Dead Celebrity Alert

Getting to the nub of Frank Searle is as demanding a task as proving or disproving the verity of the monster he longed to photograph. Searle, detested by many, remembered fondly by others, was in equal measure a showman, a raconteur, a hermit and a charlatan. He produced 20 pictures of “the beast” of Loch Ness which, most now believe, were created using fence posts, logs, tarpaulins and old socks. …

Frank Searle, self-styled cryptozoologist, was born on March 18, 1921. He died on March 26, 2005, aged 84. … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES — Eddie Albert whose lighthearted portrayals made him a favorite in movies and television for more than 50 years has died. He was 99. …

Albert achieved his greatest fame on television’s Green Acres … Read full obituary

Indian-born international filmmaker Ismail Merchant died suddenly on Wednesday in a London hospital, a spokesman for his London office said. … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES — Henry Corden, the voice of leopard-suited caveman Fred Flintstone’s “yabba dabba doo!” for more than two decades, has died. The Montreal-born actor was 85. … Read full obituary

FULLERTON, Calif., May 24 (AP) - Thurl Ravenscroft, who provided the long, rumbling “They’re Grrrrreeeat!” for Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger and voiced a host of Disney characters, died here on Sunday. He was 91. …

He also lent his voice to characters on thrill rides at Disneyland, including the Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash Mountain, the Enchanted Tiki Room and the Haunted Mansion, and he supplied voices for the films “Cinderella,” “The Jungle Book,” “Mary Poppins,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Lady and the Tramp” and many others. … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES May 23, 2005 — Howard Morris, best known for playing poetry-spouting hillbilly Ernest T. Bass on the “Andy Griffith Show,” died at his home in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. He was 85. … Read full obituary

Television legend Graham Kennedy has died at a nursing home in the NSW southern highlands, a close friend says.

The veteran Australian entertainer suffered several long illnesses in recent years after he fell down a set of stairs in 2003, breaking his leg and skull. … Read full obituary

A teenager has been found dead in woods near her home just weeks before she was due to star in a reality TV show.

The body of Carina Louise Stephenson, 17, from South Yorkshire, whose family spent four months in Australia living like early settlers for the programme, was found by search teams on Saturday. … Read full story

WASHINGTON — Ed Kelleher, an offbeat screenwriter, playwright, and film critic who wrote screenplays for horror movies that have become cult classics, died May 14 at Sleepy Hollow Manor, a nursing home in Annandale, Va. He was 61 and had a degenerative brain disease…. Read full obituary

Frank Gorshin, who starred as the Riddler in the TV show “Batman,” died Tuesday in Burbank, Calif., of complications from lung cancer, emphysema and pneumonia. He was 72.

An expert impressionist, Gorshin had a long career in television, features and on stage, but is best known for his role on the 1960s series as Batman’s green-suited nemesis. The role netted him an Emmy nom in 1966. … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES — Lane Nakano, who co-starred in the 1951 film “Go For Broke!,” the dramatic story of the Japanese American soldiers who fought in Europe during World War II, has died. He was 80. … Read full obituary

Western Kentucky basketball player Danny Rumph collapsed and died during a pickup game in his hometown of Philadelphia.

The 21-year-old junior guard was visiting his family when he died Sunday. … Read full obituary

Washington — Peter Rodino Jr., the Democratic New Jersey congressman and House Judiciary Committee chairman who rose from relative obscurity to national prominence while presiding over articles of impeachment that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974, died Saturday of congestive heart failure at his home in West Orange, N.J. He was 95. … Read full obituary

Lloyd Cutler, the lawyer whose abilities, discretion and charm made him the quintessential Washington insider for more than half a century, died at the weekend at the age of 87 from complications from a broken hip. … Read full obituary

Attacked outside his hotel after a performance in Vancouver, B.C.

Washington, D.C., May 5, 2005 — Col. David H. Hackworth, the United States Army’s legendary, highly decorated guerrilla fighter and lifelong champion of the doughboy and dogface, ground-pounder and grunt, died Wednesday in Mexico. He was 74 years old. The cause of death was a form of cancer now appearing with increasing frequency among Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliants called Agents Orange and Blue. … Read full obituary

(Cocoa, Florida) Jack Nichols, one of the pioneers of gay liberation and a prolific writer, died early Monday in hospital after a long illness. He was 67.

In 1961, Nichols along with Frank Kameny, founded the Mattachine Society of Washington — one of the earliest groups to fight for gay rights in America. … Read full obituary

Mr Hunter, who died yesterday of prostate cancer aged 62, was a founding father of Greenpeace, and the most influential of all its early leaders. A radical young columnist on the Vancouver Sun newspaper, he had volunteered in 1969 to sail to the Aleutian Islands off Alaska in a barely seaworthy charter boat to try to stop the US testing an atomic bomb. … Read full obituary