Obituaries of Note... 2006

Saddam Hussein,  69;  a very brutal Iraqi dictator, killed 250K+

Saturday, December 30, 2006 - (Associated Press) - BAGH- DAD, Iraq - For all his 69 years, Saddam Hussein defied death. BORN TO POVERTY, he endured beatings as a boy. As a young rebel, he tried to assassinate an Iraqi leader, was wounded and managed to escape. And as Iraq's dictator for more than two decades, he made sure his meals were examined, even X-rayed, to avoid being poisoned by any number of enemies who might dare to try.

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ACCOUNTS OF A LIFE that ended on the gallows held that Saddam took much pride in his given first name -- an unusual one, meaning "he who confronts." MANY EXPERTS never expected him to be taken alive, but U.S. troops found him hiding in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit in December 2003. THROUGHOUt his rule, Saddam stoked and polished the image of a fighter who would not surrender. "The classic gladiator, a killer in a world in which he sees people either triumphing over others or being defeated," former State Department lawyer Abraham D. Sofaer told the Kansas City Star in 2003. "He has the most traumatized background of any leader I've profiled," said Jerrold Post, a psychiatry professor and former CIA profiler. "His history of defiance -- 'I'm going to get you before you get me' -- has gotten him points in the Arab world for standing up against a superior force." As a warrior, Saddam proved self-destructive: His 1980 incursion into neighboring Iran, in a border waterway dispute, led to an eight-year war that reached no conclusive result. The conflict crippled Iraq's economy and cost 1.5 million Iraqi and Iranian lives. At least 5,000 died when Saddam allegedly ordered poison gas dumped on Kurds in Halabja, in northern Iraq, to punish his countrymen for siding with Iran. His 1990 invasion of oil-rich Kuwait spurred a global coalition, led by the United States, to drive his forces out. In Saddam's bid to crush Shiite and Kurdish insurgencies after the Persian Gulf War, his troops are thought to have killed as many as 300,000 Iraqis. Saddam was born in 1937 near the banks of the Tigris River outside the northern city of Tikrit. A monarchy planted by the British ruled Iraq at the time. He was the peasant child of Subha Tulfah, who reportedly worked as a clairvoyant. Little is known of his father, Hussein al-Majid, who died shortly before his birth, Post said. A stepfather, known around the village as "Hassan the Liar," whacked Saddam with an asphalt-covered stick and kept him out of school, according to Con Coughlin's book, "Saddam: King of Terror." "The shame of his humble origins was to become the driving force of his ambition," wrote Coughlin. Sent to live with relatives at age 10, the boy took a liking to his mother's brother, Khairallah Tulfah, an Arab nationalist and author of a pamphlet titled "Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews and Flies."

Gerald Rudolph Ford,  93;  38th President of the United States

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WEDNESDAY, December 27, 2006 - (The Associated Press) - WASHINGTON - The hallmarks of a presidential funeral, a rare and solemn spectacle, began to fall into place Wednesday as the nation mourned the death of Gerald R. Ford, the 38th president, and prepared to accord his memory the capital's highest honors. FORD'S BODY WAS EXPECTED to lie in state this weekend in the Capitol Rotunda, offering both dignitaries and the public a chance to pay final respects to the former Michigan con- gressman who rose to the White House in the collapse of Richard Nixon's presidency.

FORD DIED AT HIS RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIFORNIA, home on Tuesday at age 93. Funeral arrangements were not complete but officials in Washington anticipated ceremonial events in the capital spread over about four days and capped by a service at the National Cathedral after the New Year. A REPUBLICAN leadership official said all events related to Ford's funeral in Washington would be finished by Jan- uary 4, opening day of the 110th Congress, meaning no delay was anticipated in the hand-over of congressional control to Democrats. The cathedral service was expected Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because funeral plans had not been disclosed. Tentative preparations made before Ford's death called for a small, private ceremony in California, an opportunity for the public to pay respects there, plus Washington events and a final public viewing at Ford's presidential museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., before his interment on the museum grounds. He would be the 11th president to lie in state in the Rotunda. One open question was how involved the funeral procession to the Capitol, often the most stirring of Washington's rituals of mourning, would be for a man whose modest ways and brief presidency set him apart from those honored with elaborate parades. Tentative plans called for Ford's hearse to pause by the World War II memorial on the National Mall. Ford was a naval reservist in the war, serving aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Planners are guided by the wishes of the family and any instructions from the president himself on how elaborate the events will be, how much of it takes place in Washington and more. Ex-presidents routinely are involved in their funeral planning with the Military District of Washington, which turned to the task quietly but with increasing urgency as Ford went through several bouts of ill health in recent years. The nation has only witnessed two presidential state funerals in more than 30 years - those of Ronald Reagan in 2004 and Lyndon Johnson in 1973. Nixon's family, acting on his wishes, opted out of the Washington traditions when he died in 1994, his presidency shortened and forever tainted by the Watergate scandal. What happens in Washington, particularly, unfolds according to guidelines that go back to the mid-1800s and have been shaped over time. No longer are government buildings draped in black, as they were in the time of Abraham Lincoln and before. But if a chosen ceremony requires mourners to be seated, for example, seating arrangements are detailed with a precision dictated by tradition. The presidential party is followed by chiefs of state, arranged alphabetically by the English spelling of their countries. Royalty representing chiefs of state come next, and then heads of governments followed by other officials. Eight presidents have had funeral processions down Pennsylvania Avenue, including all four sitting presidents to die by assassination - Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and Kennedy. Two presidents are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Kennedy and William H. Taft. Reagan was buried on the hilltop grounds of his presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif., in a dramatic sunset ceremony capping a week of official public mourning.

PINOCHET'S DICTATORSHIP laid the groundwork for South America's most stable economy, but his crackdown on dissent left a lasting legacy: His name has become a byword for the state terror, in many cases secretly supported by the United States, that retarded democratic change across the hemisphere.

PINOCHET died with his family at his side at the Santiago Military Hospital on Sunday, a week after suffering a heart attack.

"This criminal has departed without ever being sentenced for all the acts he was responsible for during his dictatorship," lamented Hugo Gutierrez, a human rights lawyer involved in several lawsuits against Pinochet.

Thousands of Pinochet supporters gathered outside the hospital and elsewhere, weeping and trading insults with people in passing cars. Some shouted "Long Live Pinochet!" and sang Chile's national anthem.

Many other Chileans saw his death as reason for celebration. Hundreds of cheering, flag-waving people crowded a major plaza in the capital, drinking champagne and tossing confetti.

"Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile represented one of most difficult periods in that nation's history," said Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman. "Our thoughts today are with the victims of his reign and their families."

Chile's government says at least 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during Pinochet's rule, but courts allowed the aging general to escape hundreds of criminal complaints as his health declined.

The mustachioed Pinochet left no doubt about who was in charge after the September 11, 1973 coup, when warplanes bombed the presidential palace and Allende committed suicide with a submachine gun Fidel Castro had given him.

"Not a leaf moves in this country if I'm not moving it," Pinochet said.

But he refused for years to take responsibility his regime's abuses, blaming subordinates for killings or tortures.

Only on his 91st birthday last month did he take "full political responsibility for everything that happened" during his long rule. But the statement made no reference to the rights abuses, and said he had to act to prevent Chile's economic and political disintegration.

AUTHORITARIAN RULE... Born November 25, 1915, the son of a customs official in the port of Valparaiso, Pinochet was appointed army commander just 19 days before the coup by Allende, who mistakenly thought Pinochet would defend constitutional rule.

The CIA had worked for months to destabilize the Allende government, including financing a truckers strike that paralyzed the delivery of goods across Chile, but Washington denied having anything to do with the coup itself.

Soon after Pinochet's seizure of power, soldiers carried out mass arrests of leftists. Tanks rumbled through the streets of the capital, and many detainees were herded into the National Stadium, which became a torture and detention center. Other leftists were rounded up by death squads, and the "Caravan of Death" to Chile's forbidding Atacama desert left victims buried in unmarked mass graves.

Pinochet disbanded Congress, banned political activity and crushed dissent. In addition to the dead, more than 1,000 victims remain unaccounted for. Thousands more were arrested, tortured and forced into exile.

Pinochet defended his authoritarian rule as a crusade to build a society free of communism. He even claimed partial credit for the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

"I see myself as a good angel," he told a Miami Spanish-language television station in 2004.

He showed no mercy to his perceived enemies. When investigators uncovered coffins that had been stuffed with two bodies each in the aftermath of the coup, he dismissed it as a "a good cemetery space-saving measure."

Pinochet seized power at a time when Chile's economy was in near ruins, partly due to the CIA's covert destabilization efforts and partly to Allende's mismanagement.

He launched a radical free-market program that at first triggered a financial collapse and unprecedented joblessness. But it laid the basis for South America's healthiest economy, which has grown by 5 percent to 7 percent a year since 1984.

Pinochet lost an October 1988 referendum to extend his rule and was forced to call an election. He lost to Patricio Alywin, whose center-left coalition has ruled Chile since 1990.

Pinochet avoided prosecution for years after his presidency. He remained army commander for eight more years and then was a senator-for-life, a position guaranteed under the constitution his regime wrote.

It took a Spanish judge to remove Pinochet's cloak of invincibility, and inspire Chileans to make their own efforts to hold him to account. He was in London for back surgery in 1998 when the judge asked Britain to extradite him to Spain for human rights violations. British authorities ruled he was too ill to be tried, and sent him back to Chile, where ghosts of the past were coming forward.

More than 200 criminal complaints were filed against him and he was under house arrest at the time of his death, but courts repeatedly ruled he could not face trial because of poor physical and mental health. Even longstanding Pinochet allies abandoned him in 2004, when a U.S. Senate investigative committee found Pinochet kept multimillion-dollar secret accounts at the Riggs Bank in Washington. Investigators said he had up to $17 million in foreign accounts, and owed $9.8 million in back taxes. He, his wife and several of his children were indicted on tax evasion charges.

During his final years, Pinochet lived in seclusion at heavily guarded Santiago mansion and his countryside residence.

He is survived by his wife, Lucia, two sons and three daughters.

The army said Pinochet will lay in state Monday and Tuesday at the Military Academy in Santiago. The government of President Michelle Bachelet -- whose father died in Pinochet's prisons -- said he would not receive the state funeral usually due former presidents.

His body was to be cremated. Pinochet's son Marco Antonio said his father feared a tomb would be desecrated by his enemies.

Jack Palance, 87; actor, was best known for "City Slickers" role

FRIDAY, November 10, 2006 - (C N N) - LOS ANGELES - Actor Jack Palance, who won an Oscar with his comedic self-parody in 1991's "City Slickers," died Friday.

HE WAS 87, SAID SPOKESPERSON DICK GUTTMAN, and died of natural causes in his home in Montecito, California, surrounded by his family.

KNOWN FOR HARD, GRIZZLED ROLES in numerous Westerns during his six-decade career, Palance gained a second wind of fame when he won the best supporting actor Oscar for playing Curly in "City Slickers."

THE ACTOR CLUTCHED HIS OSCAR in one hand and dropped to the ground for a round of vigorous one-handed push-ups.

THE ACADEMY Awards crowd laughed and applauded as he said, "That's nothing, really. As far as two-handed push-ups, you can do that all night, and it doesn't make a difference whether she's there or not."

It was a magic moment that epitomized the actor's 40 years in films. Always the iconoclast, Palance had scorned most of his movie roles.

"Most of the stuff I do is garbage," he once told a reporter, adding that most of the directors he worked with were incompetent, too. "Most of them shouldn't even be directing traffic."

Palance was born Vladimir Palaniuk in Pennsylvania. His family was Ukrainian and his father was a coal miner.

He was a professional heavyweight boxer in the early 1940s, but his career in the ring was halted by a stint in the military.

Palance was wounded in World War II and received a Purple Heart.

His acting break came after the war as Marlon Brando's understudy in "Streetcar Named Desire." He replaced Brando on stage as Stanley Kowalski, a working class construction worker with a fierce temper in Tennessee Williams' classic play.

According to the Internet Movie Database, Brando asked the actor if he would work with him on a punching bag but wound up with a sore nose when Palance missed the bag and hit the superstar.

Palance's portrayal of Kowalski earned him a contract with 20th Century Fox, the IMDB says.

He went on to positive reviews in a film career that included "Young Guns" in 1988 and "Batman" in 1989.

Palance also made guest appearances on numerous television shows, such as "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour," "Playhouse 90" and "Your Show of Shows."

Palance was nominated for an Academy Award in 1952 after portraying the ardent lover who stalks a terrified Joan Crawford in "Sudden Fear." In 1953, the Academy nominated him again for his role as Jack Wilson, the swaggering gunslinger who bullies peace-loving Alan Ladd into a barroom duel in the Western classic "Shane."

Palance also won an Emmy Award, for a role on "Playhouse 90," in 1957.

He is survived by his wife, Elaine Rogers; two children by his first wife, Holly Palance and Brook Palance Wilding; his brother, John; sister, Anne Despiva; and three grandchildren.

Ed Bradley, 65;  long time CBS News correspondent and anchor

THURSDAY, November 9, 2006 - (C B S / M S N B C) - NEW YORK CITY - Ed Bradley, a correspondent for "60 Minutes" since 1981, has died, CBS News announced on Thursday. Bradley died Thursday of leukemia at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital.   He was 65.

BRADLEY JOINED "60 MINUTES" during the 1981-82 season. He also served as an anchor and correspondent on many CBS News special reports.

BRADLEY WON 19 EMMY AWARDS, the latest for a "60 Minutes" segment that reported the reopening of the 50-year-old racial murder case of Emmett Till. He was presented a lifetime achievement award from the National Association of Black Journalists this year.

ACCORDING TO CBS NEWS.COM, Bradley won three Emmys in 2003: a Lifetime Achievement Emmy; one for a "60 Minutes" report on brain cancer patients and another for a report on "60 Minutes II" about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Bradley’s interview with condemned Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (March 2000) was the only television interview ever given by the man guilty of one of the worst terrorist acts on American soil; it also earned Bradley an Emmy.

IN A SPECIAL REPORT, CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Katie Couric said Bradley was "considered intelligent, smooth, cool, a great reporter, beloved and respected by all his colleagues here at CBS News."

"HE certainly was a reporter's reporter," fellow 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace told CBS News Radio.

Bradley’s significant contribution to electronic journalism was also recognized by the Radio/Television News Directors Association when it named him its Paul White Award winner for 2000. He joins other distinguished journalists, such as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Peter Jennings, as a Paul White recipient.

More recently, the Denver Press Club awarded him its 2003 Damon Runyon Award for career journalistic excellence. Another prestigious honor received by Bradley is the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards grand prize and television first prize for "CBS Reports: In the Killing Fields of America" (January 1995), a documentary about violence in America, for which he was co-anchor and reporter.

He also received a duPont citation for a segment on the Cambodian situation broadcast on CBS News’ "Magazine" series. He covered the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter during Campaign `76, served as a floor correspondent for CBS News’ coverage of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions from 1976 through 1996, and has participated in CBS News’ election-night coverage.

Prior to joining 60 Minutes, Bradley was a principal correspondent for "CBS Reports" (1978-81), after serving as CBS News' White House correspondent (1976-78). He was also anchor of the "CBS Sunday Night News" (November 1976-May 1981) and of the CBS News magazine "Street Stories" (January 1992-August 1993).

Bradley joined CBS News as a stringer in its Paris bureau in September 1971. A year later, he was transferred to the Saigon bureau, where he remained until he was assigned to the CBS News Washington bureau in June 1974. He was named a CBS News correspondent in April 1973 and, shortly thereafter, was wounded while on assignment in Cambodia. In March 1975, he volunteered to return to Indochina and covered the fall of Cambodia and Vietnam.

Prior to joining CBS News, he was a reporter for WCBS Radio, the CBS Owned station in New York (August 1967-July 1971). He had previously been a reporter for WDAS Radio Philadelphia (1963-67).

Bradley was born June 22, 1941, in Philadelphia and was graduated from Cheyney (Pennsylvania) State College in 1964 with a B.S. in education.

Jane Wyatt, 96;  actress, known from TV's "Father Knows Best"

MONDAY, October 23, 2006 - (Associated Press) - LOS ANGELES - Jane Wyatt, the lovely, serene actress who for six years on "Father Knows Best" was one of TV's favorite moms, has died, her son Christopher Ward said Sunday.   She was 96.

WYATT DIED FRIDAY in her sleep of natural causes at her Bel-Air home, according to publicist Meg McDonald. She had experienced health problems since suffering a stroke at 85, but her mind was sharp until her death, her son said.

WYATT HAD A SUCCESSFUL FILM CAREER in the 1930s and 1940s, notably as Ronald Colman's lover in 1937's "Lost Horizon."

BUT IT WAS HER YEARS as Robert Young's TV wife, Margaret Anderson, on "Father Knows Best" that brought the actress her lasting fame.

SHE APPEARED in 207 half-hour episodes from 1954 to 1960 and won three Emmys as best actress in a dramatic series in the years 1958 to 1960. The show began as a radio sitcom in 1949; it moved to television in 1954.

"Being a family show, we all had to stick around," she once said. "Even though each show was centered on one of the five members of the family, I always had to be there to deliver such lines as 'Eat your dinner, dear,' or 'How did you do in school today?' We got along fine, but after the first few years, it's really difficult to have to face the same people day after day."

The Anderson children were played by Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin, and all grew up on the show. In later years, critics claimed that shows like "Father Knows Best" and "Ozzie and Harriet" presented a glossy, unreal view of the American family.

In defense, Wyatt commented in 1966: "We tried to preserve the tradition that every show had something to say. The children were complicated personally, not just kids. We weren't just five Pollyannas."

It was a tribute to the popularity of the show that after its run ended, it continued in reruns on CBS and ABC for three years in primetime, a TV rarity.

The role wasn't the only time in her 60 years in films and TV that Wyatt was cast as the warm, compassionate wife and mother. She even played Mr. Spock's mom in the original "Star Trek" series and the feature "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home."

When Young died in 1998, Wyatt paid tribute to him as "simply one of the finest people to grace our industry."

"Though we never socialized off the set, we were together every day for six years, and during that time he never pulled rank [and] always treated his onscreen family with the same affection and courtesy he showed his loved ones in his private life," she said.

Wyatt was born in Franklin Lakes into a wealthy family in 1910, according to McDonald, her publicist. Her father, an investment banker, came from an old-line New York family, as did her mother, who wrote drama reviews. They gave their daughter a genteel upbringing, with her schooling at the fashionable Miss Chapin's school and Barnard College.

She left college after two years to apprentice at the Berkshire Playhouse in Stockbridge, Mass. For two years, she alternated between Berkshire and Broadway, appearing with Charles Laughton, Louis Calhern and Osgood Perkins.

While acting with Lillian Gish in "Joyous Season" in 1934, she got a contract offer from Universal Pictures. She agreed, on the condition she could spend half of each year in the theater.

During college, Wyatt attended a party at Hyde Park, N.Y., given by the sons of Franklin D. Roosevelt. There she met a Harvard student, Edgar Ward. In 1935 she married Ward, then a businessman, in Santa Fe, N.M.

She is survived by sons Christopher of Piedmont, Calif., and Michael of Los Angeles; three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Freddy Fender, 69; was Mexican-American country music artist

SUNDAY, October 15, 2006 - (The Associated Press) - SAN BENITO, Texas - Freddy Fender, the "Bebop Kid" of the Texas-Mexico border who later turned his twangy tenor into the smash country ballad "Before the Next Teardrop Falls," died Saturday.   He was 69.

FENDER, DIAGNOSED WITH LUNG CANCER in early 2006, died at noon at his Corpus Christi home with his family at his bedside, said Ron Rogers, a family spokesman.

OVER THE YEARS, he grappled with drug and alcohol abuse, was treated for diabetes and underwent a kidney transplant.

HE HIT IT BIG IN 1975 after some regional success, years of struggling -- and a stint in prison -- when "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" climbed to No. 1 on the pop and country charts.

"WASTED DAYS and Wasted Nights" rose to No. 1 on the country chart and top 10 on the pop chart that same year, while "Secret Love" and "You'll Lose a Good Thing" also hit No. 1 in the country charts.

Born Baldemar Huerta, Fender was proud of his Mexican-American heritage and frequently sang verses or whole songs in Spanish. "Teardrop" had a verse in Spanish.

"Whenever I run into prejudice," he told The Washington Post in 1977, "I smile and feel sorry for them, and I say to myself, 'There's one more argument for birth control.'"

"The Old Man upstairs rolled a seven on me," he once told an interviewer in 1975. "I hope he keeps it up."

More recently, he played with Doug Sahm, Flaco Jimenez and others in two Tex-Mex all-star combos, the Texas Tornados and Los Super Seven.

He won a Grammy of Best Latin Pop Album in 2002 for "La Musica de Baldemar Huerta." He also shared in two Grammys: with the Texas Tornados, which won in 1990 for best Mexican-American performance for "Soy de San Luis," and with Los Super Seven in the same category in 1998 for "Los Super Seven."

Among his other achievements, Fender appeared in the 1987 motion picture "The Milagro Beanfield War," directed by Robert Redford.

In February 1999, he was awarded a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame after then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush wrote to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce endorsing him.

He said that one thing would make his musical career complete -- induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.

"Hopefully, I'll be the first Mexican-American going into Hillbilly Heaven," he said.

Fender was born in 1937 in San Benito, the South Texas border town credited for spawning the Mexican-polka sound of conjunto. The son of migrant workers who did his own share of picking crops, he also was exposed to the blues sung by blacks alongside the Mexicans in the fields.

Always a performer, he sang on the radio as a boy and won contests for his singing -- one prize included a tub full of about $10 worth of food.

But his career really began in the late 1950s, when he returned from serving in the Marine Corps and recorded Spanish-language versions of Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" and Harry Belafonte's "Jamaica Farewell." The recordings were hits in Mexico and South America. He signed with Imperial Records in 1959, renaming himself "Fender" after the brand of his electric guitar, "Freddy" because it sounded good with Fender.

Fender initially recorded "Wasted Days" in 1960. But his career was put on hold shortly after that when he and his bass player ended up spending almost three years in prison in Angola, La., for marijuana possession.

After prison came a few years in New Orleans and a then an everyday life taking college classes, working as a mechanic and playing an occasional local gig. He once said he sang in bars so dingy he performed with his eyes shut "dreaming I was on 'The Ed Sullivan Show.'"

Cory Lidle, 34;  was pitcher for New York Yankees, private pilot

THURSDAY, October 12, 2006 - (Associated Press) - NEW YORK - Cory Lidle hoped to use his passion for flying to get away from a most difficult season.

CRITICIZED BY FORMER TEAMMATES in Philadelphia and attacked in the New York media, Lidle looked forward to piloting himself back home to California once the Yankees lost in the playoffs.

INSTEAD, this Yankees pitcher was killed along with a second person yesterday when his small plane crashed into a 50-story skyscraper in Manhattan.   He was 34.

"THIS IS A TERRIBLE AND SHOCKING TRAGEDY that has stunned the entire Yankees organization," Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said in a statement.

SAID COMMISSIONER Bud Selig: "All of baseball is shocked and terribly saddened by the sudden and tragic passing of Cory Lidle."

Lidle got his pilot's license before this season, bought his own plane and tried to spend every spare moment in the air.

"Yeah, it's risky, but no more risky than driving a car," he said in August.

A friend of Lidle's said the pitcher had phoned earlier yesterday to say he would stop in Nashville, Tenn., on his way to California.

"He called me about 11:30 this morning ... and said that he was still planning on coming in, that there were some weather cells around Nashville and that he had a flight instructor with him and that they'd be in about 5," Dave Whitis told radio station WGFX.

"He was actually going to take me up in his plane when he got here," Whitis said.

Lidle agreed to a $6.3 million, two-year deal with the Phillies in November 2004. The contract contained a provision saying the team could get out of paying the remainder if he was injured or killed while piloting a plane.

Because the regular season was over, Lidle already had received the full amount in the contract.

For nearly a decade, Lidle put together a successful career as a major-league pitcher by living on the edge. Not the hardest thrower, he worked to the corners.

"Cory was a gambler. He always tried to take chances," Oakland coach Ron Washington said before the Athletics faced Detroit in the American League Championship Series last night.

Lidle went 82-72 with a 4.57 ERA in a career that started in 1997. He played for the New York Mets, Tampa Bay, Oakland, Toronto, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and the Yankees.

Still in the minors, Lidle played one game for the Milwaukee Brewers in a 1995 spring training game while major-leaguers were on strike. That one-inning stint as a replacement player haunted him later in his career, and Lidle was taunted as a "scab" by Phillies pitcher Arthur Rhodes after being traded to the Yankees on July 30.

Then Lidle was dropped from the Yankees' postseason rotation, reduced to a relief role instead of starting in the surprising four-game loss to Detroit. After the defeat, Lidle was quoted as saying the Yankees weren't as prepared as the Tigers.

On Tuesday, aware that he was getting criticized on WFAN radio, he called the station to defend himself. What ensued was a testy interview, with Lidle insisting his comments were not directed at manager Joe Torre.

"All I ever said was that they came more ready to play than us. They won that series. They outpitched us, they outhit us, they outfielded us. They were more ready to play than we were," Lidle said on WFAN.

"I want to win as much as anybody. But what am I supposed to do? Go cry in my apartment for the next two weeks?"

Lidle said he was sure the Yankees weren't happy about his plane, but added that no one in the organization had said anything to him about it.

Players flying airplanes is a troubling topic for the Yankees. Team captain Thurman Munson was killed flying his own plane in the 1979 season in Ohio, and his catcher's gear still hangs in a special spot in the Yankees' clubhouse.

"This is a terrible shock," Torre said.

Lidle played in high school with Jason Giambi, and they became teammates on the Yankees this season.

"Right now, I am really in a state of shock, as I am sure the entire MLB family is," Giambi said in a statement.

"My thoughts are with Cory's relatives and the loved ones of the others who were injured or killed in this plane crash. I have known Cory and his wife, Melanie, for over 18 years and watched his son grow up. We played high school ball together and have remained close throughout our careers. We were excited to be reunited in New York this year and I am just devastated to hear this news," he said.

Lidle had a 6-year-old son, Christopher.

 Bevo XIII, 22;  the University of Texas' longest-serving mascot

Interestingly,  BEVO I eventually became the barbecued main dish for the 1920 UT football banquet...

WEDNESDAY, October 11, 2006 - (Austin-American Statesman) - AUSTIN, TX - Some longhorns are born great, and some achieve greatness. For Bevo XIII, a slow-blinking, 1,800-pound bovine content to lounge out of bounds during his tenure as the University of Texas' longest-serving mascot, greatness was thrust upon him.

ON TUESDAY, THE SILVER SPURS, the club charged with the care of Bevos past and present, announced that Bevo XIII had died Monday on a ranch northwest of Austin. He was 22 and had inspired hundreds of thousands of UT fans for 16 years before retiring during the opening game of the 2004 season.

BORN SUNRISE EXPRESS, he found early fame as a 2-year-old national grand champion show steer, according to his owner, John T. Baker. His mostly orange fur with a blaze of white on his forehead, a long and lovely set of horns and his easy manner made him an obvious choice to be the 13th Bevo. He took over in 1988.

"HE WAS PROBABLY just about perfect for the position," said Ricky Brennes, Bevo XIII's handler in 1999. "He had just enough passiveness and docility that we could take him anywhere we wanted. He had just enough feistiness to be mascot of the team. He liked attention, but he also liked his own space. You got too close to him, and he'd try to hook you.

"We basically had to bearhug him to get that halter on him," Brennes said.

He also had a flair — if unintended — for the theatrical. After the 1999 Big 12 Championship Game in which Nebraska beat Texas in the Alamodome, Bevo XIII left his mark square on the Cornhuskers logo.

Age finally caught up with him. His handlers decided that Bevo XIII, who suffered arthritis and was older than some of the players on the field, was ready for the pasture after 16 years on the squad.

"Like with an elderly person, there just comes a point in one's life when you can't look as good," Baker said. A veterinarian was called after Bevo XIII couldn't stand anymore, but the animal's heart stopped before he could be euthanized.

The longhorn mascot tradition began in 1916 when a Texas ex named Stephen Pinckney, who picked apart cattle rustling gangs while at the U.S. attorney general's office, discovered an orange-furred longhorn during a raid in Laredo.

With contributions of $1 from 124 alumni, Pinckney bought the animal and brought it to Austin where it was presented to the student body during halftime of the Texas A&M game.

Bevo I eventually became the barbecued main dish for the January 1920 football banquet. But Brennes assures Bevo XIII "will not be eaten."

Baker said he has plans to preserve Bevo XIII as a shoulder mount. "He's passed on to greener pastures," Baker said.

An online poll of mascots shows Bevo trailing only Keggy the Keg — Dartmouth's unofficial mascot — as the nation's best. No. 3 is Handsome Dan, the Yale bulldog, and fourth is the University of California at Santa Cruz's banana slug.

Ann Richards, 73; former flamboyant Democrat Texas governor

THURS., September 14, 2006 - (Associated Press) - AUSTIN - Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died on Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokes- woman said.   She was 73.

SHE DIED AT HOME surrounded by her family, the spokeswoman said. Richards was found to have esophageal cancer in March and underwent chemotherapy treatments.

THE SILVER-HAIRED, SILVER-TONGUED RICHARDS said she entered politics to help others -- especially women and minorities who were often ignored by Texas' male-dominated establishment.

"I DID NOT WANT my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone,' " Richards said shortly before leaving office in January 1995.

SHE WAS GOVERNOR for one term, losing her reelection bid to Republican George W. Bush.

She grabbed the national spotlight with her keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, when she was the Texas state treasurer. Richards won cheers from delegates when she reminded them that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, "only backwards and in high heels."

Richards sealed her partisan reputation with a blast at George H. W. Bush, a fellow Texan who was vice president at the time: "Poor George, he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

Richards rose to the governorship with a come-from-behind victory over millionaire cowboy Clayton Williams in 1990. She cracked a half-century male grip on the governor's mansion and celebrated by holding up a T-shirt that showed the state Capitol and read: "A woman's place is in the dome."

In four years as governor, Richards championed what she called the "New Texas," appointing more women and more minorities to state posts than any of her predecessors.

She appointed the first black University of Texas regent; the first crime victim to join the state Criminal Justice Board; the first disabled person to serve on the human services board; and the first teacher to lead the state Board of Education. Under Richards, the fabled Texas Rangers pinned stars on their first black and female officers.

Throughout her years in office, her personal popularity remained high. One poll put it at more than 60 percent the year she lost to Bush.

Richards went on to give speeches, work as a commentator for CNN and serve as a senior adviser in the New York office of Public Strategies Inc., an Austin-based consulting firm.

Richards grew up near Waco, married civil rights lawyer David Richards, volunteered in campaigns and raised four children. She and her husband later divorced.

In the early 1960s, she helped form the North Dallas Democratic Women, "basically to allow us to have something substantive to do; the regular Democratic Party and its organization was run by men who looked on women as little more than machine parts."

Richards served on the Travis County Commissioners Court in Austin for six years before jumping to a bigger arena in 1982. Her election as state treasurer made her the first woman elected statewide in nearly 50 years.

But politics took a toll. It helped break up her marriage. And public life forced her to be remarkably candid about her 1980 treatment for alcoholism.

"I had seen the very bottom of life," she once recalled. "I was so afraid I wouldn't be funny anymore. I just knew that I would lose my zaniness and my sense of humor. But I didn't. Recovery turned out to be a wonderful thing."

The 1990 election was rough. Her Democratic primary opponent, state Attorney General Jim Mattox, accused her of using illegal drugs. Williams, an oilman, banker and rancher, spent millions of his own money on the race she narrowly won.

After her unsuccessful reelection campaign against Bush, Richards said she never missed being in public office.

Asked once what she might have done differently had she known she was going to be a one-term governor, Richards grinned. "Oh, I would probably have raised more hell."

Steve Irwin,  44;  "Crocodile Hunter", naturalist, TV personality

SUNDAY, September 3, 2006 - (Associated Press) - CAIRNS, Australia - Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian tele- vision personality, and conservationist known as the "Croc- odile Hunter," was killed today by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef.   He was 44.

IRWIN WAS AT BATT REEF, off the remote coast of north- eastern Queensland state, shooting a segment for a series called "Ocean's Deadliest" when he swam too close to one of the animals, which have a poisonous barb on their tails, his friend and colleague John Stainton said.

"HE CAME ON TOP of the stingray and the stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Stainton, who was on board Irwin's boat at the time.

CREW MEMBERS ABOARD THE BOAT, CROC ONE, called emergency services in the nearest city, Cairns, and administered CPR as they rushed the boat to nearby Low Isle to meet a rescue helicopter. Medical staff pronounced Irwin dead when they arrived a short time later, Stainton said.

IRWIN WAS FAMOUS for his enthusiasm for wildlife and his catchword "Crikey!" in his television program "Crocodile Hunter." First broadcast in Australia in 1992, the program was picked up by the Discovery network, catapulting Irwin to international celebrity.

HE rode his image into a feature film, 2002's "The Crocodile Hunters: Collision Course" and developed the wildlife park that his parents opened, Australia Zoo, into a major tourist attraction.

"The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest dads on the planet," Stainton told reporters in Cairns. "He died doing what he loved best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. He would have said, 'Crocs Rule!"'

Prime Minister John Howard, who hand-picked Irwin to attend a gala barbecue to honor President Bush when he visited in 2003, said he was "shocked and distressed at Steve Irwin's sudden, untimely and freakish death."

"It's a huge loss to Australia," Howard told reporters. "He was a wonderful character. He was a passionate environmentalist. He brought joy and entertainment and excitement to millions of people."

Irwin, who made a trademark of hovering dangerously close to untethered crocodiles and leaping on their backs, spoke in rapid-fire bursts with a thick Australian accent and was almost never seen without his uniform of khaki shorts and shirt and heavy boots.

Wild animal expert Jack Hanna, who frequently appears on TV with his subjects, offered praise for Irwin.

"Steve was one of these guys, we thought of him as invincible," Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus (Ohio) Zoo and Aquarium, told ABC's "Good Morning America" today.

"The guy was incredible. His knowledge was incredible," Hanna said. "Some people that are doing this stuff are actors and that type of thing, but Steve was truly a zoologist, so to speak, a person who knew what he was doing. Yes, he did things a lot of people wouldn't do.   I think he knew what he was doing."

Irwin's ebullience was infectious and Australian officials sought him out for photo opportunities and to promote Australia internationally.

His public image was dented, however, in 2004 when he caused an uproar by holding his infant son in one arm while feeding large crocodiles inside a zoo pen. Irwin claimed at the time there was no danger to the child, and authorities declined to charge Irwin with violating safety regulations.

Later that year, he was accused of getting too close to penguins, a seal and humpback whales in Antarctica while making a doc- umentary. Irwin denied any wrongdoing, and an Australian Environment Department investigation recommended no action be taken against him.

Stingrays have a serrated, toxin-loaded barb, or spine, on the top of their tail. The barb, which can be up to 10 inches long, flexes if a ray is frightened. Stings usually occur to people when they step on or swim too close to a ray and can be excruciatingly painful but are rarely fatal, said University of Queensland marine neuroscientist Shaun Collin.

Collin said he suspected Irwin died because the barb pierced under his ribcage and directly into his heart.

"It was extraordinarily bad luck. It's not easy to get spined by a stingray and to be killed by one is very rare," Collin said.

News of Irwin's death spread quickly, and tributes flowed from all quarters of society.

At Australia Zoo at Beerwah, south Queensland, floral tributes were dropped at the entrance, where a huge fake crocodile gapes. Drivers honked their horns as they passed.

"Steve, from all God's creatures, thank you. Rest in peace," was written on a card with a bouquet of native flowers.

"We're all very shocked. I don't know what the zoo will do without him. He's done so much for us, the environment and it's a big loss," said Paula Kelly, a local resident and volunteer at the zoo, after dropping off a wreath at the gate.

Stainton said Irwin's American-born wife Terri, from Eugene, Ore., had been informed of his death, and had told their daughter Bindi Sue, 8, and son Bob, who will turn 3 in December.

The couple met when she went on vacation in Australia in 1991 and visited Irwin's Australia Zoo; they were married six months later. Sometimes referred to as the "Crocodile Huntress," she costarred on her husband's television show and in his 2002 movie.

Nellie B. Connally, 87;
  widow of former Texas Gov.

SUNDAY, September 3, 2006 - (The Asso- ciated Press) - AUSTIN, Texas - Nellie B. Connally, the last remaining survivor who was riding in President John F. Kennedy's limousine when he was assassinated, has died, a family friend said on Saturday. She was 87.

CONNALLY, THE WIDOW of former Gov. John B. Connally, died in her sleep late Friday at Westminster Manor in Austin, said Julian Read, who served as the governor's press secretary in the 1960s.

"TOTAL SURPRISE," he said. "She has been extremely active and vital the past few days and weeks. ... It's a shock to all of us."

CONNALLY had said the most enduring image she had of the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination in Dallas was of a mixture of blood and roses.

"It's the image of yellow roses and red roses and blood all over the car ... all over us," she said in a 2003 interview with The Associated Press. "I'll never forget it. ... It was so quick and so short, so potent."

As the limousine carrying the Connallys and the Kennedys wound its way through the friendly crowd in downtown Dallas, Nellie Connally turned to President Kennedy, who was in a seat behind her, and said, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you."

Almost immediately, she heard the first of what she later concluded were three gunshots in quick succession. John Connally slumped after the second shot, and "I never looked back again. I was just trying to take care of him," Connally said.

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Anniversaries and inevitable media interviews followed the Connallys for decades to come.

She was also an active fund-raiser for many charities. In 1989, Richard Nixon, Barbara Walters and Donald Trump turned out for a gala to honor her and raise money for diabetes research.

"I've never known a woman with Nellie's courage, compassion and character," Walters said. "For all her ups and downs, I've never heard a self-pitying word from her."

The "downs" that Walters spoke of were financial difficulties.

Private business ventures after 1980 were less successful than John Connally's career as a politician and deal-making Houston lawyer. An oil company in which he invested got into trouble, and $200 million worth of real estate projects went sour.

He filed for reorganization of his personal finances under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code and for liquidation, under Chapter 7, of the Barnes/ Connally Partnership, the Austin-based real estate venture that he founded with former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes.

The auction paid only a fraction of the $93 million in debts Connally listed with the bankruptcy court.

Nellie Connally celebrated her 80th birthday with fellow breast cancer survivors at a ceremony at the Nellie B. Connally Breast Center at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. It had been 10 years since she overcame breast cancer.

She had served on the M.D. Anderson Board of Visitors since 1984, and a fund in her name raised millions for research and patient programs.

Survivors include her daughter, Sharon Connally Ammann, and two sons, John B. Connally III and Mark Connally.
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Alvin G. Blau, 92;  former North Haledon mayor and civic leader

THURS., August 31, 2006 - (Herald News) - NORTH HALEDON, NJ - In a political career spanning nearly two decades, Alvin G. Blau, who died Wednesday, left a legacy of community activism and cooperation, which continues to influence this Passaic County borough.   Blau was 92.

A POLITICAL VETERAN IN MANY RESPECTS, Blau served from 1960 to 1978 as mayor of North Haledon, and spearheaded num- erous projects that resulted in the bor- ough's upkeep. A longtime member of the Planning Board, Blau instituted a variety of programs, including the installation of a sewerage system that replaced municipal septic tanks in the area.

ANOTHER FORMER MAYOR, Peter Slootmaker, said he recalled the project as "the biggest capital project which we ever encountered."

BLAU ALSO INSTITUTED a recycling program in the 1970s, according to a 2001 Herald News article. "We were one of the first municipalities to do it," he said of the recycling program.

OTHER projects Blau was involved with included the acquisition of land for erecting and maintaining recreational areas and facilities - such as a soccer field, the public library and municipal swimming pool, and the property where the Public Works Building is located.

As a private citizen, Blau's presence was still felt in the community, Slootmaker, said. He remembered one day that Blau approached him to work with the Planning Board. Quite surprised, Slootmaker told the former mayor that he did not even know him. Blau countered that he recalled Slootmaker's work with the Prospect Park Board of Education and knew he could do the job.

"I owe my whole North Haledon career to that man," Slootmaker said.

Last year, Blau joined other former borough mayors, Slootmaker, Renate Lampe, and current Mayor Randy George, in endorsing a plan to rebuild Memorial Elementary School, and include an annex to High Mountain Middle School.
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George said he remembered working with Blau "on the political end" when he became involved. Later George honored Blau at the local Republican dinner in 2003 for the projects that improved life's quality.

"He was a dynamo. Wherever we were going, it had to do with him," he said. "He was such an example to all of us. He epitomized government service."

During his tenure as mayor, Blau wore many hats, ranging from his work on the Planning Board to the Boy Scouts. He was a member of the Board of Library Trustees, Youth Guidance Council, Fire Company 2, Republican Club, a member and past president of the Passaic County Board of Realtors and participated in many functions with the Cultural Committee, Youth Guidance Council, Building Advisory Committee and Passaic County League of Mayors, in which he also served as president.

A former director of the Greater Paterson Mental Health Center, Blau also worked on fundraisers for the United Fund, St. Joseph's Regional Hospital, Greater Paterson General Hospital and Catholic Family Community Services.

The Passaic native, who moved here in 1950, has been honored for his achievements by the Haledon Ambulance Corp., Golden Age Club, Youth of North Haledon, Cub Pack 70 and Passaic County Board of Realtors. He was also named Man of the Year by the local UNICO chapter.

Blau also served as a Cubmaster for 10 years and was a recipient of the Silver Beaver Award. He has been an active participant of the Boys Scouts of America since 1926, serving on the Passaic Valley Boy Scout Council executive board and finance committee. He was a member, former director and treasurer of the New Jersey Conference of Mayors, a director of the Haledon Rotary and chairman of its membership committee, a chairman for the borough's blood bank for 20 years and organizer of the Stamp & Coin Club.

"I found it, and it was something that he had written. I wanted people to see what he had done," she said.

Blau was preceded in death by his first wife, Florence; a brother, Jerome; and a sister, Lillian Martin.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son, Philip of Fort Pierce, Fla.; two daughters, Ruth Hodges of Yerba Linda, Calif., and Honey Rowen of Haledon; a stepson, Robert Crane of Montclair; a stepdaughter, Deborah Zohn of Coopersburg, Pa.; seven grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
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Glenn Ford, 90;  U.S. motion picture actor, "Blackboard Jungle"

THURS., August 31, 2006 - (TimesOnLine-UK) - BEVERLY HILLS, CA - Glenn Ford, who was one of the United States' most cel- ebrated 20th Century movie stars, has died.   He was 90.

FORD FEATURED IN A TOTAL OF 85 FILMS from 1939 to 1991, frequently starring as handsome-but-tough characters, but also featuring in roles ranging from comedy to romance.

THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE was seen as the high point of his career, but he also notably starred in films noirs such as Gilda and The Big Heat.

PARAMEDICS CALLED to his California home in Beverly Hills just before 4 PM local time yesterday found him dead, police Sergeant Terry Nutall said, reading a prepared statement. "They do not suspect foul play," he added.

FORD SUFFERED a series of strokes in the 1990s, and his health had faded notably in recent years. Illness forced the movie star to skip a 90th birthday tribute on May 1 at the historic Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, in Hollywood. But he did send greetings via videotape, adding: "I wish I were up and around, but I'm doing the best that I can.... There's so much I have to be grateful for."

AT the event, Shirley Jones, who co-starred with him in the comedy The Courtship of Eddie's Father, called Ford "one of the cornerstones of our industry, and there aren't many left."

Sidney Poitier, who also starred in The Blackboard Jungle, paid tribute to Ford, saying: "It comes to mind instantly what a remarkable actor he was.

"He had those magical qualities that are intangible but are quite impactful on the screen. He was a movie star."

Other famous credits include playing Pa Kent, Superman's adoptive dad, in the first Christopher Reeve Superman film, as well as roles in The Sheepman, The Gazebo, Pocketful of Miracles and Don't Go Near the Water.

An avid horseman and former polo player, more than half of Ford's films were Westerns - 3:10 to Yuma, Cowboy, The Rounders, Texas, The Fastest Gun Alive and the remake of Cimarron among them.

His talents also included lighter parts, with roles alongside Marlon Brando in The Teahouse of August Moon, and with Debbie Reynolds and Eva Gabor in It Started With a Kiss.

On television, he appeared in Cade's County, The Family Holvak, Once an Eagle and When Havoc Struck. He starred in the feature film The Courtship of Eddie's Father, which later became a TV series featuring Bill Bixby.

A tireless worker, Ford often made several films a year, and continued working well into his 70s. "Acting is just being truthful," he once said.

"I have to play myself. I'm not an actor who can take on another character, like Laurence Olivier. The worst thing I could do would be to play Shakespeare."

He was born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford on May 1, 1916, in Quebec, the son of a railway conductor. The first name reflected his family's Welsh roots.

When Ford joined Columbia Pictures in the 1930s, Harry Cohn, his new boss, asked him to change his name to John Gower. Ford refused, but switched his first name to Glenn, after his father's birthplace of Glenford.

In 1939, he made his first Hollywood film, opposite Jean Rogers in the romance Heaven With a Barbed Wire Fence. He later put his acting career on hold to fight in World War II, serving in the US Marines from 1943-45 and seeing action in the Pacific.

In 1952 he signed up for the French Foreign Legion during a heavy drinking session while filming in Europe, but managed to talk his way out of it four days later after he sobered up.

He married actress-dancer Eleanor Powell in 1943; the two divorced in 1959. They had a son, Peter. A 1965 marriage to actress Kathryn Hays ended quickly. In 1977, he married model and actress Cynthia Hayward, 32 years his junior. They were divorced in 1984.

Mike Douglas,  85;  singer, pioneering afternoon talk show host

FRIDAY, August 11, 2006 - (The Associated Press) - WEST PALM BEACH, FLA - Mike Douglas, who drew on his affable personality and singing talent during 21 years as a talk show host, died on Friday on his 81st birthday, his wife said.

HE DIED AT 5:30 AM in a Palm Beach Gardens hospital, said his wife, Genevieve Douglas. She wasn't sure of the cause, but said he had been admitted Thursday.

DOUGLAS BECAME DEHYDRATED on the golf course a few weeks ago and had been treated on and off since. "He was coming along fine, we thought. It was really a shock," she said. "We never anticipated this to happen."

DOUGLAS' AFTERNOON SHOW, which aired from 1961 to 1982, featured his ballad and big-band singing style, other musicians, comedians, sports figures and political personalities, including seven former, sitting or future presidents.

"PEOPLE STILL BELIEVE 'The Mike Douglas Show' was a talk show, and I never correct them, but I don't think so," Douglas said in his 1999 memoir, "I'll Be Right Back: Memories of TV's Greatest Talk Show."

"IT WAS really a music show, with a whole lot of talk and laughter in between numbers."

Douglas did about 6,000 syndicated shows, most 90 minutes long, and estimated that at its peak the show was seen in about 230 cities.

Tom Kelly, who co-authored Douglas' memoir, said he had about 30,000 guests had appear on his show over the years.

"One big key to his great success was he had his ego in check," Kelly said. "He always let the guest have the limelight. He was a fine performer. He could sing, he could do comedy, he did it all, but he always gave the guest the spotlight."

Douglas was among the "early settlers" in daytime talk shows, said Robert Thompson, a professor and director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

"Mike Douglas was an old-fashioned traditionalist, holding down the fort while the culture was changing," Thompson said. "He was always the very friendly talk show host, nice to everybody. He would lean toward his guest as if he really cared. He owned that territory."

Hosts Phil Donahue, Dinah Shore and Merv Griffin also found success about the same time. Douglas said in his book that people often confused him with Griffin, another singer of Irish heritage. (Douglas was born Michael Delaney Dowd Jr. in Chicago, Illinois.)

Douglas fondly recalled when Tiger Woods, who as a preschooler was already drawing attention, appeared on the same 1978 show as Bob Hope, an avid golfer. "I don't know what kind of drugs they've got this kid on," Hope quipped, "but I want some."

Douglas was genial most of the time -- he was nicknamed "the Cary Grant of the coffee break," according to Allmusic.com -- but confided in his memoir that his composure was sorely tested one week in 1972 when former Beatle John Lennon and wife, Yoko Ono, were his unlikely guest hosts. One of the guest celebrities they selected was well-known anti-war activist Jerry Rubin.

"He just got on my nerves. It sounded like this guy hated the president, the Congress, everyone in business, the military, all police and just about everything America stands for," Douglas said.

He recalled becoming confrontational with Rubin. But Lennon "picked up the mantle of Kind and Gentle Host, and he did it quite well, reinterpreting Jerry's comments to take some of the sting out and adding a little humor to keep things cool," Douglas said.

Douglas also had a number of hit singles, first with Kay Kyser's big band -- he was a featured performer on the radio and eventual television program, "Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge" -- and later on his own. "The Men in My Little Girl's Life" hit the top 10 in 1966.

As the rock 'n' roll era began to emerge in the late 1950s, his style became less marketable, so he started looking for a way to energize his career.

He briefly hosted "Hi, Ladies!", a daytime television program on WGN in Chicago. In 1961, Woody Fraser, a Westinghouse Group W program director who had known Douglas in Chicago, recruited him to a Group W station in Cleveland (then KYW) to host a talk and entertainment program.

The show syndicated starting in 1963 but had a limited budget, and Cleveland was not a frequent destination for well-known potential guests. The show moved to Philadelphia in 1965 and to Los Angeles in 1978.

Three years later, Group W replaced Douglas with a younger singer, John Davidson. "The Mike Douglas Show" continued in syndication under Douglas' control until he retired in 1982 to North Palm Beach, Florida. Douglas appeared as a guest on several talk shows but spent much of his leisure time on the golf course.

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on 1990, but surgery was successful.

Dr. James A. Van Allen, 91;  U.S. space scientist and researcher

WEDNESDAY, August 9, 2006 - (Univ. of Iowa ) - IOWA CITY, IOWA - Dr. James A. Van Allen, U.S. space pioneer and Regent Distinguished Professor of Physics in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, died Wednesday morning, August 9, 2006, of heart failure at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.   He was 91.

THOUGH HE RETIRED FROM ACTIVE TEACHING in 1985, Van Allen continued to monitor data from Pioneer 10 throughout the spacecraft's 1972-2003 operational lifetime and serve as an interdisciplinary scientist for the Galileo spacecraft, which reached Jupiter on December 7, 1995.

THE HIGHLIGHT OF VAN ALLEN'S LONG AND DISTINGUISHED CAREER was his use of UI-built instruments carried aboard the first successful U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958 to discover bands of intense radiation -- later known as the Van Allen radiation belts -- surrounding the Earth. It came at the height of the U.S.-Soviet space race and literally put the United States on the map in the field of space exploration.

AMONG THE OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS of which he was most proud was his 1973 first-ever survey of the radiation belts of Jupiter using the Pioneer 10 spacecraft and his 1979 discovery and survey of Saturn's radiation belts using data from the Pioneer 11 spacecraft. Ever a critic of manned space flight, Van Allen the scientist described himself as "a member of the loyal opposition" when it came to discussions of big-budget space programs, declaring that space science could be done better and more cheaply when left to remote-controlled, unmanned spacecraft. NASA's move toward cheaper, more focused unmanned spacecraft during the 1990s was, at least in part, a result of Van Allen's advocacy.

"JIM VAN ALLEN WAS MY FRIEND and role model," said UI Interim President Gary Fethke. "He represented the very image of a superb faculty member. His teaching prowess was legendary, his research was defining, and his collegiality and service were unmatched. I will always be grateful for his kindness to my family and to me, and I will always be inspired and motivated by his complete dedication to the University of Iowa. I will miss him greatly. On behalf of the entire University community, I extend our sympathies to the Van Allen family."

UI PROVOST Michael Hogan said, "James Van Allen was one of the university’s most influential and best-regarded scholars of all time. Yet he remained the most unassuming and caring man. We will all miss him deeply."

Tom Boggess, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, said his entire department was saddened by the news of Van Allen’s death.

"We offer our deepest sympathies to his family," Boggess said. "For decades, Dr. Van Allen has been an inspiration and a role model to our faculty, staff, and students. His dedication to science and discovery, as well as to teaching and public service were unmatched. In so many ways, Dr. Van Allen defined our department. He will be sorely missed."

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack also remembered Van Allen’s contributions as a scientist and as a human being.

"Jim Van Allen was a good friend of our family," Vilsack said. "His loss saddens Christie and me. His passing is a sad day for science in America and the world. He was a great teacher and mentor. His love for the University was as limitless as the universe he explored with such passion and energy. He will be missed."

Born in Mount Pleasant on Sept. 7, 1914, Van Allen was valedictorian of his high school class in 1931, and received his bachelor's degree in physics, summa cum laude, from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1935. While an undergraduate at Iowa Wesleyan, he assisted the senior scientist of the second Byrd Expedition (1934-35) to Antarctica in preparing seismic and magnetic experimental equipment. (In 2004, the American Polar Society commemorated his work by presenting Van Allen with its Honors of the Society award.) He earned his master's and doctorate from the University of Iowa in 1936 and 1939, respectively.

From 1940 through 1942, he helped develop radio proximity fuzes -- detonators to increase the effectiveness of anti-aircraft fire -- for the defense of ships. Sponsored by the National Defense Research Council, his work was conducted at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University. In November 1942, he was commissioned as a naval officer, and he served 16 months on various ships in the South Pacific Fleet as assistant staff gunnery officer.

In 1946, Van Allen returned to the Applied Physics Laboratory where he organized and directed a team to conduct high-altitude experimental work using V2 and Aerobee rockets, and, in 1951, he accepted a Guggenheim research fellowship at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Later in 1951, Van Allen became professor and head of the University of Iowa Department of Physics and Astronomy, a position he held until he retired from teaching in 1985. During the 1950s, he and his graduate students used the UI football practice field to launch rockets and "rockoons" -- rockets carried aloft by balloons -- to conduct cosmic ray experiments above the atmosphere. A highlight of that work was the 1953 discovery of electrons believed to be the driving force behind the aurora. In 1956, he proposed the use of U.S. satellites for cosmic-ray investigations and through "preparedness and good fortune," he later wrote, the experiment was selected as the principal payload for the first flight of a four-stage Jupiter C rocket.

Van Allen played an important role in planning the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year (IGY) and carried out shipboard expeditions to Greenland and southward to the Ross Sea off the coast of Antarctica in 1957. IGY culminated in the Jan. 31, 1958 launch of Explorer 1 and its scientific payload. Van Allen's instruments included a Geiger counter, which provided information that regions of intense radiation surround the Earth. The discovery marked the birth of the research field of magnetospheric physics, an enterprise that grew to involve more than 1,000 investigators in more than 20 countries.

In 1974 People Magazine listed Van Allen as one of the top 10 teaching college professors in the country. His former graduate students list among their accomplishments experiments on NASA's Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo and Cassini spacecraft.

Van Allen joined the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 1948 and served as the organization's president from 1982 until 1984. He has received the AGU's highest honors, including the John A. Fleming Award in 1963 for eminence in geophysics and the William Bowie Medal in 1977 for outstanding contributions to fundamental geophysics and for unselfish cooperation in research.

Also, in 1962 Van Allen became the second recipient of the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim International Astronautical Award presented by the International Academy of Astronautics for noteworthy contributions to astronautics, and in March 2006 he received the 2006 Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Trophy for lifetime achievement.

In 1994, Van Allen received the 1994 Gerard P. Kuiper Prize from the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society "in recognition of his many contributions to the field of planetary science, both through his investigations of planetary magnetospheres and through his advocacy of planetary exploration." Also in 1994, he was presented with a lifetime achievement award by NASA on the occasion of his 80th birthday and the American Geophysical Union's 75th anniversary.

Van Allen's many other awards and honors include membership in the National Academy of Sciences since 1959 and the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest honor for scientific achievement, presented in 1987 by President Reagan in ceremonies at the White House. In 1989, he received the Crafoord Prize, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm and presented by the King of Sweden. The Crafoord Prize is the highest award the Academy can bestow for research in a number of scientific fields and, for space exploration, is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Perhaps his proudest achievement as an educator was leaving his mark on 34 doctoral students, 47 master's degree students and, especially, the numerous undergraduates who enjoyed his classes. In a February 2004 interview he said, "I taught 'General Astronomy' for 17 years, and it was my favorite course. I spent one or two hours preparing for each lecture because I had a genuine enthusiasm for the course. Today, I run into people all the time who say, 'You don't remember me, but I took your course in 1985.' Many former students tell me how much they enjoyed the course."

Van Allen is survived by his wife, Abigail Fithian Halsey II Van Allen, his five children -- Cynthia Van Allen Schaffner of New York City; Dr. Margot Van Allen Cairns of Vancouver, British Columbia; Sarah Van Allen Trimble of Washington, D.C.; Thomas Van Allen of Aspen, Colo.; and Peter Van Allen of Philadelphia -- and seven grandchildren.

Jack Warden, 85;  award winning actor of screen and television

SATURDAY, July 22, 2006 - (Associated Press) - LOS ANGELES - Jack Warden, an Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nomin- ated actor who played gruff cops, coaches and soldiers in a career that spanned five decades, has died.   He was 85.

WARDEN, WHO LIVED IN MANHATTAN, died Wednesday at a hos- pital in New York, Sidney Pazoff, his longtime business manager, said in Los Angeles on Friday.

"EVERYTHING GAVE OUT. OLD AGE," Pazoff said. "He really had turned downhill in the past month; heart and then kidney and then all kinds of stuff."

WARDEN WAS NOMINATED TWICE for supporting-actor Oscars in two Warren Beatty movies. He was nominated for his role as a businessman in 1975's "Shampoo" and the good-hearted football trainer in 1978's "Heaven Can Wait."

HE WON A SUPPORTING-ACTOR EMMY for his role as Chicago Bears coach George Halas in the 1971 made-for-TV movie "Brian's Song" and was twice nominated in the 1980s as leading actor in a comedy for his show "Crazy Like a Fox."

WARDEN, with his white hair, weathered face and gravelly voice, was in demand for character parts for decades.

In real life, the former boxer, deckhand and paratrooper was anything but a tough guy.

"Very gentle. Very dapper," Pazoff said. "Most of them [actors] are pretty true to the characters that they play. He was one who was not."

Warden was born John H. Lebzelter in 1920 in Newark, New Jersey. He was still in high school during the Depression when he tried his hand at professional boxing under his mother's maiden name of Costello.

He had 13 welterweight bouts in the Louisville, Kentucky, area before joining the Navy, where he was sent to China and patrolled the Yangtze River.

He also had jobs as a nightclub bouncer, a lifeguard and a deckhand on an East River (New York) tugboat.

In 1941, he joined the Merchant Marine. He served in the engine room as his ship made convoy runs to Europe.

"The constant bombings were nerve-racking below decks," he recalled.

He quit in 1942 and enlisted in the Army. He was a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division but shortly before D-Day he broke his leg during a nighttime practice jump in Britain.

"They sent me back to the States," he recalled in a 1988 Associated Press interview. "I was in a hospital for nearly a year."

A fellow soldier who had been an actor gave him a play to read and he was hooked. He recovered enough to take part in the Battle of the Bulge and, after the war, went to New York to pursue an acting career.

He had small roles in 1953's Oscar-winning "From Here to Eternity" and the submarine thriller "Run Silent, Run Deep" but his breakthrough role was Juror No. 7, a salesman who wants a quick decision in a murder case, in 1957's "Twelve Angry Men."

Over the years he had a number of recurring or starring TV roles. He was a major in "The Wackiest Ship in the Army"; the coach on "Mr. Peepers"; a coach again on the small-screen version of "The Bad News Bears"; detectives in "Asphalt Jungle," "N.Y.P.D." and "Jigsaw John"; and a private investigator in "Crazy Like a Fox."

His numerous big-screen roles included a news editor in 1976's "All the President's Men," Paul Newman's law partner in 1982's "The Verdict" and the president in the 1979 Peter Sellers movie "Being There."

His later roles came in Woody Allen's 1994 "Bullets Over Broadway"; Beatty's 1998 political satire "Bulworth" and the 2000 football movie "The Replacements."

Red Buttons, 87; comedian, early television star, dramatic actor

THURSDAY, July 13, 2006 - (Associated Press) - LOS ANGELES - Red Buttons, the carrot-topped burlesque comedian who became a top star in early television and then in a dramatic role won the 1957 Oscar as supporting actor in "Sayonara,"  died on Thursday.
He  was  87.

BUTTONS DIED OF VASCULAR DISEASE at his home in the Century City area of Los Angeles, publicist Warren Cowan said. He had been ill for some time, and was with family members when he died, Cowan said.

WITH HIS EAGER MANNER and rapid-fire wit, Buttons excelled in every phase of show business, from the Borscht Belt of the 1930s to celebrity roasts in the 1990s.

HIS GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT came with his "Sayonara" role as Sgt. Joe Kelly, the soldier in the post-World War II occupation forces in Japan whose romance with a Japanese woman (Myoshi Umeki, who also won an Academy Award) ends in tragedy.

JOSH LOGAN, who directed the James Michener story that starred Marlon Brando, was at first hesitant to cast a well-known comedian in such a somber role.

"The tests were so extensive that they could just put scenery around them and release the footage as a feature film," Buttons remarked.

Buttons’ Academy Award led to other films, both dramas and comedies. They included "Imitation General," "The Big Circus," "Hatari!" "The Longest Day," "Up From the Beach," "They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?" "The Poseidon Adventure," "Gable and Lombard" and "Pete’s Dragon."

"He proved it was no accident by winning an Oscar that comedians can be in movies," said fellow legendary comedian Jack Carter. "He was more than a comedian, he was a wise man."

Carter said he and Buttons often were used as "closers" at celebrity roasts and other gatherings of comedians. He added that Buttons, who did many speaking engagements late in his life, culled his many punchlines from his own life.

"Red never had an actual act. His act was his life, and that’s why it came so naturally," Carter said. "He was brilliant at it."

Youngest comic on burlesque circuit A performer since his teens, Buttons was noticed by burlesque theater owners and he became the youngest comic on the circuit. He had graduated to small roles on Broadway before being drafted in 1943.

Along with dozens of other future stars, including Mario Lanza, John Forsythe, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb, Buttons was enlisted for "Winged Victory," the play that famed director-playwright Moss Hart created for the Air Force. Buttons also appeared in the 1944 film version, directed by George Cukor.

Discharged in 1946, Buttons returned to nightclub and theater work. In 1952, CBS signed him for a weekly show as the network’s answer to NBC’s Milton Berle.

"The Red Buttons Show" was first broadcast on CBS Oct. 14, 1952, without a sponsor since the star was virtually unknown. Within a month, the show became a solid hit and advertisers were clamoring.

Buttons drew on all his past experience for monologues, songs, dances and sketches featuring such characters as a punch-drunk fighter, a scrappy street kid, a Sad Sack GI and a blundering German. The hit of the show was a silly song in which he pranced about the stage singing, "Ho! Ho!... He! He!... Ha! Ha!... Strange things are happening!" It became a national craze.

After a sensational first season, "The Red Buttons Show" began to slide. Reports circulated that the star had fits of temper and frequently fired writers, and the show ended after three seasons.

"Certainly I made mistakes, and mistakes were made for me," he said in 1960. "When you go into TV cold, as I did, it’s murder."

While the failure was a severe blow to the normally optimistic comedian, he soon recovered and resumed his career as a guest star on TV shows. A straight role on "Suspense" brought him to the attention of Logan, who cast him for the career-making "Sayonara."

In 1966, Buttons starred in another series, "The Double Life of Henry Phyfe," as a humble accountant enlisted as a government spy. The show lasted only six months.

Over the years Buttons remained a steady performer on television, appearing on such series as "Knots Landing," "Roseanne" and "ER." He also took his act on the road, appearing at Las Vegas, Atlantic City, conventions, and returning to his beginnings in the Catskills.

Still in good health at 76 ("They call me the only Yiddish leprechaun"), he appeared in New York in 1995 with an autobiographical one-man show, "Buttons on Broadway."

It was his first Broadway show since 1948, when he appeared in a play with the unfortunate title of "Hold It." One critic, Buttons recalled, began his review: "‘Hold It?’ Fold it."

Buttons was born Aaron Chwatt on Feb. 15, 1919, son of an immigrant milliner, in a tough Manhattan neighborhood where, he once said, "you either grew up to be a judge or you went to the electric chair."

He struggled through schools in Manhattan and the Bronx — "Mom and Pop went to school as often as I did; they should have graduated with me." He started performing at the age of 12, winning an amateur contest singing "Sweet Jenny Brown" in a sailor’s suit.

At 16 he was working as a singer and bellhop in a gin mill on New York’s City Island. Since all bellhops were called Buttons and Chwatt had red hair, he got his new name.

During his summer vacation, he worked as a singer on the Borscht Circuit — the string of Catskills resorts catering to a largely Jewish clientele where Danny Kaye, Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks, Hart and others trained for stardom.

In later years, Buttons became a favorite at testimonial/roast dinners with his roaringly funny "Never had a dinner" routine. He cited famous figures who had never been so honored. Examples: "Abe Lincoln, who said ‘A house divided is a condominium,’ never had a dinner"; "(Perennial presidential candidate) Jerry Brown, whose theme song is ‘California, Here I Go,’ never had a dinner." (When he did "Buttons on Broadway," he altered the routine and named people who never did one-man shows.)

In 1982, Red Buttons finally had a dinner. The Friars Club honored him with a star-filled roast and a life-achievement award.

"When I was a kid in the Bronx and watching and dreaming from the second balcony," the guest of honor said, "in my wildest imagination I couldn’t have written this scenario tonight."

Buttons was married and divorced twice in his early career. He and his late third wife, Alicia, had a son and daughter, Adam and Amy. In addition to the children, Buttons is survived by a brother and sister.

Syd Barrett, 60;
      co-founder of 'Pink Floyd'

Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - (Associated Press) - LONDON - Syd Barrett, the troub- led Pink Floyd co-founder who spent his last years in anonymity, has died, the band said Tuesday.   He was 60.

A SPOKESWOMAN FOR THE BAND said that Barrett died several days ago, but she did not disclose the cause of death. Barrett had suffered from diabetes for years.

THE SURVIVING MEMBERS of Pink Floyd -- David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright -- said they were "very upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death."

"Syd was the guiding light of the early band lineup, and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire," they said in a statement.
___________________________________

Barrett co-founded Pink Floyd in 1965 with Waters, Mason and Wright, and wrote many of the band's early songs. The group's jazz-infused rock and drug-laced, multimedia "happenings" made them darlings of the London psychedelic scene. The 1967 album "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" -- largely written by Barrett, who also played guitar -- was a commercial and critical hit.

But Barrett suffered from mental instability, exacerbated by his use of LSD. His behavior grew increasingly erratic, and he left the group in 1968 -- five years before the release of Pink Floyd's most popular album, "Dark Side of the Moon" -- to be replaced by Gilmour.

Barrett released two solo albums -- "The Madcap Laughs" and "Barrett" -- but soon withdrew from the music business altogether. An album of previously unreleased material, "Opel," was issued in 1988.

He reverted to his real name, Roger Barrett, and spent much of the rest of his life living quietly in his hometown of Cambridge, England. Moving into his mother's suburban house, he passed the time painting and tending the garden.
____________________________

Billy Preston, 59;  singer, music writer, performed with Beatles

WEDNESDAY, June 7, 2006 - (Associated Press) - PHOENIX - Billy Preston, the exuberant keyboardist who landed dream gigs with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and enjoyed his own series of hit singles including "Outta Space" and "Nothing From Nothing," died Tuesday.   He was 59.

PRESTON'S LONGTIME MANAGER, JOYCE MOORE, said he had been in a coma since November in a care facility and was taken to a Scottsdale hospital Saturday after his condition deteriorated.

"HE HAD A VERY, VERY BEAUTIFUL LAST FEW HOURS and a really beautiful passing," Moore said by telephone from Germany.

PRESTON, WHO BATTLED CHRONIC KIDNEY FAILURE, received a transplant in 2002. But the kidney failed and he was on dialysis ever since, Moore said earlier this year.

KNOWN FOR HIS BIG SMILE and towering Afro, Preston was a teen prodigy on the piano and organ, and lent his gospel-tinged touch to classics such as the Beatles' "Get Back" and the Stones' "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?"

HE BROKE OUT as a solo artist in the 1970s, winning a best instrumental Grammy in 1973 for "Outta Space," and scoring other hits with "Will It Go 'Round In Circles," "Nothing From Nothing" and "With You I'm Born Again," a duet with Syreeta Wright. He also wrote Joe Cocker's weeper "You Are So Beautiful."

Other career highlights included being a musical guest, in 1975, on the debut of "Saturday Night Live"; having a song named after him by Miles Davis; and appearing last year on "American Idol." Among his film credits: "Blues Brothers 2000" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

His partnership with the Beatles began in early 1969 when friend George Harrison recruited him to play on "Let It Be," a back-to-basics film and record project that nearly broke down because of feuding among band members. Harrison himself quit at one point, walking out on camera after arguing with Paul McCartney.

Preston not only inspired the Beatles to get along -- Harrison likened his effect to a feuding family staying on its best behavior in front of a guest -- but contributed a light, bluesy solo to "Get Back," performing the song with the band on its legendary "rooftop" concert, the last time the Beatles played live. He was one of many sometimes labeled "The Fifth Beatle," a title he did not discourage.

Preston remained close to Harrison and performed at Harrison's all-star charity event "The Concert for Bangladesh" -- for which Preston won another Grammy -- and at the "Concert for George," a tribute to Harrison, who died of cancer in 2001. He played on solo records by Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon.

Preston also toured and recorded extensively with the Rolling Stones, playing on such classic albums as "Sticky Fingers" and "Exile on Main Street." In the mid-'70s, he parted from the Stones, reportedly unhappy over not getting proper credit for "Melody" and other songs, but reunited with the band in 1997 on its "Bridges to Babylon" record.

"His legacy is so huge I don't even know where to start," Moore said. "It's many genres, so many years. ... It's rock-and-roll, it's soul, it's funk, it's everything. He was truly, truly, truly a genius."

His sessions credits included Aretha Franklin's "Young, Gifted and Black," Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" and Sly and the Family Stone's "There's a Riot Goin' On," three of the most acclaimed albums of the past 35 years.

A Houston native who soon moved to Los Angeles when his parents split up, Preston was in and around show business for much of his life. He was taking piano lessons at age 3 and was just 10 when he played keyboards for gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.

Two years later, he portrayed a young W. C. Handy in the 1958 biopic "St. Louis Blues." He toured with mentors and fellow piano greats Ray Charles and Little Richard in the early 1960s, first encountering the Beatles while on the road in Germany.

Exposed to drugs and alcohol early on, Preston had numerous personal troubles in recent years. In 1992, he was given a suspended jail sentence, but ordered incarcerated for nine months at a drug rehabilitation center for his no-contest pleas to cocaine and assault charges. Five years later, he was sentenced to three years in prison for violating probation. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and agreed to testify against other defendants in an alleged scam that netted $1 million.

"It [jail] was a great lesson, an awakening. I needed to reflect, to get rid of some of the dead weight around me," he later said. "You take the bitter with the sweet and I have to say it was my faith that kept me going. I had nothing else to fall back on."

Lloyd Bentsen, 85;  1988's vice presidential rival to Dan Quayle

WEDNESDAY, May 24, 2006 - (The Associated Press) - HOUSTON, TX - Former Senator and Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, the courtly Texan who famously put down vice presidential rival Dan Quayle in a 1988 debate by telling him "you're no Jack Kennedy," died Tuesday.   He was 85.

BENTSEN, WHO REPRESENTED TEXAS in Congress for 28 years, died at his Houston home, his family said. He had been under a doctor's care since a pair of strokes in 1998.

BENTSEN'S POLITICAL CAREER took him from a county judgeship in the Rio Grande Valley in the 1940s to six years in the U.S. House of Representatives, 22 years in the Senate and two years as President Bill Clinton's first treasury secretary..

IN 1988, Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis tapped Bentsen as his running mate while the GOP nominee, Vice President George Bush, chose Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana.

In the October 5, 1988, vice presidential debate, Quayle said: "I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency."

Quayle had made similar comments before and Bentsen was prepared.

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy," Bentsen said. "I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

The Dukakis-Bentsen ticket lost 40 states -- including Texas -- to Bush and Quayle.

Louis Rukeyser, 73;  was best known as 'Wall $treet Week' host

THURSDAY, May 4, 2006 - (The Baltimore Sun) - BALTIMORE - Louis Rukeyser, who for 32 years presided over PBS' "Wall $treet Week," a landmark financial advice show distinguished by his keen insights, wry puns and idiosyncratic musings on the market, died on Tuesday at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut. He  was  73.

RUKEYSER DIED OF MULTIPLE MYELOMA, a rare cancer of the bone marrow, said his brother, Bud Rukeyser.

AN IMPOSING BUT LIKABLE ON-AIR PRESENCE with a deep voice, silver-white hair and mischievous smile, Louis Rukeyser left the airwaves in October 2003 when he started undergoing treatment for cancer.

THE FORMER ABC NEWS correspondent and Baltimore Sun London bureau chief spent his last 18 months in television presenting his show on cable channel CNBC after a nasty public battle in 2002 with Maryland Public Television, based in suburban Owings Mills, MD, which had produced his groundbreaking show for more than three decades.

AT ITS PEAK in the 1980s, "Wall $treet Week" was carried on more than 300 public television stations and had a weekly audience of 4.1 million viewers. The 30-minute program that aired Friday nights at 8 -- four hours after the market closed for the week -- was public television's longest-running weekly prime-time series, second only to CBS' venerable "60 Minutes" in overall TV tenure. The series was canceled by Maryland Public Television in June 2005 after three years of audience erosion that followed Rukeyser's departure.

"Before Louis Rukeyser, there was no such thing as a financial advice show on television," said Douglas Gomery, professor and media economist at the University of Maryland. "Along with 'Sesame Street,' 'Wall $treet Week' was one of the first shows on PBS, a landmark series by anybody's definition. The reason for its success was Louis Rukeyser. He was the franchise -- proof that the star system worked even for PBS."

Rukeyser's ability to translate economics into compelling television talk helped make investors out of millions of Americans.

"In essence, what he did was bring Wall Street to Main Street -- he made Wall Street understandable in terms of Main Street," said Frank Cappiello, a money manager who appeared as a panelist on Rukeyser's first PBS telecast in 1970 and his last in 2002, as well as his first and last on CNBC.

A wide-ranging economic expertise only begins to describe the formula that made Rukeyser one of public television's first major stars -- along with Alistair Cooke, host of "Masterpiece Theatre," and Big Bird of ''Sesame Street.''

The New York City native, who was dubbed "the dismal science's only sex symbol" by People magazine, was known within the ranks of PBS as "The Big Bird of Prime Time," because of the underwriting support, ratings and viewer pledges that he brought to the fledgling public broadcasting lineup in the 1970s.

Rukeyser is survived by his wife, Alexandra Gill, and three daughters.

John Kenneth Galbraith,  97;   economist, writer, renown liberal

SUNDAY, April 30, 2006 - (The Associated Press) - BOSTON - John Kenneth Galbraith, the Harvard professor who won worldwide renown as a liberal economist, backstage pol- itician and witty chronicler of affluent society, died Satur- day night, his son said.   He was 97.

GALBRAITH DIED OF NATURAL CAUSES at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, where he was admitted nearly two weeks ago, Alan Galbraith said.

DURING A LONG CAREER, the Canadian-born economist served as adviser to Democratic presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, and was John F. Kennedy’s am- bassador to India.

"HE HAD A WONDERFUL AND FULL LIFE," his son said.

GALBRAITH, who was outspoken in his support of government action to solve social problems, became a large figure on the American scene in the decades after World War II.

AN UNABASHED LIBERAL... He was one of America’s best-known liberals, and he never shied away from the label.

"There is no hope for liberals if they seek only to imitate conservatives, and no function either," Galbraith wrote in a 1992 article in Modern Maturity, a publication of the American Association of Retired Persons.

One of his most influential books, "The Affluent Society," was published in 1958.

It argued that the American economy was producing individual wealth but hasn’t adequately addressed public needs such as schools and highways. U.S. economists and politicians were still using the assumptions of the world of the past, where scarcity and poverty were near-universal, he said.

"The total alteration in underlying circumstances has not been squarely faced," he wrote. "As a result, we are guided, in part, by ideas that are relevant to another world. ... We do many things that are unnecessary, some that are unwise, and a few that are insane."

PROLIFIC WRITER, THEORIST... In 1999, a panel of judges organized by the Modern Library, a book publisher, picked "The Affluent Society" as No. 46 on its list of the century’s 100 best English-language works of nonfiction.

"He’s an amazingly imaginative and creative and hardworking person," fellow economist and longtime friend Paul Samuelson said in 1994. "There’s no day that goes by that he doesn’t write every morning, and it adds up to a lot."

Galbraith also was known for his theories on countervailing forces in the economy, where groups such as labor unions were needed to strike a political and social balance.

Richard Neustadt, a Harvard colleague who also served as an aide to presidents Kennedy and Truman, said Galbraith demonstrated how "you have to empower people directly before they could fight for themselves."

Galbraith, greeted by the Great Depression when he graduated from college, also had "much more confidence in the ability to work out of economic difficulties and do so with the help of government," Neustadt said.

Galbraith’s prose won admiration at the very top. When he was ambassador to India, Kennedy enjoyed his writing so much that he insisted on seeing all Galbraith’s cables, "whether they were directed at the president or not," Neustadt said.

After his retirement from Harvard in 1975, Galbraith gained fresh recognition as host of the British-made television series, "The Age of Uncertainty." His book under the same title was a best seller, as was "Almost Everyone’s Guide to Economics."

Among his other books were "The Great Crash," 1955, and "The Culture of Contentment," 1992. He returned to the theme of the crash of 1929 in a January 1987 Atlantic Monthly article that correctly predicted that year’s market plunge by citing the parallels of the two eras.

In 1988, he and the Soviet economist Stanislav Menshikov wrote "Capitalism, Communism and Coexistence: From the Bitter Past to a Better Prospect." The book is a compilation of discussions conducted at Galbraith’s summer home in Townsend, Vermont, about socialism and capitalism. His 1996 book, "The Good Society," outlined his blueprint for enriching America economically and socially, while his 1999 book, "Name-Dropping: From FDR On," was a lighthearted look at his en- counters with everyone from Eleanor Roosevelt onward.

"It is not usual for a man past his 90th birthday to write a book that is as fresh and lively as the work of a 30-year-old. But John Kenneth Galbraith is not a usual man, and he has done it," The New York Times wrote about "Name-Dropping."

AT HOME IN THE WORLD... Globe-trotting was a favorite activity of Galbraith, who spent time touring India during his tenure as ambassador. He wrote a factual account of his India years as well as a novel, "The Triumph," concerning what he called "an uncontrollably funny institution," the U.S. State Department.

From Cambridge to Tokyo, the 6-foot, 7-inch Galbraith was an avid reciter of dry limericks and pungent, outrageous humor, often at the expense of American society.

Noting that by the law of aerodynamics, the bumblebee in principle cannot fly, Galbraith once remarked, "If all this be true, life among bumblebees must bear a remarkable resemblance to life in the United States."

He was an ardent worker, often hibernating for several months at his summer home in the Vermont mountains to do nothing but write. His secretary in his Harvard office would warn those trying to contact him — "on penalty of death" — to call him only between noon and 1 PM, when he took his lunch break.

Galbraith was born October 15, 1908, in Iona Station, Ontario, Canada.

After graduating from the University of Toronto in 1931, Galbraith moved to the United States where he earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California. He taught at Harvard from 1934 to 1939 and at Princeton University from 1939 to 1942, then worked in the federal Office of Price Administration during the war years.

Galbraith returned to Harvard in 1948, remaining active on the faculty until his retirement.

He was the recipient of the Medal of Freedom, awarded by Truman in 1946, and another one from President Clinton in 2000. The professor also served as president for a term of the American Economic Association.

Galbraith was married in 1937 to Catherine Atwater. They had three sons, Alan, Peter and James.

June Pointer, 52;  was youngest member of the 'Pointer Sisters'

THURSDAY, April 13, 2006 - (Los Angeles Times) - LOS ANGELES - June Pointer, the youngest member of the Grammy-winning Pointer Sisters who was the lead singer on several of the group's hits including "Jump (For My Love)," "He's So Shy" and "Happiness," has died.   She was 52.

MS POINTER DIED TUESDAY OF CANCER at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, according to a family statement distributed by publicist Dick Guttman.

THE STATEMENT said Pointer "died in the arms of her sisters Ruth and Anita and her brothers Aaron and Fritz by her side." Her sister Bonnie was "unable to be present," according to the statement.

WHILE THE POINTERS REACHED THE HEIGHTS of pop stardom in the 1970s and '80s, the fruits of that success were often bitter for Pointer. She was treated for mental breakdowns several times in the 1970s and struggled with drug and alcohol proble At one point, her behavior became so unstable that her sisters asked her to leave the group. She would later say that drugs had been a part of life since she was 13, and that her substances of choice included alcohol and Valium.

BORN in Oakland, California, June Pointer and her sisters began singing in the choir of the West Oakland Church of God, where her parents were ministers. The six children in the Pointer family grew up in a strict household. Their parents forbade them to listen to the radio, dance or watch movies, and they regarded jazz as "the devil's music."

In the burgeoning music scene of San Francisco in the late 1960s, June and her sister Bonnie performed as a duo in clubs under the name Pointers, a Pair. Anita joined the duo in 1969, and the legendary impresario Bill Graham became their manager in the early 1970s. They were signed to a recording contract by Atlantic Records in 1971, after he heard the group backing Elvin Bishop in Los Angeles. Ruth Pointer joined the group in 1972. In 1973, they released their self-titled debut album.

On tour, they created a nostalgic fashion look, wearing dresses from the 1940s accented with wide-brimmed hats, platform shoes and feather boas. They were among the first black women to play at the Grand Ole Opry and the first pop act to perform at San Francisco's Opera House. They won their first Grammy award in 1974 for their country hit "Fairytale," written by Anita and Bonnie.

Despite Bonnie's decision in the mid-1970s to leave the group for a solo career, and June's increasingly unpredictable behavior, the Pointers continued to have steady pop success. They continued on as a trio act and in the early 1980s June released a solo album, "Baby Sister." A single from that album, "Ready for Some Action," reached the Top 30 on R&B charts. In 1989, she released her second solo album, "June Pointer."

Caspar Weinberger, 88;  was Pres. Reagan's Defense Secretary

"[He] was a most remarkable man. He was one of the key architects in winning the Cold War."   --   STEVE FORBES.

TUESDAY, March 28, 2006 - (Fox News) - WASHINGTON, DC - Caspar Weinberger, the former Secretary of Defense for Ron- ald Reagan, has died after a brief illness.   He was 88.

FORBES MAGAZINE HAD CONFIRMED Weinberger's death on Tuesday, saying he died at a hospital in Bangor, Maine, surrounded by his wife, Jane, of 63 years, and two children. Weinberger served as the publisher and chairman of Forbes and was a columnist there since 1988.

"CAP WAS A MOST REMARKABLE MAN.   He was one of the key architects in winning the Cold War... He had access to leaders around the world and was immensely knowledgeable about everything that went on in the world," said Forbes CEO and Editor-in-Chief Steve Forbes said. We loved picking his brains. On a personal level, he was unfailingly decent and always thoughtful—a true gentleman. We will miss him dearly."

"IN ALL HIS YEARS, this good man made many contributions to our nation. America is grateful for Caspar Weinberger’s lifetime of service," President Bush said in a late afternoon statement.

FORMER Secretary of State Colin Powell, who worked under Weinberger at the Defense Department, said Tuesday he was saddened to learn of his passing.

"Cap Weinberger was an indefatigable fighter for peace through strength. He served his nation in war and peace in so many ways. For me, he will always be the leader, standing alongside President Ronald Reagan, who restored pride in the military, got the resources to make the all volunteer force the best in the world and rebuilt the American Armed Forces, helping to persuade the Soviet Union that it was time to end the Cold War,"  said Powell.

Weinberger was a longtime confidant of Reagan, having served nearly seven years as the 15th defense secretary. Reagan also appointed him to posts on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the National Economic Commission.

Weinberger's death comes almost simultaneously to the death of another longtime Reagan compatriot, Lyn Nofziger, who died Monday at age 81 from cancer.

Weinberger "was a giant of the Reagan administration, the architect of rebuilding America's defenses, along with the help of people like Lyn Nofziger," said Lt. Col. Ollie North, a close ally of Weinberger. He added that the two men "helped create Ronald Reagan's legacy."

"The fact that we are here today no longer worried about Soviet missiles raining down on us, about the expansion of the Soviet empire, about threats posed from Soviet proxies in this hemisphere is the direct result of what men like Weinberger and Nofziger accomplished in their close relationship with Ronald Reagan," North told FOXNews.com.

Weinberger was born in San Francisco, and admitted to the California Bar before being elected to the state Assembly in 1952, in which he was re-elected twice before unsuccessfully seeking the attorney general's spot. He served as chairman of the California Republican Party in 1962 and served Gov. Reagan as chairman of the Commission on California State Government Organization and Economy and later as as state director of finance.

Later in Washington, he also served as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, director of the Office of Management and Budget and as secretary of health, education, and welfare under Richard Nixon. Between Nixon and Reagan's presidencies, Weinberger was vice president and general counsel of the Bechtel Group.

Weinberger was not widely experienced in defense when he became secretary of that department, but he had a reputation as an able administrator and cost cutter, a skill that earned him the nickname "Cap the Knife."

He was considered a champion of the strategic modernization of the military, a build-up that eventually forced the demise of Soviet Union. He also promoted better relations with China and Japan. Concerned about the quality of the all-volunteer military, he successfully put into place better compensation packages and other incentives to increase enlistments.

But his tenure at the Defense Department was not without turbulence. He opposed putting U.S. forces into Lebanon when that country was facing civil war. Nonetheless, troops were posted at the Beirut airport as part of a multinational force that hoped to tamp down the violence between Muslims and Christians. However, terrorists blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in October 1983, killing 241 Marines. In February 1984, U.S. troops left the Mideast country.

"They had no mission but to sit at the airport, which is just like sitting in a bull's-eye," Weinberger was quoted saying as part of a University of Virginia oral history project released January that documented the thoughts of Reagan administration officials.

"I was not persuasive enough to persuade the president that the Marines were there on an impossible mission," he said.

In 1985, antitank missiles and equipment were sent to Iran as part of a deal to use Tehran's influence to get the release of 37 hostages being held in Lebanon. The deal blew up when the arms sales were uncovered in November 1986. The sales paid for the Contras in Nicaragua, who were trying to unseat the Soviet-backed Sandinistas who took power in 1979 after driving out the U.S.-supported dictator there.

The whole affair was then named Iran/Contra and led to congressional hearings and several prosecutions. Weinberger said he opposed the arms sales and denied knowing about the funding for the Contras. Nonetheless, a special prosecutor charged with making false statements, but on the eve of his 1992 trial, then-President Bush pardoned him.

In November 1987, six years and ten months after taking the post, Weinberger, worn from the Iran/Contra affair and upset about an arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union, resigned from the Defense Department.

He went on to write several articles and books on national security policy.

Buck Owens,  76;  American country music artist, television star

SATURDAY, March 25, 2006 - (Associated Press) - BAKERS- FIELD, CA - Singer Buck Owens, the flashy rhinestone cow- boy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running "Hee Haw," died Saturday.   He was 76.

OWENS DIED AT HIS HOME IN BAKERSFIELD, said family spokesman Jim Shaw. The cause of death was not immedi- ately known. Owens had undergone throat cancer surgery in 1993 and was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1997.

HIS CAREER was one of the most phenomenal in country music, with a string of more than 20 No. 1 records, most released from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. They were recorded with a honky-tonk twang that came to be known throughout California as the "Bakersfield Sound," named for the town 100 miles north of Los Angeles that Owens called home.

"I THINK THE REASON HE WAS SO WELL KNOWN and respected by a younger generation of country musicians was because he was an innovator and rebel," said Shaw, who played keyboards in Owens’ band, the Buckaroos. "He did it out of the Nashville establishment. He had a raw edge."

MODEST WORDS, FLASHY PERSONA... Owens, elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, was modest when describing his aspirations.

"I’d like to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs and had a hell of a time," he said in 1992.

An indefatigable performer, Owens played a red, white and blue guitar with fireball fervor. He and the Buckaroos wore flashy rhinestone suits in an era when flash was as important to country music as fiddles.

Among his biggest hits were "Together Again" (also recorded by Emmylou Harris), "I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail," "Love’s Gonna Live Here," "My Heart Skips a Beat" and "Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line."

And he was the answer to this music trivia question: What country star had a hit record that was later done by the Beatles?

"Those guys were phenomenal," Owens once said.

Ringo Starr recorded "Act Naturally" twice, singing lead on the Beatles’ 1965 version and recording it as a duet with Owens in 1989. The song, by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, tells of a poor soul who foresees a movie career playing "a man who’s sad and lonely, and all I gotta do is act naturally. ... Might win an Oscar, you can never tell."

HIGHLY VISIBLE TV CAREER... In addition to music, Owens had a highly visible TV career as co-host of "Hee Haw" from 1969 to 1986. With guitarist Roy Clark, he led viewers through a potpourri of country music and hayseed humor.

"It’s an honest show," Owens told The Associated Press in 1995. "There’s no social message — no crusade. It’s fun and simple."

Owens himself could be rebellious, choosing among other things to label what he did "American music" rather than country.

"I took a little heat," he once said. "People asked me, ‘Isn’t country music good enough for you?’ "

He also criticized the syrupy arrangements of certain country singers, saying "assembly-line, robot music turns me off."

After his string of hits, Owens stayed away from the recording scene for a decade, returning in 1988 to record another No. 1 record, "Streets of Bakersfield," with Dwight Yoakam.

He spent much of his time away concentrating on his business interests, which included a Bakersfield TV station and radio stations in Bakersfield and Phoenix.

"I never wanted to hang around like the punch-drunk fighter," he told The Associated Press in 1992.

He had moved to Bakersfield in 1951, hoping to find work in the thriving juke joints of what in the years before suburban sprawl was a truck-stop town on Highway 99, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area.

"We played rhumbas and tangos and sambas, and we played Bob Wills music, lots of Bob Wills music," he said, referring to the bandleader who was the king of Western swing. "And lots of rock ’n’ roll," he added.

Owens started recording in the mid-1950s, but gained little success until 1963 with "Act Naturally," his first No. 1 single.

DEPRESSION-ERA ROOTS... Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. was born in 1929 outside Sherman, Texas, the son of a sharecropper. With oppor- tunities scarce during the Depression, the family moved to Arizona when he was eight.

He dropped out of school at age 13 to haul produce and harvest crops, and by 16 he was playing music in taverns.

He once told an audience, "When I was a little bitty kid, I used to dream about playing the guitar and singing like some of those great people that we had the old, thick records of."

Owens’ first wife, Bonnie Owens, sometimes performed with him and went on to become a leading backup singer after their divorce in 1955. She had occasional solo hits in the ’60s, as well as successful duets with her second husband, Merle Haggard.

One of her two sons with Owens also became a singer, using the name Buddy Alan. He had a Top 10 hit in 1968, "Let the World Keep on a-Turnin’," and recorded a number of duets with his father.

In addition to Buddy, he is survived by two other sons, Michael and John.

Bill Beutel, 75;
      longtime ABC news anchor

SUNDAY, March 19, 2006 - (The Associ- ated Press) - NEW YORK - Bill Beutel, the longtime television news anchor and host of the show that became ABC's "Good Morning America," has died, the network announced.   He was 75.

BEUTEL, WHOSE TRADEMARK SIGNOFF "Good luck and be well" closed WABC's nightly local newscast for more than 30 years, died Saturday at his home in Pinehurst, North Carolina, the network said.

IN 1975, Beutel hosted "AM America," the network's national morning news show.
___________________________________

He "proved you could be a tough newsman and a gentleman at the same time... the original class act," WABC president and general manager Dave Davis said Sunday in a statement.

Beutel, who won several Emmy awards and a Peabody award, began as a radio reporter in his hometown of Cleveland. He started working in television in 1962, appearing as a reporter for ABC national news and as an anchor for the local evening newscast.

After a stint as ABC's London bureau chief, where he worked with a young Peter Jennings, Beutel returned to New York to man the local anchor desk in 1970.

He stepped down in 2001, continuing to report for the network for another two years. He reported frequently from overseas and, at age 70, traveled to cover the dangers surrounding the diamond trade in Sierra Leone.
_____________________________________

Oleg Cassini,  92;  fashion designer, created for Jackie Kennedy

SATURDAY, March 18, 2006 - (CBS/Associated Press) - NEW YORK - He dressed some of the world's most powerful and famous. Oleg Cassini, the fashion designer who defined high culture during the Kennedy years, has died on Long Island at the age of 92.   The cause of death is not immediately known.

CASSINI'S NAME WAS NEARLY SYNONYMOUS with that of Jacqueline Kennedy - creating the dresses that helped make the first lady a trend-setter.

KENNEDY, ONLY 31 when her husband was elected president, was the pinnacle of style in the White House years from 1961 to 1963. Her simple, geometric dresses in sumptuous fabrics, her pillbox hats and her elegant coiffure were copied by women from 18 to 80.

CASSINI said that shortly after John Kennedy was elected, he persuaded his wife that she should use him as the creator of her total look, rather than one of many designers. The one-time Hollywood costume designer turned couturier had been friendly with the Kennedy family for years.

"We are on the threshold of a new American elegance thanks to Mrs. Kennedy's beauty, naturalness, un- derstatement, exposure and symbolism," Cassini said when his selection was announced.

The fashion establishment was shocked, Women's Wear Daily journalist John Fairchild wrote in his 1965 book "The Fashionable Savages."

"Everyone was surprised," he wrote. "Oleg Cassini had been around for years. He was debonair, amusing, social, but none of the fashion intellectuals had considered him an important designer."

Cassini was born in 1913 in Paris to wealthy, aristocratic Russian parents who were later forced to flee their homeland after the Revolution. They settled in Italy, their fortune gone, but his mother gained some success as a dressmaker and her son eventually decided to go into the fashion business, too.

He came to the United States in 1936 and held various design jobs in New York before going to Hollywood and landing a job at Paramount in the early 1940s.

With the fame that came with his White House assignment came new business opportunities. He was one of the first designers to pursue licensing agreements that put his name on a large variety of products from luggage to perfumes.

Maureen Stapleton,  80;   actress of dramatic and comedic roles

TUESDAY, March 14, 2006 - (The Associated Press) - SPRING- FIELD, MA - Oscar-winning actress Maureen Stapleton, whose subtle vulnerability and down-to-earth toughness earned her dramatic and comedic roles on stage, screen and television, died Monday.   She was 80.

THE LONGTIME SMOKER died from chronic pulmonary disease in the Berkshires town of Lenox, where she had been living, said her son, Daniel Allentuck.

STAPLETON, WHOSE UNREMARKABLE, MATRONLY APPEARANCE belied her star personality and talent, won an Academy Award in 1982 for her supporting role as anarchist-writer Emma Goldman in Warren Beatty's "Reds," about a left-wing American journalist who journeys to Russia to cover the Bolshevik Revolution.

TO PREPARE for the role, Stapleton said she tried reading Goldman's autobiography, but soon chucked it out of boredom.

"THERE are many roads to good acting," Stapleton, known for her straightforward manner, wrote in her 1995 autobiography, "Hell of a Life."

"I've been asked repeatedly what the 'key' to acting is, and as far as I'm concerned, the main thing is to keep the audience awake."

Stapleton was nominated four times for a supporting actress Oscar, including for her first film role in 1958's "Lonelyhearts." She also was nominated for "Airport" (1970) and Woody Allen's "Interiors" (1978).

Among her other film credits were the 1963 musical "Bye Bye Birdie" opposite Ann-Margret and Dick Van Dyke, "Johnny Dangerously" (1984), "Cocoon (1985)," "The Money Pit" (1986) and "Nuts" (1987).

In television, she earned an Emmy for "Among the Paths to Eden" in 1967. She was nominated for "Queen of the Stardust Ballroom" (1975); "The Gathering" (1977), and "Miss Rose White" (1992).

After moving to the Berkshires, Stapleton was a regular at the Candlelight Inn, a favorite gathering spot for actors that has since closed, said Elizabeth Aspenlieder, an actress with the Lenox-based Shakespeare & Company acting group.

"Maureen would be sitting at the bar, ferociously playing charades," said Aspenlieder, who remembered Stapleton as a fun-loving eccentric who would often be seen wearing a housedress and furry boots.

Brought up in a strict Irish Catholic family with an alcoholic father, Stapleton left home in Troy, N.Y., right after high school. With $100 to her name, she came to New York and began studying at the Herbert Berghof Acting School and later at the Actor's Studio, which turned out the likes of Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and Julia Roberts.

Stapleton made her Broadway debut in Burgess Meredith's 1946 production of "The Playboy of the Western World."

At 24, she became a success as Serafina Delle Rose in Tennessee Williams' Broadway hit "The Rose Tattoo," and won a Tony Award. She appeared in numerous other stage productions, including Lillian Hellman's "Toys in the Attic" and Neil Simon's "The Gingerbread Lady," for which she won her second Tony in 1971.

She starred opposite Laurence Olivier in Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Stapleton's friendship with Williams was well known and he wrote three plays for her, but she never appeared in any of them.

Along the way, she led a chaotic personal life, which her autobiography candidly described as including two failed marriages, numerous affairs, years of alcohol abuse and erratic parenting of her two children.

She often said auditioning was hard for her, but that it was just a part of acting, a job "that pays."

"When I was first in New York, there was a girl who wanted to play 'St. Joan' to the point where it was scary. ... I thought, Don't ever want anything that bad," she recalled. "Just take what you get and like it while you do it, and forget it."

Beside Allentuck, Stapleton is survived by a daughter, Katharine Bambery of Lenox and a brother, Jack Stapleton of Troy.

Slobodan Milosevic, 64; mass-murderer, Butcher of the Balkans

"Justice was served by the existence of this tribunal, the exposure of his crimes and the fact that he ended his days in jail."   --   RICHARD HOLBROOKE, U.S. ENVOY.

SATURDAY, March 11, 2006 - (C N N) - THE HAGUE, NETH- ERLANDS - Authorities with the U.N. war crimes tribunal are investigating the death of Slobodan Milosevic after the former Yugoslav president was found dead on Saturday morning in his cell in The Hague, Netherlands.    He was 64.

MILOSEVIC, WHO WAS ON TRIAL before the tribunal, was found in bed at the Scheveningen detention center. He probably had been dead for several hours, an official with the chief prosecutor's office said.

MILOSEVIC'S FAMILY AND SUPPORTERS are blaming the tri- bunal for his death.

HIS ATTORNEY, ZDENKO TOMANOVIC, has said there were attempts to poison Milosevic in prison.

OFFICIALS DENIED Tomanovic's request that the autopsy be performed in Russia, where Milosevic's family members are. However, the tribunal said a senior pathologist from the Serbian capital of Belgrade will be in attendance Sunday as a Dutch medical team performs the autopsy.

Milosevic's death came just a few months before the expected conclusion of his trial, which had lasted more than four years.

Doctors had recommended Milosevic be closely monitored by a cardiologist and given rest days to manage elevated blood pressure.

The tribunal rejected Milosevic's February 24 request to travel to Russia for medical treatment. Milosevic had said he would appeal the decision, saying his health was worsening and called the ruling "highly unjust."

Milosevic's widow, Mirjana, said, "The tribunal has killed my husband."

His brother Boroslav also blamed the tribunal, saying, "It is four months since Slobodan asked to let him go for medical treatment."

Milosevic's death has generated a sweeping range of reactions. Serbian President Boris Tadic expressed condolences to the Milosevic family, while High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Paddy Ashdown said the former Yugoslav president led "the great nation of Serbs into catastrophe and shame." Ashdown's position was created under the Dayton accords that brought peace to the warring factions in Bosnia in 1995.

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. envoy who brokered the Dayton accords said, "I'm not going to shed any tears."

SIX OTHERS AT LARGE... Though Milosevic's trial was ongoing, the U.S. State Department blames him for the "for the violent dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, including the outbreak of two horrific wars in Bosnia and Kosovo."

The International Criminal Tribunal released a statement saying that Milosevic's death "will prevent justice to be done in his case. But it promised to pursue six other Bosnian Serb senior leaders still at large, including Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

The European Union has told Serbia that it has until March to hand over Mladic or the nation's prospective membership in the EU will be put on hold, said European Union Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn.

Mladic and Karadzic are charged with planning the July 1995 massacre at Srebrenica of 8,000 Muslim men and boys. Though they are considered pariahs internationally, about 10,000 demonstrators turned out in Belgrade last month in a show of support for Mladic.

"The international community and the tribunal are responsible to the victims to ensure that all of these accused are brought to justice and tried in The Hague," the court said.

Holbrooke disputed the court's claim that the chance for justice passed with Milosevic.

"Justice wasn't cheated this morning," Holbrooke said. "Justice was served by the existence of this tribunal, the exposure of his crimes and the fact that he ended his days in jail."

Milosevic rose to the top of Yugoslav politics in the power vacuum left by the 1980 death of post-World War II Yugoslav dictator Marshal Tito.

Elected Serbian president in 1990, he ruled with an iron grip until his overthrow in 2000. He was transferred to The Hague in 2001 and went on trial the following year.

At the time of his death, Milosevic faced 66 charges, including those of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. He was called the "Butcher of the Balkans" because of the ethnic cleansing campaign, in which Bosnian Serbs systematically killed Bosnian Musli

Milosevic pleaded not guilty to all counts and repeatedly said he was not responsible for ordering killings and rapes. He also said he was de- fending the Serbian people against terror.

MILOSEVIC'S LAST DAYS... Milosevic "appeared fine" March 1st, his last day at the trial, an observer said Saturday.

His "voice was slightly more hoarse than usual," recalled Edgar Chen, counsel and legal liaison to the war crimes tribunal, in an e-mail. "Otherwise, he seemed his usual self for the last few sessions."

On February 22nd, however, Milosevic complained of a "thundering noise" in his head and demanded he be granted provisional release to Russia, Chen recalled. The tribunal's doctor was ordered to examine him.

Along with headaches, Milosevic also complained of hearing problems, Chen said. The next day. Milosevic couldn't complete the questioning of a witness because of his health.

Milosevic's death comes a day before the third anniversary of the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who was integral in the overthrow of Milosevic.

His death also comes less than a week after Milan Babic, former leader of rebel Serbs, committed suicide. Babic was serving a 13-year sentence for war crimes and was found dead in his cell at the same prison in The Hague where Milosevic died.

It is not clear whether Milosevic's death will have any impact on diplomatic efforts this year to determine the future of Kosovo, the disputed region of Serbia dominated by Albanians.

The United Nations has administered Kosovo since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization drove out Yugoslav troops in 1999 amid grave human rights abuses in the fighting between Serbs and Albanians.

CNN SPECIAL REPORT:   THE DEATH OF MILOSEVIC
FROM  THE JURIST:   THE MILOSEVIC TRIAL LEGACY... IF NOT OUTCOME, HOPE
FROM  WIKIPEDIA:   SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC BIO
FROM A RUSSIAN SITE:   "SUPPORT SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC"

Kirby Puckett, 45;  Hall of Famer, was with the Minnesota Twins

TUESDAY, March 7, 2006 - (The Associated Press) - MINNE- APOLIS - Kirby Puckett, the bubbly, barrel-shaped Hall of Famer who carried the Minnesota Twins to two World Series titles before his career was cut short by glaucoma, died on Monday after a stroke.   He was only 45.

PUCKETT, WHOSE WEIGHT GAIN in recent years concerned those close to him, was stricken early Sunday at his Arizona home. He died at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

"HE WAS A HALL OF FAMER in every sense of the term," commissioner Bud Selig said. "He played his entire career with the Twins and was an icon in Minnesota. But he was revered throughout the country and will be remembered wherever the game is played. Kirby was taken from us much too soon -- and too quickly."

PUCKETT was the second-youngest person to die already a member of the Hall of Fame, Hall spokesman Jeff Idelson said.   Only Lou Gehrig, at 37, was younger.

Puckett led the Twins to championships in 1987 and 1991. He broke into the majors in 1984 and had a career batting average of .318.

"I wore one uniform in my career and I'm proud to say that," Puckett once said. "As a kid growing up in Chicago, people thought I'd never do anything. I've always tried to play the game the right way. I thought I did pretty good with the talent that I have."

He was elected to the Hall of Fame on his first try in 2001, and his plaque praised his "ever-present smile and infectious exuberance." Yet, out of the game, the 5-foot-8 Puckett let himself fall out of shape.

"It's a tough thing to see a guy go through something like that and come to this extent," former teammate Kent Hrbek said.

"That's what really hurt him bad, when he was forced out of the game," he said. "I don't know if he ever recovered from it."

Asked what he would remember the most from their playing days, Hrbek quickly answered, "Just his smile, his laughter and his love for the game."

Puckett had been in intensive care since having surgery at another hospital. His family, friends and former teammates gathered Monday at St. Joseph's. He was given last rites and died in the afternoon, hospital spokeswoman Kimberly Lodge said.

In a statement, his family and friends thanked his fans for their thoughts and prayers.

"It's tough to take," Twins general manager Terry Ryan said from the team's spring training camp in Fort Myers, Fla. "He had some faults, we knew that, but when all was said and done he would treat you as well as he would anyone else. No matter who you were.

"When you're around him, he makes you feel pretty good about yourself. He can make you laugh. He can do a lot of things that can light up a room. He's a beauty," he said.

A makeshift memorial began to form Monday night outside the Metrodome, with a handful of bouquets laid on the sidewalk.

Puckett's signature performance came in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series against Atlanta. After telling anyone who would listen before the game that he would lead the Twins to victory that night at the Metrodome, he made a leaping catch against the fence and then hit a game-ending homer in the 11th inning to force a seventh game.

The next night, Minnesota won its second championship in five years.

Though his power numbers, 207 home runs and 1,085 RBI, weren't exceptional, Puckett won an AL batting title in 1989 and was considered one of the best all-around players of his era. His esteem and enthusiasm for the game factored into his Hall of Fame election as much as his statistics and championship rings.

Puckett, who was divorced, is survived by his children, Catherine and Kirby Jr., as well as his fiancee.

Dennis Weaver,  81;  was 'Chester' on Gunsmoke, and 'McCloud'

TUESDAY, February 28, 2006 - (The Associated Press) - LOS ANGELES - Dennis Weaver, the diffident deputy Chester Goode in the TV classic western "Gunsmoke" and the canny New Mexico deputy solving New York City crime in "McCloud," has died.   He was 81.

WEAVER DIED OF COMPLICATIONS FROM CANCER Friday at his home in Ridgway, in southwestern Colorado, his pub- licist, Julian Myers, announced Monday.

BURT REYNOLDS, who played alongside Weaver in "Gunsmoke," said, "He was a wonderful man and a fine actor, and we will all miss him."

WEAVER WAS A STRUGGLING ACTOR in Hollywood in 1955, earning $60 a week delivering flowers, when he was offered $300 a week for a role in a new CBS television series, "Gunsmoke." After nine years as Chester, whom he played with a stiff-legged gait, Weaver was earning $9,000 a week.

When Weaver auditioned for the series, he found the character of Chester "inane." He wrote in his 2001 autobiography, "All the World's a Stage," that he said to himself: "With all my Actors Studio training, I'll correct this character by using my own experiences and drawing from myself."

The result was a well-rounded character that appealed to audiences, especially with his drawling, "Mis-ter Dil-lon."

At the end of seven hit seasons, Weaver sought other horizons. He announced his departure, but the failures of pilots for his own series caused him to return to "Gunsmoke" on a limited basis for two more years. The role brought him an Emmy in the 1958-59 season.

In 1966, Weaver starred with a 600-pound black bear in "Gentle Ben," about a family that adopts a bear as a pet. The series was well-received, but after two seasons CBS decided it needed more adult entertainment and canceled it.

Next came the character Sam McCloud, which Weaver called "the most satisfying role of my career."

The "McCloud" series (1970-77) put the no-nonsense lawman from Taos, N.M., onto the crime-ridden streets of New York City. His tactics, such as riding his horse through Manhattan traffic, drove local policemen crazy, but McCloud always solved the case.

Weaver appeared in several movies, including "Touch of Evil," "Ten Wanted Men," "Gentle Giant," "Seven Angry Men," "Dragnet," "Way ... Way Out" and "The Bridges at Toko-Ri."

He appeared in dozens of TV movies, the most notable being the 1971 "Duel." It was a bravura performance for fledgling director Steven Spielberg and Weaver, who played a driver menaced by a large truck that followed him down a mountain road in the California desert. The film was released in theaters in 1983, after Spielberg had directed some box-office smashes.

Most recently, Weaver starred last year in ABC Family's "Wildfire" as the eccentric owner of a thoroughbred racing ranch.

Don Knotts, 81;  comic actor, lovable clown of classic television

SUNDAY, February 26, 2006 - (Associated Press) - LOS ANGELES - Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show," has died.   He was 81.

KNOTTS DIED FRIDAY NIGHT of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs "The Andy Griffith Show" and another Knotts hit, "Three's Company."

UNSPECIFIED HEALTH PROBLEMS had forced him to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown, West Virginia, in August.

KNOTTS' HALF-CENTURY CAREER included seven TV series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him TV immortality and five Emmys.

THE SHOW ran from 1960 to 1968, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. Knotts left the show in 1965.

As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.

Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character and doesn't mind being remembered that way.

His favorite episodes, he said, were "The Pickle Story," where Aunt Bea makes pickles no one can eat, and "Barney and the Choir," where no one can stop him from singing.

"I can't sing. It makes me sad that I can't sing or dance well enough to be in a musical, but I'm just not talented in that way," he lamented. "It's one of my weaknesses."

Knotts appeared on six other television shows. In 1979, Knotts replaced Norman Fell on "Three's Company," playing the would-be swinger landlord to John Ritter, Suzanne Somers and Joyce DeWitt.

Early in his TV career, he was one of the original cast members of "The Steve Allen Show," the comedy-variety show that ran from 1956 to 1961. He was one of a group of memorable comics backing Allen that included Louis Nye, Tom Poston and Bill Dana.

Knotts' G-rated films were family fun, not box-office blockbusters. In most, he ends up the hero and gets the girl -- a girl who can see through his nervousness to the heart of gold.

In the part-animated 1964 film "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," Knotts played a meek clerk who turns into a fish after he is rejected by the Navy.

When it was announced in 1998 that Jim Carrey would star in a "Limpet" remake, Knotts responded: "I'm just flattered that someone of Carrey's caliber is remaking something I did. Now, if someone else did Barney Fife, THAT would be different."

In the 1967 film "The Reluctant Astronaut," co-starring Leslie Nielsen, Knotts' father enrolls his wimpy son -- operator of a Kiddieland rocket ride -- in NASA's space program. Knotts poses as a famous astronaut to the joy of his hometown but is eventually exposed for what he really is, a janitor so terrified of heights he refuses to ride in an airplane.

Knotts was among an army of comedians from Buster Keaton to Jonathan Winters to liven up the 1963 megacomedy "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

Other films include "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" (1966); "The Shakiest Gun in the West," (1968); and a few Disney films such as "The Apple Dumpling Gang," (1974); "Gus," (1976); and "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo," (1977).

In 1998, he had a key role in the back-to-the-past movie "Pleasantville," playing a folksy television repairman whose supercharged remote control sends a teen boy and his sister into a TV sitcom past.

Knotts began his show biz career even before he graduated from high school, performing as a ventriloquist at local clubs and churches. He majored in speech at West Virginia University, then took off for the big city.

Within six months, Knotts had taken a job on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders," playing a wisecracking, know-it-all handyman. He stayed with it for five years, then came his series TV debut on "The Steve Allen Show."

He married Kay Metz in 1948, the year he graduated from college. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1969. Knotts later married, then divorced Lara Lee Szuchna.

William Cowsill, 58;
    was lead singer of 'Cowsills'

TUESDAY, February 21, 2006 - (The Associ- ated Press) - CALGARY, Alberta - William Cowsill, lead singer of the 1960s singing family band The Cowsills, which inspired the television series "The Partridge Fam- ily," has died.   He was 58.

COWSILL, who was suffering from emphysema, osteoporosis and other ailments, died here on Friday, according to the family and Canadian record producer Neil MacGonigill.   He had been in deteriorating health.

THE COWSILLS recorded a series of top hits between 1967 and 1970, including "The Rain, The Park and Other Things" and "Hair."
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Four Cowsill brothers played in the band: Barry on bass, William on guitar, Bob on guitar and organ and John on dru Their mother, Barbara, and little sister, Susan, eventually joined the group.

Barry disappeared after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on August 29th. His body was recovered December 28th from the Chartres Street Wharf.

The band's career began in Newport, Rhode Island. It was spotted by a producer for NBC's "Today" show which booked it for an appearance that led to a record deal.

The band broke up in the early 1970s. William, the oldest brother, moved about 35 years ago to Canada, where he continued his music career with Blue Northern, The Blue Shadows and the Co-Dependents.

Cowsill is survived by two sons.
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Curt Gowdy,  86;  Boston Red Sox voice of sports for generation

MONDAY, February 20, 2006 - (The Associated Press) - FORT MYERS, Florida - Curt Gowdy, one of the signature voices of sports for a generation and a longtime broad- caster for the Boston Red Sox, died today.   He  was  86.

HE DIED AT HIS WINTER HOME in Palm Beach after a long battle with leukemia.

GOWDY made his broadcasting debut in 1944 and went on to call the first Super Bowl in 1967 as well as 13 World Series and 16 All-Star games. He also called the famous "Heidi" pro football game in 1968.

IN 1951, GOWDY BECAME THE MAIN PLAY-BY-PLAY VOICE on the Red Sox broadcast team. He left in 1966 for a 10-year stint as "Game of the Week" announcer for NBC. He also was the host of the "American Sportsman" series.

"HE'S CERTAINLY THE GREATEST play-by-play person up to this point that NBC sports has ever had," NBC Universal Sports chairman Dick Ebersol said from the Turin Olympics. "He literally carried the sports division at NBC for so many years on his back. ... He was a remarkable talent and he was an even more remarkable human being."

Born in Green River, Wyo., Gowdy brought a warm feel to the broadcast booth, his commentary always full of good humor and enthusiasm. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig called Gowdy "one of the legendary broadcasters of our game."

"His distinct voice was a comfort to a generation of baseball fans in New England and throughout the country," Selig said.

In his 1960 essay "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," published in The New Yorker, John Updike said Gowdy sounded like "everybody's brother-in-law."

Veteran NBC broadcaster Dick Enberg said that if Gowdy were calling a game, "you knew it was a major event."

"He was the first superstar of sports television because he did all of the big events -- the World Series, the Super Bowl, NCAA basketball, the Olympics and his outdoor sportsman show," Enberg added. "He's the last of the dinosaurs. No one will ever be the voice of so many major events at the same time ever again."

George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports, said Gowdy's contributions were "indelible." He said Gowdy was a "pioneer in our business and set the highest of standards for everyone in sports broadcasting."

College basketball broadcaster Dick Vitale of ESPN said he heard of Gowdy's death in a phone call from Texas Tech coach Bob Knight.

"Gowdy had a love affair with the microphone and the fans had a love affair with him," Vitale said. "American sports fans truly lost an icon, a legend who never felt he was bigger than anyone else. He had that humility that made him special, and he made everyone feel like they were so important."

Former Red Sox star John Pesky, speaking from Boston's spring training camp in Fort Myers, remembered Gowdy as "a peach of a guy." Pesky, 86, said Gowdy was always in the clubhouse before games and always eager to talk.

"He was really easy to speak to," Pesky said.

The award-winning broadcaster began his career in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1944 standing on a crate, giving a football play-by-play in subzero temperatures. He moved on to minor league baseball broadcasts and recreations of major league games on KOMA radio in Oklahoma City.

In 1949, he joined Mel Allen to broadcast games of the New York Yankees and, two years, later, he became the No. 1 broadcaster for the Boston Red Sox, leaving in 1966 to spend 10 years as NBA's announcer for its game of the week.

"To fans in New England in the 1950s and '60s, his was the voice that told the stories of the Red Sox to a generation of fans," said Dr. Charles Steinberg, the Red Sox' executive vice president for public affairs. "He was the voice under the pillow."

On November 17, 1968, Gowdy broadcast Oakland's 43-32 win over the New York Jets in which the Raiders won with two touchdowns in the last minute. Viewers didn't see those touchdowns because NBC cut away from the final minute to fulfill a contractual obligation to show "Heidi," the classic children's story.

Gowdy has been honored with dozens of awards. He was inducted into the broadcast wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the American Sportscaster's Hall of Fame in 1985. The Curt Gowdy State Park was established in Wyoming in 1971.

He once said, "I tried to pretend that I was sitting in the stands with a buddy watching the game poking him in the ribs when something exciting happened. I never took myself too seriously. An announcer is only as good as yesterday's performance."

Gowdy is survived by his wife, Jerre, three children -- Cheryl Ann of Palm Beach; Curt Jr. of New York, the vice president of production and executive producer of SportsNet New York; and Trevor of Boston -- and five grandchildren.

Peter Benchley,  65;  novelist,  author of 'Jaws', conservationist

SUNDAY, February 12, 2006 - (The Associated Press) - NEW YORK - Peter Benchley, whose novel "Jaws" terrorized millions of swimmers even as the author himself became an advocate for the conservation of sharks, has died, his widow said Sunday.   He was 65.

WENDY BENCHLEY, MARRIED TO THE AUTHOR for 41 years, said he died Saturday night at their home in Princeton, N.J. The cause of death, she said, was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and a fatal scarring of the lungs.

THANKS TO BENCHLEY’S 1974 NOVEL, and Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster movie of the same name, the simple act of ocean swimming became synonymous with fatal horror, of still water followed by ominous, pumping music, then teeth and blood and panic.

"SPIELBERG CERTAINLY made the most superb movie; Peter was very pleased," Wendy Benchley told The Associated Press.

"BUT Peter kept telling people the book was fiction, it was a novel, and that he no more took responsibility for the fear of sharks than Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia."

SPEECHWRITER FOR JOHNSON... Benchley, the grandson of humorist Robert Benchley and son of author Nathaniel Benchley, was born in New York City in 1940. He attended the elite Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, then graduated from Harvard University in 1961. He worked at The Washington Post and Newsweek and spent two years as a speechwriter for President Johnson, writing some "difficult" speeches about the Vietnam War, Wendy Benchley said.

The author’s interest in sharks was lifelong, beginning with childhood visits to Nantucket Island in Massachusetts and heightening in the mid-1960s when he read about a fisherman catching a 4,550-pound great white shark off Long Island, the setting for his novel.

"I thought to myself, ‘What would happen if one of those came around and wouldn’t go away?"’ he recalled. Benchley didn’t start the novel until 1971 because he was too busy working with his day jobs.

"There was no particular influence. My idea was to tell my first novel as a sort of long story ... just to see if I could do it. I had been a freelance writer since I was 16, and I sold things to various magazines and newspapers whenever I could."

While Peter Benchley co-wrote the screenplay for "Jaws," and authored several other novels, including "The Deep" and "The Island," Wendy Benchley said he was especially proud of his conservation work. He served on the national council of Environmental Defense, hosted numerous television wildlife programs, gave speeches around the world and wrote articles for National Geographic and other publications.

"He cared very much about sharks. He spent most of his life trying to explain to people that if you are in the ocean, you’re in the shark’s territory, so it behooves you to take precautions," Wendy Benchley said.

AT EASE WITH SHARKS... The author did not abide by the mayhem his book evoked. In fact, he was quite at ease around sharks, his widow said. She recalled a trip to Guadeloupe, Mexico last year for their 40th wedding anniversary, when the two went into the water in a special cage.

"They put bait in the water and sharks swim around and play games," she said. "We were thrilled, excited. We’d been around sharks for so long."

Besides his wife, Peter Benchley is survived by three children and five grandchildren. A small family service will take place next week in Princeton, Wendy Benchley said.

Betty Friedan, 85;
  was post-war feminist leader

FRIDAY, February 3, 2006 - (The B. B. C.) - LOS ANGELES - One of the leading lights of America's post-war feminist movement, Betty Friedan, has died at the age of 85.

SHE DIED OF CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE, her cousin, Emily Bazelon, said.

SHE was best known for her book "The Feminine Mystique" (1963), which said women were not necessarily fulfilled by their roles of housewives and mothers.

In 1966, she went on to found America's National Organization for Women (NOW), which campaigned for full equality, and became its first president.

In her best-selling book, Friedan had argued that the feminine mystique was a phoney bill of goods society sold to women, leaving them unfulfilled.

"A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel ___________________________________

guilty, 'Who am I, and what do I want out of life?'"

"She mustn't feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of husband and children," Friedman wrote.

As a founder and first president of Now, Friedan had campaigned for abortion, equal pay and promotion and maternity leave - positions that seemed extreme at the time.

However, she had wanted her movement to remain in the mainstream and had opposed "equating feminism with lesbianism".

Friedan was born on 4 February 1921 in Peoria, Illinois.

She graduated with top honours from Smith College in 1942, and then spent a year doing graduate work in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

She left Berkeley to work as a reporter.

In 1947, she married Carl Friedan, with whom she had three children. The marriage ended in divorce after 22 years.
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Al Lewis,  95;   actor, cigar-chomping grandpa:  "The Munsters"

THURSDAY, January 19, 2006 - (Associated Press) - NEW YORK - Actor Al Lewis, the cigar-chomping patriarch of "The Munsters" whose work as a basketball scout, restaur- ateur and political candidate never eclipsed his role as 'Grandpa' from the television sitcom, died after several years of failing health.   He was 95.

LEWIS, WITH HIS WIFE AT HIS BEDSIDE, died Friday night, said Bernard White, program director at WBAI-FM, where the actor hosted a weekly radio program for years.   White made the announcement on the air during the Saturday slot where Lewis usually appeared.

LEWIS, sporting a somewhat cheesy Dracula outfit, became a pop culture icon playing the irascible father-in-law to Fred Gwynne's ever-bumbling Herman Munster on the 1964-66 television show. He was also one of the stars of another classic TV comedy, playing Officer Leo Schnauzer on "Car 54, Where Are You?"

But Lewis' life off the small screen ranged far beyond his acting antics. He achieved notoriety as a basketball talent scout familiar to coaching greats like Jerry Tarkanian and Red Auerbach

He operated a successful Greenwich Village restaurant, Grandpa's, where he was a regular presence -- chatting with customers, posing for pictures, signing autographs.

Just two years short of his 90th birthday, a ponytailed Al Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against Gov. George Pataki. Lewis campaigned against draconian drug laws and the death penalty, while going to court in a losing battle to have his name appear on the ballot as "Grandpa Al Lewis." He managed to collect more than 52,000 votes.

Lewis, as Officer Schnauzer, played opposite Gwynne's Officer Francis Muldoon in "Car 54, Where Are You?" -- a comedy about a Bronx police precinct that aired from 1961 to '63. One year later, the duo appeared together in "The Munsters."

The series, about a family of clueless creatures plunked down in middle America, was a success and ran through 1966. It forever locked Lewis in as the memorably twisted character; decades later, strangers would greet him on the street with shouts of "Grandpa!"

Wilson Pickett, 64;  was big 1960's soul and R&B music pioneer

THURSDAY, January 19, 2006 - (Associated Press) - NEW YORK - Wilson Pickett, the soul pioneer best known for the fiery hits "Mustang Sally" and "In The Midnight Hour," died of a heart attack Thursday in a Reston, Virginia, hospital, according to his management company.   He was 64.

CHRIS TUTHILL of the management company Talent Source said Pickett had been suffering from health problems for the past year.   Pickett lived in Ashburn, Virginia.

"HE DID HIS PART. IT WAS A GREAT RIDE, a great trip, I loved him and I’m sure he was well-loved, and I just hope that he’s given his props," Michael Wilson Pickett, the sing- er’s son, told WRC-TV in Washington after his death.

PICKETT — known as the "Wicked Pickett" — became a star with his soulful hits in the 1960s. "In the Midnight Hour" made the top 25 on the Billboard pop charts in 1965 and "Mustang Sally" did the same the following year.

"A fellow Detroiter, Wilson Pickett was one of the greatest soul singers of all time," Aretha Franklin said in a statement. "He will absolutely be missed. I am thankful that I got the chance to speak to him not too long ago."

R&B LEGEND... Pickett was defined by his raspy voice and passionate delivery. But the Alabama-born Pickett got his start singing gospel music in church. After moving to Detroit as a teen, he joined the group the Falcons, which scored the hit "I Found a Love" with Pickett on lead vocals in 1962.

He went solo a year later, and would soon find his greatest success. In 1965, he linked with legendary soul producer Jerry Wexler at the equally legendary soul label Stax Records in Memphis, and recorded one of his greatest hits, "In the Midnight Hour," for Atlantic Records. A string of hits followed, including "634-5789," "Funky Broadway" and "Mustang Sally." His sensuous soul was in sharp contrast to the genteel soul songs of his Detroit counterparts at Motown Records.

Roger Friedman, a journalist and friend who featured Pickett in his 2002 documentary on soul greats, "Only the Strong Survive," said Pickett was "really Atlantic’s answer to James Brown."

"He wrote his own songs... he was very, very musically adept, and look at his contribution — look how many songs of his songs have been covered?" Friedman told The Associated Press on Thursday.

As Pickett entered a new decade, he had less success on the charts, but still had a few more hits, including the song "Don’t Let The Green Grass Fool You."

"Like all these great legends of R&B, when disco came in, it really impacted their careers," Friedman said. "[But] what Americans don’t realize is they have all continued to be incredibly popular in Europe — every summer, touring Europe to incredible crowds."

Still, Pickett suffered through some tough times. In 1991, he was arrested for allegedly yelling death threats while driving a car over the mayor’s front lawn in Englewood, New Jersey, and less than a year later was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.

In 1993, he was convicted of drunken driving and sentenced to a year in jail and five years’ probation after hitting an 86-year-old man with his car. In 1987, he was given two years’ probation and fined $1,000 for carrying a loaded shotgun in his car.

Besides his induction into the Hall of Fame in 1991, he was also given the Pioneer award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation two years later. He also cast a long shadow and served as a role model in "The Commitments" in 1991, without appearing in the film.

"If I wasn’t in show business I don’t know what I would have been — a wanderer or something, you know?" he said in a 2001 interview. "But God blessed me with the talent and the chance. I knocked on enough doors, and this is what I can give myself credit for."

Friedman said he had just spoken to Pickett last week and he seemed optimistic he would be able to put recent health troubles aside and perform again.

"We had just a great talk," he said. "He really wanted to get back to business."

Shelley Winters,  85;  famous 'Academy Award' winning actress

SATURDAY, January 13, 2005 - (The Associated Press) - BEVERLY HILLS, CA - Shelley Winters, the forceful, out- spoken star who graduated from blond bombshell parts to dramas, winning Academy Awards as supporting actress in "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "A Patch of Blue," has died. She  was  85.

WINTERS DIED OF HEART FAILURE early Saturday at The Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills, her publicist Dale Olson said. She had been hospitalized in October after suffering a heart attack.

THE ACTRESS SUSTAINED HER LONG CAREER by repeatedly reinventing herself. Starting as a nightclub chorus girl, advanced to supporting roles in New York plays, then became famous as a Hollywood sexpot.

A DEVOTEE OF THE ACTORS STUDIO, she switched to serious roles as she matured. Her Oscars were for her portrayal of mothers. Still working well into her 70s, she had a recurring role as Roseanne's grandmother on the 1990s TV show "Roseanne."

"SHELLEY was idol of mine — and many — an extraordinary woman with powerful charisma, enormous talent and a keen, perceptive mind," said longtime friend and actress Connie Stevens.

IN 1959's "The Diary of Anne Frank," she was Petronella Van Daan, mother of Peter Van Daan and one of eight real-life Jewish refugees in World War II Holland who hid for more than a year in cramped quarters until they were betrayed and sent to Nazi death camps. The socially conscious Winters donated her Oscar statuette to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

In 1965's "Patch of Blue," she portrayed a hateful, foul-mouthed mother who tries to keep her blind daughter, who is white, apart from the kind black man who has befriended her.

Ever vocal on social and political matters, Winters was a favored guest on television talk shows, and she demonstrated her frankness in two autobiographies: "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley" (1980) and "Shelley II: The Middle of My Century" (1989).

Winters wrote openly in them of her romances with Burt Lancaster, William Holden, Marlon Brando, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and other leading men. She also said after she came to Hollywood in the mid-1940s she was roommates with another rising starlet — Marilyn Monroe.

"I've had it all," she exulted after her first book became a best seller. "I'm excited about the literary aspects of my career. My concentration is there now."

Typically Winters, she also had a complaint about her literary fame: While reviewers treated her book as a serious human document, she said, talk show hosts Phil Donohue and Johnny Carson "only want to know about my love affairs."

Winters, whose given name was Shirley Schrift, was appearing in the Broadway hit "Rosalinda" when Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohn offered her a screen test. A Columbia contact and a new name — Shelley Winters — followed, but all the good roles at the studio were going to Jean Arthur in those days.

Winters' early films included such light fare as "Knickerbocker Holiday," "Sailor's Holiday," "Cover Girl," "Tonight and Every Night" and "Red River."

When her contract ended, Winters returned to New York as Ado Annie in "Oklahoma!"

She would soon be called back and signed to a seven-year contract at Universal, where she was transformed into a blonde bombshell. She vamped her way through a number of potboilers for the studio, including "South Sea Sinner," with Liberace as her dance-hall pianist, and "Frenchie," as wild saloon owner Frenchie Fontaine, out to avenge her father's murder.

The only hint of her future as an actress came in 1948's "A Double Life" as a trashy waitress strangled by a Shakespearian actor, Ronald Colman. The role won Colman an Oscar.

"A Place in the Sun" in 1951 brought her first Oscar nomination and established her as a serious actress. She desperately sought the role of the pregnant factory girl drowned by Montgomery Clift so he could marry Elizabeth Taylor. The director, George Stevens, rejected her at first for being too sexy.

"So I scrubbed off all my makeup, pulled my hair back and sat next to him at the Hollywood Athletic Club without his even recognizing me because I looked so plain. That got me the part," she recalled in a 1962 interview.

Winters received her final Oscar nomination, for 1972's "The Poseidon Adventure," in which she was one of a handful of passengers scrambling desperately to survive aboard an ocean liner turned upside down by a tidal wave. By then she had put on a good deal of weight, and following a scene in which her character must swim frantically she charmed audiences with the line: "In the water I'm a very skinny lady."

Although she was in demand as a character actress, Winters continued to study her craft. She attended Charles Laughton's Shakespeare classes and worked at the Actors Studio, both as student and teacher. She appeared on Broadway as the distraught wife of a drug addict in "A Hatful of Rain" and as the Marx Brothers' mother in "Minnie's Boys."

Among her other notable films: "Night of the Hunter," "Executive Suite," "I Am a Camera," "The Big Knife," "Odds Against Tomorrow," "The Young Savages," "Lolita," "The Chapman Report," "The Greatest Story Ever Told," "A House Is Not a Home," "Alfie," "Harper," "Pete's Dragon," "Stepping Out" and "Over the Brooklyn Bridge."

During her 50 years as a widely known personality, Winters was rarely out of the news. Her stormy marriages, her romances with famous stars, her forays into politics and feminist causes kept her name before the public. She delighted in giving provocative interviews and seemed to have an opinion on everything.

Robert Mitchum once told her: "Shelley, arguing with you is like trying to hold a conversation with a swarm of bumblebees."

The revelations in her autobiographies provided endless material for interviewers and gossip writers. She wrote of an enchanted evening when she and Burt Lancaster attended "South Pacific" in New York, dined elegantly, then retired to his hotel room.

"This chance meeting proved to be the beginning of a long but painful romance," she wrote. "Despite the immediate and powerful chemistry between us, the love and the friendship, some wise part of me knew that he would never abandon his children while they were young and needed him."

She also told of a dalliance with William Holden after a studio Christmas party. In a glamorous, real-life version of the play "Same Time, Next Year," they continued their annual Yuletide rendezvous for seven years.

She wrote that despite their intimacy, they continued to refer to each other as "Mr. Holden" and "Miss Winters," and when they met on the set of the 1981 film "S.O.B." she said, "Hello, Mr. Holden." He smiled and replied, "Shelley, after your book, I think you should call me Bill."

Shirley Schrift was born on August 18, 1920, and grew up New York, where she appeared in high school plays.

"My childhood is a blur of memories," she wrote in the first of her autobiographies. "Money was so scarce in my family that at the age of 9 I was selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door.

"It was during this stage of my life that I developed a whole fantasy world; reality was too unbearable. Every chance I got, I was at the movies. I adored them."

Working as a chorus girl and garment district model helped finance her drama studies. She gained practical training by appearing in plays and musicals on the summer Borscht Circuit in the Catskill mountains.

During the Detroit run of a musical revue, she married businessman Paul "Mack" Mayer on January 1, 1942. He entered the Army Air Corps, and after the war, the pair found they had little in common. They divorced in 1948.

Winters' second and third marriages were brief and tempestuous: to Vittorio Gassman (1952-1954) and Anthony Franciosa (1957-1960). The combination of a Jewish Brooklynite and Italian actors seemed destined to produce fireworks, and both unions resulted in headlines.

A daughter, Vittoria, resulted from the marriage to Gassman. She became a successful physician.

Ramona Bell,  47;  wife of paranormal overnight radio's Art Bell

FRIDAY, January 6, 2006 - (The Review-Journal) - PAHRUMP, Nevada - Ramona Bell, the wife of popular Pahrump paranormal radio talk show host Art Bell, died unexpectedly Thursday, while on a brief vacation in Laughlin.   She was 47.

A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CLARK COUNTY CORONER'S OFFICE said Friday a cause of death for Ramona Bell has not been determined, although Web sites dedicated to the same topics that Bell covers said she died in her sleep from an acute asthma attack.

FANS OF THE COAST TO COAST AM radio talk show said Bell was devoted to his wife of 15 years. She occasionally appeared on the talk show, broadcast between 12 AM and 4 AM (Central) from the couple's Pahrump compound.

The couple owned KNYE, an FM radio station in Pahrump, and Bell often said the show was broadcast from "The Kingdom of Nye," for Nye County. More than 450 radio stations broadcast the program.

Frequently when Art Bell needed a name or a fact, he would shout to Ramona Bell, sitting in another room, and she would shout back the answer. They also often discussed their love for their family cats.

"She was the love of his life," said Gail Silva, a Bell show fan from Southern Nevada. "Their commitment to each other came out over the airwaves."

"I'm shocked," added Ron Gabel, another fan of the show. "It's tragic. He spoke of her so fondly."

A one-time radio engineer, Art Bell had been an overnight political talk show host on radio station K D W N  in Las Vegas before he founded the Coast to Coast AM show in the 1990s.

In recent years, he has broadcast only on Sunday nights, having turned the weekday duties over to George Noory.

He has announced his retirement from the show several times, including in October 1998, when he said he needed to leave because of a "terrible event" affecting his family.

Lou Rawls, 72;  was Grammy Award-winning R&B, music singer

FRIDAY, January 6, 2006 - (The Los Angeles Times) - LOS ANGELES - Lou Rawls, the Grammy Award-winning singer whose velvety baritone was one of the most recognizable voices in pop music on hits such as "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing," "Lady Love" and "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine," died Friday.   He was 72.

RAWLS DIED OF LUNG CANCER at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his publicist Paul Shefrin. Rawls, who had lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, since 2003, was diagnosed with lung cancer about a year ago.

RAWLS' YEARS AS A RECORDING ARTIST included more than 70 albums, three Grammys, 13 Grammy nominations, one platinum album, five gold albums and a gold single.

HIS distinctively rich baritone has been described as "dark as mahogany, as deep as a rolling river" and "as warm as smooth gravel heated over a fireplace."

After hearing him perform in Las Vegas, Frank Sinatra described Rawls as having "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game."

Widely praised as a song stylist, the singer defied categorization: During his career, he sang everything from gospel to blues to jazz to soul to pop.

"I don't put myself in any particular category," Rawls, who began singing in a Baptist church choir as a young boy, once said. "Whatever the occasion calls for, I rise to the occasion. There are no limits to music, so why should I limit myself?"

Singer-actress Della Reese, a longtime friend, told the Los Angeles Times on Friday that no matter what type of music Rawls did, "he brought with him the roots of gospel music."

As a performer, she said, "He gave you your money's worth; he absolutely did. When you came to see him, you felt like you had a good time."

Originally signed to Capitol Records, Rawls' first solo release was the 1962 jazz album "Stormy Monday" (also known as "I'd Never Drink Muddy Water"), which he recorded with the Les McCann Trio.

After signing with producers-songwriters Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff's hit-making Philadelphia International label, Rawls had the biggest album of his career in 1976 with "All Things in Time." The platinum-selling album included his most successful single: "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine," a #1 R&B hit that also rose to #2 on the pop charts.

Raised by his grandmother on the south side of Chicago after his parents went their separate ways shortly after he was born, Rawls joined the junior choir at his grandmother's Baptist church at age 7 and sang with different gospel groups as a teenager.

After moving to Los Angeles in the 1950s, he joined the Chosen Gospel Singers, with whom he made his first recording. He next joined the Pilgrim Travelers, a gospel group that included a young friend from Chicago, Sam Cooke. Rawls later did the uncredited call-and-response with Cooke on Cooke's 1962 classic "Bring It on Home to Me."

Barry Cowsill, 51;
  was bass guitarist, 'Cowsills'

FRIDAY, January 6, 2006 - (The Associ- ated Press) - NEW ORLEANS — Barry Cow- sill, a member of the popular 1960s singing family The Cowsills, was found dead on a wharf nearly four months after he disappeared when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city.   He was 51.

COWSILL'S BODY, recovered December 28th from the Chartres Street Wharf, was identified with dental records Tuesday, said Dr. Louis Cataldie, head of the state hurricane morgue in Carville.

THE CORONER had not determined the cause of death but believed it was related to August's storm.

Cowsill, who lived on and off in New Orleans, had not been heard from since he left phone messages for his sister September 1st, his family's Web site said.

___________________________________

"They tell us he'd been dead for quite some time," his brother Richard Cowsill said in a telephone interview Thursday.   "We love him and we're going to miss him, but he's in a much better place..."

The Cowsills — the inspiration for the TV series "The Partridge Family" — recorded a series of hits between 1967-70, including "The Rain, The Park and Other Things" and "Hair." They also were spokespeople for the American Dairy Association, appearing in com- mercials and print ads for milk.

Four Cowsill brothers played in the band: Barry on bass, Bill on guitar, Bob on guitar and organ, and John on dru Their mother, Barbara (who died in 1985), and sister, Susan, eventually joined the group.

The band broke up in the early 1970s, amid acrimony that left some members estranged for several years.

"It wasn't just the end of a business, it was the end of a family," Bob Cowsill said in a 1990 interview.

In addition to his siblings, Cowsill is survived by two daughters and a son.
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