters.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Garrison directed Dean Martin's long-running variety show and his "Celebrity Roasts." Never winning an Emmy, he was nominated more than a dozen times.

One of Garrison's early assignments was "Stand by for Crime," a 1949 police drama. The actor playing a homicide squad lieutenant was Myron Wallace, who later switched to journalism using the name Mike Wallace. Garrison also directed two features: 1961's "Hey Let's Twist" and 1962's "Two Tickets to Paris."

Mar 25, 2005 at age 81. Pneumonia.

Marty Levin >permalink<

Advertising exec

Levin helped conceive and produce some of the most visible ad campaigns in the industry -- promoting everything from beer to airplanes. He produced more than 300 television commercials and pioneered successful internet campaigns when the web was still viewed by many in the advertising industry as a financial black hole. He produced television commercials for Kellogg cereals, Schlitz beer and McDonnell Douglas airplanes. In 1994, Levin moved to Seattle to join Microsoft, where he helped launch the MSN.com advertising division.

March 25, 2005 at age 53. Multiple myeloma.

Melanie Bell >permalink<

Reality show contestant

Bell was a supporting cast member and producer of "Vegas Elvis," a new reality show based on the life of Las Vegas Elvis Impersonator, Jesse Garon. She became the third person and first woman to jump to her death from the outdoor observation tower of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Bell's death comes less than two months after another reality show tragedy, the suicide of Najai Turpin of the NBC show "The Contender." Bell was widely known to have suffered from severe depression which stemmed from her battle with anorexia. She was recently released from an undisclosed eating disorder clinic in Alabama where she had successfully gained almost forty pounds in less than six months.

Bell worked as a producer on "Vegas Elvis", a new first-of-its-kind experimental reality show that features the film crew as part of the featured cast, which is lead by Jesse Garon, known as "The Official Elvis of Las Vegas". Bell was seen interviewing cast members and working out the day to day logistics of the show the day before she took her own life.

March 25, 2005 at age 36.

Paul Henning >permalink<

Television writer and producer

Paul Henning Henning is credited with creating television's first 'ruralcom' and one of the medium's biggest hits, "The Beverly Hillbillies." The show, about a poor mountaineer who strikes oil and moves his newly wealthy family out of the Ozarks to the hills of Beverly, first appeared on the CBS network September 26, 1962. It rose to #1 in the ratings faster than any other show, within the first three weeks since its debut -- a feat still unmatched to this day.

The show remained a top 20 rated series, drawing up to 60 million viewers a week, through most of its nine-year run and was still popular when it was cancelled after nearly 300 episodes. When CBS decided to change its image from a "rural network," it also purged the show's two successful spinoffs -- "Petticoat Junction" and "Green Acres."

The Clampetts The show's theme song, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett," written by Henning and performed by bluegrass artists Flatt and Scruggs, went to number #44 on the charts in 1962. The song's vocalist, Jerry Scoggins, died in December, 2004.

"The Beverly Hillbillies" went to air just a year after Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow delivered his scathing 'Television Is A Vast Wasteland' speech at a meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters. Critics, who were repelled by the show, quipped "If television is America's vast wasteland, the 'Hillbillies' must be Death Valley." (The "S.S. Minnow" of the 1964-1967 television show Gilligan's Island was so named because of that show's producer's displeasure with Minow's speech).

The youngest of 10 children, Henning was born on a farm near Independence, Missouri. As a teenager, he worked as a soda jerk at a drugstore, where one of his regular customers, future President Harry S. Truman, advised him to go to law school. In the late 1930s, Henning moved to Los Angeles, finding work writing for "Fibber McGee and Molly," George Burns and Gracie Allen's radio and television shows, "The Bob Cummings Show" and "The Andy Griffith Show."

Henning co-wrote "Lover Come Back," a 1961 romantic comedy starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day, which earned him and co-writer Stanley Shapiro an Oscar nomination. Together they also co-wrote "Bedtime Story," a 1964 comedy starring Marlon Brando and David Niven (which served as the basis for 1988's "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels").

Henning produced and wrote or co-wrote most of the "Beverly Hillbillies" and "Petticoat Junction" scripts, and in 1996 he received the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television from the Writers Guild of America, the guild's highest award for television writing.

March 25, 2005 at age 93.

Paul Hester >permalink<

Drummer, Split Enz, Crowded House

Paul Hester was the drummer for two of New Zealand’s most successful exports: Split Enz and Crowded House. Hester was encouraged by his mother at an early age to learn to play the drums. His mother, Ann, was herself a jazz drummer. In 1980 he co-founded a band called Cheks, which in 1982 became Deckchairs Overboard.

Upon the advice of Midnight Oil's drummer Rob Hirst, Hester auditioned for Split Enz in late 1983. His first album with The Enz was 'Conflicting Emotions.’ The group broke up one album later after 'See Ya Round' when Neil Finn dissolved Split Enz rather than carry on after his brother Tim, the group's founding member, left to pursue a solo career. Hester stayed with singer/songwriter Neil and together with Enz bass player Nick Seymour, they formed Crowded House.

Crowded House were one of the first bands from down-under to bypass the local label system and sign directly with an overseas label - Capitol in the U.S. - and relocated to Los Angeles to record their debut album. When the House arrived in the U.S., they were calling themselves The Mullanes. Capitol suggested a name change and the group settled on Crowded House, a reflection of the band members' living conditions in L.A.

Crowded House enjoyed tremendous success in Canada, the U.K., Europe, Australia and in the U.S. – but oddly never at the same time. At several times, the House called it quits, with Neil Finn recording with brother Tim, or releasing his own solo albums. By the early 1990s, Neil added his brother to the House as a fourth member. However, during the middle of their first high-profile tour of Europe, Tim left the band. In 1993, both Neil and Tim were awarded Orders of the British Empire from the Queen of England for their contributions to the arts.

After the group’s fourth album was released in 1994, Crowded House embarked on a successful American tour when Hester decided to leave the band to spend more time with his new family. Hiring a session drummer, the band rounded out the tour, eventually returning to Australia. Hester rejoined the band for their historic farewell show at the Sydney Opera House in 1996 and was emotionally overwhelmed by the reception from more than 100,000 fans.

Hester opened a restaurant, the Elwood Beach Café, in Elwood Beach (a district of Melbourne). In 1997, he formed a new band, Largest Living Things, releasing two EPs and playing regular gigs in Australia. He recently played with Tarmac Adam, a band featuring his Crowded House band-mate Nick Seymour. Hester had his own music talk show, Hessie's Shed, on ABC TV in the late 1990s, and found work with cable music channel, Max, hosting their live Music Max Sessions with Coldplay, Pete Murray, Sarah McLachlan and other international acts. He recently performed with the Finns during their national tour late last year.

Hester was last seen walking his two dogs, Stan and Rose, in Elsternwick Park in Brighton, Melbourne. The alarm was raised by his family when he did not return, and police later found his body in the park. Ambulance personnel arrived on the scene shortly thereafter and reported that Hester had "attempted suicide" and suffered strangulation. Officers declared Hester dead more than 20 minutes later. Reports have suggested he was discovered hanging from a tree. Sources close to Hester said he been suffering a long battle with depression. He developed what he called a "leaving phobia" - a debilitating anxiety about leaving home to go on tour, and then about leaving the tour to go back home. Upon returning to Australia in 1994, he began seeing a psychiatrist. Hester is survived by his girlfriend Mardi Sommerfield and their two daughters aged 8 and 10.

March 25, 2005 at age 46. Suicide.

David Bushnell >permalink<

Business visionary

[photo link] In 1947, Bushnell bought two cases of Japanese-made binoculars during an around-the-world honeymoon. He thought he could unload the binoculars by taking out print ads targeted at racetrack spectators. He soon transformed a small mail-order business into the country's leading binocular brand, Bushnell Optical Corp. The company was purchased by Bausch & Lomb in 1972 and later by Wind Point Partners of Chicago in 1999. Based in Overland Park, Kansas the company now has about 56 percent of the U.S. binocular market.

Once considered a luxury item, binoculars became popular after World War II. Bushnell marketed his Japanese-made binoculars -- and later telescopes, rifle scopes, camera lenses and other optical products -- at half the price of competing goods manufactured in the U.S. or imported from Germany. Bushnell was one of the earliest American businessmen to realise the value of marketing goods in the United States that were cheaply made in Asia.

In the first of many marketing appeals, he convinced Americans that every home needed at least one pair of binoculars. "The world is beautiful. See it up close."

March 24, 2005 at age 91. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

David Russell >permalink<

Tour manager

Russell spent over 30 years as tour manager and production manager for rock and roll tours. While attending university at Kent State, Ohio, he worked for a local firm providing lights and PA systems for concerts. He then founded Synergy Systems and began touring with sound and lighting packages. Synergy's early clients included Wild Cherry, the Outlaws, Jean Luc Ponty, Sea Level and Spyro Gyra.

Russell later became a freelance production and tour manager, overseeing the concert tours of Tina Turner, Jon Bon Jovi, Cher, Janet Jackson, Pink Floyd, REM, the B-52s, Brian Ferry, Peter Gabriel and the Talking Heads. He was also production manager for the Benefit Concert for Nelson Mandela at Wembley Stadium.

March 24, 2005 at age 50.

Tinkerbelle >permalink<

Elephant

Tinkerbelle was an Asian elephant and a popular attraction at the San Francisco Zoo for decades. She was moved from there last fall to the Performing Animal Welfare Society 2,300-acre sanctuary in the Sierra Foothills because of her ill health and need for companions. Lately, Tinkerbelle couldn't move comfortably because of degenerative joint disease. She was euthanized after she collapsed and her condition became "a quality of life issue."

The San Francisco city board of supervisors last year passed tough requirements that could bar future housing of elephants at the zoo. The board decided that the zoo must extensively refurbish habitats for other animals - such as bears, rhinos, hippos and sea lions - before it can request permission to house pachyderms. The changes were prompted when Calle, a 38-year-old Asian elephant, died at the zoo. Zoo officials said that other animal facilities are being updated but they have no immediate plans to house new elephants.

March 24, 2005 at age 39.

David Kossoff >permalink<

Actor

[photo link] British actor Kossoff appeared in more than three dozen films and television programs. In 1954, he won the BAFTA "Most Promising Newcomer" award for "The Young Lovers." His other movies include 1955's "A Kid For Two Farthings" and "I Am A Camera" (with Lawrence Harvey and Julie Harris), 1956's "The Iron Petticoat" (with Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn) and the comedies "The Mouse That Roared" (1959) and "The Mouse On The Moon" (1963) which both featured the cream of Britain's funnymen crop.

Kossoff was most famous for his simple and humorous paraphrasing of the Bible into his own stories, which he read on television and radio in the tones of an understated Jewish comedian. In the 1960s, his most successful television part was as a cockney in the longrunning series "The Larkins."

Kossoff's son, Paul, guitarist with the rock group Free, died at 25 of a heart attack brought on by heroin addiction on March 19, 1976. He then became a campaigner for charities and his show "The Late Great Paul" visited a number of schools, giving an insight into the perils of drugs.

March 23, 2005 at age 85. Cancer.

Frank Braden Hall >permalink<

Engineer

In the early 1970s, Hall created a procedure that completely shuts down machinery before workers service the equipment used. Equipped with degrees in electrical engineering and law, Hall became an attorney specializing in product liability defense. When product liability litigation became a big issue in industry, he developed the widely used lockout procedure. According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Hall's work saves more than a hundred lives and prevents thousands of injuries each year.

March 23, 2005 at age 88. Complications following a surgery.

Ann Dee >permalink<

Singer, club owner

[photo link] Dee was a cabaret and supper club singer who opened a club when her career faltered because of problems with her vocal cords. Her club, Ann's 440 Club in San Francisco's North Beach area, gave early exposure to entertainers Lenny Bruce, Fran Jefferies, T.C. Jones and Charles Pierce. In 1955, she hired a 19-year-old named Johnny Mathis after hearing him sing in a bar. Dee persuaded Capitol Records' George Avakian to hear Mathis who signed him to a recording contract. Dee also played bit parts in the early 1960s TV series "Route 66," and in the 1967 movie "Thoroughly Modern Millie."

March 22, 2005 at age 85. Lung, kidney and heart failure.

Gemini Ganesan >permalink<

Tamil actor

[photo link] The Bollywood film industry is equal the size of all other world cinema combined, and Gemini Ganesan was one of its biggest stars. Performing in the Hindi, Tamil, Telegu, Malyalam, and Kannada languages, Ganesan starred in over 200 films.

Known as the 'King of Romance,' Ganesan was famous for his liaisons -- both on screen and off. He charmed audiences with his tangled hair, dreamy eyes and moon-struck demeanour for nearly four decades. His last film, 1996's "Avvai Shanmukhi," was a remake of "Mrs. Doubtfire." Ganesan reverted to type by playing a love-struck widow who fell in love with his granddaughter's governess. Despite his numerous dalliances, Ganesan somehow avoided the scandal or controversy that would have accompanied a western celebrity.

March 22, 2005 at age 84.

Julian "Bud" Lesser >permalink<

Film and television producer

While serving with the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, Julian Lesser supervised military training films. He used this experience later in Hollywood, working with his father, Sol Lesser, on 1948's "Tarzan and the Mermaids." He also produced 1949's "Massacre River" and 1953's "The Saint's Return." In the 1960s and 1970s, Lesser served on the Documentary Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In later years, he wrote and lectured on subjects concerning Hollywood and the arts, and sought to preserve motion picture history as a board member of the Hollywood Heritage Museum.

Julian's father had a more noteworthy career. Sol Lesser was born in a tent in Spokane, Washington in 1890. By 1910, Sol produced his first movie, "The Last Night of the Barbary Coast." He soon owned over 100 theatres, and his production company, All Star Features Exchange, helped fill the seats. His biggest silent-era success was the 1922 Lon Chaney Sr. version of "Oliver Twist." In the 1930s, Lesser secured the rights for movies based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs character, Tarzan.

In 1942, Sol Lesser joined the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers (SIMPP), an independent production collective founded by Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles and others.

In 1951, Sol Lesser won an Academy Award for his film "Kon Tiki." In 1960, Sol was invited to head an ambitious project: the construction of a Hollywood memorabilia museum near the Hollywood Bowl. Through a series of mishaps, the project was never realised and the memorabilia was put in storage. That same year he won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars.

March 22, 2005 at age 90. Cancer.

Philip Fellows >permalink<

Airline computer guru

In the early 1960s, Fellows set up the first real-time computerised reservations center for the airline industry. Eastern Airlines agents could take phone calls from customers and book their travel on computers as they spoke. The innovation was a significant technological leap from tracking reservation requests on paper files and served as a precursor to today's online reservations.

Fellows knew about the power of computers because NASA used them to process information that kept guided missiles on course. When that information was declassified, Fellows began applying the lessons to the airline industry.

Fellows became the project manager for Univac's largest overseas client, British European Airways, and later oversaw Univac's airlines, communications and utility customers' computer systems. He created a central reservations office for Telemax, able to process more than 20,000 phone calls a day from hotels, travel agents and car rental agencies.

March 22, 2005 at age 83. Congestive heart failure.

Rod Price >permalink<

Guitarist for Foghat

Rod Price Price's lead and slide guitar solos drove Foghat to three platinum and eight gold records during the band's quarter-century career. He was with the band from 1971 to 1980 and from 1993 to 1999. Among their most famous hits were "Slow Ride" and "Fool for the City."

In 1966, Price answered an ad in the Melody Maker music paper for a guitar player with a 'Chicago style' blues group called Shakey Vick's Big City Blues Band. Price auditioned and beat out Paul Kossoff (who later formed Free and whose father died March 23, 2005). Champion Jack Dupree later said that Shakey Vick's "were the best blues band in Europe".

In the early 1970s, three members of the blues band Savoy Brown left that group and asked Price to join them for a project called Foghat. The band's simple, hard-rocking blues-rock sound was American in origin, yet the members were all British. Foghat moved to the United States, signing a record contract with Bearsville Records, a new label run by Albert Grossman.

Their first album, simply titled Foghat, became a hit. For their next album, the group didn't change the formula or even change the title of the record (like the first, the second album was also called Foghat). The group filled arenas for most of the 1970s until punk and disco came along. The group broke up in the mid-1980s, reforming several times for tours.

After retiring, Price settled in the small town of Wilton, New Hampshire. Many in town simply knew Price as a loving dad who never missed his son's baseball, soccer, or basketball games. Few people knew of his musical background. The guitarist had also played with such blues artists as Champion Jack Dupree, Duster Bennett, Eddie Kirkland, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, and Honey Boy Edwards.

March, 2005 has been a bad month for classic rock. Earlier we marked the losses of Blue Cheer's Jeremy Russell and Molly Hatchet's Danny Joe Brown. Foghat's original guitarist/vocalist, "Lonesome" Dave Peverett, died of cancer on February 7, 2000.

March 22, 2005 at age 57. Injuries sustained in a stairway fall due to a heart attack.

Barney Martin >permalink<

Actor

Barney Martin Although Martin is best known for playing Jerry Seinfeld's father Morty on more than 20 episodes of "Seinfeld," he was actually the second actor to fill the role. Phil Bruns originated the part of Morty Seinfeld, and Martin took over the character in the show's second season, making regular appearances until the show's 1998 finale.

Martin was a New York policeman before beginning a Broadway career that included "South Pacific" and the original production of "Chicago." He also wrote on the side in the 1950s for "Name That Tune" and "The Steve Allen Show." His film credits include "The Producers," and the role of Liza Minnelli's father in "Arthur" and its sequel. Martin made frequent appearances on such 1970s and 1980s TV shows as "The Odd Couple," "Murder She Wrote," "Hill Street Blues," "St. Elsewhere," "Murphy Brown" and "The Wonder Years."

March 21, 2005 at age 82. Cancer.

Bobby Short >permalink<

Cabaret singer

[photo link] Bobby Short embodied New York style and sophistication as a fixture at the piano in the Carlyle Hotel for more than 35 years. A three-time Grammy nominee, Short sang from the "great American songbook," featuring songs by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, the Gershwins, Billy Strayhorn and Harold Arlen. As an ambassador of vintage songs, Short played the White House for presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Clinton. He gained national recognition singing in a long-running TV commercial for Revlon's Charlie perfume in the 1970s, and appeared in the movies "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Splash," as well as the television miniseries "Roots" and the program "In The Heat of the Night."

New Yorkers regarded Short as familiar a landmark as the Empire State Building or Central Park. Among his fans were Norman Mailer, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Barbara Walters, Gloria Vanderbilt, Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Stephen Sondheim and Dominick Dunne. Short's husky baritone voice was once described by a New York Times writer as sounding like "liquid sandpaper," and Merv Griffin remembered Short as "a thrilling singer."

March 21, 2005 at age 80. Leukemia.

David Rodman Scott >permalink<

Promotion writer

I want my ... Rodman worked for MTV writing and directing the music network's on-air promos for such programs as "Spring Break '05" and "The Osbournes." In five years with MTV, Scott directed stars such as Jack Black, Drew Barrymore, Adam Sandler and Gwen Stefani. He also worked on promotions for the movies "50 First Dates" and "Napoleon Dynamite." Two days after his death, Scott received a New York ADDY, an award honouring advertising, for a promotion he created for "The Osbournes."

March 21, 2005 at age 30. Complications from diabetes.

Frank B. Livingstone >permalink<

Anthropologist

Livingstone studied math and discovered his passion for anthropology at Harvard University. After graduating in 1950, he went on to earn a master's degree and doctorate in anthropology at the University of Michigan. His work included research in Liberia that tested the correlation between sickle cell anemia and malaria.

As a professor in the 1960s, he taught a class called Human Evolution. One of his students was Theodore Kaczinsky. The student earned the first A plus that Livingstone gave out in five years. Theodore Kaczinsky was later better known as ... the Unabomber. Kaczynski engaged an almost eighteen-year-long campaign of sending mail bombs to various people, killing three and wounding 29. He was the target of the FBI's most expensive manhunt ever.

March 21, 2005 at age 76. Complications of Parkinson's disease.

Kenzo Tange >permalink<

Architect

Hiroshima Peace Center In 1945, Tange was tasked to rebuild the city of Hiroshima, the site of the first of two atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the close of World War II. His Peace Center, built in 1940, was designed to become the "spiritual core" of the city. Tange saw in the effects of war the chance to create not just new buildings, but new cities. In his work, his visions were often ambitious, including a plan to redesign the chaotic, haphazard streets of Tokyo.

In the work considered Tange's masterpiece - the twin gymnasiums designed for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics - he placed two comma-shaped buildings with sweeping roofs like upside-down ships' hulls, connecting two busy Tokyo districts. The jury that awarded Tange the prestigious Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1987 called him a leading theoretician of architecture and an inspiring teacher.

1964 Tokyo Olympic stadiums Tange designed universities, museums, cultural centres, airports, sports complexes and even new towns in more than 20 countries. Some of his key works include the 1970 International Expo in Osaka, the Fiera District of Bologna, Italy, the expansion of the Minneapolis Art Museum and Tokyo's Cathedral of Saint Mary.

As a professor at Tokyo University's Architecture School, Tange also taught Kisho Kurokawa, who designed Amsterdam's famed Van Gogh Museum and the Kuala Lumpur airport. Fumihiko Maki, the architect of the Spiral Building in Tokyo's chic Omotesando district and the 1993 winner of the Pritzker Prize, was another of his students.

Despite the acclaim for his designs, Tange opted out of designing his own main residence, a 2,150-square-foot apartment close to central Tokyo. "I decided not to design my house because my wife and kids would be able to complain about it," he once said. Tange worked until he was 88. To see other works by Tange, visit the Kenzo Tange Associates web site.

March 21, 2005 at age 91. Heart failure.

Lee Mallory >permalink<

Musician

[photo link] In recent years, singer-songwriter Mallory was a tireless fixture on the San Francisco coffee-club scene. Forty years ago, he was a founding member of the group Millennium, a band that couldda/shouldda been huge.

Millenium was the brainchild of producers Curt Boettcher and Gary Usher. Boettcher was the producer and composer behind the group The Association, who had hits with "Along Comes Mary," "Cherish," "Windy," and "Never My Love" in the mid-1960s, earning Curt credit as the creator of the 'sunshine psychedelic' sound. After contributing production and session vocals to a handful of late-1970s Beach Boys releases, Boettcher died in 1987.

Gary Usher was a member of The Hondells, who were lucky enough to record a discarded Brian Wilson song, "Little Honda." The Hondells, like many Southern California groups in the mid-1960s (including the Association), were not actually a working group. Their recordings were put together by floating lineups of Los Angeles session men, overseen by Usher, which included ace guitarist Glen Campbell and legendary session drummer Hal Blaine. Usher co-wrote numerous early Beach Boys songs with Brian Wilson, and produced the Byrd's Younger Than Yesterday and Notorious Byrd Brothers albums.

Mallory, Usher and Boettcher formed the Millennium, which issued its sole album 'The Millennium Begin' -- the most costly recording session in the history of Columbia Records -- in 1968. The album was 'too-smart' for AM radio, but 'too-poppy' for the then-burgeoning FM sound, and is an absolute necessity for any fan of late-1960s psychedelia.

Mallory continued to work with Boettcher on other projects, eventually working on nearly 35 albums and writing more than 100 songs. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors proclaimed January 10, 2005 as Lee Mallory Day to mark his 60th birthday.

March 21, 2005 at age 60. Liver cancer.

Stanley Sadie >permalink<

Editor, Grove music dictionary

[photo link] Born in London, Sadie studied music at Cambridge University, taught at Trinity College of Music and was the music critic for The Times newspaper from 1964 to 1981. In 1970, he was appointed to edit a new edition of the Grove Dictionary. The first Dictionary was published in instalments between 1878 and 1889, and was only periodically updated. When Sadie started his work, the fifth edition had not been updated since 1954.

In 1980, the updated (so extensively it was renamed) New Grove dictionary's 21 volumes were released, complete with two fictional composers a contributor invented which eluded the editor's vigilance (Sadie, apparently, was livid when he learned of them). One of the spoof entries was for a "Danish" composer whose name was concocted from two railway stations.

Sadie also played a key role in the New Grove 29-volume second edition, published in 2001, serving as editor and then emeritus editor. The encyclopedia's coverage expanded to include world music, jazz, pop and rock, and offered an online edition. Sadie also edited The New Grove Dictionary of American Music in 1986 and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera in 1992. Sadie was appointed a Commander of the British Empire in 1982.

March 21, 2005 at age 74. Motor neuron disease.

Wayne Miyata >permalink<

Surfer

Miyata was one of the first surfers in the early 1960s to be filmed doing a successful "tube ride" - carving through a large wave as it curls over. The footage was included in the 1966 film "The Endless Summer." The film introduced the world to surfing and the search for the "perfect wave." In addition to his surfing skills, the native Hawaiian was known to many Southern Californians for his fine, hand-crafted surfboards. He was an expert in the old-style techniques of pinlining and glossing boards - adding color and decoration using resin.

March 21, 2005 at age 63. Esophagus cancer.

Andrew Toti >permalink<

Inventor

Mae West When Andrew was 16, he acquired a motor boat and souped-up the engine. Toti's mother was a worrier, and because Andrew couldn't swim, she feared he might drown. To reassure her, he invented a personal life preserver. The first one was filled with duck feathers but was too bulky and heavy. Andrew switched to an air system, consisting of two pneumatic compartments of rubber-coated fabric that could be inflated by blowing into a tube. He later added an automatic CO2 inflation system that was operated by pulling on cords.

The U.S. War Department heard about the invention and was so impressed they paid Toti $1,600 for the rights to what was dubbed the Mae West vest (after the ample film star). The device saved the lives of thousands of pilots -- including future president George H.W. Bush, a torpedo bomber pilot who was shot down over the Pacific on September 2, 1944. Mae West flotation devices are carried to this day on all commercial aircraft.

Toti held more than 500 patents for inventions, including the pull tab on soda and beer cans, an automatic chicken plucker, a grape-harvesting machine for winemakers Ernest and Julio Gallo, and the Endo-Flex endotracheal tube used for patient breathing during surgery. He also provided improvements for horizontal and vertical blinds and lightweight construction beams.

At the time of his death, Toti was working on a perpetual motion machine that reached 95 percent to 97 percent efficiency levels. He believed his 3 percent energy loss is the lowest anyone has achieved. The Andrew Toti Museum of Innovations in Modesto, California once held 15 file cabinets filled with papers relating to litigation Toti had been involved with in trying to protect his patents. Zoning problems later caused the museum to be closed.

March 20, 2005 at age 89.

Charles Purpura >permalink<

Screenwriter

Purpura wrote the mid-1980s teen comedies "Satisfaction" and "Heaven Help Us." "Satisfaction" is the answer to the questions -- what was Julia Robert's first credited role and what movie did Liam Neeson and Deborah Harry star together in? Purpora taught screenwriting at New York University and was a member of "The Front Porch," an early 1970s folk-rock act that released three singles on the Jubilee label, including "Song for St. Agnes." He was also in a band called "The Living End" with Shere Hite, who later wrote the "The Hite Report." Purpura also wrote music for some off-Broadway shows under the name Gizmo Delicious. One show, called "Voyage To Arcturis," featured Herve Villachaize playing a character who rode around on a giant chicken.

March 20, 2005 at age 59.

David Waters >permalink<

Presidential protocol officer

Waters had a curious path to the Oval Office. He started his career working as a director and producer for NBC in Chicago, working on such shows as "Kukla, Fran & Ollie," "Zoo Parade" and public affairs programming with John Chancellor. After producing a 30-minute show about Secretary of State John Foster Dulles -- Carol Burnett did a parody of him -- he was asked to work for the secretary of state in Washington as his television adviser.

During the Kennedy administration, Waters was assistant chief of protocol for public affairs and the press. Under Johnson, he was deputy press secretary. He later served as assistant chief of protocol and left the government during the Nixon administration, retiring in 1973. In the mid-1980s, he worked with Bob Geldof, the singer, songwriter and activist, on his Live Aid concerts to benefit Ethiopian famine relief.

March 20, 2005 at age 81. Crohn's disease.

Morris H. Blum >permalink<

Radio pioneer

After working as a radio officer during World War II, Blum set his sights on owning a radio station. On January 10, 1947 WANN 1190 AM Annapolis, Maryland went on the air. A year later, when WANN's chief engineer went on vacation, Blum pulled vinyl gospel and rhythm-and-blues disks out of a closet and played them on the air. The African-American songs (referred to as 'race music') were considered taboo in a time when Bing Crosby and other white crooners ruled the airwaves. "I was scared," said Blum later, "I thought they were going to come out and bomb the towers." Instead, WANN became a pioneer and eventually drew attention from larger stations in Washington and Baltimore.

Blum's risk-taking wasn't limited to song choices. He hired African-Americans long before civil rights laws mandated equal opportunity. Blum sponsored a weekend "Bandstand on the Beach" at Carr's Beach, a segregated beach in Anne Arundel County, where Ella Fitzgerald and James Brown performed. He also helped save Annapolis from riots following the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King when he let demonstrators use WANN to vent their outrage. The family-owned station changed to a country music format in 1994. It went off the air three years later, ending a 50-year run.

March 20, 2005 at age 95.

Paul Kelly >permalink<

Actor, radio talk show host

Paul Kelly Kelly worked as an actor (appearing in the movie "The Flintstones" and a few first-season episodes of "NYPD Blue") before turning to radio. He was the morning anchor and news director at KVEC Radio in San Luis Obispo, California. A tractor-trailer unit had became stuck while trying to turn around, blocking both lanes of traffic on an area highway. As the accident happened at night, police were in the process of placing road flares down when Kelly's vehicle struck the trailer, killing him instantly.

March 20, 2005 at age 46. Automobile accident.

Ted Brown >permalink<

Disc jockey

On The Air Ted Brown was heard for more than 40 years in New York City during what was considered to be the golden age of AM radio, when melody and lyrics still mattered in popular music. Working in the 1950s and 1960s on stations such as WMGM, WNEW and WNBC, Brown was part of an era -- that included William B. William, Cousin Bruce Morrow and Dee Finch -- known as 'personality radio.'

Brown used as his theme: "Am I blue? No, I'm Brown/Got a smile on my puss, not a frown/Every morn from seven 'til nine/We play discs and commit general crime."

Jim Lowe, a contemporary of Brown, said "He was a major talent, with a keen sense of the ridiculous. He took his shtick with him wherever he worked. He would describe himself as 6 foot 3, which was not the case, with piercing green eyes. He would close his show by saying, 'Warm up the coffee, Ma. I'm coming home.' " Brown never revealed his age, saying it was private.

March 20, 2005 [in his 80s]. Complications from a stroke.

Warner E. Leighton >permalink<

Film editor

Leighton began his career as a sound editor, working on the 1958 Cinerama production "South Seas Adventure," the fifth and last of the original 3 strip Cinerama travelogue films. It showed 'bungee' jumping long before it became known in the west. Only one copy of the film is believed to exist. Cinerama was a widescreen projection system that used three projectors to cast an image onto a curved screen. It was part of a trend in the 1950s to lure people away from television and back into theatres.

Leighton also worked on such Hanna-Barbera cartoon productions as "The Flintstones," "Hey There, It's Yogi Bear" and "Secret Squirrel." He cut the original 1974 "Gone In 60 Seconds" and its 1982 sequel, known as "The Junkman." In 1987, Leighton was nominated for an Emmy for Sound Editing on the TV series "L.A. Law."

March 20, 2005 at age 74.

David Boone >permalink<

Football player

Go Esks! Boone was a defensive mainstay during the Canadian Football League's Edmonton Eskimos record run of five Grey Cups from 1978-82. Along with Ron Estay, Dave Fennell and Bill Stevenson, Brown was part of a defensive line affectionately coined "The Alberta Crude." He also played for the British Columbia Lions, Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Ottawa Rough Riders. Boone was a CFL all-star in 1981, a three-time West Division all-star (1977, 1979, 1981) and recipient of the Tom Pate Award, which recognizes outstanding sportsmanship and a player's contributions to his team and the local community, in 1982. Boone's body was discovered by a neighbour on the deck of his home in Point Roberts, Washington, a resort community within view of Vancouver.

The author of this site once had the privilege of meeting Boone in the late 1970s - a more humble and gentler man you could not find. It has been rumoured that in recent times he had been suffering from depression. The cause of death remains unreleased.

March 19, 2005 at age 53.

John DeLorean >permalink<

Automotive innovator

Proud DeLorean owner John DeLorean was among a handful of entrepreneurs who attempted to start a car company in the last 75 years. But instead of becoming the new king of America's car industry, he ended up a jester, his career crashing spectacularly amid drug charges as a result of an F.B.I. sting operation. For more about DeLorean and the car featured in the three "Back To The Future" movies, visit the Last Link John DeLorean page.

March 19, 2005 at age 80. Stroke.

Joseph "Uncle Joe" Keaulana Jr. >permalink<

Hawaiian musician

[photo link] Uncle Joe was the bass player and singer for Lei Hulu, Kimo Alama Keaulana's traditional Hawaiian group. He started his playing career with Leonard Kwan and with Leilani Sharpe Mendez. As a member of Lei Hulu, Keaulana appeared on two recordings, "Lei Hulu Sings for the Hula" and "Hula Lives!" He was considered among the top stand-up bass players in Hawaiian music.

March 19, 2005 at age 65.

Ken Johnson >permalink<

Drummer for Tina Turner, Steve Miller

Ken "The Snake" Johnson was the drummer on two of the biggest records of the 1970s: "Fly Like an Eagle" and "Book of Dreams." In addition to drumming on those Steve Miller Band albums, Johnson also worked with Ike and Tina Turner, Kenny Neal and bluesman James Cotton. Johnson also played as a session musician on the Chi-Lites 1972 hit "Oh Girl." The group felt his contribution was so vital they asked Johnson to play with them when they performed at President Nixon's inauguration.

March 19, 2005 at age 53. Diabetes.

Phillip Ballou >permalink<

Singer

In 1974, Ballou founded the group Revelation with three church friends. They landed an opening act gig for the Bee Gees and were consequently signed with the super-group's label, RSO Records. RSO released five singles and an album for Revelation without chart success. Recording for RCA, Revelation backed up Vickie Sue Robinson on her 1979 hit single "Turn the Beat Around." In 1981, Revelation disbanded.

Ballou moved into a career as a session vocalist, working for Luther Vandross, Billy Joel, Tom Jones, George Benson, Billy Ocean, Teddy Pendergrass, Melba Moore, Irene Cara, Todd Rundgren, Laurie Anderson, James Taylor and Aretha Franklin.

Ballou's father, Roosevelt Payne, was a singer in the group the Swan Silvertones. Paul Simon credits Payne's scat on the Silvertones' song "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" as inspiration for the song "Bridge Over Troubled Waters." In the Silvertones' song, Payne sings 'I'll be your bridge over deep water...'

March 19, 2005 at age 55. Stroke.

Winant Sidle >permalink<

U.S. Army information officer

[photo link] When the United States invaded Grenada in 1983, the Reagan administration barred journalists from covering the event. In the wake of complaints from reporters and Congress, a commission was set up to recommend ways to allow news coverage of military operations. General Sidle, a retired Army public affairs officer working as a corporate spokesman for the Martin Marietta Corporation, headed the commission, formally known as the Chairman's Panel on Media-Military Relations.

Sidle came to the job with long experience dealing with news coverage of military matters. As chief of information in Vietnam from 1967 to 1969, he had to spell out the rules, sometimes disciplining reporters, of covering a controversial war. Sidle received a master's degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin in 1949.

The panel was made up of seven officers and seven journalists. Taking into account reporters' claims that they had been censored and the military's concerns of protecting the security of the Grenada mission, the commission concluded by affirming the right of reporters and photographers to report on combat. More practically, it recommended that the Defense Department begin planning for news coverage while military operations are being planned. This led to pools of reporters being created, protecting both operational security and the safety of journalists. Sidle's work most recently had impact during the invasion of Iraq, with the military actually "embedding" reporters within forces on the ground.

March 19, 2005 at age 88. Stroke.

Luisa Alessandri >permalink<

Assistant director

The job of assistant director is to take care of the small but important logistic details of filmmaking, like ensuring that schedules are kept and that everyone is where they're supposed to be. On larger productions, the AD may even be responsible for filming unimportant scenes like crowd shots. They often are part of a team ... and such was the case with Luisa Alessandri and noted Italian neo-realist director Vittorio De Sica.

Alessandri worked with De Sica since his first film, 1940's "Rose Scarlatte" (Red Roses). Together they collborated on such seminal titles as 1948's "Ladri di biciclette" (The Bicycle Thief) and 1970's "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" (Oscar winner, best foreign language film). Alessandri had a knack for picking faces, which served De Sica well as he often used unknown actors to portray real-life types. She found Carlo Battisti (in real life, a university professor) for the 1952 film "Umberto D." Recently, she collaborated on a television documentary with one of De Sica's children on the life of the famed director entitled "Viva De Sica" (Long live De Sica). De Sica died in 1974.

March 18, 2005 at age 91.

Robert Dale Reed >permalink<

NASA aeronautics researcher

CAPTION Reed began his NASA career in 1953. He envisioned a wingless craft that could serve as an orbiting vehicle, re-enter Earth's atmosphere and land safely. What he called the "Lifting Body" program eventually led to the design of the Space Shuttle.

Although officials of the Apollo moon-landing program had rejected the lifting body as a re-entry vehicle into the Earth's atmosphere as being too risky, opting instead for a capsule, Reed had confidence that the lifting body concept would work. Under his guidance, the first "shuttle" prototype flew successfully in 1963, when he pulled a full-scale glider version, built with a tubular steel frame and mahogany plywood shell, behind a hot-rod shop souped-up Pontiac convertible. His wife, Donna, filmed the flight with a home movie camera.

Earlier in his career, Reed was responsible for aerodynamics loads measurements on on the X-15 rocket plane. Reed also held a patent for his invention of a solar guidance system that was capable of steering an airplane by using the sun as reference. Reed was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 1967 for his work in initiating the Lifting Body research program, and was designated as a Distinguished NASA Aeronautical Researcher by the Experimental Aircraft Association.

March 18, 2005 at age 75. Cancer.

Andre Norton >permalink<

Author

[photo link] Norton wrote some of the world's best-loved science fiction and fantasy stories under the name of a man. She was probably best-known for her 30-title "Witch World" series which detailed life on an imaginary planet reachable only through hidden gateways. Norton wrote more than 130 books in many genres during her career of nearly 70 years. She used a pen name, which she made her legal name in 1934, because she expected to be writing mostly for boys and thought a male name would help sales.

Norton was the first woman to win the Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy and the Nebula Grand Master Award. Her book, "Beast Master," was used as source material for the 1982 movie of the same name (she was not credited). Norton requested before her death that she not have a funeral service but asked to be cremated with a copy of her first and last novels.

March 17, 2005 at age 93. Heart failure.

Brooks >permalink<

Gorilla

Veterinarians at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo had anesthetized Brooks so they could check him for a persistently swollen tongue that was making it difficult for him to swallow. The 380-pound gorilla had trouble breathing soon after he was injected, and then his heart stopped beating. Brooks was one of three male gorillas that came to the zoo in 1994 from Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. The trio was among the country's first "bachelor groups," bands of all-male gorillas designed to better manage the growing captive gorilla population. Brooks had been in relatively good health until recently, when his tongue began to swell and he had trouble breathing. Zoo veterinarians gave him antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medications, but the swelling began again when they took him off the medication.

March 17, 2005 at age 21. Cause pending.

Czeslaw Slania >permalink<

Engraver

Czeslaw Slania Slania was a master engraver who applied his art to the tiniest of works - postage stamps. His career stretched from forging documents for the underground in German-occupied Poland in World War II to engraving portraits of monarchs and movie stars. Slania produced more than 1,000 stamps for 32 countries or postal jurisdictions. He also produced banknotes for 10 countries.

Engraving is a fading art, using tools to cut a mirror images in a steel plate, with deep cuts for heavy inking and shallow cuts for shading. The plate, its cuts full of ink, is pressed onto the paper being printed, leaving a slightly raised image that can be felt with a fingertip. For stamps, the artist's work area is about one inch square.

Slania cut his thousandth stamp in 2000 with a Swedish issue measuring 81 by 61 millimeters (about 3.2 inches by 2.4 inches). It is said to be the largest steel-engraved stamp ever printed. Slania holds a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most prominent and prolific stamp engraver. He remained active into his 80's; his last work was a United Nations stamp released last month for its 60th anniversary. For more about Slania and his work, visit the Slania Study Group web site.

March 17, 2005 at age 83.

David Little >permalink<

Football player

[photo link] Little played his entire 12-year career as a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He started 125 of the 179 games he played and once played in 89 in a row.

Little, who suffered from heart disease, experienced a cardiac fluttering while lifting weights in his Miami home. 250 pounds of weights fell on his chest. The barbell then rolled onto his neck.

March 17, 2005 at age 46. Suffocation.

George F. Kennan >permalink<

Cold War strategist

Spooks In 1946, while serving in the American Embassy in Moscow, Kennan wrote what has since become known as "The Long Telegram." In the document, he outlined positions that guided Washington's dealings with the Kremlin until the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly a half-century later.

Kennan wrote that Moscow is "impervious to the logic of reason, but it is highly sensitive to the logic of force." Kennan suggested that Washington's policy should have a military element but consist primarily of economic and political pressure. Kennan's document introduced the concept U.S. foreign policy has used ever since World War II: containment.

Kennan suggested confronting "the Russians with unalterable counterforce at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interest of a peaceful and stable world. [The United States] should promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power."

Kennan was described as "a man who understood Russia but not the United States." He distrusted democratic processes, suggested that women, blacks and immigrants be disenfranchised. He deplored the automobile, computers, commercialism, and loathed popular American culture. In his memoirs, he described himself as a "guest of one's time and not a member of its household."

March 17, 2005 at age 101.

Justin Hinds >permalink<

Jamaican singer, songwriter

[photo link] Hinds was a Jamaican vocalist and songwriter responsible for dozens of ska and rocksteady hits in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a cruise ship singer when he was discovered by producer Duke Reid, and soon became Reid's most successful artist. His first recording session in 1963 produced an instant hit, "Carry Go Bring Come," which was done in one take.

Over the next decade, Hinds released over 70 singles, producing hits in ska, rocksteady and reggae such as "King Samuel," "Botheration," "Jump Out the Frying Pan," "The Higher the Monkey Climbs" and "Rub Up Push Up." In 1984, Hinds retired, but was recently working in Paris with the Jamaica All Stars, a musical collective that included Noel Simms, Johnny Moore and Sparrow Martin.

March 17, 2005 at age 62. Cancer.

Lalo Guerrero >permalink<

Barrio singer

Lalo Guerrero Guerrero was known as the Father of Chicano Music, blending a vast variety of Mexican and American music genres over seven decades. He was a self-styled folk musician who made up for his lack of formal training with a witty knack for capturing the everyday joys, sorrows and absurdities of Mexican-American life, traditionally ignored by mainstream pop music.

Perhaps his best-known composition is the 1955 hit "Pancho Lopez," a parody of "Davy Crockett." He was able to compose and sing traditional boleros and corridos, as well as upbeat mambos and boogie-woogies. He also wrote protest songs, such as "Battle Hymn of the Chicano" (1989), and comic parodies, such as "Mexican Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Bus Boys" (1990) and "No Chicanos on TV" (1986). His Spanish hits included "Nunca Jamás" and "Canción Mexicana," which has been described as Mexico's unofficial national anthem. The singer used his royalties to open an East Los Angeles nightclub, Lalo's, which became a popular venue for the best bands from Latin America for 15 years.

Like many other Chicanos, Guerrero was caught between cultural identities. When he tried to perform in Mexico, he was rejected as a pocho, a disparaging term for an Americanized Mexican. But when he tried to cross over as Eddie Lopez in the U.S., he didn't get much further. Nobody was going to hire a 6-foot tall, Indian-looking Mexican to sing with Tommy Dorsey. He did the next best thing and took swing to Spanish.

His songs were so emblematic of the bicultural experience during World War II that they were prominently featured in 1977's "Zoot Suit," the groundbreaking stage and film musical that dramatized the persecution and survival spirit of the so-called pachucos. Guerrero was named a national folk treasure by the Smithsonian Institution in 1980 and received the presidential Medal of the Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1997.

In 1995, Los Lobos, the Chicano rock group that East L.A. spawned, invited Guerrero to join them on their bilingual children's album, "Papa's Dream," which earned a Grammy nomination. His last work was recording three of his songs for an album by the guitarist Ry Cooder, called "Chavez Ravine," which is scheduled to be released this summer. A television documentary about Guerrero is being co-produced by his son Dan and filmmaker Nancy De Los Santos. Based on extensive interviews recorded six years ago, the project is titled "Lalo Guerrero: The Original Chicano."

March 17, 2005 at age 88.

Richard Burdick >permalink<

TV pioneer

In 1952, when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission lifted its freeze on new TV licenses, Burdick was part of a group at the University of North Carolina that secured the tenth public television outlet in the nation. WUNC-TV was launched with donated equipment from no less a figure than David Sarnoff, a founder of RCA and NBC. Burdick later became the managing director of the public TV station WHYY in Philadelphia.

March 17, 2005 at age 88.

Saul Holiff >permalink<

Managed Johnny Cash

Holiff, a former concert promoter, managed Johnny Cash's career for 17 years. In 1973, he left Cash when he thought his career had peaked. Holiff later recalled that Cash "didn't start out to be Johnny Cash. Sometimes he sang dreadfully, if he had too much to drink or too many pills. We were treated with casual indifference for much of the time for a long time. Then suddenly he was another American hero."

Holiff also once managed Tommy Hunter and the Statler Brothers. After representing the Tommy Hunter show for five years, Holiff severed his ties with the hugely popular CBC show and the star, considered the top TV personality in Canada at the time. He said his association with Cash forced him to be out of the country most of the time and that he could no longer devote the required time and attention to Hunter and the show. In 1970, RPM weekly magazine presented Holiff with a special award as the Canadian music industry's man of the year.

March 17, 2005 at age 70.

Sheldon White >permalink<

Developmental psychologist

Sunny days! White was a faculty member at Harvard for four decades and gained national prominence in the 1960s for his studies of learning and cognitive development in young children. His research into how children learn influenced American government education policy and children's television programming.

White developed initiatives including the federal Head Start program and the Children's Television Workshop, the organisation that created "Sesame Street." He also served as a consultant to the Educational Testing Service, based in Princeton, New Jersey. The Sesame Street family recently lost another one of its pioneers March 5th when Barbara Finberg died.

March 17, 2005 at age 76. Heart failure.

Anthony George >permalink<

Actor

[photo link] Best known to fans of the cult-gothic soap opera "Dark Shadows," Tony George's career spans back to the early days of television when he appeared on such shows as "Zorro," "Sea Hunt," "Hawaiian Eye," "The Untouchables," "Checkmate," "77 Sunset Strip," "Wagon Train" and "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour." He appeared on the big screen in "The Ten Commandments," "Three Bad Sisters" and "Gunfight at Indian Gap." In addition to a voice-over in a Vick's Vapor Rub commercial, George also made occasional primetime TV appearances on "Wonder Woman," "Police Woman" and "Simon and Simon."

March 16, 2005 at age 84. Lung disease.

James Lebron >permalink<

Art handler

There are those who find art 'moving' and there are those who 'move' art. James Lebron shepherded some of the most significant paintings of the late 20th century from artist's studio to gallery wall. In art galleries throughout the New York area, among the emergency numbers posted near telephones are FIRE, POLICE and JIM LEBRON.

Part engineer and part conjurer, Lebron was famous for his ability to pass very large paintings through very small spaces. He was also a skilled diplomat, able to assure artists and collectors that he could safely usher masterworks out of low studio doors, into narrow elevators, up stairs, through windows, onto airplanes and, ultimately, onto the walls of galleries, museums and private homes. Artists choose their art handlers with more care than the average person takes in choosing a brain surgeon, and Lebron was always their first choice.

He devised the Lebron Stretcher using fasteners usually employed by cabinetmakers to create perfectly flush joints of great strength. For large canvases, Lebron built huge, segmented stretchers that allowed paintings to be folded. The largest canvas Lebron ever moved approached the size of a city bus.

March 16, 2005 at age 76. Respiratory failure.

Kid Krupa >permalink<

Guitarist for the Revillos

Kid Krupa Although frequently aligned with the punk movement, the Rezillos' (later known as the Revillos) glam-rock image set them apart from their peers. Formed in 1976 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the group's history became one of continual personnel change. The group enjoyed moderate success, and after a pair of self-financed U.S. tours, they split in 1985.

Krupa joined the band in 1979 and quit in 1983. He then worked with his own bands and as a session player for such varied names as Tim Finn, Roger Daltrey, Del Amitri, Bonnie Tyler and Shakin' Stevens. Even as illness impacted on his health, his commitment to music never waned, and he channeled his skills into being a record producer.

Krupa retained an interest in his Revillo roots: he played with the band on their tour of Japan in 1994, and in 1996 helped produce the seminal Revillos live album, Totally Alive.

Announced March 16, 2005. Complications from diabetes.

Laurie West >permalink<

TV weatherman

West was a British TV weatherman in the days before the wizardry of computer graphics. In the early 1950s, forecasts were televised using charts and dividers to measure isobar spacings. Instead of using terms like "isobars" and "frontal systems," West told viewers to expect "wind" and "rain".

West invented a device that would enable him to show changes over time, allowing him to change the map by turning a handle. He also developed the idea of using magnetic symbols of the sun, clouds, rain and snow which could be moved at will. By the mid-1960s he had made nearly 3,000 broadcasts and retired in 1968.

March 16, 2005 at age 96.

Simon Eisdorfer >permalink<

Hostage negotiator

A staple of most crime movies and TV shows is the hostage negotiation scene. In New York City, it was Simon Eisdorfer who developed the NYPD's widely emulated negotiation team, the first in the nation. Before Eisdorfer's unit, police officers often stormed hostage takers with force, usually with deadly results.

Eisdorfer first conceived of his negotiating team in the summer of 1972, after 11 Israeli athletes were taken hostage and killed by terrorists at the Olympic Games in Munich. The NYPD team came into being in the spring of 1973, after a high-profile standoff in which armed robbers seized a dozen hostages at a Brooklyn sporting goods store. The siege turned into a waiting game, with police officers changing shifts and the suspects eventually becoming tired and hungry. The gunmen surrendered after 47 hours.

In consultation with a clinical psychologist, Eisdorfer abandoned the ploy, a cliche of Hollywood crime dramas, of bringing in a suspect's wife, mother or ex-girlfriend. The reality was that many hostage takings were triggered by the suspect's anger at family members, whose arrival on the scene often caused that anger to be taken out on the hostages.

March 16, 2005 at age 87. Heart failure.

Brett Collier >permalink<

Survivor

Serving in the British Army, Collier was captured by the Japanese in Singapore February, 1942. Because of his officer status, they singled him out for beheading. For some reason, his executioner became unnerved, and Collier was sent Korea, working as ship-riveter. He next found himself sold to a mining company who put him to work below the sea off Nagasaki.

On August 9th, 1945, Collier was working underwater in a mine when an atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, killing 150,000. The blast destroyed the entrance of the mine, leaving Collier and others trapped by what they believed was an earthquake. They dug themselves out to the sight of a boiling sea. The sun, he said, remained invisible for days.

Collier spent the rest of his life fund-raising in support of his colleagues who were mentally scarred or physically sickened by the effects of the detonation. Apart from these efforts, he never talked about the subject. Collier himself died from injuries sustained in a fall from his garage roof.

March 15, 2005 at age 84.

Don Durant >permalink<

Actor

Don Durant made frequent appearances during the early days of television and will be best remembered for his starring role in the series "Johnny Ringo" which ran for just one season, 1959-1960. Durant was the only prime-time TV Western star to compose both lyrics and music and perform his own theme song. "Johnny Ringo" ran for thirty-eight episodes and the guest star roster included James Coburn, Burt Reynolds, John Carradine, Robert Culp, Lon Chaney Jr., Gloria DeHaven and future Beverly Hillbilly, Buddy Ebsen.

Television’s wild west was a crowded place during the early 1960s, and every one of the nearly thirty westerns on the air needed to set itself apart. The hero of “Johnny Ringo” sported a gun that had an additional barrel capable of firing a shotgun round, effectively making it a seven-shooter. The Aaron Spelling-produced series generated more toys, such as board games and gun sets, than any other TV western. A "Johnny Ringo Western Frontier Play Set," was recently sold online for nearly $9,000.

After World War II, Durant had pursued a a career as a singer/actor. He made his feature film debut in 1955's "Battle Cry!" which starred Aldo Ray. To help make ends meet, he worked for an aircraft manufacturing firm, taught fellow actors the art of stunt work, and worked a night job as an electronics technician, helping build the first kinescopic recorder and stereophonic sound recorder for Warner Brothers.

After a leading role in Roger Corman's 1956 "She Gods Of Shark Reef," Durant appeared on bandleader Ray Anthony's TV show, an answer to Lawrence Welk's show. The exposure brought him roles in series like "Wagon Train," "Gunsmoke," "Richard Diamond," "Perry Mason," "Maverick," "Wanted: Dead Or Alive," eventually landing his own series. After TV guest roles in the 1960s became fewer in number, Durant turned to real estate.

March 15, 2005 at age 72. Cardio-pulmonary failure due to complications from chronic lymphocytic leukemia and lymphoma.

Jeremy Russell >permalink<

Co-founder, Blue Cheer

Blue Cheer, whose heyday was the latter half of the 1960s, were known as the premier heavy metal band in San Francisco. Legend had it that they were so loud they had to record their first album at the end of a pier. Another story suggested a dog died when it wandered in front of them while they were performing. In 1968, the Cheer had a hit single with a cover of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues."

Russell was instrumental in forming the group, acting as mentor. Although he never recorded with them, it was under his watch that the group established itself as part of Sixties pop history. In the early 1970s, Russell moved to London, where he worked for several music studios. He returned to the United States a few years later, settling in Carmel Valley, where he worked on his family's sprawling thoroughbred horse-breeding ranch. Russell later worked as a bartender and maitre d'hotel at the Arizona Inn, Arizona.

March 15, 2005 at age 60. Complications from blood and liver disease.

Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Cronkite >permalink<

Wife, Walter Cronkite

[photo link] Walter Cronkite met Mary Elizabeth Maxwell while they were both working at radio station KCMO in Kansas City, Missouri. They married in 1940. Betsy accompanied her husband to Brussels, Belgium and Moscow, where he worked for two years as chief correspondent for United Press. The couple eventually moved to New York when Walter joined CBS in 1950.

In his 1996 biography, "A Reporter's Life," Cronkite wrote: "I attribute the longevity of our marriage to Betsy's extraordinary keen sense of humor, which saw us over many bumps (mostly of my making), and her tolerance, even support, for the uncertain schedule and wanderings of a newsman."

After marrying, Betsy became a Kansas City newswoman, and an early writer of one-liners for Hallmark Cards. She never wrote her own obituary, but she coined memorable one-liners for others. Of her husband Walter, she told friends at a dinner in 1986, "Walter wants to die on a 60-foot yacht with a 16-year-old mistress at his side. He's more likely to die on a 16-foot yacht with a 60-year-old mistress."

News of her death coincided with the Robert Blake and Scott Peterson verdicts. "I always tell Walter, you don't want our plane going down on a day with a lot of big headlines."

Among her most famous zingers was one on the day after Richard Nixon failed in his bid for governor of California. Nixon told the press: "You won't have Richard Nixon to kick around any more." Betsy lunched with friends in New York the next day. One woman said, "I felt so sorry for Pat Nixon last night." Betsy shot back: "I feel sorry for Pat Nixon every night."

March 15, 2005 at age 89. Cancer.

Bill Green >permalink<

Pianist

A fixture on Boston radio and TV in the mid-20th century, Bill Green also became a fixture at nuptials: as a justice of the peace, he officiated at more than 1,000 weddings. Green, a pianist, and organist Ken Wilson were the hosts of the "Ken and Bill Show," a daily half-hour show of standards and pop tunes originally slated to run for six weeks in 1948. It ran for 19 years on WHDH-AM radio.

Green was also the pianist for the ''Bob and Ray Show," which aired on WHDH from 1946 to 1951 before comedians Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding moved on to New York and a national career. Bob and Ray made fun of Green on the air by playing jokes, like sneaking under the piano and tying his shoes together.

In 1957, when WHDH-TV first signed on, Green and his quartet were featured on "The New England Farm and Food Show." Celebrities such as Louis Armstrong, Arthur Godfrey, and Muhammad Ali did guest shots when they were in town.

Twenty years ago, when Green and his wife celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a trip to Las Vegas, he was appalled by the quickie marriages conducted there. It inspired him to become a justice of the peace. His family estimates he performed about 1,000 weddings, usually while sporting a judge's black robe.

March 14, 2005 at age 91. Kidney failure.

Dick Smyser >permalink<

Newspaper editor

Smyser holds two unique places in journalistic history. He was managing editor of the Manhattan Project's internal newspaper. He also asked the question to which Richard Nixon responded "I am not a crook."

The "Oak Ridger" was the first newspaper for the "secret city" the American federal government created as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb used at Hiroshima. During Smyser's tenure, he chronicled the change from a government-owned community to a self-governing city of about 30,000.

In 1973, American politics focused on the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon's part in it. During the November, 1973 Associated Press Managing Editors Association convention in Orlando, Florida, Smyser asked Nixon about the huge demands on the presidency. "To what extent do you think this explains possibly how something like Watergate can occur?" he asked.

Nixon responded, "The man at the top has got to take the heat... People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook." Nixon resigned Aug. 9, 1974, facing likely impeachment over the cover-up of the break-in of Democratic headquarters at the Watergate hotel.

Correction. Associated Press has revised the account as follows: Nixon made the statement at the end of a long answer to a question by Smyser about how Watergate could have occurred. However, Nixon was referring to a previous question by Joseph Ungaro of The Providence Evening Bulletin, who had asked if Nixon had accurately reported his income taxes.

March 14, 2005 at age 81. Heart failure.

Janet Reger >permalink<

Lingerie designer

Fluffy mules The Swinging Sixties nearly threatened lingerie with extinction, as necklines were plunging and hemlines were rising. No more girdles, corsets, slips, bras or nighties. The woman who did most to save the underwear business was Janet Reger. She rescued the suspender belt from obsolescence, and her label helped create a market for decorative, even decadent, undies. Entire brands, among them Victoria's Secret and Agent Provocateur, developed from her boudoir boutiques.

For many years, her lacy creations were synonymous with the wedding night - or the extra-marital affair. Her clients included Princess Diana, Jerry Hall, Rod Stewart, Mick & Bianca Jagger, Barbra Streisand, Tina Turner and Britt Ekland. David Bowie was fitted for her satin pyjamas, and when Joan Collins had to wrap her form in the 1978 movie "The Stud," she ordered Reger.

In the 1970s Reger had the ultimate accolade paid: a line in the Tom Stoppard play Night and Day: "Don't get your Janet Regers in a twist."

March 14, 2005 at age 69. Cancer.

Hal Seeger >permalink<

Creator, Batfink & Milton The Monster

Batfink Seeger got his start as an assistant animator at the Fleischer Studios. He was also ghostwriter of Bud Counihan's Betty Boop comic strip. In the late 1950s, Hal Seeger Productions opened in New York City, specialising in television commercials. In the early 1960s, they produced cartoons for syndication and Saturday morning television, including "Out Of The Inkwell," "The Milton The Monster Show," and "Batfink." Seeger's studio also produced the main and end titles for "The Porky Pig Show" for Warner Bros. Television.

Hal Seeger Productions hosted a virtual Who's Who of classic New York animators, designers and voice talent. Those who were prominent at the studio included Myron Waldman (perhaps the most prolific of the Seeger staff animators), Jim Tyer, Johnny Gentilella, Shamus Culhane, Morey Reden, Izzy Klein, Robert Owen, Jack Mercer, and Dayton Allen. Even MAD Magazine writers Stan Hart and Nick Meglin took the plunge and wrote some Seeger scripts.

March 13, 2005 at age 87.

Henry G. Greene >permalink<

Theatre architect

Greene designed more than 80 theatres for stage shows and movies in the 1960's and 1970's. As a consulting architect for the American Broadcasting Company, Greene built movie houses from San Francisco to Salt Lake City to Flint, Michigan. Greene's modern and unadorned theatres were usually built in suburban neighborhoods as part of larger complexes, moving away from the practice of standalone buildings. His creations included the Cine Capri, an 800-seat theater in Phoenix, Arizona with a vast single curved screen that made it a showcase for blockbuster movies. The theatre was so popular that when its closing was announced a petition with 250,000 signatures was submitted to try and save it. The Cine Capri was torn down in 1998.

In the early 1970's, Greene designed ABC's entertainment center in Los Angeles: a 4.5-acre compound that comprised stores, offices, two movie theaters, a restaurant and a six-level underground garage. The complex was ABC's West Coast headquarters for almost 30 years, until the network moved to Burbank, California in 2000. It was dismantled last year.

March 13, 2005 at age 93.

Jason Evers >permalink<

Actor

Born in New York, Evers started his career on Broadway before moving to Hollywood. His first big break came when he starred in his own TV show, "Wrangler" in 1960. He later starred in the series "Channing." Despite appearing with John Wayne in 1968's "The Green Berets" and Roddy McDowell in 1971's "Escape from The Planet of The Apes" and in over 110 other film and TV roles, Evers may be best known for the cult film "The Brain That Wouldn't Die."

March 13, 2005 at age 83. Heart failure.

Lyn Collins >permalink<

Singer

[photo link] Born in Dime Box, Texas, Collins took up singing as a teenager. At 14, she married a man who worked as a local promoter for the James Brown Revue. The Godfather of Soul heard Collins sing and in 1970 she was invited to join his traveling show. Her powerful voice led Brown to nickname her the "Female Preacher." Collins released two albums on her own in the 1970s.

Over the years, Collins' songs have also appeared in various compilations, but it was hip-hop duo Rob Base & D.J. E-Z Rock who exposed Collins' work to a new generation when they sampled one of her songs for their 1988 hit "It Takes Two." Since then, other contemporary R&B and rap artists have also mined Collins' songs, including rapper Ludacris, Eric B & Rakim, De La Soul, DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, Janet Jackson, Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane, Above the Law and Ol' Dirty Bastard among 70-plus others.

Collins also contributed to the soundtracks of early 1970s Blaxploitation films such as "Slaughter's Big Rip Off" and "Black Caesar," "Dr. Detroit" and the TV series, "Fame".

Days before her death, Collins suffered a seizure while choking on some food. She was brain dead by the time the medics had arrived and her family terminated her life on the 13th.

March 13, 2005 at age 56. Cardiac arrhythmia.

Winifred Dangerfield >permalink<

Actress

Dangerfield was one of Britain's earliest child film stars. At the age of four, she starred in "Sweep! Sweep!! Sweep!!!" In the film, she played a mischievous child who scaled a chimney when the sweep had been distracted by a parlour maid. The film was written by her father, Ernest Dangerfield, who also made a number of silent films. Although she made at least four films, "Sweep" is the only one that has survived, and it is now preserved in the National Film Archive of the UK.

The Dangerfields were part of the hot-bed of film production that existed in Croydon, England, much like Fort Lee, New Jersey was the centre of American moviemaking before Hollywood.

After appearing in silent films, Winnie trained to become a soprano, and appeared in countless stage musicals, including "Around The World in 80 Days" and "Walk This Way." With her brother Leslie, she created Dangerfield Productions, producing local variety performances until 1985.

March 13, 2005 at age 96.

Doran Cannon >permalink<

Screenwriter

Movies are often products of their times and are often best held in contemporary light. Cannon wrote two of the late-sixties more 'unusual' films.

Cannon Cannon's script for 1970's "Brewster McCloud" was a critical success for director Robert Altman, compelling audiences to repeat visits just to absorb all the dialogue. However, his earlier effort, 1968's "Skidoo" was a failure of near career-killing proportion.

Despite direction by Otto Preminger, a remarkable cast (Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Frankie Avalon, Frank Gorshin, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, George Raft, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney and Groucho Marx as God), "Skidoo" proved how fragile contemporary comedy can be. The film was dead on arrival.

Cannon went on to write the equally bad 1973 film "Hex," also known as "The Shrieking." After working as a staff writer for TV's "Knots Landing," he adapted Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" into a TV movie that was characterised as one of the worst book-to-TV adaptations of all time. Cannon went on to teach screenwriting at Columbia University in New York in his effort to help realise a cliché -- huh?

March 12, 2005 at age 68.

Tony Walsh >permalink<

Lawyer, actor

"I've made audiences cry, and I've made juries cry," Walsh said in a 1996 interview. "I go for the audience's guts and the jury's guts. With both, it's the same thing. You make them empathize with you."

Walsh defended students and activists who were arrested in connection with disturbances at Kent State University before National Guardsmen fired on students on May 4, 1970. He spent time and his own money defending prisoners indicted in the Attica, N.Y., prison riots in 1971. Walsh's last role was that of a lawyer in the Bodwin Theatre, Cleveland production of "Colonel Chabert" in January.

In 1992, Walsh appeared as Senator Karl Mundt in the 1992 HBO movie, "Citizen Cohn," which starred James Wood. He used his given name, Anthony Walsh, for the screen credits.

March 12, 2005 at age 64. Heart attack.

William Lester >permalink<

Plastics industry innovator

I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics. A mechanical engineer, Lester took 10 weeks in 1935 to build what became known as the Lester machine. It injected melted plastic into a cavity formed by engraved metal slabs that joined together. Using hydraulics, his device applied thousands of pounds of pressure to shape the plastic in seconds. What used to take several minutes, Lester's machine could finish in as few as six seconds.

Lester's innovation helped place the nascent plastics industry at the forefront of American manufacturing. Sixty years later, injection molding remains one of two primary ways of producing plastic products. (The other is extrusion, generally used for large or lengthy objects like wires.)

In his career, Lester obtained at least 20 patents for designs like a "dispensing closure" for squeezable containers, a rotary internal combustion engine and packaging that would prevent tampering or show evidence of any that occurred.

March 12, 2005 at age 97. Injuries from a fall.

Arbelia Wood >permalink<

119 year old woman

Arbelia Wood may have been among the world's oldest living people. Her family said she would have turned 120 next month. Family lore maintains that a white Mississippi farmer gave an ultimatum Wood's mother, sharecropper and ex-slave Muggie Greer, to sleep with him or flee the farm. Greer gave birth to Wood on April 6, 1885, in Caledonia, Mississippi. She was the eldest of 16 children.

Mississippi's birth records in Jackson date only to 1912, meaning there is no documentation of her birth. Wood likely was on the 1890 U.S. Census, but that was destroyed in a fire in 1921 in Washington. She is cited on the 1900 U.S. census, but that does not include her age. She never had a driver's license. The sole tangible evidence of her age is inscribed in a family Bible. Guinness World Records lists a 114-year-old woman in the Netherlands as the oldest living person it can document.

"I've worked hard all my life," Arbelia Wood said in December. "It's good for you." She outlived two husbands, never had children, and beat breast cancer twice.

March 11, 2005 at age 119.

Bill Cameron >permalink<

Canadian broadcaster

Veteran broadcaster and author Bill Cameron was best known as anchor, writer, reporter and documentary producer for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Television's renowned magazine program The Journal. He was the show's final host when it signed off October 30, 1992. During his years with The Journal, Cameron reported from several war zones, including Mozambique, Rwanda, the West Bank, Nicaragua and Croatia.

Although once cited as a potential anchor of The National, in 1999 he had a parting of the ways with CBC after being asked to reduce his workload and his paycheque in the wake of major budget cutbacks. Friends said he'd had it with indecision and narrow-mindedness at the public broadcaster.

The Gemini Award-winner got his start as an anchor and interviewer as host of Global TV's Newsweek from 1978 to 1983. He was also an anchor on Toronto's independent Citytv in the 1980s before joining the CBC. At the public broadcaster, he worked for Newsworld out of Halifax, Newsworld International and was host of CBC News' Sunday Report.

Cameron left the CBC in 1999 and took a position with an online gem marketing firm as its vice-president of communications. He also held the ethics chair at the Ryerson School of Journalism and freelanced for the National Post.

Recently he was back on television, hosting the talk show @issue on the I Channel, the fledgling digital tier service. He also had a continuing role as the voice of the newscaster on the television comedy series Puppets Who Kill (a show about a half-way house for very bad puppets). As recently as the Christmas holidays, Cameron had hosted CBC Radio's The Current and As It Happens.

In 2003, Cameron published his first novel, Cat's Crossing. A satire of television journalism, the book revolved around a runaway black cat named Jones with a $2-million reward on its head, and a manipulative TV reporter trying to use Jones's story to advance his career.

"He was one of the last of the classic journalists," said CBC senior executive documentary producer Mark Starowicz. "The man was a terrific writer, a terrific correspondent, an anchor, a documentary writer and a documentary director. A lot of people are good at one of those things. I can't think of anyone else that's good at all of those things." Cameron died of cancer of the esophagus that had spread to his brain and liver. For more about the life and career of Bill Cameron, visit the CBC Archives Remembering Bill Cameron site.

March 11, 2005 at age 62. Cancer.

Baroness Lips von Lipstrill >permalink<

Professional whistler

Just put your lips together and blow Jeanette Schmid was Austria's last professional whistler, performing as Baroness Lips von Lipstrill. Schmid, born a man in what now is the Czech Republic, underwent a gender change in 1964 in Cairo, where she lived for 15 years. She embarked on a whistling career after a visit to Tehran when she performed for the Shah of Iran. It was judged her costume as a dancer was too skimpy, so she whistled a Johann Strauss Jr. polka instead. She has whistled on stage with Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich and Edith Piaf. Schmid was a popular performer on cruises, where she delighted audiences by hitting the high C on the high seas. "I'll whistle through life until I die," she liked to say.

March 10, 2005 at age 80. Flu.

Charles R. Baxter >permalink<

Surgeon

Charles R. Baxter was one of the surgeons who tried to save President John F. Kennedy after he was shot. Baxter was the emergency room director at Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was taken after being allegedly shot by Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963. Baxter then operated on Texas Governor John Connally, who was also seriously wounded by Oswald. At the time, Baxter was a 34-year-old assistant professor at the Dallas medical school and director of the emergency room at Parkland Memorial.

In an interview in 1988, Baxter said, "As soon as we realized we had nothing medical to do, we all backed off from the man with a reverence that one has for one's president. And we did not continue to be doctors from that point on. We became citizens again, and there were probably more tears shed in that room than in the surrounding hundred miles."

Baxter also developed a formula for burn patients. He discovered that patients with large, severe burns need tremendous amounts of the fluid the first day of treatment, especially during the first eight hours of their ordeal. He also also founded a tissue bank at Parkland hospital to provide skin grafts for burn patients.

March 10, 2005 at age 75. Pneumonia.

Danny Joe Brown >permalink<

Singer, Molly Hatchet

Danny Joe Brown was the original lead singer of the southern rock band Molly Hatchet. Formed in 1975 (and named after a legendary Southern prostitute who allegedly beheaded and mutilated her clients), the band had two hit albums, "Molly Hatchet" and "Flirtin' With Disaster." Brown left the group in 1980, citing tour fatigue. The group's ensuring album sales flagged, and despite Brown returning to the band, Molly Hatchet never regained their mid-seventies stature. The group folded in 1989, and then reunited in the mid-1990s to tour and release new material. Brown had been a lifelong diabetic and had suffered a stroke in 1998 from which he never fully recovered. In 1999, a benefit concert was held for Brown's medical expenses.

March 10, 2005 at age 54.

Dave Allen >permalink<

Comedian

Irish comedian Dave Allen delivered his routines sitting on a stool with a cigarette and drink in hand. At the height of his career he was Britain's most controversial comedian, regularly provoking outrage and indignation. Allen introduced a laid-back, satirical, and personal storytelling style. However, behind the calm facade he was furious about political hypocrisy, the church domination of Ireland and authoritarianism in all forms.

Allen had a series of shows on British television. "Tonight With Dave Allen," came in 1967, followed a year later by "The Dave Allen Show" in which he appeared with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. "Dave Allen At Large" - a mix of monologues and sketches - launched on the BBC in 1971 and ran for eight years, becoming one of the UK'S most popular television comedy shows. Allen's last series, titled simply "Dave Allen," ended in 1994.

Allen caused a sensation in the 1970s with a sketch which involved the Pope doing a striptease. He was banned from Australian television for a year after telling his producer on air to go and masturbate. Allen would often continue an interview instead of going to commercial. He caused the BBC to publicly apologise when he used the F-word in the punchline to a joke - an incident which provoked questions in the British House of Commons.

March 10, 2005 at age 68. Died in his sleep.

Katherine Lathrop >permalink<

Isotope pioneer

When 'scans' are used to detect cancers and tumours, the results are based on work pioneered by Katherine Lathrop, one of the few women scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bomb.

Lathrop worked at the Project as a junior chemist, studying the effects of radioactive materials on animals. She investigated the qualities of technetium, a radioactive element discovered in the 1930s. Lathrop experimented with the isotope by injecting it into a patient's bloodstream and then tracing its path through the brain, heart, kidney, liver and other organs. A scan of the isotope yielded images to help diagnose and record the size and growth of cancers and other tumours. The scan is now used about 20 million times a year worldwide to identify cancerous growths and abnormal metabolism.

When asked about working with radiation during her pregnancies, Lathrop joked in a 1995 interview: "I believed I was working in safe conditions. I have two controls [children born before their mother's participation in radiation research], three experimentals and 10 grandchildren, all healthy and intelligent."

March 10, 2005 at age 89. Advanced dementia.

Mindy Jostyn >permalink<

Singer

Jostyn was kicking around the Boston area when Saturday Night Live's bandleader G.E. Smith hired her to play harmonica in a sketch with host Dolly Parton in 1989. Smith brought her back to the show to play with musical guest Billy Joel. Jostyn was then hired by Joel to play on his 1989 "Storm Front" world tour. During the 1990s, Jostyn played and sang with Joe Jackson, John Mellencamp, Cindy Lauper and Carly Simon. She also played with Pat Benatar, Shania Twain, Jon Bon Jovi and John Waite.

After a decade of playing backup, Jostyn launched a solo career, releasing four albums. Her solo albums featured artists she worked with during her years as a backup singer and musician, including Carly Simon and Steely Dan's Donald Fagen. Jostyn was nominated top New Contemporary Folk Act at the Boston Music Awards in 1997.

March 10, 2005 at age 48.

Noel Murphy >permalink<

Physician, broadcaster, politician

At the end of World War II, Murphy was the only physician serving the western Newfoundland communities of Deer Lake and St. Anthony. His district spanned about 200 kilometres and a population of over 6,000. There were no roads -- in fair weather travel was by boat; in winter time, it was by horse and sleigh or dog team.

In 1957, he was asked to lead a group that obtained a radio license for CFCB in Corner Brook. The chain had 10 radio stations by 1975, seven on Newfoundland's west coast and three in Labrador. Murphy was successful in getting the CRTC, Canada's broadcasting regulator, to change its policy so that FM frequencies could be used as re-broadcasters (of AM programs) where no AM frequency was available.

Murphy later entered politics, serving a four-year term as the provincial Conservative member for Humber East in the early 1960s, and going on to sit as the mayor of Corner Brook for 10 years. Murphy was made a member of the Canadian Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1984. He was also a member of the Order of Canada.

For more about Murphy's broadcast career, visit his entry at the Canadian Communications Foundation History Of Broadcasting.

March 10, 2005 at age 89.

Sy Wexler >permalink<

Educational filmmaker

Click! Whirrrrrrrrr Those of us who went through school before the advent of the personal computer will always remember the 'educational' films shown. Usually 15 to 25 minutes in length (and never long enough to take up an entire class), the 16mm black and white films were frequently cautionary tales about perils of life that waited around every corner.

Who could forget "High Blood Pressure" or "Career: Medical Technologist"? Or "Happy Family Planning," "Fire Science" and the racy "Venereal Disease: Why Do We Still Have It?"

In hundreds of films, both live-action and animated, Sy Wexler brought to life obscure processes like the metabolization of protein ("How a Hamburger Turns Into You"), the problem-solving abilities of animals ("Squeak the Squirrel") and the nature of human creativity ("Wondering About Things").

Wexler was a cameraman with the Army Signal Corps in World War II, working with the director Frank Capra on two well-known documentary series: "Why We Fight" and "Know Your Enemy." After the war, Wexler and a partner started Churchill-Wexler Films. Wexler worked as producer, director and screenwriter, sometimes as cameraman and occasionally as talent scout (his son Howard appeared in several of his films). Wexler also was a cameraman on the 1960 film "The Savage Eye," and he co-produced the 1964 Eastman Kodak World's Fair film "The Searching Eye," directed by Elaine and Saul Bass.

Doctors often commissioned movies from Wexler to accompany their presentations at professional meetings. He also developed microscope-mounted cameras to be able to shoot in the operating room. Many of Wexler's films won awards, including prizes from the Biological Photographers Association and the International Scientific Film Festival. He received a blue ribbon from the American Film Festival for "Varicose Veins."

March 10, 2005 at age 88. Cancer, diffuse Lewy body syndrome.

Ted Callaway >permalink<

Eyewitness

Lee Harvey Oswald has been held responsible for two deaths that occured in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. One death was witnessed by hundreds in Dealey Plaza, the other was witnessed by just a handful, including Ted Callaway.

According to the record of events put forward by the Warren Commission, Oswald had fled the Texas School Book Depository area by bus, stopped at home, and was spotted by Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit three miles away from Dealey Plaza just thirty minutes after Kennedy was shot. Driving in his patrol car, Tippit came across Oswald. They exchanged words and after Tippit got out of his vehicle Oswald shot him four times.

Callaway was standing on the front porch of Harris Bros. Auto Sales where he worked when he heard the shots. He walked over to where the sound of the shots came from and encountered Oswald. Warren Commission testimony indicates Callaway yelled to Oswald, "Hey man, what the hell is going on?" Oswald stopped, said something unintelligible in reply, shrugged and walked away.

Callaway and others gathered around Tippit's squad car. The officer was lying in the street. Callaway and a cabdriver saw Oswald head toward the Texas Theater. Police captured Oswald at the theater 45 minutes after he shot Tippit and Callaway picked him out of a police lineup later that night.

Callaway believed that Oswald was the lone gunman but that others were involved in Kennedy's assassination. According to family, a few days before the assassination Callaway sold an old car to a clean-cut, well-dressed businessman. Callaway discovered it was bought under a bogus name, and the Secret Service later found the vehicle parked next door to where Oswald lived. Two days after the assassination, someone fired on the Harris Bros. car lot. Police never found the gunman and Secret Service agents kept watch over Callaway's family for two weeks.

Callaway remained involved in the examination of the Kennedy assassination, appearing for interviews on "60 Minutes" and Geraldo Rivera's shows. He helped with the filming of "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" and Oliver Stone's "JFK."

For other recent deaths surrounding the Kennedy assassination, visit the Last Link - Lives By Subject page.

March 10, 2005 at age 81. Pneumonia.

Brigitte Mira >permalink<

Dancer, singer, actress

Mira began as a ballerina, became an accomplished singer and cabaret performer, and turned to film in the late 1940s. It was her work with German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder that Mira will be best known for. Before Fassbinder's suicide in 1982, they worked on 10 films together. Fassbinder cast her in the lead role in his 1974 "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul," and she also she appeared in "Fox and His Friends" (1975), "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1980) and "Lili Marleen" (1981). Mira also appeared in Werner Herozg's 1974 "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser." After Fassbinder's death, Mira worked primarily for German Television.

March 9, 2005 at age 94.

Chris LeDoux >permalink<

Country singer

LeDoux, a world champion bareback rider, was little-known outside the rodeo circuit until country superstar Garth Brooks paid tribute to him in a song in 1989. LeDoux had been playing guitar and harmonica and writing songs since his teens, and he used his musical skills to help pay for his rodeo entry fees. He and Brooks teamed up for the Top 10 hit, "Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy" in 1992. Singing songs about the rodeo life, his music has been described as a combination of "western soul, sagebrush blues, cowboy folk and rodeo rock 'n' roll."

Ledoux recorded his first album in 1972 in a basement, with a highway patrolman playing bass and a rancher on lead guitar. He sold cassettes out of the back of his van at rodeos. His audience grew, and soon he was making an album a year. His parents bought equipment to turn out 8-track cartridges at their Nashville-area home, gluing the labels on by hand. Al LeDoux once estimated that the family earned $4 million from their record sales over the years. Capitol's Liberty label reissued all 22 albums on CD after LeDoux joined the company. LeDoux recorded more than 35 albums and sold more than 6 million copies in his 32-year career.

March 9, 2005 at age 56. Liver cancer.

George Scott >permalink<

Co-founder, Blind Boys of Alabama

Known for his booming baritone voice, Scott was regarded as a master of the jubilee style of gospel singing. Blind from birth, he was sent by his parents to the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in Talladega, Alabama. At the school in 1936, Scott met the other founding members of the Blind Boys, Clarence Fountain and Jimmy Carter. Starting out as the Happy Land Jubilee Singers, the group changed its name to the Blind Boys of Alabama in the mid-1940s. In 1944, the three teenagers left the school, added two other friends to the group, and began a gospel career that has lasted through various incarnations through six decades.

In recent years, the group enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. In 2001, Peter Gabriel's Real World label issued "Spirit Of The Century," the winner of a Grammy award for Best Traditional Soul Gospel album (featuring Tom Waits' 'Way Down In The Hole,' the theme song for the television series "The Wire"). The group then collaborated with Solomon Burke, Lou Reed and Buena Vista Social Club singer Ibrahim Ferrer. Further Grammy awards came for "Higher Ground" in 2003, and "Go Tell It On The Mountain" in 2004. The Blind Boys appeared at the Grammies wearing matching black shirts and fire-engine red suits. The group most recently won a Grammy for "There Will Be a Light," recorded with singer-songwriter Ben Harper (Scott sang lead on the album's opening track, "Take My Hand").

Scott retired from touring last year (both he and Fountain had by then become too weak to stand for a whole concert). He and the rest of the group were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2003.

March 9, 2005 at age 75. Heart failure.

Kathie Kay >permalink<

UK Big Band singer

Kathie Kay was a star who maintained a homespun Scottish image and became one of the best-known names on British television. She joined the Billy Cotton Bandshow in 1949 and was its resident singer till 1968. Kay starred alongside names such as music hall entertainers Harry Lauder, George Formby and Hughie Green. Her hit songs included "We Will Make Love" and "A House With Love In It".

March 9, 2005 at age 86. Alzheimer's disease.

William Murray >permalink<

Mystery writer

Murray wrote a series of mystery novels set in the world of horse racing. His books included "Tip on a Dead Crab," "Dead Heat," "When the Fat Man Sings," "The King of the Nightcap," "The Getaway Blues" and "A Fine Italian Hand." His novel "The Sweet Ride" was made into a feature film in 1968, and "Malibu" became a television miniseries in 1983. Murray also worked as a writer for more than 30 years for The New Yorker. Murray was often described as America's answer to Dick Francis, the Welsh-born jockey-turned-mystery writer.

March 9, 2005 at age 78. Heart attack.

Redmond A. Simonsen >permalink<

Maker of strategic board games

Simonsen made board games that scaled some of history's great battles down to table size and helped propel the amateur war games craze of the 1970s.

Simonsen formed Simulations Publications Inc., known as S.P.I., in 1969. Among his company's best-known games were Great Medieval Battles; Great Battles of the American Civil War; Red Star/White Star, about a hypothetical Soviet offensive in Europe; and The East Is Red, which imagined a war between the Soviet Union and China.

Played on oversize boards depicting terrain maps, the games let players simulate battlefield tactics. Until the advent of the personal computer, they were hugely popular with a certain type of consumer: young, male and pocket-protected.

The company released more than 400 games in a little more than a decade, and by the mid-1970s, it manufactured more than half of all the war games sold worldwide. It also produced science fiction and fantasy games, several of which Simonsen designed. In 1982, S.P.I. was taken over by TSR Inc., makers of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. In later years, Simonsen worked in computer-game design and as a technology writer.

March 9, 2005 at age 62. Heart failure.

Sheila Gish >permalink<

Actress

Gish was best known as a stage actress in her native Britain. Performing since 1976, she created many a memorable charcter and won an Olivier award as the steaming alcoholic Joanne in "Here's To The Ladies Who Lunch," directed by Sam Mendes, in 1995. At just 5-foot 4-inches tall, Gish was a powerhouse performer described as a femme with more than a touch of fatale.

Gish had a number of film credits, ranging from 1972's "A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg," "Highlander" in 1986, to "Mansfield Park" in 1999. Her second husband, actor Denis Lawson, appeared as Wedge Antilles in the first "Star Wars" trilogy.

March 9, 2005 at age 62.

Elizabeth Owens >permalink<

Actress

Owens trained and performed in workshops with Walter Matthau, Elaine Stritch, Shelley Winters, Harry Belafonte and Marlon Brando. Her early off-Broadway credits included the American premiere of Jean Genet's "The Maids." Her Broadway debut followed in 1956 with "The Lovers," which headlined Joanne Woodward and Hurd Hatfield. Owens performed in the national tours of "The Winslow Boy, "Driving Miss Daisy," "Me and My Girl" and "The Sound of Music." Owens' film credits include "The Bonfire of the Vanities," "Music Box," "Mr. Deeds" and "Two Weeks Notice."

March 8, 2005 at age 77. Breast cancer.

Gordon Kay >permalink<

Film producer

Kay was born in Montreal, Canada and grew up in Massachusetts. As a producer, he worked for Republic Studios and Universal Studios before starting his own independent production company. Kay produced nearly 50 films, mostly B-movie westerns such as the "Rocky Lane" series, "The Unguarded Moment," "Day Of The Badman," "Hell Bent for Leather" and "Twilight For the Gods," which starred Rock Hudson.

March 8, 2005 at age 88.

Larry Bunker >permalink<

Drummer

Bunker was a drummer and percussionist who played with a who's who of jazz giants. He also had a long career as a film musician. In the early 1950s, he played with the top names in jazz, including saxophonists Stan Getz, Gary Burton, Art Pepper and Gerry Mulligan, and guitarist Barney Kessel. He was also a member of Peggy Lee's band. He joined Bill Evans in 1964 as part of the pianist's more highly regarded trios.

Bunker was also a highly sought-after studio musician for film soundtracks. He worked for Henry Mancini, Alfred Newman, Miklos Rosza, Jerry Goldsmith, Johnny Mandel and John Williams. His first film was "Stalag 17" in 1953 and his last was "The Incredibles" in 2004. He also was a timpanist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and performed on more than 30 Academy Awards programs, including the 77th in February, 2005.

March 8, 2005 at age 76. Stroke.

Rudy >permalink<

Gorilla

The International Species Information System, which keeps records on captive animals, believes Rudy was the oldest captive lowland gorilla in the world. Rudy was captured in Africa as a baby. He arrived at the Pennsylvania Erie Zoo in 1987, after having lived at zoos in St. Louis, Los Angeles and Cleveland. Rudy enjoyed drinking nutritional supplements and watching National Geographic specials. Zoo officials said in recent weeks that Rudy's health had deteriorated. He was watched carefully by zoo staff and passed quietly in his sleep. The zoo's remaining gorilla, "Samantha," 41, was nearby at the time of Rudy's death.

March 8, 2005 at age 49.

Debra Hill >permalink<

Film producer, writer

Hill's first film was one Hollywood's most successful independent productions. She also wrote the film with its director. It was made for $300,00 and earned back nearly $60 million. The film was 1978's "Halloween," and its director was John Carpenter. Together they worked on 1980's "The Fog," 1981's "Escape from New York" and 1996's "Escape from L.A." Hill also wrote many of the Halloween sequels, and was working on a re-make of "The Fog" as well as "Halloween 9" at the time of her death.

Hill rose to become one of the industry's pioneering woman producers with a respected roster of titles that included "The Dead Zone," "Clue," "The Fisher King," and "Crazy In Alabama." When Hill was honoured by Women in Film in 2003, she said: "I hope some day there won't be a need for Women in Film. That it will be People in Film. That it will be equal pay, equal rights, and equal job opportunities for everybody."

March 7, 2005 at age 54. Cancer.

I Two Step Too >permalink<

Horse

For the 2003 movie "Seabiscuit," nine horses were used to portray the legendary thoroughbred. Each horse was selected for specific shots, but it was I Two Step Too that was featured most often in the "blow by" scenes, when Seabiscuit sped past his competition. In recent years, I Two Step Too was an attraction at Lexington, Kentucky's Horse park. The horse was not only very popular with park visitors, but was greatly loved by everyone who worked with him. I Two Step Two was euthanised because of a tumour in his nasal cavity. He had undergone surgery in December to remove the rare tumour, but it regenerated itself. The horse was buried at one of the cemeteries at the Horse Park.

March 7, 2005 at age 11. Nasal tumour.

John Box >permalink<

Production designer, art director

John box won more Academy Awards than most of the directors he worked for. Nominated for six Oscars, he won four art direction awards for 1962's "Lawrence Of Arabia," 1965's "Doctor Zhivago," 1968's "Oliver!" and 1971's "Nicholas and Alexandra." He was nominated for 1973's "Travels With My Aunt," and 1985's "A Passage To India." In addition, Box won Britain's BAFTA award for 1966's "A Man For All Seasons," 1974's "The Great Gatsby," and 1975's "Rollerball." He also received three other BAFTA nominations.

March 7, 2005 at 85. Vascular disease.

Philip Lamantia >permalink<

Surrealist poet

Philip Lamantia Lamantia, a San Francisco poet, had a major influence on the 'Beats' and many other American poets. His visionary poems -- ecstatic, terror-filled, erotic -- explored the subconscious world of dreams and linked it to the experience of daily life.

In the early 1950s, Lamantia befriended a growing number of poets drawn to San Francisco, including Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet and founder of City Lights bookstore, a home for contemporary poets, was another friend. In October 1955, Lamantia and four other poets gave a reading at the Sixth Gallery in San Francisco that is considered the launch of the Beat generation. Ginsberg, Snyder, Michael McClure and Philip Whelan also read that night.

March 7, 2005 at age 77. Heart failure.

Willis Hall >permalink<

Playwright

Hall worked with many of British cinema's greats. Writing for stage and screen, Hall crossed paths with Lyndsay Anderson, Peter O'Toole, Albert Finney, Julie Christie and Robert Shaw. His novel "Billy Liar" was filmed by John Schlesinger in 1963. With longtime writing partner Keith Waterhouse, Hall contributed to an early script for Alfred Hitchcock's 1966 "Torn Curtain." Hall won nominations for British Oscar equivalent, the BAFTA, for best screenplay in 1961, 1962 and 1963 (sharing all 3 with Waterhouse).

March 7, 2005 at age 85.

Chuck Thompson >permalink<

Sports broadcaster

Ain't the beer cold!

Hall of Fame broadcaster Chuck Thompson entertained Baltimore sports fans for more than 50 years. Thompson called Baltimore Orioles games for almost five decades and served 30 years as the play-by-play announcer of the Baltimore Colts. He took pride in his professional approach to the job but never apologised for an obvious bias toward the home team. When the Orioles got a clutch home run or the Colts scored a pivotal touchdown, Thompson would often exclaim on the air, "Ain't the beer cold!" or "Go to war, Miss Agnes!"

Besides his trademark hats, which he began wearing when one of his television bosses took note of his bald head, Thompson was known for his unflappable, gentlemanly style. He sometimes called ballplayers "mister" and had a habit of backing into sentences, as in, "A terrific change-up, has Dave McNally." Thompson was 71 when named the 1993 recipient of the Hall of Fame's Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting, but the ceremony in Cooperstown did not mark his retirement. He continued to call up to 25 Orioles games per season through the end of the decade. In his later years, Thompson suffered from macular degeneration, which limited Thompson's vision so much that he had to stop play-by-play announcing.

March 6, 2005 at age 83. Stroke.

Hans Bethe >permalink<

Physicist

Boom! Bethe won a Nobel Prize for figuring out how the Sun and other stars generate energy. He also played a pivotal role in designing the first atomic bomb. Like so many other scientists who worked on development of the bomb, Blethe spent the rest of his life opposed to nuclear proliferation.

For more about his life and cause, visit the Last Link Hans Bethe tribute page.

March 6, 2005 at age 98.

Lisa Pritchett-Johnson >permalink<

Girlfriend, the Who's John Entwistle

Pritchett-Johnson was the long-time lover of John Entwistle, the late bass player with The Who. Memphis police said Pritchett-Johnson died one month after she inherited millions from Entwistle's estate and just weeks after moving into a Tennessee mansion. She had lived with Entwistle for 13 years before his 2002 death during a cocaine-fuelled romp with a stripper. Police said there was no indication of foul play and 1.6 grams of cocaine was found near the body. A man arrested on unknown charges at the home was helping police in the investigation.

A Memphis police spokesperson said, "We have not been able to determine a cause or manner of death. We are waiting on toxicological results. We don't know if it was an accident or an overdose or a suicide or something else."

March 6, 2005 at age [43]. Suspected drug overdose and/or asthma attack.

Teresa Wright >permalink<

Actress

She was the only actress to be nominated for Academy Awards for her first three films. After seeing Teresa Wright perform on Broadway, producer Samuel Goldwyn asked her to play the role of Bette Davis's daughter in "The Little Foxes" in 1941. The film's director, William Wyler, said that she was the most promising young actress he had ever directed.

After her best supporting actress nomination for "Foxes," she was nominated for best actress for "The Pride of the Yankees," and finally won the best supporting actress Oscar for "Mrs. Miniver."

Wright appeared in Wyler's "Best Years of Our Lives," Oscar's best-picture in 1946, and played opposite Marlon Brando in his first movie "The Men," in 1950. After the 1950's, she drifted away from movies, working in Broadway productions such as 1975's "Death of a Salesman." Wright was nominated for three Emmy Awards for television work. Her last appearance was in Francis Ford Coppola's 1997 adaptation of John Grisham's "Rainmaker."

Wright fought fiercely not to be a glamour girl. She loathed pictures in bathing suits and interviews with fan magazines. She had an unprecedented clause in her contract. It read that she "shall not be required to pose for photographs in a bathing suit unless she is in water. Neither may she be photographed running on the beach with her hair flying in the wind. Nor may she pose in any of the following situations: in shorts; playing with a cocker spaniel; digging in a garden; whipping up a meal; attired in firecrackers and holding skyrockets for the fourth of July; looking insinuatingly at the turkey for Thanksgiving; wearing a bunny cap with long ears for Easter; twinkling on prop snow in a skiing outfit while a fan blows her scarf." Goldwyn eventually terminated the contract in 1948, citing her as being lax in publicising her pictures, and her career faltered as a result.

On television, Wright received Emmy nominations for her portrayal of Annie Sullivan in "The Miracle Worker," as the famous photographer in "The Margaret Bourke-White Story" and for a guest appearance on the 1989 CBS series, "Dolphin Cove." She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and one for television.

March 6, 2005 at age 86. Heart attack.

Tommy Vance >permalink<

Disc Jockey

The best looking guy you'll ever hear!

During the early 1960s, British and European radio was dominated by government controlled broadcasters. Along came the pirates ...

Operating on board ships parked in the English Channel outside UK territorial waters, 'illegal' stations such as Radio Caroline, Radio Northsea International, Radio Veronica and Radio London dominated the airwaves. Disc jockeys, finally in control of their own playlists, became stars. One of the most recognisable voices of Channel-era radio was Tommy Vance.

Mick Jagger & Charlie Watts with Vance

Born in Oxford as Richard Hope-Weston, Vance was using the name 'Rick West' when he went to America in search of radio work. A heavily promoted 'Tommy Vance' failed to show up for a job, so a station immediately needed a replacement Vance - and Rick West's 'Vance' career was born. After moving from KOL Seattle to Los Angeles Top 40 powerhouse KHJ, Vance returned to the UK to avoid the Viet Nam conflict's draft. He landed at Radio Caroline South in 1966 with a show he called "TV On Radio." Vance eventually signed to BBC's Radio 1 where he worked for 15 years and was also a regular host of "Top Of The Pops." During his career Vance interviewed more than 10,000 guests including Prince Charles and the Rolling Stones.

Fans of the golden age of Top 40 radio can hear Vance on Radio London's last ever Fab 40 Show, broadcast August 6, 1967. For more about Vance and other DJs of the day, visit the Pirate Radio Hall of Fame. For more about Radio Caroline, visit the station's official web site.

March 6, 2005 at age 63. Stroke.

Barbara Finberg >permalink<

Philanthropist

Sunny days! Finberg joined the Carnegie Corporation in 1958, hired as an editorial associate by John Gardner, best known as the founder of Common Cause. Finberg was concerned about the lack of research about how babies and toddlers learn, and awarded many grants that helped shape the early childhood education field. Her efforts led directly to the launch of the PBS television show "Sesame Street," funded by Carnegie. A television program starring hand puppets and the alphabet, "Sesame Street" became a pre-kindergarten learning experience that would teach millions of young Americans the first elements of reading, and would transform Big Bird, Elmo and others into lasting American cultural icons.

March 5, 2005 at age 76. Cancer.

George Atkinson >permalink<

Pioneer, movie video rental

Rewind please In 1977, Atkinson, a onetime stuntman and occasional actor, hit upon the idea that most people wouldn't want to buy movies on videocassette, but would want to rent them instead. Atkinson bought one Betamax and one VHS tape of each of the 50 movie titles that were then sold to the public, and rented them out at his Video Station store in Los Angeles. The video rental business was born.

When Hollywood executives began making feature-length films available on video in the 1970s, they charged $50 each and envisioned affluent consumers building large libraries, just as they did with records. Only the wealthy could afford the $1,000 that VCRs cost then. To see if there was a market, Atkinson ran an advertisement in The Los Angeles Times: "Video for Rent." In less than a week, he had about a thousand coupons.

Atkinson charged $50 for an annual membership and $100 for a lifetime membership, which allowed viewers to rent the videos for $10 a day. The chain had more than 600 franchised stores at its peak.

Atkinson left Video Station in the mid-1980s amid disclosures that the company had overstated its profits. His brother, Edward, an executive, was later convicted of perjury and securities fraud and sentenced to five years in prison. Atkinson pleaded guilty to filing false financial reports and was sentenced to 2,000 hours of community service. He was inducted into the Video Hall of Fame in 1991.

March 5, 2005 at age 69. Emphysema.

James Tyler >permalink<

Orchestrator

Tyler spent over 50 years working on Broadway. His 20-year-old orchestrations for "La Cage aux Folles" are still heard in the current Broadway revival of the show. Tyler had 'ghosted' for many of the greats on Broadway (without credit) for such shows as "On the Twentieth Century," "Fiddler on the Roof," "Golden Boy," "Barnum" and others. Tyler worked in television ("Bell Telephone Hour," "Kraft Music Hall") and recorded seven albums with his own orchestra. He was Grammy nominated for his work with Ettore Stratta and the London Symphony Orchestra. Among his film credits were "The Great Muppet Caper" and "Raggedy Ann and Andy."

March 5, 2005 at age 76.

Morris Engel >permalink<

Independent film pioneer

Morris Engel With his 1953 film, "The Little Fugitive," Engel established a model for independent moviemaking that has influenced directors from John Cassavetes to François Truffaut to Martin Scorsese. Using a small, unobtrusive and lightweight 35-millimeter camera that he had developed with friend Charlie Woodruff, "Fugitive" told the story of a 7-year-old Brooklyn boy who mistakenly believes he has killed his older brother and runs away to hide at Coney Island. The movie, with its intimacy and realism, shot at street-level with urban cityscapes, was revolutionary at the time.

The film had international and lasting appeal. It won the Silver Lion at the 1953 Venice Film Festival and its story was nominated for an Academy Award in 1954. In 1997 was included by the Library of Congress in the National Film Registry.

The movie's success encouraged other young filmmakers to circumvent the Hollywood system and finance their own 'personal' films. In 1957, John Cassavetes borrowed $40,000 to make "Shadows," a partly improvised drama whose success opened the door to other New York independent filmmakers. In 1959, the French film critic François Truffaut drew on Engel's childhood themes and production techniques to create "The 400 Blows," the film that introduced the French New Wave.

With wife Ruth Orkin, Engel made two more independent features: "Lovers and Lollipops" (1956), about a small girl struggling with the idea of her widowed mother's remarriage, and "Weddings and Babies" (1958), an autobiographical study. Neither enjoyed the success of "The Little Fugitive." For more about Morris Engel, visit Poets Of Everyday Life at Bright Lights Film Journal.

March 5, 2005 at age 86. Cancer.

Sergiu Comissiona >permalink<

Conductor

[photo link] Comissiona, Romanian-born, led orchestras in more than 25 countries. He spent nine years as music director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from 1991 to 2000. The VSO faced bankruptcy at the end of the 1980s, and Commissiona is credited with restoring the orchestra's fortunes.

A violinist at the age of five, he joined an orchestra by the age of 10 and made his conducting debut at 17. He was named principal conductor of the Romanian State Opera in his early 20s. When Romania fell under Communist rule in 1945, Comissiona left, accepting conductor positions in Israel, Sweden, Holland and the United States, where he helped transform the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from a little-known ensemble to a nationally respected orchestra.

He also served the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and in New York he was music director of the New York City Opera for a brief time. Comissiona led the American Symphony, the orchestra that Leopold Stokowski built, from 1978 to 1982.

March 5, 2005 at age 76. Heart attack.

Vance Gerry >permalink<

Animation artist

Vance Garry started working for Walt Disney in 1955. As a layout artist and writer, Garry worked on classics such as the original "101 Dalmatians," "The Sword in the Stone," 1967's "The Jungle Book," "The Aristocats," "Robin Hood," "The Rescuers," "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh," "The Fox and the Hound," "The Black Cauldron," "Oliver & Company," and "Hercules."

Joe Grant, who worked for Disney as far back as 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," said Vance was one of the finest graphic artists of our times. Don Hahn, producer of "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King," added that he was a writer's writer and his sense of storytelling and influence on all of us was profound.

March 5, 2005 at age 75. Cancer.

Elsie Tistaert >permalink<

Police tipster

Shortly after midnight on June 13, 1994, Elsie Tistaert called the police to report a prowler. After police arrived, they found the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. At the trial of O.J. Simpson, defense attourneys hoped Tistaert's call would point to a possible unknown assailant. Prosecutors, however, demonstrated that the person who rang Tistaert's doorbell shortly after midnight was either Sukru Boztepe, who found the bodies outside Nicole Simpson's house, or his wife seeking help. Tistaert became identified in trial lore as "the old lady who lives across the street." Simpson was acquitted of the murders, and has spent a career looking for the real killer on golf courses across the United States.

March 4, 2005 at age 95.

Frank Stalley >permalink<

Broadcaster

Overcoming a simultaneous attack of both polio and Bell's palsy in his teens, Frank Stalley went on to become one of the first regular anchors of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's television National News in the 1950s. Stalley worked alongside Larry Henderson and Rex Loring, sharing in newsreading duties when the CBC broadcast area was limited to southern Ontario.

Stalley was later a co-host with Anna Cameron on "Open House," the precursor to "Take Thirty." A later "Take Thirty" host was Adrienne Clarkson, who is now the Governor General of Canada. After only a decade before the cameras, Stalley "moved up the line" into administration. The CBC Archives has a clip of Stalley introducing a story about Toronto sewage disposal in 1960.

March 4, 2005 at age 80. Cancer.

John Hornick >permalink<

Universal marketing exec

In 1983, after working in art studios in New York and Washington, Hornick went to work for MCA/Universal Studios in Los Angeles. He became V.P. of marketing and merchandising, designing toys and product tie-ins for such movies as "E.T.," "Jurassic Park," "The Flintstones" and "Casper," and for Universal monsters such as Frankenstein, Dracula and King Kong. He was also involved in the design and planning for the Universal Studios theme parks and the Universal City Walk.

In 1996, Hornick started a design consulting business, working on film, television, book and other projects for clients such as Steven Spielberg, Michael Jackson, the estate of Jay Ward (the creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle), Walter Lantz (the creator of Woody Woodpecker) and Martin Mull.

March 4, 2005 at age 50.

Pauline Fawcett >permalink<

Mother, Farrah Fawcett

With James, her husband of 67 years, Pauline Fawcett appeared recently in the premiere of the TV series "Chasing Farrah." Fawcett also appeared in the 1979 made-for-TV movie "Sunburn," starring her daughter Farrah and Charles Grodin. Fawcett also appeared in the fitness video "Silver Foxes Aerobics" with Richard Simmons.

March 4, 2005 at age 91.

Alberta RCMP deaths >permalink<

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

It started out as a routine investigation of stolen property. It ended with the death of four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers. Bill Sweeney, commanding officer of the RCMP in Alberta, Canada, said "You have to go back to about 1885 in RCMP history during the Northwest Rebellion to have a loss of this magnitude."

The officers have been identified as Const. Peter Schiemann, 25, Const. Anthony Gordon, 28, Const. Leo Johnston, 32, and Const. Brock Myrol, 29.

For more about an event that has gripped Canadians nationwide and captured international attention, visit the Last Link Alberta RCMP deaths page.

March 3, 2005.

Dorris Henderson >permalink<

Folk singer

The daughter of a clergyman and the granddaughter of a pure Blackfoot Indian, Henderson was born in Lakeland, Florida but was raised in Los Angeles. Seeing folk-blues singer Odetta perform one night changed her life, and after seeing other greats like Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, Miriam Makeba, Nina Simone and Carmen McCrae, Henderson bought an autoharp and started performing herself.

Henderson arrived in New York at the time of the Greenwich Village folk boom and she became friends with most of the movers and shakers of the period, including Dave Van Ronk, Fred Neil, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan.

Her brother was serving in England in the air force, and he encouraged Henderson to come to London. She wound up playing at the Earl's Court folk club the Troubadour. One night she met a young guitarist, John Renbourn, and invited him to be her accompanist. They recorded two albums together, "There You Go" in 1965 and "Watch the Stars" in 1967. Henderson appeared in the 1967 D.A. Pennebaker film "Don't Look Back" which documented Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of England.

John Renbourn went on to form Pentangle with Bert Jansch. Henderson accepted an invitation to join the band Eclection, which featured Trevor Lucas (who later married Sandy Denny and played with Fotheringay and Fairport Convention).

Henderson later married and largely dropped out of the music scene for two decades, raising a family and confining her singing to low-key pub appearances. It took a reissue of the "There You Go" album in 1999 to inspire a serious comeback. In 2003 she released "Here I Go Again," featuring Renbourn as well as old colleagues from Eclection.

March 3, 2005 at age 71.

Guylaine St-Onge >permalink<

Actress

Gemini-nominated Canadian actress Guylaine St-Onge was best known to audiences worldwide for her TV work in such as shows "Earth: Final Conflict" and "Lonesome Dove." She first appeared on a Montreal TV show titled "Lautrec '83," described by St-Onge as "Solid Gold" without a budget. She then appeared on in the big-budget CTV drama series "Mount Royal" in 1987. She also had roles in the Keith Carradine series "Fast Track," and in three of Ken Finkleman's CBC series. St-Onge's recent movie credits include 2001's "Angel Eyes" with Jennifer Lopez, and 2002's "One Way Out" with Jim Belushi.

March 3, 2005 at age 39. Cancer.

Marvin Jenkins >permalink<

Pianist and composer

Best known for his prowess on the piano, Jenkins also contributed on flute in many recordings with the Barney Kessel trio in the early 1960s. He also spent 25 years as accompanist to singer/actress Della Reese. Jenkins did the piano work on Marvin Gaye's classic 1973 recording, "Let's Get it On," and wrote "Big City," which has been recorded by Shirley Horn, Cannonball Adderley and Les McCann.

March 3, 2005 at age 72.

Richard Godwin >permalink<

Project head, nuclear ship Savannah

It don't look nuclear?! During the 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a technological/military struggle known as the Cold War. The Soviets had just launched the icebreaker Lenin, the world's first operational nuclear surface ship. In response, the U.S. developed the first commercial nuclear-powered vessel, naming it the Savannah, after a steamship that had crossed the Atlantic in 1819. In 1956, Godwin became the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's project director for the development of the ship.

Savannah was designed to be visually impressive. The hull was streamlined to look more like a luxury yacht than a bulk cargo vessel. Savannah was launched on March, 1962, and was capable of cruising at 21 knots and travelling 336,000 miles on a single fuel load.

In 1972, the Savannah was decomissioned in an effort to reduce spending by the Martime Administration. It was first stored near Patriot's Point Naval Museum, South Carolina, and in 1999 it was moved to the James River Merchant Marine Reserve Fleet near Newport News, Virginia.

March 3, 2005 at age 82. Progressive supranuclear palsy.

Yuri Kravchenko >permalink<

Former Ukraine minister

[photo link] Hours before he was to appear before prosecutors for questioning related to his possible involvement in the death of investigative journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, Ukraine's former interior minister was discovered dead of an apparent suicide. Opposition politicians had accused Kravchenko of being involved in the murder of Gongadze, who was investigating corruption within Ukrainian government ranks that could implicate former President Leonid Kuchma. The journalist was kidnapped in Kiev in September, 2000 and his decapitated body found months later buried in a nearby forest. Three police officers have been detained in connection with the journalist's murder.

Gongadze's death sparked months of protests against the former president. Kuchma has denied any involvement. Kravchenko's body was found by family members after they heard a gunshot at his country residence. On February 28, 2005 a man identified as a key witness in the case, Yuriy Nesterov, was reportedly wounded when an unidentified assailant lobbed a hand-grenade at him. Another key witness, former police officer Ihor Honcharov, died in prison two years ago under suspicious circumstances. He had implicated Nesterov in kidnapping, torturing and killing Gongadze. Kravchenko's death is the second mysterious death of a former senior government official since President Viktor Yushchenko's election. Former transport minister, Heorhiy Kirpa, was found dead in December near his country house outside Kiev in an apparent suicide.

March 3, 2005 at age 53. Apparent suicide.

Bubba >permalink<

Lobster

Where's the butter?

Bubba was a 22-pound lobster. He survived a 700 mile trip from the coast of Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, but died at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. His exact age was unknown, but based on how long it typically takes a lobster to reach eating size (about five to seven years to grow to a pound) some estimated Bubba was about 100 years old. Marine biologists said 30 to 50 years was more likely. After avoiding fisherman his entire life, Bubba was finally caught in the waters off Nantucket.

Bubba spent a week on display at Wholey's Market in Pittsburgh, where he became a star attraction and media celebrity. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to the store's owner, offering to release the lobster back into the Atlantic Ocean. A group known as People Eating Tasty Animals requested the opportunity to purchase and eat him.

Bubba had been placed in quarantine, awaiting a health exam. The three-foot-long lobster was scheduled to become a permanent exhibit at the new Ripley's Believe It or Not Aquarium in Niagara Falls, Canada. A zoo spokesperson said the stress of moving was a likely factor in his death. "They're very finicky. It could have been a change in the water. You have no idea," said a Wholey spokesperson. The previous largest lobster on record was caught off Nova Scotia, Canada in 1977 and weighed 44 pounds 6 ounces.

In 1985, a 25-pound lobster that the New England Aquarium planned to give to a Tokyo museum died when the water temperature rose and the salt dropped in its aquarium. In 1990, a 17 1/2-pound lobster named Mimi died just days after being flown to a restaurant in Detroit. Last year, a 14-pound lobster named Hercules that was rescued by a Washington state middle school class died before it could be released off the coast of Maine.

The Pittsburgh Zoo plans to keep the shell of Bubba to educate school children, said a zoo spokeswoman. Some of Bubba's meat will be sent to labs for testing as officials try to determine why Bubba died. Zoo officials guessed it might have been the stress of being moved so many times.

March 2, 2005 at age 30? 50? Shock from exposure.

Hermann Dörnemann >permalink<

World's 3rd oldest man

Hermann Dörnemann was Germany's oldest living person and the third-oldest man in the world according to the Gerontology Research Group based at UCLA. Dornemann was also referred to in the German press as "the world's oldest beer drinker." He was born May 27, 1893. The title of oldest person in Germany now goes to Frieda Muller, 110, who was born Oct. 18, 1894.

Dörnemann became the oldest living man in the world upon the death of American Fred H. Hale, Sr. on November 19, 2004. Hale died less than two weeks short of his 114th birthday. However, not until Hale's death did Dörnemann's family offer documentation to the Guinness Book of World Records or to a supercentenarian researcher.

Doernemann had long been considered the world's oldest man by the Guinness Book of World Records until a Puerto Rican man aged 113 surfaced. The claim of Emiliano Mercado del Toro has been put forward with documentation, saying he was born in 1891. del Toro was born on August 21, 1891 -- 21 months before Dörnemann. In any case, Dörnemann was recognized by the German government as Germany's oldest person (following the passing of Lina Zimmer August 28, 2004). He was also very likely the oldest living World War I veteran who fought for the "Central Powers" (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Ottoman Empire).

Dörnemann credited his longevity to drinking "a beer a day". On occasion he would drink water used to cook potatoes, just for the vitamins, he maintained. Guinness lists a woman, Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper of the Netherlands, as the world's oldest person. She was born on June 29, 1890.

March 2, 2005 at age 111 years and 279 days. Pneumonia.

Eugene Akers >permalink<

Encyclopedia of musical trivia

Akers was regarded as an expert about Atlanta, Georgia area country musicians of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. The mandolin player and music historian started performing in the 1940s with his siblings at WLBB radio in Carrollton, first as the Radio Home Folks and later the Akers Trio. A frequent performer at regional bluegrass festivals, Akers developed friendships with country and bluegrass legends such as Bill Monroe, Jim and Jesse McReynolds, and Charlie and Ira Louvin. His apartment was an early country music museum, filled with instruments, photographs, tapes, records, programs, ticket stubs and other memorabilia -- some of which was donated to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon. The longtime Buckhead resident worked at the U.S. post office for 33 years. He was inducted into the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame in the 1990s.

March 2, 2005 at age 75. Heart attack.

Joe Carter >permalink<

Musician

Joe Carter was a member of the famous Carter Family of music. He was five months old when he traveled with his parents, A.P. and Sara Carter, from Maces Springs, Virginia, to Bristol in June, 1927 for what would become one of the most famous recording sessions in country music history. The session has been called "the big bang of country music" as it launched the careers of A. P., Sara, and her cousin Maybelle Carter as the Carter Family trio. Joe Carter was the last direct connection to anyone who was at that original session. June Carter, who married Johnny Cash in the 1960s, was Maybelle's daughter. June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash both died in 2003. Carter was a cornerstone of the preservation of old-time mountain music and helped build the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia, which presented shows of country and bluegrass music every weekend.

March 2, 2005 at age 78. Cancer.

Mary Colleen Enright >permalink<

Singer

Her voice lifted the spirits. Her legs lifted ... the morale of Canadian troops during World War II.

Mary Colleen Enright made her show business debut at the Montreal Esquire Showbar in 1939. There she appeared with the Will Mastin Trio, a band that featured both Sammy Davis Jr. and his father.

Enright was a member of the Montreal Repertory Theatre's Tin Hats, and she was one of many Canadian entertainers who landed steady gigs at military training bases and dance halls. She performed with comedians Wayne and Shuster, and Lois Maxwell, the actress from Kitchener, Ontario, who went on to play Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond films.

Enright married musician Ludovic Huot. The husband-and-wife team formed a duo that toured extensively throughout North and South America.

March 2, 2005 at age 84.

Martin Denny >permalink<

Musician

Kewl!

Before there was cool, there was ultra-cool. That's where Martin Denny came in. No 1950s batchelor pad was complete without the swinging sophisticated sounds of Denny's brand of hip. Some called it "exotica." Others called it "tiki culture" or "lounge music" or just plain "kitchy." It was a hypnotic sound that blended exotic bird calls, croaking frogs, jazz rhythms, chimes and gongs. Denny once described it himself as a fusion of Asian, South Pacific, American jazz, Latin American and classical styles. Denny's first recording of "exotica" was made for Liberty Records in 1956. Re-recorded in 1958, Liberty released Les Baxter's "Quiet Village" as a single in 1959. It reached number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and a new genre of music was launched. He was - and still is - one of the very few Hawaii recording artists to appear on any of the six major Billboard record charts.

Smooooth!

Born in New York, Martin Denny toured widely and in the mid-50's found himself with an engagement at the Hawaiian Village Hotel at Waikiki. His group played around a pool at the hotel in a natural setting. "One night we were playing this tune and suddenly I became aware that these bullfrogs started to croak: ribbet, ribbet, ribbet," Denny recalled in an interview. "As a gag, the guys start doing these birdcalls, like a 'meanwhile, back in the jungle' type thing. And everybody cracked up about it. It was just a spoof." The gimmick stuck, and soon Denny and his band began to pepper performances with animal calls and ever-stranger musical instruments, including conch shells, Indonesian and Burmese gongs, Japanese kotos and boobams.

Denny made enterprising use of the new stereo feature of recording technology, which allowed the bongos and birdcalls of the recordings to fill listeners' rooms, and thus more vividly establish the sonic illusion of a restful stop on an innocuously exotic island paradise. His music, along with that of Esquivel and others, faded in popularity during the 1960s, but found an underground audience in record collectors and fringe musicians, and then enjoyed a full-fledged renaissance in the 1990s. Denny's recordings were re-issued accompanied by his own exhaustive liner notes.

March 2, 2005 at age 93.

Patrick Daly >permalink<

Professional gift giver

Daly worked in the Office of the Chief of Protocol for the United States Government. In that capacity, he advised presidents, vice presidents and other high-level officials on possible gifts to present to their counterparts on official state visits. Daly often suggested prints, porcelain figurines, collectors plates -- crafts that were uniquely American and highlighted the skill of artisans. One day he had an idea ...

In early 1972, President Richard M. Nixon made his historic trip to China. Daly suggested that the president give two musk oxen to the Peking Zoo as a gesture of goodwill. About two months later, amid much fanfare, the Peoples Republic of China sent two rare, giant pandas to as gifts to the United States. The pandas, Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling, were taken to the National Zoo, where in their first few weeks they attracted nearly 10,000 visitors. They quickly became the zoo's most popular and best-known animals. The veternarian in charge of the panda's quarantine, Claude A. Smith, died February 15, 2005.

March 2, 2005 at age 64. Diabetes.

James Cassily >permalink<

Sound engineer, inventor

Tick tick

Cassily produced records with Bob Seger and mixed sound for Janis Joplin. With the rise of heavy metal and disco, he left the music industry in the late 1970s -- disillusioned. He decided to take his electrical engineering talents elsewhere, first going into the cable and satellite TV business. In 1989, Cassily began working on what became the Interactive Metronome, a high-tech version of the ticking tool that helps musicians achieve accurate timing. Cassily's metronome helps improve neural timing, rhythm and attention. It has been used to treat attention deficit hyperactive disorder, autism and cerebral palsy.

March 1, 2005 at age 60.

Peter Malkin >permalink<

Mossad agent

Peter Malkin

On May 11, 1960 Peter Zvi Malkin walked up to a man in the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina and spoke the only words he knew in Spanish, "Un momentito, senor (just a moment, sir)." A brief struggle ensued, and Malkin overpowered Adolf Eichmann, dragging him into a waiting car. Adolf Eichmann was a key architect of the Nazi Holocaust who coined the term "Final Solution" and had fled to Argentina in the early 1950s. He was one of the world's most hated criminals at the time. Malkin wore rubber gloves so he wouldn't have to touch him.

After receiving a tip, Israel's Mossad intelligence agency had sent investigators to track down Eichmann, who had assumed a pseudonym, was living in a working-class suburb of Buenos Aires and quietly worked at a Mercedes-Benz plant. Malkin told his bosses that any successful operation to capture Eichman would have to involve just himself and maybe two or three others as backup. Asked by his superior how he might manage to subdue Eichmann, Malkin instantly placed his boss in a painful chokehold.

Malkin left for Argentina with an elite commando team and spent months planning for all contingencies. To maintain his cover, he drew stained-glass windows in churches. Malkin later described being surprised at how undistinguished and rather bony Eichmann looked. He was expecting a "monster."

During subsequent interrogation, Malkin confronted Eichmann about the death of Malkin's nephew in Poland: "My sister's boy, my favorite playmate, he was just your son's age. Also blond and blue-eyed, just like your son. And you killed him." Eichmann replied, "Yes, but he was Jewish, wasn't he?"

Eichmann was tried and hanged in Israel in 1962. In time, Malkin served as chief of operations for the Israeli intelligence agency and retired from the Mossad in 1976. In the late 1970's, Malkin assisted New York Manhattan district attorney Robert M. Morgenthau on several cases, including the investigation of Frank Terpil, a C.I.A. operative convicted of selling weapons and explosives to Libya and Uganda. Terpil has since fled the United States and remains a fugitive.

Malkin's memoir "Eichmann in My Hands" was turned into the television film "The Man Who Captured Eichmann" in 1996. Arliss Howard played Malkin, and Robert Duvall portrayed Eichmann. Several documentaries were made about the operation, including "Crime Stories: The Capture and Trial of Adolph Eichmann" and "The House on Garibaldi Street."

Because of the extreme secrecy Mossad demanded, Malkin for many years said nothing about his role in Eichmann's capture. He broke his silence only when his mother was on her deathbed. "Mama," he told her, "I captured Eichmann. Fruma is avenged."

In retirement, Malkin pursued art. His paintings received broad acclaim and were shown in Belgium, Japan, Israel and France. He also wrote five books and did private consulting on methods to combat terrorism. Those associated with Malkin also maintain a web site.

March 1, 2005 at age 77. Asphyxiation after vomiting.

Walter H. Halloran >permalink<

Priest

Exorcist

The Rev. Walter H. Halloran was the priest who took part in an exorcism that spawned the book and movie "The Exorcist." Halloran was the last living Jesuit who assisted in an exorcism in 1949 at a psychiatric unit in St. Louis, Missouri. As a 27-year-old Jesuit scholastic at Saint Louis University, Halloran was called by a priest to the psychiatric wing of Alexian Brothers Hospital. Rev. William S. Bowdern was trying to help a 14-year-old boy who he believed was possessed by a demon, and he needed a strong man to help control the boy. Father Bowdern asked Halloran to hold the boy, who broke Halloran's nose. Halloran said he saw streaks and arrows and words like "hell" on the boy's skin. A three-paragraph news account of the incident inspired William Peter Blatty to write his 1971 best seller, "The Exorcist," which led to the movie a few years later. Blatty's story featured a 12-year-old girl.

March 1, 2005 at age 83.

Wild Child Butler >permalink<

Blues harpist

Born George Bulter, it was his mother (aged 13 at the time of his birth) who gave him his nickname. As a todler, when some of the older ladies would come to the shack where he lived, he would grab their legs and tug their skirts. The ladies would tell his mother that she had to do something about that 'wild child' and the name stuck.

Gigging as a bandleader in the 1950s in the southern United States, it wasn't until he moved to Chicago that his career blossomed, working with Willie Dixon, Jimmy Dawkins, Big Walter Horton, Jimmy Rogers, Sammy Lawhorn, Pinetop Perkins, Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Mighty Joe Young. Two decades later, and after recording a number unsuccessful albums (some say due to dubious record label business practices), Butler moved to Ontario, Canada, eventually cutting two well-received albums with veteran UK blues producer Mike Vernon. Butler died in Windsor, Ontario.

March 1, 2005 at age 68.

final credits - march 2005

Al Wasserman >permalink<

Frank Perdue >permalink<

Terri Schiavo >permalink<

Alan Dundes >permalink<

Dr. Don Rose >permalink<

Mitch Hedberg >permalink<

Richard Davies >permalink<

Harry Petschek >permalink<

Johnnie Cochran Jr. >permalink<

Milton Green >permalink<

Richard K. Wright >permalink<

William Paton Cleland >permalink<

Dave Freeman >permalink<

John D. Stewart >permalink<

John T. McTernan >permalink<

Robert F. Slatzer >permalink<

Robin Spry >permalink<

Ahmed Zaki >permalink<

Bob Casey >permalink<

George Atwood >permalink<

Gwydion Brooke >permalink<

Wilfred Bigelow >permalink<

Buenos >permalink<

Eddie Saeta >permalink<

Georgeanna Seegar Jones >permalink<

Gérard Filion >permalink<

Kenneth M. Failor >permalink<

Greg Garrison >permalink<

Marty Levin >permalink<

Melanie Bell >permalink<

Paul Henning >permalink<

Paul Hester >permalink<

David Bushnell >permalink<

David Russell >permalink<

Tinkerbelle >permalink<

David Kossoff >permalink<

Frank Braden Hall >permalink<

Ann Dee >permalink<

Gemini Ganesan >permalink<

Julian "Bud" Lesser >permalink<

Philip Fellows >permalink<

Rod Price >permalink<

Barney Martin >permalink<

Bobby Short >permalink<

David Rodman Scott >permalink<

Frank B. Livingstone >permalink<

Kenzo Tange >permalink<

Lee Mallory >permalink<

Stanley Sadie >permalink<

Wayne Miyata >permalink<

Andrew Toti >permalink<

Charles Purpura >permalink<

David Waters >permalink<

Morris H. Blum >permalink<

Paul Kelly >permalink<

Ted Brown >permalink<

Warner E. Leighton >permalink<

David Boone >permalink<

John DeLorean >permalink<

Joseph "Uncle Joe" Keaulana Jr. >permalink<

Ken Johnson >permalink<

Phillip Ballou >permalink<

Winant Sidle >permalink<

Luisa Alessandri >permalink<

Robert Dale Reed >permalink<

Andre Norton >permalink<

Brooks >permalink<

Czeslaw Slania >permalink<

David Little >permalink<

George F. Kennan >permalink<

Justin Hinds >permalink<

Lalo Guerrero >permalink<

Richard Burdick >permalink<

Saul Holiff >permalink<

Sheldon White >permalink<

Anthony George >permalink<

James Lebron >permalink<

Kid Krupa >permalink<

Laurie West >permalink<