Dead Celebrity Alert

October 12, 1918 - August 30, 2008

…Krishna Kumar Birla, a quiet-spoken, erudite, religious man with — for a tycoon — an uncommon interest in business ethics.

Known everywhere by the respectful Babu, meaning “boss” or “brother”, he was part of the massive expansion of the Birla empire in every corner of the Indian economy, including sugar, fertiliser production, heavy engineering, media and shipping. A famous flagship of the company, although economically irrelevant to it, is the Delhi-based Hindustan Times, one of India’s biggest dailies. …

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Radio host and one-time Johnny Carson talk show rival Les Crane, who found later success as a software developer and publisher, has died at the age of 74. …

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October 4, 1917 - July 11, 2008

Roy M. Huffington was a struggling Texan wildcatter who struck it rich in the oil and gas reserves of Indonesia. He went on to become US Ambassador to Austria under President George H. W. Bush. Bush, himself a former Texan oilman, was a long-time friend of Huffington who had been a significant sponsor of his political campaigns, and he succeeded where President Ronald Reagan had failed in persuading Huffington to become Ambassador to Austria in 1990 after he had sold his company for an estimated $600 million, according to Huffington. …

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May 12, 1933 - April 12, 2008

David Kirby was, along with the first Sir Robert Reid, one of a distinguished group of able managers who ran British Rail during its most successful period in the 1980s and 1990s. …

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Rocky Aoki, 69, a flamboyant businessman who parlayed his savings from an ice-cream truck into the international chain of Benihana Japanese steakhouses, known for the showmanship of their knife-tossing chefs, died July 10 in New York. In recent years, he said he had suffered from diabetes, hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver. … Mr. Aoki led a complicated personal life, with multiple mistresses and illegitimate children. He once boasted that he had three children the same age, born to three different women. …

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November 29, 1930 - June 13, 2008

The appointment in 1990 of Dennis Weatherstone as chairman and chief executive of J P Morgan, the largest bank in the US by market value, signalled not only radical change for the blue-blooded Wall Street institution but also the start of a new era for financial services. …

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April 18, 1911 - May 19, 2008

Sybaritic heir to a grocery business fortune who squandered millions on doomed projects and was rescued from squalor

Huntington Hartford began life as one of the richest men in America but he wanted to be remembered for more than his money. …

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

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Jerry Zucker, a Charleston billionaire, a prolific inventor and a noted philanthropist, died Saturday at his home after a battle with cancer.

Forbes magazine often listed Zucker, 58, among the wealthiest Americans and the magazine placed his company, InterTech Group, on its list of the country’s largest private firms. … Read full obituary

Ameriquest Mortgage founder Roland E. Arnall, 68, a billionaire who became a symbol of the subprime lending industry he helped create, died March 17 at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center. Esophageal cancer was diagnosed… Mr. Arnall, a Holocaust survivor who co-founded the Simon Wiesenthal Center, had resigned as President Bush’s ambassador to the Netherlands on March 7, returning to Los Angeles to be with a seriously ill son who had Hodgkin’s disease. … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Herb Peterson, who invented the Egg McMuffin as a way to introduce breakfast to McDonald’s restaurants, died Tuesday at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 89. … … Read full obituary

March 23, 2008 — Al Copeland, a hard-charging, high-living entrepreneur who built an empire on spicy fried chicken and fluffy white biscuits, died Sunday in Munich, Germany, of complications from cancer treatment. He was 64. … Read full obituary

FULLERTON, Calif. — Carl Karcher, who turned a lone hot dog cart in Los Angeles into the Carl’s Jr. fast-food chain, died Friday at a Fullerton hospital, five days short of what would have been his 91st birthday, a spokeswoman said. … Read full obituary

NEW YORK — Steven T. Florio, former chief executive officer of Condé Nast Publications Inc., died Thursday due to complications from a heart attack. He was 58. … Read full obituary

Dec. 26 (Bloomberg) — Michael Klein, the owner of California hedge-fund firm Pacificor LLC, his teenage daughter, Talia, and a pilot died after their private plane crashed near Panama’s tallest mountain. … Read full obituary

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. … Read full obituary

Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop cosmetics store, has died after suffering a major brain haemorrhage. She was 64. … Read full obituary

Wall Street big shot Seth Tobias was mysteriously found dead yesterday in the swimming pool of his Florida mansion, police said. … Read full obituary

Jerry Ringlien, best known as creator of the “My bologna has a first name” campaign, died of a heart attack Monday in Wilkesboro, N.C. He was 77. … Read full obituary

Jack Odell, a self-trained engineer whose daughter’s mischievous habit of taking spiders to school in a matchbox prompted him to make her a tiny steamroller as a substitute — an invention that led to Matchbox Toys, maker of 3 billion Lilliputian vehicles in 12,000 models — died on July 7 in London. He was 87. … Read full obituary

MILWAUKEE, June 26 (AP) — Ralph F. Stayer, the founder of a Wisconsin sausage company [Johnsonville Sausage Company] that helped popularize bratwurst in the United States, died Sunday in Florida. He was 92. … Read full obituary

Warren E. Avis, a Michigan car dealership owner who, frustrated at waiting for taxis outside airports, founded a chain of car rental agencies and turned it into the nation’s second biggest, died yesterday at his home in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was 92. … … Read full obituary

Helen Robson Walton, widow of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, died Thursday evening at her home, the company said in a news release. She was 87. … Read full obituary

BERKELEY, Calif. — Ernest Gallo, who parlayed $5,900 and a wine recipe from a public library into the world’s largest winemaking empire, died Tuesday at his home in Modesto. He was 97. … Read full obituary

ATLANTA — Garry Betty, the president and chief executive of EarthLink Inc., has died from complications of cancer, the Internet service provider said Wednesday. He was 49. … Read full obituary