Dead Celebrity Alert

The parallel wasn’t lost on anyone: the kid was Rocky. Najai (Nitro) Turpin, 23, was one of 16 boxers chosen for The Contender, an NBC reality show featuring Sylvester Stallone as a co-host. …

Then he went back to the ghetto to be near his girlfriend, Angela Chapple, and their daughter Anje, 2, to await the show’s airing. But three weeks before his prime-time debut, on the morning of Valentine’s Day, Turpin parked his car near Chapple’s house and shot a bullet into his head.

Was Turpin killed by reality TV? Friends, family and police saw little evidence of that. … Turpin left no note.

Whatever the reason, Turpin’s suicide morbidly underscored the way NBC had been promoting The Contender … as a reality series with high emotional stakes. … Read full obituary

Uli Derickson, a flight attendant who displayed remarkable courage while dealing with terrorists threatening passengers aboard a hijacked international flight in 1985, has died. She was 60. …

Derickson was the lead flight attendant on TWA Flight 847, carrying 152 passengers and crew on a flight from Athens to Rome on June 14, 1985. Just after takeoff, two Lebanese gunmen commandeered the plane and started it on an odyssey of terror and brutality throughout the Middle East.

The violence was immediate. … In the late 1980s, she acted as a consultant for the NBC-TV movie, “The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story.” Actress Lindsay Wagner played Derickson. The film was nominated for five Emmys in 1988.

She also testified in West Germany at the trial of Mohammed Ali Hamadi, one of the hijackers convicted of murdering Stethem. He received a life sentence. She advised TWA, Delta Air Lines and the FBI on crisis management. Throughout her life, she didn’t see herself as a hero. “They threw me a hot potato, and I had to handle it,” she said. … Read full obituary

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Former punter Reggie Roby, a 16-year NFL veteran and three-time Pro Bowl selection, died Tuesday after being found unconscious at home by his wife. He was 43.

Melissa Roby found her husband with no pulse. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him at home and in the ambulance, but he was pronounced dead in the emergency room at St. Thomas Hospital, according to a statement released by the family.

The cause of death is unknown, the statement said.

Roby was a sixth-round pick in 1983 out of Iowa by the Miami Dolphins, where he played from 1983-92. He also played for the Washington Redskins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Houston/Tennessee Oilers and San Francisco 49ers, where he wrapped up his career with a final season in 1999. … Read full obituary

John Raitt, 88, one of the enduring stars of the American musical stage whose powerful presence and rich baritone first dazzled Broadway 60 years ago in “Carousel,” died of pneumonia yesterday in Pacific Palisades, Calif.

Mr. Raitt also was known as the father of singer Bonnie Raitt and for his roles in “The Pajama Game,” both on Broadway and on the screen, opposite Doris Day. …

Mr. Raitt was born in Santa Ana, Calif., the son of a YMCA secretary. … Read full obituary

DENVER Feb 21, 2005 — Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of fictional journalism in books like “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67. …

Juan Thompson found his father’s body. Thompson’s wife, Anita, was not home at the time.

Besides the 1972 drug-hazed classic about Thompson’s visit to Las Vegas, he also wrote “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ‘72.” The central character in those wild, sprawling satires was “Dr. Thompson,” a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.

Thompson is credited with pioneering New Journalism or, as he dubbed it, “gonzo journalism” in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story. Much of his earliest work appeared in Rolling Stone magazine. … Read full obituary

Sandra Dee, the actress who became an icon for a generation of teenagers in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, died today at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, Calif. She was 63.

The cause was complications from kidney disease, said Steve Blauner, a friend of the family.

Ms. Dee, a model-turned-actress, often portrayed the girl next door on the brink of womanhood, in such films as “Gidget,” “Imitation of Life” and “Tammy.” …

Born Alexandra Douvan in Bayonne, N.J., she worked as a model in New York. …

Ms. Dee was married to the singer Bobby Darin, who died in 1973 at the age of 37 and was the subject of the recent film “Beyond the Sea.” They were divorced in 1967. Their son, Dodd Darin, chronicled their relationship in the 1994 book “Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee.” … Read full obituary

JERUSALEM — The Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, this week brought home to her final rest one of its legendary female operatives, Sylvia Raphael.

Only now is it being revealed that she was one of the secret agents who penetrated the PLO bases in Jordan and Lebanon four decades ago when a little-known gang leader named Yasser Arafat was beginning his terrorist attacks.

Her story reads like . . . well, like a spy novel. … Read full obituary

Dick Weber, perhaps the greatest bowler ever and for more than a half-century an international ambassador for the sport, died Monday at his home in Florissant, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis. He was 75.

Weber’s wife, Juanita, said he had experienced breathing problems and could not be revived by paramedics. The cause of death was not immediately determined.

Weber had returned Sunday from Baton Rouge, La., where he had helped open the American Bowling Congress championships.

Weber, at 5 feet 10 inches and 130 pounds, was one of the first big stars of bowling when it was a major attraction on Saturday afternoon television in the 1960’s.

In 1959, he became a charter member of the Professional Bowlers Association, and from 1959 to 1992 he won 26 P.B.A. Tour titles and six titles on the P.B.A. Senior Tour.

He was voted bowler of the year in 1961, 1963 and 1965. He won four all-star tournaments before that event was succeeded by the United States Open, and he was elected 11 times to Bowling Magazine’s all-American first team. … Read full obituary

Playwright Arthur Miller, the creator of The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, has died at the age of 89.

Miller died on Thursday evening, having battled with cancer, pneumonia and a heart condition.

He was one of the most significant American writers of the 20th Century, whose fame was further magnified by his short-lived marriage to Marilyn Monroe.

His play The Crucible was inspired by the hysteria of the McCarthy witch hunts which he became embroiled in.

“Mr Miller passed away at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, last night at 9.17pm of heart failure,” said Julia Bolus, the playwright’s assistant.

British playwright Harold Pinter said he was a “wonderful chap” and he was “absolutely flabbergasted” at the news of his death.

“He was a great playwright and a great man - and a great friend of mine,” he said. “His plays are among the finest works that have been produced in the 20th Century,” Pinter told BBC News 24. … Read full obituary

TBILISI, Feb 4 (AFP) — An aide to Georgian prime minister Zurab Zhvania, who died apparently after breathing toxic fumes leaked by a faulty heater, committed suicide late Friday, an interior ministry spokesman said.

The aide, 32-year-old Georgi Khelashvili, shot himself with a gun in his Tbilisi apartment, the spokesman said.

Khelashvili was a member of Zhavania`s staff, working with the pardons commission, the Mze television channel reported.

It was not yet clear whether Khelashvili`s suicide was linked to Zhvania’s death. … Read full story

Related:
Georgian PM & Georgia deputy governor, in gas leak

Tony Award-nominated actor-writer Ossie Davis, an icon of 20th century African-American theatre, was found dead Feb. 4 in his hotel room in Miami, where he was filming a movie, according to the Associated Press.

Mr. Davis was 87, and was often mentioned in the same breath with his wife, actress Ruby Dee, who survives him. The pair received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2004 for their life’s work.

The veteran of such films as “Do the Right Thing,” “School Daze” and “Jungle Fever,” was librettist of the Best Musical Tony nominee Purlie!, which was the musical version of his play, Purlie Victorious, and was nominated for his acting in the musical Jamaica. At the time of his death, he was working on a movie called “Retirement,” AP reported, citing Arminda Thomas, who works in his office in New Rochelle, NY. … Read full obituary

BERLIN (AP) — Max Schmeling wanted to be a heavyweight champion, not a symbol of Nazi supremacy.

Though he thrilled Germany by knocking out Joe Louis, there was another side to the fighter that Hitler tried to portray as an Aryan Superman. …

He said he feared only one thing in a long life that ended Wednesday at the age of 99.

“I don’t want anyone to say I was a good athlete, but worth nothing as a human being — I couldn’t bear that,” Schmeling said in 1993. … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES (AP) — John Vernon, a stage-trained character actor who played cunning villains in film and TV and made his comedy mark as Dean Wormer in National Lampoon’s Animal House, has died. He was 72.

Vernon died at home in his sleep Tuesday following complications from Jan. 16 heart surgery, his daughter Kate Vernon said Thursday. …

Movie fans may know him best for his role in Animal House as Dean Wormer, who is bent on expelling the hard-partying Delta fraternity house. The movie, starring John Belushi and Tim Matheson, is one of the most popular comedies ever made.

Born in 1932 in Montreal, Vernon studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He did repertory work in England and was heard off-screen as the voice of Big Brother in the 1956 film 1984. … Read full obituary

JR’s note: Especially in light on the suspected Yuschenko dioxin poisoning, doesn’t this sound a tad fishy?

TBILISI, Georgia — Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, who helped lead the revolution that toppled the corruption-tainted regime of Eduard Shevardnadze, was killed Thursday by an apparent natural gas leak, the ex-Soviet republic’s interior minister said.

Zhvania, 41, was at a friend’s apartment when the leak occurred, Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said in a live television broadcast.

“It is an accident,” Merabishvili said. “We can say that poisoning by gas took place.”

Security guards broke through a window early Thursday when they heard no signs of life inside the apartment several hours after the prime minister arrived, Merabishvili said. Zhvania’s host, Zurab Usupov, deputy governor of Georgia’s Kvemo-Kartli region, also died. … Read full story