Dead Celebrity Alert

Actor Brock Peters, best known for his heartbreaking performance as the black man falsely accused of rape in the American movie To Kill A Mockingbird, has died at his home after battling pancreatic cancer.

Peters, 78, was diagnosed with the disease in January and had been receiving chemotherapy treatment, according to Marilyn Darby, his long-time companion. His condition became worse in recent weeks.

He died peacefully in bed yesterday, surrounded by family, she said.

Peters was born George Fisher on July 2, 1927 in New York. His long film career began in the 1950s with the landmark productions of Carmen Jones in 1954 and Porgy And Bess in 1959. … Read full obituary

Robert A. Moog, whose self-named synthesizers opened the door for the musical evolution of electronica, died yesterday at his home in Asheville, North Carolina, at the age of seventy-one. He was diagnosed with brain cancer in April and had undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

Moog developed a childhood interest in the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments, after building them with his father. In 1963, he developed the Moog Modular Synthesizer as a Ph.D student in engineering physics at Cornell University. By the end of 1964, R.A. Moog Co. introduced the first commercial modular synthesizer.

Moog received a Grammy Trustees Award for lifetime achievement in 1970, and was the subject of last year’s documentary, Moog, directed by Hans Fjellestad. … Read full obituary

Former Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam has died, aged 55. She was admitted to hospital following a fall at home and never regained consciousness. She had previously suffered a brain tumour.

Ms Mowlam, Labour MP for Redcar between 1987-2001, oversaw the talks which led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Tony Blair paid tribute saying Ms Mowlam was one of the shrewdest political minds he had encountered as well as a “remarkable personality”. …

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock said Ms Mowlam would want to be remembered as a “hell of a woman” and described her as “serious, smart, fun and a fighter”.

If one word summed her up it was “brave”, he added. …

It is understood food and water were withdrawn earlier this week, in accordance with her wishes, to allow a natural death. She had asked not to be resuscitated.

Paying tribute, Bill Clinton said he and his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, were “saddened” by news of Ms Mowlam’s death, adding that she was an “integral part” of building peace in Northern Ireland. … Read full obituary

UKIAH [Calif.] — Joe Ranft, who was nominated for an Oscar for co-writing “Toy Story” for Pixar Animation Studios, died when the car he was riding in veered off a Mendocino County highway and into the water, authorities said Thursday. He was 45.

Also killed in the Tuesday crash on Highway 1 was Elegba Ojenke Castillo Earl, 32, of Los Angeles, according to the Mendocino County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office. …

Ranft, of Corte Madera, worked at Pixar for more than a decade. He co-wrote “A Bug’s Life” and was the voice for the character Heimlich in that film and Wheezy the Penguin in “Toy Story 2.”

Before joining Pixar, Ranft worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he was a writer on “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.” … Read full obituary

Former Prime Minister David Lange died at 10pm last night at Middlemore Hospital in south Auckland. His brother Peter and son Roy were at his side.

David Lange had been in hospital receiving dialysis after his kidneys had failed due to complications arising from diabetes. He lapsed into unconsciousness on Friday. …

In 1984, David Lange led the Labour Party to victory in a snap election over National’s Robert Muldoon. The two politicians were great adversaries and David Lange often referred to his rise to become Prime Minister as opportunistic: saying that he would not have become leader had Muldoon not been there.

It was accurate that David Lange represented the hopes of a polarized nation where those who supported a unilateralist, some would say almost totalitarianist’s approach to leadership, followed Muldoon. Lange balanced this with good humour, charisma and a consensus style of leadership. … Read full obituary

MELBOURNE, Aug. 12 (UPI) — An Australian man suspected of putting his wife in a vegetative state hanged himself the day of her funeral.

The Melbourne Herald Sun reported Joe Korp’s parents and brother found his body hanging in a shed outside his Melbourne home. …

Maria Korp disappeared in February. She was found a few days later unconscious in Melbourne’s Hall of Remembrance.

She died in August after her guardian ordered her feeding tube removed. … Read full story

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has been assassinated in a gun attack in the capital, Colombo. The murder was blamed by a senior police officer on the separatist Tamil Tigers, who have been observing a ceasefire since 2002.

A spokeswoman for the Norwegian monitors overseeing the truce warned that the killing could “put the whole ceasefire under risk”.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga has now imposed a state of emergency. …

Mr Kadirgamar, 73, was shot near his heavily-guarded home on Friday evening.

Police believe one or two snipers carried out the attack, hitting the veteran minister several times in the head and chest. … Read full story

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Matthew McGrory, the deep-voiced 7-foot-plus actor who moved from appearances on Howard Stern’s radio show to a high-profile role as a gentle giant in Big Fish, has died. He was 32.

McGrory died Tuesday at his home in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, said director Drew Sky, who was working with him on his current movie, a biopic of wrestler-turned-actor Andre the Giant.

Paramedics determined he died of apparent natural causes, police said in a statement.

McGrory had size 29 shoes and for years held a world record for biggest feet not caused by elephantiasis. …

He played a human Sasquatch in 2001’s Bubble Boy, an alien in Men In Black II (2002) and Tiny in the Rob Zombie horror movies House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and its sequel released this year, The Devil’s Rejects.

His big break in Hollywood came in 2003 with Tim Burton-directed Big Fish. … Read full obituary

ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings died today at his home in New York City. He was 67. On April 5, Jennings announced he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. …

As one of America’s most distinguished journalists, Jennings reported many of the pivotal events that have shaped our world. He was in Berlin in the 1960s when the Berlin Wall was going up, and there in the ’90s when it came down. He covered the civil rights movement in the southern United States during the 1960s, and the struggle for equality in South Africa during the 1970s and ’80s. He was there when the Voting Rights Act was signed in 1965, and on the other side of the world when South Africans voted for the first time. He has worked in every European nation that once was behind the Iron Curtain. … He was one of the first reporters to go to Vietnam in the 1960s, and went back to the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1980s to remind Americans that, unless they did something, the terror would return. …

Jennings also led ABC’s coverage of the September 11 attacks and America’s subsequent war on terrorism. He anchored more than 60 hours that week during the Network’s longest continuous period of news coverage, and was widely praised for providing a reassuring voice during the time of crisis. TV Guide called him “the center of gravity,” while the Washington Post wrote, “Jennings, in his shirt sleeves, did a Herculean job of coverage.” The coverage earned ABC News Peabody and duPont awards. … Read full obituary

Obit to come.

Former Cabinet minister Robin Cook, 59, has died after collapsing while hill walking in north-west Scotland.

It is believed he was taken ill while walking with his wife Gaynor near the summit of Ben Stack, at around 1420 BST, Northern Constabulary said.

Mr Cook was flown by coastguard helicopter to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, where he was pronounced dead, said an NHS Highland spokesman.

Mr Cook quit as Commons leader in March 2003, in protest over the war in Iraq. …

He first became an MP for Edinburgh Central in 1974 and was appointed the shadow health secretary in 1989, becoming shadow trade and industry secretary in 1992. … Read full obituary

Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd died today after years of ill health and a turbulent reign that saw the oil-rich kingdom face up to Islamic extremism.

His half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, who has been de facto ruler for a decade, was anointed his successor.

Medical sources said King Fahd, aged in his 80s, died in hospital at dawn.

The king had been admitted to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh in late May for “medical tests”.

At that time he was said to be suffering from respiratory problems, including pneumonia.

Believed to have been born in 1923, Fahd took the throne in 1982 of a vast kingdom which is the world’s largest petroleum exporter and holds a quarter of global oil reserves. … Read full obituary