Dead Celebrity Alert

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Evel Knievel, the hard-living motorcycle daredevil whose jumps over Greyhound buses, live sharks and Idaho’s Snake River Canyon made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.

Knievel’s death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

Knievel had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his bone-shattering spills.

Immortalized in the Washington’s Smithsonian Institution as “America’s Legendary Daredevil,” Knievel was best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980. … Read full obituary

Obit to come.

Tony Holland, the co-creator of EastEnders and a host of other drama series, has died, aged 67.

Holland, who also devised Eldorado, Angels and District Nurse, passed away in a London hospital after being unwell for some time, the BBC confirmed today.

He devised EastEnders with Julia Smith, his long-term collaborator, who he met on the set of Z Cars in 1971. The soap, set in the fictional London East End borough of Walford, launched on BBC1 screens in February 1985 and remains the network’s biggest-rating weekly show. … Read full obituary

A former Republican Congressman who led the attempt to impeach former US President Bill Clinton has died in hospital in his home state of Illinois. …

Mr Hyde led Republican efforts to impeach Mr Clinton over his relationship with Monica Lewinsky from his position as chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives.

But he appeared reluctant to pursue the case as vigorously as some in his own party.

His own reputation was damaged when it emerged during the scandal that he had had an affair with a married woman in his early 40s. … Read full obituary

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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Dr. Robert Cade, who invented the sports drink Gatorade and launched a multibillion-dollar industry that the beverage continues to dominate, died Tuesday of kidney failure. He was 80.

His death was announced by the University of Florida, where he and other researchers created Gatorade in 1965 to help the school’s football players replace carbohydrates and electrolytes lost through sweat while playing in swamp-like heat.

Now sold in 80 countries in dozens of flavours, Gatorade was born thanks to a question from former Gator Coach Dwayne Douglas, Cade said in a 2005 interview with The Associated Press.

He asked, “Doctor, why don’t football players wee-wee after a game?”

“That question changed our lives,” Cade said. …

The first batch was not exactly a hit.

“It sort of tasted like toilet bowl cleaner,” said Dana Shires, one of the researchers.

“I guzzled it and I vomited,” Cade said. … Read full obituary

The Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor died in hospital this morning after being shot at his home in Miami. Taylor, a first-round draft pick for the Redskins in 2004 and Pro Bowl alternate last season, had his femoral artery severed when he was shot in the leg during an apparent robbery. …

Taylor was airlifted to Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital for treatment, but despite reportedly squeezing a nurse’s hand at one point, never regained consciousness following heavy blood loss. …

…[Taylor and his girlfriend] had been woken by loud noises, at which point Taylor retrieved a machete he kept in the bedroom for self-defence. A gunman then apparently burst into the bedroom, and fired two shots, one of which struck Taylor. Neither Taylor’s girlfriend, nor the couple’s one-year old daughter was harmed. … Read full story

Kevin DuBrow, the lead singer of the 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot, has died, CNN has confirmed. He was 52.

DuBrow died at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to TMZ.com. The Clark County coroner’s office was examining the body to determine the cause of death, according to TMZ. …

Quiet Riot hit the top of the charts with its 1983 album, “Metal Health,” considered by some sources as the first heavy metal album to hit No. 1. The album was driven by the group’s cover of Slade’s “Cum on Feel the Noize,” which hit the Top 40.

The band’s other hits included “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)” and another Slade cover, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now.” … Read full obituary

Joe Kennedy, who last pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays during a seven-year major league career, died early Friday morning while at home with family in Florida. He was 28.

The cause of death could not immediately be determined, agent Damon Lapa said.

After going to bed early, Kennedy woke up at about 1:15 a.m. Friday and collapsed as he was leaving a bedroom at the home of his wife’s parents, Hillsborough County sheriff’s spokeswoman Debbie Carter said, according to The Associated Press. Hillsborough County Fire Rescue took Kennedy to Brandon Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, she said. … Read full obituary

Dick Wilson, the character actor and pitchman who for 21 years played an uptight grocer begging customers “Please, don’t squeeze the Charmin,” died of natural causes Monday in Woodland Hills, Calif. He was 91. …

Wilson made more than 500 commercials as Mr. George Whipple, a man consumed with keeping bubbly housewives from fondling toilet paper. The punch line of most spots was that Whipple himself was a closeted squeezer. … Read full obituary

PAOLI, Pa. (AP) Veteran Philadelphia broadcaster Hy Lit, whose career as a rock deejay on the city’s airwaves spanned half a century, died Saturday. He was 73. … Read full obituary

Peter Zinner, whose decades-long career as a film editor included the first two “Godfather” films and an Oscar for 1978’s “The Deer Hunter,” has died. He was 88.

Zinner died Tuesday at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica of complications from an almost five-year battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his daughter Katina Zinner said. …

It was Zinner’s film editing work on Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 groundbreaking mob drama “The Godfather” that earned him an Academy Award nomination with coeditor William Reynolds. … Read full obituary

CINCINNATI — Joe Nuxhall, who was the youngest player in major league history and the beloved “old left-hander” on Cincinnati Reds radio broadcasts, died overnight following a bout with cancer, the team said Friday. He was 79.

Nuxhall’s health problems multiplied in recent years but couldn’t keep him away from the game or the broadcast booth for long. He had surgery for prostate cancer in 1992, followed by a mild heart attack in 2001.

The cancer returned last February, when Nuxhall was preparing for the Reds’ spring training in Sarasota, Fla. The broadcaster called some games last season even though his left leg was swollen by tumors. He was hospitalized again this week.

He retired as a full-time radio broadcaster after the 2004 season, the 60th anniversary of his historic pitching debut. … Read full obituary

Delbert Mann, who transformed Paddy Chayefsky’s classic teleplays “Marty” and “The Bachelor Party” into big-screen triumphs and helped bring TV techniques to the film world, died Sunday. He was 87. …

Mann’s 1955 feature version of “Marty” won four Oscars: best picture and director, best actor for Ernest Borgnine and best screenplay for Chayefsky. The low-budget film with mostly little-known actors told the stark, poignant story of Borgnine’s 34-year-old Brooklyn butcher who felt he was too ugly to find love. …

Using techniques he brought from television, Mann took a mere 16 days to shoot the film version of “Marty,” plus an additional three days for retakes. …

He followed “Marty” with 1957’s “The Bachelor Party.” They were some of the first examples of television’s emerging role in Hollywood — not necessarily as a rival medium, but as a synergistic one. …

Mann’s other feature credits include “Desire Under the Elms” (1957), “Separate Tables” (1958), “Middle of the Night” (1959), “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” (1960), “The Outsider” (1961), “That Touch of Mink” (1962), “A Gathering of Eagles” (1963), “Dear Heart” (1964), “Fitzwilly” (1967), “Kidnapped” (1971), “Night Crossing” (1982) and “Bronte” (1983). … Read full obituary

NEW YORK (AP) — Best-selling writer Ira Levin, whose novels included the horror classic “Rosemary’s Baby,” the Nazi thriller “The Boys From Brazil” and the satirical fantasy “The Stepford Wives,” has died. He was 78.

Levin suffered a fatal heart attack in his Manhattan apartment on Monday, said agent Phyllis Westberg. …

Levin began working as a TV writer before finishing his first novel, “A Kiss Before Dying,” a murder mystery that was an instant success. His debut won the Edgar Allan Poe Award as the best first novel of 1953. …

Levin also wrote the long-running Broadway hit “Deathtrap,” which debuted in February 1978. … Read full obituary

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) — George Osmond, father of the famous singing family The Osmond Brothers, has died. He was 90.

Osmond died Tuesday morning at home, likely from natural causes related to his age as he had not been ill, family spokesman Kevin Sasaki told The Associated Press. Additional details and an official cause of death were not immediately available. …

George Osmond married his wife, Olive, on December 1, 1944. She died in 2004.

The couple were the parents of nine children, many of whom became singing stars. … Read full obituary

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