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)

Recently Dead

Herb Peterson, who was attempting to come up with a fast-food version of Eggs Benedict for McDonald's when he invented the Egg McMuffin, died Tuesday in Santa Barbara. He was 89. Peterson started as vice president of the McDonald's advertising firm, D'Arcy Advertising, in Chicago, and wrote the burger chain's first national advertising slogan, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day." He eventually owned six McDonald's franchises himself, in Santa Barbara, and his breakfast sandwich made its debut in one of his restaurants in 1972. (AP; photo: John Hayes)

Recently Dead

Richard Widmark, whose Oscar-nominated film debut in the 1947 noir Kiss of Death as the giggling psycho who pushes an old woman in a wheelchair down the stairs, died Monday in Roxbury, Connecticut, after a long illness. He was 93. "That damned laugh of mine!" he told a reporter in 1961. "For two years after that picture, you couldn't get me to smile. I played the part the way I did because the script struck me as funny and the part I played made me laugh. The guy was such a ridiculous beast." Widmark made over 40 more movies, including Night and the City, Two Rode Together, Broken Lance, and Judgment at Nuremberg. (NY Times)

Recently Dead

Neil Aspinall, the not-a-Beatle in this 1964 photo, died today of lung cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He was 66. The Beatles' original road manager who later became the band's accountant and ran their business empire for 40 years, Aspinall was one of many people close to the group to be called "the fifth Beatle." Among his many qualifications (other than his financial prowess): He once subbed on guitar for an ill George Harrison and sang backup on "Yellow Submarine." (Telegraph)

Recently Dead

Science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke, best known for writing the book 2001: A Space Odessey and the screenplay for the trippy Kubrick film, died at home in Sri Lanka early this morning from a cardio-respiratory attack. He was 90. Clarke had suffered from debilitating post-polio syndrome for 20 years and sometimes used a wheelchair. His valet, W K M Dharmawardena, said Clarke’s condition had begun to deteriorate in recent weeks and he had been in hospital for the past four days with breathing problems. Considered to be one of the Big Three of science-fiction with Robert A Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, Clarke wrote over 100 books and is credited with inventing the concept of communications satellites in 1945. (LATimes)

Recently Dead

Anthony Minghella, who won a best-director Oscar in 1997 for The English Patient, has died of causes not yet released. He was 54. Minghella was recently in Botswana filming an adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith's novel The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which is due to air on television in the UK this week. His other films include The Talented Mr Ripley, Cold Mountain, and Truly, Madly, Deeply. (Source; photo: Getty Images)

Update: Minghella's publicist, Jonathan Rutter, said the filmmaker died at London's Charing Cross Hospital, that he was operated on last week for a growth in his neck "and the operation seemed to have gone well." But at 5AM this morning he had a fatal hemorrhage. (More)

Dipsy Can't Swim!

It's being reported that a rare white killer whale was spotted recently about two miles off Kanaga Volcano, part of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. But we suspect that's what they want us to think.

Recently Dead

Mike Smith, lead singer and keyboard player with The Dave Clark Five, died yesterday from pneumonia at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, outside London. He was 64. A spinal cord injury in 2003 had left him paralyzed from the waist down. Sad to say, Smith, who was considered, like the Beatles' Paul, to be the cute one of the group, had been getting ready to travel to New York next week, where the band is to be inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. The Dave Clark Five's hits include "Because," "Bits and Pieces," and "Glad All Over," which knocked the Beatles' “I Want to Hold Your Hand” off the top of the charts in 1963. (More)

Recently Dead

Six-foot-five ex Marine Ben Chapman, who, uncredited and with no lines and his face covered, played the Gill Man in the cult 1954 monster movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon (in 3-D!), died Thursday of congestive heart failure at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. He was 79.

"In the big picture, he achieved a small amount of success as an actor, but for baby-boomer 'monster kids,' he was the bomb," Tom Weaver, author of the 1992 making-of book Creature From the Black Lagoon, told The Times on Friday. "I wouldn't hesitate for a second to call it the most famous Hollywood monster movie of the '50s," Weaver said.

Recently Dead

Roy Scheider, star of Jaws and, more flamboyantly, All That Jazz (above), died yesterday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock. He was 75. A cause of death was not released but he had been treated for multiple myeloma over the last two years.

Recently Dead

Oh dear, I see that Shell Kepler has died, bless her heart. She was 49. Shell played General Hospital's gossipy Nurse Amy Vining – easily one of the MOST ANNOYING characters in the history of daytime television. And isn't that the truth? From 1979 to 2002, she LITERALLY sat behind the nurses station desk and said: "Did you hear about Luke and Laura?" EVERY GODDAMNED DAY. And EVERY GODDAMNED DAY, old Nurse Jesse would say: "Now Amy, stop your gossiping." And that's about it. That's all she ever did. But she was so ugly, and that nose of hers was so piggy, and her voice was so screechy and her character was so utterly unredeeming, that you couldn't help but grudgingly grow to love her. Kind of. Sort of. Anyway. It's sad that she's gone. According to Entertainment Weekly it was due to "renal failure," and I don't know what that means, but it sounds like your eyes or your ass, and either way it sounds bad. Poor little Shell. Here's a really poor quality tribute video to her I found on YouTube. I chose it only because the other tribute to her was done to the treacly, overused soundtrack of "I WILL REMEMBER YOU" and I would never subject you to that.

– James St James

Suzanne and the Plesh-ettes

Yesterday, Suzanne Pleshette posthumously recieved her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, directly in front of Frederick's of Hollywood ("which she would have LOVED!" joked the new master of ceremonies). I was there, of course, because I'm a fool for those things, and I filmed it for you, of course – Cloverfield-style, darling, because IT'S ALL THE RAGE. So don't blame me if it's unwatchable or you get sick. It's all JJ Abrams' fault.

It should be noted that this was the first Walk of Fame ceremony without late-great honorary Mayor of Hollywood Johnny Grant (unless you count Chilean recording artist Lucho Gatica's star ceremony), so the occasion was TWICE as sad. The new guy rattles on a bit for my taste, but there you are. He'll get better. After my loopy lady-lover Marcia Wallace (she of the patchy magenta spikes) bombed, Bob Newhart took to the podium for some attention-shifting shtick that I tuned in and out of. Also possibly seen in the audience were Dick Van Dyke, Rip Taylor (wearing a doubly appropriate RIP baseball cap), and several surviving Sinatras. You might also notice, as I did, that a lot of Suzanne's female friends and family members looked an awful lot like Suzanne herself. These women I dubbed The Plesh-ettes. Anyway, go ahead and try to watch the video. I dare you. If you can make it to the end, we have an ambulance waiting for you.

– James St James

Ledger Update

From the New York Times:

The actor Heath Ledger was found dead this afternoon apartment in Manhattan owned by the actress Mary-Kate Olsen, according to the New York City police. Signs pointed to a suicide, police sources said. Mr. Ledger was 28.

At 3:31 p.m., a masseuse arrived at Apartment 5A in the building, at 421 Broome Street in SoHo, for an appointment with Mr. Ledger, the police said. The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of Mr. Ledger’s bedroom. When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger naked and unconscious on a bed, with pills scattered around his body. They shook him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities.

The police said they did not suspect foul play. The police said they believed Ms. Olsen, 21, was in California and said it was not clear why Mr. Ledger was in her apartment.

[Ed note: We hear from a reliable source that Ledger was despondent over the breakup of his relationship with Michelle Williams, whom he'd been unable to reach since before Christmas. He'd been looking forward to spending more time with their infant daughter Matilda Rose, and had even dropped out of Terry Gilliam's new film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, to clear his schedule for Matilda.]