RIP

[Kobi]

Born December 13, 1934, Zanuck, was the son of legendary producer and studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, and amassed his own impressive resume of notable films going back several decades. Zanuck gave a young TV director named Steven Spielberg his entrée into features with the low-budget road adventure “The Sugarland Express,” which was well-reviewed but only modestly successful financially. Their next collaboration, “Jaws,” fared somewhat better. That movie virtually invented the summer blockbuster and changed the movie industry forever.

That kicked off a wild run of movies, good, bad and indifferent, that made Zanuck a force to be reckoned with during the seventies and eighties. Zanuck is a credited producer or executive producer on titles such as Clint Eastwood's “The Eiger Sanction,” the biopic“MacArthur,” which starred Gregory Peck, “Jaws 2,” Sidney Lumet's “The Verdict” with Paul Newman and James Mason, Ron Howard's “Cocoon” and “Driving Miss Daisy.

In the nineties he produced some forgettable commercial fare, ranging from “Chain Reaction” to “Deep Impact,” and Lee Tamahori’s “Mulholland Falls,” with Nick Nolte, Melanie Griffith, Chazz Palminteri, Chris Penn, Jennifer Connelly and Treat Williams.

He also produced “Road to Perdition,” hands-down the best gangster movie since “The Godfather.” That movie was directed by Sam Mendes, and starred Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Daniel Craig.

More recently he emerged as the producer of most of Tim Burton’s output, including “Big Fish,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” “Alice in Wonderland” and this summer’s “Dark Shadows.”

http://www.examiner.com/article/prod...es-at-age-77-2

[Kobi]

Celeste Holm, a versatile, bright-eyed blonde who soared to Broadway fame in Oklahoma! and won an Oscar in Gentleman's Agreement died Sunday. She was 95.

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Holm played everyone from Ado Annie — the girl who just can't say no in Oklahoma! — to a worldly theatrical agent in the 1991 comedy I Hate Hamlet to guest star turns on TV shows such as Fantasy Island to Bette Davis' best friend in All About Eve.

She won the Academy Award in 1947 for best supporting actress for her performance in Gentlemen's Agreement and received Oscar nominations for Come to the Stable (1949) and All About Eve (1950).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/20...m.html?cmp=rss

[Kobi]

Singer Kitty Wells, whose hits such as Making Believe and It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels made her the first female superstar of country music, died Monday. She was 92.

Her solo recording career lasted from 1952 to the late 1970s and she made concert tours from the late 1930s until 2000.

She recorded approximately 50 albums, had 25 Top 10 country hits and went around the world several times. From 1953 to 1968, various polls listed Wells as the No. 1 female country singer.

In 1976, she was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame and 10 years later received the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music. In 1991 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences — the group that presents the Grammy Awards.

Her 1955 hit Making Believe was on the movie soundtrack of Mississippi Burning that was released 33 years later. Among her other hits were The Things I Might Have Been, Release Me, Amigo's Guitar, Heartbreak USA, Left to Right and a version of I Can't Stop Loving You.

In 1989, Wells collaborated with Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn and k.d. lang on the record The Honky Tonk Angels Medley.

Her songs tended to treasure devotion and home life, with titles like Searching (For Someone Like You) and Three Ways (To Love You). But her It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels gave the woman's point of view about the wild side of life. The song opened the way for women to present their view of life and love in country music. It also encouraged Nashville songwriters to begin writing from a woman's perspective.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/...sic/56256608/1

[Kobi]

LONDON (AP) — British rocker Jon Lord, the keyboardist whose powerful, driving tones helped turn Deep Purple and Whitesnake into two of the most popular hard rock acts in a generation, died Monday. He was 71.

Lord co-wrote some of Deep Purple's most famous tunes, including "Smoke on the Water," and later had a successful solo career following his retirement from the band in 2002.

Lord got his musical start playing piano, first taking classical music lessons before shifting to rock and roll.

After moving to London to attend drama school, he joined blues band the Artwoods in 1964 and later toured with The Flowerpot Men — known for their hit "Let's Go To San Francisco" — before joining Deep Purple in 1968.

Deep Purple — which featured Lord along with singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, drummer Ian Paice and bassist Roger Glover — was one of the top hard rock bands of the '70s. Influenced by classical music, blues and jazz, Lord took his Hammond organ and distorted its sound to powerful effect on songs including "Hush," ''Highway Star," ''Lazy" and "Child in Time."

The group went on to sell more than 100 million albums before splitting in 1976.

Lord went on to play with hard rock group Whitesnake in the late 1970s and early 1980s and later, a re-formed Deep Purple.

http://news.yahoo.com/deep-purples-j...181213090.html

[Kobi]

Donald J. Sobol, the author who dreamed up the kid sleuth Encyclopedia Brown and wrote dozens of books that sold millions of copies, has died at age 87.

His series featured amateur investigator Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown, who would unravel local mysteries with the help of his encyclopedic knowledge of facts great and small. The books, first published in the early 1960s, became staples in classrooms and libraries nationwide. They were translated into 12 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide.

The Encyclopedia Brown books also featured Brown's friend and detective partner, the tough and athletic Sally Kimball. John Sobol said his dad was ahead of his times in creating a strong female character.

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the Encyclopedia Brown series. Donald Sobol's latest adventure, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Soccer Scheme, will be published in October, according to a release from Penguin.

Born in New York City, Sobol served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II and graduated from Oberlin College. He later worked as a copywriter at the New York Sun, where he eventually became a reporter. His first book was rejected two dozen times before it was published, his son said.

In 1958, Sobol became a successful syndicated columnist with his "Two Minute Mystery" series before publishing Encyclopedia Brown Boy Detective five years later to launch the most popular series of his career.

The Encyclopedia Brown concept, in which the solutions to the mysteries are shown after the story, came to Sobol while he was researching an article at the New York Public Library. A clerk mistakenly handed him a game book, with puzzles on one side and the solutions on the other.

Sobol decided to write a mystery series with the same premise. He earned an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America award for the series.

John Sobol said his father would frequently test out story ideas on his four children. "We would talk about it sitting around dinner," he said, adding, "My mom also helped inject humor into the stories."

The series inevitably attracted Hollywood, which tried for decades to adapt the books for the big screen, with Anthony Hopkins, Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn among those interested in the project. But legal disputes over who controls film rights have prevented any feature film from being made.

Sobol's work never brought him the financial success of blockbusters like the Harry Potter series, his son said, but his father loved hearing from countless librarians and parents about children who hated to read until they picked up an Encyclopedia Brown book.

Sobol wrote more than 80 books, working daily until the very end.

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/16/156860...bol-dies-at-87

[Kobi]

Stephen R. Covey, author of the bestselling self-help book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," died Monday, his family announced. Covey, 79, had been injured in a major bicycle accident in April.

Covey's signature work was published in 1989 and became a lasting bestseller — in 1994, it had been on the New York Times bestseller list for 220 weeks. Currently its sales are tallied at more than 20 million copies. He went on to write a number of sequels and spinoffs, including "The Third Alternative" (2011) and "The Eighth Habit" (2005). He was also a sought-after management advisor.

Covey was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He got an MBA at Harvard, then returned to Utah to get a doctorate from Brigham Young University, where he taught business management.

The Salt Lake Tribune writes:

Covey’s management post at BYU led to "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," which launched a second career as management guru for companies and government agencies, among them Saturn, Ritz Carlton, Proctor & Gamble, Sears Roebuck and Co., NASA, Black & Decker, Public Broadcasting Service, Amway, American Cancer Society and the Internal Revenue Service.

The books have legions of adherents in corporate America who swear by its principles. But critics tend to see it as part of a cult of the self-help American frenzy of past decades or so that tends to trivialize big problems.

Covey founded a Utah-based management training center that sold books and videos and held training seminars. In 1997 it merged with FranklinQuest, a deal from which Covey was said to have made about $27 million in cash and stock.

"We believe that organizational behavior is individual behavior collectivized," he told Fortune magazine in 1994. "We want to take this to the whole world."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jack...-has-died.html

[Kobi]

PALM DESERT, Calif. — The director and producer behind the television classics "I Love Lucy" and "Bewitched" has died. Bill Asher was 90.

His wife, Meredith, says he died Monday at a facility in Palm Desert, Calif., of complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Asher was best known for his work on "I Love Lucy," where he directed Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz for 100 of the show's 181 episodes between 1952 and 1957.

He also produced and directed "The Patty Duke Show" and "Bewitched," which starred his then-wife Elizabeth Montgomery. Montgomery and Asher had three children together.

Asher brought Sally Field to TV screens in "Gidget," and took the same sensibility to movies as director of the teen romps "Beach Blanket Bingo" and "Beach Party," starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501368_1...er-dies-at-90/

[Kobi]

Best-selling Irish author Maeve Binchy has died aged 72 after a short illness.

Binchy, born in Dalkey, Co Dublin, has sold more than 40 million books. Her works were often set in Ireland and have been translated into 37 languages.

They include The Lilac Bus as well as Tara Road and Circle of Friends, which were both adapted for screen.

Binchy trained as a teacher before moving into journalism and writing, publishing her first novel - Light a Penny Candle - in 1982.

She had written the novel in her spare time from her day job as a journalist at The Irish Times.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19057922

[Kobi]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tony Martin, the romantic singer who appeared in movie musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s and sustained a career in records, television and nightclubs from the Depression era into the 21st century, has died. He was 98.

A peer of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, Martin sang full voice in a warm baritone that carried special appeal for his female audience. Among his hit recordings were "I Get Ideas," ''To Each His Own," ''Begin the Beguine" and "There's No Tomorrow."

Although he never became a full-fledged movie star, he was featured in 25 films, most of them made during the heyday of the Hollywood musicals. A husky 6 feet tall and dashingly handsome, he was often cast as the romantic lead.

He also married two movie musical superstars, Alice Faye and Cyd Charisse, and the latter union lasted 60 years, until her death in 2008.

http://news.yahoo.com/romantic-croon...172647928.html

[Kobi]

DALLAS (AP) -- Suzy Gershman, whose "Born to Shop" travel guides have helped readers find where to browse and buy from Paris to Hong Kong, has died. She was 64.

Gershman died July 25 in San Antonio after being diagnosed about a year ago with brain cancer, said her son, Aaron Gershman, and her co-author, Sarah Lahey.

Since its launch in the mid-1980s, "Born to Shop" series has been translated into a half-dozen languages and sold more than 4 million copies worldwide, Lahey said. Sixteen of the books have been published, and some were revised every other year. Frommer's acquired the rights for the books in 1995.

"They were for people who were as passionate about shopping as Suzy," said Kelly Regan, editorial director for Frommer's Travel Guides.

With a focus on good value and high quality, Gershman was just as comfortable looking for bargains at flea markets as she was at high-end stores like Hermes, said Regan. She said Gershman was also "particularly incisive" on what outlet centers were worth the trip, and could cover all areas of shopping, from clothing to home goods to pet gear.

Lahey, who worked with Gershman for the last eight years, said Gershman liked to focus on the "hidden gems in each city," including markets or boutiques that could offer a shopper something they couldn't get back home. Lahey said that Gershman was a big gift-giver whose "theory was that you should bring back a gift that was unique to the area."

"She loved what she did," Lahey said. "She loved exploring new places."

Her son, 32-year-old Aaron Gershman of Los Angeles, who can remember traveling "everywhere" with his globe-trotting mother, said he always admired that she turned a love of shopping and travel into a career.

"From before I could walk, I remember being in a stroller on the big shopping streets of Paris," he said.

After Gershman's husband, Michael Gershman, died in 2000, she decided to move to Paris. Her book "C'est la Vie," detailed her first year of widowhood.

After about a decade in France, Gershman decided to return to San Antonio, where she had grown up and graduated from high school.

Aaron Gershman said that his mother, who has a large extended family in San Antonio, had started to miss the "little things," including everything from American commercials to "real guacamole."

Gershman was born on April 13, 1948, in Syracuse, N.Y. While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Gershman worked for the San Antonio Express-News. After graduating from UT in 1969, Gershman moved to New York, working in advertising and public relations before beginning a career in magazines as a freelance journalist. Gershman and her husband then moved to Los Angeles, where she became the West Coast style editor in People magazine's Beverly Hills offices.

Her first television job was a stint on the style show "PM Magazine." She later would frequently appear on television programs talking about her shopping expertise and contributed to various magazines.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pb...?category=NEWS

[Kobi]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Writer Gore Vidal, who filled his novels and essays with acerbic observations on politics, sex and American culture while carrying on feuds with big-name literary rivals, died on Tuesday at home in Los Angeles of complications from pneumonia, age 86.

Vidal's literary legacy includes a series of historical novels - "Burr," "1876," "Lincoln" and "The Golden Age" among them - as well as the campy transsexual comedy "Myra Breckinridge".

He started writing as a 19-year-old soldier stationed in Alaska, basing "Williwaw" on his World War Two experiences. His third book, "The City and the Pillar," created a sensation in 1948 because it was one of the first open portrayals of a homosexual main character.

He referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and was as egotistical and caustic as he was elegant and brilliant.

In addition to rubbing shoulders with the great writers of his time, he banged heads with many of them. Vidal considered Ernest Hemingway a joke and compared Truman Capote to a "filthy animal that has found its way into the house".

His most famous literary enemies were conservative pundit William F. Buckley Jr. and writer Norman Mailer, who Vidal once likened to cult killer Charles Manson.

Mailer head-butted Vidal before a television appearance and on another occasion knocked him to the ground.

Vidal and Buckley took their feud to live national television while serving as commentators at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vidal accused Buckley of being a "pro-crypto-Nazi" while Buckley called Vidal a "queer" and threatened to punch him.

Vidal seemed to make no effort to curb his abundant ego.

In a 2008 interview with Esquire magazine Vidal said people always seemed impressed that he had met so many famous people, such as Jacqueline Kennedy and William Burroughs.

"People always put that sentence the wrong way around," he said. "I mean, why not put it the true way - that these people got to meet me, and wanted to?"

NEPHEW OF SENATOR

Eugene Luther Vidal Jr. was born on October 3, 1925 in West Point, New York, and eventually took his mother's surname as his first name. He grew up in Washington, D.C., where his grandfather, Democratic U.S. Sen. Thomas Gore of Oklahoma, had a strong influence on the boy.

The young Vidal developed an interest in politics as he read to the blind senator and led him about town. A distant cousin is former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

He went to exclusive private secondary schools but did not attend college.

After his parents divorced, Vidal's mother married Hugh Auchincloss, who later also became the stepfather of Jacqueline Kennedy. That connection gave Vidal access to the Kennedy White House before a falling out with the family.

After early success, his literary career stalled - perhaps because of the controversy of "The City and the Pillar" - and he concentrated on television and movie scripts.

Vidal got back on track in the 1960s with "Julian," about a Roman emperor; "Washington, D.C.," the tale of a political family; and "Myra Breckenridge."

Bigger success followed with recreations of historical U.S. figures - such as Aaron Burr and Abraham Lincoln - that analyze where Vidal thought the United States fell from grace.

Vidal also was known for his sharp essays on society, sex, literature and politics. He was fervent about politics and what he considered to be the death of "the American Empire".

"The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return," he once said.

In 1960 Vidal ran unsuccessfully for a congressional seat in New York and in 1982 failed in a bid for a California Senate seat.

He once described the United States as "the land of the dull and the home of the literal" and starting in the 1960s lived much of the time in a seaside Italian villa. He moved back permanently in 2003, shortly before Howard Austen, his companion of more than 50 years, died of cancer

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/american-au...043207888.html

[Kobi]

Marvin Hamlisch, who composed or arranged the scores for dozens of movies including "The Sting" and the Broadway smash "A Chorus Line," has died in Los Angeles.

Hamlisch's career included composing, conducting and arranging music from Broadway to Hollywood, from symphonies to R&B hits. He won every major award in his career, including three Academy Awards, four Emmys, four Grammys, a Tony and three Golden Globes.

His music colored some of Hollywood and Broadway's most important works.

Hamlisch composed more than 40 film scores, including "Sophie's Choice," ''Ordinary People," ''The Way We Were" and "Take the Money and Run." He won his third Oscar for his adaptation of Scott Joplin's music for "The Sting." His latest work came for Steven Soderbergh's "The Informant!"

On Broadway, Hamlisch received both a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for the long-running favorite "A Chorus Line" and wrote the music for "The Goodbye Girl" and "Sweet Smell of Success." He was scheduled to fly to Nashville, Tenn., this week to see a production of his musical "The Nutty Professor," according to his publicist.

He even reached into the pop world, writing the No. 1 R&B hit "Break It to Me Gently" with Carole Bayer Sager for Aretha Franklin. He won the 1974 Grammys for best new artist and song of the year, "The Way We Were," performed by Barbra Streisand.

Although he was one of the youngest students ever at the Juilliard School of Music, he never studied conducting. "I remember somebody told me, 'Earn while you learn,' " he told The Associated Press in 1996.

"The Way We Were" exemplified Hamlisch's old-fashioned appeal — it was a big, sentimental movie ballad that brought huge success in the rock era. He was extremely versatile, able to write for stage and screen, for soundtracks ranging from Woody Allen comedies to a somber drama like "Ordinary People."

He was perhaps even better known for his work adapting Joplin on "The Sting." In the mid-'70s, it seemed everybody with a piano had the sheet music to "The Entertainer," the movie's theme song. To this day, it's blasted by ice cream trucks.

Hamlisch's place in popular culture reached beyond his music. Known for his nerdy look, complete with thick eyeglasses, that image was sealed on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" during Gilda Radner's "Nerd" sketches. Radner, playing Lisa Loopner, would swoon over Hamlisch.

Hamlisch was principal pops conductor for symphony orchestras in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Dallas, Pasadena, Seattle and San Diego at the time of his death. He was to be announced to the same position with the Philadelphia Orchestra and also was due to lead the New York Philharmonic during its upcoming New Year's Eve concert.

He was working on a new musical, "Gotta Dance," at the time of his death and was scheduled to write the score for a new film on Liberace, "Behind the Candelabra."

He leaves behind a legacy in film and music that transcended notes on the page. As illustrative as the scenes playing out in front of the music, his scores helped define some of Hollywood's most iconic works.

http://news.yahoo.com/composer-marvi...131751829.html

[Kobi]

Judith Crist (born Judith Klein; May 22, 1922 – August 7, 2012) was an American film critic. She appeared regularly on the Today show from 1964 to 1973 and was the first full-time female critic for a major American newspaper, The New York Herald Tribune.

She was the founding film critic at New York Magazine and become known to most Americans as a critic at TV Guide. She appeared in one film, Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, and was the author of The Private Eye, The Cowboy and the Very Naked Girl; Judith Crist's TV Guide to the Movies and Take 22: Moviemakers on Moviemaking.