Dead Celebrity Alert

Fred Rogers, who gently invited millions of children to be his neighbor as host of the public television show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” for more than 30 years, died of cancer early Thursday. He was 74.

Rogers died at his Pittsburgh home, said family spokesman David Newell, who played Mr. McFeely on the show. Rogers had been diagnosed with stomach cancer sometime after the holidays, Newell said.

From 1968 to 2000, Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian minister, produced the show at Pittsburgh public television station WQED. …

Rogers composed his own songs for the show and began each episode in a set made to look like a comfortable living room, singing “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” as he donned sneakers and a zip-up cardigan.

His message remained a simple one throughout the years, telling his viewers to love themselves and others. … Read full obituary

Many thoughts and prayers are with rock band Great White’s guitarist, 31-year-old Ty Longley. He is among the dead from the fire that swept through the music club The Station in Rhode Island last week.

Lead singer Jack Russell, who has said that the band received permission from the club for the pyrotechnics display that lead to the fatal fire, confirmed that Longley has not been found.

Longley’s girlfriend, Heidi, has posted a message on his website saying, “I know in my heart Ty is getting better in a hospital somewhere and he’ll be home soon! Thank you all for the letters and love you have shown, Ty.”

Longley, a Sharon, PA, native, has reportedly been with the band for just three years. He replaced guitarist Matthew Johnson, who had replaced Great White co-founder Mark Kendall in 1999. … Read full obituary

NEW BERLIN — The sister of television talk show host Oprah Winfrey was found dead in her residence Wednesday morning, police said today.

The body of Patricia Lloyd, 43, was found inside her home by her husband, Kenny, at about 5:25 a.m. Wednesday, said New Berlin police Lt. David Dunn. Dunn said investigators learned that Lloyd was the sister of Oprah Winfrey.

Dunn said the cause of Lloyd’s death was unknown this morning. The investigation into her death continues. …Read full story

Read full obituary

…but there’s a much more interesting story here:

Radio show host killed; husband arrested

ST. LOUIS — The host of St. Louis radio’s top-rated morning news show was found shot to death in her home, and her husband was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder.

Nan Wyatt, 44, was found Tuesday evening in a bedroom of her home in the St. Louis suburb of Twin Oaks. Thomas Erbland, 43, was jailed without bail.

Police said that the couple had had marital problems. …

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country singer Johnny PayCheck, the hard-drinking hell-raiser best known for his 1977 working man’s anthem “Take This Job and Shove It,” has died at 64.

PayCheck had been bedridden in a nursing home with emphysema and asthma. He died Tuesday, Grand Ole Opry spokeswoman Jessie Schmidt said.

Specializing in earthy, plainspoken songs, PayCheck recorded 70 albums and had more than two dozen hit singles. His biggest hit was “Take This Job and Shove It,” which inspired a movie by that name, and a title album that sold 2 million copies. … Read full obituary

JERUSALEM (AP) — Isser Harel, an Israeli spy-master who directed the capture of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann in 1960, died Tuesday, hospital officials said. He was 91. …

Harel was one of the founders of the Mossad — an intelligence agency that achieved international renown — and served as its head from 1952 to 1963. He was also the first director of the Shin Bet internal security agency.

One of the tasks of the Mossad in its first years was to track down leaders of the German Nazi regime, responsible for the killing of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust of World War II.

A prime target was Adolf Eichmann, Adolf Hitler’s top aide, responsible for implementing what the Nazis called the “final solution” — the murder of all the Jews in Europe. … Read full obituary

Eleanor “Sis” Daley, the 95-year-old matriarch of a Chicago family that produced two mayors, a Cabinet secretary and a Cook County Board commissioner but was beloved in her own right, died Sunday evening at her Bridgeport home.

Mrs. Daley, the widow of Mayor Richard J. Daley, died unexpectedly about 5 p.m. of an apparent stroke, said Jacquelyn Heard, spokeswoman for her son, Mayor Richard M. Daley. The mayor, along with some of Mrs. Daley’s children and grandchildren, was at his mother’s side. … Read full obituary

Johnny Longden, the British-born jockey who rode 6,032 winners in a racing career that covered nearly 40 years, including a sweep of the 1943 Triple Crown aboard Count Fleet, died yesterday in Banning, Calif. It was his 96th birthday.

He had been in failing health for several years and had a stroke last August. He had been bedridden at his home in Banning for four months.

During a remarkably long career, most of it in Southern California, Longden established numerous landmarks as a jockey. Riding in the middle years of the 20th century, he won more races than any other jockey , a record that stood until Bill Shoemaker broke it in 1970. Longden not only won the Kentucky Derby as a rider (Count Fleet, 1943) but also as a trainer (Majestic Prince, 1969). And, along with his fellow riders Eddie Arcaro and Sammy Renick, he became one of the founders of the Jockeys Guild, which provided a measure of security and medical help to generations of riders who roamed from track to track as freelance workers with no insurance.

Longden led the nation in races won or purse money earned five times and was named to thoroughbred racing’s Hall of Fame in 1958. … Read full obituary

Stacy Keach Sr., father of actors Stacy and James Keach and an accomplished character actor in his own right, died Thursday of complications of congestive heart failure. He was 88.

He had been in declining health for more than a year, said publicist Dick Guttman.

Keach appeared in hundreds of movies, commercials, and television and radio shows in a career that spanned more than 50 years.

He had a recurring role as Professor Carlson in television’s 1960s spy spoof “Get Smart” and, more recently, as Judge Webster in “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” which starred his daughter-in-law Jane Seymour, wife of James Keach. … Read full obituary

Clark MacGregor, a former Minnesota congressman who was President Richard Nixon’s counsel for congressional relations at the time of the Watergate break-in, died of respiratory failure Monday in Pompano Beach, Fla. He was 80.

MacGregor, a Minneapolis Republican who was elected to the U.S. House from Minnesota’s Third District, was chairman of the Committee to Re-Elect the President from July to November 1972, as the story of the Watergate break-in, which occurred on June 17, 1972, began to unfold. … Read full obituary

Walter L. Pforzheimer, 88, a lawyer who was the first legislative counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency and a bibliophile who was the first curator of its Historical Intelligence Collection, died Feb. 10 at his home in Washington. He had diabetes and in recent years had been incapacitated by several strokes.

Mr. Pforzheimer retired officially from the CIA in 1974, but he maintained his ties with the agency, meeting from time to time with its top officers, with whom he shared his recollections and his strongly held opinions on how intelligence and espionage operations were being managed.

He helped draft the National Security Act of 1947, which established the CIA, and was instrumental in guiding it over the legislative hurdles on Capitol Hill to enactment. … Read full obituary

WASHINGTON — Ronald L. Ziegler, the youngest and perhaps most maligned White House press secretary in history, died Monday at a Coronado hospital, three decades after the Watergate scandal ended the presidency of Richard Nixon.

He was 63. A family spokesman said the cause was a heart attack.

Mr. Ziegler, a loyalist to the end, accompanied President Nixon on his flight into exile on Aug. 9, 1974, after resigning his office under the unbearable political weight of the Watergate disclosures. While his credibility as White House press secretary was badly tarnished, Mr. Ziegler remained one of the few senior White House officials to escape criminal indictment from the unraveling of a conspiracy aimed at covering up the administration’s role in the scandal. …

Unfortunately for Mr. Ziegler, there was little time to enjoy his lofty job. On June 17, 1972, a team of burglars forced their way into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office thrusting Mr. Ziegler into an adversarial relationship with a press corps that wanted more answers than Mr. Ziegler could provide.

Mr. Ziegler dismissed the break-in as “a third-rate burglary” — a characterization he defended to his death. … Read full obituary

A singer who first had hits in the sixties has died of a heart attack in a Surrey car park.

Malcolm Roberts, 58, was found collapsed at the wheel of his car in the car park of council offices in Addlestone, near Chertsey, on Friday night.

The singer was best known for his sixties hits Time Alone Will Tell and May I Have the Next Dream With You.

His recording manager David Landau said on Saturday: “He was on the road in his car and pulled over to the side when he began to feel unwell.

“He apparently had a massive heart attack.” … Read full obituary

Peter Shaw, a retired talent agent, studio executive and a co-producer of the long-running television series “Murder, She Wrote” starring his wife, Angela Lansbury, died last Wednesday at the couple’s home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. He was 84.

British-born like Ms. Lansbury, he was an Army major in World War II. He sought a career in Hollywood and, while under contract at MGM studios, met Ms. Lansbury; they were married in London in 1949.

For a time, Mr. Shaw worked for the William Morris Agency, representing stars like Robert Mitchum, Katharine Hepburn and Anna Magnani. He also was assistant head of production at MGM before returning to William Morris to oversee the agency’s international operations. … Read full obituary

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame producer Phil Spector, whose revolutionary techniques changed the sound of pop music in the 1960s, was booked for investigation of murder Monday in the shooting death of a woman at a hilltop mansion, deputies said.

Shortly after 5 a.m. Monday morning, Alhambra police officers responded to a call from the 1700 block of S. Grandview Drive (pictured, below) regarding a shooting, according to the Sheriff’s Headquarters Bureau.

When the officers arrived they discovered that a female had been shot inside the location, according to authorities. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

Spector, 62, was arrested around 5 a.m. at the castle-like estate in this suburb about 15 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, county sheriff’s Sgt. Joe Efflandt said. … Read full story

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