Dead Celebrity Alert

ALLENTOWN, Pennsylvania (AP) — Comedian Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, a long-running member of Howard Stern’s “Wack Pack,” has died after falling ill in jail. He was 39.

Kallenbach contracted pneumonia while in custody on a charge of attempted child abduction. He died Thursday at Riddle Memorial Hospital near Media, his mother, Fay Kallenbach, said Friday. …

Kallenbach, whose goofball antics included attempting to blow smoke from his eyes, made dozens of appearances on Stern’s show beginning in 1990. While Kallenbach appeared on the show less frequently in recent years, his name was well-known to Stern fans. … Read full obituary

The man who gained legendary status as commander of the ship Exodus, attempting to bring thousands of Jewish Holocaust refugees to the holy land after the Second World War, has died.

Yossi Harel, whose journey at the helm of a ship carrying 4,500 frail survivors from Germany to then-British Mandate Palestine was immortalised in the film Exodus, where he was portrayed by Paul Newman, died of a heart attack at the age of 90. …

Mr Harel also helped found the militia that was the forerunner of the modern Israeli army and later became a senior intelligence officer. But it was the task of rescuing Holocaust survivors and circumventing British immigration controls on Palestine which was his passion, Mr Kaniuk said. …

Mr Harel, who was born in Jerusalem, was the commander of four of the largest illegal immigration ships that would eventually bring 24,000 Jews from Europe to Palestine, before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

But it is the story of the Exodus which is most famous. … Read full obituary

Joy Page, the stepdaughter of Jack L. Warner, a president of the Warner Brothers studio, who made her film debut as a Bulgarian newlywed in “Casablanca,” died on April 18 in Los Angeles. She was 83.

The cause was complications of a stroke and pneumonia, said her son, Gregory Orr.

Born on Nov. 9, 1924, in Los Angeles, Ms. Page was the daughter of the silent-film star Don Alvarado (also known as Don Page) and Ann Boyar, who married Mr. Warner after she and Mr. Alvarado divorced.

A dark-haired beauty, Ms. Page was 17 and a high school senior when she got the role of Annina Brandel in the 1942 Warner Brothers classic “Casablanca,” starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. …

Her other films include “Kismet” (1944) and “Man-Eater of Kumaon” (1948). … Read full obituary

Hindu guru and social activist who worked ceaselessly for the health of Indian villages and the empowerment of women

None of the hundreds of thousands of people who benefited from Pushpa Anand’s charitable work knew her name. Nor, indeed, did many of her disciples. She was known simply as Ma, whose dedication to the poor, especially women, inspired followers from around the world. (She dropped her own name after achieving a state of spiritual flow she called urvashi.)

From the age of 34 she dedicated herself to several years of intense religious study and spiritual practice, and thereafter became known as Param Pujya (Her Holiness). But she always preferred Ma.

Her work stretched from the rural squalor of the northern state of Himachal Pradesh to poor villages in Haryana and the slums of Delhi. She was the spiritual leader of about 80 people of various faiths and nationalities, all of whom live a disciplined life in service to others. Although steeped in Hindu and Jain philosophy, she encouraged her followers to pursue any path they wished in search of God. …

Pushpa Anand, Indian guru and social worker, was born on August 26, 1924. She died on April 16, 2008, aged 83 … Read full obituary

Actor who was an energetic champion of Gaelic culture in Scotland

The actor Simon MacKenzie was best known for his leading role in the long-running Gaelic television soap, Machair, in which he played the dignified head of a further education college.

He had been a BBC broadcaster on the Gaelic radio news services and went on to become Scotland’s most prolific Gaelic arts activist, appearing almost constantly in films, videos, plays and live events for nearly 30 years. …

He is survived by his long-term partner, Charlie Curran.

Simon MacKenzie, actor and activist for the Gaelic culture, was born on December 4, 1949. He died of cancer on April 8, 2008, aged 58 … Read full obituary

JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — Paul Davis, a singer and songwriter whose soft rock hit “I Go Crazy” stayed on the charts for months after its release in 1977, died Tuesday. He was 60.

Davis died of a heart attack at Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian, the city where he grew up, cousin James Edwards said.

Davis’ other popular hits included “65 Love Affair;” “You’re Still New To Me,” a country duet with Marie Osmond; and “Ride ‘Em Cowboy.” … Read full obituary

Al Wilson, the soul singer and songwriter who had a number of 1970s hits including “Show and Tell,” has died. He was 68.

Wilson died Monday of kidney failure at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana [California], according to his son, Tony Wilson of Yucaipa. …

In 1966, he was spotted by manager Marc Gordon, who introduced him to singer Johnny Rivers, who signed him to his Soul City label. Wilson’s first single, “The Snake” in 1968, was a hit and was followed by “Do What You Gotta Do.” … Read full obituary

The president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo died on Sunday at the age of 72.

The Colombian cardinal died at a hospital in Rome where he was admitted in March. The funeral Mass will be conducted in the Vatican Basilica on Wednesday… Pope Benedict will preside over the funeral liturgy, pronounce the homily, and administer the burial rites.

Cardinal Trujillo was among the most outspoken Vatican critics of the “culture of death.” He had repeatedly denounced abortion and same-sex marriage, condemned the exploitation of human embryos and the trend toward acceptance of euthanasia, and argued strenuously against the promotion of condom use as a means of curbing the spread of AIDS, Catholic World News reported. … Read full obituary

World champion skater who was an advocate of the dance aspect of the sport and epitomised the spirit of sportsmanship

The ice skating champion Cecilia Colledge might never have set foot on an ice rink had she not attended the 1928 World Championships at the Ice Club in London as a spectator. The seven-year-old was captivated watching the vivacious jumps and spins of the Norwegian skater Sonja Henie — who won the second of her ten world titles on that occasion — and told her mother: “I should like to skate like her.” Colledge was crowned world champion just nine years later.

She went on to become one of the innovators in the sport of figure skating. She was the first woman to execute a double jump (the salchow), at the 1936 European championships in Berlin, and is one of only four Britons to have won the women’s world championship. …

Cecilia Colledge, ice skating champion, was born on November 28, 1920. She died on April 12, 2008, aged 87 … Read full obituary

Actor, writer and musician Gordon Clyde was known to radio listeners for his satircal and topical piano and song spots on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week and Woman’s Hour. He also had his own weekly show on the BBC World Service.

Television viewers knew him best as the interviewer on the long running Dick Emery Show and throughout the 1960s he was one of Play School’s most popular childrens presenters. …

He later became involved with corporate presentations and his other television appearances included The Morecambe and Wise Show, No Hiding Place, and Are You Being Served?

During his career he wrote for many comedians such as Ronnie Corbett, Phil Silvers, Harry Secombe and Joan Turner. …

Gordon Clyde, actor, writer and musician, was born on May 22, 1933. He died on January 26, 2008, aged 75 … Read full obituary

Czech film-maker, known for his skill on location work, whose worked was often themed around wartime Nazi attrocities

Jirí Sequens built a long and successful career as a film director by wedding the dictates of Fifties-style heroic social realism to the dramatic requirements of slick, engrossing action. His location-shot thrillers and war films culminated in Assassination (1964), a vivid widescreen re-creation — five years in preparation — of the wartime assassination in occupied Prague of Czechoslovakia’s brutal Nazi overlord Reinhard Heydrich and the ferocious reprisals that followed.

Born in Brno, he acted on stage and radio while still a student, graduating in 1946 from the drama department of Brno Conservatoire. He learnt film-making in Moscow under Eisenstein and Gerasimov, and following military service was stage manager at the E. F. Burian Theatre in Prague, then head of the State Film Theatre in Prague before writing and directing his first short film in 1949. His first feature, Happy Journey (1951), was a typical propaganda piece of that era about a young woman assisting in the collectivisation of private farms in her village. …

Jirí Sequens, writer-director, was born on April 23, 1922. He died on January 21, 2008, aged 85 … Read full obituary

Actor and communist who was mostly loyal to the East German regime

The stage, film and television actor Erwin Geschonneck was one of East Germany’s most popular performers. Brought up in poverty in Berlin, he became a Communist, endured exile during the 1930s purges in the Soviet Union, spent several years in Nazi concentration camps and was one of the few survivors when a ship containing thousands of former camp prisoners was bombed by the RAF at the end of the war.

After 1945, already in his forties, he built an acting career in first West, and then East, Germany, starring in Bertolt Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble before defying Brecht to turn his attention to film. His relationship with the communist authorities in East Germany was turbulent. Communist loyalties led him to support the regime broadly and even collaborate with its secret police. But the films in which he starred sometimes fell foul of the censor in their challenges to idealised images of communist society. … Read full obituary

Israeli theater persona Nissan Native was found dead in his Tel Aviv apartment Sunday night. Native was named winner of the 2008 Israel Prize earlier this year. He was 86 years old.

Native was the founder of a renowned acting school, which held classes both in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Despite being widely considered the best acting school in Israel and producing some of the most acclaimed actors in Israel — such as Moshe Ivgi, Keren Mor and Tiki Dayan, to name a few — the school battled financial difficulties in the past few years and was on the verge of closing down. …

Native was the winner of the 1992 Tel Aviv Award for the Performing Arts and the 1999 Israeli Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award. … Read full obituary

Orangeburg [SC] native and civil rights icon James E. “Jim” Sulton died Friday. He was 84.

Sulton’s life spanned years from service in World War II through the civil rights battles of the 1960s. …

In the late 1940s, he became active in voter-registration drives, led the first march in downtown Orangeburg to the mayor’s office to make an official complaint about the city’s segregated systems and was among the first to ‘’sit in” at Kress 5&10.

Because of his actions in the move to gain equality for blacks, Sulton was the object of arrests and risked the service-station business he and his brother, Roy, ran…

Sulton played host to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Russell Street residence he called home for his entire life and where many civil rights notables gathered for strategy sessions. He traveled in to the nation’s capital for the 1963 March on Washington. … Read full obituary

Ester Soriano, a Filipino-American civil rights activist who was the jury foreperson in the civil damages trial of Rodney King, has died. She was 61.

Soriano died April 3 in a Los Angeles hospital from complications after surgery for liver cancer, said her sister, Emily Deitrich.

She served as jury foreperson in the civil case that King brought against the city. King, who was black, was beaten by several white officers in 1991, an incident caught on tape that would help spark a race riot the next year. …

The jury awarded King $3.8 million (€2.41 million) in compensatory damages but no punitive damages. …

“She was trying to be fair and listen to both sides like she always did,” said Deitrich. “But later she said she thought he should have gotten more money” and punitive damages. … Read full obituary