Dead Celebrity Alert

Hugh Trevor-Roper, a British historian who wrote a best-selling account of Hitler’s final days in the Berlin bunker but damaged his reputation 35 years later by authenticating forged Hitler diaries, died yesterday in Oxford, England. He was 89.

“The Last Days of Hitler,” published in 1947, was based on the official investigation into Hitler’s fate conducted by Professor Trevor-Roper as a wartime officer in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.

Relying mainly on interviews with captured Nazi leaders and others close to Hitler, Professor Trevor-Roper established that Hitler’s new wife, Eva Braun, took poison and that he shot himself at about 3:30 p.m. on May 1, 1945, as Soviet forces advanced on the Reich Chancellery’s bunker, and that their bodies were burned in the yard. … Read full obituary

The patriarch of Italian auto manufacturer Fiat, Giovanni Agnelli, has died, the ANSA news agency announced today.

Agnelli, 82, who ran the company for 30 years to 1996, was overlord of Italy’s biggest employer and a powerful voice in the Italian right. … Read full obituary

Nedra Volz, a character actress remembered for her early 1980s roles as housekeeper Adelaide Brubaker on the popular television comedy “Diff’rent Strokes” and postmistress Miz Emma Tisdale on “The Dukes of Hazzard,” has died. She was 94.

Volz, who played her customary “old lady” role in her final film, “The Great White Hype,” which was released in 1996, died Jan. 20 in Mesa, Ariz., of complications of Alzheimer’s disease.

Born in Montrose, Iowa, to vaudeville parents, she hit the boards as “Baby Nedra” and sang with a band as a young woman. But she did little acting until she became a senior citizen, making her film debut as “the Free Press Lady” in the 1973 comedy “Your Three Minutes Are Up,” starring Beau Bridges and Ron Leibman.

Volz gained more attention when she concentrated on roles as elderly women for television sitcoms beginning in an episode of “Good Times” first shown in 1975. … Read full obituary

BEVERLY HILLS, California (CNN) — Actress and singer Nell Carter, best known for her role as the housekeeper in the TV sitcom “Gimme a Break!”, died Thursday. She was 54. …

She had suffered from diabetes and had recovered from a near-deadly bout with a brain aneurysm in the 1990s. …

Carter, who was born September 13, 1948, in Birmingham, Alabama, first rose to stardom on the New York stage. After a series of roles on- and off-Broadway — and a short-lived part in the soap opera “Ryan’s Hope” — in 1977 she starred in the show “Ain’t Misbehavin’!”, a revue of the works of composer Fats Waller. She was rewarded for her performance with an Obie Award, and later with a Tony Award when the show moved to Broadway. …

“Gimme a Break!” ran from 1981 to 1987. Carter was nominated for two Emmys for her role as housekeeper Nell Harper, who helped run the household of police chief Carl Kanisky, played by Dolph Sweet. She also garnered two Golden Globe nominations for the role.

Carter also appeared as P.J. Moore on “Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper” and as a psychiatrist in the sitcom “Reba.” … Read full obituary

Al Hirschfeld, whose inimitable caricatures captured the vivid personalities of theater people and their performances for more than 75 years, died at his home in Manhattan yesterday. He was 99.

To be the subject of a Hirschfeld drawing endowed one with a special cachet. To find the word “Nina,” the name of his daughter, hidden several times in the lines of his caricatures, was a weekend pastime for millions of readers. Next to his signature he put the number of “Ninas” in his drawings, creating a sort of pleasurable Sunday game for his admirers.

In a career that spanned the 20th century, he probably saw more shows than anyone else. He drew a vast and imaginative portrait of the performing artists of his lifetime, particularly in the theater. He was a familiar figure at first nights and at rehearsals, where he had perfected the technique of making a sketch in the dark, using a system of shorthand notations that contributed to the finished product.

His art was compared by critics to that of Daumier and Toulouse-Lautrec but, ultimately, it was Hirschfeld, cannily perceptive, wittily amusing and benignly pointed. … Read full obituary

Obit to come.

January 17, 2003 — Robert J. Braidwood, a University of Chicago archaeologist who uncovered evidence of the beginnings of agriculture and the subsequent rise of civilization in the Middle East, died on Wednesday in Chicago. He was 95.

From close to the beginning of his career, Dr. Braidwood worked in partnership with his wife, Linda S. Braidwood, also an archaeologist. She died several hours later on Wednesday in the same hospital. She was 93. The couple lived in LaPorte, Ind. … Read full obituary

Douglas Herrick, who gets both the credit and the blame for perhaps the tackiest totem of the American West, the jackalope — half bunny, half antelope and 100 percent tourist trap — died on Jan. 6 in Casper, Wyo. He was 82.

The cause was bone and lung cancer, his brother, Ralph, said. …

In 1932 (other accounts say 1934, 1939 and 1940, but Ralph Herrick swears it was 1932), the Herrick brothers had returned from hunting. “We just throwed the dead jack rabbit in the shop when we come in and it slid on the floor right up against a pair of deer horns we had in there,” Ralph said. “It looked like that rabbit had horns on it.”

His brother’s eyes brightened with inspiration.

“Let’s mount that thing!” he said. … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES — Richard Crenna, the Emmy award-winning character actor who starred as a lovesick teenager on “Our Miss Brooks” and Sylvester Stallone (news)’s Green Beret mentor in the “Rambo” films, has died. He was 76.

Crenna, whose credits also included “Wait Until Dark,” “The Flamingo Kid,” and television’s “The Real McCoys,” died Friday of pancreatic cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, daughter Seana Crenna said Saturday. …

Crenna’s role on the CBS drama series “Judging Amy” was recently put on hold as he battled cancer.

Born in Los Angeles, Crenna’s career began at the age of 10 when he broke into radio. The squeaky-voiced youngster appeared on “Burns and Allen”; later, he played love-sick teen Walter Denton on “Our Miss Brooks,” moving with the show when it switched to television. … Read full obituary

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) - A tractor-trailer lost control on a slippery highway Friday and collided with a sport utility vehicle filled with nine Yale University students, including members of the football and baseball teams, killing three students, officials said.

Eight others were injured when the SUV slammed into the back of the rig, which had partially crossed over the barrier separating the northbound and southbound lanes of Interstate 95, state police said. Four vehicles were involved in the crash, but the only serious injuries were in the SUV, authorities said. …

State police identified the dead as the SUV’s driver, Sean Fenton, 20, of Newport Beach, Calif.; Andrew Dwyer, 19, of Hobe Sound, Fla.; and Kyle Burnat, 19, of Atlanta, a pitcher on Yale’s baseball team. … Read full obituary

Mike Echols, author of the book chronicling the kidnapping of Steven Stayner, and a child crime victims’ advocate, died in the Monterey County jail early Saturday morning of an apparent heart attack.

He had been serving time since last month for violating his probation for two 1999 misdemeanor convictions of making criminal threats.

Echols, 58, made his name by writing the best-selling book “I Know My First Name Is Steven.” The story, which told of the 1972 abduction of 7-year-old Steven Stayner by Kenneth Parnell, was also made into a television movie. Parnell held Steven for seven years before the teenager escaped, only to be killed by a hit-and-run driver in 1989.

In an odd twist, Echols came back into the Stayner family’s life last fall to testify on behalf of Steven Stayner’s brother, Cary. Cary Stayner was on trial for the murders of three Yosemite tourists and sentenced to death last month. … Read full obituary

Micky Finn, percussionist with glam rock group T Rex, has died at the age of 55.

A spokesman for the Mayday Hospital in Croydon, south London, said: “Michael Finn died on Saturday night at the Mayday Hospital.”

His manager Barry Newby said Finn was believed to have died of kidney and liver problems, but the exact cause of death had not been announced yet.

Finn replaced original member Steve “Peregrine” Took in 1970 and stayed for five years.

He was known among fans for his trademark bongos and played on classic albums such as The Slider. … Read full obituary

Bee Gee Maurice Gibb died in hospital this morning, his family said.

The 53-year-old had been in a critical condition in hospital after suffering a heart attack during an operation to remove an intestinal blockage after he collapsed at his Florida home last week.

His wife Yvonne and his two children had been with him at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in Miami since the surgery on Thursday night. … Read full obituary

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Frank Sipe, who threw the first pitch in the first Little League baseball game, died at 74. … Read full obituary

Sydney Omarr, the astrologer to the stars who came to write horoscopes that appear in more than 200 newspapers, has died. He was 76.

Omarr, who was blinded and paralyzed from the neck down by multiple sclerosis, died Thursday at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica of complications from a heart attack, the Los Angeles Times reported. His ex-wife, assistants and several close friends were by his side.

Born Sidney Kimmelman in Philadelphia, Omarr decided to change his name at age 15 after watching a movie called “Shanghai Gesture”… Read full obituary