Helms’s former chief of staff, James Broughton, said the senator died at the Mayview Convalescent Center in Raleigh, where he had lived for several years. Helms had been in “a period of declining health,” Broughton said.

In a 52-year political career that ended with his retirement from the Senate in 2002, Helms became a beacon for the right wing of American politics, a lightning rod for the left and, often, a mighty pain for presidents whatever their political leaning. … Read full obituary

Ms. Baronova died in her sleep Saturday at her home in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia, according to the Australian News.

She came to fame at the age of 12 when Balanchine cast her in a 1931 Paris staging of composer Jacques Offenbach’s operetta “Orpheus in the Underworld.” French critic Andre Levinson wrote, “The sensation of the evening was the tiny child Baronova, who went through the final galop (gallop) like a whirlwind.” … Read full obituary

Tuesday morning TMP bassist Johnny Schou, 22, was found dead of unknown causes at the band’s Fort Collins home just hours before the group was to appear at a Denver in-store event celebrating Tuesday’s release of its major-label debut CD, “Madeline.” …

An autopsy Tuesday was inconclusive, and there was no obvious cause of death, said Larimer County Chief Deputy Coroner Diane Fairman. Further examination, including toxicology and microbiology tests, will be necessary, but it could be weeks before a cause of death is known.

Those in the Colorado music scene were stunned and saddened by the loss. … Read full obituary

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

Carlin, who had a history of heart and drug-dependency problems, died at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. local time (9 p.m. ET) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters.

Known for his edgy, provocative material, Carlin achieved status as an anti-Establishment icon in the 1970s with stand-up bits full of drug references and a routine called “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television.” A regulatory battle over a radio broadcast of the routine ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court. … Read full obituary

As a civil rights lawyer in the 1950s and ’60s, he helped integrate state labor unions and sued to get equal pay for black workers.

He held several presidential appointments, including a stint as an alternate delegate to the United Nations under President Clinton. … Read full obituary

As Michelangelo was to Pope Julius II, and Bernini to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, so was Pietro Cascella to Silvio Berlusconi. Neither was perhaps in the same league as their predecessors as artist and patron respectively, but despite his many public monuments, notably that at Auschwitz, Cascella is most likely to be remembered for having sculpted the Italian Prime Minister’s colossal private mausoleum. …

The turning point in his career came when he and his brother and the architect Julio Lafuente won a competition in 1957 to build a monument at Auschwitz. … Read full obituary

In the 1950s Jean Delannoy was the French film director whom the upstart talent of the Nouvelle Vague most liked to bait and wound.

François Truffaut, the future director of Jules et Jim, told the readers of Cahiers du Cinéma that he had sat through Delannoy’s 1954 Jean Gabin drama Chiens perdus sans collier three times, in order to learn how not [to] direct.

His sins, in Truffaut’s eyes, included the academic precision of his images, the coolness of his temperament — both undoubted characteristics — and something much harder to prove: insincerity. … Read full obituary

Public broadcaster ORF has reported that Hermina Dunz died Saturday in the southern city of Graz.

The city’s mayor, Siegfried Nagl, said Dunz celebrated her 110th birthday Feb. 24, and that she was in remarkably good shape for a woman of her age. … Read full obituary

Jimmy Slyde was the aptly named practitioner of a sinuous, slithering form of tap dance that helped to define the heyday of an ever-changing cultural phenomenon. Whereas modern tap is aggressive, sometimes even obstreperous, Slyde embodied a seemingly effortless ability to, well, slide across a stage, often letting slip the odd mot juste as he made his way past an admiring public.

An early acolyte of such African-American tap legends as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Slyde in turn helped pave the way for the likes of Savion Glover, who transformed Slyde’s vaunted rhythmic ease into something deliberately rougher and more raw. The two generations of performer were both seen on Broadway in the elaborate 1989 revue Black and Blue, which began in Paris in 1985 before settling into a two year run in New York, where it won three Tony Awards. … Read full obituary