http://www.iann.net/voyage/news.htm5 June 2009 - It is with great sadness that we have just learned that Del Monroe, Kowalski in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, passed away today at 1.30pm (Pacific Time). Allan Hunt contacted us a short while ago and said that a recent illness had developed into leukemia. Del was a great friend of fans around the world and represented all that was wonderful and good about Irwin Allen's worlds. He will long be remembered as Kowalski and we send our very deepest sympathies and love to his family and friends.

BANGKOK – Actor David Carradine, star of the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu" who also had a wide-ranging career in the movies, has been found dead in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Michael Turner, confirmed the death of the 72-year-old actor. He says Carradine died either late Wednesday or early Thursday, but he could not provide further details out of consideration for his family.

The Web site of the newspaper The Nation cited unidentified police sources as saying Carradine was found Thursday hanged in his luxury hotel room and is believed to have committed suicide.Carradine was a leading member of a venerable Hollywood acting family that included his father, character actor John Carradine, and brother Keith.

fromhttp://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2009/06/chicago-blues-legend-koko-taylor-dies-at-80.html

Chicago blues legend Koko Taylor dies at 80Chicago blues icon Koko Taylor died Wednesday afternoon at age 80, after surgery May 19 to correct a gastrointestinal bleed.“She was recovering slowly but surely, and then she had a real bad night,” said Marc Lipkin, a spokesman for Taylor’s longtime Chicago-based label, Alligator Records. Taylor was recovering from her surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital when she died.

She had performed only weeks earlier at the Blues Music Awards ceremony in Memphis, Tenn., where she received her record 29th Blues Music Award .

Born Cora Walton in 1928 in Memphis, Tenn., she was orphaned by the time she was 11, and had to work the cotton fields to support herself. She came to Chicago in 1952 with her future husband, Robert “Pops” Taylor, to escape the plantation life and “look for work, start a new life, get married and have a family.” She had no intention of becoming a singer. But she was inspired by the blues songs of Memphis Minnie and Big Mama Thornton at an early age, and had sung gospel in church. When she came to Chicago, she was thrilled by the music she encountered in the South Side clubs, amplified and raucous, a harder incarnation of the backporch brand of blues she had heard in the South. It was the heyday of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and “Pops” Taylor persuaded them to let Koko sing. “I closed my eyes and I got started,” she once told the Tribune. “There were no other women on the scene.”

But her big voice won her a following, and she was instantly accepted. Dixon in particular became a mentor, and persuaded her to record what would become her signature song, “Wang Dang Doodle,” in the mid-‘60s for Chess Records. Taylor was sheepish about the risqué subject matter because of her gospel background, but it soon came to define her feisty style.

Cinamour CEO Glen Hartford diesExec began career as an actorBy Mike BarnesJune 2, 2009, 02:24 PM ET

Glen Hartford, the chairman, CEO and founder of production and distribution company Cinamour Entertainment, died May 31 in an apparent suicide. He was 45.

Hartford's death comes less than two weeks after the company completed its most successful effort at the Cannes Film Festival, said Cord Douglas, who has served as Cinamour's distribution president since its founding in June 2000."The company is growing," Douglas said. "It's a shock. It was the best Cannes we've ever had. Ten or 11 days later he's dead."

A film that Hartford conceived 10 years ago, the boxing-themed "From Mexico With Love," will be Cinamour's first self-produced theatrical release when it receives a platform bow in August.

Cinamour represents more than 100 film and TV titles. It's behind such TV series as "Haunted Hotels," "Saving the Endangered Species" and a follow-up to "America's Toughest Bounty Hunters" and recent films like "Finding Bliss," starring Leelee Sobieski and Jamie Kennedy; "Silent Venom," starring Luke Perry and Tom Berenger, which will air on Sci Fi; and "Christmas Clause," starring Lea Thompson, to air on ABC Family and Ion.Cinamour also is a majority shareholder in GM Studios, an audio and video postproduction facility.

Hartford began his entertainment career as a actor with roles in "The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe" (1971), "Monster" (1980) with John Carradine and "Hell Squad" (1986). All were written and/or directed by his father, Kenneth Hartford.

Among Hartford's survivors are his wife Cheryl and two children -- daughter Emelia, 15, and son Ryan, 11.

John Tolos dies at 78; notorious wrestling villain known as the Golden Greek Los Angeles Times

After leaping atop a fallen Dan Carson, John Tolos drags his rival out of the ring during a 1971 match at the Olympic Auditorium.

His long ring career included a memorable grudge match against Freddie Blassie in the Coliseum in 1971. By Claire Noland 11:30 AM PDT, May 31, 2009

John Tolos, a professional wrestler whose dastardly antics in bouts with archrival Freddie Blassie attracted throngs to the Olympic Auditorium and one record-setting match at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1971, has died. He was 78.

Nicknamed the Golden Greek, Tolos died of kidney failure Thursday at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Woodland Hills, his son Chris said.

Tolos, who spent more than 30 years in the ring, gained fame as Los Angeles' top villain in the early 1970s, according to Dave Meltzer, a pro wrestling historian and editor of the Wrestling Observer newsletter.

"He played the role of an arrogant, good-looking, well-conditioned guy," Meltzer said. "He talked big. . . . He inflamed the crowd so much, he came off as a real superstar in L.A.

"Tolos mostly played the heel in matches against Blassie, Mil Mascaras, Killer Kowalski, Don Carson, Ernie Ladd and others on the Southern California circuit starting in the early 1950s.

By the early '70s, Tolos was often featured in the main event Friday nights at the Olympic Auditorium, then the hotbed of local wrestling, and Saturday nights at the KCOP television studios in Hollywood, with announcer Dick Lane calling the action.

A strapping 6-foot-2, 250-pounder in tip-top shape, Tolos was known for body-slamming his opponents and executing flying knee drops from the ropes onto foes who were sprawled out on the mat.

In 1971, he famously feuded with Blassie during epic matches that whipped fans into a frenzy.

"He used to bite me all the time. That was his thing," Tolos said in a 1990 interview with The Times. "And, man, does your head bleed when someone bites it."

During a match that May at the Olympic, Tolos allegedly threw monsel powder (used by boxing trainers to staunch cuts) into the eyes of Blassie, who screamed that he had been blinded. A doctor recommended Blassie retire, which he did for a few months to have knee surgery and tour Japan.

Back he came on Aug. 27, 1971, for a much-hyped rematch with Tolos at the Coliseum, where a reported 25,847 fans went through the turnstiles and saw Blassie exact his revenge. According to Meltzer and others, that crowd was the biggest to witness a pro wrestling event in California.

The belligerent Blassie wasn't the only one Tolos had to watch out for.

"I was always more afraid of the fans than my opponents," Tolos told The Times in 1990. "Crazy people in most places. I really worried about some of them. They'd hit me with everything, including chairs."

As his son recalled, "It was never any fun to watch Dad get beat up, but it was always exciting to see Dad win."

Tolos' notoriety extended beyond Los Angeles. Because many of the local matches were aired on syndicated TV, he was a draw whenever he toured the United States, including matches against Pedro Morales at Madison Square Garden in New York, or performed in events in Japan and South Korea.He won various championships in North America and appeared in the ring until the mid-1980s. He later managed pro wrestlers in World Wrestling Entertainment events.

Tolos was born April 5, 1931, to Greek immigrant parents in Hamilton, Canada. When he was 18, he followed his older brother Chris into what was known as the World Wide Wrestling Federation. They became a tag team and toured as the Canadian Wrecking Crew for a short time before going solo.Tolos moved back to Canada in the 1960s and in Vancouver met his future wife Ingrid. They married in 1967 and moved back to Los Angeles, where he rejoined the local wrestling scene. He and his wife later divorced.Besides his son, of Woodland Hills, Tolos is survived by a daughter, Tracy Wallace-Serbian of Boston, and his sister, Mary, of Hamilton. His brother died in 2005.

MY NOTE: It was Bruno Sammartino Tolos fought at MSG, not morales.