Fess Parker, whose star-making portrayal of frontiersman Davy Crockett on television in the mid-1950s made him a hero to millions of young baby boomers and spurred a nationwide run on coonskin caps, died Thursday. He was 85.

Parker, who played another pioneer American hero on television’s “Daniel Boone” in the 1960s before retiring from acting a decade later and becoming a successful Santa Barbara hotel developer and Santa Ynez Valley winery owner, died of complications from old age at his home near the winery, family spokeswoman Sao Anash said.

Parker was a struggling 29-year-old actor in 1954, with rugged, boyish good looks and a soft Texas drawl, when Walt Disney was looking for someone to play the lead in a three-part saga about Crockett. The three hourlong shows were scheduled to air during the premiere season of Disney’s weekly “Disneyland” TV show, which began on ABC that fall.

James Arness was one of the many actors considered for the role. But although Disney watched Arness during a screening of the science-fiction thriller “Them!” another young actor in a small part caught his eye: the 6-foot-6 Parker. Read Full Obituary

Charlie Gillett was a broadcaster, journalist and author who played a significant role in shaping the tastes of several generations of music fans.

After writing The Sound of the City, one of the first books to attempt a serious survey of the early history of rock’n’roll, he began his broadcasting career on BBC Radio London, presenting the weekly Honky Tonk show throughout most of the 1970s. The programme became hugely influential, popularising American roots music and unearthing British acts such as Dire Straits, Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, all of whom received their first exposure on his show before any of them had signed a recording contract. He also co-managed Ian Dury and discovered Lena Lovich.

In the 1980s he became enamoured with world music and, long before Andy Kershaw hit the airwaves, he played a pioneering role in spinning little-heard records from Africa, the Indian sub-continent and beyond on the radio. Turning his back on Anglo-American pop, he continued to champion world music for the rest of his professional life, earning the sobriquet “Mr World Music” and two Sony radio awards for his ground-breaking shows along the way. Read Full Obituary

The urgent, jangling power-pop that Alex Chilton made with his band Big Star turned him into a cult icon and inspired the sound of a raft of bands that followed, from REM to Teenage Fanclub.

Like the Velvet Underground, for reasons of bad timing and rank bad luck, Big Star’s influence on popular music was not matched by commercial success during the group’s lifetime. Although the first two Big Star releases, No 1 Record and Radio City, subsequently found a prominent position on lists of the greatest albums of all time, they were virtually ignored by the record-buying public on their release in the early 1970s.

By then Chilton had already tasted the biggest commercial success of his career with his first band, the Box Tops, with whom he enjoyed a No 1 hit with The Letter, when he was 16.

Yet it was his work with Big Star that eventually made him a legendary figure in rock music, a status that was reinforced when the Replacements wrote a song named after him. When the group came together in 1971, rock music was at its most pompous and self-indulgent. Read Full Obituary

Peter Graves, the rugged actor who starred in the hit TV series “Mission: Impossible” and whose career took a comic turn in the disaster spoof “Airplane!” has died. He was 83.

Graves was found dead Sunday afternoon in front of his Pacific Palisades home from apparent natural causes, said Officer Karen Rayner of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Graves had just returned from brunch with his family to celebrate his upcoming 84th birthday. He collapsed on the driveway before he could reach his house, said Sandy Brokaw, his publicist. One of Graves’ daughters administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation but was unable to revive him, Brokaw said.

Graves starred in more than 70 television series and feature films, typically playing the straight-laced hero. One of his first major roles was in the 1953 classic, “Stalag 17,” in which he played an undercover Nazi spy placed among American POWs in a German camp. Read Full Obituary

Merlin Olsen, the Hall of Fame tackle who anchored the Los Angeles Rams’ Fearsome Foursome, the line that glamorized defensive play in the National Football League, died early Thursday at a hospital in Duarte, Calif. He was 69.

His death was announced by his brother Orrin, who said he had been treated for mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer involving a membrane that covers and protects most of the body’s internal organs. Until his hospitalization he had lived in Park City, Utah.

Olsen was considered one of the greatest tackles in N.F.L. history, but he also forged careers in broadcasting and acting. He was a longtime color commentator for NBC’s pro football and Rose Bowl telecasts, working with Dick Enberg, and he acted on television, most prominently in NBC’s “Little House on the Prairie” and in his own series, “Father Murphy.” Read Full Obituary

Haim did not come from a showbiz family but his parents, concerned at his shyness, put him into acting classes. By ten he was appearing in commercials, and in the mid 80s had a regular role in the TV comedy series The Edison Twins. After a few films, he scored a hit as Liza Minelli’s dying son in the 1985 TV movie A Time to Live. In the post-divorce Murphy’s Romance he played Sally Field’s son, though it got limited distribution after a troubled production period.

After starring in the sub-John Hughes teen-comedy Lucas (1986) he fought teenage vampires in The Lost Boys (1987). A cult hit, it made Haim and his co-stars teen idols. It also introduced him to some important long-term friends and collaborators, notably Corey Feldman.

But he was succumbing to addiction, from cocaine through to crack, and eventually prescription drugs. The struggle crippled his career: the 90s saw a series of poor films and straight-to-video releases. Eventually his manager, Lost Boys co-star Brooke McCarter, dropped him and in 1997 he filed for bankruptcy. Read Full Obituary

“I notice only the ugliness in something,” the Milanese couturier Mila Schön said. “Take that away and it becomes beautiful.” Elegance and sobriety were perhaps better descriptions of her pared-down tailoring, which nonetheless for 50 years flattered with its graceful lines clients such as Jacqueline Kennedy and Farah Diba, the wife of the Shah of Iran.

Schön never became a star of the first rank in the fashion firmament, for her skills were perhaps better appreciated by cognoscenti than by the public. Yet she was the first Italian designer to brave the Japanese market, and among the earliest to show in America, where she was much esteemed. … Read full obituary

Peter Glossop was one of the pre-eminent baritones of the Sixties and Seventies and specialised in such testing roles as Rigoletto, Iago, Rodrigo (Don Carlos) and Count di Luna (Il trovatore). Although he was often heard in London — at both Sadler’s Wells and Covent Garden — he was one of the few British singers successfully to blaze a trail abroad and he appeared at all the world’s leading opera houses.

On stage he combined a rugged boldness with a robust vocal delivery; and he preserved a wonderful sense of Verdian line with a sharp understanding of melodic presentation. … Read full obituary

Nathaniel Merrill, who for twenty-eight seasons served as resident stage director at the Metropolitan Opera, directing the company’s premieres of Die Frau ohne Schatten (1966), Les Troyens (1973) and Porgy and Bess (1985) — as well as beloved productions of L’Elisir d’Amore (1960), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1962) and Hansel and Gretel (1967) that endured in the Met’s repertory for decades — has died. … Read full obituary

Kelly, 38, had been ill for several days and died on Wednesday night.

Arnott said Marineland did not open for business on Thursday and the council, which owned the park, would hold a special consultation process with the community to decide whether it would continue without its trademark dolphins. …

Marineland nearly closed two years ago after the death of another dolphin, Shona. … Read full story