Producer, writer and director Leonard Stern, who created with Jackie Gleason the iconic TV series "The Honeymooners" as well as almost two dozen other series and 12 films and was also a leader of the Producers Guild of America, died Tuesday, June 7, in Los Angeles. He was 88.
Stern, who also partnered with Roger Price and Larry Sloan in the Price/Stern/Sloan literary publishing company, authored several books, including "Dear Attila the Hun" and "A Martian Wouldn't Say That!" Jay Leno has regularly dipped into the latter, a collection of memos from TV executives that they wish they hadn't written, on "The Tonight Show." The firm was launched with the popular Mad Libs, the word game created by Stern and Price and published since 1958.

Stern quickly grew to become one of the busiest creative forces in television, writing a season of "The Phil Silvers Show" (aka "Sergeant Bilko") and drawing a shared Emmy in the process, followed by 150 episodes as head writer of "The Steve Allen Show," for which he was also Emmy nommed. He also produced "Get Smart" for five years, earning an Emmy nomination for best comedy series and winning one, together with Buck Henry, for comedy writing.

Stern created "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster"; "He and She," drawing another shared Emmy nom; and "The Governor and J.J."

But he didn't always work in comedy, spending time in the detective genre as well. Stern wrote, directed and produced seven years of NBC's "McMillan and Wife," starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James, and also worked on the network's "The Snoop Sisters," with Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick, and "Lanigan's Rabbi," with Art Carney.

A native of New York City, Stern received a degree from the NYU School of Journalism.

His first screenplays were for 1950's "Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion" and the Abbott and Costello vehicle "Lost in Alaska." Other movie credits include the screenplays for "Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town"; "The Jazz Singer," starring Danny Thomas; and "Three for the Money," starring Jack Lemmon and Betty Grable. He co-wrote and directed 1979's "Just You and Me, Kid," starring George Burns, and 1992's "Missing Pieces," with Eric Idle and Robert Wuhl. For 20th Century Fox, he wrote the original script for "Target" (1985), starring Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon.

Stern's work in television won him two Emmy Awards, three Writers Guild of America Awards and a Peabody Award, as well as numerous Emmy nominations.

In l996, after Price/Stern/Sloan was sold to Putnam, Stern formed Tallfellow Inc., which sought to create a "story salon" for writers. The company aimed to be a virtual alternative story department for producers, directors, studios and independent filmmakers. His first project for Tallfellow was "Pledge of Allegiance" with Paramount Pictures.

In recent years, Stern served in the dual capacity as president and chairman of the Producers Guild of America and member of the steering committee and chair of the Caucus for Producers, Writers and Directors. In 1993, the caucus named him member of the year, and he received the Distinguished Service Award for outstanding lifetime achievement. In 1992, he received the Charles FitzSimons Honorary Lifetime Member Award from the Producers Guild.

Stern is survived by his wife, actress Gloria Stroock; a son and a daughter; two grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

Funeral Services and interment will be Friday at 2 p.m. at Mt. Sinai, 5950 Forest Lawn Drive, Hollywood Hills.

Donations may be made to the Writers Guild of America Foundation.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118038251?refCatId=14

Spanish-born author Jorge Semprun dies at 87


By Adam Bernstein, Published: June 9


Jorge Semprun, a Spanish-born author who drew from experiences as an
anti-fascist resistance fighter, concentration camp inmate and exiled
intellectual to write several acclaimed books about the Holocaust and
screenplays, including the gripping political thriller “Z,” died June
7 at his home in Paris. He was 87, and no cause of death was reported.


An urbane and witty man, and sometimes maddeningly elliptical writer,
Mr. Semprun combined politics and literature in a deeply personal way.
He came from a distinguished family of Spanish lawyers and
politicians, including a former prime minister. The family left for
France during the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s that brought
fascist dictator Francisco Franco to power.


Mr. Semprun remained in France much of his life. He spoke uneasily of
having a dual national identity. “Sometimes,” he said, “I feel a
little schizophrenic.”


His life became one of fractured political relationships. As a young
man, he was a resistance fighter against Franco and against the
Germans during their occupation of Paris.


After the war, he became a daring operative in the Spanish and French
communist parties; his successor in Spain was caught, tortured and
executed. But when news spread of the Stalinist show trials and other
violent purges of the early 1950s, he began to feel more like a
dissident from party orthodoxy. Framing himself as a humanist and
realist, he said he was expelled in 1964 for deviating too far from
the party line.


Remaining committed to left-wing politics, he channeled his literary
talents into Oscar-nominated screenplays, including director
Constantin Costa-Gavras’s “Z” (1969) and director Alain Resnais’s 1966
drama “La guerre est finie” (The War Is Over), the second of which
starred Yves Montand as a courier in the Spanish communist
underground.


By far the more enduring film, “Z” starred Montand as a pacifist
leader whose assassination is covered up by the totalitarian Greek
junta then in power. Film critic Pauline Kael called “Z,” which was
based on a novel by Greek writer and diplomat Vasilis Vasilikos, “one
of the fastest, most exciting melodramas ever made.”


In recent years, Mr. Semprun had received prestigious literary awards
in Europe and Israel for championing individual freedom of expression.
Peruvian author and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa wrote a tribute
to Mr. Semprun in the Spanish newspaper El Pais that noted, “like
Albert Camus, his was a literature filled with great moral
preoccupation.”


Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain called Mr.
Semprun “an intellectual committed to the dignity of man.” The earlier
socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez had hired Mr. Semprun as its
culture minister in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and his return to
Spain was widely viewed as a moment of absolution for the writer.


For years, he had been persona non grata in his homeland after his
bestselling 1977 memoir, “The Autobiography of Federico Sanchez,” cast
doubt on the extent to which the Socialist Party had broken with its
Stalinist roots. The title referred to Mr. Semprun’s pseudonym while
serving as a clandestine organizer for the party, which had been
outlawed during Franco’s decades in power.


Although written as a memoir, it was initially marketed in Spain as
fiction because of political sensitivities after Franco’s death in
1975. The book drew lavish international praise for its powerful
insider’s account of a political party coming to grips with de-
Stalinization.


Jorge Semprun Maura was born in Madrid on Dec. 10, 1923. After his
family moved to France, he dedicated himself to French underground
guerilla forces fighting the Germans.


Captured by the Gestapo in 1943, he was sent to the Buchenwald
concentration camp in Germany for the remainder of the war. He
attributed his survival to having obtained a desk job through his
fluency in German — thanks to a German nanny from childhood — and
influential connections in the underground.


Once liberated from Buchenwald by the Americans, he found himself too
emotionally deadened to pursue a longheld interest in writing.


“For the first 17 years of my life, I never doubted that I was a
writer, even though I’d written nothing — just the usual youthful
fragments,” he later told the London Independent. “And then, what was
I going to write if not about Buchenwald? Some little romantic novel,
about first love or rites of passage? [Holocaust survivor and author]
Primo Levi said that in writing one is liberated and returns to life,
whereas I didn’t return to life but remained locked in death.”


Mr. Semprun initially thought that his involvement in politics was the
way forward. Then, once expelled from the communist party, he turned
full time to writing books and screenplays.


He worked again with Resnais, on the French political drama
“Stavisky” (1974), but was better known for his collaboration with
Costa-Gavras, which included stinging indictments of fascism including
“The Confession” (1970), about the Stalin-sponsored show trials in
Czechoslovakia, and “State of Siege” (1975), a political kidnapping
drama set in Latin America. Both Costa-Gavras films starred Montand.


Mr. Semprun’s early marriage, to French actress and playwright Loleh
Bellon, ended in divorce; a son from that marriage died. Mr. Semprun
later married Colette Leloup, who died in 2007. Survivors include five
children from that marriage.


In addition to his films, Mr. Semprun made significant contributions
to Holocaust literature. His first book, “Le Grand Voyage,” published
in France in 1964, was a fictionalized account of his journey by train
to Buchenwald.


After it was translated decades later into English as “The Long
Voyage” and “The Cattle Truck,” critic Amanda Hopkinson, writing in
the New Statesman, called Mr. Semprun’s work “essential reading.”


Mr. Semprun’s other books included “Quel Beau Dimanche (What a
Beautiful Sunday!),” a novel set at Buchenwald that flashes backward
and forward in time and that was influenced by Alexander I.
Solzhenitsyn’s novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch.”


In his highly praised 1994 book “L’Ecriture ou la Vie (Literature or
Life),” Mr. Semprun wrote about the struggle of describing the
Holocaust — how to put the unimaginable horrors into words.


Art, and especially literature, he later told an Israeli reporter,
“can transform culture, and through this process, society. Only
minimally, of course. It’s obvious that it is wars, revolutions and
big capital that really make the crucial differences. Literature is
not a privileged activity separated and alienated from the real world.
Even the most abstract writers still somehow bear witness to reality.”

Tomoko Kawakami (April 25, 1971 – June 9, 2011) was a Japanese voice actress from Tokyo. Having graduated from the Toho Gakuen School of Music, Kawakami was affiliated with Production Baobab at the time of her death. She was best known for her roles in Revolutionary Girl Utena (as Utena Tenjou), Hikaru no Go (as Hikaru Shindou), Sgt. Frog (as Fuyuki Hinata), Harukanaru Toki no Naka de (as Akane Motomiya) and Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple (as Miu Furinji). Kawakami died on June 9, 2011, aged 40, after a long battle with ovarian cancer.
Career
Kawakami debuted in 1994 as a role of a boy in Metal Fighter Miku. Her first regular performance was in 1995 as Chiriko in Fushigi Yuugi. Two years after, she landed her first starring voice role as Utena Tenjou in Revolutionary Girl Utena. Aside from Chiriko and Utena, her famous roles are in Air (Misuzu Kamio), Bleach (Soifon), Chrono Crusade (Rosette Christopher), Hikaru no Go (Hikaru Shindou) and Sgt. Frog (Fuyuki Hinata).

A versatile voice actress, Kawakami was capable of providing voice for young boys, girls and comical characters. The best-known genre of her roles are tomboyish characters (Soifon, Utena Tenjou). With such a powerful voice, she was often affiliated in paranormal and shôjo-ai-themed anime. She also made her name voicing the heroine in the Harukanaru Toki no Naka de series, based from the Neoromance game with the same title produced by Koei in 1996.

In August 2008, Kawakami was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which required surgery. She took 20 months of sick leave. During this time, most of her ongoing roles were replaced by other voice actresses, although Kawakami was able to do some voice work during her illness.


SULLIVAN, Grant June 30, 1924- May 31, 2011 Died peacefully at home of cancer. By his side was his beloved wife of 42 years, Valedia, who loved and adored him. Grant faced his illness with infinite grace and courage. Born in Nebraska, he grew up in Southern California, attending schools in Long Beach and Anaheim. In World War II he served in the U. S. Navy. After the war, he entered Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon) to study drama and then to N.Y. City into the golden age of live television. He appeared in many of the great TV productions of the time as well as in Broadway plays. In the early sixties he starred in the TV series Pony Express. Taught to ride by the great stunt rider, Boyd Morgan, he had the greatest respect for his crew, especially the old character actors who appeared with him. In the early 70's he began a second career in real estate, specializing in new homes. He was an executive with the Mission Viejo Co. as well as Great Western Real Estate. After retirement he enjoyed working for the Warmington Company. Also survived by a brother, Don Schulz, nieces and nephews, and grandnieces and nephews. Grant was a wonderful companion, eager to hear the news of the day from Peanuts to Paul Krugman, loved music from Count Basie to Chopin, all subjects from space to sports, Laguna sunsets, fields of wildflowers, and a glass of lovely wine. "...and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars and he will make the face of heaven so fine..." - Romeo and Juliet

Published in the Los Angeles Times on June 12, 2011