US actor Jack Klugman who starred in The Odd Couple dies aged 90

From: AAP December 25, 2012 11:31AM



JACK Klugman, who made an art of gruffness in TV's The Odd Couple and Quincy, ME, has died at the age of 90.

The actor's son Adam says his father died yesterday afternoon in Los Angeles.

In the 1970s sitcom The Odd Couple, Klugman played sloppy sports writer Oscar to co-star Tony Randall's Felix, a fussy photographer.

In Quincy, ME, which aired in the US from 1976 to 1983, Klugman played an idealistic, tough-minded medical examiner.

Klugman lost his voice to throat cancer in the 1980s but trained himself to speak again. He returned to acting in a 1993 Broadway revival of Three Men on a Horse.

Klugman split his time between TV, movies and the New York stage. In his later years he guest-starred on TV series including Third Watch.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/sydney-confidential/us-actor-jack-klugman-dies-aged-90/story-e6frewz0-1226543247104

Character actor Charles Durning dies

by: By Bob Thomas in Los Angeles From: AP December 25, 2012 7:57PM



CHARLES Durning, a two-time Oscar nominee dubbed the king of the character actors for his skill in playing everything from a Nazi colonel to the pope, has died Monday at his home in New York City. He was 89.

Durning died of natural causes in his home in the borough of Manhattan, his longtime agent and friend Judith Moss told The Associated Press.

Although he portrayed everyone from blustery public officials to comic foils to put-upon everymen, Durning may be best remembered by movie audiences for his Oscar-nominated, over-the-top role as a comically corrupt governor in the 1982 film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Many critics marvelled that such a heavyset man could be so nimble in the film's show-stopping song-and-dance number, not realising that Durning had been a dance instructor early in his career. He had met his first wife, Carol, when both worked at a dance studio.

The year after Best Little Whorehouse, Durning received another Oscar nomination, for his portrayal of a bumbling Nazi officer in the Mel Brooks classic To Be or Not to Be. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe as the harried police lieutenant in the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon.

He won a Golden Globe as best supporting TV actor in 1991 for his portrayal of John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald in the TV film The Kennedys of Massachusetts and a Tony in 1990 as Big Daddy in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Durning had begun his career on stage, getting his first big break when theatrical producer Joseph Papp hired him for the New York Shakespeare Festival.

He went on to work regularly, if fairly anonymously, through the 1960s until his breakout role as a small-town mayor in the Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play That Championship Season in 1972.

He quickly made an impression on movie audiences the following year as the crooked cop stalking con men Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the Oscar-winning comedy The Sting.

Dozens of notable portrayals followed. He was the would-be suitor of Dustin Hoffman, posing as a female soap opera star in Tootsie; the infamous seller of frog legs in The Muppet Movie; and Chief Brandon in Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy. He played Santa Claus in four different movies made for television and was the pope in the TV film I Would Be Called John: Pope John XXIII.

"I never turned down anything and never argued with any producer or director," Durning told The Associated Press in 2008, when he was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Other films included The Front Page, The Hindenburg, Breakheart Pass, North Dallas Forty, Starting Over, Tough Guys, Home for the Holidays, Spy Hard and O Brother Where Art Thou?

Durning's rugged early life provided ample material on which to base his later portrayals. He was born into an Irish family of 10 children in 1923, in Highland Falls, New York, a town near West Point. His father was unable to work, having lost a leg and been gassed during World War I, so his mother supported the family by washing the uniforms of West Point cadets.

The younger Durning himself would barely survive World War II. He was among the first wave of US soldiers to land at Normandy during the D-Day invasion and the only member of his army unit to survive. He killed several Germans and was wounded in the leg. Later he was bayoneted by a young German soldier whom he killed with a rock. He was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and survived a massacre of prisoners.

In later years, he refused to discuss the military service for which he was awarded the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.

Tragedy also stalked other members of his family. Durning was 12 when his father died, and five of his sisters were killed by smallpox or scarlet fever.

Durning and his first wife had three children before divorcing in 1972. In 1974, he married his high-school sweetheart, Mary Ann Amelio.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/movies/character-actor-charles-durning-dies/story-e6frexli-1226543352982

Puppeteer Gerry Anderson, creator of Thunderbirds, dies

by: Cassandra Vinograd From: AP December 27, 2012 6:19AM

GERRY Anderson, puppetry pioneer and British creator of the sci-fi hit "Thunderbirds" TV show, has died. He was 83.

..Anderson's son Jamie said his father died peacefully in his sleep at a nursing home near Oxfordshire, England, after being diagnosed with mixed dementia two years ago.

His condition had worsened dramatically over the past six months, his son said.

Anderson's television career launched in the 1950s. Once Thunderbirds aired in the 1960s, "Thunderbirds are go!" became a catchphrase for generations. It also introduced the use of "supermarionation" - a puppetry technique using thin wires to control marionettes - and made sci-fi mainstream, according to Jamie Anderson.

"He forever changed the direction of sci-fi entertainment," Jamie said. "Lots of animation and films that have been made in the past 20 or 30 years have been inspired by the work that he did."

He said the TV show was perhaps his father's proudest achievement - along with the cross-generational appeal of his body of work, which also included TV shows Stingray and Space: 1999, among others.

"Most people know some aspect of one of his shows which is not something that many TV producers can say," Jamie said. He noted that his father first broke ground with puppets in Thunderbirds, but was trying new techniques, like advanced computer-generated imagery, into his later years with projects such as 2005's New Captain Scarlet, the re-imagining of his 1967 TV animation.

Anderson also worked as a consultant on a Hollywood remake of his 1969 series UFO.

"He was very much a perfectionist and was never happy with any of the end products although he may have been happy with the responses," Jamie said, describing how his father would involve himself in every aspect of production.

"He wasn't just someone who sat in a chair barking orders, he managed to bring together great teams of great people and between them with a like mindset produced some real gems."

In recent years, Anderson and his son had become active supporters of Britain's Alzheimer's Society.

Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of society, said Anderson tirelessly attended events to raise awareness and raise money for a cure.

"He was determined, despite his own recent diagnosis, to spend the last year of his life speaking out for others living with dementia to ensure their voices were heard and their lives improved," Hughes said.

Anderson is survived by his wife, Mary, and four children.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/tv-radio/puppeteer-gerry-anderson-creator-of-thunderbirds-dies/story-e6frf9ho-1226543861622

Retired General Norman Schwarzkopf dies aged 78

by:
LOLITA C. BALDOR From:
AP December 28, 2012
11:39AM

RETIRED General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the US-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991, has died. He was 78.

The official told The Associated Press that Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf died Thursday in Tampa, Florida. The official wasn't authorized to release the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A much-decorated combat soldier in Vietnam, Schwarzkopf was known popularly as Stormin' Norman for a notoriously explosive temper.
He lived in retirement in Tampa, where he had served in his last military assignment as commander-in-chief of US Central Command. That is the headquarters responsible for US military and security concerns in nearly 20 countries from the eastern Mediterranean and Africa to Pakistan.
Schwarzkopf became "CINC-Centcom'' in 1988 and when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait three years later to punish it for allegedly stealing Iraqi oil reserves, he commanded Operation Desert Storm, the coalition of some 30 countries organized by then-President George H.W. Bush that succeeded in driving the Iraqis out.
At the peak of his postwar national celebrity, Schwarzkopf - a self-proclaimed political independent - rejected suggestions that he run for office, and remained far more private than other generals, although he did serve briefly as a military commentator for NBC.

While focused primarily in his later years on charitable enterprises, he campaigned for President George W. Bush in 2000 but was ambivalent about the 2003 invasion of Iraq, saying he doubted victory would be as easy as the White House and Pentagon predicted. In early 2003 he told the Washington Post the outcome was an unknown.
"What is postwar Iraq going to look like, with the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites? That's a huge question, to my mind. It really should be part of the overall campaign plan,'' he said.
Initially Schwarzkopf had endorsed the invasion, saying he was convinced that former Secretary of State Colin Powell had given the United Nations powerful evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. After that proved false, he said decisions to go to war should depend on what U.N. weapons inspectors found.
He seldom spoke up during the conflict, but in late 2004, he sharply criticized then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon for mistakes that included inadequate training for Army reservists sent to Iraq and for erroneous judgments about Iraq.
"In the final analysis I think we are behind schedule. ... I don't think we counted on it turning into jihad (holy war),'' he said in an NBC interview.
Schwarzkopf was born Aug. 24, 1934, in Trenton, New Jersey, where his father, Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., founder and commander of the New Jersey State Police, was then leading the investigation of the Lindbergh kidnap case, which ended with the arrest and 1936 execution of German-born carpenter Richard Hauptmann for stealing and murdering the famed aviator's infant son.

The elder Schwarzkopf was named Herbert, but when the son was asked what his "H'' stood for, he would reply, "H.''
Although reputed to be short-tempered with aides and subordinates, he was a friendly, talkative and even jovial figure who didn't like "Stormin' Norman'' and preferred to be known as "the Bear,'' a sobriquet given him by troops.
He also was outspoken at times, including when he described Gen. William Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, as "a horse's ass'' in an Associated Press interview.
As a teenager Norman accompanied his father to Iran, where the elder Schwarzkopf trained the country's national police force and was an adviser to Reza Pahlavi, the young Shah of Iran.
Young Norman studied there and in Switzerland, Germany and Italy, then followed in his father's footsteps to West Point, graduating in 1956 with an engineering degree.
After stints in the U.S. and abroad, he earned a master's degree in engineering at the University of Southern California and later taught missile engineering at West Point.

In 1966 he volunteered for Vietnam and served two tours, first as a U.S. adviser to South Vietnamese paratroops and later as a battalion commander in the U.S. Army's Americal Division. He earned three Silver Stars for valor - including one for saving troops from a minefield - plus a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart and three Distinguished Service Medals.
While many career officers left military service embittered by Vietnam, Schwarzkopf was among those who opted to stay and help rebuild the tattered Army into a potent, modernized all-volunteer force.
After Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Schwarzkopf played a key diplomatic role by helping to persuade Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to allow U.S. and other foreign troops to deploy on Saudi territory as a staging area for the war to come.
On Jan. 17, 1991, a five-month buildup called Desert Shield became Operation Desert Storm as allied aircraft attacked Iraqi bases and Baghdad government facilities. The six-week aerial campaign climaxed with a massive ground offensive on Feb. 24-28, routing the Iraqis from Kuwait in 100 hours before US officials called a halt.
Schwarzkopf said afterward he agreed with Bush's decision to stop the war rather than drive to Baghdad to capture Saddam, as his mission had been only to oust the Iraqis from Kuwait.
But in a desert tent meeting with vanquished Iraqi generals, he allowed a key concession on Iraq's use of helicopters, which later backfired by enabling Saddam to crack down more easily on rebellious Shiites and Kurds.

While he later avoided the public second-guessing by academics and think tank experts over the ambiguous outcome of Gulf War I and its impact on Gulf War II, he told the Washington Post in 2003, ``You can't help but... with 20/20 hindsight, go back and say, 'Look, had we done something different, we probably wouldn't be facing what we are facing today.'''
After retiring from the Army in 1992, Schwarzkopf wrote a best-selling autobiography, It Doesn't Take A Hero.'
Of his Gulf war role, he said, ``I like to say I'm not a hero. I was lucky enough to lead a very successful war.''
He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and honored with decorations from France, Britain, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain.
Schwarzkopf was a national spokesman for prostate cancer awareness and for Recovery of the Grizzly Bear, served on the Nature Conservancy board of governors and was active in various charities for chronically ill children.
"I may have made my reputation as a general in the Army and I'm very proud of that,'' he once told the AP.
"But I've always felt that I was more than one-dimensional. I'd like to think I'm a caring human being. ... It's nice to feel that you have a purpose.''
Schwarzkopf and his wife, Brenda, had three children: Cynthia, Jessica and Christian.
Former president George H. W. Bush, himself sick in intensive care in Texas, was first to issue a statement mourning the loss of the man he chose to lead the war that came to define both of their careers.
"Barbara and I mourn the loss of a true American patriot and one of the great military leaders of his generation,'' his statement said.
"A distinguished member of that Long Gray Line hailing from West Point, General Norm Schwarzkopf, to me, epitomized the 'duty, service, country' creed that has defended our freedom and seen this great nation through our most trying international crises,'' Bush said.
"More than that, he was a good and decent man - and a dear friend. Barbara and I send our condolences to his wife Brenda and his wonderful family.''

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/retired-general-norman-schwarzkopf-dies-aged-78/story-fnddckzi-1226544549038

Tony Greig has passed away.

WHAT?!

Tony Greig dead

Date
December 29, 2012 - 3:32PM

1654 reading now


Tony Greig pictured with Kerry Packer in 1977.


Former England cricketer and Channel Nine commentator Tony Greig has died, according to a statement from the Nine Network.

Mr Greig, who was 66, had been battling lung cancer.

Greig first became aware he had a problem during Australia’s one-day series against Pakistan in Dubai in August and September.

Initially diagnosed with bronchitis in May, the condition lingered and, by the time of the ICC World Twenty20 that finished in Sri Lanka in October, Greig had tests that revealed a small lesion at the base of his right lung.
Advertisement

On his return to Australia he had fluid removed from the right lung and testing revealed he had lung cancer.

Last month, he spoke to the Channel Nine commentary team, of which he is usually a member, during their coverage of the first Test between Australia and South Africa in Brisbane.

Greig was candid about the disease.

‘‘It’s not good. The truth is I’ve got lung cancer. Now it’s a case of what they can do,’’ Greig said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/tony-greig-dead-20121229-2c06b.html#ixzz2GPgZXaaO

Moarvelus commentatoarr. Whisks that one away through cover to the bowndrry.

With Bill Lawry retiring after this summer and with Greig unfortunately passing the Channel 9 commentary will never be the same.

I think Bill announced he wouldn't actually be retiring. However, with this happening, who knows.

The 12th man impersonations of him were always brilliant. The best one for me that sticks out.

"You see to me, a grudge is nothing more than a place to pork your cor".

Seriously funny that. I even read it in his voice.

The Troggs frontman Reg Presley, 71, dies after cancer battle

By Emily Sheridan
PUBLISHED: 00:19 GMT, 5 February 2013

..Reg Presley, frontman of the '60s group The Troggs, has died at the age of 71.

The singer lost his year-long battle with cancer at his home in Hampshire on Monday, his daughter Karen confirmed.

Reg's passing comes a year after he announced his retirement from rock 'n' roll after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

Karen said: 'He passed away peacefully at home and myself, my brother and our mother were with him. We’re absolutely heartbroken.'

Although The Troggs performed together for many decades, they are best known for their Sixties hits Wild Thing and Love Is All Around.
Of course, Love Is All Around was famously covered by Wet Wet Wet for the soundtrack to Four Weddings And A Funeral, spending 15 weeks at No.1 in the UK.

In January 2012, Reg said he was quitting music due to ill health in a letter to fans on The Trogg's website.
He wrote: 'As you all know I was taken ill whilst doing a gig in Germany in December. During my stay in hospital tests showed that in fact I have lung cancer.
'I am receiving chemotherapy treatment and at the moment not feeling too bad.

'However I've had to call time on The Troggs and retire. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the cards and calls and for your love, loyalty and support over the years.'
Reg, who scored seven top 20 hits with the band, had been married to wife Brenda for 50 years and has written books on crop circles.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2273562/The-Troggs-frontman-Reg-Presley-71-dies-cancer-battle.html#ixzz2Jz9jTGbA
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

British actor Richard Briers, star of The Good Life, dies at 79

From: AP February 19, 2013 12:17AM

..Briers' agent, Christopher Farrar, said the actor died at his London home on Sunday. A former heavy smoker, he had suffered from emphysema.

Briers starred in the 1970s sitcom The Good Life as Tom Good, a man who decides to quit the urban rat race for a life of self-sufficiency in suburbia.

The show, which contrasted the back-to-the land Goods with their conventional neighbours the Leadbetters, made stars of its core cast - Briers, Felicity Kendal, Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington - and is regularly voted one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time.

Briers also starred in the comedy-drama Ever-Decreasing Circles, the Scottish Highlands drama Monarch of the Glen and a host of other shows.

In later life he became well-known for Shakespearean roles. He joined director Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987 after deciding, he said, that "I had gone as far as I could doing sitcoms."

Richard Briers with co-star Felicity Kendal in The Good Life. Briers has died, age 79.
For Branagh he took on roles including King Lear, Malvolio in Twelfth Night and the buffoon Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

He also appeared in several Branagh-directed films, including Henry V, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter's Friends and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Other movie roles included the voice of rabbit Fiver in the much-loved animated animal feature Watership Down.

On stage, Briers was associated with the work of British comic playwright Alan Ayckbourn, playing leading roles in Relatively Speaking, Absurd Person Singular and Absent Friends.

Born January 14, 1934, Briers trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and worked consistently in theatre, film and television for more than half a century.

His latest film credit is in the recently released Cockneys Vs. Zombies.

He said he had no desire to retire, but complained in one of his final interviews that the chronic lung disease emphysema was slowing him down.

"It's totally my fault. So, I get very breathless, which is a pain in the backside," he told the Daily Mail newspaper last month.

"Trying to get upstairs... oh God, it's ridiculous. Of course, when you're bloody nearly 80 it's depressing, because you've had it anyway."

In 1989, Briers was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/tv-radio/british-actor-richard-briers-star-of-the-good-life-dies-at-79/story-e6frf9ho-1226580718537

Dalek designer dies aged 84

Raymond Cusick, who gave the Doctor's enemies their enduringly terrifying appeal, has died after an illness

The man who brought to life Doctor Who's greatest foes has died aged 84, his daughter has said. Raymond Cusick worked as a production designer on the BBC show from 1963 to 1966.

Terry Nation, who died in 1997, wrote the 1963 story The Daleks, in which the "satanic pepperpots" first appeared, but it was Cusick who came up with the machines' distinctive look, including the bobble-like sensors, eyestalk, sucker and exterminator weapons.

The Daleks have remained fundamentally unchanged in appearance in 50 years, and have remained the Doctor's most popular enemies even since the show's revival in 2005. On Twitter, Tom Spilsbury, editor of Doctor Who Magazine, paid tribute to Cusick's "timeless" design.

Cusick also worked on shows ranging from Z Cars, Dr Finlay's Casebook and The Forsyte Saga to The Duchess of Duke Street, When the Boat Comes In and Rentaghost. He retired in 1987.

Cusick's daughter, Claire Heawood, said he had been suffering from an illness and died peacefully in his sleep on Thursday. He leaves two daughters and seven grandchildren.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/feb/24/dalek-designer-dies

Journalist Peter Harvey has lost is battle with pancreatic cancer.

Veteran journalist Peter Harvey dies at 68

by:
Jordan Baker From:
The Daily Telegraph March 02, 2013
6:00PM

PETER Harvey, the journalist with the 'voice of God' who has been a loved and trusted face of Australian television news for almost 40 years, has died with his family by his bedside. He was 68.

Harvey was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October but was positive to the end, telling an interviewer that he would hang on to the possibility that “things are going to be better, not worse.

“I don’t want worries about my day, ruining my tomorrows.”

Harvey was a journalist for 50 years, first with The Daily Telegraph and then with Newsweek and the Guardian, but it was at the Nine Network in 1975 that he found his home.

“This is the saddest of days for the Nine Network,” says Nine chief executive, David Gyngell. “Peter Harvey – Harves as he is known to everyone – is and will remain an indelible part of Nine.”

. Harvey has covered politics, wars, and human tragedy, and has been a mentor to generations of journalists. His children, of whom he was extremely proud, have followed in his footsteps.

Claire Harvey is the deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph, and Adam Harvey is a journalist with ABC’s 7.30.

Claire said her father thanked the public for their good wishes during his last days. “Dad is comfy, and smiling, in hospital with our mum Anne holding his hand,” she wrote on Twitter. “He asked me to thank everyone for the love.”

Peter Harvey is known as a beautiful writer, an incisive newsman and a talented storyteller, but he will best be remembered for his voice, one that his Nine colleagues described as the ‘voice of God’.

“One of the funny things is that I’m getting kids aged 18 and 19 coming up to me and saying, ‘would you say Peter Harvey, Canberra’ for me, you know?” he recently told the ABC. “I left Canberra in 97!”

Harvey’s colleagues say Australian journalism won’t be the same without him. “We lose a character,” says Ray Martin. “Journalism, like politics and life, is full of bland, colourless people. He is full of colour.”

Long-time friend and Nine Network colleague Peter Overton says “we lose a fine storyteller. He came into the lounge rooms of so many families across Australia for so many years.”
Peter Harvey is survived by his wife, Anne, his children Claire and Adam, and his grandson Rory.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/veteran-journalist-peter-harvey-dies-at-68/story-fndo317g-1226589037334

I hadn't seen 60 minutes in quite a while. I didn't realise how gaunt and sick he looked.