Dead Celebrity Alert

Ruth Handler, who created Barbie, the world’s most popular doll, has died. She was 85.

Handler, who also cofounded the Mattel toy company, died Friday at Century City Hospital, a hospital spokesperson said without releasing details.

Her husband, Elliott, told the Los Angeles Times that his wife died of complications from colon surgery she underwent about three months ago.

Since Handler’s creation, named for her daughter Barbara, was introduced in 1959 it has become an American icon and a touchstone of cultural politics. …

Handler was born Ruth Mosko, the youngest of 10 children of Polish immigrants who settled in Denver. …

In 1978, Handler was indicted for mail fraud and false reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission. …

Handler, who struggled with breast cancer and had a mastectomy in 1970, later blamed her illness, saying it made her unfocused about business concerns.

She began to campaign for cancer awareness. The disease also prompted her second career. … Read full obituary

Police were still searching Saturday for the hit-and-run driver who killed one of Miami’s most revered Cuban poets.

Alfredo Leiseca, 58, died last week after he was run down while standing on the corner of a Miami intersection April 8. Leiseca was in a coma until he died April 19 at Jackson Memorial Hospital. …

Leiseca is remembered most for his poetry. Several of his books were published. His latest work, “Absent and Present,” is a satire about Cuba’s political regimes. … Read full obituary

Former Russian presidential candidate Alexander Lebed has died from injuries sustained in a helicopter crash in Siberia.

The Mi-8 helicopter is said to have hit a power line in poor weather conditions at 0615 local time before crashing near Abakan, about 2,100 miles (3,400km) east of Moscow.

Lebed, elected governor of the huge Krasnoyarsk region in 1998 and once a prominent army general, was taken to a nearby hospital with severe injuries but later died.

At least five other people were killed in the crash. … Read full obituary

Frank Moore, a painter and AIDS activist who helped create the red ribbon design that became an international symbol for AIDS awareness, died of complications from AIDS on Sunday, April 21, at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 48 years old.

Moore was one of the first members of Visual AIDS, and he was instrumental in forming the group’s Red Ribbon Project in 1990, according to the New York Times. The project launched the overlapping red ribbon, which was worn on lapels and has become recognizable worldwide as a representation of the struggle against AIDS.

Moore’s paintings, several of which were featured in New York’s Whitney Biennial in 1995, reportedly mix art and politics, and many focus on themes of bioethics or environmental decay. … Read full obituary

Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes of the top selling female trio TLC was killed in a car crash in Honduras, her record company confirmed early Friday. Lopes, 31, was in Honduras for a vacation, Arista Records senior vice president Laura Swanson told The Associated Press. Lopes was reportedly among seven people in the car and the only fatality.

“No words can possibly express the sorrow and sadness I feel for this most devastating loss,” said Arista president L.A. Reid, who helped shape the career of the popular R&B group. …

TLC, which also included Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, were the Grammy-winning group behind such hits as “Waterfall,” “No Scrubs” and “Unpretty.” Their latest album was “FanMail.” … Read full obituary

Linda Boreman — who starred as Linda Lovelace in the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat — is dead.

She died on Monday from injuries she suffered in a car crash on April 3.

She was taken off life support at Denver Health Medical Centre after she suffered massive trauma and internal injuries. … Read full obituary

The BBC television presenter Christopher Price has been found dead at his London home.

Price, who was 34, was the regular frontman of showbiz bulletin Liquid News, shown nightly on digital channel BBC Choice and also on BBC One.

Price started his career as a journalist in BBC local radio, moving to Radio 5Live and News 24 before joining BBC Choice.

Police are investigating the cause but say they are not looking for anyone else in connection with his death.

Price was found collapsed at his home in Wells Road, Shepherd’s Bush, west London, at 1645 BST on Monday.

He was confirmed dead at the scene — near BBC Television Centre — less than two hours later.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said a post mortem examination would be held. … Read full obituary

Reginald Rose, one of the leading writers from television’s “Golden Age” in the 1950s who was best known for the movie “Twelve Angry Men”, died on Friday at a Connecticut hospital at age 81, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Rose died of complications from heart failure at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut, his son said.

Rose won an Emmy Award in 1954 for writing the Studio One television version of “Twelve Angry Men”, in which one juror painstakingly sways the 11 others debating the fate of a Puerto Rican youth charged with killing his father.

Rose received an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay of the 1957 film version, which starred Henry Fonda, who co-produced the movie with Rose. … Read full obituary

It’s been confirmed Alice in Chains lead singer Layne Staley was found dead in his apartment. He was 34.

Tests were required to establish the identity because the body which had started to decompose.

The cause of death had not been determined, a representative of the King County Medical Examiner’s office said.

Police did not immediately release details on anything that was found at the scene, and a spokesman did not respond to several messages. …

In a 1996 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Staley spoke of how his drug use influenced his lyrics. … Read full obituary

A body has been found at the Seattle home of Layne Staley, lead singer and guitarist for band Alice in Chains.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quotes sources as saying the body was Staley’s.

The person appeared to have been dead for several days, the P-I says.

Like Nirvana and Soundgarden, Alice in Chains was a band prominent in the early 90s Seattle heyday of grunge rock. … Read full story

The renowned Norwegian explorer and archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl has died of cancer at the age of 87.

He passed away in his family home at Colla Micheri, northern Italy, after a long illness.

Heyerdahl had undergone surgery last year, but it failed to halt his disease. He was admitted to hospital in March when the cancer spread to his brain.

Heyerdahl will be forever remembered as the Kon-Tiki man. In 1947 he skippered the tiny balsawood raft on a 6,000 kilometre journey from Peru to Polynesia.

It proved, he said, that ancient cultures could have sailed to, and populated, the South Pacific. … Read full obituary

Damon Knight, a prolific science fiction writer and editor whose wry humor found its biggest audience in “To Serve Man,” a short story that was adapted into a beloved episode of “The Twilight Zone,” died on Monday at a hospital in Eugene, Ore., his family said. He was 79 and lived in Eugene.

Mr. Knight was part of the first wave of literary-minded science fiction writers. Born in Baker, Ore., he moved to New York in the early 1940’s and joined a group of budding writers called the Futurians. Their ranks included Isaac Asimov, Donald A. Wollheim and Frederick Pohl, who went on to be some of the most influential writers and editors in the field. Mr. Knight’s memoir of the group, “The Futurians,” was published in 1977. …

“To Serve Man,” first published in 1950 and faithfully adapted for “The Twilight Zone” in 1962, is a perfectly representative Damon Knight story, full of dark humor and wordplay. … Read full obituary

Television tough guy Robert Urich, who starred in such detective series as “Vega$” and “Spenser: For Hire,” died early on Tuesday after fighting a long battle with cancer, Daily Variety reported.

The newspaper said on its Web site the 55-year-old Urich died during the night. …

Urich was first diagnosed with cancer in 1996 when doctors discovered a very rare sarcoma in his groin and successfully treated him. …

Urich was in the process of writing his memoirs, “An Extraordinary Life” (with David Dalton), when his health took a turn for the worse, Archerd reported. Urich was surrounded at Cedars-Sinai on Monday by his family: wife Heather, and children Ryan, Emily and Allison…

The Ohio native, a star football player in his college days, has had a 30-year career in Hollywood, mostly on the small screen. … Read full obituary

Yugoslav federal health secretary Miodrag Kovac has committed suicide by hanging himself in a Madrid hotel room.

The Yugoslav embassy has ruled out any link to the suicide on Thursday of former Serbian Interior Minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic, who shot himself outside the Yugoslav Parliament shortly after he was ordered to face a UN war crimes tribunal. “We can confirm the death of minister Kovac. He committed suicide,” an embassy official said. … Read full story

Mel Stewart, best known for appearing on “All in the Family” and “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” on television died on Feb. 24 in Pacifica, Calif. He was 72.

The cause was Alzheimer’s disease, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Mr. Stewart, whose name was originally Milton, appeared from 1971 to 1973 on “All in the Family,” portraying the outspoken Henry Jefferson, a member of the black family living next door to Archie Bunker.

He also had roles in movies including “Steelyard Blues” (1973) and “Newman’s Law” (1974). He retired after making “Made in America” with Whoopi Goldberg in 1993. … Read full obituary

John Agar, whose marriage to Shirley Temple in the 1940s propelled him into an acting career that began promisingly with parts in two classic John Ford westerns but slid into a series of low-budget science fiction movies in the 1950s and ’60s, has died. He was 81.

Agar died of emphysema Sunday at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.

During the 1950s and ’60s, Agar played lead roles in about two dozen science fiction movies, including “Revenge of the Creature,” “Tarantula,” “The Mole People” and “The Brain From Planet Arous.” …

Since the 1970s, Agar was a frequent guest at science fiction conventions and autograph shows. But because of his early roles in Ford’s “Fort Apache” and “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” and his later work with John Wayne in “Chisum,” “Big Jake” and “The Undefeated,” Weaver said, “western fans like to lay claim to him too.”

Born in Chicago in 1921, Agar was the oldest of four children of a meatpacker. …

Agar was a 24-year-old Army Air Corps sergeant when he married the 17-year-old Temple in 1945. … Read full obituary

There were times during the 444 days that Malcolm Kalp was held hostage in a US embassy on the other side of the globe that he was sure his life was over. … Read full obituary

Jess Stearn, best-selling author of about 30 books on the occult, including biographies of reincarnation advocate Edgar Cayce, has died. He was 87.

Stearn died Wednesday of congestive heart failure at his home in Malibu.

Stearn’s best-known books include “The Sleeping Prophet: The Life and Work of Edgar Cayce” (1968) and “A Prophet in His Own Country: The Story of the Young Edgar Cayce” (1974)… The book, a bestseller, earned grudging praise from critics for what one termed its “first-rate and difficult job of conveying the character of a very complicated man.” …

Stearn, educated at Syracuse University, was an unlikely believer — beginning his career with 17 years as a reporter for the New York Daily News, followed by a stint as an associate editor at Newsweek. …

No funeral services are planned for the author, who became convinced that he had lived previously and will live again. … Read full obituary