Dead Celebrity Alert

1919 - September 4, 2008

“I notice only the ugliness in something,” the Milanese couturier Mila Schön said. “Take that away and it becomes beautiful.” Elegance and sobriety were perhaps better descriptions of her pared-down tailoring, which nonetheless for 50 years flattered with its graceful lines clients such as Jacqueline Kennedy and Farah Diba, the wife of the Shah of Iran.

Schön never became a star of the first rank in the fashion firmament, for her skills were perhaps better appreciated by cognoscenti than by the public. Yet she was the first Italian designer to brave the Japanese market, and among the earliest to show in America, where she was much esteemed. … Read full obituary

July 6, 1928 - September 7, 2008

Peter Glossop was one of the pre-eminent baritones of the Sixties and Seventies and specialised in such testing roles as Rigoletto, Iago, Rodrigo (Don Carlos) and Count di Luna (Il trovatore). Although he was often heard in London — at both Sadler’s Wells and Covent Garden — he was one of the few British singers successfully to blaze a trail abroad and he appeared at all the world’s leading opera houses.

On stage he combined a rugged boldness with a robust vocal delivery; and he preserved a wonderful sense of Verdian line with a sharp understanding of melodic presentation. … Read full obituary

Newton, MA, February 8, 1927 — Denver, CO, September 9, 2008

Nathaniel Merrill, who for twenty-eight seasons served as resident stage director at the Metropolitan Opera, directing the company’s premieres of Die Frau ohne Schatten (1966), Les Troyens (1973) and Porgy and Bess (1985) — as well as beloved productions of L’Elisir d’Amore (1960), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1962) and Hansel and Gretel (1967) that endured in the Met’s repertory for decades — has died. … Read full obituary

Marineland’s elderly dolphin Kelly has died after 34 years in the limelight, marking the “end of an era”, Napier Mayor Barbara Arnott said on Thursday.

Kelly, 38, had been ill for several days and died on Wednesday night.

Arnott said Marineland did not open for business on Thursday and the council, which owned the park, would hold a special consultation process with the community to decide whether it would continue without its trademark dolphins. …

Marineland nearly closed two years ago after the death of another dolphin, Shona. … Read full story

Vernon Handley, one of the best-loved and most respected of British conductors, has died. Throughout his life he was a devoted champion of British repertoire, making some of the most intuitive and masterful recordings of works by Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Holst. It was also through Handley’s tireless — and most importantly, convincing — advocacy that many will have first developed a love of composers such as Bliss, Finzi, Howells, Rubbra and Bridge. … Read full obituary

August 29, 1923 - July 29, 2008

The Indian film producer Fakir Chand Mehra became one of the giants of Bollywood after 1953 when he established Eagle Films, today one of the largest film production houses in India.

The company has released at least one big film a year and has had some of the biggest box-office hits in India. It also owns two of the most famous cinemas in the country, the Plaza in Delhi and the Minerva in Bombay — the latter of which is one of the oldest cinemas in India and, with more than 1,300 seats, among the biggest.

Mehra produced some of the most memorable films in India, including The Professor, Ujala (The Awakening) and Amrapali and, in 1976, he negotiated a joint Indo-Soviet co-production of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, which cast some of the biggest stars of Indian and Soviet cinema. It was directed by his son, Umesh, and was a hit in both countries. … Read full obituary

Anita Page, the last surviving star of the silent movies, has died at the age of 98 in Los Angeles.

Page’s career spanned 84 years — and her lasting fame endured despite a 60-year career break forced upon the actress at the height of her fame after she refused to sleep with a studio boss.

She had started out as an extra in 1924 and broke into the big time with a powerful performance in the 1928 silent melodrama Our Dancing Daughters, alongside Joan Crawford. … Read full obituary

Don Haskins, credited with helping break color barriers in college sports in 1966 when he used five black starters to win a national basketball title at Texas Western, died Sunday. He was 78.

Dr. Dwayne Aboud said Haskins had been suffering from congestive heart failure and died at home about 4:30 p.m. He was surrounded by friends and relatives, Aboud said.

Haskins, known for his gruff demeanor, was portrayed in the 2006 movie “Glory Road.” … Read full obituary

Joey Giardello, a former middleweight boxing champion who won a decision over Rubin Carter in 1964 and then sued over how the fight was depicted in the 1999 film “The Hurricane,” has died. He was 78.

Giardello died Thursday of congestive heart failure at a nursing home in Cherry Hill, N.J., the International Boxing Hall of Fame announced.

Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1993, Giardello had a 101-25-7 record with 33 knockouts while fighting from 1948 to 1967. …

He successfully defended the belt against Carter in a unanimous decision in Philadelphia the next year before relinquishing it to Tiger in 1965. Two years later, he retired from the ring. Giardello followed a tortuous path to boxing’s pinnacle, and his life outside the ring was marked by colorful episodes. … Read full obituary

D. August 18, 2008

Author Ralph M. Kovel, known best for his pricing guides for collectibles and antiques, has died in Cleveland at the age of 88, his wife says.

The man behind such published works as “Kovels’ American Silver Marks” and “Kovels’ Bid, Buy and Sell Online” died last month of complications of a broken hip, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Working with his wife Terry, Kovel created 96 published guides to collectibles and antiques that have become invaluable sources of information for collectors and hobbyists alike. … Read full obituary

Seven months after surviving two gunshot wounds to his head, former Kirkwood Mayor Mike Swoboda died this morning after a brief stay in a hospice. …

Mr. Swoboda would have turned 70 later this month.

Mr. Swoboda was shot during the shooting rampage Feb. 7 at Kirkwood City Hall in which five of the city’s public servants and the gunman were killed. His survival seemed unlikely, but three weeks after the shootings, he was released to a rehabilitation hospital, and a month after that he went home. … Read full obituary

October 30, 1927 - August 23, 2008

The controversial defection of the Soviet agent Yuri Nosenko to the United States contributed to deep and demoralising divisions within the CIA and the ultimate dismissal of James Jesus Angleton, the agency’s chief of counter-intelligence.

Nosenko joined the KGB’s Second Chief Directorate in 1953 and was responsible for the surveillance and recruitment of foreigners in Moscow. In the 1960s he offered to provide the West with details of Soviet penetration agents and, later, information about the KGB connection with Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy.

His defection was initially viewed as a CIA coup, but it came at a time when the agency was gripped with spy fever, stoked by Angleton, and fears that the CIA had been penetrated by a Soviet mole in its highest ranks. … Read full obituary

June 15, 1915 - August 23, 2008

The virologist and parasitologist Thomas Weller was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with his Harvard colleagues John Enders and Frederick Robbins for developing methods for growing the polio virus in the laboratory. …

This pioneering research enabled others to develop the polio vaccine that has resulted in the near-eradication of the disease from the world. The work found immediate applications to vitally important medical problems and opened up new fields of virus research, making it possible to grow a large number of other viruses in the laboratory and to create many other vaccines.

Weller also isolated the rubella (German measles) virus and the varicella-zoster virus (the common cause of chicken-pox in children and shingles in adults) and showed that the rubella virus and herpes virus could be transmitted from mother to foetus, producing birth defects. … Read full obituary

October 12, 1918 - August 30, 2008

The Birla industrial conglomerate, a household name for more than a century, is rooted in the old and the new India, spanning British India, the disastrous era of protectionist socialism in the first 45 years of independence and the introduction of economic liberalisation that has transformed a puny economy into a world player.

The man who started the business empire is part of Indian political and industrial history, Ghanshyam Das Birla. The man substantially responsible for taking that work into the stratosphere was Krishna Kumar Birla, a quiet-spoken, erudite, religious man with — for a tycoon — an uncommon interest in business ethics.

Known everywhere by the respectful Babu, meaning “boss” or “brother”, he was part of the massive expansion of the Birla empire in every corner of the Indian economy, including sugar, fertiliser production, heavy engineering, media and shipping. A famous flagship of the company, although economically irrelevant to it, is the Delhi-based Hindustan Times, one of India’s biggest dailies. … Read full obituary

TALLAHASSEE — Jim Krog, who managed both of Lawton Chiles’ winning campaigns for governor in the 1990’s and was a sought-after lobbyist and political strategist, died Thursday. He was 60.

Krog, a Tampa Bay native and graduate of the University of South Florida, had battled skin cancer over the past year and was undergoing chemotherapy before suffering a heart attack Wednesday. He died surrounded by family and friends at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. … Read full obituary