Dead Celebrity Alert

Bob Hope, whose mastery of the comic monologue and the topical wisecrack carried him from vaudeville to Broadway musicals and then on to worldwide fame as a radio, film and television star of the first magnitude, died Sunday night in Toluca Lake, Calif., according to The Associated Press, which cited his long-time publicist, Ward Grant. Mr. Hope was 100. …

Mr. Hope, who made an art and a vast fortune out of the delivery of the one-line gag, thrived on applause. It was the secret of his youthfulness.

It was also an important source of the energy that allowed him to travel millions of miles to entertain American servicemen, far exceeding the effort of any other entertainer. From 1941 to 1948 he performed nearly all his 400 radio programs at military bases. And at an age when most performers curtail their activities, Mr. Hope continued to make his annual tours during the war in Vietnam, playing to the sons of the servicemen he entertained during World War II and the Korean War. …

Mr. Hope excelled at a typically American brand of brash, timely humor. The wit was never very profound or subtle, but it was, at its best, irreverently poignant, carrying him through several immensely successful careers in the theater, radio, films and television. …

Mr. Hope served a long apprenticeship in vaudeville and the theater before he appeared on the national scene in 1938. That was the year he began his popular series of Tuesday night radio shows for Pepsodent toothpaste and made his first feature motion picture, “The Big Broadcast of 1938.” A bittersweet ballad he sang with Shirley Ross in the film, “Thanks for the Memory,” became the theme he used throughout his career.

He had made a half-dozen films of varying popularity when, in 1940, Paramount cast him in “Road to Singapore” with his old friend Bing Crosby. …

In the mid-50’s, as Hollywood began to feel the effects of television competition, Mr. Hope, who had made two and sometimes as many as three pictures a year, slowed his pace slightly to an average of one film a year and devoted more time to his weekly television show. … Read full obituary

Jane Barbe, whose voice was familiar to millions of telephone users across the country who ever dialed a wrong number or had to “Please listen to the following options” in a voice-mail system, died July 18 in Roswell, Ga., of complications from cancer. She was 74.

Barbe was the queen of telephone recordings, whose voice was heard an estimated 40 million times a day in the 1980s and early 1990s on everything from automated time and weather messages to hotel wake-up calls. … Read full obituary

Obit to come.

Erik Braunn, lead guitarist with Iron Butterfly during the two years of the heavy metal band’s greatest success, has died. He was 52.

Braunn died of cardiac arrest Friday in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. No other details were given.

Braunn, considered a violin prodigy, began his musical career at age 4. … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar-winning British director John Schlesinger died in a Palm Springs hospital on Friday after a career that tackled sexual taboos in such films as “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Midnight Cowboy” and helped to end a cinematic age of innocence.

Schlesinger, 77, who suffered a debilitating stroke more than two years ago, was taken off life support on Thursday and died early Friday morning, publicist Ronni Chasen said.

The director helped to make stars of actors like Alan Bates, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay, Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. …

The son of a London doctor who started making home movies at the age of 11, Schlesinger made a dramatic Hollywood debut in 1969 with “Midnight Cowboy.” … Read full obituary

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Oilman Colin McMillan, who was awaiting Senate confirmation as Navy secretary, died at his ranch from an apparent gunshot wound, and investigators said Friday it might have been self-inflicted.

“All indications are it could be suicide, but we’re not going to reach that conclusion until the investigation is over,” said District Attorney Scot Key of Alamogordo.

McMillan “had a recurrence of cancer,” but “everybody thought he was recovered, recuperating quite well,” Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said Friday on the Senate floor.

McMillan, 67, died around lunch time Thursday, and his body was found by two employees on his 55,000-acre Three Rivers ranch in southern New Mexico, said Roswell Mayor Bill Owen, a family spokesman and longtime McMillan employee. …

McMillian had run Permian Exploration Corp. in Roswell, chaired President Bush’s New Mexico presidential campaign in 2000 and served as an assistant defense secretary under Bush’s father. The son nominated McMillan in May for the Navy post, which had been vacant since Gordon England left in January to become deputy secretary of the new Homeland Security Department. … Read full obituary

A 23-year-old San Diego man was killed Tuesday night as he raced his Porsche on an Orange County freeway at 100 mph, then soared off at an overpass, landing on the freeway below, where he was ejected and run over by several cars, authorities said.

Michael Hanson was killed instantly in the Costa Mesa crash, the California Highway Patrol said.

Hanson was president and owner of Planet Mortgage in Anaheim, the Orange County Coroner’s Office said. … Read full obituary

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. (AP) - Ozzy Osbourne’s tour manager, in town for the Ozzfest heavy metal music festival, was found dead in his hotel room, the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office said Friday.

Bobby Thomson, 50, was found around 4:30 p.m. Thursday in his bed at the Townsend Hotel in this Detroit suburb.

Thomson had battled throat cancer for 18 months, Ozzfest publicist Lisa Vega told the Detroit Free Press. It appeared he had died in his sleep. … Read full story

Walter “Matt” Jefferies, the art director who designed the original Enterprise vessel for the first Star Trek series has died, the official website of the sci-fi series has announced.

His design of the NCC-1701, as it was designated in the first series, has become one of the most iconic images of 1960s television.

The exact cause of his death is not known but Jefferies had been battling cancer. …

Although conceived in the years before space flight became common, the overall shape of the Enterprise has remained close to Jefferies’ first vision, through 10 films and five TV series. … Read full obituary

Key West, Florida — Key West commissioner Jeremy Anthony has died after a lengthy battle with AIDS. The body of the 51 year old Anthony was discovered Monday at his home.

Anthony was nearing the end of his first term on Key West’s council and had announced plans to run for mayor. …

Anthony was diagnosed with HIV 18 years ago. A vegetarian, he used natural, non-pharmaceutical treatment methods. …

In his 21 years in Key West, Anthony served as president of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Alliance and as a board member of the Boys & Girls Club of the Keys. … Read full obituary

Barbara B. Lazarus, an educational anthropologist who studied barriers to women entering science and engineering and created programs to overcome them, died last Tuesday in Pittsburgh. She was 57.

The cause was cancer, her husband, Marvin Sirbu, said.

Dr. Lazarus, who was associate provost for academic affairs at Carnegie Mellon University, was recognized for her creative methods of increasing the number of women in science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon and elsewhere. Her programs became models for other colleges, which often sought her help. … Read full obituary

Richard Coleman, a founder of the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club who was as passionate an outdoorsman as he was a protector of the outdoors, died Friday in a head-on airboat collision. He was 59.

Mr. Coleman, of Winter Haven, worked for nearly 20 years fighting for restoration of the Kissimmee River and then watching the project’s progress hawk-like once it started.

He was reportedly piloting an airboat in the Dead River, a serpentine waterway in Central Florida, when he collided with another airboat. … Read full obituary

Washington: Prize-winning Indian-American poet Reetika Vazirani and her two-year-old son were found dead with their wrists slashed at a house she had been staying in, The Washington Post said on Friday.

Police investigating Thursday’s deaths in northern Washington, in a home that Vazirani was house-sitting, found a note with references to the boy’s father, Pulitzer Prize winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa.

Neighbours and friends of Vazirani, 40, said she had been distraught in the days leading up to the tragedy. She said she had tried to meet with a neighbourhood priest and borrowed a Bible from a neighbour. … Read full obituary

On July 24, 1965, the British journal Nature published an article that revolutionized the way we all understand the Earth.

The paper was written by the Canadian scientist John Tuzo Wilson, a man gifted with stunning vitality and extraordinary intuition.

Scientific American called Wilson’s explanation of the new theory of plate tectonics as “one of the century’s five major advances in science.”

Wilson was born in Ottawa, the son of a Scottish engineer father and an adventurous, mountain-climbing mother. … Read full obituary

Police searching for Dr David Kelly, an official adviser on Iraqi arms at the centre of a row about a Government dossier on weapons of mass destruction, found a body today.

Thames Valley Police said the unidentified male body was discovered this morning at Harrowdown Hill, about five miles from Dr Kelly’s home in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

Dr Kelly found himself at the centre of a row over a BBC report claiming Downing Street “sexed up” a dossier on weapons of mass destruction after he was named as the possible “mole” who briefed reporter Andrew Gilligan. …

Dr Kelly, 59, had not been seen since leaving his home in Abingdon at around 3pm yesterday after telling his wife he was going for a walk.

His worried family called Thames Valley Police when he had failed to return by 11.45pm last night.

Dr Kelly faced a grilling on Tuesday by MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee about what he told Mr Gilligan, who filed the original report claiming Downing Street had “sexed up” the weapons dossier. …

His disappearance and failure to make contact with anyone was described by his family as “out of character”. … Read full story