Dead Celebrity Alert

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) — Margaret Truman, the only child of former President Harry S. Truman who became a concert singer, actress, radio and TV personality and mystery writer, died Tuesday. She was 83.

Truman, known as Margaret Truman Daniel in private life, died at a Chicago assisted living facility following a brief illness, according to a statement from the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence. She had been at the facility for the past several weeks and was on a respirator, the library said.

Her father’s succession to the presidency in 1945 thrust her into the national spotlight while a college junior. …

Her singing career attracted the barbs of music critics — even the embarrassment of having her father threaten one reviewer. …

She published her first book, an autobiography titled “Souvenir,” in 1956. … Read full obituary

JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Former President Suharto, an army general who rose to power in Indonesia with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people and ruled for 32 years over an era of rapid economic growth and extraordinary graft, died Sunday in Indonesia. He was 86.

Like many Javanese, Suharto went by only one name. He had been in poor health for years after suffering several strokes and other ailments. He was rushed to the hospital Jan. 4 with anemia, low blood pressure and other ailments.

Suharto’s unyielding opposition to communism won him the backing of the United States during the height of the Cold War, although he was one of the most brutal and corrupt rulers of that era. He governed the world’s fourth-most-populous nation with a combination of paternalism and ruthlessness from 1965 until he was ousted in the spring of 1998. …

The estimates of the number of people killed by Suharto’s regime “vary from 300,000 to 2 million, but the exact number nobody knows,” said Asmara Nababan, former secretary general of Indonesia’s Human Rights Commission. …

His military regime incarcerated hundreds of thousands of political prisoners for years without trial. Many critics of his rule simply vanished. … Read full obituary

ATHENS, Greece: Hundreds of mourners, many sobbing, gathered Monday at Athens’ cathedral to file past the remains of Archbishop Christodoulos, the first leader of Greece’s powerful Orthodox Church to welcome a Catholic pope to Athens in 1,300 years.

The charismatic cleric was often named Greece’s most popular public figure but was also criticized as an ambitious reactionary. He died at his home in Athens on Monday at age 69 of cancer, leaving the race for his succession wide open. …

Greece’s Orthodox Church holds considerable sway among the world’s Orthodox churches. Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I is the spiritual leader of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians. … Read full obituary

According to Utah newspaper Deseret News, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away this evening around 7pm. The initial reports say President Hinckley died of causes incident to age. He was 97 years old. …

President Gordon B. Hinckley, world leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was ordained and set apart as the 15th President of the Church on Sunday, March 12, 1995. …

As a member of the First Presidency, he has had a major role in administering both the ecclesiastical and temporal affairs of the Church, whose more than 10 million members are spread over some 160 nations and territories. … Read full obituary

TV actor Christopher Allport has been named as the third victim killed by the snowstorms roaring towards Southern California.

Skiing enthusiast Mr Allport, 60, was reported missing after a trio of “freak” avalanches. His body was found near the Mountain High ski resort in Wrightwood.

The veteran character actor had appeared on US shows including ER, Felicity, and Matlock.

He wrote a story that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 2004 about the pleasures of backcountry skiing. … Read full obituary

Christian Brando, the troubled eldest son of the late famed actor Marlon Brando, has died from pneumonia at a Los Angeles hospital, an attorney said Saturday. He was 49.

Brando died Saturday morning at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, said David Seeley, an attorney representing Marlon Brando’s estate. …

Born May 11, 1958, the younger Brando had small roles in a handful of movies, including 1968’s “I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!” but he was better known for his brushes with the law.

He spent five years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in 1990 for killing his sister’s boyfriend, Dag Drollet, at the Brando family’s estate.

Brando said he accidentally shot Drollet as they struggled for a gun during an argument over whether Drollet, 26, had beaten Brando’s pregnant half-sister, Cheyenne.

Cheyenne, who later gave birth to Drollet’s son, committed suicide in 1995 after losing custody. She was 25.

Brando’s ex-wife, Deborah Brando, sued him for domestic violence in 2005. … Read full obituary

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SAN DIEGO — John Stewart recorded some of pop music’s most acclaimed solo albums, helping create a style that came to be called Americana, but he was always best known for writing the Monkees’ enduring hit “Daydream Believer.”

Stewart, who came to prominence in the 1960s as a member of folk music’s Kingston Trio, died Saturday at a San Diego hospital after suffering a brain aneurism. He was 68. …

Stewart left the Kingston Trio shortly before the Monkees released “Daydream Believer” in 1967, then went on to record nearly four dozen solo albums, including the critically acclaimed “California Bloodlines” and “Bombs Away Dream Babies.” The latter included the hit single “Gold,” in which he dueted with Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks.

Still, as with “Daydream Believer,” he was likely best known for writing songs for others, including Joan Baez, Nanci Griffith, Roseanne Cash and Anne Murray. … Read full obituary

Lois Nettleton, an actress whose dramatic and comic dexterity in theater, film and television earned her wide public recognition and deep professional respect for more than a half century, died on Friday in Woodland Hills, Calif. She was 80.

The cause was complications of lung cancer, her friend Dale Olson said.

Ms. Nettleton, who had a soft, almost breathy speaking voice, made an indelible impression in 1973 when she took over the role of Blanche DuBois in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Streetcar Named Desire.” …

Her extensive work in television included the role of Norma in “The Midnight Sun,” a 1961 episode of “The Twilight Zone” about an ever-hotter Earth, which is considered a classic by students of the series. Her many other television roles included appearances on early dramatic shows like “Studio One” and “Armstrong Circle Theater” and more recent ones on popular shows like “Seinfeld” and “Cagney & Lacey.” She also appeared for three years on the daytime drama “General Hospital.”

Her movies began with a bit part on Elia Kazan’s “Face in the Crowd,” and she was one of the last contract players at MGM. …

Ms. Nettleton was divorced from Jean Shepherd, the radio host and author; they met when she called his show. She left no immediate survivors. … Read full obituary

TMZ has learned that 2006 Academy Award nominee Heath Ledger has died in NY.

He was found dead in his bed in one of his residences in Soho by his housekeeper at 3:35 PM ET today. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ they believe it was not a crime, adding that prescription pills were found near his body. …

We’re told when paramedics responded, the actor was in full cardiac arrest. They attempted to perform CPR on him, but were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead at the scene. … Read full story

Georgia Frontiere, the owner of the National Football League’s Rams for nearly three decades and the first woman to take control of a league franchise, died Friday. She was 80. …

She had been hospitalized with breast cancer for several months, her children said in a statement posted there.

Frontiere, an occasional night-club singer and chorus line performer who hoped to become an opera star, was thrust into the pro football world in April 1979 when her husband, Carroll Rosenbloom, the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, drowned in the ocean while swimming near his Florida home. … Read full obituary

RAF pilot who was awarded the Military Cross for his part in the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III

“Jimmy” James was one of 76 officers who escaped from Stalag Luft III on the night of March 24, 1944, and was fortunate not to be among the 50 executed on Hitler’s order on recapture. He was sent instead to Sachsenhausen concentration camp from where he tunnelled his way out, only to be caught again after 14 days on the run.

He was the second pilot of a Wellington bomber shot down south of Rotterdam in June 1940. Initially hopeful that German security would not be too tight, the Netherlands having been overrun only in May, he planned to acquire a boat to sail back to England, or at least get him far enough from the coast to be picked up. A Dutch farmer gave him food and shelter but for one night only as his presence was certain to become known: the local police arrested him before he could move on. …

Squadron Leader B. A. “Jimmy” James, MC, survivor of the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III, was born on April 17, 1915. He died on January 18, 2008, aged 92 … Read full obituary

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Allan Melvin, a character actor best known for playing Sam the Butcher on “The Brady Bunch,” has died. He was 84.

Melvin died of cancer Thursday at his home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, said Amalia Melvin, his wife of 64 years.

The jowly, jovial Melvin spent decades playing a series of sidekicks, second bananas and lovable lugs, including Archie Bunker’s friend Barney Hefner on “All in the Family,” and Sgt. Bilko’s right-hand man Cpl. Henshaw on the “Phil Silvers Show.”

But his place in pop culture will be fixed as butcher and bowler Sam Franklin, the love interest of Brady family maid Alice Nelson, who was played by Ann B. Davis. Melvin played the role from 1970 to 1973. … Read full obituary

Suzanne Pleshette has died.

Her attorney and family friend, Robert Finkelstein, says the husky-voiced actress died of respiratory failure at her home Los Angeles. She was 70.

The star of movies and Broadway found her greatest fame on TV’s long-running “The Bob Newhart Show,” portraying the comic’s witty, sarcastic wife. …

She launched her film career with Jerry Lewis in 1958 in “The Geisha Boy.” She went on to appear in numerous television shows, including “Have Gun, Will Travel,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “Playhouse 90.” … Read full obituary

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REYKJAVIK (AFP) — Bobby Fischer, who died on Thursday aged 64, was a high school dropout who may have been the greatest chess player of all time, but ended his life in eccentric seclusion.

The US-born player had lived for the last two years in Iceland, after serving eight months behind bars in Japan in a new twist to a life that had gone downhill ever since his moment of glory at age 29.

The Brooklyn-bred genius made headlines around the world when he wrested the world chess title from Soviet domination in 1972, beating world champion Boris Spassky, in a Cold War chess showdown in Reykjavik known as the match of the century. …

Despite having a Jewish mother, Fischer was a vicious anti-Semite, using broadcasts at far-flung radio stations to accuse Jews of everything from his legal woes to an alleged conspiracy to kill off elephants. …

The reclusive Fischer’s return to the spotlight began on September 11, 2001 when he rang up a Filipino radio station to hail the “wonderful news” of the terrorist attacks and launch a profanity-laden anti-Jewish tirade. … Read full obituary

PALM SPRINGS, California (AP) — Costume designer Bill Belew, who created Elvis Presley’s jumpsuits and the tight black leather outfit he wore on his 1968 television special, has died. He was 76.

Belew died January 7 at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs after battling diabetes, his longtime companion, Paul Dafelmair, told the Los Angeles Times.

In his nearly 50-year career, Belew designed costumes for many stars of stage, screen and television, ranging from Ella Fitzgerald to Gloria Estefan.

But it is his work with Presley for which Belew will be best remembered. … Read full obituary