Dead Celebrity Alert

Chester-born comedian and actor Hugh Lloyd MBE, famed for co-starring with the legendary Tony Hancock, has died aged 85. …

He went on to star in 25 episodes of ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ from 1957-61 as the comedy great’s sidekick, including the classic ‘Blood Donor’ episode.

Following that great success, he got the title role in ‘Hugh and I’ with Terry Scott. Other TV credits included ‘The Gnomes of Dulwich’, ‘Lollipop Loves Mr Mole’, ‘Jury’ and ‘You Rang M’Lord’. He also starred in and devised the series ‘Lord Trump’. … Read full obituary

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.

Crane died Sunday of natural causes at a hospital north of San Francisco, according to his daughter, Caprice.

The New York-born Crane rose to fame in the 1960s as a late-night radio talk show host. For a time, he also hosted a TV talk show that rivaled The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. …

In 1964, he welcomed the Rolling Stones for the band’s first U.S. TV appearance and, the following year, had a rare TV visit from Bob Dylan. However, his guest list also included notable figures of the day such as civil rights leader Malcolm X and pro-segregation former Alabama governor and one-time presidential candidate George Wallace. … Read full obituary

Tony Snow, a former White House spokesman and veteran radio and television journalist, has died following a long battle with colon cancer, his former employers said Saturday. He was 53.

Snow was a commentator on the Fox News network when he was named President George W. Bush’s chief spokesman in May 2006. He stepped down in September after 16 months on the job. …

Snow worked as a speechwriter under Bush’s father, president George H.W. Bush, in the early 1990s. …

Snow joined Fox in 1996 as the first anchor of “Fox News Sunday,” a weekend morning talk show, and hosted “Weekend Live” and a radio program, “The Tony Snow Show,” before leaving for the White House. … Read full obituary

Don S. Davis, a college professor who found a second career as a character actor, gaining notice for his roles in TV’s “Stargate: SG-1″ and “Twin Peaks,” died of a heart attack June 29 at his home in Gibsons, Canada. He was 65. …

A native of the Missouri Ozarks who had served in the U.S. Army, Davis drew upon those experiences in his frequent portrayals of authority figures on television and film. He had a regular role as Gen. George S. Hammond on the science-fiction TV series “Stargate: SG-1″ from 1997 to 2006 and a recurring role as Maj. Garland Briggs on the quirky “Twin Peaks” in the early ’90s. He also appeared periodically as Scully’s father in “The X-Files” TV series about FBI agents investigating unsolved cases. … Read full obituary

Actor Clive Hornby who played Jack Sugden has died aged 63.

Clive joined Emmerdale in 1980 and was the longest serving cast member in the history of the show. …

Clive was born and grew up in Liverpool and started out as an accounts clerk before enjoying success as a drummer with pop group The Dennisons in the 1960s. The band were compared to and played on the same bill as The Beatles at Liverpool’s famous Cavern Club. … Read full obituary

Dody Goodman, whose ditzy comic persona was well known to patrons of theatre, film and television from the 1950s on, died June 22 at the Actors Fund Home in New Jersey, a spokesperson for the Fund confirmed. Her age was thought to be 92 by many accounts, though the subject of her birthdate was something she was known to falsify throughout her career. Her agent said she was 94. …

Her airhead persona, buttressed by curly hair, wide childlike blue eyes and a long, loopy grin, attracted the attention of Jack Paar, then the host of “The Tonight Show.” …

Fame and good fortune returned in the late ’70s when she took on the role of Martha Shumway in the widely praised, if short-lived, mock soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” and made a much-commented-upon supporting turn in the film of “Grease.” A semi-regular role on “Diff’rent Strokes” followed. She was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her performance in an 1984 revival of Ah, Wilderness!. She also spent a great deal of time in productions of Nunsense and its sequels. … Read full obituary

December 8, 1932 - May 30, 2008

Mike Scott was one of the foremost producer-performers in commercial television, one of an elite group at Granada whose other members included Bill Grundy and Michael Parkinson.

His career on the small screen involved extensive work both in front of camera and behind it. In both capacities, he was regarded as exceptionally skilled at presenting complex and superficially unattractive subjects — of all sorts — in a simple and appealing way. Perhaps his finest achievement in this regard was Nuts and Bolts of the Economy, which he presented and produced from 1975 until 1978; though he will probably be better remembered for presenting ITV’s networked morning-discussion programme The Time . . . The Place, in the late Eighties and early Nineties. … Read full obituary

November 24, 1927 - June 4, 2008

Jonathan Routh was a supreme practical joker and hoaxer whose star reached its zenith with Candid Camera, the hugely successful Sixties television series in which unsuspecting members of the public were duped into making fools of themselves while filmed with a hidden camera, to the delight of viewers. It was one of the earliest examples of television voyeurism. …

Candid Camera — a concept imported from America and the forerunner of Game for a Laugh and Beadle’s About — was presented by Bob Monkhouse, with the lugubrious, beetle-browed Routh and Arthur Atkins as the pranksters who would spook hapless participants with talking pillar boxes and cars without engines. Jennifer Paterson, who later found success in the cookery show Two Fat Ladies, would sometimes nudge victims into shot while disguised as a cleaner. … Read full obituary

Jim McKay elegantly covered competitions from badminton to barrel jumping. Yet he may best be remembered for that grim day at the Munich Olympics when he broke the news with three simple words: “They’re all gone.”

The groundbreaking sportscaster died Saturday of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, Md. He was 86.

McKay was the one who spanned the globe to bring television viewers the constant variety of sports on ABC’s influential “Wide World of Sports,” where he told of “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.”

A far different kind of agony awaited in 1972 when word came down in Munich that Palestinian terrorists had kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes. McKay was summoned from a day off, hurriedly putting clothes over a bathing suit to anchor ABC’s coverage of the drama as the games stood still. …

The New York Yankees paused to remember McKay before their game Saturday. He died hours before Big Brown attempted to earn a Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes in McKay’s favorite sport of all, horse racing. … 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

Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” took television by storm in the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating such national catch-phrases as “Sock it to me!” has died. He was 86.

Martin, who went on to become one of television’s busiest directors after splitting with Dan Rowan in the late 1970s, died Saturday night of respiratory complications at a hospital in Santa Monica, family spokesman Barry Greenberg said. …

“Laugh-in,” which debuted in January 1968, was unlike any comedy-variety show before it. Rather than relying on a series of tightly scripted song-and-dance segments, it offered up a steady, almost stream-of-consciousness run of non-sequitur jokes, political satire and madhouse antics from a cast of talented young actors and comedians that also included Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley and announcer Gary Owens.

Presiding over it all were Rowan and Martin, the veteran nightclub comics whose standup banter put their own distinct spin on the show. … 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