Dead Celebrity Alert

Jam Master Jay, a founding member of the pioneering rap trio Run DMC, was shot and killed at his recording studio near the New York neighborhood where he grew up, police said.

Two men were buzzed into the second-floor studio shortly before shots were fired inside its lounge at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, police said. As of early Thursday, police had made no arrests.

The 37-year-old disc jockey, whose real name was Jason Mizell, was shot once in the head in the studio’s lounge and died at the scene, said Detective Robert Price, a police spokesman. …

Mizell served as the platinum-selling group’s disc jockey, providing background for singers Joseph Simmons, better known as Run, and Darryl McDaniels, better known as DMC. … Read full obituary

Senator Paul Wellstone, a two-term Democrat locked in one of the tightest campaigns in the nation, was killed this morning when his campaign plane crashed in freezing rain near Eveleth, Minn., a small town in the northeastern part of the state.

Mr. Wellstone’s high school sweetheart and wife of 39 years, Sheila, 58; their 33-year-old daughter, Marcia Markuson; three campaign aides; and two pilots also died in the fiery crash, which obliterated their 11-seat turboprop among the pine trees.

Senator Wellstone, 58, a former political science professor, was an unabashed liberal who often landed on the short end of 99-1 votes. …

The plane crash was a shocking echo of the crash that killed Gov. Mel Carnahan of Missouri, the Democratic Senate nominee, shortly before Election Day in 2000. …

The cause of the crash was unknown. Officials said they lost track of the plane, which was supposed to land at 10 a.m. at the Eveleth-Virginia airport, at around 10:50. …

Mr. Wellstone and the others were flying from St. Paul to Eveleth to attend the funeral of Martin Rukavina, a longtime steelworker whose son, Tom, is in the Minnesota House of Representatives. … Read full story

Details to come.

Keene Curtis, the Tony-winning actor who played Daddy Warbucks in one production of “Annie” on Broadway and was the upstairs restaurant owner on the television show “Cheers,” died on Sunday in Bountiful, Utah. He was 79.

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

He also co-starred in the national touring company of “La Cage aux Folles” for two years.

Among his other Broadway credits are “A Patriot for Me,” “Division Street,” “Night Watch” and “Via Galactica.”

On television he played the snippy restaurant owner John Allen Hill on “Cheers”…

He also appeared in movies, including “Heaven Can Wait,” “American Hot Wax” and “Richie Rich’s Christmas Wish.” … Read full obituary

Sidney Pink, the film producer who is considered the father of the feature-length 3-D movie, has died. He was 86.

Pink, who is also known for giving Dustin Hoffman his first big break, died Saturday at his home in Pompano Beach, Fla., after a long illness.

He produced more than 50 films, including the groundbreaking 1952 three-dimensional feature “Bwana Devil.”

“Bwana Devil,” on which Pink served as associate producer with the movie’s producer-writer-director Arch Oboler, was a surprise hit. …

Pink’s wife, Marian, told the Los Angeles Times that the cardboard 3-D glasses that viewers were given at the box office did good job of capturing the action of the film. “Lions were jumping into your laps, spears were flying and people were coming toward you in hordes.” …

His other credits include “The Angry Red Planet,” and “Finger on the Trigger.” … Read full obituary

Character actor Dennis Patrick, a regular in the cast of “Dallas” and the classic daytime horror soap opera “Dark Shadows,” died of possible smoke inhalation, in a weekend fire at his Hollywood Hills home, officials said on Monday. He was 84.

Patrick was found dead by firefighters on Sunday afternoon with the body of his dog on the floor next to him, according to a spokesman for the Los Angles City Fire Department.

Patrick was the second television performer to perish in a house fire in Los Angeles in less than week. Actress Teresa Graves, who appeared on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” and starred as the sexy undercover cop on The 1970s TV series “Get Christie Love!,” died in a fire that swept her home in the Hyde Park district of Los Angeles last Thursday.

Patrick appeared on dozens of shows spanning four decades of television, ranging from “Gunsmoke,” “Perry Mason” and “Kojak” to “All in the Family,” “Eight is Enough” and “Coach.” …

Motion picture credits included “Joe,” “The Air Up There” and “The House of Dark Shadows.” … Read full obituary

Related:
“Laugh-In” actress Teresa Graves killed in fire

ESCONDIDO, Calif., Oct. 14 (UPI) — Ray Conniff — the Grammy-winning arranger, bandleader, composer and trombonist behind some of the biggest pop hits of the 1950s and ’60s — has died. He was 85.

Conniff died at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido on Saturday, reportedly after injuring his head in a fall.

Best known for what became known as “the Ray Conniff sound,” the Attleboro, Mass. native recorded more than 100 albums, 25 of which reached the Top 40. He had 10 gold albums and two platinum albums — “Somewhere My Love,” We Wish You a Merry Christmas” — but was also known within the recording industry as an arranger on dozens of hits for other artists. … Read full obituary

One point AP missed in this obit: Buddy Lester was the inspiration for “Buddy Love,” the oily lounge-lizard half of Jerry Lewis’ dual personality in the original Nutty Professor.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11 (AP) — Buddy Lester, a comedian and actor who appeared in the Rat Pack movie “Ocean’s 11″ and Jerry Lewis’s “Nutty Professor,” died here on Oct. 4. He was 85.

He was born in Chicago and served in the Navy during World War II before finding work in television, movies, radio and onstage.

He eventually became Frank Sinatra’s opening act in Las Vegas and appeared with the Rat Pack — Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford — in the 1960’s movies “Ocean’s 11″ and “Sergeants 3.” He also acted with Mr. Lewis in films including “The Patsy” (1964), “The Big Mouth” (1967), “Hardly Working” (1980) and “Cracking Up” (1983). … Read full obituary

Historian Stephen Ambrose, author of more than 25 books of American history — including “Band of Brothers” and multivolume biographies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon — died early Sunday. He was 66.

The author succumbed after a battle with lung cancer, said Doug Brinkley, a close family friend and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans in Louisiana. … Read full obituary

Obit to come.

Jim Seymour, an early and influential technical writer who explained the benefits and headaches of personal computers for two decades in enthusiasts’ periodicals like PC Week and PC Magazine, died on Tuesday in Austin, Tex., where he lived. He was 60.

The cause was complications from gall bladder surgery, said his wife, Nora.

Like most people pulled into the personal computer industry in the early years, Mr. Seymour was a self-taught expert. A native Texan, Rogers James Seymour graduated from the University of Texas, then worked for a few years as a jazz musician and freelance photographer for magazines like Life and Time. …

It was Mr. Seymour who introduced a young Michael Dell, who began his direct-mail computer company in his University of Texas dormitory room, to Lee Walker, who became Dell Computer’s first president. …

Mr. Seymour was also the founding editor in chief of PC Computing magazine in 1988… Read full obituary

An actress who was a regular performer on “Laugh-In” for one season has died after a fire broke out at her home in Los Angeles.

Police say Teresa Graves was found unconscious in her bedroom. She later died at the hospital. She was in her early 50s.

Officials don’t know what caused the fire.Graves appeared on “Laugh-In” in the 1969-’70 season. She also starred in her own T-V series — “Get Christie Love” — which lasted one season from 1974 t0 1975. … Read full obituary

Aileen Carol Wuornos, called the “Damsel of Death,” was executed voluntarily and peacefully by lethal injection Wednesday morning, dying much more gently than any of the seven men she shot to death a dozen years ago. …

She was pronounced dead at 9:47 a.m. said Jill Bratina, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush.

Wuornos, 46, hitchhiked the highways and interstates of North Central Florida, where she robbed and murdered her middle-age victims over 13 months in 1989-90.

She was executed for the shooting death of Richard Mallory, 51, an appliance store owner from Clearwater whose body was found near Daytona Beach in 1991. Wuornos confessed to killing six other men, including one whose body has never been found.

Wuornos, one of the nation’s rare female serial killers, was only the second woman to be executed in Florida and the second inmate to be put to death in a week. … Read full obituary

Don Wells, the original voice of the Anaheim Angels and longtime radio broadcaster, has died. He was 79. Wells died Thursday in Switzerland after a long illness, his brother Ralph Wells said. His death came as the Angels were one win away from capturing their first postseason series in franchise history. …

A Sacramento native, Wells went to broadcasting school on the GI Bill after returning from service in World War II. He was covering White Sox and Cubs game for WCFL in Chicago when he was hired by Angels owner Gene Autry as the voice of the expansion 1961 Los Angeles Angels. … Read full obituary

Allen Parkinson, a star-struck entrepreneur who developed an over-the-counter sleep aid and built a wax museum dedicated to Hollywood legends, died on Aug. 19 at his home in Warwick, R.I. He was 83.

Mr. Parkinson was the creator of Sleep-Eze and the original owner of Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park, Calif.

With all the hoopla of a Hollywood premiere, Mr. Parkinson opened the wax museum in May 1962, complete with searchlights, bleachers holding thousands of fans and the arrival of stars in black limousines.

Mary Pickford, “America’s Sweetheart,” cut the ceremonial ribbon on Beach Boulevard in front of the museum, where her own wax likeness stood among those of dozens of movie celebrities, including Rudolph Valentino and James Dean.

During its peak years in the 1960’s Movieland drew as many as 1.2 million visitors annually. … Read full obituary