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http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090920a9.html

Body found on Mount Arafune may be missing cartoonist Usui


MAEBASHI, Gunma Pref. (Kyodo) A body thought to be that of missing
cartoonist Yoshito Usui, the creator of "Crayon Shinchan," was found on
a mountain straddling Gunma and Nagano prefectures Saturday morning,
police said.


The body, which was found by a climber at the base of a steep cliff on
Mount Arafune, will be recovered Sunday to determine if it is that of
the 51-year-old cartoonist, who went missing Sept. 11, the police said.


Usui told his family he was going hiking on Mount Arafune that morning
and would return to his home in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, by
evening, the police said. His family reported him missing the next day.


The Saitama, Gunma and Nagano prefectural police forces have been
conducting a joint search for him ever since.


Usui started drawing "Crayon Shinchan," the story of feisty
kindergartner Shinnosuke Nohara and his family in Kasukabe, in a comic
book published by Futabasha Publishers Ltd. in 1990. The popular cartoon
series was adapted for both television and film.


The city of Kasukabe issued a special residence card to the Nohara
family to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the municipality, and has
also been using Shinchan as a mascot for its child-rearing campaign
since April.

Mary Travers, one-third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died.

The band’s publicist, Heather Lylis, says Travers died at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday. She was 72 and had battled leukemia for several years.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32886244/ns/entertainment-music/

Patrick Swayze succumbs to pancreatic cancer: ‘Dirty Dancing’ star, 57, battled disease since January 2008

Patrick Swayze, the hunky actor who danced his way into viewers’ hearts with “Dirty Dancing” and then broke them with “Ghost,” died Monday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.

“Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,” said a statement released Monday evening by his publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were given.

Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from a particularly deadly form of cancer.

He had kept working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting “The Beast,” an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot. It drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A&E said it had reluctantly decided not to renew it for a second season.

Swayze said he opted not to use painkilling drugs while making “The Beast” because they would have taken the edge off his performance. He acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the disease.

When he first went public with the illness, some reports gave him only weeks to live, but his doctor said his situation was “considerably more optimistic” than that.

“I’d say five years is pretty wishful thinking,” Swayze told ABC’s Barbara Walters in early 2009. “Two years seems likely if you’re going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I’d better get a fire under it.”

‘Dancing’ made him a star
A three-time Golden Globe nominee, Swayze became a star with his performance as the misunderstood bad-boy Johnny Castle in “Dirty Dancing.” As the son of a choreographer who began his career in musical theater, he seemed a natural to play the role.

A coming-of-age romance starring Jennifer Grey as an idealistic young woman on vacation with her family and Swayze as the Catskills resort’s sexy (and much older) dance instructor, the film made great use of both his grace on his feet and his muscular physique.

It became an international phenomenon in the summer of 1987, spawning albums, an Oscar-winning hit song in “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life,” stage productions and a sequel, 2004’s “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights,” in which he made a cameo.

Swayze performed and co-wrote a song on the soundtrack, the ballad “She’s Like the Wind,” inspired by his wife, Lisa Niemi. The film also gave him the chance to utter the now-classic line, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

And it allowed him to poke fun at himself on a “Saturday Night Live” episode, in which he played a wannabe Chippendales dancer alongside the corpulent — and frighteningly shirtless — Chris Farley.

A major crowd-pleaser, the film drew only mixed reviews from critics, though Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times, “Given the limitations of his role, that of a poor but handsome sex-object abused by the rich women at Kellerman’s Mountain House, Mr. Swayze is also good. ... He’s at his best — as is the movie — when he’s dancing.”

Swayze followed that up with the 1989 action flick “Road House,” in which he played a bouncer at a rowdy bar. But it was his performance in 1990’s “Ghost” that showed his vulnerable, sensitive side. He starred as a murdered man trying to communicate with his fiancee (Demi Moore) — with great frustration and longing — through a psychic played by Whoopi Goldberg.

Swayze said at the time that he fought for the role of Sam Wheat (director Jerry Zucker wanted Kevin Kline) but once he went in for an audition and read six scenes, he got it.

Why did he want the part so badly? “It made me cry four or five times,” he said of Bruce Joel Rubin’s Oscar-winning script in an AP interview.

Henry Gibson, the quintessential character actor who played Nazis, priests, drunks and nosy neighbors during a 45-year career that included a stint as an original cast member on 'Laugh-In,' died Monday at his home in Malibu. His son, James, said Gibson died after a brief battle with cancer. He was 73.

Beginning with a role in 'The Nutty Professor' in 1963, Gibson worked steadily until just last year. His big break arrived in 1968 when he began a 3-year stint on 'Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In,' where each week he would hold a flower and read a poem.

The rest of the 1960s and 1970s were spent working on acclaimed TV shows, including 'Love, American Style,' and more meaty film projects like Robert Altman's 1975 country music opus, 'Nashville,' for which Gibson earned a Golden Globes nomination.

Arnold Laven, a director and producer of movies and TV shows who represented one-third of the prolific Levy-Gardner-Laven production team, died Sept. 13 at Tarzana Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 87.

During World War II, Laven -- who got his start as an assistant to Jack Warner at Warner Bros. -- served in the First Motion Picture Unit stationed at Fort (Hal) Roach (Studios) in Culver City making training films alongside the likes of Ronald Reagan, Clark Gable and William Holden.

There, he met Jules V. Levy and Arthur Gardner. After the war and stints as script supervisors and assistant directors, the three formed Levy-Gardner-Laven Prods. in 1951. It would become one of the longest-running partnerships in Hollywood history.

Their first feature, the Laven-directed "Without Warning" (1952), about a murderous gardener in Los Angeles, was made on a shoestring for $70,000 and launched the trio's journey. During the next three decades, Levy-Gardner-Laven would produce four television series and more than 20 features.

Laven's TV directing credits (both for and outside his production company) included episodes of such popular shows as "The Big Valley," "The Rifleman," "Mannix," "Ironside," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Rockford Files," "Fantasy Island," "Eight Is Enough," "ChiPs," "Hill Street Blues" and "The A-Team."

He directed such films as "Down Three Dark Streets" (1954), starring Edward G. Robinson; "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" (1957), toplined by Walter Matthau; "The Rack" (1956), starring Paul Newman; "Anna Lucasta" (1959), with Sammy Davis Jr. and Eartha Kitt; "Geronimo" (1962), starring Chuck Connors; and "Sam Whiskey" (1969) starring Burt Reynolds.

In 1957, Laven and his partners were developing a Western for Dick Powell's "Zane Grey Theater" and collaborating with a new screenwriter, Sam Peckinpah. The series, about a settler particularly adept at shooting a rifle, needed something to separate it from the many Westerns then on the air and in development.

Laven looked to his own relationship with his son Larry and told Peckinpah to foster a father-son relationship. The show, "The Rifleman," starring Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford, became one of the most successful of the 1960s.

Levy-Gardner-Laven also produced TV shows "The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor" and "The Big Valley," with Barbara Stanwyck.

Most recently, Laven helped with the launch of "The Rifleman" on Hulu to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary.

Levy died in 2003. Gardner, 99, still comes to work every day at Levy-Gardner-Laven offices in Beverly Hills, according to his son, Steven Gardner.

In addition to his son Larry, Laven's survivors include Wally, his wife of more than 58 years; daughter Barbara; and sister Rennie Skepner.


In 1980, he played an Illinois Nazi going after a pair of soul-singing louts in 'The Blues Brothers' and later in the decade played the villainous neighbor in Tom Hanks' hit 'The Burbs.'

Other memorable films include a 'Gremlins' sequel, Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Magnolia,' and most recently a turn as a clergyman who gets an earful from Vince Vaughn in 'Wedding Crashers.'

Until last year, he carried on a recurring role on 'Boston Legal.'

Born James Bateman in Germantown, Pa., Gibson began acting professionally at age 8. He is survived by his wife and three sons.