James MacArthur: TV Actor, Dead at 72...

James Gordon MacArthur
(December 8, 1937 – October 28, 2010)





James MacArthur was an American actor best known for the role of Danny "Danno" Williams, the reliable second-in-command of the fictional Hawaiian State Police squad Hawaii Five-O (1970s TV series for 11 seasons).

Los Angeles-born Arthur was the adopted son of Helen Hyes and Charles MacArthur. Hyes was considered as the first lady of the American stage and Charles along with Ben Hecht wrote some of the unforgettable comedies for stage like, The Front Page and Twentieth Century.

He also made several films, including Disney's Swiss Family Robinson and The Battle of the Bulge.

Arthur leaves behind his wife, Helen Beth Duntz with whom he had a long marriage of more than 25 years. They together have four children and seven grandchildren. His previous two marriages with actresses Joyce Bulifant and Melody Patterson ended in divorce.

The cause for MacArthur’s death is attributed to natural causes. According to sources, his family was with him at the time he died.

RIP

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Paddy Mullins: Horse Racing Trainer, Dead at 91...

Paddy Mullins

(1919 - October 28, 2010)

Paddy Mullins was an Irish horse racing trainer, who will forever be remembered for sending out Dawn Run to win the 1984 Champion Hurdle and 1986 Gold Cup.

The hugely respected Mullins, who was from a farming and hunting background in Kilkenny, had a racing career spanning 52 years.

His first winner was Flash Parade, which won the 1953 La Touche at Punchestown. Although he was predominantly a jump trainer – with six Cheltenham Festival successes, four Irish National winners and 10 Irish jump trainers' title under his belt – two of his greatest successes were achieved on the Flat.

In 1973, Hurry Harriet won the Champion Stakes, an achievement he rated above Dawn Run's exploits because she beat Allez France, then the best horse in Europe. Then in 2005, two years before he handed over his Goresbridge yard to son Tom, he won the Irish Oaks with Vintage Tipple, ridden by Frankie Dettori.

But Paddy Mullins will always be associated with Dawn Run, the only horse to have won both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup. Ridden in both races by Jonjo O'Neill, she is commemorated with a statue overlooking the Cheltenham paddock.

Mullins married  his wife Maureen in 1954 and between them they founded a racing dynasty. Three of their sons – Willie, Tony and Tom –are trainers, as is Sandra McCarthy, their daughter. Their other son, George, runs a horse transport business, while two of their grandsons are successful jockeys.

Paddy Mullins passed away peacefully.

RIP
 
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Tom Bosley: Actor, Dead at 83...

Thomas Edward "Tom" Bosley
(October 1, 1927 – October 19, 2010)




Tom Bosley was an American actor, best known for portraying Howard Cunningham on the long-running ABC sitcom Happy Days. Additionally, he appeared on the series Murder, She Wrote and Father Dowling Mysteries, and originated the title role of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical Fiorello!, earning the 1960 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical.

In Hollywood, Bosley found steady work appearing in the occasional movie and as a regular on weekly TV shows starring Debbie Reynolds, Dean Martin and others. During the 1990s, Bosley toured in Beauty and the Beast and Show Boat, playing Captain Andy in the latter.

Bosley made only a handful of theatrical movies. Among them: "Love With the Proper Stranger," "Divorce American Style," "The Secret War of Henry Frigg," "Yours, Mine and Ours."

Bosley married dancer Jean Eliot in 1962 and the couple had one child, Amy. Two years after his wife's death in 1978, Bosley married actress-producer Patricia Carr, who had three daughters from a previous marriage.

Bosley died of heart failure at a hospital near his home in Palm Springs, California. His agent, Sheryl Abrams, said Bosley had been battling lung cancer.

RIP

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Moss Keane: Rugby Player, Dead at 62...

Maurice Ignatius "Moss" Keane
(27 July 1948 - 5 October 2010)




Moss Keane was a former rugby union footballer who played for Ireland and the British and Irish Lions.

Born in County Kerry, Ireland, Keane started out as a Gaelic footballer, playing at college level for University College Cork and winning a number of medals which included multiple Sigerson Cups. He represented Kerry at U-21 as full back. He then found rugby through a friend in college, making his international debut on 19 January 1974 against France in Paris, a game Ireland lost 9–6.

Keane became the third Irish forward after Willie John McBride and Fergus Slattery to reach 50 international appearances. He played his 51st and final international against Scotland on 3 March 1984 in Dublin. Unfortunately for Keane, Ireland lost the match 32–9. Keane was also a part of the famous Munster side that defeated the New Zealand in Thomond Park in 1978.

He toured New Zealand with the Phil Bennett's British and Irish Lions in 1977, making one Test appearance, and was also a key man in Ireland's 1974 Five Nations Championship win and their historic Triple Crown victory in 1982.

In 2009 it was reported that Keane was being treated for bowel cancer.

Keane died after losing a long battle against cancer and is survived by his wife Anne and his two daughters Sarah and Anne Marie.


RIP

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Norman Wisdom: Actor, Comedian, Dead at 95...

Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom, OBE

(4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010)

Norman Wisdom was an English comedian, singer-songwriter and actor best known for a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring his hapless onscreen character Norman Pitkin. Charlie Chaplin famously referred to Wisdom as his "favourite clown".

He later forged a career on Broadway and as a television actor, winning critical acclaim for his dramatic role of a dying cancer patient in the television play Going Gently in 1981. He was knighted in 2000 and spent much of his later life on the Isle of Man.

Norman Wisdom’s first marriage, to Doreen, was a wartime romance, and was quickly dissolved. In 1947 he married Freda Simpson, with whom he had a son and a daughter. That marriage was dissolved in 1969.

Six months prior to his death, Wisdom suffered a series of strokes causing a decline in his physical and mental health. He died at Abbotswood nursing home on the Isle of Man. He is survived by his two children, Nick and Jacqui.

RIP

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Tony Curtis: Actor, Dead at 85...

Tony Curtis

(June 3, 1925 – September 29, 2010)

Tony Curtis was an American film actor. He was one of Hollywood's last matinee idols; the product of a classic success story. He was born Bernie Schwartz, the son of an impoverished Hungarian immigrant, rose from a New York ghetto to enjoy fame and stardom that was largely unparalleled for much of the 1950s and 1960s.

He played a variety of roles, from light comedy, such as the musician on the run from gangsters in Some Like It Hot, to serious dramatic roles, such as an escaped convict in The Defiant Ones, which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. From 1949, he appeared in more than 100 films and made frequent television appearances.

Towards the latter part of his life, Curtis increasingly devoted himself to his painting, claiming Magritte and Matisse as influences. His autobiography, American Prince: A Memoir, appeared in 2008.

Curtis married six times; his last wife, Jill Vandenburg Curtis, more than four decades his junior, survives him. One of his sons, Nicholas, predeceased him in 1994 after overdosing on heroin aged 23, a blow from which Curtis said he never recovered. The actress and author Jamie Lee Curtis is his daughter by Janet Leigh.

Jamie Lee Curtis confirmed that her father died in bed at his Las Vegas home, of an apparent cardiac arrest.

RIP

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Mick Lally: Irish Actor, Dead at 64...

Mick Lally

(November 1945 - 31 August 2010)

Mick Lally was an Irish television, film and stage actor.

Lally began a career as a teacher, but gave it up for the stage. He starred in the premiere of Brian Friel's play Translations in 1980 in Derry, while he was a member of the Field Day Theatre Company, founded by Brian Friel and Stephen Rea.

Along with Gary Hynes and Marie Mullen, Lally was a founder member of the Druid Theatre Company, which worked closely with many Irish playwrights. He played the role of Miley Byrne in the RTÉ soap Glenroe, reprising the character that he played earlier in the Bracken T.V. series in 1978. Lally also enjoyed some musical success when The By-road to Glenroe went to the top of the Irish charts in 1990.

In 1979, Lally won a Jacob's Award for his performance as Miley in Bracken. In 1994, Lally played Fiona's kind grandfather, Hugh, in The Secret of Roan Inish.

Mick Lally was a fluent speaker of the Irish language, and his children study in Irish-speaking schools.

Lally classified himself as an atheist and regards religion as nonsense and "codology".

Mick Lally provides the voice of Brother Aidan in The Secret of Kells, an animated film directed by Tomm Moore and was nominated in the category of best animated film at the 82nd Academy Awards.

Lally died after a short stay in hospital. He is survived by his wife Peggy and three children.

RIP

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Alex "Hurricane" Higgins: Pro Snooker Player, Dead at 61...

Alexander "Alex" Gordon Higgins
(18 March 1949 – 24 July 2010)



Alex Higgins, also known by his nickname of Hurricane Higgins, was an Irish professional snooker player who was twice World Champion and runner-up on two occasions. Higgins earned the nickname The Hurricane due to his speed of play.

Higgins was also a former World Doubles champion with Jimmy White and won the World Cup three times with the All Ireland team.

Higgins, not only thrilled snooker fans in the Seventies and Eighties with his lightning pots, his daring shots and his impish good looks but, almost single-handedly, he turned what was once an old man’s game, played in smoky halls for a pittance in prize money, into a glitzy, glamorous sport.

Higgins claimed the world champion's crown at the first attempt, aged 22, and took it back again ten years later from Ray Reardon at the Crucible in Sheffield in 1982. Many feel that his finest hour came a year later at Preston Guildhall, when he came back from 7-0 down against the seemingly unbeatable Steve Davis to win the 1983 United Kingdom championship final 16-15.

In his heyday, he is thought to have earned more than £4 million from the sport during the 20 years he was at the height of his form – and spent the lot. He struggled with financial problems and drunkenness. Of late, he was living in sheltered accommodation in Belfast, existing on state handouts.

He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1997. Years of radiation treatment and two throat operations in the 1990s had destroyed his teeth and he hadn’t been able to eat solid food for two years, surviving on jars of baby food. Possibly the last time he appeared in public was at a Manchester fund-raising event in his honor in May when scores of his former rival players took pity on his plight and raised £20,000 to buy dental implants for him.

Though he said he was in remission from his illness, privately friends knew he would not survive much longer. He died in his native Belfast.

RIP

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FRIEL Life Remembered: Bill Owen...

William John Owen Rowbotham, MBE, better known as Bill Owen, was an English actor and songwriter. He was born in London on March 14, 1914 and died in Westminster, London on July 12, 1999.

Owen was a squat, square-chinned, wide-eyed and pugnacious exponent of outspoken cockney comedy and wary northern humour in scores of films and plays for more than half a century.

The character for which Owen will be best remembered was first seen on British television in 1973 and endured through the 1980s and 1990s - that of the scruffy, cheerful, woolly-hatted vulgarian named Compo in Roy Clarke's series, Last of the Summer Wine.

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Dennis Hopper: Actor, Dead at 74...

Dennis Lee Hopper
(May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010)



Dennis Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1955, and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). Over the next ten years, Hopper appeared frequently on television in guest roles, and by the end of the 1960s had played supporting roles in several films.

RIP

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FRIEL Life Remembered: Dean Martin...

Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor and comedian. He was born in Ohio on June 7, 1917 and died at his home on Christmas morning, December 25, 1995. The lights of the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed in his honor.

Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "Mambo Italiano", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?". He was one of the members of the "Rat Pack" and a major star in four areas of show business: concert stage/night clubs, recordings, motion pictures, and television.

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Rue McClanahan: Actor, Dead at 76...

Rue McClanahan
(February 21, 1934 – June 3, 2010)



Rue McClanahan was an American actress, known for her roles as Vivian Cavender Harmon on Maude, Fran Crowley on Mama's Family, and Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls, a role that won her an Emmy Award.

RIP

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Gary Coleman: Actor, Dead at 42...

Gary Wayne Coleman
(February 8, 1968 – May 28, 2010)



Gary Coleman was an American actor, known for his childhood role as Arnold Jackson in the American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978–1986) and for his small stature as an adult. He was described in the 1980s as "one of television's most promising stars." After a successful childhood acting career, Coleman struggled financially later in life. In 1989, he successfully sued his parents and business adviser over misappropriation of his assets.

RIP

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FRIEL Life Remembered: John Wayne...

John Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison was an American film actor, director and producer. He was born in Winterset, Iowa on May 26, 1907 and died at the UCLA Cancer Center, Califonia on June 11, 1979.

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Lynn Redgrave: Actress, Dead at 67...

Lynn Rachel Redgrave, OBE
(8 March 1943 – 2 May 2010)





Lynn Redgrave was an English actress.

Redgrave starred in the 1966 hit film Georgy Girl, which won her a New York Film Critics Award and nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. She was also nominated for best supporting actress in the 1998 film Gods and Monsters. She had many other successes on stage and screen.

A member of the famous acting dynasty, Redgrave was sister to Vanessa and Corin and the daughter of actor and director Michael Redgrave.

She was aunt to film and TV star Joely Richardson and to Natasha Richardson, who died last year following a ski accident.

Her brother Corin, an actor and political activist, died on April 6. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000.

In 1967, Redgrave married and professionally partnered the British/Canadian/American actor and director John Clark. Together they had three children, Benjamin, Kelly and Annabel Lucy Clark. The marriage ended in divorce in December 2000.

In 2001 Redgrave was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Redgrave was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2002.

Her publicist, Rick Miramontez, speaking on behalf of her children, said she died at her home in Connecticut. Her three children were with her.

In addition to her children, she is survived by her sister Vanessa, as well as several other famous members of the Redgrave family.

RIP

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FRIEL Life Remembered: Ayrton Senna...

Ayrton Senna da Silva was a Brazilian racing driver and three-time Formula One world champion. He was born in São Paulo, Brazil on March 21, 1960 and died in Bologna Italy on May 1, 1994 (San Marino Grand Prix car accident).

Senna was widely regarded as the finest motor racing driver of his generation and one of the greatest of all time. He started in 161 grands prix, winning 41 and claiming a record total of 65 pole positions.

His final pole position was the one he took on Saturday afternoon during a final qualifying session at the tragedy-shrouded Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, when fellow competitor Austrian Roland Ratzenberger lost his life.

Senna will be remembered for his brilliant talent as a racer, but also for his unprecedentedly high level of commitment to winning grand prix races. It was this which cost him his life.

He had dedicated his adult life to succeeding in the business of grand prix racing after travelling from Brazil to enter the British Formula Ford 1600 Championship in 1981.

Prior to this he had enjoyed a hugely successful karting career which had begun at the age of four, when he first climbed aboard a motorised vehicle.

By the time he was 13 he was racing in go-karts. He went on to win the 1977 Pan American Championship and finished as runner-up in the karting world championships of 1979 and 1980.

He climbed the classic motor racing career ladder by driving in the British Formula Ford series, winning the British and European Formula Ford 2000 championship in 1982.

The following year he won the British Formula Three championship with West Surrey Racing before entering Formula One for the first time in 1984 with the Toleman team.

He made his debut in the 1984 Brazilian Grand Prix and that season collected 13 points to finish ninth in the championship, his startlingly brilliant and aggressive driving earning him admiration from many, but also incurring the wrath of several of his senior fellow-competitors.

Senna had the rare ability, and the courage, to go through gaps which others either could not see or felt they could not get through themselves.

The following season he transferred from Toleman to Lotus in a disputed move which led to accusations that he had broken his contract.

However, for Senna the only goal was success and in that season he claimed his first grand prix win in emphatic style in the rain at Estoril, Portugal. He finished fourth in the championship that year with 38 points.

That victory was the beginning of a dazzling collection as his career progressed from Lotus to the Marlboro-McLaren team, which he joined in 1988.

In his first season with McLaren he collected 94 points and won the world championship, despite a season-long duel with his team-mate and arch-rival, Frenchman Alain Prost.

Senna remained with McLaren for six years, winning the world title three times for the British team before departing at the end of 1993.

They were six glorious years for all those associated with the Woking-based outfit, as Senna established himself as the master of motor racing and arguably the greatest of his generation.

He made the decision to leave McLaren at the end of 1993 and joined Rothmans Williams-Renault. However, Senna was tragically unable to record a single race victory with the Williams team.

He was married early in his racing career to his childhood sweetheart, but his young Brazilian wife found it impossible to cope in Europe and they later divorced. He had established a durable relationship with his girlfriend Adriane for 12 months, prior to his death.

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Gerry Ryan: Irish Broadcaster, Dead at 53...

Gerard "Gerry" Ryan
(4 June 1956 – 30 April 2010)



Gerry Ryan was a veteran Irish full-time presenter of radio and part-time presenter of television employed by RTÉ. He presented The Gerry Ryan Show on radio station RTÉ 2fm each weekday morning from 1988 until his death.

After a stint in pirate radio, the often controversial and outspoken DJ joined Ireland's state broadcaster RTE in 1979.

The Gerry Ryan Show began in 1988 and quickly became one of Ireland's most popular radio programmes.

Ryan has also hosted several television series including Secrets, Ryantown, Gerry Ryan Tonight, Gerry Ryan's Hitlist, Ryan Confidential and Operation Transformation.

In 1994 Ryan co-presented the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest with former newsreader Cynthia Ni Mhurchu.

Ryan separated from his wife Morah in March 2008 after 26 years of marriage. The couple had five children together.

Ryan was found dead in his bedroom after officers were called to the scene when a friend couldn't gain access to the apartment in central Dublin.

Ryan is survived by his five children and his wife.

RIP

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John Forsythe: Actor, Dead at 92...

John Lincoln Freund
(January 29, 1918 – April 1, 2010)



John Forsythe, born John Lincoln Freund in New Jersey, was an American stage, television and film actor. Forsythe starred in three television series, spanning three decades, as single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the 1950s sitcom Bachelor Father (1957–1962); as the unseen millionaire Charles Townsend on the 1970s crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976–1981), and as ruthless and beloved patriarch Blake Carrington on the 1980s soap opera Dynasty (1981–1989). He hosted World of Survival during the 1970s.

Forsythe was briefly married (1938-40) to Parker McCormick, with whom he had a son. Three years after their divorce, he married Julie Warren. They had two daughters and were together, for more than 50 years, until her death in 1994. Nicole Carter became his third wife in 2002.

Forsythe is survived by his third wife Nicole Carter. He is also survived by his son, Dall; his daughters, Page Courtemanche and Brooke Forsythe; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Forsythe died at his home in Santa Ynez, California, after suffering a bout of pneumonia. He was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 2006.


RIP

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Robert Culp: Actor, Dead at 79...

Robert Martin Culp
(August 16, 1930 – March 24, 2010)




Robert Culp was an American actor and scriptwriter, perhaps best known for his work in television. Culp earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy (1965-1968), the espionage series, where he and co-star Bill Cosby played a pair of secret agents.

In his first movie role Culp played one of John Kennedy's crew in PT 109.

His first starring TV series, Trackdown (1957-1959) was a Western based partly on files of the Texas Rangers. In the 1980s, he starred as an FBI agent in the fantasy The Greatest American Hero.

He remained active in movies and TV. Among his notable later performances was as a U.S. president in 1993's The Pelican Brief. More recently, he also had a recurring role in the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond and appeared in such shows as Robot Chicken, Chicago Hope and an episode of Cosby.

Culp was married five times, to Nancy Ashe, Elayne Wilner, France Nuyen, Sheila Sullivan and Candace Faulkner. He had four children with Ashe and one with Faulkner.

Mr. Culp’s agent, Hillard Elkins, told The A.P. that the actor died after collapsing on a sidewalk outside his home in Hollywood. The police say he hit his head while on a walk and was pronounced dead after arriving at a hospital.

RIP

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Peter Graves: Actor, Dead at 83...

Peter Aurness
(March 18, 1926 – March 14, 2010)



Peter Graves, born Peter Aurness, was an American film and television actor. He was best known for his starring role in the CBS television series Mission: Impossible from 1967 to 1973.

Graves was born in Minnesota Graves and graduated from High School in 1944, and spent two years in the United States Army Air Force near the end of World War II.

Graves appeared in more than seventy films, TV shows and TV movies. His brother is actor James Arness.

Graves was a devout Christian. He was married to Joan Endress from 1950 until his death. They had three daughters: Kelly Jean, Claudia King and Amanda Lee, all of whom survive him. Graves had six grandchildren.

Graves died of a heart attack, four days prior to his 84th birthday.

RIP

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Eugene Lambert: Irish Puppeteer/Performer, Dead at 81...

Eugene Lambert
(1928 - February 22, 2010)





Eugene Lambert was an Irish puppeteer, and owner of the Lambert Puppet Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. Mr. Lambert and his family were the driving force behind Wanderly Wagon, RTÉ's famous children's programme that began in 1967. All of the Lambert children also worked on the show, which ran until 1982.

Born in 1928 in Sligo, Mr Lambert later moved to Monkstown in Co Dublin. He married his wife Mai, with whom he had 10 children.

As a puppeteer and ventriloquist, Lambert was long a stalwart of the Irish vaudeville scene, particularly in Dublin, although he also toured the country frequently with Mai and their children. His most common acts were with Finnegan, a mischievous storyteller, and Judge, a pensive dog.

With the rise of television in the 1960s, the Lambert puppet theatre became a fixture in Irish broadcasting. In the early 1960s, Lambert devised a puppet series for children entitled Murphy agus a Chairde ("Murphy And His Friends"). The Irish TV broadcaster RTÉ was the only station most Irish people could receive, and Murphy's adventures were soon an important part of most children's viewing.

Lambert later co-starred in the children's television series Wanderly Wagon as the mischievous and greedy "O'Brien", known for his child-like curiosity and cowardice in the face of magical events. Lambert and his family provided many regular (puppet) characters - Judge the dog, Mr Crow, Foxy Loxy, and Ssneaky Ssnake. The series also featured Irish actor Frank Kelly, who later appeared as Fr. Jack Hackett in Father Ted.

Another series created by Eugene Lambert was adapted from a children's book by Patricia Lynch, Brógeen Follows The Magic Tune. The series was a great success and won several awards internationally.

Lambert counted the late pop superstar Michael Jackson among his many fans. He once sang Happy Birthday through one of his puppets to Jackson. Jackson befriended the veteran puppeteer after playing a concert in Dublin in 1992 and visited him again with his three children on his birthday in August 2007.

Lambert was due to celebrate his 60th wedding anniversary with wife Mai this summer. He died at his home in Monkstown, Co. Dublin. He is survived by his wife and eight of their children.

RIP

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Kathryn Grayson: Actress, Dead at 88...

Kathryn Grayson
(February 9, 1922 – February 17, 2010)



Kathryn Grayson was an American actress and operatic soprano singer.

She was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Hedrick family later moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where she was discovered singing on the empty stage of the St. Louis Municipal Opera House by a janitor, who introduced her to Frances Marshall of the Chicago Civic Opera.

Trained as an opera singer from the age of twelve, Grayson was contracted to MGM and established a career in films from the early 1940s. The actress was among the top movie musical performers of her day, starring opposite Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in 1945's Anchors Aweigh. Most of her films were musicals and after several supporting roles, she was given lead roles in such films as Show Boat (1951) with Ava Gardner and Howard Keel and Kiss Me Kate (1953). She was paired with Howard Keel and Mario Lanza in some of her films.

When movie musicals fell out of favor with film audiences, she progressed to theatre work, and appeared in several musicals, including the highly successful Camelot from 1962 until 1964. During the 1960s, she performed in several operas, including La bohème, Madama Butterfly, Orpheus in the Underworld and La traviata.

Grayson appeared on television occasionally. Her first TV appearances were in the 1950s, and she received an Emmy nomination in 1956 for her performance in the General Electric Theater episode Shadow on the Heart with John Ericson. More recently, she appeared in several episodes of Angela Lansbury's series Murder, She Wrote in the late 1980s.

In Hollywood she married twice, first to the actor John Shelton and then to the actor/singer Johnnie Johnston with whom she had one daughter, Patricia Kathryn.

Grayson died of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles, California. She is survived by her daughter, two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

RIP

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Pernell Roberts: Actor, Dead at 81...

Pernell Elvin Roberts, Jr.
(May 18, 1928 – January 24, 2010)






Pernell Roberts was an American stage, movie and television actor as well as singer. In addition to guest starring in over 60 television series, he was widely known for his roles as Ben Cartwright's eldest son, Adam Cartwright, on the western series Bonanza, a role he played from 1959 to 1965 — and as chief surgeon Dr. John McIntyre, the title character on Trapper John, M.D. (1979-1986).

He was also widely known for his life-long activism, which included participation in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 and pressuring NBC to refrain from hiring whites to portray minority characters.

Roberts was born in Waycross, Georgia, the only child of Pernell Elvin Roberts, Sr. and Minnie (Betty) Myrtle Morgan Roberts. During his high school years, he played the horn, acted in school and church plays and sang in local USO shows — pursuing a wide range of occupations before pursuing acting. He attended, but did not graduate from, Georgia Tech. While serving for two years in the United States Marine Corps, he participated in the Marine Corps Band. He subsequently attended the University of Maryland, also without graduating.

Roberts moved to Washington D.C. in 1950. He eventually decided to give acting a chance and supported himself as a butcher, forest ranger, and railroad riveter during the lean years while pursuing his craft.

On stage from the early 1950s, he gained experience in such productions as The Adding Machine, The Firebrand and Faith of Our Fathers before spending a couple of years performing the classics with the renowned Arena Stage Company in Washington, DC. Productions there included The Taming of the Shrew (as Petruchio), The Playboy of the Western World, The Glass Menagerie, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Twelfth Night. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 with Tonight in Samarkind and that same year won the "Best Actor" Drama Desk Award for his off-Broadway performance as Macbeth, which was immediately followed by Romeo and Juliet as Mercutio. Other Broadway plays include The Lovers (1956) with Joanne Woodward, A Clearing in the Woods (1957) with Kim Stanley, a return to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1957) and The Duchess of Malfi (1957). He returned to Broadway fifteen years later as the title role opposite Ingrid Bergman in Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1972).

Pernell then headed for Hollywood and found minor roles in films before landing the pivotal role of Ben Cartwright's oldest and best-educated son Adam in the Bonanza (1959) series in 1959. The series became the second longest-running TV western (after Gunsmoke) and the first to be filmed in color.

Many of the years after Bonanza were rocky for Roberts. He never found a solid footing in films with roles in rugged, foreign films such as Tibetana (1970) and Four Rode Out (1970), making little impression.

In 1979 he finally won another long-running series role (and an Emmy nomination) as Trapper John, M.D. (1979) in which he recreated the Wayne Rogers TV M*A*S*H (1972) role. Pernell was now heavier, bearded and pretty close to bald at this juncture. The medical drama co-starring Gregory Harrison ran seven seasons.

Retiring in the late 1990s, Roberts was diagnosed with cancer in 2007. Roberts died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Malibu, California, survived by his fourth wife Eleanor Criswell.

RIP

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FRIEL Life Remembered: Arthur Miller...

Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was born on October 17, 1915 and died on February 10, 2005.

He made his name with plays which exposed the emptiness of the American dream. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include awards-winning plays such as All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible.

Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, a period during which he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was married to Marilyn Monroe.

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Ian Carmichael: Actor, Dead at 89...

Ian Carmichael, OBE
(18 June 1920 – 5 February 2010)



Ian Carmichael was an English film, stage, television and radio actor.

Carmichael was born in Hull, Yorkshire. The son of an optician, he was educated at Scarborough College and Bromsgrove School. He was not academically inclined, preferring to lead the local dance band until the stage took his fancy and he studied for a spell at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He made his stage debut as a robot at the People's Palace in Mile End, East London in 1939. With the outbreak of World War II his acting career was interrupted by service with the Royal Armoured Corps, as a commissioned officer.

He portrayed serious characters in Betrayed (1954), starring Clark Gable and Lana Turner, and in The Colditz Story (1955), but he made his name playing in a series of films for the Boulting Brothers, including Private's Progress (1956), Brothers in Law (1957) and I'm All Right Jack (1959), as well as similar films for other producers, for example School for Scoundrels (1960). He also appeared in the "Pride" segment of The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971).

During the 1960s and 1970s, he was successful on television, including the sitcom, Bachelor Father, based on the story of a real-life bachelor who took on several foster children. But it is probably his portrayals on television of PG Wodehouse's dithering Bertie Wooster and Dorothy L Sayers's elegant Lord Peter Wimsey which underlined his gifts as an exponent of the light English comedy of manners to greatest effect. Carmichael continued to act until shortly before his death.

Ian Carmichael was married twice. His first wife was Jean Pyman (Pym) McLean (1943–1983, until her death). They had two daughters, Lee and Sally. He married Kate Fenton, novelist in 1992. He had five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren

Ian Carmichael died at his home in the Esk Valley on the North York Moors, England. According to his wife, Kate, he had fallen ill over Christmas.

RIP

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Zelda Rubinstein: Actress, Dead at 76...

Zelda Rubinstein
(May 28, 1933 – January 27, 2010)




Zelda Rubinstein was an American actress and human rights activist, best known as eccentric medium Tangina Barrons in the movies Poltergeist (1982) and its sequels, Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986), and Poltergeist III (1988). She also made guest appearances in the TV spin-off Poltergeist: The Legacy (1996).

Rubinstein was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and attended the University of California and the University of Pittsburgh. She stood just 4 feet 3 inches (130 cm) due to a deficiency of the anterior pituitary gland, which produces growth hormone.

Rubinstein entered the film industry comparatively late, upon returning to the United States after living in London for several years. Poltergeist was her first major film role. She remained active in film and televison from thereon, frequently portraying various psychic characters.

Rubinstein was also known for her outspoken activism for little people and and was an early and public activist raising awareness of Aids-related diseases.

On December 29, 2009, it was reported that, after a month-long stay at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, her close companion and her family made the decision to take Rubinstein off life support due to both kidney and lung failure. Rubinstein died at Barlow Respiratory Hospital in Los Angeles.

RIP

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