Recently Dead

Good grief. Jose Cuautemoc "Bill" Melendez, an animator, director, and producer who won Emmys, Peabodys, and an Oscar nomination for his TV shows and movies featuring "Peanuts" characters, died Tuesday at St John's Hospital in Santa Monica. No cause of death was reported. He was 91. Awards aside, his claim to fame has got to be as the "voice" of Snoopy in 63 half-hour specials (including the evergreens It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Christmas), five one-hour specials, the Saturday-morning "Peanuts" TV show, and four feature films. (Washington Post; photo: Reuters)

Recently Dead

In a place where we write about people who have died, we include Don LaFontaine, the voice of over 5,000 movie trailers and nearly 350,000 commercials, making him the king of that profession. LaFontaine died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from a collapsed lung, though the official cause of death has not been released. He was 68. In addition to doing voiceovers on seemingly every movie trailer, he was also an announcer on ET and The Insider, as well as CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, UPN, TNT, TBS and the Cartoon Network, and could be heard in commercials for Chevrolet, Pontiac, Ford, Budweiser, McDonald's, and Coke. It's said he was the single busiest actor in history of SAG. (Source; photo via Swindle magazine)

Recently Dead

Dr Dre's 20-year-old son, Andre Young Jr, was unresponsive when his mother tried to wake him at 10AM at his Woodland Hills home on Saturday morning. According to reports, Young went out on Friday night and returned home around 5:30AM. The cause of death will be determined after an autopsy. His father, currently working on the album Detox, has yet to make a statement. (MTV UK)

Recently Dead

We'd been sitting on the sad news that Tina L'Hotsky had died, hoping that it was just another rumor of her death and we'd hear from her again as we have done every half-decade or so, like clockwork. But it's dawned on us now that this time it's true. We first heard she was dead (from cancer, of course) in an "I'm told" item in Michael Musto's La Daily Musto blog three days ago (since updated with the Official Death Notice!) and have spent the days between then and now trying to locate clips of stories we'd written about her during New York's downtown heyday when we had an enormous crush on her and she was the luminous, self-proclaimed Queen of the Mudd Club (which no one disputed). "Queen" may have been just a ceremonial title, but it was only one of her careers back then; she was also a super-8 filmmaker, an actress, a writer, an artist, and a driving creative force inside the Mudd at the end of the '70s, which, we had no way of knowing then, would really start something. Tina L'Hotsky – yes, her real name – was beautiful, funny, ironic, mysterious, and as secretly tragic as a heroine in a 19th-century novel. Now, sadly, we seem to have misplaced all our Tina souvenirs but this uncredited photo taken, we're guessing, around 1980. And this note dated December, 2006: "I'm writing the Queen of the Mudd Club book. Kisses, Tina."

Recently Dead

LeRoi Moore, sax player and founding member of the Dave Matthews Band, died today at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center due to sudden, unexpected complications stemming from the punctured lung and broken ribs he sustained in an ATV accident on his Virginia farm in June. He was 46. The band performed tonight, Tuesday, at Staples Center, opening the show with "Bartender," after which Matthews, who credited Moore with arranging many of the band's songs, quietly informed the audience that "our good friend LeRoi Moore" had passed away. "He gave up his ghost to heaven," he said, "and we will miss him always." (MTV: photo: AP/Michael Kim, File)

Recently Dead

Sandy Allen, the world's tallest woman, died yesterday at a Shelbyville, Indiana, nursing home. She was 53. The cause of death was not immediately known, but Allen, whose pituitary gland produced too much grown hormone due to a tumor, had recently been suffering from a recurring blood infection, as well as diabetes, respiration problems, and kidney failure. Allen was proud of her 7' 9" height and "embraced" it, using it as a tool to educate; she appeared on television and spoke at schools, spreading the message that it's all right to be different. Interestingly, Allen lived in the same Heritage House Convalescent Home as Edna Parker, 115, the world's oldest person, pictured above with Allen. (CTV)

Recently Dead

Oscar- and Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and musician Isaac Hayes died today at 65. The Sheriff's Office in Memphis reported that his wife and son found him unresponsive near a treadmill in a bedroom at home and he was pronounced dead about an hour later at Baptist East Hospital. The cause of death was not immediately known, although the family says he had a number of "medical issues," including a stroke in 2006. With the release of his Hot Buttered Soul album in 1969, the bald-headed, bling-laden Hayes became a star and is credited with laying the groundwork for disco, the cool romantic sounds of Barry White, and rap before there was a name for it. In 1971, his "Theme from Shaft" hit #1 and is still a phenomenal piece of work; he called it his "shot heard round the world," and TV Guide ranks his performance of it at the 1972 Academy Awards at 18 on its list of television's 25 most memorable moments. His most recent memorable impact on entertainment was as the voice of school cook Chef on the animated series, South Park, a role he began in 1997 and quit angrily in 2006 after an episode mocked Scientology. (AP)

Recently Dead

Not a good week to be named Bernie. Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated comic and actor Bernie Mac died early today at Chicago's Northwestern Hospital from complications due to pneumonia. He was 50. Mac had suffered from sarcoidosis, a rare inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs. The condition had gone into remission in 2005. Apart from his popular sitcom, The Bernie Mac Show, which aired over 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006, Mac starred in the movies Transformers, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Bad Santa, and the Oceans 11 franchise. We like what his hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, said about him today:

The comic born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough could cut an imposing figure. He stood 6-foot-3, was built like a fullback and carried himself with a bouncer's reticence. But perhaps the strongest weapon in the Chicago comedian's arsenal was that voice, that amalgam of thought and a delivery that could rise like a tidal wave, outpace a Gatling gun and remained, to his last days, loud and unapologetic. He wasn't scared, he told us time and again, to tell anyone what he thought, to say what others were afraid to say. That fearlessness wasn't always welcome, considering Mac didn't get his big break until his 30s. But when he did, the comic skyrocketed to success in stand-up, television and the big screen.

(Photo: E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune / March 19, 2003)

Recently Dead

Bernie Brillstein, the pioneering manager and producer who guided the careers of such talents as Jim Henson, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, and Lorne Michaels, died last night of chronic pulmonary disease. He was 77 and had been suffering from complications stemming from double-bypass heart surgery in February. The former William Morris agent was an influential force in the 1975 launch of NBC's Saturday Night Live, and later became a partner with Brad Grey in Hollywood's most successful management company in the 1980s and '90s. "He was talented and brilliant, and hilarious," Grey said today. "I have a debt to Bernie for so many reasons that I can never possibly repay. He was my mentor, my partner, and my friend. He was like a father to me and he treated me like a son. (via Variety; photo: Danny Moloshok/AP)

Recently Departed

Leonardo DiCaprio's maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken, whom he called Oma (at left, with Leo and her daughter in Barcelona in 2006), died in a hospital in her native North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, according to Indenbirken's hometown paper, the Recklinghauser Zeitung. No exact date or cause of death has been reported. She was 93. (via Peeps; photo: INF)

Recently Dead

Have you called Jenny yet? When you do, be sure to offer your condolences on the death of her husband. Sidney Craig, who with his wife Jenny built a weight-loss program into a $460 million business with 650 centers on two continents, died Monday of cancer at home in Del Mar, California. He was 76. "Sid has the charisma of a Jack Kennedy, the intelligence of an Alan Greenspan, and the humor of a Jackie Mason, along with the good looks of a Clark Gable," Mrs Craig wrote in her 2004 autobiography, The Jenny Craig Story. No mention of how much he weighed. (LA Times; photo: Scott Linnett/San Diego Tribune)

Not Only But Also: As We Were Saying

Well, isn't this convenient. A clip from the original At the Movies, featuring Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, reviewing the 1992 comedy Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot, starring Sylvester Stallone and, yes, Estelle Getty. (via Golden Fiddle)

Recently Dead

Those Golden Gals are a little less wild now. Estelle Getty, the tiny actress who will always be remembered as Sophia Petrillo, the wisecracking oldest of those four wacky retired ladies who shared a house in Miami on the hit '80s sitcom, The Golden Girls, died early this morning at home in Los Angeles – not at Shady Pines. She was 84 and had been suffering from advanced dementia. "She was loved throughout the world in six continents," said her son Carl. "And if they loved sitcoms in Antarctica, she would have been loved on seven continents. She was one of the most talented comedic actresses who ever lived" – proof being her seven Emmy nominations and two wins. (LA Times)

Recently Dead

Moye Ishimoto writes:

A moment of silence please, for the late Rocky Aoki who passed away last Thursday. Aside from his mustache, Aoki was best known for being the founder of the Benihana of Tokyo restaurant chain. In other words, I blame him for being solely responsible for horrible faux Japanese cuisine in the United States, as well as inspiring one of the best Office episodes ever.

No, really. Don’t even try to argue with me that Benihana is an authentic ethnic cuisine and that it’s really delicious. Sure, it’s good with kids who apparently don’t know how to behave properly in a restaurant setting but let’s try to teach our new generation on cultural sensitivity: Japanese food does not equal Benihana’s. That’s like teaching your kids that the Olive Garden is the best Italian food they’ll ever get to eat, and Mexicans really do eat “pizzas” made out of tortilla chips at Taco Bell. Also, please don’t try to prove that Rocky’s version of teppanyaki originated from samurai swords because it didn't. Send me as many Wikipedia links as you want, but I refuse to believe that of all the things associated with his restaurant chain (trash, trash, and trash), the samurai lifestyle had nothing to do with it. And I’m sure they had much better things to do than slice up some shrimp and pop it into their client’s mouth while singing “Happy Birthday.” Like, I don’t know, cutting up ninjas? Let’s get real, here.

(Relatively) Recently Dead

Ruth Greenglass, whose testimony that she saw her sister-in-law, Ethel Rosenberg, transcribing stolen atomic secrets on a portable typewriter was instrumental in the 1953 execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spying, died April 7. She was 84. Her death was revealed in court documents filed by prosecutors in June. Ruth and David Greenglass were pivotal figures in the case. They confessed to being part of an effort to smuggle secrets to the Soviets and turned in the Rosenbergs, their own relatives, as the spies who recruited them. Historians still debate the truthfulness of Ruth's testimony. (LA Times; AP photo)

Recently Dead

Oh, yeah, we almost forgot. North Carolina Republican senator, Jesse Helms, who during his 52-year career opposed virtually everything gay, black, and arts-oriented, died, ironically or aptly, on Independence Day at the Mayview Convalescent Center in Raleigh, where he'd lived in declining health for the last few years. He was 86. "Nothing positive happened to Sodom and Gomorrah," he once said, "and nothing positive is likely to happen to America if our people succumb to the drumbeats of support for the homosexual lifestyle." (Int'l Herald Tribune)

Pup Culture: Rachel Moore 1993 - 2008

I just got the sad news that legendary comic Steven Moore's adorable dog Rachel passed away. Steve has been a huge inspiration to many of us at WOW. Many years ago, we were fortunate enough to direct and produce an HBO special, Drop Dead Gorgeous: A Tragi-comedy on the Power of HIV Positive Thinking, based on his one-man show. Thanks to his incredible talent and bravery, the show won a Cable Ace Award. Rachel was a major presence during the production of the show, and even got to share the spotlight (see clip above). She will be missed.

– Randy Barbato

Recently Dead

Clay Felker, the founding editor of New York magazine, died this morning at home in New York City after battling cancer of the throat and mouth. He was 82. Felker's idea for creating a magazine devoted to a single city and mixing lively content with smart writing (the "new journalism") revolutionized the periodical genre and started a trend that spread to other cities across the country. New York debuted as a supplement to the New York Herald Tribune in 1964; years later, the first issue of Gloria Steinem's Ms. magazine received the same treatment inside the pages of New York. Among New York's most influential features were Tom Wolfe's "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's," about the Black Panthers benefit party thrown by conductor Leonard Bernstein in 1970, and Nik Cohn's "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night," which later became the film Saturday Night Fever. (New York Times; photo: Paul Hosefros/NYT)

Recently Dead

Kermit Love, the costume designer who helped Jim Henson create Big Bird and other Sesame Street characters, as well as Snuggle the fabric-softener spokesbear, died Saturday from heart failure in Poughkeepsie, New York, said his longtime partner Christopher Lyall. (Hmm, so Big Bird IS gay!) He was 91. Love was also a designer for some of ballet's most prominent choreographers, including Twyla Tharp, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, and George Balanchine. And in case you're now wondering, Love always maintained the frog wasn't named after him, which makes a much more interesting story than saying it was. (AP)

Recently Dead

Dody Goodman, the daffy comedian known for her frequent, very talkative guest spots on Jack Paar's late-night talk show in the 1950's and for her later gigs as Louise Lasser's mother on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and as the assistant principal in the Grease movies, died Sunday at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey. She was 93. Goodman, who'd been living in the Actors Fund Home in Englewood since October, had been ill for a long time. Dan Goggin, who put Goodman in his off-Broadway show, Nunsense, said, "Dody had the most impeccable comic timing. When we had her in the show, she was the only person on Earth who could walk on stage, say, 'Are you ready to start?' and bring the house down. Within seconds, the audience was eating out of her hand." (USA Today)

Recently Dead

Comedian and counter-culture hero, George Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, died of heart failure at St John's Health Center in Santa Monica about 6PM today after being admitted earlier in the afternoon with chest pains. He was 71. (Int'l Herald Tribune)

Recently Dead

Cyd Charisse, the leggy Texas hottie who danced in the MGM Technicolor musicals of the '40s and '50s, died today after being admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center following an apparent heart attack yesterday. She was 86. During her career, the classically trained dancer partnered with Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon and Silk Stockings and with Gene Kelly in Brigadoon, It's Always Fair Weather, and – most famously – Singin' in the Rain, in which she delighted audiences by performing with a 25-foot-long Chinese silk scarf that she kept afloat throughout the dance sequence via wind machine. In 1983, Astaire said of her, "When we were dancing, we didn't know what time it was." (Source)

Recently Dead

Stan Winston, who won four visual effects Oscars and was nominated many more times, died yesterday at home in Malibu after a seven-year illness with multiple myeloma. He was 62. A legend in the business of show, Winston "contributed to some of the greatest fantastic movie characters in motion picture history," said Phil Tippett, who shared an Oscar with Winston for visual effects on Jurassic Park. "His loss is a great one and he will be missed." Among his credits over 40 years are The Autobiograhy of Miss Jane Pittman, Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, AI: Artificial Intelligence, and Iron Man. Watch slide show here.

Recently Dead

NBC News' Washington bureau chief, Tim Russert, was at the network's DC studio today recording voiceovers for his Sunday Meet the Press show, which he moderates, when he suddenly collapsed and died of a heart attack. He was 58. World of Wonder's head of development Tom Campbell wonders, "In a blog eat blog world, is it too soon to start spreading rumors that Katie Couric is leaving CBS to return to NBC to take over Russert's moderating job on Meet the Press?" (Photo: AJ Mast/GettyImages)

Recently Dead-Of Interest Hybrid

Vo Van Kiet, former prime minister of Vietnam, died yesterday in a Singapore hospital after suffering a stroke. He was 85. • Oscar- and Tony-winning actress Jo Van Fleet died June 10, 1996, of undisclosed causes. She was 81.

Recently Delicious

Fredric J Baur, the Cincinnati man who designed the Pringles cannister, died early last month at 89, and was so proud of his creation that he requested to have his ashes buried in one of the tubular containers. Baur's children honored his request by placing part of his cremated remains in a Pringles container in his grave in suburban Springfield Township. The rest of his remains were placed in an urn buried along with the can, with some placed in another urn and given to a grandson. (Source)

Recently Dead

Bo Diddley, the rock 'n' roll legend known for his rectangular homemade guitar and black hat, and whose songs, including "Who Do You Love?" and "Bo Diddley," are influential classics, died today of heart failure at home in Archer, Florida, after a long illness that included a stroke and an inability to speak. He was 79. The singer, whose shave-and-a-haircut beat has been called "the most plagiarized rhythm of the 20th century," was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, received a lifetime-achievement Grammy, and performed for two US presidents. But all of that "didn't put no figures in my checkbook." he said. "If you ain't got no money, ain't nobody calls you honey." Go, Bo Diddley. (Bloomberg)

Recently Dead

Yves Saint Laurent, considered the last of a generation of couture designers, including Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, who pinned and ruched on the Rive Gauche and made Paris the fashion capital of the world, has died at home after a long illness. He was 71. Saint Laurent's best-known creation was the 1966 women's tuxedo pant suit, "Le Smoking," combining masculine tailoring with a feminine silhouette. Other signature pieces included safari jackets, peasant smocks, and the Mondrian-print minidress which he debuted in 1965. (USA Today: photo: Catherine Deneuve and Saint-Laurent in 1966)

Recently Dead

Although this sketch from the Carol Burnett Show would seem to belong to Tim Conway's dentist, it wouldn't be half as hilarious if it weren't for Harvey Korman's inability to keep a straight face as the patient. The frequent pairing of these two men was comic genius on television during the '60s and '70s. Korman died today at UCLA Medical Center after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago and undergoing several major operations. He was 81

Recently Dead

Dianne Odell, 61, who had been confined to an iron lung since she contracted polio at the age of three, died early today when her family was unable to get an emergency generator started after a power failure in Memphis, Tennessee. Despite spending her entire life in the seven-foot-long, 750-pound breathing machine like some kind of premature burial, Odell got a high-school diploma, took college courses, received an honorary doctorate, wrote a children's book, and was kissed on the forehead by Al Gore. She had been one of the oldest living patients in an iron lung. You really don't see them much anymore. (Source; more photos; t/y James)

Recently Dead

The Fickle Finger of Fate finally caught up with Dick Martin (at right, above), who with comedy partner Dan Martin hosted the groundbreaking early-'70s TV show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Martin died today of respiratory complications at a Santa Monica hospital. He was 86. Laugh-In, which ran from 1968 to 1973, was a colorful and extremely fast-paced hour of very silly sketch comedy with a Mod-styled, up-to-the-minute pop-and-countercultural, psychedelic bent that was the must-see TV of its time and made stars of such then-unknown regulars as Lily Tomlin, Barbara Sharma, and Goldie Hawn. On the negative side, it was responsible for the expressions "Sock it to me" and "You bet your sweet bippy" taking hold of the country. (AP)

Recently Dead: Snap! Edition

This photograph of Jacqueline and John F Kennedy campaigning in Manhattan in 1960 was taken by photojournalist Cornell Capa. Capa, who founded the International Center of Photography in New York and dedicated himself to preserving the legacy of his older brother, war photographer Robert Capa, died yesterday of Parkinson's disease at his home in New York. He was 90. (LA Times; linked photos: Yousuf Karsh, Gerda Taro)

Recently Dead

Huntington Hartford, who inherited a $1.5 million annual income from his grandfather George Huntington Hartford, who founded the A&P grocery business, died Monday of natural causes at home in the Bahamas. He was 97. At one time, Hartford was one of the richest people in the world, but spent his entire fortune on failed businesses, art, four marriages, and an extravagant lifestyle. After spending all his money, Hartford became a drug addict, disappeared from New York’s social scene, and moved to Lyford Cay, a Bahamas enclave. New Yorkers should think of him whenever they're in Columbus Circle and see the landmark Huntington Hartford Gallery of Modern Art, the marble building he commissioned in 1964, which now stands empty, crumbling, and endangered. (eFluxMedia)

Update: Well, it seems the building's no longer crumbling and in danger, nor empty. It's been renovated into this. We should get to New York more often. Thanks, commenter Boogiedown.

Recently Dead

John Phillip Law, the actor best-known for playing the blind angel Pygar in 1969's Barbarella, died Tuesday at home in Los Angeles, the cause of death not announced. He was 70. The LA native studied acting with Elia Kazan at Lincoln Center in New York, performed on Broadway, got bit parts in Italian films, was discovered by Norman Jewison, scored the part of the submariner in 1966's The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, and had a career. In the early '60s, Law lived in a 1924 Los Feliz mansion known as The Castle with his brother, Tom, who had been road manager for Peter, Paul and Mary. The brothers rented rooms to up-and-coming singers and artists, and the house became a pop-culture salon to the likes of Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, and Tiny Tim. (LA Times)

Recently Dead

Robert Rauschenberg, one of the most innovative and celebrated artists of the 20th century, died early Tuesday of a heart attack at his home in Captiva Island, Florida. He was 82. A painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, performer, set designer, and composer, Mr. Rauschenberg refused to be known as an artist working in just one medium or style. In the 1950s, he pioneered "combines," constructions that used sculpture, painting, and found objects. He worked alongside another acclaimed pop artist, Jasper Johns, his lover for many years, and collaborated with musician John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham. In 1964, he was the first American artist to win the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale, and in 1983 he won a Grammy for designing the cover of the Talking Heads album, Speaking in Tongues. (See The Wall Street Journal)

Recently Dead

Joyce "Dottie" Rambo, gospel singer and songwriter (over 2,500 spritual tunes!), died early yesterday when her tour bus hurtled off Interstate 44 near Springfield, Missouri, and struck an embankment. She was 74. Seven other people on the bus taking Rambo to a Mothers Day performance in Texas were hospitalized. In 2004, Tammy Faye Messner traveled to Los Angeles to preach with Dottie, her old friend, and World of Wonder was there filming for the 2005 documentary, Tammy Faye: Death Defying. (t/y Chris)

Recently Dead

Glendale, California, ice cream shop proprietor, Irvine Robbins, who teamed up in 1948 with his ice cream shop proprietor brother-in-law, Burton Baskin, to open an ice cream factory and franchise their stores, died Monday after a long illness at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage. He was 90. The Baskin-Robbins shops boasted 31 flavors but in fact they created over 1,000 flavs over the years, including Pink Bubblegum and Here Comes the Fudge. United Fruit Co bought the chain in 1967; Dunkin' Brands Inc now owns it, operating more than 5,800 franchises around the world. (Source)

Recently Dead

Cartoonist Ted Key, whose "Hazel" comic strip about a maid that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in the 1940s and was turned into a popular sitcom in the 1960s, died on Saturday at home in the Philadelphia suburb of Tredyffrin Township after a long battle with cancer. He was 95. Among the other characters he created were Mr Peabody and Sherman, the time-traveling dog/scientist and his boy, who debuted on the animated TV show "Rocky and His Friends" in 1959. (Source)

Recently Dead

Music publisher Gaetano Oteri, the father of former SNL star Cheri Oteri, was stabbed to death last week by his roommate, country songwriter Richard Fagan. He was 69. Fagan, 61, known for writing the hit song "Be My Baby Tonight," cut Oteri's wrist with a pocket knife during an argument. Both men were drunk when it happened. Fagan fled the scene, but was later arrested and jailed on suspicion of DUI. While in jail, he called a friend to check on Oteri. At the house, the friend saw through a screen door that something was wrong and called the police, who found Oteri's body and blood inside. (ZAP2it; photo: Film Magic via TMZ)

Recently Dead

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the woman convicted two weeks ago of money laundering and being the "DC Madam," hanged herself today, making good on her vow never to go to prison for running her escort service catering to top Washington pols. The 52-year-old, who left two suicide notes to her family, was found hanging from a nylon rope tied to the ceiling of a shed near her mother's house outside Tampa. (Source; AP photo)

Recently Dead

Patricia Ziegfeld Stephenson, the only child of Florenz Ziegfeld (you've heard of the Ziegfeld Follies?) and Billie Burke (Glinda the Good Witch anyone?), died at home in LA earlier this month of congestive heart failure. She was 91. Pampered, she grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, and had a menagerie that included an elephant. The title of her autobiography says it all – The Ziegfelds' Girl: Confessions of an Abnormally Happy Childhood. (LA Times; photo of Stephenson, at right, with parents: Pacific & Atlantic Photos)

Recently Dead

The '30s and '40s Hollywood actress, Kay Linaker, died Friday after a brief illness in Keane, New Hampshire. She was 94. Though she appeared in over 50 films, including Drums Along the Mohawk, Buck Benny Rides Again, and Charlie Chan in Monte Carlo, she will more likely be remembered for co-writing (under the nom de film Kate Phillips) The Blob, the 1958 sci-fi film that starred Steve McQueen. She was paid $125 and promised 10% of the gross, which she never saw. (LA Times)

Recently Dead

Hazel Court, the British actress known for her voluptuous screaming in such horror classics as The Premature Burial, The Masque of the Red Death, The Curse of Frankenstein, and Devil Girl From Mars, died from a heart attack on Tuesday at home in Lake Tahoe. She was 82. Court, the daughter of a professional cricket player, was born in England and performed on both shores of the Atlantic, appearing in such American TV shows as Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She was a great beauty with red hair, green eyes, and an admirable set of lungs. (LA Times)

Recently Dead

Cameron Diaz's father, Emilio, died unexpectedly this morning in Seal Beach, California, after an attack of the flu turned into pneumonia. He was 58. The second-generation Cuban-American worked as a foreman at an oil company and had a small part in his daughter's There's Something About Mary. Production has been temporarily shut down on Cameron's current film My Sister's Keeper. (Photo: Bauer-Griffin via TMZ)

Recently Dead

Veteran TV actor Stanley Kamel, probably best-known recently for playing the psychiatrist to Tony Shalhoub's title character on Monk, was found dead of a heart attack in his LA house on Tuesday by his longtime agents. He was 65. Kamel acted in off-Broadway plays until he got his start in television on the soap Days of Our Lives. He had roles in LA Law, Cagney & Lacey, Hill Street Blues, Melrose Place, and in 1995 he was Dylan's scheming father-in-law who killed his own daughter on 90210. (LA Times)

Ben-Hur, RuPaul, and Me

Gabriel Rotello writes:

When I was seven I had a huge crush on Charlton Heston, who died this week at 84. The chiseled jaw. The booming basso-profundo voice. The wiry physique. Just My Type. Of course, at seven I had no idea he was going to turn out to be such a right-wing gun-toting homophobic nightmare, but I probably wouldn't have cared anyway. The seven-year-old gay libido has a tendency to overlook minor imperfections.

Decades later, producing a World of Wonder series about Hollywood history, I booked an interview with my icon. Sure, by now I knew he hated homos and he packed a mean rod, so my head said "Ugh." But somewhere deep inside, my little heart said "Ugga ugga!"

There was just one problem.

Pup Culture/Recently Dead

Bingo, the four-legged mascot and tiny host of Pull My Daisy, the boutique on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Silver Lake, was struck by a car and killed last Sunday. The neighborhood, known to locals variously as Mayberry LA and Sunset Junction, thought of the dachshund as its mayor. We refer you to Seven McDonald's 10/28/04 LA Weekly column all about Bingo, and memorial photos of the wiener by James Herman on flickr. (Photo via LA Observed; t/y Steven)

Remembering Chuck

I remember Chuck the Fuck. That's what I called him. Charlton Heston, an actor with a limited range who made it on his good looks and his uber-masculine, shut-down stoicism, was the epitome of right-wing evil. As a PA on a miniseries he was in called Chiefs, I had to frequently make visits to his Coldwater Canyon fortress. I would ring at the gate from my car, and was always told to drive through to the main house and not get out of my car until a caretaker came and opened my driver's-side door to escort me. Each time I drove to the house, my car would be surrounded by a pack of barking, mean-looking Dobermans. I waited, somewhat disconcerted by the snarling dogs yelping at me, until the caretaker came and called them off. Chuck had a thick veneer of self-righteous, I-am-God ego. And he was a big booster of the principal evil-doer of his generation, Ronald Regan, another piece of work. Goodbye, Chuck, I know you and Ronny are together in that special Alzheimer's hell, reserved for right-wing fuckers like you.

– Phil ST John

Recently Dead

Actor and gun-rights activist Charlton Heston died last night at home in Beverly Hills. Cause of death was not released but Heston had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He was 84.

Recently Dead

Hip-hop break-dancing pioneer Wayne Frost aka Frosty Freeze died yesterday at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York after a long illness. He was 44. Frost, who was a member of the fierce Rock Steady Crew and performed in the movies Flashdance, Wild Style, and Style Wars (all 1983), was known for his intricate choreography and fearless moves, which included back flips and head spins, two of which were called The Suicide and The Dead Man (above). "He was one of the most charismatic B-boys that ever lived," said Benson Lee, director of the documentary Planet B-boy. (LA Times; photo: Martha Cooper/AP)