Dead Celebrity Alert

1951 - May 3, 2008

Ngugi wa Mirii was co-author of one of the most influential works in modern African literature. His play, I Will Marry When I Want, written with Ngugi wa Thiong’o, was a searing indictment of what he considered the betrayal of the hopes of ordinary Kenyans by the country’s postindependence leaders. First performed in 1977, its brilliant use of song helped the play to become an immediate popular hit across Kenya, leading to a government ban and the persecution of the authors which, eventually, forced wa Miiri into exile in Zimbabwe.

There, over the course of two decades, Ngugi wa Mirii was a pioneering force in community theatre, founding a national organisation, which supported more than 300 theatre groups across the country. While his focus remained pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist, his concept of theatre was always rooted in the concerns of ordinary people, and his work played an important role in raising popular consciousness of womens’ rights and the dangers of HIV/Aids. … Read full obituary

December 23, 1916 - June 7, 2008

There is a brief but telling scene in Dino Risi’s Il Sorpasso (The Easy Life, 1962) that encapsulates his vision as a film-maker. In it, Vittorio Gassman’s playboy parks his racer illegally, and then casually tucks under the windscreen wiper the parking ticket from a neighbouring car so as to avoid getting a fine himself.

The gesture’s mix of elegance, bravado and cunning are for Risi both the best and worst of his fellow Italians’ characteristics, and emblematic too of the country’s postwar transformation from the values of a traditional society to those of consumerism.

This theme supplied the material for the most successful of his 50-odd films, and customarily led Risi to be hailed as one of the chief creators, both as director and screenwriter, of the commedia all’italiana, at once funny and tragic. … Read full obituary

Bob Anderson, who played the young George Bailey in the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” has died. He was 75.

Anderson died Friday of cancer at his home in Palm Springs, his wife, Victoria, said Saturday. …

He was 7 when he appeared in the 1940 Shirley Temple film “Young People” and went on to play roles in such films as 1945’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”

But he was best known for his role as the young Bailey in Frank Capra’s 1946 “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the same character portrayed in adulthood by James Stewart. In one scene, the story called for him to spot a potentially fatal error made by a drunken druggist, played by H.B. Warner.

Warner took the role seriously and on the day of shooting had been drinking and was “pretty ripe,” Victoria Anderson said. … Read full obituary

Mel Ferrer, the tall, darkly handsome star of such classic films as “Lili,” “War and Peace” and “The Sun Also Rises,” as well as producer and director of movies starring his then-wife, Audrey Hepburn, died Monday at age 90.

Ferrer died at a Santa Barbara, California, convalescent home, his son Mark Ferrer said Tuesday. He had been in failing health for the past six months and had recently moved to the home from his nearby ranch in Carpinteria, his son said.

Ferrer’s most impressive film role came in 1953 in “Lili.” He played a disabled carnival puppeteer with whom a French orphan (played by Leslie Caron) falls in love.

In later years, he turned more to directing and producing for movies and TV. …

Ferrer … produced one of Hepburn’s greatest film triumphs, 1967’s “Wait Until Dark,” a thriller in which she portrays a blind woman terrorized by drug dealers who break into her home. … Read full obituary

Alexander “Sandy” Courage, an Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated arranger, orchestrator and composer who created the otherworldly theme for the classic “Star Trek” TV show … died May 15 at the Sunrise assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades…

Over a decades-long career, Courage collaborated on dozens of movies and orchestrated some of the greatest musicals of the 1950s and 1960s, including “My Fair Lady,” “Hello, Dolly!” “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” “Gigi,” “Porgy and Bess” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

But his most famous work is undoubtedly the “Star Trek” theme, which he composed, arranged and conducted in a week in 1965. …

He and Lionel Newman shared Academy Award nominations for their adapted scores for 1964’s “The Pleasure Seekers” and 1967’s “Doctor Dolittle.”

A friend and colleague of movie composers John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, he also provided the orchestration for such movies as “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Jurassic Park,” “Basic Instinct” and “The Mummy” and supplied arrangements for the Boston Pops while Williams was conductor in the 1980s and early 1990s. … Read full obituary

“Carol Burnett” star Harvey Korman dies at 81

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Harvey Korman, the tall, versatile comedian who won four Emmys for his outrageously funny contributions to “The Carol Burnett Show” and played a conniving politician to hilarious effect in “Blazing Saddles,” died Thursday. He was 81.

Korman died at UCLA Medical Center after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago, his family said. He had undergone several major operations. …

A natural second banana, Korman gained attention on “The Danny Kaye Show,” appearing in skits with the star. He joined the show in its second season in 1964 and continued until it was canceled in 1967. That same year he became a cast member in the first season of “The Carol Burnett Show.” …

Burnett was devastated by Korman’s death, said her assistant, Angie Horejsi. …

His most memorable film role was as the outlandish Hedley Lamarr (who was endlessly exasperated when people called him Hedy) in Mel Brooks’ 1974 Western satire, “Blazing Saddles.” …

He also appeared in the Brooks comedies “High Anxiety,” “The History of the World Part I” and “Dracula: Dead and Loving It,” as well as two “Pink Panther” moves, “Trail of the Pink Panther” in 1982 and “Curse of the Pink Panther” in 1983. … Read full obituary

No Internet news links yet; just announced on KGO-AM radio at approximately 4:02 p.m. PDT.

PALM DESERT, California (AP) — Joseph Pevney, who directed some of the best-loved episodes of the original “Star Trek” television series, has died. He was 96.

Pevney died May 18 at his home in Palm Desert, said his wife, Margo.

Pevney directed 14 episodes of the 1960s series, including “The City on the Edge of Forever,” in which Capt. Kirk and Spock travel back in time to the Depression, and “The Trouble With Tribbles,” in which the starship Enterprise is infested with cute, furry creatures. …

Pevney had made his movie debut playing a killer in 1946’s “Nocturne.” As an actor, he made several other film noir appearances but then turned to directing with 1950’s “Shakedown.”

Pevney went on to direct more than 35 films, including two memorable movies from 1957: “Man of a Thousand Faces,” which starred James Cagney as silent star Lon Chaney, and “Tammy and the Bachelor,” a romantic comedy starring Debbie Reynolds that spawned her No. 1 hit record, “Tammy.” … Read full obituary

Sydney Pollack, the Academy Award-winning director of “Out of Africa” who achieved acclaim making popular, mainstream movies with A-list stars, including “The Way We Were” and “Tootsie,” died Monday. He was 73. Pollack, who also was a producer and actor, died of cancer at his home in Pacific Palisades, according to Leslee Dart, his publicist and friend.

“Sydney Pollack has made some of the most influential and best-remembered films of the last three decades,” film scholar Jeanine Basinger told The Times recently.

In looking at Pollack’s films, she said, “what you see is how he kept in step with the times. He doesn’t get locked into one decade and left there. He had a very sharp political sensibility and a keen sense of what the issues of his world were, and he advanced and changed as the times advanced and changed.”

After launching his show-business career as an actor and acting teacher in New York City in the 1950s, Pollack moved west in the early ’60s and began directing episodic television before turning to films. … Read full obituary

A teenage actor who appears in the next Harry Potter film was stabbed to death trying to protect his younger brother from a knifeman yesterday.

Robert Knox, 18, who acted alongside Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, became the 28th teenager killed in Britain this year, and the 10th in London to die from stab wounds. …

Mr Knox, a grammar school boy, is understood to have been fatally stabbed after trying to save his 16-year-old brother, Jamie, from a man armed with two knives.

The man began attacking drinkers outside the Metro bar, next to Sidcup railway station, south-east London. Witnesses said that the attacker had earlier been thrown out by bouncers, but returned in the early hours with several friends.

Tarik Ozresberoglu, 17, a trainee steel worker, described how he tried to stem the flow of blood from Mr Knox’s wounds then rugby-tackled the attacker into submission.

He said that he was chatting to Rob when the attacker appeared. “He pulled out two wooden kitchen knives at least 6in long from his waistband, and said ‘Who’s going to make my day then?’ … Read full story

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

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

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

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