Dead Celebrity Alert

January 29, 1918–April 1, 2010

John Forsythe, the suave actor with the silvery hair and mellifluous voice who was familiar to millions for his roles on the popular television series “Bachelor Father,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “Dynasty,” died Thursday. He was 92.

Forsythe, who had heart bypass surgery in 1979 and was hospitalized for colon cancer in 2006, died at his home in the Santa Barbara County town of Santa Ynez from complications of pneumonia, publicist Harlan Boll said.

Skilled at both comedy and drama, the actor began his long career on Broadway, where he stepped in for Henry Fonda in “Mister Roberts” and later originated the lead role in the hit comedy “Teahouse of the August Moon.” He also appeared in many films, including Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Trouble With Harry” and “Topaz.”

But he was best known for three roles: Bentley Gregg, a bachelor uncle whose social life is curtailed when he must care for a young niece; the unseen Charlie, who gives three sexy young detectives their assignments in “Charlie’s Angels”; and, most notably, Blake Carrington, the oil tycoon around whom life revolves in one of TV’s most successful prime-time soap operas, “Dynasty,” which aired from 1981 to 1989. Read Full Obituary

May 7, 1939–March 25, 2010

NEW YORK - Singer Johnny Maestro, who performed the 1958 doo-wop hit “16 Candles” with The Crests and enjoyed a decades-long career with The Brooklyn Bridge, has died of cancer. He was 70.

Les Cauchi, a friend and original Brooklyn Bridge member, said Maestro — born John Mastrangelo — died late Wednesday in Florida. His last residence was in Cape Coral, Fla.

After beginning his career in the 1950s with The Crests — one of the first interracial singing groups — Maestro joined a local New York group, The Del-Satins. It merged with a Long Island band, The Rhythm Method, to form Johnny Maestro and The Brooklyn Bridge in 1968.

Hits by the rock ‘n’ roll and doo-wop group included “The Worst That Could Happen,” which Cauchi said earned “gold record” status with a million sales. Read Full Obituary

August 16, 1930 – March 24, 2010

Robert Culp, the veteran actor best known for starring with Bill Cosby in the classic 1960s espionage-adventure series “I Spy” and for playing Bob in the 1969 movie “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” died Wednesday morning. He was 79.

Culp fell and hit his head while taking a walk outside his Hollywood Hills home. He was found by a jogger who called 911 and was pronounced dead at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, said Lt. Bob Binder of the Los Angeles Police Department. An autopsy is pending.

“My mind wants to flow into sadness, but I want to stay above that,” Cosby told The Times on Wednesday.

“Those of us who are the firstborn always dream of that imaginary brother or sister who will be their protector, the buffer, the one to take the blows,” Cosby said. “I’m a firstborn, and Bob was the answer to my dreams. He was the big brother that all of us wish for.” Read Full Obituary

January 31, 1920–Mar 20, 2010

Stewart L. Udall, an ardent conservationist and a son of the West, who as interior secretary in the 1960s presided over vast increases in national park holdings and the public domain, died Saturday at his home in Santa Fe, N.M. The last surviving member of the original Kennedy cabinet, he was 90.

Mr. Udall had been in failing health after a fall last week, according to a son, Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico.

Though he was a liberal Democrat from the increasingly conservative and Republican West, Stewart Udall said in a 2003 public television interview that he found in Washington “a big tent on the environment.”

The result was the addition of vast tracts to the nation’s land holdings and — through his strong ties with lawmakers, conservationists, writers and others — work that led to landmark statutes on air, water and land conservation. Read Full Obituary

August 16, 1924 – March 18, 2010

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

February 20, 1942–March 17, 2010

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

December 28, 1950-March 17, 2010

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

March 18, 1926–March 14, 2010

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

September 15, 1940–March 11, 2010.

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

December 23, 1971–March 10, 2010

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

1919 - September 4, 2008

“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

July 6, 1928 - September 7, 2008

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

Newton, MA, February 8, 1927 — Denver, CO, September 9, 2008

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

Marineland’s elderly dolphin Kelly has died after 34 years in the limelight, marking the “end of an era”, Napier Mayor Barbara Arnott said on Thursday.

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

Vernon Handley, one of the best-loved and most respected of British conductors, has died. Throughout his life he was a devoted champion of British repertoire, making some of the most intuitive and masterful recordings of works by Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Holst. It was also through Handley’s tireless — and most importantly, convincing — advocacy that many will have first developed a love of composers such as Bliss, Finzi, Howells, Rubbra and Bridge. … Read full obituary