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BERKELEY, Calif. - A winery spokeswoman says California winemaking patriarch Robert Mondavi has died. He was 94. Robert Mondavi Winery spokeswoman Mia Malm says Mondavi died peacefully at his home in Yountville on Friday. After being ousted from a family-run venture with his younger brother, Mondavi started his own winery in 1966 at the age of 52. He built the winery into a thriving business using innovations such as cold fermentation and stainless steel tanks. But the winery struggled from rising competition among other things in the mid-1990s and the company was bought out for $1.3 billion in 2004. Mondavi...

William Elder, the illustrator who pioneered the visual style for iconic humour title Mad magazine, has died at the age of 86. Gary VandenBergh, Elder's son-in-law, told comic world blog Journalista that the pioneering cartoonist died early Thursday morning after having battled Parkinson's disease for several years. DC Comics, which now owns Mad, also confirmed the news in a statement. "Willie Elder was one of the funniest artists to ever work for Mad," John Ficarra, one of the humour title's editors, said in a release. "Willie's 'anything goes' art style set the tone for the entire magazine and created a...

Robert G. Mondavi — the 94-year-old Napa Valley visionary who put California wine on dinner tables around the world — died Friday morning. Mondavi is widely credited with being the driving force behind Napa Valley’s propulsion to the top of the wine world, a place where great grapes are grown and wines made, and where the industry thrives. Prior to Mondavi launching his own winery and brand in 1966, American wines were considered cheap imitations of those produced in Bordeaux, Burgundy and other long-established winegrowing regions of the world. Aware of the potential of the local sun-splashed terroir, vintner Mondavi...

John Phillip Law, a tall, blond actor who cut a striking figure as the blind angel opposite Jane Fonda in 1968's "Barbarella" and in other film roles, has died. He was 70.

MOUNT VERNON, Mo. - , an influential gospel singer and songwriter, died early Sunday when her tour bus ran off the highway and struck an embankment. She was 74. Seven other people on the bus were injured in the wreck about two miles east of Mount Vernon on Interstate 44, the Missouri Highway Patrol said. They were hospitalized in Springfield with moderate to severe injuries, according to the patrol. It was unclear whether the crash was related to the severe storms and tornadoes that hit the region on Saturday. Storms also swept through the area later in the night, according...

“Diplomacy without force is like music without instruments.” http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=TopStories&id=20080508/48227ac0_3ca6_155262008050828422566 Biographer: Country superstar Eddy Arnold dies at 89 Thursday, May 8, 2008 NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Eddy Arnold, whose mellow baritone on songs like "Make the World Go Away" made him one of the most successful country singers in history, died Thursday morning, days short of his 90th birthday. Arnold died at a care facility near Nashville, said Don Cusic, a professor at Belmont University and author of the biography "Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You in My Heart." His wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March, and in the same...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Eddy Arnold, whose mellow baritone on songs like "Make the World Go Away" made him one of the most successful country singers in history, died Thursday morning, days short of his 90th birthday. Arnold died at a care facility near Nashville, said Don Cusic, a professor at Belmont University and author of the biography "Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You in My Heart." His wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March, and in the same month, Arnold fell outside his home, injuring his hip. Arnold's vocals on songs like the 1965 "Make the World Go Away,"...

Eddy Arnold, whose mellow baritone on songs like "Make the World Go Away" made him one of the most successful country singers in history, died Thursday morning, days short of his 90th birthday. Arnold died at a care facility near Nashville, said Don Cusic, a professor at Belmont University and author of the biography "Eddy Arnold: I'll Hold You in My Heart." His wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March, and in the same month, Arnold fell outside his home, injuring his hip. Arnold's vocals on songs like the 1965 "Make the World Go Away," one of his...

Eddy Arnold, whose long career in country included 27 number 1 hits in a recording career spanning 6 decades and membership in the Country Music Hall of Fame, died this morning at 89 in Tennessee. Arnold, known as The Tennessee Plowboy, was part of the breed of country singers who saw the genre swing a bit from more rural and folk sounds to pop-influenced music. Arnold was born in Henderson, Tenn. May 15, 1918 to a farming family. He was interested in music at an early age with a cousin lending him a Sears Roebuck Silvertone guitar. Growing up, he...

Irvine Robbins, co-founder of Baskin-Robbins whose penchant for creating unusual ice-cream flavors helped push post-World War II America far beyond its chocolate-vanilla-strawberry tastes, has died. He was 90. Robbins, who opened his first ice-cream shop in 1945 in Glendale, died Monday of complications related to old age at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, said his daughter, Marsha Veit. With his brother-in-law and partner, Burton Baskin, Robbins displayed a keen sense of fun and a flair for marketing that helped turn some of their frozen treats into cultural touchstones. When the Dodgers came to Los Angeles in 1958, they were...

he man who helped build the 31-flavor craze at ice cream store Baskin-Robbins has died at age 90. Irvine Robbins died Monday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Daughter Marsha Veit says he had been in ill for some time. Generations of kids trooped to Baskin-Robbins stores to buy ice cream flavors like Pralines 'n Cream, Daiquiri Ice and Pink Bubblegum.

RIVER FOREST, Ill. — The wife of radio legend Paul Harvey, Lynne Cooper Harvey died at her Illinois home Saturday morning after a year-long battle with leukemia, according to a statement from Harvey's office. The woman he called "Angel" was 92. Lynne developed and edited her husband's best-known feature "The Rest of the Story." A director, writer and editor, and the producer of her husband's radio program, she was the first producer ever inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. Among her brainchilds were including news features within hard-news broadcasts, and the humorous "kicker," which became a Paul Harvey trademark....

PHILADELPHIA - Cartoonist Ted Key, whose comic strip "Hazel" about a bossy maid went from magazine page to TV screen, has died. He was 95. He died Saturday at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Tredyffrin Township after a 1 1/2-year battle with cancer, his son Peter Key said Monday. "Hazel" was a popular feature in The Saturday Evening Post from the time it debuted in 1943. It evolved into a prime-time series in 1961 that starred Shirley Booth and ran for four years on NBC and one year on CBS. Key also created the characters Mr. Peabody and...

HAVANA - Robert Vesco, the American fugitive who cooked up moneymaking schemes that allegedly involved everyone from Colombian drug lords to the families of U.S. presidents, died in Cuba and was buried almost six months ago, according to an official document. A burial record at Havana's Colon Cemetery shows that a man with the same name and birthdate — Dec. 4, 1935 — died on Nov. 23 from lung cancer and was buried the next day in a private plot. He was 71, less than two weeks shy of his 72nd birthday. In his lifetime, Vesco was accused of looting...

(not subject to copyright) SELLERS, Timothy A longtime Sacramento resident passed away unexpectedly April 26, 2008 at age 51. He is survived by his beloved wife, Cindy Sellers, mother, Lois Lewis (Marv), father, Gene Sellers (Linda), brothers, Thomas Sellers (Barbara) of Tampa Bay, Florida, and Todd Sellers (Joellen) of Forest Hill, California. He also leaves behind a sister-in-law, Diann Torgeson, and adoring nieces & nephews, Amber, Chrissy, Lacy, Haley, Jamie & Ryan. Tim was a Certified Public Accountant and was proud to be employed 8 years with Hewlett-Packard and served as a director on the Child Abuse Prevention Council. Tim...

lbert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical discovery inspired — and arguably corrupted — millions in the 1960s hippie generation, has died. He was 102. Hofmann died Tuesday at his home in Burg im Leimental, said Doris Stuker, a municipal clerk in the village near Basel where Hofmann moved following his retirement in 1971. For decades after LSD was banned in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention. "I produced the substance as a medicine. ... It's not my fault if people abused it," he once said. The Swiss chemist discovered lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in 1938...

Albert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical discovery grew into a notorious illicit substance, died Tuesday. He was 102. Hofmann died of a heart attack at his home in Basel, Switzerland, according to Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, in a statement posted on the association's website. His death was confirmed to the Associated Press by Doris Stuker, a clerk in the village of Burg im Leimental, where Hofmann moved following his retirement in 1971. Hofmann's hallucinogen inspired — and arguably corrupted — millions in the 1960s psychedelic era. For decades after...

Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD and thereby gave the psychedelic generation the pharmaceutical vehicle to turn on, tune in and drop out, has died. He was 102.

Albert Hofmann, who died on Tuesday aged 102, synthesised lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 1938 and became the first person in the world to experience a full-blown acid trip. The day, April 19 1943, became known among aficionados as “Bicycle Day” as it was while cycling home from his laboratory that he experienced the most intense symptoms. Hofmann was working as a research chemist in the laboratory of the Sandoz Company (now Novartis) in Basel, Switzerland, where he was involved in studying the medicinal properties of plants. This eventually led to the study of the alkaloid compounds of ergot, a...

ACKSON, Mississippi (AP) -- Paul Davis, a singer and songwriter whose soft rock hit "I Go Crazy" stayed on the charts for months after its release in 1977, died Tuesday. He was 60. Davis died of a heart attack at Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian, the city where he grew up, cousin James Edwards said. Davis' other popular hits included "65 Love Affair;" "You're Still New To Me," a country duet with Marie Osmond; and "Ride 'Em Cowboy." His 1977 album "Singer of Songs -- Teller of Tales" featured the ballad "I Go Crazy." The song slowly climbed the charts,...

Edward Lorenz, an MIT meteorologist who tried to explain why it is so hard to make good weather forecasts and wound up unleashing a scientific revolution called chaos theory, died April 16 of cancer at his home in Cambridge. He was 90.A professor at MIT, Lorenz was the first to recognize what is now called chaotic behavior in the mathematical modeling of weather systems. In the early 1960s, Lorenz realized that small differences in a dynamic system such as the atmosphere--or a model of the atmosphere--could trigger vast and often unsuspected results. These observations ultimately led him to formulate what...

-snip- To his fellow "open-shop" builders, Mr. Altemose was a hero, paving the way for non-union contractors to gain ground in a heavily unionized area. To those in the building trades, Altemose represented a threat to union abilities to make sure workers were paid well and had adequate benefits and safety protections. --snip-- On June 5, 1972, about 1,000 members, many wearing hardhats, swarmed over a construction site in Center Square, Montgomery County, where nonunion Altemose was building the Valley Forge Sheraton Hotel. The union members "stormed the Valley Forge site, overrunning a fence and destroying $400,000 worth of equipment...

" ... and then there were none." For over three decades now, animation fans have been quietly counting down. As first John Lounsbury, and then Les Clark slipped away. Followed by Woolie Reitherman, Milt Kahl and Eric Larsen. Then Marc Davis, Ward Kimball and Frank Thomas. And today word came out of Sequim, WA. that Ollie Johnston -- the last of Walt's Nine Old Men -- had passed away...

John A. Wheeler, a visionary physicist and teacher who helped invent the theory of nuclear fission, gave black holes their name and argued about the nature of reality with Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, died Sunday morning at his home in Hightstown, N.J. He was 96. Skip to next paragraph The cause was pneumonia, said his daughter Alison Wheeler Lahnston. Dr. Wheeler was a young, impressionable professor in 1939 when Bohr, the Danish physicist and his mentor, arrived in the United States aboard a ship from Denmark and confided to him that German scientists had succeeded in splitting uranium atoms....

Actor Charleton Heston has died at age 84 according to KABC radio news.

If posted already, delete. Just reported a few ago. One of the good guys.

TOKYO - Kaku Yamanaka, Japan's oldest person, has died of old age in central Japan, officials said Saturday. She was 113. Yamanaka died at a hospital where she was taken early Saturday after falling ill at a nursing home in Yatomi City in Aichi prefecture (state), an official at her nursing home said on condition of anonymity, citing policy. Born on Dec. 11, 1894, Yamanaka became Japan's oldest person when Tsuneyo Toyonaga, 113, died in February. It was not immediately clear who had become Japan's new oldest person, and Health Ministry officials were not available for comment Saturday. Yamanaka was...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died Sunday, his former colleague said. Dith Pran founded an awareness project dedicated to educating people about the Khmer Rouge regime. Dith, 65, died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Dith had been diagnosed almost three months ago. Dith was working as an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg...

Dith Pran, a Khmer Rouge survivor whose experiences in Cambodia were adapted into the award-winning movie The Killing Fields, died early on Sunday at the age of 65, his friend and former New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg said. Dith, who had been battling pancreatic cancer since January, died in the early hours at a hospital in New Jersey, with his ex-wife at his side. "Pran was a special person, a very special person. Messages are pouring in from people who met him only once saying that he made a deep impression on them. And he did, on everybody," Mr...

'Killing Fields' survivor Dith Pran dies By RICHARD PYLE, Associated Press Writer Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died Sunday, his former colleague said. Dith, 65, died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Dith had been diagnosed almost three months ago. Dith was working as an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, when...

LOS ANGELES - Herb Peterson, who invented the ubiquitous Egg McMuffin as a way to introduce breakfast to McDonald's restaurants, has died, a Southern California McDonald's official said Wednesday. He was 89. Peterson died peacefully Tuesday at his Santa Barbara home, said Monte Fraker, vice president of operations for McDonald's restaurants in that city. He began his career with McDonald's Corp. as vice president of the company's advertising firm, D'Arcy Advertising, in Chicago. He wrote McDonald's first national advertising slogan, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day."

HARTFORD, Conn. - Richard Widmark, who made a sensational film debut as the giggling killer in "Kiss of Death" and became a Hollywood leading man in "Broken Lance," "Two Rode Together" and 40 other films, has died after a long illness. He was 93. Widmark's wife, Susan Blanchard, says the actor died at his home in Roxbury on Monday. She would not provide details of his illness and said funeral arrangements are private. "It was a big shock, but he was 93," Blanchard said. After a career in radio drama and theater, Widmark moved to films as Tommy Udo, who...

Richard Widmark, who created a villain in his first movie role who was so repellent and frightening that the actor became a star overnight, died Monday at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 93. His death was announced Wednesday morning by his wife, Susan Blanchard. She said that Mr. Widmark had fractured a vertebrae in recent months and that his conditioned had worsened.

NEW YORK (AP) — Neil Aspinall, a longtime friend of the Beatles who managed their business enterprises and helped make the group a moneymaking phenomenon decades after they split up, has died. He was 66. Aspinall's death was announced Monday in a statement from surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison, and the band's Apple Corps Ltd. company. Aspinall died Sunday night at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where he had been receiving treatment for lung cancer, according to Geoff Baker, who formerly represented both Aspinall and Apple Corps.

A 114-year-old woman, considered the oldest person in Texas, has died at a Dallas retirement home. Arbella Perkins Ewings celebrated her birthday March 13 with a proclamation from Mayor Tom Leppert and speeches by friends and family. She blew out all 114 candles on her birthday cake. Ewings was born March 13, 1894, the fourth oldest of 12 children whose great-grandparents had been slaves in Mississippi. She married Frank Ewings in 1915, and they moved to South Dallas in 1936, where she worked as a housekeeper until the 1960s. -snip Her only surviving sibling, Annie Lee Perkins, is 103.

Al Copeland, a hard-charging, high-living entrepreneur who built an empire on spicy fried chicken and fluffy white biscuits, died Sunday in Munich, Germany, of complications from cancer treatment. He was 64. He had gone to Munich for treatment of his illness, which had been diagnosed in November, said Kit Wohl, his spokeswoman. Born in poverty, Mr. Copeland burst onto the scene in 1972, when he opened his first Popeyes fried-chicken stand, in Arabi. It was the start of a franchise that, under his leadership, had 700 outlets, not only in the United States but also in Puerto Rico, Panama and...

The Oscar-winning British stage and screen actor Paul Scofield has died at the age of 86. Scofield, one of the finest classical actors of his generation, won his Academy award as well as a Bafta, in 1967 for his role as Sir Thomas More, the 16th century Lord Chancellor executed by Henry VIII, in the film of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons. Starting his career in 1940 - he rose to prominence in Stratford-upon-Avon - he was noted for Shakespearean roles and was ranked alongside Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson as the country’s greatest stage stars...

The Rev. Jacob Daniel "Jake" DeShazer, who was the oldest survivor of World War II's historic Doolittle Raid on Japan, died Saturday, March 15, 2008, at his home in Salem. He was 95. DeShazer stood out among the 80 Doolittle Raiders, 11 of whom are still alive. After spending 40 months post-raid as a prisoner of war, he returned to Japan intent on forgiving his former captors and converting them to Christianity. Over 30 years, he helped start 23 churches in Japan. Born Nov. 15, 1912, in Madras to a wheat-farming family, DeShazer graduated from Madras High School in 1931....

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Ivan Dixon, best known for his role as Staff Sgt. James Kinchloe on the '60s television classic, "Hogan Heroes," has died. He was 76. His daughter said Dixon died Sunday at a hospital in Charlotte after a hemorrhage and of complications from kidney failure. In addition to acting, Dixon directed hundreds of episodes of television shows, including "The Waltons," "The Rockford Files," "Magnum, P.I." and "In the Heat of the Night." Dixon's acting credits predate "Hogan Heroes." He was a stunt double for Sidney Poitier in the 1958 movie "The Defiant Ones." Poitier said in a statement...

Actor, director and producer Ivan Dixon, best known for his role as Kinchloe in the television series "Hogan's Heroes," has died in Charlotte at the age of 76. Dixon died Sunday at a Charlotte hospital after suffering a hemorrhage, said Whitney Stauffer of Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles. Actor Sidney Poitier said the two men became friends after Dixon was his stunt double in the 1958 movie, "The Defiant Ones." "As an actor, you had to be careful," Poitier said through Stauffer. "He was quite likely to walk off with the scene. And I was very careful." Dixon began...

Arthur C. Clarke, 1917 - 2008 Posted at 4:21 pm in Science I am incredibly saddened to hear that Arthur C. Clarke has died. He had been ill for sometime, and finally succumbed earlier today. It is no exaggeration at all to say we owe the world to Clarke. He is most famous for having written the book and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, of course. But he also was the first person to conceive of a geostationary orbit; one in which a satellite orbits the Earth once every 24 hours, giving it a view that always shows the same...

Science fiction author Arthur C Clarke dies aged 90 Arthur C Clarke at his home in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo Lech Mintowt-Czyz Science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died aged 90 in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, it was confirmed tonight. Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30am after suffering breathing problems, his personal secretary Rohan De Silva said. “Sir Arthur passed away a short while ago at the Apollo Hospital [in Colombo}. He had a cardio-respiratory attack,” he said. His valet, W. K. M....

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — An aide says science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke has died. Rohan De Silva says Clarke died early Wednesday after suffering from breathing problems. He was 90-years-old. Clarke is the author of more than 100 books, including "2001: A Space Odyssey."

No links though.

Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella, who turned such literary works as "The English Patient," "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Cold Mountain" into acclaimed movies, has died. He was 54. Minghella's death was confirmed Tuesday by his agent, Judy Daish. No other details were immediately available. "The English Patient," the 1996 World War II drama, won nine Academy Awards, including best director for Minghella, best picture and best supporting actress for Juliette Binoche. Based on the celebrated novel by Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje, the movie tells of a burn victim's tortured recollections of his misdeeds in time of war. Minghella (pronounced min-GELL'-ah)...

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080318/NEWS/803180337

3/17/2008 - SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) -- Retired Staff Sgt. Jacob DeShazer, 95, one of the famed "Doolittle Raiders," who helped boost American morale in the early days of World War II with a surprise air attack on Japan, died March 15. Born Nov. 15, 1912, in Salem, Ore., Sergeant DeShazer graduated from Madras High School in 1931. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1940. Sergeant DeShazer, then a corporal, was the bombardier of Crew No.16 flying the "Bat Out of Hell," the last of the 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers to launch from the USS Hornet April 18, 1942,...

'France's last surviving veteran of World War One, Lazare Ponticelli, has died at the age of 110. President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the death on Wednesday, paying tribute to the last "poilu", as French WWI veterans were known. "Today, I express the nation's deep emotion and infinite sadness," he said. Mr Ponticelli, originally Italian, had lied about his age in order to join the French Foreign Legion in August 1914, aged 16, Mr Sarkozy said. There are a handful of surviving WWI veterans from other countries, including British pilot Henry Allingham and Austro-Hungarian artillery man Franz Kunstler. France's oldest surviving WWI...

In front of the camera, Gary Hart, who died Sunday, was one of the most vile and hated managers of all time; behind the scenes, he had one of the greatest minds for professional wrestling...

Metropolitan Laurus deceased http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=dujour&div=163 New York, March 16, Interfax – First hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia Metropolitan Laurus of Eastern America and New York Diocese deceased on Sunday at the age of 80, the ROCOR website has reported. Metropolitan Laurus passed away on the Feast of Orthodoxy. He was born Vassily Mikhailovich Skurla on January 1, 1928, in the village of Ladomirova, present day Slovakia. He was ordained to the diaconate in 1950, and became a hieromonk in 1954. Fr. Laurus graduated from the Holy Trinity Theological Seminary in 1954 and was appointed its inspector in...