Dead Celebrity Alert

The 94-year-old showman and bandleader died of heart failure at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said his manager, Phil Leshin. Hampton suffered two strokes in 1995 and had been in failing health in recent years.

Hampton played with a who’s who of jazz, from Goodman to Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker to Quincy Jones. His own band helped foster or showcase other jazz greats including Charlie Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Fats Navarro, Joe Williams and Dinah Washington. …

During his career, Hampton performed at the White House for presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Bush. When he played for Truman, his was the first black band to ever entertain in the White House, Hampton once said.

Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., remembered Hampton’s 90th birthday party at the White House, when the man known as the “vibe president” invited President Clinton to grab his saxophone and jam. … Read full obituary

A suspect in the kidnapping of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart died Friday at a hospital three days after suffering from a brain hemorrhage and collapsing in his jail cell, doctors said. …

Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse this week reaffirmed that Ricci remained at the top of the list of potential suspects in Elizabeth’s abduction. However, investigators were no closer to finding the missing 14-year-old than they were June 5, when a gunman took her from the bedroom she was sharing with her younger sister. … Read full obituary

Hoyt Wilhelm, who used a knuckleball to become the first relief pitcher elected to the Hall of Fame, died Thursday of heart failure, it was announced Saturday. He was 79. … Read full obituary

The New York Giants announced Thursday that Kyle Rote, one of the most beloved players in the team’s history, had died of cardiopulmonary complications at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore Wednesday night. He was 74. … Read full obituary

One of the “most brilliant journalists and columnists” of our time, The Post’s Neal Travis died peacefully in his sleep today.

The legendary 62-year-old gossip writer had been battling cancer for several months.

Travis, a brash, swashbuckling New Zealand import, was the original editor of The Post’s famed Page Six.

His journalism career spanned more than four decades and won him legions of fans across the globe.

Among them was News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch. Travis — a high-school dropout — wound up becoming one of Murdoch’s most loyal employees, working for him a total of 22 years. …

When Murdoch acquired the New York Post in 1977, Travis became the first editor of Page Six. …

His last column ran Monday, July 29. … Read full obituary

Drowning Pool frontman Dave Williams was found dead on the band’s tour bus in Manassas, Virginia, today; he was thirty. No cause of death has yet been determined. …

Drowning Pool appeared as unknown newcomers on last year’s Ozzfest tour, and the exposure, along with a string of successful singles, pushed Sinner to platinum status. For this year’s Ozzfest, the band graduated to the main stage.

At press time, Ozzfest was scheduled to continue tomorrow night in Bristow, Virginia. … Read full obituary

Ed Headrick, who designed and patented the modern Frisbee, died Monday at his home in La Selva Beach, Calif. He was 78.

The cause was a stroke, said Scott Keasey, national sales manager for the Disc Golf Association. The association governs and supplies equipment for disc golf, a variation of golf invented by Mr. Headrick. …

Mr. Headrick asked that his ashes be molded into a limited number of memorial flying discs, which will be distributed to his family and friends, his son Ken told The Santa Cruz Sentinel.

“We used to say that Frisbee is really a religion — ‘Frisbyterians,’ we’d call ourselves,” Mr. Headrick said in an interview with the newspaper in October.

“When we die, we don’t go to purgatory,” he continued. “We just land up on the roof and lay there.” … Read full obituary

Willis Hudlin, the Cleveland Indians’ pitcher who gave up Babe Ruth’s 500th home run, has died. He was 96.The Indians said Tuesday that Hudlin died on Aug. 5 in Little Rock, Ark.

He spent 15 of his 16 big league seasons in Cleveland and gave up Ruth’s 500th homer on Aug. 11, 1929, at League Park. …

Hudlin, a native of Wagoner, Okla., was a flight instructor during World War II and later became a minor league manager. … Read full obituary

Acclaimed outdoors photographer Galen Rowell and his wife, Barbara Rowell, were killed along with two others in a plane crash near the Bishop (Inyo County) airport over the weekend on their way home from a photo workshop class in the Arctic.

Known for his wilderness photography of the Bay Area, the Sierra and across all seven continents, the Berkeley-born Rowell was killed instantly in the crash Sunday morning as the plane approached the airport. He was 61.

Barbara Rowell, 54, who was an accomplished pilot, writer and frequent collaborator with her husband, was not flying the plane when it crashed at around 1:20 a.m., according to Inyo County undersheriff Jack Goodrich. …

Rowell’s death shocked many outdoors people who considered him to be one of the world’s pre-eminent photographers of natural settings and an avid outdoorsman who brought remote areas into the public realm. … Read full obituary

Michael “Mikey” Houser, guitarist and singer for the US rock band Widespread Panic, has died after a battle with pancreatic cancer aged 40.

Houser released a statement last month explaining his illness and saying he would not participate in the band’s summer tour. …

Widespread Panic, which developed a large, faithful following, is known for its blues-based music with long, improvisational passages and progressive percussions that attracted fans of “jam” bands such as the Grateful Dead and Phish. … Read full obituary

Kristen Nygaard, a pioneer in developing programming language for computers who helped lay the basis for the Internet, has died of a heart attack, aged 75.

Nygaard died yesterday in Norway’s capital, Oslo, according to media reports.

The University of Oslo professor was acclaimed internationally for his work in developing the programming language Simula that laid the basis for MS-DOS and the Internet.

He and his colleague Ole-Johan Dahl, who died in June, were presented the 2001 AM Turing Award and other prizes for their role in the invention of object-oriented programming at the Norwegian Computing Centre from 1961 to 1967. … Read full obituary

The body of Darrell Porter, a former major league catcher who was named MVP of the 1982 World Series while with the St. Louis Cardinals, was found Monday near a car in surburban Kansas City. Porter, who also played with the Royals, was 50. … Read full obituary

Josh Ryan Evans, whose “Martimmy”-swilling living-doll character Timmy swiped many a scene in NBC’s daytime soap Passions, has died.

Plagued by health problems throughout his 20 years, the 3-foot-2-inch actor had been admitted to a San Diego hospital for treatment of a congenital heart condition. Doctors were weighing whether to perform heart surgery on the actor when he died Monday night, an NBC spokesperson confirmed.

Aside from his heart trouble, Evans suffered from achondroplasia, a genetic condition that restricts cartilage growth and physical development and was responsible for his diminished stature. …

Evans joined the soap in 1999, playing the creation of resident witch Tabitha. As dolls go, Timmy was sort of an anti-Chucky, acting as Tabitha’s conscience…

Timmy was arguably Passion’s most popular character, and Evans earned a Soap Opera Digest Award as Favorite Scene Stealer and a Daytime Emmy nomination for the part.

Ironically, Evans’ death came on the same day his ailing character Timmy bid adieu to his Passions pals. … Read full obituary

Chick Hearn, who made such phrases as “slam dunk” and “air ball” common basketball expressions during his 42-year broadcasting career with the Los Angeles Lakers, died Monday night. He was 85.

Hearn, the only play-by-play announcer the Los Angeles Lakers ever had, died at 6:30 p.m. at Northridge Medical Center Hospital, team spokesman Bob Steiner told a grim-faced news conference outside the hospital.

Hearn was taken to the hospital Friday night after falling and striking his head in the backyard of the Encino home he shared with his wife, Marge. The two would have celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary on Aug. 13. … Read full obituary

Jordi Magraner, the famous zoologist who was doing field research on the barmanu (wild man of N. Pakistan) has been found assassinated in Pakistan. He was killed (his throat was cut) on Friday, August 2, 2002, in his house in the north of Pakistan. The primary suspect is one of his local guides. A friend Chamsu discovered the body and alerted the police and Magraner’s family. … Read full obituary

PALM SPRINGS, Calif., Aug. 2 — Harry Gerstad, an Academy Award-winning film editor, died here on July 17. He was 93.

Mr. Gerstad won his first Oscar for editing the 1949 prizefighting classic, “Champion,” starring Kirk Douglas.

His second Oscar, for editing the 1952 western epic “High Noon,” was shared with Elmo Williams.

Mr. Gerstad began his career in 1929 at the Hal Roach Studios laboratory, the Warner Brothers laboratory and Republic Pictures. … Read full obituary

FLAGLER BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Ron Walotsky, a renowned science fiction artist whose work was featured on about 500 book covers, including “Queen of the Damned” by Anne Rice and “Carrie” by Stephen King, died Monday after a brief illness. He was 58.

His work, which often featured aliens and surreal landscapes in vivid colors, has been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the U.S. Embassy in Paris. … Read full obituary