Robert James Waller, whose bestselling, bittersweet 1992 novel "The Bridges of Madison County" was turned into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood and a Broadway musical, has died in Texas, according to a longtime friend. He was 77. Waller died early Friday at his home in Fredericksburg,...
George Olah, a USC chemist and Nobel laureate who found new ways to study previously imperceptible stages in hydrocarbon-related chemical reactions, has died at his Beverly Hills home at age 89. The Hungarian-born scientist’s research, which earned USC its first Nobel in 1994, fueled the advancement...
William J. Genego, a prominent trial and appellate attorney who successfully fought to overturn the wrongful murder convictions of at least five people serving life sentences, has died. He was 66. Genego died of cancer in his Santa Monica home on Wednesday, said Vicki Podberesky, a friend and former...
As he was laying down the bass riffs for Ray Charles, Tina Turner and the Beach Boys in the recording studios of L.A. — his music filling the soundtrack of the 1960s, a different musical reputation was growing 2,500 miles away. But it wasn’t the bass guitar that had drawn Hawaiian musicians to...
Lou Duva, the Boxing Hall of Famer who handled the careers of 19 champions including heavyweight Evander Holyfield, has died at 94. The colorful Duva died Wednesday of natural causes at a hospital in Paterson, where he lived, his son said in a statement released by the family. A gruff, down-to-earth...
An outspoken civil rights lawyer who was sentenced to a decade behind bars for helping a notorious Egyptian terrorist communicate with followers from his U.S. jail cell has died of cancer, three years after her release from prison. Lynne F. Stewart, who had an unorthodox career representing small-time...
Anthony C. Beilenson, a veteran Democratic politician from Southern California who advocated for abortion rights, environmental protection and gun control as a state legislator and 10-term congressman, has died. He was 84. Beilenson had been recovering from a heart attack last month and died Sunday...
Were it not for the renegade work of club owner, Hollywood producer and self-described showman Fred Weintraub, the lives of Bruce Lee, Frankie Valli, Neil Diamond, Richard Pryor and Woody Allen, to say nothing of the mud-encrusted hippies Weintraub captured in the film “Woodstock,” might have taken...
Dr. Thomas Starzl, who pioneered liver transplant surgery in the 1960s and was a leading researcher into anti-rejection drugs, has died. He was 90. The University of Pittsburgh, speaking on behalf of Starzl's family, said the renowned doctor died Saturday at his home in Pittsburgh. Starzl performed...
Tommy Page, a former pop star whose song "I'll Be Your Everything" went to No. 1 and who later became a record company executive and publisher of Billboard magazine, has died. He was 46. Billboard reported that Page was found dead Friday in New York of an apparent suicide. Page started at the magazine...
Robert Osborne, who displayed an encyclopedic knowledge — and love — of film history as the primary host of Turner Classic Movies, died Monday morning at age 84, said his partner of 20 years, theater director and producer David Staller. Osborne died of natural causes in his sleep at home in New...
Paula Fox, a prizewinning author who created high art out of imagined chaos in such novels as "Poor George" and "Desperate Characters" and out of real-life upheavals in her memoir, "Borrowed Finery," has died at 93. Her daughter, Linda Carroll, said Fox died Wednesday at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital....
Rene Preval, the only democratically elected president of Haiti to win and complete two terms, has died at age 74. President Jovenel Moise confirmed Preval's death in a tweet on Friday. "I learned with sadness the death of former President Rene Preval," Moise said on his Twitter account. "I prostrate...
Veteran Israeli photographer David Rubinger, whose photo of Israeli paratroopers at the Western Wall holy site became an iconic image of the 1967 Mideast war, has died at 92, his children said Thursday. Rubinger worked as a photojournalist for Time-Life magazine for nearly half a century. His portraits...
Gustav Metzger, whose concept of "auto-destructive art" inspired the Who's Pete Townshend to smash his guitars, has died at age 90. Metzger died Wednesday at his London home, his publicist Erica Bolton said. Born to Polish Jewish parents in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1926, Metzger was one of thousands...
Former Associated Press foreign correspondent Sam Summerlin, who was the first to report the Korean War had ended and covered everything from Latin American revolutions to U.S. race riots during a long and distinguished career, has died. He was 89. He died Monday at a care home in Carlsbad from...
Daein Kang, a Koreatown oral surgeon whose activism in his homeland put him front and center in efforts to forge a relationship between South and North Korea, has died. Kang was one of the first oral surgeons in Koreatown and went on to a life of activism in South Korea, where he founded medical...
Lester Tenney, an Army tank commander who survived one of World War II’s signature horrors, the Bataan Death March, and spent his later years pushing Japanese authorities to apologize for their country’s war atrocities, has died at age 96. “I’ve learned to forgive,” Tenney said in 2012, on the...
Neil Fingleton, one of Britain’s tallest men and an actor who was best known for playing the giant Mag the Mighty on HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” has died. The 7-foot-7-inch actor died Saturday, according to the Associated Press. He was 36. The cause of death was heart failure, according to British...
Bill Paxton, who earned success through roles in movies including “Apollo 13,” “Titanic,” “A Simple Plan,” “Weird Science,” “Twister” and “True Lies,” as well as that of a polygamist Mormon businessman in the hit HBO series “Big Love,” has died. The actor, who was 61, died due to complications...
He was a retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge who became an unlikely American TV icon, a white-haired jurist who was dubbed the “Solomon of Small Claims.” Judge Joseph A. Wapner, who presided over “The People’s Court” for 12 years in the 1980s and ’90s, has died, a family member told...
Lucille Conlin Horn weighed barely 2 pounds when she was born, a perilous size for any infant, especially in 1920. Doctors told her parents to hold off on a funeral for her twin sister who had died at birth, expecting she too would soon be gone. But her life spanned nearly a century after her...
Fritz Koenig, a German sculptor whose work “The Sphere” became a symbol of resilience after the 9/11 attacks in New York, has died. He was 92. Koenig, a well-known artist thanks to his distinctive large statues and sculptures, created the ball-shaped bronze over a four-year period starting in 1967....
Bernie Custis, regarded as modern professional football's first black quarterback, has died. He was 88. Custis made pro football history on Aug. 29, 1951, when he became a starter with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, who confirmed his death Thursday. He starred at quarterback at Syracuse and was selected...
When Herbert Fink set up shop on Rodeo Drive, it was an unremarkable side street dotted with filling stations, a hardware shop, a few old bungalows and an aging Brown Derby restaurant. He stocked his tables with labels that were foreign to many in the city — Dolce & Gabbana, Issey Miyake, Sonia...
Alan Colmes, the longtime liberal TV and radio host for Fox News, has died after a brief illness, the network announced Thursday. He was 66. Colmes was best known as the left-leaning foil to conservative Sean Hannity on the prime-time Fox News show “Hannity & Colmes” when the cable news network...
Ed Garvey, the lawyer who led the National Football League Players Assn. through strikes in 1974 and 1982, has died at age 76. Garvey died Wednesday at a nursing home outside Madison, Wis., after a battle with Parkinson's disease, the Capital Times reported. Garvey had been the players' union...
Kenneth Arrow, the Nobel Prize-winning Stanford economist whose groundbreaking work redefined the world’s understanding of the free marketplace, has died at his home in Palo Alto. Stanford University, where Arrow spent much of his career, reported that the economist died Tuesday at the age of 95....
Jazz guitarist Larry Coryell, known as the "Godfather of Fusion," has died in New York City. He was 73. His publicist, Kurt Nishimura, said Coryell died Sunday in his hotel room of natural causes. Nishimura says he had just performed two shows at the Iridium on Friday and Saturday. Coryell’s highly...
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, a veteran diplomat known as a potent and personable voice for his country's interests as he sparred with his Western counterparts, died suddenly after falling ill Monday in his office at the mission. Vitaly Churkin, 64, was taken to a hospital in New...
Richard Schickel, whose erudite prose and piercing critiques made him one of America’s most important film critics in an era when cinema became increasingly ingrained in the cultural consciousness, died Saturday in Los Angeles from complications after a series of strokes, his family said. He was...
Clyde Stubblefield, a drummer for James Brown who created one of the most widely sampled drum breaks ever, died Saturday. He was 73. His wife, Jody Hannon, told the Associated Press that Stubblefield died of kidney failure about noon at a Madison, Wis., hospital . He had been suffering from kidney...
When Norma McCorvey revealed on Dallas television station in 1984 that she was the “Roe” in the landmark case that led the Supreme Court to legalize abortion, she called it “my law.” Fourteen years later, she told a U.S. Senate subcommittee that she would like nothing more than to see Roe vs. Wade...
Bob Michel, an affable Illinois congressman who served as leader of the Republican House minority for 14 years and was skilled at seeking compromise critical in getting many initiatives of two Republican presidents through Congress, died Friday. He was 93. A former staffer of Michel, Mike Johnson,...
Irwin Stambler, an aeronautical engineer whose love of music inspired him to write some of the earliest and most flavorful encyclopedias on pop music, has died at the age of 92. Stambler died Feb. 10 of complications from sepsis in West Los Angeles, his family said. A prolific author who wrote...
USC’s broadcaster Mike Walden was in enemy territory when the Trojans’ basketball team finally handed UCLA its first loss at Pauley Pavilion in 1969. When it was over, Walden climbed atop the announcer’s table and yelled, “The Trojans win! The Trojans win! The Trojans win!” much like the legendary...
Bobby Freeman, christened San Francisco’s first rock star and best known for his hit single “Do You Want to Dance” that enjoyed lasting success in the hands of other artists through the decades, has died at the age of 76. Freeman was 17 when he recorded the energetic, infectious song that charged...
Retired Lt. Gen. Harold G. "Hal" Moore, the American hero known for saving most of his men in the first major battle between the U.S. and North Vietnamese armies, has died at the age of 94. Joseph Galloway, who with Moore co-authored the book "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young," confirmed that...
Edward Tipper, a World War II paratrooper who was portrayed in the HBO mini-series "Band of Brothers," has died at the age of 95. He died Feb. 1 in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, his daughter said. Tipper was a member of the famed Easy Company, part of the 101st Airborne Division, and parachuted...
Al Jarreau, the legendary jazz artist and seven-time Grammy winner, has died. He was 76. The singer died about 6 a.m. Sunday at a Los Angeles hospital surrounded by family and friends, his agent said. The cause of death was not immediately known, but news of his passing comes two days after he...
Anthony Marquez, an Associated Press intern who rose to Los Angeles bureau chief, where his calm hand brought stability to news coverage in Southern California amid upheaval in the journalism industry, has died. He was 55. Marquez died Thursday due to complications from cancer. Unfailingly courteous...
Mike Ilitch, founder of the Little Caesars Pizza empire and owner of the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Tigers, has died. He was 87. Ilitch, who was praised for keeping his professional hockey and baseball teams in Detroit as other urban sports franchises relocated to new suburban stadiums,...
Physicist Peter Mansfield, who won the Nobel Prize for helping to invent MRI scanners, has died at the age of 83. The University of Nottingham released a statement from Mansfield's family on Thursday confirming his death a day earlier. The London-born Mansfield joined the University of Nottingham...
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, former party girl and a goddaughter of Prince Charles, was found dead at her London home on Wednesday. She was 45. The prince said in a statement that he and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, were "deeply saddened" by news of her death. "Our thoughts are so much with the...
Doris Lockness, a pioneering aviatrix and one of the nation’s most honored female pilots, has died at age 106 in Folsom. Lockness’ aviation career spanned six decades and included a stint with the Women Airforce Service Pilots during World War II, when she became one of the first women to fly U.S....
He was a “naked warrior” during World War II and Korea, a spy in China, a Navy SEAL, a mayor and one of the greatest surfers to ride the waves in Oceanside. Retired Rear Adm. Richard “Dick” Lyon, the first Navy SEAL team reservist to become a flag officer, died Feb. 3 from age-related renal failure...