Gerry Rafferty, the Scottish singer-songwriter best known for the hits 'Baker Street' and 'Stuck in the Middle With You,' died Tuesday, the Guardian reports. The 63-year-old was hospitalized in November 2010 with liver failure and had been ill ever since.

Born in Paisley in 1947, Rafferty was the third child of a hard-drinking Irish miner who frequently abused his family. After his father died when he was 16, Rafferty left school to work and play music. After the Mavericks, his first band with school friend Joe Egan, fell apart, Rafferty joined the Humblebums, a folk band that featured future comedian and actor Billy Connolly.

The Humblebums went their separate ways after a few albums, Rafferty released a solo album in 1971 and formed Stealer's Wheel with Egan in 1972. The band's eponymous debut featured the hit 'Stuck in the Middle With You,' which sold over a million copies and was later featured in Quentin Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs.' The group, which had a top 40 hit with 'Star' in 1974, disbanded in 1975 after diminishing success and legal troubles.

With contract issues finally settled, Rafferty recorded a soft-rock solo album, 'City to City,' in 1978 and hit the big time with the single 'Baker Street.' The song eventually hit No. 2 on the US charts and No. 3 in the UK, with the album selling over 5.5 million copies. Rafferty followed up the albums with the successful 'Night Owl,' and acclaimed but less lucrative LPs like 'Snakes and Ladders' and 'Sleepwalking.'

Sadly, around this time he spiraled into alcoholism, leading his wife of 20 years, Carla, to divorce him in 1990. His drinking troubles continued, with an incident at a posh London hotel making the news in 2008. In 2009, rumors swirled about his health until representatives for him issued a statement saying that he was doing well and working on a new album. That year, he released 'Life Goes On,' which featured six new recordings and remastered tracks from his previous records.

Rafferty is survived by his daughter, Martha, granddaughter, Celia, and brother, Jim.


Actress Anne Francis, who played a sexy private eye in US TV series Honey West, has died aged 80.

Her daughter Jane Uemura, told the Los Angeles Times newspaper that she died from complications of pancreatic cancer.

The star was awarded the best female TV star Golden Globe for Honey West in 1966.

She was also known for playing the love interest in the 1950s science-fiction classic Forbidden Planet.

Throughout her career, which began in radio and Broadway, Francis appeared opposite stars such as Spencer Tracy, Paul Newman and Robert Taylor.

Her other films included Bad Day at Black Rock with Tracy, Rogue Cop and A Lion Is in the Streets.

When film work began to die down, Francis became active in television, appearing in dozens of series, including Mission Impossible, The Golden Girls, Charlie's Angels and Nash Bridges.

Bud Greenspan, who disdained scandals to write, produce and direct uplifting documentaries about Olympic athletes facing triumph and tragedy, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 84.

The cause was Parkinson’s disease, said Nancy Beffa, his companion and business partner.

Mr. Greenspan’s filmmaking style was consistently familiar; it was cinematic comfort food for those who believe in the Olympics as an inspiring, almost spiritual athletic gathering. He unapologetically glorified athletes for overcoming injuries, failures and obstacles with a straightforward storytelling style intended to strike emotional chords.

“I’ve been criticized for having rose-colored glasses,” he told The New York Times in 1996. “I say if that’s true, what’s so bad? I’m not good at hurting people.”

From “16 Days of Glory,” about the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, to the upcoming documentary about the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, his films consisted of profiles of athletes — some stars, some unknowns — bracketed by the opening and closing ceremonies. The athletes told their stories, accompanied by stentorian narration.

One day during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Mr. Greenspan was watching the footage of a four-woman rowing race when he saw a potential episode unexpectedly unfold: one of the Russian crew members’ oars broke, and their race was over.

“How many times do you see four Russians cry?” he said. “This is an asterisk in anyone’s reporting.” But it was a story he felt compelled to follow.

He was a distinctive figure, whose dark-rimmed glasses were usually perched on his shaved head. His attire came in seasonal varieties: a safari jacket over a polo shirt and a beige corduroy sport coat over a turtleneck.

He preferred to let others cover cheating and scandals. In his film about the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, he ignored Ben Johnson, who won the 100-meter race in world-record time, in favor of Calvin Smith, who got the bronze medal after Johnson’s gold was stripped when he tested positive for taking an anabolic steroid.

For Mr. Greenspan’s film about the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, he skipped the sordid pre-Olympic attack on the figure skater Nancy Kerrigan by people associated with a rival skater, Tonya Harding, to focus on the gold medalist in figure skating, Oksana Baiul. “I’m the lone survivor of idealism,” he told The Times in 1998. “I might be from another century.”

Mr. Greenspan, whose given name was Jonah, was born on Sept. 18, 1926, and grew up in Manhattan. His father, Benjamin, was a New York City magistrate, a city marshal and an assistant corporation counsel; his mother, Rachel, earned a law degree after her four children were grown.

He attended New York University while working at WMGM Radio (known at other times as WHN), served as an Army intelligence officer late in World War II and then returned to the station, where he became its sports director at age 21.

He made additional money as an extra in the Metropolitan Opera chorus, where he was a spear carrier who was told never to sing. In the chorus, he met another extra, John Davis, an African-American baritone and heavyweight weight lifter who went on to win gold medals at the 1948 and 1952 Olympics.

Mr. Davis, who felt unappreciated for his achievements in a sport that received little acclaim, was the subject of Mr. Greenspan’s first film, a 15-minute documentary, “The Strongest Man in the World.”

Mr. Greenspan sold the film for $35,000 to the United States Information Agency, which was looking to respond to Soviet propaganda about the way blacks were treated in the United States. “I thought, ‘This is a good business,’” he told The Los Angeles Times.

But it was not yet a career. He directed commercials for an advertising agency — he hired his mother as an extra — even while filming “Jesse Owens Returns to Berlin” in the 1960s. That film became part of his 22-hour, 1976 series, “The Olympiad,” and led to his making the official Olympic film 10 times. He made three others as an independent.

He formed Cappy Productions, which was named for his wife, Cappy Petrash Greenspan, who received an Emmy Award as executive producer of “The Olympiad.” She died in 1983.

The Greenspans never had children. He is survived by Ms. Beffa, who was also the executive producer and director of the films made by Cappy Productions, and his sister, Sarah Rosenberg.

Mr. Greenspan, an eight-time Emmy Award winner, often distilled his view of the Olympics into an incident from the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City. He was shooting the marathon, which was won by an Ethiopian, Mamo Wolde. But what mesmerized him was John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania, who arrived at the stadium long after the early finishers, limping around the track, his bloodied right leg bandaged because of a fall. When Mr. Greenspan asked him why he continued to the end, Mr. Akhwari was incredulous at such a question. “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race,” Mr. Greenspan often recalled him saying. “My country sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.”

Citing Mr. Akhwari’s courage, Mr. Greenspan told The San Francisco Chronicle, “Sometimes the essence of the Olympic Games can be found in people who don’t stand on the victory podium.”

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