Grammy-winning songwriter Joseph Brooks died today in his Manhattan apartment in what police are calling an apparent suicide, according to The Associated Press.

Brooks, 73, was found with a plastic dry-cleaning bag around his head and a towel wrapped around his neck, police told the AP.

An autopsy will determine the cause of death.

Brooks, best known for writing the Grammy and Academy Award-winning ballad "You Light Up My Life," was indicted last year on more than 80 sex-related charges.

He was awaiting trial on charges that he sexually assaulted several young after luring them into his apartment for supposed acting auditions.

In December 2010, Brooks' son Nicholas Brooks, 24, was arrested in death of fashion designer Sylvie Cachay, who was found dead in a hotel bathtub at SoHo House in New York.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/joseph-brooks-light-life-songwriter-dies-apparent-suicide/story?id=13660072

Paul Splittorff, who spent his entire 15- year major league career with the Kansas City Royals, died Wednesday due to complications from melanoma. He was 64.

The Royals said in a statement that Splittorff died at his home in the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs, Missouri. It was just over a week ago that Splittorff's condition was revealed.

A native of Evansville, Indiana, Splittorff pitched for the Royals from 1970-84, and remains the club's all-time leader in wins, losses, games started and innings pitched.

During his tenure, the left-handed hurler helped the Royals rise from an expansion franchise to an elite club in the American League. Kansas City won four division titles (1976-78, 1980) and made the playoffs on five occasions, during Splittorff's career, reaching the World Series in 1980.

Splittorff retired in June 1984 when the club brought along prospects that included Bret Saberhagen and Mark Gubicza. The team went on to reach the playoffs that year and captured their lone World Series title the following season.

In 429 games, including 392 starts, Splittorff completed his career with a 166-143 mark and a 3.81 earned run average in 2,554 2/3 innings. The Royals inducted him into their Hall of Fame in 1987.

Immediately following his playing career, Splittorff became part of the team's broadcasting crew, but his duties had been cut back since the start of the 2010 season because of illness.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/25/2234081/former-royals-pitcher-splittorff.html#ixzz1NNJjI2iJ

Phyllis Avery, who played the wife of Ray Milland in 75 episodes of the 1953-55 CBS comedy Meet Mr. McNulty, died May 19 of heart failure at her home in Los Angeles. She was 88.

In McNutley (later called The Ray Milland Show), Milland played a professor at a college for girls, with Avery as his wife, Peggy.

During her 50-year career, the petite blonde also co-starred in the 1960-62 CBS soap opera The Clear Horizon and on such shows as Peter Gunn, Have Gun -- Will Travel, The Rifleman, The Millionaire, Rawhide and Perry Mason.

In the mid-'60s, Avery went on to a career selling real estate in West Los Angeles but continued on TV with stints on All in the Family, Maude, Charlie's Angels and Baretta. In the 1990s, she appeared on the series Coach and in the 1993 film Made in America.

Born in New York to screenwriter Stephen Morehouse Avery (1948's Every Girl Should Be Married, starring Cary Grant) and Evelyn Martine, Avery made her Broadway debut in the 1937 production of Orchids Preferred. After graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she played one of the featured ingenues in the 1940 stage hit Charley's Aunt with Jose Ferrer.

In the morale-boosting World War II-era production of Winged Victory, Avery appeared opposite actor Don Taylor (the husband of Elizabeth Taylor in the two Father of the Bride movies), to whom she was married a year later. They divorced in 1955.

Avery made her movie debut in Queen for a Day (1951) and also appeared in the films Ruby Gentry (1952) and The Best Things in Life Are Free (1956).

Survivors include daughters Avery and Anne and granddaughter Martine.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/prolific-tv-actress-phyllis-avery-191168