Robert Ginty, star of action films such as "The Exterminator" who also wrote, produced and directed, died of cancer Monday in Los Angeles. He was 60.
The rugged thesp was mostly known for his tough guy roles in B-movies, but in addition to writing and directing TV shows and films, he directed experimental theater productions and dabbled in painting and photography.

Ginty's first major role were in Hal Ashby's "Coming Home" and as recurring character on series "Baa Baa, Black Sheep." More recently, he became a theater director, directing productions such as a Toronto rap/hip hop version of "A Clockwork Orange."

Among his TV roles were playing Thomas Craig Anderson on "The Paper Chase," and recurring roles on "Hawaiian Heat" and "Falcon Crest."

After starring in "The Exterminator" in 1980, Ginty went on to star in a string of action movies such as "Gold Raiders," "Cop Target," "The Alchemist," "Gold Raiders," "The Scarab" and "Exterminator 2." He wrote, directed and starred in "The Bounty Hunter" and then began directing for episodic television.

Ginty was nominated for a Cable Ace award on HBO series "Dream On" and directed shows including "China Beach," "Evening Shade," "Nash Bridges," "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," "Charmed" and "Xena: Warrior Princess."

In recent years, his career took a different direction as he worked in Canada, France, Ireland and Italy as a theater director and as an artist in residence at Harvard U.

Born in New York, he studied acting at the Actors Studio and Yale, and then begin acting in theater productions. Moving to Hollywood, Ginty began guest starring in tv shows and appeared in small roles in the films "Bound for Glory" and "Two Minute Warning."

He is survived by his wife Michelle and son James Francis, an actor.

wreg.com /sns-ap-ms--obit-samcarr,0,71043.story

WREG
Blues drummer Sam Carr dies at age 83
By Associated Press


3:09 PM CDT, September 22, 2009


CLARKSDALE, Miss. (AP) - Sam Carr, a blues drummer who played with such
musicians as Sonny Boy Willamson II and Robert Nighthawk, has died. He
was 83.


Century Funeral Home director John Andrews said Carr died Monday at
Greenbough Nursing Home Center in Clarksdale of natural causes. Andrews
said services for Carr will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at the funeral
home chapel in Clarksdale. Andrews said burial will follow in Thompson
Chapel Cemetery in Dundee.

Carr was born Samuel Lee McCollum in 1926 near Marvell, Ark. His name
was changed after he was adopted as a toddler by a Mississippi family
with a farm near Dundee.

By DENNIS HEVESI
New York Times News Service

Dick Berg, a television producer best known for creating major history-based mini-series like “Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story” and the 13-hour adaptation of James A. Michener’s book “Space,” died Sept. 1 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87.

The cause was complications after a fall, his son Scott said.

In a career spanning more than 50 years, Berg produced or wrote scripts for nearly 100 television shows, starting with hourlong original dramas and detective shows in the 1950s and ’60s. He wrote the pilot for “Johnny Staccato,” a 1959-1960 series that gathered something of a cult following, in which John Cassavetes played a jazz pianist in Greenwich Village who supplements his income by taking on detective work. Soon after, Berg moved on to produce 39 episodes of “Checkmate,” a series that chronicled the adventures of a private detective agency in San Francisco that specialized in preventing crimes rather than solving them.

From there, Berg turned toward producing original dramas for Alcoa Premiere and the Chrysler Theater, for which he hired the likes of William Inge and Rod Serling to write original teleplays. Berg’s productions advanced the careers of young directors like Sydney Pollack, Mark Rydell, Robert Ellis Miller, and Stuart Rosenberg.

For 30 years, Berg’s company, Stonehenge Productions, produced dozens of movies of the week and mini-series, many of them adapted from best-selling books. Among them were “The Martian Chronicles,” by Ray Bradbury; “The Word,” by Irving Wallace; and “A Rumor of War,” by Phil Caputo.

Berg had a banner year in 1985, when both “Space” and “Wallenberg” were broadcast.

“Space,” an extravaganza that cost more than $30 million to produce, recounted the development of the space program, with fictional characters based on real-life astronauts like Alan B. Shepard Jr. and John Glenn, scientists like Wernher von Braun and NASA officials like Chris Craft.

“Wallenberg” was Berg’s adaptation of “Lost Hero,” a book by Frederick E. Werbell and Thurston Clarke, which told how Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, rescued nearly 100,000 Hungarian Jews during World War II, then disappeared into the Soviet gulag.

Berg’s production of “Wallenberg,” The New York Times said, “accomplishes what it sets out to do — to tell, endorse and celebrate the story of a genuine hero.”

Richard Joseph Berg was born in Manhattan on Feb. 16, 1922, the son of John and Sylvia Berg. His father was a paint salesman. Besides his son A. Scott Berg, who won a 1999 Pulitzer Prize for his biography “Lindbergh,” Berg is survived by his wife of 63 years, the former Barbara Freedman, and three other sons: Jeff, who is chairman of International Creative Management, the talent agency; Tony, a record producer and executive; and Rick, a manager and producer. He is also survived by seven grandchildren.

After graduating from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1942, Berg went to Hollywood, where he hoped to become an actor. He found work only as a dialogue coach for movie cowboys. Not happy, he moved to Westport, Conn., where he ran an art gallery.

At night and on weekends, he began writing scripts on speculation for live television. More than a dozen of his original dramas appeared on programs like “Kraft Theater,” “Robert Montgomery Presents,” “Studio One,” and “Playhouse 90.” One of them, “The Drop of a Hat,” caught the attention of Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Studios, which called Berg to Hollywood as a screenwriter in 1957.


John Hart, the other 'Lone Ranger,' dies at 91


The actor took over the TV role for 52 episodes when Clayton Moore walked out in a pay dispute. He also played the title role in the 1947 Columbia serial 'Jack Armstrong: The All-American Boy.'

By Dennis McLellan

September 22, 2009

Most TV fans of a certain age know the answer to the question, "Who played the Lone Ranger?"

Those who say Clayton Moore are correct, at least partially.

There was another actor who played the Masked Man on "The Lone Ranger" TV series, temporarily replacing Moore in the title role for 52 episodes beginning in 1952.

John Hart, 91, the handsome and athletic actor who also starred in the 1940s movie serial "Jack Armstrong: The All-American Boy" and the 1950s TV series "Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans," died Sunday at his home in Rosarito Beach in Baja California, said his wife, Beryl.

"He had dementia in his last years," she said Tuesday, "but he was very happy living by the ocean. He used to surf this whole coast in the late '30s and after the war."

A Los Angeles native who launched his Hollywood career with a few bit partsin Cecil B. DeMille's 1938 film "The Buccaneer," Hart played small roles in a string of films before being drafted into the Army in 1941.

Relaunching his career after the war, he played the title role in the 1947 Columbia serial "Jack Armstrong: The All-American Boy," which was based on the popular radio show.

Hart already had appeared in a couple of episodes of "The Lone Ranger" as a guest actor when Moore left the series, reportedly over a pay dispute.

"I don't know how many other actors they looked at, but I got the part," Hart said in an interview for the book "The Story of the Lone Ranger" by James Van Hise. "They didn't pay me much, either. It was unbelievable. But being an out-of-work actor, to have a steady job for awhile is great."

Hart said they shot each half-hour episode in two days.

When he began playing the role, he said in a 2001 interview with Tom Weaver for Starlog magazine, "I got a lot of bad advice about playing the part. I tried the bad advice for about one or two shows and then I said, 'The hell with that; I'll do it my own way.' They wanted me to be like a stiff Army major, and it was all wrong. So I just forgot that and slipped into the part, and everybody loved it."

For many "Lone Ranger" fans, Moore owned the iconic role, and Hart was placed in an unenviable position when he took it over.

"Tough job, but somebody's got to do it," said Boyd Magers, editor and publisher of Western Clippings, a western-film publication. "He walked right into it, and he played the Lone Ranger to the hilt. For those 52 episodes, he became the man behind the mask."

Hart was no stranger to horses, having worked as a cowboy during the summers while growing up.

"He worked very hard with Silver, the horse, who had been spooked previously, and was very large and very hard to handle," said Beryl Hart. "They hired him for a month to work with him.

"He said he could call Silver from one side of a corral and get him pounding toward him, this huge horse, and get him to stop on a dime right in front of him."

After Moore returned to "The Lone Ranger," Hart went on to star in the 1955 Columbia serial "The Adventures of Captain Africa."

He also starred in "Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans," a 1957 syndicated TV series shot in Canada with Lon Chaney Jr. as Chingachgook.

While shooting the series in Canada, Hart met his Canadian-born actress wife, then known as Beryl Braithwaite, when she landed a three-day acting job on the series.

Ten days later, the 20-year-old Braithwaite and the 39-year-old Hart were married.

Hart reconnected with "The Lone Ranger" when he played a newspaper editor in the 1981 movie "The Legend of the Lone Ranger," starring Klinton Spilsbury as the Masked Man.

Hart also played the Lone Ranger in a 1981 episode of "The Greatest American Hero" and in a 1982 episode of "Happy Days."

Hart was born Dec. 13, 1917, in Los Angeles and grew up in San Marino, where his mother was a drama critic for the Pasadena Star-News.

A graduate of South Pasadena High School, he appeared in a number of shows at the Pasadena Playhouse before landing a Hollywood agent. After working on "The Buccaneer," he was placed under contract at Paramount.

In the late `60s, Hart became a filmmaker, producing educational, sales and travel films. He later supervised post-production on the TV series "Quincy, M.E."

In addition to his wife of 52 years, Hart is survived by his daughter, Robyn Proiette.