Joseph Wiseman, a longtime stage and screen actor most widely known for playing the villainous title character in Dr. No, the first feature film about James Bond, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 91.

His daughter, Martha Graham Wiseman, confirmed the death, saying her father had recently been in declining health.

Released in 1962, “Dr. No” was the first in what proved to be a decades-long string of Bond movies. Starring Sean Connery and Ursula Andress, the film featured Mr. Wiseman as Dr. Julius No, the sinister scientist who was Bond’s first big-screen adversary.

Mr. Wiseman's other film credits include Detective Story(1951); Viva Zapata!1952); The Garment Jungle(1957); The Unforgiven(1960);The Night They Raided Minsky(1968) and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974).

He had guest roles on many television shows, among them Law & Order,The Streets of San Francisco, The Untouchables and The Twilight Zone. In the late 1980s, he had a recurring role as the crime boss Manny Weisbord on the NBC drama Crime Story.

On Broadway, Mr. Wiseman was seen most recently, in 2001, as a witness for the prosecution in Abby Mann's stage adaptation of his film drama Judgment at Nuremberg. In 1994, he appeared Off Broadway in the Tony Kushner play Slavs! in the role of Prelapsarianov,mthe world's oldest living Bolshevik.

Writing in The New York Times, Vincent Canby said Mr. Wiseman played Prelapsarianov to frail perfection.

Joseph Wiseman was born in Montreal on May 15, 1918, and moved to the United States with his family when he was a boy. His first Broadway role was in the company of Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1938). Among his many other Broadway credits are Joan of Lorraine (1946), Antony and Cleopatra(1947), Detective Story(1949); The Lark(1955) and the title role in In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (1969).

Mr. Wiseman first marriage, to Nell Kinard, ended in divorce; his second wife, the choreographer Pearl Lang, died in February. In addition to his daughter, Martha, from his marriage to Ms. Kinard, Mr. Wiseman is survived by a sister, Ruth Wiseman.

Vic Mizzy, a film and television composer best known for writing the memorable theme songs for the 1960s sit-coms Green Acres and The Addams Family, has died. He was 93.

Mizzy died of heart failure Saturday at his home in Los Angeles' Bel-Air neighborhood, said Scott Harper, a friend and fellow composer.

A veteran writer of popular songs such as There's a Faraway Look in Your Eye and Pretty Kitty Blue Eyes, Mizzy launched his TV career in 1960 when he was asked to compose music for the dramatic anthology series ``Moment of Fear.''

Then came an offbeat assignment: The Addams Family, the 1964-66 TV series based on Charles Addams' macabre magazine cartoons and starring John Astin as Gomez Addams and Carolyn Jones as his wife, Morticia.

For his theme song, Mizzy played a harpsichord, which gives the theme its unique flavor. And because Filmways refused to pay for singers, Mizzy sang it himself and overdubbed it three times.

The song, memorably punctuated by finger-snapping, begins with: ``They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ooky: the Addams family.''

In the 1996 book TV's Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes From `Dragnet' to `Friends,' '' author Jon Burlingame writes that Mizzy's ``musical conception was so specific that he became deeply involved with the filming of the main-title sequence, which involved all seven actors snapping their fingers in carefully timed rhythm to Mizzy's music.''

For Mizzy, who owned the publishing rights to The Addams Family theme, it was an easy payday.

``I sat down; I went `buh-buh-buh-bump (snap snap), buh-buh-buh-bump,'' he recalled in a 2008 interview on CBS' ``Sunday Morning'' show. ``That's why I'm living in Bel-Air: Two finger snaps, and you live in Bel-Air.''

The season after The Addams Family debuted, Mizzy composed the title song for Green Acres, the 1965-71 rural comedy starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.

For Green Acres, Burlingame observed in his book, Mizzy ``again conceived the title song as intertwined with the visuals'' of the show's opening title sequence and telling the story of wealthy Oliver and Lisa Douglas moving from New York City to a farm in the country.

Burlingame on Monday described the themes for The Addams Family and Green Acres as ``two of the best-remembered sit-com themes of all time.''

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/george_tuska_1916_2009/