Johnny Perez, drummer on the Sir Douglas Quintet's biggest hits and an accomplished songwriter collaborating on hit songs with Joe “King” Carrasco, has died.

Perez was 69. He died Tuesday at a Topanga, Calif., hospital from complication of cirrhosis of the liver.

His greatest claim to fame was his time in the 1960s with San Antonio's legendary Sir Douglas Quintet with Doug Sahm, Augie Meyers, Frank Morin and Jack Barber.

Perez also owned Topanga Skyline Studio, which opened in the early 1970s.

Before making the charts with “She's About a Mover,” “The Rains Came” and “Mendocino” and riding the wave of the British Invasion and the garage rock explosion, the young combo often played at the Blue Note, a beer joint at the corner of Hildebrand Avenue and Blanco Road.

In the early '60s, Perez was a Golden Gloves amateur boxer. He was the Sir Douglas Quintet's wild child, too. Perez's friends knew him as “J.P.” since his days at Fox Tech High School.

“J.P. was the spirit of the band,” said Shawn Sahm, recounting stories his father told him. “He used to protect the guys from people that picked on them for having long hair. He was saving their (butts) all the time. I loved J.P. He was a big part of that whole Sir Douglas Quintet trip.”

Likewise, bassist Jack Barber recalled the early days on the road with Perez.

“He'd run around the room shadowboxing with himself,” Barber said. “We were always doing crazy (stuff), playing music.”

Texas Tornados drummer Ernie Durawa said he recommended Perez for the Quintet when he couldn't travel.

“I took him to the airport and put him on the plane. He went out to California and got famous with the Sir Douglas Quintet,” Durawa said. “He had a way of playing that fit” them.

Later, Perez moved to the West Coast along with Sahm and other members of the quintet after a drug bust in Corpus Christi in the mid-'60s.

Perez earned a reputation as a songwriter there.

“He always had a rhyme in his head and a song to pitch,” recalled Joe Nick Patoski, author of “Willie Nelson: An Epic Life.” “He was an L.A. mover and shaker.”

Songwriting partner Carrasco said he was devastated by news of Perez's death. The two first collaborated in 1977, coming up with Tex-Mex classics such as “Buena” and “Pachuco Hop.” And Carrasco said they were writing a new song, albeit a long-distance effort, called “Tamale Christmas.”

“He was just a volcano of rhymes. The biggest songs of my career are all done with Johnny,” Carrasco said of his friend, who was proud of his days in the Sir Douglas Quintet to the end.

“It's funny. He'd say, ‘I was the magic of that groove. ‘Mendocino,' that was me.' He's right. He had a special style,” Carrasco said. “It's still sinking in. Johnny never gave up looking for that magic.”


http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Sir-Douglas-Quintet-drummer-Perez-dies-3861240.php

(BBC)-
Stanley Long 'King of Sexploitation' dies

Long's films included On The Game, Eskimo Nell and The Wife Swappers

British film-maker Stanley Long, known for directing a string of low-budget sex comedies in the 1960s and '70s, has died aged 78.

Dubbed the "King of Sexploitation", Long directed such films as On the Game and Sex and the Other Woman.

He was also behind 1976 film Adventures Of A Taxi Driver - a rival to the hit Confessions films starring Robin Askwith - which spawned two sequels.

Long's family said he died of natural causes in Buckinghamshire.

The film-maker became a millionaire in his late thirties after producing movies that mixed bawdy comedy with female nudity.

His X-rated sex farces starred a number of household names, such as Diana Dors, Liz Fraser and Ian Lavender.

He also gave Shirley Valentine actress Pauline Collins her first big break.

Long began his career as a photographer for Picture Post. After serving in the RAF he began taking nude photos for a men's magazine.

He later turned to making movies with his company Stag Films, producing more than 150 shorts before moving to features.

West End Jungle, a 1964 documentary about Soho's sex industry, caused an outcry and remained banned by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) until 2008. The following year it was screened on BBC Four.

Recently Long worked with his post-production company, Salon, on such films as Batman Begins and V for Vendetta.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19584032

WILSON, Vondell Darr was born on April 18, 1919 in Los Angeles, California and passed away on September 10, 2012. Vondell studied at Holmby School for Girls, Beverly Hills High School and graduated from UCLA in 1941.

From the age of five, Vondell was an accomplished child actress, featured in both silent and talking pictures, starring in such films as "On Trial", "The Dummy", "the Pony Express" "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Scouts to the Rescue", working with Paramount, MGM and Warner Brother Studios. She continued her acting career through her teens, appearing in the "Andy Hardy" series.

Vondell's greatest passion in life was her husband and family. She met her adored husband, Fred, in high school at the age of 15, and they married in Catalina on July 8, 1941.

Throughout their 65-year marriage, Vondell was the supportive Naval wife during World War II and the Korean War, and the complementary partner and impeccable hostess for Fred, while he established and grew his career, entertaining politicians, business leaders and entertainment icons. She dedicated all her love, passion, energy and life to providing the perfect home for her husband and large family. She was devoted to her three daughters, six grandchildren, and her eight great-grandchildren.

Vondell was a gourmet cook, and always made every family gathering inviting, warm and loving, creating family traditions that we will treasure always. Vondell adored all beautiful things in nature, cherished time in her gardens in Encino, Rancho Mirage and Lake Arrowhead and walking her dogs. She enjoyed painting and playing bridge with her many friends at the Lake. All those that knew Vonnie will always remember her tremendous beauty, inner spirituality, peacefulness, endless grace, courage, love and compassion.

Her husband, Fred C. Wilson, Daughter Sharon Merz, son-in-law Ron Merz and grandson Billy Peschelt precede Vondell in death. She is survived by daughters Marlene (Joel) Friedman and Rhonda (Skip) Kozacik; grandchildren Stacy (Rob) Risbrough, Stephanie (David) Close and Brett (Erin) Merz, Trey and Kurt Kozacik; and great-grandchildren Katie, Emily and Madelyn Risbrough, Annie, Grace and Caroline Close, and Hayden and Molly Merz. Her Memorial Service will be held at 1:00pm Tuesday, September 18, 2012 at First United Methodist Church of North Hollywood. Cabot & Sons, Pasadena Directors.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?n=Vondell-WILSON&pid=159872564#fbLoggedOut

Actor William Windom has died at 88. According to wikipedia and Findagrave. A Blue Day For The Blues - Lou Martin R.I.P. August 17th, 2012 Sadly, I have received the news of 'Lou' Michael Martin's passing, he died at 3:30 a.m. this morning (17th August '12), at a hospital in Bournemouth. Lou had been ill for many years, having suffered a number of strokes and he battled with cancer also, may he now rest in peace. One of the finest piano and keyboard players that I have ever heard his talent incorporated a rainbow of styles from blues to classical, jazz to orchestral but in a rock 'n roll way. Working with Lou was a honour, he was a 'true' gentleman and a professional. Aside from the numerous great gigs I listened to him play with my brother, it was a privilege also to be in his 'after hours' company, 'tinkling the ivories' in some hotel bar or playing country in some honky-tonk late-night bar. Ironically, I'm writing this piece close to the spot where Rory composed "A Million Miles Away" and am "looking out on the deep blue sea", listening of Lou's magically keyboard work on that number and to his many other extraordinary recorded performances. My sincere condolences to Lou's mother and his other family members. Rest in peace dear 'Lou'. Dónal http://www.rorygallagher.com/#/news/2012/08/a_blue_day_for_the_blues_-_lou_martin_rip

http://io9.com/5934884/rip-harry-harrison-creator-of-the-stainless-steel-rat-bill-the-galactic-hero-and-soylent-green%E2%80%8E R.I.P. Harry Harrison, creator of the Stainless Steel Rat, Bill the Galactic Hero, and Soylent Green Charlie Jane Anders If Harry Harrison had only created "Slippery" Jim DiGriz, the roguish hero of the Stainless Steel Rat books, he would deserve a high place in science fiction history. But he also wrote dozens of other novels, including the hilarious Bill the Galactic Hero saga, the proto-Steampunk classic A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!, and the novel that became the movie Soylent Green, Make Room! Make Room!. Amazingly, Harrison kept writing great novels, with the last Stainless Steel Rat book coming out just two years ago. He died today, aged 87, according to his official website. No details are yet known. Top image: Cover of The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted, artwork by Jim Burns. Full size There are few really great comic space opera novels, aside from Douglas Adams. And Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books qualify —

Jim DiGriz is a really inspired creation, a rogue smuggler created years before Han Solo existed. Even as "Slippery" Jim sort of goes straight in the later books, he never stops being a source of ridiculous fun, and his romance with the equally criminal and devious Angelina is a really sweet, heartfelt relationship. I read the Stainless Steel Rat books at a very impressionable age, and a lot of clever bits stick in my mind — like the bit where "Slippery" Jim explains that intergalactic empires are impossible due to the problems with travel at relativistic speeds. This series was always smarter than a lot of other space operas, even alongside its gratifying levels of silliness. He achieves a very different sort of humor, parodying bad science fiction, in the Bill the Galactic Hero books. And meanwhile, Harrison also wrote one of the most influential future dystopias, a book about an overcrowded starving future facing huge environmental disasters. The movie version focused heavily on the eponymous "soylent green" storyline, but the actual novel Make Room! Make Room! is much more concerned with portraying the full horror of an overgrown future "megalopolis" of New York, crammed with 35 million people living in intense heat and drinking dirty brown water.

Reading Harrison's decidedly unfunny prose in Make Room, you can feel the heat of the city streets and the grime under your fingernails. Everybody who's writing or reading future dystopias today owes a huge debt to Harrison for proving just how grim and visceral a future nightmare could be. And long before steampunk was considered a whole book genre, Harrison was writing Victorian alternate history with fantastical technologies in Transatlantic Tunnel, a book that's just starting to be rediscovered thanks to a nifty new edition. Full size Harrison was also a prolific artist, who worked in comics as an artist and writer in the 1940s, working with such greats as Wally Wood and Jules Feiffer. He helped to pioneer the science fiction anthology comic, with a title called Weird Science. Harrison told Locus his books often have a pacifistic theme, in part thanks to his own experiences in the military: Over time the [Stainless Steel] Rat grew up, and got very pacifistic. In the first book he killed one person, but no one else dies in the whole damn series. It was the anti-Jerry Pournelle and Jim Baen kind of story, where it's 'Kill! Kill! Kill!' Bill, the Galactic Hero was my first book of that sort. I'd been in the army and hated it. Though almost all my books are anti-military, anti-war (the Deathworld series very much so), I try not to repeat myself. After the Stainless Steel Rat book that was published in 2010, Harrison was working on another new book, which he described as "a big secret." But we're not sure whether he finished it or not.

In any case, he left behind an amazing body of work, and he was still creating right up until the end, which is in itself a fantastic achievement. [via Jonathan Strahan] Ron Palillo, best known as mouthy classroom goofball Arnold Horshack on the 1970s TV series Welcome Back, Kotter, has died, according to Greg Hauptner, founder and CEO of G-Star Academy, the Palm Springs charter school where the actor taught classes in 2009. Palillo was 63. According to friends, Palillo died at his Palm Beach Gardens home at 4:30 this morning. Before being hired by G-Star in 2009, Palillo had lectured in colleges and high schools all over the country for years and isn’t worried. “From the moment I heard about G-Star seven, eight years ago, it sounded like everything I wanted as a student when I went to high school,” Palillo said in 2009. “To have this when I was a kid would’ve been astonishing and I knew I wanted to be part of it.” Palillo is a University of Connecticut graduate who taught entry-level acting at G-Star. Palillo played Horshack on the popular show Welcome Back Kotter that also starred a young John Travolta. Palillo had said he loved Palm Beach County, having served as artistic director for the Cuillo Center for the Arts where he directed and acted in A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline and The Phantom of the Opera. “I’ve always felt very at home here,” Palillo said in 2009. “People go out of their way for you in West Palm Beach. They don’t do that in New York.” http://www.wptv.com/dpp/entertainment/ron-palillo-arnold-horshack-on-welcome-back-kotter-dies-at-age-63#ixzz23XGYfhMK She played Ma Kent in the 1978 superhero film after appearing years earlier in such classics as “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” and “Act of Violence.”

Phyllis Thaxter, the wholesome actress who played Ma Kent in 1978’s Superman and the faithful girlfriend to vengeful POW Robert Ryan in the 1948 film noir classic Act of Violence, has died. She was 90. Related Topics •ObituariesThaxter died Tuesday at her home in Florida after a long bout with Alzheimer's, according to her daughter, actress Skye Aubrey. A contract player at MGM and Warner Bros. in the 1940s and ’50s before her career was derailed by illness, Thaxter also starred in the psychological thriller Bewitched (1945), playing opposite Edmund Gwenn as a woman fighting to hold off a conniving, murderous alter ego. “She was one of the most beautiful and patrician icons of the golden age of movies, TV and theater,” veteran movie critic Rex Reed told The Hollywood Reporter. After playing on Broadway in such productions as Claudia and There Shall Be No Night -- the latter starring Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Sydney Greenstreet and Montgomery Clift -- Thaxter, the daughter of a Maine state Supreme Court justice, attracted the attention of Hollywood and signed with MGM in the early '40s. Her film debut came in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) as the wife of Van Johnson, and a year later, she starred in Bewitched and then appeared in Week-End at the Waldorf, a remake of the Greta Garbo classic Grand Hotel.

The hazel-eyed brunette followed with The Sea of Grass (1947) opposite Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn; Tenth Avenue Angel (1948) with Margaret O’Brien; Blood on the Moon, a Western with Robert Mitchum; and Fred Zinneman’s taut Act of Violence (1948), as the woman who stands by Ryan, an embittered POW out for revenge against his former war buddy Van Heflin. Thaxter then joined Warner Bros. and appeared in such films as Michael Curtiz' sThe Breaking Point (1950) with John Garfield and Patricia Neal; Come Fill the Cup (1951) with Gig Young; Springfield Rifle with Gary Cooper; another Curtiz film, Jim Thorpe — All-American (1951), with Burt Lancaster; and She’s Working Her Way Through College (1952) with Ronald Reagan. However, she contracted a form of infantile paralysis while visiting her family in Portland, Maine, and her contract was terminated. That led her to television, where she appeared in guest-starring roles in Lux Video Theatre, Climax!, Wagon Train, Rawhide, The Defenders, Medical Center, Marcus Welby, M.D. and many other series. In 1978, Thaxter made one final movie splash when she was cast along with Glenn Ford as Clark Kent’s adoptive parents on Earth in Richard Donner’s Superman, starring Christopher Reeve. Her daughter Skye was married to Superman executive producer Iiya Salkind. “I worked harder on that film than anything I’d done — I couldn’t be bad,” Thaxter once said. The actress spent the 1980s on the stage in such productions as The Little Foxes with Anne Baxter and The Gin Game with Larry Gates. In 1944, Thaxter married

James Aubrey Jr., who was president of CBS in the early 1960s and then was hired by Kirk Kerkorian to preside over MGM during a brutal budget-slashing period in the '70s. They divorced in 1962 (he died in 1994). Thaxter then wed former Princeton football star Gilbert Lea, a mariage that lasted for 46 years until his death in May 2008. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/actress-phyllis-thaxter-dies-superman-mother-362757

Comics Legend Joe Kubert Dead At 85 Posted by Henchman21 | August 12th, 2012 at 6:40 pm Comics legend Joe Kubert, who was one of the most important artists and writers in comics history, helping to create Sgt. Rock for DC comics, as well as working for long periods on Hawkman, Tarzan, and many other books, has passed away today at the age of 85. Later in his career, Kubert worked on a number of non-fiction works, such as Fax from Sarajevo, Dong Xoai, Vietnam 1965, and more personal works such as Jew Gangster and Yossel. Kubert still remained active in the comics field, providing inks for his sons Adam and Andy’s comics work. Kubert was born September 18, 1926 in southeast Poland. His family emigrated to Brooklyn, New York, when he was two months old. Kubert began working in comics at a very early age, and went on to attend Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art. From there, he began work at many different companies during the early days of the industry, before reaching DC where he had his greatest success in the 50’s and 60’s. In 1976, Kubert opened the Kubert School in Dover, New Jersey. The Kubert School has gone on to train several generations of comic professionals, including Dave Dorman, Scott Kolins, Rags Morales, Alex Maleev, Rick Veitch, and many, many more. The Kubert Schools most famous graduates are of course Joe’s two sons, Adam and Andy Kubert, who have both gone on to have successful careers of their own. The news of Kubert’s passing was posted today on Twitter by Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons, as well as many others in the comics industry. This is a huge loss to the comics community and we all wish to share our condolences with the entire Kubert family. There is no way he can be replaced, but he will live on in the work he gave us as well as the lessons he passed on to others. RIP Joe Kubert September 18, 1926 – August 12, 2012 http://www.geeksofdoom.com/2012/08/12/comics-legend-joe-kubert-dead-at-85/ Helen Gurley Brown, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazines' 64 international editions and one of the world's most popular and influential editors, died today at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. She was 90. The Hearst Corporation announced her death Monday afternoon. Widely heralded as a legend, Gurley Brown's impact on popular culture and society reached around the globe, first with her 1962 bestseller, Sex and the Single Girl, and then for the more than three decades she put her personal stamp on Cosmopolitan in a way rarely replicated by editors. Under her reign, Cosmopolitan became the bible of "single girls" worldwide and remains the magazine of "fun, fearless, females" to this day. "Helen Gurley Brown was an icon. Her formula for honest and straightforward advice about relationships, career and beauty revolutionized the magazine industry," said Frank A. Bennack, Jr., CEO of Hearst Corporation. "She lived every day of her life to the fullest and will always be remembered as the quintessential 'Cosmo girl.' She will be greatly missed." "Helen was an inspiration, a true success story. Her energy, enthusiasm and true passion for women's issues unleashed a platform for women worldwide," said David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines. "She brought the subject that every woman wanted to know about but nobody talked about, to life, literally, in Cosmo's pages." Her and her husband David Brown's philanthropy also left an indelible mark on journalism: In January, Gurley Brown gave $30 million to Columbia and Stanford Universities. The gift created the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation, housed at both Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and the School of Engineering at Stanford. The center represents the "increasingly important connection between journalism and technology, bringing the best from the East and West Coasts," both schools announced. The journalism school said its $18 million share was the largest donation in its 100-year history. Gurley Brown's husband, David, who died in 2010, attended both universities and was a movie producer whose films included Jaws, The Sting and The Verdict. She also gave the papers, notes, and correspondence that document her career—and publishing in the late 20th century—to Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The woman who redefined womanhood for many coming of age at that time, was born in Green Forest, Ark., on February 18, 1922, to Ira and Cleo Gurley, both school teachers. The family moved to Little Rock when Ira was elected to the state legislature. He died in an elevator accident when Helen was 10 years old. After trying to support Helen and her older sister Mary in Depression-era Arkansas, Cleo Gurley moved them to Los Angeles in the late 1930s. There, Gurley Brown excelled socially and academically, graduating from high school as class valedictorian. She spent a year at the Texas State College for Women and returned home to put herself through Woodbury Business College. Her mother and sister, who had contracted polio, depended on her financial support for the rest of their lives. In 1941, with her business degree, Gurley Brown took on a series of secretarial jobs. She was later to urge her readers to plan their financial lives wisely, writing "Being smart about money is sexy." A careful spender her whole life, she was said to bring her lunch to work almost every day for the more than 30 years she spent at Hearst. It was her 17th job, at the advertising agency Foote, Cone, and Belding, that launched her future success. As executive secretary to Don Belding, Gurley Brown's work ethic and witty notes impressed both her boss and his wife, who suggested she try her hand at writing advertising copy. She proved her talent, winning prizes for her copy. By the late 1950s, she had become the highest-paid female copywriter on the West Coast and one of the few to be listed in Who's Who of American Women. (She is also recognized in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in The World, and the World Book of Facts.) In 1959, at the age of 37, Gurley Brown married Brown, 43, then a film executive at 20th Century Fox Studios, and later an independent producer. During their marriage, Brown was a partner behind many of Gurley Brown's projects, even writing Cosmo cover lines. It was he who persuaded her to write a book about her life as a single woman. The result, Sex and the Single Girl (1962), took the nation—and then globe—by storm. On the bestseller lists for more than a year, Sex and the Single Girl has been published in 28 countries and translated into 16 languages. The book encouraged young women to enjoy being single, find fulfillment in work and non-marital relationships with men, and take pleasure in sex. When Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique ushered in the modern women's movement a year later, the two works and their authors helped lead the growing national dialogue about the place of women in society and popular culture. Quick on the stiletto heels of her first success, Gurley Brown wrote the 1964 bestseller, Sex and the Office. Warner Bros. bought the film rights to Sex and the Single Girl for what was then the highest price ever paid for a non-fiction title. The 1964 film starred Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Lauren Bacall and Henry Fonda. The Browns then worked together to keep Helen in the public eye. She wrote a syndicated newspaper advice column and made record albums and radio spots. The pair pitched plays, television shows, more books, and new magazines for single women. One, a magazine called Femme, attracted the interest of Hearst Magazines. But instead of a new title, they agreed to let her try to revive Cosmopolitan magazine. In July 1965, Gurley Brown, the woman who famously said, "Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere," officially became editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and launched it into publishing history. She was Cosmo's tireless editor-in-chief, growing the magazine in the 1980s to 300 pages, a third of which were highly lucrative advertisements. Since then, its sales and advertising have risen spectacularly. Today Cosmopolitan is the top-selling young women's magazines in the world, with 64 international editions and is published in 35 languages and distributed in more than 100 countries. In 1997, Gurley Brown left the flagship magazine to be editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan's growing international editions. Gurley Brown's vision—and spectacular success—was to remodel the then-conservative Cosmopolitan. She once said she accomplished this because, "My success was not based so much on any great intelligence but on great common sense." She featured sexy cover models, provocative content, and a fresh point of view that appealed to young women. She was a highly visible magazine editor and personality, authoring The Single Girl's Cookbook (1969) and Sex and the New Single Girl (1971), an updated version of her first book, and making TV show guest appearances. At one point, she was said to be so popular that she was the 10th-most-frequent guest on "The Tonight Show." In the 1980s, she had a weekly spot on Good Morning America and briefly hosted her own show, A View From Cosmo, on Lifetime. She and Brown, who were married for 51 years, were anchors in the New York publishing and Hollywood film communities, as he and partner Richard Zanuck produced some of the era's most memorable movies, among them, Cocoon and Driving Miss Daisy. When asked by an interviewer in 2006 to what she attributed her long, happy marriage, Gurley Brown answered, "I married the right man. He is kind, compassionate and generous, not just to me, but to a lot of other people. You need to marry a decent, caring person." Named one of the 25 Most Influential Women in the U.S. five times by The World Almanac, Gurley Brown continued to write books, some 11 in all. They include The Outrageous Opinions of Helen Gurley Brown (1967); the 1982 bestseller, Having It All; The Late Show: A Semiwild but Practical Survival Plan for Women over 50 (1993); and a writing guide, The Writer's Rules: The Power of Positive Prose—How to Create It and Get It Published (1988). Her definitive memoir, I'm Wild Again: Snippets From My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts, was published in 2000. A biography of Gurley Brown, Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown, by Jennifer Scanlon, was published in 2009. Just recently, Advertising Age named her among 100 women who have made an impact on advertising during the past century. For her exemplary contributions to magazine journalism, Gurley Brown was awarded a Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications in 1985. In 1986, the Hearst Corporation established a chair at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in her name, the Helen Gurley Brown Research Professorship. She was inducted into the Publisher's Hall of Fame in 1988, taking her place with such publishing originals as Henry Luce, DeWitt Wallace, Harold Ross, and Norman Cousins. The Magazine Publishers of America honored Helen Gurley Brown with the 1995 Henry Johnson Fisher Award, the magazine publishing industry's highest honor. Gurley Brown was the first woman recipient. She received the 1996 American Society of Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame Award. When asked in 2006 about the social firestorm called Sex and the Single Girl that ignited her long, iconic editorial career, Gurley Brown explained, "Before I wrote my book, the thought was that sex was for men and women only caved in to please men. But I wrote what I knew to be true—that sex is pleasurable for both women and men." Donations may be made to The Pussycat Foundation, c/o Karen Sanborn, Hearst Corp., 300 W. 57th Street, New York, NY 10019, to fund media innovation at Columbia and Stanford Universities. A fall memorial will be announced at a later date. http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Legendary-editor-Helen-Gurley-Brown-dies-3784845.php

TV director Russ Mayberry, who helmed episodes of "That Girl," "The Brady Bunch," "Ironside," "McCloud," "Marcus Welby, M.D.," "Kojak," "Magnum, P.I." and "In the Heat of the Night," among many other series, during his 46-year career in the industry, died July 27 in Fort Collins, Colo., after brief illness. He was 86. Mayberry was a busy director of series television beginning in 1967 with episodes of "The Flying Nun" and "The Monkees," among others. He also helmed episodes of "Bewitched" and "I Dream of Jeannie" in the late 1960s. Mayberry mostly directed sitcoms in the first few years of his helming career -- work on Western "The Virginian" was an exception -- but he soon transitioned into directing dramas, including "Baretta," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Harry O" and "Black Sheep Squadron" (an episode of which he also produced). During the late '70s and early '80s Mayberry directed a series of telepics including "The 3,000 Mile Chase," "The Million Dollar Dixie Deliverance," "Marriage Is Alive and Well" and "Side by Side: The True Story of the Osmond Family." Series direct ing credits during the 1980s include "The Fall Guy," "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "The Equalizer," "Jake and the Fatman." He directed several episodes of "Matlock" in the early '90s.Russell B. Mayberry was born in Duluth, Minn. After serving as a naval aviator in WWII, he attended Northwestern U. in Chicago. Mayberry started out in the TV business as a stage hand at WBKB in Chicago, and his career took him to Memphis and New York, back to Chicago and then to California. Survivors include Mayberry's wife, Sandy; a son; a daughter; two grandchildren; and a brother. A remembrance gathering will be held on Monday, Aug. 6, at 11 a.m. at the Allnutt Drake Reception Center, 650 W. Drake Road, Fort Collins, Colo. Donations may be made to Directors Guild of America Foundation, 7920 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046 or Waikiki Aquarium, Honolulu, Hawaii. Please visit Allnutt.com to view Mayberry's online obituary, sign the family guest book and send condolences. Link ... http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118057276?refCatId=14 Jimmy Jones, the Birmingham, Alabama native who scored two top five records in four months at the beginning of 1960, died Thursday (August 2) at the age of 75. Jimmy moved to New York as a teenager, hooking up with the Sparks of Rhythm in 1954. They recorded the original version of his composition, “Handy Man”, in 1956. By then Jimmy had left, forming the Savoys and recording under that name and as the Pretenders and the Jones Boys before he struck out on his own in 1959. Partnering with songwriter Otis Blackwell, he re-worked “Handy Man” and recorded it for Cub Records (that’s Otis whistling on the tune). The song made it to #2 and was followed by another Otis production, “Good Timin’,” which got to #3. Inexplicably, the hits then dried up for Jimmy. “That’s When I Cried” only got to #83 and “I Told You So” floundered at #85 in 1961. Moves to the Ro-Jac, Vee-Jay, Roulette, Parkway and Bell labels yielded no more hits, but Jimmy kept on writing and performing. http://www.oldiesmusic.com/news.htm Marvin Hamlisch, Composed 'The Way We Were,' Dies at 68 Published: August 07, 2012 By Brent Lang Composer and conductor Marvin Hamlisch, best known for the torch song "The Way We Were," died Monday. He was 68 years old. Hamlisch collapsed after a brief illness, his family announced. In a career that spanned over four decades, Hamlisch won virtually every major award: three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony, and three Golden Globes. Len PrinceHamlisch composed more than forty motion picture scores, including his Oscar-winning score and song for “The Way We Were,” and his adaptation of Scott Joplin’s ragtime music for “The Sting,” for which he received a third Oscar. Hamlisch's musical scores, though intricately conceived, never drew attention to themselves. They served to compliment the on-screen action, not overwhelm it -- enhancing each gesture, each glance, each moment of drama. That subtle approach allowed him to be something of a musical chameleon, easily gliding from searing dramas to off-beat comedies and making him a close collaborator to a diverse group of directors such as Woody Allen, Steven Soderbergh and Alan J. Pakula. Perhaps his deepest artistic collaboration remained with Barbra Streisand, for whom he not only penned one of her signature love anthems in "The Way We Were," but also wrote the score for her 1996 film "The Mirror has Two Faces." He would also serve as musical director and and arranger of Streisand’s 1994 concert tour, and the television special, "Barbra Streisand: The Concert", for which he won two Emmys. In a 2010 interview with Broadway World, Hamlisch said he drew on the lovelorn masterpiece "My Funny Valentine to write the theme song to "The Way We Were," because he wanted to capture the highs and lows of romance. "It was all almost like a very yin-yang sort of movie," Hamlisch said. "I wanted to write something that was uplifting and positive, on the other hand, there is a tremendous amount of bitter-sweetness to that film - and bittersweet romance - so, it's a real duality. And that's why I think the song - though it's in the major mode - is quite sad." Hamlisch's deft touch can be felt in the scores for such films as “Sophie’s Choice,” “Ordinary People,” “Three Men and a Baby,” “Ice Castles,” “Take the Money and Run,” Bananas,” “Save the Tiger,” “The Informant!,” and his latest effort, “Behind the Candelabra,” an upcoming HBO film about the life of Liberace. On Broadway, Hamlisch's output was more mixed, but he did have a smash hit with “A Chorus Line,” which received the Pulitzer Prize. Other works such as “The Goodbye Girl” and “Sweet Smell of Success," garnered some critical praise, but were never fully embraced by audiences. Something of a musical prodigy, Hamlisch was the youngest student to be admitted by the prestigious Julliard School of Music. As an up-and-coming musician, Hamlisch was hired by "Lawrence of Arabia," producer Sam Spiegel to play piano at his parties, which in turn led to his first film job scoring the 1968 film "The Swimmer," an adaptation of John Cheever's short story. http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/marvin-hamlisch-oscar-winning-composer-dies-68-50971

http://westernboothill.blogspot.com/2012/07/rip-rg-armstrong.html?m=1 http://todayentertainment.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/08/01/13060511-gore-vidal-celebrated-author-playwright-dies?lite Crooner Tony Martin, whose career spanned from the Great Depression to the 21st century, has died in Los Angeles at 98. Friend and accountant Beverly Scott says Martin died Friday of natural causes at his West Los Angeles home. A romantic idol for at least one generation, his hit recordings include "I Get Ideas," "To Each His Own," "Begin the Beguine" and "There's No Tomorrow." Although he never became a full-fledged movie star, Martin was featured in 25 films, most of them made during the heyday of the Hollywood musicals. A husky 6 feet tall and dashingly handsome, he was often cast as the lead. Off-screen, he married two movie musical superstars, Alice Faye and Cyd Charisse. The latter union lasted 60 years, until Charisse's death in 2008. http://www.wtop.com/541/2969626/Romantic-crooner-Tony-Martin-dies-at-98 Amazingly busy through five decades, he was the voice of Aquaman and appeared in "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," "Kansas City Bomber," "Back to the Future" and "Ed Wood." Norman Alden, a character actor who piled up a prodigious number of credits during his five decades in film and television, died July 27 of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Los Angeles, his family reported. He was 87. Alden appeared in several hundred television episodes, commercials and films (his family put the number at 2,500) but rarely had a regular gig, frequently playing tough guys and authority figures one show and one character at a time. Perhaps his most recognizable role was as Lou the mechanic in a series of AC Delco commercials. Alden provided the voice of Aquaman in two Super Friends animated series in the 1970s, played outlaw Johnny Ringo in 1961 in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp opposite Hugh O'Brian and was Coach Leroy Fedders on seven episodes of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman in the mid-1970s. His character drowned face-first in a bowl of Mary's (Louise Lasser's) chicken soup. The native of Fort Worth, Texas, got his start on The Bob Cummings Show in 1957 and would appear in scores of TV series like Honey West, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, Fay, My Three Sons, My Favorite Martian, The Big Valley, The Streets of San Francisco, The Rookies, Adam-12, Combat!, Charlie's Angels, JAG and Batman, where he played one of the Joker's henchmen. On film, Alden voiced Sir Kay in Disney's The Sword in the Stone (1963), was roller derby skater "Horrible" Hank Hopkins in Raquel Welch's Kansas City Bomber (1972) and had roles in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977), Semi-Tough (1977), Back to the Future (1985), They Live (1988), Ed Wood (1994), Patch Adams (1998) and K-Pax (2001). Following a tour of duty in Europe during World War II, Alden attended Texas Christian University and worked at KXOL Radio as a disc jockey. He left Fort Worth in his early twenties to go to New York, won Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts and moved to Los Angeles. Survivors include his children Brent and Ashley, his grandson Zooey and his longtime life partner, Linda Thieben. A celebration of his life will be held in Los Angeles in August and in Fort Worth in September. The family asks that in a donation in Alden's name be made to TCU's drama department; to the department of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; or to the Frostig Center in Pasadena. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/norman-alden-dies-mary-hartman-back-to-the-future-ed-wood-355726

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actor-stuntman Tony Epper dies at 73 Part of Epper dynasty of Hollywood stuntmen By Variety Staff Tony Epper, an actor, stuntman and stunt coordinator, died July 20 at home in Idaho after a long fighter with cancer. He was 73. His film credits as an actor include Sydney Pollack's "The Scalphunters," "Valdez Is Coming," Mark Rydell's "The Cowboys," "Cutter's Way," "The Beastmaster," "The Hitcher," "Christmas Vacation" and Warren Beatty's "Dick Tracy." Epper did stunt work on a large number of high-profile films including "Lethal Weapon 2," "Thelma and Louise," "Patriot Games," Francis Ford Coppola's "Dracula," "The River Wild," "Waterworld," "Money Train," "Jingle All the Way," "Volcano" and "Con Air." Epper also worked steadily in television, first appearing in an episode of "Bachelor Father" in 1958 and racking up guest roles in series including "I Spy," "The Green Hornet," "Daniel Boone," "Batman," "Gunsmoke," "Kung Fu," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Rockford Files," "Charlie's Angels," "The A-Team" and "MacGyver." He last appeared in 1996 in an episode of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" as a drunken Klingon. John Anthony Epper was born in Los Angeles, the son of actor-stuntman John Epper. He did his first Hollywood work as an actor and stuntman in the early 1950s, appearing uncredited in the films "Carbine Williams," "The Story of Will Rogers" and "Ma and Pa Kettle at Home." He was credited as second unit director on the Abel Ferrara-helmed 1986 telepic "The Gladiator." Epper's brothers Andy and Gary were also actor-stuntmen but preceded him in death. Epper is survived by his wife, Donna; two sons, Danny, an actor and stuntman, and Roger; a daughter; two step-daughters and a variety of other Epper family members who work in the business, including his sister Jeannie Epper. Reuters) - Maeve Binchy, one of Ireland's most beloved writers, has died in Dublin after a short illness at the age of 72, Irish media reported on Tuesday. Binchy was revered for such novels as "Light a Penny Candle," "Tara Road," and "Circle of Friends," which was adapted for the screen in 1995. She sold more than 40 million books worldwide. Her novels and short stories often examined the friction between tradition and modernity in Ireland. Her works have been translated into 37 languages. Born in the Dublin suburb of Dalkey in 1940, she began her career as a teacher before moving into a distinguished career as a newspaper journalist and writer. She then moved to London, where she became the London editor of The Irish Times newspaper. Her first novel, "Light a Penny Candle," was published in 1982 and became a bestseller. She later published dozens of novels, novellas and collections of short stories, including "The Copper Beech," "Silver Wedding," "Evening Class," and "Heart and Soul." She announced her retirement in 2000, but continued writing. Her last novel, "Minding Frankie," was published in 2010. Binchy lived in Dalkey until her death, not far from where she grew up. She is survived by her husband, the writer Gordon Snell. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/31/us-maevebinchy-idUSBRE86U03R20120731 http://www.examiner.com/article/jonathan-hardy-of-farscape-dies-at-71

DOCTOR Who actress Mary Tamm died this morning after a long battle against cancer, her agent said. She was 62. Mary, who played the Doctor's companion Romana alongside Tom Baker, died at hospital in London. Her agent Barry Langford said she had a "zest for life." The actress was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, the daughter of Estonian refugees, and had a long career on stage and screen. As well as Doctor Who, she starred in films The Odessa File and The Likely Lads and had recurring roles in soaps Brookside and EastEnders. http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/passtheremote/2012/07/doctor-who-actress-dies.html Jan 24, 1931 - July 23, 2012 OKLAHOMA CITY Edward Lee Nichols was born in Hollywood, CA January 24, 1931. He attended Hollywood High School and the Little Red School House. He was the son of Carl Nelson and Henrietta Louise Booth Nichols. During the depression, Ed and his six siblings were child actors. Ed worked for G.M. and owned a carpet retail store. Ed was preceded in death by Delores June Smith; and son, Douglas Edward Nichols. He is survived by his wife, Amanda Hilton Nichols; daughter, Diane Lea Ayers & husband; grandchildren, Curtis Ayers and Nicole Maingi; great-grandchild, Adelynn Maingi; and stepchildren, Douglas Hilton Low and Amanda Montgomery. Memorial services will be held at the Sportsman's Club, 4001 N.W. 39 St., OKC, Thursday, July 26 at 1 p.m. Published in The Oklahoman on July 25, 2012 http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/oklahoman/obituary.aspx?n=EDWARD-NICHOLS&pid=158736789#fbLoggedOut http://www.examiner.com/article/actress-lupe-ontiveros-passed-away-los-angeles

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118057004 Posted: Thu., Jul. 26, 2012, 1:06pm PT Stuntman Conrade Gamble dies at 45 Appeared in 'Green Hornet,' 'Amazing Spider-Man' By Variety Staff Conrade Gamble, a stuntman and occasional actor with recent credits in films including "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," "The Green Hornet" and "The Amazing Spider-Man" and TV series including "CSI," died of natural causes on July 12 in Los Angeles. He was 45. Gamble worked steadily as a stuntman in Hollywood since 2000, appearing on TV in series including "Crossing Jordan," "The Shield," "Fastlane," "Alias" and "Lincoln Heights" and in movies including "Soul Plane," "Spider-Man 2," "XXX: State of the Union," "Hostage," "Rent," "Evan Almighty" and "Meet the Spartans."He was a stunt double for Ving Rhames on at least five projects, including "Mission: Impossible III," a stunt double for Bernie Mac on "Guess Who" and an occasional stunt coordinator. As an actor Gamble appeared on TV on series including "Alias," "The Guardian," "The Closer" and "CSI" and in films including 2010's "Takers." He also served as a technical advisor for the CBS series "NCIS." Born in Chicago, Gamble attended Howard U. and received a B.S. in business administration from the U. of Phoenix. He served in the Marine Corps Reserves as a sergeant in the Gulf War. He is survived by his mother and father, a sister and two daughters. The star of the 1970s TV series “Medical Center” who went on to appear in such films and shows as “Mulholland Drive” and “Melrose Place” has died. Chad Everett was 75. Everett’s daughter says he died Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles after a year-and-a-half-long battle with lung cancer. His acting career spanned more than 40 years and included guest starring roles on such TV series as “The Love Boat,” ‘’Murder, She Wrote” and “Without A Trace.” He most recently appeared in the TV series “Castle.” His films credits include “The Jigsaw Murders,” ‘’The Firechasers” and director Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho.” Everett is survived by his two daughters and six grandchildren. He was married to actress Shelby Grant for 45 years until her death last year. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/chad-everett-actor-who-appeared-on-medical-center-and-mulholland-drive-dies-at-75/2012/07/24/gJQAnXth7W_story.html

SAG-AFTRA Mourns the Passing of Fern Persons July 23, 2012 SAG-AFTRA mourns the passing of former SAG National Board member Fern Persons, who died Sunday in Denver. Persons would have been 102 on July 27. A working actress all of her life, Persons joined AFTRA on Dec. 5, 1937, and was the fifth member of the SAG Chicago Branch when she joined on August 31, 1953. She was elected to the Chicago Branch Council in 1962 and served for 44 years until 2006, when she stepped down only because she could no longer drive. She also served more than 30 years on the AFTRA Chicago Local Board. Persons was elected to the SAG National Board in 1976, and served on that body until 1998. During that time, from 1977-81, she was elected SAG 5th national vice president. She served as a SAG Regional Branch Division representative on TV/Theatrical and Commercials negotiating committees throughout the 1980s and intermittently through the 1990s. Finally, as co-chair of the Chicago AFTRA/SAG Seniors Committee from 1984 to 2003, Persons spearheaded many projects designed to increase employment opportunities for senior members. She was the force behind the creation of the AFTRA/SAG Senior Radio Players in 1996, which continues to this day in Chicago as the SAG-AFTRA Senior Radio Players. Because of Persons’ decades of union leadership and contributions to the lives of Chicago actors and broadcasters, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley declared July 27, 1999 Fern Persons Day. Person's was honored in 2006 with the AFTRA Founders Award and, in 2009, she was awarded SAG's prestigious Howard Keel Award. This past May, Persons donated $100,000 to Chicago's Kaufherr Members Resource Center endowment fund. In appreciation, the KMRC video suite was renamed The Fern Persons Video Suite. http://www.sagaftra.org/news/sag-aftra-mourns-passing-fern-persons R.I.P. ... http://www.sddt.com/News/article.cfm?SourceCode=20120723czb&_t=Former+astronaut+Sally+Ride+succumbs+to+cancer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Ride Details are sketchy, but Larry Hoppen, co-founder, drummer, guitarist and singer with Orleans, passed away Tuesday (July 24) at his home in Central Florida. A Bayshore, Long island native, Larry was living in Ithica, New York (attending Ithica College) when he dropped out to play in a band called Boffalongo with future Orleans pianist Wells Kelly. Larry was asked by John Hall to move to Woodstock, New York and form Orleans, which eventually included Wells, Jerry Marotta and Larry’s brother, Lance. After much struggle finding a record label (eventually Asylum) and getting their records heard, the group broke through with the #55 tune “Let There Be Music,” from their third album, in 1975. It was followed by two smash hits, “Dance With Me” (#6-1975) and “Still The One” (#5-1976). John and Jerry left the group in 1977 and the Hoppen brothers continued on, signing with Infinity Records and recording one last big hit— “Love Takes Time” (#11-1979). When Infinity, and later Radio Records, went bankrupt in the early ‘80s, Orleans continued to tour, but with no more hit singles. Though still involved in Orleans’ projects, Larry performed with the “Voices of Classic Rock” tour beginning in 1997. (OldiesMusic.Com)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wayne Massarelli dies at 62 Makeup artist worked with Fawcett, Bacall, Bergen By Variety Staff Hollywood makeup artist Wayne Massarelli, who worked with Farrah Fawcett, Lauren Bacall, Ann-Margret, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, Sally Fields, Dyan Cannon and Joan Rivers, died of complications from liver cancer in Pasadena, Calif., on July 13. He was 62. Bacall, Cannon and Ann-Margret had repeatedly relied on Massarelli in their film and TV work over the past two decades. Massarelli's film credits include "The Muppets Take Manhattan," "Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde," "My Fellow Americans," "These Old Broads" and "The Santa Clause 3." His smallscreen credits include the series "Grace Under Fire," "Karen Sisco" and "Hawthorne" as well as telepics including "Christmas in Connecticut," "Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rives Story" and "Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke." Massarelli began his career in 1969 working at Lintermans Salon in Beverly Hills. His clients included Fawcett, who requested that he do her makeup for her editorial and cosmetic ad campaigns. Massarelli moved into freelance print work, then television and motion pictures, Wayne Armand Massarelli grew up in Boston. He is survived by his mother, a sister, and his partner of 35 years, John W. Miller. Donations may be made to the Motion Picture and Television Fund, Human Rights Campaign or the Millan Foundation. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118056874 SERRAO FRANK ANTHONY Beloved son, brother and friend, passed away on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 at age 60. The first son of John E. and Mary (Laurino) Serrao, born on Valentine's Day, the same day as his father. Brother to Laura, John "Porky", Joseph and Linda; and uncle to Cassie and Danielle Serrao and John Michael Beakley of Texas. A Fox Chapel alumni and graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. Frank especially enjoyed working on a number of film projects in the area. He is most widely known as "The Gray Suit Zombie" from the original Dawn of the Dead film while his photo clip appeared on the Times Square Billboard. An actor on stage and film, educator in prisons and schools, and frustrated sports fan, Frank had many unique experiences to add to his credits. He will be faithfully remembered. A memorial gathering for family and friends will be held Sunday, July 22 at 3 p.m. at his family home in O'Hara Twp. The family respectfully suggests donations be made to the Cooper-Siegel Community Library, 403 Fox Chapel Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15238. Funeral arrangements were thoughtfully handled by the WEDDELL-AJAK FUNERAL HOME, Aspinwall. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/postgazette/obituary.aspx?n=FRANK-SERRAO&pid=158641888#fbLoggedOut -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Mark Evanier's blog... Dave Thorne, R.I.P. Published Sunday, July 22, 2012 at 12:16 PM. Sad to hear of the passing of Dave Thorne, a fine cartoonist and a fine person. Dave was passionate about two things in life. One was drawing silly pictures and he did it well and loved to share his talents with others. He would draw a picture for anyone at any time and/or dispense a cartooning lesson. His work was filled with joy and humor and you could just look at the drawings and sense they were created by someone you'd like. His other passion was Hawaii...or as he usually called it, "Paradise." The Hawaii Tourist Bureau should have had this guy on retainer. He thought it was the greatest place on Earth and was on a one-man mission to get everyone on the planet to move there and love it as much as he did. He was always sure they would. Scott Shaw! (who just called me with the sad news) remarked that if Dave had pressed his talents in some major city in the continental U.S., he could well have been a successful mainstream cartoonist. Instead, he chose to live in Hawaii where he got involved in using cartoons to educate and inspire. He may hold the world record for the most "chalk talks" given and the most young people inspired to pick up a pen and learn to draw. In that venue and context, he had a wildly successful career and Scott and I concur that given the choice, he would have preferred that to any other option. He had recently had a series of strokes and last night, he had one so massive that the decision was made to remove him from life support. I believe he was 82 though the last time I saw him — maybe ten years ago at a Comic-Con in San Diego — he looked barely fifty. He bragged about his age, attributing his (then) good health to living in Paradise. I think loving his work as much as he did probably had something to do with it, too. www.tmz.com Sherman Hemsley, the actor who made the character George Jefferson famous in "The Jeffersons," has died, El Paso cops tell TMZ. Hemsley died at his home in El Paso, Texas. Hemsley, who was 74, became famous during his appearances on "All in the Family." The spin-off, "The Jeffersons" was a monster hit. He also starred in the TV show, "Amen." He was also a professional singer and even released the single in 1989, "Ain't that A Kick in the Head." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Geoffrey Hughes has died aged 68, it has been confirmed.

The actor, who was well known for his roles in a number of British dramas, lost his battle with cancer last night (July 27).

Hughes played Eddie Yeats in Coronation Street and went on to star as Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances, Twiggy in The Royle Family and Vernon Scripps in Heartbeat.

Friend and colleague Ricky Tomlinson told ITV Granada: "Geoff wasn't just an actor. He was my mate. I used to call him every few weeks but hadn't spoken to him in about a fortnight. It's such a loss."

A Corrie spokesperson added: "We are very sad to hear of the death of Geoffrey Hughes. He created a legendary and iconic character in Eddie Yates who will always be part of Coronation Street.

"Everyone connected with the programme sends our sincerest condolences to his family and friends."

The Wallasey-born actor had radiotherapy in August 2010 after collapsing at his home on the Isle of Wight.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/s3/coronation-street/news/a395903/coronation-street-star-geoffrey-hughes-dies-aged-68.html

http://westernboothill.blogspot.com/2012/07/rip-rg-armstrong.html?m=1

R.G. Armstrong passed away in his sleep on July 27, 2012. He was 95. Born Robert Golden Armstrong on April 7, 1917 in Birmingham, Alabama. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While there he was frequently performing on stage with the Carolina Playmakers. Although his mother had hoped he would follow the ministry, ffter graduating, R.G. headed to New York, where his acting career really took off. In 1953 he, along with many of his Actor's Studio buddies, was part of the cast of "End As a Man" -- this became the first play to go from off-Broadway to Broadway. The following year, R.G. got his first taste of movies, appearing in “Garden of Eden” (1954). However, he returned to New York and the live stage. He received great reviews for his portrayal of Big Daddy in the Broadway production of "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" in 1955. In 1958 he took the plunge to Hollywood and appeared in two movies, a TV series, and numerous guest appearances on TV shows that year, usually in westerns such as "The Rifleman" (1958), "Have Gun - Will Travel" (1957) and "Zane Grey Theater" (1956), among others. He would go on to appear in 80 movies and three TV series in his career, and guest-starred in 90 TV series, many of them westerns, often as a tough sheriff or a rugged land baron. R.G. was a regular cast member in the TV series "T.H.E. Cat" (1966), playing tough, one-handed Captain MacAllister. Although most of us remember R.G. as a regular in several Sam Peckinpah films, the younger generation knows him as spooky Lewis Vandredi, who just wouldn't let the main characters have a good night's sleep on the "Friday the 13th" (1987) TV series. Finally retiring after six successful decades in show business, his last film appearance was in the TV western film “Purgatory” (1999). Mr. Armstrong had been blind for the past few years he enjoyed listening to old radio programs and the Encore westerns channel. Armstrong received a Golden Boot award in 1999. R.G. appeared in one Euro-western as Honest John in “My Name is Nobody” (1973).

ARMSTRONG, R.G. (Robert Golden Armstrong)

Born: 4/7/1917, Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.A.

Died: 7/27/2012, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

From Mark Evanier's blog...


Dave Thorne, R.I.P.
Published Sunday, July 22, 2012 at 12:16 PM.

Sad to hear of the passing of Dave Thorne, a fine cartoonist and a fine person. Dave was passionate about two things in life. One was drawing silly pictures and he did it well and loved to share his talents with others. He would draw a picture for anyone at any time and/or dispense a cartooning lesson. His work was filled with joy and humor and you could just look at the drawings and sense they were created by someone you'd like.

His other passion was Hawaii...or as he usually called it, "Paradise." The Hawaii Tourist Bureau should have had this guy on retainer. He thought it was the greatest place on Earth and was on a one-man mission to get everyone on the planet to move there and love it as much as he did. He was always sure they would.

Scott Shaw! (who just called me with the sad news) remarked that if Dave had pressed his talents in some major city in the continental U.S., he could well have been a successful mainstream cartoonist. Instead, he chose to live in Hawaii where he got involved in using cartoons to educate and inspire. He may hold the world record for the most "chalk talks" given and the most young people inspired to pick up a pen and learn to draw. In that venue and context, he had a wildly successful career and Scott and I concur that given the choice, he would have preferred that to any other option.

He had recently had a series of strokes and last night, he had one so massive that the decision was made to remove him from life support. I believe he was 82 though the last time I saw him — maybe ten years ago at a Comic-Con in San Diego — he looked barely fifty. He bragged about his age, attributing his (then) good health to living in Paradise. I think loving his work as much as he did probably had something to do with it, too.

---

DOCTOR Who actress Mary Tamm died this morning after a long battle against cancer, her agent said. She was 62.

Mary, who played the Doctor's companion Romana alongside Tom Baker, died at hospital in London. Her agent Barry Langford said she had a "zest for life."

The actress was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, the daughter of Estonian refugees, and had a long career on stage and screen. As well as Doctor Who, she starred in films The Odessa File and The Likely Lads and had recurring roles in soaps Brookside and EastEnders.

http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/passtheremote/2012/07/doctor-who-actress-dies.html

The star of the 1970s TV series “Medical Center” who went on to appear in such films and shows as “Mulholland Drive” and “Melrose Place” has died. Chad Everett was 75.

Everett’s daughter says he died Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles after a year-and-a-half-long battle with lung cancer.

His acting career spanned more than 40 years and included guest starring roles on such TV series as “The Love Boat,” ‘’Murder, She Wrote” and “Without A Trace.” He most recently appeared in the TV series “Castle.” His films credits include “The Jigsaw Murders,” ‘’The Firechasers” and director Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho.”

Everett is survived by his two daughters and six grandchildren. He was married to actress Shelby Grant for 45 years until her death last year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/chad-everett-actor-who-appeared-on-medical-center-and-mulholland-drive-dies-at-75/2012/07/24/gJQAnXth7W_story.html

---

[http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118057004

Frank Pierson, Former Movie Academy President, Writer and Director, Dies at 87
11:02 AM PDT 7/23/2012 by Duane Byrge

Frank Pierson, who won an Academy Award for best original screenplay for Dog Day Afternoon, and who was nominated for two Academy Awards for adapted screenplay for Cat Ballou and Cool Hand Luke, died Monday in Los Angeles of natural causes following a short illness. More recently, Pierson served as president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science from 2001-05. He was 87.

Pierson was currently working as writer and consulting producer on Mad Men and had served the same duties on several episodes of The Good Wife.

"Young rock 'n rollers always look to the old bluesmen as models of how to keep their art strong and rebellious into older years. For screenwriters, Frank has been our old blues master for a long time. From great, great movies like Cat Ballou, Cool Hand Luke and Dog Day Afternoon, to his joining the writing staffs of The Good Wife and Mad Men well past his 80th birthday, he's always shown us -- better than anyone else -- how to do it with class, grace, humor, strength, brilliance, generosity and a joyful tenacity," said Academy governor of the writers branch Phil Robinson in a statement.

"He was both a great and a good man, I miss him already and feel very, very lucky to have known him," he said.

Pierson won Emmy awards for TV directing: Truman (1995) and Conspiracy (2001). He also garnered a CableACE award for Citizen Cohen (1992), a biopic on the notorious Red baiter Roy Cohn.

A man of long-term service to the industry, Pierson received the Writers Guild of America’s top three honors – Laurel Award for Lifetime Achievement, Valentine Davies Award and Edmund H. North Award. He served as president of the WGA from 1981-83 and 1993-95. Pierson also taught at the Sundance Institute for the summer labs, as well as served as the artistic director of the American Film Institute.

Pierson himself had a pedigreed and broad cultural background. He was born on May 12, 1925 in Chappaqua, New York and was educated at Harvard University. He subsequently served as a correspondent for Time magazine. Following that journalistic stint, he became a story editor for various TV shows. Following a robust TV writing career, he launched into directing. While always continuing to write, he made his film directing debut with The Looking Glass War in 1969. He also directed the 1976 version of A Star Is Born, starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson and directed King of the Gypsies in 1978.

His additional screenwriting credits, include a wide range of movies, including: The Anderson Tapes, Presumed Innocent, In Country, The Looking Glass War, The Happening and King of the Gypsies.

In more recent years, Pierson focused his energies on TV, distinguishing himself with such projects as Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (1994). His TV career began during the halcyon days of the ‘50s. He had written for TV for more than 40 years, beginning in the ‘50s with such renown series as Have Gun Will Travel, Route 66 and Naked City.

In addition, he has served the WGA in a number of capacities, either chairing or serving as a member of more than 25 WGA committees, including: Negotiating, Professional Status of Writers, Screen Credits, Laurel Award and Awards Show, among others.

Pierson is a past member of the board of the Los Angeles Theater Center, as well as a lecturer at the USC School of Cinema and Television. More recently, he served on the boards of a variety of organizations, including: Artists Rights Foundation and Humanitas Foundation.

STORY: Andy Horn Fills New CFO Role at Movie Academy

In an interview for the WGA conducted by Alan Waldman in 2003, Pierson lamented the current downslide in script quality: “I’m really disturbed about two things today. One is that among the big audience pictures, which are being financed by the major studios, the range of subject mater is so narrow and is aimed at a particularly small and not especially demanding audience ….The other thing, which I see with the people that I am teaching, is a matching impoverishment of the language of films …. For most of my students now, film history began with Steven Spielberg. Ironically, Steven himself was brought up studying the film of people who had a very board literary and liberal arts background.”

For his adaptation of Cat Ballou, Pierson was also honored by the Berlin International Film Festival with an honorable mention notice. In 1987, he was tributed by the Virginia Film Festival with a special screening of Cool Hand Luke.

Pierson is survived by his wife Helene, his children Michael and Eve and five grandchildren.

A private funeral for the family will be held this week. A public memorial will be planned in the near future. The family requests that contributions be made to Stand Up 2 Cancer.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/frank-pierson-death-obituary-353052#xdm_e=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hollywoodreporter.com&xdm_c=default6105&xdm_p=1&

Kitty Wells, famed female country singer, has died in Nashville at the age of 92.

According to family members, Kitty, born Ellen Muriel Deason, died at her home on Monday morning.

Wells was best known for her 1952 hit song "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels", making her the first female country singer to top the U.S country charts. Wells married her husband, Johnny Wright at the age of 18 in 1937. Wright also a country music legend in his own right, took his wife on the road with him. The couple spent over 60 years together in the country music industry. Well's husband also gave her the nickname "Kitty Wells" after a song called "Sweet Kitty Wells".

Wells leaves behind a daughter and son, and was preceded in death by her first daughter and her husband.

Funeral arraignments have not been announced.

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/19036545/country-legend-dies-at-age-92

SERRAO FRANK ANTHONY
Beloved son, brother and friend, passed away on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 at age 60. The first son of John E. and Mary (Laurino) Serrao, born on Valentine's Day, the same day as his father. Brother to Laura, John "Porky", Joseph and Linda; and uncle to Cassie and Danielle Serrao and John Michael Beakley of Texas. A Fox Chapel alumni and graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. Frank especially enjoyed working on a number of film projects in the area. He is most widely known as "The Gray Suit Zombie" from the original Dawn of the Dead film while his photo clip appeared on the Times Square Billboard. An actor on stage and film, educator in prisons and schools, and frustrated sports fan, Frank had many unique experiences to add to his credits. He will be faithfully remembered. A memorial gathering for family and friends will be held Sunday, July 22 at 3 p.m. at his family home in O'Hara Twp. The family respectfully suggests donations be made to the Cooper-Siegel Community Library, 403 Fox Chapel Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15238. Funeral arrangements were thoughtfully handled by the WEDDELL-AJAK FUNERAL HOME, Aspinwall.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/postgazette/obituary.aspx?n=FRANK-SERRAO&pid=158641888#fbLoggedOut

BOB CREAMER (1922-2012): A GENTLE GIANT OF JOURNALISM
July 19th, 2012




How many times over the past two years did I say to my wife, “I have to get up to Saratoga to see Bob Creamer?” Once we had it arranged and it wasn’t convenient for me, and another time the reverse prevailed, and I never made it.

Creamer, 90, died Wednesday night, and I hadn’t seen him in three decades, though we have talked. I’m in London until Aug. 13, and now I can’t even go his funeral. That’s how it works far too often.

Robert Creamer was one of those gentle giants in the world of journalism, not because of his size (though he was tall) but because he made a difference without ever calling attention to himself. Without Bob, chances are I would’ve remained toiling in obscurity, never getting the chance to work at one of the great magazines of the world. I’m not suggesting that would’ve been a loss for journalism, but it sure as hell would’ve been a loss for me.

Back in the 1970s Bob was the “outside text editor” for Sports Illustrated. That meant he handled copy from freelance schlubs like myself. SI was a different publication back then, thick, huge, diverse, as likely to do a long story on, say, Bengal tigers as the Cincinnati Bengals. The editors looked for long stories and treasured the idea that they could find a nobody and get him read by a few million people. And trust me—as a guy covering high school football, soccer and wrestling at the Bethlehem (Pa.) Globe-Times—I was a nobody.

After I submitted a few freelance ideas, having been encouraged by another giant, the late Jerry Tax (I did make it to Jerry’s memorial), thus did I come under the care and attention of Creamer.

“Bob Creamer?” I said to Tax. “I’m supposed to write to Bob Creamer?” Had I been on more familiar terms with Jerry, I would’ve said, Bob Fuckin Creamer? Bob was an SI legend, having been there since the inception of the magazine in 1954. He was also the author of Babe, one of those books that every sports writer who cared about being literate had to read. Today, 40 years after he wrote it, in graceful and eminently readable prose, Babe still appears on best-sports-book-lists.

Bob prepared the freelance contracts in careful English—using a typewriter of course, even after the world had gone computer—acceptances and rejections always done with grace. Once in a while he’d stick in an encouraging note, and one day he called to invite me to New York to have lunch.

“Only come in if you’re coming in anyway,” he said. “Don’t make a special trip.”

Like I wouldn’t have crawled on my knees all the way to Port Authority.

On the appointed date, we met at the Algonquin—of course we did, for Bob was an Algonquin kind of guy—and there was someone else at the table.

“I asked Bud Greenspan to come along,” Bob said as he greeted me at the door. “Hope you don’t mind.”

I knew Greenspan as the Olympic filmmaking legend.

Had I been a religious man, it was like having lunch at the Heaven’s Gate Luncheonette with Jesus Chris and, oh, yes, he also decided to bring along the apostle Paul.

Bob didn’t have to do any of that. He didn’t have to invite me to lunch and ask Bud Greenspan to come along, and treat me as somebody, and give me encouragement, and help me negotiate the halls of power at SI, an intimidating place then and now but especially then. And when I got a fulltime job at SI in 1981, I stopped in his office and thanked him.

“You did it yourself,” he said. “Now go do a good job.”

I’m not going to go into one of these screeds about how civility died when the likes of Bob Creamer retired, got old and died.

But civility sure as hell took a blow.

And damn … I wish I would’ve made it to Saratoga.

http://www.jackmccallum.net/2012/07/19/bob-creamer-1922-2012-a-gentle-giant-of-journalism/#.UAgfiPV62uI

In 2004, contestants on “Jeopardy!” were stumped by the clue “He was the comedy partner of Al Franken.”

Tom Davis, that comedy partner, sighed as he watched. He was so inured to being second fiddle to Mr. Franken, now a Democratic senator from Minnesota, that he called himself Sonny to Mr. Franken’s Cher.

But the fact is that Mr. Davis helped shape Mr. Franken’s comedy, and vice versa, from the time they entertained students with rebellious, razor-edged humor at high school assemblies in Minnesota.

In 1975, Mr. Davis, brilliant at improvisational comedy, and Mr. Franken, a whiz at plotting funny sequences, became two of the first writers on a new show called “Saturday Night Live,” which has lasted 37 years. (The two should actually be called one of the show’s first writers: they accepted a single salary of $350 a week. Each, singly, was called “the guys.”)

Mr. Davis never lost the quirky, original voice that helped shape the show, and in his last months he referred to death as “deanimation.” He deanimated on Thursday at his home in Hudson, N.Y., at age 59. The cause was throat and neck cancer, his wife, Mimi Raleigh, said.

With Mr. Franken and others, Mr. Davis helped create the clan of extraterrestrials known as the Coneheads, who attributed their peculiarities to having come from France. He and Dan Aykroyd collaborated on Mr. Aykroyd’s impersonation of Julia Child, in which the television chef cuts herself and bleeds to death after grabbing a phone to dial 911, only to find it’s a prop. Her last words: “Bon appétit!”

In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Aykroyd spoke of Mr. Davis’s “massive contribution” to the show, characterizing him as “very disciplined” and able to herd less focused writers toward something concrete. “There was no frivolous waste of time,” he said.

Mr. Davis was present at the creation of Irwin Mainway (played by Mr. Aykroyd), head of a company that made “Bag o’ Glass” and other dangerous toys. He midwifed Theodoric of York, a medieval barber-surgeon played by the guest host Steve Martin, who believed bloodletting cured everything. A famous sketch about a drunken President Richard M. Nixon stumbling around the White House conversing with past presidents’ portraits and spouting anti-Semitism? Mr. Davis and Mr. Franken wrote it.

They flirted with the margins of taste: a sketch about the Holocaust was rejected, but others about child abuse and the murder of lesbians made it onto the air.

In the early years of “Saturday Night Live,” Mr. Davis and Mr. Franken also appeared as a comic duo. One routine was “The Brain Tumor Comedian,” in which Mr. Franken, his head bandaged, tried to tell jokes but kept forgetting the punch line. Mr. Davis fought tears as he implored the audience to applaud.

Mr. Davis shared three Emmys for his writing on the show and another for “The Paul Simon Special” in 1977.

Thomas James Davis was born in Minneapolis on Aug. 13, 1952, and attended the private Blake School, where he and Mr. Franken bonded over comedians like Jack Benny and Bob and Ray. Their announcements of school events at the morning assembly were peppered with sarcasm, and soon they were performing at a local comedy club.

After graduating, Mr. Franken headed for Harvard, while Mr. Davis chose the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., because, he said, he had heard that it had a foreign study program in India, where he hoped to smoke opium. (They did, and he did.)

After a year of college, Mr. Davis returned to Minneapolis to work in improvisational comedy. And after Mr. Franken graduated from Harvard, the two convened in Los Angeles to do stand-up and caught the attention of Lorne Michaels, the creator of “Saturday Night Live.” He summoned them to New York, where he negotiated with the writers’ union to offer the two a single apprentice job.

In a recent interview, Senator Franken said he and Mr. Davis had complemented each other, Mr. Davis bringing his improvisational experience to the act while Mr. Franken was adept at structuring a routine. Mr. Davis’s humor had a sardonic, even cynical, sting, he said, but retained “sweetness and a Minnesota outlook.”

Mr. Davis lived a defiantly unconventional life. In his 2009 memoir, “Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL From Someone Who Was There,” he wrote that he first did LSD while watching “2001: A Space Odyssey” at a Minneapolis drive-in. At the peak of the Vietnam War, he decided to join the Marines, he said, then decided against it after undergoing a revolution in consciousness at a Jimi Hendrix concert.

Mr. Davis worked for “Saturday Night Live” from 1975 to 1980, and again from 1986 to 1994. In addition to writing, he produced shows in his second stint. He also collaborated with Mr. Aykroyd and Bonnie and Terry Turner to write “Coneheads” (1993). (The “Conehead” characters, he wrote in his memoir, were inspired by a trip Mr. Davis and Mr. Aykroyd took to Easter Island, famous for its towering stone statues.) With Mr. Franken he starred in the film “One More Saturday Night” (1986).

Mr. Davis retired in the mid-1990s but returned to “SNL” as a writer as recently as 2003.

He and Mr. Franken were so close that Mr. Franken named his daughter Thomasin Davis. But the two broke up as a team in 1990 as Mr. Franken tired of his friend’s drug abuse. They reconciled a decade later, and Mr. Davis obliged his friend by publishing his all-too-candid autobiography only after Senator Franken was elected. In his book, Mr. Davis wrote, “I love Al as I do my brother, whom I also don’t see very much.”

In addition to his wife and his brother, Robert, Mr. Davis is survived by his mother, Jean Davis.

In his last two years, Mr. Davis helped a friend write a book about Owsley Stanley, famed for handling sound for the Grateful Dead and supplying the group with LSD. He searched out objects like old barn doors and stones with which to make large sculptures. And he worked with Mr. Aykroyd on a script for a possible “Ghostbusters III” film.

As in his comedy, Mr. Davis said, “I’m improvising.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/arts/television/tom-davis-saturday-night-live-comedy-writer-dies-at-59.html

Welsh actress Angharad Rees has died after a long battle with cancer, her family has said.

Ms Rees, who starred in BBC drama series Poldark in the 1970s, was 63.

In a statement, her family said they were "deeply saddened" and the actress, who also enjoyed an extensive theatre career, would be "greatly missed".

"Angharad passed away peacefully today with her family at her bedside in London, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer," her family said.

Ms Rees was married to the late Dynasty actor Christopher Cazenove for more than 20 years and they had two sons together, Linford and Rhys, 35.

Linford, the elder of the two, died in a car crash on the M11 in Essex in 1999 aged 25.

In 1994 the Cardiff-born actress divorced Cazenove and went on to marry David McAlpine in 2005, with whom she lived in London.

Arts supporter

Ms Rees played Demelza in Poldark, a costume drama based on the novels written by Winston Graham and first broadcast in the UK between 1975 and 1977.

She also had a role in cult classic Jack the Ripper film Hands Of The Ripper and on stage she appeared in A Winter's Tale, Richard II and Romeo And Juliet.

In addition to her acting success, she also founded an eponymously titled jewellery design company based in Knightsbridge, with her pieces featured in the film Elizabeth, The Golden Age.

Her family said she remained an active supporter of the arts and was an honorary fellow of Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.

Her funeral will be private but there are plans for a service in celebration of her life which will be announced at a later date.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18940018

GINNY TYLER DIES

Disney Legend and REPS’ Friend Ginny Tyler passed away this morning July 13th, 2012.

When the original “Mickey Mouse Club” was re-edited and repackaged for syndication in 1962, Tyler was appointed Head Mouseketeer, live from Disneyland where she hosted a live 15-minute daily segment of the program. Children could also register as “Official Mouseketeers,” complete with membership card, and Ginny, often in the company of Roy Williams or Jimmie Dodd, was on hand for greetings and autographs. Read more about Ginny’s career with Disney at the Disney Legend’s web site. Ginny was a featured guest at the 2007 REPS SHOWCASE Old Time Radio Convention in Seattle where she played the title role of Pinocchio in a re-creation of the 1939 Lux Radio Theater version of the Disney movie. On the same evening Ginny played Mrs. Nussbaum in a re-enactment of the Fred Allen show. Audio versions of both performances can be heard below. We trust you will enjoy these very special performances of the late Ginny Tyler.

http://www.repspodcast.com/welcome-to-the-reps-podcast/


Holm, a lifelong New Yorker, appeared in the films "All About Eve," "High Society" and "Cinderella," among others.

In 1948, she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in the Elia Kazan film "Gentleman's Agreement."

She also played the role of Annie in the original production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma."

Funeral arrangements have not yet been made, but Holm's family members say they expect to hold a memorial in the city.

http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/164855/academy-award-winner-celeste-holm-dies-at-95


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/producer-richard-d-zanuck-dead-349085


Producer Richard D. Zanuck Dies at 77


Richard D. Zanuck, whose prolific producing career included Best Pictures Oscars for "The Sting," and "Driving Miss Daisy," as well as such blockbusters as "Jaws," and well-regarded films as "The Verdict" and "Cocoon," has died at age 77 of a heart attack. More recently, Zanuck produced Tim Burton’s "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Book of Eli."

He is survived by his wife Lili Fini Zanuck, sons Harrison and Dean and nine grandchildren.

Regarded as one of the more progressive producers in Hollywood, Zanuck was partnered with his wife, Lili Fini Zanuck, in the Zanuck Company. Their first production was "Driving Miss Daisy." That Oscar-winning filmalso received several other top-film honors - a Golden Globe Award, The National Board of Review Award and "Producer of the Year" honors from the Producers Guild of America.

In 1999, Zanuck and his longtime partner, David Brown, received the Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It marked the first time that an honoree was a second-generation recipient – Zanuck’s father, former Twentieth Century Fox head, Darryl F. Zanuck, received the award previously. They are the only father and son to both receive Best Pictures Oscars. Zanuck/Brown also received the David O. Selznick Lifetime Achievement Award from the Producers Guild in 1995.

At age 28, Zanuck became the youngest studio chief in history when he was appointed head of 20th Century Fox in 1962. During his eight years at the helm, the studio won an impressive 159 Oscar nominations. Three of the films – "The Sound of Music," "Patton" "The French Connection" – won Best Picture Oscars. Other studio successes under Zanuck’s tenure included: "The Planet of the Apes," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "M*A*S*H."

Zanuck subsequently moved from 20th Century Fox to become senior executive vice-president at Warner Bros., where he and soon-to-be partner David Brown oversaw production of such box office hits as The Exorcist and Blazing Saddles.

Richard Darryl Zanuck was born on December 13, 1934 in Los Angeles, the son of Twentieth Century Fox studio head Darryl Zanuck. He graduated from Stanford and served in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of lieutenant. Upon his discharge, Zanuck went to work at Twentieth Century Fox as a story and production assistant, working on such films as "Island in the Sun" and "The Sun Also Rises." At age 24, he produced his first film, "Compulsion," which won Best Actors Awards at 1959 Cannes Film Festival for the ensemble of Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman. He went on to produce "Sanctuary" and "The Chapman Report," and served as vp in charge of all productions and eventually as president. However, after a heated proxy battle in 1969-70, Zanuck was removed from the presidency.

At that point, Zanuck moved over to Warner Bros. where he served as executive vice president. While at the studio, Zanuck formed a partnership with David Brown, forming the Zanuck/Brown Company in 1971. The duo went on to become one of the film industry’s most influential producing teams. They produced Steve Spielberg’s first feature, "The Sugarland Express," as well as his second film, "Jaws," which became the first movie to break the $100 million mark domestically. Zanuck/Brown also produced the Paul Newman/Robert Redford-starrer, "The Sting," which won seven Oscars, including Best Picture. Subsequently, they produced another Paul Newman vehicle, "The Verdict," which was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

In 1988, Zanuck teamed up with his wife to establish The Zanuck Company: their debut film was the Oscar winning "Driving Miss Daisy,” which won four Oscars, including Best Picture. "The hardest picture I ever had to get made was ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ because it was such an unlikely project. In today's marketplace, audiences expect big summer blockbusters and films like ‘Planet of the Apes’ don't have it that tough," he once said in contrasting two of his films.

The Zanuck Company followed up with the critically acclaimed Rush starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jason Patric, and directed by Lili Fini Zanuck. Its musical score by Eric Clapton became one of the most acclaimed of 1992.

The Zanuck Company went on to produce Ron Howard’s "Cocoon," and its sequel, "Cocoon: The Return." Subsequent productions of The Zanuck Company included the 1998 box office hit, "Deep Impact," "Rush," "Mulholland Falls" and, with Clint Eastwood, "True Crime."

The duo produced the 72nd Annual Academy Awards telecast.

Richard Zanuck’s other producing credits with Lili Fini Zanuck include "Rich in Love," which reunited them with the "Driving Miss Daisy" creative team director Bruce Beresford and writer Alfred Uhry. They also produced "Wild Bill." More recently, The Zanuck Company produced "Yes Man," "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

In collaboration with HBO, the Zanucks were developing The Decalogue, consisting of ten one-hour films, each based on one of The Ten Commandments of the Bible, set in contemporary Los Angeles.

William Asher, who helped birth TV sitcom "Bewitched," co-created "The Patty Duke Show" and directed hundreds of episodes of series including "I Love Lucy" and"Bewitched," the latter starring his then-wife Elizabeth Montgomery, has died in Palm Desert, Calif., according to the Desert Sun. He was 90.
But even if he hadn't worked in television at all, Asher would be remembered for writing and helming the beach movies starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon: "Beach Party," "Muscle Beach Party," "Beach Blanket Bingo" and "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini."

(Amid working on these "Beach Party" films, he developed the pilot of the beach-set comedy "Gidget" for Sally Field and directed a number of episodes.)

He won an Emmy in 1966 for directing an episode of "Bewitched" and was thereafter nominated three more times for his work on the show.

The creation of "Bewitched" was spurred by his desire to see Montgomery keep working as an actress after their marriage in 1963. "She didn't want to do anything, she wanted to have babies," Asher said in a 1999 interview with the Bewitched.net fan website. Asher suggested that they do a TV series together, and he wrote a pilot that was "very close" to 'Bewitched' for Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems unit. But the studio had a similar script on hand from sitcom vet Sol Saks, "The Witch of Westport," featuring more of the Halloween-like trappings of, say, "The Addams Family." Asher blended the disparate visions, emphasizing comedy over cobwebs and boiling cauldrons. Saks, Asher acknowledged, "hated it," even though the show became a staple of ABC's lineup from 1964-72 and a perennial favorite in syndication for generations.

He started out in the mailroom at Universal Studios, co-directed the film "Leather Gloves" in 1948 before beginning work in television in the medium's earliest days, directing episodes of "The Danny Thomas Show" and "The Colgate Comedy Hour" among many others.

A job helming the pilot of the classic sitcom "Our Miss Brooks," adapted from radio, led to his work on "I Love Lucy," for which he directed 100 episodes. He also produced and directed episodes of "Fibber McGee and Molly."

He continued work as a director into the 1970s and beyond, helming episodes of "The Paul Lynde Show," "Operation Petticoat," "Alice," the TV adaptation of "The Bad News Bears" and "Private Benjamin." He helmed the reunion telepics "I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later" in 1985 and "Return to Green Acres" in 1990.

Besides the "Beach Party" films, Asher also directed a number of crime dramas for the bigscreen: "Mobs, Inc.," "The Shadow on the Window" "Johnny Cool," as well as sci-fier "The 27th Day." He took Avalon and Funicello onto the race track for the action comedy "Fireball 500" and returned to the bigscreen in 1985 with the Walter Matthau-Charles Grodin comedy "Movers and Shakers."

William Milton Asher was born in New York. His mother was the actress Lillian Bonner; his father, Ephraim M. Asher, was an associate producer on the 1931 horror classics "Dracula" and "Frankenstein." The family moved to Los Angeles when William Asher was 10.

Asher was married four times, the second time to the late actress Elizabeth Montgomery, the third time to actress Joyce Bulifant.

Asher is survived by fourth wife Meredith; a son and a daughter from his first marriage, Liane and Brian; two sons, William Asher Jr. and Robert Asher, and a daughter, Rebecca Asher, from his marriage to Montgomery; four stepchildren; nine grandchildren; and eight step-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Sept. 29 at Desert Springs Church in Palm Desert.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118056655


Actor Morgan Paull dies at 67
Appeared in opening scene of 'Blade Runner'

By Variety Staff

Morgan Paull, the actor best known for his role as the blade runner whom Harrison Ford's character replaces in the seminal science-fiction film of that name, died Tuesday in Ashland, Ore., after having been diagnosed with stomach cancer. He was 67.

The actor was also a candidate for president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1981, though he came in third, with Ed Asner winning the post.

Paull appears in the opening scene of Ridley Scott's 1982 film "Blade Runner," where as a detective he is interviewing a job applicant to make sure he is not a replicant, or genetically engineered human.

Paull had supporting roles in several other high-profile films, including "Patton," John Wayne starrer "Cahill U.S. Marshal," "The Swarm" and "Norma Rae," but he worked more often in television. The actor made his debut in an episode of "The Patty Duke Show" in 1965 and later guested in series including "Ironside," "Emergency!," "Gunsmoke," "Chico and the Man," "Quincy, M.E." and "The Fall Guy."

Paull is survived by longtime companion Jenny Elam; two daughters; two sisters; a granddaughter and grandson; and his stepmother.

Jon Lord of Deep Purple has died at the age of 71.

The co-founder and keyboard player with the metal pioneers passed away today (July 16) after suffering a pulmonary embolism. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer and was surrounded by his family at the London Clinic.

Lord founded Deep Purple in 1968, and along with drummer Ian Paice was a constant in the band during their existence from 1968 to 1976. Her co-wrote many of the band's songs, including the seminal 'Smoke On The Water' and was responsible for the legendary organ riff on 'Child In Time'. Watch the track below.

He remained with the band when they reformed in 1984 until his retirement in 2002.

Renowned for his fusion of rock and classical or baroque forms, he was perhaps best known for his Orchestral work 'Concerto For Group And Orchestra' first performed at Royal Albert Hall with Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969 and conducted by the renowned Malcolm Arnold. The feat was repeated in 1999 when it was again performed at the Royal Albert Hall by the London Symphony Orchestra and Deep Purple.

He also worked with Whitesnake, Paice, Ashton And Lord, The Artwoods and Flower Pot Men.

A statement from his representatives reads simply: "Jon passes from Darkness to Light".

http://www.nme.com/news/deep-purple/64953