Dead Celebrity Alert

LOS ANGELES — Ann Miller, the raven-haired, long-legged actress and dancer whose machine-gun taps won her stardom during the golden age of movie musicals, died Thursday of lung cancer. She was 81.

Miller died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said Esme Chandlee, her longtime friend and former publicist.

A onetime childhood dance prodigy, she reached the peak of her film career at MGM in the late 1940s and early ’50s with “On the Town,” “Easter Parade” and “Kiss Me Kate.”

She remained a dazzling tapper in her 60s and earned millions on Broadway and touring with Mickey Rooney in “Sugar Babies,” a razzmatazz tribute to the era of burlesque. … Read full obituary

Posted 12/31/2003 3:27 AM — NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Earl Hindman, best known for playing a neighbor whose face was forever obscured by a fence on the television show Home Improvement, died of lung cancer Monday in Stamford, Conn. He was 61.

As Wilson, the neighbor of Tim Allen’s character on the long-running sitcom, Hindman dispensed folksy advice from behind a white picket fence, with only his eyes and forehead visible to audiences. Before appearing on the show, he played Detective Lt. Bob Reid for 16 years on the daytime drama Ryan’s Hope. … Read full obituary