Zelda Rubinstein, who played psychic in 'Poltergeist,' dies at 76

The 4-foot-3 actress made her film debut in 1981; she later was a regular on the TV show 'Picket Fences.' Rubinstein also was an advocate for little people and an early AIDS activist.

Zelda Rubinstein, the diminutive character actress with the childlike voice who was best known as the psychic called in to rid a suburban home of demonic forces in the 1982 horror movie "Poltergeist," has died. She was 76.

Rubinstein, who also appeared as the mother figure in a high-profile mid-1980s public awareness campaign in Los Angeles aimed at stopping the spread of AIDS, died today of natural causes at Barlow Respiratory Hospital in Los Angeles, said Eric Stevens, her agent.

Rubinstein was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center about two months ago after suffering a mild heart attack, Stevens said. "She had ongoing health issues and unfortunately they finally overtook her," he said.

A medical lab technician before launching her acting career in her 40s, the 4-foot-3 Rubinstein made her film debut as one of the little people in the 1981 Chevy Chase comedy "Under the Rainbow."

Among her other credits are the movies "Frances," "Sixteen Candles," "Teen Witch," "Anguish" and "Southland Tales" and the TV series "Picket Fences" on which she was a regular.

But Rubinstein made her biggest impact as Tangina in director Tobe Hooper's “Poltergeist,” co-written by Steven Spielberg, who also served as a producer.

"Do y'all mind hanging back? You're jamming my frequencies," Rubinstein's Tangina says as she tours the house after the young daughter has been sucked into a blinding white light in her bedroom closet and disappeared.

The role was written specifically for a little person.

"I thought it would be neat to show that someone's size had nothing to do with her psychic powers," Spielberg told The Times in 1982. "Good things can come in small packages, and that's certainly true of Zelda."

Film critics agreed.

Sheila Benson of The Times called Rubinstein's Tangina "the most original and reassuring character in the film."

The New Yorker's Pauline Kael raved that the "character gives the movie new life, and she makes a large chunk of it work. . . . she emanates the eerie calm of someone who is used to dealing with tricky, deceiving ghosts."

Kael added that Rubinstein was "so fresh a performer" that after she delivers a speech about the spirit world, "you want to applaud her exit line."

Rubinstein, who reprised her character in two "Poltergeist" sequels, expressed hope that "Poltergeist" would raise awareness of the little people in show business.

"Because I was born mouth first, it's natural for me to be a spokesperson," she said with a laugh in a 1982 People magazine interview.

Her activism began on the set of "Under the Rainbow."

"It's absolutely despicable," she said of the way the little people portraying Munchkins were used as comic relief in the movie. "You're not an actor if you're just a person that fits into a cute costume. You're a prop."

In the wake of "Under the Rainbow," she formed the nonprofit Michael Dunn Memorial Repertory Theater Company in Los Angeles. It was named after the late actor, a little person who received a supporting actor Oscar nomination for his role in the 1965 film "Ship of Fools."

Rubinstein's message to the 16 actors in her company, whose height ranged from 3 feet 8 to 4 feet 6, was: "Become an actor and your world will get much bigger."

The youngest of three children -- and the only little person in the family -- she was born in Pittsburgh on May 28, 1933. Her schoolmates called her Pigeon.

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Pernell Roberts, an original cast member of one of television's classic westerns, "Bonanza," died at his Malibu home Sunday. He was 81.

His death from cancer was confirmed by his wife, Eleanor Criswell.

Roberts was known to fans as the handsome and smart eldest son of the Cartwright clan, Adam. He played the role from its inception in 1959, but tired of the role after six years and left the show to act in films and resume a stage career that had brought him a 1955 Drama Desk Award for best actor in a production of "Macbeth." In 1979, he returned to series television in the popular "Trapper John, M.D.," playing the title character, Dr. John McIntyre, for the show's entire seven seasons.

In later years, he had guest roles in other shows and narrated documentaries. He retired in the late 1990s.

A complete news obituary will follow at www.latimes.com/obits.


(LA Times)- Larry "L.A." Johnson, a documentary filmmaker who worked closely with Neil Young for four decades after meeting the Canadian rocker at Woodstock while working on the concert film about the 1969 rock festival, died Thursday at his home in Redwood City, Calif. He was 62.

Johnson died unexpectedly, and the cause of death was not known, according to a spokeswoman for Young.

Johnson earned an Academy Award nomination for his sound editing work on Michael Wadleigh's ground-breaking 1970 film documenting "three days of peace and music" at Woodstock, where Young had played with rock's then-new supergroup of Crosby, Stills & Nash.

During his subsequent 40-year association with Young, Johnson brought gritty realism and whimsical surrealism to various film and multimedia projects they worked on, from 1974's "Journey Through the Past" to last year's release of “Neil Young Archives: Volume I.”

"He never lost the eye and ear of an original artist, one unafraid to listen to himself first," Young said in a statement. "Even more, he also kept his playful spirit and sense of humor, the things that sparked his heart for a lifetime spent doing what he loved best: listening to music and making movies."

In many respects the Grammy-nominated “Archives” release, for which Johnson is credited as producer, was the culmination of his shared interest with Young in combining the visceral energy and improvisational facets of rock music with the visual realism of film. That project, some 20 years in the making, was an innovative retrospective of the earliest years in Young's life. For the Blu-ray edition, Young, Johnson and their team came up with a new platform for the organization and dissemination of historical materials, including audio and video recordings, film, print documents and photographs in a way that can be continually expanded by way of Internet downloads.

Just before its release, Johnson took part in a media preview in April at a West Hollywood hotel to demonstrate its many innovative aspects. "Our motto has always been: 'Quality -- whether you want it or not,' " Johnson said.

A key member of Young's Shakey Pictures film production company, Johnson served as producer, director, editor and in other capacities. Among the projects he was involved in: "Rust Never Sleeps" (1979); "Human Highway" (1982); Jim Jarmusch's "Year of the Horse (1997); "Silver and Gold" (2000); "Greendale" (2003); and most recently, Jonathan Demme's "Neil Young's Trunk Show" (2009).

Johnson also produced Joni Mitchell's 1980 venture into cinema, "Shadows and Light," was a line producer on Martin Scorsese's acclaimed document of the Band's 1976 farewell concert, "The Last Waltz" and a sound recordist on the 1978 Bob Dylan film "Renaldo and Clara."

Larry Alderman Johnson was born June 11, 1947, in Ft. Benning, Ga., into a military family that moved frequently, which he believed prepared him well for his life as a filmmaker specializing in rock 'n' roll.

He attended Peekskill Military Academy in New York and Rutgers University in New Jersey, and early on became a fan of such East Coast filmmakers as Scorsese and Brian DePalma. Johnson often sought to inject his own work with a street-wise political sensibility.

At the time of his death, he was working on "LincVolt," the chronicle of Young's project converting a gas-guzzling 1959 Lincoln Continental into a zero-emission electric vehicle of the future.

Johnson also worked over the last 24 years overseeing video production elements and helping with fundraising for Young's annual benefit concerts for the Bridge School in Hillsborough, near San Francisco, a facility that serves severely disabled children and their families.

He is survived by children Ben and Hannah Johnson from his marriage to music contractor Leslie Morris, whom he married and divorced twice.