Imogene Burkhart, an actress better known as Jean Byron, died Friday at
an area hospital. She was 80.

The native of Paducah, Ky., was born on Dec.10, 1925, to Anna Louise
Bastin and Edward Burkhart. She moved with her family to Louisville,
Ky., where she attended and graduated from Louisville Girl's High
School in 1943. Prior to her graduation, at age 16, she was briefly a
singer and entertainer on an area radio show.

The war effort took her family to California, where she studied acting
while appearing on stage and radio. When she signed her first contract
with Columbia Pictures, she adopted Jean Byron as her stage name.

In the 1950s, she was briefly married to actor Michael Ansara.

Byron had more than 80 credits in film and television on her resume.
She played alongside Johnny Weissmuller, John Carradine, Cary Grant,
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Raquel Welch, Angela Lansbury and others.
She was spokeswoman for Revlon and Lux products on the Rosemary Clooney
show and was known as "the Lux Girl."

The role of Dr. Imogene Burkhart on the Dobbie Gillis series was
written for her by close friend and playwright Max Shulman.

Fans may best remember her as Natalie Lane, mother of Patty Duke on the
mid-1960s series, "The Patty Duke Show."

A friend of Tommy Dorsey, she occasionally sang with the big band while
she was filming in New York. She played regional theaters with Shirley
Jones and Virginia Mayo, played Mama Rose in "Gypsy" and sang in "Guys
And Dolls."

In the late 1980s, Jean entered semi-retirement and moved to Mobile to
be closer to her family. She made a final movie appearance in the 1999
"Patty Duke Show Reunion" movie.

She is survived by her cousins, David Hancock and John Hancock, both of
Mobile.

Visitation will be Tuesday from 9 a.m. until the 10 a.m. graveside
service at Mobile Memorial Gardens. Memorials may be made to the SPCA
or a local animal shelter.

Reuven Frank, former NBC News President and NBC board member who pioneered election coverage and was instrumental in teaming Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on the evening news, then picking successor Tom Brokaw, has died of pneumonia at age 85, according to NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust, who said a family member had reached out to NBC with the news.

Frank joined NBC News in 1950 as a writer and was the producer of the Huntley-Brinkley report, which established the mold for news anchor teams, from its inception in 1956 to 1962, when he was named executive producer. He was named a VP of NBC news in January 1966 and an executive VP two years later.

He was also named president in 1968, a that saw journalists working overtime to cover the Tet offensive, and the events surrounding the Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations. "There has been no time for TV anybody in TV News to take a breath," he told B&C at the time.

Frank's legacy includes pioneering Presidential convention coverage, teaming his two nightly news anchors for the coverage and introducing floor reporters, elevated cameras and an internal wire service.

Like many a TV newsman of his era, Frank got his start in the newspaper business, having spent three years as a reporter, rewrite man and night city editor on the Newark (N.J.) Evening News before joining the network.

Brokaw said Monday of Frank: "I had the privilege of starting my journalism career when Reuven was producing "The Huntley Brinkley Report," which was a model of incisive reporting, astute analysis and engaging story telling in a new medium that required a deft combination of the visual and the narrative form. Those broadcasts became a school for a new generation of journalists coming of age in a new medium and I am forever grateful for what I learned from him.

"Reuven had an uncanny ability to balance the serious imperatives of journalism with a keen appreciation for the absurd. As a result he was always not just wise, but entertaining."

NBC News said in its statement: "Reuven Frank was a giant of broadcast journalism, who in many ways was a founding father of the modern form of broadcast journalism."

Sonny King, a longtime sidekick of entertainer Jimmy Durante and a veteran Las Vegas lounge singer, died Friday after undergoing treatment for cancer, according to his older brother. He was 83.

King was Durante's partner for 28 years until Durante died in 1980. They appeared together on Ed Sullivan's show five times in the 1960s.

King broke into the Las Vegas entertainment scene at Sahara's Casbar Lounge in 1955 and was later dubbed "Lounge Giant" by Frank Sinatra.

He performed in Las Vegas through last summer, when he became too weakened from radiation treatments to continue.

While King was never considered part of the Rat Pack, he was close friends with Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and its other members. He also appeared in the Rat Pack movies Robin and the Seven Hoods and Sergeants 3.

He roomed with Martin for six and a half years during their formative New York years and introduced him to Jerry Lewis, who became Martin's partner.

Tony, stop posting this stuff. You're killing people. I know everyone thinks its the other way around, but it's not. It's like in that Ray Bradbury story-- He who wields me...wields the world.

A paparazzo who was charged with battery and child endangerment after
pestering Reese Witherspoon and her kids at a theme park last fall has
apparently been found dead.



Friends of photographer Todd Wallace said his body was discovered in
his Brentwood apartment, according to published reports. Police
confirmed that a body was found, but were unable to identify it as
Wallace's because of the state of the corpse.


Witherspoon and Wallace crossed paths at Disney's California Adventure
in September, where the Golden Globe winner was celebrating her
daughter's sixth birthday.


Police said Wallace became enraged when Witherspoon's group declined to
be photographed at close range and shoved a child out of the way, while
whacking another with his camera in his efforts to snap shots of the
actress.


When two theme park employees attempted to restrain the rampaging
shutterbug, Wallace reportedly struck them, while cursing at
Witherspoon and causing several children to burst into tears.


The photographer was slapped with six misdemeanor charges as a result
of the altercation. In October, he pleaded innocent across the board
and claimed to have photos and videotape from the incident proving that
he did nothing wrong.


After Wallace failed to show up at a bail hearing in December, a judge
issued a warrant for his arrest.


The photographer was also scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 27 on a
separate felony charge of petty theft with a prior conviction. It was
unclear from court records whether he attended that hearing.


Call it a hunch, but we're guessing Witherspoon won't let the dark news
of Wallace's demise put much of a damper on her banner awards show
season.


As expected, the Walk the Line star pulled in an Oscar nomination for
Best Actress last month, after already claiming the honor at the Golden
Globes, the SAG Awards and the Critics' Choice Awards.

Reese is powerful.

He was probably shot with one of Reese's pieces.

::buh-dum-pah::

Thanks very much, Tony'll be here all week. Try the veal!

MONTGOMERY, Ala., Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Vocalist Bobby Moore of Bobby Moore
and the Rhythm Aces has died in Montgomery, Ala., at age 75.

Moore died Wednesday of kidney failure, the Montgomery Advertiser
reported Tuesday.

The New Orleans native had Top 40 hits in the mid-1960s with "Searching
For My Love" and "Try My Love Again."

His son, Bobby Moore Jr., has been playing with his father's group for
40 years and told the newspaper he would continue to keep the name
Bobby Moore alive.

"My father didn't just play R&B," he said. "He played jazz, rock,
country, and I plan to carry on that legacy."

The younger Moore said one of his father's final performances was
opening for country music's Alabama at a benefit for victims of
Hurricane Katrina.

Services were scheduled Wednesday in Montgomery.

Or maybe he was gagged withherspoon.
Ryan must have Philliped out.

Tatto0wned.

Eastwood's mother died, so he'll skip event today

Clint Eastwood will not participate in today's Celebrity Challenge at Pebble Beach. His mother, Margaret `Ruth'' Wood, died Saturday in Carmel. She was 97.

Eastwood's schedule for the rest of the tournament week has not been determined, and no official statement was released.

The actor and director is also chairman of the Monterey Peninsula Foundation and a part-owner of Pebble Beach Co. He purchased the course in 1999 with a group that included Arnold Palmer and former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth.

No public services for Wood have been announced.

The Curious George guy died

Alan J. Shalleck, Collaborator on 'Curious George' books, films found dead; ''possible homicide"



Collaborator on 'Curious George' books, films found dead, covered with
garbage bags, in Boynton driveway
BY STEPHANIE SLATER, Palm Beach Post

BOYNTON BEACH - The bloodied body of a collaborator on the beloved
children's book series Curious George was found Tuesday morning covered
in black garbage bags in the driveway of his impeccably landscaped
mobile home.
Alan J. Shalleck's body lay in the driveway at 4295 King Theodore Drive
for at least 24 hours while neighbors passed by, assuming it was merely
a heap of trash.
Shalleck co-edited more than 28 Curious George books and helped write
and direct 104 film shorts. The mischievous monkey, created in 1939 by
Hans and Margret Rey, makes his big screen debut Friday in movie
theaters nationwide.
Investigators, who received an anonymous 911 call around 8:40 a.m.,
said they are treating the case as a ''possible homicide.'' They would
not disclose details about how Shalleck, 76, died.
A Syracuse University drama major, Shalleck got his start in 1950 in
the CBS mailroom, working his way up to associate producer for Winky
Dink and You, a morning show during which kids drew on a plastic film
placed on the TV screen. He later produced children's films and formed
his own company.
Shalleck approached Margret Rey about bringing Curious George to film
in 1977.
''I got $500 per Curious George story, no royalties, no residuals,''
Shalleck told The Palm Beach Post in 1997.
But the experience of working with Margret Rey was the high point of
his life, he added.
In 1988, Shalleck produced a children's film, Pepito's Dream, in
conjunction with the United Nations. The story was about a little boy
who wanted to make a speech at the UN.
He also created Gramps, the persona he used when reading to children.
He created another company, Reading By GRAMPS, and made public
appearances at book stores and local events.

British jazz saxophonist Elton Dean died on the evening of February 7th, 2006, in a London hospital. For the last year in particular he had been suffering from heart and liver related heart problems. He was 60.
Dean first gained acclaim as a member of the Keith Tippett Group, led by the English pianist and featuring the horn section of Dean, Marc Charig and Nick Evans, in 1969. Later that year, Dean, Charig and Evans were hired by Soft Machine to augment their core trio. After touring as a septet, the band was trimmed down to a quintet, then a quartet. This resulted in what many consider the “classic” Soft Machine line-up of Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper and Elton Dean, which recorded Third (1970) and Fourth (1971) for CBS.

Dean left Soft Machine after 1972's Fifth to devote his time to his own group, Just Us, and various jazz-oriented line-ups, many of them featuring Tippett. Over the years however, he remained associated with the Soft Machine family (also known as the “Canterbury scene”), often in the company of bassist Hugh Hopper, while leading his own acoustic jazz quartets and quintets.

In the past few years Dean had again been involved in a variety of Soft Machine-derived line-ups : SoftWorks with Hugh Hopper, Allan Holdsworth and John Marshall; Soft Machine Legacy with Etheridge replacing Holdsworth; Soft Bounds, with Hopper and French jazzers Sophia Domancich and Simon Goubert; and the French-based PolySoft tribute project, again featuring Hopper. Soft Machine Legacy recorded its debut album in September, and the band were looking forward to supporting it with a series of live performances; a live DVD, recorded in Paris last December, is also set for release later this year.

I bet about 1 out of 365. Just a guess though.

Died on their birthday:


John Banner - actor - Jan. 28 (1910-1973) - 63

María Félix - actress - April 8 (1914-2002) - 88

William Congdon - artist - April 15 (1912-1998) - 86

Ingrid Bergman - actress - Aug. 29 (1915-1982) - 67

Otto Kruger - actor - Sept. 6 (1885-1974) - 89

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_peopl...their_birthdays

Any birthday suicides? You always hear about Christmas being a 'popular' time for suicides, what about birthdays?

Music composer Akira Ifukube, who is most famous for his work on the movie "Godzilla," died of multiple organ failure Wednesday night at a hospital in Tokyo, his family said. He was 91.

Ifukube was born in Kushiro, Hokkaido. A graduate of Hokkaido University, Ifukube self-taught composing and created music for major movies since the 1950s, including "Gembaku no ko" (Children of Hiroshima) in 1952 and "Godzilla" in 1954.

His theme of "Godzilla," which expressed the horrors of the monstrous creature, has widely influenced foreign movies.

Ifukube's portfolio of work also include the 1956 "Biruma no Tategoto" (The Harp of Burma) and the "Daimajin" series from 1966.

The composer of "Nihon Kyoshikyoku" (Japanese Rhapsody), which is considered a masterpiece, Ifukube served as the president of the Tokyo College of Music between 1976 and 1987.

Ifukube was awarded a Person of Cultural Merit, one of Japan's highest honors, in 2003.

TORONTO (CP) - The man once known as Canada's Big Band King for the swing orchestras he led in the 1930s and '40s has died.

Mart Kenney died Wednesday night at a retirement home in Mission, B.C., said his daughter Lisa Kenney. He was 95. Kenney had been afflicted with Alzheimer's and vascular dementia. In addition he suffered a bad fall nearly two years ago, after which he was persuaded to move into the retirement home in Mission.

Debuting in Vancouver's Alexandra Ballroom in 1931, Mart and the Western Gentlemen quickly became known as a result of their cross-country barnstorming, playing at such prestigious hotels as Chateau Lake Louise, Hotel Saskatchewan, Banff Springs, the Brant Inn in Burlington, Ont., and Toronto's Royal York.

They were the first Canadian band to broadcast on Canadian, U.S. and international radio networks, and their broadcasts were soon identified with the phrase "sweet and low."

In 1938, Kenney's was the first home-grown band to record for RCA Victor. During the Second World War the band entertained the troops and war workers in a series of Victory performances. The band's leading vocalist was Norma Locke who eventually married Kenney. She died in 1990.

In 1946, Kenney - who played alto sax and clarinet - composed the song We're Proud of Canada, and only a few years ago updated the lyrics to include issues of unity. Also in '46 he opened The Ranch, his open-air nightclub near Woodbridge, Ont., which became a favourite Saturday night dance haunt for Toronto couples.

He tried to retire in 1968 but fans persuaded him to return to the bandstand, where he specialized in conventions and club dates in the Vancouver area. The Mart Kenney Big Band was featured at Expo '86 for the Air Canada 50th anniversary celebrations, and played such venues as the Canadian National Exhibition and the Pacific National Exhibition.

He's been honoured with the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal and the Order of Canada; was a member of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters hall of fame; wrote the book Mart Kenney and His Western Gentlemen in 1981; and produced a CD in 2000 that included two new Kenney compositions.

Among the well-known musicians associated with Kenney over the years were Bobby Gimby, Wally Koster and Rob McConnell.

Kenney's theme song was The West, a Nest and You, Dear, which was first published in 1922.

Obituary: Ron Greenwood

Ron Greenwood, who has died at the age of 84, established his reputation as manager of West Ham before he was suddenly elevated to England manager - where he helped to restore the country's pride.

Born in Burnley, Lancashire, he spent nearly the whole of his career in London, where his family moved when he was 10.

After leaving school, he became an apprentice signwriter, but rapidly experienced some marked changes in his life.

No sooner had he signed for Chelsea in 1940 than he was exchanging the club strip for an RAF uniform.

Most of Greenwood's playing career after the Second World War was spent with Chelsea, Brentford and Fulham.

After retiring as a player, Greenwood was in charge of the England youth team, before he combined the roles of Arsenal first-team coach and England Under-23s manager.

In April 1961, he was appointed manager of West Ham. He spent 16 years there, taking the Hammers to FA Cup glory in 1964, beating Preston North End.

They added another honour a year later by beating TSV Munich in the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup.

Generally, West Ham's performance in the League was not as impressive during Greenwood's reign, with sixth in 1972-73 the highest placing.

But he was an intelligent, thoughtful coach, who preached simplicity but also instilled skill and enterprise among his players.

He nurtured the talents of West Ham's famous World Cup-winning trio of Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters.

Greenwood was credited with converting Hurst from a journeyman left-half into one of the world's most feared strikers.

He also helped to develop the ability of Trevor Brooking.

Quiet and methodical, Greenwood could also be tough, as he demonstrated in an incident involving Bobby Moore, five years after the legendary defender led England to World Cup glory.

It was only the intervention of the West Ham board that stopped Greenwood from transfer-listing Moore and stripping him of the captaincy after late-night drinking before an infamous Cup defeat at Blackpool.

International problems

Greenwood's outstanding coaching ability was recognised at the highest level in 1977, when he was appointed as England manager.

There was no England side in the 1978 World Cup finals, and next time round, they had to beat Hungary in Budapest to reach the final stages in Spain. They managed it 3-1.

But as several others were to discover, managing England was not easy. Too often England lost when they should not have done, and Greenwood got the blame.

Neither with West Ham nor with England did Ron Greenwood enjoy a particularly warm relationship with his players, and was regarded by some as distant and aloof.

But he believed the manager should not be one of the boys and should be firmly in charge.

If Ron Greenwood often did not enjoy the affection of players, he invariably commanded their respect.

Story from BBC SPORT:

Frank Grey, who was held in Stalag 17 by the Germans in World War II and known as the "Grey ghost" for his ability to avoid detection and escape, has died, his family said. Grey was 90.

Grey, who died Sunday of heart failure, served 20 years in the Air Force and was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War.

"He was quite an amazing man," said his grandson, Tim Grey of Naples.

Grey was a tail gunner on a B-17 of the 92nd Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force in England when his plane was shot down during World War II. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Purple Heart and the POW Medal. He later served on a B-29 crew, surviving 57 bombing missions over North Korea.

His exploits at Stalag 17 were detailed in a 2004 book, "The Flame Keepers," by Ned Handy.

According to Handy's book, Grey immediately hid among 4,000 POWs when he arrived at infamous Stalag 17. After a three-day search by German guards and the Gestapo, they were unable to find Grey and became convinced that he escaped.

Edward McKenzie, another former Stalag 17 prisoner who lives in Littleton, N.H., told The Associated Press on Thursday that Grey was supposed to be at Stalag 17 overnight and then go to Vienna to stand trial on civil charges.

Grey resurfaced and make his way into an adjoining Russian POW compound, from which he would escape and make his way back to England, according to the book. He became known as the "Grey ghost."

Grey, a longtime resident of Jacksonville Beach, was born in Welch, W.Va., on Oct. 1, 1915.

He is survived by his wife and three children. Funeral services were scheduled Friday in the First Christian Church of the Beaches with burial to follow at Riverside Memorial Park.

LOS ANGELES (AP)- Franklin Cover, who became a familiar face as George
and Louise Jefferson's white neighbor in the long-running TV sitcom
"The Jeffersons," has died, his publicist said Thursday. He was 77.


Cover died of pneumonia Sunday at the Lillian Booth Actor's Fund of
America home in Englewood, N.J., said publicist Dale Olson. He had been
living at the home since December 2005 while recuperating from a heart
condition.

In his nearly six decades in show business, Cover made numerous
appearances on television shows, including "The Jackie Gleason Show,"
"All in the Family," "Who's the Boss?" "Will & Grace," "Living Single,"
"Mad About You" and "ER."

He began his career on the stage, appearing in Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
and "Henry IV," and later in numerous Broadway productions, including
"Any Wednesday," "Wild Honey and "Born Yesterday."

But Cover was best known for his role as Tom Willis, who was in an
interracial marriage with a black woman, in "The Jeffersons."

He and his wife lived in the same "deluxe apartment building" that
Sherman Hemsley moved his family to after making money in the
dry-cleaning business. There, Cover often played a comic foil to
Hemsley's blustering, opinionated black businessman. The show ran from
1975 to 1985.

Cover also appeared in several films, including "The Great Gatsby,"
"The Stepford Wives" and "Wall Street."

He is survived by his widow, Mary, a son and a daughter.

For some reason I thought he was dead. Not many left from that show.

Popular television actress and model Kuljeet Randhawa has hanged herself in her Mumbai apartment, saying she couldn't cope with life's pressures any more.

Randhawa, 30, took the extreme step at her home in Juhu, a western suburb of Mumbai, police said.

A maid found her body on Wednesday night and alerted police.

In a suicide note, Kuljeet said she was ending her life, as she was unable to cope with life's pressures, police said.

Known for her role in serials like Kohinoor and Special Squad, Randhawa was a well-known face in the advertisement world and had acted in several commercials for companies like Pepsi and Whirlpool.

In Kohinoor, she played the character of Irawati Kohli, who has a doctorate in ancient history and archaeology with a special leaning towards India.

Randhawa's suicide has brought back memories of the suicide by model turned VJ Nafisa Joseph in 2004.

Wow...I had totally forgotten about Nafisa Joseph. Thanks for the reminder.

No problem. She hasn't been in the news for a while. But back in the day..sheesh.

Anyway back to the Dead Thread already in progress...



SAN FRANCISCO - Dr. Norman Shumway, the first surgeon to perform a heart transplant operation in the United States, died Friday of lung cancer, a spokeswoman at Stanford University said. He was 83.

Shumway completed the first successful U.S. adult heart transplant in 1968.

He may be best known for continuing with transplant research as many others quit during the 1970s, discouraged that most recipients died soon after their operations because of organ rejection or infections.

Shumway stuck with it and built a large transplant research team at Stanford that found ways to overcome transplant rejection problems.

He developed tests that enabled the use of smaller doses of dangerous rejection drugs and was one of the first transplant surgeons to begin using the safer rejection drug cyclosporine.

Ultimately, Shumway dramatically improved survival rates for transplant recipients.

Hip-Hop producer/MC Jay Dee, also known as J Dilla, has reported passed away earlier today (February 10) in a hospital in Los Angeles, due to liver complications.

The beatmaker has been sick for an unspecified amount of time. Last year at this time SOHH.com learned that Dilla was hospitalized after rumors were spreading that he was in a coma. His latest album, Donuts, was released earlier this week.

Dilla, who was a founding member of Slum Village and a member of A Tribe Called Quest's production team The Ummah, is best known for producing tracks for Busta Rhymes, Common, De La Soul, D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, and The Pharcyde.

Dilla has more recently worked with Ghostface Killah, Kanye West on Com's critically acclaimed album Be, as well as Champion Sound with fellow quirky producer Madlib.

Besides Donuts, he released another solo LP, Welcome To Detroit, in 2001, and has another album dropping later this year on Stones Throw Records.

Longtime fan Pharrell of The Neptunes, has gone on record calling Dilla one of his "favorite producers of all time."

Jay Dee will be sorely missed. SOHH will be sure to provide you with more information as it becomes available.

Get the fuck outta here! J Dilla's dead? He just released a fucking album:

Veteran actor Phil Brown, best known to Star Wars fans as Luke Skywalker's Uncle Owen Lars from A New Hope, died yesterday after a lengthy illness. The 1977 role of Owen Lars introduced Brown to a whole new audience of young film fans, though it was only a small part in comparison to his lengthy acting history.
Brown was a member of the famous Group Theater in New York in 1938, shortly after his graduation from Stanford University. After appearances on the Broadway stage, Brown and other members of the Group moved to Hollywood in the 1940s. Brown appeared in supporting roles in a variety of films, and served as a board member and producer for the Actor's Laboratory, a renowned stage theatre in Hollywood.

His career as a director was cut short after only one film, The Harlem Globetrotters, when the anti-communist McCarthyism hysteria took a hold of Hollywood. Though never a member of the Communist Party, Brown was nonetheless blacklisted in 1952 and could not find work in America. He instead went to London, where he continued his work as an actor and director, on stage, television and feature films.

In recent years, Brown had made a number of convention and event appearances celebrating his role as Owen Lars, where he had the opportunity to meet many Star Wars fans in person. He is survived by his wife Ginny, who was also well known to fans since she accompanied her husband to most fan conventions.

'Jaws' author Benchley dead at age 65

NEW YORK (AP) -- Peter Benchley, whose novel "Jaws" terrorized millions of swimmers even as the author himself became an advocate for the conservation of sharks, has died at age 65, his widow said Sunday.

Wendy Benchley, married to the author for 41 years, said he died Saturday night at their home in Princeton, New Jersey.

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 a year later, 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 ["Godfather" author] Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia."

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.

Benchley wrote two little known humorous fiction books that outclass any of his deep sea novels.

"Q Clearance" is about a Washington speechwriter who suddenly finds himself picked to be the President's right hand man.

"Rummies" is a portrayal of a guy forced into a rehab program.

Both of them are hilarious, and should be available for cheap at most used bookstores.

Great writer.

BERLIN (AFP) - Friedrich Engel, a former Nazi SS officer known as the "Butcher of Genoa" for his part in the wartime massacre of 59 Italian prisoners, has died at the age of 97, it was announced.

Engel died of natural causes and was buried in a private ceremony in the northern German city of Hamburg last week, the city's prosecutor's office said.

In 2002, a Hamburg court sentenced Engel to seven years in jail for murder after finding him guilty of ordering the execution of the prisoners in Marassi on the outskirts of Genoa on May 19, 1944.

But Germany's Federal Court of Justice threw out the conviction in 2004.

In their ruling, the judges said that although they upheld the decision that Engel had ordered the execution, the charge of murder had not been sufficiently proven and would have required a retrial which could not take place because of his advanced age.

My Lai Figure Samuel Koster Dies at 86
Monday, February 13, 2006

Brig. Gen. Samuel W. Koster, who was demoted from major general after being charged in the massacre of South Vietnamese civilians at the village of My Lai, has died. He was 86.

Koster died from renal cancer at his home on Jan. 23, said his daughter Nancy Sroka.

Koster was a major general in command of the Americal Division when some of the unit's soldiers killed hundreds of defenseless men, women and children on March 16, 1968. The Americans were not under attack, and there were no Viet Cong in My Lai.

The massacre was disclosed in 1969 by the journalist Seymour Hersh and came to symbolize the U.S. military's moral failures in Vietnam.

Koster and 13 other officers were charged in early 1970 with trying to cover up the massacre. Koster had been in a helicopter over the area the day of the massacre and insisted he was never told a mass killing had occurred.

"I accepted those reports," Koster testified in 1971 at the court-martial of another defendant. The general said he had been under the impression that only about 20 civilians had been "inadvertently killed."

The Army concluded that Koster "did not show any intentional abrogation of responsibilities," and the criminal charges against him were dismissed. But the Army found he failed to adequately investigate reports of the mass killings. He was censured, stripped of a Distinguished Service Medal and demoted one rank.

Koster called the censure "unfair and unjust" and based on "faulty conclusions," and he spent more than a decade trying unsuccessfully to clear his name.

In a 1982 interview with The Washington Post, he said: "Getting into Vietnam in the first place was where we made a mistake."

After leaving Vietnam, he became superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where cadets praised him for broadening the academy's curriculum and for doing away with much of the hazing that plebes had to endure.

After his demotion, Koster became deputy commander of the Army's Test and Evaluation Command at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. He retired from the Army in 1973.

Born in West Liberty, Iowa, Koster graduated from West Point in 1942. He served in Europe in World War II and directed the Eighth Army's guerrilla warfare operations in the Korean War. He assumed command of the Americal Division in 1967. His decorations included the Silver Star, Legion of Merit and Bronze Star.

Survivors include his wife of 63 years, Cherie; three sons, all Army colonels; two daughters; 15 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

SAN FRANCISCO – Dave Tatsuno, a Japanese-American businessman whose clandestine home movies inside a World War II internment camp were later compiled into the documentary “Topaz,” has died. He was 92. Tatsuno died Jan. 26 of congestive heart failure at his home in San Jose, his daughter, Arlene Damron, said Monday.

Tatsuno and his family were interned in 1942 at the Topaz Relocation Center in the Utah desert, where for three years he covertly chronicled birthday parties, church services and other daily events using a smuggled 8-millimeter camera and film, Damron said.

His footage was later compiled into the 48-minute silent film “Topaz” that in 1996 was placed on the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. It is included in the permanent collection of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

Raised in San Francisco, Tatsuno earned a business degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1936 and for many years ran the family business, a Japanese department store and museum, Damron said. The business, Nichi Bei Bussan, now operates in San Jose.

Born Masaharu Tatsuno, he had changed his first name in junior high school to fit on campaign posters for student body president, Damron said.

He is survived by five children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A son died in 1947.

His wife, Alice Okada, died last year. They were married in 1938.

“Dad had a glorious life, and mom did too, but it was not without challenges,” Damron said. “He always felt it was not what happened in your life, but how you responded to it that made all the difference in the world.”

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) - Ken Fletcher, who won 10 major doubles titles in the 1960s including a mixed doubles Grand Slam, has died aged 65, his family said Monday.

Fletcher died of cancer on Saturday in Brisbane, family members said, adding he was lost "to the many people whose lives he touched".
With Margaret Smith Court, Fletcher won the mixed doubles Grand Slam in 1963, then the pair claimed the Australian title in 1964 and the Wimbledon mixed doubles titles in 1965, 1966 and 1968.

Court described Fletcher as an "awesome doubles and mixed doubles player.

"Fletch had great reflexes, very good anticipation and an awesome forehand," she said Monday.

"Because of the time he was born in with so many great players, he wasn't as recognized as he should have been, but he was a very good doubles and mixed doubles player - better than anything you would see today."

Tennis Australia called Fletcher a star of the nation's "golden era."

He won a Wimbledon men's doubles crown with John Newcombe in 1966 and the 1964 French men's doubles with Roy Emerson but he was unable to win a grand slam singles title, losing to Emerson in the final of the Australian championships in 1963.

Fletcher was a member of the Australian Davis Cup team throughout the 1960s with players such as Emerson, Rod Laver and Neale Fraser but he didn't play a tie because of the unusual strength of the team.

Wimbledon champion Ashley Cooper, a close friend, said Fletcher was a unique character whose achievements were largely unsung.

"Ken had a wonderful forehand and an imagination for playing doubles," Cooper said.

"He was one of the game's great characters, on and off the court, and he had a colorful life. He was a wonderful story teller. News that Ken is no longer with us will knock around the tennis world."

He is survived by wife Cathie and his children Julien and Jennifer.

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Edna Lewis, one of the first famed black chefs whose 1976 book "The Taste of Country Cooking" helped spark interest in Southern cuisine, died in her sleep at her home in Decatur, Georgia, her publisher said on Monday. She was 89.

In a statement, Alfred A. Knopf said long-time friend and co-author Scott Peacock was with Lewis when she died. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Born in Freetown, Virginia, in 1916, the granddaughter of slaves moved to New York and started working at a time when female chefs were rare. She worked at restaurants including the former Gage & Tollner of Brooklyn, and wrote at least three books.

In 1999, Lewis was designated as Grande Dame by Les Dames d'Escoffier, a worldwide organization of female chefs.

In her books, Lewis offered cooking shortcuts and shared childhood stories in giving her recipes.

"Recalling the pleasures of growing and gathering foods and preparing them with care, of relishing the changing seasons ... was her way of preserving an important part of American life and sharing its rewards with others," said Judith Jones, Lewis's long-time editor at Knopf.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Shoshana Damari, regarded as 'the queen of Israeli song' for a career dating back to the Jewish state's foundation, has died in a Tel Aviv hospital following a bout of pneumonia. She was 83.

Of Yemini origin, Damari was best known for her nationalist anthems such as Kalaniot (Anemones) which reports said was played in her hospital room in her final minutes. She was also the recipient of the state's most prestigious honour, the Israel Prize.

President Moshe Katsav led the tributes, describing Damari as a woman who "united the country and who conveyed hope and optimism".

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said her "songs would remain in the hearts of soldiers for years to come" while other MPs called for a state funeral for the singer who died on Valentine's Day.

Soul singer Lynden David Hall has died after battling cancer for two
years. The south London-born singer - who won the 1998 Mobo best
newcomer award - had been suffering from the rare cancer Hodgkin's
Lymphoma and died on Tuesday.


Discovered by the manager of UK group Loose Ends, the 31-year-old
singer-songwriter released his debut album Medicine 4 My Pain in 1998.
Hall's third studio album In Between Jobs was released on the
independent label Random Records last year.


'Sad day'


BBC Radio 1 DJ Trevor Nelson, who signed Hall to Cooltempo Records in
1996, said his death was a "tragic loss".


"It's the loss of a great talent unfulfilled. At the time, in my
capacity as an A&R man, he was one of the biggest talents of his time,
and ahead of his time in many ways," he said. "He was a very unassuming
guy, very quiet and introverted, not your typical wannabe pop star.
It's a sad day for British black music, but knowing Lynden as I do, I
hope the attention that this brings him will make people go and
re-visit his music."


Saxophonist Courtney Pine, who toured and recorded with Hall, told the
BBC News website: "I was very sorry to hear that we have lost yet
another talented UK musician. I'm sure fans and musicians will miss his
great voice and musical ability."


'Cool, sweet guy'


BBC 1Xtra DJ Ronnie Herel also paid tribute to Hall. He said: "My heart
sunk when I heard that Lynden passed away, my heart goes out to his
family and friends at this time. Medicine 4 My Pain was a landmark
album for UK black music. It wasn't for the glory but simply for the
music, to meet him you wouldn't know that he was pure genius."


"I knew Lynden quite well at the time he put out his debut album out,
he was a cool, sweet guy who lived for his music and that's how I'm
going to remember him."


Hall's biggest hit single Sexy Cinderella reached number 17 in the UK
charts in 1998, and he was nominated for best British male at the Brit
Awards the following year. More recently Hall appeared in the film Love
Actually as a wedding singer, performing All You Need Is Love.


In November, stars including Pine, Beverley Knight, Roachford, Shola
Ama and Ms Dynamite headlined The Lynden's Wish concert at London's
Jazz Cafe to raise money for cancer charities.

VESTAL, N.Y.(AP)- Think of Robert Taylor the next time you putt a ball
through the windmill at a miniature golf course.

Taylor and his brother Joe started building and operating miniature
golf courses in 1938. The first course they built was in Williamsport,
Pennsylvania.

The brothers went on to design and build many of the first modern
miniature golf courses across the country and around the world.

Robert Taylor died yesterday at a nursing home near Binghamton, New
York. He was 89.

The Taylors are credited with popularizing miniature golf courses that
were landscaped, featuring obstacles like wishing wells and windmills.
Many of the courses they designed are still in use.

ST. PETERSBURG, February 15 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian composer Andrei
Petrov died in St. Petersburg at the age of 75 on Wednesday.

Petrov was born on September 2, 1930 in Leningrad. In 1954, he
graduated from Leningrad’s Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire. He is the
author of several operas and ballets, symphonies and instrumental
concertos, as well as music for films and theatre productions, songs
and light music.

One of his outstanding works is the ballet “The Creation of the
World”, in which Mikhail Baryshnikov danced and which was shown in
many countries of Europe and America.

Petrov’s symphonies were performed by many prominent conductors,
including Yuri Temirkanov, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Alexander Dmitriyev,
Yevgeny Kolobov, Gunter Schuller (U.S.), and Kozuhira Monzumi (Japan).

Petrov wrote music for more than 80 films. In recent years he wrote the
ballet “The Master and Margarita”, a concerto for piano for
American pianist Derek Han, and other works.

His music is played in many countries of the world, including Poland,
Bulgaria, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, South Korea, and
Japan.

Petrov was the initiator and director general of the St. Petersburg
Music Spring international festival.

DALLAS (AP) -- Ernie Stautner, a Hall of Fame defensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers and longtime Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator, died Thursday in a nursing home, his wife said. He was 80.

Stautner, who went to nine Pro Bowls with the Steelers and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1969, had Alzheimer's disease since 1998, Jill Stautner said. He died in a home in Carbondale, Colo.

For years the chiseled Stautner, undersized for his position when he starred during the 1950s, was an assistant under Dallas coach Tom Landry. He counted former Cowboys Randy White and Bob Lilly among his closest friends.

"He loved all those guys, he loved them all," Jill Stautner said. "If they were willing to work, he loved them all."

Stautner coached the defensive line for the Cowboys from 1966-72 and also served as the defensive coordinator from 1973-88. Stautner was with the Steelers for his entire 14-year career, never playing on a winning team but establishing a reputation for a strong work ethic on a punishing Steelers defense.

Stautner was born in Germany and immigrated with his family to Albany, N.Y., when he was 3. After serving in the Marines, Stautner played at Boston College and was selected by the Steelers in the third round of the 1950 NFL draft.

Survivors include his wife, five daughters and six grandchildren.

Services will be in Lewisville, Texas.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Frozen food pioneer Robert E. Rich Sr., whose
invention of the first nondairy whipped topping in 1945 launched Rich
Products Corp., has died.

Rich was surrounded by family at his Palm Beach, Fla., home when he
died Wednesday at age 92, the company said.

``For more than 60 years, Bob Rich Sr. has been a great motivator and
the source of inspiration for our company and our associates around the
world,'' said William Gisel Jr., chief operating officer of Rich
Products, which employs 7,000 people internationally with sales of more
than $2.5 billion.

With the death of its chairman, the company will continue to operate
under its president, Robert Rich Jr.

``I have had the honor of learning from my father as we worked side by
side for more than 40 years in this great family business
environment,'' the younger Rich said, ``experiencing firsthand his
passion and commitment.''

Rich began his business career in 1935 as owner of Wilber Farms Dairy
in 1935. In 1945, while war food administrator in Michigan and with
milk scarce, he began investigating the plentiful soybean and came up
with a soybean-based whipped topping touted as better than cream
because it was more stable and could be frozen.

Rich's Whip Topping remains a staple in school food service,
restaurants and supermarket bakeries. The company's product line also
includes breads, pizza dough, seafood and appetizers.

``It's hard to measure the impact Robert Rich had on the frozen food
industry but suffice it to say his contributions are both monumental
and legendary,'' said Nevin Montgomery, president and chief executive
of the National Frozen and Refrigerated Foods Association.

Rich was one of the first four inductees in the National Frozen Food
Industry Hall of Fame in 1990.

A year later, Rich was inducted into the inaugural class of the Greater
Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame, in recognition of a lifelong involvement
in sports. Rich was chairman of the Buffalo Bisons, Cleveland's
Triple-A farm team, and oversaw construction of a downtown baseball
stadium for the team. The Buffalo Bills' football stadium bore the Rich
name for decades, after Rich purchased through Rich Products the naming
rights in 1972.

Erie County Executive Joel Giambra called Rich ``a dear friend and a
true pioneer in the Buffalo business community.'' Rich's first wife,
Janet Rich, died in 1998. The couple had three children.

Rich is survived by his second wife, Vicki Danielle McDuffee; two sons,
Robert Jr. and David; two stepdaughters, Stacey Bankston and Kristi
LaRoche; 20 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

Private services were scheduled for Saturday in Palm Beach. A ceremony
in Buffalo was being planned for a later date.

HACKENSACK, N.J. A musician best known for bringing the conga drum into the world of jazz has died.

Grammy-winning percussionist Ray Barretto became popular in the 1950s while playing with Tito Puente, and later recorded with such greats as Cannonball Adderley and Dizzy Gillespie. He was inducted into the International Latin Hall of Fame after his collaboration with Puerto Rican vocalist Celia Cruz ("Ritmo en Corazon") won a Grammy for the best Tropical Latin performance of 1989.

Last month, Barretto took the nation's highest jazz honor when he was named one of the Jazz Masters of 2006 by the National Endowment for the Arts.

His family in New Jersey says Barretto had undergone heart bypass surgery and suffered from pneumonia. He was 76.

Sid Feller, 89, arranger, producer, conductor in 60-year music career
Friday, February 17, 2006
Wally Guenther
Plain Dealer Reporter
Orange- Sid Feller, 89, whose 60-year musical career included working as an arranger, producer and conductor with Ray Charles, died at home Thursday.

Feller and his wife, Gertrude, moved from their Los Angeles home four years ago to live with one of their daughters, Debbie Glassman, in Orange.

In 1959, Feller began a long musical relationship with Charles that lasted into the 1980s. He was credited with helping Charles create a blend of rhythm and blues, according to the American Big Bands Data Base Music Library.

During the 1950s, he was one of the musical directors at the former Capitol Records. He worked as a producer, arranger and conductor with such stars as Jackie Gleason, Peggy Lee, Dean Martin, Mel Torme and Nancy Wilson.

Feller became a free-lancer in 1965, working as the musical director for the "Flip Wilson Show," and for television spe cials with Andy Wil liams, John Davidson, Pat Boone and John Denver.

He also worked with ABC's Paramount Records and produced soundtrack albums for several Broadway shows.

Feller was past president and treasurer of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.

Since moving to Greater Cleveland, radio personalities from Los Angeles, New York and Cleveland turned to him for interviews, talking about his work with popular recording artists, bands, and especially Ray Charles, his family said.

He was born Sidney Fellerin in Brooklyn, N.Y., but was known as Sid throughout his career. He studied to play the trumpet. As a teenager, he worked with several groups and with Jack Teagarden.

While serving in the Army during World War II, he was a member and conductor of Army bands at Newport News, Va., and Fort Knox, Ky.

He and his wife had been married for 64 years.

The man who wrote the script for a Cold War civil defense film that became a classic has died in Connecticut.

Raymond Mauer of Stratford, died on Wednesday at Bridgeport Hospital. He was 89.

He had been an adverting and ventured into the film production business in 1951 by writing the script for the critically acclaimed civil defense film, "Duck and Cover."

In the film, Bert the turtle warned school children that in case of a nuclear blast they should duck and cover their heads with their hands.

French songwriter Anna Marly died Wednesday (Feb. 15) in her house in
Alaska at the age of 88.

During her career Marly wrote more than 300 songs, but she is best
known for having penned the song 'Chant des Partisans' in 1942, while
she was living in London. The song was a tribute to the Russian
partisans in Smolensk who were massacred by the Nazis.

Marly was born Anna Betoulinski Oct. 30, 1917 in Saint Petersburg,
Russia. After her father`s death during the Russian revolution, she
emigrated to France with her mother in the early twenties.

She learned to play the guitar at a young age and became a cabaret
singer in Paris in her mid-teens. She relocated in 1941 to London,
where she joined the French free forces.

Initially sung in Russian, 'Chant des Partisans' quickly became the
anthem for the French resistance movement during World War II after
French lyrics to the song were written in 1943 by Joseph Kessel and
Maurice Druon. The track was used by the BBC as the 'Guerilla Song.'

The song is published by Editions Raoul Breton, a catalog now owned by
singer Charles Aznavour and CEO Gerard Davoust.

She also wrote 'La Complainte du Partisan,' which was eventually sung
by the likes of Joan Baez and Leonard Cohen. The track was included in
Cohen`s 1969 album 'Songs from a Room' and is known as 'The Partisan.'

'GODFATHER' ACTOR KILLED BY TOUR BUS (played Al Neri)

By TATIANA DELIGIANNAKIS and PERRY CHIARAMONTE

February 19, 2006 -- A debonair 68-year-old actor Ч whose half-century career included a memorable role in all three "Godfather" movies Ч was last night dragged to his death in a horrific tour-bus accident on the Upper West Side, police sources said.

Richard Bright, whose piercing blue eyes and dark hair saw him often cast as a cop or criminal, crumpled to the ground as he was hit by the rear wheel of an Academy bus at about 6:30 p.m. as it turned left on Columbus Avenue at 86th Street, according to witnesses.

The driver was unaware of the accident until he reached the Port Authority.

Holy shit, that's terrible. But I'll tell you something: I recently saw Richard Bright in person, and he was a mess. He looked like a homeless drunk. No joke. Emaciated, disoriented, he seemd out of his mind. Nothing like the cool customer character, Al Neri, in those movies.