Dead Celebrity Alert

Chaim Potok, a scholar and ordained rabbi whose best-selling novels about Hasidic Judaism explored the wrenching decision to forsake a close-knit parochial community for the world outside, died yesterday at his home in Merion, Pa. He was 73.

He had been ill with cancer for some time, his wife, Adena Potok, said.

Mr. Potok came to international prominence in 1967 with his debut novel, “The Chosen” (Simon & Schuster). …

The novel was on The New York Times best-seller list for more than six months and was a finalist for a National Book Award. In 1981 “The Chosen” was made into a feature film starring Rod Steiger, and in 1988 it had a brief run as a Broadway musical. … Read full obituary

HILLSBORO, W.Va. — White supremacist William Pierce came to this isolated town nearly 20 years ago for the cheap land and its live-and-let-live attitude. He left behind an international organization based on hate.

Pierce, the author of “The Turner Diaries” and founder of the right-wing National Alliance, died Tuesday of cancer at his 400-acre compound. He was 68. …

Pierce’s novel, written under the pen name Andrew Macdonald and published in 1978, depicts a violent overthrow of the government by a small band of white supremacists who finance themselves through counterfeiting and bank robbery.

It has long been standard reading among supremacist groups and gained notoriety as a book favored by Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh.

Set at the end of the 20th century, it describes a fictional truck bombing of FBI headquarters in Washington — a scene that roughly prefigures the Oklahoma City bombing. … Read full obituary

Australian-born actor Leo McKern, best known for his role in TV series Rumpole of the Bailey, has died. He was 82.

He had been ill for some time and died at a nursing home near his home in Bath, his agent said.

McKern suffered from diabetes and other health problems and was transferred to the nursing home a few weeks ago.

Born Reginald McKern in Sydney in 1920, he planned to become an engineer until he lost his left eye in an accident aged 15. … Read full obituary

Jack Olsen, a writer famous for his meticulously researched and psychologically illuminating true-crime books, died Tuesday at his home on Bainbridge Island, Wash. He was 77. The cause was a heart attack, said his wife, Su.

Mr. Olsen wrote more than 30 books, on subjects ranging from Cassius Clay to Italian partisans during World War II to the Chappaquiddick scandal. But it was Mr. Olsen’s compelling portraits of real-life criminals and their victims that earned him the most acclaim. …

“I start every book with the idea that I want to explain how this seven or eight pounds of protoplasm went from his mommy’s arms to become a serial rapist or serial killer,” he said. … Read full obituary

Shirley Nolan, who became world-famous for establishing an international bone marrow registry after losing her seven-year-old son to a rare disease 22 years ago, has committed suicide.

Incapacitated with Parkinson’s disease, Ms Nolan, 60, killed herself at home in Adelaide on Sunday night. She was alone.

A member of the South Australian Voluntary Euthanasia Society, Ms Nolan wanted her death to be used to bolster the campaign for national euthanasia legislation.

“I hope today I can end the horror my life has become,” she wrote in a letter released the day after her death. “Here today, my last day, I am an advocate of death.”

In the late 1970s, Ms Nolan won massive international support for her tireless efforts to save her son Anthony’s life. The boy had been diagnosed with a rare and debilitating condition that left his immune system unable to fight infection. … Read full obituary

Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh, whose pictures of British politician Winston Churchill, scientist Albert Einstein and author Ernest Hemingway earned his widespread recognition around the world, died here today at 93, according to a local hospital official. …

In December 1941 he made a portrait of a defiant Churchill, which later became a symbol of Britain’s courage and fighting spirit during World War II and brought Karsh international recognition.

The photograph was taken on short notice, minutes after Churchill delivered a rousing address at the House of Commons.

Karsh asked the British leader to take his trademark cigar out of his mouth and, when he ignored the request, stepped forward and snatched it from Churchill’s mouth.

The picture captured an irate Churchill glowering at the photographer. … Read full obituary

Winnifred Quick Van Tongerloo, one the few remaining survivors of the Titanic sinking, died on July 4 in East Lansing, Mich. She was 98.

Ms. Van Tongerloo was 8 when the Titanic went down after hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic on its maiden voyage in 1912. Of the nearly 2,200 people aboard, only 705 were saved. …

Ms. Van Tongerloo’s sister and her mother also survived the sinking. … Read full obituary

David Graves, a senior reporter with The Daily Telegraph, has died while diving in the Bahamas.

Graves, 50, whose career in journalism spanned crises from the Falklands war to the War on Terrorism, was with a diving party off the island of Andros.

The group was on a trip looking at “blue holes” — underwater geological formations. On Monday afternoon, after the main dive of the day, the party went into the water for a second time on a “shark watch” in depths of about 60ft. Graves disappeared as the party climbed back into the boat.

The dive masters went back into the water to search for Graves — a married father of two sons — but by the time they reached him he appeared to be unconscious. … Read full obituary

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Gene Kan, one of the pioneers of the file-sharing technology called Gnutella that took music swapping beyond the realm of Napster, was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, a coroner’s spokeswoman said Tuesday. He was 25.

Sue Turner of the San Mateo County medical examiner’s office said Kan’s body was found July 2 at his Belmont home. …

A statement released Monday by his employer, Sun Microsystems Inc., said Kan died as the result of an accident and that no further details of his death were being released at the request of his family. …

Gnutella came along as Shawn Fanning’s Napster program became mired in lawsuits by the recording industry. Kan and a small clutch of developers honed the Gnutella protocol so that programmers around the world could make their own home-brewed computer applications — each speaking the same language and capable of pointing users to shared music, video and software files. … Read full obituary

Rod Steiger, the beefy, intense actor who won the Academy Award as best actor of 1967 for his role as the unrelenting police chief of a small Southern town in “In the Heat of the Night,” died Tuesday. He was 78.

Steiger died at a Los Angeles-area hospital at 9 a.m. of pneumonia and kidney failure, said his publicist, Lori De Waal.

A devoted practitioner of method acting, Steiger prided himself in undertaking challenging roles, especially real-life persons. …

In movies and television, he convincingly portrayed such figures as Mussolini, Rasputin, Pope John XXIII, Rudolph Hess, Pontius Pilate, Napoleon, W.C. Fields and Al Capone.

“I’m 60 percent virgin and 40 percent whore,” he claimed in a 2000 TV interview. …

An interviewer once asked Steiger how he would like to die. He replied: “I don’t want to, but if it’s in front of a camera I wouldn’t mind.” His preferred tombstone: “See you later.” … Read full obituary

Kidney failure. Obit to come.

Pioneering animator Ward Kimball, who helped modernize Mickey Mouse’s look in 1938 and created the character Jiminy Cricket for the Disney classic “Pinocchio,” died on Monday at age 88.

Kimball, a member of Walt Disney’s trusted cadre of cartoon artists known as the “nine old men,” died of natural causes at a hospital in Arcadia, a suburb northeast of Los Angeles, the Walt Disney Co. said in a statement.

During a Disney career that stretched from 1934 until his retirement in 1973, Kimball animated or served as directing animator on such feature classics as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Pinocchio,” “Fantasia,” “Cinderella” and “Alice in Wonderland.”

Two animated shorts he created for Disney — “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Bloom” (1953) and “It’s Tough to be a Bird” (1969) — won Academy Awards. … Read full obituary

John Frankenheimer, director of such Hollywood classics as “The Manchurian Candidate” and “Birdman of Alcatraz,” died Saturday. He was 72.

Frankenheimer died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of a stroke due to complications following spinal surgery, said his business manager, Patti Person.

Frankenheimer was nominated for 14 Emmy Awards in a career that spanned nearly five decades. His work ranged from social dramas to political thrillers, and included a highly regarded run of feature films in the 1960s, and a string of 152 live television dramas in the ’50s. … Read full obituary

Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams died today at age 83. The Boston Red Sox star was the last man to bat .400 for a full big-league season. His career was interrupted by years of service as a fighter pilot in World War II and Korea. … Read full obituary

Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams died today at age 83. The Boston Red Sox star was the last man to bat .400 for a full big-league season. His career was interrupted by years of service as a fighter pilot in World War II and Korea. … Read full obituary