Dead Celebrity Alert

Actress Shell Kepler, who for years played the gossipy nurse Amy Vining on the TV soap opera “General Hospital,” died Feb. 1 in Portland, Ore. She was 49. …

In addition to her run on “General Hospital,” she was also in a 1982 Joan Collins film, “Homework,” and a couple of episodes of the situation comedy “Three’s Company.”

On the side, she was a businesswoman, marketing clothing on the former Home Shopping Club. She said in a 1994 Associated Press interview that her “Lacy Afternoon” collection had sales topping $20 million that year alone. … Read full obituary

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — Earl Butz, the U.S. secretary of agriculture who was forced to resign after telling an obscenity-laced racist joke in 1976, died yesterday in Washington. He was 98 and the oldest living former Cabinet member. …

Butz was named to head the Department of Agriculture in 1971 by President Richard Nixon. He remained in the Cabinet under President Gerald Ford after Nixon resigned in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal. …

It was a crude joke that turned Butz into a household word and punch line on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight” show. Butz was flying from the 1976 Republican convention in Kansas City, Missouri, to California when he told his infamous story to a group that included singer Pat Boone and John Dean… Read full obituary

Dwight Arlington Hemion, a television director and producer best known for his musical specials who won 18 Emmy Awards and was nominated a record 47 times, died Monday at his home in Rectortown, Va. He was 81.

The cause was renal failure, his wife, Kit, said.

In television specials starring Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Mikhail Baryshnikov and many other world-class performers, Hemion and his partner, producer Gary Smith, captured popular and critical acclaim. …

Starting in the late 1960s, Hemion “defined the music spectacular”…

Other major performers Hemion worked with included Luciano Pavarotti, Neil Diamond and Bette Midler. … Read full obituary