Dead Celebrity Alert

The death of former Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Doug Ault was ruled a suicide, a Florida medical examiner said Tuesday.

Ault died Dec. 22 at 54 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at his Tarpon Springs, Fla., home. The team confirmed his death Monday.

Tarpon Springs police had suspected Ault’s death was a suicide, Sgt. Jeff Young said. The police declined to elaborate, citing the pending investigation.

Ault became part of Blue Jays lore when he hit two home runs in the first game of the expansion team’s history. … Read full obituary

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — A German statesman, a Czech supermodel and a Swedish Olympic ski champion were among the vacationers whose search for peace and sun in tropical southern Asia was shattered by the tsunamis that spared neither rich nor poor. …

Troy Broadbridge, an Australian Rules soccer player, was on his honeymoon in Phuket when he and his bride were swamped as they strolled along a beach. Trisha Broadbridge was safe, but he was still missing Tuesday. …

Thailand’s royal family also were among the grieving. The Thai-American grandson of King Bhumipol Adulyadej, Poom Jensen, 21, was reportedly jet skiing when the tidal wave struck Phuket. His body was found later.

Hollywood actor-director Richard Attenborough’s family also suffered tragedy. His granddaughter, Lucy, 14, perished and his daughter, Jane, and her mother-in-law are missing in Phuket. Another granddaughter, Alice, 17, was being treated in a hospital. … Read full story

Story to come.

Eddie Layton, a sports institution in New York as the organist at Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden, died Sunday at his home in Forest Hills, Queens.

His death was announced by the Yankees, who said it came after a brief illness. Layton customarily declined to reveal his age, but he was believed to be in his late 70’s.

When he was hired in 1967 to play for the Yankees, Layton had never been to Yankee Stadium and knew nothing about baseball. …

He played at Yankee games for more than three decades, although he missed a few years during the 1970’s while pursuing other musical commitments. He was as familiar as Bob Sheppard on the public-address system, Phil Rizzuto in the broadcast booth and Robert Merrill singing the national anthem.

He played the organ at the Garden from 1967 to 1985 for Knicks and Rangers games. He also played at Islanders games in the Nassau Coliseum for a few seasons in the 1990’s.

If the occasion fit, Layton would depart from his standard fare. When the Yankees’ Alberto Castillo got a hit in mid-May 2002, after going 0 for 14 to that point in the season, he played the “Hallelujah” chorus. … Read full obituary

Author Susan Sontag, widely regarded as one of America’s leading intellectuals, has died aged 71.

The writer, who had suffered from leukaemia, died at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Calling herself an “obsessed moralist”, Sontag was the author of 17 books and a lifelong human rights activist.

She wrote best-selling historical novel The Volcano Lover and in 2000 won the National Book Award for another historical novel, In America.

Her greatest literary impact was as an essayist, however, with her 1964 study of homosexual aesthetics Notes on Camp establishing her as a major new writer. …

Sontag, who described herself as a “zealot of seriousness”, was also a human rights activist and an outspoken opponent of US foreign policy. … Read full obituary

Former NFL star Reggie White died Sunday morning at his home near Huntersville, N.C., his wife said. White turned 43 on Dec. 19. …

Sara White confirmed her husband’s death saying that she believes White died of respiratory failure related to his sleep apnea.

The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that White died of a massive heart attack. An autopsy is to be performed to determine the exact cause of death. …

Reggie White, nicknamed the “Minister of Defense” (a dual reference to his football prowess and to his Evangelical Christian ordination) was one of the American football’s most prolific sackers in college, the USFL and the NFL. …

In 1993, White went to the Green Bay Packers, where he played for six more seasons. …

He raised controversy in 1998 when he publicly condemned homosexuality. White, an ordained minister, spoke before the Wisconsin State Assembly, saying, “We’ve allowed this sin [homosexuality] to run rampant in our nation, and because it has run rampant in our nation, our nation is in the condition it’s in today.” … Read full obituary

Larry Buchanan, 81, a film director who went from making inspirational films for Oral Roberts to turning out a spate of lurid, awful B movies, among them “Zontar, the Thing From Venus,” “The Eye Creatures” and, most famously, “Mars Needs Women,” died Dec. 2 in Tucson, Ariz. The cause was complications of a collapsed lung, his wife, Jane, said.

Working in Texas with budgets that often measured in the mere tens of thousands of dollars, Mr. Buchanan anticipated by many years today’s flourishing independent film scene.

His nearly 30 pictures, many of which went directly to TV, spanned genres from horror and science fiction (”Curse of the Swamp Creature,” 1966) to biopics (”Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn,” 1989) and conspiracy-theory films (”The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald,” 1964).

In 1996 he wrote a memoir, “It Came From Hunger! Tales of a Cinema Schlockmeister.” … Read full obituary

(CBS/AP) Pauline Gore, whose son Al became vice president and nearly captured the presidency and whose husband served a lengthy and distinguished career in Congress, died Wednesday.

She died in her sleep last night at the family home at the age of 92.

Pauline Gore was one of the first Southern women to practice law.

She worked her way through Vanderbilt University Law School as a waitress, meeting her future husband at the coffee shop where she worked. In 1936, Mrs. Gore was one of the law school’s first female graduates.

Pauline Gore practiced law briefly in Arkansas before returning to Tennessee and marrying her husband in 1937. …

She was a familiar figure on the campaign trails of her late husband, Albert Gore Sr., and her son, former Vice President Al Gore Jr.

In Tennessee, she was nearly as widely known as her liberal husband and played a central role in much of his campaign strategy. Gore Sr. served in the House from 1939-1953 and in the Senate from 1953-70. … Read full obituary

Side note: Anyone out there running a “Suspicious Circumstances” Dead Pool? If you know anything about Gary Webb and his work, this is not a guy you’d expect to off himself. And while it could be a typo, note the mention of “gunshot wounds” (plural). Very strange indeed…

Gary Webb, a prize-winning investigative journalist whose star-crossed career was capped with a controversial newspaper series linking the CIA to the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles, died Friday of self-inflicted gunshot wounds, officials said.

Mr. Webb, 49, was found dead in his Carmichael home Friday morning of gunshot wounds to the head, the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office said Saturday.

He left a note, but officials would not disclose its contents. …

[I]t was Mr. Webb’s tenure at the Mercury News from 1988 to 1997 that made his name in the business… Mr. Webb, who was based in the newspaper’s Sacramento bureau, authored a three-part investigative series in 1996 that linked the CIA to Nicaraguan Contras seeking to overthrow the Sandinista government and to drug sales of crack cocaine flooding south-central Los Angeles in the 1980s.

Three of the nation’s leading newspapers, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, followed up with reports questioning Mr. Webb’s conclusions, and eventually his own newspaper turned on him. … Read full story

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Police released the name of the gunman who allegedly went on a shooting rampage at a Columbus nightclub Wednesday night, killing four people before a police officer shot him dead.

Nathan Gale, 25, of Marysville, reportedly jumped onto a concert stage and open fire, NBC 4 reported. …

A crowd of about 250 people was inside for a concert by Damageplan, a heavy metal band. Two former members of the band Pantera formed the group. …

Darrell Abbott, who was known as “Dimebag Darrell,” was pronounced dead at the scene, NBC 4’s Kyle Anderson reported. Police released the names of two others who died. They were Nathan Bray and Erin Halk, both audience members. … Read full story

WORTHINGTON, Ohio — America’s oldest person (search), a 114-year-old woman who voted in every election since women earned the right in 1920 and had the thinnest file in her doctor’s office, has died.

Verona Johnston died Wednesday at home in Worthington, said her daughter, Julie Johnson.

“She just wore out,” Johnson said. “She was still very sharp up until a few months ago.”

Johnson said her mother was “ready to go,” and that shortly before her death she said: “Dying is hard, but everyone has to do it, and I hope I do it well.” …

The oldest living American is now Bettie Wilson of Mississippi, and Hendrikje Van Andel of the Netherlands is the world’s oldest person, according to the Gerontology Research Group. Both are 114. … Read full obituary