Dead Celebrity Alert

… Headed Federal Trade Commission, Office of Management and Budget, Health, Education and Welfare Department, and Defense Department. Backed President Reagan’s “Star Wars” defense initiative … indicted over the Iran-Contra affair and was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush before a trial. … Read full obituary

Lyn Nofziger, the cigar-chomping former newspaperman who served as spokesman and strategist for Ronald Reagan in Sacramento and Washington, died of cancer on Monday at his home in Falls Church, Va. He was 81. … Read full obituary

Richard Fleischer, a film director who never became a household name despite working with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars on hits like “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and “Fantastic Voyage,” died early Saturday at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 89. … Read full obituary

Outback artist Pro Hart has died at his Broken Hill home after battling motor neurone disease.

The 77-year-old was diagnosed with the debilitating disease that causes muscle wastage late last year but his condition began to worsen last week. … Read full obituary

… While streaking around the Homestead-Miami Speedway oval during a warmup session, Dana failed to notice that another car had spun to a stop, slamming into it at close to 200 mph. Two hours after his shattered car came to a rest, the 30-year-old Dana was pronounced dead at a hospital. … Read full story

It is with great sadness that the Office of U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd announces that Senator Byrd’s wife of nearly 69 years, Erma Ora James Byrd, passed away after battling a long illness. … Read full obituary

Singer Buck Owens, the flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like “Act Naturally” and brought the genre to TV on the long-running “Hee Haw,” died Saturday. He was 76. … Read full obituary

Paul A. Flaherty, a computer engineer who helped create the pioneering AltaVista online search engine, has died. He was 42.

Flaherty died March 16 of a heart attack at his home in Belmont, about 20 miles south of San Francisco, family members said Friday. … Read full obituary

KOLKATA [Calcutta]: A giant aldabra tortoise thought to be around 250 years old has died in the Kolkata zoo of liver failure, zoo authorities said on Thursday.

The tortoise had been the pet of Robert Clive, the famous British military officer in colonial India around the middle of the 18th century … Read full obituary

Bill Beutel, the longtime television news anchor and host of the show that became ABC’s “Good Morning America,” has died, the network announced. He was 75. … Read full obituary

Oleg Cassini, 92, the dapper descendant of Russian aristocrats who married a movie star, designed clothes for a first lady and was the first to license his name to products from perfume to luggage, died March 17 at a hospital on New York’s Long Island. His third wife, Marianne, said the designer suffered a broken blood vessel in his head. … Read full obituary

Robert C. Baker, an agricultural scientist who looked at chickens and envisioned chicken nuggets, not to mention chicken hotdogs, helping transform what is now a $29 billion poultry industry, died on Monday at his home in North Lansing, N.Y. He was 84. … Read full obituary

Of liver cancer, just one week after diagnosis.

John M. Falotico, the detective who arrested David R. Berkowitz, the notorious “Son of Sam” killer, died on Saturday at his home in North Brunswick, N.J. He was 82. … Read full obituary

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — A former TV game show host and his wife were killed Monday morning when their small plane crashed into Santa Monica Bay shortly after takeoff on a volunteer flight for a medical charity, authorities said. …

The bodies of Peter Tomarken, 63, host of the hit 1980s game show “Press Your Luck,” and his wife, Kathleen Abigail Tomarken, 41, were identified by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. … Read full obituary

Maureen Stapleton, an Oscar-winning actress who created a gallery of pugnacious but vulnerable heroines on Broadway, in films and on television and who put an indelible stamp on some of Tennessee Williams’s most memorable characters, died today in Lenox, Mass., said her daughter, Katherine Bambery. She was 80. … Read full obituary

Bernie Geoffrion, the Montreal Canadiens’ Hall of Fame wing who popularized the slap shot, a weapon that changed the face of hockey and brought him the enduring nickname Boom Boom, died Saturday in Atlanta. He was 75. … Read full obituary

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been found dead in the detention centre at The Hague tribunal. …

Mr Milosevic, 64, had been held at the UN war crimes tribunal for genocide and other war crimes since 2001. … Read full obituary

John Profumo, a former British Cabinet minister whose liaison with a prostitute nearly brought down a government, died late Thursday night after suffering a stroke, an official said Friday. He was 91. … Read full obituary

Gordon Parks, who captured the struggles and triumphs of black America as a photographer for Life magazine and then became Hollywood’s first major black director with “The Learning Tree” and the hit “Shaft,” died Tuesday, a family member said. He was 93. … Read full obituary

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Dana Reeve, who won worldwide admiration for her devotion to her “Superman” husband, Christopher Reeve, through his decade of near-total paralysis, has died of lung cancer at the age of 44. … Read full obituary

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Christopher Reeve

Kirby Puckett died Monday, a day after the Hall of Fame outfielder had a stroke at his Arizona home, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was 44. … Read full obituary

Jack Wild, whose angelic, cheeky face shot him to stardom and almost an Oscar as the Artful Dodger in the 1968 film Oliver!, has died from cancer aged 53 after a life pitted with disappointment and illness. … Read full obituary

COLUMBIA, Tenn. — North Carolina native James Ronald “Bunkie” Blackburn, a former NASCAR driver who once won a race at Daytona International Speedway, died Tuesday. He was 69. … Read full obituary

Harry Browne, best-selling author and two-time Libertarian Party presidential nominee, died in his home in Franklin, Tennessee, Wednesday night, March 1, after a long illness. …

Browne twice ran for President as the nominee of the Libertarian Party in 1996 and 2000. … Read full obituary