Dead Celebrity Alert

Pilar López, dancer and choreographer, was born on June 4, 1912. She died on March 25, 2008, aged 95

When the critic and exhibition organiser Richard Buckle presented his charity gala The Greatest Show on Earth at the London Coliseum in June 1971, he included the Spanish dancer Pilar López, who at 49 was approaching retirement and known to most of the audience only by repute. Yet her zarzuela solo fully held its own among an assembly of the greatest international stars. Perfect foot and arm placement and glittering castanet playing were among her special qualities.

The López family played a major part in building the big interest in the dances of Spain which flourished worldwide in the Thirties and Forties. … Read full obituary

Nuala O’Faolain, journalist and writer, was born on March 1, 1940. She died of cancer on May 9, 2008, aged 68

Nuala O’Faolain, then 55, had been writing a current affairs column on The Irish Times for almost ten years and was rather feeling that life had passed her by when, in 1995, a publisher offered to make a book out of the best of her articles. To show where she was coming from, she decided to write a short introduction about her own life.

It ended up as a book of more than 200 pages entitled Are You Somebody? — The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman, spilling the beans on her dysfunctional background and her rather disordered love life. She revealed a 15-year lesbian affair with her fellow-columnist Nell McCafferty that had just ended, like her previous romances with men, in tears. …Read full obituary

DALLAS — The creator of the popular religious children’s television show “Davey and Goliath” has died.

A memorial service will be held May 31 at St. Mark’s School of Texas in Dallas for Richard Towne “Dick” Sutcliffe. He died May 11 in Dallas from complications of a stroke. He was 90.

Sutcliffe created “Davey and Goliath,” a Christian-themed children’s show about a boy and his talking dog that used stop-action animation.

Along with Gumby creators Art Clokey and Ruth Clokey Goodell, Sutcliffe created the Sunday-morning series to spread a religious message without losing younger viewers with overly complicated concepts… Read full obituary

ATLANTA (AP) — Hamilton Jordan, a political strategist from south Georgia who helped propel Jimmy Carter to the White House and served as his chief of staff, died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer.

Jordan, 63, died at his home in Atlanta about 7:30 p.m., said Gerald Rafshoon, who was Carter’s chief of communications. …

Jordan’s battle with cancer began 22 years ago, when he was diagnosed with lymphoma, followed by bouts with melanoma and prostate cancer. …

Carter said in a statement that he and his wife, Rosalynn, “are deeply saddened. … Hamilton was my closest political adviser, a trusted confidant and my friend. His judgment, insight and wisdom were excelled only by his compassion and love of our country.”

Jordan was born in Charlotte, N.C., in 1944 and raised in Albany, Ga. He graduated from the University of Georgia with a political science degree in 1967 and became a key adviser to Carter during the 1976 presidential campaign. …Read full obituary

May 21, 2008 — TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The last plaintiff in the historic Brown versus Board of Education case has died.

Zelma Henderson died yesterday in Topeka, Kansas, at 88. She had pancreatic cancer.

In 1950, Henderson and 12 other black parents in Topeka challenged the city’s segregated school system. The 1954 Supreme Court decision in the case overturned segregation in the country’s public schools. … Read full obituary

A plastic surgeon to the stars has been found dead in the doorway of his London home.

It’s believed Martin Kelly — dubbed the “king of rhinoplasty” by his celebrity clients — suffered a heart attack.

Mr Kelly, who was married to Californication actress Natascha McElhone who is pregnant with the couple’s third child, was found by a friend at his West London home. …

It’s been widely reported that Mr Kelly — part of private practice London Plastic Surgery Associates — was responsible for reconstructing socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s nose, who once had a problem with cocaine abuse. … Read full story

FORT STOCKTON, Texas (AP) — Former NFL center Curtis Whitley was found dead in his trailer home in West Texas on Sunday night.

The local sheriff says the 39-year-old Whitley was found face down in the bathroom by friends who went to check on him after they had not heard from him. He says there was no sign of foul play, but the death remains under investigation. … Read full story

Robert Mondavi, the pioneering vintner who put California wine country on the global map, has died. He was 94.

Mondavi died peacefully at his home in Yountville, Calif., on Friday, said Mia Malm, spokeswoman for the Robert Mondavi Winery.

An enthusiastic ambassador for the health benefits of moderate consumption of wine, and of California wine in particular, Mondavi had travelled the world into his 90s, promoting the cultural and social benefits of wine.

Born in Virginia, Minn., Mondavi got an economics degree from Stanford University in California in the 1930s and went to work at the Charles Krug Winery, which his Italian-born parents had bought after moving to California from Minnesota. … Read full obituary

John Phillip Law, the strikingly handsome 1960s movie actor who portrayed an angel in the futuristic “Barbarella” and a lovesick Russian seaman in “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” died Tuesday. He was 70.

Law died at his Los Angeles home, his former wife, Shawn Ryan, told the Los Angeles Times. The cause of death was not announced.

With vivid eyes, blond hair and imposing physique, Law was much in demand by filmmakers in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

He gained wide notice in 1966 with Alan Arkin, Carl Reiner and Theo Bikel in “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” Norman Jewison’s Cold War comedy in which a Soviet submarine runs aground off a peaceful New England island town.

He played the sweet Russian youth who falls in love with a local American girl in the film, which was nominated for four Oscars including best picture, actor (Arkin) and director. … Read full obituary

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg’s mediums knew few bounds.

One of his most famous works or “combines” was “Bed,” created when he woke up in the mood to paint but had no money for a canvas. His solution was to take the quilt off his bed and use paint, toothpaste and fingernail polish for his creation. He was also a sculptor and a choreographer.

Rauschenberg died Monday of heart failure at 82, it was announced Tuesday by Jennifer Joy, his representative at PaceWildenstein gallery in New York. His use of odd and everyday articles earned him regard as a pioneer in pop art, first gaining fame in the 1950s. …

Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes, in his book “American Visions,” called Rauschenberg “a protean genius who showed America that all of life could be open to art. … Rauschenberg didn’t give a fig for consistency, or curating his reputation; his taste was always facile, omnivorous, and hit-or-miss, yet he had a bigness of soul and a richness of temperament that recalled Walt Whitman.” … Read full obituary

The bald eagle known as One Wing, the Exxon Valdez oil spill survivor that became a mascot and symbol of hope for the Bird Treatment and Learning Center, has died. One Wing, who lived nearly 20 years longer than anyone would have imagined, was found dead in his mew at the center. …

One Wing’s story is known by many in Alaska and beyond…

In 1989, poisoned by crude, the eagle fought oil-spill rescuers so hard he tore up his wing beating it against the ground. He arrived at the center a wreck, and [Bird TLC founder Jim Scott] had to amputate his wing. He didn’t expect him to survive, and decided to use him as a living blood bank to save other oiled eagles. …

One Wing’s death took many off-guard… Read full obituary

Cartoonist Ted Key, whose comic strip “Hazel” about a bossy maid went from magazine page to TV screen, has died. He was 95.

He died Saturday at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Tredyffrin Township after a 1 1/2-year battle with cancer, his son Peter Key said Monday.

“Hazel” was a popular feature in The Saturday Evening Post from the time it debuted in 1943. It evolved into a prime-time series in 1961 that starred Shirley Booth and ran for four years on NBC and one year on CBS.

Key also created the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman for producer Jay Ward. The time-traveling dog/scientist and his boy made their TV debuts in 1959 in segments on the animated show “Rocky and His Friends.” … Read full obituary

Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, believed to be the last surviving member of the inner circle of German army officers who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb on July 20, 1944, died on Thursday. He was 90 and lived in Altenahr, in the Rhineland-Palatinate. …

Mr. von Boeselager, disturbed by the Nazi campaign of extermination against the Jews and by German atrocities that he witnessed as a lieutenant on the Eastern Front, joined an anti-Hitler conspiracy in 1942 and later took part in the plot being organized by Col. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. …

Mr. von Boeselager, assigned to an explosives research team, was able to acquire top-grade English explosives. On July 20, von Stauffenberg carried a briefcase stuffed with plastic explosives and a timed detonator into a conference being held in the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia, and placed it under a table being used by Hitler and more than 20 officers. … Read full obituary

Oni Faida Lampley, the award-winning playwright of The Dark Kalamazoo, Mixed Babies and her personal illness-inspired Tough Titty, died April 28 after a battle with breast cancer, friends and colleagues reported.

As an actress, Ms. Lampley, who turned 49 on April 15, recently played Mrs. Breedlove in Hartford Stage’s production of The Bluest Eye. She left the production early to have emergency surgery.

Ms. Lampley’s Broadway acting credits included Mule Bone and The Ride Down Mt. Morgan. … She also had many regional theatre, TV and film credits. As is the case with many working actors in New York City, she appeared on all three “Law & Order” shows. …

The 2003 play, Tough Titty, concerned her then seven-year struggle with breast cancer. … In it, a woman who is diagnosed with breast cancer tries to stay married, raise two small sons and endure poisonous treatments. …

At the time of her death, according to friends, she was writing a play on commission from Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis. … Read full obituary

Former Miss Norway and one-time Bond girl who monopolised the role of the exotic seductress in British comedies in the 1970s

After serving as a Bond girl in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), Julie Ege briefly became a leading figure in British cinema, monopolising the role of exotic, seductress in the low-brow comedies that were a staple of the time. …

She was given the title of “new sex symbol of the seventies” and Hammer hoped that a role as a sexy cavewoman in Creatures the World Forgot (1971) would do for Ege what One Million Years BC (1966) had done for Raquel Welch, turning her into a screen icon, but the film flopped. She continued in comedies and also in horror films for several more years, before giving up acting and becoming a nurse in her native Norway. …

Julie Ege, actress, was born on November 12, 1943. She died on April 29, 2008, aged 64. … Read full obituary